Carolina Moon (29 page)

Did he what? She had spent years wondering what the end of the sentence could be. Years making up stories to help it turn out as well as it could. But now she knows. Now Quee watches as just the pale glow of the nightlight shines from Denny’s apartment. And,
Denny
was never supposed to have come into the world. Denny’s mother had come for help, just like anyone else, and that time Quee had made a choice. She said, Let there be life. She thought it would do the girl good to have to be responsible, and if she didn’t want the responsibility, then Quee would be there to take the baby, she
wanted
that baby.

No, Howard Carter had taught her just enough that was safe to do, and when all else failed, he’d come around and help her out. She’d ring his house or office and speak a secret language. She might say: “Is this Mr. Howard?” and his wife would say: “No, this is Dr. Carter’s house, and who is
this
?” Within a half hour of such a call he would appear, weathered and tired-looking. She had known him since they were children. He had once tried to get her to love him, but it just didn’t work. There are some people, try as you might, you will never feel anything beyond friendship.

“You know what people say about me, now don’t you?” she asked him one night when he had come around. There was a scared fourteen-year-old perched up on the table, and they were over at her stove where he was having her boil up a soap mixture. “They say I’m a whore.”

“And just let them keep right on thinking it,” he said. “It’s a hell of a lot better that they think that.”

“And think what of you, Howard? That you visit the whore?”

“Right now, yes.”

“I know that’s why that old school principal is always flirting with me so.” She went over and helped the girl lie back, smoothed a cool cloth over her dark forehead. “He thinks he’s gonna get something out of it.”

“Do you flirt back?” Howard asked and raised his eyebrows. He had some of the best teeth that the town of Fulton ever produced; he was a fine man ahead of his time, and how he came to marry such a stiff Quee never understood.

“Yes, I do, and every year I get a schoolbus whenever I want one.” She turned to the girl. “Did you go to the beach in the first grade?” The girl nodded, looked at her as if with recognition, though she was too scared to speak or smile.

“I drove the bus,” she said and squeezed the girl’s hand while Howard filled a turkey baster with suds. Lonnie was upstairs asleep and had been for hours. “That was me. Quee Purdy. A woman with a cause. A woman with a mission.” Howard grinned at her, said like he always said, what a fine team they made working together. By the eighties there were enough good doctors in the bigger cities, Wilmington and Raleigh and Charlotte, that there was no reason for Quee to do what she did, and she gladly handed out phone numbers to the young people who appeared at her door.
Good luck
, she might call out.
Protect yourselves
. Some said she sold drugs, and some said she sold herself, so she decided, well, she would sell something. What about wedding cakes? How about ceramic meats?

Dear Cecil,

I wish you could see your son
. Your son!
and my goddaughter. You may remember her. That time we went to Boston, we stopped off in New York, and we saw them there. Her mama was still mad at me. She was having a hard time making ends meet, and there she had little Mary Denise, who was standing on a stool in the kitchen when we got there. She told me she was looking for birds and I thought then, my what an optimistic child, to look out on an old garbage chute where at best she might see some mangy pigeon and she was looking for
birds.
She hasn’t changed a whole lot and I’ve come to truly love her. I see the two of them standing side by side and I think of me and you. I think
we gave them
life. We were the creators, the gods of the universe. So why then couldn’t we save each other, Cecil? Why didn’t you ever say how you really felt?

What’s really amazing is that I don’t feel as bad as I might think I should. I had a whole life with Lonnie that nobody can even touch. I
do
have nine lives, Cecil, and I plan to milk mine for all they are worth. I mean sure I’ve done some things. I sure have got some secrets. Just like earlier today as I was telling Tom and Denny the story of Jones Jameson.
Well, he did come around here last year, just as I said. He had knocked up a woman out in the county and came crawling up my walk to see if I could
fix
his problem, like he heard I would do back in high school. Ha! I sent him on his way, though I did give him a reputable name just because I don’t wish death on any woman and especially not one who already has the misfortune to have gotten tangled up with him. You know, it’s getting harder and harder to find a doctor doing what put me out of my little business way back. Anyway, Jones calls me up
again,
just a month ago for the same reason, needed my assistance, seems the latest was quite young, a high school girl. He said he was ready to go on the radio and tell all about me and the alterations I have done for folks in the past. Somehow he had found out about the time Tommy came around here with the girl who now might as well not even be in this world. Imagine her husband and parents hearing such right about now. I thought of Tommy and how he’s probably spent all these years working it all out for himself. And of course I thought of Alicia. I told Jones to meet me down at Braveman Bridge by himself to discuss it and he did and that’s that. What is worrying me is wondering who is the poor little girl out there with such a bad seed taking root. I tried to get him to tell me. He just ground out a cigarette butt under his heel and tossed that sweater of his over on a bush, where I guess it stayed until some passerby decided to dress up the scarecrow. He said, “Do you think I’m stupid?” and I said, “Why no, Jones, I hear you are Phi Beta Kappa. Here, pull up a tree stump, have yourself a drink while we talk.”

My new business is good, Cecil. I’m curing the smokers right and left; there are some new weight problems out there but that’s no big deal—I can fix that in the future. If this world keeps swinging the way it’s swinging, then I suspect I’ll always have some kind of business to do. Not too much new, though I do feel my heart drifting. You see, even before I found out about your letter, I was starting to confuse you a little with
Lonnie. I’d think of something sweet you had said, and then I’d say, “No wait. That was Lonnie.” And so now I’m going to write to Lonnie, or maybe I’ll just talk to him in my head. And if you can know what I’m saying, Cecil, well then I have to say that I guess there are no hard feelings. You did what you had to do and I do what I have to do and now we’re left to live and die with whatever consequences may come. And I
will
live, Cecil. I will live until I die as that old song goes.

With love,

Queen Mary Purdy

The letter tumbles from the crate with all the others when the new guy sits down in the morning darkness with a cup of black coffee and begins his shift. It gives him the creeps, the quiet, the ticking of the big Seth Thomas clock out front, the wanted flyers—felons who escaped years ago. The man who retired told him that it would get easier, that he would come to appreciate this quiet time, this feeling of living and existing without regard to the rest of the town. The man had shown him a special drawer . . . letters without stamps, letters to Sandy Claws and God and whoever else might be scratched in illegibly. The letter is sorted with the others in rapid speed, no special treatment, no hesitation about what goes where. After all, he wants to finish his shift and get home where his wife and daughters will be coming in from church. He will find them all stripped down to nylon slips, patent leather shoes left by the door. The house will smell of chicken and potatoes, and he won’t have to fear Monday, having already worked Sunday.

And in this same hour just minutes away, Wallace Johnson rises and dresses. He tiptoes quietly from the bedroom, his wife still sleeping. He fills his metal thermos with coffee and sets out for his drive
to the beach, quiet miles through the Green Swamp, past Lamb’s Folly. The blues are running, and he’ll spend the day sitting there in the sand, taking in the salt, the breeze, the whole ocean, and if there is a God in heaven who is merciful and just, he will spend the next twenty years doing just this, casting and reeling, casting and reeling, casting and reeling with the very movement of the earth.

Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

©1996 by Jill McCorkle.
All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

“Carolina Moon” (Benny Davis/Joe Burke) © 1928 (Renewed 1956). All rights for the extended term administered by Fred Ahlert Music Corporation and Benny Davis Music. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

ISBN 978-1-61620-198-2

Also by Jill McCorkle

NOVELS
The Cheer Leader
July 7th
Tending to Virginia
Ferris Beach

STORIES
Crash Diet
Final Vinyl Days
Creatures of Habit
Going Away Shoes

Contents

Part One

Part Two

Part Three