Читать книгу Lead Me Not - James B. Johnson - Страница 13

CHAPTER NINE

DENISE

Friday afternoon, with classes over and two weeks worth of laundry tied up in a sheet, Denise came home.

Her father was still at work. She opened the windows in her room and then the common living areas. She dumped her dirty clothes in the laundry room. And there hanging were a red lace bra and panties.

Denise shook her head. She shouldn’t be surprised. She knew that Aloha was sleeping with Daddy. Denise had hoped that the affair would be short-lived. It wasn’t Christian. It was indecent.

Then Denise recalled something about the Blaze family moving overseas.

In the kitchen, Denise noticed things were...not exactly as they’d always been. Her father living here alone during the week was a creature of habit. He never put the salt and pepper on the counter; it was always on the table. In the refrigerator, bottles of milk and ginger ale crowded the tall shelf. Daddy didn’t drink milk or ginger ale.

Something tugged at her memory. She went back into the living room. It was neat—and, for goshsakes, dusted. Denise usually performed those chores when she visited on weekends. It wasn’t something her father usually thought to do. She checked the master bedroom. More pillows on the king sized bed and it was made, not in the square corner military fashion of her father, but rounded corners with the bedspread tucked in under the pillows.

Okay, okay, Denise. No cause for surprise. It’s a natural consequence of a woman visiting occasionally.

But alarm seeped through her. With great fear, she walked, in spite of herself, through the house noting differences where there shouldn’t be differences.

She saved Buddy’s room for last.

She swung the door open apprehensively.

“Sacrilege!”

The stand with the arms from which hung many vests. Teddy bears and stuffed tiger. Picture of Rudyard Six on the table which served as a desk. Thereon, too, a new dictionary, thesaurus, algebra text, and a paperback copy of Lorna Doone.

Oh, Dear Sweet Redeemer, the apocalypse has come.

She had heard nothing.

“Hello, Denise,” said a low throaty voice.

Denise spun around. “You!”

“Me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I live here.”

“Oh, Dear Lord, forgive me for I have terrible thoughts.”

Aloha stepped past Denise and set her backpack down. She removed books and notebooks and arranged them neatly on the table. “I have to do a book report. Want to help me?”

“You, you Jezebel. You’re wicked. You’re evil. You’re a symbol of idolatry.”

Fire came into Aloha’s eyes. She ducked her head and glowered from under her dark brows. “I have fought too hard and too long and put too much of my soul on the line to get to where I am and no goddamn Bible-thumper is going to run me off.”

“But, I—”

“But nothing. The way things work these days, I have just as much if not more right than you do to be here. It’s even on paper.”

“You married my father?”

“No, silly.” Aloha’s eyes darted furtively. “He’s got a power of attorney over me.”

“Whatever are you talking about? Your parents gave you to my father?”

“Limited power of attorney.”

Denise wondered if she’d been wrong all along about Aloha’s age. She was so adult, you’d never guess how old she really was. And bright, too, wielding legal terms. Denise slumped into a chair and toyed with the stuffed tiger. “Tony, I thought Aloha was my friend.”

“I was and I am.”

“You lied to me. Overseas job or something. You-all were going to move overseas.”

Aloha levered herself to a sitting position on the table. “I only said that my folks had applied for a position.”

“You led me to believe—”

“You jumped to a conclusion and heard what you wanted to hear.”

Denise knew that Aloha was right. And that explained the passing remark made by Peter Blaze. “If you knew this weeks ago, why didn’t you tell me? Why the big secret?”

“You reaction today, Denise.”

“I was your friend. You could have trusted me?”

Aloha smiled wanly. “Trusted you? Me, Jezebel? Lookit the way you’re acting now. Geez, Denise.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Denise said doggedly. “We could have talked. We were friends. Like Jonathan and David in First Samuel.”

“I’d like to remain friends. But no way could I talk to you about Rudd. You are overly protective. And me being here now would never have happened.”

“So you went behind my back and worked your sex on him and he agreed to take you in?”

“I wanted to stay at Leon High, Denise. My parents were leaving town. I want you to stop and think and tell me who else would put me up for the rest of this year and maybe next?”

“A year and a half?”

“Answer me.”

Denise rubbed Tony’s back for a while and thought. “Nobody I know of.”

“There you go. I ain’t the most popular person around.”

“Maybe with the boys.”

“That’s not fair,” Aloha shot back.

Denise thought some more. Then she spoke in a low and deadly voice. “You’ve been chasing my father, using your body with him, so that you could stay here in Tallahassee?”

“No. I’ve always liked Rudd. But I didn’t know about this peace foundation thing with my folks ‘til a few weeks ago. It’s the other way around. I’d of—I would have been out of Tallahassee and Florida like a scalded bat if it wasn’t for Rudd.”

“Oh.”

“You can’t not know that the girls don’t like me because I’m, um, cuter than most, and the boys don’t like me because I’m smarter than all of them. They only want one thing—”

“‘Cuter’ is putting it mildly.”

“Listen, Denise. Rudd is the only man or boy who never wanted anything from me to start. And he has given me just as much as he’s taken from me. Do you understand?”

“You’re telling me this is not just an accommodation for you?”

“Hell, no. I love the son of a bitch.”

“Blasphemy—”

Aloha leaned back against the wall and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Self-righteousness ought to be against one or more of the ten commandments. Reckon we can amend them and not piss off Moses?”

“I know you’re trying to be funny and take the edge off this, but your mouth can be down in the gutter with your morals sometimes.”

Aloha shrugged. “Some guys like it when you talk dirty.”

“Not Daddy.”

“He doesn’t really care. But I’m trying to learn to be a class act for him.”

“Maybe it is that you’re simply looking for a father.”

“Naah. One thing Rudd isn’t to me is a father figure.”

Denise tried again. “Aloha. You are living in sin with my father, made worse by the fact that you are underage—”

“Is it any worse than when your mother was living here? Me and Rudd get along and care for each other. Can you say that about her and Rudd?”

No, Denise admitted. But this was against the Gospel. “Since we’re being so honest, tell me. Just how old are you, really?”

Aloha gave Denise a calculating look, then shook her head. “Sometimes I feel like a hundred and eighteen, but it’s none of your goddamn business. You come marching in here and try to ruin a beautiful relationship—”

“I’m trying to protect my father. What you gonna do, girl, when all the nosey neighbors figure out that you are living here in sin with a man and are not married?”

“This is nineteen seventy-eight,” said Aloha.

“One day one or more of those jerks who make everything their business is going to tell a cop, call the state’s attorney, something. Add it up yourself. You’ll be long gone and where does that put Daddy? The Leon County Correctional Facility.”

Aloha made a pistol with her hand and went, “Bang, bang, bang. I usually have a plan for almost everything. The only one I can come up with is that my parents arranged this and it is legal—”

“You living here is legal; the illicit sex part is not legal, Aloha.”

“I’ll run to my room and act innocent.”

“I have no doubt you can do that thing. Do not, do not get my father into trouble. And even if you slink out of it, you’ll ruin his reputation. As soon as a cop walks into that front door, the entire city will know. Business associates and friends alike.”

Aloha shook her head. “I don’t have all the answers, Denise. What I know is I love Rudd and—and that’s that.”

“We’ll see what he has to say when he gets home.”

“He’s already said, Denise. Else I wouldn’t be here.”

Denise was feeling lonely and left out.

“Buddy?”

“What about Buddy?”

“You and he used to date—”

“We went out a few times.” Aloha shrugged. “He was too old for me—oops!”

Denise cocked an inquiring eye. “Are you using my father as a surrogate for my brother?”

Aloha shook her head. “He was a boy, just another boy trying his best to get into my pants. I didn’t let him. There was nothing between us—then or now.”

“Buddy is an engaging, good-looking guy. I’d think—?”

“Nope,” said Aloha. “He needed to grow up.”

That was true, Denise admitted to herself. But Buddy had really liked Aloha. Upon reflection, Denise could construe Buddy to be the male equivalent of Aloha.

Denise had a frightening thought. Suppose Buddy came home? Not very likely, she thought. But if he did finally decide to face the devil in his past, watch out!

Denise needed to pray and pray and pray some more.

“Hello,” Rudd called and the front door closed loud enough for them to hear it. “Aloha? Denise?”

He came down the hall wearing slacks, a beige shirt with a tie, his normal work outfit. “Hi girls. Denise I saw your car. Glad you’re home.”

Denise stood. “I don’t think so, Daddy. I don’t wish to disturb your little love nest.”

He regarded her calmly. “Is this how it’s going to be?”

Aloha went past them and into the hall. “I gotta do some laundry.”

“You don’t have to go,” said Rudd.

“I think I do.” Aloha disappeared.

“The number of the beast,” said Denise. “Six six six, Mr. Six.” She held out her fist and popped out one finger. “Mom gone, the first Six.” Another finger. “Buddy gone, a second Six.” A third. “Now me. The last Six.”

“You’re not gone, Denise. You’re here.”

“Not for long.”

His face hardened. “It appears you’ve made up your mind without any facts again. Well, so goddamn be it.”

“She’s turned you against me, Daddy.”

“Nope. You have turned yourself against us. Aloha,” he looked surreptitiously down the hall and dropped his voice, “speaks so very well of you. She’s said she can’t wait for you to come home this weekend, that maybe you and she can do things together. A movie. Shopping.”

It startled Denise. But she couldn’t help herself. “Because we’re so much closer in age?”

Rudd looked at her for a few moments. “You sound like your mother now. I’ll forgive you because I know you did not mean that.”

“Aloha is taking advantage of you—”

“Did you stop to think, maybe it’s the other way around?”

“You’re a man. You take what comes your way and that’s that.”

He breathed deeply. “This is difficult to say when Aloha is so much younger. But if I did not care a lot about her, more than you can imagine, I would not have allowed this to happen. I tell you, Denise, it is more than physical.”

“Real love?” Frost edged her words.

“I cannot not do it. I’ve fought it and fought it, Denise. I found I have no choice. Do you understand? I have no goddamn choice—”

“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain—”

“No goddamn choice. My gut and my heart and my soul are driving me. Not my goddamn brain. It’s as if it were a physiological imperative. I don’t know how old she is and I don’t want to know. I am attracted to her as I’ve never been to anyone in my entire life. She is a compulsion to me. So much so that I make no excuses nor will I deny her. It’s like an addict or an alcoholic—”

“Second Corinthians tells us to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.”

Rudd stuck his face toward hers. “See my haunted eyes?

“What are you going to do when Mrs. Leverenson or some other busy-body calls the authorities?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are you going to do when she gets pregnant?”

“Maybe it won’t happen.”

“You better let me teach you how to pray, Daddy, because that is one fertile female. She’s got ovum waiting and rubbing their little hands in anticipation of your sperm.”

“Don’t talk like that—”

The doorbell rang and Aloha called out, “I’ll get it.”

Rudd and Denise stood there glaring at each other.

“Daddy, I think you’ll have to choose. Me or her. I feel strongly—”

“Don’t make me choose between you.”

“Oh?”

“You might not like my answer.”

“Rudd?” Aloha appeared at the entrance to the hallway. “We got a problem.”

“You bet,” he said, voice angry.

“There’s a detective from the Sheriff’s Office here.”

“Oh, shit.” His eyes locked on Denise as if to accuse her of willing this to happen.

“She’s from the Criminal Investigations Bureau.”