Beggar of Love by Lee Lynch Read Free Book Online Page B

court, the state police, the weight of the whole disapproving world.
    They reached the shelter of the band shell and hid behind the wooden enclosure to catch their breath.
    “Why did he have to know us?”
    “Jefferson,” Angela said with gentle sympathy. “Jefferson, who in Dutchess doesn’t know me?”
    “And I guess my family may be a little bit infamous.”
    “You mean what he said about your father?”
    She nodded.
    “Could the janitor be lying?’
    She couldn’t look at Angela. “You know he wasn’t.”
    “No, I don’t think he made that up.”
    “I don’t know whether to be happy or upset.”
    “It’s a shock, Jefferson. You need to get over the shock first.”
    “Okay. But that’s beside the point. Do you think he’ll tell your father?” She wanted this ugliness over with so they could graduate and play all of their last summer before college.
    “Not before I do.”
    “Oh, God, Angie, he’ll hate me!”
    “Face it, Jefferson. What else can we do? I want to go straight to Daddy, tell him like I’ve always wanted to. He says he wants me to be happy and married. He likes you. Why shouldn’t you be the one? We’ll get an apartment after we graduate, get jobs. You can go to school with me instead of going away.”
    “Angie.” Her nose was stuffed, but she was no longer crying. “Are you nuts? Parents don’t say, ‘Sure, fine, my kid’s a queer, and that’s okey-dokey.’ They think we’re dirty.”
    “Dirty? We’re not the dirty ones. Dirty is how that man looked at me. Dirty was what all those boys tried to do to me before I found you. I haven’t for a second felt dirty with you. Only delirious with love.”
    They were hidden from the street on one side by the band shell, on the other by a clump of bushes. Jefferson wanted to hold her, but was scared to now. She felt like a broken little tree after a storm. Angela moved against her, but Jefferson stepped back.
    “What are you so afraid of?”
    She was still shaking and didn’t want Angela to know it. “They could throw you out.”
    “I’m their daughter, they would never do that.”
    “They’ll try to change you.” She cupped a hand around Angela’s breast.
    Angela brushed her hand away as she said, “I can’t change. I’m yours. I want to spend my life with you!” Angela smiled into her eyes as if to will an infusion of courage into her.
    Something in Jefferson shifted. She’d stopped shaking. It wasn’t exposure she feared, was it? She loved this girl, but, no, staying in Dutchess was all wrong. She would go away to school. This incident didn’t matter much at all as long as they kept it from getting out. Really, she’d known all along that the forever Angela talked about was a kid dream. There would be girls she’d like in college. She’d seen some playing field hockey.
    She straightened and put her arms around Angela, then kissed her. She loved her, but good gravy, she was seventeen. “Do you want me with you when you tell him?”
    Angela, such a small, sweet cuddly girl, laid her head on Jefferson’s shoulder. “No. Stay by the phone.”
    “If my parents answer, don’t say anything to them, okay?”
    “You’re not going to tell them?” Angela said, pulling back.
    “Look, they aren’t very interested in me as it is. I don’t have as much faith that they’d go along with this as you do.”
    “What do you have to lose?”
    “You. Cripes, they might stop us from seeing each other.”
    Angela looked at her. “You would let them stop you?”
    “Like I’d have a choice?”
    When Angela’s call came, Jefferson was watching Gunsmoke with her parents. Earlier, she had gone to the basketball game at the high school and continued a friendly argument about the restrictions of girls’ rules with the coach. She loved watching the game and was looking forward to playing in college, since she’d already made her name in field hockey. She’d completely forgotten that Angela was talking to her father tonight