Part 3 (1/2)
She thought of crazy explanations: we were rehearsing for a play; my friend is sick and I was helping her; wish I could stay and talk, but I have to catch a train. She couldn't be flip with him clamped on Angela's arm. She felt a new fire break out in her guts.
Angela cried, ”Take your hand off me!”
”I don't think so. Your father should hear about this.”
”Hey,” Jefferson cried, clawing to get his hands away from Angela, but she could not pry them loose.
”Let me go! He knows,” lied Angela.
”Knows his kid's a dirty little queer?”
Angela pul ed back her free arm and slapped him, openhanded.
The man shook her. ”d.a.m.n s.l.u.t.” He looked at Jefferson then. ”I know who you are. I guess it wouldn't do any good to let him know about the chip off his own block.”
The man watched her reaction. ”Or didn't you know? He's not the only good family man in this town who finds the boys at the railroad station more interesting than his wife.”
What was he saying? She had a flash of a scene from the musical Guys and Dolls of the guys playing c.r.a.ps in an al eyway. She pictured Jarvy crouching against a wal , tipping back a bottle. Her straitlaced father? Did this have something to do with why Jarvy and Emmy drank more and more?
”And I don't mean he's out playing poker with them either. Like father, like daughter-or are you real y a son? Maybe he does it to you too.”
Jefferson had been feeling helplessly smal compared to the janitor's bulk, but at that moment she understood what the man was saying and her whole world opened up in a way that was bewildering and painful and freeing al at once.
No! she thought. The monster cloud was coming, dropping over her like a hooded cape. She'd never be able to think her way out of this situation if she gave in to it. Her trusty body reacted on its own; she kicked his s.h.i.+n viciously. His grip loosened and they ran.
Normal y it was exhilarating to run, but she was crying, embarra.s.sed to be such a weakling. She should be the strong one, but how could she stand up to that man? He might as wel be the supreme court, the state police, the weight of the whole disapproving world.
They reached the shelter of the band shel and hid behind the wooden enclosure to catch their breath.
”Why did he have to know us?”
”Jefferson,” Angela said with gentle sympathy. ”Jefferson, who in Dutchess doesn't know me?”
”And I guess my family may be a little bit infamous.”
”You mean what he said about your father?”
She nodded.
”Could the janitor be lying?'
She couldn't look at Angela. ”You know he wasn't.”
”No, I don't think he made that up.”
”I don't know whether to be happy or upset.”
”It's a shock, Jefferson. You need to get over the shock first.”
”Okay. But that's beside the point. Do you think he'l tel your father?” She wanted this ugliness over with so they could graduate and play al of their last summer before col ege.
”Not before I do.”
”Oh, G.o.d, Angie, he'l hate me!”
”Face it, Jefferson. What else can we do? I want to go straight to Daddy, tel him like I've always wanted to. He says he wants me to be happy and married. He likes you. Why shouldn't you be the one? We'l get an apartment after we graduate, get jobs. You can go to school with me instead of going away.”
”Angie.” Her nose was stuffed, but she was no longer crying. ”Are you nuts? Parents don't say, 'Sure, fine, my kid's a queer, and that's okey-dokey.'
They think we're dirty.”
”Dirty? We're not the dirty ones. Dirty is how that man looked at me. Dirty was what al those boys tried to do to me before I found you. I haven't for a second felt dirty with you. Only delirious with love.”
They were hidden from the street on one side by the band shel , on the other by a clump of bushes. Jefferson wanted to hold her, but was scared to now. She felt like a broken little tree after a storm. Angela moved against her, but Jefferson stepped back.
”What are you so afraid of?”
She was stil shaking and didn't want Angela to know it. ”They could throw you out.”
”I'm their daughter, they would never do that.”
”They'l try to change you.” She cupped a hand around Angela's breast.
Angela brushed her hand away as she said, ”I can't change. I'm yours. I want to spend my life with you!” Angela smiled into her eyes as if to wil an infusion of courage into her.
Something in Jefferson s.h.i.+fted. She'd stopped shaking. It wasn't exposure she feared, was it? She loved this girl, but, no, staying in Dutchess was al wrong. She would go away to school. This incident didn't matter much at al as long as they kept it from getting out. Real y, she'd known al along that the forever Angela talked about was a kid dream. There would be girls she'd like in col ege. She'd seen some playing field hockey.
She straightened and put her arms around Angela, then kissed her. She loved her, but good gravy, she was seventeen. ”Do you want me with you when you tel him?”
Angela, such a smal , sweet cuddly girl, laid her head on Jefferson's shoulder. ”No. Stay by the phone.”
”If my parents answer, don't say anything to them, okay?”
”You're not going to tel them?” Angela said, pul ing back.
”Look, they aren't very interested in me as it is. I don't have as much faith that they'd go along with this as you do.”
”What do you have to lose?”
”You. Cripes, they might stop us from seeing each other.”
Angela looked at her. ”You would let them stop you?”
”Like I'd have a choice?”
When Angela's cal came, Jefferson was watching Gunsmoke with her parents. Earlier, she had gone to the basketbal game at the high school and continued a friendly argument about the restrictions of girls' rules with the coach. She loved watching the game and was looking forward to playing in col ege, since she'd already made her name in field hockey. She'd completely forgotten that Angela was talking to her father tonight until the cal came.