Deliver Us from Evie Read online

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’m telling you this because the man’s in charge of those things, and I hold you responsible, Parr. No parking, ever!”

  “I heard you, sir.”

  “You hear me and you listen, Parr, or it’ll be all over for the two of you.”

  “You don’t have to worry, sir.”

  “I have to worry. Anyone’s got a daughter has to worry!”

  St. Luke’s smelled like a funeral parlor with all the flowers everywhere, and every female wearing her best perfume.

  All the women were dressed to the nines, but my father was wearing his old light-blue suit splitting at the arm seams, and Doug didn’t even have a tie on.

  Mr. Duff was in his center-aisle pew with Patsy. He had on a blue silk blazer with gold buttons, gray pants struggling to hold his big belly in, a red rose pinned to his lapel.

  He was singing loud and shouting out all the responses, which was his way. He didn’t glance our way as we filed into our pew. Neither did Patsy.

  She had an early tan she must have gotten from playing tennis at Appleman, and her long blond hair was streaked with lighter shades through it. She was wearing a white shirt open at the neck, cut low, pearls, a yellow blazer, a navy skirt.

  I kept staring at her and thinking of her choosing Evie to love, when she could have probably had any guy in the county she wanted, in the whole state of Missouri and maybe all of the U. S. of A.

  I tried to fathom her state of mind from her face, but she didn’t have any particular expression that gave a clue.

  When the service was over, she didn’t look in our direction once. She actually took her father’s arm, and they made tracks, only stopping by the door long enough to greet the Reverend Southworth.

  “I knew it would turn out this way,” Mom said to me as we were heading down the aisle. “Evie’s the one being run out of town, and she carries on like nothing’s happened.”

  “Evie wanted to go. No one told her to.”

  “Oh, Parr, don’t be so blind. What’s Evie going to do in St. Louis? Summer’s coming—that was her favorite time on the farm.”

  “Maybe she’ll come back.”

  “I could kill you for not waking us up!”

  “Don’t kill me,” I said. “There’s not a lot of us left to harvest.”

  Cord never showed up for the service.

  I don’t know what my father said to him, or what Evie did, either.

  The next day when I got home from school, I saw he was back at work.

  It wasn’t that my father was a forgiving man. It was just that first he was a farmer. First and last, he was, and whatever was in between there wasn’t time for.

  The only mention of it Cord made was during an argument between us about who had to clean the farrowing floors, the worst job on the farm.

  When my father wasn’t within hearing range, Cord said, “You owe me, Parr. I took all the blame for the sign.”

  So I did them.

  29

  JUNE, AND DOUG STILL hadn’t told our folks about his decision to become a vet.

  Evie called every weekend from New York City. She was staying at some women’s residence run by the Salvation Army.

  Dad was mad she was still gone, though in the beginning I think he was glad she was. I heard him tell her, “Well, you could use some salvation, I guess,” handing the phone quick to Mom the first time we got a call from her.

  He didn’t want to get into a conversation with her. I don’t think he knew what to say. His way of handling anything messy was to let it go by without discussion, what he called letting it work itself out, as though whatever “it” was had a life of its own.

  He didn’t think Evie’d stay away.

  He thought she’d be back as soon as Patsy Duff left for Europe on July Fourth. After she graduated from Appleman, she and her father took Mrs. Duff to a rehabilitation center in Kansas City. They were due back in Duffton any day.

  Evie had a job she said was temporary, working in a department store.

  “What are you wearing to work?” Mom asked her.

  I was sitting there waiting for my chance to say hello, and I muttered, “All you care about is what Evie’s got on her back!”

  “Your brother says I only care about what you’ve got on,” Mom told Evie, “but that isn’t true, honey. I’m worried sick about you. Be careful on the streets. People have guns, knives. You’re too trusting, honey. You can’t trust people in a city like that…. And something else, honey.” I saw her look around to see if Dad had come up from the barn. There was no one else in the house but me.

  Mom said, “Be careful of the friends you make, too, Evie. Don’t seek out the gays. Think about that lifestyle, Evie. That’s a very narrow life.”

  “Not like ours,” I muttered. “Not like staying in Duffton, Missouri, on a farm, your whole life long.”

  Mom snapped, “Parr, stay out of this! Wait your turn to talk!”

  Then she said to Evie, “Did you hear what I said? Don’t make up your mind too soon that you’re one of them. This could be a phase. You could be making a terrible mistake. Why don’t you see a doctor, honey? There are clinics in a big city like New York, places you could go that charge fees according to what you can afford.”

  Whatever Evie answered, Mom shot back, “That’s ridiculous! You haven’t known anything of the kind all your life! … You just met the wrong person!”

  Mom listened some more, interjected things like “Oh, sure, and where is she now? Did she stand by you, Evie? … Last time I laid eyes on her, she was hanging tight to her daddy’s arm like she was his little girl!”

  Finally, Mom gave up and passed the phone to me.

  “We miss you,” I said, because I hadn’t heard anyone else say it. I meant it, too. Before, I’d only thought about Evie as someone to save me from being a farmer, but it was her presence I got to missing. I’d started thinking she was the only one in the Burrman family with any originality. My mother talked a lot about her being this stereotype, but it seemed to me that was what we were more than she was. At least she was in New York City. Not a one of us had even been there on a visit. Burrmans were farmers to our bones. We came from farmers, we bred farmers, we looked like farmers, and we’d probably die farmers—or I’d die trying not to be one: one or the other.

  “Don’t miss me, Parr. Think of me, but don’t miss me. Get on with your life, and I’ll get on with mine.”

  I wanted to tell her Doug and she were making it hard for me to get on with mine, but Doug had to break the news himself.

  “Do you like that place, Evie?”

  “I do, Parr. Sorry, little brother. I know you’d rather hear I can’t stand it.”

  “Then you’re staying.”

  “I’m staying. You get out, too, Parr, when it’s time.”

  “You sound real happy, Evie.”

  “I’m not unhappy…. How’s Dad doing?”

  “He’s doing. You know Dad. He does…. But he misses you. He can’t ever say things like that.”

  “I know. But you’ll all manage.”

  “We all manage, but we could sure use a repairman on the premises.”

  “You could use a repairperson,” Evie said, chuckling.

  Mom hollered from her office, “That call is costing Evie money, Parr!”

  No matter how often Mom told Evie to call collect, she never did.

  I got my driver’s license, took Evie’s car to school, and found out right off the bat why Mr. Kidder had his rule.

  I met Angel after. We weren’t parked, not out by the quarry, anyway, where all the kids made out. We’d pulled over by a field halfway between Duffton and Floodtown, so we could watch some ponies gamboling in a pasture.

  Angel was all over me, or I was all over her, or we were all over each other. We’d never really been off alone together, and we just let go.

  I had to say, “Hey, wait!”

  “For what?”

  “Didn’t you ever he
ar boys get excited?”

  “Girls do too.”

  “It doesn’t show, though.”

  “I like it showing.” She laughed.

  Having a car seemed to change her, but she said it wasn’t the car. She said it was thinking about what was happening to her and me, Doug and Bella, and even Evie and Patsy. I’d finally told her the truth about my sister, making her promise not to tell her folks.

  “Love is a force,” she said. “It comes over you like waves crashing on a beach.”

  “Have you ever even seen a beach?”

  “On TV. But you know, Parr, all the hymns I learn make me think of love more than God. Of what happens because of love. ‘Love found me, My fainting soul was tempest tossed,’ and ‘Linger no longer, come come,’ and ‘I belong to him, yes, I belong to him.’ I think about all that’s happening around us because of love.”

  “You’re not still afraid of Evie?”

  “Uh-uh. I been thinking: What if it was a world where males and females weren’t allowed to love each other, and we felt like we do? I couldn’t change. Could you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “And I wouldn’t want just any old boy, either.”

  “I wouldn’t want just any girl.”

  “Not even Toni Atlee?”

  “Oh, well, maybe Toni Atlee.”

  “Be serious, Parr.”

  “I wouldn’t want anyone but you, Angel.”

  “So I bet Evie just wants Patsy.”

  “She did. I don’t know about now.”

  “But I never would have had anything to fear from Evie.”

  “Right. Don’t be too sure about me, though.” I started the car. “You better stop learning those sexy hymns. They’re going to ruin us.”

  She sang,

  “I would not live without thee,

  not a day, not a day.

  I need thy strength to help me,

  all the way, all the way.”

  I loved that voice of hers.

  But I never could forget Mr. Kidder’s voice, either. The man’s in charge…. I hold you responsible, Parr.

  30

  DOUG WAS HOME FOR The summer.

  The last day in June, there was a benefit dance over at County to raise money for the coach there, who needed a kidney transplant. They’d opened the school especially for it.

  I was getting dressed, picking Angel up at seven.

  Doug had come up from the farrowing house as Dad was upstairs showering, and he waited until the water stopped running.

  Then he called in at him, “We need a vet, Dad.”

  “Now?”

  “Right now! How long since Doc Rothwell’s been over here?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “That’s great. What’s he running, some kind of fire-engine practice?”

  Dad opened the bathroom door. “I call him when I need him.”

  “That’s what I mean. You call him when the fire’s already started. You seen those new barrows and gilts?”

  “I was in the nursery not an hour ago.”

  “Well, they’re in trouble. They been in trouble awhile.”

  “They’re fine,” said Dad.

  “No way. They got something.”

  “You come back here hot from your college, you haven’t been paying attention here, and you tell me—”

  Doug didn’t let him finish. “I tell you they’re sick. I’ll call Rothwell if you won’t.”

  “You’re not calling anybody!” I could hear the fear in Dad’s voice, though. I could hear him stamping out into the hall. “What do you know?”

  “I know a lot more than you do!”

  “You don’t know anything!” That was all we needed, sick pigs, and Dad couldn’t stand hearing it.

  Then Doug said, “It’s your farm. I don’t give a damn if you want to let them all die. Let them! I try to tell you something, and if you don’t care to hear it, you give me a fight!”

  “It’s your farm too,” Dad said.

  “We’ll talk about that. I’m calling Rothwell.”

  “Talk about what?” Dad said.

  That was the start.

  Rothwell got called, but while they were waiting for him to come from King’s Corners, Doug blurted out that he’d changed his major … and his plans.

  I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of it.

  That was the advantage of wheels.

  You could just take off.

  The first drops of rain started as I was heading toward Floodtown.

  When I got there, Mr. Kidder was standing outside the trailer, under the tin overhang, looking up at the sky.

  “You see that bank of black clouds, Parr?”

  “It doesn’t look good, sir.”

  “You be careful tonight. I think it’s going to come down hard just about the time you’re leaving that dance.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re leaving at ten forty-five, Parr.”

  “The dance will go on until midnight, sir.”

  He ignored that. He said, “Unless it’s really coming down. Then leave before quarter to. I’ll expect Angel home at eleven thirty, earlier if the storm’s heavy.”

  I was standing there under an umbrella, listening to the rain on the metal roof of the trailer.

  Angel appeared in the doorway.

  “Get her home safe and on time, Parr.”

  I said I would.

  I meant it, too.

  There was nothing then to make me think that wouldn’t happen.

  31

  KIDS WHO CAME TO the County dances usually came in groups, boys together, girls together.

  There were some couples like Angel and me, but Angel was the only one from King’s Corners.

  We didn’t hang out with a crowd, so it was a while before the gossip drifted down to us.

  It was Spots Starr who came up to us at the punch bowl.

  By that time the thunder was crashing above us, and the rain was pouring down on the gym roof.

  “Where’s your sister tonight, Parr?” Spots asked me.

  “She’s in New York City every night now. Why?”

  “My dad’s been looking for Patsy Duff. They got back from Kansas City this afternoon and then she took off.”

  “Well, she hasn’t been near our place.”

  “Oh, we know that,” he said, as though he was working in the sheriff’s office. “Mr. Duff thought Patsy was just going for a drive in the Porsche. Then he saw she’d taken all her luggage with her, still packed.”

  “I thought she was going to Europe,” I said.

  “So did he,” Spots said. “She was supposed to leave for France Fourth of July. Then pffft!” He smiled with his perfect white teeth. He smelled of aftershave.

  I shrugged, but my heart was racing. “She’ll probably show up in time.”

  “My dad bets not.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” I said.

  “If we knew, we wouldn’t tell,” Angel put in.

  “I know you,” said Spots. “I saw you in St. Luke’s last Christmas. You’re from The Church of the Heavenly Spirit.” He was looking all over her face.

  “I don’t know you,” said Angel.

  “He’s the sheriff’s son,” I told her. And I told him, “This is Angel Kidder.”

  He said, “How come you wouldn’t tell if you knew where they were?”

  “We know where my sister is,” I said. “She’s not missing.”

  “How come you wouldn’t tell, Angel?” said Spots.

  “Because I’d let them alone.”

  “If they were together you wouldn’t tell?” Spots asked Angel. He was leaning down so he could see into her eyes.

  Angel shook her head.

  “That isn’t what they teach you in your church, I bet.”

  “I’m not in my church,” said Angel.

  Spots laughed. He said, “And I bet there’s no dykes in your church.”

  “Why don’t you go see?” said
Angel.

  “Hey!” said Spots. “You got your ruff up, haven’t you?”

  I could tell he liked Angel. He was giving her this lopsided smile, hugging himself, lightning flashing past the windows and he didn’t even look out.

  I got Angel back on the dance floor, and he tried to cut in a few times. We didn’t let him.

  We sat out all the Paul Joneses, too. We just wanted to be together.

  We sat on a pair of folding chairs, trying to believe the thunder wouldn’t come through the walls. It was already drowning out The County Seven, who were sounding the cymbals and drums every time there was another huge BOOM.

  “I hope they’re together,” Angel said, and I didn’t have to ask who “they” were. “I’m on their side now, because I keep thinking what if it was us people were trying to stop.”

  I told her all about Cousin Joe in Quincy, the way Dad made fun of him. I told her I thought Dad was embarrassed by Evie now that she was out of the closet; it was that more than it was morals with him.

  “It’s morals with my folks, but I never told them Evie really is one—they’d die!”

  “She’s better off gone.”

  “I’d hate to be her. I mean, I’m for her, and I like her, but I couldn’t stand being that way.”

  “When you first met Evie, did you think you’d hate to be like her?”

  “I didn’t think about it at all. I never would have wore stuff she wears, but I didn’t think she was that different until the sign went up on the bayonet.”

  I took a deep breath. “I put it there,” I said.

  “You did not!”

  “I’m telling you! I had some beers with Cord, and even though it was his bright idea, I went along with it.”

  “You did that to your own sister?”

  “I wasn’t thinking about what it’d mean to Evie. I didn’t want to hurt Evie. I just wished I could get rid of Patsy Duff, so things would get back to normal on our place.”

  There was a great clatter of thunder and lightning underlining my confession.

  I said, “I’m paying for it now.”

  “You mean the storm?”