Bettyville by George Hodgman

Author:George Hodgman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

13

After I have Betty tucked away at church with the hymns marked in her book, I start my errands and ask God, if he is listening, to help my mom. Please. At the convenience store, the boy who mows our lawn bends over the sharp rocks around the bushes, hunting something. His jeans are too long and baggy. He wears his gray parka with the hood up, even as the heat builds. It is hard to see his face; it’s just a pale blur. Paying for my gas, I see that he is holding a Band-Aid box and ask the man at the counter, “What is that kid doing?”

Looking for cigarette butts, the man tells me. “He does it all the time.”

“Do you know him?” I ask. “He’s from around the lake,” I am told. “What lake?”

“I don’t know,” the man says. “One of them.”

At Hickman’s IGA, Earl Davis—Freddy’s brother—loads groceries, as he has for decades. I think he is wearing the same clothes he wore in high school. The last time I saw Freddy, he was standing in the parking lot behind an insurance office that he cleaned on weekends. I was in college then, lucky enough to have parents who could afford to buy me a little freedom. That summer, I had interned in D.C., where I met someone who meant something to me. Of course I would never have admitted that to anyone, him especially, though in my mind he had become my boyfriend.

. . .

“Is it wrong?” Eric asked as he reached for my hand. “No,” I said. “It’s okay. I like it.”

Eric loosened my tie and draped it over the back of the chair. He made me feel taken care of, an unfamiliar thing.

I was working with one of our senators as part of a program for college kids. Twenty years old, I was a little drunk. Eric, who helped supervise our group, was from Cape Cod and looked like a Kennedy. Assessing me, he said I should buy a dark suit. Mine was baby blue; he said I looked ready for the Easter Parade.

I said I was not taking wardrobe advice from anyone in shorts with spouting whales. After deciding I came off as too earnest, I was trying for some edge. He laughed, touched me for just a moment. In his hand, I felt everything waiting.

I had amused him; I saw that, in his opinion, this counted for something. We were suddenly complicit; I wanted to make him laugh again and reach out to me. I always want more of anything good. Immediately, I found myself craving his approval. There was something a little wicked about him. He had a bemused way of looking at people. Like me.

“You’re from Missouri,” he said. “Show me.”

It was a fun game, this exchange, but he was straight. His girlfriend, Binky, from North Carolina, changed the bands of her wristwatch—yellow, blue, pink, and green—to match her outfits. One evening, she led a delegation of southerners in a rendition of “I Like Calling North Carolina Home.

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