The Storm (6 page)

She finally quit her woolgathering and paid attention to the newcomer, who shook her hand like she was doing her a favor. “Mrs. McCade,” she said. “We're right glad to have you in our little community here at New Hope.”

The hussy pulled back her damp hand like a chicken had pecked it and seemed to begrudge every word she spoke. “Thank you, Mrs. Russell. This is a quaint part of the world.”

Quaint. My stars and garters. She was the quaint one. Fact of the matter, she was downright queer. “Angus has been bragging that his boy married some pretty little French girl from New Orleans. We didn't think we'd ever lay eyes on you, a well-traveled city girl and all. Why in the world did you and Eric decide to head back to New Hope?”

Again, Eric's wife acted like she'd rather eat mud than carry on a polite conversation. But she managed to sidestep the question with some nonsense and make her feel like a fool for asking.

Fed up, she slipped away and found somebody who'd treat her with the respect she deserved. She couldn't keep from glancing at the outrageous young woman's stomach though, as she passed.

No, she wasn't in the family way yet. She was tall and looked healthy, but her hips were too slim for bearing children, and she was no more fit for farm life than Molly. She had things all backward with her sheared-off hair, short skirt that showed half her calf, and those long bangs.

That girl was an ill wind, as James would say. She shuddered like somebody had just walked over her grave.

*

Molly and Patrick strolled out the front door of the white frame church and stopped. The new woman stood talking to Mr. James, Mother Russell, and the preacher as if she considered herself their equal. She appeared so self-assured—shoulders thrown back and a faint sneer playing over her red lips. She'd obviously sized up the situation and found no one to measure up to her standards.

But her cheeks weren't as rosy as they should have been. And her lips never blossomed into the type of smile a woman of her age and beauty should possess. Her kohl-circled eyes glinted, as hard as flint.

Molly eased closer. The woman's world-weary expression made her seem older than Molly's own thirty-one years, but she appeared to be only in her mid-twenties. Molly had an urge to touch her cheek, which seemed almost as smooth as Patrick's.

“Come meet your new neighbor, Miss Molly. May I present Eric McCade's pulchritudinous new wife,” Mr. James said, trying out a word he'd most likely discovered in a Sherlock Holmes novel. Molly thought he sounded ridiculous.

“Miss Jacqueline, this is my child bride, Miss Molly Lee. She's always ready to help out here at church with the music. Or drive the buggy to somebody's house to give a piano lesson. But she does her share of the chores, and then some. Ma and I can't complain, can we, Ma?”

Mr. James looked at his mother as if for approval, but she kept her back to him. Molly knew she wouldn't agree even if she'd been paying attention.

Grasping Jacqueline's gloved hand, she said, “Welcome to New Hope.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“It'll be good to have someone near my age to catch me up on what's happening in the outside world. We live just a few miles from you, so you'll have to visit often.”

As she spoke to her new neighbor, she noticed the slightest glimmer of light in her flinty eyes, as though something metal had struck them and caused a spark. But it disappeared so quickly she feared she'd imagined it.

“You've done wonders with that trio,” Jacqueline said. “Their voices blend beautifully.”

“Thank you for the kind words.” She felt taller and held her head a bit higher.

But when she glanced at Mr. James and his mother, she shrank again and lowered her gaze.
Oh, I want to spend more time with her,
she thought.
I like the way she makes me feel.

The preacher was shifting from one foot to the other. “Mrs. Russell,” he said when she returned to their little group, “don't you think it'd be right neighborly to invite Eric and his new wife to partake of one of your delicious Sunday dinners?”

Mother Russell straightened her shoulders. “Sir, since you eat so much every time you dine with us, I doubt we'd have enough to feed even one extra mouth this Sunday. Maybe next quarter, when you come preach for us again.”

Then she turned to the newcomer. “Come calling when you feel sociable.” She frowned and glanced at their buggy. The preacher eyed her apologetically and simpered toward Jacqueline.

“Thank you,” Jacqueline said readily. “Eric and I need to get home to his father.”

Without another word, the vision in yellow strode with soldierly purpose to her black Model T, started it with one strong hand-crank, and raced off down the red-dirt road.

If only she were riding beside her.

Eric limped over and climbed into the Model T. He slammed the door as Jaq took off. “Gee, thanks for almost leaving me. Did you forget you had a husband?” He was breathing hard.

“I wish I could,” she muttered. “And thanks for deserting me. Do you think I enjoyed talking to that horny preacher and the Russell clan?”

“At least Molly's young and pretty.”

“Granted. And a lot more married than I am. She has a little boy, if you didn't notice.”

“Oh yeah. Too bad. You could probably seduce her if she didn't. I saw the way you stared at her during church. And the subtle way she looked you over.”

“Don't be ridiculous. What about you and all those beauties? I thought you wanted to see your old friends. Those girls were probably babies when you left New Hope.”

He lit a cigarette and blew smoke at her. “Not quite. Didn't you notice how everybody looked at me when I hobbled into church? Years ago, before I left, they acted like I was Jesus at the Second Coming. Today they couldn't keep their eyes off my eye patch and my cane.”

She gripped his arm a second, concerned. “They were surprised, that's all. I'm sure they still consider you their best and brightest.”

“At least those girls do. To all the others I'm spoiled goods. The guy who had to leave the War. A dud, not a hero.”

She sped through a green tunnel of newly leafed trees. Unpainted shacks and a few white two-story houses dotted this dense forest, with cattle and new-plowed fields nearby. She needed to distract Eric, shake some sense into him. They had to take care of his father's situation so they could head back to New Orleans. “Say, is this where some of those people at church live?”

He didn't even glance at her or the buildings. “Yeah.”

Red-orange earth the color of clay flowerpots stretched out, just waiting to turn green. Eric's father, Angus, had explained how farmers with their teams of mules plowed the weeds under when it dried up enough in the spring. That was better than tanks destroying anything that grew. It was quiet and beautiful here, and obviously fertile, like Molly.

Where had that thought come from? Why had Eric mentioned seducing her? Did he know something she didn't? What kind of person did he think she was?

The huge trees—pines—along the edges of those fields had deep roots, Eric's dad had said. She needed more of those but didn't want to be immovable, like the people around here seemed to be. All except Molly, with her lilting voice.

Eric finished one cigarette and lit another. If he kept acting like this, she'd drive back to New Orleans by herself. But now Mother knew she was married and wouldn't let her rest until she either got unmarried or lived with her so-called husband.

“Damn. This road's rough.”

“Yeah, pretty bad.”

“These ruts and puddles remind me of all that mud near Passchendaele last summer.”

Eric finally showed some interest. “I remember. It rained for three months. I was stationed near there, and it grounded us for days. We sat around itching to fly. Every time it cleared for a few minutes, we took off.”

“Where we were, the tanks mired down, clay stuck to everything, and some of our men and animals drowned in the bombed-out craters filled with water. Driving an ambulance in that hellhole was a bitch, especially in the middle of the night.”

Eric looked at her with respect. “Luckily, I missed that. Being an ace has its advantages.” His eye took on a faraway expression.

“Yep.” She nodded, still mired in the past. After her patriotism had worn off, she'd stuck around France because she'd thought she might bump into Helen. God, she missed her—and the excitement of war. She missed Willie too.

Even though she'd just gotten here, it was so God-awful quiet she wanted to scream. She didn't miss the whine of the shells before they exploded, or the wounded men screaming for relief. And she didn't miss living each minute waiting for her next voice lesson with Sister Mary. She ought to relax and enjoy the silence.

She tried to rouse Eric. “That Mrs. Russell sure is a powerhouse,” she said. “Bet she'd give the kaiser or the president a run for his money. We should make her a general and put her in charge of all our armies. We'd lick the bloody Boches in a week.”

He just grunted, so she decided to ignore him.

Mr. James seemed nice enough, with good taste in women, but he was a mama's boy. And why had he volunteered all that information about Molly's love of music in such a condescending way? Wasn't he proud of her talent?

Molly seemed fragile and sweet. Was she as straitlaced as Sister Mary? That long red curl escaping from her mound of hair, and those soft green eyes…Similar to yet so different from Willie's. She'd probably be a great kisser. It'd be interesting to find out.

No doubt Mrs. Russell kept her on duty around the clock. How did Molly get trapped in that situation?

She glanced at Eric, who didn't look like he'd be much fun while they were here. So Molly wanted to be friends? Hmm. Might be enjoyable.

By God, she could even endure Molly's mother-in-law for the opportunity to spend some time with her—maybe.

*

After the pitiful dinner Jaq had scraped up for Eric and Angus, with their help, she sat in the front-porch swing and smoked. Slow footsteps sounded inside, and she stubbed out her cigarette and dropped it into an old Coke bottle. She was waving smoke away as Angus eased through the front door. He dropped into a rocker and just sat there awhile before he looked at her.

His thinning hair must have been the color of Eric's once. And he was about Eric's height, but he moved hesitantly.

“Eric's taking a nap,” he said abruptly, as if his throat was rusty.

“Yes, I suspect he needs to take a lot of them.” She didn't know what else to say.

After a long silence, he gazed at her as if just realizing she was there. “I surely do appreciate you looking after both of us.”

She murmured something polite, but he dismissed it with a wave.

“No, I really mean it. I'm in a tight spot right now, but I'll get back on my feet. Eric will too. You're a kind lady to help us out like this.”

She started to remind him that she was Eric's wife but wasn't sure what Eric had told him. And he was obviously no fool. They didn't act anything like a happily married couple.

She and Angus sat there a while longer in silence until he said, “Well, I best go rest a mite too. Eric and I need to go see a man about some land later. You try to find something to occupy yourself, you hear? Don't want you to be too lonesome while you're here. Go visit somebody you met at church this morning. That Molly Russell is about the nicest one around.”

What a dear man,
she thought as he went inside.
Worrying about me being lonely, when he must be grieving his heart out for his wife and boys.

She tapped another cigarette from her pack. At this rate, she'd run out in a week, and then what would she do? As she sat there and smoked, Eric's earlier remark about seducing Molly began to buzz around her head like a fly. Why were Eric and Angus both pointing her in Molly's direction? Did they think she'd treat Molly the same way Sister Mary had treated her?

Suddenly an image of Sister Mary Therese pulled her into the past, though she'd rather not visit it again. Why keep torturing herself?

Sister Mary sat next to her on a concrete bench in the convent garden, spring flowers blooming yellow and blue. Eighteen, she'd noticed only how Sister Mary's hair and eyes outshone the flowers. “I'm glad you decided to stop skipping school this year,” Sister Mary had said.

“Yeah. Mother is too. You must be a good influence.” She had promised her mother not to miss any more classes in exchange for taking singing lessons from Sister Mary.

She recalled almost bloodying her fingers when she pressed them into the rough concrete to keep from edging them toward Sister Mary's thigh. “But I do miss spending all day in the French Quarter and Storyville listening to music and taking pictures. Would you like to see my favorite of all the ones I've taken?”

Riffling through the photographs she'd pulled from between the pages of one of her textbooks, she selected one of a dark-haired prostitute wearing an almost-transparent black dress. “What do you think?”

Sister Mary had paled but had questioned her about it. She'd even called it a work of art, which thrilled her. She also remembered exactly how she'd sighed in relief. Any of the other nuns would have ripped the photo to shreds and reported her to the mother superior.

Her legs had burned when she'd looked at the shot. She'd given the woman five dollars to pose for her, and as she and Sister Mary sat side by side and gazed at it, Sister Mary seemed to have trouble catching her breath. The area between her own legs definitely began to throb.

Eventually, Sister Mary said, “You're a fine student and have developed your voice quickly this year.” She must have been trying to resume her role as teacher rather than peer.

She had thanked her and said, “You've influenced me more than you can imagine.”