O Little Town (3 page)

CHAPTER 4

It was Millie’s first ride in a police car. Though Buddy had made her walk the length of the store, an obvious attempt to shame her, he decided to save her the humiliation of sitting in the backseat, behind the screen. He figured facing her daddy would be humiliation enough.

“Millie, if there is anything you can tell me that can save us from having to go through with this, do it now. Do it, if not for yourself, for him. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“How do you know he doesn’t deserve it?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means whatever you want it to mean. I don’t care what you tell him.”

The car stopped in front of the house by the church, and Buddy turned off the engine. They sat there for a few moments, neither one of them saying anything. Buddy looked at her and saw a girl almost as old as his own daughter. A girl in trouble. A different kind of trouble to be sure, but so defiant. When he opened the car door, he said it as a warning and also to show her who was in charge: “I’m not gonna tell him anything, Millie. You’re gonna tell him.”

The Rev. Paul Franklin opened the door after just one ring. If he was shocked at the pair standing on the porch, his face didn’t betray it. Buddy, as good as his promise, never spoke a word. Words were rarely necessary when parents opened the door to discover their child standing beside a police officer.

Rev. Franklin simply said, “Buddy,” as a greeting and motioned with his left arm for them to come inside.

In the study Paul sat behind his desk, and Buddy and Millie sat in the chairs facing him like a couple begging a loan from a bank president.

“Paul, I think Millie has something to tell you.”

She looked up from staring at the carpet to her dad, then over to Buddy and back to her father. Her stare never faltered.

“They caught me stealing from Macalbee’s. Mr. Sandridge called the cops and here I am. He wants me to tell him why and you’re gonna want me to say I’m sorry and I don’t plan to do either so I’m going to my room.” And she left.

It was a toss-up as to which side of the desk looked more uncomfortable. Both men were in a business to take charge but neither wanted to use their work strategy against the other.

“Has anyone pressed charges?”

“No.”

“Do I need to write you a check for what she took?”

“No. We got it all back. Do you want to know what it was?”

“It doesn’t matter. That she took it is what matters. And I think I know why.”

The study door opened and the considerable good looks of the preacher’s wife filled the room.

“Hi, Buddy. What’s going on?”

“It’s Millie. They caught her shoplifting at Macalbee’s. Buddy just brought her home. She’s up in her room.”

“Who turned her in?”

“Why?”

“I want to know who turned her in.”

“Milton called and asked me to handle it,” said Buddy. “I think he’s willing to keep it as quiet as possible as long as his home office doesn’t find out about it.”

“Calling the cops is not exactly keeping it quiet!” Dove Franklin exploded with the fervor of a defensive mother. “How do we know she was actually stealing?”

“They caught her red-handed, Dove, and she admits it. What more could you want?” Paul Franklin, man of God, looked as tired and gray as his Perry Como sweater.

“Well, I would want someone to show a little more consideration than to bring her home in a police car.”

“I’m sorry, Dove, but that’s the only car the city gives me. I could have walked her up the hill but it’s a little cold out there.”

Dove left, slamming the study door behind her. Buddy rubbed the backs of his hands for a few seconds before he spoke. The preacher was staring at his desktop.

“I’m sorry about the car in front of the house, Paul. I can come up with a story if you need to tell the neighbors something.”

“I don’t need any excuses for the truth,” the preacher said with sad eyes. “You’re looking at a man who struggles with the truth every day. It’s comes with the job.”

“Yeah, but I guess other people’s truths are easier to deal with than your own, and I’m sorry I had to be the one to lay all of this at your doorstep.”

“I’m used to it. She’s not a bad girl. She just wants to
be
a bad girl.”

Paul Franklin fingered a brass paperweight shaped like a cross and considered an unspoken explanation of what he was feeling. He knew his daughter was of an age where she longed for an identity all her own. Maybe she didn’t want to be the minister’s daughter anymore. He could remember a time a few short years ago when she was so proud of her daddy and would sit on his lap while he wrote his sermons each week at this very desk. Once, when she was six, he overheard her delivering a sermon to her dolls and stuffed animals lined up on her bed. But now her friends were the most important things in her life. Did she want them to think she was as wild as they were? He was afraid to answer. He already had evidence that she smoked and drank, and now he could add stealing to that list of questionable behaviors. What else might she do? Maybe she was just a normal, curious teenager stumbling through these awkward years doing the best she could. He looked up at the man on the other side of his desk and found his voice again. “She’s fifteen. She knows all the answers to all the questions you and I are still wrestling with. She even thinks …”

Paul stopped in mid-sentence when he saw tears in Lt. Briggs’ eyes. What had he said that would have extracted this kind of reaction from this rock-hard war hero?

“Buddy, what’s the matter?”

Buddy took a moment before he answered. “If I hadn’t come here today because of Millie’s situation, I would have been here for another reason. Everything that’s happening is hitting me right in the heart. I’ve got a problem and Amanda will probably kill me for telling you without consulting her first, but … well, I know you’ve got a lot on you right now and this is probably the wrong time to unload on you …”

“If you have something you need to talk about, my friend, now is as good as any time to do it. I’m here for whatever you need.”

“Amanda called me about an hour ago just before I left the office, so I really haven’t had time to let it all soak in, but she had just found out that Shirley Ann is going to have a baby.”

“Your Shirley Ann? Your sixteen-year-old Shirley Ann? God have mercy on us all. Tell me all about it.”

“I just told you everything I know.”

CHAPTER 5

Amanda Briggs was sitting on the sofa with her legs curled under her, drinking coffee and stroking her daughter’s hair. Shirley Ann was lying on the sofa, her head in her mother’s lap. Shirley Ann’s eyes were red and swollen from crying. Amanda just stared out the picture window at the wind gusting snow flurries across the lawn.

“Did you tell daddy yet?”

“Yes, I did. I told him on the phone just a little while ago.”

Shirley Ann began sobbing again. Her mother’s stroke on her hair never faltered.

“What did he say? And tell me exactly. Was he mad?”

“He wasn’t mad.”

“Did he cuss and yell?”

“No. He was very calm. He was busy and I don’t think it all sank in at the time.”

“Is he coming home?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“Mamma, I am so sorry. I don’t know what to do. All I knew was I had to tell you. I’m sorry that it hurt you and I hope you don’t hate me but …”

“Honey, I don’t hate you. No one hates you.”

“Daddy will.”

“No, he won’t. He knows how to handle … unexpected things. He does it every day.”

Shirley Ann wondered if her dad had asked who the father was. Her mother asked earlier but Shirley Ann said she wasn’t ready to say. Shirley Ann knew she would have to tell them soon. She knew when she’d confided in her mother that it would all come out eventually. She couldn’t put it off forever.

“Honey, I know this hasn’t been easy. But there are some things I have to ask. You may as well talk to me before your father comes home. It will be easier that way. I was sixteen once. I know. Talk to me now while it’s just us.”

“Okay.”

“How long have you been seeing this boy?”

“It’s been going on since summer. We haven’t really dated in public because he has a girlfriend and I have Tommy, and we’ve sort of kept it a secret.”

“So when did you see one another?”

“I would tell you I was going downtown to meet Tommy and then I wouldn’t. I’d go meet … him. Sometimes I’d say I was over at Kathy’s and I wasn’t. I’d be with him. He has a car.”

“Shirley Ann, if you want me to see you through this thing then you’re going to have to start treating me like someone you trust. Like you treat your friends. You’re going to have to level with me. Do you understand?”

The weather dropped another five degrees and the wind whistled around the front door. There was no sunshine outside and certainly none inside. The gloom of a gray wintry morning rushed through every window of the living room and Shirley Ann was so long answering that Amanda thought she might have dozed off. But finally with no further urging, the daughter said a name she knew her mother wasn’t expecting.

“Louis Wayne Sterrett.”

“Dr. Sterrett’s son? Have you told him?”

“He knows.”

“And?”

“He’s going to tell his parents tonight. We both wanted to wait till after Christmas but I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t get all through Christmas with that on my conscience. And he agreed.”

They both stiffened as they heard car tires on the gravel driveway. Shirley Ann began to sob again, not in fear, but in the shame she knew she’d feel when she looked in her father’s eyes. They waited for the kitchen door to open but it never did. Instead, someone knocked at the front door.

Shirley Ann sat up and pulled her hair back and wiped at her face, hoping to magically erase the redness and puffiness for whomever was at the front door. Amanda walked across the room spreading the wrinkles out of her dress with both hands and reached the door as the anxious visitor pushed the bell for the second time. She opened it, and there stood the father of her unborn grandchild. Tall, scared, and handsome. There was no other way to describe him. Amanda thought maybe she should add brave, because it took a lot of nerve to ring that doorbell. As a fellow human being she wanted to shake his hand. As a mother she wanted to wring his neck.

“Mrs. Briggs, I’m Louis Wayne Sterrett. Is Shirley Ann home?”

Amanda Briggs gave Louis Wayne the same old silent, one-armed wave-in that Paul Franklin was giving her husband right at that moment, although she had no way of knowing it. Louis Wayne stepped in and Amanda closed the door behind him and found Shirley Ann standing in the middle of the room in equal parts shock and elation. Her prince had come to her rescue.

“Mamma, this is Louis Wayne.”

“I know who he is. Sit down.”

“Mrs. Briggs, I guess you know why I’m here.…”

“No, no I don’t. I know what you’ve done, but I don’t know why you’re here.”

“I’m here to lay claim to what I’ve done and I don’t know any better way than to do it face-to-face.”

Amanda Briggs would remember that little speech many years to come and would repeat it often for all who would listen. It was a character-sketch-in-brief of a young man and who he was and what he would become. Amanda Briggs wasn’t shy and neither was Louis Wayne Sterrett, and she liked that. She liked him in spite of what he had done to her daughter and to her family. He had a lot of man in him for a seventeen-year-old, and she only hoped Buddy would see the same qualities she was seeing.

“Mr. Sterrett, this family is in turmoil because of you.”

“I know that, and while I’m not proud of what has happened, I am also not ashamed and I’m not going to let anyone else be ashamed because I love your daughter and I want to marry her.”

“Louis,” Amanda said, shortening his name to match her temper, “you are both in high school. How are you going to marry this girl and raise this baby?”

“I have a part-time job now, and after graduation I can go to work full time and on top of that my family has money.”

Amanda wanted to fire a sharp and biting comeback but could only focus on his honesty. She was afraid Buddy would see it as cockiness.

“I’m going to make some lunch. You’re welcome to stay. You might as well eat with us. You’re practically family.”

“Yes, ma’am, and I’m looking forward to the day I will be.”

But just as Amanda got to the kitchen door, a flash of anger hit her. She turned and spoke sharply to Louis Wayne. “If you’re so in love with my daughter, why did you have to sneak around for the past four months instead of dating her like a girl should be dated?”

“That’s a hard question. Do you want the truth?”

“If you’ve got the truth in you, son, I want it.”

“I was dating Barbara Suter, coach’s daughter, and I knew if I broke up with her, he’d cut me from the team.”

“Well, you can be sure he’s going to cut you now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You want Pepsi or Dr Pepper?”

“Dr Pepper.”