River's Edge (18 page)

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Authors: Marie Bostwick

BOOK: River's Edge
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“You must be joking. That's awful! I can't believe it! That just isn't fair!” I was indignant. “I'm going to school and see Mr. Simmons first thing Monday morning and explain exactly what happened. It isn't right that you should get detention for helping me!”
Junior interrupted me with a stream of hearty laughter. “Elise! Calm down—it's all right! Mr. Simmons gave Mark and me detention and then he suspended our sentence.”
“He did? Why?” It was all too confusing, and I couldn't understand why Junior seemed so lighthearted about the whole thing. My English had become very good in the last years, but every now and again I'd come across phrases or ideas that were unfamiliar to me. Perhaps this was one of those times, I thought.
“We graduated yesterday! We are no longer students at Brightfield High, so the punishment can't apply to us.”
Suddenly I understood the joke and the cleverness behind Mr. Simmons's brand of justice. Junior smiled as he saw comprehension break across my face. For a moment we just stood there grinning at each other.
“You want to go for a walk?” Junior asked. “We could go up by those shallows at the bend—see if the fish are biting.”
“All right,” I agreed. “If they are, we can put the pearls in my pocket and use the fishing line you strung them on. But we don't have a hook or a worm. Do you think pearls would make good bait?”
“Absolutely! We've got very refined fish here in Brightfield.”
We strolled upriver toward the shallows, walking side by side, keeping an arm's length between us. Though we had been joking only a moment before, I was suddenly overcome by a wave of timidity. I moved closer to the riverbank and started dragging my stick through the water again. Junior cleared his throat as though he was going to say something, but when I turned to look at him, he just shoved his hands deep into his pockets and scuffed a rock with the tip of his shoe.
“Yeah,” Junior said evenly, as though we had been talking steadily and he was just picking up the thread of the conversation where it had left off, “Yeah, Ol' Hark didn't get off quite so easy, though.”
The mention of John Harkness made my stomach lurch. Here, walking with Junior in my favorite spot on earth, it had been easy to forget about him. Hark was in my grade, so I knew that there could be no “suspended sentence” for him, but a few weeks' detention wasn't going to chasten him. If anything, it would only anger him, and he would blame his troubles on me, just as he had before. Every time he saw me at school or on the street, his hatred of me would grow; I could never feel completely safe again.
Something in my expression must have betrayed my thoughts. Junior reached out and touched me lightly on the shoulder. “Hey, Elise. Don't look so worried,” he soothed. “Mr. Simmons was too smart to try and saddle Hark with detention and think that would be the end of it. He called the police station, and then they called John's dad. Officer Fuller didn't exactly come out and say it, but he suggested to Mr. Harkness that it could get pretty uncomfortable for Hark if he stuck around Brightfield. Something to the effect that the next time John got caught littering or jaywalking, he might be looking at doing some hard time.
“Mr. Harkness got the message,” Junior continued. “They went home, packed John's bags, and headed to Hartford first thing this morning. Even as we speak, John Harkness is enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps. You won't see him around here anymore.”
“He's joining the Marines?” Junior nodded in confirmation, but I still found it hard to believe him. “But, isn't he too young? We're in the same grade, so he can't be more than sixteen.”
“Nope. He's seventeen, and that's old enough. Hark had to repeat the third grade.”
I felt as if I'd just had a terrific burden lifted from my back. “Junior! Really? That is great! I simply can't—”
Without waiting for an invitation or permission, Junior leaned across the space that divided us, placed a hand on either side of my face, and kissed me softly but certainly on the mouth.
I didn't pull away. I let him kiss me. Then I kissed him back. This was what I had wanted ever since I'd turned around to see him standing on the riverbank. No. Before that. Long before.
Without bothering to worry about how it looked or what he would think of me, I pressed my body into his, letting him wrap his arms around me while I placed my two hands on his back, one resting comfortably on each of the strong, muscled blades of his shoulders. We stood that way a long time, enveloping one another, letting our mouths discover this new world of kisses. Our lips touched lightly at first, then again, more boldly. I could not have imagined that his kiss would be so sweet.
Finally Junior lifted his head up, momentarily breaking the connection between us. I looked in his eyes and saw they were filled with pain. Somehow I knew he was thinking about all the cruel things he'd said to me in the past, all the barbs and intentional slights he had subjected me to in the past and regretting every one.
“Elise,” he began.
“No,” I whispered. “You don't need to say it. It doesn't matter anymore. This is our first day, and I am so glad, Junior. So glad.”
Chapter 13
M
ama was sitting on the porch, snapping the ends off a bowl of bush beans, when Junior and I came home. By the time we returned, the sun was streaming its last rays over the edge of the horizon before yielding its territory to the moon and the night. Mama was alone, but I could hear the sound of machine gunfire and squealing sirens floating through the open parlor window. The younger Mullers were inside, gathered around the Philco, listening to
Gangbusters.
“Hi, Mama,” Junior said when we came inside. I echoed his greeting, and I closed the door behind us.
There shouldn't have been any noticeable way to mark the change in our relationship. Junior and I had let go of each other's hands when we'd gotten within sight of the house and had been careful to pat our tousled hair back into place, but when we spoke Mama glanced up and paused in her work, clutching a bean in her left hand and its stem in her right. Her mouth had been set in a thin, flat line as though she was annoyed and prepared to give someone a talking-to, but upon seeing us together, her irritated expression gave way to one of questioning appraisal. She didn't ask us anything directly, but I think we both knew that she knew, and for a moment I felt a bit guilty, though I wasn't exactly sure why.
Mama broke the tension. “Dinner is a little late tonight. Doing the floors left me behind schedule.” She got up from the rocker and opened the screen door that led into the kitchen. We followed her inside.
“The floors look great, Mama,” Junior said, and he was right.
“Don't they, though,” she agreed, the satisfaction evident in her voice. “I feel like a new woman.” She sighed contentedly and then continued speaking, directing her words to either or both of us. I wasn't quite sure. “You've got to take your pleasures where you find them. As long as they are wholesome ones and don't cause others pain. There are little joys in every day, if we have the good sense to look for them.”
Junior and I looked at one another, neither of us quite grasping the full meaning of Mama's speech, but we got the idea that, indirectly at least, she was giving us her blessing.
“Well said!” Papa's voice boomed as he entered the room. “Whatever did I do to deserve such a wife? Not only beautiful, but wise!” He bounded across the room and leaned down to plant an appreciative kiss on the nape of Mama's neck. Once again I was struck by the wonderful intimacy between them, something that I was only just beginning to understand, but recognized as rare to have lasted across so many decades and the hardships of life.
Mama tapped Papa mildly with her hand to remind him that they weren't alone. Papa asked when dinner would be ready, stating that he was hungry enough to eat a bear, which was how hungry he claimed to be at about this same time every evening.
“Soon,” Mama answered, and Papa wrinkled his forehead, obviously dissatisfied with the indefinite nature of her response.
Junior opened the Frigidaire and rummaged around inside, searching for the glass milk jug with studied casualness. I stood there awkwardly, trying to decide whether it would look more natural to go up to my room or to sit down and start helping Mama with the beans.
Papa heard the sound of milk being poured into a glass and said, “Junior, pour me a glass, too, would you?” Then his brow furrowed again as if he had suddenly remembered something. “Hey, come to think of it—where have you been? I haven't seen you all day long. Or Elise, either for that matter. What have you two been up to?”
I knew a moment's panic as I racked my brain for a response. I glanced at Junior. He stopped drinking his milk in mid-gulp and looked a bit pale. Neither of us were accomplished liars, but Mama came to our rescue.
“Elise has been down at the river taking a long walk. I thought it would do her good.”
“Oh,” Papa said vaguely, and I sensed he was a little reluctant to speak of the events of the previous night. “That was a good idea. I always feel better when I go there myself. Good place to think things through.”
“Yes,” I agreed quickly. “I saw Mr. Schoeller when I went by. He was doing a little hoeing. I thought I might go over tomorrow afternoon after church and give him a hand.” I spoke confidently, knowing that everything I uttered was the truth. “That is, if it is all right with you. I know it is Sunday and all.”
“That's all right,” Papa replied. “I don't think it counts as breaking the Sabbath if you are helping someone else. Of course, I don't know what Mr. Schoeller's excuse would be, but that's his business.”
Papa turned to Junior, who had finished his milk and was staring intently into the bottom of the empty glass as if there were something interesting written there. Papa eyed him suspiciously.
“And what about you? Where have you been all day? You were supposed to come back to the church at three to pick me up. I waited for you for a half hour, then I finally walked over to the café and got Joe Klein to give me a ride.”
Junior gulped hard and opened his mouth to answer, but again Mama came to our defense. However, this time she wasn't as careful with the stick-to-at-least-some-semblance-of-truth principle as she had been before. Maybe she felt her lie was justified by the same logic Papa was using to justify letting me break the Sabbath—it didn't count if you were doing it to benefit someone other than yourself.
“That was my fault, Carl. I had him bring a jar of hot soup to Milda Ludwig's,” Mama lied. “She's got that cold, you know, and at her age she can't be too careful. Then I sent him over to Lester's Market in Harmon to see if they had a bag of boiling onions. I know how you like them, and I wanted to have some to go with that roast chicken in the oven.”
She turned her attention to Junior and gave him a questioning look. “Did you get the onions?”
“No, Mama. They were all out.”
Papa stood listening to this exchange with an expression of confusion on his face. “I thought you'd said that Betty and Harold were over taking care of Milda. And what are you doing sending the boy all the way to Harmon for boiling onions? Parker's has them on hand every week—for that matter, so do we! There's a ten-pound bag sitting in the cellar as we speak.”
“Really?” Mama questioned innocently as she snapped the last bean and walked to the sink to rinse them before dropping them into a pot of boiling water that was waiting on the stove. “I guess I just didn't see them down there. These beans will be good, though.”
“Well, what did you do when you got back from Harmon, Junior? When Joe dropped me off, I saw the car sitting in the drive, but you weren't anywhere to be found.”
Mama opened the oven door and exclaimed, “Just smell that chicken! It looks wonderful, too—the skin is nice and crispy, just the way you like it, Carl.” Papa, who was a big man with a big appetite, though never overweight, peered into the oven, momentarily distracted by Mama's diversion.
“Junior,” she continued cheerfully, “go and call the children. Tell them it's time to eat.” Donning oven mitts, she pulled the two huge roasters out of the oven. Papa pulled himself upright and breathed in the delicious aroma of baked chicken.
“Sophia, I swear I don't understand you. One moment you are imbued with sagelike wisdom and the next moment you are jabbering nonsense about hot soup and invisible onions.” Papa shook his head as he picked up a bowl of mashed potatoes and placed them in the middle of the table. “I still love you, though.”
“I love you too, Carl.”
I turned away to open the drawer where the silverware was kept, and as I did, I heard two pairs of lips meet in a smacking kiss.
 
The dinner table was abuzz with conversation, everyone talking at once and no one really listening, but that was all right. Everyone in the family had enjoyed a productive Saturday. When I'd first come to live with the Mullers I had been appalled by these chaotic mealtimes, but now I was used to them. I had come to realize that the louder and more disorganized the dinner-table talk, the more the Mullers were enjoying each other. And while it wouldn't have bothered me if Chuck and Chip would have outgrown their childish habit of throwing bits of food across the table when they thought no one was looking, I would never want to go back to the quiet, overly regulated meals of my childhood. Nothing about growing up in the orderly, regimented atmosphere of my home had prepared me for the jovial frenzy that reigned around the Muller family board, but slowly I had come to appreciate and even enjoy their warm, disor-deredly, loving ambiance.
This was never truer than tonight. Every eye was closed and every head bowed in silent prayer as Papa gave thanks for the food, the day, and the family, but the moment he finished the blessing, it was pandemonium. Everyone was so busy talking and eating and talking and asking for more potatoes and talking that no one seemed to notice how silent Junior and I were. Of course, this was not so unusual for me; I was naturally reserved. But not Junior. He waded into family arguments with ease and voiced his opinions freely—sometimes too freely, I thought. Reverend Muller's affection for his firstborn was obvious, but it was also obvious that he had great expectations for him. I think Junior felt pressured by his father's hopes for him. It seemed that, especially as Junior was teetering on the brink of adulthood, he and Papa argued more and more, often about the silliest things. No matter what Papa's opinion, Junior took the opposite view, and not always from any real conviction, or so it seemed to me, but just for the sake of being contrary.
As the platters were passed around the table, Papa tried to go over his sermon outline with Mama, who tried to listen to him while at the same time telling the twins that, no, they could not use any of her bedsheets as sails for the human glider, no matter how safe it was. I thoughtfully chewed a mouthful of green beans and nodded appropriate encouragement while Curt, who, thanks to a summer of intensive tutoring from Cookie and myself, and a new pair of eyeglasses, was now an avid reader and writer, described in detail a play he was writing about the three little pigs. In his story, the wolf would actually succeed in bringing home the bacon, though he would eventually be killed by a mob of angry townspeople, who in turn would be killed in a terrible flood.
“It's a morality play,” Curt said soberly and without a trace of his former stutter. “Everybody dies.”
“I see.” I was about to ask him where he'd learned about morality plays, but before I could, Curt jumped in his seat and let out a howl.
“Knock it off, Chuck! Mama, make him stop it! He keeps kicking me under the table!” Mama raised her eyebrows and threw Chuck a glare that made her displeasure clear.
“What?” Chuck asked innocently as he cut into his chicken with a shrug. “Tattletale!” he snarled out the side of his mouth. “Mama's boy!”
“Chuck, that will be enough of that,” Papa said firmly without really looking to see what the fuss was about. He continued speaking to Mama. “Where was I?”
“Made in God's image,” she prodded him.
“Right! Genesis makes clear that being made in God's image gives us incredible dignity and honor. Though we cannot be God, we were created to be God's ambassadors on the earth, reflecting his character to the world. However, we weren't satisfied with that. We wanted every fruit in the garden. Therefore, the fall of man was as much about the sin of dissatisfaction as disobedience ...”
This was about the third time Papa had made the same point, because he kept losing his train of thought. Cookie kept interrupting him with repeated requests and justifications as to why she should learn to drive and why Mark Woodward should be the one to teach her.
“He's a very good driver, Papa, and very experienced. Mr. Woodward has a tractor, and Mark's been driving it since he was twelve years old. Twelve years old, Papa! And he's never had an accident or even a ticket. Well, only that one ... but it was hard to see that stop sign, it was just about overgrown by sumac. Papa! Papa, you're not listening!”
“No, Coral, I am not.” Papa only used the children's Christian names when he was completely exasperated. He dropped his fork onto his plate with a clatter and glared at his only daughter. “I am trying to get your mother's assessment of the sermon I am giving tomorrow. I don't care how long Mark has been driving his father's tractor, I am not letting him take charge of my new sedan. Especially not with you behind the wheel!”
At this last, Cookie started to blink very fast, and her eyes threatened to brim with tears, a ploy that never failed to make her tenderhearted father feel awful.
“I'm sorry.” He sighed, but his voice was firm. “I didn't mean that to hurt your feelings. I'm sure you'll make as good a driver as anyone once you get some practice. It's just that right now you have no driving experience. Mark is a perfectly fine young man, but he's only been driving a couple of years himself. What if you were in an accident? Mark would feel terrible if something happened to my new car while he was in charge. If either of you got hurt, I'd feel terrible. How could I explain that to Mr. and Mrs. Woodward?”

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