Stork Bite

by Simonds, L. K.

  “What? Red, a criminal?” Jax got to his feet and paced, still holding his stomach with both hands. Mae watched him go back and forth. Finally, he stopped in front of her. “You went to Red’s house and met his family and friends. You ate their food and drank their whiskey.”

  Mae looked down.

  “Red and his wife were the only ones who made a big deal about us getting married. Hell, Mae, Red’s a family man. All he cares about is providing for his family. I can’t believe what these guys are saying. I’ll tell you who’s coming up with all this. That low-down skunk Lavender, that’s who. That guy probably gave the farm to Red, and now he’s in trouble for it and making excuses.”

  “Well, he was beaten up. Colonel Hickman told Uncle Bill.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a minute.” Jax sat on the couch next to Mae. “Lavender spends his free time at . . . well . . . he’s all the time hanging around an infamous house of ill repute over there in Bossier. Infamous, I tell you. Lavender’s carrying on with a married woman too. It’s no wonder some guy beat him up. The wonder is nobody put a bullet in him.”

  Jax reached for Mae’s hand. For once, his hand was warm, but his palm was as sweaty as always. “Mae, what in the world would I do with a dry-cleaning business? I don’t know the first thing about it. You know that. Besides, I’ve got my hands full with my medical supply distribution business. It’s really taking off since I got that Cessna.”

  Mae could not stand to look Jax in the face. She stared at his pale, thin hand clutching hers. Short ashen bristles darkened his knuckles. “I saw your car there, Jax. I drove over to Bossier and found the building. I saw Red too.”

  “Well, see? Red’s there all the time. I stopped by to say hello this afternoon. Why didn’t you come in? Red thinks the world of you. He talks about you all the time.”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “I guess you were thinking a lot of terrible things this afternoon, weren’t you? Oh, darling, I just hate all these lies and half-truths flying around.”

  Mae did not believe him. Suddenly, she did not believe one single word Jax was saying now or had ever said. “I think it’s a good time to go and visit my family in Fort Worth,” she said.

  “That’s a great idea, honey. If you want me to go with you, I’ll try to work it out, but it’s not very good timing for me, business-wise.”

  “No, I should go alone. It’ll be good for me to spend some time with my folks. See their new house and all.”

  “Well, dear, that would be aces. It really would.” Jax patted her hand. “The main thing is that everything is good between you and me. We’re a team now. We gotta stick together. Now, how about we get some fresh air. I’ll see who’s playing on the roof tonight. I’m thirsty as all get out.”

  Mae did not think she could bear to listen to one more word out of her husband’s mouth. “I’m sorry, Jax. All this ruckus gave me a terrible headache. I think I’ll lie down for a little while.”

  “Whatever you say, doll. Take as long as you need. I’ll be right here.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Back in June, immediately after Mae had made her vows to Jax in the JP’s office in Hot Springs, she had called her mother to tell her where she was and what she had done.

  “Are you in love with him?” her mother asked.

  “No ma’am.”

  Mae’s mother was quiet for a long time, despite the long-distance charges.

  “Mama?”

  “Mae, darling, we women are passengers. We don’t get to decide where the tracks and trains go, but we do get to choose which train we board. If you want to be happy, you must always be looking ahead. A woman can’t afford surprises. She has to know what’s around the next bend. Now, honey, you looked ahead to your life with Buster, and it wasn’t what you wanted.”

  This was the heart of the matter. Mae’s emotions swelled at the thought of Buster. At the thought of home. Had she done the wrong thing leaving him? “Mama, I’m afraid.”

  “I know, honey.”

  “Everything’s out of control, and I feel so confused.”

  “Are you?”

  Mae nodded as if her mother could see.

  “Has what you want changed?”

  Mae thought about this and realized she had not changed one iota. She still wanted all the same things she always had. “No ma’am,” she said.

  “Look ahead to your life with this man, the same way you looked ahead to your life with Buster. Only you know if this train is going your way. If it isn’t, don’t board. Leave that JP’s office and be on your way.”

  Mae was silent.

  “And, Mae, don’t lie to yourself. If you don’t love Jax now, you never will. But no matter what happens, you always have a home to come back to if you need to. Your daddy and I will welcome you with open arms. Nothing can ever change that.”

  “I love you, Mama.”

  “I love you too, dear.”

  “Give Daddy my love.”

  “I will, honey. Go on now.”

  Mae had sat in the JP’s office for a long time after she hung up the telephone. She concluded that her mother was right—she’d probably never love Jackson Addington. She wasn’t sure she had ever loved Buster, for that matter. But in that moment, Mae truly believed that Jax’s train was going her way.

  Mae was just as certain now that she had been a fool. She had boarded a runaway train and had no idea what waited for her around the next curve. She decided to drive to Fort Worth that evening rather than spend another night in the hotel suite with her lying husband. Mae didn’t bother to check the train schedule—she would keep the convertible in her possession. Just in case.

  Mae stuffed her suitcase and overnight valise with everything she could fit in them. She called for the bellman to fetch her luggage and have her car brought around. Jax’s bedroom door was closed, and the bellman’s knock and the shuffle of luggage did not bring him out. Mae dashed off a note and left it in the spot beside the flower vase where Jax always left his.

  My dear husband,

  I decided to go on to Fort Worth. The sooner I leave the sooner I’ll be home again.

  Mae

  Her parents’ new home on Fairmount Avenue sat on a corner lot and had a wraparound porch. It was larger and more beautiful than the house in Whitesboro, and Mae felt a thrill, seeing all of her parents’ hard work come to fruition. She parked in the driveway and lugged her suitcase and valise up the steps. Her mother greeted her at the door, having waited up for her, as Mae knew she would. The kitchen was brightly lit, and the teakettle was waiting on the stove.

  Mae told her mother everything that had happened, beginning with Red Malone’s whiskey-soaked wedding reception. When she got to the part about some men beating up an army captain and making him sign a contract with J. Addington’s Dry Cleaning, her mother set down her teacup. The thing her mother said next and the way in which she said it made Mae’s blood run cold. “Get yourself together, Mae. And leave him.”

  Mae didn’t realize how tense she had been until she felt the anxiety drain out of her after a few days of nestling in the safety of her family. Her father’s promotion meant he was home for supper every evening. After supper, the four of them—Mae, her parents, and her younger sister, Victoria—sat on the front porch drinking Coke floats from frosted glasses and watching the neighbors stroll the sidewalks. Mae and Vic worked their ladder-back rockers like children, vigorously pumping against the porch rail with their bare feet. Their parents chatted with the neighbors who took time away from their evening constitutionals to visit on the porch a while.

  “So how’s your summer going?” Mae asked her sister.

  “It’s a little boring,” Vic said. “But maybe things’ll pick up. I’ve got my eye on a tall drink of water at church. Dewey Daggett. He’s a looker. Basketball player too. He lives over on College Avenue. I ride my bike by his house sometimes.”

  Victoria licked the ice cream from the back of her spoon and let the spoon fall into th
e empty glass with a clatter. She rounded her lips and loosed a long, deep burp that any street tough would have envied. “Dewey treats me like I’m his kid sister or something, even though I’m just a couple of years younger. He’s seventeen going on thirty and a Wisenheimer too. To tell you the truth, Maypearl, I don’t know why I’m bothering with him.” Vic rocked violently with a disgusted look on her face that suddenly turned to a smile. “But he’s just so cute.”

  Mae laughed. “What do the boys around here do with themselves on Saturday nights?”

  “Oh, they hang out at the hamburger joint up on Magnolia—Rockyfellers—or they drive around the neighborhood. They drive by girls’ houses too. Junior and senior girls. I hear the girls giggling about it at church. But they never drive by here.”

  “Maybe we can do something about that.”

  Vic stopped rocking and planted her feet on the porch. “Like what?”

  “Shush. I have an idea. Just wait ‘til Mama and Daddy go to bed.”

  Later, in Vic’s bedroom, Mae held the hand mirror up to her little sister, who had been transformed from a gangling fifteen-year-old into a beautiful young woman.

  “Maypearl! I look like a movie star!”

  “I’m not finished.” Mae coiled Vic’s long braid and secured it with bobby pins. Then she took her own floral chiffon scarf and tied it into a turban around Vic’s head. “Stand up,” Mae commanded. Victoria hopped to her feet, and Mae took her sister’s floppy shirttail and tied it at the waist of her shorts. Mae took a step back and put her hands on her hips. “He won’t think you’re a kid now. C’mon, let’s go find this Dewey Hot Shot Daggett.”

  The two girls crept down the stairs and out the front door, easing it closed behind them. Vic ran to the convertible ahead of Mae and jumped over the door into the passenger seat.

  “Move over, kiddo. Tonight you’re driving,” Mae said.

  “Really?”

  “Daddy says you drive as good as he does.”

  Vic scooted over and started the car. Mae put the top down, and Vic backed out of the driveway as soon as Mae was in the car. They drove to College Avenue and pulled to the curb across the street from Dewey’s house. The front windows were open, and a man was sitting inside, listening to a radio. “That’s Dewey’s daddy,” Vic said. “He’s a deacon.”

  “Do you think Dewey’s home?”

  “He’s probably out running around.”

  “Let’s drive by that hamburger joint.”

  Vic drove south to the Piggly Wiggly and made a U-turn, then she drove north on College Avenue. “There they are!” she cried as they approached the schoolyard. “I’d know that bunch anywhere.”

  Mae grabbed Vic’s arm. “Turn left! Quick! Before they see us.” Vic made a hard left. The tires and the sisters squealed. “Stop the car,” Mae said. “Here, behind the church.” Vic pulled to the curb, and Mae opened her door and got out.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to sneak around to the front of the church and watch. You take the car and drive past them. Then come around again and stop and see where it goes.”

  “You mean it? By myself?”

  “Yes, by yourself. Go on now, before I change my mind.”

  Vic drove away, and Mae sneaked around the side of the church. She stood behind a tall, thin cedar at the corner. The boys were talking and laughing in the schoolyard across the street. There were four of them under the streetlamp on the corner. They all wore dungarees and white tee shirts. “I ain’t got no reason to climb it. Ain’t nothing at the top,” one of the boys said.

  “Hell’s bells, Jimmy. If everybody thought like you, we’d still be wearing knee pants and stockings and speaking the King’s English,” said a boy with thick black hair who was a head taller than the others. Mae was certain he was Dewey Daggett.

  The yellow convertible rounded the corner. Vic looked like she was thirty years old.

  “Who’s that coming?” said Jimmy.

  “Ain’t a cop,” said another boy.

  Vic stopped at the corner, and all four boys stared at her. “Aren’t you boys a little old to be playing in the schoolyard?” she said.

  “Do we know you?” asked the tall one.

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “Oh, Lord,” whispered Mae. “C’mon, little sister.”

  The boys stood, awkward and quiet. They watched Vic but stole glances at one another too. “Do you live around here?” Dewey asked.

  “Don’t you recognize me?”

  “You look kinda familiar . . . I guess.”

  “I’m Victoria Compton, silly. I go to church with y’all.”

  The boys, led by Dewey, approached the car. “You look different,” Dewey said. “Is this your car?”

  “It’s my sister’s. So, what are y’all up to?”

  “Dewey’s trying to talk me into climbing that flagpole,” said Jimmy.

  “Well, if I were you, I’d tell Dewey to climb it himself,” Vic said. This brought laughter from the boys, who elbowed one another and agreed that Dewey should do the climbing since he was the one shooting off his mouth about it. “I think whoever climbs that pole ought to tie my scarf at the top to show he was there,” Vic said. “Like those explorers do when they plant a flag.”

  “There you go,” Mae whispered.

  “Gimme the scarf,” Jimmy said and stuck out his hand.

  “Wait a minute,” said Dewey. “I thought y’all said I should climb it.” He held out his hand, and Vic unwound the scarf and handed it to him.

  “Be right back, boys.” Dewey trotted to the flagpole and looked up. Then he draped the scarf around his neck, spit on his palms, and rubbed them together. “Here goes nothing,” he called to the group.

  Vic got out of the convertible and leaned against it, watching the man of her dreams shinny up the wooden flagpole, alternately pulling and pushing himself until he reached the top. With one hand, he looped the scarf below the finial and made a wide, dramatic sweep with his arm. Then he shinnied down again.

  The next morning, Mae supervised Vic while she applied mascara and lipstick before church. She did not permit her little sister to wear as much as the night before, which would have brought on a hissy fit from their mother. “I’m going to leave this makeup with you,” Mae said. “Nobody’s open today, and I have more at the Youree.”

  “Oh Maypearl!” Vic wrapped her arms around Mae’s neck and hugged her. “What would I do without a sister like you?”

  The Compton family strolled together the few blocks from the house on Fairmont to the Baptist church. When they reached the corner where the De Zavala School flagpole stood, Vic elbowed Mae and pointed up. The colorful chiffon scarf furled and unfurled in the breeze. “Flag’s still flying,” she said.

  During the long drive back to Shreveport, Mae made up her mind that she would move out of the Youree and into her house on Alexander Avenue, even if it meant sleeping on the floor. She would buy all the furniture she wanted on Jax’s accounts. No more putting off purchases in case something better came along. She would get everything she could lay her hands on before she and Jax split. Then, at least, she would have something to show for the marriage.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Mae was a nineteen-year-old grass widow when she answered an advertisement for a stenographer-typist position at a downtown law firm. She had not seen her husband since she’d left the Youree—mere days after she returned from Fort Worth. “I’ll wrap things up here and come along as soon as I can,” Jax had said.

  “Take your time, darling,” Mae responded. “There’s no rush at all.”

  When Mae left their suite, Jax’s things were scattered all over his bedroom, as if he had no intention of ever leaving. The very next thing Mae did was breeze through every department store downtown and buy furniture on Jax’s accounts—a whole houseful. She bought a Murphy bed for the spare bedroom, just in case Jax ever showed up.

  Stenography had been Mae’s strong suit at Cent
enary. Only one professor had spoken fast enough to outrun her, and he was from Massachusetts and therefore did not count. Mae was a fast typist too—sixty-five words a minute all day long without a single mistake. She could even kick it up to seventy-five in a pinch. The morning of her interview, Mae marched into the Slattery Building, boarded the elevator, and told the attendant, “Carter, Rose, and Peabody, please.”

  “Yes ma’am. Fifteenth floor.” The attendant slid the door closed and they took the long ride up to Mae’s future.

  Five other girls, Mae’s competition for the position, waited in the reception area. She nodded to them and took a seat. Within an hour, they were all writing for their lives, or at least for their livelihood. Mae bit her lower lip and scribbled shorthand as the Dictaphone machine went on and on about the problems with some gas lease or other and their possible solutions. The recording was as boring as her cotton market class at Centenary, but at least she only had to copy the words and not worry about what they meant.

  After they took dictation, the girls were charged with typing their notes. The lady running the show, Mrs. Mitchell, told them their work would be compared with a perfect transcription of the recording. Afterward, they all waited in the reception area while their work was examined. Mae was certain she had done a good job, but she could not help worrying that her best might not be good enough.

  Finally, Mrs. Mitchell opened the door to her office.

  “Mrs. Addington?”

  “Good luck,” one of the girls said.

  “You too,” said Mae. She got up and went into Mrs. Mitchell’s office.

  “Please have a seat, Mrs. Addington,” Mrs. Mitchell said. She closed the door and sat behind her big desk. “Your accuracy is excellent. It says here you studied commerce for a year at Centenary. Is that right?”

  “Yes ma’am.”