“Don’t count on it,” I said bitterly. “It just hurts that Kidd can’t see how she’s manipulating him.”
“You haven’t said that to him, have you?”
I shook my head. “I’m not that stupid.”
“Good. He may be subconsciously putting the father role above the lover, but you don’t want him making it a conscious choice.”
“I said I wasn’t that stupid,” I huffed. “I do know that if it’s a choice between Amber and me, I’ll lose. I just wish he could understand that he doesn’t have to choose. I’m willing to take my turn, but she wants her turn and mine, too, and he has to start thinking more about my needs once in a while.”
“Oh, sugar,” Portland said, squeezing my hand. “Just keep thinking license, license, license.”
I gave her a rueful smile and promised I would. Portland likes Kidd fine, but what she really likes is the idea that he might be for me what Avery is for her, somebody to love and laugh with and keep warm with on cold winter nights.
Despite the still evening air, the smell of popcorn and chopped onions floated up to us as the sun went down. People were coming and going with hot dogs so we succumbed to the temptation of one “all the way.” Here in Colleton County, that’s still a dog on a bun with chili, mustard, coleslaw and onions. Enough Yankees have moved in that some of us’ve heard about sauerkraut on hot dogs, but Tater Ennis, who runs the concession stand, doesn’t really believe it’s true and he certainly doesn’t sell it.
As we waited in line, I was surprised to suddenly spot Cyl DeGraffenried, an assistant DA in Doug Woodall’s office, among the spectators. Cyl is most things black and beautiful, but I’ve never heard of any interest in sports. In fact, in the three years she’d been on Doug’s staff, this was the first time I’d seen her at a purely social community gathering with no political overtones. She’s the cat who walks alone and her name is linked to no one’s.
While I watched, Stan Freeman stopped in front of her, and from their body language I could tell that they were having the same conversation he and I’d had earlier. He pointed to his father out on the field and I saw her nod. After the boy moved on, I tried to see who she was there for—volunteer fireman or school member—but she didn’t cheer or clap so it was impossible to know even which team, much less which man.
“Is Cyl seeing someone?” I asked Portland.
She shrugged, as ignorant as me.
(“As I,” came the subliminal voice of my most pedantic high school English teacher. “As is not a preposition here, Deborah, and it never takes an objective pronoun.”)
More friends and relatives, teenage couples looking for a cheap way to spend the evening, town kids and idlers began to trickle into the bleachers through an opening in the shrubbery that surrounded the parking lot. School had opened last Monday and this was day one of the Labor Day weekend, the last weekend of long lazy summer nights. Our weather would probably stay hot on into early October, but psychologically, summer always feels over once school starts and Labor Day is past.
A few families had spread blankets on the grass out beyond the centerfield fence where they could picnic and let their children run around while watching the game, and several hardy souls were even jogging along the oval track that circles next to the trees bounding the school’s perimeter. As I munched on my hot dog, it made me hot just to watch them.
Coming down the homestretch was a man dressed in one of those Civil Suit T-shirts, but at that distance, I couldn’t make out his face under his black ball cap.
“Millard King,” said Portland when I asked.
“That’s Millard King? Last time I saw him, he was carrying at least fifty more pounds.”
This man was trim and fit.
Portland nodded. “Love’ll do that.”
“Who’s the lucky woman?”
She shrugged. “Some Hillsborough debutante’s what I heard. Old money. Very proper. I think her father’s on the court of appeals. Or was it the state Supreme Court?”
The parking lot was gravel over clay but with all the rain we’d had in the last couple of weeks, we didn’t have to put up with the clouds of dust that usually drifted up over the tall shrubbery as cars pulled in and out with some people leaving and more arriving.
The game in progress wound down to the last two outs, and Avery and Dwight, the two team captains, started counting heads and writing down the batting order.
“Where the hell’s Reid?” Avery asked Portland. “He swore he’d be here by five-thirty.”
“Reid?” I asked. “Reid Stephenson’s playing softball?”
Reid is a cousin and my former law partner when the firm was Lee, Stephenson and Knott, before I took the bench. He’s the third generation of Stephensons in the firm and I was fourth generation because his grandfather was also my great-grandfather. (The Lee is John Claude Lee, also my cousin, but no kin to Reid.) Generationally, Reid’s on the same level as my mother and Aunt Zell. In reality, he’s a couple of years younger than I am, although John Claude, who’s been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, has made it clear more times than one that he considers us both on the same emotional level.
That’s not particularly accurate.
Or fair.
I think of myself as serially monogamous and I don’t mess around with married men, but ever since Reid’s marriage broke up, he seems to be on a sybaritic mission to bed half the women in Colleton County, married or single.
“Reid’s always been a sexual athlete,” I said. “That’s why Dotty left him. But when did he take up outdoor sports?”
Portland laughed. “Back in July. Right after he pigged out at your pig-picking. One of the young statisticians in Ellis Glover’s office said something about his cute little tummy and Reid signed up for our team the next day.”
“Unfortunately, he still has his own idea of warmup practice,” Avery said dryly. “And he never gets here on time.”
* * *
Ralph Freeman’s team held on to their comfortable lead in the bottom of the seventh and our game could finally get underway.
First though, each team had to line up at home plate and let the Ledger photographer take a group picture. The picture itself only took a minute, but we had to stand in place another five minutes while the photographer laboriously wrote down every name, double-checking the spelling as he went. He must’ve been reamed good by Linsey Thomas, the editor and publisher, who believes that the Ledger thrives because Colleton County readers like to see their names in print. And spelled correctly.
Dwight won the coin toss, elected to be the home team, and we took the field a little before six-thirty.
Colleton County is mostly sandy soil, but the ball diamond has a thick layer of red clay that was dumped here when the Department of Transportation widened the four-lane bypass less than a quarter-mile away as the crow flies.
With so much humidity, my feet soon felt as if I had about five pounds of clay clogged to the bottom of each sneaker, but that didn’t stop me from making a neat double play when Jason Bullock hit a grounder through the box in the first inning.
Reid had arrived, cool and debonair, just in time to have his picture taken, but I didn’t get to speak to him till the bottom of the second when I hit a double, then moved to third—Reid’s position—on a pitching error.
He just smiled when I needled him about getting there late.
“Is she in the stands?” I asked. “Or doesn’t she care for ball games?”
“Not softball games,” he said with a perfectly straight face as one of the dispatchers popped up, leaving me stranded.
Top of the seventh, tied three all, and Millard King doubled to score Portland before we could get them out. Heat lightning flashed across the sky and there were distant rumbles of thunder. As shadows lengthened across the field, the floodlights came on. We were down to our last out when Avery walked me. Then Dwight stepped up to the plate and smacked the first pitch clear over the right field fence for th
e only home run of the game. I was waiting for him at home plate and gave him an exuberant hug.
A gang of us went out afterwards for beer and pizza—Portland and Avery’s treat. Jason Bullock and one of their paralegals joined the two Deeds clerks who’d scored in the fifth inning, the dispatcher, Dwight and me. Everybody else, including my randy cousin Reid, pled previous commitments. Our waiter pushed two tables together and we sat down just as the rain started.
“They say Edouard’ll probably miss the coast,” Avery said as fat drops splattered against the window behind him. “Fran’s still out there though.”
Lavon, the small trim dispatcher, said, “And Gustave’s tooling along right in behind her.”
“I’m real mad at Edouard,” said the paralegal (Jean? Debbie?), giving him a pretty little frown. “I bought me a brand new bikini to wear to the beach this weekend but I was afraid to go with a hurricane maybe coming in. And then it blew right on past us so I stayed home for nothing.”
I instantly hated her. It’s taken constant vigilance to keep my weight the same as it’s been since I was twenty, but even on my skinniest days, there’s no way I’d ever have the nerve to wear a bikini in public.
Beneath her mop of tight black curls, Portland was looking indecisive, but not about bikinis. She and Avery have a condo at Wrightsville Beach and a small boat with an outboard motor for waterskiing and puttering around the shoals. “Bertha didn’t hurt us, but if we’re going to keep getting bad storms—?”
Avery nodded. “Maybe we’d better run down tomorrow, close the shutters and bring the boat back up here.”
Our pizzas arrived amid trash talk and laughter as we rehashed the game. Jason jazzed me that he’d given me such an easy double play that I owed him a good decision on his next DWI defense. We didn’t get into courthouse gossip till there was nothing left of our pizzas except a logpile of crusts. As I suspected, the paralegal had her eye on Lavon and cut him out of the pack as soon as we’d finished eating.
That broke up the party.
Rain was falling heavier as Dwight and I drove back toward Cotton Grove, with the taillights of Jason Bullock’s car ahead of us all the way till we turned off onto Old 48 and he kept going on into town.
By the time we drove into my yard, the rain was coming down so hard that we sat in the truck a few minutes to see if it’d slack off.
“You were right,” I told Dwight as rain thundered on the truck roof. “Tonight was fun. I’m glad you asked me to fill in, but I have a feeling I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”
“You probably ought to soak in a hot bath and take a couple of aspirin before you go to bed.”
“Come in for a nightcap?”
“Naw, I’d better get on. Mother’ll be expecting me.”
He reached out and gave my ponytail a teasing tug. “Out there on the field tonight, with your hair tied up in that red ribbon, you looked about fourteen again.”
I grabbed my glove, leaned over to give him a goodnight kiss on the cheek, and opened the door.
“Deb’rah—?”
I looked at him inquiringly.
He hesitated, then turned the key in the ignition. “Let me see if I’n get a little closer to the door so you don’t get wet.”
“Don’t bother.” I opened the truck door wide and stepped out into the downpour. “Feels good.”
I held my face up to the sky and let the warm rain pelt my face. I was instantly soaked to the skin with my clothes plastered to my body, but since I was going straight in the bathtub anyhow, what difference did it make?
“You’re crazy, you know that?” said Dwight. “And you’re getting my seat wet.”
I laughed and slammed the door. He waited with the lights on till I dug the keys out of my pocket and let myself in the house, then gave a goodnight toot of his horn and drove off through the rain.
I’d forgotten to leave my answering machine on, so there was no way to know if Kidd had tried to call.
CHAPTER | 3
Husbands lost their wives and wives their husbands, and the elements were only merciful when they destroyed an entire family at once.
September 1—Edouard missed us completely. Down from a category 4 hurricane to a category 3, and heading out to sea. (Note: Make a chart that shows all 5 categories on the Saffir-Simpson scale.) Winds still up to 100 knots but dropping.
Tropical Storm Fran reclassified yesterday as a hurricane. 22°N by 63°W, winds at 70 knots and gathering strength. Tracking west-northwest at about 7 mph. Tropical depression #7 has moved off the African coast out into the Atlantic and is now called Tropical Storm Gustav.
Stan paused and compared his maps to those in the newspaper. His were slightly more up-to-date because the newspaper went to press with Fran’s position as of eleven p.m. last night, while he had the radio’s report from only a few minutes ago.
The radio was old and the original aerial had long since been replaced by a straightened wire hanger, but it had shortwave capabilities and when atmospheric conditions were right, it really did pick up stations far beyond the range of his regular AM/FM radio and tape player. In bed at night, he kept it tuned too low for his mother to hear and he often fell asleep with voices whispering foreign languages past the static, into his ear. Spanish and French, and occasional bursts of Slavic or German, twined through his sleeping brain and dreamed him into worlds beyond Cotton Grove.
The radio had come into its own with this science project. Its weather band made keeping up with all these hurricane movements almost as easy as watching the weather channel on his friend Willie’s television.
Too bad Mama was so against television, Stan thought wistfully. (And good thing she didn’t know that this radio could pick up the audio of some local TV stations.) Still, it was sort of fun to pinpoint the storm’s positions just by listening and to try and guess where they’d be at the next reading. Right now, if Fran kept going straight, it’d hit between Cape Canaveral and Jacksonville, yet forecasters were beginning to predict that it’d turn north before that and could make landfall between Charleston and Wilmington by the end of the week if it didn’t get pushed out to sea sooner.
He read over the sheets he had photocopied from a reference book at the county library over in Dobbs before the ball game yesterday, then began to write again, conscientiously casting the information he had gleaned into his own words. Intellectual honesty was one of the few things Dad preached about at home and Stan frowned in concentration as he wrote, skirting that fine line between plagiarism and honest summation.
NOTES: Here’s how tropical storms strengthen into hurricanes: Warm air rises, cold air sinks. Warm humid air rises from the tropical waters of the Caribbean. As it rises, the water vapor condenses and forms clouds. That releases heat, which warms the upper air around it and that makes the upper air rise even higher. More air [cooler] flows down to the water surface to replace the rising air [warmer] and that starts a spiral of wind around a center of rotation. These storm winds speed up as they near the eye and form spiraling bands. Each band is like a separate thunderstorm and the heaviest are the ones that surround the eye.
He had already begun to consider the problem of constructing a 3-D model of a hurricane. Bands of cotton arranged in spirals on top of a map of the ocean? Build up the Caribbean Islands with a salt and flour dough that he could paint green?
He scissored the weather map from the paper and dated it for his growing file of clippings, then neatly refolded that section and carried it back to the living room.
The house was wreathed in Sunday silence as he stepped into the hall. Dad would be thinking out tonight’s sermon, Mama would be talking in low tones with her prayer partner at the dinner table or on the back porch, her Bible open between them. No sound from Lashanda’s room. She’d probably fallen asleep on the floor in the middle of her dolls.
The carpet let Stan move so noiselessly that his father did not stir when he entered the room and laid the paper on the coffee table with the rest of the Sunda
y pile.
The big man’s breaths continued deep and regular, never quite breaking into a snore, but heavier than if he were awake. The soft leather Bible lay open on the arm of his lounge chair. Several index cards had fluttered to the floor. Ralph Freeman seldom wrote out his sermons, but he did make notes of the points he wished to cover. Stan tiptoed closer to the lounge chair, torn between wanting to look on his father’s face without being seen, yet feeling vaguely guilty at doing so.
Was this what the Bible meant when it condemned Noah’s son for looking upon Noah’s nakedness? Because even though Dad was certainly dressed in suit pants, white shirt and tie, there was something naked about his face with the lines smoothed out, his eyes closed, his mouth relaxed.
For one confused moment, Stan wished he were a little kid again so he could crawl onto that lap, lay his head against that crisp white shirt and hear his father’s heart beating strong and sure.
Seeing him like this with all the tension gone out of his body made Stan realize how much things had changed since they moved to Colleton County this spring.
Especially in the last month.
And it wasn’t just because Balm of Gilead had been burned to the ground six weeks after they arrived. The person who set the fire had nothing against them personally or the church either and was now locked up in a Georgia penitentiary. Dad knew before they came that he was called to help Balm of Gilead’s congregation raise a bigger, finer church and he’d been excited about it. Made them excited, too.
Not Mama though.
She hated to leave Warrenton but she hadn’t tried to talk Dad out of it when he brought it to family council. “I’m called to be your wife,” she’d said. “If you’re called to go down there, then it’s my duty to go with you.”
“I would hope it’s more than duty,” Dad had teased, but Mama hadn’t smiled back.
“If we’re moving, then I’d better get some boxes tomorrow,” she’d said. “Start packing.”
“If you don’t want to do this, Clara, tell me.”
“No, it’s fine,” she’d said.
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