Sweet Water (16 page)

“Honest to God, Cassie, I didn’t know who he was. You know I started working here just before you did. I’d never seen him before in my life.”

“I’ve been watching you,” he had said, and later, “I believe we’ve got a lot more in common than you think.”

“Like what?” We were lying in bed in the darkened motel room just before dawn.

“We both like tequila. We both like to dance. And you like taking chances as much as I do.” He reached for me again. “Don’t go,” he said. “I think you’re a part of me I’m missing.”

Now, in the bar, I couldn’t believe I’d overlooked all the signs and signals, every last one of them. I was filled with a vague dread and a spreading shame. It was worse, too, that I’d had to hear it from Liz. Other people must know. It was a small town. I looked down and felt exposed by my eager red shirt, my perfume. Suddenly all I wanted to do was leave Sweetwater for good and get back to the city, where the rules of conduct were steadfast, where you screened dates like prospective employees, where a situation like this was inconceivable, absurd. In New York I’d never have let it happen.

    The moon was faintly visible in a violet sky, and the sun hung low over the hills. Driving west toward home, I watched it drop to the horizon like an egg yolk sliding down a bowl. I began thinking about what I’d need to do to leave, how crazy it would be to stay. I remembered what my dad had said about grist for the mill. My relatives didn’t want me here; they thought I was a burden. I’d never fit in; I didn’t
want
to fit in. And now the only person I’d really opened up to, the only one I’d trusted, had made a game out of humiliating me.

By the time I reached the long drive leading to the house, mortification had hardened into anger. I was outraged at his seduction of me, at the self-conscious deception. I imagined him plotting it out,
long before he even saw me, planning to stick it to his cousin from up north who was lucky enough to inherit land she had no right to and stupid enough to claim it. I wondered if Alice knew all along, if they had planned it together. She did have an odd sense of humor. She could push things too far. She must have told him that I worked at the Blue Moon—otherwise how would he have known?

As I coasted over the slope, my stomach flipped over. Parked in front of the porch was the black jeep, the one I had ridden in the night before with my feet up on the dash.

He was sitting on the bottom step playing a guitar, wearing a cowboy hat and black jeans.

I got out of my car and slammed the door. “Get off my property.”

He laughed uneasily and looked down, his fingers still softly plucking the strings, and then he looked up into my face. “I wrote a song for you, Cassandra,” he said.

    Later, after he’d left, I tried to remember why it was I didn’t stop him from explaining, why, even in my anger, I wanted to know. I was sure he wouldn’t have any answers that made it all make sense; there was nothing he could say to justify himself, and even if there was, it didn’t matter. Plain and simple. But nothing’s plain and simple. So I walked up to the porch, trembling, furious, and he put down the guitar and squinted at me, holding up his hand to shade the last rays of sun.

“Cassandra—”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came by to see you.”

“You
bastard.”

“I meant to tell you—I meant to tell you as soon as I knew for sure. When I came up to you at the bar, when we started dancing, I just … One thing led to another, and then—”

“What the hell were you
thinking?
That it was some kind of
game
?” I spit out the words. “Some kind of joke?”

“No, Cassie—” He reached toward me.

“Don’t touch me,” I said, recoiling.

“Let me explain. Please.” He waited a moment, watching my face. “It wasn’t like I planned it or anything. At first I just wanted to see you, I wasn’t even going to introduce myself. I didn’t tell anybody I was coming home except Liz. I talked to her a few days ago and she told me she hired you, so I thought … well, maybe I’d see what you were like.”

“So Liz is in on this.”

“No, not at all.”

“Oh, she isn’t? Then why didn’t she at least tell me you were coming?”

He shifted his feet. “I asked her not to. I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet you. I wanted it to be my decision. I didn’t want it to be … forced.”

“Oh, you didn’t want it to be
forced,”
I said fiercely.

“Right. And then when I saw you, it seemed like you might be who I thought you were, but I wasn’t positive—does that make sense?”

“No.”

“So I didn’t want to make a fool of myself—and I figured that if I asked you to dance I’d find out for sure.”

“I thought you heard Cal say my name.”

“You mean the bartender? No, he never said it, not that I heard. I was just making a wild guess.”

“You lied to me.”

“I wasn’t lying.”

“You deliberately misled me.”

He let out a long breath, as if he’d been holding it in for some time. “Look. I knew that if you knew who I was, none of that would’ve happened.”

“You’re damn right,” I said. I started past him up the steps.

He put a hand on my arm. “You’re not giving me an inch, are you?”

“Why the hell should I?”

“Cassie, please. I know what you’re thinking, but—I wasn’t playing games.”

“What would you call it, then?”

For a moment he was silent. Then he looked up at me and said, “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

I shook my head slowly. “You are unbelievable.” I turned to leave.

“Wait.” He rose and softly touched my chin. I didn’t move. He touched it again, his fingers tentative, guiding my face toward his own. “I’m sorry.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“It’s all I can say. I am really sorry.”

“You had no right.”

“I know.”

“You’re my cousin.”

“Technically.”

“Technically or not, now it’s weird and awkward and we have this between us. Now things can never be normal.”

“I don’t want things to be normal.”

“Well, I do.”

“No, you don’t, Cassie.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“I know this. I know you felt the same way I did this morning.”

I stood there, mute, barricading myself against the tenderness in his voice.

He looked into my eyes, working against my resistance. “It’s like—it’s like we’re the same person. Last night I’d look at you and know things about myself—”

I pulled away. “You sound like a bad movie.”

“I don’t care how I sound.” His blue eyes held mine. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked evenly.

I lowered my head. “I think you should, yes.”

“But do you want me to?”

When I didn’t reply, he picked up his guitar, and then he was gone.

I watched the taillights of his jeep bump down the long drive and disappear over the ridge, clouds of dust swirling in his wake. I could hear Blue barking inside the house. I opened the front door and he came bounding out, sniffing across the yard, yapping into the distance. After a while he trotted back over and lay down beside me, his chin on my leg. We sat on the porch watching day fade into night.

Later what I remembered most was the sky, the way yellow and violet overlapped like layers of frosting on a slice of birthday cake, the way the sun slipped behind and in front of clouds, gold-tipping them like illuminated manuscripts as the violet turned to purple and the yellow deepened. By the time I went inside, the sky resembled a ripe bruise, the blood beneath it drawn up close to the surface.

W
hile Ellen was packing to go off to college, Elaine was downstairs in the living room at the sewing machine, working on her cheerleading uniform. She’d been elected captain of the squad. I kept pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, fussing with the pillows on the couch, straightening pictures, dusting. Amory was reading a newspaper, rustling it impatiently, muttering under his breath. I went out to the hall and looked upstairs, as if I could will Ellen to hurry up and come down.

When I went back to the living room I didn’t know what to do. I stood in the middle of the floor, clasping and unclasping my hands. Amory looked at me over the top of his newspaper and threw it down. He stalked out into the hall and shouted, “What in the name of God are you doing up there?”

“Nothing in the name of God, Daddy, “she shot back.

Amory came back and sat down, cursing, mopping his brow in the heat. “Stop standing there like a moron,” he barked at me.

I looked over at Elaine, sitting at the sewing machine, facing the window. I went and stood behind her, watching her quick, nimble fingers stitch the outfit together. “You’re doing a nice job, Elaine,” I said.

She stopped sewing and sat up straight. “Thank you.”

“Real nice.”

“Thank you,” she said again.

“That’s a complicated piece of work.”

She sat very still, running the fabric between her fingers. “Mother,”
she said finally, “don’t just talk to me for something to do.” She turned around, gripping the uniform with both hands in her lap. Her eyes were red; she had been crying.

“Elaine—“I reached out to her.

“No!” She shrank away. I could hear Amory throw down the paper again. “Can’t you just stop thinking about her, Mama?” she said, her voice rising. “Ellen’s gone! She’s already gone.” She was crying again and trying not to. “She doesn’t want to be here, and she sure doesn’t care how you feel. It just kills me to see you—to see you care so much.”

“But, Elaine … “I didn’t know what to say. “I care about all of you.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not like this. She’s the only one. And it just—it just kills me!” She got up and ran out to the porch. I ran after her. “I hate her,” she yelled, sobbing, her hands over her face.

“Hush, she’ll hear you,” I said.

“I don’t care. I hate her. I hate her!”

    
When Ellen left that day I felt a tug on my heart as if it was tied to her. I stood on the porch waving goodbye in the suffocating heat, waving goodbye to keep from having to speak. “Leaving isn’t so hard,” she whispered as she went.

Afterward I turned to go inside, and I could see Elaine watching me through the window. She wasn’t crying now. She watched me like a deer or a rabbit watches a hunter, to see what I would do. I put my hand out carefully, as if she might bolt at any second.

She came out to the porch. “Look, Mama,” she said, holding up the uniform. “I’m almost finished now.”

“That’ll look real pretty on you, Elaine,” I said.

“You really think so?”

I smiled the biggest smile I could muster. “I really do.”

She turned it around and inspected it. “It will,” she said softly. “I know it will,” she said again, and went inside.

I
lay in the old double bed and stared at the hanging lamp swaying above my head in the breeze brought by the rain. Blue was sleeping at my feet. Drops fell hard on the slanting roof and drummed against the upper windowpanes, and the gauzy curtains danced and twisted against the wall. Through the open window I could see the shining fields. Rain trampled the high grasses, stirred dirt into mud, made the trees quiver as the thin gray light of early morning washed over the floor, the sheets, the pale walls. Blue scratched himself, jingling his collar. I could just make out the photos I’d put up around the room: my father, Drew, my mother with my father and me.

In that moment I felt I might live my whole life in that falling-down house with its creaky porch and rusted screens, never being allowed to forget the history of it, always wanting and not wanting to forget. When I closed my eyes I felt as solid and substantial as a rain-smoothed stone.

    I was up to my elbows in clay when the phone rang, so I let the machine get it.

“Cassie? It’s Adam. Are you there?”

I didn’t move.

“I’m going to wait here until you pick up.”

He waited and I waited, sitting in a chair in the dining room, watching the clay dry on my caked hands, looking at the clock. After about six minutes I heard the click of his receiver and considered
calling him back, saying I’d just come in. But I didn’t want to call him back, so I erased the message.

The next day the phone rang and I answered, regretting it as soon as I heard his voice.

“I miss you, Cass,” he said, and it took me a moment to realize he was serious. “What are you doing down there, anyway? Come on back, just for a little while. I’ll throw you a party. I’ll help with the plane fare. Oh, hell, all of it—we can write it off as a company expense. I want to see the stuff you’re doing. Maybe we could find out about getting you a show or something. You know I know a lot of people. Maybe we can interest Julian or Dmitri in taking a look.

“And I need your advice on a couple of things. To be honest, I’m not sure how I’m going to set up this next show, and Veronica’s lacking something, I’m not sure what it is, but she just doesn’t have that critical eye. I mean, she’s fine once everything’s on the walls, but I just can’t trust her judgment, you know? At least not yet. It could be freelance or something. I could pay you as a consultant. And I mean it when I say I miss you, Cassie. I know it sounds trite, but I really do—”

No,
a voice was saying in my head,
no, Adam, no,
and then the voice got louder and escaped through my mouth. “No, Adam. Can’t you see I’m trying to leave you and all of it? I don’t want to come back. I can’t come back. I have to find out what’s happening here, what happened in this family, what happened with Troy, what’s happening to me. I can’t expect you to understand, I’m not asking you to. I just need some time to figure it out for myself.”

I don’t know how much of it I actually spoke out loud, but before I had finished he was saying, “Troy? Who’s Troy?” in a thin, high voice. I could see him sitting in the office, cupping the receiver
between his left shoulder and his ear, twisting the phone cord with
his right index finger the way he always did when he was making a difficult call.

“Nobody,” I said. “Nothing. And anyway, that’s not the point.”

I imagined him looking at a crack in the wall above the computer
as he said, “Fine,” with an edge now, “fine,” and then lashed out—it was so familiar, I could see it coming—”
Jesus Christ,
all I said is that I miss you. Can’t you listen to somebody else for a change? Must you always be totally selfish? You left me with this place, and now you just want to pretend it’s evaporated into thin air, and me with it.”

While he was talking I felt panic swelling within me. I thought of my dad, of Drew; I thought of all I’d left behind and seemed unable to connect with this new life I was living. All I wanted was to be left alone for a while, to have some time to sort things out without needing to explain or analyze or defend the experience to anyone else before I was ready.

“I can’t stand this, Adam,” I said. “I have to go. I’m not thinking clearly, this is hard for me.”

“Hard for you?”

“Yes. I have to go.” I hung up, his voice ringing in my ears.

I went out to the porch, down the steps into the yard, fleeing the words that followed—Hard for
you
? Hard for
you
?—until finally they were swallowed up in the grass, tangled in spiderwebs and wild-
flower pollen.

    In the afternoon I went to see Liz’s friend Elise, who had bought the kickwheel from the jilted husband and was holding it for me. After I paid her she offered her truck, helped me load the large contraption into the back, and drove through the rain to the house. I followed in the station wagon. We carefully carried the wheel inside and maneuvered it into the dining room.

That evening, with Blue at my feet, I sat at the kickwheel, its whirring the only sound in the room. The rain had stopped and the sun was setting and the air smelled of pine and red dirt. The clay felt almost alive under my fingers, a breathing thing, coaxing my hands to unravel the skein of my imagination.

    Elaine was talking into my answering machine, explaining something about a party.

“Hello?” I said, picking up. “I just walked in.”

“Hello? Hello? I can never get used to those things,” she said. “Hello, Cassandra. You can call me back if this isn’t a good time.”

“No, it’s fine.” I dragged the phone out to the porch. I’d bought an extra-long cord just for that purpose.

“I hear you stopped in to see Clyde the other day. That was nice of you.”

“Well, I hadn’t seen her since I moved in. She’d sent some food over with Alice.” Blue came and lay against my leg, his tail thumping on the porch. He was getting bigger, I noticed; the sound of tail against wood was solid and strong. His soft puppy fuzz was turning into stiff, short adult fur, his high-pitched yap becoming a deeper bark. I scratched his stomach.

“Alice told me she’d been by. You’re painting.”

“I’ve finished now. She gave me some good advice about the bathroom.”

“Really? I’m surprised. Alice’s taste is—let’s just say our tastes are different.” She laughed dryly.

I broke off a stalk of grass and chewed it. “Well, the bathroom looks good.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. Anyhow, the reason I’m calling is first, because I just looked at the calendar and realized how long it’s been, and second, because I’m having a ‘ladies’ night’ for the Clyde girls Thursday evening and I wondered if you might like to come.”

“The Clyde girls?”

“Sure, you know—me, Kathy, Alice, Clyde. Nothing fancy. We just laugh a lot and play some games. It’s a hoot.”

“Of course, I’d love to come.”

“Great. About six-thirty.”

“Should I bring anything?”

“Just your sense of humor,” she said.

    The rain had stopped for good. By the end of the week the hot August sun was drying leaves on the trees, reducing streams to
creeks, and turning dirt into dust. I had started rising early to take advantage of the morning coolness, going into town to read the paper and have coffee at the Eagle before buying groceries or doing errands. There were seldom more than a few people in the Eagle at a time, but the coffee was cheap and good, so I’d made it part of my routine. I sat in the same booth I’d shared the first time with Alice, facing the street. I liked to watch the goings-on outside, though there generally wasn’t much to see.

It was nine-fifteen Thursday morning, and I was later than usual. I slid into the booth and ordered a cup of coffee. I was wearing shorts, and the cracked vinyl scratched against my thighs. As I stirred my coffee I watched the regulars at the counter, two old men and a tired-looking middle-aged woman who acted like she wanted nothing to do with them.

I sipped the coffee and started a list on a napkin: flowers for Elaine tonight, two bags of clay from the supply company, take Blue to the vet. I wanted to find out about shots and make sure I was feeding him right. He seemed sturdy, but I wanted to be certain. I didn’t want to take a chance on losing him.

I looked at the list and added “stationery/pens.” I needed to touch base with Drew, but I was afraid to call him after what had happened with Adam. I didn’t trust myself not to tell him about Troy, and I wasn’t prepared to deal with his reaction, which was bound to be scathing. And though I hadn’t seen Troy since Saturday, I’d found that try as I might, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I reasoned that writing Drew would be the safest bet. I’d begun a letter with a pencil stub on a scrap of paper, but I couldn’t find the right tone; it started chatty and ended banal. Maybe if I had the proper tools the writing would come easier.

I scanned the front page of the newspaper. An electrical fire, no one injured; a car accident, one person killed; rumblings of a strike at the textile mill. Siamese twins born to an Oklahoma mother of four on page two; a presidential press conference on the economy, page three. Turning to the weekly Weddings section, I studied the
young, eager faces and read the information about each couple. I was fascinated by the way people met—through church groups a lot of the time, or in high school—and what they planned to do. Most of them were Sweetwater natives, but one or the other might be from Chattanooga or Knoxville, sometimes Atlanta. Some were in the military, stationed in Texas, Florida, Germany. The majority planned to settle and begin jobs somewhere else. There were quite a few accountants, some secretaries, and many recent high school graduates, about half employed in nearby factories and mills.

I had imagined that going into town might help me meet people my age, but I didn’t notice many around. The ones I did see were working service jobs—like my waitress at the Eagle, who played solitaire on the lunch counter to pass the time. Of course, during the week many of them would have been at work, but even on weekends the downtown was quiet. Judging by the paper, a lot of them married young and moved into trailer parks if they didn’t move away.

“Refill?” the waitress asked, standing over me with a pot of coffee.

“Sure.” I leaned back against the booth as she filled the cup and tossed two creamers on the Formica. “Slow morning,” I offered.

“It was full up at seven.”

“Who’s winning?”

“What?”

“The card game.” I smiled.

She seemed puzzled. “It’s solitaire.”

“I know. Sorry, it was a bad joke.”

She looked at me. “You want anything else?”

“No, this is fine, thanks.”

The waitress started to walk away, but she turned back. “You can’t lose,” she said. “I guess that’s what I like about it.”

I watched her walk leisurely back to the counter, then turned to look out at the square across the street, at the people from the mental home sitting on benches under the fluttering flag. The fountain in the center was dry. I finished my coffee, tucked the napkin with the
list into my bag, and folded the newspaper, leaving it on the table with a dollar bill.

Out on the street, a small breeze battled the heat. I went into the drugstore on the corner for stationery, then walked another block to the tiny florist shop, lingering over cut flowers arranged in buckets on the floor of the narrow room.

“Anything I can help you with?” the clerk asked, looking up from a magazine spread open on the counter.

“Mind if I just pick and choose?”

She shrugged and went back to reading.

“Those irises are mighty pretty,” said a floury-soft voice behind me. I turned around. “May Ford,” the short, gray-haired woman said, holding out a hand. “I met you one time when you were down here with Alice.”

“Oh, yes.” I shook the plump white hand. It felt strangely boneless.

“It’s the state flower, you know.”

“What?”

“The iris,” she said. “If you care about such things. And those tulips over there are nice too. It’s cheating a little, but the tulip poplar is the state tree, so I’m always partial to irises and tulips both.” She went over to the bucket of tulips and bent down, peering into it. “These don’t look altogether healthy, though. Course, they’re imported from somewhere—who ever heard of tulips and irises in August?” She straightened. “Are you buying these for somebody? A boyfriend?”

“No,” I said a little hastily. “They’re for my aunt.”

“Which one?”

I hesitated. “Elaine.”

“Elaine, hmm.” She canvassed the shop, scratching her chin. “She prefers roses, I believe. Yellow ones, if I recall correctly. Yes, I think that’s right.” She threaded her way through the buckets. “And look here, they’re on special! Six for five dollars.” She clapped her hands. “Isn’t it a lucky coincidence we ran into each other!” She beamed
and picked out six yellow roses, holding them up one by one for my inspection.

As the clerk wrapped the flowers I said, “I appreciate your help, Mrs. Ford.”

“No trouble at all. Now, do you have more errands to do?”

“I’m finished down here.”

“Where’s your car parked at?”

“Up that way.” I gestured to the left.

“Another coincidence! I’m heading that way myself.”

Main Street was virtually deserted. A sunburned farmer leaned against a truck, talking to a young woman with a baby in one arm and a toddler pulling at her dress. Several blocks down, three men were loading furniture into a van.

“Simon,” she mused as we walked along. “Isn’t that your last name, Cassandra?”

“I’m surprised you remember.”

“Oh, well, it’s a little hobby of mine to remember things like that. I have all kinds of tricks. Not many Simons around here—that’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?—so I just think of Simon Says. ‘Simon Says—jump three times.’” She paused in front of the bank and hopped lightly in place. “Whew!” she said, her hand on her chest. “Hold on a minute.”

“Actually we’re almost to my car, Mrs. Ford, so I guess I’ll say goodbye here.” I pointed across the street at the station wagon.

She grabbed my arm. “Please, just come sit with me a second while I catch my breath.”