The Swan House (18 page)

Something in my chest hurt, that tingling feeling combined with a squeezing pain. I wanted to understand this young man who had never been to a museum and who understood a painting without anyone having to explain it to him.

Miss Abigail had promised to pick us up at five in front of the museum. We went out ten minutes early. I was carrying a folder filled with copies of newspaper articles and information that Mrs. MacIlvain had loaned me. But as soon as we stepped out into the sunlight, Carl looked around and cursed. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me back inside the museum.

“What in the world—”

“Those rednecks are still hanging around. Just waitin'. I thought they'd have left by now, but they haven't.” He was holding on to my arm kind of tightly, and his voice trembled for a fraction of a second. “Can you get a ride home with that Mrs. MacIlvain?”

“What do you mean?”

“It isn't good for them to see us together, Mary Swan. I'll ride back with Miss Abigail. You go ask now.” His voice sounded worried, serious, so I went over to the desk where Mrs. MacIlvain was sitting. She gave me a funny look, but said that she was happy to drive me home when she closed the museum in half an hour.

I followed Carl to the exit. He touched my arm, more softly this time. Tingles again. “Mary Swan, you stay inside, you hear?”

“But what about you?”

“I'll be fine.” He took hold of both of my shoulders and smiled down at me. “You be careful now, Mary Swan. Be careful.”

But when he left, I sneaked a peek out of the door and saw the boys from the bus sitting on a step. One of them yelled to Carl, “Hey, boy! What'd you do with your white girly?”

Carl ignored them completely, walking by without a sideways glance. They stood up and started after him, but Miss Abigail was already waiting by the curb. Carl hopped in and slammed the door to the old Ford, and then he looked past the three boys to the front of the museum. He couldn't see me from where I was standing inside the door, but I saw those black eyes with their worried look, and I kept thinking about the way he had touched my arm.

When I got home, I found Daddy in his study and went over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Have a good day, Swannee?”

Daddy still had a grayish tint to his skin and a preoccupied look in his eyes, and I don't think he was sleeping much at night. After the plane crash I was afraid that maybe he would become overprotective of Jimmy and me. But he didn't. Maybe deep down inside, I wanted him to worry about where I spent my days. I wanted him to spend time with me. But today I was glad he didn't ask any questions. He smiled faintly when I said that the day with Ella Mae at church had gone well. I don't even think he had noticed that it was almost six, or that I'd been gone a lot longer than usual.

And something inside of me felt sad, like the time a couple of years ago when he was supposed to pick me up at school because Mama was gone for an exhibition, and he completely forgot. I finally called Trixie to get me, and when I got home, Daddy had his head buried in the paper, and he never realized that I was late or that he was supposed to pick me up.

The main word for Daddy was preoccupied. I'm not sure if it was because of the corporations he was advising, or the stocks and bonds jumping around, or Mama's temperament, but all I saw as a child growing up was that he didn't seem to have a lot of free time. That hadn't changed. Maybe it had only gotten worse.

I guess Daddy had a lot to keep inside. But in public he had a life-of-the-party personality, at least he had before the plane crash. He lit up around a crowd. When he went to a party or invited guests to our house, he was the center of attention, cracking jokes and making deals as he sipped on his Scotch and soda. He seemed to know everyone in Atlanta, and he predicted that our small Southern city had a big future ahead of her.

His heart was in Atlanta making a name for herself, and he, along with so many of those who had been in the Orly crash, had invested hundreds and thousands of hours and dollars to accomplish just that. I never could guess how much money Daddy gave away in a year, but I did know that a lot of it went to the Art Association and the church and the symphony and charities like the Lung Association.

He believed that a good education was absolutely the best and most secure thing he could give to his children, along with a good family name. So I grew up thinking that being born in Buckhead somehow meant I deserved to be born there, that I had been doubly blessed, and that I had a duty to give back to the community my time and talent. Sometimes as we were growing up, Daddy would quiz Jimmy and me about trivial details of history, and one wrong answer brought on a half-teasing, half-serious response. “What has happened to your fine education?”

Preoccupied and a perfectionist, that was my dad.

Jimmy came down the stairs, interrupting my thoughts, his Oxford cloth shirt rumpled and untucked from his khaki pants. I could tell he'd been eating potato chips, because a few crumbs lingered around his mouth and on his shirt.

“Some guy called you a while ago, Swan,” Jimmy announced absentmindedly.

“Who?”

“Andy's big brother.”

“Robbie? Robbie Bartholomew called me?” My voice slipped up an octave.

“Yeah.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?” Totally uninterested.

“Well, what did he say, you idiot?”

Jimmy grinned. “Nothing much. We talked about the convertible he got for his seventeenth birthday. Cool car, sounds like.”

“And what did he want?”

“Beats me. He said he'd call back later.” With that, Jimmy went into the kitchen and started making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Thirteen years old and still eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He drove me crazy!

Daddy seemed pleased with the news of the phone call. “Nice boy, Robbie Bartholomew. Fine family.” We traipsed into the kitchen, and Daddy grabbed two slices of bread and slopped peanut butter and jelly on them. Weekends without Ella Mae's cooking were disastrous. But if Daddy was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, at least that meant no eligible ladies had come by today with a casserole.

I felt a weird kind of twittering in my stomach, and I knew I was definitely not hungry for peanut butter and jelly. Robbie Bartholomew had called! I gnawed on a fingernail, a bad habit I had when I felt nervous. Finally I asked, “How long ago did he call?”

Jimmy shrugged. “Beats me. An hour or so.”

So I sat there, watching them eat their sandwiches and drink their glasses of milk and then take out the ice-cream carton from the freezer and eat straight out of it. I fumbled through the papers that Mrs. MacIlvain had given me, heart racing, trying desperately to think of anything but Robbie. I failed miserably.

When the phone rang, I leapt up and said, “I'll get it!” much too loudly. Daddy and Jimmy just smiled.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Mary Swan?” A boy's voice.

“Yes, this is she.”
Wham, wham, wham
went my heart against my ribs.

“Mary Swan, this is Robbie Bartholomew.”

“Oh, hi, Robbie.” I tried to sound casual and a little surprised. If only Rachel was here, she'd tell me what to say. Boys didn't usually call me.

“I was just wondering how you're doing.”

“Oh, fine. Okay. We're getting along okay.” I could feel Jimmy and Daddy's eyes on my back.

“Well, I'm glad to hear it.” Silence. He cleared his throat. “Um, well, um, I was calling because I wondered if you might like to go to the Back-to-School Ball with me. It's on Friday night, September tenth.”

I leaned into the phone. Had I heard right? The Back-to-School Ball! It was the biggest social event of the fall for the rising juniors and seniors—a party open to all those attending the private schools in Buckhead. It was almost more important than the junior-senior prom at the end of the year. All girls talked about in August was if they'd been invited to the Back-to-School Ball.

“Sure! Sure. Yes, that would be fun.”

“Oh. Well, good. Great.”

Then without thinking, I said, “Um, well, let me just check with my dad first.” I winced as soon as the words were out of my mouth, but it was too late. So I covered the phone with one hand and whispered to Dad, “Robbie Bartholomew just invited me to the Back-to-School Ball! Can I go?”

“Of course, sweetie,” Daddy said, and Jimmy slopped up his melting ice cream and regarded me gleefully.

“Dad says it's fine,” I stammered to Robbie.

“Oh, good. Well, I'll plan to pick you up around seven, then.”

“Okay.”

Then he added, “And I was wondering if you'd like to go to the Varsity with a bunch of us tonight. We were gonna head down there in about half an hour. I could come by and pick you up.”

“Well, sure.” I hoped he didn't hear the way my voice kept cracking. “Just let me check.”

I whispered to Daddy, who just nodded with a smile.

“It's fine!”

“Good, see you in a few minutes.”

I hung up the phone with a shaking hand, and Jimmy laughed loudly. “Swan, your face is as red as this strawberry jelly!”

I stuck out my tongue and left the kitchen in a hurry. Sometimes I was convinced that Jimmy didn't have a heart.

Safe in my room, I locked the door and dialed Rachel's number automatically. “You'll never believe it! Robbie Bartholomew just invited me to the Back-to-School Ball, and then he asked if I'd like to go to the Varsity with him in thirty minutes.”

We both squealed into the phone at the same time. “But, Rachel, what will I wear?” I'd never been on a date in my life, which had been the topic of many a late-night discussion with Rachel. She, on the other hand, had boys asking her out all the time. And not just guys our age. Older guys.

“Don't worry, Swannee. The Varsity is the perfect place for a first date. Now, just go put on your pale yellow blouse—the one with the scalloped collar—and those light blue pedal pushers. You look great in those.”

“And my hair? What about my hair?”

“Just pull it back in that nice barrette you got at Davidson's last week. And put a little rouge on and some lipstick.”

“I don't have any lipstick, Rachel.”

“Look in your mom's vanity drawer. I'm sure she had some.”

I hesitated, and Rachel added, “Swannee, she'd be thrilled for you to borrow her lipstick for your first date.”

“Okay, thanks a ton. I've gotta go.”

“Call me when you get back!”

“Of course!”

Daddy and Jimmy were still in the kitchen, so I sneaked into Mama's private dressing room and sat down at her vanity. I opened one drawer. All kinds of lotion. Another held eyebrow pencils and mascara. The third had rouge and lipstick. How had Rachel known? I picked a bright pink tube and smeared it across my lips, then parted them in a smile. Bright pink lipstick and braces were completely incongruous. I wiped it off with the back of my hand.

“Oh, Mama, I'm no good at this. Why can't you be here for my first date?” I felt a sting in my eyes, so I dug through the drawer and tried another tube—a paler pink. Not too bad, I thought. Rachel would say it was a gentle hint, nothing too brash. I rushed back upstairs to my room and had just tucked my pale yellow blouse into those light blue pedal pushers when the doorbell rang.

The Varsity was touted as the biggest drive-in restaurant in the Southeast. Maybe in all the world. It was right across the street from the Georgia Institute of Technology, my daddy's alma mater. The story goes—and it's true—that in the early 1930s a guy named Frank Gordy had been kicked out of Georgia Tech for not making the grade. When he'd asked one of his professors what he should do, the man answered, “Why don't you go across the street and start a hot dog stand?” And that's exactly what he did. Now the Varsity was famous, and I guess that Frank Gordy was probably a lot richer than most of the bankers and stockbrokers and architects who had graduated from Georgia Tech.

In the thirties and forties, the parking lot of the Varsity touched the Georgia Tech campus and spread out all around it. Then in the fifties an expressway had come to Atlanta, knocking out a part of the Varsity's immense parking lot and separating it from the campus. But that didn't daunt its customers. Everyone ate at the Varsity. Rich, poor, black, white, student, businessman.

This evening I sat in the front seat of Robbie Bartholomew's 1962 bright red convertible and watched Robbie. As I've already said, he kind of reminded me of a cross between a football jock and a Boy Scout. His auburn hair matched his eyes. Everything about him matched, which was what bugged me about him. I wanted to take a fountain pen and flick it all over his pressed shirt and his loafers. Or ruffle his hair.

“Robbie, you are just too perfect,” I told him that night, which made him blush and grin a little foolishly.

Virginia Lawson and Herbert Thomas sat glued together in the backseat. Virginia was a senior at Wellington, but I didn't know her very well. Herbert attended Mendon's Private School for Boys, which was also where Robbie and Andy and Jimmy went to school.

In the convertible next to us were two other couples, friends of Robbie's whom I knew slightly. As soon as we drove into the parking lot, a black curbside waiter jumped onto the back of Robbie's convertible, yelling, “What d'ya have?” I recognized him as a man called Flossie Mae.

Rumor had it that the waiters—they were called carhops—made so much in tips that they actually paid to work there, but I don't think that was true. The most fascinating and famous waiter was Flossie Mae. Years ago, he had put the menu to music and sang it for his customers. He never wrote a thing down when taking an order, but he could repeat the entire order back to you, never making a mistake. To add to the folklore, in addition to the white jacket and red pants that all the waiters had to wear, Flossie Mae wore outlandish hats. That night, he had on a vegetable colander turned over his head with prescription pill bottles, spice containers, plastic forks, and heart-shaped lollipops sticking out of it.