Part 5 (1/2)

”Right.”

I could tell by the way he said right that he was just humoring me, and I hated being humored. ”Don't talk to me like that, Hank.”

”Like what, Catherine? I didn't say anything.”

”Oh yes you did. You said right. And you and I both know what that means.”

”Right means you're right. Forget it.”

But I couldn't forget it. Hank was loving the wrong girl, and I knew that now. ”Just shut up, Hank. You know d.a.m.n well that's not what you meant.”

”Catherine, what has gotten into you?”

”Gotten into me? So you can look me in the eyes and tell me that Gloria Jean does in fact know a whole lot more about love than you, perfect Hank Blankens.h.i.+p?” My voice sounded sharp and hateful, and I knew, with every word I was pus.h.i.+ng Hank further and further away. But it was for his own good. He needed to be set free.

”G.o.d bless it, Catherine. Look, the woman got left five times. I don't think any reasonable person would think she knows all there is to know about loving a man.”

”Shut up, Hank. I mean it. Just shut up! No man ever left Gloria Jean,” I shouted in his ear. People were starting to stare.

”Yeah right, Catherine. That's why she's sitting in that house all alone making herself up to look like some kind of two-bit tramp.”

”Don't you talk about her like that. At least she's got the courage to live her life the way she wants to and doesn't just sit on some dairy farm making perfect little cupcakes for her perfect little boy.”

”Catherine, you better shut your mouth before it gets you into trouble. n.o.body talks about my mama like that, you understand, n.o.body,” Hank ordered in this firm, unfamiliar tone. But I couldn't shut my mouth now. Down deep inside I knew I had been waiting for a moment like this, when I could prove to Hank he had fallen in love with the wrong girl.

”n.o.body talks ugly about Gloria Jean. There were good reasons she got divorced, reasons I'd never expect you, some, some . . . small-town farmer boy to understand.”

”Farmer boy! What the h.e.l.l do you mean by that? Listen, you're no big, sophisticated city girl like you think you are. Face it, Catherine Grace, you're a country girl and you always will be! It's in your bones.”

Now the tears were running down my face. I could feel them stinging my cheeks. I ran out of the gym. Hank ran after me. He grabbed my arm and turned me around so we were standing face-to-face. ”Don't run out of here, Catherine Grace, like some spoiled little kid pitching a fit. Running away doesn't make it better, or haven't you figured that out yet, sitting on that picnic table licking your d.a.m.n Dilly Bars?”

”Leave me alone, Hank.” I pulled my arm from his grasp. ”I'm not running away from anything. I'm running to something better, something you know nothing about. Now go on, go dance the last dance with Sh.e.l.ley.”

I started running from the gym, not looking back to see if Hank was coming after me. He wasn't, but I didn't care. He didn't have the right to say those things about Gloria Jean. She'd been like a mama to me. He didn't know anything about true love or reaching for the stars. He was just a stupid country boy who'd rather spend time milking cows and playing a losing game of football.

I walked home that night carrying my pink, peau de soie heels in my hand, wondering if fancy shoes like these were ever going to feel good on my feet. Something kept pulling me toward Chickamauga Creek. I don't know, maybe Mama was showing me the way.

As I crawled on my hands and knees down the gra.s.sy bank, I could see the light from the moon bouncing off the water. The reflection was so smooth and pretty, it was like it was begging me to come sit by its side. I lay down in the gra.s.s and stared up at the sky, looking at everything and nothing all at the same time. The only sounds I could hear were the water flowing over the rocks and a choir of crickets chirping in the background. Something was speaking to me down deep inside, and I don't know if it was the Lord finally taking the time to answer one of my prayers or my mama sending me a message from above. I stood up, took the corsage off my wrist, and tossed it into the creek, letting the water grab hold of another piece of my heart and wash it away like it had done so many years before.

Hank and I didn't talk much after graduation, and when we did, we just argued about stupid stuff like whether or not the Bulldogs were going to win the Southeastern Conference or the right way to lick a Dilly Bar. It was kind of like we were little kids again, just annoying each other whenever we could. Henry Morel Blankens.h.i.+p and I were done. I knew that. He belonged with a girl who wasn't dreaming of her exodus of biblical proportions.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Rolling Through the Red Sea in a Greyhound Bus My bedroom looked very different the morning of my eighteenth birthday. It looked lonely. I opened my eyes just as the sun started creeping through the window, and I stared at the white chest of drawers that had greeted me every morning since I could remember. Maybe it's stupid to think that a piece of furniture has feelings, but then again, I'm the same girl who kept my tattered old baby doll dressed in a sweater and knitted cap so she wouldn't get cold sitting on the top shelf of my closet. And this morning that chest of drawers was looking sad. All the photographs and trophies and silly knickknacks that had blanketed the top and told my life story better than any words ever could were gone, packed in brown cardboard boxes and neatly stacked in the cellar.

Even my pretty pink walls were bare. Mama picked this color after I was born, and I've never wanted to change it. Ruthie Morgan used to try to convince me that my walls should be painted some other color. ”Pink's just not your color, Catherine Grace. You know as well as I do that there's not a speck of pink on the football field.”

There was nothing she could say that was going to change my mind or the color on my walls. If I had, I would have lost another piece of my mama. And I wasn't letting go of any piece of her, pink or not.

Daddy insisted on replacing my tired, worn curtains a while back, but I threw such a fit that he spent a good seven weeks looking for the very same fabric, little bitty pink flowers on a white-and-pink-checked background. He finally found a few yards in some textile mill down in South Carolina. I told him there were a few things in life that should never ever be allowed to change, and my curtains were one of them.

So many other things were never going to stay the same, and this morning was one of them. I'd been praying for this day for as long as I could remember, and now that it was here, all I wanted to do was crawl under my covers and pretend it was any other day.

I couldn't help but think of Moses. He was certain the Lord had chosen the wrong man to lead His people out of slavery, and I wondered if I really had what it took to up and leave the only land I had ever known. But then I figured if Moses could question the Lord's intentions out-right, surely it was natural for me to feel a little shaky about my pending exodus, now that the day had finally come.

I knew that this would be the last morning I would wake up in this bed as a Sunday-school-going, dishwas.h.i.+ng, tomato-watering member of this family. I knew this would be the last morning I would wake up in the same bed where I had calculated G.o.d only knows how many algebra problems, the same bed I had hid under playing hide-and-seek with Martha Ann, and the same bed I had lain on and cried myself to sleep too many nights after Mama died. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the day considering I was having such a hard time just saying good-bye to my bed.

Normally, in the Cline house, on your birthday morning, Daddy would sneak into your room like some sort of undercover spy, stand over your bed, and start singing the Happy Birthday song just as loud as he possibly could. Last year on Martha Ann's birthday, Gloria Jean said that Daddy's cat-a-wallin', as she kindly called it, woke her up in such a panic that she almost fell right out of the bed.

”I d.a.m.n near thought the early-morning freight train had jumped its track. Apparently the good Lord only thought it was necessary for one of your parents to carry a tune,” she had said, laughing as she handed Martha Ann a box of perfumed body powder.

But today the house was unusually still. Everything about this birthday was going to be different, I could feel it. The suitcases pushed into the corner of my room kept reminding me of that. I was trying to cram everything I owned into that luggage set Daddy had given me two years ago. Now I bet he was wis.h.i.+ng he'd bought me that lilac cashmere sweater set I'd seen at Loveman's, the one just like Ruthie Morgan's, the one I'd been admiring since the first day she wore it.

I heard Daddy's bedroom door creaking in the distance and figured I might as well close my eyes so he could enjoy this birthday ritual one last time. He tried to sneak down the hallway, but the old floorboards under his feet were blowing his cover. My door opened slowly. I could feel the light from the hallway on my face, and I knew he was standing over my bed. I played possum, waiting for him to sing, but there was a long still silence instead. He knew this would be the last time he'd be singing the birthday song, waking Catherine Grace Cline from this very bed.

”Happy birthday to you,” he began, speaking more than singing. ”Happy birthday to you . . . Happy birthday, dear Catherine Grace . . . Happy birthday to you.”

We both just stared at each other with tears puddling in our eyes. I lunged out of bed and threw myself in my daddy's arms.

”I love you, Catherine Grace. You know you will always be my little girl and this will always be your home,” he whispered in my ear.

”I know, Daddy. I love you, too,” I said, not wanting to let go.

This was going to be a long, hard day. I could feel it in my heart. Thankfully Martha Ann bounced through the door and announced that my birthday breakfast feast was cooking and I better get my lazy b.u.t.t out of bed and make myself a little more presentable. Considering the fact that my birthday was about the only day of the year that Martha Ann ever cooked me anything, I did as I was told.

I put on my fuzzy chenille robe and matching slippers that Mrs. Blankens.h.i.+p had given me for graduation. She said that I would always be special to her even though Hank and I were no longer together. She said she was secretly hoping we would find our way back to each other someday. I wondered if Hank had ever told her what I said about her at the prom. I hoped she knew I didn't mean a word of it.

I splashed a little water on my face, pulled my hair back in a rubber band, and then walked into the kitchen to find the table covered with sausage and biscuits and gravy and scrambled eggs and pancakes and maple syrup. I sat down at my usual place at the table and noticed a plate of sliced, red tomatoes. ”They're for good luck.” Martha Ann chuckled.

”Very funny. What in the world got into you?” I said, ignoring her sense of humor. ”I can't eat this much food.”

”This may be the last home-cooked meal you get for a while, so you might as well have everything you like,” Martha Ann said with a smile, knowing that I still didn't have a clue as to how I was going to make any money down in Atlanta. I had spent so many years planning my escape that I hadn't given quite enough thought to my long-term survival. I knew I wanted to work in retail. I wanted to be surrounded by all the pretty things I had admired as a little girl wandering through Davison's department store. And I knew I eventually wanted to go to college and maybe get myself a business degree. Gloria Jean said I was going to need that piece of paper to get ahead in this world.

But for now, I was certain I had enough do re me stuffed in my s...o...b..x to last me at least a month or two, money I'd earned from making strawberry jam for the past five summers.

The three of us sat at the breakfast table for at least an hour. We'd eat, then get to feeling kind of full, so we'd wait for a while and talk and laugh, and then we'd start eating again. I didn't want to stop eating, not because I thought there was any truth in what Martha Ann had said, but because I knew that when I got up from the table, I was going to have to face this day head on. Finally, Martha Ann announced that she was going to wash the dishes. Apparently, she was the only brave one among us.

”Hey Catherine, have you talked to Gloria Jean this morning?” she asked as she stood at the kitchen sink with her hands elbow deep in soapy water. ”She called late last night wanting to know when we were coming over. Said she had something special for you.”

”No, but I've got a little more packing to do, so why don't we head over to her house in about an hour or so?” I replied. My daddy was still sitting at the table. He said he had some business to take care of over at the church and thought he'd be gone most of the morning. My daddy had never gone to church on my birthday, unless, of course, it fell on a Sunday. I honestly think sticking around the house was just too painful for him. I understood that. I was almost relieved to see him go.

After drying the dishes, Martha Ann came into my room and flopped her body across my bed. Any other day I wouldn't have minded, but I had spent a good twenty minutes meticulously folding the sheets and blanket so they were neat and tight. I wanted to leave my room looking extra nice for Daddy. But before I could start griping at her, she started to cry.

”Catherine Grace, I know this day has been part of your plan, I mean our plan, since forever. But all that talking, I just never counted on it being this sad,” she said, her voice trembling as she talked.

”I know,” I said, gently stroking the back of her head. ”Just two more years, Sis, and we'll be together, living it up big, on our own. Just two more years.”