Walking Dunes (20 page)

19.

David could not blame his father for refusing to go to Monahans for Thanksgiving dinner. He did not want to go, either. There was no place to escape in Aunt Cheryl's house. She, Uncle Billy, and cousin Lenore seemed to divide it up, so that you never were out of sight. They would ask Saul ridiculous questions about his relatives back in New York. Uncle Billy would try to talk “bidness” with him, though there was no meeting ground between a tailor and an oil field worker. Saul would give the food funny looks; he would go outside and take long walks around the neighborhood, so that people would call the house to see if he belonged there, like a lost dog. It had been years since these things had happened, but they were clear as fresh photos, and nothing would make Saul go. Yet Marge could not entirely enjoy her rare holiday from the hospital. To leave Saul behind violated her sense of family, her fantasy of togetherness. It embarrassed her.

Marge got up at dawn to make a Red Velvet cake to take to her sister's, and an apple pie to leave for Saul. She made the pie with sour cream, as he liked it, although she had had to go to two grocery stores to find the cream, and the pie came out looking muddy. She made a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs with fried potatoes and onions, biscuits, and stewed prunes, and they managed, the three of them, to eat it all, without arguing, without saying much of anything. They were all dressed at the table; that was unusual, too.

David and his mother left Saul behind, with a steak in the refrigerator, a green Jello salad, and the odd apple pie. Saul refused to say what he would do all day. He turned his back on them before they were out the door. Next they picked up Joyce Ellen, who was wearing a blue cotton skirt and blouse.

“You look cold, honey,” Marge said. Joyce Ellen, squirming in the back seat, said she was
all right
. “You've got to come over and get the rest of your sweaters,” Marge insisted. Joyce Ellen turned to the window and leaned into her fist. David drove.

Marge lasted until they were out of town, then turned to her daughter, her arms over the back of the seat. “I know you've got a wool pleated skirt over there, why didn't you wear that?” Joyce Ellen was sniffling. In a moment Marge turned back, straightened her own old wool skirt, and stared forward stoically.

They were not in Aunt Cheryl's house two minutes before she had gone to a back closet and brought Joyce Ellen a white cardigan. Joyce Ellen did not protest. She put the sweater on and sat in the living room, in an armchair where no one could sit beside her, looking at a parade on television with their younger cousin Brian, a boy of eight who never closed his mouth all the way.

Jiminy Jesus, David thought, wondering how he would get through the day. He carried in the cake, and set it on the counter alongside a mincemeat pie. The house was redolent with delicious smells. It helped to anticipate the food, all of them at the table with the leaf out, cloth napkins, Uncle Billy brandishing his carving knife. Marge and Cheryl were the core the rest of them grew from. New York was very far away; this was the family David had.

Cheryl and Marge were huddled in the kitchen. Cheryl wasted no time asking after Saul sympathetically, as if her brother-in-law were impaired. It was too early in the day for Marge to crumple; she said something evasive about Saul working too hard, the tonic of a day to sleep and lounge, the cold he had been fighting and did not want to spread. David had to get out of earshot. The only thing he could think of to do was join his sister in the living room.

Brian had gone out the sliding glass door and was on the patio, bouncing a golf ball. Joyce Ellen had fallen asleep; she was snoring lightly, her legs stretched out and her blue skirt high on her knees, one hand clutching the front of her borrowed cardigan, the other flung over an arm of the chair. Behind her in the corner was their aunt's deep basin for hairwashing; the vinyl chair with its high curved back had been put away. David sat on the couch nearby and watched his sister sleep. Once, when he was in fourth or fifth grade, he tried to bash her head in with an iron, but it was so unexpectedly heavy that when he lunged, he fell straight over and broke his own nose.

He heard his uncle banging around in the garage; there was all the time to get through until the women put the food on the table. Cousin Leona appeared out of the back of the house. She was sixteen, but already she had the dumpy backside of a matron. She was always ingenuously friendly, as if she could not tell David thought her moronic, and today she came at him in a particularly confident prance. She sat on the other end of the couch and asked, in a high cheerful voice, “Who do you like better, Debbie Reynolds or Doris Day?” He mumbled that he didn't really like either one of them. Leona, immune to his discouragement, next asked his preference between Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis. Kindly, he offered an answer this time. Tony Curtis made more interesting movies, he said. Leona was putting off a faintly sulfurous odor. She was fiddling with the skirt of her corduroy jumper, her shoulders twitching, as if she had too much going on to sit for long. David took a long breath and said, “What are you doing in school these days, Leona?” He was sure she was one of those girls teachers liked, bright-eyed and quiet, never asking a question, but keeping her eyes on the front of the room.

“Oh pooh, school,” Leona said. She was wearing a heart locket on a gold chain, and reached up to fondle it. “We might go into Basin Saturday, to the movies,” she said.

“Your school?”

She laughed. “Course not! Kids from my church group. My daddy said I could go if there was a bunch of us.”

“Safety in numbers.” She would not need much protection, he thought, then thought again. Girls like Leona were stupid and eager, a dangerous combination. Sometimes they were the easy ones, he had heard. She took on a sly expression. “I'll sit in the back seat, don't you think we can fit in four?”

“Depends on the car.”

“Oh yeah.” He realized that the smell came from her hair. Two curls curved on each side of her forehead, like double parentheses, and a tight roll of hair hugged her jawline and wrapped itself around the back of her neck.

The sisters began bringing in covered dishes. Marge spotted Joyce Ellen, stuporous in the chair, and rushed over to her. She squatted beside the chair and took her daughter's hand. “Sweetie, it's time for dinner, wake up now,” she said softly, then repeated the same words, more insistently. Joyce Ellen did not move. Marge looked up to see Cheryl staring at them. Leona said loudly, “Is she sick or something?” and David said, “I'll get Uncle Billy and Brian.” He came back in time to see his mother leading his sister off down the hall. The rest of them stood around a few minutes, waiting. Billy said heartily, “Basin has had a fine season,” as if they had been talking football all along. David, wanting this to be over, could only bring himself to grunt. He was hungry again, though he could still taste onions from breakfast.

Joyce Ellen reappeared, wan but washed and combed, with a weak smile. “I read so late last night,” she explained. “I didn't get enough sleep.” Cheryl pursed her lips. “I'm reading
The Robe
,” Joyce Ellen added.

Uncle Billy swiped his knife back and forth on a long stone, flourished it above his place, and began to carve. While he sliced, they passed serving dishes around silently. David piled food on his plate.

Everyone complimented the cooking. Aunt Cheryl did produce a golden brown turkey, her candied sweet potatoes had crusty peaks, the meal could have been photographed for a women's magazine. Cheryl let them all enjoy some of it before turning her gaze onto Joyce Ellen.

“So Joyce Ellen, dear, when are we going to meet this mysterious husband of yours?”

Joyce Ellen sputtered and had to take a drink of water.

“It's too awful, to work on Thanksgiving.”

“Mama, they don't turn radio off on holidays!” Leona said.

Her mother gave her a smile. “No, I suppose not.”

Joyce Ellen put her fork down and patted her mouth with her napkin. They were still looking at her. “He's in Dallas,” she said in a small voice. “The station made him go.”

David and his mother exchanged a look. He suspected his mother knew about this, but she was warning him to show no surprise, to ask no questions—unnecessary admonitions, for he did not care where Kelton spent turkey day.

“That seems very strange to me,” Cheryl commented, and then, clucking, ran off to replenish the gravy boat. Joyce Ellen, nearly tearful, looked to her mother for support. They were separated, seated across the table and at opposite ends. Suddenly this seemed deliberate, and malicious, to David. “You must sit near me,” Cheryl had said to her niece. The only other empty spot for his mother was between Brian and Billy, at the far corner. They should have been next to one another, their hands able to touch under the tablecloth. Something twinged in David, recognizing the bond his mother and sister had. It was something about females, something weak, that made them cling.

Joyce Ellen leapt up and ran down the hall. They could hear her retching. Her mother ran after her.

Cheryl asked David if he could eat another slice of turkey. He said he could, he'd like dark meat this time. Uncle Billy slopped gravy over a torn up roll on his own plate. Leona cut up a slice of jelled cranberry into tiny, disintegrating pieces. Brian's elbow, on which he was leaning, slipped, and he crashed into his own plate and turned over his nearly empty water glass. Without getting up, Cheryl produced a towel from somewhere—under her chair? in her lap?—and wiped her son's face, then sopped up the water on the table. David was surprised that she did not scold her son. Maybe she was still upset about her niece getting sick over her Thanksgiving dinner.

Marge came back alone. “I put her on your bed, Leona, I hope that's all right.”

Leona giggled.

Marge sat down. “Could I have a cup of coffee now, Cheryl? I feel shaky.”

Cheryl said, as she rose, “I should think so.”

David ate three servings of turkey, corn, creamed onions, dressing, pickled cabbage, candied yams. When dessert was brought out, he had a slice of mince pie, a piece of Leona's marshmallow fudge, and some of his mother's Red Velvet cake. He felt a little sick, and very sleepy. Leona was persuaded by her mother to play “Moonlight Sonata” for them on the piano. She held her lower lip tightly in her teeth the entire time. Then David was subjected to a ritual grilling: what courses was he taking, what clubs was he in, was he playing tennis again? A simpering Leona asked. “Do you have a gi-irrlfriend?” Her mother looked cross, and Marge said, “It's a time we got back on the road, Joyce Ellen's exhausted.” She popped up like toast.

“Do you think it's flu?” Cheryl touched Joyce's forehead with her big pink hand. “Something she got from her father?”

Joyce Ellen blurted, “I'm pregnant, I'm not sick.”

“Ohh!” Leona cried. “Ohh, a baby!”

Cheryl softened immediately. “Why didn't you say, dear?”

Joyce Ellen looked truly miserable.

“How can you stand to be away from your baby's daddy?!” Leona said. “Oh, I'd want to be with my husband, if I was pregnant.”

Joyce Ellen said, “I just found out. I haven't even told Pete yet. I just found out.”

Cheryl was on her feet. “I'll get your cake pan,” she said. “Joyce Ellen, you take that sweater, it's chilly as can be out there. You don't want to get a cold now.”

“If I was pregnant, I'd get on a bus and go to Dallas and tell him right away!” Leona exclaimed. “I'd go to the moon, if I had to. I'd drink champagne to celebrate.”

“Leona!” her father scolded.

“You don't know anything!” Joyce Ellen cried. Leona's eyes widened. Joyce Ellen burst into tears. “I'm
tired
,” she said.

David heard Cheryl tell Marge, “I wish you lived over here. I could be more help.” David was glad to see she had piled leftovers in a tin pan for them to carry home.

“But she's over there,” Marge pointed out. Cheryl nodded. She understood.

When they stopped at Joyce Ellen's house, David waited in the car while Marge helped Joyce Ellen in. She took her purse with her, so David knew she was going to give Joyce Ellen money. He could not think why that would be necessary. The Keltons lived in a modest duplex, what did his sister need the money for? Why was Kelton in Dallas? He didn't think anybody had explained anything. His sister was going to have a baby, though. That would give his mother something to do for the next sixteen years. One more thing for Joyce Ellen and Marge to do, one more thing to leave Saul and David out.

Saul was drunk on the couch. The television was blaring, the steak charred in the broiler, the Jello dumped in the sink. A loud argument began so suddenly David was not aware who yelled first, or what the yelling was about. Saul was a pig, Marge cared more about her sister's family than her own, and on and on. David put the leftovers in the refrigerator, the cake on the table, then went to his room and turned on the radio loud. He got out his notebook, stared at it a long while, and finally wrote: Girls have secret lives boys can never understand. He called Leland. There were relatives at the house, but Leland would come over. David could still hear his mother screaming. “I don't think so,” he said. Leland was annoyed. “I'll come over there in the morning,” David said, and hung up abruptly.

The screaming went on and on. Something was thrown, the walls shuddered. David went back into the house and tugged at his mother. Saul was on the couch, his knees up, his arms thrown about as if loosely connected. It was a relief to see that he was too far gone to be menacing. “Can't you see he's drunk, Ma?” David pleaded. “What's the use of talking? Let him be!” He turned off the television. “I'll make coffee,” he said. “Come in the kitchen, please.” His father stomped into the bedroom and slammed the door. His mother sat down in the kitchen and began to weep. Her eyes were so puffy they looked about to close. “It was a long day.” David said lamely.