Chapter 12

"Hi, Kenny? This is me, Brenda. Are you surprised to hear from me? I bet you are."

I replaced the phone receiver back in its cradle, without my having said a single word to her. I had been beyond surprised. Panicked was more of an accurate description than surprised would be. I had been up in my bedroom, writing more of my thoughts about my life and ambitions, when our phone had rung. I picked it up after about the third ring, thinking that Gerta and Hans must have gone out somewhere. My parents had already gone out for the evening earlier. Brenda was probably the last person I'd have expected to phone our house.

The phone started ringing again, almost immediately, but this time I didn't answer it. I wondered why Brenda would think I'd want to talk to her. I had heard Mama telling Dad that Mrs. Connor having trouble convincing Brenda to go back to that school in Ohio. Mama said she had done as much as she was willing to do with Brenda. I got the distinct impression that she was ready to just forget about all the Connor's.

She was so busy with the golf academy, and she had started back having small episodes of depression again. It was only by tremendous force of her will that she was managing to continue functioning through some of the bad periods. I had observed her crying a few times, but somehow, she always managed to rally well enough to go off to the academy by the next morning. Dad and I were both worried, but Hans had volunteered to stick close to her when she was going to be out of the house.

I was still missing Shirley, but, I was determined to move on with things. I would still find myself thinking of her, but I would force myself to do something more constructive than to sit around and dwell on my sadness. I had turned down my parents invitation to join them for dinner and dancing at the country club.

I started wondering what Brenda had wanted. She probably had heard about Shirley leaving, I guessed. Maybe she was calling to offer to take Shirley's place. Just thinking about that possibility made me shudder. The last thing I needed was to get involved with Brenda again.

The trouble with thinking along those lines, they made me once again aware of the fact that I was still a teenager, and one who had been used to fairly regular sexual attentions. I hadn't thought too much about that since the breakup with Shirley, but it was definitely something that I did think about. My body had been sending me the message that it was ready to participate in some kind of sexual activity. I hadn't been doing anything on my own to reduce the pressure I was starting to feel building up.

I felt a little disloyal to Shirley just for having those kinds of thoughts. Feeling that way made me angry at myself. She had already decided to dump me, and she wasn't likely to change her mind. I didn't even want to think about what she might be doing to relieve her own built up needs. I was glad that I hadn't given her that pizza screwdriver.

Sunday, I drove over to Bolling, spending the early part of the day with Jane and Grace. They were getting their laundry and other chores done, because Sunday was their one day off from the golf academy. I spent some time telling them about Shirley and Ellen, and about how I had been taken pretty much by surprise when Shirley broke up with me.

"You never pay attention to all the signals girls give you, Kenny. When a girl keeps getting mad at you, for no good reason, or when she wants to have a fight, even though you've already apologized to her, that means she is having second thoughts about being with you." I looked at Grace, listening closely to what she'd told me. It made sense, but then it didn't. Shirley never started a fight telling me that she didn't think I was the right guy for her. She never even hinted that she felt that way.

"Grace is right, Kenny. You don't pay attention enough. We noticed it at your last birthday party, and you even made a comment about it later, that Shirley didn't seem nervous or jealous of Brenda being there. When the new girlfriend sees the boyfriend around his old girlfriend, if she isn't concerned, that's a bad sign. It means she isn't really serious about the guy. She was probably just interested in getting some experience with boys."

I didn't know where either of them were getting that stuff. I think they were going back and making things up, after the fact, to fit their theories. I was pretty sure that Shirley had really loved me.

"You're both wrong. She loved me as much as I loved her."

"Why did she break up with you then?" Grace asked the question even before Jane could ask it of me. I saw Jane starting to say something when Grace beat her to the punch.

"They were moving to another state, a thousand miles away. She's sixteen, and she had to go with her parents." Those reasons made perfect sense to me.

"Did she even try to work anything else out with you?" This was from Jane.

"No, because we'd had a fight, and, by then, she already knew her father had taken this other job in South Carolina. Everything doesn't have to be all complicated or part of some wicked plot. It could just be as simple as a young girl knowing she wasn't ready to be separated from her parents. I wouldn't want to leave my parents to run off to South Carolina with her either."

"Did she ask you to? I bet she didn't." I was getting tired of Jane asking questions like that. Shirley hadn't discussed her impending departure with me. She must have known something when we were together in Chicago, but she hadn't even hinted at anything.

"I didn't come over here to discuss Shirley. Do you guys want to take a break and go out to get something to eat?"

"If you're buying, we're hungry."

"Good. Let's talk about how the golf academy is doing. Do you guys like being counselors? Do you get free lessons from the pros?"

We spent the next hour, eating ribs, drinking Cokes, and talking golf. Grace told some funny stories about some of the academy students antics, including a story about finding two girls in the same bed at two in the morning. When discovered, the girls tried to tell Grace that one of them had gotten a leg cramp and the other one was trying to massage it out. Grace put the beam of her flashlight on the face of the girl that was talking, and then told her that she had somehow gotten massage oil all over her face.

They also started kidding me about helping me sneak into the lodge with them some night, and then making me available to some of their young charges. When I left them, I was feeling better about things.

I drove over to the orphanage with two big containers, each one holding two and one half gallons of chocolate ice cream. I'd bought it from a wholesale distributor that I'd found the address for. I hoped to make it a regular thing for one day during the week, but I couldn't resist when I found out they were open on Sundays too. I saw Mother Superior, and she promised me that they would serve the ice cream after that night's dinner. She had lost a lot of weight, and I could tell she was having some kind of health problem. Her eyes looked a little unfocused to me, and she didn't seem as forceful or sure of herself as she had been in the past. When I asked her if she was all right, she started talking to me about how she was comfortable in relying on her lord and savior.

Next, I stopped off to see Bea and my Aunt Clara. I had been growing concerned at the amount of time that was passing without my grandmother coming home from the sanitarium that Uncle Bunny and Aunt Clara had placed her in. After spending fifteen rather uncomfortable minutes listening to Aunt Clara making excuses for not wanting her mother home just then, I told her that she needed to be doing something. I told her we were expecting her to take care of her mother and sister, not to just continue to indulge herself with her new found freedoms.

"Slick, I'm leaving in the next few days. Clara was already planning to drive over and pick up the old lady. She's been staying in contact with both of them, but the old lady really hasn't been ready to be sprung loose until now. Anne isn't going to be ready for at least a couple more months. We drove over to see her last week. The problem with her is that she really likes where she's at, and she doesn't want to leave there. Every time they start telling her she's almost ready to leave, she finds a way to get her hands on some joy juice, and gets herself swacked." Bea was treating the whole thing pretty lightly, like it didn't matter that she and Aunt Clara were doing nothing, and having all their expenses taken care of by one of my uncle's trusts.

"Did you at least complete your triple crown, Bea?" From the way my aunt started blushing, I knew she understood the reference I'd made.

"Wouldn't you like to know? Speaking of that, we don't want to rush you, but we've sort of got an appointment that we can't afford to be late for. Tell Gerta I'll call her before I leave, and tell your mother that I'm sorry for how I acted before. I was completely out of line."

I stepped to the side, to let them pass, and Aunt Clara and Bea headed straight for the car that Uncle Bunny had bought for my aunt. As I watched them leaving, I made a mental note to check in with Frank Clooney. I wanted to get some kind of statement from him, detailing all the expenses that were paid to my Aunt since Bea moved in. I was beginning to have my suspicions about Aunt Clara's agreement with Uncle Bunny. I remember it was made so she could watch over Mildred and Anne Coulter. So far, she seemed more inclined to leave them housed in institutions, and live by herself, or with Bea, in the newly renovated house.

I remember wishing that Aunt Clara had been that resourceful when she'd been the person in charge of the Christmas fund raising for us kids at the orphanage. Now that Uncle Bunny was dead, I wondered if Aunt Clara was trying to milk the estate for what she could get.

I got home after seven on Sunday night. As soon as I walked through the front door, Gerta informed me that I'd had two phone calls from Shirley. She handed me a message slip with Shirley's phone number written on it. I asked what time dinner was being served and was told that everyone else had already eaten. Gerta told me she could make me a couple of her Dagwood sandwiches. I followed her into the kitchen and had a cold glass of milk while I waited for her to make my meal.