Three On A Match

Sitting cross legged behind the shelter of the rocks and random driftwood, Betty Jean tossed her braids smartly and produced a filched pack of du Mauriers and a small box of kitchen matches.  Wrinkling her nose at the brief flare of sulphur, she lit Ruthie's cigarette, then mine, and finally her own, inhaling and exhaling smoke like a pro. 

Three on a match, Ruthie said in between coughs, S'posed to be real bad luck.

Old wives tale, Betty sneered at her unkindly.

It ain't!  Ruthie protested, It's from the war!

She's right, I said, remembering my daddy telling me about the origin of the idea, when the first solider lit his cigarette, the enemy soldier would see the light - when the second soldier lit his cigarette, the enemy soldier aimed - when the third soldier lit his cigarette, the enemy fired.  Besides, Betty Jean was being her usual know-it-all self and I felt the need to back up Ruthie.

I say it's an old wives tale, Betty scowled, but ain't smokin' some slick!

Til we get caught, Ruthie muttered and swiped at her watery eyes.

Don't be a baby!  Betty snapped at her, Ain't nobody makin' you!  Give it here!

Ruthie shook her head and determinedly held onto the du Maurier, squinting her eyes to avoid the smoke and trying not to cough.  Stolen cigarettes didn't come easy.

Betty Jean was fourteen, two years older than Ruthie or I, and she was citified, having lived in Halifax for a time and even gone to a fancy boarding school for a year.  She smoked openly and hung with an older crowd like the kids who would climb into the back seat of Pete Smith's old Chevy and drink vodka with orange juice for the thrill of it.  

She does other stuff too, Ruthie had said ominously yet with a hint of self satisfaction, with boys.  I heard the Sullivan boys say she's "easy".

I only had a fuzzy idea of what that meant but it seemed nasty.  I thought of how Nana got grim and tight lipped when Betty's name was mentioned and once I'd heard her tell my mother that Betty was Rancid!  Spoiled worse'n than bad butter!  I had to look up "rancid" in one of Cap's library dictionaries and it gave me a funny feeling.  I thought it might be one of those things I'd understand when I was older like when my mother said Nobody marries tramps like Betty Jean only I didn't have to look that one up.  

She couldn't have been more wrong, Ruthie wrote me years later when we were grown and I didn't get to come to the island every summer.   As soon as she turned eighteen, Betty had hit the road running with barely a word of goodbye.  For some time she dropped completely out of sight and was mostly forgotten, becoming one of those where-are-they-now girls who no one thought much about.  Four marriages and one misspent youth later, we heard about her death - homelessness and a heroin haze ended her life and she overdosed alone in a Halifax back alley - it was four days before anyone noticed and another week before she was identified. 

A hard, sad ending to a hard, sad life, Ruthie's letter read.

In the early years of my second marriage, I made - although I didn't know it at the time - what would be my last trip home.  On a sunny, sweet smelling afternoon I made my way to the old graveyard where Betty was buried and Ruthie soon would be.  I sat in the cool shade of the Memory Garden and thought about childhood and destiny and city life.  On my way back to the house at The Point, I stopped at the general store and bought a pack of du Mauriers and a box of kitchen matches.

It was a good visit and a good way to say one final goodbye.