We Five (18 page)

“Mother, one of these days you're going to slip up and actually treat me like a daughter and not like your best friend in the world—and you'll have to go looking for the sal volatile to revive me.”

Carrie got up, smoothed herself, and started to put all the skirts away.

“Let
me
do that,” said Sylvia. “You run along. The dress isn't too tight?”

“A little, but we have until Saturday night to let it out, and I do want my sisters to see it tonight. Thank you, Mother.”

“Caroline?”

“Yes, Mother?”

“You don't think—for just this coming Saturday night—that We Five might not become, well,
We Six
?”

Carrie regarded her mother with surprise. “You'd like to
join
us?”

Sylvia Hale nodded.

Carrie smiled. She went up to her mother and kissed her on the forehead. “Don't be silly. You know you can't come.”

Sylvia's look of excited anticipation over what could be Carrie's answer vanished without a trace.

Carrie appended: “But I promise to rush right home and tell you every niggling detail.
Breathlessly
!”

This wasn't much of a consolation to Carrie's best friend in the world, but it would have to do.

___________

Jane stared at Lyle and Lyle stared back at Jane from across the kitchen table. Lyle had a blackened eye, for which he couldn't account. “I fancy you won't be going out tonight with an eye like that,” said Jane.

Lyle, having finished his tea, licked his fingers like a hungry man in a bad play. “It might stop me. It might not. I haven't made up me mind yet.”

“Perhaps if you retrace your steps from last night, you'll recall how you got it.”

“My guess is that I rattled some bloke's cage and he punched me lights out.” Lyle grinned mischievously. “Oh I have it now. You want me out of the way so's you can have the chickies here. I heard you talking to one of them on the Ameche earlier.”

“Maybe they
are
coming tonight. But I'll not let you get anywhere near them. If you so much as wink or blink in their direction whilst they're here, you'll have to fend for your own bloody self for all of next week. You'll have to take all your meals at the Fatted Pig, and just how easy will that be, when I don't intend to give you a brass farthing to pay for them?”

“You wouldn't do that to me after how badly things have been going for me lately.”

“Everything what's happened to you I wager has been of your own making. Now what is it? Will you be going to your room and mind yourself like a good lad, or will you be going out and trying not to get yourself another black eye? It's all one to me. Either way, you're out of
my
way for the evening.”

Lyle thought about this. “I'm completely stonkered. I think I'll go to my room and sleep for twelve hours.”

Jane nodded.

A moment passed. Then Jane said, “Now that you've made up your mind, I'd like to say, speaking honestly, mind, that I was
hoping
you wouldn't go out. Generally speaking, I
don't
care, but today I was almost proud of you—the way you ran the shop like some creature what was very nearly human. Mrs. Meeker just rang me up to say that you were such a good-hearted gent to give her the discount on the mahogany dressing table with the missing leg. And, wonder of wonders! the money you got from the sale was still sitting in the cash drawer when I came home this evening.”

“Mrs. Meeker was friends with Mum and Dad. It seemed the right thing to do.”

“I wish you was that person all the
other
days of the week.”

Lyle didn't look at his sister. “I wish I was that person too. Apparently, it isn't in me nature.”

“Run along to your room, now. I want to tidy up a bit before the girls get here.”

Lyle nodded. He rose from the table. He reached out his hand to touch one of Jane's folded arms. She didn't pull away. She allowed his fingers to rest for a long moment upon the crook of her arm. Then he removed the hand, turned away, and moved slowly and heavily from the room.

It was a single tear that escaped Jane's left eye and she quickly brushed it into nothingness.

It was after two in the morning and only one of We Five was asleep.

Molly had been dropped off at nearly 1:40, had walked around to the back alley and climbed the outdoor stairs to the small apartment she shared with her father over his chiropractic and holistic dentistry office. She'd seen the blue glow of the television through the street-front windows of the den. (The Osbornes had no living room.) After letting herself in, she'd wordlessly crossed the thick, faded-green shag carpeting and sat down next to her father on the sofa. He patted her hand but kept his eyes focused on the television screen, where the boxer George Foreman was demonstrating his popular tabletop grill.

After a moment, Michael turned to his daughter and said, “Now
there's
somebody I'd buy a product from. You'd never know from that Pillsbury Doughboy face of his that he still climbs into the ring to take power punches at people.”

A silent moment passed. Then Molly said, “He looks like Mr. Biggers. You remember the crossing guard at the elementary school? He once saved a woman who was choking to death on a peanut shell.”

“Right in the middle of the crosswalk?”

“No. When he was off duty. I think it was at the Big Star. In the produce section.”

Silence.

“What was she doing—just popping peanuts into her mouth without paying for them?”

“Apparently.”

“Oh.”

Another silence passed. Then Michael Osborne said matter-of-factly, “The infomercial before this one was for something called ‘Mick's Club.' It looks like a golf club, but it isn't. It's a hollow tube a golfer can pee into whenever he has the need to go.”

Molly thought about this for a moment. “
Male
golfer, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

Molly thought some more. “But couldn't he just find a tree or a bush or something to do his business on?”

Molly's father shook his head. “You're not supposed to go peeing all over golf courses. They generally frown on that.” Michael Osborne turned down the sound on the television so they couldn't hear what George Foreman was saying about all the grease he was drawing off his hamburger meat. “How was it?”

“The place was kind of touristy, but the music was good. And the food. I had the fried catfish. It was ‘all-you-can-eat night.' I just kept eating.”

“Did they act like gentlemen or like those boys in that
Animal House
movie?”

“They were pretty well behaved. Although one of them had too much to drink and got a little handsy with Mags. But she put him in his place.”

“So nobody got fresh with
you
?”

Molly shook her head. “Somebody told me that George Foreman has four sons and they're all named George.”

“Somebody told you correctly.” Michael sniff-laughed to himself. “I suppose
Mrs.
Foreman isn't complaining. She just has to shout ‘George!' and the whole family shows up for dinner.”

Michael turned the volume back up. Then almost immediately he muted the television again.

“So did you all kind of pair off like you thought you might?”

“Yes and no. I mean, we were pretty much coupled up, but we were all still sitting at the same table.”

“That must have been a big table. Did you like the boy
you
were paired up with?”

“I did. He was nice. I think we wound up together because we're both the youngest, but it worked out okay. He's pretty cute, I'd have to say. He looks kind of like Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys—I mean, like if Nick Carter was a little bit older and didn't have his teeth whitened so much. But I don't think he's all that smart—even though he just graduated from Ole Miss.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don't know. He just seems like one of those guys who doesn't pay much attention to things if he doesn't have to.”

“You mean things in the news and such like?”

Molly nodded.

“Did he pay attention to
you
?”

“He did, Daddy. He paid a lot of attention to me. He wants to see me again.”

“Oh. Really?”

“I told him I'd think about it. I should probably go to bed. I'm really sleepy.” Molly got up from the sofa.

“Which shift do you girls have tomorrow?”

“Primetime. Five to one. You know we always get five to one on Friday and Saturday nights because that's when they need the most waitresses. Daddy, don't fall asleep on the couch. I'm home. I'm safe. Go to bed.”

“This boy—what's his name?”

“Pat Harrison. He's from Hattiesburg. I think he really likes me, Daddy.”

“I could give him a good whitening treatment if he wanted it. What does he plan to do with his life?”

“He's pre-law.”

“Pre-law. Hmm.” Michael grinned. “I guess he wouldn't be the first dimwitted lawyer practicing in the state of Mississippi.”

“You're terrible, Daddy.” Molly tossed a throw pillow at her father. He tried to dodge, but it still made contact with his head.

“You sure you don't want to watch a little of Dionne Warwick and her Psychic Friends Network? I think George Foreman's just about said everything he's gonna say.”

“Let me get into my P.J.s first.”

Fifteen minutes later, Molly Osborne—dressed in warm flannel pajamas, her hair and teeth brushed—was curled up at the end of the sofa. Within a couple of minutes, though, she was fast asleep, her head cushioned upon a throw pillow on the armrest. Michael Osborne, who often fell asleep in front of the TV himself, drifted off shortly thereafter.

At eight minutes past two father and daughter were both slumbering away, even though the woman on the television was being stridently giddy over having just been informed that she was about to come into a large sum of money.

It was her psychic friend who told her this.

At this same time, four blocks away, Carrie lay in bed not even the least bit sleepy. She stared into the enveloping darkness of her bedroom while stroking the family tabby, which was scrunched into a furry oval next to her. Over and over again she replayed the sequence of events from one of the most enjoyable nights of her life.

Her mother had wanted details. She had summoned Carrie to her bedroom upon her return to hear whatever interesting tidbits Carrie might wish to share with her. And Carrie
did
tell her things—a good many things—just not
everything.

Because how on Earth
could
she? On this seemingly ordinary Thursday night, Carrie Hale's ordinary life had
stopped
being ordinary, and it was hard for her to even put into words how she felt about this sudden turn of events.

It frightened her. It excited her. It actually made her feel a little woozy.

What she
did
tell her mother was this: that she really liked the one named Will. The one with the dreamy hazel eyes. The tall one. The one with the linebacker's build and the overdeveloped biceps, which seemed close to bursting right through the fabric of his button-down shirt, like Bruce Banner's shirt did while he was transforming into the Hulk. Even better: Will really seemed to like
her
from the second she'd climbed into the courtesy van.

The seat next to him had been empty. It was almost as if he'd been holding it for her. Carrie wondered if the five former fraternity brothers had already put in their dibs based on Tom's descriptions, which had obviously been supplied by Jane when the two of them set things up. Carrie meant to ask Jane about this—how it was decided who got who—but she never got the chance. Things had moved so fast. Tom had gotten the fleet boss's permission to borrow one of the casino's vans for the night. It wasn't a problem; Thursday was always a slow night for Lucky Aces. Tom, with his four buddies already on board, had picked up each of the girls at their respective homes and then, this time, instead of dropping everyone off at the Lucky Aces Casino as he had done on Monday morning, he took himself and his nine passengers all the way down Highway 61 to Clarksdale, to a blues club he'd been to there.

Tom Katz, a student of the Mississippi Delta, knew all about its rich musical heritage. He'd grown up in Greenville, farther south. Tom had shown the others the exact spot where the blues singer Bessie Smith had met her tragic vehicular fate, and pointed out the crossroads where Robert Johnson—as legend had it—sold his soul to the devil.

This in spite of the fact that Jerry Castle, born in the exclusive white suburb of Memphis called Germantown, had crowed right in the middle of Tom's commentary that he'd “had enough nigger history for one night,” so would Tommy please shut his “blabby-mouthed Jew pie-hole?” Maggie had cringed to hear such a string of filth belched from her date for the evening. Carrie was pleased, though, that Will had been the first to dress down his friend for it. She squeezed Will's arm to demonstrate her approval.

When it was Carrie's turn to be dropped off, Will walked her to the door of the 1960s-era brick ranch-style she shared with her mother on the north side of Bellevenue (where the second and third– generation middle-class white families lived). Carrie wondered if he was going to kiss her goodnight.

He'd wasted no time in satisfying her curiosity. They'd hardly reached the concrete porch before he pulled her against him and gave her a deep, hungry kiss, his powerful hands clamping her upper arms firmly, almost painfully. After releasing her, he'd whispered with incongruous tenderness, “I want you.”

She didn't know quite how to respond.

He pushed on: “When can I see you again?”