Story Week: "Fancy that, Part II"

Click here for "Fancy That, Part I: Paulette Reese"

Story week continues, boys and girls, with the second of four character sketches!

Deacon Arthur Reese

I’m not sure where things went wrong between me and Paulette.

It may have been long time ago. It may have even been yesterday.

All I know, there’s no light in her eyes when she looks at me. It’s like she is staring straight through me at the wall... staring at a wall that she sees something crawling on.

And she’s working out in her mind how she’s gonna kill it.

Paulette and I attended the same high school. She was one of the popular girls, sitting at a table in the middle of the cafeteria with the jocks. She and her girlfriends dressed alike: high heel shoes, fancy skirts and sweaters, hair pulled back in tight ponytails. I was the peasy-headed smelly nerd that sat alone at a table in the back corner wearing polyester pants two sizes too small and clutching my greasy lunch bag. I watched her every single day, sitting at the good table, laughing with her friends, enjoying life as only popular people do.

Even better, I lived across the street and one house over from her. I’d stare out the window and watch as she sat in the swing on her front porch painting her nails or reading a magazine. I could even hear the music, all tinny and strained, eeking from the red transistor radio she liked to prop up on the porch railing.

I’d even taken to following her from time to time...

..Especially when I saw her pop out the screen on the window of her bedroom late one night. She quietly slid out of it and landed in the bushes. She would jump her backyard fence and sprint so fast that it took everything in me to run and catch up with her without making a bunch of noise.

She always wound up at the old abandoned house three blocks over on Maple Street, right at the very back of our neighborhood, up in the woods. She would come out always at the same time, an hour later, by herself, hair all wild and dishelved. I hid in the bushes when she walked by. She clutched her housecoat around her as she walked, as if it would protect her against more than just the wind.

I followed her one day when she caught the city bus to the edge of town. She got off at the next to last stop, and walked down to Old Man Jenkins farm. She walked through a gate marked no trespassing, careful to glance behind her to see that no one was looking. By that time, I’d become an expert at following and watching her.I was careful to keep my head low in the tall grass.

The woods opened up into a pond.

There I saw her meet someone…

...and do some things that I’d heard about, but had never seen in real life before…

After that, I got real sure of myself. Real sure.

I had a plan. And I was gonna work that plan.

From then on, every time I saw Paulette at school, I’d smile at her. She’d roll her eyes, roll her neck, and go back to talking and laughing with her friends.

I caught up with her as she was passing my house on her walk to school a few days later. I could see some of her friends on the corner waiting for her. I only dreamt of walking with her, carrying her schoolbooks, holding her hand, kissing her on her cheek. It was always a dream, though. I always made sure to stay at least a half a block behind her.

But one morning, the day after President Kennedy was shot, I got up the nerve to talk to her.

“Hey Paulette, wait for me.”

She glanced over her shoulder, but didn't stop. She just kept walking.

I caught up with her, trying to disguise my wheezing. I had an awful cold. I pulled out my handkerchief and blew my nose. “That’s terrible what happened, ain’t it? The president is dead. I liked President Kennedy. He was a good president. And now he dead, and―”

“What do you want, Edward?”

I coughed hard and wiped my nose again. “Arthur.”

“What?”

"You said Edward. My name is Arthur."

She grabbed her books tighter against her side and turned to face me. “Arthur, Edward, whatever. What do you want?”

“Uh,” I said. I stared down at my shoe, scratched the back of my neck. I felt sweat forming on my nose. “Uh, I was just wanted to, uh . . .”

She turned and walked away when I didn't say anything else.

“I just wanted you to know that I seent you.”

She laughed. “'I seent you.' Learn some english. There’s no such word as ‘seent.’”

“Naw, My english is just fine." I coughed hard. "I seent you, Paulette."

She kept walking, her laughter floating on the breeze back toward me.

“I seent you down just outside of town, out there at Old man Jenkin’s farm.”

The click of her heels came to a slow halt on the street. She whipped around and stared at me.

“I seent you, down at Old man Jenkin’s farm, back there, way back there in the woods, on the other side of the pond with―”

Her mouth fell open. “Shut up,” she yelled. She dropped her books and walked up to me. She pushed me so hard that I fell to the ground. She kicked my books away, then kicked me in the side. “You shut the hell up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, yes I do,” I said, trying to be a man and not cry out from the sting in my ribs. “I saw you, and saw what you did.”

Her eyes grew wide with terror, but she quickly composed herself. She looked back over at her friends down at the far corner, then turned back to me. I flinched hard when she raised her hands to her face and rubbed her temples.

I slowly got up from the ground when I saw she wasn't going to do anything. “I seent you. I seent you out there with Fancy.”

She walked up on me, spoke real low. “Arthur, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes I do. I saw you out there behind the woods with Fancy Williams. You and her, out there by the pond, laid out on a blanket under a tree, kissing and hugging up on each other. Rubbing up against each other like only a man and a woman suppose to do.”

We stood there staring at each other for what seemed like forever. She nervously chewed a fingernail.

“Edward, you didn’t see anything.”

“Arthur. My name is Arthur,” I said. I was suprised at how loud my voice was. She was too.

She looked around from side to side, then walked up close on me. “Arthur, please―,” she whispered. “Please, whatever you saw. . . you didn’t see it.”

I took off my thick black glasses and rubbed the thick bottle lenses with my shirt tail. “Oh, I see just fine. These glasses here are brand new. My Daddy bought them for me last month, and―”

Paulette grabbed my shirt. She was standing so close that I could smell the toothpaste on her breath. The sunlight highlighted the brown of her eyes. I knew she was pretty, but I'd never been that close to her. She was something out of a dream.

“Please don’t say anything. You can’t tell a soul. I’d do anything for you, just don’t tell anybody. Please.”

“Oh, I ain't telling nobody nothing.” I thought about pushing her away, but I was enjoying being so close to her. I wanted to reach out and place my hands on her waist, but I didn't. “No Paulette. I’m ain't saying nothing.”

She sighed hard. “Thank you,” she said. I thought she was about to hug me or something. That would have been nice. But she simply smoothed my shirt at the place she had grabbed it. Even straightened out my collar. She picked up her books from the ground then started back on her walk to school.

“Oh no, I won’t say word," I called out. "Especially since you'll be going to the school dance with me. I won’t tell a soul. Nawl, won't tell a soul.”

That day, I heard the click of her heels against the street slow for a second time.

I’d been doing that to her for the past forty years, day in and day out: threatening to tell anyone and everyone I could think of. We were high school juniors then, on the fringes of wanting to be grown. I threatened to spill her secret if she wouldn’t be my girlfriend.

It’s how I got her to marry me.

It’s even how I coerced her into having our daughter Portia.

It got to the point that I didn’t have to threaten her anymore. One look from me, a hard squint of my eyes, and she knew I meant business. She just did what I said.

And I’d gotten use to having my way all the time, every time.

But I looked down at her one day, some ten years ago, as she lay under me, her arms criss-crossed stiffly over her chest to hide her nakedness, her eyes squeezed shut. I knew I couldn’t make her go through the sex anymore. She hated it. Would lose her mind if I tried to move her hands out of the way, wanting just to look at her body.

Paulette was a gorgeous woman, walking perfection she was. Didn't look a day over 40.

I just wanted to see her. Shouldn’t a man get to look at his own wife?

In our case, the answer was no.

So I left her alone. Moved out of our bedroom and into the spare room.

I just couldn’t stand it anymore. There were too many nights that I heard her moan in her sleep. Moan the name of the one she really loved.

“Fancy. . . Fancy. . .”

These days, I was only able to show my love and affection for her at church. A quick kiss on the cheek, my fingers intertwined with hers, a light hug from the side...

...My arm placed around her waist as we posed with the Pastor and his wife for a quick picture.

She played the loving wife role to a tee.

Sometimes I wished that we could bring the church family home with us.

Maybe she would play the role then. . .

Instead of being her true self.