Stranger at the Door

DESPITE TYPICAL TEENAGE trials, high school was an idyllic interlude. I enjoyed my classes and, committed as I was to pleasing my parents, Daddy in particular, I excelled. That achievement was not without its price, however. I soon discovered that boys were not interested in the quality of my mind.

I dated some, but usually other serious students, whose claim to fame lay not on the football field but in labs and at debate tournaments. Like most teens, I fantasized about being the homecoming queen, escorted to the prom by a handsome, champion athlete. Instead, my date was the aforementioned Laidslaw Grosbeak, who, at least, had grown ten inches and adopted his middle name, Barton. And yes, Twink was the queen.

As far as what passed for romance was concerned, I lived vicariously through Twink, who knew how to flirt, lead a boy just to the point of no return, cast him aside and mysteriously remain on good terms with him. She also gave me my first view of the world beyond Springbranch. At least twice a year her family vacationed in exotic spots like New York City, London and Honolulu, scenes I could only imagine from magazines or television. Much as I wanted to see such places for myself, I was intimidated by the unfamiliar. I couldn’t envision a future that didn’t include Springbranch, a provincial outlook that hardly prepared me for what happened later.

One snapshot from those years summarizes the two of us. We stand in caps and gowns, arms entwined. Mortarboard at a rakish angle, Twink grins triumphantly at the camera, while I face straight ahead, my mortarboard aligned in a scholarly manner, clutching my diploma protectively. “Graduation is only the beginning,” she appears to announce, whereas my demeanor screams a need to remain eternally at Springbranch High School.

How often I have appreciated Twink’s adventurous spirit. Even considering her two divorces and years of caring for her ailing mother, she has rarely lost her optimism. I, on the other hand, am full of reservations and second thoughts, which makes this trip down memory lane both necessary and bittersweet.

CHAPTER TWO

Springbranch, Louisiana

August, 1957

TWINK AND I WERE TOGETHER every day of what was to be our last Springbranch summer. In mid-August Twink’s parents abruptly put their house on the market under suspicious circumstances. Twink acted unfazed. “After all,” she said with a toss of her head, “I’ll be back East at college. What do I care where they live?”

But she did care. A great deal. She’d told me once that Springbranch was the only place her family had lived for more than two years. The town represented roots, and poignantly, so did my family and I.

Not that Mother ever fully accepted Twink’s eccentricities, but Grandmama relished another rapt listener for her stories, and Daddy enjoyed it when we girls sprawled on the Oriental rug in his study and read while he worked.

Although Twink may have appeared undaunted by change, I couldn’t even pretend to be unaffected. We were attending different colleges—she, a prestigious women’s college and I, the state university on an academic scholarship. Knowing we’d be apart even during vacations made this transition all the more unsettling. The last night before Twink left for school, Mother allowed me to sleep over at the Montgomerys’ house.

Twink’s belongings had been boxed up, ready for the family’s move to Baltimore, and open suitcases awaited last-minute additions. Her stripped room was symbolic of change. Gentle breezes stirred the ruffled curtains at the window, and our voices echoed off the bare walls. Twink seemed determined to get through the night without sadness, but I barely held myself together. Determinedly cheerful, she recalled our meeting, high school escapades and secret crushes. It was after two when we finally turned out the light. I lay in the twin bed, staring at the leafy branches of the huge oak outside the window, choking back my pain and loss and wondering when I would ever see my friend again.

Just as I was about to drift off, Twink spoke. “Are you awake?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be all right, you know.”

It was as if she’d read my mind, knew how apprehensive I was about going to Louisiana State University and understood how much I was going to miss her friendship. A lone tear trickled down my cheek. “It won’t be the same without you.”

“I know.” I detected a hitch in her voice. “Here’s the thing, Izzy. Things can’t always stay the same, even if we’d like them to. Look at it this way. We’re ready for new adventures in that wonderful world out there.”

That alien world terrified me. Yet in that moment I found myself wanting to comfort Twink, whose voice betrayed her bravado. Oddly, that made me feel better. I wasn’t the only one uncertain about the future.

“A whole new world…but, Twink, I can’t do this unless I know we’ll always be friends, no matter what.”

“Till we die,” she whispered.

I echoed her words. “Till we die.”

We were such innocents, little dreaming what changes and upheavals life would bring. But we understood the solemnity of our pledge, and we honor it still.

Baton Rouge

1957-1958

COLLEGE. THE HALCYON years between adolescence and adulthood. Or so they say. First semester of my freshman year, from the frenzy of sorority rush to the rigor of final exams, I felt overwhelmed. So many people. Unfamiliar surroundings. Sharing a room for the first time. And the crushing weight of my mother’s expectations.

Before I left for the university, I’d been unaware that a coed’s true purpose in attending college was snagging a husband. But in Mother’s weekly phone calls, she made that abundantly clear. “Have you met anyone yet?” Anyone, of course, was code for Mr. Right. I was meeting some college men at fraternity mixers, but they weren’t lining up to escort me to parties.

Gradually, I settled into a niche. I enjoyed sorority life, and once or twice a month one of my sisters arranged a blind date for me, but none of them progressed beyond friendship. Women today have choices, but back then, college, for most, was a marital hunting ground. We gave lip service to majoring in education, nursing or home economics, but few of us expected to be employed beyond our first pregnancy.

Meanwhile, Twink regaled me in letters and phone calls with accounts of wild house parties, weekends in New York City and the “divine” men she was meeting. I wasn’t exactly jealous because I knew such glamorous experiences weren’t for me, and yet….

My sophomore year was easier. Living in the sorority house gave me a comforting sense of home, I knew my place and began to understand the usefulness of my English lit studies. Yet I was no closer to satisfying my mother’s ambitions. The fact of the matter was that I was in no hurry. Marriage was a distant goal. College men either terrified me with their drinking exploits and masculine swagger or bored me with their immaturity.

Throughout my first two years at LSU, the billiken sat on the dresser in my cubbyhole of a room, mocking me with its silence.

Baton Rouge

1959-60

HONESTLY, I’D EXPECTED my college experience to be like the glossy color photos in the school catalog, where I’d be happily waving a purple and gold pennant in the student cheering section or strolling hand-in-hand with a handsome fellow sporting a letter jacket.

Amazingly, in my junior year that’s exactly what happened. Drew Mayfield came into my life. If Mother had ordered him from a husband catalog, he couldn’t have more neatly fit her mold. His résumé was impeccable: honor student, captain of the golf team, treasurer of the top fraternity, a pre-law major. From Mother’s viewpoint his most important credential lay in the fact his father was a federal judge.

Drew was handsome and innately kind. All Southern gentlemen model courtesy, but many practice it in chauvinistic, self-aggrandizing ways. Not Drew. He treated me like a lady, even a cherished one. Therein lay the problem. He was perfect…on paper. We walked hand-in-hand down azalea-lined sidewalks, he bought me a chrysanthemum corsage for homecoming and nominated me for sweetheart of his fraternity. We became a couple. At the end of that year, beneath a full Southern moon, he gave me his fraternity pin.

When I went home for the summer, Mother was ecstatic. For once, I was convinced I’d pleased her. She pored over photographs of Drew and me, and couldn’t hear enough about our courtship. Yet the more I repeated the story, the more removed I felt, as if I were observing a film entitled the The Good Daughter.

Drew drove up from New Orleans twice that summer and succeeded in charming my mother and grandmother. Daddy was his usual chivalrous but inscrutable self. Drew seemed maddeningly at home in Springbranch. I say maddeningly, because I caught myself trying to discover a flaw in him. Surely he would be out of place in our small town. But he wasn’t. Even Eunice Culpepper, our nosy neighbor, fell under his spell.

I liked him. I really did. And I’m reasonably certain he believed himself in love with me. By the beginning of our senior year, we had a tacit understanding that we would marry following graduation. Mother was already considering the guest list and the seasonal flowers that would adorn the church. I was swept away in a tidal wave of others’ expectations.

It took Twink to ask the question. “Do you love him so madly your body quakes with excitement?”

I clenched the phone and swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Izzy?” The compassion in my friend’s voice undid me.

“I…uh, I…”

“The answer’s no, isn’t it?”

How desperately I wanted to tell Twink that Drew was the most exciting man in the world, that he did, indeed, make me limp with desire. That all the pictures in the book we had read in that gazebo years ago had taken on glorious new meaning.

You might logically assume I broke off with Drew. But I didn’t. He was safe. Predictable. I liked him. Best of all, he pleased my mother. I could learn to love him, I told myself. We could have a nice life together.

Oh, what a weak word “nice” is.

Springbranch

1960

IN EARLY NOVEMBER OF that year, I was called home from school. Grandmama, who had grown increasingly frail, was in the hospital. Seeing her pale, shrunken body on the bed, I faced mortality for the first time. When I picked up her hand, the paperlike, wrinkled skin felt warm, but her breath came in labored gasps. Her white hair, usually perfectly coiffed, hung lankly. Nurses came and went, but I felt compelled to stay. From the hall I heard whispered consultations. Congestive heart failure. Not long now. Words that pierced my soul.