Bodark Creek - 7. Chapter 7

Still, once Walter really started seeing girls, Daddy didn’t like the ones he picked. “Why are you even thinking about getting married?” Daddy asked.

Walter grinned. “Guess for the same reason you did.”

“Go to Fort Worth,” Daddy said, laughing. “I’ll give you the money.”

“For what?” I asked. But they ignored me.

“Done that already,” Walter told Daddy.

“Well, it didn’t do any good.”

Walter shrugged.

“I got married too young,” Daddy went on. “So did your sister Frances. These days, anyone with sense waits till they’re thirty.”

“Can’t do that,” Walter said.

“Why not?” I asked, but only got ignored again. So I asked Daddy, “Why did you get married?”

He just laughed. “It was the right time.”

“Well, maybe it’s the right time for Walter.”

Walter smiled, but Daddy said, “Not with the girls he’s been seeing lately. They’re no more than your age.”

“They are not,” Walter insisted.

“No?”

“I haven’t been with anyone younger than eighteen since I moved here.”

“What about Stefanie Mauer?” Daddy asked. “She can’t be eighteen.”

“She was. Last month.”

“Well, your mama was almost my age. So when you start seeing girls who’re almost twenty-one, then maybe I’ll like it.”

“Mama isn’t your age,” I told Daddy. “You’re much, much older.”

Daddy didn’t like that at all. And Walter quickly told me, “You shouldn’t have said that, Addy.” So I apologized.

Daddy accepted it, but that didn’t change his mind. Still, Walter didn’t worry about seeing Stefanie because she wasn’t the girl he spent the most time with. That was Margaret Theiss, at least when I saw them at church. At the mill, Mama said Walter was always with Sally Hollenbeck.

Sally was nice, and I liked her better than Margaret, but I knew Stefanie best. “What do you think?” I asked Rosalind.

“I think Walter likes Sally.”

“Why?”

“Because Mama says she works so hard at the mill. And she’s older than Margaret and Stefanie, so Daddy would like her. And she lives with Jeannie Grober’s family.”

Jeannie was Rosalind’s closest friend, so that’s how we knew so much about Sally. “She makes her own clothes,” Jeannie told us. “And she bakes really well. And she writes to her family every week.”

“Where do they live?” I asked.

“Outside Sherman.”

That wasn’t far.

“I’d like to get a letter,” I told them. “Who could I write?”

“You could write me,” Rosalind said. But she was teasing.

“Or write me,” Jeannie added. They were ganging up.

I could write Frances,” I said. “Or Sonny and Dougie.”

“They wouldn’t write back,” Walter told me. “We all stopped writing right after we left school.”

“Because you’re so busy?”

“Because we don’t like to.”

But Walter was busy, too. Besides working at the mill and helping out at church, he was learning to weave.

“So they’ll hire me full out.”

“Then would you get married?” I asked.

“At least, I could afford to.”

“Would Sally really marry Walter?” I asked Jeannie one afternoon.

“I can’t think of one reason she’d say ‘no.’”

“I can think of two,” Rosalind told us. “And their initials are MT and SM.”

“Those two don’t mean anything,” Jeannie said. “Walter tells Sally that all the time.”

Rosalind disagreed. “Well, I’ve heard Walter tell Margaret that Sally doesn’t matter. And I’ll bet he tells Stefanie not to think about anybody else.”

“That’s not nice,” I said.

“It wouldn’t be if he was serious,” Jeannie told us. “But you know Walter. Everything he does is in fun.”

That sounded like Walter, but it also didn’t seem fair. So I asked him.

“I’ve heard that Margaret doesn’t mean as much to you as Sally. And I’ve heard that Sally doesn’t mean as much to you as Stefanie. And I’ve heard that...”

“Wait. Wait. Wait,” Walter said. “Who’s been telling you this?”

I thought for a moment. “I can’t say.”

“Why not?”

“Because then I’d get in trouble.”

“But you still want to know what I think?”

“Yes.”

“And you think that’s fair?”

“It’s got nothing to do with fair. It’s only a question we’ve been...”

“A question you’ve been asking,” Rosalind suddenly said. “Keep me out of this.”

“You wanted to know,” I said.

“That may be true. But it doesn’t mean I’d be rude enough to ask.”

That wasn’t like Rosalind at all. She was always braver than I was. “You’re holding something back,” I said. “What do you know that you’re not telling?”

“There are lots of things I don’t tell you.”

“There are lots of things I don’t care about.”

“You’d care about this.”

“What?”

“It’s not about Walter.”

“Then why would I care?”

“‘Cause it’s about someone he cares about. And you care about that.” She smiled at me, which made me feel stupid. So I turned to Walter.

“She’s just teasing you,” he said. “She doesn’t know any more that you do. And that’s because I don’t know anything. I have no idea what’s honestly gonna happen.”

“You must know something,” I said.

He smiled. “I don’t. Really, Addy.”

So sometimes, we’d see Walter with Margaret. And sometimes we’d see him with Sally. And sometimes he’d be with Stefanie. It confused everyone, and maybe Daddy was the only one who was happy.

“Keep it up, boy,” he’d say. “Ten years to go.”

“I can’t wait ten minutes,” I heard Walter tell Charley one night. “Maybe five.”