Drowning of Stephan Jones (9 page)

When, for example, Frank told a joke and Stephan laughed uproariously, Frank caught on that they were both merely pretending, and neither was doing a particularly good job of fooling the other. “You know, you didn’t laugh half that hard the first time I told you that joke,” he observed.

“The reason for that,” Stephan retorted while smiling his first genuine smile of the evening, “is that the first time I heard it, I didn’t have to pretend that I was having fun.”

Suddenly Frank snapped his fingers and, presto, that worried look he had been previously wearing was replaced by a wraparound grin.

“Know what we need?” he asked, and without waiting for Stephan to do more than look surprised, he began answering his own question. “A vacation! We’ve been working around the clock since we left Boston. We need a long weekend away from these small-town bigots with their mindless ways.”

Stephan sighed. “Hmm, a weekend away ... maybe that would give us a better perspective. Help us see that this place isn’t out to get us, ’cause one of our problems is that we’re taking
those three stooges too seriously.”

Frank slapped his hands together and made a whooping sound. “We could close early Friday and drive to Little Rock, stay in one of those new hotels with an indoor swimming pool.”

“An indoor pool?” Stephan asked, at the same time managing to look as though he’d never before heard of such a crazy thing. “Why do we need an indoor pool? You know I hate pools.”

“Well, this may come as a shock to your nervous system, Stevie, but people have been known to like to swim in them.”

Stephan shook his head no. “You know I don’t—I can’t—I don’t want to. We’ve been together long enough for you to accept the fact that you like to swim and I won’t ... ever.”

“Are you
serious?
You
really
can’t swim?” Frank threw up his hands. “Okay, so no big deal. Let me teach you—did I ever tell you that I was on the Boston College swim team?”

“Too many times. But listen, get yourself another disciple ’cause I don’t want to learn.”

“It’s easy,” Frank insisted. “I can have you swimming in thirty minutes—fifteen minutes, guaranteed!”

“No thanks.”

“What do you mean ‘no thanks.’ Can’t you hear when opportunity’s pounding on your door?”

Stephan jumped out of his chrome and wicker chair and glared daggers at him from across the table. “Can’t you for once in your life get off my case? To say that I’ve had a tough day would be a vast understatement. What in the hell do I need you carping at me for!? And if I had wanted to learn to swim, don’t you think I would have learned long before now—well, don’t you?!”

Frank threw his hands up in a don’t-shoot-’cause-I-surrender gesture. “Hey, hey, slow down, Stevie, I’m sorry I upset you ... so just let it go, okay?”

Stephan dropped back down into his chair and allowed his
shoulders to droop forward as though a terrible fatigue had suddenly overtaken him. “I didn’t mean to jump down your throat. It’s just that I ...

“Forget it,” answered Frank, flipping his hand as though it were a thing of little consequence. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t!” contradicted Stephan. “How could you? I’m embarrassed—ashamed even to admit this to you, but, you see, I’ve never learned how to swim, afraid to learn because ... well, I’m afraid, death afraid, of water.”

Chapter 9

T
HE FIRST WEEK
of March was also something of a first for Judith Wayland—she had at last inaugurated a new program at the Rachetville Public Library that was very much talked about, but was not one bit controversial. Because most tests at the junior and senior high schools were scheduled for Monday, she kept the library open until midnight every Sunday and invited volunteer tutors in math, science, history, and English to be available to help the students. As a kind of bonus to all the young scholars and their tutors, at nine o’clock, peanut butter sandwiches and orange juice were available free to all in the staff lounge.

Even though Carla was sitting between Debby and Andy at the oak library table, she was, for the most part, still able to concentrate on her thousand-word composition due Monday for language arts: “Do you believe that Patty Bergen in
Summer of My German Soldier
did the moral thing in hiding a German prisoner?”

Feeling something hitting her foot, she moved it out of the way, but the only thing she received for her trouble was a second, slightly more insistent kick. Glancing up she found herself peering straight into the Aegean-blue eyes of Andy. “Wanta go outside with me, Carla?” he asked, combing back his own burnished brown hair with his slender fingers.

Although her first thought was that she’d gladly follow him to places farther away and more exotic than merely the front steps of the public library, she did regret being diverted from her writing just when she had a really good rhythm going. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Debby,” she informed her friend. She took off her glasses and tossed them on top of her loose-leaf notebook.

For the last nine and a half weeks now, Carla had thought
almost exclusively about Andy and their developing relationship and had come to the conclusion that they were settling down and settled in because, at least, now the
big
issue had been settled.

It happened on New Year’s Eve amid some heavy petting and even heavier panting. Andy yelped, “If you love me,
really
love me, you’ll let me do it. All the way!”

They had been seeing each other every day and every evening since Christmas. Carla had anticipated that the issue would come up and she had settled it in her own head first.

Putting everything into the equation—should she or shouldn’t she—Carla had finally pared it all down to the essentials: If she couldn’t control her biology, how could she control her destiny? Could she live with the consequences of becoming pregnant? So by the time Andy’s challenge was thrown at her, she knew precisely what she was going to say, and she said it: “If you love me, Andy,
really
love me, you wouldn’t ask.”

Outside on the well-lit steps there was a cool breeze blowing up from the west, and Carla was glad she had remembered to slip into her cardigan sweater before walking out into the night.

As she turned, she caught sight of his shadow against the library wall just as it descended toward her. His cheek touched hers, and she closed her eyes while taking in his manly warmth and wondered how it could be that he always smelled so
hmmm
good, as though he had just stepped out of a long, hot shower. Gently laying her hands on his cheeks, she brought his face to her face and her lips to his lips.

The kiss resonated through her body and, if she wasn’t mistaken, she even felt a tingling sensation all the way down to the arches of her feet. “There,” the girl murmured, moving her head just far enough away so as to better gauge his reaction. “You know, you’re a pretty wonderful fellow. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that you really care for me.”

Andy smiled shyly, which made him look different. Maybe
his smile made him look younger, but at any rate it certainly made him look a lot less assured. “I feel that way, too. I guess I’m surprised that you”—he looked down to examine his fingernails—“that you care for me, too.”

“Really?” Carla was all ears.

“Well, sure ...”

“Funny, that’s not the way you act,” she teased, but in all seriousness. “Mostly you act like—like you’re God’s gift to women!”

He pulled her close, “Oh, be nice, pretty lady.”

Carla checked out Andy’s face for the slightest sign of fraud, but she found none. How could that be? How could that possibly be, she mused, that he could call her pretty? Because no matter how many different mirrors she had gazed into in how many different places, she never once saw anything staring back at her that even remotely resembled beauty. Was it, she wondered, because others could see what she could not? Or was it that she, only she, could fathom deep beneath her seemingly seamless surface, down deep where the formless fears and cowardly confusions soundlessly churned on.

“C’mon,” he said walking hand in hand with her toward the public telephone booth that stood in front of the library. “Time for me to do a little prank.”

Carla groaned. “Oh, for God’s sake, Andy! You’re not going to do what I think you are? It’s getting close to midnight.”

“Hey, what’s the matter with you anyway?” Andy said. “How come you never like to have any fun?”

Andy’s remark struck Carla with more force than he realized, partly because he had eventually accepted her wishes and stopped hounding her for sex—for serious you-could-have-a-baby sex, that is. Wasn’t that another reason that she should do everything else to please him? Didn’t he deserve no less?

Beneath her feet, the girl felt the high moral ground begin to shift. Am I making much too much out of all of this? she
wondered. One thing, at least, was becoming clear: Her mother’s lofty idealism had been far more contagious than she had imagined. And not just more contagious, but also a hell of a lot more inconvenient than she’d have liked it to be.

What is this anyway? She tried to talk herself into excusing him. Just a bit of stupid boyish fun. No harm done! Besides, if it really were wrong wouldn’t Andy, being as religious as he was, be the first to realize it? After all, he was not merely a churchgoer, he also faithfully watched some of the most dynamic preachers in the world on cable television. Everybody who heard him was awfully impressed how he could go on and on quoting Reverend Wheelwright or Jerry Falwell. So with all that religion how could Andy Harris be anything but good?

Probably even the pestered men themselves didn’t take it all that seriously, at least not nearly as seriously as she did! What was wrong with her anyway? Those guys weren’t her friends. Andy was the one she wanted, she needed. Only had he brought her into the fold, making her belong.

But maybe it was already too late. Maybe she had already gone and blown it because Andy had probably already come to the conclusion that she was just another tight-assed prude with a thou-shalt-not-have-any-fun personality! She made a conscious effort to lighten up. “Well, okay, if you want to make a prank call go ahead. Only don’t say anything nasty—please.”

With repugnance, Carla noticed how his pace quickened to double time as he approached the pay phone. Dropping a coin in the slot, he began dialing the number that had obviously been committed to memory. After the third ring went unanswered, she felt a growing sense of relief because chances were the men were somewhere other than home. In the middle of the fourth ring, the chances of that happening dropped to zero.

Andy held the receiver in his right fist as tightly as any lethal weapon.

“Good evening, Frank,” Andy said, sounding strangely
pleasant. “I just called to find out how your little boyfriend liked his pizza, huh? What terrible table manners, getting food all over himself! Gross!”

Considering what he had just heard, Frank’s response was surprisingly cool. “Please explain to me,” he began, “what kind of men would gang up three to one against one perfectly peaceful guy going about his own business?”

Andy’s voice boomed. “Who do you think you’re talking to, you fucking fruit fly!”

“Actually, I had thought that my question had given even you enough clues to be able to figure that one out for yourself.” Then Frank sighed as though having to explain really primary stuff to idiots was both physically and emotionally draining. “But if you still need help with it, then I’m prepared to make it simple enough for you to understand.”

Andy squealed like a stuck pig. “Who do you think you’re talking to—you—you queer pervert!”

“Sad to say it, I’m wasting time talking to you! Someone who may be as strong as a man, and as tall as a man, but there the resemblance abruptly ends! For you are not a man, little boy! Because what you are is a genuine, one hundred percent, certified coward!”

Even with only the light from the street lamp, Carla could tell that Andy’s jawline had hardened into granite while his face had taken on a really rosy hue. As his lips pressed against the receiver he screeched, “You better take that back, you hear me! Cause I’ll get you for that!”

Suddenly there was a great bang as though the phone at the other end of the line had crashed against a hard and immovable object. Grabbing his ear while groaning in pain, Andy then heard that decisive click that disconnected him from the one person in this world who he hated beyond reason. Andy shouted into the disconnected line. “I swear to God on Jesus’ holy name that if it’s the last thing I ever do you’re going to
get it!”

Chapter 10

O
N
M
ONDAY MORNING
, Debby’s predictable chime of the Wayland doorbell made Carla jump to her feet. “See you later, Mom,” she said, gathering up her books and making a smacking sound that very nearly made contact with Judith’s cheek.

There was rarely anything that resembled an actual greeting between Carla and Debby. Through years of practice they easily picked up the threads of conversation where they had left them minutes or hours or even days before. And there certainly wasn’t a greeting now as Debby pushed her oversized glasses back on her nose while flatly stating, “You know, the more I think about it, the more I think I’d be making a serious mistake going into nursing when I could spend almost the same amount of time in college and become a veterinarian.”

“Not only that,” added Carla enthusiastically, “a vet is so much more you! You wouldn’t have to take orders from a lot of doctors—and you
know
how much you love to take orders.”

Debby flashed a smile, rewarding Carla for so well understanding. “I sure do wish you loved animals as much as I do. We could be vets together.”

“It’s not that I don’t love animals,” Carla protested. “It’s just that I love children more. After I get my degree in early childhood education from the University of Arkansas, I want to work and someday I’ll have my own day-care center. Know what else I’m going to do? Teach parents how to take better care of their kids.”