The Queen of Sleepy Eye (26 page)

I stood outside Falcon's studio, wavering between entering or running. The familiar sound of glass popping along a scored line was all the invitation my heart needed. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

Inside, I heard a hard thump and an expletive. “Amelia? Yeah, I'm here. Come in, come in.” The flap flew open. “I'm surprised to see you. I didn't think—I just didn't know … I'm glad you're here.” But our eyes didn't meet.

My pulse quickened, but it wasn't like I hadn't spent time with Falcon in the days following the kiss. My imagination had completely restructured reality to make loving Falcon possible—and permissible. Each night when I settled into my pillow, the year was 1901. Sasha and her three children hadn't even been born yet. Falcon was a godly man, a man of letters, on his way to America to forge his own destiny. And I was
not
María Amelia Casimiro Monteiro. As I lay between wakefulness and sleep, I was the witty and beautiful Lizzy Bennet on my way to the New World and marriage to a man I'd never met. A storm sank our ship off the coast of America.
Of course, Falcon rescued me. My pillow was his arm, and we were the lone survivors of the shipwreck, rising and falling on the ocean swells as if my bed were a raft. The stars bent to hear our conversation, and social propriety negated issues of premarital anything.
What
a relief!
During the day, he was my silent partner while polishing caskets, or walking to Underhill Manor to read with Feather, or shelving books at the library.

What I faced inside the studio was my true reality. I'd accepted the invitation, and although I had promised myself I wouldn't, I looked in the van. Only one pillow lay embossed by a head. The lean-to stood empty. I busied myself gathering the tools to burnish the copper-edged glass. A guarded joy percolated in me.

“I've been spending time with Feather at the hospital,” I said to explain why I hadn't been to the studio in almost two weeks.

“That's what I heard … from Straw, I mean. I was afraid maybe … it doesn't matter. You're here and that's great. It's really good to see you.” He rubbed his hands together. “We better get to work.”

I turned away to smile, feigning interest in my work.

Falcon lifted a tarp from the work table. “Hey, you have to see what I've gotten done.”

Four completed sashes lay side by side. “Only one more sash and you're done?” I asked.

“I've had plenty of time to work.” Falcon finally met my gaze. “Listen, Amelia, I shouldn't have … well, I shouldn't have kissed you. It's just that—”

“Don't worry about it.” I sat in front of the grinder and batted his concern away. More than anything I did
not
want to hear why he'd kissed me. I already considered the kiss a fluke, a handshake, a fleeting moment of insanity on Falcon's part. It happened. “I haven't given it a second thought.” That wasn't a lie. I'd skipped the second thought
and sped my way through thoughts three to one million. No matter how busy I'd kept my schedule, the memory of his lips popped into my thoughts constantly. That wasn't very Lizzy Bennet-like of me.

I set aside the burnishing tool. “I'll start grinding these pieces, if that's okay with you,” I said as matter-of-factly as my pounding heart would allow.

We worked in an awkward silence. Falcon caught me watching him a couple times. I smiled weakly and bent my head to my work.
Knock it off. Keep your mind on your work.
When Falcon left the studio to fetch more water for the grinder, I allowed the tears to flow down my cheeks. He caught me dabbing my eyes on the sleeve of my T-shirt.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You should be wearing the safety glasses.”

“Something must be blooming. My eyes have been watering and itching for a couple days.”

My shoulders burned and my fingers ached. Falcon inspected my work. “You definitely have a knack, Amelia. You already grind the glass better than I do.”

I stood up and rolled my shoulders. “That's it then. I guess I better be going.”

Falcon pushed his goggles onto his head. “Can't you stay?”

I sat back down.

“I guess you noticed Sasha and her kids are gone,” he said. “She got tired of waiting for me, so she left with some guy from Missouri over a week ago.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, well, we weren't getting along that well. I think she needed an excuse to leave. I'm missing her kids, though. I hope she finds a way to settle down.”

“Are you all right?”

“Mostly I'm bummed for the kids.” Falcon unrolled the solder. “Let's talk about something else.”

“Okay.”

“I hear you play the guitar and sing,” he said.

“Who'd you hear that from?”

“I have my sources.”

“Really. That's interesting. Well, it couldn't have been the lavender-haired ladies at church. They walked out on me.”

“Did you sing one of them newfangled choruses?”

“Only at Pastor Ted's request.”

“That's who told me. He also told me to treat you like a lady, no funny stuff. And I'm to protect you from any negative influences you might encounter here.”

My face warmed.

“He sounded just like my father before my sister went out with an unsuspecting cretin.” Falcon touched the solder with the iron and the silver liquid slid into the joint. “There's a full moon celebration next week. Thursday, I think,” he said. “Mostly families come. You should bring your guitar. The musicians jam. We had about thirty people here last month. About half of them brought instruments—guitars, fiddles, flutes, dulcimers, and about a dozen tambourines. Greg's the unofficial conductor. He plays a mandolin made out of a gourd. Your mom is more than welcome too. We build a bonfire. Whoever's inclined just shows up.”

Mom had never attended any of my performances with the Basement Beacons. “Mom's not into bluegrass.” Nobody at New Morning farm wore a watch. Doing so was considered a tie to the false rhythms of a consumer-driven society, but I asked what time they started anyway.

“At twilight.”

“I probably wouldn't know any of the songs you play.”

“We don't play devil songs, if that's what you're worried about,” he said with a rye smile. “Mostly, it's folk songs and a little John Denver. Some Eagles stuff. And believe it or not, a gospel tune or two, especially the spirituals.” He snapped a piece of glass with his running pliers. “And nobody drops acid at these things, not with the kids around. So what do you think, Amelia Bo-belia? Do you need a ride?”

Yes! A thousand times, yes!
“I'll think about it.”

* * *

I LAID THE twenty-dollar bills along the edge of the bed. The empty envelope and the copy of
Emma
lay discarded on the floor. I counted the bills once and twice. It was all there, my escape money, but it was enough cash to make a mortgage payment on Underhill Manor, buying Feather's family a month to harvest the apples and sell them to local markets. Giving the money away would strand me in Cordial until I could figure another way out. I could pawn my guitar, but Cordial didn't have a pawn shop. If I baked H a pan of brownies—or would he prefer a protein shake?—he might drive me to Clearwater, but I wasn't sure they had a pawn shop either, and then I'd be stuck in Clearwater with little more than a song. True, Falcon would be leaving for California soon, but honestly, I wasn't so lovesick to discount all the ways traveling with him would be stupid beyond belief. That left my best option—getting a job in Cordial and postponing the start of my college career until winter quarter. Unless, of course, the scholarship had lapsed.

Lord, I want to do the right thing.

In my mind, there was only one thing to do. I slipped the money
into my pocket, opened the bedroom window, and removed the screen.

But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your
right hand is doing. Matthew 6:3.

Charles and Mom played Scrabble in the living room with Frank Sinatra crooning in the background. I cracked open the bedroom door to watch Charles arrange letters on the board.

“Xebic?” Mom pronounced the word
ex-bic.
“What's that, a former ink pen?”

Charles threw back his head and laughed, not a teasing or condescending laugh but appreciative, like Mom had made the best pun imaginable. My chest warmed. They would never miss me.

I sat on the window sill, estimating the distance to the ground. It sure hadn't looked this high from the lawn. I listened and watched. Only the incessant chirrup of crickets disturbed the night. I jumped to the ground and trotted off toward Underhill Manor.

I counted the bills one more time before sliding the stack of money to the back of the Underhill Manor mailbox. My heart thumped a warning beat at the thought of someone, even the mailman, discovering the money before Butter collected the mail the next morning. I slipped the money back into my pocket. What passed for country quiet, a symphony of chirrups and a chorus of toads bleating like sheep with head colds, and the stuttering
who-oo-oo
of an owl, crowded my thoughts. One thing was clear. My perfect plan had crumbled like a stale cookie.

Where would Butter or Straw or Feather find the money and not
know where it came from?

The moon hung over the valley like a beacon, and a beacon creates deep shadows. I tiptoed under the cottonwood and hung close to the barn as I worked my way to the henhouse. Once out of sight of the
cabin, I found the worn path that wound through the pasture toward the creek. Closer to the creek, I shuffled rather than walked, fearing I would step on a lovesick toad. Grasshoppers startled from their sleep jumped recklessly, hitting my legs, which reminded me of a discussion I'd had with H about night snakes. There really are such things; I saw them in a book at the library. No more tiptoeing. I high-stepped a beeline to the henhouse.

Once inside, I turned on the flashlight I'd taken from the utility closet. The hens froze in the beam of light. “Don't worry girls. I won't hurt you.” I slipped the money under Ginger's downy feathers. She tapped my hand with her beak and murmured softly as if to reassure me she would take care of her new charge.

“Good chicken.”

I followed the paddock fence to the road below the henhouse at a dead run through knee-high grass, what Lauren and I'd referred to as snake grass in our rare nature outings. In the relative safety of the moonlit road, I paused to catch my breath. Once my heart found its cadence, I walked past dark farm houses and barns, singing to the bejeweled sky,
“Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.”
By the time I reached the third verse, a cock's crow stopped me in my tracks.
Spartacus?
I'd completely forgotten about the power of his spurs when I'd entered the chicken yard, which was a good thing, because I would not have gone in if I'd remembered. I took this forgetfulness and Spartacus's timidity as a bit of God's grace for me. I smiled at the moon as if it were God's own face looking down on me like an attentive father.

Thanks.

At home, Mom stood over me, her eyes rimmed with red, her forehead creased with worry. “I want a straight answer from you, and I want it now. Charles is out there looking for you, so don't even think of lying to me.” She expelled a hard breath. “Where have you been?”

Her question presented a dilemma for me on many levels. First, Jesus himself taught that your right hand should not know what your left hand is doing. You don't go around talking about, and certainly not bragging about, the good deeds you've done. Also, to tell her I'd given two hundred dollars to Feather's family meant admitting I'd had money she knew nothing about. Mom hated those kinds of secrets. It also meant admitting to a closer relationship to Feather and her family than she would like. Most hurtful to Mom would be realizing how little I had trusted her to get me to California, even though she fully deserved my skepticism. I wouldn't tell her about giving the money to Feather's family. No, I would take my punishment like a woman—days and days of Patsy Cline on the record player.

“You and Charles were playing Scrabble,” I said, “so I decided to take a walk.” This was mostly true.

“Then why did you jump out of the window like a cat burglar?”

“I didn't want to bother you. You were having such a good time, and I was bored. I didn't want you guys to feel bad.”

Mom's eyes narrowed.

“Honestly, would you have let me go walking at night? My room was hot. I wanted to cool off. It's absolutely beautiful out there tonight. The moon is almost full. What's the big deal?”

“Amy, this is a small town, much smaller than Gilbertsville. There are no secrets here. People have seen you riding in an old van with a hippie. They say he is a transient and much older than you. How could you be so stupid?”

“And who have they seen you with, Mother? A married man? Drunken coal miners? A naïve mortician?”

Mom plopped onto the hard cushions of the couch and buried her face in her hands. She followed a well-rehearsed script. When Mom
buried her face in her hands, I moved center stage to apologize and beg for forgiveness. This night would be different. I yawned.

Her head snapped up. “Why, you little …”

“Tramp? Is that what you think I am? Don't you know me at all?”

“Tell me, are you taking the pills I gave you?”

“I don't need your stupid pills, tonight or any other night. Mother—”

“Stop calling me Mother!” Her nostrils flared. She hadn't done that since I took her blow-up falsies to the swimming pool. “I want to know exactly what you did tonight.”

“I would love to tell you. I forfeited my future. There. Satisfied?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It means I'm stuck with dead people in this worthless town for only God knows how long. Are you happy? Isn't this what you wanted? Isn't this why you left the interstate to drive to Cordial? You planned this. I know you did. I'm going to end up just like you.”