Bound by Blood and Brimstone (10 page)

Living with her divorced mother was amazing in itself. Where we came from, the “d” word was

akin to profanity, so that fact alone branded Janine as a girl with one foot on the wild side.

Janine Westerfield was twelve years old, going on sixteen. Her blonde hair was cropped

short, her eyes the color of sapphires, which she rimmed heavily with black liner. I never saw her

wear anything other than cut-off denims and white, sleeveless tops that clung to her body.

The first thing I noticed about her when she showed up for our softball game was her

long legs, thickly muscled and tanned. The second thing I noticed was the way she treated Lorrie

Beth, never averting her eyes or glancing away from Lorrie’s “off leg,” as most folks did at first

meeting. Janine didn’t miss a beat. She looked Lorrie Beth dead center in the face, and with an

ear-splitting grin, said, “Hey.”

Janine gave everybody nicknames, usually within about ten minutes of meeting them.

Lorrie Beth was immediately dubbed “Cat” because of her green eyes. My nickname was

bestowed a couple of days later when she appeared on our doorstep after chores were done.

While chatting in our bedroom, Janine decided she had to see what I’d look like

“glamoured up.” She pulled a comb and black eyeliner stick from her pocket. I was hesitant. The

last thing I wanted was to end up looking like Denzilla Fouts.

“Come on, Ember Mae,” she crooned, “just a little, I promise. I’m just dying to see those

slanty eyes of yours made up.” I was reluctant as she outlined my eyes with black and smudged

the corners with her thumbs. “Now, that hair,” she said, and quick as flash, she reached out and

yanked at the ribbon holding my hair.

I’d outgrown Momma’s bowl cuts by then and it hung past my shoulders, stick-straight

and coarse as a horse’s tail. I’d learned to cut my bangs, but never bothered to do anything with

my hair beyond tying it back.

“Look at that,” she said to Lorrie Beth, grasping a fistful of my thick strands and letting

them slide through her fingers. “You sure can’t get that color out of a box.” Normally, my hair

was a deep auburn, but the summer sun had bronzed it the color of new pennies. Janine

brandished her comb and went to work, teasing, smoothing, and fluffing.

When she finished, she and Lorrie Beth observed me from all sides, their eyes widening,

like I’d grown horns. “My God,” Janine said, awe in her voice. “Look at you. You look like

some kind of Egyptian princess!” Suddenly inspired, she cried, “Just like Cleopatra!” I didn’t

bother reminding her that the Queen of the Nile probably didn’t have freckles.

“Ooh, that’s it! Girl, you’re not an Ember; you’re a Cleo if ever there was one!” And so,

from that day forward, my sister and I were “Cat” and “Cleo.”

Obviously, Janine was worldly. She told us about swimming in the ocean and getting

stung by a jellyfish. We learned how she’d ridden a giant Ferris wheel at Coney Island, seen the

Empire State Building, and fought a girl with a switchblade. She’d even met Elvis in a hotel

lobby in Memphis. Her sophistication wasn’t limited to extensive travel, either.

One Friday afternoon, Momma sent Janine and me out behind the springhouse to pick

blackberries for a pie she was making for supper. Lorrie Beth was heating water for a bath and

had stayed behind for a long soak in the tub. Naturally, we took our time with those blackberries,

enjoying our own girlish company and the cool sweetness of half the berries landing in our

mouths.

It wasn’t too hot to appreciate the moment, with the sun on our faces and a stirring breeze

at our backs, and before long we lost track of time. In short order, amidst our aimless chatter and

the occasional ping of the berries striking the bottom of our metal bowls, we found ourselves on

the subject of boys.

It was my studied opinion that I had yet to meet a single one worthy of notice. As

expected, Janine disagreed, vowing she’d had many boyfriends. Once, behind the bleachers on

the football field, she’d even let a boy “do it.”

Busy filling my face with blackberries, I barely caught her remark. “Do what?” I asked,

absently, licking juice from my fingers. She plopped a berry in her bowl and snickered.

“What do you think, Silly?” Still, no connection was made as I shrugged and bent to pick

another handful.

“I don’t know. What did he do?” I wasn’t even aware she’d stopped until I saw her bowl

on the ground near my feet. I looked up to find her staring at me as though I’d lost one of my

body parts. She was shaking her head slowly, like she’d just been dealt a stunning blow to the

temple.

“You really don’t know, do you Cleo?” Something clicked then, and I blushed to my

roots. She’s talking about that thing people do to make babies. But no, that can’t be it, because

she hasn’t had a baby herself. Should I pretend to know what it’s about?

It occurred to me that it would do no good to put on an act with Janine. Anyone who’d

seen the Empire State Building and Elvis Presley couldn’t possibly be fooled. I decided to come

clean, but it would be done in a way that let her know I didn’t care one way or the other.

Casually, I plopped a few more berries in my mouth and mumbled, “Guess I don’t know

after all. So what’s the big deal?” Her gleaming eyes widened and she leaned closer, as though

someone might hear. She was grinning like a cat with cream on its whiskers.

“Oh, it’s a big deal all right, a very big deal.” Then she told me, all of it. That’s when
my

bowl hit the ground, scattering berries in a black-purple puddle around us. It was a full minute

before I found my voice again.

“I don’t believe you,” I finally managed, my voice a rusty croak. “You can’t be serious.”

Impossible, I thought. She’s making it up to show me how ignorant she thinks I am. There’s no

way people would want to do something that disgusting. How could they? Momma and Daddy

would never do something so revolting to each other.

“Your mouth’s hanging open,” Janine said from far away. “Hey, Cleo, you okay?”
She

sounds concerned
, I thought, as I continued to grope through the fuzz in my brain for something

to hang on to. I simply couldn’t get my mind around this. If this was what people did to make

babies, how could there be so many of them around? I was certain somebody would’ve told me

about this if it were true. I’d prove she was lying.

“If what you’re saying is true, then how come you didn’t have a baby?” She gave me a

crooked smile, and there was honest sympathy in her eyes, as she put a hand on my shoulder.

“Boy, Cleo, ya’ll need to get out of this hollow once in a while. Listen, don’t worry about

this, okay? It doesn’t make a baby every time it happens. Now don’t ask me why, because I’m

not sure. But I’m not lying to you. Why would I?” I had no choice but to believe her, but it hit

me with a cold, dead certainty that I’d
never
be a mother.

Surprisingly, my lesson for the day in Janine’s School for Idiots wasn’t over. “Don’t you

fret none, Cleo,” she said, as we stooped to salvage the dropped berries, “You just stick with me,

and before you know it, you’ll be the coolest girl in these parts.” Soon, it would be time for

Momma to call us back to the house.

“Yeah, that’s me all over, Cleo Cool,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. We

finished wiping off dirty berries and put them back in the bowls. She plopped one last berry in

her bowl and grinned at me again, her blue eyes twinkling. I knew that couldn’t be a good sign.

“Bet you don’t know what French kissing is, either, do you?”

“Not really,” I said, scanning the ground for stray berries. “Why would French people

kiss any different than anybody else?” She burst into such a fit of giggles she had to bend over

with her hands on her knees to keep from keeling over in the dirt.

“Girl, I do declare,” she said, wiping her eyes, “if you don’t beat all. You’re a scandal for

sure.” Then, darting her eyes around the yard, as if looking for spies, she said, “Come here, let

me show you something.”

I took a step toward her. Before my brain had time to register what was happening, she

hooked a tanned arm around my neck, jerked me into her face, and thrust her tongue in my

mouth, nearly gagging me.

“What the Sam Hill did you go and do that for?” I demanded, shoving her off me.

“What’re you trying to do, choke me to death?” As I coughed and sputtered for another minute

or so, she stood and calmly appraised my reaction.

“I just gave you a demonstration of French kissing,” she said, with a small toss of her

head. “Relax, Cleo, I’m trying to teach you stuff you need to know way out here in the Boonies.

How else are you going to learn? Besides, you’ll never get a boyfriend if you don’t know how to

French kiss.”

“Tarnation, Janine! Who said I
wanted
a stupid boyfriend?” If what I’d learned the

previous fifteen minutes was any indication of what having a boyfriend was about, who in her

right mind would want one? “If you ask me, I’d rather be boiled in oil.”

I made up my mind not to let “the blackberry incident” spoil my supper, and sitting

around Momma’s table holding hands for Daddy’s prayer, I found my center again. Wonnie had

arrived with some of her dried herbs for the roasted chicken, and its crispy skin, basted in fresh

butter, went a long way in restoring my good mood. Momma’s blackberry pie was sweet, the

crust flaky, and the milk extra creamy that night.

Janine’s chatter at the supper table had everyone, even Daddy, laughing. From the start, it

had astounded me that someone as different as Janine could worm her way into my family’s

affections so easily. Momma would’ve had a stroke had she known the half of it.

Back in our bedroom, lying across our bed where we did most of our talking, Janine

surprised me for the third time that day. Reaching back into the pocket of her shorts, she pulled

out a tiny envelope and gave it to Lorrie Beth. “I’ve been thinking that you should have this, Cat.

Maybe it’ll help you remember me and this summer, in case we don’t see each other anymore.”

Inside was a glittering emerald in the shape of a pear, suspended on a delicate gold chain.

Lorrie Beth gasped. “You have to take it, Cat,” Janine said, before my sister could protest.

“You’re the one person who could do it proud, with those green eyes of yours.”

“Janine,” I said slowly, my suspicions immediately aroused, “You didn’t
find
this

necklace, did you?” I knew she had no qualms about picking up trinkets that appealed to her

from the Five and Dime and other places in town. She’d laughed at the look on my face the first

time she’d shown me a lipstick she’d “found.” This was a foreign concept to me, but to Janine,

no different from getting a free drink of water from the spring behind our house.

She smiled and, for a split second, I could’ve sworn there had been tears in her eyes. “No,

I didn’t
find
it. My dad bought it for me. He’s always buying me things.” She shrugged and

averted her eyes. “I guess he thinks he can make up for running off like he did with that little

tramp.”

She’d never once mentioned her daddy before. “He thinks he can buy me off, make me

forget he never comes around. Oh, but he has plenty of time for those brats of
hers
.” She swiped

at her eyes hastily and sat up on the edge of the bed. “Come on, you two, walk me home.

Janine could’ve easily made the walk by herself, but it had become part of our routine for

the three of us to take that nightly stroll. We’d always try and wait until dark so we could watch

the stars as they appeared to follow us. Then there was the cemetery. We shared a combined fear

of walking past those graves at night, sometimes scaring ourselves silly with ghost stories.

The moon was fat and full, painting every leaf and stone with silver. The air was so still I

could smell Lorrie Beth’s lilac soap Momma bought for our personal baths. She was babbling

and oohing over the emerald necklace for the fiftieth time, when we heard it, the distinct snap of

a breaking twig.

We stopped. “Did ya’ll hear that?” Janine asked. We were standing directly across the

cemetery, close enough to the tombstones for me to see the moonlit inscriptions.

Lorrie Beth refused to be spooked. “Come on, it’s just the wind,” she said, giving me a

nudge. We’d taken no more than three steps when we heard it again. It had a deliberate sound,

like a tree branch being broken over a knee. We looked at each other in stunned silence. We were

all thinking the same thing.

That noise wasn’t the wind, and it was coming from the graveyard. I caught Janine’s eye,

shaking my head to prevent her from speaking. With suspended breath, we waited. Lorrie Beth’s

eyes widened and my pulse quickened as I strained my ears for a tell-tale footstep. Suddenly, a

small avalanche of pebbles skittered off the incline of the cemetery, landing within inches of our