Carrie Chapter Twelve

Tommy suggested they s jacket at the Kelly fruit after and grab a ancestor beer and a burger. every the another(prenominal) kids would be going to West every last(predicate) all over or Lewiston, and they would have the place to themselves. Carries prospect fit up, he tell. She told him that would be fine. Just fine.This is the fille they keep wicker a monster. I want you to keep that firmly in mind. The girl who could be satisfied with a hamburger and a dime root beer after her only school leaping so her momma wouldnt be worried.. .The first thing that struck Carrie when they walked in was Glamour. non glamour nevertheless Glamour. Beautiful shadows rustled ab come in in chiffon, lace, silk, satin. The striving was redolent with the odour of flowers, the pound was constantly stunned by it. Girls in dresses with low behinds, with scooped bodices showing real cleavage, with Empire waists. Long skirts, pumps. Blinding white dinner jackets, cumberbunds, low clothe t hat had been spitshined.A few sight were on the dance floor, non many a(prenominal) yet, and in the soft revolving gloom they were wraiths with protrude substance. She did not reall(a)y want to watch out them as her classmates. She cute them to be beautiful strangers.Tommys hand was firm on her elbow. The murals nice, he said.Yes, she agreed faintly.It had taken on a soft bottom(prenominal) light under the orange spots, the boatman leaning with eternal laziness against his tiller while the sunset blazed most him and the buildings conspired to take outher over urban waters. She knew with suddenness and ease that this moment would be with her always, within hands r individually of memory.She doubted if they all sensed it they had seen the world-but blush George was silent for a minute as they take careed, and the sc genius, the smell, eventide the sound of theband playing a faintly recognizable characterisation theme, was locked forever in her, and she was at peace. Her soul knew a moments calm, as if it had been uncrumpled and smooth under an iron.V George yelled suddenly, and led Frieda out on to the floor. He began to do a sarcastic jitterbug to the old- my big-band music, and someone catcalled over to him. George blabbered, leered, and went into a brief arms-crossed Cossack routine that nearly landed him on his butt.Carrie smiled. George is funny, she said.Sure he is. Hes a good guy. There are lots of good people more or less. Want to sit overmaster?Yes, she said gratefully.He went back to the admission and returned with Norma Watson, whose hair had been pulled into a huge, teased explosion for the affair.Its on the other SIDE, she said, and her brilliantly gerbels eyes picked Carrie up and d avouch, serveing for an exposed strap, an eruption of pimples, any intelligence activity to carry back to the door when her errand was done. Thats a LOVELY dress, Carrie. Where did you EVER get it?Carrie told her while Norma led them around the dan ce floor to their table. She exuded odours of Avon soap, Woolworths perfume, and Juicy Fruit gum.There were two folding chairs at the table (looped and beribboned with the inevitable frizz paper), and the table itself was decked with cover paper in the school colours. On top was a candle in a wine bottle, a dance programme, a tiny gilded pencil, and two party favours gondolas filled with Planters assortmented Nuts.I cant get OVER it, Norma was saying. You look so DIFFERENT. She cast an odd, stealthy look at Carries spunk and it made her notion nervous. Youre positively GLOWING. Whats your sneaking(a)?Im Don MacLeans secret lover, Carrie said. Tommy sniggered and quickly smothered it. Normas smile slipped a notch, and Carrie was amazed by her own wit and audacity. Thats what you looked the like when the joke was on you. As though a bee had stung your rear end. Carrie found she liked Norma to look that way. It was distinctly unchristian.Well, I have to get back, she said. Is nt it EXCITING, Tommy? Her smile was sympathetic Wouldnt it be exciting if-Cold sweat is running down my thighs in rivers, Tommy said gravely.Norma left with an odd, puzzled smile. It had not by asleep(p) the way things were speculate to go. Everyone knew how things were supposed to go with Carrie. Tommy sniggered again.Would you like to dance? he asked.She didnt endure how, but wasnt stimulate to choose to that yet. Lets just sit for a minute.While he held out her chair, she aphorism the candle and asked Tommy if he would light it. He did. Their eyes met over its flame. He reached out and overlyk her hand. And the band played on.From The Shadow Exploded (pp. 133-134)mayhap a complete study of Carries mother will be undertaken someday, when the matter of Carrie herself becomes more academic. I myself might attempt it, if only to gain get to to the Brigham, family tree. It might be extremely interesting to accredit what odd occurrences one might come across two or three gen erations backAnd there is, of course, the knowledge that Carrie went home on Prom Night. Why? It is heavy(a) to tell just how sane Carries motives were by that time. She may have gone for absolution and forgiveness, or she may have gone for the express offer of committing matricide. In any event, the physical evidence seems to indicate that Margaret White was waiting for herThe house was completely silent.She was gone.At night.Gone.Margaret White walked slowly from her bed dwell into the sustentation room. First had come the flow of blood and the filthy fantasies the Devil displace with it. Then this hellish Power the Devil had given to her. It came at the time of the blood and the time of hair on the body, of course. Oh, she knew about the Power. Her own nanna had it. She had been able to light the fireplace without even stirring from her rocker by the window. It made her eyes glow with(thou shalt not suffer a fascinate to live)a kind of witchs light. And sometimes, at the su pper table the sugar bowl would commotion madly like a dervish. Whenever it happened, Gram would cackle crazily and fraudulence and make the sign of the Evil Eye all around her. sometimes she panted like a dog on a hot day, and when she died of a heart attack at sixty-six, senile to the point of idiocy even at that early age, Carrie had not even been a year old. Margaret had gone into her bedroom not four weeks after Grams funeral and there her girl-child had lain in her crib, laughing and gurgling, watching a bottle that was dangling in thin air over her channel.Margaret had almost killed her whence. Ralph had stuffped her.She should not have let him stop her. forthwith Margaret White stood in the middle of the living room. Christ on Calvary looked down at her with his wounded, suffering, reproachful eyes. The Black Forest pussy clock ticked. It was ten minutes after eight.She had been able to feel, actually feel the Devils Power working in Carrie. It crawled all over you, l ifting and pulling like evil, tickling little fingers. She had set out to do her duty again when Carrie was three, when she had caught her looking in sin at the Devils slut in the succeeding(a) yard over. Then the stones had come, and she had weakened. And the power had risen again, after thirteen years. theology was not mocked.First the blood, then the power,(you sign your name you sign it in blood)now a boy and dancing and he would take her to a roadhouse after, take her into the parking lot, take her into the back seat, take her family, fresh blood. Blood was always at the root of it, and only blood could expiate it.She was a big woman with massive upper arms that had swarfed her elbows to dimples, but her head was surprisingly small on the end of her strong, corded neck. It had once been a beautiful face. It was still beautiful in a weird, zealous way. hardly the eyes had taken on a strange, wandering cast, and the lines had deepened cruelly around the denying but oddly weak mouth. Her hair, which had been almost all black a year ago, was now almost white.The only way to kill sin, straightforward black sin, was to drown it in the blood of(she must be sacrificed)a repentant heart. Surely God understood that, and had laid His finger upon her. Had not God Himself commanded Abraham to take his son Isaac up upon the mountain?She shuffled out into the kitchen in her old and splayed slippers, and opened the kitchen utensil drawer. The knife they used for carving was farsighted and sharp and arched in the middle from constant honing. She sat down on the high stool by the counter, found the sliver of whetstone in its small aluminium dish, and began to scrub it along the gleaming edge of the wind vane with the apathetic, fixated attention of the damned.The Black Forest cuckoo clock ticked and ticked and finally the chick jumped out to call once and announce eight-thirty.In her mouth she tasted olives.THE cured CLASS PRESENTS SPRING BALL 79May 27,1979 Music by The Billy Bosman, BandMusic by Josie and the MoonglowsENTERTAINMENTCabaret Baton Twirling by Sandra Stenchfield500 MilesLemon TreeMr Tambourine ManFolk Music by John Swithen and Maureen Cowan The track Where You LiveRaindrops Keep Fallin on My HeadEwen High School ChorusBridge everyplace Troubled WatersCHAPERONESMr Stephens, Miss Geer, Mr and Mrs Lublin, Miss DesjardinCoronation at 1000 P.M.Remember, its YOUR prom make it one to consider alwaysWhen he asked her the third time, Carrie had to admit that she didnt know how to dance. She didnt add that, now that the rock band had taken over for a half-hour set, she would feel out of place gyrating on the floor.(and sinful)yes, and sinful.Tommy nodded, then smiled. He leaned forward and told her that he hated to dance. Would she like to go around and visit some of the other tables? Trepidation rosaceous thickly in her throat, but she nodded. Yes, that would be nice. He was seeing to her. She must see to him (even if he really did not expect it) that was part of the deal. And she felt dusted over with the patch of the evening. She was suddenly hopeful that no one would stick out a foot or slyly paste a kick-me-hard sign on her back or suddenly squirt water in her face from a novelty carnation and retreat cackling while everyone laughed and pointed and catcalled.And if there was enchantment, it was not divine but pagan.Carrie? a voice said hesitantly.She had been so wrap up in watching the band and the dance floor and the other tables that she hadnt seen anyone coming at all. Tommy had gone to get them punch.She turned around and saw Miss Desjardin.For a moment the two of them merely looked at each other, and the memory travelled between them, com(she saw me she saw me naked and shriek and bloody)without words or thought. It was in the eyes.Then Carrie said shyly You look very pretty, Miss Desjardin.She did. She was dressed in a glimmering capital sheath, a perfect complement to her blonde hair, which was up. A simple subordinate hung around her neck. She looked very young, young enough to be attending sort of than chaperoning.Thank you. She hesitated, then put a gloved hand on Carries arm. You are beautiful, she said, and each word carried a peculiar emphasis.Carrie felt herself blush again and dropped her eyes to the table. Its awfully nice of you to say so. I know Im not not really but thank you anyway.Its true, Desjardin said. Carrie, anything that happened before well, its all forgotten. I wanted you to know that.I cant forget it, Carrie said- She looked up. The words that rose to her lips were I dont blame anyone any more. She bit them off. It was a lie. She blamed them all and always would, and she wanted more than anything else to be honest. But its over with. Now its over with.Miss Desjardin smiled, and her eyes seemed to catch and hold the soft mix of lights in an almost liquid sparkling. She looked across toward the dance floor, and Carrie followed her gaze.I remembe r my own prom, Desjardin said softly. I was two inches taller than the boy I went with when I was in my heels. He gave me a corsage that clashed with my gown. The tailpipe was broken on his car and the engine made oh, an awful racket But it was magic, I dont know why. But Ive never had a date like it, ever again. She looked at Carrie. Is it like that for you?Its very nice, Carrie said.And is that all?No. Theres more. I couldnt tell it all. Not to anybody.Desjardin smiled and squeezed her arm. Youll never forget it, she said. Never.I think youre right.Have a agreeable time, Carrie.Thank you.Tommy came up with two young man cups of punch as Desjardin left, travel around the dance floor toward the chaperones table.What did she want? he asked, putting the Dude caps down carefully.Carrie, looking after her, said I think she wanted to say she was sorry.(momma untie your apron strings im getting big)and she wanted it that way.Look, he said as they got up.Two or three stagehands were sl iding the office and Queen thrones from the wings while Mr Lavoie, the head custodian, directed them with hand motions toward predetermined marks on the apron. She thought they looked quite Arthurian, those thrones, dressed all in blinding white, strewn with real flowers as well as huge crepe banners.Theyre beautiful, she said.Youre beautiful, Tommy said, and she became quite sure that nothing bad could happen this night possibly they themselves might even be voted King and Queen of the Prom. She smiled at her own folly.It was nine oclock.Sue Snell sat quietly in the living room of her house, hemming a dress and listening to the Jefferson Airplane Long John cash album. It was old and badly scratched, but soothing.Her mother and father had gone out for the evening. They knew what was going on, she was sure of that, but they had spared her the bumbling talks about how uplifted they were of Their Girl, or how glad they were that she was finally Growing Up. She was glad they had d ecided to move on her alone, because she was still uncomfortable about her own motives and afraid to examine them too deeply, lest she discover a jewel of selfishness glowing and winking at her from the black velvet of her subconscious.