Part 36 (1/2)
Outside the rain had let up temporarily, so I walked past the barn down to the cliff overlooking the river. The rocks were wet, but I sat on one anyway. I always think best when I can hear running water. Dad taught me that. I told Sam Callahan and he fixed Lydia's toilet so it ran all night. He said Shannon slept better that way and she would grow up to be a calmer person. I don't see how anyone could grow up calm being raised by Sam and Lydia.
The river shot through the gorge gray-green with sprays of whitewater. I was surprised to find Whitewater in the East. Stephen Foster Sewanee River-type songs gave me the impression eastern rivers were lazy. High up on the other side a wooden flume ran parallel to the river. I'd seen a flume over near Dubois, but it ran straight down the side of the mountain. Old-timey timberjacks sent logs to the river that way. I couldn't figure out why anyone would build a flume parallel to a river. Growing up in Wyoming is great, but it leaves certain holes in your education.
Our senior year at GroVont High Sam Callahan's grandfather, Caspar, started having little strokes. I guess they're like alcohol blackouts. He was driving down the highway and suddenly woke up high-centered on the median fifteen miles away. As a bribe, he offered to pay for Sam's college if Sam would move to North Carolina and live in what Lydia called the manor house. Anybody with eyes and brains could tell Sam would never move anywhere without Shannon. They were inseparable. He took her on dates and everything, which tended to put off local girls. Teenagers don't like the guy showing up with a toddler.
I knew Sam would want to take her, but I didn't think about it. My mind was on more important things-senior play, the prom, graduation. I was enrolled in UW next fall, mostly to escape Dothan Talbot, and I just figured Shannon would be taken care of the same as she had been all her life.
Sam brought her over the Sat.u.r.day afternoon before the prom. He knew I'd be too busy with my hair and formal and all to put up much of a fight. Sam's sneaky that way. Everyone thinks he's all intellectual and s.p.a.cey, but a lot of that oblivious doo-dah stuff is an act.
I was sitting in front of my vanity mirror, performing damage control on a zit. Shannon squealed and ran across the room, hugged me, and crawled in my lap. ”How's my little girl today?” I asked.
”She has a new tooth,” Sam said. ”Show Mama your new tooth.”
Proudly, Shannon opened her mouth wide for me to inspect the little rows of teeth. I couldn't tell which one was new, but I oohed anyway. ”Will the tooth fairy bring you a dime now?”
”That's when she loses teeth, not grows them,” Sam said. Shannon looked disappointed in me. What kind of mother doesn't know tooth fairy protocol?
”Do me,” she said. She pointed to her eyes. Our favorite-in fact, our only-mother-daughter game was putting on makeup.
”I like your hair better down,” Sam said.
”I just spent two hours putting it up. What do you think of my dress?” This pink satin number with a dipping neckline, low back, and spaghetti straps hung on a hanger on the closet door. I was doing the vanity thing in my bra and panties. Ever since seventh grade Sam and I have walked in on each other in underwear or the bathtub or wherever the one being walked in on happens to be. Mom didn't like it at first. To me, it's nice being able to talk to a guy without s.e.xual tension.
Sam didn't compliment my taste in dresses. Instead, he sat on my bed. ”I'm starting writing school in Chapel Hill next fall,” he said.
With my right-hand little finger, I rubbed shadow on Shannon's lids. ”You're going to hate North Carolina,” I said. ”The humidity will kill you.”
”Shannon is going with me.”
I stopped to look at him. Sam had that false casualness he a.s.sumes when he's tense. ”But she's my daughter.”
”When was the last time you saw her?”
I tried to remember. I'd been awfully busy lately, but I seemed to recall sometime the end of last week.
Shannon stirred on my lap. ”Mama?”
”Okay, eyeliner next, honey.” I looked in the mirror at her face below my own. We look amazingly alike, except she has brown eyes and I have blue. ”Sam, that's not fair. You can't make a decision like this on your own.”
”They won't let you keep a child in the freshman dorms.”
”I thought she'd stay with Lydia.” Which wasn't exactly true, I hadn't thought anything till that moment. ”That way we can both see her when we come home for holidays and summers.”
Sam's nose wrinkled. ”My mother can't raise a child.”
He had a point there-just look at Sam. I drew a dark line across her lower lids, then applied mascara to her lashes. They were dark and beautiful even without mascara. Shannon was an extraordinarily beautiful child, and I'm not saying that because I gave birth to her. Solid cheekbones, long neck, thick hair-she was much cuter than that prissy little girl in the Breck ads. I'd always pictured Shannon and me growing up together. I'd teach her horsemans.h.i.+p and how to control boys. She'd brush my hair while I explained the facts of life. Sam couldn't explain the facts of life to a little girl. The only facts of life he'd ever known got me pregnant.
”Listen, Sam, can we talk about this later? Dothan's coming any minute.”
”I thought you deserved to know.”
”We'll talk later. Are you going to the prom stag?”
Sam stood up. ”I promised Shannon I'd read her William Blake's 'Visions of the Daughters of Albion.' She gets a kick out of de-flowerment scenes.” Shannon leaned her head back, looked up in my face with her beautiful eyes, and laughed.
Of course, we never talked later. That August I waved good-bye from the terminal building as my best friend and my daughter boarded a plane and flew away, and child number one slipped through my fingers.
When you drink it's easy to lose track of the point of what you've been doing. The point of this d.a.m.n journey was not some fat sicko's grandmother's farm. I didn't come all this way to bond with a band of roving vagrants, and I sure didn't come all this way to wind up mistress to a pharmaceutical welder. I came to see Sam Callahan and Shannon. By seeking out two of the three most important people in my world, I'd hoped to gain strength for the battle to get back the most important person-Auburn. Instead of gaining strength I'd wallowed in alcoholic self-pity and lost track of my point.
Okay, now-find the track and get back on it. Sam and Shannon were in Greensboro, North Carolina, so I had no business sitting on a wet rock in Tennessee.
Back upstairs, I dumped the contents of my suitcase and day pack on the bed and took stock. Wasn't that much, really, as the two pairs of boots I hadn't worn yet filled most of the suitcase s.p.a.ce. I gathered panties, socks, s.h.i.+rts, and the spare Wrangler's into a pile and went in search of this laundry room where Armand found Shane's tape. The washer and dryer were the same pastel green as the refrigerator and stove. Everything must have arrived at once, which is the rich-person way of decorating.
After starting the washer, I took another shower-a real one this time, where cleanliness counted more than psychological collapse. I washed and conditioned my hair, shaved my legs, and sudsed up my crotch to root out any residual weirdness from last night. Just because Armand woke up in a rubber doesn't mean he penetrated with one.
The clothes dried in a half hour or so, then I brought them back up to repack. For some reason, when I dressed I put on a bra and my town cowboy boots. I think the reason had to do with Armand. I was fixing to walk out there into the barn and say ”Gee, Armand, it was swell, but do you mind running me into town now?” and I wasn't totally comfortable about his reaction. You never know, he might have interpreted last night's whatever-it-was as romance.
Armand being a southern gentleman, I figured if I dressed properly, he would behave properly. More than once I've heard men say any woman not wearing a bra ”wants it.”
Because I was a little nervous, and a little queasy, I circled through the kitchen and poured myself a juice gla.s.s of Scotch. One snort wouldn't knock me off track.
The rain had picked up again into a steady downpour. I stood outside in the gathering darkness watching Armand work. Rivulets of sweat ran down his back, staining the b.u.t.t of his gray slacks. He moved in quick jerks and metallic clangings. Empty Coors bottles littered the concrete floor beneath his work area, which I took as a bad sign. No matter what disgusting depths I'd sunk to the last couple of weeks, I'd never stooped so low as to drink Coors.
Armand turned and faced me straight on. He held the flaming torch in his right hand and a piece of angle iron in his left. The structure he was cutting on reminded me of those molecule models we made in high school, only this one had been run over by a bus. With his hooded mask pulled down and his body slick with sweat, Armand produced a threatening, alien effect. Everyone says don't look at the welder's flame or you'll go blind, and like anything else people tell you not to look at or you'll go blind, the overpowering urge was to look.
”You mind shutting that thing off?” I asked.
He didn't move a few seconds, then he bent over a tank and turned a valve, and the flame sputtered out. I hadn't realized until it was silent how loud the hiss had been.
”I was hoping to talk to you a minute,” I said. ”If you have time.”
More seconds ticked by. The rain drizzled on the roof and wet ground behind me. This wasn't going well. I couldn't see his face. All I saw was my own face, blurry in his mask, and talking to a mirror with someone behind it is intimidating.
”I need to be getting on to my daughter's place,” I said, ”in Greensboro. That's North Carolina. And I was wondering if you'd loan me some money for a bus ticket and a motel room tonight. I can leave the beer and horse trailer to cover the loan.”
Armand didn't move. I was afraid the pills had blown his hearing.
”Or maybe you'd rather buy the trailer. However we do it I'd like to thank you for your help with the police and all, but I really need to be going now.”
The sucker had turned statue. Made me nervous.