They paid, then Josh said, “Just a minute” and pushed through the crowd toward the restroom. Beamer leaned against the wall and waited, exchanging greetings with anyone she knew who passed by or yelled from afar. A classmate pulled her knit cap down over her face. Beamer had a few nasty thoughts about boys who weren’t as funny as they thought, then lifted the cap. She was face to face with Andy.
He smiled. “I guess that means he loves you,” he said.
“Rodents don’t have feelings,” she joked.
A girl appeared next to Andy. “Oh, hi, Beamer. Uh, Andy, I guess I’ll go and warm up the car.”
“I’ll be right with you, Jacqueline.”
Beamer watched the girl leave. She knew her only slightly, but wasn’t surprised to see her with Andy. Jacqueline Snow was also an aspiring artist, and she was the daughter of Evelyn Snow, a painter of such renown that she was no longer ever labeled “Indian artist.”
“Don’t let me keep you, Andy.”
“You won’t. You’re here with Josh, right? I’m surprised.”
“Don’t be. I’m not surprised to see you with Jacqueline. You two make a nice couple.”
“May I call you tomorrow?”
“Please go, Andy,” Beamer whispered.
“Beamo, let me tell you something. Sort of a warning.”
“Jacqueline’s waiting for you.”
“There are two kinds of guys in the world. That’s it—two. The guys who can’t wait to get in the locker room and talk about what they do with their girlfriends, sexually speaking, and the guys who don’t. I don’t.”
“And Josh?”
“I don’t.” Andy turned and left.
Josh returned, took her arm, and guided her out of the restaurant. “Did you and the sensitive artist have a nice talk?” he asked.
“Not especially.”
While they paused to put on gloves, Beamer looked down the street. Snow was falling heavily. She saw a lone figure jogging along and for a moment thought it was Andy. She quickened and flushed. The man’s face was illuminated under a street lamp as he reached a waiting car, and Beamer relaxed as the stranger drove away.
“Hey, are you still here?” Josh said.
Beamer looked at him. “I’m sorry, Josh. I guess I’ve been pretty lousy company tonight.”
“That’s true, but it doesn’t matter.” He stroked her neck above the collar of her unzipped jacket. “I figured all along it would get better later.”
Beamer gently pushed his hand away. “Not a chance, Josh. Not a chance. Would you mind taking me home now?”
Daryl and Sandra’s car was parked among others in the store’s lot. For once Beamer was glad to see the cars still there. She pre-empted Josh’s inevitable request for a kiss or a lingering goodnight.
“Josh, it looks like trouble again with family friends. It might be better if you didn’t come in. Thanks for everything; I needed to get out.”
She was out of the car and walking toward the door before he had done much more than mumble, “Sure, Beamer.”
She entered through the back door. Children’s voices came from the store. The grown-ups were upstairs. She put away her coat and gloves, then sat on the sofa to remove her boots. She sat still for several minutes, warming her toes in her hands and thinking about the evening.
Poor Josh. It was a bit cruel to go out and get his hopes up. Well, I will not feel too guilty. He’ll find a party to go to and have a better time without me.
She leaned back, resting against the coats piled on the sofa. She smiled slightly, remembering the number of times she and Andy had ended their evenings right here, avoiding the Woodies, talking and otherwise prolonging their goodnights. Then Beamer exhaled sharply and rose abruptly.
I’m glad I did it; let Jacqueline enjoy his company.
She pushed open the door to the hall and climbed the stairs.
The Woodies were in the kitchen, gathered around the table listening to Sandra. Beamer paused just outside the kitchen. Sandra was telling about the protest and the bomb.
Daryl was staring at his wife, and Beamer’s father had a hand on his shoulder. Beamer listened to Sandra but watched the two men. They had been college roommates for two years and teammates on a notoriously bad football team. Now they were sitting with their friends and wives, listening to a story of manslaughter.
Candles burned on the table, the only light in the kitchen. The soft, flickering light played tricks: gray hairs were hidden, wrinkles smoothed. Beamer saw a room full of young dreamers.
Sandra finished. For a moment no one broke the silence. Then there was a bustle of action because no one could speak: Jenny stepped behind Sandra and gently massaged her shoulders; Peter collected tea mugs and carried them to the sink; Daniel stowed uneaten food in the refrigerator; Sue turned on a light; Maud blew out the candles, one by one.
Beamer went to her room. She watched through the window as the Woodies left—in families, in pairs, alone. Her parents escorted Daryl and Sandra, the last to go, and waited without their coats in the falling snow as their friends drove away. When the car had disappeared, they turned to each other and embraced, then walked hand in hand to the store.
Beamer returned to the kitchen and began tidying up, emptying cold tea into the sink and loading the dishwasher. She heard her mother enter and waited for her to speak.
“Bea, darling, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I peeked in earlier. Where’s Dad?”
“He went to the Wyatts’ to get Johnny.” Mrs. Flynn sat at the table. Beamer joined her.
“It looked like a pretty quiet group here tonight.”
“Sandra and Daryl were here.”
“I saw.”
“She’s decided to plead guilty. She’ll be telling her lawyer on Monday.”
“Why? I would have thought it would suit her purpose to have a public trial. It would give her a chance to publicize her cause.”
“Right now she’s more concerned about her family. She’s convinced she’ll be found guilty anyway, and she’s decided she just wants to get on with it.”
“What’s next?”
“She’ll plead, she’ll be sentenced, she’ll go to prison. Evidently the minimum sentence for manslaughter is four years, and even with parole she can expect to serve almost three. Three years in prison. Minimum.” Beamer had a memory flash—a fleeting, vivid picture of the young Sandra leading the children in the commune preschool in dance and games, her caftan swirling about her in waves of brilliant color. Three years in prison.
“Faith into action,” she said.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Flynn. “Well, this time it went wrong.”
“Went wrong? Mom, a guy is dead. Dead!”
“Yes, dead. That’s the horror of it, of course. That, and Sandra’s going to prison.” Mrs. Flynn settled back in the chair and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “I don’t think it was an easy decision for her to make,
to cooperate with the authorities.”
“So she and Daryl came here for the Woodies’ vote of approval, right? You took a vote, guilty or not guilty. Cooperate or defy.”
Mrs. Flynn’s gaze was steady and strong. “They came to see their friends. They are going through a hell that can only get worse, and they wanted to be with friends.”
Beamer couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes. She looked at the table, picked up a matchbook, and relit a candle. Her fingers traced the waxy bumps on its surface. Then she looked at her mother.
Mrs. Flynn was waiting. “Bea, I spent twelve years trying to carve out a new, different way of life. I failed. Now I am happy just to have a business that is part of the community and a home that’s open to friends.”
“So open that your own daughter feels crowded out.”
“I’m sorry if I have failed to see that.”
“Sometimes, Mom, it seems so ridiculous—after all these years the whole crowd is still sitting around, arguing over this, agreeing on that, taking votes on any little problem in somebody’s life.”
“We don’t take votes; we listen.” Mrs. Flynn’s voice was sharp. “Beamer…” She paused, then lifted and cupped her hands, as if trying to shape the words, mold the clarity of what she was feeling. Her hands dropped and lay still in her lap. “Bea, I’m sorry you are hurting. But I am not sorry to have given you a life filled with people who love you.”
“Fewer of them would have been okay, Mom.”
Mrs. Flynn was smiling now. She rose, stretched, and yawned. “Maybe I agree with that, but then, how to pick and choose?”
“Vote.”
Her mother’s exasperation rekindled. “Oh, Bea, in a short enough time you will be my age, and Lord knows what you will have gone through by then, but if you are very lucky you will still have the friends who helped you survive.” She reached and smoothed back the hair on her daughter’s temples. “And if you are very, very lucky you will have a daughter who questions it all.”
The candle sputtered and was extinguished in its own pool of wax.
Mrs. Flynn turned and moved toward the doorway. “I’m tired, Beamo. Goodnight.”
Beamer held one hand tightly with the other. She had to say something, had to let her mother know that she had heard.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t think I hate all of you.”
“None of us does.”
“And it’s not as if I totally hate my life, the way it’s been.”
“Good.”
“But now I want it to be
my
life. Mine. I’m tired of being the group project.”
“Beamer, you are not, and never have been, anybody’s project. You are our daughter, Bob and Carolyn’s child.”
“You’ve had input.”
Her mother smiled again. “That’s true enough. And plenty of it.”
The shadows and light were playing tricks again. Beamer looked at her mother and saw a tall, slender young woman, tired and just a bit unsure. Mrs. Flynn pulled down the cuffs of her sweater and then crossed her arms.
That sweater. Andy had—Beamer buried the thought.
“Yes?” her mother prompted.
“Yes what?”
“You’re thinking something.”
“It’s nothing much. Just that once Andy told me he thought you were the prettiest woman he had ever seen. You were wearing that sweater the night he said it.”
“He said that? Oh, I always did like Andy.”
“You always did like flattery.”
“No, dear. It’s your father who loves flattery; I’m more detached.” She considered saying more. Finally her curiosity subdued her caution. “Bea, don’t you miss Andy?”
“No.”
Mrs. Flynn arched her eyebrows. “I’m your mother, Beamo. You can’t get a lie past me.”
“Maybe I miss his company.”
“I’ll accept that. Perhaps—”
“Mom, we’ve talked enough tonight, okay?”
“Just one more bit of advice?”
“If you must.”
“I just hope you didn’t break off with him when it was really the Woodies you wanted to chase away.” Just what Andy had said. Beamer didn’t answer. Mrs. Flynn yawned. “Don’t tell our friends, Beamo, but I’ll confess that sometimes your father and I are very happy to chase them away. Tonight I was glad to see them go.”
“The two of you looked pretty cute outside, hugging in the snow.”
“Shame on you for watching.”
“I often do. I see a lot.”
Mrs. Flynn nodded almost imperceptibly. “I’m sure you do.” She flexed her shoulders to chase away the end-of-day stiffness, and shoved her hands into her sweater pockets. She pulled out a handful of paper scraps. “Charade commands.”
“Sandra’s going off to prison and you played the same old games?”
“We stopped when they arrived. Oh, don’t be so disapproving. Beamer, as you muddle through life you’ll discover the things you can’t change and the things you can’t escape. Sometimes the best you can do,” she said, sprinkling the paper scraps over the table, “is to have a little fun. Goodnight, Bea.”
“Goodnight, Mom.”
Chapter 19
Martin returned the night the Woodies were all at the store celebrating Mr. Flynn’s birthday. Beamer had tried her civil best to enjoy the occasion and be pleasant to everyone. She had led the younger children in building snow statues; she had helped her mother bake and decorate the cake; she had personally supervised the outdoor grilling of the tofu-and-crushed-walnut burgers, enduring the cold wind and deep snow so that her father could have his favorite food on his birthday. She had even been cajoled into joining his team for charades and was just beginning her turn when Martin arrived.
Everyone flocked around the newcomer, who greeted them all cheerfully. The group then broke up for refreshments. Martin took Beamer aside and hugged her warmly. He stepped back, laughing. “Don’t panic.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Stiff as a board. I was just saying hello.”
Maud passed them, and Martin teased her about her newly permed and gray-free hair. Maud feigned insult and turned away.
“I’ve been dying to say something about her hair all week,” said Beamer. “I didn’t dare.”
“Take a chance, girl,” said Martin.
The Woodies reassembled around the stove and called loudly to Beamer to resume playing charades.