Fallen Angels (19 page)

He stationed himself in a convenient vantage point just outside the window near Fern's desk. He could see the crown of her head bowed over her work as she graded student papers. Her hair was the color of dawn. The side of her face was pale except for the pink of her cheeks.

Then an ugly visage appeared, red eyed, with a shadow beneath the eyes that stared back at him; Jeb recognized his own face in the window glass. But before he could pull away and hide the unwholesome pallor that re-fleeted his midnight binges, Fern glanced up and waved him inside.

“Morning, Reverend. Come in, if you will.” The window was cracked open.

The functional hallway, half-timbered, that fed into the four large classrooms was wide and, by Jeb's estimation, wasted space. The massive exterior deceived the eye—the interior looked patched and plastered together, a community project most likely driven by necessity but lagging in ambition.

Fern started to rise.

“No need to get up. The day drew me out and I thought I'd give the kids a ride to school. Save them the walk.”

“You're a considerate father.”

Her simple compliment made him stumble over his words. “N-not me. N-not I. That is, it was nothing.”

“Willie's teacher tells me he is showing marked improvement.”

Jeb tried to muster a look of concern or maybe pleasure and concern, chin up, lips parted in an expression he hoped looked like he gave a care.

“Before he left for home yesterday, I suggested that he show his work to you. Allow his father to interject some thought into his papers.” She hesitated as though waiting for his response. “Did he?”

“Did he what?”

“Show you his papers?”

Jeb shook his head.

“Some of the fathers in our community can't read. It's a lucky boy in these parts who can go home to such a scholarly father.”

The voices of two youths echoed from the canyon of hallway until quieted by some other teacher.

“Willie has a good mind. He just has to be drawn out of the fog. I don't know what it is that clouds a student's mind to learning sometimes. I guess if I ever figure that out they'll make me president.”

“A woman president. That's funny!”

Her luster dimmed.

Outside, a lucky chosen boy rang the bell. The gambol of heels in the hallway became the pounding of feet against weathered wood.

“I hope you have a good day, Reverend.” She dismissed him and it was so sudden, he backed away, Surprised by the change.

Several students entered, along with Angel.

“Good morning—
dearest
,” said Jeb. The role, of minister weighed on him, a tire around his neck that left him stumbling for words.

Angel sat next to Melody without responding at all.

Jeb could not think of a proper way to dismiss himself, so he walked out of the room and mounted the wagon to head for home.

It had been easy to talk to Myrna Hoop, say cozy words that opened the bloom of her heart: But talking to a gal like Fern Coulter was more like crossing a river during a flash flood.

Downtown, a man with holes in the knees of his britches sold apples out on Front Street. Faith Bottoms swept her sidewalk in the brightening daylight. Jeb: purchased a Milky Way bar and a Coke, along with an extra sack of feed for Bell.

Ida May slept out on the floor of the wagon on a blanket.

He stared out the window at the sleeping girl and wondered how things would turn out for her. Back in Texas, his people so seldom took stock in girls and how they turned out; he'd never given much thought to women and what they might become. It came to him that maybe what he had said to Fern about a lady president could have turned her from him. “Jeb, you're an idiot.”

Val's head popped up. Val Rodwyn was Honey sack's clerk. He had squeezed on a pair of drugstore eyeglasses and stared out from the fishbowl lenses. “Were you addressing me, Reverend?”

“Talkin’ to myself, Val.”

Guys like Val surprised Jeb, nervous twerps that could read anything but could never rise above the slave's role to which they seem so accustomed. Jeb took his candy bar and Coke past the display of canned peaches and through the doorway. First he peeked again into the wagon to be certain nothing had roused Littlest. No need to share a candy bar made for one. At that point, he might have kept moving on through the doorway had it not been for the drawing of his face fastened to the glass on the door. It was the same poster that deputy had waved around just outside of town. He got a better look at it. Some Texarkana local had sketched a pathetic likeness. The artist had taken creative license and drawn him with a sharper ridge of bone above his brows—ape looking. The rendering revealed narrowed eyes, he thought. The steel wool of a beard was nothing like his old one—he remembered a more rounded Shape, and well-trimmed, too, for the ladies. He read the wanted poster, the part that said “attempted murder.” The fate of Hank Hampton bobbed up before him. The criminal charges could be raised or lowered depending upon Hank's pathetic condition.

Val noticed his hiatus at the door. “They been looking for him for a year,” said Val. “I'd say he's up in Canada by now.”

Jeb hesitated. “A year?”

“Seems like it's been that long,” said Val. “Yep. A year. I hear he's a real degenerate, a hotshot like Derringer. Beat his victim with the butt of a pistol, I hear tell.”

Jeb enjoyed another bite of Milky Way, refusing to be drawn into the conversation. On the road home, he would stop by Marvelous Crossing to see if a few of the pluckier gals from Ezekial Hipps's poultry farm had dropped by for a swim.

Today he felt as lucky as any fool with an unidentifiable mug.

Tonight, using Ida May's ABC picture book, he'd pen Charlie a little letter. Good fortune was best appreciated when shared.

The dinner invitation from Fern left Jeb as stunned as when he had told her the prospects for her winning the presidency were slim to none.

Instead of allowing Angel and Willie to walk home, she drove them but made it clear that she could not make it a habit as all of the students might expect a lift from a teacher.

While, Willie and Angel ran in doffing everything from socks to belts and any item that encumbered a spirited run in the woods, Fern did not follow. She situated herself at the door.

Jeb would not miss his cue this time. “Please come in, Fern.” He plumped a pillow for her even though he could distantly hear Charlie call him a pansy for it. “May I fix you something for … refreshment?” He fancied he sounded like a radio advertisement for a Coca-Cola. “Or tea, perhaps?” He opened the door, took one step back, and then lowered his eyes.

She now studied him like she was trying to taste a cake batter and figure out all of the ingredients.

Jeb ignored her look and patted the sofa. “I'll take a Coke. I can fix it myself, though,” she said.

“I'll fetch your Coke.” He made small talk while she sunk into the old sofa. Between sentences, he peered back into the parlor from the kitchen, wanting to be certain that she did not evaporate. “We still have some of Josie Hipps's lemon cookies.”

“That would be nice. You sure keep your house nice. I mean, for a man. That is, for anyone, it's nice.”

“Florence Bernard swoops through on her broom—
with
her broom twice a week.” Jeb felt it was to inspect, make sure the preacher never stowed smokes or alcohol in hiding places. But he accepted her help.

Jeb delivered the Coke to Fern on a tray. Instead of sitting next to her, he chose the gentleman's distance and took a chair. The distance between Fern and him equaled a long rock's skip across Marvelous Crossing.

Fern leaned forward to speak, But Jeb could scarcely hear her.

“I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?” He relocated to the farthest end of the sofa.

“I wanted to ask you to dinner. You may bring your children of course.” Fern set down the Coke.

Jeb was amazed.

“If tonight is good,” she said.

Visions of suffering trophy trout swimming in Vats of sizzling lard and molasses-laced pie disintegrating on the plate came to him. But when he read the first significant hint of insecurity in her eyes he blurted, “What time?”

Early September resembled summer in the day, but the evenings brought out a cool stirring breeze and a full moon, near autumnal. Jeb saw the sun descend and the moon appear on the way to Fern's house behind Long's Pond. In the distance, he could see her through her kitchen window working above her sink. She saw them too and waved.

Before he pulled into the lane that wound around the pond, Angel said, “Jeb, you do not sound like a preacher man. All that talk you talk, like you just came in from the field.”

Angel had taken to correcting him so much on first one thing and then another, he ignored her.

“You have to learn to say your words right, you know, pick words that make people think you have some education about you.” Angel's poise tightened as though she suddenly had gotten a better education herself. She sounded like a girl who cups her saucer in lace.

“Listen to the princess.” Willie laughed “Like you know about higher learnin’.”

“For instance, I notice when Miss Coulter speaks, she don't use so many country words. Like she talks about our
fa-thers
and
mo-thers
instead of
daddy
and
momma.
You try that Jeb—
fa-ther.
“

“Won't work. It ain't natural.”

“You can't say ‘ain't’ neither.” Angel, her thin fingers clasped in her lap, practiced words like
fa-ther, mo-ther, mi-stress,
and
cle-ver
.

Jeb knew that Angel tussled with words to hide her Arkansas vernacular.

“I can't be nothing more than what I am” He wanted a cigarette again. “The way I see it, I'll lay low in this juke joint of a town for another week, two at the most. Build me up a little bankroll and then it's off for parts unknown. Places to go, people who don't care diddly about if I say
fa-ther
.”

“For somebody on his way out, you sure take a keen interest in this skinny old schoolteacher.”

“I wouldn't say skinny.”

“She can't even cook,” Angel whispered. “Here you are crawling up to her door like a dog without a bone,”

“More like slender,” Jeb said. “Her feet ain't the littlest I've seen, but that makes her fast on her feet. Athletic.”

“Maybe so she can run away from you.”

The light on Fern's porch was palely yellow from a lantern hooked just outside the door. Several baskets of marigolds dangled along the porch, pungent and gold like the moon.

“This should be good. Miss Coulter's cooking is the best,” said Willie.

Jeb thought that someday someone should introduce Willie to the finer side of life, widen his horizons on matters of taste, so to speak. Maybe take him to Tulsa.

Ida May, instead of following Willie pell-mell onto the porch, hesitated in the wagon, her arms still hugging the half-bald doll. “Are we lars? Willie says we are.”

After struggling to form an answer that could be repeated and not be misunderstood, Jeb sighed and finally aimed her toward the porch steps. He said, “We are like the hands of God.” He wanted her to practice saying it.

“Ida May, come see,” said Angel. She held out her hand to her sister, drew her next to her side.

Fern had made biscuits, the first encouraging sign of an evening on par at least with the Biscuit and Bean in Texarkana, to the best of Jeb's recollection. Her breakfast biscuits, big as cat heads, had initially deceived him into thinking that she could cook. So it pleased him to see a repeat appearance of her better craft. She pulled a bowl of potato salad out of the icebox and set it on the checkered tablecloth. A yellow mum soaked in a Mason jar, the table's centerpiece. “I hope you all don't mind fried chicken. I don't know too many recipes.”

Jeb looked around for the best place to toss his new hat.

She had changed out of her teacher's frock and into a pleasant navy skirt that swished around her thighs when she transferred dishes from the stove to the table.

A console-type table crafted with curved and fancy legs that some women tended to like, displayed a dozen framed photographs of what looked to be Fern's family. “Is this your da—
fa-ther
?” Jeb unbuttoned the collar at his throat.

“My father looks so young in that picture,” Fern answered.

When Jeb sat, Angel sat next to him, and turned her face so that she could prompt him without Fern's knowledge. He folded his hands in his lap, then removed his hat, folded his hands again, straightened his back and said, “Lovely weather we're having.”

Fern observed them both on the sofa. “You want some lemonade?”

“Have you some tea?” asked Angel.

Fern now narrowed her eyes as though she studied a bug in a jar. “Both of you want tea?”

“Please.” Jeb counted tea among the drinks pushed by women on men as though it would satisfy their taste for liquor. “That is, I don't believe I will. Thank you.”

“You all can sit yourself down for supper.” She invited each one to take a particular seat and finally placed Jeb at the head of the table. “Reverend Gracie, you may ask grace.”

Jeb bowed his head. “Thank you, God, for this, for thy food given to us for which we say grace. Amen.” When Jeb opened his eyes, Fern stared at him for a long moment and then moved to serve. He let out a long, low breath of relief.

Fern served everything from bowls or platters right on the kitchen table. “Potato salad, Willie?”

“He hates onions,” said Angel.

“Let your brother answer for himself,” said Jeb.

“Reverend, while we fill our plates, maybe you would like to tell us about your family. The children have shared bits and pieces, but I think I might have some confusion about where you grew up.” Fern passed the biscuits.

Jeb could not recall exactly what he had told her in the past, but it seemed fitting to at least use a place familiar to him. “I grew up in Texas in different towns as my daddy found work. Texas.”

He could not tell if she were catching him in a lie or not. “Once, We didn't live far from a Cherokee family.” Jeb remembered a boy named Iron Joe whose son, John, drank with him every Saturday night by the railroad station. Age of twelve on up. “They're a fine lot of families, those folks.” John had gotten drunk and fallen into a barrel of kerosene one night and burned down the first filling station to come to town. Jeb had helped John home before he got his britches afire.