The Talk of the Town (5 page)

“Hey, Willie,” Gary called now to his assistant. “You can check on these orders while I show Bauer around.”

Willie visibly hesitated before crossing to his boss, taking the proffered sheets of paper and stamping off. Not seeming to notice his assistant’s ire, Gary began outlining the scope of Luke’s duties, which mostly entailed filling shipment orders and loading them onto the trucks backed up to the dock. As he listened, Luke looked around the warehouse, instinctively noting the dark corners, the blind spots most likely to lead to trouble. He didn’t seem to realize yet that he didn’t need to note them. He did it as naturally as he breathed, perhaps more so.

“I’m surprised you don’t have men standing in line to work here,” Luke commented when Gary wound down.

“A year, even six months ago, we did.”

“And now?”

“A number of them have headed for greener pastures.”

Luke shot him a puzzled look. “Greener pastures?”

“Just a figure of speech,” Gary assured him. “But there’s a group of townsmen who take turns driving into downtown Kansas City every Monday morning to work on the new county courthouse building. They stay in a boardinghouse there during the week and come home on Friday nights.

“Then some of the younger townsmen—as well as a few family men like Corder—have lit out for California in hopes of finding work on the farms or in the oil fields.” Gary shrugged. “Can’t blame them, I guess. From what I hear it’s like paradise, with food just dripping off the trees.”

Luke smiled at the thought. “You’ve never thought about heading that way yourself?”

The foreman shook his head. “I was born and raised in Blue Ridge, and I’ll die here.”

“So, how many people work here now?” Luke said, returning his attention to their surroundings.

“There are ten men, including you and me, in the warehouse. Then there’s Fesol Vernal. He’s the payroll clerk. And Lana Colomy, the switchboard operator. Vicky Sue Mall, who types up the orders as they come in and the shipping labels for when they go out. Barbara McCanse, Mr. Stewart’s secretary—”

“Where does Miss Mitchell fit into the mix?”

“Roxie?” Gary smiled with genuine affection. “I’m not sure what her official title is, but she does a little bit of everything. Bookkeeping. Helping Vicky Sue type up orders. Hiring and firing. Running things when Mr. Stewart is gone.”

“Kind of a Jill-of-all-trades, huh?” Luke concluded.

“That about sums it up,” Gary agreed.

They toured the rest of the warehouse, passing a row of wooden lockers and the restroom facilities that were located behind them before ending up in the small cubicle that Gary called his office. It wasn’t much bigger than one of those public telephone booths, and it was stuffy and dirty and in total disarray. Empty coffee cups were stacked on a corner of the desk while pencils, in various stages of sharpness, and carbonated copies of shipping orders and other pieces of paper smothered the top. A half-eaten sandwich sat on a wall shelf like the well-preserved artifact of an ancient civilization. It was totally unlike Roxie’s office which, while equally small, had been neat and clean and had smelled of her signature rosewater.

“It’s a mess,” Gary admitted, seeming to read his mind, “but there’s a definite order in all this disorganization.”

Luke shot him a startled, defensive look. He saw the foreman’s grin and realized Gary hadn’t really read his mind, that he was simply making small talk.
Small talk?
he thought with shock. He might as well be speaking in a foreign language. Maybe once, in another lifetime, Luke had been able to engage in that sort of idle conversation, but his ability to do so had long since rusted. That he’d done so with Roxie had been an inexplicable aberration, an unguarded instance he didn’t intend to repeat lest his reputation rub off on her.

A glimmer of understanding passed through Gary’s eyes. He turned and, with a wave of his hand, bid Luke to follow him back out into the warehouse. They continued the tour in silence.

The lunchroom, which also served as the break room for the workers, looked about as drab as the prison’s mess hall. A handful of scarred tables topped with overflowing ashtrays and ringed by mismatched chairs were scattered about. On a nearby counter a porcelain coffee pot perked atop a hot plate. A green sugar bowl and a blue creamer sat beside it. The only light in the room came from a bare bulb dangling from a dingy ceiling that might have once been white.

“What’s in the icebox?” Luke asked him.

Gary pulled a five-cent piece out of his pants pocket. “Toss a nickel in the basket sitting next to it, and you can pick out a sandwich. And for another nickel you can get a cut of pie or cake.”

Luke watched as the foreman paid his money, opened the icebox door and pulled out a sandwich. “Where does the food come from?”

Gary peeled back the waxed paper, took a bite of the egg salad sandwich he’d selected, chewed, and swallowed before answering. “A local woman makes the sandwiches as well as the pies and cakes, and she stocks the icebox a couple times a week. Then on Friday she and Mr. Stewart split the money in the basket.” He gestured toward the hot plate across the room. “The coffee, now that’s free.”

Luke looked on hungrily as the other man popped the last bite of egg salad in his mouth. He could have used a sandwich himself. It had been a long time since his boarding house breakfast and was a longer time still until supper. But he’d paid a week’s rent in advance and was keeping a close watch on what remained of the five dollars he’d received on leaving prison so decided he’d just have to wait.

“C’mon,” Gary said as he brushed bread crumbs off the front of his shirt. “I’ll show you the dock.”

On the concrete dock an operator drove a lone lift truck back and forth, back and forth. It droned on as it loaded boxes of shirts and shoes into the back of a delivery truck. Another truck sat in a different bay. Its driver leaned against the front bumper smoking a cigarette while several other men unloaded a new shipment of boots and socks that had come in from the manufacturer.

The early May sun slanted fully over all, wrapping Luke and Gary and the workers in warmth. Past the daubing of cars parked willy-nilly out back, a field of wild grass stretched like an expansive, open sea. Luke watched the grass bending in the breeze and knew that, later, he would have the pleasure of walking through it. The knowledge intoxicated him.

“Well, that’s about it.” Gary, too, looked out over the field. “Any questions?”

“None that I can think of at the moment.”

“See you at seven tomorrow morning then,” Gary reconfirmed before disappearing back into the maze of the warehouse.

Luke stood motionless on the dock, gripped by a sense of unreality. The grass undulated and beckoned, and he wondered it if was just a mirage, another tantalizing dream from which he’d jolt awake at any moment, the image shattering into fragments of tormented yearning. His stomach clenched and he almost longed for the familiarity of his old cell. It was all so different out here, so jarringly different.

Two weeks ago his physical world had been limited by stone walls and steel bars, a cheerless world of thick air clogged with stale odors, a tedious, colorless routine, an unending monotony twisted by the constant threat of explosive violence. The only time he escaped that depressing place was when he was chained to a long line of other prisoners assigned to do the hot, back-breaking work of pounding rocks into the gravel that would be used for building roads. Now the changing multitude of sights and smells flooded his senses until he feared he’d drown in the deluge.

Funny how you could want something so badly, long for it with every fiber of your being, yet feel your gut tighten with fear when you finally got it. Year after year he’d dreamed of being free again, of coming home to right his wrongs, of finding forgiveness and finally settling down. But on that first walk down Main Street, he’d been keenly aware of the heads that turned toward him and then away. Aware, too, of the whispers and the pointed fingers and the suspicious looks that had followed him down the street. He had wanted to turn around and tell everyone that he’d changed, that all he wanted was a chance to prove it. Yet he kept putting one foot in front of the other, knowing it would be a waste of breath.

He wasn’t the only one who’d changed, he had realized as he looked around the town where he’d grown up. Oh, all the old familiar landmarks like the water tower and the grain elevator and the clock on the spire of the Blue Ridge Fellowship Church remained the same. But the coffee shop where the local farmers had once gathered after morning chores was closed, and the pool hall where he’d wasted so many of his teenage years hustling a game was now a circulating library. And the horses and mules that used to stand rump to rump at the hitching posts had given way to Model T pickups and Brewster wagons.

He hadn’t really expected things to be the same after so many years. That didn’t even make sense. Yet the changes disturbed him in ways he hadn’t foreseen. Each small change seemed to signify a loss of time he’d never be able to recapture.

He felt that same tumbling of emotions now. With all his heart he had wished for a chance to prove himself, a chance to prove that he’d changed. Well, he’d been granted his wish. He had a job and, with it, a chance to make good. Yet fear wrenched at him. A Bauer make good? That was a laugh. The odds were against it, the deck stacked from the day of his birth. He had been set apart long before he even understood what it meant. But from the time he was old enough to realize what was expected of him, Luke had done his best to live up to people’s expectations, fulfilling his role as the town’s bad boy with due diligence. Once or twice he’d met with unexpected kindness—the general store owners who’d sometimes given him a piece of candy, the third-grade teacher who’d paid for his new school shoes out of her own pocket—but such confusing deeds were few and far between. By the time he was in high school, Luke’s fate had been sealed. He was, after all, a Bauer.

Yet something within Luke fiercely rejected this. He’d made a mess of his life, he admitted that, but the past was behind him. The future lay ahead, unblemished. If he’d learned one lesson in all the years of soul-searching, he had learned that he and he alone controlled his own destiny. If it meant swallowing his pride, suppressing his anger, stretching his abilities to their utmost limits, he would do it. He was determined to make a good life for himself.

The knot twisting his stomach loosened. He pivoted on his heel and wound his way back through the warehouse. Willie and another man lounged near the double doors, talking and smoking. They stopped speaking and stared at him stonily as he walked past them. He shoved with extra force, feeling a release in the loud
whoosh
of the doors. There was a newfound sense of power in not having to wait for doors to open at someone else’s command.

In something this small did he finally feel he’d regained control of his life.

* * * *

Practicing a restraint she hadn’t known she possessed, Roxie sequestered herself in her office. Though she was eager to learn how Luke was doing, she knew better than to fuss around Gary’s domain. She cudgeled her brain but couldn’t produce a legitimate excuse for checking in. Without that excuse, all she would do was cause more talk and possibly even trouble. She wistfully eyed the telephone sitting next to her typewriter, hoping in vain for a call from an irate customer whose shipment hadn’t been received. The call never came. She stayed in her office.

A surprising amount of work, more than enough to fill her morning, should have kept her occupied. Three new orders had arrived in the mail, a supplier had to be contacted about a shortage of work boots, and next week’s work schedule lay in front of her ready to be confirmed and posted. All of this should have made her morning fly, but instead, time trudged along. Minutes plodded like hours and as each dragged by, Roxie found it more difficult to attend to her work. She checked her watch with increasing regularity, feeling restless and trapped.

Her inability to take action only heightened her impatience. She wasn’t the type to sit around waiting for someone else to act. If something was missing, she would try to find it. If something was wrong, she would try to set it right. Fix the problem and move on, that was her motto.

But now she felt totally stymied at not being able to march into the warehouse and demand to know how Luke was getting along. Doing so would only give people more food for gossip. Frustrated, she sat at her desk and let her mind travel in circles, returning to the game of second-guessing she’d played most of last night.

Had she taken leave of her senses? Her brother John certainly seemed to think so. Wearing a plaid shirt and a clean pair of overalls, he’d brought his pregnant wife to dinner the night before. No sooner had he heard about what she’d done than he had bluntly told her she had behaved like a “typical woman,” thinking with her heart instead of her head.

His wife Lee had been even less help, declaring she thought the whole thing was downright romantic. “You know, like Ramon Novarro as Judah Ben-Hur in
A Tale of the Christ
.” Ignoring her husband’s incredulous look, she went on, “He comes home and is all alone, with everyone against him. Except
you
, Roxie. You’ve given him a second chance. And I, for one, think it’s . . . noble.” She ended on a drawn-out sigh that had caused Roxie to cringe inside.

But it had been her parents’ silent concern that disturbed her the most. She’d carried their silence up to bed with her, worrying over it as she had not done over the critical remarks and censorious looks she’d received from others.

Roxie had been blessed. William and Mary Mitchell were loving and giving parents. Their opinion meant a great deal to her. Though all grown up, a full quarter of a century old, she still felt the need for their approval. Even if she’d not seen the flash of concern pass between them, the very fact that they had not expressed an opinion on her action would have told her they disapproved. She could ignore the criticism of the Fesol Vernals and the Agnes Dills. Their objections stemmed from the type of blind prejudice Roxie could neither understand nor accept. But her parents weren’t like that. If they thought she’d made a mistake, they had good reason for thinking so. A sadness blanketed her, stifling her in the warm spring night.