Becoming Bonnie Page 3

  “When am I going to learn to hold one?” Billie whines, and not for the first time.

  “Soon,” Buster says.

  “Daddy taught you when you were younger than me,” she counters.

  “I didn’t learn ’til ’round your age, Billie,” I say, smiling at Buster.

  Ma pipes in. “You’ll learn soon, baby girl. Your daddy would teach you himself if he could.”

  I love hearing ’bout my daddy. I glance at his seat, picturing him teasing Billie, the same way he razzed me, for getting more food on her face than in her mouth. Even now, I see Daddy in Buster’s narrow eyes. It’s as if he’s always squinting, always tossing a million thoughts ’round his head. Probably a million ways he can get himself in trouble. And if I don’t do as Blanche says, he’ll be out on the town with my best friend. She could even take him to that juice joint in my place.

  The sound of an engine breaks into my thoughts. Blanche is here. We all know it’s her, immediately, even Duke Dog, considering most people in Cement City don’t have a car. That type of prosperity hasn’t reached this side of the tracks. One would think it would’ve, with concrete being so popular, but that’s the problem: competitive plants have been popping up all over the West. And we’re left not being able to afford luxuries like vacuum cleaners or dishwashers.

  Duke’s barking rumbles ’round my head, adding to the fear already rumbling through me. Billie rushes from her seat to the front door and Ma hollers how she hasn’t been excused, but it’s too late for that. Ma merely waves her hand, not bothering to discipline my little sister any further.

  Seconds later, Blanche appears. My sister always pouts and says Blanche and I, with our blonde hair, look like sisters more so than she and I do. I just remind Billie how she’s got Daddy’s dark hair and it puts the smile back on her face. A smile rivaling the one she wears now, as she’s wrapped ’round Blanche’s waist like one of those life preservers, Duke Dog bouncing at their feet.

  “Hello, Mrs. Parker,” Blanche says. “I’m mighty sorry to interrupt your supper.”

  “Nonsense. Would you like a bite?”

  “Oh no, I’m more than fine.” Blanche turns to my brother. “Hi there, Buster Boy.”

  She’s more snooty than seductive. That’s for my ma, so she doesn’t get any ideas that Blanche is crushing on Buster. The arrogant part is for me. If I deny her tonight, she’ll make good on her threat and put her vixen claws all over my brother. And, with how Buster is staring at her like she’s the second coming of our Lord Jesus, she knows she’s got me by the throat.

  Billie doesn’t help matters. “Blanche, are you taking Bonnelyn out to celebrate? Roy is stuck at the plant tonight.”

  “I sure am!” she says, not missing a beat.

  Her enthusiasm for something she knows zero ’bout still creates electricity in the room. Ma beams, Billie squeals, and Buster drools a bit more. Duke Dog even barks once for good measure.

  Blanche turns to me, and I reckon I’m the only one who recognizes the hurt in her voice as she says, “I’ve been wanting to take Bonnelyn out ever since she told me the good news.”

  Guilt goes and jabs me in the gut. Yesterday I should’ve told her ’bout Roy and me, but ever since Blanche’s ma left her daddy high and dry … well, I didn’t want her stomping all over Roy wanting to make me his wife. She’d lecture me, sayin’ how we should be luring boys, not settling down with ’em. I figured I’d tell her, eventually, but Billie let the cat half out of the bag.

  “Sounds wonderful, dear.” Ma hides a yawn behind her hand. “Where are you two headed?”

  “Most likely Victor’s,” Blanche says.

  Ma smiles approvingly; ain’t much trouble Blanche could get me in at a soda shop.

  And there it is. My fate is sealed. I rub the base of my neck; it ain’t helping to soothe me one bit. Round one goes to Blanche, in record time, and in this case her winnings include my wary company, not at a soda shop but at a speakeasy. A speakeasy … with its scantily clad women doing scandalous things with wicked men.

  “Let me get cleaned up.” I push back from the table with shaky arms.

  Blanche grabs me, releasing a squeal that rivals Billie’s. But once I close the door to my bedroom, Blanche’s deep voice is in my ear. “You got some explainin’ to do.”

  “In the car,” I whisper back.

  That mollifies her, for now. Too much, I’d say, from how she doesn’t nitpick my choice of attire or the modest way I repin my hair. Blanche is simply quiet, sort of. She hurries me along, insisting we can’t be late. Some of her anger fades when I begrudgingly comply.

  Ma is waiting for us in the living room. “Here,” she says. “Put your lips together like this.” She puckers and I copy her. Then she slides her best lipstick onto my lips for the first time. “A woman who’s spoken for should look her best. Touch it up after you’ve finished your soda.”

  I rub my lips together and force a smile for my ma, wanting a do-over of this moment.

  “Perfect,” Ma says. “You girls have fun, but don’t be home too late.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Blanche and I say in unison.

  We ain’t in the car for more than a second when Blanche says, “Spill the beans.”

  I pause, letting my head fall back, and stare through Big Bertha’s open roof. “Do you believe in soul mates?” I rock my head toward my friend, expecting her to scoff at the term. But her expression ain’t mocking; it’s cocky.

  “Honey,” she says, and slides on her sunglasses, “Blanche don’t believe in anything or anyone, ’cept maybe herself.”

  It’s a typical Blanche response—one where she speaks ’bout herself as herself. Most would find it weird, but I find it sad—for me. I may sing at church and school, but I wish I had the Blanche-like confidence to put myself on display in normal life. Or the gumption to say exactly what’s on my mind.

  Blanche puts Big Bertha in gear, lets out an exaggerated sigh, and starts driving. “Please don’t tell me you believe in soul mates, that you think Roy is yours. I heard what your ma said, how you’re spoken for.”

  I raise my chin. “What if I do and what if I am? Roy is plenty sweet.”

  “So are candied yams.” Behind her sunglasses, she takes her eyes off the empty road, looks me up and down, and I shrink deeper into my seat. “You’re just chasing that silly ‘American dream.’ Though I don’t see no handcuff on that ring finger of yours. Did he give you anything? A necklace even?”

  For once, smugness clings to my voice, as I sit up straighter and say, “A house. Roy gave me a house for us to live in one day.”

  Golly, that shuts Blanche’s fat mouth right up. She just sits there tapping her lip, ’til that finger is pointing at me. “What ya got to understand, Bonn, is that it’s all in the eyes. Lust. Passion. You and Roy don’t ogle each other.”

  I cross my arms, focusing on the stretch of farmland between my town and Dallas. “I love Roy. You’re just sayin’ all this ’cause you don’t like Roy, never have.”

  Blanche shrugs. “Let me ask you this. Have ya made him your Roy Toy yet between the sheets?”

  Her question should shock me. Instead, I rub my face, careful not to smear my lipstick. “Blanche, I ain’t having a bull session with you. What Roy and I do—that way—ain’t any of your beeswax.”

  And it’s mostly ’cause we haven’t done nothin’ yet, it being wrong to do that before we’re married. But that doesn’t mean we’re lacking passion. Maybe I define passion as something more long term, a love like my parents’. Nearly a decade may’ve passed since Daddy died, but Ma loves him all the same.

  She clucks before saying, “Well, if you’re insistent on marrying the fool, I suggest trying him out first.”

  “Blanche,” I growl. It won’t help telling her I’ve had years of trying him out—in other ways. I know he likes more peanut butter than jelly. Blue instead of black. Dogs, not cats. We’ve spent nights at the picture house, afternoons by the lake. We’ve got history
. And, thinking of our doodles, we’ve got ourselves a future. Ogling or not, we’ve got something stable. Love and stability. Ain’t those two things better than only having lust?

  Blanche laughs at my growl. “One of these days you’ll quit being a priggish Mrs. Grundy.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Stop acting like one,” she counters. “You’re such a wet blanket I’m surprised you don’t leave a trail of water behind you everywhere you go.”

  “Really?” I say. “I ain’t that bad.”

  She chuckles. “Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration. But don’t go denying you ain’t tight-laced.”

  Blanche slams on the car’s brakes, inches before the train tracks into Dallas.

  I exhale, looking left, right. “There ain’t a train coming.”

  “Glad to see your eyes are working.” Then she smiles, a devious Blanche-like grin, clearly no longer in a tizzy with me for withholding my news—probably ’cause she doesn’t consider anything related to marriage good news. “We got to get ourselves ready.”

  Ready. For the speakeasy. Talking ’bout Roy distracted me from that. I lightly touch Blanche’s arm. “Hey, how ’bout we go to Victor’s, for real.”

  “We will,” she says.

  “I meant now.”

  “Oh, I know what you meant, but it ain’t going to happen. This is important to me, Bonnelyn, and you said you’d help.”

  “You didn’t give me much choice,” I say between my teeth—which are seconds away from chattering, and considering how hot it is, it ain’t from the weather.

  Blanche lowers her sunglasses and looks at me over their frame. “What was that you just said?”

  “Um,” I start, hiding a cringe from her glare, “there has to be another way for you to make some money. This just seems dangerous and reckless.”

  “Reckless is my middle name.” She pulls something from the backseat. “Here, put these on.”

  I take the bag she shoves at me and hesitantly peek inside. Clothing. It clicks. That’s why Blanche didn’t care what I was wearing. She brought a dress for me. Nothin’ new there; been wearing the clothes she’s outgrown for years, ’til her clothing became less modest. But this dress ain’t old. I shake my head in annoyance, pulling it out and letting its full length show. “Oh, no, no, no. This here’s ’bout six inches too short.”

  “Gasp.” Blanche pulls her blouse over her head and shimmies off her skirt. A plunging red dress—that comes well above her knees—is all that’s left.

  My jaw drops open.

  “What ya think?” she asks, reaching into the bag, fastening a headband over her loose curls. “I wanna ooze sex appeal.”

  “I can almost see your crotch!”

  “I’m sitting. When I stand, the dress will be longer. Maybe.” She shrugs and drapes pearls ’round my neck, pokes something into my pinned-up hair. “If you won’t wear the dress, let’s gussy you up.”

  I peek at Big Bertha’s rearview mirror and my mouth drops open again. “You’ve gone and put a feather on my head.”

  Blanche takes one looksee at me and hoots with laughter. “I do suppose you look a bit like a peacock.” She tugs at my hair, removing the feather and letting a few strands fall onto my neck. “At least let down your hair. You got ’em all wrapped up like it’s the nineteen hundreds.”

  I swat her hand. “Leave me be.”

  She chuckles to herself and slides a cluster of bangles onto her wrist. “All ready.”

  A few minutes of my nervous foot tapping later, Blanche stops Big Bertha outside a row of buildings. I’m no stranger to Elm Street in the heart of Dallas. It’s the way to school, where I run most of our errands, and Blanche and I have been to the picture house and soda shop here on many occasions, Blanche flirting and me blushing.

  I scan the paved street. Nothin’ is out of the ordinary. No illicit bars, no unusual crowds of rowdy people. Many people are carrying on with their business, but no one seems to be doing anything illegal.

  Blanche yanks the napkin from Buck from her brassiere and examines the buildings. Her brows scrunch. “Well, this here is a physician’s office.”

  I release a sigh of relief. “Yup. Looks like the address is phony.”

  Blanche pouts. “You think Buck lied to us?”

  “Probably. He seems like the type.”

  “Rhatz.” Blanche throws the napkin onto the dashboard.

  The door to the physician’s office is flung open, catching both our attention. A man—no, a boy—saunters onto the sidewalk amidst a handful of people and peers up and down the block. I don’t like the looks of him, with his dark gray suit, bow tie and vest, and hair parted down the center. Too smooth.

  I cringe, knowing who he is. And I was so close to getting myself out of this jam.

  “Buck!” Blanche squeals. She practically lunges for the car door’s handle.

  I instinctively reach for her arm. “You’re really going out there? Doing this?”

  She’s baffled, like she’s solving an impossible mathematics problem in her head. “Ab-so-lute-ly. Now get your ass in gear.”

  I can’t. Not when my imagination conjures police fabricating out of thin air and swarming the building. I lick my lips and shake my head. “Blanche, I’m sorry. I can’t. I ain’t going in with you.”

  She sulks, staring at me. I expect her to drag me out of Big Bertha, but instead she twists in her seat, toward Buck. “Suit yourself.” The motion knocks my hand off her arm. “But I need this.”

  “Blanche…”

  I can’t help picturing her arms pinned behind her back, Blanche being forced into the back of a police car.

  “Bonnelyn. Stop.”

  I grab her shoulder despite her warning, and she pierces me with her determined green eyes.

  Blanche is going to be Blanche. I know she ain’t going to listen to a word I say ’bout this being dangerous. Or how there’s got to be another way to earn money to make her daddy happy. I pull my hand back. “I’ll stay right here in Big Bertha. If I see any funny business, I’ll come get you.”

  Even as I say it, I don’t know how—or even if—I could help her, but Blanche’s face warms, and telling the lie helps ease my guilt from staying behind.

  “Thanks, Bonn. Now, how do I look?”

  I sigh, still not happy with her, with this, with everything. But an idea pops into my head. From my pocket, I take the red lipstick my ma gave me and tell Blanche to pucker up.

  She doesn’t say thanks when I’m done, but she looks at me—really looks at me—how she does every time I mimic my ma and do something maternal, something Blanche’s own ma would do, if she had one.

  Blanche steps from the car.

  “Be careful,” I plead.

  “Always.” She winks before skipping off toward Buck, his fancy suit, and the physician’s office, her heels clicking against the street.

  I’m left in the passenger’s seat, praying to our Lord God I haven’t made a mistake by letting her go.

  * * *

  Day turns to night as I sit here in Blanche’s soft-top breezer while God only knows what goes on inside that physician’s office. At first, the three-story building ’cross the street casts a shadow over me. As time passes, the square of darkness creeps away, inch by inch, with the retreating sun. Streetlights flicker on above my head, and tiny spotlights line the sidewalks.

  People wander the street, in and out of the lights. I scrutinize them, my eyes playing tricks on me. A belt buckle becomes a policeman’s badge. In the shadows, umbrellas become guns. A shout becomes a threat of a raid. Each time, I grip the door handle. But I know, pathetically, that’s as far as I’ll go.

  Fortunately, the only folks actually out and about are plain ol’ men, and kids ’round my age.

  A few people come and go from the physician’s office—a group of men, a group of women. But never men and women together. Most women are at home, tending to their families. I reckon that’ll be me, after I become Mrs. Roy
Thornton.

  I startle, that being the first time I’ve referred to myself that way. The title causes mixed feelings, as if I’ve put being a wife above all my other dreams. But that can’t be true. Roy doesn’t even know I’m here, can’t know I even thought about coming here. He’s ready to settle down, not saddle up to a bar, ’specially with his daddy’s alcoholic ways. I got to imagine the idea of me being ’round giggle juice would leave a bad taste in his mouth.

  I close the roof of the car, needing something to do to busy myself. For the seemingly millionth time, I wish I’d brought something to read—not that I’d even be able to read the darkened pages. But holding a book always puts me at ease, knowing a happy ending is in between my fingertips.

  Movement catches my eye, and I hold my breath. Buck takes another step out of the physician’s office. I slink down in my seat, afraid he’ll spot me. He scans, sees me through the car’s open window. There’s a jump in his step as he approaches, lighting a ciggy by the time he gets here.

  “Well now, Blanche said you’d be hiding out in … Big Bertha.” He says “Big Bertha” as if it’s a question. “She’s just using the li’l girls’ room. Figured I’d come see your bonny face in the meantime.”

  I swallow, not having much experience with boys who ain’t Roy, and certainly not with boys with red lipstick staining their collars. I settle for a nervous nod, leaning away as much as the seat will allow.

  “Harmless inside the office, ya know.” He blows a puff of smoke.

  “I’ll take your word for that,” I say, finding my voice, albeit an uncomfortable-sounding one.

  He laughs, a mix of nicotine and booze on his breath. “You are reserved. And that friend of yours is a bearcat. How’d the likes of you become friends?”

  I shrug, feeling like a naïve little girl in comparison to my bearcat friend. Not sure why that bothers me a smidge. Her wild ways with boys—and life in general—shouldn’t be something that sparks even the slightest bit of curiosity within me.

  As if Blanche’s ears are ringing from my thoughts, she stumbles out from the physician’s office. I’m relieved to see her, even if she can’t walk straight.