The Truth According to Us (55 page)

“Don't you know that song?” Jottie asked, nonplussed. “I thought everyone knew that song.” She smiled at Layla. “What?”

“Let's do it together!” Layla said. “You and me! You could show me the wonderful world of the apple. We'd have fun.”

“Pooh.” Jottie flapped her hand. “I can't write a book.”

“Pooh yourself,” retorted Layla. “You can too. You wrote half the last one.”

“I did not,” said Jottie. “And, besides, it's a WPA job. You got to be on relief.”

“If I can be on relief, you can, too.”

“No, I can't. I've got those farms, remember? Even though they don't make a dime nowadays.”

Layla's eyes narrowed. “Listen, Jottie, do you want to do it? This apple book?”

“You live here as long as I have, you end up knowing a lot about apples.” Jottie read the letter again. “I know a lot more than
she
does, that's obvious.”

Layla peered over the edge of the paper. “You're a better writer than she is, too.”

“Well.” Jottie had to agree.

“Listen.” Layla's voice grew strong. “If you can't get on relief, that's all right. We'll share it between us, and they don't have to know a thing about it down in Charleston.” She nodded encouragingly. “We'll write it together and I'll give you half the money, and they'll never be the wiser.”

“But that seems like tricking Mrs. Chambers,” said Jottie, wavering.

“Oh,
her
. She wouldn't care if a goat wrote it, as long as it came in on time.”

“It's not like I couldn't use the money,” said Jottie reflectively. “It'll save us from the poorhouse, anyway.”

“I doubt Mr. McKubin would let his fiancée go to the poorhouse,” Layla said, smiling.

Jottie looked furtive. “I guess not.”

“You're still—going to get married, aren't you?”

“ 'Course I am,” Jottie said. “Yes, indeed.” She nodded for emphasis.

Layla hesitated. “If we did it, this book, is it all right about—me?”

“What about you?”

“If I stay?” Layla asked, gazing at a point slightly to the right of Jottie.

“Oh, honey.” Jottie touched Layla's shoulder. “Of course. But I thought your daddy said you could go home now.”

Layla nodded. “I don't want to go home.” Her eyes remained on the point to Jottie's right. “I want to stay here.”

Jottie glanced at her worn front room. “I don't know why. I bet your house is real nice.”

“It's you-all,” muttered Layla.

“Us-all?”

“I want to stay with you-all,” Layla said. “When Parker came the other day, all of you helped. Minerva and Mae and you—you sat there and fought for me, even—even after what happened. Even though I made such a mess.”

Jottie reached to brush back Layla's curls. “Honey—”

But Layla wasn't finished. “You treat me like I'm one of you, even though I've caused so much trouble and made such a fool out of myself. You don't hate me. Except for Willa, no one hates me.”

“She'll get over it,” said Jottie. She'd said it before.

“At home, they hate me,” Layla continued.

Jottie smiled tenderly. “I don't see how that could be true.”

“Well, I'm a black sheep, anyway.”

“Then they must be awful particular,” said Jottie. “There's one good thing about Felix,” she added. “He made the rest of us look like angels. Listen, you can stay here as long as you want. I don't know why you'd want to be, but you're practically family.”

Layla caught up Jottie's hand and squeezed. “That's what I want.”

“Jottie!” yelled Emmett, thundering up the front stairs. “You need any butter?”

“What?” she squawked from the cellar.

“What?” he called, moving into the kitchen. “I
said
—oh.” He caught sight of Layla and broke off.

“She's in the cellar,” said Layla, pointing to it unnecessarily.

“I'm here,” said Jottie, rising into the kitchen with her hands full of tomatoes. “What are you yelling about?”

“I'm going to big farm,” said Emmett, his voice sliding awkwardly from loud to quiet. “Wren called. The DeLaval broke, so I'm taking the other Reliance from mountain farm.”

“Honest to God, I don't know what Wren does to those separators.”

“What does it separate?” asked Layla. “A separator?”

They both looked at her as if she had grown horns. “The wheat from the chaff,” said Emmett.

“Oh.”

“She doesn't know you're joking,” said Jottie, shaking her head. “These city slickers.”

“They'd starve to death if it weren't for us,” said Emmett.

“I was just asking a question,” protested Layla. “Don't I get credit for being interested?”

Emmett shook his head. “No. If you want credit, you got to come to the farm and touch a cow.”

“All right. But isn't that how you get scarlet fever?”

“Oh, for God's sake!” he exploded.

“I'm joking!” she interrupted, rising from her chair.

His eyes moved over her summer dress and her high heels. “You really coming?”

“Yes. If”—she hesitated—“that's all right?”

He nodded, flushing a little. “Yes. Of course.” He looked at Jottie. “Can I borrow a towel?”

—

“I'm sorry to put you to the trouble,” said Layla after a few minutes.

“What?” said Emmett, glancing from the road to her.

“The towel,” said Layla. She plucked at the towel she was sitting on, embarrassed.

He smiled. “You're less trouble than Bird. She won't ride inside. Because of the smell, she says. I have to tie a rocking chair in the back, so she can sit on it like a queen.”

Layla laughed. “You're an indulgent uncle.”

“I guess.” He looked toward her. “It does smell pretty bad, doesn't it?”

She nodded.

“One of the hoses leaks,” he said. “I just roll the windows down, but I guess it kind of knocks you out if you're not used to it.”

“It's, um, bracing,” said Layla.

“That's a nice way to say it.”

They fell silent then, passing through a spate of dark trees and emerging on a flat road lined by fences and marked at long intervals by gates and mailboxes. Layla stared out the window at the undulating green dotted with cows and rocks. The engine whined over an incline and dropped the Model T into a valley where a wide, deceptively smooth river seemed to repose on one side of the road.

“False River?” asked Layla.

“Mm-hm,” said Emmett. “Yes.”

There was another silence. She looked sideways at Emmett's quiet profile. What did he think? What did he think of her? He had every reason to despise her. She despised herself, and he was not the kind of man who wanted a woman to be a fool. Surely he thought her ridiculous and weak. Not to mention loose. A tramp. How could he think otherwise? Except, she thought, the way he looks at me sometimes, with those unreadable black eyes, like he's waiting for something. No. Probably my imagination. Probably he's waiting for me to go away. She stole another glance at him. He can't think any worse of me than he does already. She licked her lips. “You—” she began.

“You—” he said at the same moment. They stopped. “Go ahead,” he said.

“I was,” she said laboriously, “going to say that I feel—well, that you must think I'm an awful fool. After what happened.”

“A fool?” he said, frowning. “No. I don't think that.”

“I meant tramp,” she said harshly. “That's what I meant.”

Emmett slowed the truck and pulled over to the narrow edge of the road. After a second, he flicked the key; the engine coughed and fell silent. “Smells better now, huh?” he said.

Layla stared ahead.

“As far back as I can remember,” he said carefully, “girls have fallen for Felix. Practically every girl he ever looked at, she'd be crazy about him inside of five minutes. If that long. I thought it was normal until I was, you know, interested in girls myself. One time, when I was fifteen, he took me along with him and some of his friends to—well, I guess you'd call it a roadhouse. Strictly illegal. He was going to show me the ropes, he said. Meet some girls.” His eyes widened, remembering. “They were arguing over him, who'd get him. He thought it was funny. No one paid me any mind, except when Felix told them to, and then they'd come over and dance with me to get in good with him.” He glanced at Layla. “I guess they were tramps. But what I'm trying to say is that I've seen a lot of girls that Felix…well”—he swallowed—“who liked Felix, and I never heard
one of them say no to him, not about anything. But you did. You said no. He gave you hell for it, too, but you didn't give in. You stood up to him.”

Layla ducked her head in a little nod. I did do that, she thought, with a tinge of pride. I did.

“That was something else, Layla. I was—surprised isn't strong enough. Amazed is what I was. You're tougher than I am. About eight years ago, I decided it would be better in the long run, for Jottie and the girls especially, if I tried not to notice the things Felix was doing.” He lifted his eyebrows. “It's been a lot of not noticing, but—I didn't want to hate him. I didn't want to wish him dead.” He glanced sideways. “I wanted to kill him when he was saying those things to you.”

“I'm glad you didn't,” Layla muttered.

“Why? You still love him?” he asked bitterly.

“No. No, I think he's dangerous,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. “He might've hurt you.”

Emmett's smile was like light itself. “Yeah, I think he probably would have.”

She frowned. “That thing he does. The way he moves without making any noise. Why would he
do
that?”

“No idea,” Emmett said, watching her.

Her shoulders hunched. “It gives me the willies.”

“Me too,” he agreed.

—

“This is Miss Beck,” said Emmett, untying a rope in the back of the truck. “She doesn't know what a cow is.”

“That right?” said Wren blankly. He stared at Layla.

Emmett snickered. “Those ones are cows.” He nodded to the fence behind her.

“And those over there are sheep,” said Layla, pointing to the pigpen.

“That's right,” said Emmett.

Wren looked shocked, but he said nothing.

“Okay, you pull,” Emmett directed him, climbing into the bed of the truck. He looked at Layla. “Why don't you go commune with nature? This is going to take a few minutes.”

She nodded and wandered toward the cows. Several lifted their heads at her approach; most didn't. Their unconcern was comforting. Carefully, Layla turned and backed herself onto the top rail of the fence, hooking her high heels over the rail below. She smoothed her skirt and watched Emmett heave a metal barrel into Wren's arms. “Don't drop it,” she heard him say. Wren shuffled into the darkness of the barn, and Emmett pushed a contraption of wheels and levers toward the tailgate and then eased it onto the ground. “Wren! Just set it down and get out here,” he called, sounding irritated.

“Okay.” Together, the two men lifted the machine up, Emmett stooping a little to match Wren's height, and moved slowly into the shadow of the barn.

On the fence, Layla listened to the wind, to the jaws of the cows, to the sizzle of flies, to the quiet snorts of the pigs, to the isolated squeals of metal inside the barn, to a few far-off, weary birds.

Emmett came out, wiping his face on his sleeve. She watched him reach into the truck and gather the rope into a neat coil. Then he turned, squinting a little in the sun, to find her.

He stopped a few feet away from the fence. His hair was damp with sweat, she saw, and his dark eyes were doubtful.

“Well?” she said at last, stretching out her hands. “Are you going to leave me here?”

He moved forward to lift her down, and she heard the intake of his breath as his hands closed around her waist.

Oh, she thought. Oh. Not my imagination, after all.

September 7, 1938

Dear Father,

Thank you for your pithy communique of the 2nd. Was that permission or a summons? I couldn't tell. Pleased as I am to know
that the drawbridge is down, the oil removed from the boil, and the arrows returned to their quivers, I'm afraid I can't comply with your request (invitation?), because I've taken another job on the project, which requires me to stay here in Macedonia through the fall, at least. This time, I'm to write about apples of the Eastern Panhandle, a subject in which I have been deeply interested for—oh, about three days. Really, though, I do wish you could observe my newfound apple-expertise; I'm sure you would be terrifically impressed. The merest glance now suffices for me to distinguish Grimes Golden from Golden Delicious, and just yesterday I had an invigorating half-hour conversation about apple scab and twig-cutter weevil with a man who has promised to escort me to see a particularly fine example of sawfly infestation this weekend.

You should be proud of me, Father, for I have learned the lesson you set out to teach me this summer: I am no longer afraid of work. I've come to believe that there's very little difference between submitting to the requirements of a job and submitting to the requirements of being your daughter. Both provide a salary. Both require devoted attention. The one distinction is that the former allows me the freedom to choose my own husband, which I cannot help but consider an advantage, especially when I think of Nelson.

My education has been broader, perhaps, than you intended. In addition to my new dedication to labor, I've also widened my social perspective, and I now include teachers, farmers, union agitators, and people who have never been to a country club among my friends, which is a great improvement, in my opinion. I've learned other lessons, too. I've learned that history is the autobiography of the historian, that ignoring the past is the act of a fool, and that loyalty does not mean falling into line, but stepping out of it for the people you love.

I tell you these things, not bitterly or from a desire to punish you (maybe just a bit from a desire to punish you), but because I
know that you of all people treasure liberty—haven't you sworn to defend it three times?—and that you will understand and even respect my new ideas. I gaze into the future and predict howls of dismay, thundering excoriations, outraged diatribes against my choices, but I know you, Father. I know you, and in your secret heart, you'll admire me for getting what I want. And in your even more secret heart, you'll say to yourself, That's my child.

Love always,

Layla