Читать книгу Lead Me Not - James B. Johnson - Страница 7

CHAPTER THREE

DENISE

“She is eighteen, isn’t she?” her father asked.

Denise didn’t know what to say. So she didn’t say it.

Her father fixed her with a stare. “Well?”

“She says she is, Daddy.” Which was true, as far as it went. It wasn’t what Denise thought anymore, not since the pizza conversation. Aloha had been elusive. Dread seeped through Denise. Why did not—or could not—Aloha drive?? Should I mention this to Daddy? It was basic: if Aloha was eighteen she could drive. If she was under sixteen, she could not drive. OhmyGod!

“It’s important,” he said. “I don’t think I mind the age differential. But if the girl is not yet eighteen—”

Denise seized her opportunity. “You don’t trust what she says?” Why didn’t he just ask her?

Six looked up at his daughter sharply. “You trying to say something?”

“A simple question, Daddy. From what you said, you were implying she might not be telling the exact truth.” And we’ve been good friends, Dad, and this is so uncomfortable, talking to me about your love life which I don’t want to know anything about. All of which Denise thought, but instead, she said, “Aloha is still my friend. This is awkward.”

“I don’t think she’d lie to me, she was just sort of evasive.”

Denise didn’t want to hurt her father with her suspicions. On the other hand, she was too Christian to condone the situation between Aloha and her father. Which led her to fear that the relationship between the two would continue, which wouldn’t be good for her father or her friend. Or Denise’s own Christian sense of rightness, not righteousness, she amended, but what was really right in the world in the ways things like this should work. She was glad you don’t have to diagram thoughts like sentences in English class.

Her father sat back and put his drink down on the end table. He was thinking. Usually he was so up, not introspective. But now he was brooding.

And that made Denise angry. Her father was a good man, one who’d raised two children himself with little help from his wife.

Now along comes a teenage floozy and turns his head big time.

Could he weather the storm?

Anger grew in Denise. Her father deserved better. He’d paid his dues. Fighting for the red, white, and blue in Vietnam. Raising his children despite his wife, her own mother. Forgive me, Lord, for what I might do.

“Somebody’s not doing you right,” Denise blurted.

“Oh?”

“Oh. You bet, Daddy. I’m beginning to get mad.”

He fixed her with his gaze again. “Don’t get involved in this one, little girl.”

“I’m no little girl. I’m a freshman in college.”

“Which gives you no right to interfere.”

“Who said I was gonna interfere, Daddy?”

“Your demeanor. Your history. This conversation. This is me, now. My personal collision avoidance system is blaring. Stay the hell out of my business.”

“You are my business. You’re my father. I’m all you have left. She is my business. She’s my friend.” Or she was. “Besides, you were the one who was asking me the questions, I was simply answering and now you’re taking offense.”

“Drop it. I know you, Denise. You’ll attack what you perceive as a problem and gnaw it like a dog with a bone until you’ve chewed it to death.”

“I’m worried about you, Daddy.”

“Forget it.”

“I won’t. By gosh, the Bible says honor your parents. I do honor you. I care about you. It’s my fault she was ever over here. I feel responsible.”

“For that I thank you.”

“She’s nowhere near your age. Look what’s happening to you.”

“Nothing. And it’s none of your business. Nor anybody else’s business.”

He was so serious about Aloha. Mom always said he was flawed, but Denise had never seen a major flub on his part. Until now.

“Ain’t love wonderful,” he quipped in a parody of his old self.

Love? Dear Jesus, let it not be so.

Nor was she disarmed by his flippancy. “And you blew it so very well your other time with Mom, didn’t you?”

“Poison doesn’t become you, little girl.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?”

He sank back. “Maybe, maybe not. Look what came of it. Namely you.”

“And my brother.” What would the volcanic Buddy think?

“If I have to go through hell one more time to produce a couple of kids like you both, well—”

He had gone through hell. Daddy deserved better. Forty-seven years, unlucky in love and he still was paying his dues to society. She knew, too, that many of his wartime experiences were the stuff of heroic chronicles. He’d done his job, killed a bunch of the enemy. And come home to her—Marge. Denise had to admit that life hadn’t been fair to her father.

Desperation. Denise knew that Aloha wasn’t good for her father. And the more that she thought of it, the more she was certain that Aloha Blaze was lying about her age. More problems for Daddy. He didn’t deserve the grief that was headed his way. Maybe even legal problems if Aloha was—too young. There, she admitted it.

And her anger grew. The determination that had made her into a hardcore Christian against everything she’d known in her life boiled out of her.

“Not even Mom would let that slut into this house.” Denise surprised herself with her own venom.

“Watch you mouth, girl. And, damn it, leave your mother out of this.”

She grabbed control of herself. I pray thee, dear Lord, let me be strong and please please please help me control my big mouth and my anger because I will surely lose him if I do not. Oh, sweet Jesus, come and help your faithful servant, for I need you now as I never needed you before. I must save my father.

“Daddy? I’m sorry. I got carried away. I do not wish to sound shrewish like Mother. And you deserve better, Daddy, never mind what I said. She’s not a slut. I wanted to hurt you and get what I was thinking across to you.” Was Aloha a slut? All the boys said so.

“What the hell’s going on here, Denise? We used to get along so well. We used to agree on damn near everything.” He brooded. “It’s those goddamned evangelists you hang out with.”

“I shouldn’t be so judgmental,” Denise said. “Look here, Daddy. You’re a mature man, you’ve been alone a long time—”

“Even when your mother was here.”

“And your biological clock is trucking right along—”

“I thought we were going to skip the pop psychology. I leave you alone with your religion. So I want some reciprocity. Leave me and...her alone.”

No way, Daddy. Because I love you. I will do everything in my power to kill your romance with one each Aloha Blaze. “What’s up with you and Amanda?” Denise asked coyly.

It almost knocked him back visually. He picked up his warm gin and tonic, barely touched, and drained it. “I haven’t seen her lately.” His reaction was like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The cliché fit so well she thought of it again.

Amanda McMullen was a professor at FSU. She was relatively new there, over in the English department, where Denise intended to major in English Lit. In fact, Amanda and Rudd had met through her.

While waiting for her father to pick her up one day, Denise had been standing in front of Bill’s Bookstore on Copeland Street, right across from Wescott, FSU’s main administrative building. Amanda McMullen was her English instructor and had been walking home from class. Amanda was known to walk miles a day. She stopped to talk to Denise for a moment and that’s when Rudd had come along. They wound up going to lunch, the three of them, and then taking Amanda home. Rudd had gotten along quite well with the attractive brunette, who had been recently divorced over in Gainesville and had accepted a position in Tallahassee to get away from her previous situation. Amanda was maybe thirty-three or so, with that rounded cuteness surrounded by short hair, and a thick Georgia accent.

Denise knew her father had dated Amanda a few times. Amanda sometimes asked Denise about her father before or after class. After all, he was a handsome, dashing and unmarried pilot, a war hero, a magic combination to some women.

“Daddy?”

He looked at her.

“Don’t take this wrong, okay?”

“Take what?”

“Put the rush on Amanda. You need something. I think Amanda can provide it, give her a chance.”

His jaw clenched.

“She’s a fine woman. Really. She asks about you. You won’t be sorry.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he laid his head back and closed his eyes. “Easy for you to say. Sometimes I don’t know what the fuck to do.”

Denise felt his utter despair. His personal hell had bubbled out. He was trapped. By that trash-mouth slut. Denise Six saw her father’s haunted appearance and made a vow.

* * * *

She walked quickly. Into the breach, help me, Lord, for Thou art with me all the days of my life and especially tonight.

Her father had fallen asleep on the couch, and Denise had let herself out quietly, anger driving her.

Denise liked to walk. The humid Tallahassee air seemed to provide a barrier through which she forged. Aloha’s home was only a few blocks away—it was one of the reasons they were friends. They could walk to each other’s house.

The neighborhood was growing. Her father had said that he was thinking of moving elsewhere, now that she was in school and Buddy gone. And Mom. He didn’t need such a big house; he just hadn’t gotten around to finding a new place, somewhere less crowded, and selling this one. Denise wished he’d done so and perhaps this thing with Aloha would never have occurred.

The tortured look on his face had told Denise that her father would not avail himself of the graceful Amanda. Genesis addressed “instruments of cruelty.” Perhaps Aloha was one. Denise decided to leave her father’s fate in the Lord’s hands—right after she spoke her mind.

The Blaze house was well lighted, but Denise could see colored lights in the living room. She rang the bell and no one answered, obviously because the Rolling Stones were singing so loudly. At least it wasn’t Michael rowing his boat ashore or everybody going to San Francisco. Peter and Mary Blaze were stuck in the sixties. And this was 1978, after all.

Mick Jagger wasn’t getting any satisfaction and neither was Denise. Her anger made her knocking into a real pounding.

In a moment, Mary Blaze opened the door and the pungent odor of marijuana drifted out. Mary had a handful of her hair and was involved in pinning it up with hairpins.

“Hello, dear. Aloha is in her room studying. Come on in.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Blaze.”

“Mary, call me Mary.” They always went through this same scene. Denise refused to use their first names; she was supposed to respect her elders. Wasn’t she?

Mick Jagger went away and James Brown came on, doubtless sweating rivers on vinyl.

As Denise walked down the hall, she waved to Peter Blaze, a slight man with an out-of-style ponytail. He was sitting in a beanbag chair in front of the stereo and the television was on with the sound turned down. Atop the television was a lava lamp. The air was stifling.

“Tell your father I’ll talk to him soon,” said Peter.

Denise nodded and the import of what he said hit her. Peter wanted to talk to Daddy? That limp-wristed hippie couldn’t know about Daddy and Aloha, could he? He didn’t sound urgent or angry, so Denise forgot about it. Fatefully.

Aloha’s door was closed and Denise knocked lightly. Even though she was furious at the girl, she minded her manners.

“Yes?” was enough for Denise so she pushed the door open.

Even though the air-conditioner was on, Aloha’s window was wide open and a window fan was blowing air into the room.

A fleeting look of guilt raced across Aloha’s face. She closed a history book and left her finger in to mark her place. She was sitting cross-legged atop a small desk which was clean except for the history book and a framed picture of—Rudyard Kipling Six.

It stopped Denise in midstride. She recognized the photo. It was one of her father in his flight suit with the SIXGUN AIR logo alongside a Cessna 172 Skyhawk. It contributed to Denise forgetting about Peter’s comment.

“That’s one of our pictures,” Denise said. “Where’d you get it?”

“It followed me home,” said Aloha.

A rack of vests hung at the foot of the bed, the one on the end fishnet and see-through.

The room was spotless and Denise couldn’t smell the pot smoke in here. A couple of teddy bears and a stuffed tiger sat atop the chest of drawers. On the wall above the desk was tacked a print of an OV-10, one of the aircraft which Rudyard Six had flown in Vietnam.

“How do you explain the picture to your folks?” Denise was frankly curious.

Aloha shrugged. “I don’t. They seldom come in here and I hide it when I leave. So what?”

“I don’t know so what.” Now that she was here, Denise didn’t know how to go about this. “We got a problem.”

Aloha lifted those dark brows. “We?”

“We. You, me, and my father.” Her anger was returning.

“Sounds like you got a problem. Not me. Not Rudd.”

Lord, please help me in this time of trial and tribulation. I need Your strength and wisdom. And I’m sorry I used the word bitch in my mind before and please help me to not use it again though I surely feel like it. Denise sat on the neatly made bed.

“My father is smitten or something with you. I feel you are taking advantage of him.”

“I’m not and it’s mutual.”

“And you’re jailbait, Aloha. You’re lying through your teeth about your age and—”

Aloha put her book down. “Please leave. I don’t want to talk.”

“Don’t you understand?” Denise was desperate. She didn’t want to shout or threaten; that she knew would get her nowhere. “We’ve nosey neighbors. If anybody finds out about you and Daddy, he will go straight to jail and they’ll mail the key to Antarctica. And it’s wrong in the eyes of the Lord.”

Aloha looked upset. “I don’t want any trouble for Rudd.”

“Then stay away from him.”

Aloha’s face contorted. “I can’t.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

“Oh, dear sweet Jesus.”

“What I’m gonna do, Denise?” An age-old plea delivered in a plaintive voice.

Denise’s heart went out to her friend. Her anger evaporated immediately. “I don’t know, dear. I don’t. We could pray?”

Aloha shrugged. “God’s never helped me. Prayin’s no good.”

“Give it a chance. Jesus loves you.”

“Shit. How come He gave me parents that don’t care? I do whatever I want whenever I want. Big damn deal. I’ve been alone too long. My friends aren’t real deep friends; you’re the best. I don’t have any girl-friends, ‘cept you. That’s why I prefer boys to girls. All the girls hate me and they’re jealous of my looks.” She unconsciously tossed her hair. “Jesus doesn’t care if I’m lonely.”

Dear God, lookit You’ve done. Daddy’s been so lonely so long; Aloha’s been so lonely so long. This woman-child is a knockout and he’s handsome. Both are bright. Both are alike in their own ways. Both have physical desires and needs. Nature took its inevitable course. Dear Lord, why do You work in such mysterious ways?

She fell to her knees and steepled her hands. “Join me?”

“If it’ll make you feel better. But it doesn’t work for me.”

“Our Father, Who art in Heaven...,” Denise prayed. Through almost closed eyes, she watched Aloha watch her. Her heart went out to the young girl. For a brief moment, empathy flowed. Each shared a personal grief with which neither could deal. “...But deliver us from evil—”

Denise continued to pray, Aloha continued to watch—not detached, but not involved—looking down from her perch.

Denise shifted from her knees and sat on the floor with her back to the bed. “Well, that’s that. What’s next?”

“Ion’t know.”

“There’s a problem, we’ve got to solve it.”

Aloha sighed. “You have a problem. I am happier than I’ve been in a long time.”

“How old are you, really, Aloha?”

“Umm, almost eighteen.”

Was it the truth? “Why is it you do not drive?”

“I don’t like to. I’m scared.”

“You don’t strike me as being frightened of anything.”

“Thanks. But I am. Denise? There’s something you ought to know. My Mom and Dad applied for positions overseas. We’ll find out soon. Things will be different.”

Denise’s spirits soared. An out! Was it too easy? Later she would understand Aloha’s wording; and Peter Blaze’s earlier comment would finally make sense. Also, she would realize that Aloha had successfully changed the subject again, avoiding the age question. However, the prospect of the Blazes moving—overseas, no less!—overwhelmed her. God was smiling down this night. After all, from her point of view, things could get no worse.