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"You're very happy for me? Boy, you're sure stuck on yourself, ain'tcha?"

"I am not."

"You sound like you are." He flipped his cigarette into the air and it bounced over the parking lot, sparks flying every which way. He still held my wrist. "Whatcha want to hurry back inside for? Just a lot of old people and kids. Come on, I'll take you for a spin in my car."

"No, thank you."

"No, thank you," he mimicked, laughed, and then he put his left arm around my waist and drew me to him before I could resist. He pasted his lips to mine with a wet kiss as his hand fell to my buttocks and squeezed. I struggled to free myself, but he held on tighter, pressing his tongue into my mouth with such force, I couldn't even block it with my teeth. I gagged and finally broke free, wiping my lips with the back of my hand.

"How dare you do that?"

"What's the big deal? You've been kissed before, ain'tcha?"

"Not like that and not without my wanting to be kissed."

He laughed. "Don't put on airs. I know all about you, how you was pregnant with someone else's baby," he added. I felt the breath leave my body and my blood drain down to my feet. "It's all right. I don't care about it. I still like you. The truth is, I learned it's better to have a woman already broke in. Learned that in the army. We'll go for a ride and get to know each other and maybe we'll get hitched. Come on," he urged, stepping toward his car.

"I wouldn't go with you if you were the last man on earth," I said.

He laughed. "For you, I might just be. Once everyone knows about you, no one's going to come around asking you to marry him. You wanna be livin' with your ma and pa till they got no teeth? I can make you happy. Better than that other man did," he added with a leering smile.

"You're disgusting," I said, and pivoted.

"Last chance," he called, "to have a real man."

I didn't reply. I couldn't get away from him fast enough. When I stepped back into the dance hall, I looked desperately for Mama and spotted her talking to Evelyn Thibodeau's mother. She took one look at me and excused herself

quickly to walk across the hall.

"Gabriel?" she said. "What's wrong, honey?"

Tears were streaming down my cheeks. "Oh, Mama," I said, "he told. Daddy told about me so that boy thought he was doing me a favor to ask me to become his wife."

She straightened as if her spine had turned to steel. When she looked for Daddy, she found he was already well on his way to a good drunk, all his buddies around him, laughing and guzzling beer and whiskey as fast as they could. She and I stood behind him. He stopped laughing and looked around fearfully for a moment.

"We're going home, Jack," she said. "Now!"

"Now? But . . I'm jus . . havin' some fun."

"Now," she said again.

He grew angry. "I ain't running home," he replied, "to hear you roll out complaints."

"Suit yourself," Mama said. She took my hand and we marched to the front door. "We'll walk home," she told me. "It won't be the first time I left him behind and I know it won't be the last."

10

Failing

.

Mama wouldn't speak to Daddy for days after

the fais dodo. He didn't come home that night anyway, and when he appeared the next afternoon, looking as if he had slept in a ditch, she refused to give him anything to eat. She even avoided looking at him. He moaned and complained and acted as if he were the one who had been violated and betrayed. He fell asleep on the floor in the living room and snored so loud the shack rumbled. He woke with a jerk, his long body shuddering as if electricity had been sent through him. His eyes snapped open to see Mama hovering over him like a turkey buzzard, her small fists pressed against her ribs.

"How could you go and do that, Jack? How could you run down your own daughter for an Atkins, huh?"

He sat up and combed his fingers through his hair, gazing around as if he didn't know where he was and couldn't hear Mama screaming at him.