Cottonwood Whispers (14 page)

I was only four years old when Gemma and her parents came to live on our farm, but from that first day, I liked her better than any child I’d ever known. Mostly I’d stayed away from other kids. They were noisy and irritating and didn’t want to play the same things I wanted to. The way I saw it, I was better off doing things on my own.

But with Gemma, it was different. Even though she was two years older than me, she’d made me comfortable right from the start. She had a fiery nature like me, though she wasn’t as eager to tell people what she thought as I was. She’d tell
me
, though, in no uncertain terms. If she didn’t like what I was doing, she’d tell me so and give me a good shove to finish off with.

Times hadn’t changed much, I was thinking as I watched Gemma’s face that evening after I’d confronted Joel Hadley. It was just as much a tangled mess of fury and despair as she
could muster when we were children, except there was a level to it that we’d never reached before. I’d told her about my run-in with Joel, and as we stood there in the shade of Daddy’s gazebo, I braced myself for the shove I figured was coming my way.

“Jessilyn Lassiter,” she growled, her face scrunched up beyond recognition, “I swear I ain’t never goin’ to tell you nothin’ again in my whole life. You realize what you done got us into?” She took two steps toward me, her hands balled into tight fists, and repeated, “Do you?”

“Gemma, I didn’t mean to—”

“‘Gemma, I didn’t meant to,’” she mocked. “Same as what you say every time you go shootin’ your mouth off without thinkin’. For a girl who don’t mean to all the time, you sure do manage to cause a lot of trouble.”

I didn’t bother saying anything else at that moment. I just stood there biting my lip, waiting for her to lay into me some more. I was feeling like I’d eaten my worthy share of crow, and I stood by passively waiting for my just desserts to follow. But the minute she gave me her next angry words, I stopped being so humble.

“You think you’re all grown-up,” she seethed. “All grown-up. And you can’t even keep your mouth shut about important things. You ain’t nothin’ but a baby, Jessilyn. Never will be.”

Now she’d done it. Now she’d gone and plucked my nerves, and I wasn’t feeling so much like taking what she dished out anymore.

“Don’t you go callin’ me things, Gemma Teague,” I shot
back, my body stiff with rage. “Don’t you dare go callin’ me a baby, tellin’ me I ain’t actin’ grown-up. How grown-up is it for a girl of nineteen to go wooin’ a man who ain’t got no more interest in marryin’ a poor colored girl than he’s got in doin’ an honest day’s work?”

I backed up a step since Gemma’s face twisted into a look I’d never seen before. One that seemed to speak of violent things.

“Ain’t no time I ever said nothin’ about that boy marryin’ me,” she said in a whisper laced with poison. “Ain’t no time. He ain’t nothin’ but my boss.”

“You kept company with him much as you could. What’s that tell you? Does that say you wanted him to be nothin’ but your boss?”

“What I want is none of your business.”

I recoiled at the tone in her voice, and for the first time that summer I felt the full effect of Gemma’s strangeness. It was starting to eat right into my soul, and all my anger melted into fear that I was witnessing the beginning of the end of Gemma and Jessilyn. “Once was a time you wanted all your business to be my business,” I murmured. “Lord knows, ain’t never been no time I didn’t want my business to be yours.”

Gemma put her head down and stared at her feet. “Guess times can change.”

I could’ve sworn my heart dropped from my chest to my feet when I heard those words come from my best friend’s mouth. I’d never thought to see the day she’d push me out of her life.

“You want me done with you, Gemma?” I asked, my voice cracking in dismay. “You sayin’ that?”

Gemma just stood there staring at her shoes, keeping me in suspense all the while. Then she lifted her head without looking me in the eye and said, “I’m sayin’ I can’t be friends with someone I can’t trust.”

“Gemma . . .”

“I trusted you!” she cried, finally meeting my gaze. “Now I’m gonna lose my job, and your daddy’s gonna lose his farm, and all because you can’t keep your mouth shut.” She crossed her arms and shook her head. “Uh-uh!” she muttered. “Uh-uh! Ain’t no way I can trust you never again.”

Then she turned away from me and walked back through the field, the weeds slapping her legs as she went. I watched her go, my heart breaking with each step she took. There was no strength left in my legs, but I willed myself to turn away. I couldn’t watch her go without feeling sick to my stomach, and the only thing I could think of was to find someone who still cared for me, who’d tell me that everything would be all right. I thought of Momma and Daddy, but they’d gone into town.

I grabbed my swirling stomach and staggered toward the only other place I could think to go.

Luke’s.

But I didn’t make it there before I crossed paths with Buddy Pernell. He was busy patching the roof to his daddy’s shed, but he stopped cold, his hammer ready to strike a nail, and smiled down at me.

“Hey there, Jessie,” he said kindly, almost too kindly. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

Rumor had it Buddy had been crushing on me since the summer I’d turned thirteen, and I’d spent a good bit of time avoiding him because of it. Back in that summer Buddy had been a wild boy, and he’d nearly drowned me in the swimming hole on my birthday. But his daddy had taken a firm hand with him from that time, and even I had to admit he’d grown up just fine. I figured he had a guilty conscience over nearly killing me, which any boy with some sense would, but the way he catered to me was something silly to my mind.

Momma had always insisted I let him be nice to me. “He’s just tryin’ to clear a guilty conscience, Jessilyn,” she’d said to me all those years ago when Buddy had started fussing over me. “When a body sincerely wants to make amends, you ought to let him. It’s just Buddy’s way, is all.”

“Hey there, Buddy,” I said with as much a smile as I could muster.

Buddy climbed down his ladder and hopped past the last two rungs. “You got that sad look about you, Jessie,” he said, dropping his hammer and wiping his hands on his pants. “You got problems?”

“Just things, is all. Nothin’ for you to worry about.”

“Well now, it seems a body’s got to talk about things when they’re worryin’ her mind. Sure enough, I know that feelin’. If you got things to say, you can say ’em to me.”

There was no doubt I had things to say, but I wanted to say them to Luke Talley, not Buddy Pernell. But his face was
as sincere as it could be, and I was dying to talk to someone. I stared at Buddy for a minute, wondering at the wisdom of telling him about me and Gemma.

“Got some fresh-made lemonade inside,” he told me, nodding toward the house. “Why don’t you set yourself on down and have somethin’ to cool yourself off with. Then, if you feel like talkin’, you can talk. All right?”

I hesitated a second and then nodded. I couldn’t deny that a tall glass of lemonade sounded like heaven to my parched mouth, so I made my way to the Pernells’ shaded porch and sat in a squeaky rocker.

The two of us sat there sipping our lemonade for the next ten minutes. I didn’t say a word, but Buddy said enough for both of us, talking about all the chores that needed done around their house and how he was looking forward to fall, when he wouldn’t have to be doing so much hard work in the heat.

Then after I’d finished my last sip of lemonade, he set his glass down on the worn floorboards and asked, “You and Gemma in a fight?”

I lowered my glass slowly and eyed Buddy, wondering when he’d become a gypsy fortune-teller. “What’s that you’re sayin’?” I asked hesitantly.

He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. “Seems to me anytime you’re real sour is when you and Gemma are havin’ a dustup.” He returned my look of surprise with a wink. “See there, Jessie? I know you better’n you think I do.”

The breeze had picked up, and I tipped my face to catch it, thinking over my options about what to tell Buddy, if I was even going to tell him anything at all. He watched me debate with myself before I finally relented.

“It’s just, she’s my best friend,” I said with a sigh. “You know how I mean. It’s no good when things ain’t right between us.”

“She do somethin’ to rile you up?”

I shook my head slowly with a grimace full of shame. “It’s Gemma who’s mad at me, not the other way around. She’s all fired up.”

“She’ll get over it soon enough, the way I see it.”

“Not this time.”

“Jessie, ain’t no time you two had a spat longer’n a few days. It’ll be good as new soon, you can mark my word.”

“Things are different this time,” I murmured, tucking one knee up under my chin. “Ain’t nothin’ usual about this fight.”

“Ain’t like you to do nothin’ to rile her up that bad,” he told me, a reassuring smile on his face. “Maybe you’re worried over nothin’. You shouldn’t feel so bad.”

I knew he was trying to be nice, and under better circumstances maybe I would have had more appreciation for his tone. But just then, with all the worries stirring my stomach up into a twister, I didn’t take too kindly to his argument that things weren’t so bad as I thought.

“Were you there?” I asked him sharply. “’Cause from my
way of seein’ things, if you weren’t there, you ain’t got no way of sayin’ how I should feel.”

Buddy sat up a little straighter when I spoke, and he donned an expression of discomfort that made me feel bad for speaking so harshly. But only a little.

“I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Jessie,” he said, his voice rising a bit higher in his eagerness to reassure me of his good intentions. “I was just tryin’ to help.”

“Ain’t nothin’ you can do to help,” I told him in a softer tone. “Ain’t nothin’ anybody can do.” I said that with enough conviction to let Buddy know I didn’t want him to say anything more about it, but I didn’t mean every bit of it. Luke would help in some way; I was sure of that. I didn’t know what he would do, but suddenly, sitting on Buddy Pernell’s porch drinking lemonade was no longer a good idea to me, and I couldn’t stand the wait that it would take me to get to Luke’s. I hopped up quickly, handed my empty, condensation-covered glass to Buddy without looking at him, and said, “Gotta go. Thanks for the lemonade.”

“Hold on, Jessie,” he called after me, but I was at the bottom of the steps by this time and didn’t stop to listen.

“Gotta go,” I repeated, adding, “See you at church” in hopes of making some amends for returning his kindness with my short temper.

“I didn’t mean anythin’ bad, Jessie,” he hollered.

I stopped at the street and turned to look over my shoulder. “I know,” I replied sincerely. “It’s okay. I’ve just got somewhere to go.”

Buddy followed me down the steps and paused at the bottom, wringing his hat in his hand nervously. “Well, I was gonna ask you somethin’ before you go.”

My feet were itching to get to Luke, but I figured I owed Buddy for being so kind to me even when I stuck my claws out, so I cocked my head to the side and pretended more interest than I felt.

He paused for a few seconds, and I stood there impatiently, wishing more than anything that he’d just up and spit it out. Finally he did, and I immediately took my wish back.

“I was just wonderin’ if I could take you to the Independence Day dance this year.”

My heart popped into my throat, and I was suddenly covered in hot prickles even though I felt shivery. I stared awkwardly at him, my mouth hanging open in disbelief. No boy had ever asked me anything like that before, and I had no idea how to respond. This was something about growing up that my momma hadn’t covered. But then, we’d never needed to cover it before since I hadn’t been interested in any boy except Luke since the day I turned thirteen.

So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I walked away.

“I gotta go,” I told him again, and without answering him, I left him behind as quickly as I could without looking like a coward.

I could hear him call after me, but I ignored him. When I was well out of his sight, I slowed my pace a bit, beads of sweat dripping down my neck. I felt like a horse’s behind for leaving him high and dry like that, and my mind began
to swirl with insecure thoughts that turned into anger as I walked.

How dare Buddy Pernell ask me something like that while I was wound up about me and Gemma. I was in no state to be put on the spot, and he should have known better than to ask me like that, out of the blue. The way I saw it, he was just another selfish boy who thought he was so great that I’d feel pleased as punch to be courted by him and that his attentions would make all my worries go away.

All those thoughts made me feel better for being a coward . . . at least a little.

The sky was just starting to hint at sunset, and I took a deep breath of the summer air as I hurried down the road. There wasn’t one single person I could tell about me and Gemma, but being with Luke usually took my mind off things, and my spirits lifted with just the anticipation of seeing him.

That was how I ended up with at least a little smile on my face when I broke through the tree line at the front of his property. I could hear all sorts of clattering going on in Luke’s house, and I wondered what sort of fixing up he was doing now.