Chapter 3
A s a general rule, Southern Baptists don’t dance. In Beaufort, however, it wasn’t a rule
that was ever strictly enforced. The minister before Hegbert—don’t ask me what his name
was—took sort of a lax view about school dances as long as they were chaperoned, and
because of that, they’d become a tradition of sorts. By the time Hegbert came along, it was
too late to change things. Jamie was pretty much the only one who’d never been to a
school dance and frankly, I didn’t know whether she even knew how to dance at all.
I admit that I also had some concerns about what she would wear, though it wasn’t
something I would tell her. When Jamie went to the church socials—which were
encouraged by Hegbert—she usually wore an old sweater and one of the plaid skirts we
saw in school every day, but the homecoming dance was supposed to be special. Most of
the girls bought new dresses and the boys wore suits, and this year we were bringing in a
photographer to take our pictures. I knew Jamie wasn’t going to buy a new dress because
she wasn’t exactly well-off. Ministering wasn’t a profession where people made a lot of
money, but of course ministers weren’t in it for monetary gain, they were in it for the long
haul, if you know what I mean. But I didn’t want her to wear the same thing she wore to
school every day, either. Not so much for me—I’m not that cold-hearted—but because of
what others might say. I didn’t want people to make fun of her or anything.
The good news, if there was any, was that Eric didn’t rib me too bad about the whole
Jamie situation because he was too busy thinking about his own date. He was taking
Margaret Hays, who was the head cheerleader at our school. She wasn’t the brightest bulb
on the Christmas tree, but she was nice in her own way. By nice, of course, I’m talking
about her legs. Eric offered to double-date with me, but I turned him down because I
didn’t want to take any chances with Eric teasing Jamie or anything like that. He was a
good guy, but he could be kind of heartless sometimes, especially when he had a few shots
of bourbon in him.
The day of the dance was actually quite busy for me. I spent most of the afternoon
helping to decorate the gym, and I had to get to Jamie’s about a half hour early because
her father wanted to talk to me, though I didn’t know why. Jamie had sprung that one on
me just the day before, and I can’t say I was exactly thrilled by the prospect of it. I figured
he was going to talk about temptation and the evil path it can lead us to. If he brought up
fornication, though, I knew I would die right there on the spot. I said small prayers all day
long in the hope of avoiding this conversation, but I wasn’t sure if God would put my
prayers on the front burner, if you know what I mean, because of the way I’d behaved in
the past. I was pretty nervous just thinking about it.
After I showered I put on my best suit, swung by the florist to pick up Jamie’s
corsage, then drove to her house. My mom had let me borrow the car, and I parked it on