Little Red Lies (17 page)

When it’s time to line up, I watch Jamie fidgeting.

“I don’t think I’ll do this,” he says.

“You just have a case of cold feet. If you don’t go, you’ll regret it. Go ahead. Do it.”

“It’s not going to work. It’s not like I’m blind, or anything.”

“Stop making excuses. All you need is faith that it’ll work.” I stare hard into his eyes, imitating the preacher.

Finally, he blows air out between his lips and stands up. He edges slowly past the people in our row and is last in line.

Each time I watch the ritual, I’m fascinated. I’m transported somewhere beyond the intense heat and the odor
of people packed so closely together. The magical gloom inside the tent and the flickering candles high on the candelabra put me into a kind of dream state, where I’m aware only of the preacher’s powerful voice. It sends a thrill up and down my spine.

Near the end of the line, just a few people ahead of Jamie, a gray-haired man with a beard makes his way on crutches, dragging one leg. When he gets his shake-up, he nearly loses his balance but is kept upright by the two girls. He stands bolt upright, stares at the ceiling, puts his hands on top of his head, and the crutches fall out from under his arms and topple to the ground.

I stand bolt upright myself. I’ve seen this before. My mystical mood shatters as I recognize the red-haired guy with freckles. Suddenly, I know. The guy pretending to be cured is in disguise, an actor. While everyone’s clapping and yelling praises to the Lord, I try to get to Jamie to tell him it’s a waste of time. But the crowd is so excited that no one pays any attention to me—I’m blocked on all sides.

The line moves forward, and finally it’s Jamie’s turn. He has his shoulders pressed and shaken and his eyes stared into, and soon the crowd opens enough to let him return to his seat. He won’t look at me, at first, but when he does, he seems dazed. His eyes have a wide hollow look, as if he’s just waking from a dream.

“I think it worked,” he says. “I feel funny. Different.”

I take a big breath, open my mouth to tell him it’s all a sham, and suddenly close it again.

“I don’t know what it is, but there’s something to all this,” he says. “I feel as if I’m cured.”

On the way home in the car, I fight to keep tears from running down my cheeks.

“You’re quiet,” he says.

“I’m just trying to take it all in.”

“I know what you mean. It’s pretty astounding.” After a while, he says, “Let’s not tell Mother and Dad until later, just to be on the safe side.”

“Good idea,” I say.

When Jamie has his last medical checkup before he leaves for Toronto, Doctor Melvin says he didn’t expect him to be in such great shape.

“I didn’t tell him about the preacher,” Jamie says. “I was afraid he’d lose his faith in modern medicine.”

I don’t know what to think. Maybe it’s possible that Jamie and Mrs. Russell and a few others actually are cured. Maybe the preacher hires actors just to make it a bigger show. That’s possible. Because, it’s certainly as much a show as any play put on in a theater. There’s suspense and drama and special lighting effects. There’s a dynamic leading man, background music, an eager audience. While I argue with myself about whether or not to tell Jamie about the actor, or actors (the blind soldier might have
been an actor, too, as far as I know), I can hear him in his room, whistling as he opens and closes drawers, packing his clothes for Toronto. He’s happy and relaxed, and I probably have no right to take that away from him.

On the other hand, is it right to let him go on believing a lie? Could it mean that he won’t look after himself and skip future doctor’s appointments? Jamie goes off a new man, looking forward to attending university.

As for me, school starts again. To mark the occasion, I take my lipstick from the back of the kitchen cupboard, just to dab on a bit before I leave for school. I put it back and scoot out the door before Mother even notices.

I need to talk to someone about the faith healer. Granny always has good advice, but she has problems of her own at the moment. She’s worried about her sister, who has to have an operation. Her main worry is leaving the farm long enough to go and stay with her after the surgery. I consider Ruthie, but trudging along on the first day of school, listening to her chatter about how she hates school and how the only good thing about it is Mr. Tompkins, I know she won’t concentrate on me and my problems. Besides, I can hardly get a word in. I’m almost ready to interrupt and tell her about Tommy coming out of the woods with his shirt off that hot day, but I don’t. Something about those giggling girls bothers me. I’m not thinking about it anymore.

“Oh, Tommy,” I say at last. “Isn’t he old news?”

“After he put his hand on your neck, that time? Hardly.”

“Oh, that! I’ve forgotten all about it.” Talk about little red lies! I get goose bumps thinking about it.

Tommy’s not our homeroom teacher, this year. Ruthie and Hazel and I glance into his classroom from time to time, only to find it aswarm with the usual flirty girls, mostly grade-niners. We have a legitimate question for him. By the end of September, the crowd is somewhat diminished, and we wait our turn to ask him what play the drama club will be doing this year.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” he says, when at last we have his ear. “I have a list of possibilities. Let’s look it over together and decide.” He retrieves the list from a desk drawer. As we pour over it, he says, “Perhaps Rachel should be assistant director.”

“Me!” I say. “I don’t know anything about directing.”

“I could teach you everything you need to know,” he says. “You look like a young woman of many talents.”

Ruthie and Hazel give each other a quick raised-eyebrow glance.

Hazel says, “She really is. She’s writing a play, you know.”

“No, I’m not,” I say. “I’ve given it up.”

“Why? It sounded great,” Hazel says.

“I have too much on my mind to be able to think about it.”

“Girls don’t have anything on their minds, do they?” Mr. Tompkins says. “Besides boys?”

Ruthie and Hazel laugh politely at his feeble joke. I feel slighted. How would he know what problems are weighing on my mind? Maybe I should tell him.

On the way home, Ruthie says, “I hope you’re not going to get all stuck-up and everything, just because he said you have talent.”

“Look
like I have talent,” I say. “There’s a difference.”

“What kind of difference?”

I say, as modestly as possible, “I think he means I’m interesting-looking. Sort of.”

“Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“No, it’s simple. I’m certainly not as beautiful as Hazel, but I
am
interesting-looking.”

“Most people think horny toads are interesting-looking.”

“Ruthie, you have no soul.”

“You’ve got a bad case of it, I think.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Admit it! You are dangerously in love.”

“When I fall in love, believe me, you’ll be the first to know.”

“You are in love with an older man—a married man, at that.”

“How do you know he’s married?”

“Everybody knows, and his wife is going to have a baby.”

My face feels hot. I admit, I once had a daydream, a sort of love story involving Tommy and me, but it was about doomed love because of the teacher-pupil thing; it was about eternal but innocent yearning. Something you could turn into a successful movie starring Gregory Peck and a wonderful new, young, talented actress. A movie where everyone in the audience leaves the theater mopping their eyes, unable even to speak to each other. Later, though, they phone their friends and say,
You simply must see this new movie starring Gregory Peck and a wonderful, new, young, interesting-looking actress
. I sure didn’t bargain on a wife, in my daydream movie, and certainly not a baby.

We part at the corner, and I drag my feet the rest of the way home.

So, the Tommy-dreams are over. If he has a wife, he’s definitely off-limits. Officially out of my life and out of my thoughts.

At school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I watch Ruthie play basketball, and I cheer in the right places. I watch the football game with Ruthie after school on Friday. Will Cooper scores a touchdown. I cheer. Our school loses, anyway. I say, “How sad,” at the sock hop after the game, but I couldn’t care less. Will Cooper asks me to dance. I didn’t think he even knew I existed. He’s quite good-looking and, while we dance, I see Tommy watching us from the sidelines. He looks a little jealous, I think, but
maybe I’m only imagining it. He and Miss Felden, the phys ed teacher, are chaperones. Of course, I stumble all over the place and can hardly follow Will. But I refuse to think about Tommy.

Not for one moment am I thinking about Tommy. At home, I become aware of my parents penetrating the fog of thoughts clouding my brain, which hasn’t happened for many weeks.

There’s something funny going on with them. It’s hard to put my finger on it. My mother seems tired and worn out. My father goes around in a daze. Except when Granny comes for dinner, we’re like three ghosts occupying different parts of the house. Dad says I can no longer work at the drugstore.

“How come?”

“Because Mother needs your help more than ever. She’s … she’s not herself these days. Someday you’ll understand.”

No, I won’t. I’ll never understand why they’re trying to turn me into the family slave. I go up to my room and slam the door.

“Rachel!” I hear. “If you’ve finished your homework, I could use your help in the kitchen.”

“I haven’t finished,” I yell through my closed door.

I’m trying out a new hairstyle, with it all piled on top of my head and secured with five hundred bobby pins. But the effect is more metal than hair, so I give up.

Downstairs I hear a crash and my mother wailing, “Oh, no! I spilled it!”

I hear my father hurry out to the kitchen. “Now, now,” he says. “You go and lie down. I’ll look after it. Rachel!” he calls. “I need your help!”

What can I do? I claw the pins out of my hair, shake it to resemble a lion’s mane, and listen to my slave chains, as they clank all the way down the stairs.

As the weeks go by, anger and resentment become my best friends. I’m angry with Jamie for getting sick, because, obviously, it’s worry over him that’s turning my mother into someone I’ve never met before. I’m angry that he won’t tell her about being faith healed, to put her mind at rest. And I resent the fact that he made me promise not to tell. On top of this, I know, or at least feel sure, that the whole thing is a fraud. So, how is it possible that he’s cured?

I don’t know what to do. Should I tell Jamie the whole thing is a sham, or should I tell Mother that he’s been miraculously cured? If I ask Ruthie, she’ll tell me that movie stars are always being miraculously cured and not to worry. As for Hazel, well, I don’t really know her well enough to ask. Anyway, she always seems wrapped up in problems of her own. What I need is mature advice. Granny’s out of the question for the time being. She’s gone to Kingston to look after her sister.

At school, I am barely aware of what’s going on. In
English, we’re supposed to read
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
. I haven’t even started it. One day in class, Mr. Tompkins discusses Elizabeth Barrett’s mysterious illness, and Robert Browning’s growing tenderness toward her, with such compassion that I actually pay attention. Everyone says he’s the most sympathetic teacher in the school. Maybe he is.

After the bell, I wait while some grade thirteen girl bends his ear over nothing. I’m surprised by my own impatience. I scratch the insides of my arms and try to think about peeling potatoes and carrots, which I will be doing in about one half hour, oh joy, oh rapture.

At last, it’s my turn. I start by saying, “I need some advice.”

“All right,” Mr. Tompkins says. “I’ll try my best.”

“It’s about my brother. He has leukemia.”

He looks startled, shuffling papers on his desk into a pile. “Oh, dear,” he says. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry to hear it. Is there anything anyone can do?”

“The thing is, he believes he’s been cured by a fraudulent faith healer.”

“How do you mean?”

I tell him about the red-haired guy on crutches, who turns up with a beard and gray hair in Durhampton and is healed all over again.

He frowns. “What a cheat! He should be reported to the authorities.”

“Well, yes, I agree. But right now, I need advice on what to do about my brother.”

“That’s a toughie,” he says. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to tackle this, but I’ll try my best.” He pulls an extra chair up close to his desk and asks me to sit down. “This is much too hard for you to deal with alone. I’m glad you told me.”

I’m so relieved to find him being sympathetic and helpful that I nearly burst into tears. Swallowing hard, I say, “What do you think? Should I tell him it was all an act?”

“That’s a hard one,” he says. “Don’t do it yet. Don’t be in a rush.” He takes my hand in his for a moment and then releases it. “Let me think about this for a day or two. I know someone who might have some good advice. I’ll get back to you. Would that be all right?” He’s already gathering up his papers, putting them into his briefcase and preparing to leave.

“Sure,” I say.

He walks with me to the classroom door. “Don’t be discouraged. I’m sure there is a right way to handle this. It will just take a little time.” He gives me a pat on the shoulder, leaving his hand there for the merest moment. It burns through my blouse, making me shiver inside in spite of my worries.

I stand gazing up at him, and he down at me, with my schoolbooks clasped nervously to my chest. I’m aware of another student walking past, but I can’t move my eyes away
from Tommy’s. Football practice is over, I guess. It must be getting late. Mr. Tompkins says, “See you tomorrow.”

Will Cooper catches up with me as I’m leaving the school. “I saw you with Tompkins,” he says.

“So what? He
is
my English teacher, you know.” Is that guilt in my voice? I don’t need to explain anything. Anyway, what business is it of Will’s? He’s two grades ahead, but that doesn’t give him the right to check up on me. And, while I think about it, Will isn’t really all
that
good-looking.