A Question of Mercy (9 page)

“He is handsome though,” Betty said, as if he weren't there.

Betty and Marie brought out marshmallows and put one on a stick for Adam to roast. Adam wanted another. Jess did the same, but since she was not used to alcohol, she grew sleepy. Just as she began to doze off she saw Betty turn up the music and sit beside Adam. She pointed to the moon. It was full. “If you could fly you could land on that moon,” she said. She ran her fingers through Adam's hair and peered into the clutter of his mind.

Adam laughed nervously. That's all Jess remembered, until she woke suddenly to hear Betty scream and see Marie trying to pull him away. Betty's blouse had been pulled off her shoulders and Adam's pants were unbuttoned.

“Adam! Come here.” Adam jumped back. “Come here right now!” He said
No
, as if he had heard a voice in his own head. He was pulling on his pants leg. He went to stand behind Jess.

“Damn you! What did you do to him?” Jess yelled at Betty.

“What did
I
do? Ask what
he
did, why don't you?”

“Whatever it was—you started it, not him. You led him on. Damn it! You're sick, you know that?”

“I didn't do anything,” Betty was buttoning her shirt and holding her breast.

“Let me tell you something,” Jess said. “You say anything about any of this and I'm telling what you and Marie have been doing out here every night. I know what you do after I leave.”

“We're just drinking,” Marie said.

“You're doing more than that,” Jess answered. “You're making out with every man on this beach. And you tried to do that with Adam. He doesn't know any better. You should've left him alone.” Adam was moving back and forth behind her. He couldn't stand still.

“You were asleep. What do you know?” Marie said.

“I know what he'll tell me. He's not stupid, you know. He might be retarded, but he's not stupid. He has the same feelings we do.”

Jess helped Adam button his pants and buckle his belt. She told him to put on his shirt, and reached to straighten his hair. “C'mon. We're going back to the house.” She did not say goodbye to the girls and, when Adam turned to wave, she jerked him forward.

They sneaked in through his bedroom window. Adam got into bed and Jess made him promise not to tell anyone about this night.

“I won't tell,” he said. He looked worried. “Will I get in trouble? For making Betty scream?”

“Only if you tell somebody. Not if you
don't
tell. It's our secret. Just between us.”

“Okay.”

Jess had not felt so protective of Adam before, and she realized how sweet he was, how much he wanted to please her. “Goodnight, Adam.” She leaned to fluff his pillow.

“I'm sorry,” he said. Jess paused at the door. “Jess?”

“What?”

“We have a secret, so now I won't be in trouble?”

“Right.” As she left the room, he was still talking, whispering to himself. Jess stood outside his door to make sure he didn't need her again.

They each had to be awakened the next morning, since they slept later than usual. “We're packing the car, Jess. Get up and have breakfast,” her father called from outside.

“You and Adam could help us a little, you know.” Clementine sounded irritated. “No good comes from being lazy.” So vacation-time was over.

Something else was over too. Until this vacation Jess had regarded Adam with pity or irritation, as she might look at a limping dog on the street; but Adam's bright regard for her was unmistakable. He watched her peel an apple, and he longed to perform the task the same way—choosing fruit from a bowl, turning it to look for spoiled places. He laughed when she laughed; and when she laughed at him, he joined in that laughter too. His hushed sweetness became, finally, impossible to ignore.

Adam

Adam had done something wrong. When he snuck out the dark window to meet the girls, he felt glad, but the girls laughed and told him he walked like a funny bird. Then as the bird flew away, they said Nope, not that bird. That bird can fly. For many nights afterwards, Adam dreamed of heavy birds unable to lift off the ground. But he liked the girls when they said he was good-looking. They gave him something bad to drink, and when Jess fell asleep, they riffled his hair and touched his face. They kissed his mouth, and he kissed back. He felt happy, his body got warm with bubbles
.

One girl unbuttoned his pants, and Adam kissed her too. He wanted to kiss everybody. He was being loved. He kissed her cheek and lips. Her name was Betty and she showed him her breasts. They were soft, but then she screamed. When Jess woke up, she was mad. She yelled at the girls and said bad words. She told Adam to fasten his pants. He didn't want to. He felt himself stopping and starting like a wild pony, until Jess put her hand on his back. She buttoned his pants and helped him tuck in his shirt. She said, We're going back now. Okay?

Okay. He did not know what had happened
.

Jess led him back to the house on the beach, where they climbed in the bedroom window. She pulled back the covers on his bed and Adam wanted to fly off
the ground. The sheets were so white, like clouds. That night at the ocean, Jess told Adam that they had a secret. He didn't know what it was, but she said they had one and made him promise not to tell. He promised. She leaned to lift his pillow, and he pulled up the fluff of sheet to his chin. He slept in the smell of Jess leaning over him
.

As Jess left the room, Adam tried to tell her that sometimes when he was awake it felt like dreaming. She paused at the door and he kept trying to tell her what was in his mind. He said sometimes he saw tiny bits of light coming out of water like shiny stones. He said that sometimes he was afraid of glass—the sound it made when breaking
.

— 11 —

J
ess had collected seven pebbles, counting seven weeks so far, and she realized it must be the middle of June. She imagined that Adam's funeral had come and gone, that people in town had attended, and that Clementine was sick with grief. She had wanted to be there, as she had been all those times when he was baptized.

The rain made the morning dark, but Jess saw an Esso Station up ahead, where she could wash herself and maybe get something to eat. She still had almost three dollars. Last night she had found a barn where she huddled and slept, but she woke coughing hard. She had not recuperated completely from her last sickness and wished someone were there to bring her soup. She took two aspirins and ate her last orange. Oranges seemed to restore her.

The man, behind the cash register, looked Jess over carefully then pointed to the wall where the restroom key hung. When she returned, he offered to share hot tea, just brewed, and gave Jess a plate of buttered toast, with a jar of strawberry jam. She made a grateful nod and leaned on the window ledge until the man gave her his chair.

“Sit down now,” the man urged. “Looks like you've been sick.”

Jess nodded and sipped her tea.

“Where's your car? You got a car?” He stretched his neck to look outside.

“No.” She tried to chew slowly. “This's good.”

He suddenly called out a name, loud, “
RUBY!
” so that Jess jumped and coughed even harder.

“What is it?” A woman poked her head from two curtains in a doorway that led to back rooms.

“We got somebody here might need help.”

Ruby approached Jess and placed her hand on the girl's brow and cheeks. “Oh, my Lord! Come back here with me,” Ruby said. “Look at you. Your clothes are wet.” She turned to her husband at the cash register. “She's soaking, Pug.” She spoke as if it might be his fault.

Jess recuperated for three days in a back room of the Esso station. Ruby called a doctor who prescribed medicine for the cough. Jess ate soup and dreamed she was home. As she began to feel better, Pug and Ruby suggested that she stay and work for them, if she wanted to.

Jess was grateful that they did not ask questions, and agreed to work for a few days, but she stayed for over a week after her recuperation. She could earn money for the last leg to Alabama. She shelved items, kept receipts from delivery men, and made change faster than either Pug or Ruby could do. She had not stolen anything from them, though, at first, she had been tempted to do so.

“I hope she stays a while,” Pug said.

Jess ate every meal with Pug and Ruby around the kitchen table, the three of them talking about the day. She felt on solid ground as she entered their time of normal life and suppers. And though Jess felt the tension of their unasked questions, they did not pry. She had entered a cocoon, and hoped it would contain her for a little longer. It did, until one night Pug's brother, Bucky, arrived. “He always just shows up,” Pug said. “Without warning.” Jess could tell that Pug and Bucky were not congenial brothers.

Bucky was a large, rugged-looking man, who told outrageous stories about Pug's family, and made everybody laugh; but his gaze lingered too long on Jess and she did not like to be in a room alone with him. Bucky stayed the weekend. He seemed to be everywhere, and Jess wondered when he would leave.

On Saturday Jess heard Bucky talking in a low voice to Pug and Ruby. She couldn't hear everything, but she heard him say something about a girl-gone-missing. He said that this might be that girl, and that they should call the police. “You don't know what she's done,” he said.

“Well, maybe,” Ruby kept saying. “But we've grown kinda fond of her.”

“You should think about it.”

“We'll think about it,” said Pug.

“Cause if you don't report her, I will.” Bucky stood up as Jess walked into the room. Lunch was ready and they all began to eat together. Bucky said that he had heard about a girl who had run away from North Carolina. “Her name's Jess Booker,” he said. Jess did not flinch, but ate her sandwich. She had told them her name was Mary Ellen Wood. They called her Mary.

“And there was a young man. Retarded, I think,” said Bucky. “The boy was leaving to be in some institution. “

“Maybe they ran off together,” said Pug.

Jess stood to pour herself a glass of milk and asked if anyone else wanted anything. She could feel their eyes staring at her back.

“Maybe,” said Bucky. “Anyway the young man's dead. Found him washed up on a riverbank.”

Jess carefully placed the glass of milk on the table, and finished eating her lunch. She would have to go now. She couldn't stay. She chewed her food and found it hard to swallow.

That night, Ruby went to Jess's room to ask if she had run away from home. “If so,” she said, without waiting for an answer, “I need to know. Unless there's some good reason not to, we should get you back to where you belong.”

“I can't tell you,” Jess said. “You've been real good to me though.”

“Well, I got to say this—Bucky's real suspicious. He wants us to call the police, Mary.” She sat on the bed beside Jess. “I thought I should tell you that, just in case.”

“Thank you,” said Jess, her eyes wide. “Don't worry about me.”

Ruby stood to leave, then turned, “I'll wake you early so you can get on your way,” she told Jess. “I'll get some food ready and pack you some clothes in the old suitcase I have.” She handed her an envelope. “Here's some money. You earned it.”

In a few minutes she brought Pug to say goodbye. “We're gonna miss you,” Pug said. “We liked having you around.”

“Don't, Pug.” She looked at Jess. “You do what you need to do, darlin'. You can come back anytime, you hear?”

Jess sat with her head down until the door was closed. She left early the next morning while Bucky was still asleep. She packed her clothes in an old suitcase Ruby found at Goodwill, and left with food and money. She felt as though, if she had to, she could return to the Esso Station to stay with Pug and Ruby. She could stay there forever.

As she walked she looked for barns to sleep in with fat bales of good-smelling hay. A light rain came in the afternoon and cooled her. She had not seen, or even thought of, the brown and white car with the
ike Ike
sticker; but now that she was traveling again, she grew watchful.

— 12 —

D
uring that first summer Jess stopped avoiding Adam, but when school began again, she reverted to her earlier ways of dismissing him. If he knocked on her bedroom door, she said to go away; if he tagged along beside her and her friends, she said, “Leave me alone.” At dinner she answered him with one-word responses. Adam didn't understand what had gone wrong. One morning he sneaked out the back door to follow Jess and her friends. Jess saw him lurking behind bushes.

“He acts like a crazy person,” one boy said, and Jess nodded.

“He has a crush on you, Jess,” a girl teased.

They saw him skulking at the edge of trees, then ducking beneath the bleachers until Jess went inside the school. Sometimes she looked out a window to see if he had gone home.