The Invitation (5 page)

“Actually, it isn't a man,” Jackie lied as smoothly as she could. “Well, it is, but not in the way you mean. You remember when my plane went down a couple of nights ago?”

Terri shook her head in disbelief. After being in an airplane crash, anyone else would have been in a hospital getting medical care and flowers, but Jackie was absolutely nonchalant about the mishap. She spoke of her plane crashing the way one might speak of going to the beauty parlor. “Yes, I remember,” Terri said, marveling at her friend's bravery.

“There was a man there and—”

“What? You met a man in the middle of nowhere? What's his name? Where does he come from? Did he try anything?”

Jackie laughed. When they were in high school, she and Terri had barely known each other. Terri had had a normal family while Jackie's had been strange and eccentric. It was after Jackie left Chandler that they got to know each other. When they were both twenty years old, Terri had sent Jackie a letter of congratulations on winning her first race, saying that she understood Jackie's life because her own life was quite exciting as well. On the day Jackie had won the race, Terri's son had caught a wasp in his mouth, where it managed to sting his tongue before he swallowed it, her husband had dropped a crate on his foot and would be out of work for a month, and she had found out she was pregnant with her third child. “Now all I need is a plague of locusts and my life will be complete,” she'd written. “Please tell me about your boring life; I need something to counteract the thrill and exhilaration of mine.”

The letter had appealed to Jackie. She had received a lot of letters from people who had known her in the past, but many of those letters made her feel guilty, since the writers usually said that they doubted if she remembered them now that she was so famous. It was as though they thought that winning a race that was reported in the newspapers had instantly wiped out her memory. Or that every celebrity she met replaced an “insignificant” person from her past.

Happily, Jackie had written Terri all about the race, about the people she had met, about what it was like to soar high above the crowd at air shows. At first, she wrote of the applause, but as the years passed, she began to write of the defeats and the heartaches. She wrote of people whom she'd seen die in fiery crashes, of men and women who passed in and out of her life. She wrote of Charley and how sometimes his irresponsibility nearly drove her mad. She told Terri that she envied her her quiet, peaceful life, envied her her husband, who was always there for her, who was interested in their home and the kids.

Terri tried never to let on to Jackie how much their correspondence meant to her. The letters they exchanged were, at times, the best part of Terri's life. She used all her creativity to make her letters to Jackie interesting and fun and, above all, light. It was wonderful to have a glamorous and exciting woman like Jackie write to her with such intimacy and such trust. Jackie began to see Terri as wise beyond her years, someone who had had a chance to go off and see the world, but who had wisely decided to stay at home and settle down and raise children.

Terri never wrote anything to disabuse her friend of this notion. Oh, she was sarcastic at times, always making wisecracks about Ralph and the boys, but somehow Terri presented a picture of a life that was so good, so splendid, that she had to make jokes about it. If she told the truth she'd be able to do nothing but brag.

The real truth was that Terri had married the first man who asked her because she was terrified of ending up an old maid. Although he wanted to wait to have children, she was so afraid Ralph would leave her that she got pregnant on their wedding night—or maybe a week or so before, she was never sure. She never wrote Jackie the truth about her life—that her husband spent most of his time with his men friends drinking beer and that when he was home he held a newspaper in front of his face and slept. Instead she wrote Jackie of a life that sounded as though it had come out of a book written by Betty Crocker. She told of the garden she and her husband planted so they would have fresh vegetables and herbs for the boys. The truth was that her husband had lost his fourth job in as many years and her father had planted a small garden in her back yard to help feed her family. Of course the boys were just like their father and wouldn't touch a vegetable, so Terri had spent long hours canning produce to trade to a bachelor hog farmer for the meat the men loved. Terri wrote Jackie that Ralph always spent Sundays with his family; actually, he was sleeping off Saturday night. She told Jackie how quietly rewarding it was having a family. She painted a glorious picture of tiny loving hands bringing her flowers, of little mouths eating her delicious food. Terri poured every bit of her imagination into her narrations of an ideal existence.

It was writing those letters, and planning what she was going to write, that got Terri through some of the roughest times of her life. While one big, sturdy boy was terrorizing the little girl next door and the second one was throwing his food against the kitchen wall, while Terri was in the bathroom throwing up because she was carrying the third one, she thought of how she'd present her life in letters to Jackie.

When the boys grew older and as big as their father, she couldn't control them, and the letters she exchanged with Jackie became even more important in her life. Her husband's attitude toward child rearing was that the meaner the boys were, the more masculine they were. The more often they got into trouble in school, the prouder he was of them. Terri tried to talk to him, to tell him that he was encouraging their delinquent behavior, but his reasoning was that this was the way he had been raised and he'd turned out all right. Terri knew better than to point out that he'd never been able to keep a job for longer than eight months because he got into fights with his bosses. His sons were turning out just like him, arguing with teachers and principals and store owners and anyone who happened to get in their way.

Terri's real life and the life she wrote Jackie about bore little relation to each other. Now that her big, awkward sons were nearly grown and were rarely at home, the brightest point in her life was these visits to the old ghost town to spend time with Jackie. She had no idea if Jackie knew the truth about her life. It wouldn't have been too difficult for her to find out, as everyone in Chandler knew everyone else's business, but somehow Terri doubted Jackie did. To the folks of Chandler, Jackie was a celebrity, and she didn't think people would be rushing to tell her about Nobody Terri Pelman's boring life.

So, as often as possible, Terri visited Jackie, and the two of them kept up the façade of Terri's splendid golden life in which she had everything: the steady love of a good man, three beautiful children who had turned into fine, upstanding young men, and a lovely, gracious home.

“It wasn't like that,” Jackie said, laughing. “It wasn't a romantic encounter. I mean, he did kiss me but—”

“You crash a plane, a gorgeous man comes out of the night, rescues you”—she raised her eyebrows—“and kisses you, and you say, ‘It wasn't like that.' So, Jackie, what was it like?”

“Terri, you are incorrigible. I don't think you'll be happy until you get me married and pregnant.”

“And why shouldn't you be as miserable as the rest of us?”

“Sometimes I almost think you mean what you say. If I didn't know the truth about how much you love that family of yours I'd—”

“Tell
me!”

“Really, there isn't much to tell.” Actually, Jackie thought, that was the truth. What had passed between her and William could have been one-sided. She didn't want to tell Terri what she was feeling and then end up looking as though she'd made a fool of herself over some man. And most definitely she did not want to tell Terri that this man was one of Jace and Nellie Montgomery's sons. For some odd reason, Terri seemed to believe that every man in Chandler was worthless. Maybe she thought she'd gotten the only good one, or maybe it was just that familiarity breeds contempt. She'd known all the men of Chandler for so long that she considered them incapable of inspiring passion or even love. Terri had her own idea of a perfect man: the more exotic the better. She once asked Jackie how she could have been to France and not fallen in love with a Frenchman. “Or an Egyptian,” Jackie had said, laughing. “They're the best-looking men on earth.”

“This is really a business arrangement. I mentioned my wanting to start a freight business, and he said he was looking for something to do, so it just happened. He's gone to Denver to buy a couple of planes.”

“And that's it?”

“That's all there is to it.”

Terri didn't say anything, but put her teacup down, leaned back in her chair, and stared at her friend. “I'm not leaving here until you tell me everything. I can call Ralph and have him send my clothes here. If the boys get lonely for their mother I hope you won't mind if they come to stay with us. They'll be no bother at all.”

At that threat Jackie almost shuddered but caught herself in time. Terri was a perfect example of the saying that love is blind, for those huge, semiliterate, lecherous sons of hers were no pleasure to anyone except her. The last time one of them had driven to Eternity to pick Terri up, he had cornered Jackie in the kitchen and started telling her how a woman like her must be “dyin' for a man” and he'd be “willin' to scratch her itch.” Jackie had brought her foot down hard on his instep while “accidentally” dropping a skillet on his left hand. Since then Jackie had volunteered to drive Terri home whenever her friend was unable to borrow a car.

“I…I liked him,” Jackie said, wanting to talk to someone about William but at the same time not wanting to talk. Her reaction to William didn't make any sense, since Jackie had been married for most of her life, but the truth was, she had never been “in love.” She had married Charley so she could get out of Chandler. Charley had known that and hadn't cared that he was being used. He was quite willing to trade a few marriage vows for the company of a long-legged colt of a girl with an insatiable curiosity and a willingness to work such as Charley had never seen before. Within twenty hours of meeting her, Charley had a feeling that she would take care of him. He hadn't misjudged her. In all their years together, she had made sure the bills were paid, that they had a roof over their heads, and she had smoothed out all his problems, making Charley's once tumultuous life as peaceful as it could be. He had repaid her by showing her the world.

“I liked him,” Jackie repeated. “That's all there was to it. He was there when I crashed, he took care of me, and we talked. Very simple.” Talked as though we'd known each other forever, she thought. Talked as though we would never stop; talked as though we were friends, old friends, new friends, best friends.

“Who is he?”

“Ah, uh, William something, I don't remember.”

“He lives in Chandler?”

“I'm not really sure.” She talked quickly so Terri wouldn't ask her why she'd agreed to be partners with a man whose last name she didn't know. “Terri, really, you're making too much of this. It was nothing. I've met a thousand men in my life, given flying lessons to hundreds of them, and this one is no different.”

“You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me. You are blushing like a schoolgirl. So when do I get to meet him?”

“I don't know. I think his sister said he might be back on Saturday.” The day was emblazoned in her mind. Saturday, late afternoon, she'd been told. At three
P.M.
Jackie planned to be wearing a pretty little yellow and white pinafore, something with ruffles around the wide straps and a white blouse underneath. She might just dab some perfume in a few strategic places and have bread baking in the oven. He had seen her in a leather flying suit, hair plastered to her head by a cotton-lined leather helmet, so next time she thought it might be nice to show him another side of her—say, the side that could take care of a house, maybe even be somebody's wife.

Jackie's head came up at the sound of Terri's laughter. “Oh, honey, you have it bad, very bad. You remind me of myself when I was eighteen years old.” Terri's tone said clearly that the way Jackie was acting was understandable in an eighteen-year-old but rather silly at thirty-eight.

At the sound of a horn, Jackie jumped, her head swiveling toward the window, again causing Terri to laugh. “That's my eldest,” Terri said.

“You must invite him in for milk and cookies,” Jackie said, but she hoped she wouldn't have to endure the smutty leers of the “boy.”

“No, I must return,” Terri said, bravely trying to keep the misery out of her voice. Her three sons and husband always felt betrayed when she dared take an afternoon off and not stay in the house at their beck and call, so they punished her by doing what they could to destroy the house while she was away. She knew that now she would return to food spilled on the floor, screen doors left open to admit thousands of flies, and angry men complaining that they hadn't been fed in hours. “I'll call you on Sunday, and I want to hear everything,” Terri said as she left Jackie's house, running because her son was lying on the horn so it made a constant stream of deafening noise.

J
ackie tried to be sensible during the following days, but it wasn't any use. She tried to talk to herself, telling herself that she was an adult woman, not a frivolous, starry-eyed girl, but she didn't listen to her own advice. She cursed herself for having been born a woman. What in the world was wrong with women anyway? They met a man who was nice to them, and within minutes they began planning the wedding. She told herself that it had been an ordinary encounter, that what had made it seem extraordinary was that she had just been hit hard on the head. Otherwise she would have had her wits about her and she wouldn't have given another thought to the incident.

She made herself remember all the many men she'd met over the years. There was the time she'd been on a boat with Charley and a very nice man who…well, the truth was, he was more than nice. He was absolutely gorgeous, tall, with dark blond hair, crystal-clear blue eyes, and he had spent eighteen years or so in various universities studying a number of subjects, so he'd been fascinating to talk to. He was brilliant, educated, terribly handsome, everything a woman could want, but although they had spent the whole four days of the trip together while Charley was prostrate with seasickness, Jackie had not fallen in love with the man. Of course, she argued with herself, she had been married, and maybe that had something to do with it. Maybe William was the first interesting, handsome man she'd had any contact with since she'd become a single woman.

She had to smile when she thought that. After Charley's death she had been amazed at the number of men who came to “pay their respects.” At the time she had been grieving, wondering what she was going to do with herself without Charley to take care of, and suddenly there were many men offering her anything she wanted. It was flattering and annoying at the same time.

She didn't so much as go out with a man for six months after Charley died, but the combination of loneliness and the constant invitations she received broke her. After months, she began to go out to dinner and movies, to auto races, to picnics. You name it and she went to it. And at each one it was the same thing: “How many brothers and sisters do you have?” “Where did you grow up?” “Where did you go to school?” “How many races have you won?” “Who are the celebrities you've met?” “What was it like having dinner at the White House?”

After six months of these dates, she began to consider having cards printed with vital information on them, so she could avoid having the same boring conversation over and over. Didn't anyone ever have anything interesting to say? Like “What's the biggest lie you ever told?” she couldn't help thinking. That was what William had asked her. And he had made her a sandwich she liked, not a conventional sandwich of grilled cheese or beef with mustard, but a
real
sandwich.

A year after Charley died she had moved to Chandler, for she was tired of the circuit, tired of people who had seen so much and done so much that they were dying of ennui by the time they were thirty. Jackie was afraid that if she stayed with them she would become one of them. She wanted to be with people who had wonder in their voices when they talked of airplanes. “I don't know how those things stay up,” they'd say. Words that once bored her to tears, words that made her angry with their very stupidity, now pleased her with their simplicity. She liked Chandler, liked the people in it, people who had done little in their lives—little except keep the world going, that is.

And now, here in this sleepy little town, she had met a man who had done what no other man since Charley had been able to do: he had interested her.

On Thursday she cleaned house. On Friday she went shopping and spent twice her three-month clothing budget, and when she got home she decided she hated everything she'd bought. She went through all the clothes in her closet, pulling out things she'd kept for years. She couldn't decide whether to try to look like a sweet-tempered housewife or a sexy woman of the world. Or maybe she should aim for the movie-star-at-home-look of tailored trousers and a silk shirt.

By Saturday morning she was sure that her whole life depended on this afternoon, and she knew that whatever she chose would be wrong. When she awoke that morning she was angry, angry at herself for acting like a love-starved girl, for making something out of nothing. Maybe this man wouldn't show up. Even if he did show up, it could be very embarrassing to be dolled up as though she were going to the school dance. What if he came wearing work clothes, ready to get started overhauling a plane engine or whatever he wanted to do? What if he didn't show up at all?

She went to the stable that had been converted into a hangar, climbed a ladder and began trying to take the ruined propeller off her wrecked plane. The first thing she did was drop the wrench, tear one fingernail half off, then cut the bright red polish off another nail. Holding her hands up to the light, she grimaced. So much for having beautiful hands, she thought, but then she shrugged. Maybe it was better that she didn't try to impress him.

Standing on a ladder, wearing greasy coveralls that once had been a rather pleasant gray but were now stained into a non-color, Jackie was pulling on the bent propeller with a wrench. Wiping her hair out of her eyes, she left a smear of grease on her cheek as she looked around the shaft and saw a pair of feet. Expensively shod feet. After wiping her face on the sleeve of her coveralls and smearing more grease on herself, she looked down to see a good-looking young man staring up at her. He was a tall man, with dark hair and eyes, and he was staring at her in a very serious way, as though he expected something from her.

“You need some help?” she asked. Most people who came to Eternity, if they weren't friends, were tourists wanting to see the ghost town, or they were lost.

“Remember me?” he asked in a very nice voice.

She stopped trying to loosen a nut and looked down at him. Now that he mentioned it, there was something familiar about him. But she couldn't place him. No doubt he lived in Chandler and she had gone to school with him.

“Sorry,” she said, “can't seem to place you.”

Without so much as a smile, he said, “Do you remember this?” Holding out his hand, he had something in his palm, but she couldn't tell what it was.

Curious, she climbed down the ladder to stand in front of him. She was considered a tall woman, but this man topped her by several inches, and now that she was closer to him, he seemed quite familiar. Taking the trinket from his hand, she saw that it was a school pin. CHS was embossed in gold on an enameled background of the school colors, blue and gold. At first the pin meant nothing to her, but then, looking into the tall man's dark, serious eyes, she began to laugh. “You're little Billy Montgomery, aren't you? I wouldn't have recognized you. You've grown up.” Stepping back, she looked at him. “Why, you've become quite handsome. Do you have hundreds of girlfriends? How are your parents? What are you doing now? Oh, I have a thousand questions to ask you. Why haven't you come to see me before now?”

There was only the smallest smile on his face that betrayed that he was pleased by her enthusiastic greeting. “I have no girlfriends. You were always the only girl I ever loved.”

She laughed again. “You haven't changed much. You're still too serious, still an old man.” Easily she slipped her arm into his. “Why don't you come in and have a cup of tea and tell me all about yourself? I remember how awful I used to be to you.” As they started walking, she looked up at him. “It's hard to believe that I used to change your diapers.”

Still smiling, arm in arm, they walked toward her house. Billy had never talked much when he was a child, and now his silence gave Jackie time to remember. He and his brothers and sisters were her first baby-sitting job. He had given her her first experience in child care and her first experience with dirty diapers. After that first day, she had gone home to tell her mother that she would never, never have any children, that children should be kept in a barn with lots of straw until they were housebroken.

She'd always liked Billy. He was so quiet and always ready to listen or to do whatever Jackie wanted to do. If she suggested reading a book aloud to the other kids, they'd invariably want to play monkeys-in-the-grape-arbor. If Jackie wanted to play rolling-down-the-hill, then the kids would want to sit quietly in the house and play with their dolls or trains.

But Billy was different. He always wanted to do what Jackie wanted to do when she wanted to do it. At first she thought he was just being agreeable, but too many times over the years Billy's mother had asked Jackie what she was going to do with the children that day. When Jackie told her, his mother would laugh and say, “That's just what Billy was saying he wanted to do.”

Jackie was pleased with the quiet little boy, but she wasn't so pleased when she wasn't baby-sitting and he'd show up wherever she was. If he was downtown with his family and he saw Jackie, he'd leave his family and follow her. Never mind that sometimes he had to cross a wide street in front of rearing horses and motorists frantically slamming on their brakes. He just wanted to be with Jackie wherever she was. Jackie's mother started to tease her daughter, saying that Billy had fallen in love with her. Jackie thought it was kind of cute until Billy began showing up on her doorstep in the evenings. Then he became a pest. He became the pesky little brother she never had—and had never wanted.

Her mother made an agreement with Billy's mother that Jackie would look after Billy three afternoons a week. When Jackie heard, she was furious, but her mother wouldn't listen, so Jackie decided to get rid of the kid. She planned to do that by scaring him to death. At fifteen she was a complete tomboy, and Billy, at five, was big for his age and quite sturdy. Jackie would climb a tree, leaving Billy alone at the bottom for hours. She hoped he'd complain to his mother, but he never did. His patience was endless, and he seemed to have a sixth sense about what he could and could not do. When he was five, he wouldn't swing on the rope tied to the tree branch that overhung the river, nor would he when he was six, but when he was seven, he grabbed the rope and swung. Jackie could see that he was terrified, but he set his little mouth and did it, then dog-paddled over to her in the water. She was tempted to not say one word of congratulations, but then she grinned at him and winked. She was rewarded with one of Billy's rare smiles.

They were better friends after that. Jackie taught him to swim and allowed him to help her around her house. Billy, who spoke only when he had something to say, said that Jackie's house was more fun than his. In his house the servants got to do everything, but at hers the people got to do the good stuff themselves.

“That's one way of looking at it,” she'd said.

Billy's mother was the one who suggested that he ask Jackie to go to the movies with him. Jackie, who had no money for such frivolities, was thrilled—until she saw the most handsome boy in her class outside the theater. She stopped to say hello to him, but Billy put his little body between them and told the six-foot-tall teenager that Jackie was
his
date and he should get lost—if he knew what was good for him. It was six months before the ribbing at school stopped. The other kids were merciless in teasing her about her three-foot-tall bodyguard who was going to bruise their kneecaps with his fists. “Do you pick him up to kiss him good night, Jackie?” they taunted.

By the time Billy was seven the townspeople referred to him as Jackie's Shadow. He was with her whenever possible, and no matter what she did she couldn't make him stop following her. She yelled at him, told him what she thought of him, even tried telling him she hated him, but he was still always there.

One day when she was seventeen, a boy walked her home from school. They stopped by the mailbox for a moment, and as the boy reached out to remove a leaf from Jackie's hair, out of the bushes sprang little seven-year-old Billy, as wild as a wet cat, launching himself at the unsuspecting boy. Jackie, of course, wanted to die. She pulled Billy off the boy and tried to apologize, but the boy was embarrassed because Billy had knocked him flat into the dirt road. The next day at school everyone gleefully renewed taunting Jackie about her midget lover whom she kept hidden in the bushes.

Billy's mother, a sweet woman, heard of the fracas and came to apologize to Jackie, justifying her youngest son's actions by saying, “He loves you so much, Jackie.” That was not what she wanted to hear at seventeen. She wanted to hear that the captain of the football team loved her, not some kid half size.