Even in the rain he could make out the landmarks, looking surprisingly the way the books had pictured them—the Lee Mansion high on the hill, the bridge, and twice around the circle, so he could get a good look at Abraham Lincoln looking out across the city, the White House and the Monument and at the other end the Capitol. Leslie had seen all these places a million times. She had even gone to school with a girl whose father was a congressman. He thought he might tell Miss Edmunds later that Leslie was a personal friend of a real congressman. Miss Edmunds had always liked Leslie.
Entering the gallery was like stepping inside the pine grove—the huge vaulted marble, the cool splash of the fountain, and the green growing all around. Two little children had pulled away from their mothers and were running about, screaming to each other. It was all Jess could do not to grab them and tell them how to behave in so obviously a sacred place.
And then the pictures—room after room, floor after floor. He was drunk with color and form and hugeness—and with the voice and perfume of Miss Edmunds always beside him. She would bend her head down close to his face to give some explanation or ask him a question, her black hair falling across her shoulders. Men would stare at her instead of the pictures, and Jess felt they must be jealous of him for being with her.
They ate a late lunch in the cafeteria. When she mentioned lunch, he realized with horror that he would need money, and he didn’t know how to tell her that he hadn’t brought any—didn’t have any to bring, for that matter. But before he had time to figure anything out, she said, “Now I’m not going to have any argument about whose paying. I’m a liberated woman, Jess Aarons. When I invite a man out, I pay.”
He tried to think of some way to protest without ending up with the bill, but couldn’t, and found himself getting a three-dollar meal, which was far more than he had meant to have her spend on him. Tomorrow he would check out with Leslie how he should have handled things.
After lunch, they trotted through the drizzle to the Smithsonian to see the dinosaurs and the Indians. There they came upon a display case holding a miniature scene of Indians disguised in buffalo skins scaring a herd of buffalo into stampeding over a cliff to their death with more Indians waiting below to butcher and skin them. It was a three-dimensional nightmare version of some of his own drawings. He felt a frightening sense of kinship with it.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Miss Edmunds said, her hair brushing his cheek as she leaned over to look at it.
He touched his cheek. “Yes’m.” To himself he said, I don’t think I like it, but he could hardly pull himself away.
When they came out of the building, it was into brilliant spring sunshine. Jess blinked his eyes against the glare and the glisten.
“Wow!” Miss Edmunds said. “A miracle! Behold the sun! I was beginning to think she had gone into a cave and vowed never to return, like the Japanese myth.”
He felt good again. All the way home in the sunshine Miss Edmunds told funny stories about going to college one year in Japan, where all the boys had been shorter than she, and she hadn’t known how to use the toilets.
He relaxed. He had so much to tell Leslie and ask her. It didn’t matter how angry his mother was. She’d get over it. And it was worth it. This one perfect day of his life was worth anything he had to pay.
One dip in the road before the old Perkins place, he said, “Just let me out at the road, Miss Edmunds. Don’t try to turn in. You might get stuck in the mud.”
“OK, Jess,” she said. She pulled over at his road. “Thank you for a beautiful day.”
The western sun danced on the windshield dazzling his eyes. He turned and looked Miss Edmunds full in the face. “No, ma’am.” His voice sounded squeaky and strange. He cleared his throat. “No ma’am, thank you. Well—” He hated to leave without being able to really thank her, but the words were not coming for him now. Later, of course, they would, when he was lying in bed or sitting in the castle. “Well—” He opened the door and got out. “See you next Friday.”
She nodded, smiling. “See you.”
He watched the car go out of sight and then turned and ran with all his might to the house, the joy jiggling inside of him so hard that he wouldn’t have been surprised if his feet had just taken off from the ground the way they sometimes did in dreams and floated him right over the roof.
He was all the way into the kitchen before he realized that something was wrong. His dad’s pickup had been outside the door, but he hadn’t taken it in until he came into the room and found them all sitting there: his parents and the little girls at the kitchen table and Ellie and Brenda on the couch. Not eating. There was no food on the table. Not watching TV. It wasn’t even turned on. He stood unmoving for a second while they stared at him.
Suddenly his mother let out a great shuddering sob. “O my God. O my God.” She said it over and over, her head down on her arms. His father moved to put his arm around her awkwardly, but he didn’t take his eyes off Jess.
“I tolja he just gone off somewhere,” May Belle said quietly and stubbornly as though she had repeated it often and no one had believed her.
He squinted his eyes as though trying to peer down a dark drain pipe. He didn’t even know what question to ask them. “What—?” he tried to begin.
Brenda’s pouting voice broke in, “Your girl friend’s dead, and Momma thought you was dead, too.”
ELEVEN
No!
Something whirled around inside Jess’s head. He opened his mouth, but it was dry and no words came out. He jerked his head from one face to the next for someone to help him.
Finally his father spoke, his big rough hand stroking his wife’s hair and his eyes downcast watching the motion. “They found the Burke girl this morning down in the creek.”
“No,” he said, finding his voice. “Leslie wouldn’t drown. She could swim real good.”
“That old rope you kids been swinging on broke.” His father went quietly and relentlessly on. “They think she musta hit her head on something when she fell.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No.”
His father looked up. “I’m real sorry, boy.”