Deliver Us from Evie (8 page)

Mom didn’t answer.

Then Evie said, “There’s nothing to cry about!”

“I’m not crying for myself. I’m crying for you, honey.”

“I’m trying to tell you save your tears, Mom. For the first time in my life someone likes me just the way I am.”

Another silence.

“
Loves
me,” Evie added. “Mom, look at this bracelet. See what’s engraved here.”

“I can’t, Evie,” Mom answered. “Not now…. I have to shower. I have to get ready. I can’t deal with this now. You have to get Angel, too.”

“And after dinner I have to go somewhere, Mom. I was going to take Angel home and call you from the road. Lie and say the Pontiac broke down. But the truth is I’ll be gone overnight. I’m meeting Patty tomorrow. We’re having lunch over near Appleman.”

I heard the bedsprings creak again, heard Mom say, “Don’t tell your father this, Evie. I’ll call Mr. Kidder and say you’re going somewhere anyway. Then you do what you’d planned on doing.”

“Lie,” Evie said.

“Yes. Lie.”

A
NGEL’S VALENTINE GIFT TO
me was a wash-off tattoo of an angel flying through clouds. She’d made me a card drawn with a heart, our initials inside, pierced by an arrow.

Before I could stop her she’d read aloud what I’d written inside my card:
I love everything about you
!

“Now you’re talking!” Dad rubbed his hands together, pleased.

Mom helped her put on my locket, and Dad said now he supposed Angel wanted his picture to put in there.

We laughed a lot. Angel was right at home with my folks, as they were with her.

I felt sorry for Evie, even though she seemed to be in a great mood. I kept remembering hearing her ask Mom to look at the ID bracelet Patsy gave her, and Mom saying she couldn’t.

Angel had to be back by ten o’clock, which was just when Cord surprised us by showing up with candy and a card for Evie. He’d skipped the last half of the lecture so he could make an appearance. He was having a cup of coffee with us when Dad answered the phone and told us all the fan belt gave out on Evie’s car and she was going to stay over at the Twin Oaks motel.

Cord said, “I thought Evie always had an extra fan belt in her trunk.”

“Seems she doesn’t.”

“Tell you what. I’ll go get her. I got to go back over that way tomorrow, anyway.”

“After all the driving you did today?” Mom said. “I won’t hear of it!”

“I asked her why she didn’t just go back to the Kidders’,” said Dad, “but she said there wasn’t room there and she didn’t want to wake them up.”

“I’ll go get her,” Cord said. “You can’t give a gal a valentine on the fifteenth of February.”

“She’s probably already in bed,” said Mom.

“Let him go,” said Dad. “I never can sleep away from home, and I bet Evie can’t, either.”

Mom followed Cord out the door, spoke to him, came back looking worried.

We were all in bed when the phone rang the second time. I wasn’t asleep and I bet Mom couldn’t sleep, either, but Dad got awakened and cussed his way downstairs saying who was
that
calling up at midnight?

Then he yelled up to Mom, “Evie’s not there. Cord says should he call up the Kidders at this hour?”

“No!” said Mom. She’d gotten out of bed and was just outside my door.

“Well, where the heck is she? Twin Oaks doesn’t know anything about it!”

“Tell Cord to come back to Duffton,” Mom said.

“Maybe she’s trying to get a ride somewhere on the road,” said Dad. Then I heard him tell Cord, “Did you take a look by the Texaco station down at the turn to King’s Corners? There’s a phone booth—”

Mom interrupted. “Tell Cord to come home, Douglas.”

“But why? He’s already there. He might as well look around for her. He maybe
ought
to call the Kidders.”

“I know where Evie is,” said Mom. “I told Cord she wasn’t there, but he wouldn’t believe it.”

“Because she
is
there, somewhere!”

“Tell Cord to come back, then hang up.”

“
I
spoke to her, Cynnie, and she said she was—”

“Do as I say, Douglas! Evie didn’t have car trouble.”

My father came back up the stairs, shouting, “What is this about? Where is Evie?”

“I expect she’s gone on to Jefferson City!”

“Jefferson City?”

“Don’t get Parr out of bed now. Come on in and I’ll tell you about it.”

Their bedroom door slammed.

I couldn’t hear her clearly after that, but I could hear him.

I could hear “loan.” I could hear “Duff.” I could hear “Patsy,” “Evie,” and a whole lot of other words my dad wasn’t known for saying inside our house.

B
Y THE END OF
February Cord and Evie had had a showdown, so Cord knew what was going on between Evie and Patsy.

He acted like it was a big joke. Once, when he’d gone to St. Luke’s with us and we were all saying The Lord’s Prayer, he said in this loud voice, “Deliver us from Evie,” instead of “Deliver us from evil,” and he laughed and nudged Evie, who gave him a sharp elbow in his ribs, her face flushed for a moment.

Dad was heartbroken, I think. This was an Evie he didn’t know, and the two of them together were always on edge. It got worse in March, when Mom went down to Little Rock to visit her folks. Every year at that time she spent a few days at the Parrs’, but this year it seemed longer because of what was going on between Evie and Dad.

One Sunday Evie came down to breakfast in new navy-blue pants, a new navy-blue cashmere jacket, and a white shirt open at the neck. Her hair was slicked back and she had the red scarf around her neck.

Dad said, “I won’t be going to church with you, Evie.”

“Since when do you miss church?”

“I got work to do.”

“Why don’t you relax? You
got
the loan.”

“No thanks to you,” he said.

Evie got herself some coffee and sat down at the table with us.

“Is she buying you clothes now?” Dad asked her.

“I got a birthday coming, remember. So we went shopping yesterday.”

Evie’d been going to Jefferson City every Friday night for weeks. She’d come back late Saturday night.

According to Evie, Patsy Duff would meet her for lunch on Saturday, they’d go to a movie, then Evie’d drive home.

Dad never talked any of it through with Evie, but he made cracks, and he kept his distance from her. In fact, if he could help it he didn’t spend any time alone with her.

I knew he wished he could control her or throw her out of the house, but he needed her too much. I heard him complain to Mom they were sitting on a tinderbox—it was just a matter of time before Mr. Duff got wind of it.

Mom just kept saying, “They aren’t
doing
anything, Douglas.”

He’d say back, “We don’t know what they’re doing and not doing!”

Evie didn’t let up on him that Sunday morning.

She said, “Come on and go to church, Dad. This is the Sunday Parr’s going to The Church of the Heavenly Spirit, remember.”

“You don’t need to say
remember
after everything you say. I’m not dotty yet, despite your shenanigans.”

“I’ll be all alone in our pew,” said Evie.

“You made your bed,” Dad said. “Anyway, it’s going to rain cats and dogs. I got to get a fence in before it does.”

“Do you know how you can tell if it’s rained cats and dogs?” Evie asked.

“No and I don’t care,” Dad said.

“How can you tell?” I asked her.

“You step in a poodle,” said Evie, grinning.

I laughed but Dad just grunted and got up from the table. He took his cup and plate over to the sink.

He said, “Parr? Are you having dinner with the Kidders?”

I said I was and he said to call him when I was ready to come home.

Then he said, “You’re too dressed up for church, Evie, if you know what I mean.”

“What
do
you mean?” she said.

“Those aren’t farm clothes, they’re serious clothes. Be different if it was Doug wearing them home from college.”

He left the room before Evie could answer.

I was used to talking with her about Patsy Duff. We never got on the subject of homosexuality, or even how they felt about each other, but she’d tell me things Patsy’d say and stuff they did together.

Patsy was teaching her to dance, teaching her a little French, getting her to eat things she’d never tasted like calamari and steamed mussels.

On the way to Floodtown she asked me if I thought her clothes were “too much.”

“I wouldn’t mind having them,” I said. I felt the buttery texture of her jacket with my thumb and first finger. “They even
feel
rich.”

“Maybe Dad’s right and I shouldn’t wear them to church.”

“Wear what you want to wear,” I said.

“Patty spent a fortune on them!”

“She’s got it to spend.”

“That’s what Patty says. She says, ‘Don’t deny me the pleasure of giving you something great—that’s what money’s for!’”

“I don’t know if Mr. Duff would think that’s what his money’s for.”

“Patty’s got her own money. Her grandmother Duff left her a trust fund.”

“Lucky her,” I said.

“Are you being sarcastic, Parr?”

“No, I’m being bitter. I wish I was rich.”

“Because I want you to like her. She’s really neat!”

“I don’t dislike her,” I said. “I don’t know her well enough to like her.”

We passed the Vets’ Memorial Statue and saw a bra hanging from the bayonet.

“They’re so original in this town,” Evie said.

I said, “When Doug was home last weekend there was a huge pair of men’s jockey shorts there, and he got ticked off and he said he hated this town. Figure that out.”

“Anna Banana is getting to him. It’s not Duffton getting to him. It’s her.”

“Gawd, I hope not! I don’t want to be left holding the bag. What will we do if Doug decides he’s not going to farm?”

“Don’t say ‘we,’ Parr. I’m not dead set on hanging around here anymore, either.”

I just sat there as though something heavy had fallen on me and was holding me down.

Evie said, “Sorry to say it, little brother, but that’s how I feel.”

I said, “You’ll change your mind,” but it was only wishful thinking. The whole idea of Evie in the same sentence with change, once she was set on her course, was what you call an oxymoron. Opposite ideas combined.

T
HE CHURCH OF THE
Heavenly Spirit was celebrating its new building. It was one large room with a pulpit and cross at the front, and choir loft in the rear.

Angel was singing a solo that morning, so she didn’t sit with the congregation.

I sat between her mother and father.

Pastor Bob preached this fiery sermon on the sin of envy, followed by Angel’s voice.

When she began singing, I couldn’t imagine what the hymn was all about.

The first verse was:

C-L-O-C-K—
“
The world is like a shelf
,

Do you ever think You should be like myself
?

For I tick
,
tick
,
quick
,
quick
,

With a merry chime working all the time.

Tick
!”
said the clock
;

“
What
?”
said I.

“
You can learn a lesson from my tick
,
if you try.
”

I sat there thinking about what Evie’d just told me. Dad and Cord had decided on expanding our hog operation, and planting only corn come spring. I’d heard them say that with Evie full-time and me part-time they’d only need a few hands extra; then in summer Doug would be back, and we’d all pitch in and manage for three months ourselves.

Then after that what?

Dad would lose heart if he thought that in the future there’d be no Doug, and no Evie, either.

He’d already told me he didn’t want me to be a farmer, not if it wasn’t in me. He’d said I should go to the university and spend my first two years thinking about a major. Maybe business, he said. Maybe even advertising, since the journalism school taught it, and I always had a lot to say about the commercials on TV.

I liked the idea of making up commercials. I figured I could come up with better ideas than most I saw on the tube. It was something I’d never thought about before, and I’d even told Angel I was giving some thought to being an advertising man.

But I knew I’d never be able to walk away from the farm if both Doug and Evie did.

For the first time the thing between Evie and Patsy Duff got to me. If it hadn’t been for Patsy, my sister might have gone along without ever thinking she was all that different. She’d managed all right before Patsy came into her life…. Now Patsy was luring her with expensive clothes, teaching her dance steps
(where
was that going on?), and introducing her to all sorts of sophisticated things Evie could have easily died without ever missing.

It seemed to me very possible that a Duff would be responsible for me never even getting to the University of Missouri. That made me damn mad, too, that it was a Duff doing me in. Lately we were always in deep shit because of that family.

I’d never be able to walk away from the farm, probably.

It’d be on my conscience.

Then like God was reading my mind, Angel’s voice rang out loud and clear on the last verse.

C-L-O-C-K—
“
And I’ve a loud alarm
;

Conscience says Wake up
!
Sin wants to do you harm
!

Keep awake
!
wake
!
wake
!
wake
!

With a merry chime working all the time.

Tick!” said the clock
;

“
What
?”
said I
;

“
You can learn a lesson from my ’larm
,
if you try.
”

That night I woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare.

Evie was being buried over in Duffton Cemetery.

Patsy Duff was standing there weeping, holding a smoking gun.

“Y
OU NEVER HAD A
beer?” said Cord. “Not one?”

“I’ve had a taste,” I told him. “It didn’t thrill me.”