Weeping Willow (14 page)
Authors: Ruth White
Jesse graduated from high school and went to work for his daddy in Big Lick. Cecil and Roy got summer jobs helping to build a church. But on weekends the six of us still got together. Lots of times we went to the drive-in show down at the mouth of Glory. We took our blankets and spread them out on the ground under the stars where we ate popcorn and drank pop while watching Rock Hudson inMagnificent Obsession
or Debbie Reynolds as Tammy or Charlton Heston as Moses, or Doris Day as Julie. We liked scary pictures, too, like
Donovan’s Brain
. That was a good one. We watched Lana Turner and Sandra Dee in
Imitation of Life
about seven times, and Rosemary, Bobby Lynn, and I cried every single time. The boys would act like they were puking.
Then all of a sudden Bobby Lynn started dating Richard Sutherland and Cecil started dating Judy Thornbury, but they stayed good friends and our crowd grew to eight. I thought that was really odd because I knew doggone good and well if Jesse and I broke up (which would never happen, of course), one of us would have to leave the crowd, and it would not be me. I said so, but Jesse didn’t say anything.
Sometimes on Saturday or Sunday afternoon we all drove over to the Breaks of the Cumberland or to Hungry Mother park and cooked hot dogs or hamburgers outside. We also skated a lot at the new roller rink in Black Gap, and cruised the CAR-feteria.
Rosemary taught me and Bobby Lynn how to drive. And did we drive! We got our licenses. We followed dirt roads and gravel roads and paved roads up every little creek and holler and ridge and branch in southwest Virginia. It was a golden summer, and we were three seventeen-year-old girls with a car. We each took turns keeping it for a week at a time. We were just full of ourselves. We went lots to the new county pool, where we learned to swim and dive and bake our bodies like city girls.
We hiked up Ruby Mountain and picnicked by the spring. On the few rainy days we hung around the Sweet Shop in Black Gap, eating enormous gobs of repulsive stuff.
But most of all, we laughed. We laughed the summer away, and did nothing naughtier than discuss the three times Roy and Rosemary did it.
When September rolled around, we began our senior year. We got more heys in the mornings than anybody else in school. Rosemary, Bobby Lynn, and I even set some of the trends, like plucking our eyebrows and wearing dimes in our penny loafers. I figure we were absolutely the cockiest bunch of seniors ever to go through Black Gap High School.
About that time, Jesse stopped coming around so much. He said his job kept him busy and tired. But I started wondering about him when he didn’t come to any of our football games. I didn’t think anything could stop him from coming to watch Roy, Cecil, and Richard, who were big stars that year, play football. Somebody told me they saw him at a Big Lick game one Friday night, but he told me he had stayed home that night. Well, I thought, it’s not important.
One weekend he said he wanted to “borrow” his class ring back from me to have it cleaned. The following weekend he said he couldn’t see me Friday or Saturday night, and I really began to wonder. On Saturday night I called Bobby Lynn.
“Do you think Jesse’s mad at me about something, Bobby Lynn?” I said.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you dump him, Tiny?”
“Dump him? What brought that on?”
“Cecil says Jesse doesn’t deserve you, Tiny. I feel the same way.”
“Cecil? What’s going on, Bobby Lynn? I feel like everybody knows something I don’t know.”
“Did you know Cecil and Judy broke up last night?” She changed the subject quickly.
“No, how come?” I said.
“I don’t know the details, but I bet it was on account of you.”
“Me? What’re you talking about?”
“Judy’s always been jealous of you because Cecil talks about you all the time.”
“Oh, he does not! Me and Cecil are like brother and sister. Judy knows that. I’m in love with Jesse.”
“I know, I know,” she said, sighing.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Listen, Tiny, I gotta go. Richard’s coming over.”
“No! Something’s going on. Tell me!”
Bobby Lynn was quiet, and I found my heart was pounding wildly. Somewhere deep inside, I knew what was coming.
“Tell me, Bobby Lynn.”
“You sure you want to hear what.I got to say about Jesse Compton?”
There were ice particles in my blood veins, tinkling against each other, and I found myself shivering.
“Tell me,” I croaked.
“Well, Tiny, Jesse has a girl in Honaker. He’s been seeing her off and on for a month. Now I think it’s more on than off.”
No, no, no, no …
Jesse loved me. Why would Bobby Lynn tell me such lies? Jesse would never hurt me like that.
“Tiny, you okay?”
“Yeah. Bobby Lynn, who told you that?”
“Everybody knows it, Tiny. I wanted to tell you before, but nobody would let me.”
Everybody knows it. Everybody. Everybody but Tiny. Blind, stupid Tiny. Tiny who believed that people stay in love forever. But no, it’s a lie. No, no, no …
“Say something, Tiny.”
“I don’t believe you, Bobby Lynn. Why are you doing this?”
“Tiny, come down to earth! It’s true!”
“No, it’s a lie.”
And I hung up. I sleep-walked upstairs and lay down on my bed, numb and oh, so cold. I wrapped myself up in a quilt and looked out at the gray sky.
Jesse had said he was helping his daddy tonight. Why not call him?
It was starting to rain, just a drizzle. And the hills were barely tinged with red and gold. Soon winter would be coming and my world would be gray and bleak …
No, Jesse, no …
I lay there, in shock, in denial as the evening light failed me and darkness clutched me in its black, cold fingers.
It would be so easy to call him. Then I would know for sure.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. If he knew how hurt I was, he would come to me, beg my forgiveness, hold me …
Yes, I would call. And I would tell him what Bobby Lynn said. Of course he would tell me it was all a pack of lies, and I would never speak to Bobby Lynn again.
It was 8:30 p.m. I went downstairs and dialed his number with shaking fingers.
“Mrs. Compton, is Jesse there?”
“Oh, hi, Tiny. No, Jesse’s gone out.”
“Oh … oh, where to, Mrs. Compton? Do you know where he’s gone to?”
She hesitated.
“I’m not sure, Tiny, but I think I heard him say he was going to Honaker.”
“Honaker?”
I was stunned, devastated, terrified.
“Yeah, that’s where he went—Honaker.”
“Oh” was all I could say. Just “Oh.”
“Can I give him a message, Tiny?”
“Yeah. Tell him to call me when he comes in.”
“Tonight, you mean? It’ll be late, Tiny.”
“That’s okay. Tell him to call me no matter what time it is.”
“Well, okay.”
I stood by the telephone, frozen.
On the television I could hear the
Perry Como Show
song requesting letters from viewers.
Perry Como Show
song requesting letters from viewers.
Yes, that’s what I would do. I would write Jesse a letter just like I used to write to Mr. Gillespie.
Dear Jesse:
Maybe it’s true and maybe it’s a lie what they are saying about you. If it’s true, I don’t want to know. I don’t care. If you will come back to me I will do anything you want me to do. I will not ever mention the girl in Honaker. I will forgive you. I just want things to be like they used to be. I love you so much.
Love, Tiny
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
I kissed the letter and sealed it and put it under my pillow. Then I lay awake in a kind of stupor for hours, waiting for him to call. But he didn’t call. Not that night. Not the next day, which was Sunday, nor Sunday night. And the truth began to eat away around the edges of my blind hope. Late Sunday night I tore up the letter and flushed it. No, I would not beg. Not that I was above it. No, I was afraid Jesse would be ashamed of me. Somehow, somehow I had to keep my head up even when it hurt so bad I couldn’t stand it.
At school on Monday I managed to act almost normal. Bobby Lynn had the good sense not to mention our conversation. Twice I caught Cecil watching me, studying my face, and when I looked into his eyes he turned away. Everybody knew. And now I knew, too.
That night I called Jesse.
“Oh, hi, Tiny,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Hi, Jesse. Did you get my message?”
“Oh … yeah. I got it.”
“Well, you didn’t call. Anything wrong?”
My hands were sweating on the phone.
“No, I’ve been busy, that’s all.”
“Bobby Lynn told me something about you, Jesse. I just wonder if it’s true.”
“What’d she say?”
“She said you have a girl in Honaker.”
Jesse didn’t say a word.
“Is it true, Jesse?”
“Yeah, Tiny. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
The silence between us was awful to hear, and it went on and on.
“Well,” I said at last, “what now?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you, Tiny, okay?”
I couldn’t speak.
“Okay, Tiny? I’ll call you?”
“Okay, Jesse. Call me.”
“Take it easy, Tiny.”
“Yeah.”
And my world came to an end.
Jesse didn’t call again. It took only a week for Vern to figure out what had happened.“Where’s lover boy?” he asked at supper the next Saturday night.
I didn’t answer.
“Flew the coop, huh?” He laughed.
This is what he had been hoping for.
“Did y’all bust up?” Mama said.
I didn’t answer her either. The pain was raw, like an open wound, and maybe they saw it in my face because they didn’t say anything else.
Of course, it was Aunt Evie who I spilled my guts to. If it hadn’t been for her I think I would have died. With her I cried out loud and poured all my misery upon her shoulders. Because I knew if anybody would understand, she would. And I was not disappointed. She comforted me like no one else could. Every tear I shed was wiped away by a loving word or touch. But nothing could make the pain go away, and I thought I would feel like this forever. Look at Aunt Evie. It was fifty years ago that Ward jilted her, and still she suffered.
I couldn’t sleep. For hours I lay awake beside Phyllis and watched the light change outside from gray to black to dull purple as morning came, and the earth changed from gold to drab gray as winter came back to grieve me more.
I went over and over in my mind all the things Jesse and I said to each other last summer, all the things we did together, the fun we had, the way we laughed and held hands and kissed. And I imagined his coming back to me, what he would say, how we would kiss and make up.
Sometimes I saw Willa sitting quietly silhouetted in the window looking out at the sad hills. A shadowy, wispy figure she was in the dark with her hair plaited in one long thick braid down her back. She didn’t say anything because she felt sad, too. She was just hanging around in case I needed her.
The rains came down all through December. The hills dripped into the soggy bottom, and the mud thickened and deepened, black with coal.
On New Year’s Eve I was sitting listening to the radio when the phone rang and it was Jesse. I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. How many times I had dreamed of this moment!
“How’ve you been, Tiny?” he said.
“Fine,” I said.
That’s all I could think of to say.
“Well, I just called to say goodbye.”
“Where you goin’ to?”
“To the air force. I’m leaving for Harlingen, Texas, first thing tomorrow morning.”
“The air force? When did this come about, Jesse?”
“Since I broke up with Barbara. I decided I don’t want to hang around here anymore, and I don’t want to be a welder. So I’m getting out.”
I was silent.
“And I wanted to say I’m sorry for the way things turned out between you and me,” he went on.
“Forget it.”
“No, I was kinda rough on you. You would never have treated me like that.”
That was the truth.
“So maybe we can be friends, huh, Tiny?”
“Sure, Jesse. Write to me.”
“I’ll do it. You take care of yourself, and maybe I’ll see you in the spring.”
“Yeah, ’bye, Jesse.”
The next night, when I knew he was gone to Texas, I was wide awake again most of the night remembering, regretting, hurting. Every time I closed my eyes I could see us dancing around the fire on the mountaintop. And the old Red Wing song kept going around in my head.
She loved a warrior bold, this shy little maid of old, But brave and gay, he rode one day to battle far away.
Just like my real daddy, I was thinking. Running off to play war games and leaving broken hearts at home.
Now, the moon shines tonight on pretty Red Wing,
The breeze is sighing, the night bird’s crying,
For afar ’neath his star her brave is sleeping,
While Red Wing’s weeping her heart away.
“Jesse … Jesse … come back!”
Early on a Saturday morning I drifted in and out of sleep. Outside, somebody was yodeling, and I remembered those Saturday mornings when I was in the ninth grade and Bobby Lynn took yodeling lessons from Aunt Evie, and I could hear them up there. The yodeling was pretty. I fantasized that it was Jesse yodeling for me, and I saw myself go to the window and raise it, and yodel in return.
I opened my eyes. A cold, white sun was trying to come into my bedroom, and I got up and looked out. There was a light snow. The yodeling had ended and its echo bounced off the hills. No one was in sight. Did I dream it?
The house was cold and damp. I put on britches, a sweater, and a pair of socks and shoes. Then I went downstairs.
Phyllis was sitting at the kitchen table eating a fried apple pie. Nessie lay at her feet, but she came to me wagging her tail when she saw me.
“Hello, my lamb chops,” I crooned and petted her.
“Are you going somewhere today, Tiny?” Phyllis asked me.
“No.”
“Will you play with me?”
I fixed a bowl of corn flakes and sat down beside her.
She was ten years old now, nearly eleven, almost as tall as me, and as developed as a thirteen-year-old. We hadn’t talked much in a long time.
“Play with you? Ain’t you too big for that stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“Playing is little-girl stuff.”
“We could play cards.”
“Where’s Beau and Luther? They’ll play with you.”
“But I want you to play with me, Tiny.”
At that moment her hands came into view, and I was horrified. All her nails were chewed down to the quick, and all around them the skin was torn away.
“What on earth have you gone and done to your fingernails?” I hollered at her.
She tried to hide her hands, but I grabbed one hand and forced it open.
“Lordy, Phyllis. I never saw the beat!”
She jerked away from me.
“Leave me alone!” she said.
“Has Mama seen your nails?”
“I dunno.” She shrugged and stuck out her lower lip.
“Where’s Mama now?” I said. “I think she orta see what you’ve gone and done to yourself.”
“She went to the hospital again. She’s always gone with Dixie.”
It was the truth. Mama just loved to hang around the hospital with the sick people. She wanted to get a job there as a nurse’s aide, but I heard Vern yelling at her about her wanting to work for slave wages. He said people would think he couldn’t support his family. I saw Mama grit her teeth when he said that.
“Well, we’ll doctor up your nails, then I’ll play you a game of rummy or something. First, though, I’m going up to see Aunt Evie.”
“She’s got company,” Phyllis said.
“Who in the world?”
“I dunno. Some old man. He come up the road yodeling.”
I dropped my spoon. No, it couldn’t be.
“Yodeling? Did Aunt Evie yodel back?”
“She shore did. She come out on the porch and yodeled at him.”
“Phyllis!”
“What’sa matter?”
“Don’t you see? It musta been Ward!”
“Naw, Tiny. That’s just a story she tells. Ward’s never really coming back … is he?”
“Well, who else would be yodeling to her?”
We looked at each other.
“Is he still up there?”
“I reckon. I never did see him leave. Wouldn’t that be something, Tiny? I mean, if he should come back after all these … how many years?”
“About fifty years come spring.”
“And what if they get married?”
I smiled as I pictured Aunt Evie in a white wedding dress.
“I guess stranger things have happened, Phyllis,” I said. “But I don’t know what.”
For the next half hour we watched Aunt Evie’s shack out the kitchen window. Finally, here he came: an old man with a white beard and a cane. He paused on the porch, slung a pack up over his back, and turned around and said something to Aunt Evie, who was standing in the doorway. She put up her hand like she was saying goodbye. Then he left. We watched him walk down the path around our house and to the road below.
I hurried out the door and up the hill with Phyllis right behind me. Aunt Evie was still standing on the porch watching the old man. And her face looked the most peculiar I ever had seen it look. There was a whole new something-or-other in her eyes.
“Who was that man?” Phyllis and I said together.
“Hit was Ward, my man, in the flesh,” she said, then turned and went back inside.
Phyllis and I exchanged a glance and followed Aunt Evie inside.
“Well, tell us about it, Aunt Evie. Tell us everything!”
We were so excited we were hopping up and down. But Aunt Evie was as calm as a spring night. She started piddling around in a drawer looking for something.
“There ain’t a thang to tell,” she said as simply as that. “He come in and set down and said, ‘Howdy, Evelyn’ … He always did call me Evelyn, and hit’s not even my name. My name’s Evie … just Evie. ‘How are ya?’ he said.
“And I said, ‘Where the hell you been?’
“‘Here and there,’ he said. ‘But now I’m here to stay.’”
Aunt Evie fell silent as she kept looking for something in the drawer.
“Did you lose something, Aunt Evie?” I said.
“My specs,” she said. “They was right ’cheer.”
there they are,” Phyllis said.”Right beside your hand.”
“Oh,” Aunt Evie said as she picked up the glasses and put them on. “If hit had been a snake, hit woulda bit me,” she said, and closed the drawer.
Then she started reading a piece of paper she had crumpled up in her hand. Phyllis and I smiled at each other.
“What’s that you’re reading?” I said.
“A pome he said he writ fer me. But he never writ hit a’tall. I read hit somewheres else before. He always was the biggest liar!”
And she tossed the paper in the stove. Phyllis and I exchanged glances again. Never had we heard any criticism of the legendary Ward before today.
“Then what happened?” Phyllis said. “You said to him, ‘Where the hell you been?’ and then …”
I gouged Phyllis. “Don’t say that word.”
Aunt Evie sat down at the table, took off her glasses, and carefully laid them down. I sat on one side of her and Phyllis on the other.
“Well, I looked at him, and I thought, Lordy, I don’t know this man a’tall. I never did know him. He’s a stranger I been pining after for fifty years. And I don’t want him no more’n I want the measles.”
“It’s because he’s old, Aunt Evie,” I said. “He’s still your Ward.”
“No, he ain’t. He never was my Ward. My Ward was somebody I made up outa my head. He never existed.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Lord, child, I mean I’ve been a fool. I could have married Clint Clevinger and been Bobby Lynn’s. grandma. But no, I said if I couldn’t have Ward, I wouldn’t have nobody. I thought Ward was my one and only. Now I know, Tiny, after all these wasted years. There’s no such thing as a one and only! No such thing!”
“You mean you think you coulda loved somebody else if you had tried to?” I asked.
“That’s the gist of hit! And he shore weren’t worth pining over—not for a month, much less fifty years!”
She sighed heavily.
Could it be true? Could it be possible to fall in love more than once? Could it be that someday I would think of Jesse as a stranger? And that I would be able to let go just like that? Was it possible?
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