A Place Called Wiregrass (8 page)

“And that’s when you moved to Wiregrass?”

She pulled at the folds of her robe like she might be exposing herself to a room full of men.

“That’s when I wanted to move. I was hoping to earn enough money by helping Nettie sew clothes that I could buy a bus ticket and have a nest egg. She made me a better seamstress and complimented me on being a quick learner. Whenever she went into Old Man Maxwell’s store to buy material, I’d sit outside hoping Mama would look out the window so I could mouth her an SOS. She never did.” Miss Claudia straightened the wrinkled armrest.

“Many a time I’ve wondered if Nettie told Mama I was outside. I felt like a trapped beaver. Maybe worse than that. Believe you me, if I could’ve chewed my leg up for freedom, I would have. Instead, I chose to earn it by making dresses and hemming seams for the folks in the quarters.

“The day after I bought my bus ticket to Montgomery, I realized it wasn’t just nerves making my cycle late. I really was pregnant. Nettie told me she couldn’t entertain menfolk with a screaming baby in the background. They had already cut back their visits on account of a white girl on the place. Aaron and Missoura begged me to go on with my plans to leave, but that paralyzing fear set in. The kind that whispers to you in the middle of the night. Me with a baby and no means of income, in a strange town and nobody to help care for it while I worked. I let the demons convince me that the hell I knew was better than a potential unknown hell. And when Luther showed up to try and once more talk some sense into me, I gave in. Before sunset, I was back in that house on the bay, washing his dishes, shucking his oysters, and agreeing with him how stupid I was to ever leave. He waited until the second night to whip me for leaving to start with.”

I was leaning forward with my knuckles resting on my chin. I racked my brain trying to think of a positive direction for the conversation. “What about your baby?”

Miss Claudia sighed. I was scared to death she was growing tired of me. Then she looked up and smiled. “Little Beth. She was the one piece of joy in those days. She lived two years on this earth.” She looked down and put her hand on the edge of her eyeglasses. “Typhoid fever took her away. Just like it did my daddy and brother.”

I just sat there looking at the upturned cushion with my bare feet curled under it, wanting to bury all of me inside the padding. My nosy landlady, Miss Trellis, had been right after all. The woman who sat before me on a throne of padded khaki had suffered in a way I think most people only relate to in a movie.

“That’s why I respect you, Erma Lee. And don’t you ever for one minute think you should’ve stayed.” Miss Claudia pointed her finger at me and almost screamed the words like
the preacher at Missoura’s church. “If the car, the trailer, the whole ground caves around you, don’t you think differently.”

It was only when I saw her finger shake and her lip quiver that I moved to the edge of her recliner. My turn had come. I draped my arm over her soft shoulder. Instinct told me to put my head against hers, but I did not. I knew what it felt like to want to keep an inch of pride.

She sniffled and patted my hand. I quickly moved back to the sofa.

“We all have our cross to bear, don’t we? But I won’t have anybody feeling sorry for me, don’t you know,” she said and pulled a tissue from a gold box next to her chair. She asked me to help her up, and we walked into the formal living room with her holding my arm.

“They say music is food for the soul. How about it?”

I just smiled and tried to nod, but all that came out was a halfhearted movement of my head. Too much honesty always embarrassed me.
How could you sing right now?
I wanted to scream.
You just tore your heart wide open and now—sing?

But sing we did and repeated the chorus five times: “Count your blessings, name them one by one.”

D
ays passed, and still no sign of a shotgun-toting Bozo. Maybe that court order mandating that he keep five hundred feet from me paid off. My sleep grew sounder, and every day my nerves settled a bit more. I decided to take Miss Claudia’s advice and not question Cher about her declaration of Bozo’s return. Miss Claudia reminded me of the adjustments Cher had made and that she was most likely making it all up. I reasoned with Miss Claudia. Cher was just living in a dream world. It was her age. And I know it had to hurt Cher that Bozo stopped calling to check on her. Anytime he called it was only to cuss me out and order us back to Cross City.

So when the phone snatched me out of a deep sleep one night, I decided there had to be something wrong with Miss Claudia.
An emergency call needing my help,
I thought and flung the hair from my eyes. I fumbled down the darkened hallway, stubbing my toe on a doorstop en route to the phone.
Has Miss Claudia fallen out of bed? Did Richard go into one of those fits she was always talking about?

“Hello.”

“Where you get the idea I want to come after you?”

I dropped my head on the kitchen counter, and my hair created a curtain over my face. The screaming on the other end of the phone seemed foreign in the otherwise still, dark trailer.

“I warned you you had till the end of the month to get back here. And it’s been two months. You think you’re so popular I can’t get shut of you, gal?”

Every time I opened my mouth against the cool counter, he blasted through my incoherent mumbles. After what seemed to be thirty minutes of Bozo’s tirade about how he wouldn’t waste his gas to come after me, I flipped my hair back and stood erect, forcing the slits of my eyes to open. The red light of the microwave clock read three thirty-seven.

“Is there any rhyme or reason to all this, or do you just like tying one on so you can harass me?”

“Me harass? Me? What about the harassment you give me by having that deputy come to the shop and give me them papers?”

The court order protecting me from this lunatic.
Funny,
I thought.
Over the phone he seems more pathetic than scary.
“Maybe if you hadn’t been telling Cher you were coming down here, they wouldn’t have to serve no papers.”

“I ain’t told nobody nothing. Hey…hey, I don’t give a flying rip. Stay down there on welfare for all I care.”

That did it. Me busting my tail to live paycheck to paycheck, and him accusing me of welfare. “Bozo, let me tell you one thing. I got connections here. And if you ever so much as call me drunk again, I’ll tape-record you raising sand and turn it over to the law. By the time I’m done with you, you won’t be able to step foot outside Cross City.”

“Don’t you threaten me, woman. I can always come see my grandbaby if I want to. You can’t stop me. Hey…hey, I signed them papers as her legal…”

“Legal daddy, maybe. But you don’t care a thing about Cher.” When I turned around, I caught a glimpse of Cher’s bare feet and the slip of her white cotton nightgown. While Bozo rambled about how sorry I’d be when he signed the
divorce papers, I could only hope that Cher hadn’t heard me. I ended the call the usual way, hanging up the receiver fast and furious. The second step was taking the phone off the hook.

Cher’s foot dangled off the side of my bed. Her soft brown hair swept up on the pillow. Her eyes were closed tight, and I tried to convince myself that my voice had not been heard. Maybe she had just had a bad dream and slipped into my bed.

I scooped my body against her and draped my arm around her tiny waist. I could feel the steady rhythm of her pulse in the base of her stomach. We laid there together in the quiet of the night hearing only the faint chirp of the misplaced phone receiver.

Regardless of the unpleasantness of my premature wake-up call, the touch of her skin made me feel all was well. In times like these she was my baby girl. My special project. The one I would clear a different path for. I wanted to squeeze her and keep her body from changing. I wanted to hang on to the little girl inside her.

Twilight was just settling back in my mind when I heard her mumble, “Pop didn’t do right by us.”

It hurt my gut that she knew she was deserted by the man who was both the only father and grandfather she had known. I wanted to say nothing. I wanted to squeeze her against my chest, to stroke her hair.

“Did he?” She leaned up ever so slightly and then fell back down on the mattress. We were alike in that way. The easy way was never our way.

“No, I guess not. He loves you in his way. I think at one time he even loved me. But then he just…”

“Good night,” she said and squeezed my hand tighter.

Cher never did like excuses. At least now she won’t go around telling folks her daddy would be coming for visits. I suspected now she’d tell Laurel and Kasi that he’d been killed in some bad accident where she’d sketch him out to be a hero
or maybe announce he moved away to drill for oil in Argentina. Either way, I’d back up whatever lie she settled on. My baby had enough hurt to last for a while.

As she clasped her hand in mine, I wished her sweet dreams. Dreams of riding a black horse down a country dirt road. Dreams a thirteen-year-old girl should have, not fantasies of a make-believe family that only lived in her mind.

I would not allow myself to park Miss Claudia’s big Lincoln in my regular spot at school. I couldn’t have Sammy and the ladies in the lunchroom looking at me and making jokes about my fancy transportation. I settled for a remote parking spot, across the street in a field used by the kids for soccer games after school.

“You got a phone call, foxy grandma. And it’s a man. You been holding out on us?” Sammy raised an eyebrow at me.

I dried my hands on a dish towel, hoping that it would not be a rerun of Bozo. A sober Bozo crying and asking for another chance. A depressed Bozo telling me how much he loved me and that he wanted his grandbaby back home.

“It’s ready to go anytime.”

Between the shrill drill I heard on the other end of the line and the clanging of metal pots in the deep sink near the phone, I had to put my finger in the free ear to make out a word he said.

“What? My car?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s Gerald Peterson. We got it ready for you.”

Ma’am
. I repeated his words in my mind and cleared my throat. Cher must’ve been right about my black rubber-soled shoes looking like something from the Depression. “Well, how much you think it’ll be?”

I heard another voice in the background and some papers ruffling. Then the shrill drill again.
He’s bracing me for the worst
.
My pulse throbbed against the base of my neck. The light bill was due next week, and Cher’s birthday was right around the corner.

“Somers around fifty dollars. You need a ride out to get it?”

I cleared my throat again and tried to make my voice sound higher, younger. “That’d be real nice of you, Mr. Peterson.”

“Now you sit still,” Miss Claudia said, hobbling to the door with her cane. I knew most she wanted to throw that cane across the room and welcome the gentleman caller in a way Scarlet would be proud of. She had been looking through the sheer living-room curtains for the past twenty minutes waiting for Gerald to appear.

“Well, Gerald Peterson. I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays. You getting along okay?” She swept her arm, welcoming him into the home.

He took off his cap and planted both thumbs on the waist of his jeans. With smooshed-down hat hair, he stood there in the foyer shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He must’ve felt as uncomfortable as I had the first time I entered Elm Drive. “Yes, ma’am, doing good.”

That was it. He called Miss Claudia
ma’am
too. He put me in the category with an eighty-year-old. I scooped up my purse and cussed my white polyester cafeteria uniform.

The long fingers were busy creasing the insides of his cap. He stuttered as if regaining his train of thought. “And you? That leg acting up on you?”

“Oh, me,” she drawled, thicker than usual. “Gerald, I might need you to take me in and rework me but good. You got any new hips you can tack on?” She giggled, and soon he laughed too. I made the first move towards the door.

Sitting in the cab of his truck, I watched while Miss Claudia stood behind the half-closed door, waving good-bye. Suddenly, I felt like we were two high-schoolers going on a date. I cussed myself for telling Miss Claudia too much of my business.

The forgotten knots in my stomach prevented me from saying much on the drive to his shop. We just sat in the pickup in a sea of air-conditioned air and soft country music.

“Solenoid switch give out on you.”

I flipped my ponytail around my neck and leaned forward, afraid the butterflies in my stomach were affecting my hearing.

“I had to replace the switch in your car,” he said, looking at me. He was probably trying to determine if I was some kind of idiot who couldn’t talk.

“Oh, okay. Well, I’m glad it wasn’t much worse,” I said, not knowing if this was something damaging or not. For fifty bucks I figured it could be worse.

His hands were large and tan. The grime of honest work gathered around his cuticles. His sideburns were short and doused with gray. What really made my insides tingle were his eyes. They were blue, heavy, and deep-set. The small scar right above his eyebrow kept him from being a pretty boy. I couldn’t help but wonder if I went to his mama’s house and found a picture from high school, if his eyes would’ve been that heavy and set back in his head. Or were the hollows caused by the loss he lived with?

“Where you from?” He turned to look at me.

I quickly turned my head and looked out at the field of watermelons we were passing. I knew I had held my stare on him too long. “Cross City. It’s in Louisiana.”

“There’s an old boy I know works up there during a plant shutdown. Don’t they got a plant?”

I could only nod my head. I knew my luck would run out and there would be someone who had a connection to my past.
Of all people, it had to be him,
I thought.

“You like it here?”

“It’s growing on me. You’re from here, right?”
I shouldn’t have asked it like that. Like I already had the answer. Now he would know I’d been asking questions about him.

“Born and raised. Live in the same house my great-grand-daddy built.” He seemed to talk more when he looked straight ahead and didn’t look at me. “You got any kids?”

“A boy and a girl.”
Please don’t ask me to give their locations,
I begged.

Russ I could handle. The boy was making good by himself. After a string of DUIs and constant pestering from the principal’s office, Russ had finally given in and joined the Marines. For the past year or so, he’d been doing a hardship tour in Korea. I have to give credit to the Marines for undoing a good portion of the damage his daddy’d done.

But Suzette. I would have to lie about Suzette, and I didn’t want to lie to him.

“That your girl I seen the other night?”

“Actually she’s my granddaughter. I got custody of her.”
Shut your mouth before you tell it all,
I scolded myself.

He just nodded his head, and we stared at faded black asphalt for another mile.

“You got any kids?” I finally produced the words after debating whether it seemed too forward.

“Marcie’s my daughter. She’s twenty-five. Got a boy, Donnie. He’s seventeen.”

We pulled into his sand driveway, and I tried not to look big-eyed with wonder. My first thought was how odd it looked with that garage shop and its rusting tin roof placed next to
the white two-story house with black shutters. With a paint job and new porch steps, his house could be something off
Gone with the Wind
. On the other side of the house a horse and a dozen cattle grazed in a bright green field.

A massive oak tree and a row of automobiles separated the yard of the home from his mechanic garage. A separation of the old way of life from the new. In my mind I sketched a black-and-white of a gentleman farmer raising peanuts and tobacco. His great-grandson, for the sake of paying bills, tossing that life to work on horseless carriages.

I pointed at the horse, which was biting a fence post with its front teeth. “Cher, uhh…that’s my granddaughter I told you about. She’d love that horse. She’s the craziest thing over horses.”

He carefully got out of the truck and squinted his eyes towards the field. “That’s my son’s doings.”

I used the hood of his truck to prop my checkbook and write out the fifty-dollar check. Every time I wrote a check, I always tossed figures in my mind, verifying it wouldn’t bounce. Before I signed my name, I estimated the check to Peterson and Son was safe.
That’s nice,
I thought.
He must have named the business so his boy would have a permanent job.
The idea made him that much more appealing to the ounce of dreamer still left in me.

A shrill drill like the one I heard on the phone echoed from the garage. A young man, either chewing tobacco or a wad of bubble gum, glanced our way, then returned to his assignment.

“Thanks,” I said and turned towards my car parked under the oak tree.

“We appreciate the business. Let us know if we can help any way.” He cocked his head sideways and smiled.

“Okay, then.” I looked down at the crushed acorns on the dirt. Right before I turned to walk away, I saw him look at
the length of my body and wipe the side of his chin with his thumb. For a minute I forgot the polyester uniform and the no-nonsense shoes. I forgot the bruises, cut eye, and broken arm that were long healed, but still glowed in my mind against a black light of revelation. During the bumpy ride down the sand driveway away from the shop and the old-timey home, I forgot the past and tried hard to let that ounce of dreamer in me grow.