I stretched across the middle seat, making sure she saw the serious look on my face. “Hear me when I say this. The college I go to isveryconservative. Less than a thousand students. There are no coffee shops on campus, much less doves like you.”
“There’s got to be a few kids at Union who think like we do.”
I threw my head back in a burst of laughter.
“What’s so funny?”
“Union kids have curfews. We have to be back in our dorm rooms by eleven o’clock sharp.”
“Incollege? I’d quit.”
“We have a dress code too.”
Livy’s mouth dropped open. “No way.”
“Below-the-knee skirts and dresses only. The dorm mothers measure them.”
“I’d whip the dorm mother with my skirt if she tried to measure mine,” Livy said.
“Oh no you wouldn’t. Speaking of school, how am I getting home?” The only plan we’d discussed was me taking a bus back to Memphis and hiding at my friend Penny’s house until college started.
“I told you. The bus.” Livy lit another cig and turned the music back on, leaving it at a level where we could talk without yelling. “Or maybe you’ll want to hang out in Bethel a few days. Just play it by ear.”
“You know I’m not a play-it-by-ear kind of person.”
“Stop worrying. My boyfriend and I will make sure you get back to Memphis, or Union U, or wherever you want to go. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Why didn’t your parents want Ronny to go to Union?” Livy asked, in an abrupt change of subject. Ronny was what everyone had called my brother when he was young.
“Union didn’t have an ROTC program. UT did.”
“I’m surprised your dad didn’t make him go to West Point. Didn’t he go there?”
“Dad, my grandfather, my great-grandfather. All the way back to the Civil War. It’s our family legacy.”
Livy sneered. “I’m glad it’s not mine.”
I ignored her comment. Despite what Dad had done to Ron, I was proud of our heritage. “Ron couldn’t have gotten into West Point,” I said. “Don’t you remember how much he hated school? All he wanted to do was play guitar. Not do homework.”
In the Withers family, military service was a rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. Dad’s words reverberated through my brain:War has a way of turning a boy into a man.
Mama’s pleading with him to change his mind echoed even louder. She’d never wanted her son to go to Vietnam—heronlyson, who abhorred guns and loved peace. Even though serving his country was the most honorable duty of all, she recognized Ron was not a soldier. On the deer-hunting trips to Arkansas Dad had insisted he go on, Ron would avoid killing the deer by “accidentally” missing his target. Then he’d hide his tears when Dad hit his.
With my own tears threatening to fall, I leaned my head back. “Dad blamed it on Ron’s poor grades, but the real reason he made him enlist was that girl.”
Livy hit the steering wheel in anger. “Why didn’t Ron just leave? How could your dadmakehim go to Vietnam?”
“Dad said he’ddisownhim if he didn’t go. You know my dad. Could you have told him no?”
“I guess not. He scares me.”
“My point exactly. Besides, where was Ron gonna go?”
“Canada.”
I looked at Livy with a sarcastic stare. “Right. And humiliate our father? A decorated army colonel?”
