Dodging and Burning Page 3

  She frowned at me, her mouth a bright red boomerang.

  “Thank you, Cee,” he said. “It’s nice to know someone does.”

  Bunny glared at him. “You need to develop those photos, I think.”

  2

  BUNNY

  I began falling in love with Jay Greenwood at my eighteenth birthday party—oh, and what a fall it was! It was the summer of ’43, two years before Ceola and I were privy to his lurid photos of Lily.

  My party fanned out from a large gazebo on the Point, a peninsula that jutted into the center of Culler’s Lake, and my mother, in her usual grand fashion, had hired a five-piece band from Roanoke to play dance music (the trumpeter was an old beau of hers). The caterers, also imports, rearranged and clustered picnic tables, draping them with linen tablecloths and topping them with gardenia centerpieces flanked with hurricane lamps. From the roof of the gazebo to surrounding trees, she had them stretch shimmering white streamers and a large, breeze-whipped Happy Birthday banner. Mother had such fine taste and she liked to show it off, but, as usual, she extended herself too far and invited half the town, including all of Father’s employees and their families.

  Dixie Dew employees often welcomed my mother’s generosity, but on occasion, they resented the show of wealth, particularly during wartime. Father encouraged both my mother and me to wear simple, muted colors and avoid glitzy jewelry—no bangles or pearl-drop earrings. It was gauche to overdo it in those days; bright colors were thought unpatriotic because of the ration on fabric dyes. “Be women of grace, not status and place,” he intoned. Mother often challenged him on this. She loved color. My party was a strike of independence on her part, and though Father didn’t approve of all the folderol, he conceded for the occasion, for me.

  Counted among the truly resentful Dixie Dewers were Bob and Margery Bliss. (On reflection, I can see why Ceola despised them.) Of course, they arrived early so as not to be avoided.

  Margery thrust her thin hand out at me. “Happy, happy birthday,” she muttered, as I shook it lightly. She had a thin, angular nose and a wilting smile. Although her eyes drooped at the edges, they lurked nervously under the hood of her brow. She wore her hair long and close to her cheeks in an attempt to hide a red birthmark that crept from her left eye and down her jaw to her neck. I could tell she hated me, but I could also tell she was frightened of me—or at least the prospect of having to make conversation.

  Bob Bliss—short, potbellied, and mostly bald, save the thin web of a comb-over—stood like a tree trunk beside her. His cheeks were firm and fat like full water balloons, and the ruddy skin of his face constantly fluctuated in intensity. He shook my hand and said, “You look very pretty tonight, Bunny.” He said it loudly so that my father, who was just a few feet away, could hear. His blue eyes remained sharp and fixed, pinpoints of concealed anger.

  I smiled at him and told him to enjoy the party.

  Behind them, a pace or two back, was their only son, Robbie, looking ill at ease. Underneath a wave of thick brown hair, his warm brown eyes moved restlessly, a little mischievous, a little cautious.

  “Hello,” I said to him, pushing brightness into my voice and holding out my hand.

  “I hope you’re having a good birthday,” he said. He was preoccupied by something over my shoulder.

  “It’s wonderful. I just—”

  Laughter exploded behind me. He blinked, almost flinched.

  “Are you all right?”

  “It’s not important.” He was still searching past me.

  “Are you looking for someone?”

  But he didn’t answer me. He shook my hand and walked away. As he vanished into the party, his head was lowered, and his thin arms and legs were loose in their sockets, giving his gait a gawky femininity, a wounded deer searching for shelter.

  After greeting the guests, my mother excused me, and I began mingling with the crowd. I moved from circle to circle of my parents’ acquaintances, making small talk and flashing smiles, telling them how I wanted to be an actress after the war ended. One guest—I have no idea who—suggested I should begin my career immediately: “The troops need pleasant, pretty distractions.”

  I was flattered, but Father needed my help at the plant, sorting large-size food cans, which would be recycled into crowns for the Dixie Dew bottles. Rationing was in full swing, making it difficult to find enough sugar for the soft drinks and enough tinplate for bottle caps. He insisted I work at the plant until the war ended. So I had to put my dream on hold, which turned out to be a blessing. Believe me, I had no business acting.

  Eventually I found myself in front of my birthday cake. It was a large pink slab of buttercream icing, with “18” written across the top in bright pink. It was girlish and silly, but I hid my resentment from Mother and Father. Accompanied by the band, the crowd sang “Happy Birthday,” then I made a wish and blew out the candles. The cake was cut, and I served several pieces until my mother took over.

  “Go on, Bonita,” she said, calling me by my proper name. “Have some fun.”

  When I was young, instead of saying Bonnie, I said Bunny, and unfortunately, the nickname stuck. When I decided I wanted to be a writer later on, I made my pen name B. B. Prescott—the name “Bunny” wouldn’t sell many novels, especially mysteries.

  I danced several songs with different partners, spinning through old standbys like “Begin the Beguine” and “Georgia on My Mind.” Then I saw Jay. He stood beside a tree, half-submerged in the shadow of the overhanging branches, and he was staring at me. For the first time, in just a blink, I saw the man in him. His facial contours were sharpening, losing their adolescent thickness; his shoulders were rounding out and his chest widening. Even his legs had filled out his trousers, shortening the hem. But I could tell by his eyes, with all their guarded passion, that he hadn’t lost the boyishness I found so appealing. The dance steps forced me to turn away, and when I glanced in his direction again, he was gone.

  I excused myself and began searching for him. I found him in a small group of six adults: two women in their forties; Mr. Hersh, the pharmacist; his wife, Bernice; and on Jay’s arm, Letitia Greenwood, his grandmother. I kept my distance. Marion Hersh was pontificating on the war, and the women listened attentively, all impressed by his proclamations and prognostications, which he claimed were the result of “inside knowledge” he had elicited from a friend, a colonel in the 2nd Armored Division. Jay was shackled to the spot by his grandmother’s grip. Even in all her frailty, the woman had absolutely mythological strength.

  Letitia wore an elaborately ruched, dusty green evening dress that was much too fancy for the occasion, flower petal earrings set with diamonds (most likely real), and thickly applied makeup that had cracked and collected in the wrinkles at the edges of her mouth. All around her, like a cloud of despair, hung the heavy scent of an old, acrid perfume, tinged with an underlying odor of whiskey. Father felt duty-bound to invite her to all the parties. “You must have sympathy for her,” he always reminded me. Our family, although unintentionally, had benefited from the Greenwoods’ misfortunes. Jay’s parents had been killed in a car accident when he was a young boy, plunging George Greenwood, his grandfather, into grief. He began drinking heavily and allowed Dixie Dew Bottling, which he had founded, to slip into the red. He sold the company to my father for a bargain price in 1933 and, two years later, died of cirrhosis of the liver. My father revived Dixie Dew with an infusion of Prescott money, strong work ethic, and good business sense.

  As I approached the group, Letitia saw me and tightened her harpy grip. Jay’s clunky camera hung close to his side. Using my birthday-girl authority, I said, “Excuse me, everyone. May I borrow Jay? I want him to take a photograph of me before it gets too dark.”

  “My dear,” Letitia said with a frown, “it’s already dark. It’ll never turn out.”

  “You look beautiful this evening, Bonita,” Mr. Hersh said, nodding his head and swirling the ice cubes in his drink.

  Letitia hissed
, “There’s no point. It’s a waste of film. It’s nonsense.”

  Bernice Hersh frowned at Letitia and touched her husband on the arm in commiseration with me. “Let him go, Letty,” Hersh said jovially. “After all, Bunny is the birthday girl.”

  Letitia watched us leave, fuming, her hands locked together like a tight dovetail joint. I felt the warm flush of victory.

  Peeking through the ridge that surrounded the lake, the light from the setting sun only hit the Point in triangular patches. We scouted out one of these patches, away from the party. With his back to the sun, Jay paced, paused, and studied his viewfinder, and then paced again, paused again, and studied again.

  “The sun will go down,” I said.

  He was gently adjusting knobs on the side of the camera. “Step to the left,” he said. “Just half a step.” I moved, and the sun was in my eyes. “Look at the top of the mountain and place your hands on your hips.” He pointed, and I looked. I didn’t like being posed.

  “Drop your right arm and make it loose, then be still.”

  “Maybe your grandmother had a point.”

  I was aware of the warmth on my skin, the intense scarlet of the sun, and like that, he took the photograph. When he lowered the camera, the intensity of his eyes unsettled me. I glanced at the glittering black water of the lake and said, “Why were you staring at me when I was dancing?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “You may have thought that, but I wasn’t.”

  “Then who were you staring at? Jenny Sprinkle, or one of the other pretty girls?”

  “I wasn’t staring at all.”

  “It’s rude to stare,” I said.

  He smiled and said, “You’re beautiful. You shouldn’t need validation from me or from the camera.”

  “Pretty girls need the most validation,” I said. “They’ve been told they’re pretty so often, it has lost its meaning.”

  From the party behind me, the band began an orchestral version of “Haunted Town.” I knew Lena Horne’s version from my mother’s record collection. The lovelorn lyrics stirred at the back of my mind. I wanted to be back under the lights and throwing myself into the tipsy clamor of partygoers. But even as the sun crept below the edge of the mountain, Jay wanted to continue. He produced a flash. I begrudgingly agreed to about a dozen more shots.

  When we finished, he said, “I’ll develop these for you soon.”

  “Good.” I stepped back, nearly blind. My eyes swam with ghostly spots. “I really should go.”

  The warm, dark music guided me back to the party. As my vision cleared, I saw couples dancing close together, my parents among them, my mother’s fingers laced together behind my father’s head. She was a little drunk and happy. My father’s hands rested quietly, patiently, at her waist, never touching her hips, always respectable. A shift in the music—or was it the dying light?—and Mother leaned in, the elegant shape of her sculpted and set hair disappearing in a shadow. She is kissing him, I thought. I want to kiss someone.

  Again I drifted from group to group, engaging in small talk about the war and making cheerful promises to have lunch or dinner.

  Bernice Hersh caught me by the arm and said, “I’m sorry Letitia behaved that way. She’s really such a monster, you know. Your father is too kind to invite her.”

  I nodded, smiled, and drifted on, needing a break from the chatter.

  I wandered down to the edge of the water, near where Jay had taken the photographs. To my surprise, Robbie Bliss was sitting quietly on a thin band of man-made beach. I stopped a few feet away, not wanting to disturb him. He tossed a rock in the water and listened to it plop. He raised his head a little and studied the ripples as they came toward him. A pang of sympathy shot through me. He seemed so lonely.

  Being careful of my white dress, I sat beside him on the gritty terrain. I remained silent for a few moments, observing him as he, again, lobbed a stone into the black water. He seemed unwilling to acknowledge my presence, so I said, “Have you had fun this evening? I didn’t see you dancing.”

  “It’s a good party,” he said with little enthusiasm.

  “Well, my mother insists on inviting the entire town. She calls it ‘good public relations.’ I suppose she’s right, but it always seems horribly political to me.” I paused, then said, “Don’t you think the lake is beautiful? I like the reflection of the night sky on it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I want to be alone.”

  “You’re not having fun, are you?”

  “My birthday is next week. I’ll be eighteen too.”

  “And you’re enlisting?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you frightened?”

  He let my question hang in the air. “No,” he said at last. “I mean, I’m not scared of going to combat, if that’s what you’re getting at. It’s just that all this …” He looked out at the lake. “It feels out of my control, like I have no say-so in it, like I never will.”

  Pushing brightness in my voice, I said, “You could be drafted anyway. At least this way, you have some control over where you’ll end up. It’s the smart thing to do.”

  “Jesus, you sound like my father.”

  A shadow flickered over me; someone was behind us. I turned and saw Jay’s silhouette framed by the light from the gazebo.

  “What are you two talking about?” he said.

  “Birthdays,” I said.

  “Robbie’s going to be a warrior for Uncle Sam,” he said, and walked past us to the shoreline. He paused, then looked back: “Want to skinny-dip?” He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, selected one, fished a lighter out of his breast pocket, and lit it. Neither Robbie nor I responded, but Robbie released the stiffness in his shoulders and leaned back, uncrossing his legs. Jay asked again, and Robbie nodded and smiled.

  “Mother would throw a fit if we skinny-dipped,” I said. “I simply can’t.”

  “Public relations?” Robbie said.

  “That’s right,” Jay said.

  Robbie chuckled.

  I didn’t like being made fun of. “I don’t know why I invited you,” I said to Jay.

  He leaned toward me, offering me his cigarette, and said, “Keep this safe for me.”

  I took it between my fingers and held it away from me. He quickly writhed out of his shirt, and Robbie jumped to his feet and began undoing his belt, but guided by a greater modesty than Jay, he stopped and retreated to the shadow of a nearby birch tree. Jay continued to strip. His pants came down, his shoes and socks came off. He was naked except for his shorts. He retrieved his cigarette from me and took a drag. The hair on his legs caught the light from the party, deep shadows delineated the muscles of his torso, and a corona of smoke floated over his head. He was mysterious in a seductive, even dangerous, way—like one of William Blake’s angels, all fiery watercolor and moody ink. I was hooked.

  Since the bottom of the lake sloped gradually, Jay was able to walk out far enough to be obscured by darkness. I heard him swishing and stirring for a moment or two, the faint glow of his cigarette bobbing in the night. Then, like a ghostly bird, his underwear flew out of the void and landed beside me with a plop. From under the tree, Robbie—no longer reserved and shy—streaked into the lake, splashing and laughing, his thin, naked body vanishing as quickly as it appeared.

  I glanced back at the party to see if anyone noticed. No one had.

  Under the same tree, driven by some insane impulse, I unstrapped my sandals, kicking them off, and unzipped and removed my dress, carefully hooking it on a low branch. In my slip, I approached the water, which was now gently lapping against the beach, and dipped a toe in. It was tepid. I checked the party again. It seemed distant and intensely concerned with itself, as if it had nothing to do with me anymore. “Wait for me!” I called to the boys, and began inching into the lake, feeling sticks and slime on the bottom. I rubbed against something slick and ropy, and sure I was trudging through a family of water snakes, je
rked away, slinging curse words at the water, realizing a breath later, it must be algae.

  Once I was up to my waist, I heard the boys’ laughter yards away, somewhere in the low mist creeping in from across the lake. I cried again, “Wait for me!” but heard nothing in response. I gave in, flopped into the warm water, and began swimming. Wait for me. I swam steadily for a few minutes, frustrated by the slip’s thin fabric cleaving to my legs. I stopped and listened. I heard no voices, no splashing. Wait for me.

  Lights from Royal Oak, situated a valley over, outlined the mountains, and the Milky Way stretched across the sky in a bright swath. I could no longer feel the bottom of the lake; the liquid universe below seemed as vast and endless and unknown as the night sky above. I imagined a pale, decaying hand, fingers hairy with algae, like something from a horror matinee, reaching up through the murk and grabbing my ankle. I yelled, “Jay! Robbie!” Nothing. I repeated the call. Nothing.

  I might drown, I thought. I might deserve to drown. That horrible feeling, a mixture of desertion and embarrassment, was wrapping its tentacles around my heart. I listened again, more deeply. I heard music echoing in the valley. It seemed far away and I was afraid, but it gave me a sense of the distance to shore, like a bat’s sonar. I started swimming furiously toward it, toward the partygoers, toward my mother and father dancing together. Soon I hit the sludgy bottom, and the black magic of the lake receded. Then I was climbing out of the water, pushing my feet through the mud and running across grit and stones and grass to my soft, white dress, suspended in the shadows.

  I sat underneath the tree. I was soiled with black mud, and my hair and my makeup were ruined. Why, why did I do this to myself? My pristine white dress hung on the branch above me, stirring in a breeze like a mobile. I knew what I had to do.

  I slipped the dress over my head and zipped it up, cringing at the grime bleeding through the starched cotton bodice. I strapped on my sandals and, walking in a semicircle to avoid the party, made my way to a boating dock on the other side of the peninsula. Taking care no one spotted me, I slinked to the end of it, about thirty feet out. The lake’s glassy surface reflected the moon, and I could see the North Star, the Big Dipper, perhaps even vain Cassiopeia herself.