Dovey Coe (3 page)

Caroline rose from her seat and walked over to Mama's side. “You know I'm going to miss everyone, Mama,” she said, giving Mama a little squeeze around the shoulders. “But there is a world out there, and I aim to see it.”

“You aim to see all the handsome gentlemen,” I said. I had taken a seat on the floor where I could lean my back against the cold woodstove and thumb through a right interesting book about rock collecting.

Caroline give me a tight smile. “What I am talking about is getting an education,” she said, trying to sound proper, as was her practice of late. “I do have a brain in my head, you know. It's important for someone of my talents and abilities to get cultivated. I hear that Boone is filled with cultivated folks. And Asheville, too.”

“Bunch of jokers with their fingers sticking out when they drink their tea, I bet you,” I told her, sounding just like my daddy.

“Now how on earth would you know a thing about tea drinking, Dovey?” Caroline questioned
me. “You still haven't learned to wipe the milk off your lip after you take a swig.”

I did not find that comment worthy of reply.

A lot of folks wondered why Caroline was taking the bother of going off to college, seeing as she was likely to get married before too long, a girl as pretty as she was. They didn't reckon on Caroline being the sort of girl whose head held a bigger picture than marrying as soon as she finished high school and moving in next door to her mama, which is what most of the girls in Indian Creek did. That weren't my aim, personally, nor had it ever been Caroline's. Us Coes were made of more interesting stuff than that.

M
y daddy sold that pig to Chester Daniels the following Monday, and then he rode over to Boone on Tuesday and paid down the money for Caroline to go to teachers college in the fall. By the time Wednesday morning rolled around, Coreen Lovett had cornered Mama in Caraway's Dry Goods, where Mama was buying flour to make a pound cake, and asked her if it was true about Caroline going off to college. It didn't take long for a piece of news to get around in Indian Creek, that was the honest truth.

“Folks in this town sure love to talk, don't they?” Mama said when she got back from Caraway's. “I reckon even Cypress Terrell and his mama have heard about Caroline's going to school by now.”

Cypress Terrell was a little old feller without any teeth who lived with his mama up yonder on Cane Creek. You might have seen them once or twice a year, that's how much they cared for the society of other folks.

Now when Parnell Caraway heard that my daddy had gone and done such a thing, he got in his automobile and drove on up the hill to our house, which ain't easy to do in a fancy car. But Parnell was a determined man, and he would sacrifice his car's good looks to make things turn out his way.

If it weren't for Caroline, Parnell Caraway wouldn't even consider stepping foot on our property. None of them Caraways thought us Coes was much good, but Parnell made an exception for Caroline, seeing as he was in love with her and all. He'd come by from time to time, just to see if Caroline had changed her mind about him. Sometimes Caroline was right friendly to Parnell; other times she didn't give him the time of day. Frankly, I think Parnell right enjoyed the
confusion. All the other girls in town let it be known they thought Parnell hung the moon, but Caroline kept things interesting.

When Tom and Huck heard the sound of the engine, they like to have gone crazy, barking their heads off and running to show Amos that we had some excitement coming our way. This weren't the first time Parnell come to call, but usually Amos had Tom and Huck with him up on the mountain, so Parnell was a fairly unusual occurrence to their way of thinking.

Daddy stuck his head out from the barn, where he was fixing Luther McDowell's tractor alternator, and gave Parnell a wave as he was getting out of the car. From the garden, I seen Parnell stride over to the barn, and him and Daddy had themselves a short chat. I was dying to know what they was talking about. That was always a problem with Daddy. He'd be friendly with about anybody who passed his way. I was concerned he might not know all there was to know about Parnell. Daddy might take a liking to Parnell without understanding Parnell's true character or the fact that Parnell's people thought they was so much above us.

Parnell shook Daddy's hand and headed up to where I was tending Mama's flower garden. He
wore a real determined look on his face, which I hated to admit was handsomer than ever. I have never denied that Parnell was a good-looking boy, although I always thought his looks was ruined by a meanness in his eyes. He had shiny black hair he wore slicked back on his head all wavylike, and the most perfect nose I'd ever seen. Just as straight and fine as a nose could be. His eyes were of a deep dark brown, like a deer's, and his skin was pale and creamy. Parnell had grown full into a man by that time and stood about six foot tall. He was a sight muscle-bound for a person who never done a day's work in his life.

“Hey, Dovey,” he said, paying no mind to Amos, who had followed Tom and Huck out to the garden to see what all their fuss was about. For folks like Parnell, the fact of Amos being deaf made him invisible to their eyes, no need to give him a wave of the hand or a hello.

“What's got you up here, Parnell?” I asked, standing and wiping the dirt from my hands.

“Well, howdy do to you, too. I come to have me a little talk with Caroline. She around the house?”

Parnell walked over to me like he aimed to pat me on the shoulder or be friendly in some manner, but I moved too quick for him to get close to
me. Parnell weren't going to get to Caroline by acting sweet to me, if that was what he was thinking. I had seen Parnell in his daddy's store acting as though the world was his to buy and sell, and he was not going to get on my good side, no matter how hard he tried.

By this time, Tom and Huck was sniffing around at Parnell's feet and trying to stick their noses in the crotch of his cream-colored pants, the way dogs are wont to do. Parnell give Huck a sharp kick and swatted Tom away with his hand. Amos started toward him with his hoe.

“I reckon I'd treat them dogs a little more neighborly if I was you,” I told Parnell. “Amos don't take kindly to folks beating on his dogs.”

Parnell held up his hands in the air like he was surrendering and said real loud, “Sorry 'bout that, Amos. Them dogs of yours was making me nervous is all.”

That's when Caroline come out to the porch, looking pretty as could be in a blue flowered dress and no shoes on her feet. “Mama wants to know what all the fuss is out here,” she said. “Oh, hey, Parnell. I thought I heard someone drive up. What's got you up here on such a fine afternoon?”

Parnell's expression softened like butter, and
his voice got kind of gentle and quivery, not at all like his usual tone. “Caroline, I have to talk to you. It's real important.”

Caroline sat down on the steps. “Why, whatever's the matter, Parnell? You sick? You look a little peaked.”

Parnell glanced over at me and then lowered his voice. “I'm sick with the thought of you going away,” Parnell said, and I thought I might just get sick myself. “They say you're leaving for teachers college come August, but I aim to change your mind.”

Parnell give me and Amos a look that meant for us to hightail it on out of there. I smiled the sweetest smile I had in me and started picking weeds out of the garden again. Amos went to tend to his dogs in the yard.

Parnell sat down on the step below Caroline, better to gaze at her famous eyes, I supposed. He took one of her hands in his own, which made Caroline raise an eyebrow, but she didn't take back her hand the way I thought she should have.

“Caroline, stay in Indian Creek and I'll make you the happiest girl alive, I swear to it,” Parnell said, his words all full of emotion. “I'll buy you whatever you want, all the dresses in the world, rings on all your fingers, a car, whatever you say.”

This is where I thought Caroline ought to have said something about how she longed to see the world and meet upstanding young gentlemen, and had no interest in staying in Indian Creek. Instead, what she said was, “Why, I don't even know how to drive, Parnell. What do I need a car for?”

“You're missing my point, Caroline,” Parnell said, starting to sound the littlest bit irritated. “What I'm saying is, marry me. I'll take care of your folks. I'll even send Amos to one of them special schools for deaf children.”

“Now wait one hellfire minute, Parnell Caraway!” I interrupted from where I stood in the garden. “You ain't sending Amos nowhere!”

“Dovey!” Caroline called in a firm voice. “Let me take care of this!”

“A girl such as yourself shouldn't be using language like that,” Parnell added, sounding peevish.

“Damnation and hell!” I replied. “Why don't you take your sorry self back to your daddy's store?”

Caroline stood up. “Now both of you, hush! Dovey, go on inside now so I can talk to Parnell.”

I let the screen door slam behind me so to show them I was none too pleased about being sent away like I was some little child. Then I went
and sat by the open window in the parlor room, where I could hear every word that was said between the two of them.

“What do you say, Caroline?” Parnell asked. “Will you marry me? I promise to take real good care of you and your family.”

Caroline was quiet for a moment, collecting her words. Here's where she's going to tell him about getting some culture and having new experiences, I thought. Here's where she's going to remind Parnell he don't mean a thing to her. I smiled to myself and waited for the blow to fall.

But, “I'm awful flattered, Parnell, truly I am,” is what she said, and I had to keep myself from shouting out. “But this proposal, well, it come out of nowhere. We ain't even been courting.”

“Shoot, we've known each other since we was little children,” Parnell protested. “At least promise me you'll think on the matter. That's all I ask. Let me come call on you in a regular way. Will you at least do that?”

“I'll have to ask Daddy. But even if he says yes, and I don't know that he will, it don't mean I'm going to marry you.”

“Just give me a chance, is all I ask. I reckon you'll see things my way come August.”

“I'll see what Daddy says,” Caroline told him. “I'll ask him tonight after supper.”

“You won't regret it,” come Parnell's reply.

I looked out the window and seen Parnell walking to his car, Amos holding on tight to Tom and Huck so they wouldn't chase after him. Even from behind, Parnell looked cocky and full of himself, and hateful as it is to say, I believe if I'd had a gun in my hand, I would've been tempted to shoot him then and there.

But not on that day, or any other, did I ever harm a hair on Parnell Caraway's head.

F
rom the beginning there was no love lost between Parnell Caraway and me, not even in the early years, though as Parnell got older he tried to pretend like he got along with everyone. That right there was acting on a grand scale.

I remember the time that I was nine and had brought Amos down to Caraway's Dry Goods to pass the afternoon, maybe finger through a comic book or two and buy us some jawbreakers. I won't soon forget the sight of the electric train set Parnell's mama and daddy give him for Christmas spread out across the floor, the tracks curving around the barrels full of sugar and flour and making a straightaway down past the canned goods.

A pack of children had gathered around where Parnell was kneeling on the floor, running them little trains. Me and Amos joined them to take a gander. All of us was dying to help Parnell set up the miniature village that come with the trains, or even just once flip the switch to start them little cars up.

Parnell looked around the crowd, a big grin on his face, a lock of black hair falling over his forehead. “Y'all don't touch a thing, you hear?” he said, his voice friendly on the top of it with a little river of meanness flowing beneath. “Now maybe if you give me a dollar each, I might let you help out some, but otherwise, you're flat out of luck.”

Of course there weren't no one who had a dollar to give. Parnell and Paris Caraway were the only children in Indian Creek who ever had much spending money. The rest of us had pockets full of jacks and marbles and the smooth stones you could find up by Cane Creek, but not a dollar bill to save our lives. And Parnell known it, too.

“You let me play with your trains, I'll help you clean up when you're done,” I said, coming up with the idea on the spot and thinking it a fair offer.

Parnell laughed. “Didn't know you was a cleaning lady, Dovey Coe. I'll tell my daddy for
the next time he's looking to hire someone to sweep up in here.”

I looked Parnell straight in the eye. “You're a sorry one, Parnell. I ain't offering to be your maid, I just want to mess with them trains.”

“Too bad they ain't your trains, now ain't that right?” Parnell said, the grin still spread across his face. Then he turned back to the track, flipping the switches all by himself, them children just staring with their mouths open, dying for the teeniest chance to play. Amos got so frustrated, he kicked the side of the soda cooler a couple of times.

“Ain't y'all trained that little monkey yet?” Parnell had asked without even looking up from his trains. “Or is he too stupid to be made civilized?”

I grabbed Amos's hand and pulled him out of there before I gave in to my deep desire to aim a can of peas straight for Parnell's head.

Remembering just how evil Parnell could be, I was right scared that Caroline might lose her senses and take the boy up on his offer of marriage. There was more than a couple reasons the prospect bothered me, the least of which was that I couldn't stand the thought of being related to Parnell, even if it was just by law. But more than
that to me was the worry he'd take a notion to send Amos away. I decided I had better have a talk with Daddy, especially after he done told Caroline that Parnell could call on her regular, if that's what she wanted.