Confederates Don't Wear Couture (6 page)

“Then brother and sister it is.” Dev pulled my hair.

“Ouch!” I rubbed my scalp.

“Just getting in character,” he said, taking a second cookie.

Tammy chuckled. We talked until we'd drained the pitcher, and Dev was using his pinkie to pop the last remaining crumbs of shortbread into his mouth.

“We'd best get a move on.” Tammy stood and picked up the tray. “Officers'll be just about done, and Beau'll be waitin' on us.”

As Tammy took the tray to the kitchen, Dev used one arm to pick up his bag and the other to help me extricate myself from the couch. Tammy pushed two giant cardboard boxes into the living room. I recognized Dev's handwriting on the labels immediately—so
that's
where he shipped the clothes to! In a few minutes, and only with slight difficulty, the three of us and all of our boxes were out of the B&B and back in the minivan.

“I know those hoops take some gettin' used to,” Tammy said, as we pulled out of the driveway and I flopped around in back, trying to get comfortable. “You should've seen me at my first reenactment. Like a flounder in a tote bag. But you'll get the hang of it, I promise.”

Marbury wasn't far from Pine Level, and in no time at all, we were passing a big granite slab that read
CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL PARK
. Tammy turned into a gravel parking lot, enclosed by a split-rail fence that was propping up a lone soldier in gray. He looked reminiscent of the cute blob I'd seen from afar in the picture.

“Is that Beau, Tammy?” Dev asked.

“Right on time, bless his heart,” Tammy murmured, as she parked, and the soldier straightened up, pushing himself off the fence.

Dev hopped out of the car immediately, rushing to check Beau out under the ruse of extracting me from the back seat.

“Cute!” Dev mouthed appreciatively as he helped me out, and Tammy ran over to give her son a hug.

“Libby! Dev! Y'all come on over,” Tammy called, and Dev led me to the fence. “This is my boy, Beau.”

I looked up into a pair of startlingly green eyes. Perhaps not uncommon, given the russet tinge to his hair, but they were so vibrantly emerald, they had still surprised me. He was tall, broad shouldered, and classic leading-man handsome. Jaw-droppingly so. But it was actually
his
jaw that had dropped.

“Don't stand there and look all twitterpated—you go on and get their things,” Tammy scolded him. “Go on, get.” She sighed heavily. “Oh, Lord, you pay him no never mind, Libby. He always was a fool for a pretty girl.” Tammy gave Beau a gentle nudge, and they disappeared back behind the minivan.

“Goodness, he looks just like a hotter Tarleton twin, doesn't he?” Dev asked excitedly. I was beginning to get the feeling that the vast majority of Dev's “research” consisted of repeat viewings of
Gone with the Wind.
“I hope he is a Tarleton twin! One for me, one for you.” Dev rubbed his hands together.

“Um, I have a boyfriend,” I reminded Dev. No well-muscled man in uniform was going to change that.

“No, you don't,” Dev replied breezily.

“Dev, you've met him like fifteen times.” I rolled my eyes. “You've seen him in his underwear.”

“Technically, you don't have a boyfriend,” Dev explained. “According to the laws of
Back to the Future,
Garrett McCaffrey, your alleged boyfriend, doesn't even exist. Because he hasn't been born yet. And may never be born if we change the path of history as we know it.”

“
Back to the Future
isn't real science. And we didn't actually go back in time,” I countered, eyeing him suspiciously. “You know that, right?”

“I'm just saying—what happens in 1861
stays
in 1861.”

Unlike Dev, I still believed my boyfriend existed. Even if he hadn't answered his phone last night. Or this morning. I'd sneaked out early, hiding behind the tent in nothing but my pantalets and chemise, because that was all I could put on unassisted. But even after a good fifteen minutes of frantically, furtively dialing, there was still no response.

Last night Beau had moved our small trunks into the tent, before putting our suitcases and the boxes of clothes Dev had shipped to Alabama in the back of his truck. After hugging us goodbye, Tammy had left us in Beau's capable hands. He seemed nice enough, if a bit shy, as he showed us around the camp and into our tent. We'd only unpacked enough stuff to last us for the day, as we'd be leaving the instruction camp for our first battle, and our first selling opportunity, almost immediately. Everything else stayed in the truck. Cars seemed to be the major repositories of anything non-period around here. Well, and the Confederate Memorial Park Visitors Center, of course, which held the major non-period item I was interested in: the bathroom. Everyone else seemed perfectly content to pee in the woods, and while I'd been on enough family camping trips that I didn't have a problem with that, if there was an actual flushing toilet, I was going to use it. However, I had yet to discover a shower anywhere, a situation that was far more troubling.

The camp was a little village of white pup tents, small canvas structures weather-beaten by the sun. Most of the tents were only wide enough for each soldier to place a pallet on the floor, but ours was one of the more luxurious ones, like the officers had. It was big enough to fit two narrow cots with a stack of small trunks containing our day-to-day personal items and clothing between them. Tammy had been kind enough to make sure we had quilts, instead of the scratchy woolen army blankets; two lumpy cotton pillows (another luxury); and a tin pitcher and basin for washing up, which were balanced on top of the stack of trunks. When it was time to go into business, Beau had explained, we'd set up a bigger awning in front of our sleeping tent to display our wares.

“Coffee,” Dev moaned, as I slipped back into the tent, sitting up in his cot. “Coffee!” He rubbed his temples.

“Help me get dressed, and we'll go get some.” I picked up my corset and held it out to him.

“Uh-uh,” he grunted as he got out of bed and stumbled toward me. “Coffee first.” He stumbled straight past me and out of the tent, clad in nothing but his cream-colored union suit.

I held my corset under my armpits in the ready position, waiting impatiently. Dev might have been fine wandering around camp in his long underwear, but I wasn't sure I wanted to prance around in front of strangers in nineteenth-century lingerie.

Dev returned a few minutes later, clutching a tin cup. He took a sip, then immediately spat it out, spraying me with a fine mist.

“Eeuw, Dev, gross!” I tried to shield myself from getting coffee on my corset.

“What . . . the hell . . . is that,” he said tersely.

“I don't know—coffee?” I brushed little brown drops off my arms. “Oh, gross, gross, gross.”

“That”—he pointed an accusing finger at the cup—“is
not
coffee.”

“Fine, fine, it's not coffee.” I hopped closer, putting my back directly in front of him. “Please help me clothe myself, and we'll figure it out, okay?”

“Okay.” Dev nodded, seemingly galvanized into action. “Okay.” He put the cup down on top of his trunk. “You stay there, Satan's brew,” he instructed the cup, and hurriedly laced me up. I was happy he was preoccupied, because he didn't lace me nearly as tight. As if he were in some sort of nineteenth-century speed-dressing competition, within minutes I was corseted, hoop-skirted, petticoated, and standing in a plaid silk taffeta day dress. Dev chucked a cameo brooch at me to pin on my collar at the base of my throat and flung the tent flap open.

“Mornin', Dev. Libby.” Beau was standing outside the tent in gray wool pants, suspenders, and a soft green checked shirt, balancing two tin cups and a plate. He seemed slightly less tongue-tied than he'd been last night. “I fixed you a plate.”

“Keep that horse's piss out of my sight,” Dev thundered, “or so help me, I will go General Sherman on all of your asses and raze this sorry excuse for a Starbucks to the ground.
Where is the real coffee?!
” Dev pushed his way over to the main ring of campfires.

“Sorry about Dev,” I said. I shot Beau an apologetic look and took the plate. “He's really not fit for human companionship before coffee. And thanks for the plate.” I smiled. I couldn't believe he'd “fixed me a plate.” Just like all the boys wanted to do for Scarlett O'Hara at the Twelve Oaks barbecue! “That was really sweet.”

“Wasn't anythin' special.” He shrugged. “Besides, I promised my mama I'd take good care of y'all.”

He smiled, and I was flooded with warmth that had nothing to do with the Alabama sunshine. Not that it meant anything. I mean, I had a boyfriend. Obviously. Beau was just an infectious smiler. Just friendly, you know. It's always nice to make new friends. Especially ones who smile like they really mean it, with their whole face, reaching all the way up to the startling green of their eyes . . .

“So, what's for breakfast today?” I blushed and looked down at the plate. I had no idea what it was. There was a lump of something fried and yellowish, dusted with a heavy coating of coal black char, next to a little puddle of something sticky.

“Well, today's special is the same as it is every day,” Beau said with a laugh. “Johnnycakes.”

“Johnnycakes?” I asked. “What are they? And who's Johnny?”

“Nobody really knows, certainly not me,” he replied, pushing up the brim of his gray kepi cap to scratch his head. “Some people think it comes from ‘journey cakes,' because they pack real well to take on journeys. Others say that it comes from ‘Shawnee cakes,' because the Shawnee tribe in the Tennessee Valley came up with 'em. Maybe a slurred version of ‘janiken,' which is an Indian word for corn cake. Other people say it comes from ‘Johnny Reb,' the nickname for Confederate soldiers, because that's just about all we eat. Except it couldn't be, because people were callin' 'em johnnycakes back during the Revolution. It was real big in Rhode Island, 'specially,” he explained. He shook his head. “You think folks'd do their research better.”

My jaw dropped. I had never met anyone who knew as much, maybe more, about American culinary history as I did. I'd never even met anyone who was interested in it before.

“And, anyway,” he finished, “they're sort of like corn bread.”

“Oh, yum! I love corn bread!” I took a big bite and immediately wished I hadn't.

Apparently my distress must have shown on my face, because Beau burst out laughing.

“I said it's
sort of
like corn bread,” he clarified. “Except johnnycakes is nothin' but cornmeal, salt, and water. Fried in a skillet over the campfire.”

“Oh,” I said through a thick mouthful of inedible mush. “Yum.”

“Takes some getting used to,” he said, fighting valiantly to keep it together, as I kept on chewing what I was 99 percent sure was kindergarten paste. But no matter how much I chewed, it didn't seem to be getting any smaller. “Modern Americans are used to sweeter corn bread. With sugar and flour and stuff. That's why I got you the molasses.” He pointed to the little sticky puddle. “You wouldn't have had that back in the 1860s, most likely. Rations were real thin on both sides, but for us especially. Nobody hurt harder than the Southern soldiers. If we were lucky enough to get rations, it would've been just cornmeal probably. Maybe some salt, maybe flour, maybe salt pork—dependin' on how things were goin'. But definitely no sugar. If the troops were lucky enough to run across any sugar or molasses, they would've just dipped the johnnycakes into it, to make it last longer. Bakin' with it thins it out too much.”

“Mmm.” I swallowed throatily, then took another bite, this time with the molasses. “That's much better.”

“Lord, you shoulda seen your face,” he said, chuckling. “Hell, I'm givin' you the rest of my molasses. You need it more'n I do.”

By this point we'd wandered over to the campfire, where Dev, still in his long underwear, was having a heated discussion with a gaggle of grizzled old men in variations of Confederate uniforms. They were a pretty ragtag bunch. Because the Southern economy was so bad during the war, and the supply lines were so inefficient, soldiers rarely, if ever, received an official Confederate uniform. As the war went on, they were reduced to wearing whatever they could find. Most of the soldiers here were wearing gray pants, albeit in many different shades—some of the pants were more brown than gray, which I remembered learning in a class meant they'd been dyed with butternuts, one of the few things plentifully available in the South. Because of this, “Butternuts” was another nickname for Confederate soldiers. On top, the men wore dirty button-down shirts in all different colors, stripes, and checks. Most of them also had woolen jackets in shades ranging from gray to butternut brown, with the officers' jackets looking more like standard-issue uniforms; but the men were clearly waiting to put them on until absolutely necessary, because of the heat.

“Don't yell at me, yell at the damn Yanks!” one of the old men shouted. “There's no coffee, nor anythin' else! Damn Union naval blockade means everythin's in short supply down here. Food, weapons, machinery, medicine, coffee, everything!”

Beau leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Some of the old-timers like to stay in character the whole time. So to them, there
is
a naval blockade, and that's why we don't have coffee. Not that we just chose not to buy it to be more authentic.”

I nodded in understanding and took a bite that was 80 percent molasses, 20 percent johnnycake.

“Before the war,” another one said, starting to wax nostalgic, “a pound of beans would have set you back around twenty cents in fed'ral money. But now it's runnin' sixty bucks, Confederate notes. You got sixty bucks hidden in them drawers, boy?”