Fiends (5 page)

4

The phone was ringing; Marjory grabbed it in the kitchen. The caller was her great-aunt Willie Lloyd, who lived a few miles away in McHenry's Ford. Aunt Willie Lloyd telephoned frequently to assure herself that the girls hadn't been murdered in their beds by "tramps from the highway," as she put it. A widow, she was alone in her own eight-room house, and had often urged the girls to move in with her. Marjory had never cottoned to the idea, because Aunt Willie Lloyd was a nonstop talker and not much of a housekeeper: chickens wandered in and out of her house through gaps in the screen doors.

Marjory patiently refused an offer of two pecks of tomatoes, allowed that they could use a couple of jars of blackberry preserves, promised to run up to McHenry's Ford before Saturday, and extricated herself from the telephone after nearly ten minutes of "uh-huhs" and "yes, ma'ams." She went out on the back porch for a breath of air, but there wasn't a breeze yet. The trees in the deep backyard were motionless. She fed two of the cats, Zombie and Tom-Tom, emptied the laundry hamper and started a wash. The old wringer Maytag was sounding worse than ever; another month and they would need a replacement. But they had forty-five dollars in their joint savings account.

She wandered outside, uncomfortable from the prickly heat that had popped out on her behind during the drive from Nashville. Ted Lufford had kept the grass mowed all summer, but the rest of the property, three and a half acres, looked shabby. Her mother's garden plot had been overgrown for four years, and so had the scuppernong arbor. The padlock on her father's shop had not been disturbed since shortly after his death; it was thick with rust. Daddy Lee had been the neighborhood fix-it man, one of those jackleg geniuses who could repair any kind of machinery. So he'd always had plenty of work (it was amazing how many people would pay three or four dollars once in a while to keep a ten-dollar toaster alive); enough money for his family and for his abiding passion, the swapping, training, and showing of Tennessee walking horses. Daddy Lee's stable was empty now, so forbiddingly empty Marjory couldn't bring herself to walk inside. Even while he was alive Marjory had avoided his horses; they were dumber than dirt, in her opinion, with bad dispositions to boot. But she was always so proud of her daddy when he was showing the three-gaited animals: Lord, he was a handsome man in the saddle!

She'd loved him most, however, because he understood her own passion, for baseball, applauded her skills, and never said a discouraging word about her body. Standing still, Marjory was tall but with big shoulders; she looked top-heavy, awkward, physically incompetent. Babe Ruth hadn't looked like much, either. Marjory could throw hard with either hand. She had kept four balls in the air the first time she attempted juggling, had hit her first golf ball 150 yards, straight and true. She was a self-taught swimmer with phenomenal endurance. When she ran (one step, and she was at top speed), Marjory achieved a fluidity and grace that seemed aerodynamically impossible, given the contours of her body.

Marjory picked up an old baseball with unraveling seams that had been kicked aside by Ted's Toro and threw it high, then turned and caught it deftly behind her back. That small amount of exertion caused her to break out in a sweat again; her blouse was sticking to the small of her back. She sought relief by stretching out in the macramé hammock in the eight-sided gazebo, but there was no position that was comfortable because of her prickly heat. She heard a diesel horn on the L and N line three quarters of a mile away, and today for no good reason the sound of a train gave her a run of the shudders.

She still found it difficult to believe that the fix-it man, the master of machines, had stalled his car in front of an oncoming freight train. Most of their friends and relatives agreed that it must have been a heart attack or stroke, freezing Daddy Lee to the steering wheel for those ten crucial seconds. But there was no comfort for Marjory in this assumption. Her parents were gone, a wrenching lesson in the black ironies, the implacable treachery of life. Maybe, after all, Enid was the smart one for craving safety and security. Maybe she ought to marry Ted, who would move in with them and slowly fix up the place until it was the way it used to be, and Enid would have babies and Marjory would take care of them for her while she worked for that steady paycheck at Curtis Sewell and Wainwright, and they wouldn't have anything to be afraid of, ever.

But there was a potential irony in this scheme, like a worm in an apparently healthy apple, that disturbed Marjory: she and Ted got along okay now, but once he was married to Enid he could well have a change of heart, suddenly not like Marjory and find fault and want to get rid of her. Would Enid stick up for her? Marjory wondered. She really got on her sister's nerves sometimes, and she knew it.

The thought of a disloyal Enid, along with the prickly heat, was more than Marjory could stand. She barreled into the house and upstairs to the bathroom, pulled down her shorts and panties and liberally applied medicated baby powder to the affected areas. The shower head was dripping, there were stockings draped over the shower rod, blue toothpaste in the cracked porcelain sink, a half-empty disposable douche bottle on the floor—they were both indifferent housekeepers, hadn't the time for it, really, but company was coming on Sunday, and Marjory knew who was going to be stuck with most of the chores when it wasn't her idea at all. . . she went down the hall, knocked rudely on Enid's door, and was sulking at the kitchen table when Enid came downstairs looking refreshed.

"This looks delicious, hon."

"Does it?"

"Is that all you're having? A glass of milk?"

"Yeh."

"Oh. I thought you might be on a—"

"If you think I need to lose a few pounds, just come out and
say
it, Enid!"

"Well, that's not what I—awfully touchy, Marj."

"Is it my fault I got daddy's build, and you—you got all the best genes in the family?"

"I wouldn't say that. You're so beautifully coordinated, and I can't play croquet without hitting myself in the ankle with the mallet."

"Who cares about that? Do you think Ted cares because you can't play croquet? That is not what turns him on."

Enid helped herself to green tomato pie, and sprinkled grated Parmesan cheese on top.

"Everybody agrees that you have the most beautiful eyes in the family, going all the way back to Great-grandmother Emmie Jones Clawson, and your complexion—look at me, I just get all sort of muddy-looking around my eyes this time of the month. But I put up with it, Marjory. We all have to put up with things we don't like about ourselves."

"Why are you trying to make me feel better when I don't want to feel better?"

Enid reached for the snapbean casserole, and smiled. "Because I love you."

Marjory sat with lowered head, picking at a wart. "If I walked out of the house tonight and never came back . . . would you miss me?"

"Miss you? Marjory, I would die. Literally die."

"Oh," Marjory said, and wiped her nose on a napkin.

"Now tell me, what's got you this way?"

"I don't know. I forgot to mention, Aunt Willie Lloyd called."

"Poor old soul. How is she?"

"Well, she sent twenty dollars to that radio preacher in Del Rio, Texas, for a prayer shawl. She was supposed to wear the shawl and place both hands on the radio while he was sending out his healing message over the air. But she must have been allergic to the dye in the prayer shawl, because her eyes swelled shut for two days. She still has water on the knees. Why don't you pass me the casserole, maybe I'll have a couple of bites after all."

5

Enid dropped Marjory at the Baptist church before going on to work at Kroger's on the Falling Spring Pike. There was a Youth League game in progress on the diamond behind the Sunday school building. Some of her own teammates and a few of the Presbyterian girls, in orange and white jerseys, were there already, pitching softballs around while waiting for their game to start.

Marjory, carrying her glove and a favorite bat, walked toward a group that centered around Rita Sue Marcum. Wherever she went, Rita Sue had natural attractive power. She sweetly sparkled and teased without much substance, like ice-cold Seven-Up. But when her effervescence failed, her personality could become sticky and cloying. Thanks to sturdy Norwegian genes on her mother's side, Rita Sue was bona fide platinum. She had begun to make up her Nordic blue eyes too extravagantly, Marjory thought, since her father had come into a substantial inheritance and the family, upgrading everything including their religion, broke with the Baptists to join the Presbyterian church. In Caskey County this defection caused as much shocked comment as if the Pope had suddenly renounced Rome to become a Talmudic scholar.

Rita Sue's latest acquisition, other than a new tomato-red Fairlane convertible, was Boyce Bledsoe, whom Marjory had mooned over briefly in seventh grade before settling down to her long-lasting crush on the unobtainable Tim McCarver. Boyce was a thoroughly freckled boy with hair the color of a plaster flamingo. He played quarterback on the high school football team, grinned a lot, and had little to say, which made him a good match for Rita Sue, who had everything to say.

Marjory stabbed smoothly at a softball rolling toward her and pegged it back to Boyce, who was half turned away from her and only managed, because his reflexes were as good as hers, to keep from being nailed in the ribs. But he dropped the ball.

"Uh-oh, bad hands!" Marjory called.

Rita Sue turned and shaded her eyes: the sun was low behind Marjory's back. She smiled. She had an intensely white smile.

"Is that you, Marjory? I thought somebody put a T-shirt on Boyce's Volkswagen."

"Hi, Rita Suuuue! Remember when I turned your bedroom into an ant farm. Wait'll you see what it looks like when you get back from majorette camp."

Rita Sue indicated the weakness of this riposte with a little swish of her hand past her left ear and a wide, indifferent smile. Marjory dug in and swung a little harder. "How come you've got all that gooey makeup on? We're playing ball tonight, not doing
Titus Andronicus."

Missed again. Over her head, actually: Rita Sue probably thought
Andronicus
was a bad chest cold. The three of them unconsciously closed ranks against the hangers-on. Rita Sue perched a slim tanned hand on Marjory's shoulder. As usual her frosted-pink nails looked flawless. Marjory chewed her own nails, to the quick.

"Honeybunch, you know I'm on the teen fashion board at Creekmuir's; we had our Fall Preview show today."

"Darn, I went and missed it."

"They just have so many cute new things in the store! You ought to drop by tomorrow—" Rita Sue frowned delicately, veiled in thought. In the late solar glow her bouffant hairdo looked incandescent. "I believe I did see
something
in your size."

"I don't look good in cute," Marjory said, wished she hadn't as she recognized the gleam of a comeback in Rita Sue's eyes, and was saved when Boyce nudged her.

"What are you doing Sunday, Marjory?" Rita Sue punched him lightly on one of his marvelous biceps for interrupting.

"Sweet of you to ask, Boyce. Sunday? Well, I—"

"My cousin Duane's coming up from Franklin to stay with us while his folks are in New Orleans for the Shriner's convention."

"Duane who?"

"Eggleston. He said he wanted to get together with you, so—"

"Get together?" Rita Sue rocked back and chortled at her expression, which only added to Marjory's confusion. "Does he know me?" She was studying Rita Sue's face closely, aware that this might be the start of something elaborate, and nasty, on her part. "Do I know
him
from somewhere?"

"Two years ago, at Retreat," Rita Sue said. "He was the kid who was so busy collecting butterflies."

"The lepidopterist?" Marjory said, horrified.

"No,
butterflies."

"Oh, hold it, Rita Sue," Marjory said, and looked at Boyce.
"Him?
He's only about four and a half feet tall! How old is he, twelve?"

"Duane just turned sixteen. He's grown a lot. You wouldn't recognize him. Anyway—"

"Boyce, really, I'm sorry, but Sunday—we're having company. Some—ah—friend of my sister's, and Ted Lufford's coming, too. I have to make dinner."

"Oh. That's okay. Duane's gonna be here for two weeks, until school starts again."

"Fine. We'll all get together. Hey, it looks like the Little Leaguers are through, what d'you say we go warm up."

Rita Sue stepped in next to Boyce, urgently linking pinky fingers and, worshipfully, wagging her tail a little. She'd always been a tease-toucher, coming on, then backing away with the grace of a fencing master. Marjory figured she must have poor Boyce half nuts by now. His Barney Rubble haircut seemed to be standing up a little stiffer, and that probably wasn't the only stiffness he was experiencing.

Rita Sue scampered to fall in beside Marjory on the way to the diamond.

"Could I talk to you seriously about something, Marjory?"

Marjory staggered back a step, a hand clasped over her heart. But the apparent ruthlessness of their vendetta disguised a telemagical empathy. The girls had grown up very near each other on Old Forge Road, until Rita Sue's father removed the family to a gentleman's farm a few miles from Sublimity. This change in Rita Sue's status hadn't altered or done in the relationship: an ongoing cutting contest suited their competitive natures.

"Mama pitched one of her
fits
and said I better bring this up to you personally," Rita Sue said in a low voice, looking around for eavesdroppers.

"Algebra or Biology?"

"Both. Because you know what'll happen if I don't—"

"Say no more. I'll tutor you."

Rita Sue glanced at her with a hint of suspicion. She'd been prepared for some wheeling and dealing, but Marjory shrugged guilelessly; no, there was nothing she wanted in return. Somebody needed to pitch in and help the long-suffering girl, otherwise Rita Sue was not going to make it out of high school with anything better than an equivalency diploma. Which would spell the end of her ambition to pledge Tri-Delt at the University of Tennessee.

"Well—I do appreciate it, Marjory."

Bursting with good feeling, Marjory took a deep breath, let it out, straightened her face, and said, "How about if I hold your hand when you go pottie, too?"

Rita Sue paused, kneeling in the dust along the partly obliterated third-base line and retied a sneaker with such vehemence she popped the lace. She was smiling her wide, dazzling, vacant smile.

"Honestly," she said, "there are days when I'd just like to feed you to the polecats."