GodPretty in the Tobacco Field (2 page)

U
gly
. . . I sucked on the cold cloth numbing my swollen tongue as dawn crept slowly into Nameless, the mountains holding the nights longer in these old hollars and dark hills. I'd sure found lots more of it ever since my daddy, the sin chaser and snake-handling pastor of Nameless, Kentucky's Mountain Tent Tabernacle, died when I was four, and six months later when Mama passed, too. You wouldn't think it could get any uglier than that. But I keep finding more of it in this hollow town that folks said wasn't worth naming—these tobacco fields where I'd toughened my Kentucky soles and sharpened my bluegrass-green eyes on the passing of seasons—from the long winter months of field preparation, my sneakers oozing in cold mud, to the summers of sticky-sap leaves scratching at my sunburned face, to the tobacco worms hitching onto my skirts, and Gunnar's mean potions leeching onto raw skin.

It weren't no surprise I had to dig for the pretty in these fortune-tellers. Making them helped me feel alive, kept me closer to Mama, and made me feel like the artist folks whispered I'd be one day.

I pulled up the edge of the mattress and looked at the books I'd hidden there—the beautiful art on worn covers. A thimble of hope bubbled. “
Artist
.
My ticket out of here . . . one day . . . one day soon,
” I said fiercely, and dropped the mattress, afraid if I didn't poke the words they'd never see light.

Despite it being the Lord's day, and Gunnar's punishments, I was going to keep at the fortune-tellers—this time by looking to discover who I'd be swapping that important first spit with. The thrill of discovering who that might be made it that much more daring; the chances of it favoring my absolute true love made it real.

Stepping over to my bedroom windowsill, I slipped the latest fortune-teller I'd made into Mama's purse and parted the curtain. Below, Rainey Ford, our black field worker, carried two big bundles of tobacco sticks into the barn and dumped them. He walked back out, pausing to pet the old mama cat circling him. Rainey pulled out something from his jacket, likely a piece of chicken or some scrap he always thought to save for her, and dropped it. The cat hunkered down over the food, then snatched it up and took off into the barn.

Over the past ten years, when I wasn't looking, grace had snuck into Rainey's bones and muscled him into a fine man, tall, strong, but with a softness that made my heart sing.

As if snagging my thoughts, he peered up at the two-story window. I dropped the lace curtain. Shamed because he saw me and shamed because he'd showed up on Sunday to work for me again.

When Gunnar'd caught me drawing in the barn instead of helping clean it, Rainey stood up for me, saying, “It's only a minute break out of a very long day.”

But Gunnar didn't care for Rainey's lip. “Been hearing a lot of fireball-sass this past year from my field worker since he's turned eighteen,” Gunnar'd bit to Rainey before doubling his chores.

I peeked back out. Rainey tossed me a small, crooked smile. It was the same one he'd been giving me for years, but this one was different somehow. More grown-up than boyish, like there was a secret in it.

My eyes went to the bureau, sought out the keepsake that had once belonged to Daddy. My only memento of his, and a fitting spot to keep promises and secrets. I stepped over to the dresser and opened the small, hinged box. Daddy's snuff was long gone, replaced with memories: a tiny nest of rescued threads from Mama's clothes, along with the dried tobacco leaves and blooms that Rainey had given me with his promise.

We'd first met when he was eight and I was five, practically growing up together. When he turned ten he came calling with a pink tobacco bloom in one hand and a looped field clover blossom he'd fashioned into a ring in the other.

Boldly, he'd asked to marry me and then smacked my cheek with a kiss. Gunnar'd puffed up at that, and said, “Don't touch her kind,
ever
.” And then he'd swatted Rainey's tail all the way down the tobacco rows, across the field, and parked him on his own front porch. Despite that, Rainey had stood up and, with a trembling lip, shouted out a promise, “My bride, my RubyLyn.”

For a long while after that, Gunnar'd kept a watchful eye on us, harping on “social standing,” cooling Rainey's declaration, with me tucking those blooms and leaves inside the keepsake.

Now, even before the day could catch its fire, I could hear Gunnar outside, breathing his own, needling Rainey for news on his tractor part he'd ordered from the traveling trader last month. “Miss Law's gotten a mite big for her girdle, taking her sweet time getting back to these parts. Should've been back with it yesterday,” he said.

I rubbed the tobacco tin with shaky hands and anxious thoughts of escape. I inspected the dead clippings. Feelings for the land I'd loved, just as dead. Spent youth scattered in an old rusting tin—my destiny doomed, reflected in its pitted brass lid—my draining breaths spent on dying dreams of getting out.

A few minutes later the screen door slapped. Gunnar's feet hit the bottom landing, and he yelled up the stairs, “Hurry it.”

I closed the lid on the tin and went over to the closet to grab my church dress for Sunday service.

Downstairs, Gunnar barked louder for his breakfast. Tossing the dress aside, I went down in my nightgown to light the oven.

He had an old wooden toolbox sitting on the table, still gnawing for his tractor part, biting for Rose's whereabouts.

“Not like Rose to be late,” I said. “Hope she's all right.” I glanced at him tapping the wrench against his long johns.

“Humph, even Satan wouldn't wrestle with that woman.”

A loud horn poked the morning light. I ran to the front door and flung it open and saw the rusted jalopy coming down Royal Road.

“There she is now,” I called to Gunnar. “Rose,” I hollered out the screen door, waving. “
Rose
. . .” I grabbed my sneakers from the foyer and pulled them on before barreling outside in my gown. Running alongside her big old green 1941 Dodge Canopy Express wagon, I ignored Gunnar's demands to stay put and fix his breakfast.

It had been nearly a month since I'd last seen the traveling trader. Rose Law was born in Nameless, and everything about her felt exciting and grand and what I imagined I'd find in the city. Miss Rose had a warm smile and a soft touch. Not a bit stuffy, when we'd first met, she'd pulled me into a hug and insisted I call her Rose, same as all the other youngsters.

Rose climbed out of the truck, shucking off her travels. She hiked up her skirt, peeling back a half-slip with flame-colored blooms and a lacy scalloped hem. She played with the suspender clips on her girdle, tugged at her drooping nylons.

“Hey, kid,” she greeted, patting her haystack-high hairdo, wriggling down the gathers in her carrot-orange shimmery skirt and matching blouse.

Rose's arrivals were big, bright. She looked like one of those she-devils on the paperback covers that she kept hidden in the back of her truck and wouldn't lend me—what she called her “excitement books.”

“Running a day late. My truck broke a belt in Louisville and I had to wait,” she prattled, “but I got Gunnar's tractor part and—” Rose stopped and inspected my face. “Oh . . . looks like you've been drinking the Jesus juice again, kid.”

Heat curled around my face, licked at my ears and scalp. Every time Gunnar punished me with his homemade elixir, the insides of my cheeks and lips would swell an' tell for a week or more.

Rose gritted her teeth and muttered a curse.

“Gunnar's been growling for that tractor part since yesterday morning.” I tried to change the subject.

“Been growling for a'smackin',” she chomped. “
Lord,
sometimes that fool man reminds me of my grandpap.”

When Rose was thirteen, her parents were shot during a moonshine raid. Her drunk granddaddy took her in. But when he began beating her, Rose ran off to the city and stayed for ten years, coming back only after he'd passed.

“Come on round here, honey.” She guided me to the back of the Dodge. “I got something at the Woolworth's to take care of
your
parts, too.”

I helped her lower the tailgate. Rose dug through her boxes of books, secondhand clothes, stacks and cartons of many sizes, and then passed me a small paper bag.

I looked inside and gasped.
A soft brassiere, satin undies, and a book
. The daffodil-colored underwear had
Wednesday
embroidered across the front.

“New, too,” Rose said as I held the undies. “The woman in the shop said the package split open during shipping. Grabbed the only one left for ya, kid.”

“I saw these in one of your old catalogs . . . Never owned any Days of the Week undies before,” I marveled. “Thank you, Rose.” I glanced back at the house for Gunnar, expecting him any minute to slip on his overalls and come out. “I'm going to get these on first thing.... Reckon God won't mind if I wear these Wednesday undies to church today,” I whispered.

“Don't reckon He will care much about toting
Wednesday
on a Sunday prayer bottom, honey.” She nudged her chin to the countryside. “He loves Himself some pretty, too. Here, have a gander at the brassiere. See if it'll fit,” Rose rushed.

I pulled it out and saw the white cotton fabric had a pretty pink rose in the center. Smiling, I pressed it to my chest. “I can't wait to wear it,” I squealed. “This ol' one's been driving me mad, cutting into my skin for a long time.”

“Heard tell a girl having mad boobies is worse than contracting the mad dog sickness,” she snorted, and patted her big chest.

“It sure is pretty and all with the flower.” I held it up to me, studying. “Perfect, Rose.”

Slyly, she tapped the bag. I pulled out the book,
The Great Gatsby,
by F. Scott Fitzgerald. “Rose, oh . . . oh, this looks great!” This didn't look like one of her
excitement books
.

“The cover is torn off the back, so I couldn't really sell it.” She shrugged an excuse.

“It looks practically new. Oh, it's the love story you told me about—the girl who's a Kentucky flapper.”

“Yup, that's Daisy.”

“I can't wait,” I said, running my hand over the dark blue cover, tracing the haunting eyes floating over the sparkly city. I studied the naked women the artist drew inside the eyes. “It's odd,” I declared. “Look here, Rose, wonder how the artist made it so mysterious and pretty . . . I want to draw like this one day.”

“Oh, I have something else.” She pulled out a creased sketch pad. “Maybe you can practice your own on this,” she said.

“Do I ever need paper . . . Thank you!” I tucked it under my arm, then went back to the book. Thumbing through
The Great Gatsby,
I stopped at a poem. Smiling, I shut my eyes and inhaled the ink. “This is gonna be the best one ever.” I kissed her cheek.

Chuckling, she brushed me off. “Better hide that one from Gunnar real good, honey, or he'll use it for kindling.”

Behind us, the screen door banged a warning, and Rose quickly snatched everything back, stuffing the book and clothing into the bag.

I held on to the sketch pad.

“Hello, Gunnar,” she called out, “brought your part. Would've had it yesterday, but this old truck of mine busted a belt. Anyways, found it at Clyde's Tractor Parts in Louisville just like you said it'd be.”

She set my bag on the tailgate and pulled out a small package and handed it to him. “Got your order of thick rubber gloves in there, too.”

“Thank you, Miss Law.” Gunnar studied the receipt taped onto the box and fished inside his pockets for money.

“Say, Gunnar,” she said, “State Fair's coming up next month. RubyLyn's gonna need a ride”—Rose pointed to the tobacco fields—“for that winning tobacco exhibit.”

“Sure am.” I pulled myself up. “Best crop ever.”

Gunnar handed Rose payment, then scratched his neck, taking a spatula to the idea over his own mulish thoughts.

“I think it'll win the two-hundred-dollar prize.” I worried for an answer. “And you said I could when I prepared the field this winter and—”

“And we know you've been doing little of that lately.” Gunnar shot out an accusing finger.

“Been working twice as hard, and waiting all my life,” I reminded. “You told me I could when I turned fourteen. Done made it to almost sixteen now. It's time—”

“There's no time for fairs and foolishness,” he snapped, “or that.” He glared at my sketch pad.

Rose stepped in front of me. “I'll tote RubyLyn up to Louisville and have her back in the field the next day. Won't cost any extra to have her along. And she'll get to show her tobacco, see all them fine crop exhibits . . . and them new tractors I told ya about last year . . .”

At the word
tractor
something passed over Gunnar's eyes.

Rose licked her painted lips, then glanced down at my feet before continuing. “Sure would be a big help, her setting up my wares in the booth. At forty-four years old, these ol' bones . . .
Lord,
these ain't like they used to be.” She lifted a limp arm, jiggled. “Don't think I can manage without help this year. Nah, sir, can't . . .”

Dogged, Gunnar stared out to the fields, his mind working some more. After a minute he quipped, “She'll work for her share of the gasoline . . . and you make sure she does.”

“Lotsa work to do, ya hear?” Rose lectured me for Gunnar's sake. “Takes a mess of hard work to set up a fair booth . . .”