The Little Friend

Maybe it’s Ida, thought Harriet, suddenly. Maybe Ida decided not to quit. Or maybe she decided she had to see me one last time before she left. But Harriet knew that neither of these things was really the truth.

Edie was eyeing her suspiciously. “I thought you had two towels.”

“No, maam.” She noticed a trace of some dark, caked matter at the base of Edie’s nostrils: snuff? Chester took snuff.

Before she could climb in the car, Dr. Vance came around and—stepping sideways between Harriet and the passenger door—leaned down and gave Harriet his hand to shake.

“God has His own plan, Harriet.” He said it to her as if telling her a little secret. “Does that mean we’ll always like it? No. Does that mean we’ll always understand it? No. Does that mean that we should wail and complain about it? No indeed!”

Harriet—burning with embarrassment—stared into Dr. Vance’s hard gray eyes. In Nursie’s discussion group after “Your Developing Body” there had been lots of talk about God’s Plan, about how all the tubes and hormones and degrading excretions in the filmstrips were God’s Plan for Girls.

“And why is that? Why does God try us? Why testeth He our resolve? Why must we reflect on these universal challenges?” Dr. Vance’s eyes searched her face. “What do they teach us on our Christian walk?”

Silence. Harriet was too revolted to draw her hand back. High in the pines, a blue jay shrieked.

“Part of our challenge, Harriet, is accepting that His plan is always for the best. And what does acceptance mean? We must bend to His will! We must bend to it joyously! This is the challenge that we face as Christians!”

All of a sudden Harriet—her face only inches from his—felt very afraid. With great concentration, she stared at a tiny spot of reddish stubble in the cleft of his chin, where the razor had missed.

“Let us pray,” said Dr. Vance suddenly, and squeezed her hand. “Dear Jesus,” he said, pressing thumb and forefinger into his tightly shut eyes. “What a privilege it is to stand before You this day! What a blessing to pray with You! Let us be joyful, joyful, in Your presence!”

What’s he talking about? thought Harriet, dazed. Her mosquito bites itched, but she didn’t dare scratch them. Through half-closed eyes, she stared at her feet.

“Oh Lard. Please be with Harriet and her family in the days to come. Watch over them. Keep, guide, and shepherd them. Help them understand, Lard,” said Dr. Vance—pronouncing all his consonants and syllables very distinctly—“that these sorrows and trials are a part of their Christian walk.…”

Where is Edie? thought Harriet, eyes shut. In the car? Dr. Vance’s hand was sticky and unpleasant to the touch; how embarrassing if Marcy and the girls from the cabin came by and saw her standing in the parking lot holding hands with Dr. Vance of all people.

“Oh Lard. Help them not to turn their backs on You. Help them submit. Help them walk uncomplainingly. Help them not to disobey, or be rebellient, but to accept Your ways and keep Your covenant …”

Submit to what? thought Harriet, with a nasty little shock.

“… in the name of Christ Jesus we ask it, AMEN,” said Dr. Vance, so loudly that Harriet started. She looked around. Edie was on the driver’s side of the car with her hand on the hood—although whether she’d been standing there the whole time or had eased over after the prayer moment who could say.

Nursie Vance had appeared from nowhere. She swooped down on Harriet with a smothering, bosomy hug.

“The Lord loves you!” she said, in her twinkly voice. “Just you remember that!”

She patted Harriet on the bottom and turned, beaming, to Edie, as if expecting to start up a regular old conversation. “Well, hay!” But Edie wasn’t in such a tolerant or sociable mood as she’d been when dropping Harriet off at camp. She gave Nursie a curt nod, and that was that.

They got in the car; Edie—after peering over her glasses for a moment at the unfamiliar instrument panel—put the car in gear and drove away. The Vances came and stood out in the middle of the graveled clearing and—with their arms around each other’s waists—they waved until Edie turned the corner.

The new car had air-conditioning, which made it much, much quieter. Harriet took it all in—the new radio; the power windows—and settled uneasily in her seat. In hermetically sealed chill they purred along, through the liquid leaf-shade of the gravel road, glossing springily over potholes that had jolted the Oldsmobile to its frame. Not until they reached the very end of the dark road, and turned onto the sunny highway, did Harriet dare steal a look at her grandmother.

But Edie’s attention seemed elsewhere. On they rolled. The road was wide and empty: no cars, cloudless sky, margins of rusty red dust that converged to a pinpoint at the horizon. Suddenly, Edie cleared her throat—a loud awkward AHEM.

Harriet—startled—glanced away from the window and at Edie, who said: “I’m sorry, little girl.”