Calling Home Read online

  The bathroom door opened. Shannon’s best friend threw a crocheted purse in the sink, and a can of hairspray rolled out.

  “I hate school already,” Pam announced.

  “What a surprise.”

  “I gotta pee.” Pam left the stall door open as she crunched her peasant skirt around her waist. “I got Roots for biology. Pretty funny that the biology teacher’s name is Roots.”

  “Ironic.”

  “What was your last class?”

  “Home ec.”

  “I thought you smart ones didn’t have to take home ec or shop like the rest of us morons.”

  Shannon looked out the window, down at kids sneaking smokes between cars in the parking lot. Band members straggled out to the football field behind the school, their polished instruments flashing in the sun. A newly painted sign at the field entrance read, HOME OF THE BAYLOR COUNTY CARDINALS, KENTUCKY DIVISION 5 CHAMPS, 1978. Shannon watched the action below, but she was thinking about the past weekend. She had been standing outside The Brown Jersey when her daddy’s dusty Trans Am pulled up. At first, her heart gave a flip; then Shannon saw who was driving. The woman strutted up to the little window in four-inch Candies, a strip of leather and a silver buckle across her toes to hold them on. Even in those shoes, she was so short that she didn’t have to bend down to place her order. She fished for money in a back pocket of her taut jeans.

  “Take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

  “What?” Shannon said.

  The woman put her hand on her hip and tapped her foot impatiently. “Never mind. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “You know who I am?” Shannon asked.

  “Yeah, honey, I know.” The service window slid to the side and the woman flung money on the counter. “I got her,” she said and motioned that she wanted to pay for Shannon.

  “I can pay for my own stuff.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  The T-tops were out of the car and the woman leaned through the driver’s side and came up with a long cigarette. The boys inside the front glass window of the hamburger stand made lewd noises. She perched on the top of a warped, gray picnic table, adjusted a bra strap, lit the cigarette, and crossed her legs. Her every move designed for effect.

  Shannon tried to act nonchalant while she waited. She kicked at hickory nuts collected in low spots in the parking lot. The smell of fried onion rings was strong.

  “Your name’s not really Bootsie, is it?” she asked.

  “Justine.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Louisville.”

  “Why’d you come here?”

  “Is this going to be the Inquisition?”

  “No.”

  The window slid open again and arms reached out with two milkshakes and a bag of food. “Two shrimp boxes.” Shrimp boxes were her daddy’s favorite.

  “I thought she was younger than Momma until I saw her up close,” Shannon told Pam as they groomed in the wavy mirror. “She had so much base on that her face was ready to crack.”

  “I guess you’d wear a lot of makeup, too, if you ran a beauty shop,” Pam said.

  Shannon bent over at the waist and brushed her curls out. In one fluid motion, she stood upright, flipped her hair behind her, and shook her head to settle fine layers of blond.

  “Good feathers,” Pam said.

  “Thanks.” Shannon sprayed a thick cloud around her head.

  “You going out to her house?”

  “Why not? She can tell me to leave if she doesn’t like it.”

  “I can’t believe he went all summer without calling or nothing. Here, let me do that.” Pam brushed blue eye shadow onto Shannon’s lids.

  Shannon blinked at her reflection. “Don’t you think that’s too much?”

  “No. Looks good. Same color as your eyes.”

  She closed her eyes again and Pam brushed more color on.

  “The longer I talked to Ratliff, the more I thought about going out there,” Shannon said. She opened her eyes. “I want Daddy to look me in the face and tell me he’s not coming back.”

  “Don’t blame you.”

  “I need a ride.”

  “I’d take you but I don’t have the car today. What about Will?”

  “He’s got ball practice. Besides, he’s so mad at Daddy that he’d never take me out there.”

  “Kerry Rucker would take you,” Pam said. She rolled frosted pink gloss on Shannon’s lips. “Everybody knows he likes you.”

  “I’d feel bad. Besides, the last thing I need right now is Momma on me because of some boy. You know what she’s like.”

  Shannon’s mother had rules. Rules intended to keep Shannon from dating too early, except what she didn’t understand was that her approach kept Shannon from having girlfriends, too. On the one occasion Shannon managed to lure other girls to her house for a sleepover, her mother had ruined the night. One of the girls dropped the needle down on her scratchy Nazareth album, and before “Hair of the Dog” was over her mother was at the door. Virginia insisted on seeing all the music they had brought. She rejected AC/DC and Ozzy Osborne based solely on cover art. A few minutes later, the girls had summoned boyfriends with cars. After they left, Virginia called their parents to inform them that their daughters were roaming freely. After that, Shannon gave up on inviting anyone but Pam to her house.

  Outside the bathroom door, kids pushed through the narrow hall on their way to class. Locker doors slammed. People laughed and yelled.

  “Let him take you. You’ll get home before she gets back from the factory.”

  “He’d take it as a sign that I like him. You know I’m not going with boys from around here. All they want is to get in your pants.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Shut up. You’re such a slut.”

  Pam shoved makeup back into her bag. “Look, let Kerry take you. It’s not like you have to marry him or nothing.”

  The bell rang and footsteps hustled down the hall.

  “Shit,” Shannon said. “We’re late.”

  After class, Shannon headed toward double lines of fuming yellow buses behind the school. She cut between the rumbling giants toward the student parking lot. She caught Kerry Rucker unlocking his truck’s door.

  “Hey, Kerry,” she said.

  He looked up at her from underneath his John Deere cap. “Hey.”

  “Look, I need a ride somewhere.”

  “Sure. Okay. Jump in.”

  “Don’t you want to know where?”

  He shrugged. He had a dimple she had never noticed before. “I don’t care.”

  “Okay.” She walked around and got in the passenger side, slamming the door loudly. He slid behind the wheel and started the truck.

  She turned to him. “I need to go out the road in front of my house. You know where I live?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need to go to a house way out that road—to see my dad.”

  They rode in silence for a dozen miles. His long-limbed body relaxed against the driver’s door. He smoked slowly.

  “I think that’s the one,” she said. Two feet of mud splatter ringed the bottom of the brick ranch in place of shrubbery. Dust covered the lopsided mailbox, the windows, even the leaves on the trees. Shannon was glad to see that her daddy wasn’t doing any more upkeep on Bootsie’s place than he had on theirs.

  “Wait here,” Shannon told Kerry. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Bootsie opened the door a few inches, hesitated, and then opened the door wide. “Come on in. I’ll tell Roger you’re here,” she said. In the front room, a red velvet couch was backed by an ornate mirror flanked by gold curlicued candle sconces. An arrangement of red plastic roses sat on a doily in the middle of a coffee table. The wall-to-wall carpeting was worn but clean. Shannon could see back into the small kitchen where spider plants sprouted from macramé hangers with fat wooden beads.

  “Baby girl.” Her father hugged her quickly. “What are you doing here?”

>   “I came to see you.”

  “Something wrong?”

  The back of her throat tingled, but she forced the sensation down. He motioned her outside, down the concrete steps into the sliver of dry yard where crabgrass twisted in crazy swirls. Their likenesses quivered in the storm door. People always said how much they favored each other. The same colorless hair, pale eyes, and freckled skin. They were both tall and willowy, a little hunched in the shoulders. Shannon saw their reflections and straightened her posture.

  “I needed to see you.”

  “Shannon, you can’t come here.”

  “Daddy, it’s been three months.”

  “I know. But I got a new life now. I made a decision and I got to stick to it. It’s easier this way.”

  “Easier for you.”

  He reached for her, but she backed away. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Shannon, you don’t understand the things that go on between adults.”

  “I understand you don’t care about anybody but yourself.”

  Kerry sat in the idling truck, smoking and staring into the field across the road. He turned in their direction, and her father gave a half-hearted nod as if to say everything’s all right here. Shame warmed her face.

  “It’s hard when things change,” he said.

  “We need money.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of twenties. “Here,” he said. “I don’t have much money right now. I’m moving the shop and all.”

  Shannon slapped the bills from his hand and ran to the truck. “Drive off,” she said. The truck’s tires kicked rocks into the yard as they pulled away. In the side mirror, Shannon watched her father stoop to retrieve the money.

  They drove back roads. Kerry didn’t ask questions or try to comfort her. She stared at fading crops and fields dotted with hay bales. They passed the Calvary Baptist Church where her aunt Patsy worshiped in Mt. Zion, and Penn’s Meats where Roger always bought a salt-cured ham for Thanksgiving. Kerry drove narrow roads threaded through small communities clustered in bottoms, don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-’em sorts of places with names like Whitewood, Roachville, and Black Gnat. The truck rumbled at crossroads as if thinking about which way to turn. Other trucks passed by and Kerry raised a hand to the drivers. They returned the gesture.

  Finally, he said, “You like beer?”

  “I don’t know,” Shannon said. “Never drank any.”

  “Seems like a good time to start.”

  The county line cut through the middle of Big John’s parking lot. At the drive-through, the man said, “What can I do you for?” without taking his eyes from the ballgame on the twelve-inch crammed in among liquor bottles.

  “Six-pack. Bud. Ponies,” Kerry said with authority. The man passed Kerry a brown bag, made change, and slammed the window shut.

  “He sold you beer like it was nothing,” Shannon said as they pulled back onto the winding lane that fronted the store.

  “Good thing about a drive-through. Everybody’s twenty-one.”

  They drove over the dam at Green River Lake. Far below, a gray edge of limestone rimmed the reservoir, and boats left wakes of white Vs behind them in the shadowy water. The road curved around through state forest land, thick with redbud and coffee trees. As the road dropped down toward the basin, the woods opened up to an empty gravel beach and a marina.

  “Hungry?” Kerry said. Her stomach had been in knots. She hadn’t realized it was suppertime.

  “I guess.”

  “Come on. I’ll buy you a burger.”

  The aluminum ramp to the floating restaurant screeched. Boats bobbed gently in slips and the dock rocked under them. Silver flashed from the minnow well. Pleasant chirps and a distinctive musty smell came from the cricket box. The words LONE VALLEY BOAT DOCK had been burned into a wooden plaque above the screen door. Inside, upright coolers held sodas, luncheon meats, and small tubs of night crawlers. Plastic pouches of rubber worms, lures, and sinkers were tacked to a pegboard beside the register. Life preservers, fishing rods, and water skis lined the walls. Tan men sat on stools around a U-shaped countertop, their hands holding plastic cups, occasionally flicking ashes into metal trays. Conversation stopped when they entered. Casey Kasem’s voice crackled on an unseen radio.

  “Hey, Sarah,” Kerry said to the girl behind the counter. Food sizzled on the grill and oil popped in the fryer. “Give me a couple of burgers and fries to go. Make mine all the way.” Kerry leaned over the counter, winked, and said, “But no onions.”

  They sat on the hood of Kerry’s truck, sharing fries and a big pile of ketchup. The lake was going dark and men loaded boats onto trailers and pulled forward up the concrete take-out. When they unscrewed boat plugs, water squirted out onto the rippled ramp.

  “This is a cool place,” Shannon said.

  “You never been down here before?”

  “Not here. When daddy fishes he usually puts in at the state park.”

  “No launch fee. If you launch your boat here you have to go in and pay.” Kerry sucked on a bottle of beer.

  The hamburger and fries were salty and Shannon had finished a second bottle of beer. “Does all beer taste like this?”

  “Mostly. Bud’s the best though.”

  “My parents don’t drink.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “Will does, but not so Momma can tell.”

  “I could get you a Coke or a Mountain Dew.”

  “I’m fine,” Shannon said. She would have to tell him she wasn’t allowed to date. Her mother would be crazy when she got home and Shannon wasn’t there. Things would get worse if she smelled beer, but somehow that time was far away and hazy to Shannon. Nothing seemed quite real to her anymore, like her life was playing on a television with bad reception. Things would come into focus for a while if you fiddled with the antenna, but when you backed away from the set, crazy jagged lines cut across the screen and all the people faded out. It seemed like things were only real if you were right up on them.

  Lightning bugs were rising from the grass, signaling their intentions. Kerry swiped at one that floated by and caught it up. He opened his cupped hands for Shannon to see. Her brother would have wiped the poor bug across a rock to watch the fluorescent streak fade, but Kerry opened his hands and let the insect fly away. While his arms were still extended, he reached up and spread his fingers through her hair. She could smell the lightning bug on his hands. He kissed her gently. It was wet and slow and soft.

  Hills hugged the perimeter of the lake and blocked the sunset. Moist air hung heavy on their skin.

  “Let’s get in the truck so you don’t get cold,” he said.

  On the bench seat, he leaned into her, and his kiss became needy and forceful. She was scared, but he moved his tongue into her mouth and she touched it with hers and a tingle traveled from her stomach down to her private place. She put her arms around him and her tongue in his mouth. He never tried to touch her breasts as Shannon had expected. They kissed for fifteen minutes, until they were sweaty and breathless. She looked at her watch and said she had to go home. When he reached to start the truck she noticed his muscled, tan arms, although she told herself it was probably just a farmer’s tan.

  On the ride back to town she sat close to him. “Want to go around once?” he asked. Cruising was the weekend pastime in Falling Rock. You either went to the skating rink, the bowling alley, or a high school ballgame, or you drove around Main Street. Boredom led to lots of trips to Big John’s, car accidents, and unintended pregnancies.

  They drove the stop-and-go traffic of Falling Rock’s main drag. It was Friday night and vehicles crept around a circuit from the Dairy Queen to the post office and back. Boys on car hoods and tailgates had brown bottles half hidden between their legs, cigarettes pinched tightly in fingers. Girls gathered in circles in parking lots. Kerry drove with his left hand and put his right arm around Shannon. Cars honked and boys gave the thumbs up to Kerry, who smiled and nodded.

/>   “You want to go around again?” he asked her. When she said yes, she knew she was sealing the deal. Shannon could feel his heart beat in his leg, steady against her touch. After fifteen minutes she said, “I really have to go home. I’m in trouble already.”

  As they approached, her slender weatherboard house glowed in the waxing moonlight. Shannon’s mother was at the kitchen window above the sink, backlit by a shaft of light that carried her actions through the darkness to dance on the yard.

  “You better stay in the truck,” Shannon said.

  “No. I’ll see you in.”

  “My momma’s gonna cuss you out.”

  “That’s okay. I been cussed before.” Kerry’s eyes and hair were so different from the men in Shannon’s family. They were the dark warm brown of the worn buckeye her grandfather carried in his pocket. But more different was this boy’s soft nature. He was kind and he had manners. She liked that.

  Virginia was patterned through the cracked glass of the door, her eyes burning into the kids on the porch. She stepped outside. “Where you been? I been worried sick.”

  “I’m sorry, Momma.”

  “You’d better start talking.”

  “Kerry gave me a ride after school. He showed me the lake and we had some supper. Don’t be mad. We lost track of—”

  “You’re Tim Rucker’s boy.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He removed his cap.

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Do you know my Shannon’s only fourteen?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m almost fifteen.”

  Virginia ignored her. “I don’t allow her to ride around with boys.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She scanned them. “You smell like beer.”

  “I tasted it, that’s all.”

  “That what you’re doing? Giving my little girl beer?”

  Kerry cast his eyes down and shuffled his feet.

  “Thank you for bringing her home. Now it’s time for you to go. Shannon, get on in the house.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Kerry said.

  “We just lost track of time,” Shannon said.