Her Own Place (3 page)

Her daddy made some makeshift excuse that the gout was settling in on his big toe again, and he needed to use what little strength he had to string his newly planted watermelon patch. The old crows had made friends with the scarecrow he put up and, row by row, were digging up and eating his watermelon seeds, he said. “Besides,” he added, “you ended up not needing me after all to get that paying job of yours over at the munitions plant. You'll be able to handle this land deal; you will be fine.”

Mae Lee was near tears. “But, Daddy, Mr. Jay Granger's not just another white man. This is big business. I won't know how to deal with him.”

Her daddy set his coffee cup down and slapped his hand against the table. “I clean forgot to tell you, you won't be dealing with Jay Granger. He and Mrs. Granger's moving to Florida. He's turned everything over to his son Church. You'll get a fair deal from Church Granger; can't say he's a chip off the old block.”

Sam Hudson got up to pour another cup of coffee. His face grew serious. “Let me tell you, child, if it was Jay Granger you were dealing with, I'd be right there at your side. Jay Granger can find a way to cheat a dead man. I never will forget how he tried to cheat poor old Jonah Walker out of his entire cotton crop one year, a full year's work. Down to this day I do believe that Jay Granger still thinks he cheated old Jonah that year.” A pleased grin crossed her daddy's face. He leaned back in his
chair, his coffee cup cradled in his hands. He loved to tell a good story.

“It had been almost time for the county fair. I was loading up a bale of cotton on my old pickup to take to the cotton gin when Jonah Walker hurried across the cotton field. He pulled a crumpled paper poke from under his arm. He pointed to a pint glass jar inside. ‘Want a little nip?' I shook my head. ‘What's the trouble, Jonah?' I said.

“Jonah's hand was trembling, but he held on to his jar. ‘I went over to Mr. Jay Granger's this morning to check out with him. My wife was after me to start handing her a little piece of money to start buying the winter shoes and clothes for the children. She'd tried to buy a bolt of cotton flannel down at the general store on time but old man Falls say he didn't like to give credit when the cotton season was about over.

“‘Well,' he continued, ‘Mr. Granger commenced a-figuring. After a long time he looked at me, took a long draw on his hand-rolled Prince Albert cigarette and leaned back in his chair. He blew smoke into the air.' Jonah leaned close to me, too close, his stale moonshine breath right in my face. ‘I swear, Sam,' he said, ‘every puff of smoke old man Granger blew formed a ring, every single time.' I held my breath and stepped back.

“Jonah went on. ‘“Jonah,” Mr. Granger says to me, “seems like we got bad news. From what I figure, and I've never been wrong as I know of, it's going to take you a few more bales of cotton, and even then I won't promise you that you'll break even with your debts this year.”'

“Jonah wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘“Mr.
Granger,” I said, “how much do you figure I'll end up getting?” He sat there and flicked small pieces of tobacco from his rolled cigarette off his tongue. “Nothing, Jonah. Nothing. Maybe next year will be better.”'

“Jonah's voice choked. He wiped his eyes again. He was crying. ‘I tried to tell him he was wrong, Sam. That my cotton crop had been the best I'd ever had, but he out-figured me. He just plumb out-figured me.'

“Then he leaned against the truck fender and unscrewed the lid off the little jar and took a nip. Then a few swallows. He turned the jar to its side. He tilted his head to look at the white lightning that was still left. ‘At least I have a corner left,' he said. Then a short time later he brightened. ‘I've got a plan in my head that I think will put shoes and clothes on my children and something on the table for the winter.' His voice dropped to a tremor, and he peeped up at me shyly. ‘Mr. Granger may out-figure me on paper but there is no way a white man who ain't never picked a boll of cotton in his life can out-figure me in the cotton field. I can skim off a couple of light bales of cotton and he'll never know it.' Then Jonah looked at me. ‘But I can't do it without you, Sam. Since you own your land, with your help we can pull it off.'

“And so Jonah picked two sacks of cotton for the master and one for his family. Jonah hid the cotton in the woods for me to pick up at night. And when there was enough for a bale I took the cotton to the gin. Jay Granger's gin, mind you,” he chuckled, “and had the cotton ginned for my own. Let me tell you, Mae Lee, even half full of moonshine and tipsy, Jonah Walker could outwit most of the white people in Rising Ridge, South Carolina.”

When her daddy told her that he had already talked over the land deal with Church Granger, she felt better. All that was needed now was her signature and the money. A pleased grin spread over her daddy's face when she put on her new navy straw hat with red cherries and stood before him for his approval. “Mama said, ‘A real businesswoman always wears a hat,'” she said. Her daddy shook his head. “You are so much like your mama,” he said. “Now, little girl, you are sure you have all the money we counted out again last night? Sure you didn't ease a little of it out of the paper poke?”

Mae Lee laughed. “I did take a little,” she teased, taking her daddy's straw hat off his head and putting it back on. “Took one penny and I need it back. Bet you a penny you'll touch your hat?”

“Bet you a penny I won't.”

Then, as always, in their old childhood game, he reached and adjusted his hat. His daughter collected and left.

Church Granger had asked her to come to his house, so she took the shortcut through the woods, then headed up the road toward the big house.

She didn't notice the mud on her shoes until she was almost up to his front porch. Why hadn't she taken the long way there, along the hard-surfaced highway? But maybe it was good she hadn't. Her new hat might have been blown off by a passing big truck and crushed under its wheels.

After she had wiped her shoes as clean as she could on the lawn, she made her way to the front door. She knocked, then stepped back from the door to wait. It was shady on the long, wide porch, with its huge columns and white wicker chairs. It was the finest house in the whole world.

It struck her that maybe she should have gone to the back door. She knew Lula Jane would have gone to the back door. But that's where the kitchen was, and Lula Jane would have been coming to cook. She was here for business, to buy land. She was dressed up in silk stockings and a hat. Mae Lee smoothed the edges of her brown hair swept up in a pompadour. Men respected women in hats. She stood tall and straight. She deserved respect, she thought to herself. She painted gun shells at the munitions plant.

Church Granger answered the door. “Hey, Mae Lee,” he said. He led her into a room off the long hallway. A quick glance at the desk in the book-lined room made her think his wife, Liddie, had just left the room. On the desk, a gold-rimmed cup with a matching saucer was half-filled with tea. Roses in a heavy white flowered vase had been cut by someone that morning. It was surely Liddie Granger's desk. Mae Lee imagined she was upstairs getting dressed to go out. A clock, with pale flowers in the center of the face, stood in a glass case. Old books in washed out maroons, reds, and grays, with deep-rose satin ribbons hanging out of them, were stacked here and there on the desk. A bundle of letters tied with matching ribbons lay on top of one stack, near a beautiful white feather pen and a fancy inkwell. A speckled, dark blue fountain pen trimmed in gold lay across an unfinished letter—a letter that Mae Lee thought had to be in a woman's handwriting. There was no way a man could write that fancy. Mae Lee's eyes slid around the room. She wanted to have the good manners not to stare, but couldn't help it when there was that portrait staring down at her, the face looking like
some man who'd had his land given to him by land grant, she thought. Hanging there over the high carved mantlepiece, he looked out at the rows of richly colored books, the wide-back chairs, and the big table that was polished to such a high shine that it reflected the stained-glass colors of the tall reading lamp like a mirror. Mae Lee wanted to take in every detail so she'd never forget it.

She had stared so long and hard at the desk she hadn't noticed that there was someone else in the room. A well-dressed man was standing by the long, fabric-draped window near the corner of the room. She didn't know him. She was uncomfortable. When she'd passed a mirror in the entrance hall, she noticed that her hat was a little crooked. Her hat pin had worked loose, but she was too embarrassed to try and pin it, so she left it alone.

At Church's invitation to sit down, Mae Lee perched on the seat edge of a big wine-colored leather armchair and crossed her ankles. Mae Lee was more nervous than she'd ever been in her life. Liddie came in to say good-bye to her husband. She brightened when she saw Mae Lee and apologized to her for having to leave. Mae Lee felt briefly reassured by her warmth, but then Liddie left the room.

Church Granger didn't seem in any hurry. He talked with the man by the window about cotton and cottonseed oil before turning to her.

“This young lady wants to buy some land,” he announced half-jokingly.

“Yes, sir, I do,” she confirmed in a serious voice.

Church Granger grew serious too. “Save for just a little over
ten acres alongside that back road, most of the land is bottomland.” He eyed her closely. “Guess you didn't know that, did you, Mae Lee?”

She thought about how her daddy would have answered, what he would have said. “Always remember,” her daddy had said, “they will never sell you their best, so take what you can get and make it good.” So she just sat there with her eyes glued to the floor, studying the pattern in the rug.

Mae Lee glanced up at Church Granger. He was steadily writing something down on paper. Maybe what he was doing was trying to out-figure her on the land. Thinking of Jonah Walker made her lift her eyes and stare straight at him. Maybe he was like his daddy, after all. But working at the plant had changed her. One of the head men over at the plant had said he knew he could always trust Mae Lee Barnes's count on everything. So Church wasn't going to be able to out-figure her. She and her daddy had figured and counted the money most of the night. Now she held on to her pocketbook with both hands, wishing her daddy was there with her.

Church Granger stood up and walked toward her chair. “If everything here looks agreeable to you, Mae Lee, Mr. Rayford will witness your signature.” He handed her some papers and a fountain pen. Mae Lee read through the papers carefully and allowed herself a small inner smile when she saw the final figures. This was really going to be her home and her land with the help of her parents.

When she piled the money on the desk, a startled but pleased looked crossed Church Granger's face. “That looks like a pretty big sum of money, Mae Lee.”

“It's all there, sir. Every penny of it.”

He flashed a grin. “Now, you are sure you don't want to wait for your husband to come home from the war to do this?”

“I'm sure,” Mae Lee said. “I want it to be a surprise. A real big surprise.”

Jeff Barnes returned from the war without a scratch. Mae Lee was in the kitchen washing her hair when she heard someone knock. She wrapped a towel around her head and answered the door, and there he stood, with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, smiling down at her. His handsome face was stronger now, but he still had his easy, boyish grin. He was so clean and trim in his crisp uniform, he was so perfect, even more handsome than she'd remembered. She started to cry. Her husband put his duffel bag down and pulled her into his arms covering her face with kisses, saying, “Don't cry, baby, I'm here, I'm home. We've got a lot of catching up to do.” He pulled an arm free and picked up his duffel. “I need to get unpacked. Are we staying here tonight?”

Mae Lee smiled. Her eyes glistened through the tears. She wiped her eyes, and looked up at Jeff. “We won't have to stay at anyone's house tonight. We'll be staying in the little house above Catfish Creek. The Jenkins family moved out months
ago. Mama and Daddy helped me get the house all fixed up. It's ready for us to move in.”

Jeff Barnes's face broke into a wide grin. “That's great, baby.” He pulled her close and kissed her again. “I wouldn't mind sleeping on a pallet on the floor with you tonight.”

Through the open bedroom door, he watched Mae Lee get her things together and move from his view to change her dress. When she stepped into the doorway she had combed her still damp hair and put on natural Tangee lipstick.

“You're still pretty, Mae Lee,” he grinned. Then his face eased into a frown. “I guess I'll be able to stay on at Jay Granger's place. But the man isn't Rising Ridge's best landowner. The war changes a man, baby, changes the way he thinks.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It's good farming land. I guess I can tolerate Jay Granger until we can get on our feet.”

A warm feeling of satisfaction swept over Mae Lee. “The house isn't on Jay Granger's land.”

“He died?”

“No, he's still alive.”

“I guess he started turning things over to his son after the war?”

Mae Lee dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands and clenched her teeth to keep from telling him that they now owned not only the house but all the land that the Jenkinses had farmed as sharecroppers. She wanted to tell him it was theirs free and clear. But the time to tell him wasn't right. She would know when it was. Every woman knows the time to tell really good news, she thought. At the proper time she would tell him everything from start to finish.

The proper time to tell her good news was a few seconds later—the time that it took to pull the shoebox with the land deed in it from beneath her bed.