Twenty-Eight
Trudy
The five-minute walk across the park felt like an hour, and Trudy felt her eyes darting away from Haskel’s the whole time.
He’d asked her questions and she’d responded, but already, she’d forgotten everything they’d talked about.
She, of course, hadn’t told him about the wager, or about her now-upcoming fishing trip with Coach Meechum.
It felt like a perpetration. It was a perpetration.
Oh, who was she kidding? She could never get away with this—not without guilt, not without consequences.
She’d tell Shug she couldn’t go, that it wasn’t right.
That would be the responsible thing. But some part of her, the part she tried to quiet, was already leaning forward.
Already wondering. A slow-drifting ache that she wanted to feed, not soothe.
Like a dare whispered against her ear, a stone she’d sworn not to turn but already felt her fingers reaching toward.
At Devilish Delights, Nonnie and Faye hawked lemon pound cakes to passersby.
The girls worked two at a time in hour-long shifts.
Trudy’s nerves begged her to tear into all the homemade cakes, pies, and pralines.
Nonnie’s mother had sewn everyone red taffeta capes.
Obliged to play the part, Trudy wore one along with the devil horns headband Faye had given her.
She bent over to grab two cakes out of a box under the table.
“Well, if it isn’t the devil herself,” Caroline Beaumont-Rickard’s distinct voice needled from behind.
Trudy bumped her head on the folding table, scattering jack-o-lantern sugar cookies wrapped in cellophane bags across the lawn. Her devil horns headband flopped down between her lips, and with both hands full, she was unable to right it, then dropped a whole German chocolate cake on the ground.
“Oh, I’m so sorry !” Caroline whined. “Trudy, darling, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Nonnie and Faye bent down to help. “Are you okay?” Faye asked.
“Fine, Faye. Thanks.” Trudy stood to face Caroline, remembering she’d still not made time to get that perm. She set the carrot cake down and pulled the devil horns out of her mouth. “Caroline! Nice to see you. Again.”
“Oh Trudy,” Caroline said. “Bless your little heart. Here, let me help with that.”
Trudy thought Caroline meant help with the cakes or pick up the strewn cookies. Instead, Caroline reached into her purse. “What does a German chocolate go for these days? Two tickets?”
“Three, actually,” Nonnie said.
“My goodness,” Caroline fiddled in her purse. “Prices just keep going up, don’t they? Reaganomics is going to kill us!” Caroline laughed and handed Nonnie three Booins tickets and took the cake from the table, a little smushed, but still secured in Saran wrap.
Caroline pointed to Nonnie and Faye. “I hope you girls enjoy this while you can. Time flies, doesn’t it, Trudy?”
Trudy forced a smile. “Faster than one might imagine.”
“Oh, I was so happy to learn that the festival was tonight. Eric’s in DC, otherwise, I might not have been able to come.
Oh, Trudy, isn’t it fascinating how smells bring back memories?
” Caroline gushed. “The kettle corn. The boiled peanuts. The cotton candy.” She relished a breath through her nose.
“Takes me right back. Why I was just talking to Prissy over at the ring toss and she reminded me of how we all dressed up like cops and robbers for our bake sale. Do you remember that?”
“Well, it was a long time ago.” Trudy knelt to gather the cookies.
“You wore a mustache; I remember that!” Caroline went on. “Girls, not to embarrass your sponsor here, but you should ask her about what happened right here in this very booth back in 1975.”
Faye and Nonnie looked at Trudy, eyes wide with interest.
“Tell us!” Faye said.
“Yeah, what happened?” Nonnie asked.
“Oh, I’m sure Caroline tells it much better than I do,” Trudy said. “So someday, when we aren’t so busy—”
“Well, girls, if you must know,” Caroline said. “It was right here in this very bake sale booth where Eric Rickard, who, as you know, is now my husband and works for Senator Heflin,” Caroline nodded every word as if speaking to kindergartners. “Well, he came to buy popcorn balls.”
Trudy rolled her eyes.
“Now, I had my heart absolutely set on Eric Rickard back then and had been in love with him ever since third grade. Everybody knew that, so when he came to buy those popcorn balls, I decided it was the perfect moment to ask him to escort me to the Starlets Gala. So, I took a deep breath, I took his two Booins tickets, and then I took my chance.”
Faye and Nonnie’s eyes of anticipation glanced from Caroline to Trudy, who kept fussing with confectionary jack-o-lanterns.
“Well, ain’t ya gonna tell us what happened?” Faye asked.
Caroline smiled. “It was right then and there that I learned Eric Rickard was already committed to escort a different starlet to the gala.” Caroline flicked her eyes in Trudy’s direction and then back to the girls.
Nonnie and Faye’s mouths gaped. “Miss Abernathy?” Nonnie said. “You stole her escort?”
Trudy moved on to straightening pies. “ Stole is a bit of an amplification. Especially since Eric is now happily Caroline’s husband.”
Caroline giggled. “I was so upset, the worst Booins Festival of my life. But to see how it all turned out. You never know, girls. Oh, we were so silly back then, weren’t we, Trudy?”
“Caroline,” Trudy said. “ Silly doesn’t seem to capture it, really, given what actually happened at the gala, now does it?”
“Trudy!” Caroline cackled. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know that was a horrible accident , why I’ve never forgiven myself to this day. Why would you be so silly and even bring that up?”
“I didn’t bring it up, you brought it—”
“What happened?” Faye and Nonnie asked in unified curiosity.
Trudy shook her head. “Another time, girls. We’ve got work to do.” Trudy handed a blueberry pie to Faye. “Enjoy your cake, Caroline.”
“Miss Maudie Tindall made it,” Faye said. “Her German chocolates are the best.”
“I’ll be right back, girls.” Trudy stepped past them out of the booth.
“Have a nice evening, Trudy,” Caroline called.
One would think being married to a senator’s aide would give Caroline more important things to do than attend the Booins Festival.
And wasn’t she just in town a month ago?
Trudy’s heart was pounding, and her chest felt tight.
There’d be more oxygen down by the river, so Trudy headed there.
The sun was at the end of its setting and the lights from the festival gave just enough of a glow for her to navigate the gravely path, the path hardly anyone knew about, but that led to a private, unlit part of Bailey Springs Park.
To Trudy, Caroline’s story wasn’t a cute tale about adolescent follies; it was the single moment that Trudy always came back to whenever she asked, “What if everything had been different?”
What if Trudy hadn’t let her mother manipulate her into asking Eric Rickard to escort her?
Trudy never even liked him; his escorting her had only been part of Leta Pearl’s plan to get elected.
(Though in the end, Leta Pearl’s was a short-lived candidacy once Trudy’s pregnancy soiled the Abernathy name.)
The shoddy chain-link fence was supposed to keep people from walking out on the old pier, the former boarding dock for the long-defunct Bailey County Ferry.
Jimmie had shown her how to breach it once.
In no time, Trudy was through and carefully made her way to the end of the pier, sitting with her back against one of the tall wooden pilings.
From the other side of the Tennessee River, the lights of Falconhead danced atop the water all the way across to where Trudy sat.
She could sway left or right, it didn’t matter, and those lights would pirouette relentlessly toward her, glimmering gaily on the surface a whole mile from their origin.
Falconhead looked so tiny, so insignificant and innocent in the distance, like a doll house.
She pulled in a breath, closed her eyes.
What if she hadn’t kissed Jimmie that night, and later, let him be the first to take all of her?
What if Jimmie had never gotten injured and had actually followed his dreams?
Would he be working for a senator now? Perhaps he’d be playing in the NFL.
But what if she’d never had Pete, that perfect angel born of such imperfect people?
A fish, or something, broke the surface in front of her. She opened her eyes but only caught the ripples lingering after the splash. A fish had just enjoyed its supper, she thought, while another life had just perished.
What if she went on that date with Shug? And what if that was another foolish mistake? She wished Miss Duffy really could see the future. She’d pay so many Booins tickets for that.
She exhaled slowly, placed the devil horns back on her head, felt around for errant strands of hair, stroked them back in place. It was too dark to see her watch, but it was probably time to go meet Leta Pearl and Pete.
Trudy braced one palm on the dock and started to rise when the metal gate rattled.
Her stomach dropped. The last thing she needed was a run-in with a raccoon—or worse, a skunk.
But the shapes stepping through weren’t animals.
Two human figures moved toward her, backlit by the festival lights.
She couldn’t make out their faces, only the outline of trouble.
Without thinking, she dropped down again, tucking herself between a piling and the old ferry ticket booth, hoping to disappear.
The two stumbled their way down the pier; she could see the orange leather sleeves of a Bruins letterman jacket, one of which was wrapped around someone wearing devil horns and a cape, a cheerleader.
She felt the pier tremble and sway as she watched them through a sliver of a view between the piling and the booth’s corner.
Then the moonlight swiped June Bug’s face.