Garden of Angels (12 page)

I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

“Then believe this—you’re worth two of girls like Donna.”

But Donna was with him and I wasn’t.

He raised my hand to his lips and, like a cavalier from an old storybook, kissed it. “Thank you for the dance,” he said, and walked away.

Tears stung my eyes, but I didn’t look back to see him leave with Donna. For that was more pain than I could bear. I made it home before I broke down, and there alone on my bed in the moonlight, I told myself that I was being foolish and stupid to spill my tears over a love I should not feel for a boy I could not have.

Eighteen

March

In the last week of February, I noticed that the daffodils were poking their heads through the soil. Just seeing their bright yellow faces gave me a thrill. Everywhere I looked in our backyard, spring was announcing its arrival. Lacy yellow fringe lined the branches of the forsythia bushes, and the azalea bushes were bursting into vibrant shades of orange, fuchsia, purple and lilac. I saw tiny tight buds on the dogwood trees and a mantle of purple phlox beginning to edge over the stone walls by the pond. Soon the iris beds would be in bloom. It made me happy, knowing that Mama would come home to find her gardens ablaze with color and new growth. I made a note on the calendar to pull up the pansies and remulch the beds. Once the irises were spent, I would plant begonias, geraniums and verbena in the sunny beds, impatiens and petunias in the shady ones.

Friday, March 1, was a teachers’ work day and we had no school. By noon, the air was warm enough to go without a sweater. Eager to hurry spring along, I headed off to the nursery, pulling the wagon Mama sometimes used to transport flowerpots and flats of annuals around the yard. The walk there was a long one, but I felt like making the trip on foot just so I could smell the air and feel the sunshine on my bare arms.

I decided to cut across near the junkyard on the edge of town, run-down and overgrown with weeds and deserted except for a few crumbling buildings. I rounded the corner of one shuttered building and stopped stock-still. Less than twenty yards away, Jason was riding in lazy circles on his motorcycle. When he saw me, he gunned the engine, stood the machine upright on its back wheel and, once it bounced back to the ground, drove toward me. He slid to a stop, kicking up gravel. “Hello, Darcy. What are you doing out here?”

“Walking,” I said. He looked good enough to make my insides turn into buttercream. We hadn’t had any contact since the dance.

“Pretty lonely place to be walking by yourself.”

“Are you thinking about my safety? This is Conners, not Chicago.”

“You look like a little kid pulling your little wagon.”

I was in no mood to be teased. “I’m buying flowers up at the nursery. Some of us have things to do.”

He grinned. “Hey, I’m busy. I’m practicing tricks on my cycle. Not much else to do around this excuse for a town.”

“Sorry you’re so bored.” I jerked the wagon to the left of him. He caught my arm as I passed.

“Why are you mad at me?” he asked.

There was no way I could tell him that my anger was rooted in frustration. That it was easier to dislike him than it was to long for him so much that it made me ache. “I’m not mad at you. I just have things to do.” I began walking, the wagon clattering behind me on the rough ground.

He dismounted and walked alongside me. “I rode past your house last weekend. I was going to say hello, but you weren’t home.”

“We visit Mama every Saturday at the hospital.”

“How’s she doing?”

I didn’t get to answer because just then we heard the roar of an engine and turned to see J.T.’s truck bearing down on us. Jason grabbed my arm and pulled me aside just as the truck skidded to a halt. J.T. and his friend Frankie were out of the cab in a split second and standing like a wall in front of us.

“Well, what have we here?” J.T. said, glaring at us. “If it isn’t Darcy Quinlin and her good buddy Motorcycle Creep.”

Fear welled up inside me. Not for myself, because I didn’t believe J.T. would harm me, but fear for Jason. “You go on, J.T.,” I said. “No one’s bothering you.”

“You hear that, Frankie? She wants us to go away.” The sneer on J.T.’s face was frightening. “You stay and watch, Darcy. I want you to see what we do to him.”

“I don’t want any trouble,” Jason said.

“Well, you’ve got it,” J.T. said, balling his fists and taking a step closer. “I don’t like someone taking what belongs to me. And I
really
don’t like you.”

Of course he was referring to Donna—as if she was a piece of property instead of a person. I thought about screaming for help, but my tongue felt like a swollen blob in my mouth. And out here, we were alone. There was no one to hear me no matter how loudly I screamed.

Jason pulled me behind him as Frankie closed in on our left.

What happened next was so quick that it blurred. One second Jason was shielding me, the next he was crouched with an open switchblade in his hand. He lunged sideways, caught the fabric of Frankie’s shirt with the tip of the blade and drew it clear across his stomach, slicing open the shirt. Frankie yelped and staggered. He stumbled and fell. My stomach heaved, for I was certain that Jason had stabbed him and he was dead. J.T. stopped advancing. The blade of the knife flashed in the sun.

“Don’t make me cut you,” Jason said quietly. He flicked his wrist, made small threatening circles with the blade, then jabbed at the air between him and J.T.

“Hold on, man,” J.T. said. He stepped back, tripped over Frankie and landed in a heap on top of him. Both of them lay still, staring up at the shining knife.

Jason stood over them, tossing the knife expertly from one hand to the other. “You stay clear of me, Rucker.” Jason’s voice was stony cold. “Because if I have to cut you, I’ll make certain you never play football again. And as for Donna, you can have her back. I’m through with her.”

Nothing moved, not even the air. I stared down at Frankie’s slashed shirt. A drop of blood wet the fabric, and I realized that although the shirt had been slit across the entire front of Frankie’s body, Jason had left only one small nick in the skin. He could make good on his threat to J.T., and we all knew it.

Jason caught my hand. “Come on, Darcy. I’ll give you a ride. You can get the wagon later.”

We backed toward the cycle and got on. This time, I wasn’t wearing a dress to encumber me. I straddled the seat behind him, locked my arms around his waist and clung to him. He kick-started the engine and roared out of the field, leaving a cloud of dust and a terrified J. T. Rucker behind us.

We rode south out of town for miles. I felt icy cold with the wind whipping around me, my mind reeling over what I’d seen. When Jason finally slowed and stopped, we were on a two-lane road far out in the country. Cows, grazing in a field beside us, gave us curious stares. Jason asked, “You all right?”

“I—I think so.” But I wasn’t. I felt shell-shocked, the way Kyle had described it in his journal.
Numb, with a buzzing in my ears, my skin
prickling all over.

“You look cold.” Jason removed his leather jacket and slipped it around my shoulders. He caught the collar on either side in his hands and pulled me toward him so that I was standing on tiptoe and only inches from his face. “It’s okay, Darcy. J.T. and I have been on a collision course for a long time. I’m sorry you had to be there for the crash.”

I looked into the depths of his eyes, searching for remorse, or perhaps regret. “Would you have hurt him?”

His expression was resolute. “Yes. I would have hurt him. Because if I didn’t, one day he’d hurt me. It’s the law of the streets.”

“Even in Conners?”

He nodded ruefully. “Even in Conners.”

“And are you really throwing Donna back to him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m through with her,” he said simply. “I never really wanted her.”

“Why did you take her from J.T. if you didn’t want her?”

Jason shrugged. “Because I could,” he said, as if it was the most logical explanation in the world.

His answer left me colder than had the ride through the March air. “Will you take me home?”

He slowly let go of the jacket’s collar and stepped aside, putting distance between us that felt as wide as a canyon to me. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s go.”

I got on the cycle and we returned to Conners and my driveway, where I dismounted, handed him his jacket and hurried into my house without so much as telling him thank you, or even goodbye.

Papa had arranged with the hospital for our family to take a phone call from Adel all the way from Germany on the first Saturday in March. Mama, Papa and I were in a small conference room staring at a speakerphone, which was nothing more than a little box sitting beside a telephone on the table. When the phone rang, we all jumped. Papa picked up the receiver, then pushed the button on the speaker box so that we all could hear Adel.

“Mama, I miss you so much” were her first words.

“I miss you too, honey,” Mama said.

“How about me, Adel? Do you miss me?” I asked.

“Yes, Darcy. I miss you and Papa both. You still doing good in school?”

“All A’s,” I said, which was the truth.

“I—I would have never believed I would be so lonesome.” Adel sounded weepy.

“It will pass as you adjust. Promise,” Mama told her.

“What’s it like in Germany?” Papa asked, changing the subject.

“Not like living in Georgia,” Adel said. “Barry took me to see the Berlin Wall and it was scary. The East German border patrol walks along the top with machine guns and they pick off anybody who tries to escape from their side of Berlin. Someone got shot last night trying to cross the border.”

“That’s awful,” Mama said. I saw her take Papa’s hand. “Adel, why are you crying?”

“B-because I’m so lonely. I—I want to come home.”

I thought,
Adel wants to come back to Conners?
Adel, who couldn’t wait to shake the dust of our small
Southern town off her dainty little feet?
“But why?” I asked. “You’ve always wanted to travel.”

Papa gave me a glance that warned I shouldn’t digress. “How’s Barry doing?” Papa asked. “Does he know how you feel?”

“Barry’s wonderful. It’s just that he’s gone a lot. We hardly ever see each other. We live in horrible housing. It’s always cold and the kitchen’s about the size of my closet back home.”

“Aren’t there other army wives in the same boat?” Papa asked.

“I really don’t like them all that much. They’re different from me. Army life is—is . . .” She searched for words and finally settled on “I just don’t like it here. I want to come home.”

“But, honey, you’re married,” Mama said. “Your place is with your husband.”

I couldn’t believe that Adel was saying the things she was saying.

“Mama, I have something else to tell all of you.” Adel’s sniffly voice crackled through the speaker box.

“Tell us, honey.”

“Mama, I’m going to have a baby. I just found out yesterday.”

The three of us sitting at the table looked at each other. Papa’s eyebrows shot up, Mama shrugged and I groaned, remembering J.T.’s hateful take on Adel’s sudden marriage plans. After a few seconds Mama said, “Why, Adel, honey, that’s wonderful news. When?”

“Early November,” she said. “The army doctor says I’m just barely six weeks along.”

I did a quick calculation and breathed a quiet a sigh of relief. November was eight months away. Adel hadn’t been pregnant when she married at Christmastime. “That’s so cool!” I blurted out. “I’m going to be an aunt!”

Adel burst into tears. “I’m sick to my stomach every day.”

“It’s morning sickness. Trust me, it’ll pass,” Mama said.

“And you’re sick, Mama. I can’t stand the idea of you so sick with cancer and me so far away.”

I was suddenly sympathetic to my sister, which I had not been up to that point. Being worried about Mama’s health was something we certainly had in common.

“I’m almost finished with this round of chemo,” Mama said. “Then I’ll be going back home. So don’t worry about me. You just take care of yourself and our grandchild.”

We could hear Adel sniffing.

I saw bright tears in Mama’s eyes. I felt moisture in my own.

“You take it easy, little girl,” Papa said into the speaker. “I don’t know how many crying women I can handle at one time.”

We all laughed self-consciously, which broke the tension.

“I—I have to go,” Adel said. “The communications sergeant who’s letting me make this call is saying my time’s up.”

“I’m glad we talked,” Mama said. “And I’m excited and pleased about your news. Give Barry a hug from us.”

“I want you to see my baby, Mama,” Adel said fiercely. “I want you to hold it in your arms.”

“And so do I,” Mama said. “You write us, you hear?”

“I’ll write every day.”

We said our goodbyes, then sat quietly in the room. It had never occurred to me that Mama wouldn’t hold the baby when Adel and Barry returned to the States. Yet Adel’s pleas had sent a chill through me that made me shiver. I gave my parents a sidelong glance, studying their entwined fingers. Well, of course Mama would see the baby. Her doctors were sending her home, and they wouldn’t do that unless she was better. Would they?