That’s right, I thought. You should be nervous.
I smiled, and College Boy increased the distance between us, moving from the magazine display to the manga rack. I knew then that I’d shoved my shame down deep enough that I could function without bursting into tears. I knew, too, that he wished he hadn’t gone off on me. I could read it in his face. But too bad.
I went over to him. My heart pounded.
“You owe me an apology,” I informed him.
“What?” he said, startled.
“I said you owe me an apology.” I flicked my hair out of my eyes, which were a tawny brown like my mother’s. They gave people pause if they got a good look at them, and College Boy got a good look at them now. “For what you called me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” College Boy said. Gone was his attitude, whatever that had been about, and in its place was . . . I wasn’t sure what. Remorse?
It threw me off balance, but only for a moment.
“Let me refresh your memory,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “You called me a mountain nigger. Now do you remember?”
Heads turned in our direction. Lots of heads, all with shocked expressions. A young mother over by the picture books grabbed her toddler and hustled him away.
Aware of our audience, I held out my arm and twisted it to show both sides. “I’m actually white, but I guess you’re too stupid to notice?”
College Boy turned as red as the tomatoes in my garden. “W-wait,” he stammered. “No. I just . . .” His eyes darted from one glaring patron to another. “I never said that.”
“You never called me a mountain nigger?” I said, making the library patrons bristle again. Every one of them was as white as I was, because there just weren’t any black people in Toomsboro. But for the most part, these were educated townies, and they didn’t like that word any more than I did.
“Um, yeah, you did,” I said. “It was after I asked you not to cuss at the computer table, and you got mad and told me to mind my own business.”
“What? I didn’t—“
“And then you said you had one special word just for me,” I went on, wanting the people to hear me and not him. “Is it coming back to you? How you leaned down and called me a . . .”
I broke off, because the little hairs on my arms were telling me I’d pressed my luck far enough. Plus, Miz Hetty was out from behind her desk and striding over.
I swallowed. “Well, I’m not going to say it,” I said, even though I already had. Twice. “But actually, it was two words. You really are stupid, aren’t you?”
College Boy looked scared. I thought, Ha. See how it feels? Only it gave me less pleasure than I’d expected.
Miz Hetty reached us, and College Boy’s throat worked. He grabbed a graphic novel from the rack and held it in front of him, as if it would protect him. Fruit Basket, it was called.
“Cat?” Miz Hetty said.
All at once, I wondered what I was doing. I hoped Mama Sweetie wasn’t watching from heaven, because I knew she’d be disappointed.
I covered my face with my hands. My adrenaline drained out of me, and I was just a girl, and it was time to stop. Guys like Tommy, guys like the idiot college boy I’d been so busy humiliating, they did whatever they wanted. I knew that. They said nasty things, and they hurt people, and they never stopped.
But I didn’t want to be like them. I wanted to be like Mama Sweetie.
I dropped my hands. Every single person in the library was staring, and my need for vengeance just . . . died.
“Cat,” Miz Hetty repeated.
I looked at the college boy, who’d gone pale beneath his tan. I clenched my hands to still their trembling.
“You are what you are, and I am what I am,” I said. “And maybe I am a hillbilly or a hick or whatever, but I would never use the word you said. Not if a person was white or black.”
My voice shook just as it did when I first addressed him. This time he didn’t smirk.
“I think you should leave,” Miz Hetty told him.
The college boy looked at me. His lips parted, and he struggled for words. “Listen,” he said. “I, um . . . I really didn’t . . .”
“I think you should leave now,” Miz Hetty said.
He nodded, defeated. He returned the graphic novel carefully to its rack and walked out of the library. I watched him the whole way, confused by what I was feeling. He didn’t look back.
I left not long after, and on the bus ride home, I wondered at what I’d done. It was almost as if a different person had taken over my body—except, was saying that a cop-out? I hadn’t been “possessed,” after all. Not by an angel or a demon. Maybe there were aspects of both inside me, but I was the one who chose which to let out.
I truly was a different person now than when I was a kid, however. When I was a kid, I was curious and fearless, and the two qualities were twined together like ivy. I drove Aunt Tildy crazy with “all that wildness,” as she put it, and in the summer, when I didn’t have school to keep me out of her hair, she would shoo me out of the house as soon as my chores were done. She forbade me to come back till she called Christian and me in for dinner.
But what if I stepped on a rattlesnake? I’d asked. What if a dog bit me, and it had rabies and was foaming from the mouth? What if I saw a baby floating down the creek in a basket made of woven reeds, like little baby Moses?
“No,” she said to all of those. “You can only come in the house if you’re bleeding, and I’m not talking about a scratch from picking blackberries. If you come bothering me, you better have a whole cup full of blood. And now that I’m thinking about it, if you’re bleeding that much, don’t you dare come in the house. Just stay on the porch and holler for me.”
Mama Sweetie, on the other hand, gave me another way to look at myself. She said God had blessed me with an abundance of spirit, and not to ever squash it down. She said there was goodness in everything and everyone, and that it was our job to let that goodness shine out.
“A person does on occasion lose his way,” she warned Patrick and me. “We all have our trials. But I’m gonna tell y’all something, something I want you to remember. Can y’all do that for Mama Sweetie?”
“Yes, ma’am,” we chorused, giggling and making eyes at each other.
She knew she was being teased, but she didn’t mind. She wagged her finger and said, “God loves you even on your blackest days, and He will always, always be there to guide you home. All you have to do is look for the light of His love. As long as you remember that one thing, why, then you can cast off the darkness and shine again, can’t you?”
I used to believe her. Then, for a while, I stopped. I guess I lost my way.
I wasn’t sure I’d found it again, as I hadn’t acted . . . exactly . . . shiny at the library. Yes, I was right to defend myself, but I’d gone too far.
Even so, I was proud of myself for taking action at all. I didn’t hide or run away or pretend the ugliness didn’t happen. I stood up and said something that was true. I said it out loud, and by doing so, I was standing up for lots of people, not just me.
I wondered—and again, I wasn’t sure—but I wondered if a bit of God’s light was maybe back inside me. If so, it was a dove that might at any moment fly away. But for now, here it was: soft and wondrous in the branches of my soul.
TEN DAYS HAD GONE BY SINCE PATRICK WAS attacked, and the police were no closer to finding Patrick’s assailant than when they started. When I was at the library, I read on the Internet that the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation had been brought in, since it was a case of “ethnic intimidation.” I didn’t see how it was ethnic, as Patrick was gay, not black or Hispanic or whatever. But because Patrick was gay, that made the attack against him a hate crime. I gathered that was the bigger point.
A reporter from Toomsboro interviewed Sheriff Doyle about the NCBI’s involvement, and Sheriff Doyle said it was because ethnic intimidation cases got more attention than regular
old beatings.
Those were his exact words, by the way. As if “regular” beatings happened all the time.
In the article, Sheriff Doyle also reported that the pump nozzle was wiped clean of fingerprints, the handwriting analysis of the message scrawled on Patrick’s chest showed nothing, and that the weapon Patrick was hit with seemed to be a baseball bat, same as they first determined. Baseball bats didn’t leave many traces for the forensics team to go after. All paths led to dead ends, according to Sheriff Doyle.
But there was one path the sheriff hadn’t gone down, and I reckoned I knew why. I reckoned it would be tricky to bring Tommy Lawson in for questioning while at the same time bowing and scraping to Tommy’s daddy, who funded Sheriff Doyle’s election campaign. There was surely no conflict of interest in Sheriff Doyle questioning Tommy now, was there?
The thought of questioning Tommy myself made me feel sick. There was someone I could question about Tommy, however. Destiny Cooper. Destiny dated Tommy for two years, meaning that for two years she’d been one of the girl members of the redneck posse.
She and Tommy only broke up this past April, and for all I knew they were still in touch, so I hoped she might have some dirt on him and would welcome the chance to vent.
Since I had no legitimate reason to go to Destiny’s, I tried to think of a cover. The best I could come up with was that I was collecting donations for UNICEF, like we did on Halloween when we were kids.
Destiny was surprised to see me, to put it mildly. Her eyes opened so wide I could see each and every fleck of mascara on her lashes. Then her expression turned guarded.
“What do you want?” she said, holding tight to the doorknob. Behind her, I saw dark colors, low ceilings, and stacks and stacks of all sorts of things, from sewing patterns to old newspapers to sloppily folded clothes.
And hi to you, too, I thought. “I’m, um, here to see if you—“
“Nuh-uh, no way,” she said, with a talk-to-the-hand gesture. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it. Whatever you’re collecting for, I ain’t giving. So bye-bye.”
She started to shut the door. I jammed my foot inside.
“Destiny. I’m not selling anything. I just thought it would be nice to come over and say hey.”
“Is that so,” she said dryly. It wasn’t a question. It was her way of saying, Oh sure, and next you’re going to pull out a check the size of a billboard and tell me I’ve won the lottery.
“Fine. I want to talk about Tommy,” I admitted.
“Girl, that boy’s nothing but a hot mess. What’re you interested in him for?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I know full well that Tommy’s a jerk. That’s what I want to talk about.”
“Oh,” she said. She pooched out her bottom lip, which was red and shiny with lip gloss. “Well, come on then.”
She led me into the living room, where we sat on an overstuffed mauve sofa. I could smell cat pee on it, or maybe the odor came from the carpet, which was filthy. Rubbed out cigarette butts had streaked entire areas gray. Destiny’s parents weren’t home, and she told me she was leaving to meet up with friends in just a bit.
“So make it quick,” she said.
I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Then said, “I don’t like Tommy.”
Destiny looked at me as if to say, Really? That’s all you’ve got? She stifled a yawn. Her fingernails were hot pink.
“But you know him better than I do,” I said. “So I’m curious what your thoughts are.”
“On what?” she said. “On how Tommy and all his kin think they’re God’s gift to creation, and the rest of us are just using up air?”
I appreciated the sentiment, especially coming from her. In her miniskirt and tight pink T-shirt, she was as different from the Lawsons as she could be. Her blond hair was teased and big, and pink cowboy boots finished the look.
“I hear you,” I said. “But, I was actually talking more about the hate crime.”
She cocked her head. Her left earring, long and sparkly with multiple strands of cut crystals, got caught in her hair.
“What happened to Patrick?” I prompted.
“Ohhhh, ” she said. She untangled her earring and adjusted her features to show she was with me. “At the Come ‘n’ Go. Right. It sure was the talk of the town, wasn’t it?”
Was the talk of the town? She was as bad as the easily bored reporters.
“When I heard about it, I was like, for real?” Destiny said. “What kind of monster would do that?”
“Exactly. I’m not saying Tommy had anything to do with it, but—“
“Whoa,” she said. “Tommy’s a dick, but he ain’t that kind of dick.”
“I know,” I lied. “I know. I’m just trying to find out everything I can, because he’s a really good friend of mine. Patrick, I mean.”
She took my words at face value as far as I could tell. Destiny was two years older than me. She didn’t have the slightest interest in my social life, and she certainly didn’t keep up with who I did or didn’t hang out with.
“What do you want to know?” she said.
“Patrick was with Tommy the night it happened. Tommy and my brother. Some other people, too.”
“Like who?”
“Um . . . Dupree, for one.”
“Mama’s boy,” Destiny said scornfully. “Pretends to be Mr. Big Bad Businessman, but he’d wet his pants if his mama found out what he was up to.”
“Making sandwiches?” I said. “I’d hardly call him a businessman.”
She twitched her lips like I was such a dumb bunny. “If that’s what you want to think, go right ahead.”
“I don’t want to think it,” I said. “I think it because it’s true. Dupree works at Huskers with Beef.”
“Day job,” she said breezily. Then she switched gears. “I’m not saying I’d throw him out of my bed or nothing. He’s got it going on with that lazy smile and those eyes of his. He ain’t the marrying type, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Ah . . . okay.”
“That mama of his—you seen how fat she’s gotten? Makes me want to puke. But no woman’s ever gonna take the place of Dupree’s mama, so don’t bother trying.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I said.
Destiny laughed. She crossed her legs and said, “Who else?”
I frowned.
“At the party,” she said. “The night Patrick was beat up. Ain’t that what you want to talk about?”
“Oh. I’m not sure it was a party, exactly. But that was mainly it: Tommy, Dupree, Beef, Christian, and Patrick.”
“No girls?”
“Oh yeah. And Bailee-Ann.”
She made a face. “Watch out for that one. Little cock tease, that’s what she is. Tried to steal Tommy from me back when me and him first got together. You know that?”
“Well, she’s with Beef now, so . . . yeah.”
“I know she’s with Beef now. I’m just saying watch out.”
“Um, okay,” I said. “But back to Tommy. I saw him at church, and guess what? He cussed at me even though his grandmother was standing right there.”
“Lord,” Destiny said, rolling her eyes. “That woman.”
“You don’t like her?”
“Does anyone like her?”
Good point.
“Ever wonder why the Lawsons stay in this Podunk town when they’ve got enough money to live anywhere they want?” Destiny asked.
“Why?”
“Because she refuses to move, that’s why. Tommy’s daddy is none too pleased about it, believe me. Like, one time Tommy’s daddy decided to take his mother to Asheville for a fancy meal, right?”
I nodded to keep her going.
“Me and Tommy went along. I wore a dress and heels and everything. And afterward, we were going to look at houses. ‘Just to see,’ Tommy’s daddy said.” Destiny dropped her voice. “I’m pretty sure Mr. Lawson had a retirement home in mind, so he could get her nice and put away
.”
“What went wrong?”
“Well,” she said. “We got to the restaurant, and they had cloth napkins and special glasses for water and little pats of butter in the shape of seashells.”
“Seashells?”
“I know. It was classy. We ordered our meals, but when the waitress brought ‘em over, old Mrs. Lawson had a cow.”
“What did she do?”
“She was all, ‘Where is my cornbread?’”
My lips twitched, because Mrs. Lawson sure did love fussing. As Aunt Tildy said, she’d complain if Jesus Christ came down Himself and handed her a five-dollar bill.
“The waitress said they’d run out of cornbread, but that they had absolutely delicious homemade yeast rolls,” Destiny said. “But nuh-uh, Mrs. Lawson wouldn’t have nothing of it.”
“Let me guess. She’d ordered green beans for one of her sides,” I filled in. My aunt Tildy followed the rules about what made a proper meal, and she would sooner do a hula dance in her underwear than put a dish of green beans on her table without a cake of cornbread to keep it company.
“‘Ronald, I would like to leave,’” Destiny said, adopting Mrs. Lawson’s snooty tone. “‘Immediately, Ronald.’”
Destiny uncrossed her legs and recrossed them the other direction. Her pink cowboy boots caught her attention, and she leaned over and rubbed at a scuff mark.
“These are the wrong shoes, aren’t they?” she said.
I felt myself frown. “Uh. . .”
“So wrong,” she pronounced, springing up from the couch. “Am I going to a rodeo? No.”
She headed out of the living room. “So anyway,” she called over her shoulder, “the whole ride back, she went on about how she grew up in Black Creek and she’d die in Black Creek. She also mentioned how tacky our waitress was, how the iced tea wasn’t sweet enough, and how the air-conditioning was turned up too high, if you can believe that.”
Her voice was fading. I could make out the words, but it was strange holding a conversation from different rooms. Were we holding a conversation?
“Hey!” Destiny said, louder. I leaned back against the sofa and craned my neck to see Destiny standing in the door of what I assumed was her bedroom. She had one hand on each side of the doorframe. When our eyes met, she let go with one hand and made an impatient come-here gesture. “What’s the problem? You gonna just sit there?”