Dark Angel

  Then I was there, at the head of the line, and Pa was looking down at me. "Why, a young thing like you doesn't need to hide her light under a bushel," he cried, and swooping to lean over, he tugged at the blue silk scarf, and my hat came off. Our faces were only inches apart.

  I heard his sharp intake of breath.

  I saw his shock. For a moment he seemed speechless, paralyzed. And then he smiled. He handed me my hat with its attached dangling blue silk. "Now," he boomed for all to hear, "that's the kind of beautiful face that should never be put in the shade . . ." and with that I was dismissed.

  How quickly he could cover surprise! Why couldn't I? My knees went weak, my legs shaky; I wanted to scream and berate him and let these trusting people know just what kind of evil monster he was! Instead I was shoved along, ordered to hurry, and before I knew what was happening, I was seated on a bleacher bench, and my own brother Tom was grinning at me. "Wow, that was something, the way Pa took off your hat. Without a hat you wouldn't have pulled his attention nearly as much . . . please, Heavenly, stop looking like that! There's no need to tremble. He can't hurt you, he wouldn't hurt you." Briefly he hugged me against his chest, just as he used to do when I panicked. "There's somebody behind you who's dying to say hello," he whispered.

  My hands, heavy with all the rings I'd worn to impress Pa, rose to my throat, as slowly I turned to meet the faded blue eyes of a wizened old man. Grandpa!

  Grandpa dressed as I'd never seen him before, in summer sports clothes; with hard, white, summer shoes on his feet. His watery, bewildered eyes swam with tears. Obviously, from the way he kept staring at me, he was trying to place me in his thoughts, and while he did that, I saw that he'd gained weight. Healthy color flushed his cheeks.

  "Oh," he cried finally, having pushed the right buttons, "it's chile Heaven! She's done come back to us! Just like she said she would! Annie," he whispered, giving the air next to him an elbow nudge, "don't she look good, don't she, Annie?" His arm went out as if to embrace the Annie who'd been at his right arm for so many years, and it hurt, really hurt to think that he couldn't live without his fantasy that she was still alive. I threw my arms about his neck, and pressed my lips on his cheek.

  "Oh, Grandpa, it's so good to see you again, so good!"

  "Ya should hug yer granny first, chile, ya should," he admonished.

  Dutifully I gave the shade of my dead granny a hug, and I kissed the air where her cheek might have been, and I sobbed for all that had been lost, and sobbed some more for all that had to be gained. How did I grab at air and convince stubbornness and pride such as all Casteels had, and bring Tom to his senses?

  The rinky-dink circus life was no place for Tom, especially when I had more than enough money at my disposal to see him through college. As I stared at my grandfather, I thought I saw a weak spot in Tom's armor of hillbilly pride.

  "Are you still lonesome for the hills, Grandpa?" I shouldn't nave asked.

  His pathetic old face lost all its glow. Wistful grief smeared his good health and he seemed to shrink.

  "Ain't no betta place t'be, than there, where we belong. Annie says that all t'time . . take me back t'my place. Back t'where we belong."

  Sixteen Dream Chasers

  . I DROVE AWAY FROM TOM AND GRANDPA FEELING frustrated, angry, and determined now to save Fanny from the worst in herself, since I couldn't save anyone else. Loosely contained in Grandpa's pants pocket was a wad of bills he hadn't even bothered to count. "You give this- to Tom after I'm gone," I'd instructed. "You make him take it, and use it for his future." But the Lord above was the only one who would know exactly what a senile old man would do with so much money.

  And once more I flew, westward to Nashville where Fanny had moved the day after she sold her baby to Reverend Wayland Wise and his wife. Once in the city, I gave a cab driver Fanny's address, then leaned back and closed my eyes. Defeat seemed all around me, and there was nothing I could do right. Troy was the only safe harbor in sight, and achingly I longed for his strength beside me; yet this was something I had to do alone. I could never allow Fanny into my private life, never.

  It was sultry and hot in Nashville, which appeared quaint and very pretty. Storm clouds hovered overhead as my cab cruised down pretty, tree-lined streets, past old-fashioned, gingerbread Victorian houses, and some modern mansions that were breathtakingly beautiful. However, when the cab parked before the address I'd given, the four-storied house that might once have been genteel was rundown, with peeling paint and sagging blinds, as was every house in what had to be one of the worst areas of this famous city.

  My heels clicked on the sagging steps, causing several young people sprawled on porch chairs and swings to lazily turn their heads and stare my way. "Great balls of fire," breathed one good-looking young man wearing jeans and nothing on his sweaty chest. He jumped to his feet and bowed my way mockingly. "Look at what's come to call! High society!"

  "I am Heaven Casteel," I began, trying not to feel intimidated by seven sets of eyes staring at me with what seemed hostility. "Fanny Louisa is my sister."

  "Yeah," said the same young man who had jumped up, "I recognize you from the pictures she's always showing of her rich sister who never sends her any money."

  I blanched. Fanny had never written to me! If she had photographs they had to be ones that I'd mailed first to Tom. And for the first time I thought that maybe Tony had deliberately kept from me any correspondence he thought unnecessary. "Is Fanny here?"

  "Naw," drawled a pretty blond girl in shorts and a halter top, a cigarette dangling from her full, red lips, "Fanny thinks she's got a hot lead that should have been mine--but she won't make it. She can't sing or act or dance worth a hoot. I'm not worried at all that tomorrow they'll audition me."

  It was like Fanny to try and beat someone out of a job, but I didn't say that. I had called Fanny in advance to tell her what time I would be arriving, and still she wasn't polite enough to wait. My expression must have shown my disappointment.

  "She was so excited I guess she just forgot you were coming," explained another nice-looking young man who had already stated I didn't talk like Fanny's sister.

  By this time a crowd of young people had formed around me on the porch to gape and stare, and it was with relief that I finally escaped, driven inside by a sudden roll of thunder. "Room 404," a girl named Rosemary shouted.

  The rain that had threatened began to slice down as I entered Fanny's unlocked door. It was a small but fairly nice room. Or it could have been nice if Fanny had bothered-to pick up her clothes, and dust and run the vacuum once in a while. Quickly I set about making her bed with the clean sheets I found in a drawer. When I had the room in fairly good order, I sat in the one chair near the window, staring blindly out at the storm, and thought about Troy, about Tom, about Keith and Our Jane, and that was enough to put rain on my face. How young and stupid I was to live and feed on emotions of the past, allowing the richness and beauty of life to pass me by because I couldn't control fate and the lives of others. I'd take from now on what was offered and forget the past. No one was suffering more than I was, not even Fanny.

  My hands rose to press against my throbbing forehead. The lull of the rain and the thunder and lightning through the open window sent me into light sleep. Troy and I were running side by side in the clouds, fighting mists of steam and five old men who were chasing us. "You run on," ordered Troy, shoving me forward, "and I'll divert them by running in another direction."

  No! No! I screamed in my mute dream voice. And those five old men weren't diverted. They followed where he ran, not where I did!

  I bolted awake.

  The rain had freshened and cooled the room that had been unbearably stuffy. The dusty shadows of late afternoon enhanced the view, turning the old houses with their fancy porches and verandas softly romantic. I felt disoriented as I stared around the small room with its cheap furnishings. Where was I?

  Before I could decide, the door burst open. Dripping wet and complaining
loudly to herself about the weather and the loss of her last pocket change, my sister Fanny, age sixteen, hurtled across the narrow space that separated us and threw herself into my arms.

  "Heaven, it's ya! Ya really did come! Ya do kerr 'bout me!" One swift embrace, one peck on my cheek, and she shoved away, to stare down at herself. "Damn rain done gone an messed up my best outfit!" Fanny turned to yank off her sodden red dress before she fell into a chair and tugged off her black, midcalf plastic boots that were beaded with water. "Damned if my feet don't hurt clear up t'my waist."

  I froze. Kitty flashed before my eyes. Often she'd used those words, but then, all hill and valley people in the Willies used more or less the same expressions.

  "Damned agent hurries me out of here when I planned t'stay an wait fer ya t'show up, and when I get there all they want me t'do is 'read.' I already told 'em I kin't read good yet. I want a dancin' part or a singin' role! But they don't give me nothin' but bit parts without lines . . an' I been poundin' these sidewalks fer almost half a year or more!"

  Fanny had always been able to discard her frustration like a garment easy to rip off, and she did that now. Flashing my way her brilliant smile that revealed small, white, even teeth, she turned on her charm. Oh, the lucky Casteel children born with their healthy teeth!

  "Ya bring me somethin? Did ya? Tom done wrote an said ya got tons of money t'waste, and ya sent him lots of Christmas gifts, an gifts t'Grandpa. Why Grandpa don't need no money! no gifts! I'm t'one who needs all ya kin spare!"

  She had grown thinner and prettier since the last time I saw her, seemingly taller, or perhaps her height was only exaggerated by the tight, black slip she wore, so she resembled a shapely pencil. Her black hair lay in long wet strands on her head, but even wet and disheveled she was still striking enough to turn many a man's eye.

  I was confused in my feelings about her--loving her because she was blood kin, feeling I had to love her and take care of her.

  The eager greed in her dark eyes repelled me as one by one I took from the large leather shopping bag the gifts I'd brought her. Even before I had the last box from the bag she was ripping open the first gift that she'd seized, heedless of the beautiful and expensive wrappings and ribbons, heedless of anything but what was inside. Fanny squealed when she saw the scarlet dress.

  "Oh, oh! Ya brought me jus' what I need fer t'party I'm goin ta next week! A red dancin' dress!"

  Tossing the dress aside she ripped into her second present, her squeals rising and falling in the excitement of discovering the scarlet evening bag decorated with wide bands of rhinestones. The red satin slippers were a bit too small, but somehow she managed to jam her feet inside, and her beautiful, exotic face wore a rapt expression when finally she pulled out the white fox stole. "All this ya bought fer me? My own new fur? Oh, Heaven, I neva thought ya liked me, an ya do! Ya'd have t'love me t'give me so much."

  Then, I guess for the first time, she really saw me. Her black eyes narrowed until the whites were only glimmers between her heavily lashed lids. I had changed a great deal, my mirrors told me that. The beauty that had been but slight when I lived in the hills had intensified, and a clever hairstylist had worked miracles that flattered my face. My expensive dress clung to ripe curves fitted neatly onto a slender body, and I knew as she looked me over that I had dressed with particular care for this meeting with my sister.

  Her dark eyes skimmed down over my body to my shoes, back to my face. She drew in her breath, making a whistling sound. "Well, looky here, my olemaid sister done gone an made herself sexy lookin'."

  Hot, embarrassed blood flooded my face. "We don't live in the hills anymore. Girls in Boston don't marry at twelve, thirteen, or fourteen. You could hardly call me an old maid."

  "Ya talk funny," she stated, open hostility in her eyes now. "All ya brought me is thins! When ya sent Grandpa money, an he's got no place t'spend it!"

  "Look in your purse, Fanny."

  Again squealing with delight, she yanked open the delicate small purse that had cost two hundred dollars, and she stared at the ten one-hundred-dollar bills as if she expected more. "Oh, Jesus Christ on t'cross," she breathed, busily counting, "look what ya done gone an' did . . . saved my life. Was broke . . . had me only enough left to finish out this week." She looked up, her dark eyes sparked with red highlights from the dress. "Thank ya, Heaven."

  She smiled, and when Fanny smiled her white teeth flashed brilliantly in contrast to her Indian coloring. "Go on now, ya tell me what ya been doin' in ole bean town, where,' hear all t'ladies wear blue stockins an t'men are hotter fer politics than they are fer screwin'!"

  I was a fool that day--careless, forgetful of just what kind of girl Fanny was.

  Maybe it was because for the first time in her life Fanny really listened attentively to me. And only when it was too late did I falter and curse myself for revealing much that I should have kept secret, especially from Fanny.

  By the time I came to my senses, she was curled up on the bed wearing nothing but her black panties and her front-hook bra that she kept

  unfastening, then automatically fastening. "Now let me get this queer thin' straight--yer grandma Jillian is sixty-one years ole an looks young? What kind of air they got up there anyway?"

  The sharpness in her eyes gave me sanity again, and put me on guard. "Tell me what you've been doing," I hastily said. "What do you hear about your baby?"

  Apparently I'd chosen the right topic of diversion. She lit into the subject with a vengeance. "Ole lady Wise sends me snapshots of my baby all t'time. They call her Darcy. Ain't that some pretty name though? She's got black hair . . . oh, gosh, she's some pretty thin'," and then she was jumping up and pawing through a drawer scrambled with clothes, and from a large brown envelope she pulled out twenty or more snapshots showing a baby girl in various stages of development. "Ya sure kin tell who her ma is, kin't ya?" Fanny asked proudly. "Of course she's got some of Waysie, too. Not much, but some."

  Waysie? I smiled to think of the good Reverend called "Waysie." But Fanny didn't exaggerate. The little girl I gazed at was a beautiful child. It stunned me that a baby born from such an unholy union would turn out so well. "She's beautiful, Fanny, truly beautiful, and as you said, she has inherited the best of your features, and her father's."

  Dramatically Fanny's face distorted. She threw herself on the bed she'd rumpled, crushing her new red dress and shoes and purse that she'd left there, and she began to wail and cry, beating at the cheap pillows with both fists.

  "It ain't no good here, Heaven! Ain't at all like I thought it'd be when I were a youngun in t'hills! Those directors an' producers at t'Opry like my looks an' hate my voice! They tell me t'go an take voice lessons, an go back t'school, an learn how t'talk, or betta yet, they tell me t'study dancin' so I don't have ta say nothin' ! I went one day an took a lesson t'learn grace like they said I had t'have, an it hurt so bad stretching my muscles I neva went back! I thought all ya had t'know how t'do was kick high, an ya know I've been kicking high all my life! An my singin' voice makes 'em screw up their faces like it hurts their ears. They say I got too much twang! I thought country singers couldn't have too much of anythin'! Heaven, they say I've got a great face an body, but I'm only a mediocre talent-- what do they mean by that? If I'm medium bad, that means I'm medium good an' I could get betta!

  "But I don't want it no more! It hurts t'hear 'em laugh at me. An' now all my money is gone. It went so fast once I got used t'spendin it. I used t'sleep on top of it. Fraid somebody'd take it. Iffen ya hadn't come I'd have me only fifteen dollars t'finish out t'week, an then I were plannin' on hittin' t'streets an' peddlin' my wares." -

  Her eyes flicked my way to notice my reaction, and when she saw none, she flipped over and used her fists to grind away her tears. And like a switch had been pushed, her tears fled, and her look of frustrated depression disappeared. She smiled again. A wicked, hateful smile.

  "Ya smell rich now, Heaven. Ya truly do. Bet that perfume yer wearin' cost p
lenty. An' I neva saw such soft-lookin' leather as that yer purse an' shoes are made of. Bet ya got ten fur coats! Bet ya got hundreds of dresses, thousands of shoes, millions of dollars t'waste! An' ya come bearing gifts that cost real dough. An' ya don't really like me, not like ya do Tom. Yer sittin' there feelin' sorry fer me cause I kin't cut t'mustard when ya done snatched t'whole jar! Look at my room, an' think of where ya jus came from. Oh, I done heard from Tom all t'stuff yer not tellin' me. Ya got everythin' up there in that mansion that's got fifty rooms an eighteen bathrooms, an Lord knows what ya do with all of 'em! Ya got three rooms all yer own, wid four closets full of clothes an' handbags an' shoes, jewels an' furs, an' college comin' up, too. Me, I got nothin' but sore feet an' resentments fer this whole damned city that don't know how t'be kind!"

  Again her fists rubbed ruthlessly at her eyes until the flesh around them turned red and bruisedlooking. "An ya got goody-two-shoes Logan Stonewall fer good measure! I guess it neva crossed yer stupid brain I might have wanted Logan fer myself. Ya went an took him away from me, an' I hate ya fer that! Every time I think of what ya did erne, I hate ya! Even when I miss ya, I hate ya! An' it's time ya did somethin' fer me 'sides givin' me a handful of measly bills that don't mean anythin' to ya anyway! It's all ova ya now, ya kin give ten one-hundred-dollar bills cause ya got plenty more where they come from!"