Catching Moondrops (11 page)

“But, Momma, you know me. I'm bound to say somethin' wrong. I always do.”

She pulled away and looked at me with a wry smile. “That ever stop him from fallin' for you?”

I didn't know if that was a compliment or a criticism, but I couldn't help but smile at Momma's expression. “S'pose not.”

“Well then, you go on and have a fun time tonight and don't go worryin' about nothin'. You just be yourself. And if you start to feel like you ain't sure how to be yourself, you just look to Gemma. There ain't nobody better at puttin' you in your place.”

I laughed and leaned into her. “I love you, Momma.”

“Oh, baby, I love you too.” She kissed my hair and then patted my legs. “You'd best get on up and finish gettin' ready. He'll be here any minute.”

I popped up and ran the brush through my hair, stopping to examine myself in the mirror. “Well, that ain't much to look at. This is how I look every other day of my life.”

“Don't talk crazy.” Momma came up behind me and smiled at my reflection. “You got love all over your face. Ain't no better accessory than that.” She tilted her head sideways. “It's missin' one thing, though.” I watched her retrieve something from my dressing table. “This'll go just right,” she said, holding up the necklace Luke had given me.

I lifted my hair so she could fasten the clasp and then went off to find Gemma so she could do my hair. But not until I'd stopped off in the bathroom to peer at that necklace in the mirror again. I didn't know if it was the necklace or thoughts of Luke, but my eyes sparkled like diamonds. I pinched my cheeks for color and smiled at my reflection.

“If you like what you see so much, I guess Luke'll like it even better.”

I turned sharply to find Gemma staring at me from the doorway. “Ain't nothin' you can tease me about that'll make me upset tonight.” I picked up the dish of hairpins off the windowsill and handed them to her. “Here. Make me pretty. But don't make it fancy. I don't want to look like Greta Garbo with a fishin' pole.”

She set the dish down and stuck two pins in her mouth. “You're already pretty,” she murmured around them, pulling the ends of my hair up behind my head. “Ain't no hairpins goin' to improve on that.”

“Same thing can be said for you, and you know it.” I leaned against her and watched her in the mirror. “I'm glad you're comin' with me.”

“Me too. Somebody's got to keep you out of trouble.”

A knock sounded at the front door, and I heard Luke open it and yell inside, “It's just me!”

“
Just
him,” I whispered. “There ain't no
just
about it. And here I am with my hair in tatters.”

“Your momma will keep him occupied till you're ready. That's what mommas do.”

She was right. Ten minutes later we found them in the kitchen shelling beans to be soaked overnight.

“There they are,” Momma declared when we walked in. “You girls ready?”

“Yes'm.” The first glance I gave Luke was a tentative one, all full of bashfulness, a trait I'd never once in my life been accused of. But the way he looked back at me lit me up from the inside out. I made my best effort at being me, just like Momma said.

“She got you workin' already?” I asked. “She ought to know you're slow as molasses at bean shellin'.”

Momma patted his shoulder in mock sincerity. “I reckon she's right at that, Luke. I guess you'd best leave the job to me and head on out. You takin' your truck?”

Luke looked at me and Gemma. “Depends on what the ladies want.”

The way I figured it, a truck drive was much too fast, and I wanted all the time I could get with him. “It's a fine night to walk.” I spoke quickly and then decided I'd better give a reason for my hasty response. “Anyways, we go ridin' up to Barter's Lake with that squeaky truck and we'll scare the fish away.”

Gemma and Momma both gave me a look that said they knew exactly why I'd made my choice, but neither of them said a thing.

Daddy was on the porch with his pipe when we came out, and he stood up like a castle guard, arms crossed in front of his chest. “You 'bout ready, then?” He took the pipe out and pointed it at Luke. “You take care of my girls, son. And make sure you're home on time, you hear?”

Luke tipped his hat solemnly. “Yes'r. I'll do that.”

Daddy tucked the pipe back into the side of his mouth. “See that you do,” he said around it.

I cast one last glance at Momma, but she just winked and waved. “You have fun now.”

The three of us wandered off in silence and stayed that way for the first ten minutes of our walk, breaking it only with comments about the weather and such, things we'd never mention under normal circumstances. But these weren't normal circumstances. This was the realization of everything I'd hoped for all these years, and there was a fear coursing through me that it could never measure up to my daydreams.

Gemma hummed a church hymn, a soft melody that blended into the chorus of frogs and crickets. She trailed behind us, never one to hurry about unless necessary, but I figured she was holding back even more tonight so Luke and I could have our space.

He looked at me and waited for me to meet his gaze, then smiled. “Nice night for fishin'.”

I smiled back and then closed my eyes to savor the breeze. “Nice night for anythin'. Gonna make it hard to get used to the real summer heat when it comes in.”

“The way it's started out, could be a mild summer.”

“Or it could be baitin' us, makin' us think things'll be nice, and then whack us upside the head in a week or two.”

“More likely than not, I guess. But I reckon I can stand the heat so long as I spend the summer here with you.”

I didn't look at him because I knew I was likely to be wearing the stupidest grin a girl could wear. I just stared straight ahead and hoped he couldn't make out my expression in the moonlight. He tucked his free arm through mine, and though we walked the rest of the way in silence, our journey was charmed from the first step to the last so that I almost regretted it when we reached Barter's Lake.

Luke kept a skiff there, and he helped the two of us in before shoving us away from shore. I waited for Luke to bait my line, and then, as the breeze picked the water up into small peaks, setting the boat to dancing subtly to and fro, I steadied myself carefully and cast off.

I settled back with a contented sigh and glanced at Gemma. She never had been as fond of fishing as me, but she loved the water, and she was already curled up at the far end of the boat, eyes closed, a peaceful smile on her face.

Luke and I sat close as seemed proper, and I nudged him lightly with my elbow. “Gemma's already out. Sure hope we don't tip in this breeze. She'll sink like a lead weight.”

“She sure can doze off quick.”

I watched the full moon put on a show of shadows about the weedy banks. Each peak of the water shimmered with its light.

Luke dipped his hand into the water and held a small pool of it out to me. “Your moondrops.”

I smiled at him, then dipped my fingers into the water and flicked it at him. He blinked away the drops and grinned at me, dropping the rest of the water into the boat before running one wet finger down the bridge of my nose. “Now whenever your daddy talks about moondrops, you can say you already caught yours.”

“Right on my nose.”

“Best place to catch 'em.”

We sat so that our shoulders and knees touched, and I decided then that I could sit like this for the rest of my life and be happy. I figured Luke must have felt the same since anybody within a mile could see he'd hooked a fish, but he just sat still without even a thought of checking the line until that fish wriggled its way off the hook.

Sure enough, we weren't here for the fishing.

True to our whole life together, we once again became as comfortable with each other in silence as we were in conversation, and we floated along across the lake, content just to be together. Every now and again a sleepy grunt would let us know Gemma was still out like a light. Poor Daddy would die from anxiety if he knew what kind of chaperone Gemma made.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, breathing deeply of the warm night air. I caught a hint of burning wood on the breeze and figured old Bubba Watkins was out at his fire pit, roasting some animal he'd managed to kill for himself. Bubba had a house near the lake, but I never understood why he had any roof over his head at all, seeing as he pretty much lived outdoors.

But Bubba Watkins could do whatever he dandy well pleased, as far as I was concerned. It had nothing to do with me and Luke floating down the lake to the tune of the wind, the frogs, and the cicadas.

I opened my eyes sleepily to find Luke looking at me, watching me as I drank in the moment so I could write it in my memory for good. For a change, though, he didn't look away when I caught him staring. This time he kept his eyes on my face, studying it hard, like he was making a memory of his own.

Sometimes between people there's a moment that spells out everything you're thinking without having to say a word. I know something about moments like those. I've had a lot of them with Gemma over the years, and in some small way, to that point I'd had them with Luke. But at this very moment at this very place, the moment that passed between Luke and me said more than any other time ever had.

We'd waited a long time for this, he and I. Through all my growing-up years, through all that time waiting for Daddy to come around, through all that time Luke saw me as little Jessilyn instead of the woman I was. We'd waited. And now, out in the middle of the water, with a sleeping Gemma and the night creatures as the only witnesses, Luke and I stepped over that imaginary line that had kept us apart all these years.

In one swift movement, Luke laid his fishing pole on the bottom of the boat and reached to cup one side of my face in his hand, his thumb tracing a path from the corner of my eye to my chin and back again.

There's never a quiet moment in a Virginia summer, not from morning till night. No amount of heat or humidity ever takes the starch out of those noisemaking little critters that dot the outdoors, and if there ever was a moment when a winter stillness crept over a Southern summer day, a body would think the world was coming to an end.

But for that moment, in that night, the noise stopped just for me. It was so quiet I could hear each breath Luke took—short, soft breaths that spoke of a man readying his courage. I could feel those breaths on my cheek as he leaned his head closer, and right before his lips were to meet mine, my eyelashes fluttered closed without me even telling them to, like the moment was too precious for human eyes to see.

Just like we'd waited all those years, I waited for his lips to meet mine.

But they never came.

Luke's breathing stopped altogether, and I knew without seeing a thing that something was wrong.

My eyes shot open and found his face still inches from my own, only he wasn't looking at me. He was looking off into the distance toward the bank of the lake, where all sorts of brush and reeds sheltered the noisy frogs.

“What is it?”

He gently covered my lips with two fingers, then leaned forward, squinting into the darkness.

The water was still lit by the moonlight, shimmering like crystal, but for the first time I noticed more than the white light that came from it. This time I noticed the orange mixed in, the erratic flickering that could never come from the moon that hung so still above us.

I knew that flicker. I'd seen it some six years ago, the night the Klan came and planted that burning cross on our front lawn.

My heart began to beat an unpredictable pattern, making me feel light-headed. Luke's hand dropped from my mouth to my knees, lightly pushing me to the side so he could move in front of me. He kept himself low, creeping stealthily forward. I grabbed his arm from behind and leaned my chin on his shoulder, peering into the dark woods beside the lake.

We could see them clearly now, their white robes dotting the open spaces between the trees, their torches held high. They were circled around a tall cross that burned in the clearing past the trees, surrounded by popping sparks like demons in the depths of hell. I gripped Luke's arm tighter and took a hasty glance at Gemma. Still asleep.

I was grateful for it.

The boat moved quickly with the wind. Luke reached for the oars, but before we even knew it, we were floating precariously close to the woods where a narrow inlet would lead us to the other side of the lake and out of sight. Turning about would be noisy and useless, and I knew as well as he that our best chance of getting out of sight would be to move through the inlet into the other side of the lake, where thickening woods hid the water from the clearing.

I'd grown quite fond of the wind since Miss Cleta had taught me the secrets of it. “It's the breath of God, Jessilyn,” she'd say, lifting her face to greet it. “Just listen to it talkin' to your soul.”

I wasn't so sure about it being the breath of God, but I knew I liked the feel of it all the same. When the wind came, it covered up all the rest of the world's noises, pushing trouble away, whispering about sweet memories and voices from the past.

But it betrayed me this night.

As we headed toward the inlet, that wind died down so still, so quiet, we floated to a near halt, drifting like sitting ducks just outside the Klan meeting. For the first time, the voice of one of the men carried through the tranquil air, a ghostly holler that bounced off the water and surrounded us with words we couldn't understand but could feel the meaning of.

I glanced at Gemma to see if she'd wake at the sound, but she only stirred. It didn't matter, though, because her stirring was enough to set the boat to rocking, dipping once so sharply that the water beneath us plopped against the skiff.