Chapter 25 #3
His car was parked on a side street that was, at this hour, in full sun.
When I got in, the hot brown leather cooked the back of my thighs.
I lifted the left one, then the right to cool them off, breathing in the smell—what was it about this car?
As he walked around to the driver’s side, I wondered if he’d ever had S-E-X in here.
Right on this seat because I was pretty sure I could feel him through the back of my dress.
He got in and rolled his window down, reaching across me to roll mine down too. “Sorry it’s so hot.”
“It’s good—it’s fine.”
As he drove toward the college, I told him the latest, that Mrs. Tartt and Frances had gone to Jackson to look for Rory.
Like them, he thought it was worth looking for Rory, but like me and Charlie, he didn’t think there was much chance of finding a man who didn’t want to be found.
We went around a curve, and the Ole Miss campus loomed up ahead.
“You ever been to the university?” he asked.
I told him I had not. They’d cut down most of their trees on this side of campus so the lawns were vast and low-clipped, yellowing since it’d been over a month without rain.
New white sidewalks lined the road and traveled through the empty grounds.
A birdless, queer stillness had settled over the campus.
I counted a total of four young men in white shirts and long dark ties on the white sidewalks.
But it gave the feeling that something was coming, like I’d had watching Mr. Will Lewis clean the windows at Neilson’s.
Everybody said this would be a very different place soon.
We passed a row of brick buildings, each with a sign stuck in the grass with names I’d seen in the paper. Folks Mr. and Mrs. Tartt had probably eaten supper with: Vardaman, Longstreet, Hill, Barr, Falkner, maybe a dozen of them.
“Those are the men’s dormitories,” Jack said.
“And that’s the Lyceum.” He pointed to a tremendous brick building ahead with beveled columns and a clock mounted in the portico.
“I took a tour here in high school, even though my family could nowhere near afford it.” He laughed.
“I think it cost all of forty dollars back then. And those little buildings there,” he said, pointing down a lane, “are the girls’ dormitories.
” There were only three to the boys’ dozen or so.
It was as Charlie’d said: not enough girls for all those boys.
Jack turned again and slowed down in front of a low storefront.
“Maybe … this isn’t the best place to talk.
” We could hear the music inside, a jumpy song with a horn and a rowdy piano.
Jack parked the car anyway but left the engine running.
I could feel the vibration on the back of my legs. He turned and looked at me.
“I—” He stopped and looked down at the seat between us. “The other day, you asked me why I hadn’t told you about the divorce.” He thought about it some more. “I guess the obvious reason is … I was afraid it would scare you off.”
“Oh, it still might,” I said.
He nodded, like he’d expected as much. “I also have a sixteen-year-old son.”
“I know,” I said.
He faced front again, looking somber. Thing was, we’d been to one lunch and a picture show, and at two in the afternoon at that, but something had happened in that time.
I’d let myself hope for something with Jack I’d been told I would probably never have.
And by something, I didn’t mean a dime-store romance or even anything to do with the sordid longing between my legs.
It was something about a person saying, like it was actually good news, you’re not like anybody I’ve ever met before.
I’d been waiting my whole life to hear that.
“Will you tell me why you’re ‘leaving each other’?”
“We just … we can’t seem to get along. We got married too young, we didn’t plan things right—” He stopped himself and turned off the ignition, and the vibration on the seat stopped. “I worked too much and was drinking. I quit two years ago.”
I put my fingers out and I counted. “So you’re a married banker with a child and you have a drinking problem? And you thought a divorce would scare me off?”
He reached over and took my hand. Heat slipped up my arm. “It gets worse.” At least he smiled when he said it.
“My mother said it usually does.” I’d told him about the Doris Report. “How much worse?”
“You’re leaving to go back home at some point and, like I said, I’ll be leaving for good.
And while I’m here, I’ll have to make trips back and forth to Jackson.
In fact, I’ll probably have to go in a few days.
” He looked doubtful. “This didn’t exactly help my marriage.
You think it’s something … you could work with? ”
He was very serious. I pretended to think it over. It felt almost comical. As if I had other options? “I think I can work with that,” I said. “But please, try to keep me interested.”
He squeezed my hand. “Oh I will. Now, come on, let’s go inside and dance.”
I didn’t know how to dance anything except the waltz, and I almost laughed at that since four miles from here I was supposedly opening a dance club.
On the sidewalk, the chalkboard sign read Mr. Binny and His Band of Brothers, 4:00 until 6:00 p.m. I wondered if that was Mr. Binny the driver.
Jack opened the door and it was dim and smoky inside and sure enough, there he was.
Short, wide Mr. Binny on a piano stool, sitting up straight and proper as he did in his taxicab, with his suit coat fanning out around him.
His three brothers looked even older than he was with little hair and skinny frames.
A few couples were slow-dancing now, while a handful of boys stood around the black-and-white-tiled floor, watching.
The rest sat in the shiny red banquettes, arms flung over the back, smoking cigarettes.
Jack walked me to the floor and put one hand on my waist and took my hand in his, and we danced a few steps.
It felt formal, right out of grammar school, though, aside from the musicians, we were definitely the oldest ones here.
Right away I smacked Jack’s foot with mine, and we both laughed.
After that we got better. Mr. Binny played “All of Me” and “Good Night Sweetheart” and “Just One More Chance,” and whenever I glanced up, Jack wasn’t looking down at me, which seemed better—surely something was wrong with a man who looked at me too much.
My leg grazed his and I felt drunk and sick and warm, being this close to him.
Toward the end of a song, the boys standing around us moved in closer.
They had on high-waisted trousers, their hair flopped over to the side.
They all looked cocky and rich to me. A chubby one with red spots on his face tapped the shoulder of a fellow who’d been dancing with a blond girl.
“No cuts, fatty,” the fellow snapped. The pimply-faced boy backed away, but he kept watching them, along with his friends.
It made me think of hyenas waiting for leftovers.
After what seemed like hardly ten minutes, Mr. Binny stopped playing and closed the case on his piano.
We both stood there a second in the silence and then, Jack leaned down and kissed me.
It was on the lips this time, his mouth very slightly open and—my God, it was good.
I leaned up closer to him, tugging him toward me until I heard one of the boys say, “Jeez, lady, let the man breathe.” We both pulled back.
He led me outside, where the light had turned a soft blue. It was after six. “Can I take you to dinner somewhere?” he asked.
My body was still vibrating from kissing him. I was ravenous.
“I’m sorry, I’m supposed to get home.” And just then I thought, What if this insane idea of Charlie’s actually works?
I felt a tug of hope, a wind sucking me in.
All those boys in there, standing around and cutting in on just one blond girl and one brunette.
There really weren’t enough girls to go around. “Another time?”
“I hope so,” he said.
The group of boys from the banquette walked out laughing, one wearing a funny leather cap with flaps over the ears like football players wore. I heard, “Oughta get a trip to Sweetwater ’fore the girls come back to school.” And another said, “You dirty dawg. Count me in.”
Sweetwater was where I’d sent the telegram to Flossy. I waited until we were driving up Lamar to ask, “That place in Sweetwater, is it a little rough around the edges?”
“You mean … Priscilla’s?” Jack asked. He sort of smiled, sort of frowned. “I reckon you could call it rough. But most folks call it worse than that.”
“How far is it?” I wondered.
“Mm, forty miles? It’s a pretty bad road to get there. Accidents in the paper all the time, boys driving up there drunk.” Jack glanced over at me. “For the record, I’ve never been there. And I don’t plan to, if that’s what’s got you asking.”
Worse than that, he’d said. “How seedy is this dance club?” I asked.
He laughed. “I don’t think … there’s much dancing going on out there. Or not the kind we just did.” He curved around the oak tree in the road, and though it was just us in the car, he leaned over and whispered in the direction of my ear, “Sweetwater is a …”
“Oh.” I laughed, embarrassed, and then embarrassed I was so embarrassed. But then a sticky, hot notion started rising up my throat. I felt my chest turn a warm, blotchy red. “There’s—really nothing else out there?”
He shook his head. “Only one reason to go to Sweetwater that I know of.”
He stopped in front of the house and turned off the car. Everything went still except for the ticking of the engine. My hands felt numb. When he got out and opened the car door for me, I felt like I was moving through water toward the house.