Cottonwood Whispers (19 page)

I wrinkled my nose at him. “You’re just makin’ excuses. If you don’t think I’m pretty, you ain’t got to say a word. It don’t bother me any.”

“Jessie, I ain’t never said I don’t think you’re pretty.” He caught the tip of my shoe under his own and stopped to readjust himself. There was no doubt I had him worked up into a nervous lather.

“Not sayin’ I am is near about the same as sayin’ I ain’t.”

“Fine then, you’re pretty.”

They were the words I’d wanted to hear for four years, but
I wasn’t going to take them when he was saying them just to shut me up. “Whatever you say,” I muttered. “It don’t mean much when you yell it.”

We had slowed our steps out of time with the music, and he nearly stopped when he put one hand under my chin and tipped it up. “I don’t make a habit of sayin’ things I don’t mean, Jessilyn,” he said in a voice so quiet it barely cleared the music. “If I say you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen, I mean you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

There weren’t any words on my mind for a few moments, and I stared at him in silence before managing to murmur, “You never said I was the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen.”

“Well then, that’s what I meant to say.”

I studied his eyes for the sincerity he claimed, and to my delight, I found it there. For about half a minute, we shared a look that told me a thousand things that added up to one—Luke Talley had a spirit that was connected to mine, and no time or place or difference in years could change that. I watched him wordlessly until a screeching guitar chord sounded throughout the barn, snapping our attention away from each other.

I turned to find Daddy’s watchful eyes on us, and I knew exactly why he’d lost his way on the instrument he knew so well. He exchanged a look with me and then with my momma, and I knew there would be a discussion between them in bed that night. Daddy would say that I was growing up too fast and who did Luke Talley think he was dancing so close with his baby girl? And Momma would tell him I
wasn’t his baby girl anymore, and times were coming when Daddy would have to realize that.

But just then, I wasn’t so much worried about that conversation as I was happy to have known, for at least a few moments, that my hope wasn’t completely unjustified. I turned my eyes back to Luke’s, but he’d seen Daddy’s face too, and he was more scared of him than I was.

Our moment was over, and Luke walked me back to where Buddy waited with an unhappy face and another plate of ham biscuits.

Luke was nervous for the rest of the night. He watched my daddy as though he were waiting for Daddy to pull a pistol out of his pocket and shoot him dead right there in the Sutters’ barn.

For my part, I fairly drifted through the evening, barely hearing a word of the pleasant chatter Buddy kept up for the next two hours. He was a fine boy, I was sure, and he thought the world of me, but I was no good at this courting thing, and I felt out of place every time I tried to interact with him. It was enough for me to just let him talk and keep my mind focused on my dance with Luke. That way I was comfortable. But every time I had to dance with Buddy, I only wanted to be dancing with Luke, and I felt clumsy and out of sorts, stepping on his toes so much I was sure he’d be buying new church shoes come Monday.

When it was time for the fireworks, we all walked to the lake together. On our way, Daddy made sure to wedge himself in between me and Buddy, and Luke made sure to keep
himself far away from me while Daddy was around. At the lake, Momma made good and sure to pull Daddy down beside her, leaving Buddy to sit next to me. Luke plopped down onto the grass behind us all.

I peered across the lake to where all the colored folk sat, and after a minute I spotted Gemma sitting alone, her back against a big oak. Every year that I’d known Gemma, I’d hated not being able to share the fireworks, but she always refused to cause a stir by sitting with us, and she wouldn’t let me come sit with her, either. Gemma could be stubborn that way sometimes.

But the real problem was that this year she wouldn’t have sat with me even if the world had suddenly gone color-blind. Sitting there with Buddy Pernell beside me and Luke behind me, I wondered at what a long way we’d come since the day Luke saved me from Buddy in the swimming hole.

And I marveled at what a long way we still had to go.

God must have been trying to teach us a lesson, so Miss Cleta had told me most mornings I’d gone to work for her that summer. Miss Cleta saw a lesson in every hard time, and those hot, dry summer mornings were no exception.

“The good Lord’s got a reason for everythin’,” she told me as I wiped my feet on her front mat the Monday after my first date.

I hadn’t slept much that night, and it didn’t help to be attacked by clouds of heat when I stepped outside that morning. It felt like getting hit in the face with a wet mop, and I was pouring sweat by the time I got to Miss Cleta’s.

“Don’t see as how heat like this can have a reason, Miss Cleta,” I murmured with a heavy tongue. I tripped as I moved inside the house and gave her a little grimace. “My legs ain’t workin’ this morning. Too hot for a body to work right.”

“Oh, there’s a reason for this heat, Miss Jessie,” she assured me, ignoring my ungraceful entrance into her house. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s there’s a good reason for everythin’. It’s knowin’ that truth that gets me through this crazy life.”

I decided not to argue. “Yes’m,” I muttered. “Anyways, I’d rather spend a hot mornin’ over here than at home doin’ nothin’.”

“You know what they say about idle hands,” she told me, clearly in agreement with my statement. “Though what we’ll be doin’ this mornin’, I don’t know. There’s to be no outdoor work, that’s for certain. I don’t want you keelin’ over with the heatstroke.”

“Yes’m. You got any dustin’ needs done or anythin’?”

“Just did the house last night when I couldn’t sleep.”

“I couldn’t sleep, neither.” I ran a finger over her mantelpiece while she wasn’t looking. Her eyesight wasn’t as good as it once was, and I sometimes went back over her work to fix it up a bit. “Well, you got some dishes need washin’ or some floor cleanin’ to do?”

Miss Cleta shook her head, and I wondered fleetingly if she was wasting her money on paying me to help her. It seemed she got her work done just fine without me.

“I’ll tell you what,” Miss Cleta said with a sudden look of certainty. “We’ll be ladies of leisure today. What do you think of that? I had Mr. Stokes bring me in some of those silly ladies’ magazines, though heaven knows why since they’re filled with nothin’ but nonsense. We can put our feet
up, have some lemonade, and read some things that don’t mean much of anythin’.”

“I could use a little bit of nothin’, Miss Cleta. But don’t you go payin’ me for doin’ nonsense.”

“Now don’t you go tellin’ me how to pay my employees, Jessilyn Lassiter.”

“I wouldn’t feel right gettin’ paid for no work. You know that. You already gave me a paid day off last week.”

“Well then, I’ll give you some work. This afternoon we’ll fix up somethin’ nice for Mae and Nate’s supper and you can run it on over. You know, she ain’t been up to doin’ much, especially with the baby so near to comin’, and Nate . . .” She trailed off, seeming to think twice about telling me her true thoughts about Nate Colby. “Well, she could use some good food in her condition, is all, and I’m sure he’d be happy with some nourishment too.”

My heart skipped a beat at the mention of Mae’s name. I hadn’t seen her since I’d made her cry, and Nate had warned me not to come by, after all. But Nate was a man so eaten up by heartache and revenge he hadn’t even shown up for Callie’s funeral. I figured most of what he said these days didn’t stand to much reason.

I knew Mae needed help, but I felt unqualified to help her, and knowing what I knew about how Callie had died, it was hard to even look Mae straight in the eye.

“You sure she wants company?” I asked, removing a dead rose from a vase of flowers Miss Cleta had sitting on her kitchen table. “Maybe she needs some quiet.”

“You don’t have to stay long. And don’t you worry none about Mae gettin’ upset. You can just take the food on over, get her settled with it, and come on back here.”

Truth be told, I wanted nothing of it. I’d had enough confrontation already, and I didn’t want to have to find some way to be good to Mae without letting my fear and guilty conscience show through. But I knew Miss Cleta would take that food over herself if I didn’t, and as spry as she was, carting all that food over to Mae’s still wasn’t something she needed to be doing.

True to her nature, Miss Cleta noted my anxiety, and she put a small, bony hand to my cheek. “You got problems weighin’ on you, Jessilyn Lassiter,” she said sweetly, her head cocked to one side. “Ain’t still about your daddy’s farm, is it?”

Not wanting her to dig too deeply, I forced myself to smile back and said, “S’pose so, Miss Cleta. With this dry, hot weather, there’s always a worry hangin’ over our farm.”

“Well then, I guess we’d best get your mind off of things.” She poured two tall glasses of lemonade, dropped some berries into them, and nodded her head toward the living room. “We’ll use the good sofa today.”

I followed her in and retrieved the magazines from the shelf she directed me to. I felt almost sinful sitting on Miss Cleta’s treasured sofa, but I settled in over a piece of short fiction. Every now and again Miss Cleta would let out a hoot and show me some silly picture or outlandish dress pattern.

It was a day for enjoying good company, and we certainly
took advantage of it, eating food and chatting like girlfriends at a slumber party. But when the clock struck four, my nerves started to fray. I knew I’d be expected to tend to Mae soon.

Miss Cleta stretched and yawned. “Reckon we got some cookin’ and bakin’ to do. Ain’t nothin’ like kitchen work to clear a woman’s mind.” She hurried to the icebox and poked her head inside. “Question is, what do we fix without heatin’ the house up more than it already is?”

An hour later I walked slowly to Mae’s house with a tray of ham biscuits, a bowl of pickled beets tottering dangerously on top. Over one arm I carried a shopping bag filled with corn bread and fried okra, and Miss Cleta had topped me off by sticking a pastry box filled with chocolate-covered strawberries under one arm. I was breathless from the effort of balancing everything with precise skill, and breathlessness was no way to help my frayed nerves.

I had no words to say to Mae when she opened that door. There were dark circles under her once-brilliant blue eyes, and the house behind her showed increased signs of neglect.

“Jessilyn,” she murmured, forcing a soulless smile. “Miss Cleta got you to work again?”

“Yes’m.”

Mae opened the door wider in a gesture that urged me to come in. “Best not call me
ma’am
, Jessilyn. You’ll be makin’ me feel old. You ain’t no little girl no more, you know.”

I smiled at her, but my lips were shaky when I did it, and I bit my lower one to avoid letting her see it. “I best set this
down before I drop it all,” I said to give me something to do. I set about putting the containers on her crowded kitchen table. Flies circled the food immediately, and I swatted them away with a wave of my hand. “Darn flies are a sight this summer. Can’t keep ’em off with a stick.”

Mae put the cold foods in the icebox and then leaned back against it heavily. “Ain’t noticed the flies much,” she murmured, her gaze set on nothing in particular. “Ain’t noticed much of nothin’ these days.”

I said nothing and began to clear the table that had become a gathering place for old newspapers, dirty tin cups, and stale bread crusts. In the streaming afternoon sun, glistening particles of dust floated through the air, telling unspoken stories of Mae’s grief.

“I best get some of this cleaned up,” I told her. “You just rest, and I’ll pick up a bit, okay?”

She nodded lamely and flashed me a wry smile. “Ain’t had much energy lately.”

“You got yourself a baby comin’. Ain’t much you should be doin’ in this heat but restin’,” I said as much to soothe her, but I knew the reason for the messy house had nothing to do with Mae’s pregnancy. I threw some crumbs into the trash bin and smiled at Mae. “Can I get you somethin’ to drink?”

She just shook her head and continued to rest against the icebox.

I scooped up an armload of newspapers, stumbling over a pair of dirty work boots on my way to drop the papers at
the front door. “I’ll take these papers home and get rid of them for you.”

I could tell by her silence that she wasn’t hearing me, and when I returned to the kitchen, I found her in the same position she’d been when I’d left her thirty seconds earlier, still with an unnerving blank stare. I stepped in front of her gaze, hoping to get her attention, but she was still as a statue, barely blinking.

“Why don’t you let me help you sit down?” I asked. “I’ll clear off that comfy chair in the den so you can take a load off, okay?” I hurriedly attacked the crowded overstuffed chair, pulling the pile of unknown items into my arms in one fell swoop. A few things slipped from my grasp and tumbled to the floor, and I glanced down to avoid stepping on them.

Mae’s silence only made my shaky hands worse, and I made more of a mess than I’d begun with just trying to help. I went to Mae and put my arm about her waist to usher her over to the chair. “You look all thin these days. Best put some meat on your bones.”

Mae said nothing and wouldn’t move a muscle. I could feel her breath coming in short spurts, and I realized that her blouse was soaked with sweat.

I looked at her pale, clammy skin and murmured, “Mae? You all right?”

Without speaking, she clutched the edge of the icebox, her fingers turning white with the pressure.

“Mae?” I asked anxiously, my voice rising in fear. “What’s wrong?”

The whole of her weight was on me now, and I struggled to keep her from falling to the floor. Slowly I buckled my knees and managed to lower her gently, letting her head down last. She turned onto her side and tucked her knees up, her breathing now coming in loud gasps, and it wasn’t until I felt the wet floor beneath my feet that it occurred to me what was wrong.

“The baby’s comin’,” I exclaimed, mostly to myself. “Dear Lord, it’s comin’.” I wiped sweat from my own forehead, then leaned close to her face and said, “Mae, you just rest here while I go get Miss Cleta, okay? She can come set with you while I get Doc to come help, you hear?”

I was out the door in a flash, tripping over the stack of old newspapers on my way. Despite the fact that pain shot up through my foot, I didn’t slow my pace for a second. Poor Miss Cleta was startled out of her rocker when I rushed into the house, letting the screen door slam behind me.

“What on earth?” she hollered when she caught sight of me. “You’re enough to make an old woman catch her death.”

“It’s Mae’s baby, Miss Cleta! She done broke her water all over the kitchen floor.”

“I’ll go to her,” she assured, pushing me through the door as she spoke. “You put wings on those feet of yours, Miss Jessilyn, and go fetch the doc quick as lightnin’.”

I ran down Miss Cleta’s porch steps and square into Luke.

“Where’re you goin’ in such an all-fired hurry, Jessie?” he asked me, that edgy tone still coloring his voice. He pulled
me to a stop with a firm grip on my arms. “Watch where you’re goin’!”

If my mind hadn’t been heavy with the weight of worry over Mae and her baby, I would have turned all my frustration and hurt feelings out on Luke and the harsh way he’d often taken with me of late. But as things were, all I could do was shove his hands away from my arms and breathlessly tell him to get out of my way.

“I’ve got to get Doc,” I insisted loudly. “Let me go!”

My mention of the doctor pulled him out of his insensitive mood, and his face changed from frustration to fear.

“Who’s sick?” he asked quickly. “Miss Cleta?”

“Mae!” I called as I ran past him. “She’s havin’ the baby.”

I looked over my shoulder when I heard the screen door slam.

“Luke, the good Lord sent you here,” Miss Cleta told him in relief. “You’ve got longer legs’n Jessilyn. Run on off to get the doc. Mae ain’t got much time.”

Miss Cleta carried a tapestry bag that hung by two wooden rungs over her arm. She was moving at a pace I didn’t think she had in her, and before I could say anything else, Luke ran past me so fast he stirred up a breeze.

“Let the boy get help,” she told me. “I’ll need you here.”

“But what’ll we do if he doesn’t get Doc here in time?”

“I delivered enough babies back in my day, Miss Jessie. It’s poor Mae I’m worried over. She’s in a bad state in her mind right now, and I’m worried she might not have much strength for what’s ahead.”

My blood chilled with her words, but I appreciated that she was treating me with enough respect to tell me the frightening truth. Behind Miss Cleta, I entered Mae’s house with trepidation.

We found Mae right where I’d left her, but she was far worse than she’d been moments earlier. Her hair was matted with sweat, strings of it sticking to her crimson face. Her breathing came in quick, short gasps. But what frightened me most was the vacant expression on her face. Despite her obvious pain, Mae Colby looked into space, her eyes still focused on something that didn’t exist.

I flashed Miss Cleta a desperate look, but she couldn’t console me in any way. She only shook her head slowly, her mouth clenched.