Spelldown (21 page)

“Yes, I am.” Mama sounds delighted.

“Well, Mrs. Bridges, I’ve heard a lot about you. Your husband is one of my favorites. He is sharp as a tack. And you, you must be Gloria Jean, with that red hair.”

Gloria Jean laughs. “Yes ma’am, that’s me.”

“I’m Maxine Dixon. Pleased to meet you all.” She opens the door and comes out into the lobby. Almost six feet tall, with big, broad shoulders, she looks like a wrestler. “And you must be the spelling champ. Your daddy is always talking about Karlene this and Karlene that.”

“Yes, ma’am, I am.” My heart gets a cramp thinking about Daddy bragging on me.

“Ladies, come this way, I’ll take you to the Twelve Steps Room.” She opens the door and leads us down a hall to a big room with a few mismatched old sofas and chairs in various groupings.

“You’re lucky to have the place to yourselves. Most of the patients got a day pass for the Fourth. But tonight you’ll get to meet some of their family members at the Al-Anon meeting. There’s also a special group for teenagers called Alateen.” She hands me a pamphlet.

I thank her and read the catchy title to myself.
It’s a Teenaged Affair: Some Problems the Children of Alcoholics Encounter, and How They Are Meeting Them
. All the words
in the pamphlet are typed in red ink, as if it were the most important document I will ever read.

“Now, ladies, please find a comfortable spot, and I’ll tell Mr. Bridges you’re waiting.” Maxine walks away, and Mama and Gloria Jean make their way over to the sofas and put Daddy’s basket on the coffee table.

I walk to the center of the room and stand there for a minute, soaking up the atmosphere of the place. The July sun flows through the tall, skinny windows onto the shiny hardwood floor. A new coat of mint green paint covers the walls, but the fresh smell cannot cover up the fact that thousands of cigarettes have been smoked in this room. The place has a relaxed, hopeful feeling. Signs and posters cover the walls, and a tall metal shelf is filled with books. Over in the corner there is a Coca-Cola machine and a popcorn machine like they have in movie theaters. I look out the window and see a cute little patio with a table and chairs, and, beyond that, a horseshoe pit.

I walk to the end of the room, where a dozen chairs are arranged in a semicircle around a wooden podium with a chalkboard behind it. Written in bold yellow chalk is a quote by Emily Dickinson:
Narcotics cannot still the tooth that nibbles at the soul
. A large poster of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous hangs on one wall, the Twelve Traditions on another.

I have been reading up on this Twelve Steps business. I asked Kelly so many questions, he finally gave me my own copy of the AA “Big Book.” Kelly’s like a saint and an uncle.
This afternoon he and Billy Ray are taking the twins to the July Fourth celebration at the fairgrounds, so we can visit Daddy in peace and quiet.

I hear a muffled moaning sound and turn around.

Daddy is standing at the doorway, weeping as if God just died.

Mama rushes over and wraps her arms around his sobbing shoulders, soothing him. “It’s all right, baby. It’s all right.” Then she breaks down and starts wailing too.

Gloria Jean rushes over to me and pulls me out the door to the patio. “Let’s give them some time alone.” We stand in silence under the hot sun. My throat aches from choking back years of tears. Until this moment, I have never understood how I came to even BE in this world. But those people in that room, that man and that woman, the ones hugging and boo-hooing like babies—they love each other to pieces. If I had not been here and seen it with my own two eyes, I might never have known that I came from all that love.

Gloria Jean ambles away with her head down, her shoulders shaking. I walk over to the nearest pit, where three horseshoes are stacked neatly on top of another in the ringer position. The other horseshoe is leaning against the stake. I pick it up and admire the U-shaped piece of metal in my hands. I remember the last time I played horseshoes with Daddy. It was a couple summers ago at the family reunion, and I beat the daylights out of him. He had been drinking that afternoon, but just enough to make him halfway delighted with everything.

I might as well get some practice. I fling the horseshoe sideways like a Frisbee, just to see what it will do. It doesn’t go very far, and it torques my wrist to throw it that way. I throw another one and it lands five feet shy of the stake. The next one is a ringer. I’m glad I haven’t lost my touch. I pitch the last one and it bangs the stake and goes sideways.

“Hey, Champ.” Daddy is standing just outside the door, holding two Tootsie Roll Pops in his hand. “You want grape or cherry?”

I walk over to him. “I’ll take the cherry.” I yank it from him in a playful way, noticing his blue eyes are red from crying.

“Where’s Gloria Jean?”

“Taking a walk. She’ll be back soon.”

He unwraps the grape one, puts it in his mouth, and sucks hard. “Mmm—mmm,” he moans, then removes the glistening purple sucker and twirls it around in the air as if he’s worshiping it. “Every tooth in my mouth done turned sweet on me since I quit drinking.”

I nod toward the pit. “You want to pitch some shoes?”

“Of course I do.” He pulls out the well-used rabbit’s foot I sent him and dangles it in front of me. “You’re not the only champ in the family. Your daddy is the new horseshoe champion of Winding Springs.” He puts his arm around my shoulder and we mosey on over to the horseshoe pit and gather up the strays.

“Ladies first,” he says.

I rub my hands together until they’re blazing hot, then bend down and pick up my first horseshoe. Holding it against
my chest, I stand perfectly still and take deep, delicious breaths. A whiff of gardenia dazzles me as the sun’s golden fingers dig into my scalp. I close my eyes, feeling light and delicate as a pink lace handkerchief. I find myself floating in the air above Winding Springs.

Down below, I see a girl. Her dark-blond hair shimmers in the sunlight.

“I’m going to whip your butt,” her daddy says.

“Don’t count on it,” the girl says.

Then she releases the horseshoe into the clear blue sky as easily as a prayer.

ab·ste·mious·ness

1. voluntary restraint from the indulgence of an appetite or craving

2. habitual abstaining from intoxicating substances

ac·cli·mate

1. to habituate to a non-native climate

ame·lio·rate

1. to make better or more tolerable

bib·lio·the·ca

1. a collection of books

dis·equi·lib·ri·um

1. loss of stability: being out of balance

2. loss of emotional or intellectual poise

du·plic·i·tous

1. marked by deliberate deceptiveness

2. pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another

es·ca·pade

1. an act of breaking loose from rules or restraint

2. an adventurous action that runs counter to approved conduct

ex·ac·er·bate

1. to make worse (pain, disease, anger)

2. to make more violent or severe

in·dig·e·nous

1. native

2. innate; inborn

3. having originated in, or occurring naturally in a particular place

li·bi·do

1. sexual drive, sexual energy: DESIRE

2. vital impulse; the energy associated with instincts

3. emotional energy derived from primitive biological urges

meg·a·lo·ma·nia

1. a. mania for great or grandiose performance

2. a delusional mental disorder that is marked by infantile feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur

mu·nif·i·cent

1. very liberal in giving or bestowing: LAVISH

2. characterized by great liberality or generosity

myth·o·poe·ia

1. the making of myths and legends

ne· science

1. lack of knowledge or awareness: IGNORANCE

neur·as·the·nia

1. nervous exhaustion due to overwrought thoughts and emotions

2. a neurosis accompanied by various aches and pains with no discernible organic cause and characterized by extreme mental and physical fatigue

par·a·gon

1. a model of excellence or perfection

2. a perfect embodiment of a concept

per·snick·e·ty

1. fussy about small details

2. requiring great precision

3. FASTIDIOUS

pre·rog·a·tive

1. an exclusive or special right, power, or privilege

2. a special superiority of right or privilege

quin·tes·sence

1. the purest and most concentrated essence of a thing

2. the fifth and highest element that permeates all nature

re·gur·gi·ta·tion

1. an act of regurgitating

2. the casting up of incompletely digested food

spell·down

1. to defeat in a spelling bee

2. to puzzle out; comprehend by study

sty·gian

1. of or relating to the river Styx or the lower world

2. extremely dark, gloomy, or forbidding

3. infernal, hellish

syn·chro·nic·i·ty

1. a meaningful coincidence

2. the coincidental occurrence of events that seem related, but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality

thau·ma·tur·gy

1. the performance of miracles or magic

vul·ner·ary

1. of use in the healing of wounds

2. a medicine of this kind