Persuasion, Captain Wentworth and Cracklin' Cornbread

by Mary Jane Hathaway

  “So, you guys broke up when you left for Harvard?”

  The memory was still painfully clear in Lucy’s mind. “A few weeks before that, right after a garden party at my house. I wanted to introduce him to my parents, but Daddy refused to shake his hand. My aunt persuaded me to break it off, to set things straight about our lack of a future, or he would be expecting us to get married. And that would never happen.”

  Rebecca cocked her head. “Your aunt Olympia?”

  “Right.” Lucy sat down again and moved a paper to the left, then back to its original spot. She spoke slowly, voicing thoughts she’d been mulling. “I think, I mean, I’m not sure, but maybe we would have been happy together. I know it looked like we had nothing in common, but we were so similar in the ways that really mattered.”

  “What was wrong with him? She must have had a reason other than money.”

  Lucy spread her hands on the desk. Rebecca might not understand, coming from DC, but race was important here, more important than almost anywhere else in the country. “I know your family doesn’t object to Tom, but my family is very traditional. A Crawford girl couldn’t just marry a redheaded programmer from Miami and get away with it.”

  “Are you saying he’s white?” Rebecca’s eyes were wide. “Now, I can see how that would be a problem. Your daddy didn’t strike me as being particularly open-minded.”

  “Even worse, Jem was really poor in high school. His mom was a high school dropout and he never knew his dad. He lived in a terrible little trailer park off Lincoln Street. Umm, and he’s Catholic.”

  Rebecca started to laugh.

  After a few seconds, Lucy couldn’t help smiling, then chuckling. Finally, she wiped tears from under her eyes. “I suppose it is a little funny when I say it all at once. We were like Romeo and Juliet.”

  “No”—Rebecca let out a final laugh—“you’re just like Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth.” At Lucy’s confused expression, Rebecca went on, “You’ve really got to read some Austen. In Persuasion, the heroine breaks off an engagement with a poor sailor because he has no wealth or rank. Eight years later he returns, a ship captain, and all the girls want to marry him. Meanwhile, Anne is an old maid and her family is in debt and—”

  “We weren’t engaged.” Lucy shook her head. “And I object to that part about the old maid.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. But it’s really odd how your story sounds just like Persuasion.”

  “Maybe some parts of it. I haven’t read it, but I can tell you that our ending won’t be a happy one, and I’m assuming Austen’s is. We’re just trying to keep out of each other’s way.”

  “You never know. I’ll pray that you two can—”

  “No, don’t do that.” Lucy said, cutting into Rebecca’s sentence. She paused. “I’m sorry. Of course you can pray. But I don’t want to hope for what can never happen. The best we can pray for is that he can forgive me.”

  Rebecca’s brown eyes were soft, her smile gone. “Then I’ll pray for you both to forgive what happened in the past and feel free to be friends.” She stood up, shouldering her tote bag. “I’ll let you get back to work, but call me this weekend. I’ll drive down and we can have lunch.”

  Lucy shot her a look. “Does this involve an Austen movie?”

  “No, no ulterior motives. I just feel like it’s been too long since we’ve really caught up with each other.”

  “All right, but no meddling. We’re not literary characters and we’re not going to be reenacting a romantic scene for you.”

  “Got it. No meddling.” Rebecca leaned over the desk and gave her one last hug. “Don’t work too hard, and I’ll see you this weekend. You can help me pick out the bouquets.”

  Lucy felt her heart lift at the idea. “Deal.”

  Seconds later, Rebecca was gone, the door closing softly behind her. Lucy let out a breath. She loved weddings. It was incredible to witness the union of two people, pledging to honor and respect each other, before their family and friends. But there was a tiny pinch of jealousy somewhere near her heart. She didn’t want to envy Rebecca. The woman deserved all the happiness in the world. She was kind, loving, faithful and strong. She’d found true love with Tom and it was going to be a beautiful ceremony, although it might be a little odd to have everyone dressed in Regency clothes.

  Lucy felt the jealousy bloom, becoming an overwhelming tide for just a moment, before she pushed it deep down inside. Dropping her head into her hands, she felt the muscles in her back as tight as bowstrings. She’d made her bed, and now she had to sleep in it. Her chance at happiness was long gone.

  Hot tears leaked out from under her lids and she brushed them away. Jem’s coming back into town at the same time she was going to help plan a big wedding was a bit of bad timing. Horrible, ironically bad timing. But there wasn’t anything to do about it but be happy for Rebecca and keep going. Just as she had been for the last ten years. Lucy was going to have to live with the choice she’d made. It couldn’t get any worse than it already had.

  She said the words over and over, but in her gut she knew that it was a lie.

  There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison.

  —ANNE ELLIOT

  Chapter Four

  Jem measured the baby’s head and turned to scribble down the numbers, but by the time he put his pen to the paper, he’d forgotten them. Frustrated, he slipped the paper circle over the wiggling infant one more time. He had been like this all week. Disorganized, forgetful, spacey. Moving the Free Clinic to Crawford House wasn’t too complicated, but he felt drained and grumpy by the end of every shift. Today was the clinic’s last day in the tiny house on Yancey Avenue, and most of the staff were thrilled to be moving to the historic home. If only he could say the same.

  “Kaniesha, your baby is looking much better.” Jem glanced over the notes from their last visit. “When you brought her in last time, she hadn’t gained any weight in three months.”

  “That new formula you told me to use doesn’t make her spit up so much. My Tina takes after me. I got a real sensitive stomach.” The young mom shook a pair of plastic keys in front of the baby’s face.

  “She probably had a form of milk allergy.” Jem glanced across at Kaniesha’s rounded tummy. “How far along are you now?”

  “Huh?” She looked confused, her tired face wrinkling into a frown. “Oh, the new baby. I’m due in September.”

  “Have you thought about breast-feeding? Breast-fed babies don’t struggle with milk allergies and they’re all-around healthier.” He held out a finger to Tina, smiling as she ignored the toys and grabbed for his hand.

  “How do I do that when I’m workin’? My grammy lives with us and she watches her during my shift.” Kaniesha heaved a sigh. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Dr. Chevy.”

  “Any amount of time breast-feeding can have a positive lifelong impact. Maybe you could breast-feed the first three months while you’re on maternity leave.”

  Kaniesha laughed, a short bark of sound that echoed in the small examining room. “What are you talkin’ about? Maternity leave?”

  “By federal law you’re allowed twelve weeks of maternity leave. Your employer is required to keep your position open until you return.” He reached for a small pamphlet on the Family and Medical Leave Act.

  “And I get paid for that?”

  Jem’s hand stilled on the stack of papers. “Well, no. It’s an unpaid leave.”

  “Nobody got time to sit around in the house while the bills are comin’ in. I went back to work two weeks after she was born.” Glancing down, Kaniesha slid her hand over the soft skin of Tina’s little leg. “She was so tiny.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Working moms can also pump milk for their babies. You’ll have to have a designated area in the freezer and teach your grammy how to gently warm
it in hot water because it shouldn’t be defrosted in the microwave, but it can be a huge benefit to your baby’s health.” He pulled open a file cabinet to the side of his desk and flipped through the tabs until he found what he needed.

  Kaniesha took the paper and read through it silently. “How do I get the machine?”

  Jem blinked. He hadn’t thought about that. He knew a hospital-­grade pump could run hundreds of dollars, but cheaper hand models were available. “Let me look into it.”

  She sighed. “I would love to stay home with them for a few months. My husband tries real hard, but he ain’t makin’ much more than I am. We’re hardly keeping up with our two jobs. I wish they would give me a full-time position, but they keep ’em for folks who graduated.”

  “Have you ever thought of going back to get your GED? There are night classes here in town. I think they’re on Tuesdays and Thursday at—” He looked up and left off the rest of his sentence. Kaniesha was staring at the floor, her expression filled with frustration.

  He realized how he sounded, how everything he’d said was a request to improve, to change. He knew exactly how she felt. Growing up in this town, he’d heard a lot of advice, too. His high school counselor gave him job applications to the local hardware store. His friends jeered when he studied instead of going out. His aunt had yelled at him when his mama worked two shifts to help pay for his college tuition. A lot of people had thought they’d known better than he did, and no one cared that it was his life. Except Lucy and his mama. He pushed the thought of Lucy out of his mind. In the end, she had been like everyone else. But his mama had focused on what he was doing right, made him believe in himself. A different memory flooded through him: his mama at their tiny table, wiping tears away with a kitchen rag, refusing to tell him what was wrong. Had she sat in an office, just like this one, listening to an educated professional give her suggestions to better her life?

  “But all of that can come later, if you want,” Jem said. “You’re doing a great job with Tina. She’s healthy and happy. You’ve made a loving home for her and the new baby.”

  Kaniesha’s lips tilted up. “Yeah, I have. We got lots of love in our house. Not a lot of money, but lots of love.”

  “I was raised in a house just like that.” Jem swallowed hard. He thought he’d know how to talk to the poorest patients at the clinic, but he’d fallen into the same old narrative that he’d heard his whole life. Not good enough, never good enough. And once a person believed that, life only went downhill.

  “And look how you turned out. A doctor.” Kaniesha smiled at her baby. “Maybe she’ll be a doctor someday, too.”

  “Dr. Tina. It has a nice ring to it.” Jem grinned. “A sight nicer than Dr. Chevy.”

  Kaniesha snorted. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be pokin’ fun at your name.”

  “It’s fine. I’m used to it.” He checked the sheet again. “Let’s have you come back here in a month, just to make sure Tina’s back on track with her growth. We’re moving the clinic to Crawford House. Do you know where that is?”

  She shifted, her eyes narrowing. “That big ol’ place with the pillars? Did they move out?”

  “No, the family is still living there, but we’re renting the back portion of the house. There’s a bus stop right on the corner of Dogwood.” He could see she wasn’t happy with the change. “Is it much farther for you?”

  “Naw. It’s just . . . I don’t like them folks. They think they’re so much better than everybody else.”

  Jem looked down at his hands. He couldn’t argue. Once upon a time, Olympia had made it clear that he and his family were less than nothing. There was a brief moment he would have said one person in that family didn’t care about his poverty, but he’d been wrong. “It’s a better space for us. More rooms, a bigger reception area.”

  Kaniesha shrugged. “As long as I don’t have to talk to them, maybe it’d be okay.”

  The Crawfords probably felt the same way. “I’ll see you on the twelfth, then. Stop on the way out and let Leticia get you into the schedule.”

  She hoisted Tina onto one hip. “Okay, see ya, Dr. Chevy.” She left the door open behind her.

  Jem swiveled on his stool and jotted down his final notes. He felt scattered, distracted. The sun filtering in through the small ­examining-room window reminded him he hadn’t exercised in days. Assisting in the moving to Crawford House didn’t really count. He needed to plug in some music, go for a run and just clear his mind. The idea was a bright spark in the fog. Then it was extinguished in the next moment. It would have to wait until tomorrow because tonight was a party at the Strouds’ place. He would just decline except that it was a fund-raiser, and heaven knew that the Free Clinic could use the donations.

  And he could use more exercise. More sunlight. Less worry and stress. He blew out a long breath. If only it were all that simple. His life was becoming impossibly complicated, and a long run on a sunny day wasn’t going to fix it.

  “I’m so glad you’re here. I just had the worst experience.” Janessa breezed into Lucy’s office, her perfectly made-up face a picture of suffering. Tears shone at the corners of her eyes and her bright-red lips quivered. She plopped herself into Lucy’s desk chair and pulled out a tiny pillbox. “They let anybody have a driver’s license nowadays.”

  “Hi, Janessa.” Lucy wasn’t sure her sister even heard her, but she might as well be polite. It was definitely the day for unexpected visitors. “Our cousin Rebecca was just here. She’s engaged.”

  “My doctor said these would help calm my nerves, but I don’t think they’re working.” She didn’t respond to Lucy’s news. “He said one a day, but this is my fourth and I can’t cope any better than before. Everything is a mess.” She took out a pill and put it under her tongue, the rest of her complaint sounding muffled and awkward. “You know, if people would just realize that I need some space, and a little bit of consideration, I would be fine. But everyone is rushing around, honking at me to move over when I’m going the speed limit.”

  Lucy nodded. Janessa didn’t really want her to respond. She usually kept going until she got tired, and nothing Lucy said would change her trajectory.

  “I asked Isaiah if he would bring me down here but he was too busy. I mean, he’s at the office every single day. He can’t take one afternoon off? I’m with the kids all day and he gets to go to work and be by himself. I’m not asking for much, really, just a few hours.” Janessa leaned back, closing her eyes, stretching her ­designer-jean-clad legs out in front of her, the picture of absolute exhaustion.

  Lucy sighed. Her nieces were in third and fifth grade and therefore at school all day. Janessa had a housekeeper and no job, spending most of her time shopping or on the couch with a headache. Maybe that was the problem, actually. If Janessa had something to do other than wander through the mall in search of a deal, she might not imagine herself on the verge of a mental breakdown so often. Lucy liked her brother-in-law, but Isaiah had long ago given up trying to coax Janessa out of her hypochondria.

  “I’m glad you made it. That road can be tricky with only the two lanes.”

  “Exactly.” Janessa sat up straight, eyes wide. “They need to put in a barrier or something. My life was flashing before my very eyes. I’ll be down with a migraine from all the stress.”

  She paused, wondering if Janessa would ever get to the reason she’d made the fifteen-minute trek out to Tupelo. Her sister didn’t take hints or preferred to ignore them, so it was better to wait.

  “Anyway, I’m here and that’s all that matters.” Janessa seemed to notice Lucy’s red-rimmed eyes for the first time. “What? What are you crying about now?”

  “I wasn’t crying.” Janessa acted as if she’d found Lucy crying at her desk before. Or anywhere, for that matter. Janessa glanced around, spying the little book in the archive box. “More sad poetry? You need to stop that. You like to wallow in all those d
eath poems.”

  “ ‘Death poems’?” Lucy knew her sister was probably referring to anything that wasn’t a Hallmark card.

  “You know, like that one you had on your wall in your room? About the dead kid?”

  Searching her memory, Lucy finally grasped a dim flash of a poem cut from a magazine. “ ‘Night Funeral in Harlem.’ Langston Hughes. I guess it is sort of a death poem, but that’s not what he meant, really. It was more about the friends who—”

  “Okay, got it.” Janessa rolled her eyes. “You should watch some TV once in a while. You get all depressed when you read that stuff. I was watching this new reality show the other night. It was so funny, all about the reasons people end up in the emergency room. They’d interview them while they were being stitched up, and guess what?” She leaned forward, arm wrapped around her stomach, already laughing.

  “What?”

  “It was usually something that happened in the bedroom. Know what I mean?” Janessa let out a cackle of laughter.

  Sometimes Lucy wondered if they were actually related. It was beyond her how Janessa could dismiss Civil War diaries and Langston Hughes’s poetry while smirking over ill-fated bedroom trysts. Lucy’s head started to throb gently. “I was fixin’ to go out and sit in the sun for a bit. Sometimes too much time in the office makes me feel down.”

  “In the sun? Girl, you are crazy. You’re already darker than a coconut.” Janessa smoothed her brow as if she could be sure her own skin hadn’t darkened with the mere mention of sunlight. “I’ve been using this fade cream I bought off BNT. They had a great deal. I think I’m a few shades lighter already, and I’m not going outside to sit in the noonday sun.”

  Lucy searched for words. If the product worked, what sort of hideous chemicals did it take to fade a person’s natural melatonin? Aunt Olympia had said her mama wouldn’t have let her marry a white boy, but Janessa was bleaching her skin. Lucy thought of her daddy and tried to remember if he’d ever worried over his shade of brown. Or if he’d ever mentioned which of his daughters was lightest. And then she thought of another Langston Hughes poem that had something about being the darker brother, the one they send to the kitchen when company comes.