Words for Patty Jo

Patty Jo

“I’ve had two husbands, but neither was a great love.” As soon as the words are out, she regrets them. They smack of failure, and she has betrayed an honorable dead man. The two women at the table are startled (perhaps secretly gleeful). Hadn’t she been the adored wife of a respected judge? Isn’t she a well-off widow, owner of a fine brick Victorian house, a woman with an impressive career behind her? What unsightly cracks has she just exposed?

It’s the fault of four glasses of wine and the anticipation of what morning will bring. Or is it this evening of confidences, the conjuring up of vanished sweethearts and irrecoverable youth?

Secretive, she listened to the other women’s stories of faded romances, lost chances, marriages gone sour, but didn’t mention her many lovers. Yet, she remembers them fondly, for time affords indulgence (although, surely, she has forgotten some, and others were less than agreeable).

But isn’t this a sign of aging—blocking out the negative, showing tolerance? She regards her younger self with leniency, refusing to condemn recklessness. Sometimes risk is the only option. Hadn’t it given her the fortitude to be the person she is now?

The others want more. Elaine slides forward, eyes eager; Lila watches, almost hostile. What can she give them? Not the truth, for that might jinx her prospects (the superstitious thought almost makes her smile). Would they, twenty years her junior, find ridiculous the romantic dreams of a silver-haired woman in her seventies?

“Perhaps great love is a fantasy.” She’s hedging and hopes they won’t pry.

“Or it becomes the usual emotional disaster of people living together for years,” says Lila, angered by her achingly vile divorce.

“In some cases, yes. What’s happening with the sale of your house?”

As a diversion, it works. Talk swings back to lawyers and compromise. Then, mentioning last-minute packing before her early flight, Patty Jo makes her exit.

Yellow light fills windows along these streets, emphasizes the night’s moist chill. She rarely thinks of her age; when she does, she isn’t old. Perhaps most people are the same, seeing themselves as young, enthusiastic, but captured in a mature body.

Vivid are things long gone: the scent of summer sun on reeds and sedges along an inky northern lake, the hot tang of melting tar, the early morning whistle of a vanished factory, the thud of oars on a rowboat’s bottom, the wheedling of a long-dead dog.

She can still hear leaves rustling on the scrawny birch in her former backyard. How she’d loved that feeble thing, daring to put down roots in a poor neighborhood of parched grass and oil-splotched driveways. Trees didn’t belong there; they only had the right to grow lush in the gardens of the rich.

The birch seemed to sense that in its thin-branched, fearful way. It knew it was doomed. How, axe in hand, Don Ried had cheered when it lay on its hacked, defeated side. If she’d feared that man before, her hatred of him was now complete.

She slips her key into the lock of her front door. Without turning on a lamp, she sits in the living room of her home. In the gloom, she can sense more than see the red brocade, the heavy curtains, the waxy shine on hardwood floors, the shape of furniture handed down from one generation to the next. How is this her home? Has she changed one thing? Eliminated one oil painting, one pretty watercolor? Has she added a decorative crock? Or has she been nothing but a shadow in a deceased man’s realm?

She pushes questions aside. Why fret? She’s made her mark, turned fate around. She likes herself, is proud of her accomplishments.

No, it’s hope fused with anguish that has brought on doubts. For tomorrow she will make a grab for the past, snatch at the great love that has eluded her. But what if she’s got it all wrong?

The 1960s: Dreaming

Picture a lake circa 1967, summer sun licking wavelets into chrome glitter. Between boat shed and ice cream shack, that’s where the ragtag lot hangs out: Suzi, Dot, Patty Jo, Jake, brazen Janey-Joan, Mickey, Peppy, Snap, and Tonio. Just ask them: they’ve got big ideas, too big for backwoods Carlton’s Bay.

Noisy, chucking empty cans and cigarette butts onto the ash-gray beach, guys combing greased Elvis hair, girls rude or just blasé. Indifferent to the approval of respectable townsfolk, they make clear their rebellion, hostile jaws working gum wads, fingers snapping, toes tapping to “Hang On Sloopy,” voices shrilling, “I Will Follow Him.”

At the water’s edge, three wooden rowboats bob. Pulled onto the pebbles are six more, upturned. Beside the last, a blonde girl sits, chin cupped in one hand. She’s gazing at the far shore, at emerald pines scribbled onto an undefined horizon, at summer cottages punctuating the vegetation, and wondering if the right boy is waiting for her out there. The one she’s meant to be with.

Romantic dreams fill her days and nights—she’s seventeen, the right age for thoughts of all-consuming love. That boy, he’ll be different from these guys she hangs around with. To hear them talk, they’re the planet’s heroes; everyone else is a puny jerk. Who do they think they’re fooling? Not likely they’ll be in her fantasies. She’s made for someone dashing, original.

One day she’ll meet him, they’ll fall in love, get married, and she’ll change her horrible last name. Then she’ll get the heck out of here, go far away, have a squeaky-clean house, a pretty garden, a shiny car. After a baby or two or three, life will be fine.

“Patty Jo?”

She turns, her mouth a moue of indifference, her eyes as blank as Tonio’s, as Mick’s.

“Coming to Peeties?”

Patty Jo shakes her head. All she wants is to dream of leaving this life behind, seeing the last of that family of hers. Dream hard enough, that’s how you make things happen.

The gang moves off, snickering, shoving, snorting, spitting on the road’s hot black tar, weaving between the cars that ribbon along Main, aim for the North’s deep woods and more grandiose bodies of water. Her eyes searching, Patty Jo trails fingers in the chilly lake. He’s out here somewhere; he must be. She has this feeling. The question is how will they meet? When?

****

David often sees her with the local louts, leaning against the ice cream shack wall, weight on one hip, blue eyes indifferent, the sulky mouth and aquiline nose. It’s the cheap clothes, the hair teased into an out-of-date bubble, that mark her out as a typical townie, someone from what his sister Madeline calls “the other side of the tracks,” someone “slutty looking.”

And Mother purses her lips in that prissy way, tells Madeleine not to use coarse language; rude words don’t have the right to strut through the door of the Buckley residence on Riddle Lane. They loll in the gutter where they belong.

“Slutty,” Madeleine insists, because she’s at that ungrateful stage of greasy hair, puppy fat, and boiling pimples.

No, David thinks. Sexy, not slutty. Beautiful. A natural blonde with flawless skin stretched tight over high cheekbones. How old is she? Sixteen? Seventeen?

He’d first noticed her in the school corridor last winter, eyes blank, invisible Keep Out and No Trespassing signs all around her. When, as prefect, he’d taken over the class during Mr. Brown’s illness, she hadn’t participated in the debate he’d engineered.

Sitting at the back, refusing to answer questions, she’d stared at the floor while the others tittered. Then he understood he should never single her out. What she thought was forbidden territory.

He knows her name is Patty Jo Lovelace, but how can he initiate contact? What could they have in common? Nothing. He’d speak a language she’d never understand; she’d challenge him with another. Those railway tracks dividing towns—they’re impenetrable frontiers: you need more than a passport to cross them.

Vesta Street

Moving down Main Street, Jerk. Hasn’t he done this four times in the last three days? What if someone notices? So what? This is his street too, his town, the one he’ll be leaving when summer is over. Then off to Bad Klingen and that fancy school where he’ll improve his French and German.

One whole year in Switzerland before he begins university, the route has been planned for him since he was born: summa cum laude, Berkeley (like his father), a doctorate at Oxford, a gleaming future. He’s an obedient son; he’ll do it all and do it well.

So why is he slumming on this hot summer day? He should be at Robert’s house with the good crowd, young people from prominent families—lawyers, a doctor, a judge, and the mayor.

But here he is, eyes skimming the public beach, undisputed territory of shoving, snickering town losers.

Then he sees her. Over there, sitting by the grit shoreline, chin in one hand, staring at the lake’s far side. No sign of the louts she usually hangs around with. Will he go talk to her? Break into her peace?

Of course. He’s a moth drawn to her dazzling light, although he knows there’s a chance of disappointment. He’ll say something; she’ll answer in that bold, vulgar way of townie girls. And the fascination will end. Good riddance to fantasy.

She doesn’t turn at his approach, probably doesn’t hear the crunch of loafers on pebbles. Without thinking, he sits beside her, crosses his legs.

“You like the lake?”

See? It’s that easy. You don’t hesitate, just plop down, say something banal. Then wonder if she’ll jump to her feet, scram.

She turns, and the bruised-looking, insolent eyes meet his. Defiantly, yes, but with that touch of curiosity that doesn’t quite discourage. Then, looks away again. No way to continue.

So, he’ll stay here. Stare out at the water too. Worse comes to worst, she’ll hiss an insult, something like “get lost, chump.” It will be a humiliation, but not a deadly one—a put-you-in-your-place rebuff that you get over soon enough.

There are plenty of humiliations in life, like that evening in the car, making out with Malie. When you reached down to cup a breast because she was biting your neck, rubbing against you like a warm cat, she shoved your hand away, said you were filthy-minded. Normal humiliations. They happen to all young males on the prowl. Females resist. Normal.

Flirting with a townie has other rules. Girls from the poorer, less inhibited neighborhoods—girls like this one with her sexy, petulant face—everyone knows they won’t push your hand away. They start in early on the sexual tussle; it’s amongst them that rich boys from good families get their experience.

Expressionless, she stares at the lake, ignores him as if he’s worth no more than a crushed paper cup, just like that one shivering in the breeze, a castaway, sticky, abandoned after use.

“Yes,” she says after a long time. In such a tiny voice, a sweet sound. “I like it fine.”

Then he realizes that, despite her seductive looks, she’s shy, not standoffish, not hostile. It gives him a soaring high of masculine power. Shy: that’s something he’d never imagined.

“Would you like to go out rowing with me?” He’s never done this in his life, picked up a townie. It’s just that she looks so good. He’s been wondering what she’s like for all these months, has fantasized this meeting until it was inevitable. And at this moment, he wants to be in a boat with her, far away, on the lake’s far shore.

“Can’t.” So softly said, he can barely hear her over the lap, lap, lap of waves, the roar of cottage traffic on the road behind. He can’t miss the rosy flush spreading over her cheeks.

“You can’t?”

“Have to go home.”

“Perhaps another day?”

No answer, no sign of interest. She simply stands, brushes the back of her pink slacks cut short to reveal delicious ankles. She’ll escape if he doesn’t think of something fast. He can’t let that happen, not when he’s gotten this far.

“Where do you live?”

Her face tightens, and he’s certain she’ll ignore the question, quash his attempt to make something happen. But before stepping away, she does answer.

“Vesta.”

As he thought. That other part of town. The street, Vesta, the name—despite its reference to a fiery Roman goddess—conjures up shabbiness. The other side of the tracks, definitely that.

“I’ll walk you back,” he says.

She doesn’t react, so together they cross Main, turn the corner. It’s hot on the back streets away from the lake breeze. Tar oozes from sidewalk cracks; sprinklers send out iridescent rainbow mists, dampen their legs as they pass, perfume the air with wet green. What he wants to do right now is run through those shimmery cascades, leap like a kid because he’s sky high, walking a beautiful blonde home on a sunny afternoon.

Of course, at eighteen, if you walk down the road with a girl who makes you tingle, you can’t be childish, ruin everything by hopping around and cheering.

“Why do you have to go home?”

She raises tense, square shoulders. “Because it’s four thirty.”

Which isn’t an explanation. Perhaps she has a date, a boyfriend, is waiting for the phone to ring.

“Because?” He holds his breath.

“Ma and Pa will raise hell if I’m not.”

That’s all? Except the sentence, the whispery voice, both beg answers. From the corner of his eye, he watches the way she moves. An unusual stride, loose-hipped, swinging. Infinitely appealing. The tallish, slender frame, those jutting hip bones, the strong shoulders—all suggest a hidden force. As does the defiant way she carries her head.

“And where do you live?” she asks in an indifferent tone, one that belies the question mark. They are crossing at Waverley where houses get smaller: stucco framed by old cars and junk heaps, fronted by sagging porches with pitted paint.

“Riddle Lane,” he says, his answer as short as hers. True, he’s never really thought about the swanky house set into the trees with its separate servant’s wing, herb garden, three-car garage, the sandstone embellished by white ceramic bricks—all definite signs of luxury. Now, he’s apologetic, almost ashamed.

For the first time, he wishes he, too, were on his way home, returning to one of these modest bungalows where parents are “Ma” and “Pa” and bicycles are propped against drooping fences, or plunked on cement driveways. It’s what? Homey? Relaxed? Or is he imagining a harmony that doesn’t exist?

“Riddle Lane,” she repeats, her mouth a mocking quirk. Is there admiration? Definitely not. “Over where rich folks live.”

“Nothing to do with me,” he retorts.

She stops, looks directly at him with those eyes, slightly slanting and what a shade of sky! “Your daddy works as hired help there?”

“No,” he says, understanding the question for what it is. “He’s not hired help. I meant my father’s money has nothing to do with me. He made it. I didn’t.”

“You were just born into it.”

“Somebody has to be.” He wants to make her laugh, although she doesn’t look as though laughing is something she does often. Or ever.

She says nothing. Then he sees her lips twitch with the beginning of a smile, and his heart swells. Bingo. They walk on. No more sprinklers. Yellow grass lies thirsty on brown-patched yards, not lawns, and battered garbage cans provide decoration.

“Better leave me.” The hint of amusement is gone.

“Why?”

“Because I live up this road. I don’t want them to see you.”

“Them?”

“Ma. My sister, Lizzie.”

“Why not?” Which seems a normal question when faced with an abnormal reaction.

“They won’t like it.”

“Won’t like what?”

She catches her bottom lip with pearly teeth. Already she’s moving away. He has to detain her somehow.

“Your name is Patty Jo, right?”

She stares at him with what? Surprise? “Why do you remember?”

What should he do? Tell her he’s been thinking about her since he mentored her class? Of course he can’t. “I’ve got a good memory for names. Not everyone has one like Patty Jo.” He likes the weight of it on his lips, although it’s not a name for Riddle Lane.

How about her captivating last name: Lovelace? Provocative, enticing, but very Vesta Street, conjuring up these bald dirt patches, the rotted woodwork, the stink of fat-soaked foods, the cheap radios whining out the junk parade. As he thinks that, he hates himself for the glimpse into his own snobbishness. “I’m David, in case you’ve forgotten.”

She merely blinks, as if she knew that too, and he wonders if the fragile pink across her cheeks is another blush.

“Can I have your telephone number?”

“No.”

That’s a rejection, all right. A slap. He should turn, forget all about her…except, instinctively, he knows the rejection isn’t personal. She’s looking down Vesta with something resembling fear. That flat “no” hints at unpleasantness. Like what?

Farther along, a few kids are kicking a ball; a spotted dog pisses on a telephone pole; a shapeless woman, hands on hefty hips, stares at them; a maroon car pulls away from the curb. Nothing strange going on.

“Can we meet up another time?”

She turns to him again, mutiny momentarily chasing away dread. “What for?”

“To go rowing on the lake.”

“I don’t know you. Why go out in a rowboat with you?”

“So you can get to know me.”

“Because you want to score with a townie?”

He stares. He hadn’t expected that riposte, the blunt way of setting things straight. “No scoring. Just rowing. Talking.”

Freckles across the bridge of her nose, golden fairy-tale princess hair.

“We have a date? Tomorrow? One fifteen?”

She doesn’t answer. Turns, walks down Vesta.

David scoffs at himself: Good try, kiddo, but she won’t show.