News of the Spirit (26 page)

The nurse said Paula could take him for a walk, but Johnny wouldn’t go any farther than the end of the road in front of his own building. “Let’s go back now,” he said urgently, for no apparent reason, and they did; and when Paula left him sitting on the stoop among the others, she could see that he was comfortable there, that he wanted to stay. This broke her heart.

The next visit was better. Johnny seemed more himself. His eyes were brighter. Now he was in another building, and had the run of the hospital grounds. He was smoking cigarettes nonstop, a habit he’d picked up in the hospital, where everybody smoked. The fingers of his right hand were stained yellow. But he was better, Paula could tell. He talked more. When they got back to his building, a big black woman named Jewel came up to Paula and said, “Me and Johnny’s going to get married, did he tell you?” Paula was startled. Jewel must have weighed more than two hundred pounds, and her hair stuck out on one side. She was wearing those fuzzy bedroom shoes.

Johnny grinned, a trace of the old Johnny in spite of his yellow teeth. “That’s right, Jewel,” he said, “you and me.”

“She’s going to marry everybody,” he told Paula. “She talks about it all the time. Don’t pay any attention to her.”
They walked to the snack bar for a Coke. When they returned, as Paula was getting ready to leave, Jewel came to the door and yelled out, “Me and Johnny is getting married, honey, just as soon as I gets my divorce.”

“Who you married to now, Jewel?” asked a man who sat smoking in a lawn chair under the trees.

“I am presently married to James Brown,” Jewel hollered, “and let me tell you, honey, he can
do the deed
!”

Everybody—even the nurse outside on duty with the smokers, even Johnny—was laughing as Paula left.

J
OHNNY STAYED IN THE HOSPITAL FOR A YEAR, WHICH
included some of Paula’s freshman year and most of her sophomore year in college. As soon as he got out of the hospital, she went home for a weekend to see him. The plan was that Johnny would stay with their parents until he got “squared away,” as Dad put it energetically on the phone. Dad seemed to be running Johnny’s recovery. Paula thought that was sweet, another chance for Dad; but as soon as she got home, she could see it wasn’t working.

It was a cold, bright March day. The big forsythia bushes on either side of the garage were blooming wildly. Paula parked in the driveway and ran to the door, her heart pounding in her throat, her eyes blind with tears.
Johnny Johnny Johnny
, was all she could think, but it was her dad who met her at the door. Usually he was not at home in the daytime.
He looked older and fatter than she remembered, any old man in a short-sleeved white shirt.

“Paula!” He was surprised. “Hi, honey.” He peered past her, out the door. She could see in his face that he was looking for Johnny, too, as she had been. He had forgotten that she was coming home. Was this going to be the story of all their lives, then, all of them forever looking for Johnny?
What about me?
she wanted to shout.
Me, Paula? Remember me? I’m home for the weekend, doesn’t anybody care? Doesn’t anybody want to know how I’m doing?
Obviously not. Her father was gray with worry.

“Honey, is it Johnny?” Corinne’s wavery voice came down from the head of the stairs.

“No, it’s only me,” Paula said. She brushed past her father and went into the downstairs bathroom and washed her face, scrubbing at it furiously with a washcloth until it stung. On the bathroom wall hung a cross-stitched plaque her mother had made: “Love be with you while you stay, peace be with you on your way.” Paula was composed by the time she went into the den, where her mother and father sat far apart from each other on the Early American couch, like bookends.

Johnny had been out all night, they didn’t know where he was, he hadn’t phoned, they didn’t know who he was with.

“Don’t you think we should call the police?” Corinne asked. It was the first time Paula had seen her without eye makeup.

“Just what would we say?” Dad was sarcastic. “That our twenty-two-year-old son just stayed out all night? Big fucking deal, am I right?”

“Don’t curse at me, Luther.” Corinne had a squinched-up Kleenex in her hand. She was beating this hand softly against her knee.

“I mean, either he’s well, or he’s sick, am I right? So which is it? If he’s sick, he needs to be in the hospital, and if he’s well, he can damn sure act like a decent human being. Is that too much to ask?” Dad’s voice rang out in the den. Paula sat in his recliner and stared at the arrangement of artificial flowers in the middle of the coffee table, something else her mother had made. It struck her as pathetic, all Corinne’s little crafts, even her sewing, even her job at Nails ’N Notions, just a way to fill the time while Dad was at the restaurants. Paula stood up. “Does anybody want a Coke?” she asked, heading toward the kitchen.

“I’ve got to go,” her father said. “I’ll see you ladies in about an hour. Hang tight,” he said.

Corinne came to stand in the kitchen door.

“What does he mean, ‘Hang tight’?” Paula asked.

“Oh, who knows?” Corinne’s pretty face was pale and distracted. “Maybe I
will
have one of those Cokes, honey, with a little sweetener in it.” She pulled a bottle of bourbon down from the highest pantry shelf.

“Johnny’s not doing drugs again, is he?” Paula watched her mother pour the drink.

“Oh no,” Corinne said. “Oh no, that’s not it, that’s not it at all, that was
never
it, this is what the doctors say. Of course he can’t ever do any drugs again, or drink so much as a beer, because of the medicine he has to take. This is what’s got me worried right now. I just wish I knew where he was. I mean, he’s on so much medicine. You should see all the bottles in the bathroom right now. It’s just awful, for a young person to need that much medicine. I don’t see how he can keep it straight.”

“What kind of medicine?” Paula asked.

“Oh,
I
don’t know, but it’s very
strong
medicine, Paula, it has all these side effects.…” Corinne trailed off, sipping her drink. Her face looked blurry and vague. Then she seemed to pull herself back together; she sat up and straightened her shoulders. “Oh, but you know what I think, honey? You know what I really think?”

“What?” Paula leaned closer.

“I think that’s all a lot of hooey,” Corinne said. “Young people go through these phases, everybody knows that. Boys will be boys!” She smiled brilliantly at Paula. Corinne drank that drink, and then another, and was asleep on the sofa in front of the TV when Johnny came in later.

“Shhhh!” Johnny said, tiptoeing elaborately past Corinne. “Shhhh!” All his movements were exaggerated, like a mime’s.

“Johnny!” Paula stood up. “Where have you been? Everybody’s been just frantic.” Her magazine slipped to the floor.

“Oh, hi, Paula,” Johnny said as if he saw her every day. “What’s up?” He wore a blue knit shirt like a golfer, and khaki pants that were too short. Paula had never seen him in clothes like these. She couldn’t imagine where he’d gotten them.

“
What’s up!
” she repeated. “Where have you been? That’s the question.”

“Oh,” Johnny said airily, “I’ve just been making a few investments, that’s all.”

“Investments!” Paula said. “With what?” She followed him into the kitchen. Johnny didn’t answer. Instead he opened the breadbox and took out a long loaf of white bread, Rainbo bread, the kind their mother always bought. He unwrapped the bread and got four slices of it and squeezed them together in his hands, forming a ball, and grinned at her.

“Oh, Roger,” Paula said before she thought.

He handed the loaf to her, and she took it and squeezed three slices into a ball for herself. When she bit into it, the taste was just like she remembered, yeasty and delicious. A thrill shot through her. They ate handful after handful. Then Roger put what was left of the loaf back in the breadbox and took her hand. “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you what I found.”

He led her into the hall and down the stairs into their old rec room, now mostly taken over by Corinne’s craft materials. He switched on the overhead lights. In one corner of the
orange linoleum floor was the old record player, surrounded by albums. “Wait,” Roger said, placing her in the center of the floor. “Just listen to this, you won’t believe it. This is really, really old stuff. It must’ve been Mom’s. It’s so funky.”

He put on a Percy Faith album, then went back and took her in his arms, ready to slow-dance. The needle dropped. She could feel his shoulder bones like wings beneath the golf shirt. “Unchained Melody” filled the basement. Roger leading, they swooped across the floor. They were perfect, perfect together—they could have been on TV. Once Roger dipped her back and back and back, nearly to the floor, but Paula was not scared, not a bit, she knew he wouldn’t drop her. On and on they danced. It was wonderful. They danced until the door at the top of the stairs opened and Corinne came down, pausing midway.

“Why, what in the world!” she exclaimed.

Roger let go. Paula, winded, bent to switch off the record player and then stood trying to catch her breath.

Behind Corinne, Dad’s gray crew-cut head appeared. “Everybody’s home, huh?” he called jovially down the stairs. “I didn’t think you’d have had time to cook, honey, so I brought some supper home from the restaurant. Now don’t worry, son, ha-ha, no barbecue this time, I’ve got some broiled chicken, an item that’s getting very popular these days.…”

Paula looked up the stairs at her parents. She could hear Roger breathing hard behind her. “We already ate,” she said.

A
FTER THAT WEEKEND
, P
AULA WENT BACK TO SCHOOL
, and Johnny went back to the hospital. “Just put it out of your mind, honey,” her mother urged her on the telephone. “You can’t do a thing about it, nobody can. Johnny is right where he needs to be. They’re taking real good care of him. So you just forget about it, and study real hard, and try to have some
fun
, too, okay? These are the happiest years of your life,” Corinne said.

“Okay,” Paula said.
Sure
. But she was so tired. In the mornings, she couldn’t drag herself out of bed in time to get to biology. In the afternoon, she’d nod off during lectures. Her notes were indecipherable. Her grades were falling in every class. Alerted by Paula’s roommate, a cheerful perfect girl from Charlotte who was worried to death about her, the dorm counselor paid a visit to their room.
Nothing is wrong
, Paula told Mrs. Abbott.
Nothing. No, nothing has happened. No, I am not pregnant. No. No. I’m just tired, that’s all
. They put her in the infirmary and everyone assumed she had mononucleosis, an in thing to have. But the test came back negative. It was not mono. By then it was time for exams, but she was much too tired to study. When they sent her home, her father had one of his famous fits the minute she walked in the door.

“Eight thousand dollars down the drain!” he shouted. “You think I’m made of money? Is that what you think? You
and your brother, you’ll bleed me to death, between the two of you. I’ve never seen such kids! Too tired to study, huh? I wish I had had a father to send me to college. I wish I had had these opportunities that you piss away—”

It was clear that he would have gone on forever if Corinne hadn’t come in and taken his arm and led him away. Paula climbed upstairs and went to bed. Later, Corinne came to her room and told her not to pay any attention, that Dad was just upset, plus he was a northerner and you know how they are. They just say everything that’s on their mind, they always yell but it doesn’t mean anything. Plus there was all the stress of Johnny’s illness and running the restaurants. Corinne sat on the edge of the bed and stroked Paula’s hair. She had the longest, reddest fingernails Paula had ever seen.

Later that summer, Elise married a young surgeon in a big wedding, which set Dad back plenty, as he told everybody. He said he didn’t mind, though. “Nothing but the best for my baby,” he said. Paula managed to get out of bed long enough to be a bridesmaid, feeling pallid and insignificant among Elise’s perky, cool friends. Most of them had been Tri Delts, like Elise. Before the wedding, Paula and Elise had had a fight about whether or not to invite Johnny, who was out of the hospital again—Elise was determined not to, and it was her wedding, after all—but Paula had started crying, and so they did, but when he didn’t show up, everybody was relieved, including Paula.

Paula drank too much champagne at the wedding and
ended up sleeping with an oncologist. She dated him for a while after that, but she was finally too weird for him. Though he didn’t say so, Paula could tell. She went back to bed when they stopped dating and stayed there until her dad told her to get up, get a job, and that’s what she’s done ever since—she’s had a succession of jobs, a succession of men. She never went back to college.

One of her boyfriends, a graduate student in psychology, suggested that she wouldn’t go back because of Johnny. “You can’t take the guilt,” he said. “You can’t afford to be successful.” Paula and this boyfriend were having a picnic at the time. Paula put her beer down and stared at him. “You know, that’s probably true,” she said. Before the picnic, she had thought this graduate student was kind of cute, so earnest; but after that, she didn’t think so. She stopped seeing him.