The Devil All the Time - Donald Ray Pollock [79]
“No,” she said. “I’d never do that. I promise.”
“That’s good. Some people might not understand. And I sincerely believe that a person’s relationship with their preacher should be a private thing.”
“Did you mean what you said?” she asked him bashfully.
He struggled to recall which bullshit line he had used on her. “Well, sure I did.” His throat was parched. Maybe he’d drive over to Lewisburg and have a cold beer to celebrate busting open another virgin. “By the time we get done,” he said, “them boys at your school won’t be able to take their eyes off you. It just takes some breaking in for some girls, that’s all. But I can tell you one of them that just gets prettier as they get older. You should thank the Lord for that. Yep, you got some sweet years ahead of you, Miss Lenora Laferty.”
35
AT THE END OF MAY, ARVIN GRADUATED from Coal Creek High School, along with nine other seniors. The following Monday, he went to work for a construction crew that was putting a new coat of blacktop on the Greenbrier County stretch of Route 60. A neighbor across the knob named Clifford Baker had gotten him on. He and Arvin’s father used to raise hell together before the war, and Baker figured the boy deserved a break as much as anyone. It was a good-paying job, nearly union wages, and though he was designated a laborer, supposedly the worst job on the crew, Earskell had worked Arvin harder in the garden patch behind the house. The day he got his first check, he picked up two fifths of good whiskey from Slot Machine for the old man, ordered Emma a ringer washer from the Sears catalog, and bought Lenora a new dress for church at Mayfair’s, the priciest store in three counties.
While the girl was trying to find something that fit, Emma said, “My Lord, I hadn’t noticed before, but you sure are starting to fill out.” Lenora turned back to the mirror and smiled. She had always been straight up and down, no hips, no chest. Last winter, someone had taped a picture from Life magazine of a heap of concentration camp victims to her locker, wrote in ink, “Lenora Laferty,” with an arrow pointing to the third corpse from the left. If it hadn’t been for Arvin, she wouldn’t have even bothered to take the picture down. But she was finally starting to look like a woman, just like Preacher Teagardin had promised. She was meeting him three, four, sometimes five afternoons a week now. She felt bad every time they did it, but she couldn’t tell him no. It was the first time she had ever realized just how powerful sin could be. No wonder it was so hard for people to get into heaven. Each time they met, Preston had something new he wanted to try. Yesterday, he’d brought a tube of his wife’s lipstick. “I know it sounds silly, with what we been doing,” she said timidly, “but I don’t think a woman should paint her face. You ain’t mad, are you?”
“Well, heck no, darling, that’s all right,” he told her. “Shoot, I admire your beliefs. I wish that wife of mine loved Jesus like you do.” Then he grinned and pushed her dress up, hooked his thumb over the top of her panties and pulled them down. “Besides, I was thinking about painting something else anyway.”
ONE EVENING, AS SHE WASHED THE SUPPER DISHES, Emma looked out the window and saw Lenora coming out of the woods across the road from the house. They had waited on her a few minutes, then went ahead and ate. “That girl sure is spending a lot of time in them woods lately,” the old woman said. Arvin was leaned back in his chair drinking the last