The Garden of the World

10. Egypt

< 114 = t e n # Egypt In the low hills west of town, skid roads from the logging days cut across the land, rutted but still passable. High school students knew these roads, passed along the information from year to year, so that someone always located a dark, quiet place where they could go to smoke and drink, and couples could park undisturbed. The place was nicknamed Egypt. At times, the constable or some of the local ranchers would discover where it was and shut it down, but it never took long for someone to scout out a new dark place where they could gather, and to pass the word. Everyone knew, there was always an Egypt. For those who had graduated, it faded to a place of nostalgia, while for each new crop of students, it appeared daring and dangerous. Nancy was thinking about Egypt while she was putting on her green eye shadow for the Fourth of July dance. After her last sister married, Nancy had a bedroom to herself, and she celebrated by spreading her things all over the shelves and never tidying up. In one corner of the room, there was a low vanity with a large round mirror above it, and she had filled the drawers with makeup kits and bottles of perfume, and taped publicity photos of Myrna Loy, and Clara Bow, and Theda Bara around the mirror’s edge. She looked up at Theda Bara’s face now before turning back to the mirror and thickening the green above her eyes. Gladys knocked once and opened the door, bringing in a green dress on a hanger. “Nice and ironed,” she said. “Thanks, Mom.” Nancy took the hem and held it by her face and looked at herself in the moon-shaped mirror. “Does it match?” Glad bent her knees and looked at her daughter’s eyes next to the dress. Nancy already had on thick mascara and dark kohl eyeliner. Now green eye < 115 = shadow. Rouge and painted lips were next, no doubt. But she had learned from Nancy’s older sisters that it was just a stage, and she didn’t criticize. “It looks fine,” she said. “Good.” Nancy leaned back toward the mirror, again concentrating on her eyes. Glad closed the bedroom door. In the living room, she found her husband placing a bookmark in the book he was reading. “Is she still putting on makeup?” he asked. “Helen and Emily went through the same thing,” Glad said. “And they’re both married to nice men.” “She could think about her education, and then marry a nice man.” “She brings home straight A’s. You can’t complain.” “Sometimes I wonder how.” Finney opened up his book again. Nancy heard her father through the door. He had been speaking loudly. She bit her lips as she carefully brushed on shadow. Her father didn’t understand how hard it was for her, coming after older sisters who were so perfect , and so picture-pretty. She knew she didn’t have the same looks that Helen or Emily did, she knew that she would never be popular like they were. She needed makeup, to hide the fact that her mouth was too wide for her face, and that her nose was a shade too long. And she needed to be smart, to get by when makeup wasn’t enough. When she finished with her face, she patted the spit curls that clung to each cheek, held down with sticky-gummy she’d mixed herself from ground flaxseed and water. Her hair was bobbed short, with bangs, and easy to arrange, but she wanted the curls to look right. Then she stood up and smoothed her slip over her hips. She shimmied into the dress. It hung down to just below her knees, perfect for dancing, and she tried a few steps from the Varsity Drag, and then the Black Bottom, steps she and her friends had learned from the movies. At least the garçonne look suited her. Some of her friends had to wear tight brassieres to flatten themselves out, so that the dresses would hang straight from their shoulders to the low waist, but she didn’t have to. She picked up her silver compact. It had a tiny mirror inside, and a block of rouge, and under the rouge a place for nose powder. Finally she picked up her purse, small and silver-sequined, swinging from a chain. She looked inside one last time to see that the sheaths were still there, then snapped it shut. She wasn’t sure when or if she would use them. She knew she was supposed to save herself, like her sisters had. But she didn’t want to follow < 116 = her sisters. She didn’t want to put off gaining knowledge until she’d lost her freedom, and if that meant being a bad girl sometimes, she would be that, but be smart about it. Chazzie’s mother was picking her up and taking them both to the dance. But she knew Louis would be there soon after. She had seen how he had looked at her when she was sitting next to his brother. She liked that look. She knew he wouldn’t want to think about her being there without him. @ In the long twilight, Sparky waited for Louis outside the gate of his family’s dairy. He was dressed for the dance, wearing ballooning pants with sharp creases and a loose coat, and his hair was slicked back with Stacomb. He was trying to look collegiate, as everybody was, and he was glad that he was going with Louis instead of using the family truck, which always kept a certain smell of sour milk. Sparky leaned against the fender and lit a Camel and wondered about girls. Louis had a steady date, even though Nancy was kind of funny about it and told him all the time that she would never marry him. Not many other kids in their class had steadies. Sparky himself didn’t, and sometimes he thought it was because he hated cows. He didn’t know how to talk about anything except cows and baseball, and girls didn’t want to talk much about baseball, which left cows and nothing. All he could say about cows was that he hated them and planned to go play baseball. Nobody was very impressed. It was confusing. When Sparky saw the Buick’s headlights approaching, he threw his cigarette down and stomped it out. “Hey, Lou,” he said as he opened the door. “Watch out for those bottles,” Louis said. Sparky got into the seat and moved two dark green bottles down by his feet. “What you got?” “Couple bottles of red wine.” Louis let out the clutch and stepped on the gas. “And I got a flask of brandy in my pocket.” “Hot damn!” Sparky shouted. “Your dad going to notice?” “Naw.” “How about the prohi agents?” “If they catch it, we’ll just call it shrinkage,” Louis said. “What’s that?” “Oh, wine gets absorbed into the wood of barrels, a few bottles break, < 117 = some wine gets used to top off champagne. There’s always a little less than the books say.” Louis drove along the center of the country road. There were no white lines, and the crowned blacktop fell off toward ditches on both sides. “This is the first time I ever took something from the cellar without my father knowing about it,” he said. “He deserves it,” Sparky said, “for dragging you off. He say why he did it?” “I heard him talking with Mama, but they had the door closed, and the whole thing made me feel so shitty that I just wanted to leave. I didn’t even ask if I could take the Buick.” “Have a swig of brandy. Cheer yourself up.” “Good idea.” They both drank from the flask, and then Sparky hammered the cork back in with the palm of his hand. “Better save some for Nancy,” he said. “She’ll think this is okay.” “You’re right,” Louis said. “She will.” Near the town square, they could hear the buzz of music and voices from the Oddfellows Hall. Radio dances had become popular in the past three years, and kqw from San Jose broadcast dance music every Saturday evening until the station signed off at midnight. They parked in the dark lot behind the hall and walked into the bright sounds of singing and dancing. It was crowded inside, and people were trying to do the shimmy to the music, but there wasn’t enough room for the loose-jointed kick steps of the dance. The girls wore straight, shiny dresses with bracelets around their wrists, and some had tied scarves around their heads, and most of the boys were wearing loose pants like Louis and Sparky, Oxford bags or cords, and they were all moving to King Oliver’s band jazzing from the radio. Red, white, and blue crepe paper hung from walls and crisscrossed over the heads of the dancers in long, lazy arcs, and small American flags stood around the refreshments on the folding tables along one side of the room. Louis looked around for Nancy, but he didn’t spot her dancing. A number of people were crowding around the punch bowl, and Mr. Hogg, the realtor, stood by to guard it from being spiked, but she wasn’t there either. “Come on,” he said to Sparky. They found her and two other girls, Chazzie and Virginia, standing outside the hall around the corner from the back door, smoking. When Nancy saw Louis, she waved at him with her cigarette between her fingers. < 118 = “Hey, handsome,” she said. She was smoking a Milos, a cigarette rolled in purple paper with a gold tip, and she wanted to make sure he noticed. “Sorry I’m late,” Louis said. “Well, you missed the founding of our sorority,” Nancy announced. “We’re going to have a senior girls’ sorority next year, called Smoke Skippa Schoola.” The girls all laughed, and Sparky brought out his pack of Camels. “I’ll join the fraternity,” he said. “Are you going to have one, Lou?” Nancy asked. “I don’t like to smoke,” he said. “Oh, you’ve never even tried it,” she said. “How do you know? You’re just too good all the time,” she said. “I’m not too good all the time,” he said. “When haven’t you been?” she asked. “Tonight.” “Tonight?” She was pleased, but skeptical. “What did you do tonight?” Louis hesitated. Everyone was looking at him. “Go on,” Sparky said. Slowly, he slipped his hand into his pants pocket and brought out the flask of brandy. The girls laughed and applauded. “Is it gin?” Chazzie asked. “No,” Sparky said. “But it’s got a kick. And we’ve got two more bottles out in the car.” Louis uncorked the flask and passed it to Virginia. She took a drink and opened her eyes wide. “My, my,” she said. Chazzie took a swallow and smacked her lips loudly. Then Nancy grabbed the flask, put her eyes on Louis, and drank twice as long as the other two girls. “Hey, Nancy,” Louis said. “Not so much all at once.” She took the flask down from her mouth and handed it to Sparky. She licked her lips. “I’m going to be fun tonight,” she said. Inside, they joined in dancing to the long ribbon of songs from kqw, staying on the floor as one song faded and another began. Nancy danced with Louis, and Sparky was surprised to find himself in demand, being passed off between Chazzie and Virginia. The dance steps on the floor evolved one from another, Charleston, Collegiate, Black Bottom, Lindy Hop, prompted < 119 = by a certain song, or by one couple suddenly changing and the others following their lead. They left the hall once to smoke cigarettes and drink from Louis’s flask in the dark away from the main door. Then they opened one of the bottles of red wine and drank from that as well, congratulating each other on getting a little tight, using that word for drunk because it sounded sophisticated. When they returned to the dance floor, the radio announcer was reading off song titles and the names of the bands. Louis felt a little punch in the arm, and he turned around. “Hey, Lou, what was the deal with your father at the game?” It was Henry Messerschmidt, a short and skinny boy who wore glasses and whose parents, German immigrants, made him take piano lessons. Henry enjoyed needling the bigger boys in high school, protected by his own weak frame and the thick lenses that made his head look oddly oversized . None of the school’s athletes would ever think of striking him. “What do you mean, what was the deal?” Louis asked. “Well, he took you away like you was six years old,” Henry grinned. “Like you was still wearing short pants.” “No he didn’t.” “Yeah,” Henry said. “Waves his hand and away you go.” “Listen,” Louis said. “If I went, it’s because I wanted to.” “And leaving your brother standing there. You must have felt like a real jerk.” The music was beginning again. Louis turned toward Nancy to dance, but she stood with her arms folded, waiting to see how he would respond. “I don’t know,” Henry said. “I always thought you lettermen were better at standing on your own two feet than the rest of us.” “I can stand on my own two feet.” “Handsome is as handsome does,” Henry said in a singsong voice. “At least I don’t have to take piano lessons,” Louis said. “Oh,” Henry said, “I’m so insulted.” He walked away grinning. Louis looked at Nancy, and he felt his shoulders sag. Everyone was dancing around them, and she was standing, a straight line across her face. “You didn’t leave because you wanted to,” she said. Someone turned up the radio, and Louis had to talk loud to make himself heard. “All right. So I didn’t.” “Your dad’s not always perfect, you know.” < 120 = “You can say that again,” Louis said. “What?” Nancy leaned closer, held a theatrical hand up to her ear. “I said I know. He’s not perfect.” “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you say that.” “Let’s go outside,” Louis said. “It’s quieter.” They walked out to the edge of the lot, where the darkness seemed to pause just before becoming complete. A cherry orchard stood beyond the cars, its fruit already gone to harvest, the columns of trees marching away and converging and disappearing. Nancy leaned against the fender of the car and lit a cigarette. Louis touched her hand as she took it down from her lips, and she passed it to him, and they spent some time in the quiet intimacy of a single cigarette, feeling the warmth from each other’s lips on the paper. Louis let the butt drop when they had finished. “He’s only perfect in the vineyard. There, he’s like God.” “And he thinks that carries over into the rest of life,” Nancy said. “There’s the problem.” Nancy walked away from him, swinging her sequined purse. Louis could see her face when she turned back toward the hall, cheek and brow lit pale as the moon by the diffuse light, eyes dark and mysterious. The purse, silvery as a fish, winked and sparkled. He knew his father didn’t approve of him going steady with Nancy, didn’t think she was suitable. He liked that this evening. He liked taking bottles of wine from the cellar, asking no one’s permission, and seeing the girl his father didn’t think was the right one. He wanted to break rules for a change. The purse spun and twinkled. “Get the bottle of wine,” Nancy said, “will you Lou?” He opened the back door of the car and grabbed the last half bottle by its neck. She took it from him with one hand and took a swallow, spilling a few drops onto her bare collarbone. From the hall, the dance music still mumbled. She handed the bottle back to him. “I hate the name Nancy,” she said. “It sounds so small town. I wish my name were Gloria. Or Diana. Or Cleopatra. I feel like a Cleopatra tonight.” “You don’t need to be anybody but yourself,” Louis said. “You’re beautiful.” Nancy smiled, a wide lipstick smile. She felt a little drunk and wild, and she held up the silver purse, dangling it by its chain. “I’ve got something in here for you,” she said. < 121 = “What is it?” “Something your fatherwouldn’t approve of. Mine either.” She unsnapped the purse and held it up toward the dim light and mouthed it open. He looked in and saw the packets of sheaths. He knew what they were, since a man on the baseball team had showed one off to all the younger players. She snapped the purse shut again, clutched it to her chest. “What do you think?” she asked, suddenly a little shy. He reached for the purse and took it from between her hands. Then he snapped it open himself. “Do you want to go to Egypt?” he asked. “I’m ready,” she said. “We can’t wait for our parents to give us permission to live. I want to know what it is.” ...