One More Knight

unexpected light of a brilliant Sunday afternoon.

She threw him a look, letting go of a little gust of laughter. “You don’t seem very surprised.”

He shrugged. “Figured she had to have a better reason for stayin’ with the man all those years than just bein’ his housekeeper. She loves him. It was right there in her face, plain to see-guess you’ve just been too preoccupied with everything else that’s been goin’ on to notice.”

“Wow,” she said in a wondering tone, staring at her feet. After a moment she shook her head, and they started across the heat-shimmery parking lot, Charly still agitated and wanting to move a lot faster than Southerners generally like to in the summertime, those with any sense. Troy took hold of her elbow to slow her down a little, and she looked up at him with confusion darkening her eyes. There was some anger there, too, sparking and flashing like bomb bursts in a night sky.

“You don’t understand,” she finally burst out. “You’d have to know my father. All he cared about was appearances-what people thought, fitting in, being accepted. That’s why he was so upset when I got pregnant. That’s why he wanted so much for me to many Colin.”

“I don’t follow you.”

She heaved an impatient little sigh and rolled her eyes. “Colin was a Stewart. In this town that was like royalty-poor as church mice, but old blood. You’re a Southerner, you should know how it is- was…can be still, some places. The Stewarts go back two hundred years, at least. They were the original founders of this town, owned most of it until the war. My father’s people, on the other hand, were carpetbaggers-founded a fortune on the misfortunes of people like the Stewarts.”

“Lord,” said Troy, “that was over a hundred years ago.”

“Yeah, but that’s the old Southern question, isn’t it? How many generations does it take before you belong?” She gave a soft, ironic laugh. “My father is a fourth-generation Alabamian, and still felt like an outsider all his life. My marrying Colin would have given the acceptance he always longed for to the next generation, at least.” She paused. “I didn’t have all this insight back then, you realize. I was just a kid, and mad at my father because it seemed to me all he cared about was how we looked to other people. I can’t imagine that he’d ever have married-”

“A black woman?”

“Well, yeah, no matter how much he may have loved her.”

“Things change,” said Troy softly. “Times change. People change.”

She gave a suspiciously moist laugh. Looking down, he discovered that there were tears dripping off the end of her nose. Something inside him did a slow and painful flip-flop, and he finally did what he’d been wanting to do, unable to do for so long. He stopped and turned her toward him and folded her into his arms. “Be happy for them,” he said huskily into her hair.

“I am. I am…I was just thinking, you know…about Cutter. I wonder if he calls her Mom.”

“You heard him-he calls her Dobie.” His voice was rusty as old nails. “That boy knows who his mama is.”

Suddenly becoming aware of something wedged between his body and hers, he raised his head and held her a little ways from him. “That book,” he said, tipping his head toward the leather-bound volume she still held, cradled with her purse against her breasts. “Dobrina said she wanted you to give it to Cutter. What is it, a Bible? Some kind of family thing?”

She looked down with a faint air of surprise, as if she’d forgotten the book was there. He heard a sharp catch in her breathing.

“It’s my diary,” she said softly.

Charly said, “I can’t imagine I was ever this young.”

She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, in a motel room that reeked of fried chicken and biscuits and mashed potatoes with gravy, Troy having decided it wasn’t the best time to be nagging somebody about their eating habits.

“Listen to this.

‘Dear Diary.

I’m not going to write very much tonight, because Welcome Back, Kotter is on, and I have to finish my homework. I just think John Travolta is so-o bitchin’, don’t you? I wonder if he’s married, and if he’s not, if he’d ever consider being interested in a skinny girl from Mourning Spring Alabama with no boobs and a great personality.’

‘Thought for the Day-’

“I was supposed to think up something profound, you understand-

‘I’m thinking of getting a padded bra.’

“Can you believe it?”

“Hard to,” said Troy, eyeing what he could see of her breasts underneath the portrait of Sylvester the cat that adorned the T-shirt she was wearing. He’d just come out of the bathroom, where he’d indulged himself in a longer than usual shower, complete with shampoo and shave, and all the other miscellaneous activities men do in private, seldom admit to, and would never, ever call primping. He’d done all that mainly to give Charly some time alone to look over that old diary of hers, in case she needed the privacy. But as a result he was feeling fresh, clean and sexy as hell, and maybe it was just the frame of mind he was in, but as far as he was concerned, neither her breasts nor any other part of her looked like it was in any need of improvement whatsoever.

“Here’s another one.

‘Today I wore my new platform shoes to school. So did Kelly Grace. I had to sneak mine past the judge and Aunt Dobie in my backpack, but it was worth it. I think they look bitchin’, especially with my new jeans. Brooke Shields, eat your heart out!”’

She rocked back and looked up at him. “God-remember that?

Platform shoes. Bell bottoms…designer jeans.”

“Sideburns,” muttered Troy, rubbing his clean-shaved jaw.

“Leisure suits,” Charly sang, laughing.

“With bell bottoms…”

“…in bulletproof polyester!”

“Afros!”

“Pooka beads! Mood rings!”

“Saturday Night Fever!”

Charly put her hand over her heart in a mock swoon. “I must have seen that movie six times, at least. John Travolta was bitchin’! Did you guys say that, too-bitchin’? The equivalent of ‘Way cool, man…totally awesome.’ you know? Like… outasight?”

“Not within earshot of my mama, I didn’t,” said Troy dryly, going to sit on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch her, but not doing so. He felt off balance and unsure of himself, like a dinner guest finding himself witness to a family crisis. How close should he come? How close would she allow him? How much right did he have to share such intimate revelations?

She chuckled and went back to the diary, reading aloud under her breath now and then, slowly turning pages, smiling at first. But gradually her face changed, losing all traces of laughter and finally acquiring that tight, fragile look that be knew the wrong word, the slightest touch could shatter.

“Here.” Her voice sounded breathless and unsteady. “July 4-this is where it starts. No, wait-” she flipped pages “-a little before that. Here we are-July 1. ‘Dear Diary, Guess what! I think Richie Wilcox likes me.’” Her head came up and her eyes sought his, bright with fear and hope, like a kid about to take her first jump off a diving board and wondering if there was gonna be anyone there to catch her when she did.

“Go ahead,” he said, but something had tightened around his chest so that his voice was as airless as hers. He scooted his hand across the bedspread toward hers.

She took it and clasped it tightly, twining her fingers with his as trustingly as a child. And he felt something burst inside him, spreading liquid warmth all through him…warmth, and strength and certainty. When once again she bowed her head over the diary in her lap and began to read aloud the words, thoughts and feelings she’d transferred there from her heart so long ago, any doubts he’d had about his right to share them with her had gone.