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  I sat back, my heart thumping so hard, I thought it would crack open my chest. Poor Paul, I thought. He was so mixed up, so confused, his anger pulling him in one direction, his feeling for me pulling him in another. Grandpere Jack's surprise arrival and accusations didn't help matters any, but it might have saved us from doing something we would have regretted later on, I thought.

  I put out the light and lay back again. I had to confess to myself that for a moment, when Paul was so insistent, part of me wanted to give in and do just what he had said: be defiant and seize what fate had made off-limits. But how do you bury such a dark secret in your heart, and how do you keep it from infecting and eventually destroying the purity of any love you might possess for each other? It couldn't be; it wasn't meant to be. it mustn't be, I thought. If anything, I knew now that I couldn't let myself get that close to him again. I didn't have the strength of will to resist the passion either.

  As I closed my eyes and tried to sleep again, I realized, this was another reason, maybe even a bigger reason, to find the strength and the courage to leave.

  Maybe that was why Grandmere Catherine was so insistent about it; maybe she knew what would happen between Paul and me despite what we had learned about ourselves. I fell asleep with her words echoing in my mind and my promises to her on my lips.

  9

  Hard Lessons

  .

  I didn't see Paul for the remainder of the

  weekend and I was surprised when I went to school on Monday and didn't see him there eithEr. When I asked his sister Jeanne about him, she told me he wasn't feeling well, but she looked put out that I had asked, especially in front of her friends, and wouldn't say another thing.

  After I returned home from school, I decided to take a short walk along the canal before preparing dinner. I strolled down the path through our yard which was abloom with hibiscus and blue and pink hydrangeas. Spring was rushing in this year, the colors, the sweet scents, and the heightened sense of life and birth was all around me. It was as if Nature herself were trying to comfort me.

  But my confused and troubled thoughts were like bees buzzing around in a jar. I heard so many different voices telling me to do so many different things. Run, Ruby, run, one voice urged. Get as far from the bayou and from Paul and Grandpere Jack as you can.

  Forget running, be defiant, another voice told me. You love Paul. You know you do. Surrender to your feelings and forget what you've learned. Do what Paul wants you to do: live like it was all a lie.

  Remember your promise to me, Ruby, I heard Grandmere Catherine urge. Ruby. . . your promise . . . remember.

  The warm Gulf breeze lifted strands of my hair and made them dance over my forehead. The same warm breeze combed through the moss on the dead cypress trees in the marsh, making it look like some sprawling green animal, lifting and swaying to catch my attention. On a long sandbar, I saw a cottonmouth coiled over some driftwood soaking up the sun, its triangular head the color of a discolored copper penny. Two ducks and a heron sprung up from the water and flew low over the cattails. And then I heard the distant purr of a motorboat as it sliced through the bayou and wove its way closer and closer until it popped out from around a turn.

  It was Paul. The moment he saw me, he waved, sped up, and brought the boat close to the shore, the wakes from the motorboat swelling up through the lily pads and cattails and slapping across the cypress roots along the bank.

  "Walk down to the shale there," he called, and pointed. I did and he brought the boat as near as he could before shutting the engine and letting it drift up to me.

  "Where were you today? Why didn't you come to school?" I asked. He was obviously not sick.

  "I was busy, thinking and planning. Come into my boat. I want to show you something," he said.

  I shook my head. "I've got to start on dinner for Grandpere Jack, Paul," I told him, retreating a step.

  "You've got plenty of time and you know he'll either be late or not show up until he's too drunk to care," he replied. "Come on. Please," he begged.

  "Paul, I don't want anything to happen like it did the other day," I said.

  "Nothing will happen. I won't come near you. I just want to show you something. I'll bring you right back," he promised. He held up his hand to take an oath. "I swear."

  "You won't come near me and you'll bring me right back?"

  "Absolutely," he said, and leaned forward to take my hand as I hopped over the shale and stepped up and into the motorboat. "Just sit back," he said, starting the engine again. He spun the boat around sharply and accelerated with the confidence of an old Cajun swamp fisherman. Even so, I screamed. The best fisherman often ran into gators or sandbars. Paul laughed and slowed down.

  "Where are you taking me, Paul Tate?" He steered us through the shadows cast by an overhang of willow trees, deeper and deeper into the swamp before heading southwest in the direction of his father's cannery. Off in the distance I could see thunderheads over the Gulf. "I don't want to get caught in any storms," I complained.

  "My, you can be a nag," Paul said, smiling. He wove us through a narrow passage and then headed for a field, cutting his engine as we drew closer and closer. Finally, he turned it off to let the boat drift.

  "Where are we?"

  "My land,. he replied. "And I don't mean my father's land. My land," he emphasized.

  "Your land?"

  "Yep," he said proudly and leaned back against the side of the boat. "All that you see--sixty acres actually. It's mine, my inheritance." He gestured broadly at the field.

  "I never knew that," I said, gazing over what looked like prime land in the bayou.

  "My grandfather Tate left it to me. It's held in trust, but it will be mine as soon as I turn eighteen, but that isn't the best of it," he said, smiling.

  "Well, what is then?" I asked. "Stop grinning like a Cheshire cat and tell me what this is all about, Paul Tate."

  "Better than tell you, I'll show you," he said, and took up the oar to paddle the boat softly through some marsh grass and into a dark, shadowy area. I stared ahead and soon saw the bubbles in the water.

  "What's that?"

  "Gas bubbles," he said in a whisper. "You know what it means?"

  I shook my head.

  "It means oil is under here. Oil and it's on my land. I'm going to be rich, Ruby, very rich," he said.

  "Oh, Paul, that's wonderful."

  "Not if you're not with me to share it," he said quickly. "I brought you here because I wanted you to see my dreams. I'm going to build a great house on my land. It will be a great plantation, your plantation, Ruby."

  "Paul, how can we even think such a thing? Please," I said. "Stop tormenting yourself and me, too."

  "We can think of such a thing, don't you see? The oil is the answer. Money and power will make it all possible. I'll buy Grandpere Jack's blessings and silence. We'll be the most respected, prosperous couple in the bayou, and our family--"

  "We can't have children, Paul."

  "We'll adopt, maybe even secretly, with your doing the same thing my mother did--pretending the baby is yours, and then--"

  "But, Paul, we'll be living the same sort of lies, the same deceits, and they will haunt us forever," I said, shaking my head.

  "Not if we don't let them, not if we permit ourselves to love and cherish each other the way we always dreamed we would," he insisted.

  I turned away from him and watched a bullfrog jump off a log. It created a small circle of ripples that quickly disappeared. In a corner of the pond, I saw bream feeding on insects among the cattails and lily pads. The wind began to pick up and the Spanish moss swayed along with the twisted limbs of the cypress. A flock of geese passed overhead and disappeared over the tops of trees as if they had flown into the clouds.

  "It's beautiful here, Paul. And I wish it could be our home someday, but it can't and it's just cruel to bring me here and tell me these things," I said, chastising him softly.

  "But, Ruby--"

  "Don't y
ou think I wish it could be, wish it as much as you do?" I said, spinning around on him. My eyes were burning with tears of anger and frustration. "The same feelings that are tearing you apart are tearing me, but we're just prolonging the pain by fantasizing like this."

  "It's not a fantasy; it's a plan," he said firmly. "I've been thinking about it all weekend. After I'm eighteen . . ."

  I shook my head.

  "Take me back, Paul. Please," I said. He stared at me a moment.

  "Will you at least think about it?" he pleaded. "Will you?"

  "Yes," I said, because I saw it was the key that would open the door and let us out of this room of misery.

  "Good." He started the engine and drove us back to the dock at my house.

  "I'll see you at school tomorrow," he said after he helped me out of the boat. "We'll talk about this every day, think it out clearly, together, okay?"

  "Okay, Paul," I said, confident that one morning he would awaken and realize that his plan was a fantasy not meant to become a reality.

  "Ruby," he cried as I started toward the house. I turned. "I can't help loving you," he said. "Don't hate me for it."

  I bit down on my lower lip and nodded. My heart was soaked in the tears that had fallen behind my eyes. I watched him drive off and waited until his motorboat disappeared into the bayou. Then I took a deep breath and entered the house.

  The roar of Grandpere's laughter greeted me and was immediately followed by the laughter of a stranger. I walked into the kitchen slowly to discover Grandpere Jack sitting at the table. He and a man I recognized as Buster Trahaw, the son of a rich sugar plantation owner, sat hunched over a large bowl of crawfish. There were at least a half-dozen or so empty bottles of beer on the table that they had drawn out of a case on the floor at their feet.

  Buster Trahaw was a man in his midthirties, tall and stout with a circle of fat around his stomach and sides that made it look as if he wore an inner tube under his shirt. All of the features of his plain face were distorted by the bloat. He had a thick nose with wide nostrils, heavy jowls, a round chin, and a soft mouth with thick purple lips. His forehead protruded over his cavernous dark eyes and his large earlobes leaned away from his head so that from behind, he looked like a big bat. Right now, his dull brown hair was matted down with sweat, the strands sticking to the top of his forehead.

  As soon as I stepped into the room, his smile widened, showing a mouthful of large teeth. Pieces of crawfish were visible between the gaps and his thick pink tongue was covered with the meat as well. He brought the neck of a beer bottle to his lips and drew on it so hard, his cheeks folded in and out like the bellows of an accordion. Grandpere Jack spun around in his chair when he caught Buster's smile.

  "Well, where you been, girl?" Grandpere demanded.

  "I went for a walk," I said.

  "Me and Buster been here waitin' on you," Grandpere said. "Buster's our guest for dinner tonight," he said. I nodded and went to the icebox. "Can't you say hello to him?"

  "Hello," I said, and turned back to the icebox. "Did you bring any fish or duck or anything for the gumbo, Grandpere?" I asked without looking at him. I took out some vegetables.

  "There's a pile of shrimp in the sink just waitin' to be shelled," he replied. "She's one helluva cook, Buster. I'd match her gumbo, her jambalaya, and etouffee with any in the bayou," he bragged.

  "Don't say?" Buster replied.

  "You'll soon see. Yes, sir, you will. And look how nicely she keeps the house, even with a hog like me liven' in it," Grandpere added.

  I turned and gazed at him suspiciously, my eyes no more than dark slits. He sounded like he was doing a lot more than bragging about his granddaughter; he sounded like someone advertising something he wanted to sell. My suspicious gaze didn't shake him. "Buster here knows about you, Ruby," he said. "He told me he's seen you walking along the road or tending to the stall or in town many times. Ain't that right, Buster?"

  "Yes, sir, it is. And I always liked what I saw," he said. "You keep yourself nice and pretty, Ruby," he said.

  "Thank you," I said, and turned away, my heart beginning to pound.

  "I told Buster here that my granddaughter, she's gettin' to the point when she should think of settlin' down and havin' a place of her own, her own kitchen, her own flock to tend," Grandpere Jack continued. I started to shell the shrimp, "Most women in the bayou end up no better than they were to start, but Buster here, he's got one of the best plantations going."

  "One of the biggest and best," Buster added.

  "I'm still going to school, Grandpere," I said. I kept my back to him and Buster so neither would see the fear in my face or the tears that were starting to escape my lids and trickle down my cheeks.

  "Aw, school ain't important anymore, not at your age. You've already gone longer than I did," Grandpere said. "And I bet longer than you did, huh, Buster?"

  "That's for sure," Buster said, then laughed.

  "All Buster had to learn was how to count the money comin' in, ain't that right, Buster?"

  The two of them laughed.

  "Buster's father is a sick man; his days are numbered and

  Buster's going to inherit the whole thing, ain't you, Buster?"

  "That's true and I deserve it, too," Buster said.

  "Hear that, Ruby?" Grandpere said. I didn't respond.

  "I'm talking to you, child."

  "I heard you, Grandpere," I said. I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand and turned around. "But I told you, I'm not ready to marry anyone and I'm still in school. I want to be an artist anyway," I said.

  "Hell, you can be an artist. Buster here would buy you all the paint and brushes you'd need for a hundred years, wouldn't ya, Buster?"

  "Two hundred," he said, and laughed.

  "See?"

  "Grandpere, don't do this," I pleaded. "You're embarrassing me."

  "Huh? You're too old for that kind of thing, Ruby. Besides, I can't be around here watchin' over you all day now, can I? Your grandmere's gone; it's time for you to grow up."

  "She sure looks good and grow'd up to me," Buster said and wiped his thick tongue over the side of his mouth to scoop in a piece of crawfish that had attached itself to the grizzle of his unshaven face.

  "Hear that, Ruby?"

  "I don't want to hear that. I don't want to talk about it. I'm not marrying anyone right now," I cried. I backed away from the sink and from them. "And especially not Buster," I added, and charged out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  "Ruby!" Grandpere called.

  I paused at the top of the stairway to catch my breath and heard Buster complain.

  "So much for your easy arrangements, Jack. You brought me here, got me to buy you this case of beer and she ain't the obedient little lady you promised."

  "She will be," Grandpere Jack told him. "I'll see to that."

  "Maybe. You're just lucky I like a girl who has some spirit. It's like breaking a wild horse," Buster said. Grandpere Jack laughed. "Tell you what," Buster said. "I'll up what I was going to give you by another five hundred if I can test the merchandise first."

  "What'dya mean?" Grandpere asked.

  "I don't got to spell it out, do I, Jack? You're just playin' dumb to get me to raise the ante. All right, I'll admit she's special. I'll give you one thousand tomorrow for a night alone with her and then the rest on our wedding day. A woman should be broken in first anyway and I might as well break in my wife myself."

  "A thousand dollars!"

  "You got it. What'dya say?"

  I held my breath. Tell him to go straight to hell, Grandpere, I whispered.

  "Deal," Grandpere Jack said instead. I could see them shaking hands and then opening another bottle of beer.

  I hurried into my room and closed the door. If ever I needed proof that all the stories about

  Grandpere Jack were true, I just got it, I thought. No matter how drunk he got, no matter how many gambling debts he mounted, he should have some feeling for his own flesh an
d blood. I was seeing firsthand the sort of ugly and selfish animal

  Grandpere had become in Grandmere Catherine's eyes. Why didn't I have the courage to obey my promise to her immediately? I thought. Why do I always look for the best in people, even when there's not a hint of any there? All my lessons are to be learned the hard way, I concluded.

  Less than an hour or so later, I heard Grandpere come up the stairs. He didn't knock on my door; he shoved it open and stood there glaring in at me. He was fuming so fiercely it looked like smoke might pour out of his red ears.

  "Buster's gone,' he said. "He lost his appetite over your behavior."

  "Good."

  "You ain't gonna be like this, Ruby," he said, pointing his finger at me. "Your grandmere Catherine spoiled you, probably fillin' you with all sorts of dreams about your artwork and tellin' you you're goin' to be some sort of fancy city lady, but you're just another Cajun girl, prettier than most, admit; but still a Cajun girl who should thank her lucky stars a man as rich as Buster Trahaw's taken interest in her.

  "Now, instead of being grateful, what do you do? You make me look like a fool," he said.

  "You are a fool, Grandpere," I retorted. His face turned crimson. I sat up in my bed. "But worse, you're a selfish man who would sell his own flesh and blood just to keep himself in whiskey and gambling."

  "You apologize for that, Ruby. You hear."

  "I'm not apologizing, Grandpere. It's you who have years of apologizing to do. You're the one who has to apologize for blackmailing Mr. Tate and selling Paul to him."

  "What? Who told you that?"

  "You're the one who has to apologize for arranging the sale of my sister to some Creoles in New Orleans. You broke my mother's heart and Grandmere Catherine's, too," I accused. He stood there sputtering for a moment.

  "That's a lie. All of it, a lie. I did what was necessary to do to save the family name and made a little on the side to help us out," he protested. "Catherine just worked you up against me by telling you otherwise and--"