Breath of Scandal (14 page)

"No.  11

"Don't lie to me. Donna Dee looked as guilty as sin when I mentioned his name, too. Is that what you quarreled with her about?"

"Donna Dee?" she said in a negative tone.

"I chased her down after school today. She's been avoiding me almost as diligently as you have."

"What did she say?"

"Don't, worry. She didn't rat on you." He shook his head. "So, you finally fell for Neal's irresistible charm. That ought to make your mother happy. "

Jade's dark hair whipped around her head as she vehemently shook her head. "No. I despise him. You know that, Gary."

"So you say." He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, barely containing his fury. "Maybe I'll ask him myself." He turned toward the door, but hadn't taken more than two steps before Jade launched herself against his back and clutched at him. "No, Gary, no. Stay away from him. "

He turned and angrily pulled her against him. "If you had to cheat on me, why'd it have to be with Patchett?" "You're wrong, Gary. Please don't think-'         I "Patchett, for God's sake!" He released her so abruptly

that she staggered backward. Gary yanked open the door and strode out.

I'Gary! 11

He didn't look back, although Jade knew he heard her calling his name until his car was halfway down the block. Jade stumbled back inside and slumped against the door. The tears that she had been holding in erupted in a torrent. She cried until she had no more tears left, and then she was seized by dry, racking sobs.

6K!

At first Gary considered driving straight to the Patchetts' estate and challenging Neal face to face. He could probably

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whip Neal in a fair fight, but he didn't want to give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing that he had provoked him. He would let him be smug and go around wearing that shit-eating grin if he wanted to. Gary Parker wasn't going to stoop to his level.

By the time he reached home, Gary's anger had given way to despair. The farmhouse looked uglier than ever as he drove into the yard. He hated the old house with its peeling paint and sagging porch. He hated the chickens that pecked about in the yard and the stink of the hog pen. He resented the laughter and chatter of his younger siblings as they ran to tackle him around his legs and impeded his progress across the dirt clearing.

"Gary, Mama said you have to help me with my arithmetic tonight."

"Gary, make Stevie stop following me." "Gary, can you take me into townT' "Shut up!"

Six pairs of astonished eyes looked up at him. He gazed around the circle of faces and hated their trusting, loving expressions. Who did they think he was, a saint?

He pushed them out of his path and, scattering chickens, ran across the yard to the barn. Inside, he found a dark comer where he dropped down into the hay and covered his head with his arms. Yearning and hate and love warred within him.

He yearned to get away from this place. He hated poverty, ugliness, dirt, and his lack of privacy. Yet he loved his family. In his recurring daydreams, he returned from college like a bountiful Santa Claus, handing out goodies to them. But the responsibility of making those dreams a reality was burdensome. Often, he considered simply disappearing.

He never would, of course. Not merely because his sense of responsibility was so deeply ingrained in him, but because of Jade. She made all the ugliness in his life bearable, because in her lay the promise that it wouldn't always be so. She was the nucleus of all his hopes.

"God," he groaned. How could he stand a life without her? Jade, he thought miserably, what happened to you, to

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us, to our shared future? They had planned to get their educations, then return to Palmetto and make the community more egalitarian. Now, it seemed, she had defected to the other side-to the Patchetts. How could she?

.'Gary?" His father entered through the wide barn door. Otis Parker wasn't yet fifty but he looked at least a decade older. He was thin and wiry, a slight man with perpetually stooped shoulders. His overalls hung loosely on his bony frame. He found his son sitting in the shadowed comer on a mound of sour-smelling hay.

"Gary? 'The kids said you was acting mean." "Can't I have one moment's peace around here?" "Something happen at school?"

"No! I'm just looking for some pri vacy. " Gary felt like lashing out at something, and his father was a convenient target. "For once, can't you just leave me alone?" he shouted.

"All righty." Otis turned to go. "Don't forget to slop the hog."

Gary surged to his feet, his hands balled into fists. "Lis-ten, old man, I've slopped that fucking hog for the last time. I'm sick to death of slopping the hog. I'm sick of being surrounded by screaming kids that you didn't have any better sense than to make. I'm sick of this place and the rotten stench of your failure, I'm sick of school and teachers and talk about scholarships when nobody really gives a shit about anything, Being the good boy sucks. It gets you nowhere. Nowhere. "

His rage and energy spent, Gary fell to his knees in the dirty straw and began to cry. Several minutes elapsed before he felt his father's rough hand shaking his shoulder.

"Looks like you could use a swaller of this."

Otis was holding out to him a Mason jar of clear liquid. Gary reached for it hesitantly, uncapped it, and sniffed. Then he took a sip. The moonshine seared all the way down to his stomach. Coughing and wheezing, he passed the jar back to Otis, who took a big draft.

"Don't tell your mama 'bout this

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911 -Where'd you get it.

-Reckon it,s time you learned about Georgie. She's a kking moonshine for years. She nigger lady what's been mz all I can afford anyway. I keep don't charge too much. It's old saddle, if you ever need it hid over yonder under that             laced the lid on it when I ain't around-" Otis carefully rep

the jar. ,you got woman troubles?"

ttally, though the reminder Of Gary shrugged nonconimi    t more than the moonshine did. Jade's betrayal burned his gu

"They's bout the only thing in God's creation that can drive a man to go crazy and talk wild the way you was atalkin'. " Otis regarded him sternly . "I didn't like what you had to say about your little brothers and sisters 'cause it don't speak well of your mama-"

,'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it-"        know that each one "Yeah, you did. But I want you to      e're proud of every of our kids was conceived in love. W ,

single one." Otis's eyes grew misty - ' We're 'specially out for the life of me where you proud of you. Can't figure

come from, bein' so smart and all - I reckon You're ashamed Of us. "

"I'm not., Daddy."

sighing, Otis said,  "I ain't so dumb that I don't know ver bring  friends out here to the place, Garywhy you ne                                and me, we don't it's plain to see why. Listen, your mama

want you to get educated so you can take care of us and our other children. We want you to get away from here for o bad. You don't only one reason-'cause You want to s

want to be a failure like me.             orry piece of land, "All I've ever had to my name is this s

and it for damn sure ain't much .I wasn't even the one that acquired it, but my daddy. I've did the best I could to hold on to it."

Gary almost strangled on the remorse he felt for saying what he had. Otis sensed his guilt and forgivingly patted his son's knee, then used it as a prop when he stood up.

,,you and Jade have a tiff?" Gary nodded. "Well, it'll blow over. A female's got to have her spells every now and again or she wouldn't be female. When they get on a tear,

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just leave 'em be for a while. " Having dispensed that sage advice, he ambled toward the door. "Comin' up on suppertime. Best get your chores did."

Gary watched his father leave. His rolling, bowlegged gait carried him across the dismal yard, which was littered with broken, secondhand toys and chicken droppings. Gary covered his face with his hands, wishing that when he lowered them and opened his eyes he would be a million miles away, untethered from his obligations.

Everyone, including his family, expected too much of him. He was doomed to failure before he began. No matter what mountains of achievement he scaled, he could never live'up to everyone's expectations. He could never be good enough, rich enough. He could never be Neal Patchett.

For God's sake, did Jade have to run to him? So what if Neal was the richest boy in town? Jade knew how shallow he was. How could she stand to let him touch her? As Gary gazed at his derelict surroundings, the answer became instantly clear: Neal Patchett never went to school with chickenshit on his shoes.

Resentment gnawed at him like the raw liquor in his belly. She would be sorry. Before long she would come crawling back. She had a crush on Neal, that's all. It wouldn't last. It was him, Gary, she truly loved. What they had was too deep and abiding to throw away. Sooner or later Jade would regain her senses. In the meantime, he would ... what?

His sense of responsibility reared its ugly head and drew him to his feet. He went out to slop the hog.

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CHAPTER

Seven

"Say, Jade."

Jade turned away from her locker, clutching her textbooks to her chest. So few of her classmates spoke to her anymore that she was surprised and pleased that someone-anyone -had approached her.

The facts were murky, but the scuttlebutt around Palmetto High School was that Jade had been unfaithful to Gary Parker with Neal Patchett. It was said that as a result of jade,s two-timing, Gary had dumped her. In two and a half months, she had gone from being the most sought-after girl in the senior class to a social leper. While her classmates were caught up in the festive whirl preceding graduation, Jade was shunned.

The gossip wasn't contained within the walls of the high school. It had filtered into the community at large. When it reached Pete Jones's ears, he fired her from her part-time job with the thin excuse that he would prefer to have a young man working for him.

Things were no better at home. Velta complained that she was getting the cold shoulder at work. "I heard my coworkers whispering about you. Didn't I tell you that you'd be blamed for what happened? You should have had that colored man bring you straight home. it was a big mistake to go to the hospital. Once you did that, you sealed your fate and mine."

Jade had no one to take her problems to. She would never forgive Donna Dee for betraying her. Apparently Donna

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Dee hadn't forgiven her, either, for inciting Hutch's libido. The chasm between them could never be bridged, but since there wasn't anyone to replace Donna Dee, losing her best friend and confidante was like losing a limb.

But it was for losing Gary that Jade wept bitterly every night. It was obvious from his attitude that he believed the lies being circulated about her. His anger and confusion were a fertile ground for ugly suspicions, which Neal Patchett had sown and cultivated. Working as subtly as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Neal continued to torment Gary with innuendos. He tracked Jade like a bloodhound, his smoldering looks conveying that they shared a naughty secret. His suggesti,eness made her sick to her stomach. But she hated Neal's gloating worse for Gary's sake. His self-confidence and pride had taken as brutal a beating as her body had.

"Hi, Patrice     she said to the girl who had the courage to buck the trend and speak to her.

Patrice Watley was plump, bleached, and wild. Jade didn't recall having a conversation with her since junior high, when the line between the good girls and the bad girls was distinctly drawn. Until recently, they had been on opposite sides of that line.

Patrice's mother had recently obtained her fourth divorce and was in hot pursuit of husband number five. Her active love life had always kept her so busy that Patrice had been left to her own devices. As a result, she had packed a lot of living into eighteen years.

"I don't mean nothing by this, you understand, " she whispered, moving closer to Jade. "But are you knocked up?"

Jade's knuckles turned white against the spines of her schoolbooks. "Of course not. What makes you ask a thing like that?"

Patrice smacked her lips with impatience and a trace of sympathy. "Say, look Jade, I said I don't mean nothing by asking, but I know e signs, okay? I've been there twice myself.

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Jade bowed her bead, mindlessly poking her thumb into the silver coil of her spiral notebook - "I haven't been feeling well, that's all."

"How late are you?"

Jade felt herself crumbling on the inside. "Two months." ,I je-sus! And you're supposed to be smart - You ain't got much time7 girl- you've got to do something fast."

refused to acknowledge what her late periods Jade had               't even considered what she would might signify. She hadn                           ality

do if the worst possibility became an actuT, ,,you, re gonna get rid of it, aren't you. ,,I.   I hadn't thought-"

"Well, if you decide to, I can help," Patrice offered

6'Why woul you     ')"

,,Is it Neat PatcheItt 's kid9"

rumors. Jade shrugged, indicating Patrice had heard the                  she might be carrying. that she couldn't be sure whose child          I want to help "Well, on the chance that it's Neal's,

YOU." Patrice took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, , wasn't permitted in the school building. although smoking

back her head and sent a plume of smoke ceilShe tilted

ingward. "'Me son of a bitch did the same thing to me the summer after eighth graded That was my first. My mama went positively apeshit- My stepdaddy at the time refused to pay for the abortion, so Mama went to Neal's old man for the money. Say, you want a cig? You're lookin' a little green around the gills - "        smoke away from her face. "No, Jade waved the cigarette

thanks. I I

I "Mere was I? Oh, yeah. So anyway, old Ivan gave us five hundred dollars . I went to Georgie over in nigger town. , so we made money on the deal -