Pamela Morsi (30 page)

“I have nothing to say about any ties that I may or may not have had with Mrs. Richardson,” he answered finally.

The silence in the room was palpable. Rome could almost feel his friends withdrawing from him. He had never been one of these men. To achieve that status had been his grandest ambition. He had seen it, almost felt it within his grasp, but it had never truly happened. And now as seconds ticked by, the potential slipped away as if it had never been.

“Mr. Akers.” Huntley Boston spoke up at last with a rhetorical inquiry. “You are not in fact a merchant or business owner in this community, are you?”

“No, I am not,” he answered.

“Membership in this organization is actually limited to businessmen in the community,” Huntley said. “I think I speak for our entire organization when I say how grateful we are to you for bringing this problem with the lagoon system to our attention.”

The man’s formal tone was colder than any ice Rome had ever sold.

“When we have made a decision, we will be talking
to Mrs. Richardson directly about it,” he continued. “As this is Monday morning and you have deliveries to make, I’m sure your employer would appreciate having you get on about your work. You are dismissed, sir, and thank you.”

Rome clenched his fists impotently as he looked at the men around him. Joe appeared stricken with disbelief. Perry wouldn’t meet his eye. Old Penderghast was disappointed; Benson disapproving. The mayor was dumbfounded. Strangely, only Amos Dewey seemed sympathetic.

There was nothing to be said. There was nothing to be done. Begging, pleading, prostrating himself before them and declaring his innocence would not make any difference. He was dismissed. The shreds of his pride were all he had left. He would take them with him.

Head held high, he walked out of the room without looking back.

They had not arrived as a group. Constance came first, alone. It was Constance who told Gussie the story. Madge and Kate, Eliza and Edith, Loralene Davies and Lulabell Timmons, all found their way to her front parlor. Each with her own secondhand version of what had happened, what was going to happen and how that unrepentant hussy, Mrs. Richardson, should be dealt with. They said less about Rome, out of deference to their hostess, but his part in the scandal was made clear.

At one point Gussie excused herself to use the privy. She walked the long length of her backyard with deliberate steps and perfect composure. Once inside the narrow little building with the door firmly shut against the outside world, she vomited and then burst into tears.

Rome was Pansy Richardson’s lover. He had left Gussie’s arms to go to her. He had touched Gussie, kissed her, brought her pleasure through skills no doubt learned in another woman’s bed. Her heart was shattered. Her dreams were destroyed.

She could hardly even work up any anger about the swindle. Despite what the rest of the town believed, she knew Rome was not involved with that. He was too honest, too forthright, to be involved in such deceit. If Rome were not part of it, then it was simply about money. And money could not bring happiness, contentment or meaning to life. Money was merely a measure for business. For things that mattered, it was only green paper and cold metal.

She made her way slowly back to the house. These women were, and had always been, her friends. But their presence now was far from welcome. Like an injured animal, she wanted to crawl into the solitude of her lair and lick her wounds. She knew she would not be allowed to do so. They all knew that she had been keeping company with Rome. They undoubtedly thought she must be disappointed and hurt. They could not know that she was in love with the man. That she had waited all morning for him to come to her. That she had even sat through Amos Dewey’s most inopportune marriage proposal, wondering vaguely what she had ever seen in the man.

“I suppose they’ll expect us to invite
her
to join the Circle of Benevolent Service,” Loralene Davies had reflected, horrified.

“And have
her
inside our homes as if she were one of us,” Lulabell had added.

“I don’t suppose the place would have to be fumigated afterward,” Madge joked. Her comment was accepted humorlessly.

“Perhaps she is genuinely sorry for her sins,” Kate suggested. “Maybe she is just hoping for a new start.”

“And to get it she is going to blackmail the whole town?” Edith Boston asked. “That doesn’t seem to me to be the best way to go about it.”

The arguments had gone on for what seemed like hours on end. Nobody wanted to give Pansy Richardson another chance. But only those with little or nothing invested in the sewer project could afford not to do so. The woman would be allowed to speak and she would be invited back into the fold, with the hope that she would not ruin them all financially and bring the town to financial collapse.

Gussie stepped through the back door and into her kitchen. She could hear the women all whispering in the front parlor. She was loath to go in and sit with them once more, but it was her house. She had no choice.

She dipped a rag in cool water from the big crockery drinking jug and wiped it across her brow. The air was hot and her head ached. Her stomach still churned with nausea and she wanted just to lay her head upon the kitchen table and cry a bucket of tears. She soothed her eyes, hoping to disguise any redness or swelling.

She was a businesswoman, stalwart and unemotional. The only time these women had seen her cry was at her father’s funeral. She was determined to keep it that way.

Bravely she returned to the front parlor. The furtive whispering ceased as soon as she stepped through the doorway. They were all looking at her. And they were all looking very ill at ease.

“What is it?” she asked.

They looked at each other as if no one really wanted to be the person to have to answer. Constance took on the task.

“Rome Akers has come calling on you, Gussie,” she said. “We didn’t know if we should send him away or …”

She glanced around at the other women for help in finishing the sentence. None was available. “We told him to wait on the porch,” she said.

“Oh.”

Gussie was completely at a loss as to what to do or what to say. All morning she had eagerly awaited Rome. Now there was nothing to see him about. But of course there was. He worked for her. She couldn’t choose not to see him. But she certainly couldn’t talk with him while a whole flock of women sat listening in the front parlor.

“We can send him away,” Madge suggested.

“No, no,” Gussie told her. “I must see him, of course. Perhaps it would be best if … if you took your leave.”

There was no truly polite way to ask people to leave your house. Gussie did it as gently as she could.

Kate Holiday jumped up as quickly as a jack-in-the-box.

“Look at the time! It is getting so late,” she said. “I’ll hardly have an hour to get the reverend’s dinner on the table.”

“I need to be getting back to the children as well,” Constance said.

Quickly, but with perfectly kind excuses, the women took their leave. Madge was the last one out. Gussie followed her to the door.

“If you need me, send for me,” she whispered just before she stepped out onto the porch. “Why don’t you come to dinner later in the week? It’s been so long since we’ve done that and you know how much the children miss you, and Joe and I enjoy your company so much.”

“Thank you,” Gussie said. “Perhaps I will.”

She saw Madge glance toward the end of the porch where Rome was undoubtedly waiting. Her barely perceptible nod was not much of an acknowledgment for a former friend, but at least she hadn’t cut him completely.

Gussie watched Madge go down the walk and out the gate. Old Jezzi stood there hitched to the ice wagon; sturdy and dependable, just like yesterday or the day before. But this was not yesterday or the day before, this was today. Terrible, terrible today. There was no getting away from it and it had to be faced.

Gussie glanced at herself in the hall-tree mirror. Her hair was not as tidy as it should be, and if one looked closely, it was obvious that she had been crying. She smoothed her hair as she headed up the stairs. Rome would certainly wait for her, and a little Blanc de Pearl powder could hide a multitude of female emotion.

She seated herself at her vanity and carefully disguised the pain that was in her heart. In a secret dream, she imagined that he would tell her it was not true. That he had never loved another woman. That he had never kissed Mrs. Richardson as he had kissed her. That he had never held Mrs. Richardson and touched her and made her feel the way he had made Gussie feel. That was what she wanted to hear. That was what she
needed
to hear. But she knew such words would never be spoken. If Rome could have denied it, he would have. It had been clear, both from what the women had said and from what they hadn’t, that Rome had been summarily cast out of the Monday Merchants meeting. Had his own guilt not condemned him, he would never have allowed them to do so.

Gussie smiled at herself in the mirror. A smile for practice. It didn’t look completely real, but perhaps it
was near enough. She rose to her feet and picked up a floral silk fan and secured it with the attached bracelet to her wrist The afternoon was quite warm, she told herself. But she knew it was more for barricade than cooling that she carried the fan with her.

After descending the stairs, she headed for the kitchen. A pitcher of lemonade was cooling in the icebox. She had made it this morning while she waited for him. She’d made it before she knew. Gussie set the pitcher on the usual tray with two glasses. From the ice drawer she chipped off a few small pieces and added them to the cool liquid. The lemonade and the tray looked just like always. They looked just like they had on any other day on her porch. Who was to know that everything in the world had changed?

She carried the refreshment down the hall and out onto the porch. The screen door slammed behind her. Rome rose to his feet. Dressed in his work clothes, hat in hand, he looked as handsome as Gussie could ever remember him being. But then, she hadn’t seen him in daylight before—she hadn’t seen him in daylight since she had come to love him.

“Good afternoon, Rome,” she said cheerfully, as if this day were really not different from a hundred others they’d shared on this porch. “I’m sorry that I was otherwise detained when you arrived.”

He hurried over to take the tray from her. She was almost reluctant to give it to him. It was like armor, like her shield. She was about to do battle for her own self-respect and she needed to gird herself like a warrior.

Politely Rome set the lemonade upon the small table between the two chairs and waited until she had seated himself. It was to be a quiet, civil affray.

He sat down as well.

“I suppose you’ve heard,” he said.

He was looking at her. He was looking at her very closely. Gussie hoped the face powder was doing its job.

“Of course I’ve heard,” she said, feigning unconcern. “You have today’s report?”

He looked momentarily confused and then nodded hastily, retrieving his tally book from his shirt pocket.

“Please, go ahead,” she told him.

He hesitated for a long moment, uncertain. She continued to wait, expressionless. Finally he opened his tally book.

“Manufacturing was thirty-seven hundred pounds since Friday,” he read. “We had one hundred fifty pounds remained undelivered from the previous week. That makes three thousand eight hundred and fifty. We delivered three commercial accounts at one thousand pounds. There were four residential deliveries of seventy-five pounds each, five at fifty pounds and eleven deliveries at twenty-five weight.”

“That’s cutting it pretty close, isn’t it?” she asked.

She knew full well that it was always this close early in the week. But she always commented, so she felt she should again.

“Monday is our biggest day,” he answered. “We’ll have more surplus left in storage tomorrow.”

She nodded.

He began reading the accounts collected and uncollected. Gussie feigned interest, but she did not hear a word. She forced herself to look at him. The sight was painful. It was very painful to look at someone whom you loved so much, whom you wanted so desperately and whom you knew, without question, you could never have.

She fanned herself, glancing away, ostensibly listening to his report.

It was only when she noticed the silence of the porch that she realized he had finished. She was trying to think of something appropriate to say when he spoke up himself.

“I can’t imagine what you must be thinking of me, Miss Gussie,” he said.

“Why, I’m not thinking any more or less of you than I ever have, Rome,” she told him.

“I’d … I’d like to tell you my side of it.”

She waved his words away with her fan.

“It’s not necessary,” she said. “I have the gist of the story, I believe. Even rumors have aspects that are undoubtedly true as well as those that certainly are not. You should trust me to know the difference.”

The man’s whole expression changed. His visage, dark and brooding, lightened with hope. His shoulders rose as if a huge weight has just been lifted from them. He almost smiled.

Gussie knew it was cruel to give him any impossible expectations.

“After all the years you’ve worked for me,” she continued, “I am absolutely certain that you would not involve yourself in any scheme to cheat, defraud or extort money from anyone. I would be willing to swear in court that you have never so much as attempted to pocket a penny from my business. So, no matter what is said on that account, I am completely confident of your honesty.”

His wavering smile faded completely.

“Thank you, Miss Gussie.”

“I have no great abhorrence of accepting Mrs. Richardson back into polite society,” Gussie went on. “She was a devoted wife to her husband while he lived. And as for the nature of her alliances since, I simply do not care to know.”

Gussie fanned herself and smoothed down the pleats in her skirt. Between them the lemonade remained untouched, the pitcher sweating profusely in the afternoon heat.