The Right Thing (17 page)

When they were out of sight, Du said, “Here, baby. I tole you I'd take care of you. Have some of this.” He took a pint bottle out of his coat pocket and put it in my gloved hand. “Take you a few swigs of Ol' Granddad, and he'll settle you right down.” I looked at the flask dubiously, wondering if I ought to be putting bourbon on top of pimento cheese and Librium, but decided it couldn't hurt. I screwed off the cap on the bottle, lifted it to my lips, and took a big swallow. Cheap bourbon cascaded in a harsh burn down my throat and ignited like a frat-party bonfire in my stomach.

“Whoa,” I coughed. “You got a hankie?” I needed to wipe my mouth and didn't want to ruin my gloves. Elbow-length white kidskin fastened with twelve pearl buttons, they were emblematic deb wear. I could only imagine my grandmother's reaction if she heard I'd gotten lipstick on them.

“Here.” Du gave me his pocket square, and I dabbed at my lips. “Take one more, baby,” he said encouragingly. I tipped back my head and took another gulp, then another. In my stomach, the bourbon seemed to be having a one-sided discussion with the pimento cheese sandwich already in residence. It felt like the bourbon was getting its point across just fine, so I had one more pull on the pint bottle before I handed it back to Du.

“Thanksh, honey,” I said. My mouth felt numb. I took Du's arm. “Thanksh. I'm glad you're here.”

“Aw, Annie,” Du said. “I wouldn't a missed this for the world. I'm afraid to touch you, you're so pretty.”

I rested my forehead on his black wool shoulder. “Y'mean it, Du?” I was slurring my words, but only a little.

“A 'course I do,” he said, putting the pint bottle back in his pocket. “Those other girls give you a hard time, but you're gonna be the best-looking gal in the place. Bet on it.” I felt a surge of accomplishment: maybe all this would turn out to have been worth it if Du felt that way about me. We were walking toward the entrance to the country club now. My feet hurt, and I had to be extra careful in my four-and-a-half-inch heels, but Du's arm and the bourbon and the Librium held me up admirably.

Inside the lobby, I blearily patted Du on the cheek. “I'll shee you later, after the dancing starts.”

“Where you going?” he asked. “Need me to come, too?”

Touched at this evidence of Du's devotion, I smiled. “I'm off to the ladies' room for a lipshtick check. G'on, now—get yourself a glass of champagne.” With a lighthearted wave, I listed down the wide, dimly lit hallway, not really lurching at all, but when I pushed open the door to the ladies', I almost ran into Julie Posey in that aircraft carrier of a dress. She was just leaving, followed by Lisa Treeby wearing what looked like her mother's yellow-tinged wedding gown, a big lace flounce obviously added to its hem so her dress would hang all the way to the floor. This recycling was a sign that Mr. Treeby's legendary cheapness must have triumphed as usual.

“Watch out, Annie!” Julie snapped, glaring. She paused in the doorway, looking me up and down in the bathroom's bright lights. She didn't mention the fact that I was remarkably thinner, that my dress now fell in a smooth line from waist to floor, that I had rendered her services as Diet Buddy obsolete.

She didn't have to say anything because Lisa did. “Oooh, Annie!” she exclaimed. “That dress is just, just
beautiful
on you.” Good ol' Lisa—we weren't ever particularly close, but she had always been nice to me. Julie sniffed, swept up her skirts, and left the ladies' room like a galleon under full sail without another word.

“Thanksh, Lisa,” I said, and burped. The smell of bourbon on my breath was strong, even to me. I reddened ever so slightly, but the Librium carried the day and I managed to say, “You look wonnerful. I love your hair.” Poor Lisa's hair was woolly as a sheep's. She'd tried to corral it in a lace snood and had stuck some big old rosebuds behind her ears. “Did you do it yourshelf?”

Lisa's smile was as wide as if she'd won first prize at the 4-H show. “Yes,” she replied. “You really like it?” Self-consciously she touched her hair and a rosebud fell out from behind her ear and onto the floor.

I bent down to pick it up for her, and it was only then I realized that leaning over or any other move involving reaching downward was going to be a very bad idea. Still, I managed to grab the rosebud before I toppled over onto the bathroom's marble tiles.

“Here.” Straightening, I held it out to her on the palm of my glove, feeling foolish.

“Thanks!” Lisa flashed me another smile, returning the rosebud to behind her ear. “I better go,” she said. “It's almost time.” Damned if Lisa didn't sound thrilled with anticipation. I almost envied her but decided to be happy for her instead. Good ol' Lisa. I checked my makeup in the mirror one last time. Good to go, Houston. Rocket ship Annie left the launch pad and began burning through the atmosphere of the country club in a wobbly trajectory toward the ballroom.

 

It all went pretty well until I had to descend the steps for the promenade.

I'd managed to present myself as they announced my name like a contestant in some bizarre game show, even managed to curtsy and not fall over in a heap. Flashbulbs popped in a galaxy of blinding light. Daddy met me on the stage, and I laid my gloved left hand on his arm with an exquisite relief. This ordeal was almost over and I hadn't outraged or embarrassed anyone yet. Clutching my bouquet of white roses and baby's breath in my right hand, I remembered to lift the skirt of my dress so I wouldn't trip over it and took the first step down the little stairs in front of the stage. My daddy patted my hand on his arm.

“You okay, honey?” he asked me under his breath. I couldn't answer because the next step was coming up, my heels were wobbling like pine trees in a high wind, and I needed to concentrate. Clutching his arm now, I prayed that I could navigate the next two steps without incident, so intent on staying on those damned heels that I never even saw the rosebud underfoot until it was too late.

I stepped squarely on it, and my ankle turned with a twist of agony that shot right up through my leg into my spine. Daddy caught me as I missed the last step, and to everyone else it might have looked as though we were just sharing a quick hug before we made the circuit of Jackson's biggest ballroom. If it hadn't been for Daddy, I would have fallen. If it hadn't been for his steady arm, I could never have made it around the circuit of that throng of clapping, champagne-guzzling strangers.

But if it hadn't been for catching a glimpse of my mother's face—so proud, so very proud of me—I couldn't have done it without limping like a three-legged horse. For her, I gritted my teeth in a rictus of a smile and stayed on that ankle until we finally got back to the stage.

Racehorses who run even when they're hurting are said to be “game.” Well, I guess I was only half-game that evening because while I was standing on one foot up there on the stage, waiting for the other girls to make their own debuts, I could lean on Daddy's arm and tell myself that I'd pulled it off. But halfway through the presentations, I felt a delicate sheen of perspiration break on my upper lip while a strong message issued from my stomach from the pimento cheese sandwich, which had apparently won out over the bourbon and Librium. Thank goodness I was on the far end of the stage.

“Be right back,” I managed to gasp to Daddy before I slipped off into the wings, elbowing my way through the last half of 1975's crop of debs. Bracing myself on the wall, I hobbled pell-mell down the long hallway to the bathroom. I almost made it to the toilet, but Julie Posey was coming out as I was going in, and while I didn't precisely ruin her dress, an orange-ish portion of bourbon and that pimento cheese sandwich splashed on the hem. My own dress I missed completely. As I staggered past her into the bathroom stall to finish the miserable business of throwing up, I could hear Julie outside the door, shrieking that I had
destroyed
her debut.

I, on the other hand, now felt much better, so much better in fact that after I'd sponged my face with a damp paper towel and rinsed out my mouth, I decided that it was time to go out and enjoy the rest of the Snow Ball. Dancing was likely going to be out of the question—my ankle still felt like it was broken and was about to fall off—but after all, I did look fabulous.

And it seemed dancing wasn't entirely out of the question. My daddy, looking relieved, claimed me as soon as I limped into the noise and big-band music of the ballroom. We were able to have an abbreviated, careful dance together along with all the other debs and dads.

“Nerves got your stomach going?” he asked me. I nodded vigorously because it was better than the truth. Then, with a hug, Daddy handed me off to Du so he could go dance with my mother. From across the ballroom her eyes asked me if I was all right. I gave her a thumbs-up and an exaggerated wink. I didn't want to get too close, not wanting to spoil her triumph with even a whiff of whiskey on my breath. She and Daddy looked so perfect together—she in her long apple-green velvet and diamonds, he in his white tie and tails—as they swung into the dance with the grace of long years as partners. I think the band was playing “Pretty Baby.” Du basically held me up in his linebacker arms, my weight entirely on my left foot, my right one dangling in its four-and-a-half-inch heel as we swayed in place to the music.

“Gonna marry you, Duane Sizemore,” I mumbled into the front of Du's tux. If I could pull this night off, I could do anything in the world I had to do.

“Say what, baby?” Du looked down at me, his big, handsome face smiling.

I tipped my head back to look him in the eye. “I said,” I enunciated carefully, “I am going to marry you.”

Du laughed, but that laugh sounded perplexed. “Hon, I haven't asked you yet,” he said.

“You will.” In that moment, I was sure of it. And rocking in his arms in the darkness, under the fractured reflections of the mirror ball, in the midst of a thousand perspiring people smelling of warm wool tuxedos, mothballs, and too much perfume, I could see it all. The next white dress, my ten sorority-sister bridesmaids, Libby Suggs catching my bouquet, a shower of rice and a honeymoon in Mexico, my mother relieved and vindicated at last in her heretofore doomed quest to see me doing what everybody else was doing for a change. I could see it all, that promise—high, wide, and handsome.

Thin, married, and safe.

“W
ow—that's a first.”

His forehead pressed to mine, Ted's low-voiced comment is shaky, and it's in that instant I realize what a terrible thing I've just done. I stiffen in his arms, and immediately he lets go of me as if I'm radioactive. I'm only just able to stay upright in the aftershock. I stagger backward away from him, reaching for the relative safety of the cinder block wall.

“Me too,” I manage to say. What I don't say is that I'm
married,
for God's sake. I don't say that kiss was so out of character for me I might as well be in the throes of some cerebral event, what the old-timers used to call a brainstorm. Like I said, there's never been anybody else but Du, not really. Still, thinking of Ted's kiss, I wouldn't take it back—not for anything—and that astounding realization is something I keep to myself, too. Feeling the way I do right now, I'm not even sure what's going to come out of my mouth will sound like English anyway. I sway on my feet, blinking and trying to lick my dry lips with my dry tongue.

Ted's face is flushed, and I imagine mine is as well. “You all right?” he asks. He reaches down and picks up Troy's makeshift leash, obviously avoiding my eyes.

“No.”
The edges of my vision are darkening, and the barn rotates in a steep, ominous spiral. Swaying in the aisle, I know that this time I'm going down. “Christ,” I moan.

“Okay, okay,” Ted says. He takes my elbow, steadying me. “Easy, now. Can you hold on here a minute while I go get that water?” When all I can do is nod, he puts Troy's leash in my limp hand and with quick, easy strides heads down the aisle, turning inside a door at the end of the shed row. I want to sit down in the dirt, but I've got to stay on my feet, however unsteady they are, since I'm sure that once I sit, then I'll lie down, then all the blood will rush to my head, and then I'll pass out. The longest minute later, Ted's coming back with a Dixie cup in his hand and a concerned look on his face, probably wondering what he's gotten himself into. He gives the cup to me, and I take a long, cool drink of what is undoubtedly the best water on the planet. God, that's good. When I've finished, Ted takes the paper cup from me and drops it in a nearby garbage can. I close my eyes and return to my new friend, the cinder block wall.

“If you haven't been drinking, then what the hell's wrong with you?” Ted asks. He sounds concerned.

“Don't know,” I mumble, opening my burning eyes and trying to stand up straight.

“Have you eaten anything today?” Without making a big deal out of it, Ted brushes my hair off my face, a gesture that both warms and alarms me. His fingertips are calloused, slightly rough on my cheek.

“Some Chessmen.” I try to take a step forward and promptly bang up against the stall door of the really big horse who's been giving me the stink-eye for quite a while now. Ears flattened, the massive chestnut head rears backward in terror as if I'd come after the damned thing with an assault rifle.

“And a brownie,” I add.

“One of Bette's brownies?” Ted shakes his head. “Honey, you're high.”

Even in my addled state, “high” gets through to what's passing for my brain. That's almost exactly what this feels like, but my abortive experiments in college with marijuana and other drugs are so far in my past I'd purely forgotten all about them. Back then, it seemed like everybody except for ol' Just-Say-No Julie Posey was smoking dope, but I usually faked it, passing the joint without taking a hit. Marijuana made me sleepy—and hungry, a state I'd begun to avoid whenever possible.

“That brownie did taste funny,” I admit, remembering the herby aftertaste.

“Bette's brownies are notorious. You'll do better walking it off,” Ted says. I have misgivings about leaving the wall beside the sulking chestnut horse's stall, but he sounds serious. “C'mon. I'll introduce you to some friends of mine. Here.” He wraps my hand in his own and encourages me forward. “You can do it.”

And like that, Ted, Troy, and I are walking down the aisle of the barn. I'm slow like an old lady, unsteady as a grandmother without her walker, but I do find that with each step I get a little better and Ted only has to catch me once or twice when I go crashing into the wall. Still, I'm grateful when we stop in front of the next stall and a tall gray horse pokes his head out, chewing a wad of hay. Ted strokes the horse's long neck, sleek and smooth as dappled marble.

“This is Triton, one of my stakes horses,” Ted says, his voice affectionate. “Seven years old and sound as a Swiss bank. Won over eight hundred thousand bucks and the monster still runs like he's three. Go ahead, you can touch him.”

The tall gray horse noses the front of my dress inquisitively, leaving a few white hairs on the black silk. Feeling timid, I slide my hand down the undercurve of his neck, mesmerized with the strong, slow heartbeat under my fingertips. “One of your horses?” I ask. “Do you own a herd of them?”

“I
train
ten,” Ted answers. “No herds, though. I can't afford to own any horses myself. Damned things eat their heads off. Triton here belongs to a couple of really nice gay guys from New York, Ray and Stu. Great clients, pay their bills on time, and love to watch their horse run. He's on the card for the Thanksgiving Classic tomorrow so they'll be in town.” He takes my hand again, and we walk next door to meet another horse, a bay beauty with a blaze face and tiny ears like quotation marks. This one's not nearly as intimidating, being a lot smaller than the gray.

“Say hi to Helen Wheels,” Ted says. “Filly's fast as a lightning strike, so she's a sprinter—needs a short race where her speed can make up for her lack of size.” The little filly arches her neck when Ted fondles her ears, her half-closed, liquid eyes glazed with contentment. “If I could own a horse, she'd be the one. I like her style.” Ted's smile at me is intimate. “I like little women with guts.”

Blushing, I pet this one, too, loving the satin-like feel of her skin sliding easily over the exquisite crest of her neck. And Ted's right: walking is helping, and so is the reassuring solidity of his hand holding mine. Taking our time, we move down the length of the aisle, meeting the horses he trains, getting to know them. When we reach the end of the shed row, I feel as though I'd remember these friends of Ted's wherever I saw them, and slowly, the clean smells of hay and sleepy horses, Troy Smoot's curious snuffling, and the papery rustle of pigeons overhead in the dusty rafters quiet my overshot senses. This peaceful company has helped bring me back to myself, enough so that it's hard to believe I have just kissed a man who isn't Du.

What got into me? I peek sidelong at Ted. Accident or not, once that kiss began I didn't exactly back away. Ted steps into the last horse's stall to rearrange an off-kilter blanket, and I lean my arms on the half-door, watching him seem to magically create order out of a tangle of mysterious straps and buckles while the horse nibbles from a hay net.

“Thanks.” I have to make myself say it, embarrassed now for being such a mess. And for that kiss. “Thanks for not taking advantage, for sticking around to make sure I'm all right.”

Ted straightens, brushing a loose straw from his jeans. “If you ate a pot brownie, might be a while before you're really all right. Could take hours to wear off.”

“I feel a lot better,” I say, “just a little floaty, like I could walk off the edge of the world at any moment, you know?” Ted steps out into the aisle and shuts the latch on the door to the stall. “Look, I'm, uh, sorry for what happened before,” I say. Pausing, my cheeks hot, I'm determined to soldier on in my apology, even though I'd rather be in a midnight fire at sea than talk about it because I'm sure I need to say
something
about it. “That was really . . .”

Turning to face me, Ted takes both my hands in his own and smiles that great smile down at me. Before I lose my nerve, I rattle on doggedly. “I mean, it's not like I go around kissing strange men all the time.”

“Yeah, that ring's kind of hard to miss.”

“I used to have a little one,” I blurt. “Du—he's my husband—thought I needed a big ring once he started making money.”

“Got it.” Ted nods but doesn't say anything else, and for a long moment I'm belatedly dumbfounded to discover that, with no effort whatsoever, I can dismiss that five-carat rock and what it's supposed to mean from my mind because I want to kiss him again. I want to put my fingers in that dark, a-little-too-long hair, gently pull his mouth to mine so I can feel that smile against my lips just one more time. Amazed at my thoughts, I tilt my head and really
look
at him, this nice man who's just showed me his horses, inviting me in as though I have every right to be a part of this world of his.

There's a strange, comfortable quiet between us, and in that growing quiet I begin to hear things I thought were done, the sounds of possibility, of change. If I can kiss someone besides Du, maybe I can muster a backbone and stick it out with Starr after we get home. Besides, that amazing kiss and this good silence have shut up even the rosebush voice—probably shocked to smithereens at the widening rift, seemingly as broad as the Gulf of Mexico, between the me of this morning and Annie tonight. I could get used to this silence, I think.

“Well, Annie not-from-here,” Ted finally says. “You okay to head back to Bette's? It's a ways.” He lets go of my hands. “I could go get the golf cart if you want.”

Reflexively, I look down at my watch. In the dim light of the shed row I can barely make out the time, but even so it's plain that I've been gone a lot longer than the ten-minute walk I'd promised Troy when we left Bette's trailer. More like an hour has passed, and now it's well after midnight. If Starr and I can leave in the next fifteen minutes, I can still get home before I get into real trouble, but the thought of home elicits a stirring of apprehension, as though there's something I've forgotten and need to remember before it's too late. It's probably the dope making me paranoid, but in any case, I really do need to get back.

“I can make it. That Airstream ought to still be where it was an hour ago,” I say, hugging my arms with a shiver. Without warning, it feels as though the temperature in the barn has dropped twenty degrees and it's not like this dress is made for traipsing around in the damp New Orleans fog anyway. Seeing me shiver, Ted shrugs out of his jean jacket and drapes it around my shoulders, body-warm and smelling of him. Lord, he looks good in his white T-shirt, that broad chest, those smooth-muscled arms. I blink and look away while Troy Smoot sits at my feet, all business now after having thoroughly smelled everything he could get his nose into and lifted his leg on the garbage can.

“Thanks for the water,” I say, hugging myself tighter so I'll be sure to keep my hands to myself because Ted looks so good. Then the nice man in the white T-shirt puts a finger under my chin, lifting it so my eyes meet his. He's smiling, and in spite of my growing apprehension, I find myself helplessly smiling back at him. “And thanks for the hay rope.”

“Thanks for the kiss,” Ted says mildly. “I'll walk you back to Bette's place.”

 

My car's missing.

It's gone. Vanished. No longer there. I shut my eyes and open them again, sure that this time it'll be where I parked sixty thousand dollars' worth of German luxury engineering, behind the big semi with the Virginia plates. No—in the damp dirt the tire tracks are unmistakable, but the BMW is gone.

“Hey, Annie?” Ted asks. “Where's your car?”

I don't answer. I can't. I stand in the space where my car used to be, my mouth open wide as one of the semi's tires. Unbelieving, I stumble away, leaving Ted and the dog behind me. I run between the silk palm trees, up the steps of Bette's Airstream, and bang on the door with both fists.

“Starr!”

The Confederate flag covering the window twitches, but it's Bette who opens the door, her false eyelashes removed, a smear of night cream on her big-pored face.

“Oh, Lord, Annie,” she says, looking nervous. “You better come on in, sweetheart. Ted, that you?”

“I'll wait out here,” he says.

I fall inside the door, fending off Bette's attempt at a wide-armed embrace. The trailer, smelling of stale coffee and Shalimar, feels way too warm, entirely too bright after the cool, foggy night. All those swans stare at me with beady-eyed smugness from every corner of the room.

“My car's been stolen! I've got to talk to Starr,” I say wildly, looking around the Airstream's cabin. “Starr?”

Starr doesn't answer. Her purse isn't on the Formica countertop either.

“Bette? Where's Starr?” My voice is trembling on the edge of the kind of panic that sends people out screaming into the streets. I have a very bad and altogether too familiar feeling about this. Somehow, I've screwed up again.
Serves you right,
the rosebush voice says,
for kissing that man,
and the swans seem to nod in agreement.

Bette wraps her hand around my arm, her big, greasy face concerned. “You better sit down, honey. I'll pour us some coffee.”

“No!” I whirl away from her and stick my head outside the open door, shouting, “Starr Dukes, where the hell are you?” Ted, who's now leaning against the side of the battered semi with his arms folded, looks up at me. His face is expressionless until he lifts an eyebrow.

“She's not out here,” he says.

It's a long beat before I realize Ted knows who I'm shouting for, that he knows Starr. I can only stare at him in dumbfounded vacancy. Behind me, Bette tugs at the jean jacket hanging from my shoulders, and I just restrain myself from slapping her. Where's Starr? Where's my car? Has she taken it to get gas or something? She has to be coming back, she has to. I'm shaking like I have a high fever, my heart pounds like the surf in a storm, and the trailer's linoleum seems to lift under my feet with a sideways tilt.