Breath of Scandal Page 11

  “Jade?” she echoed.

  “Jade. You know, Jade Sperry, your best friend.”

  “Yeah,” she said, her expression suddenly hostile. “What about her?”

  “Why has she been absent from school for so long? What’s wrong with her? Every time I call, her mother tells me she’s sick. Jade won’t talk to me at all. Is she that sick? Have you seen her?”

  “Not since last week,” she replied curtly. “If her mother says she’s sick, I guess she’s sick.”

  “You haven’t talked to Jade either?”

  “No.”

  “I can’t believe that, Donna Dee. You’re her best friend.”

  “Well, you’re her boyfriend. If she won’t talk to you, what makes you think she’d talk to me? Please, give me my keys. I’ve got to get home.” She extended her open palm; he ignored it.

  “Are you saying you’ve tried to talk to Jade and she refused?”

  Her small face was puckered with indecision and aggravation. “Listen, Gary, you’d just as well know that we had a falling out and are no longer speaking.”

  He regarded her with patent disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “I’m not.”

  “What caused this falling out?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say. Now please—” She reached for her keys, but he held them out of her reach. “Gary, give me my keys!”

  “Not until you tell me what the hell is going on!”

  Usually Gary was even-tempered. His current anger was a by-product of frustration and fear. For several days he had sensed that something was amiss. Classmates looked at him askance. Several whispered conversations had stopped the moment he had approached. Jade had a mysterious illness. Nothing had been normal since the day he had heard about his scholarship. Although he had nothing concrete to base it on, he had a strong premonition that his life had been tampered with.

  “What’s the matter with Jade?” he demanded.

  “If you want to know about Jade, ask her.” Donna Dee grabbed her keys before he had a chance to stop her.

  He did, however, reach through the open window and grab her arm. “Does it have anything to do with Neal?”

  Donna Dee’s head came around so quickly, her neck made a cracking sound. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Because he’s being particularly obnoxious. All of a sudden he’s treating me like a pal, except that he’s so phony, he’s transparent. It’s like he’s in on a joke that I don’t know about yet.”

  Anxiously, Donna Dee wet her lips. Her eyes darted furtively. She looked trapped, which gave Gary a sick feeling deep in his gut that his guess was right.

  “Does Neal’s sudden friendliness toward me have anything to do with Jade?”

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Donna Dee!”

  “I’ve gotta go.” She started her car and peeled out of the parking lot without looking back.

  “Dammit!”

  Gary ran to his car. He didn’t make a conscious decision to skip track practice that afternoon. He simply reacted to the compulsion to see Jade immediately. If he had to beat down her door, he was going to see her.

  * * *

  Jade recognized the sound of his car. Moving to the living-room window, she watched him jog up the front walk and rap twice on the door. Involuntarily, she moaned with yearning before composing her features and pulling open the door.

  “Jade!”

  “Hello, Gary.”

  A wide grin broke across his face. It was obvious that he was overjoyed and relieved to see her. “Besides looking wan and thin, you look normal.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know,” he said with chagrin. “Open, oozing lesions, maybe.”

  He grasped her by the upper arms and pulled her into a fierce hug. He seemed not to notice that she didn’t melt against him as she usually did.

  “You had me worried sick,” he whispered against her neck. “I’m glad to see that you’re all right.”

  She was the one to end the embrace. Backing up over the threshold, she invited him inside. He glanced guiltily over his shoulder. “Are you sure it’s okay, since your mother’s not here?”

  “It’s okay.” In light of the situation, breaking one of Velta’s ironclad rules was the least of Jade’s worries.

  Once she had closed the door, Gary again drew her against him and gazed at her hungrily. “What’s was wrong with you, Jade? You must’ve been real sick. Your mother said you were too sick to come to the telephone.”

  “That’s what I told her to tell you.” He looked at her quizzically. “Sit down, Gary.”

  Turning her back on him, she moved to a chair and sat down. When she looked up at him, it was apparent that he was at a loss over her lack of response. Jade was having difficulty dealing with it herself. Gary’s tender touch reminded her of others that hadn’t been tender. Although her brain knew that there was a vast difference, her body seemed unable to make the distinction between his caresses and the mauling it had received from her attackers. She should be grateful, she supposed. Without physical desire to contend with, what she had to do would be easier.

  He came forward, knelt in front of her chair, and clasped her folded hands tightly between his. “Jade, I don’t get it. What the hell is going on?”

  “What don’t you get?”

  “Any of it. Why haven’t you been at school? Why haven’t you talked to me?”

  “I’ve been sick.”

  “Too sick to come to the telephone and say hello?”

  She made her voice cool. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Gary.”

  “Oh, Jesus, no,” he whispered huskily. He lunged forward and buried his face in her lap, clutching handfuls of her quilted robe and twisting it between his fingers. “Do you have a fatal disease? Are you going to die?”

  Her heart broke. She couldn’t resist sliding her fingers up through his wavy brown hair. As though it had a life of its own, it twined around her fingers. Tenderly she caressed his scalp. A sob issued from his throat; it was an echo of the one she held back.

  Before she submitted to her heartache, she lifted his head. “It’s nothing like that. I’m not going to die.” He touched her face, skimming his fingertips over each feature. “It’s just that…” She made several false starts, then said, “I’ve been emotionally sick.”

  He repeated the words as though they belonged to another language. “Over what?”

  “I’ve been under too much pressure.”

  “From school?” He touched her hair, smoothing a strand away from her face. She resisted the impulse to rest her cheek in his palm. “That will let up now that we’ve got our scholarships. Hey! We haven’t even seen each other since we were notified. Congratulations.”

  “To you, too.”

  “How are we going to celebrate?” His eyes turned smoky as his hand moved down her chest to her breast. “I know how I’d like to.”

  “No!” she cried shrilly as she shrank from his touch. He was so startled that he was easily pushed aside as she left her chair. Her motions were jerky and disjointed, as though she had only recently learned to walk.

  “Jade?”

  She spun around and confronted him. He was regarding her with perplexity. “Don’t you understand what I’m trying to tell you? I’ve been under pressure about the scholarship, but other things, too. Primarily, us.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Dragging it out was only making it worse, she realized. There wasn’t a way to do this without inflicting wounds on him and herself. “You’re a smart fellow,” she said, deliberately giving her voice an impatient edge. “Can’t you read between the lines? Do I have to spell it out? Can’t you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”

  Gary came to his feet. He settled his hands on his narrow hips and cocked his head to one side. “Are you trying to break up?”

  “I… I think we need to take a break from each other, yes. Thing
s were going too far, getting out of hand. We need to pull back.”

  Gary’s arms fell to his sides. “I can’t believe this. Jade?” He moved toward her and tried to take her into his arms. She staved him off.

  “I can’t take any more of this sexual pressure from you, Gary.”

  “Like you haven’t been putting sexual pressure on me?” he shouted.

  “Of course! I know I have. That’s my point. It’s not healthy for either of us to keep building bonfires we can’t put out.”

  “Just a few weeks ago, you suggested that we start putting out the bonfires.”

  “I’ve changed my mind. We should wait, give ourselves plenty of time to make the correct decision.” Hastily, she licked her lips. “But even that’s not good enough. We need to date other people. We’ve gone steady ever since we were old enough to date. I want you to… to start dating other girls.”

  For several moments he stared at her speechlessly. Then his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “This has something to do with Neal Patchett, doesn’t it?”

  A trapdoor seemed to open up beneath her. She felt herself falling through a black void. “No,” she denied hoarsely.

  Obviously he mistook her horror for guilt. “The hell it doesn’t,” he sneered. “He’s been sucking up to me for more than a week. Ever since you got ‘sick.’ He’s been acting like a man with a delicious secret that he’s just dying to tell. Now I know what it is. He wanted to rub my nose in it. You went out with him, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Donna Dee looked as guilty as sin when I mentioned his name, too. Is that what you quarreled with her about?”

  “Donna Dee?” she said in a negative tone.

  “I chased her down after school today. She’s been avoiding me almost as diligently as you have.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Don’t worry. She didn’t rat on you.” He shook his head. “So, you finally fell for Neal’s irresistible charm. That ought to make your mother happy.”

  Jade’s dark hair whipped around her head as she vehemently shook her head. “No. I despise him. You know that, Gary.”

  “So you say.” He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, barely containing his fury. “Maybe I’ll ask him myself.” He turned toward the door, but hadn’t taken more than two steps before Jade launched herself against his back and clutched at him. “No, Gary, no. Stay away from him.”

  He turned and angrily pulled her against him. “If you had to cheat on me, why’d it have to be with Patchett?”

  “You’re wrong, Gary. Please don’t think—”

  “Patchett, for God’s sake!” He released her so abruptly that she staggered backward. Gary yanked open the door and strode out.

  “Gary!”

  He didn’t look back, although Jade knew he heard her calling his name until his car was halfway down the block. Jade stumbled back inside and slumped against the door. The tears that she had been holding in erupted in a torrent. She cried until she had no more tears left, and then she was seized by dry, racking sobs.

  * * *

  At first Gary considered driving straight to the Patchetts’ estate and challenging Neal face to face. He could probably whip Neal in a fair fight, but he didn’t want to give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing that he had provoked him. He would let him be smug and go around wearing that shit-eating grin if he wanted to. Gary Parker wasn’t going to stoop to his level.

  By the time he reached home, Gary’s anger had given way to despair. The farmhouse looked uglier than ever as he drove into the yard. He hated the old house with its peeling paint and sagging porch. He hated the chickens that pecked about in the yard and the stink of the hog pen. He resented the laughter and chatter of his younger siblings as they ran to tackle him around his legs and impeded his progress across the dirt clearing.

  “Gary, Mama said you have to help me with my arithmetic tonight.”

  “Gary, make Stevie stop following me.”

  “Gary, can you take me into town?”

  “Shut up!”

  Six pairs of astonished eyes looked up at him. He gazed around the circle of faces and hated their trusting, loving expressions. Who did they think he was, a saint?

  He pushed them out of his path and, scattering chickens, ran across the yard to the barn. Inside, he found a dark corner where he dropped down into the hay and covered his head with his arms. Yearning and hate and love warred within him.

  He yearned to get away from this place. He hated poverty, ugliness, dirt, and his lack of privacy. Yet he loved his family. In his recurring daydreams, he returned from college like a bountiful Santa Claus, handing out goodies to them. But the responsibility of making those dreams a reality was burdensome. Often, he considered simply disappearing.

  He never would, of course. Not merely because his sense of responsibility was so deeply ingrained in him, but because of Jade. She made all the ugliness in his life bearable, because in her lay the promise that it wouldn’t always be so. She was the nucleus of all his hopes.

  “God,” he groaned. How could he stand a life without her? Jade, he thought miserably, what happened to you, to us, to our shared future? They had planned to get their educations, then return to Palmetto and make the community more egalitarian. Now, it seemed, she had defected to the other side—to the Patchetts. How could she?

  “Gary?”

  His father entered through the wide barn door. Otis Parker wasn’t yet fifty but he looked at least a decade older. He was thin and wiry, a slight man with perpetually stooped shoulders. His overalls hung loosely on his bony frame. He found his son sitting in the shadowed corner on a mound of sour-smelling hay.

  “Gary? The kids said you was acting mean.”

  “Can’t I have one moment’s peace around here?”

  “Something happen at school?”

  “No! I’m just looking for some privacy.” Gary felt like lashing out at something, and his father was a convenient target. “For once, can’t you just leave me alone?” he shouted.

  “All righty.” Otis turned to go. “Don’t forget to slop the hog.”

  Gary surged to his feet, his hands balled into fists. “Listen, old man, I’ve slopped that fucking hog for the last time. I’m sick to death of slopping the hog. I’m sick of being surrounded by screaming kids that you didn’t have any better sense than to make. I’m sick of this place and the rotten stench of your failure. I’m sick of school and teachers and talk about scholarships when nobody really gives a shit about anything. Being the good boy sucks. It gets you nowhere. Nowhere.”

  His rage and energy spent, Gary fell to his knees in the dirty straw and began to cry. Several minutes elapsed before he felt his father’s rough hand shaking his shoulder.

  “Looks like you could use a swaller of this.”

  Otis was holding out to him a Mason jar of clear liquid. Gary reached for it hesitantly, uncapped it, and sniffed. Then he took a sip. The moonshine seared all the way down to his stomach. Coughing and wheezing, he passed the jar back to Otis, who took a big draft.

  “Don’t tell your mama ’bout this.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Reckon it’s time you learned about Georgie. She’s a nigger lady what’s been making moonshine for years. She don’t charge too much. It’s all I can afford anyway. I keep it hid over yonder under that old saddle, if you ever need it when I ain’t around.” Otis carefully replaced the lid on the jar. “You got woman troubles?”

  Gary shrugged noncommittally, though the reminder of Jade’s betrayal burned his gut more than the moonshine did.

  “They’s ’bout the only thing in God’s creation that can drive a man to go crazy and talk wild the way you was a-talkin’.” Otis regarded him sternly. “I didn’t like what you had to say about your little brothers and sisters ’cause it don’t speak well of your mama.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Yeah, you did. But I want you to
know that each one of our kids was conceived in love. We’re proud of every single one.” Otis’s eyes grew misty. “We’re ’specially proud of you. Can’t figure out for the life of me where you come from, bein’ so smart and all. I reckon you’re ashamed of us.”

  “I’m not, Daddy.”

  Sighing, Otis said, “I ain’t so dumb that I don’t know why you never bring friends out here to the place, Gary. It’s plain to see why. Listen, your mama and me, we don’t want you to get educated so you can take care of us and our other children. We want you to get away from here for only one reason—’cause you want to so bad. You don’t want to be a failure like me.

  “All I’ve ever had to my name is this sorry piece of land, and it for damn sure ain’t much. I wasn’t even the one that acquired it, but my daddy. I’ve did the best I could to hold on to it.”

  Gary almost strangled on the remorse he felt for saying what he had. Otis sensed his guilt and forgivingly patted his son’s knee, then used it as a prop when he stood up.

  “You and Jade have a tiff?” Gary nodded. “Well, it’ll blow over. A female’s got to have her spells every now and again or she wouldn’t be female. When they get on a tear, just leave ’em be for a while.” Having dispensed that sage advice, he ambled toward the door. “Comin’ up on suppertime. Best get your chores did.”

  Gary watched his father leave. His rolling, bowlegged gait carried him across the dismal yard, which was littered with broken, secondhand toys and chicken droppings. Gary covered his face with his hands, wishing that when he lowered them and opened his eyes he would be a million miles away, untethered from his obligations.

  Everyone, including his family, expected too much of him. He was doomed to failure before he began. No matter what mountains of achievement he scaled, he could never live up to everyone’s expectations. He could never be good enough, rich enough. He could never be Neal Patchett.

  For God’s sake, did Jade have to run to him? So what if Neal was the richest boy in town? Jade knew how shallow he was. How could she stand to let him touch her? As Gary gazed at his derelict surroundings, the answer became instantly clear: Neal Patchett never went to school with chicken shit on his shoes.