Redemption (6 page)

“
So,” she said, tracing a finger down his back, “What was so long about your day?”

He told her about Darcy and Annie, but not about Annie’s reference to J. He was
the
subject they never talked about. Callie listened without interrupting, occasionally shaking her head.

“
What do you think, Callie? It’s all so strange. The car, then Darcy, then Annie. If I wasn’t a rational man, I’d think they were all connected in some way.”

She kissed a tender spot at the base of his neck. “Bad things come in three’s, so they say. And since when you been rational? You a white man who been sleepin’ secretly with a black woman for sixteen years in Pine County, Virginia.” She kissed his shoulder. “On second thought, that’s one of the few rational things you’ve ever done.”

He turned to face her. “You keep me sane, Callie.” He brushed back a few glistening dark hairs from her eyes. “And you still have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
The rest of you isn’t bad either
, Overton thought,
for a forty-eight-year-old woman
.

“
You been comparin’ eyes, Mr. Man?”

“
No.”

“
Better not.” She squeezed his arm. “My eyes the reason you still with me?”

He kissed her nose. “They’re one of the reasons. The other is the way you cook.”

“
Ooh, I like it when you talk like that.”

“
Like what?”

“
Nasty-like.” She ground her hips into his. “And you used to be so shy.”

“
I wasn’t being nasty. I truly love your cooking.”

“
Uh-huh. You like my dessert, too, right?”

Overton pinned her to the bed. “You made a pie? Strawberry or blueberry?” She broke his grip easily and flipped him to the other side of the bed. “I’m just kidding, Callie.” He cradled her face. “I love everything about you, except for your cold feet.”

“
Miles, I can’t help that. I was born that way. Seems to get worse every year, don’t it?” She rubbed her feet on his shins. “But you like cold things, don’t you?”

“
When you gonna get them checked out? You got poor circulation down there or something. Might be a sign of something serious.”

“
Listen, old man, don’t be carin’ too much for me now. You the one with cold feet and won’t marry me. I been thinkin’ about findin’ me another man to take your place.”

Overton’s heart skipped a beat. “Like who?”

“
Joe Graves. He been talkin’ my ears clean off after church. Brags a bit much about his tobacco field, but he got a right. It’s
his
field. And he ain’t downright homely. I got to be lookin’ out for myself, gotta find me a nest egg.”

“
Joe Graves? Callie, he probably only wants your land so he can plant more tobacco, and he can’t be more than thirty-five.”

“
I need me a young stud. You just ain’t keepin’ up.”

Overton’s heart ached. “Callie, I—”

“
You get me a ring yet?”

“
No, but—”

“
Bet Joe Graves would get me a nice fat ring with a healthy rock on it, and it wouldn’t take me sixteen years to get it.”

She’s right. Joe Graves buys himself a new truck just about every year.
“Look, if I get you a ring, can we at least have a long engagement until I retire?”

“
What you think the last sixteen years been?”

“
We’ve been, uh, we’ve been courting, Callie.”

“
Well, I am courted out.”

“
Really? No kidding this time?”

“
Really.”

She’s serious,
Overton thought.
Our courtship is finally over.

She rose from the bed and slipped into a robe, tying the belt tightly around her. “Time to shit or get off the pot, Miles Overton.”

“
You mean, now? After the day I’ve had?”

“
Now or never.”

Overton rubbed his eyes. “I mean, after sixteen years you just up and decide that today is the day?”

She smiled. “Yep. You okay with it?”

Overton nodded. “Yes.” He rolled off the bed and knelt in front of Callie. “Callie Poindexter, would you do me the honor of being my wife?”

She kissed the top of his head. “Yes. Now was that so hard?” She untied the belt and let the robe drop to the floor. “Wanna consummate our relationship?”

He kissed her stomach. “I’m beat, Callie.”

She put a finger under his chin. “How hard your day been? I was out all day in that sun.”

“
Doing what?”

She smiled. “Did me some plantin’, waterin’, a whole bunch of prunin’. Place needed a whole lot of prunin’ today.”

He buried his face in her chest. “Well, I hope tomorrow gets back to boring. I just want to sit at Lester’s, read the paper, and take a nap.”

“
We gonna need us some of that Viagra.”

“
No we won’t. Just today ... I guess the day just got to me.”

“
You think too much. Rest a bit. I’ll wake you when it’s time.”

Overton yawned. “Promise?”

She helped him into bed and kissed his lips. “I always keep my promises to the ones I love. Always.”

7

Lester Williams called his mother every evening before locking up at the gas station because he felt guilty about sending her to a retirement community in Florida.

“
How’s the weather down there, Mama?”

“
Lousy. Hot, sticky, and ain’t a breeze nowhere. Hurricane season comin’, and I bet A to Z hit us this year. And don’t get me started on the bugs! Big as my fist, some of them. And these geckos ain’t doin’ the job. All they do is scare the shit outta me, dropping down on me when I’m eatin’, when I’m on the can, whenever I have company over. Damn lizards think they own the place! I’ve been settin’ me some traps all over the apartment, and I don’t give a shit if geckos are supposed to be a protected species ...”

But that was part of the deal, Mama.
Lester couldn’t tell her about the deal, though he really wanted to.
A long time ago, Mama, I didn’t do one thing that might have cost a boy his life. Might have, mind you. He brought his car into the station on empty, and he left on empty. Never spent his money, though. Put it in the offering plate at church the very next day. But because of that one thing and keeping my mouth shut ever since, I have a business, a house, a whole bunch of land, and a truck Daddy could only dream of, and you have a new knee, a new hip, and a warm place to retire to in style.

“
And all these New Yorkers down here sayin’
I
talk funny! The Weinsockets or Weinsprockets next door practically speak no English. I went over to borrow some cornmeal, and you know what they said? ‘What’s that?’ The fools ain’t even heard of cornmeal, Lester! And the other day I was tryin’ to find me a ripe tomato, just
one
ripe tomato. Oh sure, they got their oranges comin’ out of their asses when they ain’t fightin’ them brush fires, but—”

“
Mama, how’s your physical therapy comin’ along?”

“
Like hell. It’s physical, all right, but it ain’t therapy. Gotta have a nurse go with me to the can, and she got cold-ass hands. I think she may be one of them dykes, and I don’t want no dyke—”

“
Mama,” Lester interrupted, “Darcy Rydell and Annie Mitchem are dead.”

Silence. “The girl who did hair
and
her mama?”

“
Yes. Darcy killed herself, and Annie got hit by a car. Just today, as a matter of fact.”

“
Lord, Lord. Such a shame. Now all the white women in Snow will have no one to do their hair. That is
such
a tragedy.”

Lester covered the mouthpiece and laughed to himself because his mother was being serious.
Mama’s hair has always been more important than her health.
“Mama, I gotta go. Gotta change the timing belt on Jimmy Lee’s Jaguar.” It was a lie, but it usually slowed her down.

“
How many cars Jimmy Lee got? I still can’t believe his daddy just up and gave you that gas station, Lester. There was always somethin’ hinky about that deal.”

“
Bye, Mama. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“
And when you comin’ to visit? You
said
you’d come down at Easter, and you didn’t. Think it was Jimmy Lee’s Range Rover that time.”

“
Mama, I gotta go. Maybe I’ll come down at Thanksgiving.”

“
Maybe, huh? I won’t hold my breath, Lester. Good-bye.”

Lester locked up and took a leisurely drive in his Toyota Land Cruiser to Pine Lake, eating at Dudding’s Landing in Pine, a trendy restaurant with a water view from every table. During his meal, he thought of that night ...

Ignorant yellow boy and his fancy car and his white trash girlfriend Darcy lookin’ at me like I’m dirt. “Fill ‘er up,” he says, and he hands me a brand new crisp twenty. I know it ain’t his money. It’s the Senator’s money. Boy gets an allowance just for bein’ born. Then while I pump nothin’ but air into his tank, he tries to get into Darcy’s pants, like he’s showin’ me how it’s done. Boy may be the best football player in the state, but he’s a traitor to his race. The boy has a black mama, so he’s black no matter how straight his hair is or how small his nose it or how thin his lips are or how white he talks. “Keep the change,” he says when I’m through, and he burns rubber outta there. Next day, he’s front-page news. A week or so later, I own a gas station.

On the way home from Dudding’s Landing, he bought a case of Red Dog at Pine County’s only 7-11 and drank two before pulling off 115 to the shoulder where Annie’s body had been found.

Annie and Darcy. Darcy the redheaded stepchild. That bitch was weak. If she really loved J, she woulda offed herself right after it happened, not fifteen years later. And Annie? Crazy white lady. Askin’ me if I saw the lights that night. ‘You seen the lights, Lester?’ she says. Ain’t no one gonna miss those two at all.

He dropped his empty bottles at the spot and continued home, turning onto his driveway, the longest paved driveway in Pine County.
I got me a driveway a half-mile long, Daddy, and one of these days, I’m gonna hit up ol’ Jimmy Lee for a natural gas line all the way from Pine to here. Jimmy Lee’ll pay. He always does cuz he has to. And maybe I’ll get an automatic garage door opener, too.

Oh, the huntin’ we coulda done, Daddy, in my woods.
My
woods. Maybe they’ll name ‘em after me when I’m dead and gone. Williams’s Woods. I like the sound of that. Gonna let a button buck I saw the other day fatten up, don’t you know. Gonna get him this fall, maybe bring Mama some venison to cook up for us at Thanksgiving.

He slowed to a crawl as he neared his house and saw that the garage door was closed.
I know I left it open. Maybe the chain snapped?
He got out and opened the garage door, and as he did, he caught a strong whiff of ammonia. “Damn cats. Why you gotta piss on my nice clean floor? County oughta gas y’all, maybe declare open huntin’ season on y’all.” He decided to leave the Land Cruiser outside and the garage door open overnight to air the place out. “Musta been an orgy, damn.”

He punched the security code on a panel next to the door to the lower level as he fished in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes and lighter. The alarm disabled, he flipped a cigarette into his mouth, a trick he learned from his father, thumbed the lighter ... and sailed screaming past his truck far into his woods.

Tuesday, July 6, 1999

8

Overton showered, shaved, dressed, and did Callie’s dishes before sunup.
I am so domestic,
Overton thought.
And now I’ll need a ring to prove it to everybody.
He then drove further up 115 to his mailbox to pick up his daily
Beacon
and
Times
. The front page of the
Beacon
contained few surprises: