Waiting for Sunrise (14 page)

Except . . . maybe . . . the way Billy had learned to look at it.

16

Spring 1958

Three months after his sixteenth birthday, Billy knew he was in love with Veronica Sikes—which he’d suspected for some time. He also knew no other girl would ever have his heart the way she did. Ever.

Sadly, it appeared she did not feel the same way. Or maybe she did, he sometimes thought, and she just wasn’t letting her heart and mind connect on the subject.

So on that one particular Saturday in late April of 1958, Billy decided everything would change. It was the night of the church youth spring fling, complete with carnival-type games, bobbing for apples, a booth that sold cotton candy, and horse and buggy rides for fifty cents per one mile out and back again.

With the amount of money Billy had made with his lawn business, he could afford to purchase not only the bike he’d bought three years ago, he could also afford to buy the horse, the buggy, and he’d still have enough left over to take Veronica and him to Orlando and back.

If
she’d let him.

Veronica—Ronni, he now called her—continued with her “no boyfriend” clause. Not Billy and not any other boy. Which, of course, was just fine with Billy.

Jesus, Ronni said, was her passion. Her
passion
. Her word, not Billy’s. And maybe that wasn’t even a strong enough word. She loved the Lord so much, if she were Catholic, Billy feared she’d become a nun. What had started to worry him some was that she might want to become something like a missionary in some foreign, underprivileged country. Billy knew he’d follow Ronni
anywhere
, but he also knew he didn’t have the calling to be a missionary. Just what he had the calling to be, he didn’t know, but he knew it wasn’t to be a missionary.

Sometimes Billy asked her what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Every time, she’d reply, “I haven’t thought that far ahead, Billy Liddle.”

The answer always perturbed Billy. How was he to make
his
plans if she wasn’t making hers?

So he’d say, “But everyone needs a goal, Ronni.”

To which she’d shrug and say, “I guess I’ll just stick with my plan to work for Daddy until God tells me what it is he wants me to do then.” Then she’d look at him and smile that perfect, wonderful smile of hers and say, “What about your goals, Billy? Have you settled on one?”

“Sort of,” he’d mumble, to which she’d just giggle.

But tonight, Billy decided, it would all change.

On that Saturday afternoon, Billy stood before the mirror over his chest of drawers and vigorously rubbed Brylcreem between his palms and fingers. “Well, Miss Veronica Sikes . . .” He ran both hands into his thick hair, which he then combed back. “You may not have a plan . . .” He dipped the side of his right hand into his hair to help create a wave. “But tonight I do.”

He leaned over, grinned at his reflection so as to look for anything between his teeth that didn’t need to be there. All good. He’d already applied aftershave and he smelled right nice, if he said so himself.

Billy shuffled his feet, left to right, right to left. “All right then,” he said. “I think you’ll do, Mr. William Liddle.” He sighed. “Now let’s hope Miss Veronica Sikes does too.”

Billy left his room and started toward the living room, where Daddy was waiting for him with the keys to the car he was allowing Billy to drive that evening. “Billy,” Harold’s voice barked from the hallway’s end, the bedroom directly across from Mama and Daddy’s. Billy stopped, turned on a heel, and walked to the doorway, which was half open.

Or maybe half closed.

He rested his hands against the frame. At sixteen, he was now over six feet tall, slender, and he thought—for the most part—that he made a rather impressive picture when he stood like this. Sort of like the late James Dean, looking cool. “Yeah?” He pushed the door the rest of the way open with the toe of his right suede shoe.

Harold was sprawled on his bed. He wore a pair of white skivvies, no shirt and no shoes. Just skivvies. He looked like a soldier resting on his bunk. “Where ya off to all dressed up in a suit and tie?” He inhaled deeply. “Smell good too. Can smell you from all the way over here.”

Billy frowned. The way Harold was about anything to do with the church, he didn’t really want him to know. Then again, he probably already knew and this was just a setup. “Spring fling.”

Harold sat up. “Oh yeah . . . yeah . . .” His hands pressed against his knees. Billy watched Harold’s feet bounce, like they wanted to go somewhere but the rest of the body was unwilling. “Going with Veronica, I bet.” He grinned at his little brother, but it wasn’t to be kind.

“Yeah.” Billy pushed away from the door.

“Hey, where ya running off to?” Harold snickered, forcing Billy back to where he’d just been.

Over the past four years, Billy and Harold had grown anything but close. But Billy knew enough to know that Harold wasn’t really all that interested in a brotherly conversation. “I gotta go, Harold. I told Ronni I’d pick her up by six and it’s quarter till now.”

Harold stood, walked over to the wooden chair pushed against the small bedroom desk near the window. A plaid short-sleeved shirt was draped over it. Harold jerked it off, swung it around his muscular frame, and dug his arms into the sleeves. “Ronni.” He turned fully toward his brother. Harold reached for the pack of cigarettes on his desk, shook it, pulled one out, and slipped it between what appeared to be dry lips. “Let me ask you a question.” He reached for a book of matches, struck one, and held the flame to the end of the cigarette.

The smell of sulfur and burning tobacco reached Billy before Harold had a chance to exhale.

Harold held the pack toward Billy. “Want one?”

“You know I don’t smoke, Harold.”

“Oh yeah . . . forgot.”

Billy leaned against the door frame, watched his brother fiddle with the small buttons on his shirt, all the while the cigarette dangled from between his lips. Every so often he’d inhale, eyes squinting, exhale again. A thin veil of smoke now separated them. “If you’ve got something to say, say it so I can go, okay?”

Harold’s head popped up, eyes flashing something Billy didn’t like seeing. Shirt buttoned, he pulled the cigarette from his mouth. “Just wondering . . .” He stepped over to the desk, knocked ashes into an already overfilled ashtray etched with “Holiday Inn” on the bottom. “Just how close are you and . . . what do you call her now? Ronni?”

Billy looked at his feet. “She’s my best friend. You know that.”

Harold snickered again. “I’m thinking there’s something more.” Billy’s eyes locked with his brother’s. Ten seconds of staring before Harold reached for a pair of pants hanging on the footboard of the bed.

“What are you doing?” Billy asked. He didn’t like the feeling coming over him.

“Dressing. I got plans tonight too.”

The feeling turned to dread. “Now look here, Harold. Don’t go messing things up for me. Not tonight.”

Harold adjusted the pants around his narrow waist. “Why? What’s tonight?”

Billy felt himself grow warm. “Nothing.”

Harold drew on the cigarette again, long and hard. While blowing a cloud of gray and white into the air, he stubbed the remainder into the ashtray. Old butts spilled onto the maple desk. “Tonight, huh?” He nodded. “Okay, okay. We’ve now established something special is happening tonight, and you don’t want me to mess it up for you.” He rested his hands on his hips. “We’re brothers, Billy. What makes you think I’d do that?”

Billy stepped fully into the room. “’Cause you’ve gotten mean enough lately, Harold. You and all your friends think it’s funny to do some of the nasty things you do. Me and my friends, we’re just good kids wanting to have a good time without getting into trouble. Don’t mess that up just to get your kicks.”

Harold sat on the bed, reached under, and pulled out a pair of Hush Puppies loafers. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I’m not gonna bother you and your little friends. You’re all right there.”

Billy watched as his brother pulled a pair of socks from inside the shoes, dug his feet into them. “So was that it? Are we done?”

Harold looked at Billy again. “Yeah. I just wanted to see what you’d be up to tonight.”

Billy nodded once. “Okay, then. Sure. See ya tomorrow, I guess.”

———

Thanks to Harold, Billy was five minutes late picking up Ronni. A fact that Mr. Sikes pointed out as he opened the door for him.

“I know, sir,” Billy said. “My brother and I were talking and . . .” He stopped with his explanation when he realized Mr. Sikes was smiling at him.

“Well, come on in . . . come on in. Have a seat and let’s you and me talk for a few minutes while Veronica does that last-minute fixing up girls do.”

Billy liked Mr. Sikes. He was well-groomed. Handsome, even. He had an easy way about him. And he loved his family. He was a successful restaurateur, firmly established in the community and the church. He was someone Billy aspired to be like. Certainly more than his own father, whom they’d seen less and less of lately. Seemed to Billy he was coming in more on Saturday late mornings and leaving more on Sunday early afternoons. Which, in a lot of ways, was just fine with Billy, even if it wasn’t with Mama.

“How’s the lawn business, Billy?” John Sikes pointed to the sofa before sitting in what Billy knew was his favorite chair.

Billy sat. “It’s good. Starting to build up again after the winter months.”

“Not a lot of winter here in Florida.”

Billy shook his head. “No, sir. But instead of cutting lawns once a week, I don’t usually go but once a month or every three weeks, and that cuts into my income.”

Mr. Sikes leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs. “Tell me something, Billy. Do you get paid by cut or do you have your customers on a payment plan?”

“Not sure what you mean, sir.” Billy scooched back on the sofa, the one matching the chair.

“Well, see . . . it’s just good business sense. Take the number of times you cut a customer’s lawn in a year. Multiply that by what you charge. Then divide by twelve. Give your customers a monthly rate—which will be less in the summer months for you, but will sustain you all year-round.”

Billy scratched at his temple. “I’d not thought of that.”

John Sikes chuckled. “I’m a businessman, Billy. I have to think of things like that.” He shifted in the chair. “Brings me to a point I’d like to make. How’d you like to work for me a couple of nights a week?”

“At the restaurant?”
Where Ronni works?

Mr. Sikes grinned at what Billy knew was his naïveté. Of course, at the restaurant. “Where else, Billy?”

“I’m sorry. Not thinking, I guess. I know Stanley cuts your lawn, but you’ve never mentioned anything before about . . .” Billy laughed at himself. “Yes, sir. I’d very much like to work for you at the restaurant.”

Mr. Sikes laughed with him. “Aren’t you even going to ask what I want you to do for me? It could be pure grunt work.”

Billy rubbed his hands together. “I’m good with whatever you’d have me do, Mr. Sikes.” From somewhere in the back of the house, the phone rang.

“That’s what I like about you, son. You’re willing and able.”

Billy felt himself grow warm at the endearment.
Son.
Maybe one day . . .

A delicate clearing of the throat brought Billy’s attention to the wide doorway leading into the Sikes’s foyer. He jumped up while Mr. Sikes stood slowly. “Hey . . .” Billy breathed out.

She was a sight, all right. Cottony white blouse. Pink skirt with lots of—what did his mother call those? Accordion pleats?—that fell over what Billy thought must be a mountain of petticoats. She wore nylons too. And satiny baby pink heels. Her hands were hidden by little white gloves. She wore her dark hair scooped up and twisted around in the back with curls around her forehead. A small gold cross winked at him from her naturally tanned skin.

Billy Liddle counted himself the luckiest boy alive. “You look nice, Ronni.”

“You look nice too,” she said with a smile from lightly painted pink lips.

Something passed between the two of them. Billy felt it. Did she?

John Sikes clapped his hands together, breaking the moment, just as Harriett Sikes walked into the room behind her daughter. “Hello, Billy,” she said.

Mrs. Sikes was as pretty as her husband was handsome. She looked at her husband. “Sweetheart, Vera just called from the restaurant. She wants to know what time you’re planning to come back.”

Everyone in the room turned to the man of the house, who glanced at his watch. “Just as soon as I see these two out,” he said. He walked over to Billy, slapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Sorry Mother and I can’t join the festivities tonight.” Another slap.

“What about your parents, Billy?” Mrs. Sikes asked. “Are they going to the spring fling? Having a date night?”

A date night? His parents? Not hardly. “No, ma’am. Daddy said I could use the car and he and Mama would sit this one out.” He smiled, hoping to keep Mrs. Sikes from asking any other questions about his mother and father. “But thank you for asking.”

Mr. Sikes barked in laughter, gave Billy one final pat on the back as he said, “Now you take good care of my little girl.”