her eyes full of life, the hayfield furrows behind her a patchwork of light and shadow; like the sight of her after the accident, but more like a dream in black and white. Lux stared hard at Dessie to match this image with his memory of her.
He collected his thoughts. “Don’t worry. There ain’t nothing to be afraid of out there, and anyways, I’ll look after you,” he said. He stared at her, hoping she would believe this, and then he reached for her hand.
“You’re sure about that, Lux?” she asked, her eyes wide with a sense of adventure. A warmth shot through her firm hand into his. Lux nodded. “I am. You’ll see,” he said. Though he was trying look as serious as possible, a smile played across his face. He took it all in. At that moment, he felt like the future was as clear as the moon, so round, so bright, so close he could almost reach out and touch it.
Dessie paused and nodded, then with a slight grin she spoke up. “Well, I guess I should’ve brought along a broom,” she said. Lux stood back a step, trying to catch her meaning. “What? Why in the world did you say that?” he asked. He dropped her hand. Was she worried about taking the Jeep up into the woods? About getting the Jeep dirty? Was she worried about him? Did Bertram tell her to do that kind of thing?
“OK, not funny, I guess. Uhm, I was trying to make a joke,” Dessie said. “You know, a broom? So you could sweep me off my feet, of course.” She shrugged, holding back a smile.
Lux smiled back, and looked over at the tall white shape of the Price farmhouse against the dark hillside. “OK, OK. I get it,” he said. “Hey, we won’t need any old broom.”
Dessie laughed. “You sure got off to a good start, Ace,” she said, her phrasing an exact imitation of Bertram’s cadence and drawl.
Lux looked at her, catching on. He cleared his throat, swallowed. “Hey, I’ll give it my best shot, you’ll see,” he said. Then, reaching out for the thick twisted cable, partly to steady himself and partly to figure out where to set his feet, he took several unsteady strides onto the footbridge, making his way from plank to plank. With a sweep of his arm, Lux waved at anyone, real or imagined, who might happen to be watching them. It was all he could do to catch up to Dessie as she raced over the bridge, caught the roll bars, and swung herself up into the passenger seat of the open Jeep.
TWO
SOMEBODY TO LOVE (1967)
ALL THROUGH NINTH GRADE, BILLIE PRICE PICKED half-smoked Lucky Strike cigarettes out of the living room ashtray and smoked them down to her fingertips without her parents catching on. She rarely got to smoke a whole cigarette because Bertram kept his Luckies in his shirt pocket. Sloppy seconds would do. It was easy enough to collect an almost whole cigarette from the butts that he stubbed out and abandoned, little white crooked swans in the large black swan-shaped ashtray, but in order to smoke them she had to keep out of sight.
After her drama teacher had caught Billie smoking in the girls’ room back in September, her parents threatened to paddle her if it happened again. Bertram claimed to believe in “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” but he was a reluctant enforcer. But though infrequent, it had happened, and Billie did not want a repeat performance. Rose relied upon logic as well as good old-fashioned Pentecostal guilt. For her part, Billie figured that what her parents did not know would not hurt them or hurt her. Their ignorance would be her bliss, or at least help her avoid her mother’s sermonizing. She wasn’t worried about stunting her growth or shortening her life. She did not care about bad breath, wrinkles on her face, or worst of all, attracting the wrong kind of male attention. Rose had it all wrong. For Billie, the lure of smoking was so private, so special, a little glamorous gift that only she could give herself, a brief glimpse at the way life should be, instead of the way life was: school, chores, homework, school, church on Sunday mornings, church on Wednesday nights, homework, clothes on the line, clothes off the line, then repeat. One more endless month until the end of June when school let out.
Worst of all, Billie would need a new spot to smoke. She had been sneaking down to the crawl space under the front porch, but warmer weather meant the front porch could be occupied at any time. Other options included the spring house, a little storage pantry in the backyard dug into the steep hillside where seed potatoes and canned goods were stacked on moldy shelves, but that place was as spooky as a crypt; or the barn across the field, but too many stories about fires in barns kept Billie from smoking around dry hay in any kind of weather.
As for inside, Rose was always downstairs fussing around; upstairs, her parents’ bedroom was off-limits, and that left only the girls’ bedroom, a large rectangular room Bertram had divided using a three-quarter wall to create some privacy. Sound and light traveled over the divider, and smoke would too. A window in the walk-in closet could be cracked open for a few furtive puffs, but lately Dessie was always in that closet, dressing and undressing, trying on blouses, skirts, and sweaters to see what matched, dancing from the closet to the full-length mirror in the hallway, examining each outfit, pulling off rejects and piling them in a heap on the closet floor. Face it, Hurricane Dessie had blown in from some seacoast, and Billie had to keep out of the way.
Lately, every item of clothing Dessie selected contained some shade of green. “Wouldn’t you just know that green is Lux’s favorite color!” Dessie said shortly after she and Lux started going out together, as if that was a positive attribute. As usual, Dessie had been standing in front of the mirror, rolling up the waistband of her skirt, securing it with safety pins. From the back, Billie saw the hem hanging crookedly above Dessie’s knees.
With Dessie upstairs, Rose roaming around downstairs, and Bertram off running Saturday errands, Billie decided to chance a quick smoke in the crawl space. When she was sure no one was looking, she selected a barely smoked cigarette, strolled down the porch stairs, pried open the rusty trapdoor near the base of the porch, slipped in, and eased it closed so it wouldn’t slam shut. On all fours, she crawled to a spot where she could peek out through diamonds of light filtering through the latticework. Billie brushed cobwebs from her hair and pebbles from her palms, reached above her head along the beams, and found the matches she’d hidden on a narrow ledge.
Sound drifted through the kitchen floorboards. The mantel clock that Bertram wound each week with a small brass key ticked. The iron skillet clanked down on the burners, the stove door slammed shut, and floorboards creaked. Rose hummed along with the Family Hour of Praise from New Martinsville on the kitchen radio; then the gospel choir ended, and a man with a sing-song wheezing voice crowed, “Hallelujah! Rejoice, all you sinners, for your redeemer is come.” Under the porch, Billie felt mildly sinful. Was she a for-real sinner? God, who sees all, must be observing these acts of outright theft, parental deception, and disobedience, but at the same time, once somebody gets away with something for a few months, the wages of sin seem somehow to fade away.
Billie pinched the filterless cigarette to straighten out the bent part, lit a match, took a deep pull, and tried to keep from coughing. She hoped she wouldn’t be called to help cook, especially so she didn’t have to listen to the sermonizing on the radio. She didn’t even care what supper was. It would be something boring. She let the smoke roll between her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Maybe tonight she could go to town with Dessie and Lux, to the new Italian pizza parlor, Martino’s. Everyone at school was talking about the place. They sold pizza by the slice and served tall icy glasses of Coca-Cola. They even had a jukebox with top forty singles and a dance floor.
Billie drew smoke into her lungs, puckered her lips, and tried to flick her tongue as she exhaled, practicing smoke rings. She knew if she stayed home, she’d have to finish her sewing project for home ec and a pile of earth science homework. That almost made her wish she was the one who was quitting school in June and getting married in September, instead of Dessie. Not that Billie would ever marry Lux, the conceited jerk. All he ever did was pick on her. Lately he’d been calling her “Boney,” or “Bag-a-Bones,” even “Bonesy-Billie.” Last night, when they were all on the porch, Lux came up to her like he was going to give her a hug around the waist. He actually seemed civilized for a moment, talking to her like a normal human being, saying, “Hey, Billie, what’ya been up to?” Then, in front of Alan Ray and Dessie, Lux acted like Billie’s