Palmetto Moon (9 page)

A door opens and Mr. Stanley looks out into the hallway. His eyes roam over Claire. Vada gives him a dirty look and steps in front of her. He shrugs and heads toward the washroom, farting all the way.

She looks in on the boys one last time and follows Vada to her room. They plop down on the bed like a couple of teenagers, giggling, shushing each other.

“So was it dreamy?” Claire asks.

“Oh, Claire, he is wonderful. Kind and handsome. And romantic, very romantic.”

“I’m so happy for you, Vada.”

While Claire is genuinely happy listening to the details of her date, the contrast with her own life makes her pull her robe around her a little tighter. Is Mr. Stanley her only option for getting the boys out of the boardinghouse? He doesn’t even act like he likes her children, and the way he leers at her most all of the time is unsettling at best. Could she really endure that—or, God forbid, worse—on a daily basis?

The sound of the toilet flushing stops Vada in mid-sentence. Mr. Stanley clears his throat several times, like he often does when he gets up during the night, like it’s some sort of mating call he expects Claire to answer. She can see Vada’s heart breaking for her. Her own heart doesn’t have that luxury. She has to make a better life for her boys. They deserve that and so much more, and if it means marrying Mr. Stanley, so be it.

“Claire, what you said earlier about—are you really considering him?”

“The boys are getting big, Vada, and I barely make enough to pay the rent for our room. I don’t see any other options.”

“Once I start working, I can help you.”

“You’re a dear, and your offer means more than you will ever know, but I need to think about a permanent solution.”

“How about finding a better job?”

“There are no jobs here.”

“I picked up a newspaper.” Vada unsnaps her pocketbook, pulls the paper out. “There must be something.” She leafs through the pages like she’s looking for something, until she gets to the classified ads in the back.

“That’s sweet of you, really it is, but even if there was a job there, I don’t have enough money to move to Charleston or Walterboro, and I certainly couldn’t commute.”

“That’s not fair. Most all of these jobs are for men.” Vada’s long, slender finger trails down the page. “
Ooh
, here’s one, and it’s here, in Round O. Housekeeper wanted for country estate. Funny, I haven’t seen any estate around here.”

“Must be the Sheridan plantation. It sits back about a half mile from the highway, down a private road; it’s been closed for years.” Claire grabs the newspaper and reads the ad for herself. “Apply in person at Barkley, Barkley, and Jameson, Attorneys at Law, Pinckney Street, Charleston. Oh, Vada, this sounds perfect, but I have no way to get there.”

“I bet if I asked, Frank would let you borrow his car. And I could watch the boys for you.”

“Thank you, that would be wonderful. Speaking of the boys, I’d better get back to my room,” Claire says, hugging Vada. “Do you mind terribly, asking Frank about the car?”

“I’ll do it for you tomorrow, and I’ll make sure he says yes.”

I change into my nightgown, and the memory of Frank’s kisses makes me blush and clutch my pillow to my chest. I can’t help but think about how Frank and I started off this evening, headed in the wrong direction. How things had changed the minute I said what I wanted. Granted, I’ve had a very limited experience with men, but I have serious doubts all men are like Frank. Justin certainly wasn’t. Even after having him thrown at me my whole life, I was never conscious of my own desires. I close my eyes and see Frank’s jade eyes full of wanting. In my cotton peignoir, my face burns in the dark at the memory of the electricity that passed between us just shaking hands, our first kiss, and the thought of him seeing me now. What would it be like to undo the tiny pearl buttons, to slide the paper-thin fabric off my shoulders and give myself to him?

These feelings are exciting, but scary, too. They’ve awakened every sense in my body, so that good sense seems to go right out the window. Our first kiss left me so breathless, it almost made me forget about what I need from him, almost made me forget about going to Memphis. This thing with Frank is going too fast, streaking toward a place I’ve never been before, with little thought to the consequence of loving and being loved. Darby knows all too well about that, and Claire does, too.

I whip back the starched sheet, get down on my knees beside the bed, and bow my head.

Dear God. You’ve given me so much to be thankful for, a new home, a new friend, a wonderful date with Frank Darling. Forgive me where I have failed you. Please help me find Darby so that I can help her; it sounds like she’s in a terrible fix, and I’m sure she’d be much better off here with me.

Please help Claire get the job here, and do send a good man her way, an honest man. He doesn’t have to have money, but, as you know, it would really help with three boys. If at all possible, please make him handsome, and young, or at least closer to her age than Methuselah, and good. Very, very good.

I hear the horrible guttural sound of Mr. Stanley clearing his throat. He does it more than once, like he’s trying to get Claire’s attention.

And please, God, don’t let her be desperate enough to open her door to Mr. Stanley. Don’t let her sell herself so very short. Amen.

“You idiot.” Saying the words doesn’t make him feel any better.

Frank strips out of his work clothes and sits on the bed in his Skivvies. He can’t believe he forgot to rinse the sweat out of the white dress shirt he wore on his date Monday night. And he is an even bigger fool for agreeing to go to Wednesday prayer meeting with Vada. He would have done anything she asked him to, but he’d rather swim out into the black water and kiss that big gator than darken the doors of the Round O Baptist Church.

Why can’t Round O have more than one flavor of church? Maybe Methodist. At least they move their preachers around every three or four years. Reverend Gilbert Smudge has been thumping his Bible here since Frank was twelve, marking down sins in his own little book while assuring his flock God forgives and forgets. But not Smudge, not in twelve damned years.

Vada will probably have him prance right down to the front row, just so he can feel the spittle when Smudge screams at the top of his lungs that every living soul has been saved by the glory of God,
except
Franklin James Darling.

He could beg off, tell Vada he’s too tired after work, or sick, but there’s no good reason to put lipstick on the truth. Lying changes things, and not for the better. Shiftless people lie. Desperate people lie, and, knowing where Frank wants to end up with Vada, he’s determined not to start out that way. She deserves better, and he’ll be damned if he’ll not give it to her. He puts his stinking shirt on, buttons it up, and tucks it in. The thin black tie feels more like a noose, and his shoes haven’t changed overnight. But the last time he held Vada, he told her he’d change the world for her. Maybe it’s time for him to change a little, swallow his damn pride, and take the two-hour butt whipping that’s sure to come.

He walks across the crossroads to Miss Mamie’s house. The bachelors are sitting on the porch, dressed in their everyday clothes, with no intention of going to prayer meeting. The widow’s boys—Claire’s boys—run out of the house and explode, laughing as soon as the screen door closes behind them. Miss Mamie waddles to the door and pushes it open so they can get the full effect of her mean face and giant form, which is shrouded in gray—to match her heart, if she has one.

Claire and Vada walk out of the house together, and Vada stops talking as soon as she sees Frank. Claire blushes and nudges Vada forward, and she glides down the steps and motions for Claire to follow her. Reluctantly, she does. Surely Vada’s not thinking of dragging Claire to church with them. Maybe it would serve as a much-needed distraction, considering Claire quit going after her husband died.

“Ladies.”

“Hello, Frank.” As she pulls him aside, Vada looks like she wants to kiss him in the best possible way, but Claire follows. “We have a favor to ask.”

“Really, it’s me who needs the favor, Frank,” Claire says. “May I borrow your car to drive to Charleston? It’s for a job interview.”

Frank has never loaned his car to anybody, much less a woman who rarely drives, but Vada is looking at him like he hung the moon five minutes ago. “Sure. What’s in Charleston?”

“A job that’s here, but the interview is in Charleston. Would tomorrow morning be okay? I assure you that I am a very good driver.”

“It’s fine by me; I’ll be working.”

“Then it’s settled,” Vada says, and takes his hand, and they walk four doors down to the church.

Wiry old Mr. Legate hands Frank a bulletin before he looks up at him. He drops the whole stack like he’s just seen Judas Iscariot himself. Frank bends and picks them up for him, desperately trying to catch his eye, to plead for a little of that forgiveness the sign out front claims they hand out so freely. But Mr. Legate just snatches the bulletins out of his hands and shoves one toward the couple behind them.

“He must be surprised to see a visitor,” Vada says. “I’m so glad we could come.”

Early in his life, it was clear that Frank was headed straight to hell just from being born to a half-Catholic father. And then, from the mortal sin he committed, at least in the reverend’s book. It wasn’t like Frank expected for folks to extend the right hand of Christian fellowship to him, but he didn’t expect the looks he gets from regulars at the diner. He can’t help but be distracted by their stares, and by the time he looks for Vada, she’s marched herself down to the third pew from the front, in the dead center of the congregation.

After the pianist plays for a while, Vada looks over her shoulder at the people who can’t shut up about Frank being there. She leans into him. “They’re being very rude.” He moves a hymnal’s width apart from her, and the whispering subsides a little. She smiles at him and touches his skinny black necktie, setting their tongues wagging again.

The reverend makes his entrance from the back, shaking hands down the aisle and blessing people as he goes. Until he gets to Frank. Smudge stops and stares at him with his beady little Baptist eyes, and Frank stares right back. He will not apologize to God or anybody for following this woman into hell. Vada shakes his hand and he lingers, looking at Frank, not her.

“How nice to have a visitor in our midst.” She gives a curt thank-you and pulls away, not fully understanding the meanness that is emanating from him. “I hope you find today’s sermon . . . illuminating, my dear.” The bulletin clearly says the sermon title is “The Servitude of Mary and Martha.” But the minute that man tells folks to turn their Bibles to Second Samuel and the story of the
seduction
, Frank knows he is in for it.

Vada nods and opens her Bible, listening intently, letting the innuendo go straight over her pretty head. According to the reverend, Bathsheba was damned because she could have resisted the temptations of David but
he
didn’t. Several times during the sermon, the reverend got his personal pronouns mixed up. By the time he was done screaming and hyperventilating, it was clear, by his own theology, Bathsheba and especially David were
both
going to burn in hell
forever,
for what they did. And for the first time in twelve years, questions about the rumors were put to rest, and every soul in church knew Mrs. Smudge really had seduced Frank at fifteen. Everyone except Vada.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the closing hymn was “Oh Ye Abomination,” and Smudge had the congregation sing all six verses. Twice. Frank got some apologetic looks from people who’d openly snubbed him earlier. But everybody there was afraid to shake his hand in front of God and the reverend, so he headed toward the side door of the church and was grateful Vada slipped out behind him.

“That was an interesting take on the scriptures.” Vada walked beside him, brushing up against his hand but not reaching for it.

“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t know. I’m not much on church. But I did make you dinner before I picked you up,”
and then showered, so I wouldn’t smell like fried chicken
. “I’d hoped we could picnic down by the creek, but it’s still hot. I don’t know how you feel about being alone in the diner with me—”

“You sound like I should be afraid of you, Frank Darling.” She laughs and reaches for his hand.

“No, Vada.”

“After our last kiss, you won’t hold my hand, Frank?”

“If you can’t feel those churchgoers burning a hole in your back, look over your shoulder and see for yourself. I’ll hold your hand all right, but not now.”

“Don’t be silly.” She wants Frank to look at her, because she knows he can’t deny those blue eyes anything.

“You’re a schoolteacher, and we just went to church. People will talk.”

“I don’t see how this is any different than being alone with you on a date; besides, I smell chicken, and it smells marvelous.” She opens the screen door of the diner, and Frank stops short. He can still feel people standing in the church parking lot a hundred yards away, watching them. He can’t let her do this.

“I need to tell you something.” She follows him over to the huge mimosa tree with three crates turned on end. Cigar and hand-rolled cigarette butts litter the ground from where the bachelors from Miss Mamie’s congregate to solve the world’s problems. He motions for Vada to sit, and she does, without a thought for her pretty pink dress splayed out on the ground. “It’s about church today.”

She looks up at him so that he is lost again in those blue eyes. He wants to remember her pretty smile that he will never see again. “The truth is, Vada, I haven’t been to church in years.”

“Oh, Frank, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. To be completely honest, until today, I’d never wished for the boring liturgical Episcopal service I grew up with.”

Frank sits across from her, because standing over her seems wrong; he should be down on his knees, so he won’t miss a beat between his confession and begging for forgiveness.

“That sermon today was for me.” She looks puzzled and starts to say something, but he cuts her off. “The reverend had good reason to preach it. When I was fifteen I . . . his wife . . . we—”

“Oh, Frank.” She laughs until she sees he’s serious. She reaches out and runs her fingers down the side of his face. He leans his head against her hand, sandwiching it against his shoulder for a few seconds.

“You mean—” She stops when he nods his head. “Oh, Frank, you can’t be serious. You were just a boy.”

He can’t look at her. “It lasted about a year. She left after he caught us.” But the good reverend didn’t leave. He’ll probably stay here until he dies, to remind Frank of what he did.

“And you think people think differently of you because of that?”

“I know they do. There were people there today who believe
they’ll
burn in hell if they darken my door. They drive all the way to Walterboro for groceries and only come into the store if it’s a dire emergency.” He looks at her so she’ll know he’s sincere, that he’s trying to own up to what he did. “I don’t regret asking you out Monday night, but maybe I shouldn’t have. I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”

“Did you love her?” Vada’s face is serious.

“I thought I did. Lila was pretty, but she was always so sad.” Except when she was with Frank and she seemed happy, in a desperate sort of way. “You’re right, I was just a boy. A stupid boy.”

She stands and brushes off the front of her dress. Her long, slender fingers pluck one of the mimosa blossoms that matches her dress. She twirls it around the tip of her nose, looking at Frank, deciding his fate.

“I wanted you to know—thought it was only fair that you know what you’re getting into by being with me.”

His breath leaves him as she turns and walks away. He can’t move a muscle; besides, he has no right to go after her, to start something with her that might soil her good name. All he can do is watch her as she goes. She looks back over her shoulder and starts up the steps of the diner, a silent invitation. He starts breathing again, believing again.