Pearl (2 page)

With one last glance at the only home she had ever known, she said goodbye to her youth. Roy jumped in next to her, giving her a squeeze on the hand that told her he promised to take care of her. This was where life began.
 

She prayed she was ready.
 

They drove five hours straight without stopping. The farther they drove, the more she began to relax. Roy kept his hand solid on his thigh, every once in a while leaning over to give her leg a squeeze to see if she was still awake.
 

“Don’t fall asleep on me, baby,” he would say. “Gotta keep me awake, keep me on the road.”

She couldn’t fall asleep if she tried. Her stomach rumbled, and her bladder ached. And yet she was too afraid to pull over, as if stopping the truck would break the trance. They had to keep driving. There had to be enough distance between them and Arizona that she couldn’t ask Roy to turn around.
 

“Baby, light us another smoke,” Roy said, while giving her leg a good shake.
 

She put the cigarette to her lips and fired up the end. He winked when she passed it over.

There was no denying that Roy Blackwood was handsome. Pearl had no idea how she managed to steal his heart when he constantly told her of the women who turned heads at him. His broad shoulders hung loosely from holding the wheel for so long. He wore a faded denim shirt with rolled cuffed sleeves, leaving the top two buttons undone to expose a hint of his muscular chest. His strong, sturdy legs stretched out under the tight faded Levi’s he always wore. His skin was dry but golden from working construction in the sun. His eyes were cool and black, matching the hair that fell over his ears. When he smiled, the coal in his eyes turned to a milky chocolate, and that was what she lived for. He was five years older, with a lifetime of experience ahead of her. She craved to suck up his knowledge of life and be as well-traveled as he was.

She relaxed into a smile, lounging back while watching the cars drive by, fascinated by the different license plates. She imagined their own journeys, heading to new destinations. Maybe even some would be heading to Oregon as well.
 

“Look, Roy!” Pearl exclaimed, sitting tall in her seat. “They’re from New York! All the way from New York!”

“Hmm,” Roy said, giving a short glance in the direction she was pointing.
 

 
“I wonder where they’re going,” she said. “Who would want to leave a place like New York?”

“Pearl, don’t be ridiculous,” Roy grunted.
 

She sat quietly fantasizing about where she and Roy would end up. They were driving to the West Coast, to the state of Oregon, but she really didn’t know exactly where it was located on the map. Roy told her it was next to California. That was all she needed to hear. She had seen many movies about California, and if Oregon was anything like that, she would never want to leave. She told Roy she wanted to go to the beach, to Disneyland, Hollywood, and see palm trees. Roy would only laugh.

Another hour passed, and Pearl’s legs tingled with numbness. She fidgeted on the worn leather seat, trying to get comfortable, shifting her body to rest her head on the window. The sun was coming up, making its way through the clouds. Her father would be awake, possibly reading the morning paper with a hot bowl of oatmeal. How long until he noticed she was gone? Had he already checked on her? Would it be noon before he realized she had not come down for breakfast? He’d fume in a mad rage that she had stayed out all night, breaking her ten o’clock curfew—which would no longer exist when she turned eighteen. Inevitably he would assume she was with Roy. He’d never liked Roy, which Pearl didn’t understand. Her father didn’t even know Roy well, so how could he despise him? But Jack Waters prided himself on being a good judge of character. And he stated that if a man can’t even walk you to your door at night, or have dinner with your family, maybe he ain’t worth knowing.
 

 
If he could only see them now, see the smile on Roy’s face when he looked at her, the softness of his hand as he played with her hair.

“We are in for a real adventure, baby. You’ll see. Now we can do things our way.” His fingers trailed down her exposed arm, tugging at the strap of her sundress.

 
“No more curfews or people telling us when we can and can’t see each other.” She smiled, enjoying the tender touch of his fingers. “Now we don’t have to pretend to go out for ice cream when we really just parked and fooled around.”

Roy laughed. “I still took you to ice cream.”

“I want real dates,” Pearl continued. “I want nights that you don’t have to leave me at ten to go hang out with friends. I want to know the people in your life, and…”

“Okay,” Roy said, dropping his hand from her arm. “Let’s not get too carried away. We’ll be living together. I think that’s a start.”

Pearl grinned. Her father had Roy all wrong. And if he could have only taken the time to see that, he would be happy for her. Maybe then she could have told him her plans, rather than just leaving behind a letter.
 

 
Roy lit another smoke from the butt of his still-burning cigarette while singing along to Bob Dylan. She sang the words in her head, knowing for the first time that she too was a rolling stone.
 

“Hey, baby,” he finally said, “how ’bout we stop and get some pancakes?”
 

She shrugged. She had told him how she couldn’t eat pancakes. It was the only meal her mother knew how to make just right. Pearl had not touched pancakes in years.
 

“Oh, come on, they gotta have something there that you can eat.” He gave her a pout. “I’d wait ’til lunch, but my belly won’t stop aching.”

She urged a smile. “Food sounds good.”

At the first Denny’s they could find, Pearl watched as Roy moaned over a large stack of hot cakes. She fumbled a fork through a small portion of eggs and dry toast. Roy didn’t even notice her lack of appetite, and she was fine with that. The last thing she needed was questions. All she wanted was to reach her destination and to stop counting the miles between herself and Arizona. She focused her mind on the journey ahead so as not to dwell on what she had left behind. Even if she asked to turn the car around, she doubted Roy would. She only wished that her stomach would agree this was where she was supposed to be.
 

“Roy, tell me again about the farm,” she asked, hoping it would boost her strength for the rest of the trip.

Roy took a big gulp of orange juice, pounding the empty glass on the table.
 

“It’s my granny’s farm. We call it Jumping Creek ’cause when my granddaddy was young, he and his brothers used to go down to this creek where there were heaps of dirt made into small hills and jump into the water.”

He took another bite, syrup dripping out of this mouth, moaning again with the taste. “These are so great, baby. You gotta try a bite!”
 

She turned from him, hiding her disgust, resting her head on the back of the cracked leather cushion, watching the cars peacefully drive by. “So your grandmother and cousins live there?”
 

“And my Aunt Vernie. Lotta land. Been in the Blackwood family for over seventy years. Everyone’s got their own house. My cousin Darren and his family, Aunt Vernie, and Granny. If you ain’t gonna eat those eggs, pass ’em over, will ya?”

She pushed the plate his way without taking her eyes off the window. She watched strangers greet each other on these inadequate streets, paying no mind, as though it was any repetitive day. She had nothing to compare this town to besides her own. She had never traveled outside Arizona, had only felt desert air and gazed at high canyons. To be in this unfamiliar territory didn’t feel welcoming—it felt suffocating.
 

She took a deep breath. “So where are we going to live?”

He piled the eggs onto his syrup-soaked plate. “Oh, I assume in one of Granny’s spare bedrooms. She has plenty to go around. I told her you like cooking, so I figured you could help her out.”

Pearl grimaced. Of course she wasn’t expecting free room and board. She just hoped her idea of helping out and Roy’s were the same.
 

 
“Darren runs the farm, and I’ll be working for him. His father, my Uncle John, used to run it until my grandpa kicked him off, back when we were kids.” Roy licked the syrup off his lips. “You know, you can make good money farming. Before you know it, we can afford a place of our own.”
 

She returned his exhilarated smile. “And what’s Oregon like?”

He shrugged. “Green, wet. Nothing like Arizona. Jumping Creek is in the middle of nowhere. Closest town is Mullington, which is several miles away. Otherwise, you gotta drive south on the freeway a good half hour to get to anything decent.”

Her full lips fell into a frown. “You don’t sound like you like it much.”

He wiped the bacon grease off his cheek. “I like it all right. It’s home.” He cracked a smile. “Gotta go where the work is, baby.”

Waiting patiently for Roy to finish his breakfast, she wondered if her belly would ache before they stopped for lunch. She regretted giving Roy all her eggs. Roy paid the check. She lit them up a smoke, and they set back on the road, heading for their new home.
 

That night she lay awake, listening to Roy’s thunderous snores as he lay next to her on the dirty sheets on a bed in a rundown motel room off the freeway. It was all so overwhelming, this new privilege of freedom. She had never slept in a bed that was not her own. She had never slept beside a man before. She wanted these experiences to be thrilling, but instead she silently wept. The distance from home was excruciating as she thought of her father and Billy, and the pain she’d caused them that day—a day that she had hoped to celebrate with more than the candle Roy had her blow out on a maple bar donut. She felt alone, lying next to this man she loved. She had walked away from the only home she’d ever known and a way of life that she’d grown to resent, to follow him into a world of unknown. She needed comfort, and assurance. She reached for Roy in the dark, resting her damp cheek against his strong arm and wanting so badly for him to wrap himself around her and tell her she was making the right choice.
 

CHAPTER 2

Roy pulled into Jumping Creek just as the sun was settling above the striking green trees. Pearl looked at the road behind her and realized it wasn’t just miles she had traveled. Her father once told her that the more miles you cross, the more baggage you seem to carry. She looked at her solitary suitcase and wondered if that was all she had to offer. It took about ten minutes to drive up the long driveway of Jumping Creek. Pearl held her breath, counting the seconds between each tree they passed along the way.
 

Roy nudged her in the belly, making her lose track of how many seconds it had been.

“Baby, you gotta quit doin’ that. What if you stop breathin’ on me?”

She took in the scene before her. Oregon was not what she was expecting; it was more beautiful and enchanting than she could have imagined. She had only known dry earth, red-rock canyons, and muted green cactus, but here the thriving palette seemed to come alive. The multi tones of lustrous green against rich brown stood out next to the aged and faded red barn and silver-gray gravel. The road was lined with stout oak trees and opened up to a beautiful orchard filled with ripe red and yellow apples and blossoming cherry trees. Dew-covered hay fields, wet from recent rain, stretched in fields before them. Spotted brown cows frolicked and lazed on the grass in the fenced-in fields.
 

They turned a slight bend, and a large white house came into view. It was slim but tall, with large gray shuttered windows. The roof vaulted toward a sharp peak at the top, with a small round window overlooking the landscape. Muted red brick lined the bottom half of the home, with a deep-set porch around the entrance. The surrounding lawn was sparse: no flowers or welcoming colors to set off the coldness portrayed by the house.
 

A woman sat on the steps of the porch, smoking a cigarette with one hand and holding a glass of clear liquid, too thick to be water, in the other. She stubbed out the cigarette and stood when they parked, her heavy-set body jiggling with each step down the short staircase. Her short, black bobbed hair shimmered with specks of blue and uncovered gray, making it look like a bad do-it-yourself dye job. Still, it seemed to flatter her dark eyes and creamy olive skin. Roy ran to her open arms, looking like a lost child who had found his mother.
 

Roy lost his parents when he was young. It was a subject he never spoke about, so Pearl never pushed it. She understood the emptiness he felt by not having his parents around. It was one of the things that drew her to him.

Roy held tight to the woman until she teasingly pushed him away, saying he was going to make her spill her drink.

She introduced herself as Vernie.

 
“And you must be Pearl,” she said. “My, look at those glorious pink lips! Why, I bet you have women going crazy with envy over that pout of yours.”

Pearl cringed.

Vernie stood before her, wrapping a jiggling Jell-o arm around her shoulder. “Ah, don’t be shy around here. We don’t bite.” She smiled broadly. “Welcome to Jumping Creek, our own little heaven on earth.”

Pearl hoped it was true.
 

They stepped into an open foyer leading to a barren living room with only a few options for seating. Even the hardwood floor cast a cold chill. “Cozy” was not a word to describe the farmhouse. It exuded a bleak ambience in a way that felt unloved and unappreciated. She had a hard time imagining family gatherings by the vacant fireplace on cold winter nights, huddled together with blankets and telling stories on a comfy couch. The only sign of life in the home was the framed photographs that hung on the wall and decorated the mantel. There were so many old framed photos cluttering the room Pearl’s eye could not even register a single shot. She found it creepy having so many eyes stare at her from the wall. She turned away, looking to Roy, who stood proudly with a smile of complete contentment.