Welcome to Fred (The Fred Books) (15 page)

The next time I hesitated about stopping at Parker’s, but the 300 percent tip was hard to pass up. The pickup was gone, so I knocked. Sonia pulled back the curtain and peeked at me, then opened the door. She had on the kind of thick makeup that always made me want to scrape it off with a putty knife just to see how much I would get. It ended at her jaw line, her natural skin a little lighter. Her lashes were fat with mascara around her brown eyes. Brown roots showed from beneath her shoulder-length, bleached hair.

“Would you like a paper, Mrs. Walker?”

She glanced apprehensively at the road, then back at me. “Sure, come in, I’ll get my purse.”

I stepped into the cool dark cave, closing the door behind me. Sonia fumbled around inside her purse nervously.

“You’re the preacher’s kid, ain’t ya?” She looked up. “The brick church in town. What was your name again?”

“Mark.”

“Right, Mark.” She pulled out a coin purse. “How much is it?”

“Twenty-five cents.” She gave me a quarter. “Thank you.” I turned to go.

“Do you live up next to the church, on that hill?”

I stopped and turned back. “No, ma’am. We live on that dirt road back behind the elementary school. First house. Brick.”

“Right, that road.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I turned to go, again.

“Hey . . .”

I stopped and turned back, waiting. She looked nervously around, avoiding my eyes.

“Uh . . . so, I hear Mac teaches a Sunday school class there.” She glanced at me and quickly away.

“Yes, ma’am. The high school class.”

“Is he, uh . . . is he back?”

“No, ma’am, he hasn’t come back yet. I don’t know if he’s out of the hospital or not.” I waited, but no other questions came. “Bye. Thanks.” I turned, and this time I got out of the door.

“Bye. You’re welcome,” I heard her say quietly as it closed behind me.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
When school started up the next fall, Jolene’s assault on the Fredonian male ego continued unabated. However, by now all the available males had made their ardent assault on the Culpepper fortress. Each in turn had retreated, pieced together his shattered ego, and focused his attentions on more receptive targets. By the time the homecoming dance rolled around, nobody even bothered to ask Jolene. Why volunteer to be the straight man with the whole class watching?

If the thought had occurred to me, I might have asked her, but by then I had become accustomed to my role as Jolene’s personal eunuch. Old MacDonald’s advice notwithstanding, I didn’t relish the thought of walking in front of an oncoming log truck, even if it was an incredibly beautiful log truck. So it looked like Jolene wouldn’t be going to the homecoming dance that year, and none of the other girls were too heartbroken about it either. They were tired of watching every guy in the school flutter mindlessly around her like moths around the back porch light, getting zapped, and then limping in search of lesser lights.

When things looked hopeless, a miracle happened. A new family moved in—a family with a male teenager who had no date to the homecoming dance. The new guy, Turner McCullough, was surprised to discover that the prettiest girl in school was still available, but he didn’t question fate. None of the other guys warned him, feeling that a date with Jolene was a rite of passage in Fred.

Jolene did what most of the girls had done weeks before; she sewed her dress. The light in the Culpepper den could be seen late into the night as Jolene worked feverishly. In band each morning she dragged her haggard frame around the practice field. She told me of her progress while we waited for the woodwinds to get within a halftone of the same pitch while moving their feet. Of course, nothing Jolene did could be completely free from slapstick. Some of the details of what ensued eventually entered into the public domain, due to unexpected developments that Jolene didn’t orchestrate, but also didn’t fail to exploit. As Jolene’s au pair, I was privy to the more salacious details of the backstory denied to the hoi polloi.

When the dress began to take shape, she attempted to enlist Bubba as a clotheshorse. “Fergit it!” he bellowed. He had felt the brunt of too many jokes not to suspect her motives. Besides, no self-respecting Fredonian male of sixteen could possibly consider wearing a dress, even to enable his twin sister to attend the homecoming dance.

The battle raged for days, and time was running out when Jolene discovered his weakness. Romance lurks in the most unlikely places, and it seems Bubba was hopelessly smitten with Turner’s younger sister, Marianne. Jolene deduced his secret when she walked into his room one night without knocking and found him enhancing his fledgling mustache with mascara.

He was staring intently into the mirror. “Marianne,” he said in an unnatural baritone voice, “would you like to go out with me Friday? No, that’s no good.” He assumed what he evidently felt was a sophisticated expression, one eyebrow suavely raised. “Marianne, how ’bout takin’ in a movie Friday night?”

Then he saw Jolene in the mirror. “Hey! Didn’t you ever learn ta knock?” he demanded.

“Didn’t you ever learn ta ask before you borrow my makeup?” Jolene retorted, waving the mascara in his face. Bubba flushed a glowing scarlet and leaned on his elbow, casually covering his mouth with his hand. “Don’t try ta hide it, now. It’s too late.”

“Dang it, Jolene.” He slammed his hand on the dresser. “There’s such a thang as privacy.”

“Calm down, Bubba. This is your lucky day.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “How’s that?”

“Obviously you’re sweet on Marianne McCullough, right?”

“So?”

“So, I’m going with Turner to the homecoming dance. You can take Marianne, and we can double.”

“You’re forgettin’ one very important fact. I’m takin’ Judy to the homecoming dance.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Jolene thought for a moment. “But you’d like ta take Marianne out, wouldn’t you?”

“Sure, who wouldn’t?”

“OK. How about if I get a double date set up with the Culpeppers and the McColloughs?”

“Why?”

“Oh, quit being so cautious, Bodean. Would you like for me ta do it or not?”

“Sure, as long as you don’t screw the whole thang up by embarrassin’ one of us.”

“You worry about the silliest things, Bubba. Look, if you’ll help me finish my dress, I’ll set you up with Marianne.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“On a single date, just you and Marianne.”

“What are you gonna do? Ask her yourself?”

“OK. I’ll invite her over and arrange for you ta be alone with her fer a few minutes. How’s that?”

Bubba relented, his passion overwhelming his ego. Jolene led him to the den and the sewing machine. He locked the door and closed all the curtains. Then, with second, third, and fourth thoughts and protests too numerous to relate, he gingerly donned the formal and stood on a telephone cable spool while Jolene pinned and taped and stitched. As she worked, he complained bitterly about the indignities he was forced to suffer in the name of love until Jolene flung the curtains open wide. Bubba shrieked and disappeared into the closet. The fitting session proceeded thereafter with only minor grumbling.

The next day at school Bubba was very quiet. Thoughts of the dress haunted him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that people could tell just by looking that he had been wearing it. They didn’t actually say anything, but he felt like somehow they knew. Normal events took on sinister aspects. Every smile seemed like a veiled taunting. Every huddle of whispering, giggling girls was a cauldron of rumors threatening to overflow and destroy his reputation. He was certain even the workers in the cafeteria knew. He saw the way the cook looked at him. There was no mistaking that!

That evening it took Jolene an hour to convince him to endure a final fitting. Anxious to get it just right, she gave him a pair of her shorts and had him fill out the hips with extra fabric. She wanted him to wear her bra stuffed with socks to fit the top, but Bubba drew the line at that. Wearing a dress was bad enough, but he absolutely wasn’t going to wear girl’s underwear! She finally settled for simulating the curves by hanging two squashes around his neck with a length of twine.

Standing on the spool in padded shorts, a formal, and two squashes, Bubba felt he had sunk as low as a man could go. His face was hot, no doubt burning with shame. The longer he stood, the hotter it seemed to get. Then he realized his head was only a foot from the ceiling. Naturally it would be hotter up there. He sniffed suspiciously. “Hey! Somethin’s burnin’.”

Suddenly Mr. Culpepper burst into the room. The sight of Bubba in drag on a pedestal stopped him dead in his tracks with his mouth open. Black smoke rolled in along the ceiling above him.

“I told you somethin’ was burnin’,” Bubba hollered, jumping down from the spool.

The noise broke Mr. Culpepper’s trance. “Hurry! Climb out the window! The house is full of smoke!”

Bubba kicked out the screen and helped Jolene climb out as Mr. Culpepper pulled the phone to the floor and called the constable. Bubba followed Jolene out of the window and ran to the side of the house. The pine trees seemed to jerk fitfully with a flickering light. The flames had already eaten through the roof.

“I think it started in the attic,” he hollered to his dad, who was running around the corner. Bubba twisted on the faucet, grabbed the water hose, and ran, but it caught on a bush and jerked him flat on his back. Water spurted up like a geyser, soaking him. It was then that he realized he was still wearing the dress.

He jumped up and turned one way and then the other, in a quandary about which disaster was greater, the fire or the dress. The urgency of the fire finally won. He pulled the hose to the side of the house and did his best to discourage the flames, the dress soon forgotten. Jolene looked in dismay at her formal, now streaked with mud, soot, and water.

The glow of flames in the trees attracted the neighbors and folks passing on the highway. Before long a crowd stood watching the spectacle. Bubba stood his post resolutely, his back to the masses. An old F-150 rolled to a stop just out of the light cast by the fire, and Parker stepped out, walking past the onlookers to stop next to Bubba.

“Lady, that hose ain’t doin’ a bit a good,” he said. “Is there anybody in there?” The flames dancing on the roof reflected from his good eye, which was bloodshot.

“Nope,” Bubba muttered through clenched teeth.

Parker jumped back, took a closer look at Bubba, and whistled, the smell of alcohol strong on his breath. “It don’t look like it spread that quick. Didn’t you have time ta find somethin’ besides a dress?” Bubba didn’t answer. Parker considered the contour of the two squashes, the dress soaked and clinging to them like a wet T-shirt contest. He let it pass.

“Kinda makes ya think a hellfire, don’t it?” If it did, Bubba didn’t say so. “Sure feels hotter’n hell.” He swayed gently in silence for awhile. “You may as well turn off that piddlin’ hose. You can’t save this house with that anymore’n you can stop the fires a hell. Devil’s gonna take it just like he’s gonna take them that’s his own. Nothin’ you can do about it now.” He gave Bubba one last distracted glance. “Nothin’ you can do about it now,” he muttered and slouched back to his truck as the volunteer fire department arrived.

Harlan Johnson, Harmon’s boy from the gas station, came running up, dragging a hose. “Watch out, miss,” he hollered, “we’re comin’ through with the hose.”

Bubba glared at him but didn’t move. Harlan had been devoting his attention to the hose, but when Bubba didn’t move, he looked up. “Excuse me, miss . . .” His voice trailed off as he caught sight of Bubba’s face. It was as blank and masklike as Bubba could make it, but from the depths of its neutrality two eyes burned like twin coals ignited by the very fire they were fighting. And it was obviously masculine.

“Well, I’ll be durned,” Harlan said, or something to that effect. That’s all he had a chance to say because that was the moment water came shooting out of his own hose and he lost control of it. It just about beat him silly before they got it turned off and tried again.

Compared to the fire hose, Bubba may as well have been spitting on the fire, but still he stood his ground with the garden hose. Eventually Jolene grabbed his hand and pulled him across the lawn.

“Come here, Mr. Hero. You’ve done enough already.”

He was soaked from the runaway fire hose. His hair was plastered to his head. The dress clung to the squashes at the top and slapped against his legs at the bottom as he walked. He was definitely a sorry sight and felt every inch of it. Jolene pulled him to a stop in front of a girl on the edge of the crowd.

“Bubba, I’d like you ta meet Marianne McCullough. Marianne, this is my brother, the fireman.” She joined their hands and walked away with a grin, delighted to keep her promise. Bubba spluttered out a confused greeting to an obviously amused but discretely quiet Marianne and tore off after Jolene.

That weekend Ralph, Bubba, and I hiked out to our hideout, a campsite we created in the middle of a swamp out near Ralph’s place, although we never spent the night there. The mosquitoes were too fierce. Ralph broached the subject of the dress, and I declared the ensuing wrestling match a draw. We were walking in a strained silence when I slipped from a moss-covered log and splashed waist deep into a stagnant pool of algae and weeds. I muttered a few choice words preferred by Jimbo Perkins and pushed the hair from my face with a slimy hand.

“Hey,” Ralph said indignantly. “Yer the preacher’s kid!”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, you shouldn’t swear.” A frown creased his freckled face. “Right, Bubba?”

“Right.”

“Wait a minute.” I clawed my way out of the water and got into Ralph’s face, my hair the only thing that screened him from the full force of my fury. “What did you say back there when I let go of that branch and it whacked you in the face?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, you shouldn’t swear either.” I delivered the point with an air of finality.