Part 24 (1/2)

”Henry, please...”

”Come on, Cammy. It'll still be broad daylight. T. C. will tell you how safe it is.”

But when the truck came, followed by T. C. on the Rubbertail, Camilla went into her bedroom and closed the door.

”I'm really tired,” she said, smiling. ”You can tell me about it tomorrow.”

Gaynelle's sister, JoAnne, a st.u.r.dy woman who did not come up to her sister's shoulder, had come to stay with Camilla. She was, Gaynelle said, a practical nurse, and Camilla would be in capable hands.

”Is this my baby-sitter?” Camilla said when we introduced JoAnne. But she smiled when she said it.

Henry rode off in his accustomed place on the back of the Rubbertail, and I went in the truck with Gaynelle and Britney. Britney was manic and monstrously affected; for the first time, I did not like being around her. She was fully made up, with lipstick, mascara, glitter on her cheeks and fingernails, and great circles of coral blusher on her cheeks. None of the endearing freckles showed, and her curly red hair was pouffed and sprayed into cementlike submission. She was not the tough, cheeky little girl I had found so endearing. She was a ghastly little copy of a rock star, or, I thought, perhaps a p.o.r.n star. Gaynelle smiled on her fondly, and tugged at her hair, or dabbed at her makeup. Fortunately her costume was in the backseat, tenderly shrouded in plastic. Her little blue jeans and sweats.h.i.+rt anch.o.r.ed her at least a bit to reality.

At the used-car lot where T. C.'s friend kept his spare motorcycle, we left T. C. and Henry. Henry would not let us wait.

”Go on,” he said. ”I'm not letting anybody but T. C. watch me till I get my sea legs, or whatever. Bike b.u.t.t, maybe.”

So we drove on to the consolidated middle school where the rehearsal was being held, and waited in the parking lot, Britney wriggling and whining until her mother told her to hush.

Just as the light was dying out, we heard the familiar grumble of bikes, and T. C. came sweeping into the parking lot on the Rubbertail and drew up beside us with a flourish. Behind him, Henry came putting in on a smaller, lighter bike that looked to me more like a muscular bicycle. He was helmeted and jacketed and goggled so that he could have been anybody at all, but was still unmistakably Henry, and he was grinning so widely that his teeth were the brightest thing in the gathering dusk. He swept up beside T. C., cut his engine, and swung off the bike as if he had been doing it for years.

”You see? I told you you don't forget,” he crowed. ”I could ride this baby from here to Key West. I didn't have a minute's trouble.”

”He did good,” T. C. said, nodding solemnly. ”Not a bobble. I thought this light little 230 Roller might be good to get him started; a friend of mine got it for his boy. It's a good little basic machine. We can get Henry up to some serious horsepower if he wants to do it.”

”I might, at that,” Henry said.

”Where'd you get your Halloween costume?” I said, laughing.

”It's T. C.'s spare suit-up. Boots are a little tight, but I'd kill him for the jacket,” Henry said.

”You look like a thug,” I said.

”I feel sort of like one. It's a great feeling.”

The pageant was just what I had thought it would be: a disjointed stampede of miniature trollops in pop-rock costumes, posturing and wriggling their meager fannies and pouting and smirking redly. Some sang, some danced, some did gymnastics, some twirled batons. Britney was the only one who played the harmonica. To me it sounded downright embarra.s.sing, but then so did the other contestants' offerings. Henry and I, twitching with suppressed laughter, would not look at each other. T. C. smiled fondly. Gaynelle took copious notes after every performance, writing in a little notebook.

When the rehearsal was over, most of the contestants were divested of their costumes by their mothers. Britney insisted on wearing hers home. She was nearly hysterical with all the adulation. She jumped into my arms and hugged me so hard that I was imprinted with makeup and spangles, and smiled with relief that this child was still, under the icing, the child I knew.

”I was the best,” she crowed. ”I was the prettiest, too. Cindy Sawyer, that's the one that did LeAnn Rimes, is s'posed to win, but I thought she looked stinky. It's gonna be me!”

She started in on the harmonica, and Gaynelle winced and reached back and took it away from her.

”Cool your jets,” she said. ”You did pretty good but you can do a whole lot better. I've made notes. We'll go over them tomorrow.”

When we got back to the car lot to drop off the little 230 Roller and collect Henry, T. C. said, ”Why not ride back with me on the Rubbertail, Anny? It's a warm night, and we can suit you up in Gaynelle's stuff. I promise to go real slow.”

”Oh, I couldn't-” I began.

”Yes, you could,” Henry and Gaynelle said together, and I realized that this had been planned all along.

”Oh, why not?” I said, thinking that perhaps if I screamed enough, T. C. would stop and let me off. They fitted me into Gaynelle's leathers, in which, I knew, I must look like a small bear, and I climbed onto the seat behind T. C. My heart was pounding out of my chest.

”Please go slow,” I yelled and he nodded, and started the Rubbertail.

It felt like a gigantic live, wild thing between my legs, the sheer power of it shooting up my spine and into every inch of me, down to my toes and out to my fingertips. I clutched T. C. around his waist and buried my face in his jacket, and we blasted out of the lot and away. For about a mile, I did little but try to breathe enough air into my lungs and shut my eyes and hang on. And then, very gradually, I began to feel the night wind on my face, and smell the wet, loamy beginnings of spring on the black, moss-hung road out to the creek, and the rhythm of the bike and the road came into my legs and hips. I lifted my head and looked around; it was like flying. There was nothing between me and the fresh, rus.h.i.+ng night. By the time we reached the creek, I was laughing jubilantly. When I got off, my legs crumpled under me and T. C. had to catch me.

”Happens to everybody the first time,” he said. ”I've seen folks that couldn't walk for a day. You did great.”

Henry and Gaynelle and Britney pulled into the gravel circle behind us.

”You looked like a real biker b.i.t.c.h,” Henry said, coming up and hugging me. ”How'd you like it?”

”Biker b.i.t.c.h? Watch your mouth, sailor. I loved it. I really did.”

”Told you,” Henry said.

When I told Camilla about it the next morning, she just smiled and shook her head.

”Next thing, you'll be cleaning houses with Gaynelle,” she said. ”And taking that child to get acrylic nails and collagen.”

”Oh, Camilla...” I felt obscurely hurt.

”I'm sorry. I just mean that I can't abide that poor child, for some reason. She's way too old for her age. It's eerie. She's going to be burned out by the time she's twelve.”

The next day, Sunday, Gaynelle asked if she could come over and borrow some books.

”Of course,” I said. ”Bring Britney and I'll take her out in the Whaler, if the weather holds.”

There was a pause on the line, and then Gaynelle said, ”I think I'll leave her home this time. She's not too fond of Camilla. In fact, I think she's afraid of her.”

”Oh, surely not,” I said, shocked. Camilla had never been anything but pleasant with the child, even though, as I knew now, she did not care for her.

”Well, it's funny,” Gaynelle said. ”She usually doesn't dislike anybody, but she knows things. She always did.”

”What things?”

”Who likes her and who doesn't. Things like that.”

”Gaynelle, I don't think Camilla dislikes Britney,” I said. ”She's just ill. You know she's not doing well.”

”I don't think it's that. It doesn't matter. Not everybody likes children. And I don't think Camilla is as ill as all that. Sometimes when she's writing in that book she's just vibrating with energy. She writes like a demon.”

”But you know how shaky she is on her feet.”

”Yes,” Gaynelle said.