The Obstacle Course (27 page)

“They’ll go better with what you’re wearing. You don’t want to stick out.”

He gave me a shoehorn, and I slipped them on. They fit me like a glove.

“How are they?”

“Good. They’re really nice. Thanks.” I don’t argue with him anymore when he gives me stuff, he can afford it and it makes him feel good.

“It was Mrs. Wells’s idea. She had me check your shoe size the last time you slept over.”

That was a crock of shit, but I let it pass.

“I’ll have to thank her,” I said, “when she gets home from church.”

“I’ve already done so on your behalf.” He smiled. “You can be extra attentive to her today. She’ll appreciate that.”

He was trying to get her to like me. Like if I fell all over her she’d change her mind. I wanted to tell him it doesn’t work that way, but I didn’t. If that’s what he wanted, fine. After all he’d done for me, I’d have kissed her ass in broad daylight in the window of Woodward & Lothrop’s if he’d asked me to.

We heard Mrs. Wells’s car pull into the garage.

“Let’s surprise her,” he said.

We walked downstairs together. I was all dressed up, except for my tie. I hate wearing it, it makes me feel like I’m in a vise, so I don’t put it on until the last moment. The admiral feels the same way; he told me that one day when he was getting dressed to go out to some shindig. That was one of his secrets, to put your tie on at the last minute.

“Hello, boys,” Mrs. Wells greeted us, coming in the kitchen door. She had a bag of groceries in her arms. I grabbed them away from her right away.

“Thank you, Roy. There’s another one in the back seat of my car, would you …” She stopped and took a better look at me.

“What happened to all your hair?”

“Cut it off,” I told her, like it was no big deal.

“Hmmm.” She cocked her head, looking at it. “I like it,” she said. “You look like a regular boy now, instead of a juvenile delinquent.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I didn’t like being thought of as a hood, but she’d meant it as a compliment, so I let it pass.

“You’re shaping up, Roy, you’re shaping up. We might make a proper boy of you yet.”

She came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Her lips were dry, so light it was like a butterfly’s kiss.

“New shoes, too, I see,” she said, noticing them. “Smart idea. Yes, Roy, you are definitely changing for the better.”

She went upstairs. The admiral watched her go.

“She means well,” he said, reading my mind again.

“It
was
a kind of hoody haircut,” I said. I could have told him every kid in my school wore his hair that way, but I didn’t. “Anyway, it feels cooler.” I rubbed my hand over it. Any shorter and it would be a Marine Corps special.

A few minutes before it was time to go to the Prescotts’, Admiral Wells asked me to come into his study for a minute. Mrs. Wells was already there. She was wearing an emerald-green cocktail dress and dark-green satin heels. As usual, she was a knockout.

“This came for you,” the admiral said, handing me a thick envelope. “Yesterday.”

I turned it over in my hands. The return address read “Admiral Farrington Academy.”

“Go ahead, open it up,” he urged me impatiently, like a kid waiting on his Christmas presents. He and Mrs. Wells exchanged a smile. “Go ahead,” she echoed.

I ripped it open. There were several pages stapled together, folded over to fit inside the envelope, with a single-page letter paper-clipped on top.

“Read it,” Admiral Wells commanded. “Out loud.”

“Dear Mr. Poole,” I read. No one had ever called me “mister” before. I started over: “Dear Mr. Poole. This is to inform you that you have been accepted into Admiral Farrington Academy for the scholastic year 1957–1958 …”

I stopped and looked up. They were beaming at me, smiling the two biggest shit-eating grins I’d ever seen.

“I …” I looked down at the letter, but everything was a blur.

Admiral Wells took the pages from my hand before I dropped them. I was shaking, I hadn’t realized it until my hand was empty.

“Congratulations,” he said softly.

“Yes, congratulations,” Mrs. Wells added. She came over and kissed me again, then hugged me. Admiral Wells shook my hand.

“I … I can’t believe it.” I couldn’t, I’d never expected this, even with the admiral behind me. It didn’t seem real, like I was watching a movie of myself.

“Well, I can,” Admiral Wells told me. His hand was on my shoulder, gripping me hard. “I knew you would do it, Roy. I knew it from the day I met you.”

“It’s true, he did,” Mrs. Wells confirmed. “He told me that first day he brought you over, after you’d left. He said ‘that boy reminds me of myself at that age.’”

“You didn’t believe me,” he said, turning to her.

Her face clouded for a moment.

“Yes,” she said softly, almost whispering. “I didn’t. I couldn’t see beyond your background, to who you truly were.”

“That’s okay,” I told her. I was numb; if I moved a muscle I’d shatter into a million pieces.

“No,” she corrected me, “it isn’t. I shortchanged you. And I shortchanged my husband.” She looked at me with those incredibly green eyes of hers, piercing me right through to my heart. “I apologize.”

She said it to me, but she really meant it for the admiral. It didn’t matter; either way, it still made me feel good.

“That’s nonsense,” the admiral said to her, jollying her up. “What counts is this letter,” he crowed, brandishing it. “You’re in! And in three or four more years, you’ll be going to Annapolis. That’s all that counts now.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll celebrate properly tonight,” he said, “after Melanie’s recital. Speaking of which, we’d better get moving. The Prescotts are bears for punctuality.”

I helped Mrs. Wells on with her coat, a thick mink coat that hung all the way to the floor, which she was wearing even though spring had come and it was warm out. Whatever Mrs. Wells had was the best, whether it was her coat or her car or her house. It was who she was—it was why she had to have everything around her, including people, be perfect. I wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but I was closer to whatever perfect was for her than I used to be.

As we were walking out the door, the admiral stopped me, letting her get ahead of us.

“We’ll have to tell your parents,” he said, quietly, so she wouldn’t overhear.

“Yes, sir.” That was the one thing I was dreading. They didn’t know about any of this—not the admiral, Farrington, anything. I didn’t know precisely how my old man would react, but I had a good idea and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

“We’ll tell them together,” he informed me, not giving me an option. “Tomorrow.” He paused. “When I drive you home.”

That’s the way it had to be, I’d known it all along. It was okay now, he knew me, who I was. What I had been, where I came from, who my family was—none of that mattered anymore.

Since Melanie lived most of the time with her grandparents the recital was being held at their house, off Foxhall Road, a few miles away. We took Mrs. Wells’s Lincoln. Sitting in that car was cherry to the core, the leather was so soft it felt like a baby’s ass. I thought about how when I turned sixteen I could hit on Mrs. Wells to let me borrow it for dates, when I’m home on vacation from Farrington. If you can’t get laid driving wheels like these, you’re hopeless.

The Prescotts’ house was huge, much bigger than Admiral Wells’s house. The thing that impressed me the most was that the entire back of the first floor was an honest-to-God ballroom, at least sixty feet long. It had polished hardwood floors and floor-to-ceiling French doors and windows opening onto the back yard, which had to be a good acre of green, rolling lawn. Melanie was a rich girl, plain and simple.

There looked to be a hundred people there, maybe more. Almost all were grownups—the few kids besides me were all girls Melanie’s age, obviously from her school. Some were dogs, but a couple were pretty good-looking, wearing stylish dresses and makeup like the girls at my school wear. The difference was that their dresses were expensive, you could tell just looking at them, they had to cost more money than any dress my mother owned.

They all checked me over as I walked through the door. I was looking good in my nice sports coat and my new shoes and my new haircut, but a blind man could see what kind of boy I was: the kind girls like this wanted, and their parents didn’t. I knew one thing that was definitely going on in their little minds—how did a loser like Melanie Prescott ever meet a cool boy like me?

“You’re here. I was getting worried,” Melanie said in a low whisper, popping up at my elbow like she’d been lurking near the doorway, waiting for me. “Hi, Mrs. Wells, Admiral Wells,” she sang out. “Thanks for coming.”

Admiral and Mrs. Wells said hello back to her and then immediately walked halfway across the room to talk to her grandparents, leaving me by myself with Melanie. Part of the plan, no doubt. This time, though, I didn’t mind.

“Sure I’m here,” I said. “I told you I’d be.”

She was looking at me with a funny expression on her face, and it took me a moment to realize that I was staring at her with my mouth open. That’s because while I may have been somewhat different-looking from the me I’d been before, Melanie was completely changed from the semi-pathetic girl I’d met that night at the admiral’s house. She was still a porker, ’cause that’s the way she’s built, she can’t do anything about that, but it was as if she had come out of a cocoon. She was wearing a tight midnight-blue dress that wrapped around her ass like an Ace bandage, bright red lipstick delicately painted on her mouth kewpie-doll style, a touch of eyeshadow, the works. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, she was wearing sheer stockings, and shoes with heels a good three inches high.

“Do you like my dress?” she asked, clearly nervous about my reaction.

“Does a bear shit in the woods? I like it a lot, it makes you look …” I was thinking
sexy
, but I didn’t say it.

“What?” She wanted me to.

“Good. Pretty. You know.”

She smiled, like she knew what I really wanted to say. “My mom didn’t want me to, she said it makes me look like a … I’m not going to say, but you know what I mean … the makeup, too, she’s not crazy about that, either.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I know what you mean.” I winked at her, like we were sharing a dirty secret. She looked sexy as hell, this shy girl who’d come on before like something out of
Little Women.

“I’m glad you like it,” she said. She wet her lips nervously. “That’s why I bought it.”

“Well, I do.”

“You have to meet my mother.” She took my arm. “I can hardly walk in these heels, I feel like I’m going to fall on my face. I’ll have to play in my stockings, I don’t know how women walk around in shoes like these.”

She led me towards the center of the room, where a bunch of grownups were standing around talking. One of the women in the group looked over at us, saw me, and smiled. Melanie’s mother—a blind man could’ve seen how much they looked alike, at least in the face. From the neck down she was different, thinner than Melanie, she actually had a very good figure, especially her legs. She was a few years older than my mom, I could tell that, but from where I was standing she looked younger, even though she had a ton of makeup on. Maybe because she had so much makeup on. The real reason, I knew as I looked, was that she didn’t have a look on her face like a dog about to be kicked, the way my mom mostly does. Melanie’s mom was dressed up like the Queen of Sheba, wearing a silk dress that had to cost a shit-load of money, and flat-out dripping in jewelry; a necklace that looked like it had rubies and emeralds in it, bracelets with diamonds, long diamond earrings. The woman was a walking jewelry store—if I hocked what she was wearing on her body I’d be set for life.

“Mother, this is Roy Poole,” Melanie said, introducing me. “The boy I’ve told you about.” She was shifting her weight from one foot to the other, nervous as hell.

“So.” Melanie’s mom looked me over like I was a prize heifer at a 4-H fair. “This is the boy.”

Melanie turned red as a beet.

Her mom kept looking me over. Melanie still had her hand on my arm. She was squeezing so tight I thought she’d tear the material. The way her mom was looking at me, it was like she wanted to make Melanie uncomfortable.

“It’s nice to meet you, Miz Prescott,” I said. I held out my hand. She looked at it for a moment, like she was expecting dirt under my fingernails. Then she shook it, and held on longer than she needed to. Quite a bit longer.

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Roy.” She looked me over again, then turned to her daughter. “You weren’t exaggerating,” she said, flashing me this flirting kind of look.

Melanie blushed even worse at that. I felt my face getting a little red, too. What the hell had she been saying about me, and what was the deal with her mother?

“Are you a classical music aficionado, Roy?” Mrs. Prescott asked me. She smiled when she said it. She had a mouthful of big white teeth.

“Roy likes all kinds of music, mother,” Melanie answered for me, saving my bacon, ’cause she had to know I didn’t know jack-shit about classical music, seeing’s how I’m from Ravensburg.

“I like anything Melanie plays,” I added. I’d especially like it if she played skin flute, I thought.

Melanie moved closer to me, giving my arm a little squeeze. I was figuring out what was putting me off about Mrs. Prescott—it was as if she was in a contest with Melanie, and didn’t want to lose. She was an old woman trying to look young, trying to beat out her own daughter.

“That’s very gallant,” she said to me. “I can see why my daughter is so taken with you.”

“Mother!” Melanie squealed.

“I’m teasing you,” Mrs. Prescott told her. “Now I think you need to get ready.” She took my hand again. “I’ll make sure Roy is properly attended to.”

Melanie reluctantly let go of my arm. “Sit in the first row,” she asked me, her eyes pleading.

“He’ll be sitting right next to me,” her mother assured me. “Now go on. Your girlfriends are dying to help you with the last-minute details.”

“See you later,” Melanie told me. She walked away from us, tottering on her high heels. A couple of her girlfriends gathered around and followed her out, their heads together, jabbering away. I knew what they were talking about.