Cottonwood Whispers (4 page)

“She ain’t said much about it, it seems. I s’pose she likes it fine.” Momma plopped some chicken into the hot oil and let the popping and crackling settle down before she asked, “You wonderin’ for some particular reason?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ about takin’ a job myself, is all.”

“Is that so? Whereabouts?”

“Don’t know. I just got to thinkin’ about it lately. Thought I’d make a little extra money this summer so I can buy some things when I want to. That’s all. Maybe I could get a little work at the grocery store or somethin’.”

Momma just said, “Huh!” and then pushed the chicken around with some tongs, softly humming a hymn.

Luke stayed for supper that night as always, and I was a little disappointed that most of the conversation was between him and Daddy and was all about the economy, something I had no interest in whatsoever. Of course, I wanted more of Luke’s attention to be on me.

A little while later I got my wish.

“I’m gonna run on down to the Hadleys’,” Daddy said. “See if Gemma’s ready to come on home. I don’t want her walkin’ home this late by herself.”

Luke stretched and got up from his place on the gold sofa in the den. “I can run on down for ya. If you don’t think
Gemma will mind walkin’, I’ll fetch her and walk her back. I could use a little exercise after that big dinner.”

“I’ll go too,” I volunteered quickly.

The three of them snapped their heads around to stare at me after my loud pronouncement.

“It’ll look more proper, anyhow,” I said as an excuse for my hastiness. “Instead of just Luke and Gemma walkin’ alone.”

“It’ll just be you and Luke walkin’ alone on the way,” Momma clarified.

“I know, but . . . everyone round here’s used to seein’ me and Luke together. Ain’t no surprise there.”

Daddy sat quietly, puffing a bit of smoke out of his pipe, his knee bouncing nervously. I was waiting for him to turn me down flat, but Momma spoke up before he got the chance.

“All right, Jessilyn,” she said. “You can go if Luke will have you.”

Daddy shot up straight in his chair, but she put a calming hand on his arm.

“Why wouldn’t Luke have me?” I demanded.

Daddy’s face left no questions about his feelings, and Luke looked uncertainly at my momma, but she gave him an exaggerated nod to get him moving.

He grabbed his hat and went to the front door. “’Course I want you to come, Jessie,” he said to head off my temper. “Come on now, and let’s get. We don’t want her decidin’ to set off on her own.”

On my way out of the house, I saw Momma standing there
with a secret smile on her face, and I knew she thought my crush on Luke was just the cutest thing in the South. I only hoped that smile would get her through the words she and my daddy were sure to have as soon as we were out of earshot.

I was in a little piece of heaven as I walked down that road beside Luke. He was whistling a tune I didn’t know and shuffling along to make sure I kept up with him. Despite the fact that I was taller than most of the girls in town, my five-foot-seven couldn’t even come close to Luke’s six-foot-three, and he had long ago gotten used to slowing his pace for me.

“You happy school’s out?” he asked after he had finished his tune.

“’Course I’m happy school’s out. It’s near to killin’ me waitin’ for graduation next year.”

“It’ll be here before you know it, I figure. Time has a way of flyin’ by. Just think . . . we’ve known each other a good piece now, and it seems like only yesterday we first met at that swimmin’ hole.”

My mind did a little traveling back, and I remembered what a knight in shining armor he had seemed to me when he’d saved me from drowning. To this day, the gleam on his armor hadn’t faded for me. I smiled at him. “Seems you’ve always been savin’ me from somethin’.”

He returned my smile. “My pleasure.”

We walked in silence for a good quarter mile, and that was just fine with me because it wasn’t the awkward silence we’d discovered last night. It was the same comfortable quiet we’d shared over the years, the one I treasured because only we
shared it. Luke and I could enjoy each other as much quiet as we could talking.

As we neared the Hadleys’, Luke let out a long, low whistle. “Take a look at all them automobiles. Must be
some
party.”

“Usually is at the Hadleys’.”

“Will you take a gander at that blue one?” Luke said in awe. “That’s like somethin’ out of a magazine.”

“Don’t get so close to it,” I scolded as he leaned down to peer inside. “You’ll get smudges on it or somethin’. The thing’s clean as a whistle.”

Luke spent the whole walk up to the house gazing at one automobile after another. It was true we didn’t see too many automobiles in Calloway, Virginia, much less shiny nice ones. But the Hadleys had brought high society to our part of the world. The only reason they were here at all, we figured, was because Mr. Hadley owned a bank and a paper mill that he wanted to be nearby to oversee.

Despite the fact that I thought their house was amazing, I wasn’t too impressed by the family. They all seemed haughty and proud, and that paper mill had stunk up all of the east side of the county.

Luke took a sweeping look at the house. “Swanky stuff.”

“That’s rich folks for you.”

We went to the back of the house, because the country folk certainly weren’t welcome at the front door during parties, and rapped at the door.

“What you want?” someone yelled from inside. “You askin’ for scraps, you come to the wrong place. Get on with you!”

“No, Miss Taffy. It’s Jessilyn Lassiter,” I called through the screen door. “You know, Gemma’s friend.”

The heavyset colored woman walked to the door and looked sideways at me, her hand set on her hip. “Jessilyn Lassiter,” she repeated. “You taller these days?”

I shook my head slowly. “Ain’t grown much in the two weeks since I seen you last . . . that I know of.”

“Uh-huh . . .” She studied Luke with one eyebrow cocked. “Who’s that? Your daddy?”

Luke’s head shot around when he heard that.

I stifled a giggle. “No, ma’am, Miss Taffy. That’s not my daddy. That’s Luke Talley. He’s a friend of ours, come to make sure me and Gemma get home safe.”

“Well, you needin’ Gemma now?”

“We just figured she’d be through, so we’d walk her home.”

She stared at Luke for a few seconds more, making him squirm a bit, and then turned away from us. “I’ll give a holler out for her. But I ain’t promisin’ I’ll find her right off, and I’m too busy to go lookin’ for her.”

“Yes’m.”

I glanced at Luke and grinned widely at his flushed cheeks.

“What’s she starin’ at me for?” he asked.

“Maybe she thinks you look suspicious.”

“Ain’t nothin’ suspicious about this face,” he argued. “I’m as innocent as the day is long.”

“I know it. Don’t need to argue the point with me none . . . Daddy.”

“Very funny!” he snapped. “Who does she think she is? Callin’ me your daddy? I don’t look old enough to be nobody’s daddy.”

“Ain’t me who said it,” I said with a laugh. “What’re you arguin’ with me about?”

“I’m just sayin’, is all,” he grumbled. “Callin’ me your daddy. That’s crazy talk!”

“She certainly got your dander up.”

“Well, she’s got nerve, is all I’m sayin’. And then she goes eyein’ me like I was here to steal china and silver or somethin’. . . .”

Luke shut up quickly because the woman came back and shook her head at us. “She ain’t around here, seems. She might be out gettin’ things from the summerhouse, but I ain’t got time to go checkin’ around for her.”

“Can we go see if she’s there then?”

Miss Taffy waved a hand as though she was done wasting her time with us. “Get on, then, and see for yourself. I got work to do.”

Luke and I treaded across the perfectly manicured lawn, being careful not to step on anything important.

“Too much work takin’ care of all these plants,” Luke muttered. “Ain’t a body got enough to do without foolin’ with flowers?”

“They ain’t got to do it themselves,” I countered quietly. “They pay somebody to do it. Ain’t no big deal when you
ain’t got to do the work and you have enough money to pay for anythin’.”

“Bein’ rich don’t guarantee an easy life, Jessie.”

“I didn’t say it did.” I took another long look around the grounds and sighed. “Sure would make it a sight nicer, though.”

“Depends on who’s got it. Money in a good person’s hands can be a good thing, but money in a bad person’s hands can do no end of evil.”

“I s’pose. But look at these,” I said, holding my hands out for inspection. “These are the hands of a good person. I think I could do some good with it.”

He smiled and tugged at a lock of my hair. “Sure enough, Jessie. They’re good hands. Now, whether or not they’ll be filled with money someday, we’ll have to see.”

We came upon a short, sprawling brick building, and I peeked into one of the low windows. “Don’t see nobody. You see anybody?”

Luke moved around the other side of the building, and I waited a minute for him to come back.

“Don’t see anybody back there,” he told me.

The window was slightly open, so I leaned close to it and hollered for Gemma. There was no answer.

“Guess we’d better head on back to the road and wait for her there,” Luke suggested.

“If she ain’t already started for home before we got here.”

“We’d have passed her on the way. Come on. Let’s get on out front before we do miss her.”

We had just started walking back when we heard a door slam behind us. I turned around and waited a few seconds before I saw someone come walking quickly around the corner of the summerhouse. Dusk was settling in, but I identified her right off.

“Gemma?” I called. “Gemma, over here!”

She glanced up at me with color in her cheeks. “What’re you two doin’ here?”

“Come to carry you home, is all. There somethin’ wrong?”

“No,” she muttered, though she didn’t look at us as she walked on past. “Just been busy. Too much to do around here.”

“Well, Daddy said you were supposed to be done by now, so we came to walk with you.”

“Ain’t ready to go home yet.” She still hadn’t taken the time to look me in the eye and was twisting her hands in front of her. “There’s more work to do, and I got to stay to see it done.”

“But how will you get home?”

“I got two legs, ain’t I?”

I was frustrated with her tone, and I made a move to say so, but Luke’s hand on my shoulder stopped me.

“Mr. Lassiter don’t want you walkin’ home alone so late, Gemma,” Luke said in a nice, easy tone. “If you got to stay late, why don’t you ring him up when you’re ready, and he can come by and get you in the truck.”

Gemma didn’t say anything; she just stared at her feet,
still holding her hands tightly together. I heard someone rustling across the grass toward us and looked past Gemma to see Joel Hadley coming from the direction of the summerhouse. I watched him stride across the lawn with that arrogant bounce of his and felt my body break out in a chill. There was no mistaking where he’d been, and I pulled my gaze from him to Gemma in one quick motion.

But she couldn’t look at me, and I wasn’t too young to figure out why. “I think you best come on with us now,” I said quietly but sternly. I knew my Gemma, and I knew Joel Hadley. If there was trouble, I knew where it came from, and I wanted nothing more than to get her away from the whole lot of them. “I bet they got lots of help in there anyway. Miss Taffy’s got her hands full of workers.”

“Well now, what’s the problem?” Joel asked. “Did I hear you sayin’ Gemma’s got to go now?”

“I ain’t got to go,” Gemma said quickly.

“We came to carry her home,” I told him sharply. “My daddy sent us to, and I don’t have no plans on leavin’ till I do what my daddy sent me to do.”

“That right, Gemma?” Joel asked, his gaze searing through her. When she didn’t answer, he reached out and raised her chin. “I said, that right, Gemma? ’Cause we sure could use your help around here a while longer.”

Now it was Luke who was getting upset. I could feel it just by standing next to him. He was angry the very first time I ever saw him, and I’d grown to know his anger well. It radiated off of him like heat waves.

“Seems her daddy wants her fetched home,” Luke told Joel in no uncertain terms. “So I suppose that’s what we’ll do.”

“I got work to do, Luke Talley,” Gemma barked, her eyes meeting ours for the first time. “I got work, and I intend to finish it.”

“Then how’ll you get home?” I argued.

“I ain’t no baby, Jessie. I ain’t got to have a keeper always.”

“We ain’t got time to argue, and your daddy ought to know what’s best for you.” Luke reached out to take her arm. “Come on. I’m takin’ you home before your daddy worries.”

Gemma wrenched her arm free, her face painted with an anger I’d never seen aimed at any of us before. “I ain’t got no daddy,” she snapped. “Now get on home and let me do my work.”

Her smart tone and harsh words made me cringe inside. Gemma had always loved my father, even before he’d taken her in as his own. I’d never heard her say such things about him.

Luke was about to lay into her; I could tell by the way his jaw tensed up and he hunched his shoulders like an angry cat. But he was interrupted by Joel Hadley.

“Now, if all this arguin’s about gettin’ Gemma home safe, then I’ll ride her home in my car. Ain’t no sense fussin’ over a problem when it’s so easy to fix.”

“She ain’t ridin’ home with you, Joel Hadley,” I said. “No sir! I ain’t gonna sit by while you shove my Gemma into no backseat again.”

Horror spread across Gemma’s face. “You ain’t got no call
to be sayin’ those things to my boss, Jessie,” she said, seething resentment turning her voice into a near whisper. “You ain’t got no call to go humiliatin’ me, neither.”

“I wasn’t humiliatin’ you. I was defendin’ you.”

“You wasn’t doin’ nothin’ good. I’ll get my ride home with Mr. Hadley, and you can get on out, both of you.” Gemma turned away from us, pausing to say over her shoulder, “I got work to do. You done slowed me up long enough as it is.”

Joel stayed where he was, a tidy little smirk painted on his face, no doubt finding great satisfaction in our dismay. Then he nodded at us both, tugged the bottom of his dressy jacket down to straighten it, and said, “Y’all have a good evenin’, you hear?”