One More River (8 page)

It was as if a bomb went off. Laura Anne jumped up and insisted her mother not insult Mickey Moe. How can you be so rude? she demanded, which caused Daddy to jump up and tell Laura Anne to pipe down or go to her room. His wife started to cry. Her chin jerked repeatedly toward her right shoulder. I tried, Larry, I tried, she mumbled between sobs. At which Mickey Moe excused himself and rose to effect a rapid exit to avoid being witness to or focus of a family squabble. Laura Anne held him back then confronted her daddy bravely, without hesitation.

Daddy. This man, this very fine man, does not need to search for a bride as he’s already found one in me although I am not so sure how worthy my own family is after this day.

She told him this in a measured tone with a look sharp as needles. Lot Needleman’s jaw dropped out of complete shock that his baby girl could speak to him in such a way. Feeling the fool, he shut his mouth then vented his anger at Mickey Moe.

Look what you’ve done, Mr. Levy! he shouted. Turned the sweetest creature on earth into a harridan in three short weeks! I want you out of my house!

Yessir. Excuse me, m’am. Mickey Moe again tried to leave, but Laura Anne blocked his way.

I’m goin’, too, she said and spun toward the door. Pursued by a stunned and sputtering daddy, half dragging Mickey Moe along behind her, she quit her parents’ house. They hustled into his car and took off.

Neither spoke. Mickey Moe drove without destination for fifteen long minutes with Laura Anne nestled into his side, her head buried in his chest. It concerned him that she did not quiver, nor did her cheeks wet his shirt with tears. She breathed heavily. Her eyes were round and wide as a frightened doe’s. At last, Mickey Moe spoke.

I left my hat.

What?

I left my hat at your mama’s.

So?

Well, she’ll probably call up those New Orleans cousins she mentioned and have their maid put voo-doo all over it.

Laura Anne started to laugh.

It was a good hat, too.

And she laughed harder and harder until the tears came and then the sobs. Mickey Moe sighed a great sigh of relief, because he felt without knowing why that no matter what the battle ahead, if the girl shivering in sobs beside him could cry like that, they’d be ok. Where shall I take you tonight? he asked softly, hoping she’d suggest running off with him then and there. She stilled, picked her head up, and blew her nose into the monogrammed handkerchief she’d had tucked in the pocket of her poodle skirt.

To my married cousin Patricia Ellen’s house, I guess. I’ll have her call Mama so she doesn’t worry. I cannot go back there tonight. Tomorrow, maybe. Yes. I’ll go back tomorrow and reason with them.

Of course, darlin’, he said, concealing the disappointment he felt. Cousin Patricia Ellen’s. Show me the way.

And she did.

She told him to go home, she was alright, she needed to talk things out with Patricia Ellen, but he stayed on, sleeping on Patricia Ellen’s couch. In the morning, her five- and six-year-olds woke him up by pelting him with Cheerios. It was a workday. He had appointments up and down the Pearl as there was a new flood insurance policy he was pushing. He called Uncle Tom-Tom from Patricia Ellen’s party line and asked the office secretary to cancel them all.

I am at your disposal, he told a pale-faced Laura Anne when she descended the staircase looking so fragile and tragic his heart overflowed with pity.

Just take me home, Mickey. I need to face the dragons.

He drove her home, then waited for her at a diner downtown for three hours. As soon as she entered the place, he knew she had not fared well dragon-wise. They held hands across a table while she told him what her parents had to say.

Daddy said, Baby, the world is full of men good at courting sweet, inexperienced gals. They’re all soft words and flowers and bowing when they open the door. Don’t say peep about their character. Now, blood does.

That was a fact she was too young to know, but one her parents had witnessed with their own eyes time after time. How could they let her link her fate to a man whose people were a complete mystery? It just wouldn’t be right. For all they knew, there were thieves and murderers and madmen in his line.

She reminded them Mickey Moe’s mama’s people were like royalty in the South. She stuck out her chin like a boxer, daring them to knock her down.

Daddy sighed in a manly way, letting out a great burst of locked up air with plenty of noise and whistle. There you have it! Only half the story! he’d said. I doubt very much the Sassaports would have allowed his mama to marry that pretender had they even a clue about his true origins. Which they didn’t and still don’t. Look. We give in to you on this one and, Lordy, one day you’ll likely present us with three-eyed, one-legged grandchildren with a cruel streak. You have to trust your mama and daddy, sweetheart. You’ll get over this boy. You’ve known him what, three weeks? It’s puppy love you’re feelin’. That’s all it is. Three month from now you won’t recall the sound of his voice or the color of his eye.

Oh, Mickey Moe, that’s what he said but I don’t believe him. I will love you ’til the day I die.

Mickey Moe listened to her story, knowing how it went before he heard it. Somewhere between thieves and murderers and three-eyed, one-legged grandchildren, a plan came to him. It was a simple plan, as all glorious plans are. He tried it on in his mind, and it fit him. Fit him so well he wondered if his love for Laura Anne was a mystical thing, a product of divine intervention, moving him down a path he’d longed to travel his whole life.

It’s alright, darlin’. Don’t you cry no more. I know how to deal with your mama and daddy. I know just what to do.

She picked up her head and gave him a wondering, tear-stained look.

What’s that? They are not changing their minds. What can you do?

Go on a quest, he said. A quest to find my daddy’s people. From everything I’ve heard all my life about my daddy, he was well mannered, educated, and rich. Surely his people were as noble as any, including that great-great-auntie of yours who arrived in Virginia clutchin’ a soup bowl. There’s a mystery to it, that’s for sure. Whatever made him hide his origins, it must have been some misfortune of his own, not because his people were trash. I’m sure of it.

They were so elated by this plan that, before taking Laura Anne home, they stopped off at the lovers’ lane along the great river where they’d made their first vows together and indulged themselves awhile in broad daylight.

All the way back to Guilford, Mickey Moe made plans. First thing, he’d have to arrange time off from work. Uncle Tom-Tom was a good man. He’d surely cooperate. He was his top earner, after all, with the roughest territory. Didn’t that allow him some sway? What was it Tom-Tom always said about him? Mickey Moe considered his mama’s big brother. He was short, potbellied, red-faced with a head of wiry white hair, a man who perpetually hooked his thumbs in his suspenders near the waist and ran them up and down their length while he talked. It was a habit he’d picked up from the ’croppers on his sales route. When he wanted to emphasize a point, he pulled the suspenders out wide and snapped them. The rest, all that twiddling up and down, was preamble. Whenever he introduced Mickey Moe, he’d rock back and forth on his heels while he twiddled and say,

This boy here may not have a college education. And sure as Pharaoh loved Joseph, he grew up in the town, not out on the Delta with his toes in the mud. But he’s got a nose on ’im, a nose for farmin’ and a nose for risk. I don’t know how he does it or where he gets it, but he can tell you when the frost is comin’ and when the flood. Yessir. (Snap.) He surely can. You just ask any old boy hoein’ a row up by the Pearl. They all know ’im. And don’t get me started on how he knows when the baby’s takin’ sick or where the fire’s gettin’ started. It truly boggles my mind but he knows that, too. Least it seems that way, judgin’ from the checks I pass on to those he’s signed up in the knick of time. (Snap.) You all listen to him. You all listen to him good. You will not regret it. (Double snap. The end.)

Uncle Tom-Tom was so convincing on the subject of his nephew’s prognosticatory talents, Mickey Moe half-believed him himself. It was true that when he went out into the field cold without leads, he turned up buyers in unexpected places just by following his instincts. He could glance down an off-the-map dirt road and somehow know it’d take him into jam-packed Negro villages or crumbling old plantations no one knew were there except the lonely families who worked them, solitary folk who found Mickey Moe’s sales pitch more entertaining than the picture show or the revival tent. They’d buy some kind of policy from him—usually Tom-Tom’s two-bit-a-week life-and-fire combination plan—mostly because he made such good sense but partly to keep him coming back every month to collect the premium.

So it should not have been surprising that Uncle Tom-Tom gave his nephew a hard time when he asked for a leave of absence, probably just for a few weeks, actually for as long as it would take. But it was a great surprise to Mickey Moe. Shoulders hunched, neck shortened as if his head were about to disappear into his collar, he stood in front of his uncle’s desk, mute and uncomprehending, while Tom-Tom rattled off his objections.

Whoa. Back up, son. Who you think I’ve got that can handle all those boys with dirt up their nose you sell to? Your cousins can handle the retail business and the town families, but you’re the only one I got knows how to make ’croppers give up their quarters and smile at the same time. I’m too old to go down those hard roads myself. What makes you think I can spare you? (Snap.) Times are not so easy these days, you know that. Those flap bottoms lose their policies when no one comes by for collection, and who knows who they’ll blame or what kinda trouble they might stir up. Now, I’ve given you a blessed livin’, trained you, and set you out. You owe me this much. Times bein’ what they are, I cannot let you wander off into the wide blue on a crazy whim.

Mickey Moe was quiet a moment or two, long enough for Uncle Tom-Tom to initiate a slow rotation of his swivel chair toward the office picture window where late afternoon sun streamed in. The old man thought, staff problem solved, he might as well catch a nap in the sun’s warmth. Then Mickey Moe slammed two open palms down hard on the far edge of Tom-Tom’s big cherrywood desk, making such a loud crack his uncle snapped to while the secretary in the next room let out an involuntary little yelp.

Sorry, Annie Caroline, Mickey Moe called over his shoulder without letting his steady gaze leave the other man’s eyes. I’m just making a point here. And that point is this is not about some crazy whim. This is about winning the woman I love. This is about clearing my daddy’s name of scurrilous speculation once and for all, and, as I ponder it, easing the lingering pain of my mama, too. I would think that’s an objective you could get behind, Uncle Tom-Tom.

He paused to watch his mentor’s cheeks go a tad redder than usual, but before he could speak, Mickey Moe continued.

No one can dissuade me from this path. You might as well forget tryin’ to turn my feet off it. Now, I understand that somebody’s got to collect the premiums on my route, and I understand I owe that not just to you, but to those poor souls scrapin’ together their pennies to pay ’em. So every three weeks, no matter where I am on my journey, I will make every effort to return for my rounds and send on the collections to you by wire if I have to. I can promise you that, but I can promise no more. I will not make sales. I will not draw up new policies. Can you live with that, Uncle? I truly hope so, because it’s the best I can do. If you do not accept, then we can shake hands and part ways forever here and now. When I’ve realized my purpose, I’ll just have to find new employment. That’d be a terrible shame, but it’s something I am prepared for.

In the face of his nephew’s determination, there was nothing for Tom-Tom to do. He had to acquiesce, which he did with minimal huffing and puffing. Delighted, Mickey Moe left the office gliding on a jet stream of balmy air that led directly to his home. He parked the car in the rear and burst into the kitchen where Sara Kate was hunched over the sink washing glassware.

Sara Kate was in her early fifties by this time. No longer winsome, she was still handsome with the muscular build a lifetime of hard work grants and a strong face that masked her emotions when it had to. The most remarkable thing about her was the unexpected delicacy of her hands, which featured the long, nimble fingers of a violinist. As children, his sisters would watch in a kind of trance as those lovely hands went about their chores with astounding grace. Afterward, they’d run to their rooms and imitate her. The maid was lost in her own thoughts while she scrubbed. She didn’t hear the car pull up or the slam of the screen door. Full of high spirits, Mickey Moe planted his feet and bellowed, Anybody here? She started, spun about, and dropped a crystal juice glass, which shattered in a discrete arc at her feet. Remorseful, Mickey Moe moved to pick up the pieces, but she was on her knees before he got there waving him away.

Lord, boy. I’m too old for a shock like that. Leave the house and come back in like a man instead of a beast.

He did so.

You alone here, Sara Kate? he asked, putting a hand on her elbow to help her up.

Yessir, I am. Your sister’s at work, and your mama’s takin’ tea over to your aunt Missy’s.

It was all he needed to hear. Not half a minute later, he was upstairs rummaging through his mama’s bedroom closet, reaching behind hat and shoe boxes, searching for the one with painted pink roses joined by silver ribbon on the outside and his daddy’s personal papers on the inside. It was so far in the back and under so many other boxes of old checkbooks and family photographs, he figured his mama hadn’t looked through it for years, which was a good thing, because now she’d never miss it. He tucked the box under his arm and went to his own bedroom, the one he’d slept in all his life. After shutting the door, he jimmied up two worn floorboards to unearth his childhood chest of secrets, that is, one of his daddy’s old briefcases, a battered thing of cracked brown leather and tarnished brass fittings. He opened it and plunged his right hand deep inside.