Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction (12 page)

“Hell, I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says in an I’ll-give-you-that-much tone. “Bess run off from here like we were boll-weevils and she was a fluff o’ cotton. That was back in 1921 and she just sneaked out. About broke Harriet’s heart, God rest her soul. You’ll learn weak hearts run in this family. Your daddy died of one and your Aunt Harriet fell dead in the chicken coop. And now me.”

He opens his blue eyes, colored like over-washed denim overalls, and points a thick-knuckled finger at me. “But I ain’t gone yet and I ain’t gonna go until I get this plantation settled. So don’t go getting your hopes up that the only place you have to put me is six feet under. My heart ain’t just going to quit but sort of sputter and run out of gas. I reckon I’m about on a quarter tank now.”

I give him my best exposition of teeth. “You’re not a car, Uncle Joe. This is the forties and doctors can help you. You’ll be fine.” I pat his arm, my tanned hand touching what looks like the skin on raw chicken meat, belying what I said.

“My Lord, you look like your daddy when you smile.” He stares, mouth open, until I feel blood rise to my cheeks. Seems I have enough of the red stuff for the both of us. A strange thing happens then: As he continues to eye me, I start feeling drained, like he is indeed the vampire of the Deep South I’d read about. Oddly enough, his cheeks flush, something definitely passes between us, perhaps only some level of understanding but it feels like more, like something is taken from me.

It’s Mama’s fault really; she had set me up to expect the worst from this man, for whatever reason she wouldn’t tell me. My rebellious nature comes in to save me and I withdraw my hand, raise my chin, laugh a silly sound and say, “Yes, I’ve seen his picture so I’ll take that as a compliment. It’s terrific to be here where Papa grew up; I’m quite excited about it all. Can you believe I drove down here from New York all by myself in Papa’s old Duesenberg?”

He raises himself up onto his elbows. “You have her
here
? Ah, what a pretty thing she was – does she still have that wide-eyed look?”

“Who?” I blink at him thinking that his mind is going before his body.

“Duesy that’s who! That ol’ auto had a classic beauty – still sleek and black I hope? With overhead cams? The only auto of its kind that operated four valves in a cylinder. 265-horsepower. Damn! You would’ve had no problem, girl, in that, unless your mama gallivanted in it all over the place. Where’s she at?” He slides a leg over the side of the bed, struggling to get up.

I grab his elbow to assist. “I told you, Uncle Joe, Mama is at home in Annan—”

“Not her you fool! I’m talking about Duesy.”

His frame rises two feet above me and then his two-hundred-pound-plus flesh leans into me, his forearm against my left breast until I readjust our positions. “Help me to the window, girl, don’t
just stand there. She’s more than twenty years old; that was a 1921 model I recollect – how’d you keep her that long.”

“Mama rarely drove it – I mean, her. Mostly just taught me how to. Too many memories for her, I guess, I really don’t know. The only thing wrong is it’s got a dent in the trunk hood, but Mama said that was your fault – I mean that it happened down here.”

Again he studies my face and again I feel I’ve given him something, too much I think for it’s as much as I know. Mama would be disappointed already but I can’t help it. Here’s the biggest difference between us: She reveals nothing and I tell all.

His window faces the gravel driveway in the front of the plantation house and this we shuffle to, me moving the heavy brocade curtains aside to give us a view of “Auto” as Mama calls it, me thinking she meant “Otto” when I was younger.

“Now that’s a Duesy,” he breathes. His mouth remains open, his jowls jiggling at this close range, his eyes alight.

I can’t help but laugh, regardless of Mama’s teachings. “My goodness, Uncle, you’d think you were looking at an angel.”

“It’s like looking at your daddy himself, it is,” he nods. “He loved that vehicle as much as I do; looks like he should be getting out of it, just doesn’t seem right that he’s not. I kept her here as long as I could, until your mama got up enough nerve to take the train back down here to get it. Brought her brother with her for a bodyguard I reckon. Anyway, I kept her clean and hardly ever took her out of the pasture here where I kept my other vehicles I bought and sold. Could’ve sold her a hundred times over but didn’t want my brother to haunt me. He wanted you and your mama to have it.”

“He didn’t know about me,” I breathe out, sounding as nostalgic as Uncle, me, too, wishing Papa could step out of the car. “And I only know he died of a heart attack.”

He shakes his head. “Get me back to bed.” We shuffle back across the wide room and he crawls into the ornate four-poster bed’s lace and satin coverlet, looking at odds, like a dog dressed in a dress. “Damn your mama,” he mutters. A few thin wisps of white hair, about all that remains on top, fall onto his forehead and my
hand automatically raises to move it back but when he says those last words, I change my mind. I swallow down my homesickness.

“I’ll come back later. My bags, see.” I thumb to them sitting by the door. “I’ll take them on to my bedroom if you don’t mind. And freshen up, rest up … or something.” Anything but stay in here a minute longer. I have an urge to sleep in the car, like I did the night before, something familiar.

He closes his eyes, his coloring gone again. “I’ve got a lazy darkie in the kitchen that comes with the place. Go find her and tell her to show you which bedroom is yours. There’s five of them; this is no small place you’ll be inheriting, just remember that. Come back before supper. There’ll be someone here I want you to meet.”

I step out into the hallway like stepping out into fresh air and sunshine.

Her name is Clary and I find her in the kitchen. Her back to me, her focus on stirring vigorously in a big ceramic bowl, her broad back-end moving in a dance, she jumps when I call a hello. A warm smile but cautious nature as if on guard all the time, her small brown eyes take everything in quickly, her chocolate skin glistening in this kitchen heat. Out of habit, I look at her arms and neck and sure enough there are tell-tale signs; old bruises, new bruises, scarring, one wrist bone raised as if a broken bone hadn’t mended properly. Of course some marks are to be expected from popping hot grease and heavy-duty housework, but I know there’s another story here. I’ve seen battered women come into Mama’s Lighthouse all my life, even if this one is colored.

“Honey-chile, you’s here already!” she says loudly, drying her hands on her apron. “Did you ring the bell?”

“Oh yes, about an hour ago, and when no one came, I stepped into your entrance way, and when I saw I had to turn left or right, I turned left, went through the living room and found Uncle Joe’s
room. I guess if I’d turned right and gone through the dining room, I’d have found you.”

“I swan, I never heard a thing. I’s so sorry, honey. My hearing’s almost gone, don’t you see, along with my peepers, so you’s got to be loud!” She looks around for other ears and then lowers her voice a tad. “Don’t seem to be a problem for your uncle.”

We laugh and I like her right away, her deep-throated chuckles loosening the knot in my throat.

Three bedrooms beyond the kitchen are pointed out, the last one requiring a small staircase to reach it. Rooms were restored or added on after the Civil War burned part of it down, she tells me. It looks like they’d started with the entrance way and just kept building to the left and the right of it, angles and rooflines giving the house a train-on-uneven-tracks look but somehow I like the spontaneity it gives, as if up for anything that comes its way and can bend with the wind but not break. I can relate to that.

I was tickled to see that the last room, the biggest one, is mine, with two large windows facing south, showing off the lawn’s one magnificent weeping willow tree, and a smaller one not far from it. Where I’m standing is a high bed with its own stepping stool, and a thick feather mattress and four of the fluffiest feather pillows I’ve ever seen. I can’t resist the invitation and so I flop down in its lap and lay my head on its pillow chest, the white cotton swelling around me protectively. I straighten up to Clary’s laugh.

“Miz Harriet – that’s Mr. Joe’s deceased wife – she made feather pillows and ticking for a living. You won’t find any better anywhere, I wager,” she said as she carried my suitcase over to an ancient wardrobe, not liking where I sat it by the door I’m guessing. I make a mental note to keep things tidier than my habit, as I observe the wardrobe, the sink, and large soaking tub that line other walls. But most importantly is the small desk and bookcase, which sits like magnets and I’m the paperclip. I vaguely hear Clary say she’ll let me know when supper is ready, me giving a faint nod as I pull out
Tale of Two Cities
. How I love Charles Dickens’ first line,
It was the best of
times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness … it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …

How fitting for the way I feel in my small world, in my potentially new home, and how fitting in the big world, with the horrible war going on over in Europe. I put it away with a promise and reach for more, Mark Twain now, an autographed copy of
Following the Equator
, pages dog-eared, funny sentences underlined in ink, like
Be good and you will be lonesome
. I have weak eyes for reading and I can’t read for long but I love what time they give me before tearing. I kick my shoes off and settle back against the bed pillows. I feel my shoulders relax and I sigh, wishing to stay here until tomorrow.

This is not to be so. “Mr. Joe summoned the girl” – these are Clary’s words with a wink, not mine. And then just as Charles Dickens predicted, it is the “spring of hope” when Uncle Joe tells me that I won’t be eating supper with him in his dreary bedroom but in the dining room. Which quickly becomes the “winter of despair” as I am introduced to a man who came earlier than expected and would be joining me there.

He stands tall and confident at the foot of the bed, his hand around the bed’s post like he’s holding a king’s scepter. His smile is infectious, truly a weak point with me, full of white teeth, straight except for the eye teeth that are a bit pronounced but this only gives him an earthy rugged look that I read as sincere and sincerely good-looking. Eye color doesn’t matter at this point and difficult to determine at any rate because of the low lighting. Even so, his blond hair glows as if catching every meager ray the lamp throws out. Outside my mother’s watch, on my own now, a grown woman of twenty-two, I boldly approach him, hand outstretched and shake hard with a back-at-you sincere nice-to-meet-you and flash my own smile, one I know the boys like.

“She’s such a pretty puppy,” Uncle Joe says to him, “I decided you’d want to meet her sooner, rather than later. Now here’s what I want you to do,” he declares, looking pleased at our coming together as we stand at the foot of his bed facing him. “I want you to go with Clary and she’ll serve you up her mouth-watering sweet-potato casserole and whatever else she fixed. You young folk will enjoy yourselves more without a sick ol’ man around.” He waves his hand weakly. “Now go on, like I told you.”

I open my mouth to protest; I’m still rumpled and dirty from the long drive and this dapper fellow in his light green linen suit will see my messy dress in the bright chandelier lighting of the dining room. Besides, I’m not in the mood for the flirting game but only to go back to my room and read some more, soak in that tempting tub, and sleep away many hours of driving. This man, this Will Tom something-or-other is cute but he isn’t as tempting as a bath. Others look better when I look better, plain and simple.

But my elbow is grasped before I can say Joe’s-my-uncle and he pulls me away and down the hall and through the living room and through the entrance way, me stepping foolishly in tiny stiff geisha steps to keep up behind his long determined strides like he is heading into battle, me wondering if he is going to stop in the dining room long enough to eat. We finally come to rest at the table and I call out, “At ease, soldier!”