“We saw you on TV.” Liza smiled. “Who was the cute guy?”
“Just an old friend. We had coffee and walked over to watch the show start.”
“And who is this friend?” Bill’s voice was hostile.
The others were suddenly silent and looked at each other.
“Just a friend.” Katherine’s eyes locked with Bill’s.
“Have a name?”
“His name is Steven.”
“I hear he’s an artist. Does that mean he’s a painter?”
Katherine was becoming angry.
“He does paint. He’s a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
“Gosh!” Liza seemed impressed.
“Is he, you know,” Bill moved his wrist limply, “gay?”
“I haven’t asked him, Bill,” Katherine snapped. “Perhaps I should try to seduce him and let you know how it goes?”
The others laughed as Katherine and Bill faced off.
“Hate to interrupt you.” Mary walked up just as Katherine turned on Bill. “But the canoes are ready for the Jackson Regatta.”
The Jackson Regatta was Katherine and Mary’s annual canoe race. They would paddle their canoes upriver to the first bend and race back to the dock, about a two-mile round trip. Sometimes others joined the race and there were ten contestants today.
Katherine was still fuming as they walked toward the dock. “Bill Wilson is the most disgusting, egotistical jackass I’ve ever known. Did you hear him?” Katherine mimicked his voice. “She does charity work, lives in an old house, has a gay boyfriend.”
“He said all that?”
“I almost hit him! It’s a good thing you came when you did.”
Bill came puffing up to the dock just before the canoes launched. “Room for one more?”
“You want to race in the Regatta?” Mary almost laughed.
“Certainly. It’s not for women only, is it?”
“No, of course not,” Katherine snapped. “We’re more enlightened than that.” She pointed. “There’s one canoe left.”
“Ever been in one before, Bill?” Sally Jackson, Katherine’s cousin, popped him on his shoulder.
“Of course!”
“Right.” Sally laughed.
“Ready to lose, Bill?” Mary called out.
“No way, little girl!”
“Bill, you’re puffing, already,” Sally called as they climbed into the canoes. “Think you’re up to this?”
“Ten bucks says I’ll win.”
Everyone except Katherine laughed.
“You’re on!” Mary said. “Okay, here are the rules. All paddles must be up, out of the water. I will call the start. The first one to paddle up and back then touch the dock with her hand—”
“Or his hand,” Bill added.
Mary rolled her eyes in an exaggerated gesture. “The first contestant whose hand touches the dock is the winner. You may not ram another canoe, nor interfere with any other contestant in any way. You must be in your canoe when you touch the dock. Questions? Okay. Paddles up. Ready. Set. Go.”
Mary dipped her paddle, pulled hard and her canoe shot across the water, opening a six-foot lead.
Bill seemed surprised as she pulled away. He dipped his paddle and started after her.
“Go, Mary. Go.” The other girls were screaming, cheering her on.
The muscles in Bill’s arms bulged as he struggled to catch her, the veins in his face stood out, but Mary continued to pull away. It quickly became apparent that Bill, Katherine, and Sally were competing for second place. Thirty minutes later, they were still fifty yards out when Mary touched the dock.
“Winner,” she shouted, throwing both hands in the air.
Bill’s face was deep red and he was breathing hard. He stopped paddling, slapped his paddle on the water, and cursed.
“Watch your language,” Sally called over her shoulder as she and Katherine slipped past him. Both of them were laughing. “Giving up?”
Bill looked up, saw them pulling away, and slapped the water again. Then he dipped his paddle and pulled hard. As they approached the dock Bill, Katherine, and Sally were side-by-side in a dead heat.
Sally’s boyfriend stood on the dock cheering, and Sally began to pull ahead. As she did, Bill pushed against her canoe with his paddle, turning her to one side.
“Stop! Not fair. Cheater!”
Bill leaned over and grabbed for her canoe. Sally pulled hard with her paddle and she skimmed away. Bill missed by inches, and the shift in weight caused his canoe to tip to the right. He threw his weight in the other direction, overcompensated, tried to stand as the canoe turned on its side, and he fell into the river, splashing water ten feet all around. A swell rushed toward Katherine’s canoe, flipping it over, throwing her in the river as well.
Katherine surfaced quickly. Taking hold of her boat, she looked around for Bill. He, too, had surfaced and was splashing around, trying to stay afloat.
“Help me! Help me! I’m drown—”
He went under but struggled back to the surface. He spouted water and splashed about wildly, calling for help.
Katherine pushed her canoe toward him. “Grab it and hold on,” she ordered.
Bill clung to the canoe while Katherine pushed it to shore. He was still gasping for breath when his feet found the bottom and onlookers began to pull him from the water.
“They’re dangerous. They ought to be banned,” he sputtered as someone handed him a towel.
Katherine pushed her canoe to shore then swam after Bill’s. As she finally climbed on shore, she walked over to him.
“If you’d been paddling the canoe instead of trying to distract Sally, you wouldn’t have fallen in,” she snapped. “If you’d worn your life jacket, you would have floated.”
She yanked the towel from his hands and dried her face and arms.
“Sometimes you act like such a little boy.” She flung the towel at him and stalked away, calling over her shoulder, “And you owe Mary ten dollars.”
***
Katherine, Mary, and the other women paddled around for another hour. As they were walking back from the Regatta, Katherine and Mary passed a group of older women sitting in a circle. Mrs. Walter Howard—Bill Wilson’s Aunt Betty—was holding court, as she did at any social occasion.
They heard Mrs. Howard speaking and stopped to listen, standing on the edge of the group. Their mother was sitting in a beach chair on the other side of the circle. She smiled at them and rolled her eyes a little. Mary chuckled.
“My daughter Elizabeth saw it!” Mrs. Howard smacked her right fist into the palm of her other hand. “Saw Mellissa Sawyer sneaking out of the men’s dormitory at UVA.”
“I didn’t really say sneaking, Mother,” Elizabeth protested. “You asked if I ever saw Melissa in Charlottesville and I told you I saw her leaving the dorm once.”
“Same thing. She must have been sneaking out. She wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see her, that’s for sure.” She turned to the other women. “Wouldn’t speak to Elizabeth.”
“I don’t think she saw me, Mom.”
“Wouldn’t have wanted you to recognize her. Now, what would she be doing in a men’s dormitory?” She paused, not expecting anyone to reply. Looking around, she spotted Katherine. “Katherine Jackson, you haven’t been out of school for very long. What would she be doing there? What would she be doing that was respectable? Anything?”
“She could have been studying.”
A shocked silence fell over the women. No one argued with Mrs. Howard.
“Studying? At that time of day? Studying what?”
“What time was it?” Katherine asked.
“It was about ten at night, Katherine.” Elizabeth Howard seemed grateful for her help.
“Ten at night,” her mother repeated. “Tell me, Miss Jackson, would she be studying at that time of night?”
“Mrs. Howard, when I was in college, we studied at all times of day and night.”
A rippl
e of laughter was silenced by Mrs. Howard’s glare.
“Dorms at UVA allow visitors of the opposite sex at certain hours. I’d guess she was studying with a friend and visitation hours ended.”
Katherine’s mother gave a small thumbs-up sign from across the circle.
“Visitation hours? Legalized fornication if you ask me! Melissa Sawyer was up to no good.”
Mrs. Howard gazed toward the river then turned back to the group. “I recall when she was in high school and the principal caught her kissing Casey Riley behind the gym during lunch period. She hasn’t changed a bit.” She glared at the women around the circle. “Mark me! She’ll be pregnant within the year. Could be now, in fact. What was I told?”
A small, thin smile appeared on her face. “Oh, yes, she spent the summer with her aunt in the mountains in North Carolina. Still there, as far as I know.” Mrs. Howard snorted. “A nine-month vacation, I’ll wager.”
Katherine and Mary walked away. That was Mrs. Howard’s modus operandi. In the eyes of Hamilton society, Melissa Sawyer had been tried today, by the jury of one, and found guilty.
Katherine looked back at Mrs. Howard. “I wonder what she said when she saw me on TV hugging Steven. I can imagine!”
***
After dinner, the folks from Hamilton split into groups divided roughly by age and gender. “The Hamilton Social Hour” it had once been called. Katherine drifted from group to group—not belonging in the men’s group with her father, the one she most enjoyed, where tonight’s discussion centered on politics and the economy, with occasional detours into hunting and fishing. Not really belonging in either of the women’s groups, either. Those her age were married and had children, and she had little in common with them. Her mother’s friends, of course, were much older and that group was dominated by Mrs. Howard. Katherine wanted to hear no more from her tonight.
“You really shouldn’t antagonize her,” Katherine’s mother had told her during dinner.
“She’s evil, Mom. I’ll bet that Mellissa was doing absolutely nothing out of line. No one in Hamilton will believe that, though. By tomorrow, everyone will have heard that she’s pregnant. Even if she’s not, they will talk about her and her family for years. ‘Remember when Melissa spent the night in the men’s dorm?’ they will say.”
“No one said she spent the night.”
“You know that will be the story by the time we pack up to leave. Mrs. Howard is evil!”
As Katherine left her father to find more iced tea, she ran into her cousin, Lucy.
“Hi, Lucy.”
“Hi, Katherine. How is life in New York?”
“It’s going well. Are these your little girls?”
“Yes, they are. This is Susannah, she’s three. Emily,” she pointed to another child, “is two. And this is Hannah, she’s two months. Girls, remember your cousin, Katherine? She’s a doctor, and she lives in a big city. You don’t get to see her very often.”
Susannah waved, while Emily stuck her thumb in her mouth and looked down.
Katherine bent down. “Hi, Susannah. Hi, Emily. You’re both getting to be so big.”
She stood up and faced her cousin. “They’re beautiful, Lucy.”
“They’re a handful. Enjoying life in New York?”
“Things are going really well.”
“That’s great. How do you cope with all of the people? I think the crowds would drive me crazy.”
“They bothered me at first, but you get used to them. It’s an exciting place to live.”
“I’m glad you like it. Richmond seems like a big city to me.”
Lucy glanced anxiously toward the group of young men. “Where’s my husband? We really need to be going. It’ll be bedtime before too long.”
She turned back to Katherine. “I hate these parties. After dinner, Joseph wants to hang with his friends. They stand around drinking, the unmarried guys brag about their girlfriends, the married ones talk about their wives. You wouldn’t believe some of the things they say.”
Katherine heard Bill’s voice rising above the others. “What’s he going on about now?”
“Oh, his usual stuff. How to handle a woman. As if he knows squat about it. If Joseph treated me the way Bill says he should, well, he’d have no children.” She glanced back at the group of men. “Joseph tells me you and Bill are getting married.” Lucy looked like she could hardly keep from laughing.
“The imps will be making snowballs first.”
“It’s so funny, because we all know it’s a lie, but you know, he says it so often.” She sighed. “Joseph is a good husband, a good daddy, but it hurts his pride when I pull him away, especially after Bill starts. He gets angry. The girls get fussy. I do too.” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Let me go get Joseph. I haven’t seen him all day.”
As Katherine walked toward the group of young men, she thought about Lucy and her family. Lucy was her age. They’d sat next to each other in senior English. She was married and had three children already. Of course, Katherine rationalized, marriage and children were all Lucy ever wanted.
She heard Bill’s voice getting louder.
“Give her an order. If she doesn’t jump, give her a smack. It works for me.”
Katherine slid in next to Joseph who was standing on the edge of the crowd. “Joseph, how’s it going?”
“Katherine. It’s good to see you,” Joseph whispered. He guided her away from the group so they could talk. “How are things in New York City?” He dragged the words out for emphasis. “Those Yankee boys know how to treat a pretty woman like you?”
“They treat me pretty much like Southern boys do.” Katherine smiled.
“So you’re not getting lonely.”
“I’m doing fine. I was just talking to Lucy. Your little girls are darling.”
“They will be heartbreakers for sure in a few years.”
“Lucy doing all right? I heard she had some trouble when Hannah was born.”
Joseph’s smile faded. “She’s feeling a lot better…I guess we won’t have that boy I was planning on, but Lucy will be fine. I’m glad for that. Little girls are nice, too.” He smiled again.
“Lucy told me that the kids will be getting fussy before long. I told her I would let you know, so it wouldn’t look like you were taking orders from her.”
Joseph laughed. “I need to get over that. Stay here.”
He walked toward the center of the circle. “Guys, I need to be going.”
“No. No. It’s way too early.”
Katherine smiled as the group encouraged Joseph to stay.
“My woman, you know, she needs me, if you know what I mean. So, I guess I need to get her on home. I will see all of you later.”
Katherine glanced over at Lucy. She was packed, ready to go. She had heard Joseph and she was laughing.
“See you later, Katherine.” Joseph patted her shoulder as he passed.
Katherine watched as Lucy and Joseph walked off toward their car. Joseph had picked up Emily with one arm and held the picnic basket in his other hand.
They look so happy.
“Ms. Jackson, how are you doing this evening? Care to join us?” Bill’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
Katherine turned and saw him standing across the circle of young men, with a smirk on his face. All of the guys were looking in her direction.
“I’m fine, Bill. You sharing your vast knowledge of women with the guys?” She motioned to the men standing in the circle. “I’m sure they’re all learning a lot.”
Some of the men chuckled at her sarcasm.
“Any post-picnic plans?” Bill asked, ignoring her comment. “Anything I might help you with?”
The guys began to snicker.
“My plans, let’s see, a hot bath and a good book. Since you seldom bathe, and I’m not sure you can read, I think I’ll muddle through on my own.”
Bill raised his voice to be heard above the laughter. “If you need help with th
e bath, I might be willing to scrub your back…or something.”
The men roared with laughter.
“In your dreams, Bill, only in your dreams.” Katherine turned and walked away, still searching for the tea. She didn’t hear Bill’s rejoinder, but she heard the roar of laughter that followed.
“A real jackass,” she said to herself.
***
The next day after church, Katherine and her family went to her aunt’s house for dinner.
“Aunt Emma, what can I do to help?”
Emma had herded everyone to the porch, saying that there was nothing they could do to assist with Sunday dinner. Katherine never accepted blanket refusals of that type, so she followed her aunt into the kitchen.
“There really is nothing to do at the moment—the roast is ready, the rolls are baking. You can have some tea and talk to me.”
“You’ve never had a cook, have you?” Katherine poured two glasses of the sweet tea.
“A cook? What a waste of money!”
“Mom has had one for as long as I can remember.”
“I know, and I’ve never understood what she does while Clara is in the kitchen. I think that your mother just doesn’t like to cook, and she found that she had the money to hire it done. In my case, I enjoy it too much to let someone else do it. Why would I pay someone to have all of the fun?”
Katherine sipped the tea. “Thank you for giving Steven my address.”
“So, Dr. Richardson called. He seemed to be so excited when we talked.”
“He sent me flowers and took me to dinner on my birthday.”
“How nice.”
“See the necklace he gave me?”
“Oh, that’s beautiful.” Aunt Emma put on her glasses and tipped her head back to study the design of the necklace. “Just beautiful. I remembered how excited you were when you told me about your trip. He seemed to be one of the highlights.”
Katherine felt her face become warm and she turned away.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Katherine.” Emma laughed. “You were so excited at the idea that he would locate you when you had both finished school. I’m happy I was able to help him do it.”
The oven timer rang.
“Dinner must be ready. Now, I can use your help.”
The Handfasting Page 7
