The Improper Life Of Bezellia Grove Part 11

She had pretty long legs that made the boys drool

She wasn't looking for a country boy with holes in his jeans

But then she wasn't looking for love when she done found me."

"Hey, this is pretty good ... for country music," Cornelia shouted over the radio, slapping her thigh to the beat.

"Shut up," I popped and waved my left hand in her face, letting her know that I really meant it this time. But the voice inside the radio wouldn't hush. He just kept on singing.

"She'd whisper French right in my ear, but it was all Greek to me

And I just wanted to meet her underneath the old oak tree.

And when we met one dark and starry night

That girl named Bezellia made me feel so right."

Cornelia started hooting and hollering and now slapping me on the arm. "Oh, my G.o.d. Oh, my G.o.d" were the only words that came streaming out of her mouth. She screamed again and pounded the steering wheel with both hands. "Way to go, girl!" She swerved into the next lane, and I smacked her hard on the arm and told her to shut up before she got us both killed.

"I can't believe he did that," I shrieked. "I can't believe he used my name. Under a tree. Making him feel so right. Lord, when my mother hears this. s.h.i.t! She's going to kill me. Or at the very least send me to some Baptist reform school up in Kentucky. d.a.m.n it, if I could get my hands on him, I'd tie him up to that d.a.m.n oak tree."

I could barely complete one thought before another crowded its way inside my head. I couldn't help but wonder if Ruddy was standing on a stage somewhere right now, maybe right here in downtown Nashville, with that big old smile painted across his face, strumming his guitar, singing about our secret night down on the beach. I felt completely exposed, naked as a little jaybird, as Maizelle used to say when she plucked me from the bathtub. Except now, the whole world was looking.

"What's your problem, Bee? This is so cool. You're gonna be famous-the girl who inspired Ruddy Semple's first big hit. You're his muse. Like June Carter."

"Lord, Cornelia, have you forgotten who my mother is? She's not going to want me to be anybody's muse, especially not some guitar-picking country boy's."

"s.h.i.t, Bee. Quit worrying. You and I both know that your mother doesn't care one iota about country music. And I seriously doubt where she's going tomorrow they're going to be sitting around listening to the radio. Besides, I thought you liked Ruddy."

"This isn't about liking him or not. He had no right to tell the whole world that we were fooling around underneath a tree. s.h.i.t, everybody's gonna think we did it." By now my voice was sounding so loud and shrill that my own head was starting to hurt.

"See, I think you're looking at this all wrong. You've gone and gotten yourself a big singing star. That's a good thing. And so what if people think you did it? It's not like you're a virgin."

"What if Samuel hears this? What if he hears this stupid song while he's fighting in some jungle somewhere? Oh, G.o.d. s.h.i.t, Ruddy."

"Now see, there you go again, just thinking about this all wrong. Look on the bright side. One day Ruddy will be so rich and famous that the two of you can live in a big house and you can hire Samuel to be your Nathaniel. Then you can have him around you all the time."

"Shut up, Cornelia! s.h.i.t, for crying out loud, I cannot believe you of all people said that. Just shut up."

"h.e.l.l's bells, I'm just messing with you, Bee."

But I sat still and quiet, refusing to even look at my cousin.

"Oh s.h.i.t," she said, breaking the silence, "you're still in love with him. Samuel, that is. You are. I mean really in love with him." Cornelia stared at my face, searching for something to convince her that she had misunderstood.

"Nothing new. I've told you that," I quipped.

"Yeah, but I just thought you liked-him-loved-him not LOVED him. Look, Bee, you know I don't think there's anything wrong with the two of you having a thing for each other. There's nothing wrong with you two liking-loving each other or whatever you want to call it.

"But let's face facts, a real relationship ain't never going to work. Not here. Not now. h.e.l.l, twenty miles outside of town there are still little private clubs where all the members like to dress in white robes and wear funny cone-shaped hats on their heads, if you know what I mean."

"Do you even know how to shut up?" I cried. "And just for the record, you're the one who told me a long time ago that ours was a Shakespearean love, one to last for all time."

"Fine, I'll shut up. But just remember how Romeo and Juliet ended. It wasn't very pretty, as I recall."

We drove the rest of the way home in silence, neither one of us saying another word. I leaned my head out the window, still trying to m.u.f.fle the sounds of Ruddy's voice rising above his guitar, my mother screaming at the kitchen table, and Samuel crying out in the dark-asking where I was, why I didn't write, why I didn't love him anymore, and why I had done it with another boy underneath an oak tree.

chapter fourteen.

Mother left without putting up much of a fuss. She still didn't understand why she needed to go. Doctors at a place like that, she whimpered with tears pooling in her eyes, would never understand a woman like her. But Uncle Thad told her that at the end of the day there wasn't much difference between one drunk and another, and then he swiftly led her to the car, not giving her another chance to argue or resist.

Nathaniel sat behind the steering wheel, and Uncle Thad took his place in the backseat, his arm snug around my mother's shoulder, her head resting on his chest. I waved good-bye until the car disappeared onto Davidson Road, and then I stood there a little longer, wondering what more I could have said to comfort my mother. Uncle Thad had thought it best that I stay at Grove Hill with Adelaide and Maizelle. They would surely need me at a time like this, he said. I had nodded as though I understood, but now I felt completely helpless. And I couldn't help but wonder if I had done the right thing. Maybe Mother really didn't belong in a place like that. Maybe she needed to be here, surrounded by the only people left who really cared about her. Maizelle appeared beside me and wrapped her thick, dark arm around my waist. She had tears in her eyes too.

Adelaide fled to the den and flipped on the television set, turning the volume up so loud that it almost hurt my ears. I stood right next to her so she had no choice but to hear me, and I told her that we could walk down to the creek a little bit later and make some more mud pies if she wanted. With the light rain we'd had during the night, the soil would be just perfect for cooking up a fresh batch. She scrunched her shoulders and nodded her head but then picked up her knitting so she was certain to have another excuse to avoid looking at me. I walked over to Mother's desk and pulled out a fresh pad of white paper and a ballpoint pen. I told Adelaide I'd be in the kitchen if she needed anything, but she just turned her back to me and stared at the TV.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee met me at the kitchen door. And even though I still didn't care for the bold, bitter taste, I held the metal percolator in my hand and poured some of it into one of Mother's heavy white mugs. I sat at the table with the mug in one hand and Mother's pen in the other and struggled to find the words I needed to explain that I would not be returning to Hollins in September. Family matters demanded my attention at home, I began, but someday soon I hoped to return to the school that I loved so dearly.

And when I was done, I sat there and stared at the next sheet of blank paper, knowing that there was more to say but not certain where to start. The coffee had grown cold, yet I still considered pouring myself another cup. Maizelle walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She filled a gla.s.s with orange juice and set it down in front of me, thought it would be more to my liking, she said. Then she picked up the mug and drained what was left down the kitchen sink. There was laundry to do, she added with a bit of a sigh, and I could find her in the bas.e.m.e.nt. She slowly crept down the back staircase, balancing a basket full of dirty clothes in her hands and leaving me to stare at the same piece of paper.

I picked up the pen and began a letter to Ruddy. I'm not really sure why, except I wanted him to know that I had enjoyed spending time with him, especially our afternoons floating about in my grandfather's rowboat, checking fising lines for fresh catch and talking about music and roosters and everything in between. Those were perfect moments as the sun fell behind the water, and it felt as though we were the only ones on the lake to see it.

I told him I knew now that he really was going to be a big country music star just like Johnny Cash. I'd even heard him singing right there in Cornelia's car. I really appreciated him being such a gentleman that night on Mount Juliet's sandy beach, not doing, as he said himself, everything G.o.d intended a man and woman to do. I only wished he hadn't let the rest of the world, including my mother, think that we had.

Then I wrote to Mitch.e.l.l Franklin and admitted that even though I enjoyed the s.e.x I still thought he was an a.s.s. I wished him the very best with his research and dissertation, but thanks to him, I was no longer considering a major in English. I told him I was still writing and had recently finished a short story about a young, ambitious professor who hid behind a long list of honors and degrees while he secretly seduced his female students. He eventually fathered nearly three hundred children, who all shared their father's brownish red hair and an unusual affection for Led Zeppelin.

I even wrote to Tommy Blanton. I wanted him to know that standing behind the coatrack in Mrs. Dempsey's sixth-grade cla.s.sroom with his lips pressed against mine was the first time, in all of my life, that I had felt truly special. My quest for real love had begun at that moment, even if I had been too young to fully understand that then. And although I doubted he had ever thought about it too much, I wanted him to understand that those simple kisses had changed me forever. I would never be able to settle for anything less than a true and lasting love.

And finally, I wrote to Samuel. I told him that his letters had just arrived and that after all this time I understood if he no longer loved me. But I thought of him constantly and could still hear him saying my name for the very first time that day we talked in the barn. My name had never been spoken with such warmth and tenderness, nor had it ever sounded as beautiful as it did then.

I told him about my first year at college and walking to the top of Tinker Mountain and crying his name out loud. I wondered if somehow he had heard me. I liked to believe that he had. And when I was finished writing all that I had to say, I sprayed each page with some of my mother's perfume, hoping that even the faintest scent of May Rose would carry Samuel back to the creek, to that gra.s.sy bank underneath the cherrybark oaks.

As I sealed the last envelope, I could hear Maizelle slowly walking up the bas.e.m.e.nt steps. I could tell she was tired and her aging body was aching by her grunting and moaning as she set her foot down on each step. I knew I should run to greet her and shift the load of clean clothes into my hands. I should urge her to stop and rest for a while. But I hurriedly gathered all of the letters on the table, keeping Samuel's clutched next to my chest, and ran to the mailbox at the end of the drive. And there, in that old metal box, I left my most secret thoughts to be carried away. Then I walked back to the house and turned my attention to Grove Hill.

While Mother was gone, Maizelle kept close to the stove, cooking chicken ca.s.seroles and pots of vegetable stew, even taking the time to can tomatoes and sweet cuc.u.mber pickles. I told her that the freezer was overflowing with plastic containers and Pyrex dishes and that Adelaide and I could never eat all the food waiting to be defrosted if we both lived to be a hundred. She ignored me and chatted nervously about a possible tornado or a nuclear war or some other unforeseen emergency that she needed to prepare for. She'd been reading the newspaper. It was only a matter of time, she said. But honestly, I think poor Maizelle was simply afraid that someday she'd be gone, too, and the poor little Grove girls would have nothing to eat.

Nathaniel waxed and buffed all the wood floors in the house and even repainted the outside of the barn. In the late afternoons, he spent his time sweeping the front porch, shaking the dust from the cushions, and watering the large concrete pots filled with more of Mother's impatiens. When he was satisfied with his work, he went inside and polished the silver tea service as if Mother was standing over him telling him to be more careful with the family's treasures. He said he wanted everything to look its best when Mrs. Grove finally came home. This time, he said, he had a feeling in his gut that things would be different.

He talked more and more about Samuel, mentioning him almost every day now. I loved that Nathaniel talked to me about his son, that he trusted me with this special information. Maybe he just felt, with Samuel so far away, not much harm could come from it. But his brows would lift and his eyes would brighten at just the mention of Samuel's name. He kept telling me that he would be home soon, and after a while, I think Nathaniel actually started to believe it. He said he had finally quit reading the newspaper, that it was a little bit easier getting through the days not knowing what was going on in the world.

My sister knitted for a while longer. It made her sad to think of our mother at that hospital alone, and keeping her fingers busy seemed to help. Besides, she said, there would always be a new baby needing something warm for its feet. Sometimes when she got tired of making tiny pink and blue booties, she would pull out a bright colored yarn and knit Maizelle a scarf. Poor Maizelle wore each one tied neatly about her neck, even if it was ninety degrees outside and sweat was dripping down her back. Then one day Adelaide came to me and handed me her needles. She said she was finally tired of knitting and was ready to give her hands a rest.

"I don't need to do this anymore, Bezellia," she said and walked out of the room and called her friend Lucy. Funny, I thought, how Mother's special vacation by the water seemed to have finally cured Adelaide too.

My sister went back to school in September, and this year she seemed to look forward to it. She spent more time primping in the mornings, sometimes asking me to braid her soft, curly hair, which now fell well beyond her shoulders, making her look more like a young movie star than a high school soph.o.m.ore. Sometimes she would borrow a skirt or a pair of earrings from me, always wanting to make sure that she looked her best.

I drove her to school most days. Nathaniel himself had taught me to drive Mother's Cadillac just a month or so before leaving for college. He said driving a car was an important part of any young woman's education. But I'd never felt much of a need to do it until now, explaining to Nathaniel that sisters needed a little privacy to talk about boys and music and makeup. But more than anything else, we talked about Mother and Adelaide's new friend, Lucy. Sometimes Lucy would come home with us after school. The two of them would run upstairs whispering and giggling, then slam the door and lock themselves in my sister's room. Maizelle never stopped worrying, though, and always found an excuse to knock on Adelaide's door, whether it was to bring the girls a fresh piece of pound cake or to ask if Lucy wanted to stay for supper.

Uncle Thad came by Grove Hill most every afternoon. He spent hours at Mother's desk, tending to what was left of her money and talking to the bank on the telephone. With a few wise investments, he managed to repair my mother's checkbook so she would be comfortable, he said, in the years to come.

He called the hospital at the end of the day and checked on Mother's progress. The doctors remained hopeful that she would return to Grove Hill prepared to lead a healthy, sober life. And even though they believed she no longer blamed herself for her husband's fatal fall, they suspected she was still holding on to a painful, deeply buried secret. Her drinking, they feared, would always be a problem until she was willing to confront her past.

They wanted to explore some more aggressive treatments, treatments that left Uncle Thad feeling cautious and unsettled. He wouldn't discuss them with me, only said that Mother had been a deeply depressed woman for a very long time and maybe it would take extraordinary measures to cure her once and for all. When I overheard him talking to the doctors about electricity and convulsions, I grew afraid that I had sent my mother away for good.

Uncle Thad also thought it was very important for Mother's well-being that I continue my education; my sitting around Grove Hill was not doing anyone any good. He said he had called a few old friends at Vanderbilt-people who had always been more than willing to relieve his brother of another sizable donation-and inquired about the possibility of my continuing my education there. Not long after that, I was awarded the Bezellia Grove Scholarship for study in American history. Uncle Thad couldn't help but laugh when he told me. Turned out, he said, that my father had finally found, thanks to cosmic fate or some sort of divine intervention, that young, bright academic who would surely see his family's history from his own generous perspective.

I made a few new friends, a nice girl from Atlanta and one from Charleston. Neither had ever heard of Dorothy Pitman or Betty Friedan, but both were willing to sign my pet.i.tions as long as they didn't have to dispose of any of their undergarments. In fact, Emily Louise Britain admitted that she desperately wanted to go to medical school. She had always dreamed of being a doctor like her father, but her mother was convinced that nursing would be a more suitable career for a young woman like herself. Patricia Davenport smiled and said that all sounded real exciting, but she preferred to marry a doctor and live in a big house on the Cooper River back home in Charleston.

Every once in a while, a wide-eyed fraternity boy would ask me if I had ever heard the song "Big City Girl," obviously hoping that I would be willing to meet him under some big old tree on campus and make him feel all right. I'd look kind of confused and vague and walk away, leaving him wondering what kind of pleasure he had missed. Most days, I kept to myself, and that was okay too. I guess, like Adelaide, I wasn't afraid of being on my own anymore, and before I knew it, life began to feel wonderfully predictable and normal, something I had always wanted.

Late one morning in early November, my grandmother telephoned the house. She said she had spent the past three days cleaning out my mother's room, and now she had all of her old knickknacks packed and ready to go. She asked me to send Nathaniel after them right away. She had looked at them for most of her life and didn't want them in her house one more day.

She said Elizabeth had called earlier in the week, demanding some kind of G.o.d-d.a.m.ned apology. She said her daughter was crazy if she thought she was going to apologize-for what? She hadn't done anything wrong. She was tired of her daughter's whining, and there was nothing more to talk about. She had her little girl's memories, the last bit of evidence that my mother was in fact a Morgan, stuffed in a box and waiting by the bedroom door. I told her I'd give Nathaniel the message. But by the time I hung up the telephone, I was feeling a desperate need, maybe more of a calling really, to find my way to the water.

Nathaniel pulled the car out of the garage for me. He wanted to know why I was heading out to the lake so late in the day. It was already after lunch, and the days were short this time of year. He thought it best that I wait till tomorrow. He thought it best that I let him go instead. He said he didn't feel comfortable with me driving on the interstate alone. He said if my mother were here, she would never allow it. I stood there with my coat over my arm and my hand resting on the kitchen door, reminding him that my mother was not here. He reluctantly pulled the keys from his front pants pocket and placed them in my hand.

"Be careful, Miss Bezellia. Call me as soon as you get there. I won't be leaving this house until I hear from you." Nathaniel followed me to the car and stood there while I started the engine and let it warm itself in the cold fall air, seemingly afraid to walk away and let me go on my own. I wasn't sure if he was scared of me driving on the interstate all by myself or of me heading straight into my grandmother's temper. Either way, I was ready to go.

"Nathaniel," I said, as I slipped the car into gear, suddenly feeling fearless behind the wheel of my mother's Cadillac, "I'll be okay. Don't forget, my name's Bezellia for a reason." I smiled and revved the engine louder.

Nathaniel shut the car door and took two steps back. "Now don't go pushing that gas pedal too hard. There's three hundred and forty-five horses under this hood, remember, and they'd love to take you for a wild ride," he cautioned, allowing a slight smile to cross his face.

I eased the car around the driveway and headed for the road, my heart beating faster with every pa.s.sing mile. Not much more than an hour later, I pulled off the interstate onto Route 171. I rolled the car window down like I always did when I came to this stop, and even though it was fall and what leaves were left on the trees were golden and orange, I found the air here feeling oddly thick and stale. Everything else looked pretty much the same as it always had. The gas station on the far corner of the intersection still looked abandoned. And the old man dressed in his blue coveralls was still sitting in an old wooden chair and leaning against the building's dirty white wall. His triangle-shaped display of Quaker State motor oil still looked perfect; not a single can was missing.

The sun was lingering fairly high in the afternoon sky by the time I pulled into my grandparents' drive. Pop's old pickup was parked next to his John Deere, neither one looking like it had been moved in days. I pulled Mother's Cadillac alongside her father's truck. Surely my grandmother was standing watch in the kitchen window and would come running from the house any minute now with her hair falling loose behind her head. Surely supper was already waiting on the table.

But my grandparents' house looked dark, even lonely. The curtains were tucked shut, not a tiny sliver of light making its way through the windowpanes. n.o.body was hurrying across the drive to greet me. I stepped closer to the house and heard m.u.f.fled voices on the back porch. Nana and Pop, both of them bundled in heavy old sweaters, were there, sitting in their folding chairs. Their eyes were fixed on the water, which was still and gla.s.sy. The sun's soft reflection and a perfect mirrored image of the trees bordering the water rested on top of the lake's surface.

Neither one of my grandparents appeared surprised to see me. They didn't even bother taking their eyes off the water. Nana sat particularly still, almost as if she was frozen, her ratty chenille robe wrapped loosely over her sweater and her hair set in tight curls, held firmly against her head with a collection of bobby pins and old barrettes.

"h.e.l.lo, Bezellia," she said, finally acknowledging my arrival.

"Hi there," I answered her cautiously, and then stood and waited for an explanation for their odd indifference. After a while, I knew I wasn't going to get one. "You two don't seem too surprised to see me," I added, begging for some sort of answer. "I figured you'd be expecting Nathaniel, not me."

"He called to tell us you was coming," my grandmother finally answered, still not taking her eyes off the water. "He was worried about you driving that big car of your mama's way out here. Would have appreciated it, dear, if you had given us a little notice."

"I didn't think I needed to ask permission to come and see you."

"Well, sweetie, company's company." My grandmother sat motionless in her folding chair, only pursing her lips and swatting at a slow-moving fly that had somehow managed to survive the first frost. Pop seemed too afraid to do any differently, so he just sat there too, staring at the lake and occasionally taking a puff on his Dutch Masters cigar. I pushed my way against their feet and stood directly in front of them both, resting my body against the black metal railing behind me.

"Is something bothering you, Nana? Are you mad at me for coming out here?"

"Why would I be mad at you, Bezellia? What have you done?"

"I haven't done anything. But it sure seems like you think I have."

My grandmother kept her eyes on the lake, and my grandfather just turned his head and looked away. I realized in that moment that Pop was no braver than my very own father.

"I guess sending my daughter off to some loony bin has me a bit bothered, if you must know the truth of it," she finally snipped as she sat firmly planted in her favorite folding chair.

"First of all, it's not a loony bin. It's a hospital. And she is doing much better. Thank you for asking."

"Oh, I know. Those crazy doctors called here. Wanted your grandfather and me to drive over there and talk to Elizabeth, said she was on the verge of some kind of breakthrough. Listen here, Bezellia, we went through h.e.l.l with that girl when she was not much younger than you are now. Why do you think your grandfather has a bad heart? She wore him out. I can't get into her troubles no more. It'd d.a.m.n near kill him, maybe me too."

I knelt down directly in front of my grandmother so she had no choice but to finally look at me. And even though my heart was racing, my voice sounded calm and insistent. "Why'd she leave, Nana?" I asked.

"Just let it be, Bezellia."

But I stayed very still and waited for a better answer. The sun had drifted quickly down toward the horizon, turning a bright, brilliant orange as it fell. Apparently the world was trying to tell me to proceed with caution.

"I just can't do that, Nana. I can't leave it be."