The Lonely Lady (13 page)

She began to cry then. No sounds, just the tears running down her cheeks. He opened the glove compartment, took out a Kleenex and gave it to her. “You don’t know how they look at me.”

He dragged on his cigarette without speaking.

“There are times when I wish that I just let those boys do what they wanted. Then nobody would have said anything.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” he said.

“Everybody believes that something happened,” she said. “And that I wanted it.”

“No one who knows you, JeriLee, would believe that.”

She laughed bitterly. “They wouldn’t believe the truth if I told them. I don’t understand it.” She looked at him. “What do I do now, Doctor?”

“You pay no attention. It will pass. Tomorrow they will have something else to talk about.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“You can believe me,” he said confidently. “I know this town. It will happen.”

“Mother said that Daddy might lose his job if Mr. Thornton takes his account away from the bank. She said that’s why she didn’t want me to do anything.”

“Has Mr. Thornton said anything about it?”

“I don’t know. I only heard that he hasn’t come into the bank since.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Daddy is worried,” she said. “I can tell. His face is very drawn. And he’s been working late every night.”

“Maybe there’s another reason,” he said. “Did you ask him?”

“No,” she answered. “And if I did, he wouldn’t tell me.”

“Put it out of your mind for tonight,” he said. “And come into the office tomorrow. I want to check those burns. We can talk some more then.”

“Okay.” She opened the door. “Thanks, Doc.”

He smiled. “Tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.” He watched her walk toward the house before putting the car into gear. He drove off thoughtfully. The maliciousness and stupidity of people never ceased to amaze him. Given the choice of believing good or bad about others, they always chose the bad.

***

“How about a soda?” Martin asked as they came out of the movie.

“I don’t feel like it,” she answered.

“Come on,” he urged. “It’ll be fun. The whole crowd will be there.”

“No.”

“What’s the matter, JeriLee?” he asked. “You’re not the same.”

She didn’t answer.

“Let’s have a soda,” he said. “I’ll spring for it. We don’t have to go dutch this time.”

A reluctant smile came to her lips. “Be careful, Marty. You’re becoming a big spender.”

He laughed. “You don’t know me. A dime here, twenty cents there.” He snapped his fingers.

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Okay,” she said finally.

Martin was right. Pop’s ice cream parlor was jammed. The juke was blaring in the corner but they managed to spot a table in the back. She walked through the crowd, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

When they found that there was only one chair, Martin reached for a vacant chair at the crowded table next to them. “Anyone using this?”

“No.” The boys glanced up at him, then at JeriLee. There was a long silence. Then one of the boys leaned over and whispered something to the others. They all laughed and turned to look at JeriLee.

She felt her face flushing under their stares and buried her face in the menu as the waiter came up. He was a pimply-faced boy she knew from school. “What’ll it be?” he asked, then he saw her. “Hey, JeriLee,” he said. “Haven’t been around much lately, have you?”

She heard the burst of laughter at the next table and one of the boys remark raucously, “Not much, she’s been around.”

She looked at Marty. “I really don’t feel like anything.”

“Have something,” he urged. “How about a chocolate pineapple float?”

“No,” she answered. There was another shout of laughter from the next table. She didn’t hear what they were saying but she was very conscious of their stares. “I’d better go,” she said, suddenly standing up. “I don’t feel too well.” Without giving Martin a chance to reply she almost ran from the ice cream parlor.

He caught up to her halfway down the block and fell silently into step with her. They turned the corner before she spoke.

“I’m sorry, Martin.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “But you’re not handling it right.”

“I… I don’t know what you mean.”

He stopped under a streetlight and turned to her. “I may not know much,” he said, “but I’m the world’s greatest expert on people talking about me. I grew up on it.”

She didn’t speak.

“With parents like mine, people never stopped. It’s not easy being the kid of the town drunks.” He stopped suddenly, his voice tightening.

“I’m sorry, Marty,” she said.

He shook his head, blinking his eyes. “I learned when I was very young how to deal with it. You know what you are and you have to hold your head up no matter what people say. That’s what I always did. After a while it got so that they didn’t matter anymore. I knew I was doing right.”

“It’s different when you’re a girl,” she said. “No one comes right out with anything. You don’t have a chance to fight back.”

“It’s the same with me,” he said. “Do you think anyone comes right out—hey, your father’s the town drunk? Nohow. Instead they whisper and look until you wish they would come out with it so that you could say something instead of having to sit there and pretend that nothing is going on.”

She nodded, remembering what her mother had said about his coming from the wrong kind of people the first time he had come to see her. “I can’t get used to it,” she said. “I always have the feeling that they’re looking right through my clothing. I just know what they’re thinking.”

“But you know what you’ve done,” he said. “That’s more important.”

“I haven’t done anything,” she said. “That’s what makes it so terrible.”

“No,” he said with knowledge beyond his years. “That’s what makes you right and all the other wrong. And when you know that, ain’t nothing anybody can do to take it away from you.”

***

She turned the corner in front of the drugstore. The boys standing around the door suddenly fell silent but separated to let her pass. She could feel their eyes following her to the counter.

Doc Mayhew came from the back. “Afternoon, JeriLee,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant,” she said.

He nodded and quickly placed the packages in front of her. “We have a one-cent sale on Love-Glo cosmetics,” he said. “Buy one lipstick and get the second for only a penny.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“It’s very good,” he said. “You ought to try it. Just as good as Revlon or Helena Rubinstein or those other fancy labels.”

“Maybe next time,” she said. She took out her list. “Aspirin too, please.”

He picked up the bottle from the shelf behind him. “Love-Glo has eye shadow and nail polish too. Same deal goes.”

“No, thank you, Doc.”

“Sale’s on only till the end of the week.”

She nodded. “I’ll mention it to my mother. Maybe there’s something she might want.”

“Do that,” he said pleasantly. “Charge or cash?”

“Charge, please.” She walked over to the magazine rack while he was writing up the sales slip and picked up a Hollywood magazine. There was a picture of Clark Gable on the cover. Idly she leafed through it. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the boys outside still watching her.

“All ready now, JeriLee,” the druggist said.

She put the magazine back on the rack and picked up the package from the counter. The boys parted again to let her go by. She acted as if she didn’t even see them. She was almost at the corner when they caught up to her.

“JeriLee,” one of them said.

She stopped and looked at him coldly.

“How you doin’, JeriLee?” he asked.

“Okay, Carl,” she answered shortly.

“Not workin’ out at the club no more?”

“No.”

“Good.” He smiled. “Now, maybe, you’ll have some time to give a local guy a break.”

She didn’t return his smile.

“Never could understand why the town girls all run after those city people.”

“I don’t see anybody running after them,” she said.

“Come on, JeriLee. You know that I mean.”

Her eyes were steady. “No, I don’t.”

“They ain’t the only ones who know how to have fun. We don’t do so bad, do we, fellas?”

There was a general chorus of agreement from the other boys. He looked at them, smiling. Emboldened by their support, he turned back to her. “What do you say, JeriLee? Suppose we take in a movie one night? Then maybe take a ride out to the Point? I got wheels.”

“No,” she said flatly.

He stared at her, suddenly deflated. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t like you, that’s why,” she answered in a cold voice.

He grew angry. “What the matter, JeriLee? You like niggers better?”

Her slap took him by surprise. He caught her hand angrily and held it so tightly she felt the pain shooting up her arm. “You got no right to be so snooty, JeriLee. We know all about you.”

She stared into his eyes, her face white. “Let me go!” she said through clenched lips.

He dropped her hand abruptly. “You’ll be sorry,” he said.

She pushed her way past them and managed to hold her head high until she turned the corner. Then she felt herself begin to tremble. She put a hand against the wall of the building to steady herself. A moment later she drew a very deep breath and began to walk again. But she could hardly see where she was going. She was almost blinded by her tears.

It was the next day that the graffiti began to appear on the fences and walls near her home: JERILEE FUCKS, JERILEE SUCKS.

Chapter 17

JeriLee and her mother turned the car into the driveway just as her father and brother finished painting the fence. They got out of the car. Veronica looked at her husband. “The fence didn’t need another coat,” she said.

“Some boys painted dirty words on it, Ma,” Bobby said.

Veronica looked at John. He didn’t speak. His eyes squinted against the sun. She heard JeriLee come up behind her. “Let’s go inside,” Veronica said quickly. “I’ll make some coffee.”

He nodded. “Bobby, put the paint back in the garage,” he said. “And don’t forget to rinse out the brush.”

“Okay, Pop.” The boy picked up the can of paint and cut across the lawn to the garage.

“What happened?” JeriLee asked.

“Nothing,” John said.

She looked at the fence. The paint had not yet dried and the letters beneath the white were still faintly visible. Her face tightened.

“Come inside, dear,” her mother said.

JeriLee stared at the fence. “Did you see who did it?” she asked tautly.

“No,” John answered. “Lucky for them that I didn’t.” He took her arm. “A cup of coffee wouldn’t do any of us harm.”

Silently she followed them into the house. “I don’t think I want any coffee,” she said. She looked at her father. “Could I have the car for a while?”

He glanced at his wife. “Sure,” he said.

“I left the keys in the dash,” Veronica said. “Be careful. There’s a lot of maniacs on the road today.”

“I will, Mother.” She went to the door. “I just want to go out to the beach for awhile.”

They heard the car pull out of the driveway. John looked up at his wife. “They’re crucifying her.”

Veronica did not answer. She put the coffee on the table and sat down opposite him.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” he said.

“There’s nothing you can do,” she said. “Nothing anyone can do. It will just have to pass.”

“If just once we could catch them at it. We could make an example of them.”

“Anything you do will only make it worse,” she said. “We’ll just have to be patient.”

“I can wait. You can wait. But what about JeriLee? How much more of this do you think she can take before she breaks down completely? Already she’s stopped seeing her friends. She won’t go out anymore, won’t do anything. Bernie says she won’t even go to the movies with him. School opens in four more weeks. What do you think will happen then?”

“By that time it should be over,” Veronica said.

“And if it’s not?”

The question went unanswered as they both silently sipped their coffee.

***

She stopped the car at the far end of the Point overlooking the Sound and walked down to the beach. It was a deserted rocky section, much too rough for swimming. She sat down on a rock at the edge of the water and stared out at the sea.

A sailboat was tacking into the wind, its snow-white sail billowing against the blue of the water. Idly her eyes followed it until it disappeared around the Point.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

The sound of the voice behind her made her jump. She turned around.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” the man said. He paused, staring at her. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

“We met once, Mr. Thornton,” she said. “On a bus.”

“Oh, yes.” He snapped his finger, remembering. “You were the girl who wanted to be a writer.”

She smiled. He did remember.

“Do you still take the same bus?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you on it recently.”

“School’s out,” she said. “It’s vacation time.”

“Of course.” He looked at her. “How’s the writing coming on?”

“I haven’t been doing much lately.”

“Neither have I.” He smiled. He looked out at the water. “Do you come out here often?”

“Sometimes. When I want to think.”

“It’s a good place for thinking,” he said. “There’s usually no one around.” He fished in his pocket for a cigarette and took one without offering the pack to her. He lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, then coughed and threw it away. “I’m trying to give up smoking,” he said apologetically.

“That’s a funny way to do it,” she said.

“I figure if I light one and inhale very deeply, I cough. That makes me realize what it’s doing to me and I throw it away.”

She laughed. “I’ll have to tell my father to try that one.”

“Does he smoke much?”

“Too much,” she said.

“What does he do?” he asked.

“He works in a bank,” she answered.

He nodded absently, his eyes looking beyond her to the sea. She turned following his gaze. The sailboat was coming back.