Souvenir (26 page)

Forty-three

O
N
F
RIDAY IN THE SCHOOL’S SMALL CAFETERIA
, S
AVANNAH SAT WITH HER
usual lunchmates: Rachel and Miriam, a slight, stunning girl whose father once played baseball for the Minnesota Twins. Talk was of whether they should go downtown to the Cinco de Mayo festival later, but Savannah’s mind refused to stay engaged. She kept drifting to the things Kyle said to her the night before, when she’d again lain in her bed talking to him late into the night. Sweet, intimate promises of what they’d do when he got back in town tonight.

With Kyle so much on her mind all week, she’d scored 72 on her trigonometry exam and 81 on her world history quiz, and fallen asleep during the movie they’d watched in art yesterday afternoon—but she was keeping it together. Only Aunt Beth seemed to notice she was making herself scarce at home; last night after she and her dad had gotten back from Dairy Queen, Beth had come up to her room and sat on the bed for a minute. “You’re like a mouse in a houseful of cats,” Beth said, smiling. “It’s a boy, right?”

Savannah was glad to admit she was seeing someone. She said, “Mom doesn’t know, though—the nerve thing has made her really distracted and all, so, you know, I didn’t tell her.” Beth’s face clouded at this. It
was
a lame excuse….

Beth said, “She does have a lot on her mind—but I think she’d be glad to hear your news.”

“It’s no big deal,” Savannah said. “You can tell her if you want.”

But Beth said no, she’d leave that to her. “Don’t be afraid to share stuff with your mom; you’re at the top of her list, you know.”

Savannah thought of this again. It sounded good, but as far as she could tell, the top of her mom’s list right now was Grandpa Spencer—which she had to admit made sense. His surgery went well, but he was in a lot of pain, and that made him cranky and demanding. Aunt Jules had remarked, “And he wonders why I was
so
ready to get out of the house at the first possible chance!”

She understood Aunt Jules perfectly. Not that her parents were so awful, but they were hardly around, and they hardly noticed when
she
was around. They had so little to do with the
truth
of her life, and she definitely didn’t feel central to theirs. If anything, she felt like a chore, always having to be taxied to and from school or practice or games or lessons…she could not
wait
to get her car.

Tonight Kyle was staying again at what she now thought of as “their” hotel. She wanted to take him out for dinner and then see a movie. “Great plan,” he’d said, “if I can, like, keep my hands off you long enough.” He said he couldn’t wait to taste her again.

“Sa-
vannah.
Where
are
you?” Rachel waved a tuna sandwich in front of her face.

She pushed Rachel’s hand away. “No place. What?”

“Are you coming downtown with us or not?”

A few weeks ago she would’ve joined them at whatever, without question—and any girl who declined to hang with her friends because of a guy would’ve earned her derision. Before Kyle, she didn’t understand why a girl would choose a guy over her friends. Now she got it, though: some guys were worth it. None of the ones her friends had gone for, but that was the difference between her and them—she had higher standards.

“No, I can’t go; I have a date.”

Rachel whispered in her ear, “I told you I can’t cover for you again.” Her family was leaving first thing tomorrow for a wedding in Wales.

“I know. It’s cool. I’m not staying over.”

Miriam tossed a piece of bread crust at them, hitting Savannah’s shoulder. “No secrets,” she said.

“Yeah, Rachel,” Savannah said loudly. She told Miriam, “She was confessing how she prefers Michael Jackson’s body over Ashton Kutcher’s—so there, the secret is out.”

She laughed as Miriam squealed her disgust, and then she ducked Rachel’s mock punch.

Rachel said, “You think
I’m
bad—Savannah’s hot for
Marilyn Manson.
”

“Oh, baby!” Savannah said with faked passion, thinking that they had no idea what the real thing felt like—but she did.

Forty-four

A
NNA
P
OWELL’S VERY LAST DIARY ENTRY, MADE ON THE NIGHT BEFORE SHE
died, came early in the twelfth notebook. Meg knew it was there and had avoided reading it, resisting the finality of her mother’s last words. For all that she hadn’t wanted to become ensnared in the past and the pain it could bring, the more she read, the more she didn’t want her visit with her mother to end. What she’d discovered, though, in creating her own journal, was that the end wasn’t final, not for the reader; she could go back to the first entry and visit her mother all over again.

And so on Friday night after her sisters’ tearful exits, with Savannah gone to the movies and Brian out to dinner with a client, she treated herself to Chinese takeout and white wine. Then, when she thought she could stand it, she braved the last entry.

September 10, 2005
Low: 64º high: 89º. Clear, breezy, and hot.

I have a headache tonight that just won’t quit. Must be the humidity, or maybe a storm’s brewing and I’m feeling the drop in barometric pressure.

Spencer was gone to that orchid show today, so I made plans to have lunch with Meggie, just the two of us. Call me crazy, but I’ve had the oddest feeling, like there’s been an angel on my shoulder bugging me to talk with my oldest, get things off my chest. For what good I don’t know, but I decided to just do it so that angel’d be happy.

Meggie picked me up, and I noticed how she drove slowly past the McKays’. “Word is that they’ve got a bumper grapefruit crop coming this winter,” I said, just making conversation. From the road, you can see gobs of ripening fruit, which is not always the case. Some years aren’t so favorable. Anyhow, she speeds up then, like I’ve caught her doing something bad.

So I start in with the little speech I’d been thinking up, even though I meant to wait till we were done eating. All I wanted her to know was how worried I am about her, how I just don’t feel right about the way we encouraged her to marry Brian. Oh, he’s a fine son-in-law, caring and polite and supportive and all, but he’s not the kind of man to make her happy. Something’s missing in him. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and if I had to pin down just what the thing is, I would call it passion. He’s got energy and dedication and ambition to spare, and some would say that’s what passion is, but no, I’m talking about the sort of energy that connects a person to the power of nature and life. Like Spencer has, and Savannah. Like Meggie used to when she was little. And Kara, bless her, with those four boys and all those ideas!

Spencer isn’t always sensible, it’s true. But in all my 64 years, for all the hardships I’ve endured because of his crazy ideas or wrong assessments or my own shortsightedness or what have you, I’ve always been glad to be his wife. Meggie and Brian, they live so well, but I know—we all know—something’s missing there. Brian stifles her, drains her. I think that whole way of life, fine as it looks, has disconnected her from everything she loved as a girl.

I started to tell her my worries—that she will turn out a depressed and lonely empty-nester if this all keeps up—but as soon as I said, “Honey, I’m a little worried about you these days,” she starts talking about how well Savannah’s doing in school and how they’re going to buy her a new car for her birthday next spring! Off track I went like a duck after a bug, putting in my two cents about all these kids getting everything given to them these days. Not accusing her and Brian, mind you—I do have one or two diplomatic bones in my body—but giving my opinion that a child who never has to work for anything is being deprived of important life lessons. Meggie didn’t disagree.

At the restaurant, I try to launch my little speech again, only I try to be more subtle. “Only a couple more years until you and Brian are on your own,” I say, “and won’t that be a change? You getting pregnant right away didn’t give you much time to just be a couple.” She agreed, which I thought meant we were making progress, but then she starts telling me about a fifteen-year-old patient of hers who’s pregnant, and married too! And I can’t seem to steer the subject back to her and Brian…. So I gave up. I figure maybe I have mistaken what the angel wants.

We had a nice time together, Meggie and me, which is worth a lot. I can’t think of the last time we spent an afternoon just talking, no real agenda (that she knew of, anyway). I suppose either I should mind my own business and let her mind hers, or wait for a time when she’s open to talking about her troubles.

If she ever is—with me anyway. Could be she blames Spencer and me for them, and I can’t fault her if she does. I need to work up the nerve to just ask her outright and tell her I’m sorry. But Mother Above, you know I don’t enjoy stirring pots! Right now, though, I’m going to see if I don’t still have some of those extra-strong pain pills from when Spencer had his double root canal. I need to be rid of this headache or I’ll never sleep, and heaven knows a good night’s rest would do me a world of good.

A long sigh shuddered through Meg.

She did blame her mother in part; it would have been good for her to do some pot-stirring; Meg would’ve said
yes, Mom, you were wrong to encourage my marriage and so was Dad.
And she would’ve said,
but I understand, and it’s my fault too, and Brian’s.
With the blame spread all around, neither she or her mother would have had to feel so burdened by it. If only she hadn’t been so determined to avoid talking about her marriage, if only her mother hadn’t given up so easily….

If only.

Were there sadder words than these?

Forty-five

S
AVANNAH WAVED AS
K
YLE PULLED UP TO THE CURB IN FRONT OF THE MOVIE
theater, where her dad had dropped her off minutes before.

“Sweet Savannah,” Kyle sang from the window of his car, a late-nineties Pontiac. The seats were gray cloth, threadbare and stained—he’d left the windows down in the rain too many times—but she hardly cared.

“Aren’t you gonna park?”

He grinned his dimpled grin. “How ’bout we skip the movie? I been waiting sooo long to see you and, you know, there’s just no way I can keep my attention on the screen.”

How could she refuse him when he smiled like that? She got in, and they left the theater, Kyle lighting up a joint as soon as they were on the road. “Here you go,” he said, passing it.

“I’m good,” she said. “You can go ahead, though.”

He held the joint in front of her. “C’mon—you can’t get addicted. You had fun last week, right?”

To protest would make her a hypocrite, after joining him the last time. And she didn’t want him thinking she was judging him, or that she was acting her
age.
“Yeah, okay, I guess I’ll have a toke.”

Handing it back to him after, she said, “Now I have something for you.” She took a fat envelope from her purse and set it on his lap. “To help with summer class tuition. Did you register yet?”

“Babe! That’s so generous. How much is it?”

She leaned close and whispered against his ear, “A thousand.”

“No shit!” His excitement thrilled her, and she bit his ear playfully. He said, “But hey, can you
really
afford that?”

“Yeah, it’s from my savings, like before. I told you, I don’t need it for anything. Might as well use it for something worthwhile.” Like making him happy—and maybe grateful to her too. Make him think of her as a partner. By the time she was out of high school he’d be done with his undergrad work at Florida State, and they could get some really great apartment together in Tallahassee. Then she’d go to State too, while he worked on his master’s. Her parents might even help pay his way—they’d love him by that time, once they got past the age difference. And if not, oh well.

She and Kyle passed the joint back and forth as they crossed town, and when they arrived at the hotel she felt like she might have flown there. Kyle checked them in while she waited in the car, singing along to a No Doubt song and rifling through his glove box. Instead of the song lyrics, she sang, “Pen-cil, registration, tire gauge, tiny flashlight, tiny, flashlight, tiny flash-light…French fries, condoms!” At the bottom of the compartment were three condoms, packaged together in a crusty strip.

“Found the stash,” Kyle said when he got back to the car, startling her. Hadn’t he just gone inside? Time behaved so
oddly
when you were stoned.

She held up the strip. “You must be a Boy Scout or something—always prepared!” Except that last week he hadn’t bothered with condoms, saying it was just as fun to find alternate places to finish the deed. Well, either way, as long as she didn’t get pregnant, it was all good.

In the room, he set his canvas knapsack on the bed and dropped down next to it. “Like every good Boy Scout, I have one of these—got it in Miami.” He took out a digital camera. She started to sit down next to him, but he held up a hand like a stop sign. “Wait—photo op.” He turned on the power, focused on her, and took a picture.

She was glad she’d dressed up in a new lime green skirt and white cotton blouse; it was trendier than what she usually wore, but the aunts, who’d been just about to leave for the airport, had all approved. Her mom managed to come far enough out of her funk to say she looked “really great” in her new clothes, which made her feel guilty and deceptive. Aunt Beth was probably right—she should tell her mom she
liked
a guy, if only to start warming her to the idea that she was seeing someone.

“Unbutton your shirt,” Kyle said. “Be my model.”

She started to undo the buttons. “Wait. These are just for you, right?”

“Just for me,” he said, aiming the camera at her.

From there, it was easy to shed the shirt and show off the lacy white bra, also a recent purchase—with the skirt and top and a few other lacy things—charged to her mom’s credit card. She’d cleared the shopping ahead of time, and even had a plan for excusing the airline and hotel charges when they showed up: she’d speculate that whatever looked wrong to her mom was the result of identity theft. Simple.

“Now the skirt.”

Kyle took out a small vial of pills while she undid the skirt’s hook and wiggled it down over her hips. Feeling bold, she struck a pose for him. “You like?”

He stood up and grabbed her hand, pulled her to the bed. “Feel how much I like,” he said, moving her hand to his crotch. He liked it a lot.

Holding up a tiny yellow pill, he said, “I got these great ’ludes, which you can try if you want, but don’t, like, think I’m pushing ’em on you, right? They extend the trip is all.” He popped the pill into his mouth, swallowed without water. “But it’s cool; you might not be ready for this stuff.”

She tried to assess the offer sensibly. He’d just taken one, so how bad could they be? She
was
ready—to prove it, she grabbed the vial and shook out a pill herself, popped it into her mouth just like he’d done. Such a tiny pill couldn’t do any harm.

But then the drug took hold, and she would only remember, later, hard-edged flashes of what happened in the time afterward: Posing in her underwear. Posing without. Sex toys from Kyle’s bag. A knock on the door while she lay with hands and feet bound loosely in playful bonds—“A friend,” Kyle said, going to the door. Then Kyle inside her in every way possible. Was the friend still there? She couldn’t remember seeing anyone, and no one else was there when the drug began wearing off.

Time slowed to a catchable speed, and Savannah looked at the bedside clock.

“Oh my god,” she said. “I am so busted!” It was almost one
AM
.

She dressed fast, then found her cell phone and saw missed calls from both of her parents’ phones and Rachel’s, too. Panic rose in her like a flash flood. What could she tell her parents? “You need to take me home.”

Kyle, still naked, went to her. “Oh, babe, hey, I’m sorry. I—we—overdid it. Whew! What a ride, though!” He ran his hands over her breasts and then down, reaching under her skirt. In her ear he said, “You are the hottest little thing I have ever seen.”

The heat of his mouth tickled her ear, and his words pleased her—but she felt ashamed too. How could she have done all those things willingly? Was she
that
kind of girl? “Hey…those pictures—”

“Are my treasure.” He pushed her hair back and kissed her neck.

Unsure of what was real and what she might have conjured up, she wanted to ask if someone really had been there watching them. Had Kyle only
talked
about how sexy it would be if somebody watched them? But she didn’t ask. Best to let it go for now, think about it later when she felt more balanced, more sober.

Kyle drew her hand down to his erection. Again? Every part of her was sore, used.

“I really need to go home,” she whispered, tears rimming her eyes.

“Five minutes,” he said, pushing her onto her knees. She didn’t know how to tell him no.