Nazareth's Song (12 page)

Ida May had walked up and stood behind Jeb. “I’m not a baby, Angel, and I didn’t say nothing at all about you and that boy!”

Jeb listened to them argue and then said, “Ida May, why don’t you go get on with your studies? I need to talk to Angel.”

“I have to go look for Willie.” Angel threw the knife into the sink, pulled a towel from around her waist, and dropped it onto the countertop.

“You can storm out the door mad as bats, but sooner or later you’ll have to come back. May as well have a seat.” Jeb turned a kitchen chair around and sat down in it, facing her. He pulled out a second chair and slid it across the floor in her direction.

Angel looked washed out, tired, like she’d been living a life she didn’t want for too long and was sick of it. She plopped down in the chair as though someone had pushed her into it.

“No use in fighting about this or blaming your sister for telling on you. It’s not the truth anyway, and it’s not the point. First off, we got to stop acting like we’re getting in one another’s business when we talk about these things. People live together and take care of each other, and it always puts folks in one another’s business. So let’s get it said straight out that I’m in your business, and I’ll be in it until we find your momma or get you someplace else you’d rather call home.”

The back door opened and Willie entered holding a freshly cleaned fish. He grabbed the door before it swung back completely and hit the banjo standing against the wall where Jeb had left it that morning. He laid the fish in the sink and covered it with water and a little milk to leach the smell from it, then salted it. He saw Angel in the chair and the way she pouted and said, “Don’t blame me, I didn’t tell him anything. That’s what you get for skeering us half to death, though.” He rinsed his hands, shook them dry, and went to the bedroom.

“We both know you got to keep an eye on your brother and sister, or at least tell them where you are so they won’t worry. I just think that if you were as innocent as you like to act, then you wouldn’t be so worried about hiding all this from me. I think I know who you were with. Beck Hopper. Am I right?”

She didn’t answer.

“It’s one thing to offer charity to the Hoppers. But that boy has more troubles than just an empty belly.”

“I want to ask you something, Jeb,” she said.

He waited.

Angel turned and straddled the chair back to face Jeb exactly as he faced her. “You ever been in love?”

“I believe I will have some coffee.”

“Being in one another’s business goes two ways, Jeb. You in my business, I’m in yours. Just answer me if you think you’ve ever been in love.”

Jeb did not know how to answer. The only woman he had considered in a matter as important as love made it widely known how much she loathed sight of him. “Not when I was young as you. But you can
think
you’re in love at your age. Feelings about love can blind you to the real thing.”

“If I’m in love with Beck, I don’t see it matters that his daddy’s in jail or that they’re losing the farm. If I’m in love, then love is the thing that makes everything else not as important. Like it’s against my will. Isn’t that something you don’t have power over, Jeb?”

It seemed she was close to right. “I don’t think so.”

“What are you saying, that I can’t ever talk to Beck in school or sit and share my lunch with him?”

“Or kiss him out in the woods,” said Willie from the hall.

“Willie, shut up! You don’t know nothing about me!” Angel nearly fell out of the chair trying to lunge for Willie, but Jeb stopped her.

Willie evaded her and spoke to Jeb matter-of-factly. “Some of the kids saw them clinched like two bears and run and told us when we was walking home. Are you going to cook that fish or just leave it for the flies?”

“Willie, I’ll call you when I need you,” said Jeb. “Back to your room, boy!”

“I wouldn’t sleep too sound tonight, Willard!” said Angel.

“You kissed him, Angel?” Jeb imagined holding Beck Hopper’s head under water.

She returned to finish peeling potatoes. Whatever had just transpired between her and Beck, she had not lost the faint power of naiveté that kept Jeb from wanting to thrash her. As much as she thought she knew about this boy, she really knew nothing at all, and that is what caused Jeb to pity her.

“You ought to save love for later, Angel. That’s all I’m going to say about the matter. But you can do better than Beck for a friend. I can’t sit back and let him lead you along. I’ve known too many boys like him.” He knew that he’d been one of them once. “Just give some thought to what I’m trying to tell you.”

He left her to mull in silence. Taking the banjo along, he went out the back way and then wandered out to the stream. The last light of day trickled downstream, coloring the water blue green like the Pacific. He remembered that this was the first place he had seen Fern, before she had known the lies he had spread to hide his real identity. But she had liked him as the man he pretended to be, and it seemed like love.

He picked another tune the Nigra player had taught him and he realized he could not remember that man’s name, only the way his music made him feel.

9

J
eb decided the next morning to drive the children to school, telling them that the mornings had turned cool. But after he dropped them off, he watched until Angel disappeared inside the school with her two friends, Sadie and Jane Bernard, nieces of Florence Bernard. Angel had spoken little that morning, except to say she had an exam and needed to be at school early to study with friends.

Jeb joined Will Honeysack early for coffee at Beulah’s. He asked him how he was doing spiritually, to which Will replied, “I had a shave this morning. First one Lincoln’s given since the fire.”

“That was a mess to clean up,” said Jeb. “Glad we got him up and running. Val tells me you’re hanging some new shelves. If you need some help, I’ve got my hammer in the truck.”

“Always need help. We got a load of blankets in, so figuring it’s getting cold nights, we’d best get some shelves up for blankets.” He thanked Jeb for the offer. “Not too many preachers give me that kind of help.”

They walked to the store and found Val counting tenpenny nails on an upturned crate. Will added a scuttle full of coal to the potbellied stove while Jeb carried in the new lumber for the job.

Once they started, they quickly fell into a system. Jeb and Val held the brackets while Will hammered.

“Freda stay home today, Will?” asked Val.

Will drove another nail into the wall.

Jeb saw Freda’s receipt pad still tucked into the slot next to the pens and pencils. The store smelled of produce and feed sacks. But absent was the lingering violet of Freda’s toilet water.

Mellie Fogarty stepped into the store with her shopping list. “I heard you had a sale on canned chili, Will? Best to stock up before winter gets here.” She stood in the middle of the aisle and looked around. “Freda here today?”

Will sneezed. “Home cleaning out closets.”

“In the fall? What did you do this time, Will?” She wandered up another aisle and then yelled, “I don’t see the chili. You think you could call Freda and ask her where she put the display?”

“Excuse me, fellers,” said Will. He laid aside the hammer and hobbled up the aisle to find Mellie a can of chili.

“I think Will’s made Freda mad at him this morning, that’s what,” said Jeb.

“Second time this month,” said Val.

“One of us is always in the doghouse with women.” Jeb leveled a plank onto one of the sets of brackets.

“You talking about Fern Coulter?” Val laughed.

Jeb measured the distance for the next bracket. “Fern hates me too much to be mad at me. I’m talking about Angel. I don’t want to tell you what she’s done, though. She already thinks the whole town’s in our business.”

“Shame to see her get mixed up with that Hopper boy.” Val slid the plank for the first shelf onto the brackets, eyeballed it, and then pulled it off.

“So much for keeping things on the hush-hush,” said Jeb.

Will bagged Mellie’s items and then joined them again with his hammer. “You talking about Beck Hopper? I saw him walking Angel to the soda shop after school one day this week.”

Jeb gave a handful of nails to Will. “I guess I’m the last to know. Will, you and Freda raised girls. How you get a strong-headed girl to understand a little reasoning?”

Will and Val both laughed.

“The last person I’d want her to be seen with is Beck Hopper. And what does she do but hatch some romance with the worst boy in town.”

“He’s not the worst boy,” said Val. “Ever meet Beck’s brother Clark?”

“I know I’m not her daddy,” said Jeb. “If I could find him, I’d give him a good talking-to, though.”

“Angel comes in here every Saturday hoping for a letter from her momma,” said Val. “Breaks my heart to see a girl like her torn away from her mother.”

“Her momma ain’t right, Val,” said Will.

“Can’t imagine her not asking for them kids.” Val drove another nail.

“It ought not to be so.” Will shook his head.

“Let’s get the next bracket up.” Jeb made several pencil marks and then held the bracket up to the wall. “Hold this in place, will you, Val?”

“You and Miss Coulter could make a family out of this whole sitchyashun if she’d come off her harsh opinions of you.”

“Wouldn’t matter. Angel doesn’t want a substitute family. She wants her own momma back. I’ve been thinking on something. Even if that aunt in Little Rock would take her in so she could be close to her, that would be better than living among strangers,” said Jeb.

“Nazareth’s never known a stranger. This whole town treats those kids like they was our own. You watch and see if that Angel doesn’t up and marry and settle here among us.”

“Can’t see that happening, Val.”

“Maybe a girl like her would settle old Beck Hopper down. Sometimes a man that can’t be tamed can be settled down by the right girl.”

“Val, I don’t think that right girl’s ever found you. You still the wildest bachelor in these parts.” Jeb handed the hammer back to Will and excused himself to fetch a bottle of pop.

Val looked at Will. “You think he was making fun?”

Angel rode into town with Beck Hopper only because Willie needed pencils. Beck swore his momma let him bring his daddy’s truck to school so no one could say they were doing wrong. Willie needed pencils, and Beck had the gas to get them to town. That was all.

Willie rode in the back but had ushered Ida May into the truck to sit between Angel and Beck. He had given Angel a look and said, “I don’t think Jeb’ll like this.”

Beck parked in front of Fidel’s Drugstore not two cars away from Horace Mills’s car. Two boys wiped down the Mills car with chamois towels.

“Willie, take this nickel down to the Woolworth’s and buy your pencils. Then meet us back here at Fidel’s.” Before Willie could walk away, Angel said, “Take Ida May with you.” With her hand at the back of Ida May’s head, she propelled her forward.

Beck tilted his head to one side to invite Angel into Fidel’s. She let him go in first and then glanced up the street before following him. Beck took the booth at the farthest end of the drugstore. Angel sat across from him, her back to the front of the store. Beck took off his coat, a ragged and oversized woolen that had most likely been passed down from one of his older brothers. “I’ll order the malteds,” he said.

“Wait.” Angel slid a nickel to the edge of the table. “Here’s my share.”

Beck hesitated with his hands in his pockets and then palmed the nickel.

Angel half-smiled at Fidel, whose gaze connected her to the youngest Hopper. Beck, who ordered one chocolate malted with two straws, said to Fidel, “I could use me a job if you could use the work.”

Fidel kept looking down where he wiped the counter. “Jobs is scarce these days,” was the only reply he gave to Beck. He set to work on the ice-cream shake.

“Fidel, I heard you were needing a boy to work your soda fountain,” said Angel.

“Here’s your shake, boy.” Fidel slid the malted down the counter to Beck.

Beck paid Fidel and took the malted without looking up at him. He walked back to the table with his hair hanging over his face.

“Beck, you ought to stand up straight when you talk to Fidel. If you want a job, you have to act like you’re the best one for it.”

“Here’s your straw. That test Mrs. Garvey gave us today was a killer. I was never so glad for school to be over.”

“She tests hard. But she makes me think about things like the past.” Angel saw the way he studied her hands and waited while she plunged her straw in first.

“I just think about the day I’ll wake up and realize I’m not going back.”

“I thought about quitting, just so I could go to work and try and get my little brother and sister over to Little Rock. But Jeb thinks it’s a bad idea to quit school.”

“Maybe we all ought to take off for Little Rock,” said Beck.

“You and me, you mean?”

“Beats you being told what to do all the time by someone that ain’t your daddy.”

“Jeb knows he’s not my daddy. He tries hard to act like one. I think he’s trying to make amends for his past.”

“I heard about that too. Never heard of a preacher with his kind of past.”

“Everybody has a past, Beck.”

“Here comes your brother and Ida May.”

“Where did you get the nickel for that malted, Angel, and did you think we might want one too?” Willie slid next to Angel and made her move toward the wall.

“Here, take it, but go get your own straw,” said Angel.

“I don’t want any of it,” said Ida May. “It’s had boy’s lips on it.”

“Jeb’s truck’s down in front of Honeysack’s.” Willie counted out six pencils, divided them three ways, and gave two each to Angel and Ida May.

“Did he happen to see you?” Angel asked.

“Dogged if I know.”

“We’d better go. Beck, we’ll catch a ride home with Jeb. I’ll just tell him we caught a ride to town from school.” Angel pushed Willie to leave.

“Who gave you a ride into town?”

Angel looked up, startled by the sound of Jeb’s voice. “Willie needed pencils and . . .” She trailed off, realizing it was hopeless. Jeb’s face said he knew exactly what she’d done.