PluckingthePearl (2 page)

When they entered the building, the oatmeal shifted
uncomfortably in Pearl’s stomach. They walked through a large room littered
with piles of oysters and more in wire baskets.

Leroy pointed to a set of open double doors. “That there’s
the unloading dock.”

When they entered an interior doorway, nothing prepared her
for the sight laid out before her. A large room with a low ceiling and concrete
floor bustled with more people than she could count. A row of wooden,
waist-high stalls, open at the back, lined both sides of the room. People stood
in them, bent over big concrete tables. Oyster shells were piled up around the
stalls.

“This here’s the main shucking room where we work,” Leroy
explained.

Pearl had never heard such a din in her life. Aside from so
many voices and the clatter of knives and shells from shucking, men shoveled
discarded shells into wheelbarrows and others dumped basket loads of whole ones
onto the tables. An open door in the back revealed the same unloading dock, bringing
in the hum of a boat engine and smell of fuel.

She was least prepared for the smell. Oysters had never
appealed to her. The scent of them here was so thick her eyes watered with
nausea.

I can’t do this!

But she had to. That’s all there was to it. Breathing slowly
and digging her nails into her palms, she tried to block everything out. Then
she looked at her family for instructions.

“Leroy,” Wilma said, “you take her to get a job. The rest of
us gots to get started.”

The only white person Pearl saw was a sour-faced man walking
around stiffly and slowly with his hands clasped behind his back.

“That’s the floor supervisor,” Leroy told her while
adjusting his plaid cap. “You be sure to look sharp whenever he comes around.
Now let’s get you a job.”

Part of Pearl hoped there weren’t any jobs left.

Within fifteen minutes of visiting a small office with a
stony-faced white woman working behind a desk, Pearl had a knife, gloves,
apron, pails and a job. Leroy found two open spots, led her to one and took the
other.

Gingerly, she stepped into her wooden stall. “Why does
everyone stand in these?”

“Keeps your feet off the wet floor and the shells from
scratching your legs,” Leroy replied.

Her hands shook as she laid her round-handled
stabber
knife and three metal pails on the table and put on the apron to protect her
clothes. A square wooden stabbing block, slanted in thickness and scored with
scratches, sat in front of her. Leroy directed her to put a full glove on her
left hand and a fingerless one on the right.

The man on the other side of her had a wiry build and a
reddish cast to his medium-dark skin. His hands flew so quickly over his work
they were almost a blur. Mesmerized, she watched him slide the knife into the
oyster, pry it open, cut out the blob of meat and throw it into one of the
three pails beside him. Before she knew it, he had another oyster on the block
already open.

She looked back to Leroy. “I can’t possibly do it that
quickly.”

Her cousin laughed. “Neither can most people. Jimmy Clark is
the fastest shucker in the plant.”

After Leroy introduced her, the man paused to give her a
wide smile and shake her hand before resuming his work. As the woman in the
office had explained, they got paid by the gallon, not by the hour.

“Why does everyone have three buckets?” she asked Leroy.

“For three different sizes of oysters,” he replied. “One for
standards, which are the smallest, one for selects, which are bigger, and
another for counts, which are the biggest.”

Pearl gripped her aching forehead after he explained how to
identify the sizes. “I’ll never remember all this.”

“The round side of the oyster goes down first,” Leroy
explained. “It fits the depression in the block, see?”

Next, her cousin taught her how to stab the knife in what
was called the bill of the oyster to cut the muscle so she could open it up. On
her first try, the knife skittered across the table. On the next, she nearly
sliced off her finger instead of the oyster.

“Keep at it,” Leroy said as he watched what she was doing.
“It just takes practice.”

Fifteen minutes later, he looked into her pails and pulled
out a remnant of oyster. “Oh, Pearl. You’re tearing most of these up. The
oyster meat has got to come out as whole as you can get it. Otherwise, it won’t
count.”

Pearl set down her knife and wiped her perspiring forehead
on the back of her forearm. Why had her life come to this? She was willing to
work hard but she couldn’t seem to do this. All the practice in the world
probably wouldn’t help either. Besides, Aunt Wilma wouldn’t allow her much time
for practice. She needed her wages.

It took most of the morning to fill her pails even halfway.
She couldn’t even fill one bucket, let alone three. Leroy brought her to a
window where a man weighed her oysters and wrote down the information in a book
beside her name. By the time their lunch break came, Pearl’s fingers were so
stiff, sore and cold she could hardly move them.

Working with the slimy, unappetizing blobs of oyster meat
all morning had shriveled her stomach into a ball. Even though they had washed
their hands before the meal, the smell of oysters still clung to her. It seemed
as if the endless slime did too.

She only ate the stale cornbread and cheese Wilma grudgingly
gave her for enough strength to get through the afternoon. She had never stood
so long in one spot before and had found herself on the verge of fainting more
than once.

“How did she do?” Wilma asked Leroy as they sat at one of
the long communal tables with wooden benches in the lunchroom.

“Two gallons,” her cousin muttered, looking down at his
food.

“Two gallons?” Wilma exclaimed loud enough to drown out the
neighboring conversations.

Sadie sniffed. “Those fancy airs of yours aren’t much help
here, are they?”

“Girl, you got to do better than that,” Wilma added.

Pearl gripped the edge of the table, wishing she could hide
in the nearby cloakroom the rest of the day. She fought the urge to scream, cry
or sass the sour, old woman. Couldn’t she see she was doing the best she could?

Have dignity. Even if you have nothing else, nobody can take
that from you.

Mama’s words came back to her now, giving her strength. Even
though this had to be the most miserable day of her life, she could choose
dignity.

She dusted the crumbs off her hands and stood as the break
ended. “I’ll do better this afternoon.”

But she didn’t do much better. Her exposed, right fingers
became so scratched her entire hand was a throbbing ball of pain. The hours,
visible from the large clock on the far wall, dragged by so slowly she wondered
if time itself had stopped. Each one brought more humidity, making her clothes
stick to her skin.

The next oyster proved so hard to open it flew across the
table. While trying to catch it, she knocked her half-full pail of large
oysters on the floor. The oyster meat she’d picked scattered across the floor,
dirty and ruined.

“Oh, Pearl!” Leroy exclaimed when he saw the mess. “Try to
be more careful.”

Something inside her snapped and dignity vanished. Leaving
the mess for her cousin to deal with, she threw down her knife, yanked off her
gloves and ran outside to the unloading dock. On the way, she saw Wilma glare
at her in open-mouthed disbelief but that didn’t stop her.

On the dock, she passed metal contraptions she couldn’t
identify and clutched one of the rough wooden pilings, unable to go any farther
without falling into the water. The smell of fuel was stronger here as boats
unloaded oysters and men’s voices drifted around her.

Her gaze drifted to the yellow-green cordgrass fringing the
opposite bank, but tears filled her eyes so quickly she couldn’t see where they
ended and the water she looked at began.

Why, Mama? Why did you leave me? What will I do now? I
sure can’t do this.

She found a bench nearby and sank onto it. Her legs were so
tired from standing they trembled. She bowed her head and covered her face with
her hands, heedless of who saw her. Moments passed. Too many to count.

When she heard a man clear his throat from very close range,
she dropped her hands and looked up. Her gaze traveled slowly up the solid
torso of the white man standing in front of her. Uneasiness clawed at her
spine. This wasn’t the supervisor she’d seen earlier and although the
suspenders, rolled up shirtsleeves and straw boater hat he wore were modest, he
looked important.

His trim moustache and hair were dark except for a few
silver strands at his temples. His ruddy tan told her he spent a lot of time
outdoors, and his eyes… She had never seen such pale eyes, white hot with a bit
of blue around the edges.

Looking at those eyes felt just as dangerous as staring at
the sun but it was as if her body had turned into a block of wood. She couldn’t
move and she couldn’t stop staring at the man. If there were people or boat
engines nearby, she stopped hearing them.

Finally she gathered enough wits to wipe her tears, mortified
that a total stranger had witnessed her moment of weakness.

“I must have gotten some dust in my eye,” she claimed.

With his serious gaze still locked with hers, he pulled a
hanky out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her.

“My hands—” she began. She tried to explain they were dirty
from shucking but her voice seemed to have fled.

“Take it,” he ordered. “I have too much oyster juice in my
veins to let a little dirt bother me.”

The scent of him, obvious because he stood so close, was
even more concentrated in the scrap of fabric she took from him. It reminded
her of fresh sea breezes from the Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis. Strong and
powerful yet safe at the same time.

She dabbed her nose and eyes, enjoying the simple luxuries
of a clean handkerchief and a kind stranger. After her grueling experiences
today, she would no longer take such things for granted.

“You’re new,” he stated.

She swallowed. “Yes, I’m related to the Johnsons. This is my
first day.”

He nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Pearl Wilson.”

A row of even teeth flashed beneath the moustache. To her
horror, her cheeks grew hot when she wondered how that moustache would feel
brushing across her face. She also wondered if the white fabric of his shirt
felt as fine as the hanky did. He stood too close, close enough to reach out
and touch. If she buried her face against his chest, would his fresh scent be
strongest there?

Heavens! Her mother would not approve of the thoughts going
through her mind. Where on earth had they come from? Her heart beat too fast
and she felt flushed despite the breeze from the water. No man had ever had
this effect on her before, especially not a white man! When a strange heat
flowered between her legs, Pearl crossed them tightly and concentrated on
straightening the hem of her dress beneath the apron.

“
Pearl.
That’s a lovely name and very fitting for an
oyster house,” he said.

He’d looked so solemn at first she’d expected him to have a
deep, stern voice. Instead, it was warm and easy with the musical lilt of a
southern Maryland waterman’s accent. She recognized it from visiting the
Annapolis harbor where boat captains arrived from all over the state and even
farther.

“I’m Caleb Rockfield.”

“Rockfield?” she repeated, looking at him again as the blood
drained from her face.

He winked at her. “Yeah, I own this place.”

To her surprise, he shook her hand as if she were his equal
instead of an employee.

“I take it your first day is not going very well?” he asked.

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, amazed at how
quickly her dignity and strength had returned. Maybe Mr. Rockfield’s kindness
had something to do with that.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Miss Wilson, I would like you to stay after work today.”

Pearl’s heart flopped inside her chest as if it were a fish
trapped in a net. It was bad enough Wilma was already displeased with her poor
income potential. If she’d angered the owner of the company, they could all
lose their jobs.

“Have I done something wrong?” she asked.

“Not at all,” he replied with the same easy voice. “I would
just like to, uh…discuss your future here. My office is upstairs.”

“But how will I get home? I live with the Johnsons and ride
in their boat.”

“I’ll make arrangements for you to get home.”

Will we be alone?
She didn’t dare ask but couldn’t
help wondering if he planned to have his way with her. Why else would he want
to see her if not to reprimand her for her poor shucking performance? The
thought made the strange heat between her legs intensify.

Mama would not approve of her being alone with a white man.
She must refuse…gracefully.

“I—”

But before she could try to get out of it, he left.

What had happened to her common sense? She was so entranced
by the man’s effect on her she could hardly speak. Now she had no choice but to
obey his order.

Pearl stood, feeling as gangly as a newborn colt as she
walked back inside. The owner of the company wanted to see her after work… What
could that mean? Equal measures of fear and excitement tumbled inside her as
she wondered.

Wilma grabbed her arm with a wet, gloved hand as she walked
back to her stall.

“What were you doing out there?” the woman demanded. “What
did he want with you?”

Wilma’s face was covered with perspiration and Pearl noticed
how tired she looked. She couldn’t be much older than her mother had been but
she looked at least ten years older.

Pearl shrugged. “He wants me to see him after work.”