Seasons of Her Life (22 page)

“Did you talk to the new neighbors, Irma?”

“No, George. I did hear them complaining about the grape stains on the back steps and on the kitchen linoleum. I was shaking the dust mop, that's how I heard them. They said they were going to sand the steps and replace the linoleum.”

“Is it worn out?” George asked.

“I don't know, George.”

“I'll be going back to work next week. My disability has run out. They need me down at the monument works.”

“I'm sure they do, George. Mr. Riley said you were the best stonecutter he ever saw.”

George Connors' eyes narrowed. “How do you know that, Irma?”

“You told me that, George.”

“Ruby Connors is getting married, Irma. To a marine. She sent a card.”

“Do you approve, George?”

“Don't approve or disapprove. I don't have a daughter named Ruby anymore. Opal is getting sassy, Irma.”

“I'll talk to her, George.”

“There's a letter on the table addressed to you from Grace Zachary, Irma.”

The paring knife slipped and Irma gouged her thumb. “Did you read it, George?”

“No, I thought you should read it to me. Maybe we should just tear it up and not bother to read it. Why would she be writing to you?”

Irma watched a trickle of blood form on a potato. She picked up the paring knife and held it firmly in her hand. She raised her head. “Maybe she can't hold in her secret anymore. Maybe she wants to tell me how you raped her and she's the one who doused you with the grape jelly. Did you know Amber had a baby, George?”

“You get yourself upstairs and wash out your mouth with soap, Irma. Now.”

“I don't feel like it. Don't raise your hand to me. If you do, I'll kill you when you're asleep. Do you want carrots or peas?”

“Both,” George said, moving closer to the table. “What did you say?”

“I said I would kill you if you raised your hand to me again. I will, too. Your brothers will be on my side. So will this whole town if I tell them what you've done to all of us. You're a devil, George.”

George's hand snaked out to grasp his wife's arm, but Irma was too quick for him. The paring knife was clutched in her hand, the blade pointing straight at George. With the kitchen chair in front of her she brandished the knife like a sword. “I mean it, George. Now, I want you to go and change your underwear. You smell like pissy-pants. Your tube must be clogged again. I'm going to read my mail. I wish Grace had killed you. I prayed all night that you would die. I promised myself I would kill you. Sometime. I don't know when. Maybe next week. Maybe tomorrow. I think you should move into Ruby's room. Yes, you should move into Ruby's room . . . Georgie. Go on, Georgie, don't stand there, looking at me like that. You brought shame on this house. Shame on you, Georgie,” Irma said, wagging her finger in his direction. “Shame, shame, shame.”

 

Even though the humidity was near the eighty-percent mark, Clark Air Force Base hummed with activity. Calvin Santos bristled with something akin to electricity. In his hand were two messages. When he first saw them and realized their implication, the blood rushed to his head. He remembered the major, but that's all he remembered. Now he was remembering how he'd done his best to call her once before, only Ruby wasn't in the office and the admiral had taken the call. He shouted his message as loud as he could, but the admiral, who Ruby had once said was hard of hearing, didn't seem to be getting it. He'd called a second and third time and didn't fare any better. He'd written two letters and sent them to the house on Kilbourne Place, but they'd come back to him with a stamp on both of them saying the addressee had moved. He'd sent one letter to the Navy Annex, but it had also been returned. He assumed Ruby no longer worked for the government. A month to the day of his arrival at Beale he'd been transferred to Germany. He'd made one last desperate try and sent a letter to Ruby's home in Barstow, hoping against hope that her parents would forward it. His thinking was, if Ruby moved, she'd moved up to a better job. There was always the goddamn time difference no matter where he was. What he didn't understand then and still didn't understand and would probably never come to terms with was why Ruby hadn't left a forwarding address. By sheer luck he'd remembered the name of the town where Nola grew up and sent a letter to her for Ruby's address. That letter and the one he'd sent to Barstow had not been returned to him.

Now, after all this time, Ruby had managed to track him down.
Now, when it was too late
. His stomach heaved and he felt another head rush.

Calvin placed his call, his knuckles white on the receiver. How was he going to tell Ruby he was married? He still didn't believe it himself. Actually, he didn't want to believe it. While he waited for the call to go through he thought about his new wife.

Eve Baylor was seven years his senior and hailed from Charleston, South Carolina. He'd met her at the Officers' Club in Charleston. He'd been drawn to her because she looked as unhappy as he felt. He'd been cautious, though, waiting to see if her plain, schoolmarmish appearance appealed to any of the other officers. It took all of thirty minutes to screw up the courage to walk over to her table, certain he would be rebuffed for his efforts. She'd accepted his offer to buy her a drink. She'd been polite, nothing more. An hour into a strained conversation, she had said she hated men, and Calvin had responded by saying he hated women. Neither discussed the reasons for their feelings.

A friendship of sorts blossomed based on mutual loneliness. She was a teacher and had a manner of speaking that irritated Calvin. She was also bossy, dictatorial, and manipulative, but Calvin didn't care; she was someone to spend his lonely hours with. He thought of her as a friend, and, as such, wanted to tell her about Ruby, but something always held him back. He never felt the urge to kiss her or hold her hand in a romantic way. Secretly, he thought her a cold fish and pitied the poor guy who eventually got her into his bed. He'd tried to be open with her, telling her stories about his fellow officers and a few off-color jokes, but she didn't respond the way he hoped she would. He came to the conclusion she was frigid and a prude as well. She was also a Southern Baptist, and that bothered him. When it came right down to it, everything about her bothered him.

As the months wore on, however, Calvin found himself getting used to her sharp tongue, her mannerisms, and way of doing things. He felt comfortable with Eve because he didn't care. It was that simple.

The Sunday she invited him to her parents' home for dinner was an experience he would never forget.

He'd taken the military bus from the base and got off in the Battery section and walked the four short blocks to Eve's house. His first sight of Eve's home left him gasping. It was beautiful with its wrap-around porch and stained glass windows. The azaleas and oaks surrounding the house had to be at least a hundred years old. He couldn't begin to imagine what it would have been like to grow up in a house as wonderful as this one. He was so overcome with longing and the need to belong, he didn't notice the chipped and missing cobblestones in the walkway or the rotting, peeling paint on the veranda or the dry rot in the porch floor. His gaze was so taken with the upper portion of the stained glass windows, he missed their rotting frames.

The doorbell was in the shape of a brass key. He turned it clockwise, blinking. It sounded like a dirge. He stared around the wide veranda with its ancient wicker furniture and wondered if the furniture was safe to sit on.

The massive oak door groaned as it opened, and Eve ushered him into the house which smelled of eucalyptus, cat urine, and the kind of liniment he rubbed on his aching legs after a hike. The smell was so overpowering, he started to breathe through his mouth.

Heat poured out of registers in the floor, and he noticed a raging fire in the massive fieldstone fireplace. The urge to bolt was strong, but he planted his feet solidly on the dull oak floor while he waited for Eve to introduce him to her family.

He'd assumed that Eve had told them about him, so he wasn't prepared for their gaping expressions at the sight of him. Her father, stone-faced, didn't offer his hand in greeting. Calvin did his best to stare him down but was unsuccessful. A retired colonel, he still favored his brush cut. Formidable, Calvin thought, and bigoted. He shook his head in something Calvin interpreted as disgust.

Eve's mother was an older version of Eve. Straight-backed, every hair in place, her face and neck powdered, with the fine granules lying in her deep wrinkles. Calvin wondered crazily if she was wearing a mask. She was dressed in an outdated, faded purple dress with a high neckline and wore a cameo brooch that called attention to her stringy neck. Austere, Calvin decided when her face remained cool and unwelcoming. She had the coldest eyes Calvin had ever seen.

The sister, Bea, was older than Eve and looked so much like her, they could have passed for twins. There was no welcoming smile on her face, either.

The introductions over, Eve led him into the front parlor, where the fire raged. She motioned for him to sit down and offered him a glass of wine, which he spilled when a huge black cat leapt onto his shoulder. Irene, Eve's mother, clucked her tongue in disapproval before she ordered Bea to “see to this mess.” Eve refilled his glass while Timothy, her father, kept shaking his head. He wasn't passing muster, of that Calvin was sure.

The silence was so uncomfortable, it was deadly. Eve did nothing to break the silence, sitting with her ankles crossed and her hands folded in her lap as Bea trooped into the room with a bucket and a basket of rags and wiped the spill.

Minutes later, at some prearranged silent signal, the family rose and walked single file into the dining room, which was dark and dreary.

The room had a musty, unused smell, but even here he could smell the cat urine and liniment. No attempt had been made to wipe the dust from the mahogany sideboard or from the immense crystal chandelier hanging over the middle of the table. His visit was an inconvenience, and no attempt had been made to impress him. Eve pointed to a seat next to hers. He was about to hold the chair for her, when she sat down and pulled it closer to the table.

Calvin risked a glance at Irene as she said grace. Her thin lips barely moved. The words said she was thanking God for the food they were about to eat, but the tone was sharp and belligerent, as though she didn't want to share it with their guest. Without thinking, Calvin blessed himself and was rewarded with three piercing stares of disapproval. He knew, even though he couldn't see Eve's eyes, that they looked the same.
What in the goddamn hell was he doing here?

“We don't talk during our meal,” Timothy Baylor said in a voice choked with rage. Eve, Calvin knew, was going to be the recipient of that rage the minute he left.

After dinner, when he stepped into the bathroom, he heard the three women talking about him in the kitchen, their words carrying distinctly through the heat register. He listened, his shoulders slumping. The sisters were calling each other old maids.

“If he's the best you can do, then you deserve him. You're shaming us. He's the same as a nigger!” the mother said coldly. “Your father almost had a stroke. You had no right to bring someone like that into this house. Your granddaddy had slaves who were as dark as he is. You have no shame, Eve, none at all. The neighbors saw him coming here, what will they think of us?”

Calvin's face flamed. He sat down on the toilet to stop the trembling in his legs. He didn't realize he was holding his breath until he let it out with a loud swoosh. The least Eve could have done was defend him. For Christ's sake, they were friends, nothing more. What kind of people were the Baylors?
What kind of person was Eve?

Calvin's hand was on the doorknob when he heard Bea cry, “I had a chance to get married, but you and father didn't like Jason because he had a lame leg. You said he wasn't an asset to this family. Now he has a family of his own, he built his own house, and is vice president of the Charleston Bank. You ruined my life!”

“That will be enough from you, missy,” Irene said sharply. “You can't be blaming your father and me because you don't have husbands. Neither one of you can hold a real man.”

Calvin slammed the bathroom door behind him and stormed out of the house. He was on the cobblestones before he realized Eve was following him.

“Are we still going to the movies on Wednesday?”

Calvin swiveled on his heel. “I thought we were friends, for God's sake. Why did you do this to me? If this is southern hospitality, you can keep it!”

“You didn't answer me, Calvin. Are we going to the movies on Wednesday or not?”

“Why? Do you have dates lined up around the corner?” Calvin snarled.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Eve demanded.

“I'm going. If you want to go, meet me outside the theater.” What the hell else could he say?

The months that followed were much the same. Twice more he went to the Baylor house and couldn't explain why he tortured himself. The day Timothy Baylor called him “boy” as though he were addressing a slave he knew he would never fit in. He told Eve he never wanted to go back.

“Then don't,” she said.

Three months later, on a warm Saturday afternoon at a sidewalk cafe, Calvin said he was being sent to the Philippines. “I'm going on a temporary basis and will return in six weeks and then go back for my hitch. I leave on Monday. And, as soon as we finish our coffee I have to leave. If you want, I'll write.” He stared across at Eve. He still didn't know this strange woman sitting across from him. He referred to her as a friend, but so far they'd not shared anything more than dinner, a cup of coffee, or a movie. Maybe if she were prettier, a little younger, or if she had a sense of humor, he would have made more of an effort. If he had to sum up their strange relationship, he would say they were two lonely people who shared time together once in a while. He wondered if he would miss her, if he would mind being alone again in a strange country. Then he did something he thought himself incapable of doing, something so insane he wanted to rip out his tongue the minute the words left his mouth. He said, “Do you want to get married?”