Crossroads

“What parishioner?” she said.

“You didn’t know about that? Him and Mrs. Cottrell? Why do you think Mom is on strike?”

Becky shuddered with disgust. “I don’t know anything about that. But I would appreciate you not making false assumptions about me.”

“Whoa. Really? False assumptions?”

“Yes, really.”

“You’re, what—too Baptist to go all the way? Or do you just like controlling him?”

“Fuck you!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s kind of pathetic. If you’re not even having sex, I honestly don’t see the point. The least you could do is learn something about yourself.”

Her hatred had entered a new dimension—Clem seemed outright evil to her. His antipathy to God, his contempt for every prohibition, had destroyed his soul. Her hand was shaking so badly, she could hardly hold the phone.

“You’re the pathetic one,” she said, shaking. “You think you’re so superior and rational, but your soul is dead.”

“My soul? That’s another fairy tale.”

“I don’t know what happened to you, I don’t know what your girlfriend did to you, but I don’t even recognize you.”

“I’m the same person I always was, Becky.”

“Then maybe I’m the one who’s changed. Maybe I’m finally old enough to see how totally different we are.”

“We’re not so different.”

“How totally different! You make me sick!”

She slammed the receiver into its holster. Then she lifted it again and set it on the floor, to forestall his calling back, and wandered out of the kitchen, sick with hatred. She tried going back to bed, but her hatred wouldn’t let her sleep. When Tanner picked her up for church, two hours later, she was reluctant to look at him, for fear of polluting him with Clem. At the Baptist church, she sang hymns and sat through the sermon with hatred in her heart.

Only at the end of the service, during the final prayer, did she reconnect with Jesus. Picturing the face of her Lord, the infinite wisdom and sadness of his gaze, she was seized with pity for her brother. She would never understand why he’d tried to go to Vietnam, but going to Vietnam was what he’d set his heart on, it was what he’d proclaimed to everyone that he was doing. Beyond his disappointment, he must have felt embarrassed when his plan fell through. Unhappy in New Orleans, presumably friendless, working the deep-fry station at Kentucky Fried Chicken, he’d repeatedly left messages for his sister, who in the past had always been there for him, and when he’d finally reached her on the phone she’d rejected him. In her sinful pride, her offended vanity, she’d lashed out at a person who’d loved and protected her all her life. If he’d lashed out at her, too, it was only because he was hurt and embarrassed.

She returned to the parsonage intending to call him and apologize, but when she went upstairs and saw his empty bedroom the sickness boiled up in her again. A visceral loathing, compounded by his contempt for everything that mattered to her, overwhelmed her sentimentality. Clem had actively attacked her, she’d merely defended herself. It seemed to her that he, not she, should be the first to apologize. For the rest of the day, and for several days afterward, she expected him to call her again. Even a small gesture of regret and respect, if he’d offered it sincerely, might have opened the door to her better self. But apparently he had his own pride.

In her abundance of happiness, as February turned to March, their fight receded in her mind. Tanner had sent letters to a dozen festivals in Europe, along with copies of a solo tape he’d recorded in his basement and clippings of a newspaper review of the Bleu Notes. Becky had helped him with the letter, rewording it more assertively, and the two of them now dwelt in states of parallel anticipation, he waiting to hear from Europe, she from Lawrence and Beloit. After a thorough, Crossroads-flavored discussion of her readiness to give herself to him, they also shared the anticipation of a week alone together in the parsonage.

Whatever Clem might think, she wasn’t stupid. Though it had warmed her heart and deepened her faith to share her inheritance with her brothers, she’d kept enough money to attend an expensive private college, surrounded by people as ambitious as her aunt Shirley had encouraged her to be. She’d encouraged Tanner to be similarly ambitious, and if he happened to get a record contract, and started touring nationally, she could see herself taking time away from college to be part of that. But going along with him to gigs had made her aware of how many other musicians had the same ambitions, how much competition even a brilliant talent faced. She didn’t like to think of Tanner languishing in New Prospect while she moved into new social spheres in Wisconsin; it didn’t bode well for their future as a couple. But her own personal future held two equally luminous possibilities, either the glamour of the music world or the privileges of college, and she was very happy.

On the Friday before Palm Sunday, as she walked home from school, her heart began to race. Easter vacation had commenced; her moment of falling was suddenly at hand. She and Tanner had chosen Monday as the night. She’d wanted to make him something special and European for dinner, possibly a cheese soufflé, but after consulting with her mother, who actually knew how to cook, she’d settled on beef bourguignon. She’d already bought two long candles for the table and, boldly, at the liquor store, a bottle of Mouton Cadet red wine. For the night to be perfect, it had to be about more than just sex.