by Jodi Thomas
“Over by the coffee.”
Carla made a show of taking off her gloves and hat. “This place isn’t much, but it will do. I knew that old man would leave it to me. He was tickled to death to meet me. Couldn’t stop asking me all kinds of questions.”
I turned back to Carla, wishing a house would fall on her. If it did, I’d gladly take her ruby shoes. “He didn’t leave it to you. Jefferson Platt left it to me.”
She shrugged. “Oh, that was just a mistake. He meant to leave it to me. I’ll get it cleared up with the lawyer.”
If she hadn’t said my greatest fear, I might have ordered her off the property, but deep down I’d known owning this place was too good to be true. I’d known it was a mistake from the first.
“Don’t worry,” she said as she walked around taking inventory, ‘I’ll let you and Nana visit whenever you like. At least until I sell this place. The store isn’t much, but the property should be worth something.”
Nana picked up the empty cups left scattered on the tables and said simply, “I’m not leaving.” She disappeared into the kitchen before Carla could answer.
“Oh yes you are.” Carla stormed toward the door. “I’ve no plans to take in freeloaders.”
She made it three steps before Luke’s arm shot out and stopped her.
Carla fought him for a moment, then stilled. “Let go of me.” Anger melted away any progress makeup had made against age. “Or I’ll call the police and have you arrested for assault.”
“We don’t have a phone,” I answered with far more composure than I felt. “The only one around here is up at Mrs. Deals’s place and it went out during the storm last night.”
Carla didn’t seem to hear me. She was trying to stare down Luke.
“Look, I don’t know who you think you are, but this is my place and I’ll not be manhandled by you or anyone else.”
“I think you’d better leave,” he said in a voice that was so calm it made even me nervous.
Carla’s eyes darted to me for help. She found no ally. Though Luke held her arm, most of her anger had shifted to me. “You’re making a big mistake. You can’t just come in and squat on my property. I’ll have you and the old lady arrested and carried off if I have to.”
When she finally took a deep breath, Luke let go of her arm, but didn’t move out of her way. He studied her with interest, but not anger.
“This is my place.” I finally managed to put words together. “My name was on the will.”
Carla straightened her clothes. “I know, but it was just a misunderstanding. You see, I visited Jefferson Platt here years ago. I told him about you and Nana and he must have gotten our names mixed up.”
“I knew him all my life and I never heard him mention you,” Luke said. “He talked about Allie all the time. There was no mistake. Everyone on the lake knew he’d be leaving Jefferson’s Crossing to her one day.”
“You’re wrong. It’s mine.”
“It’s Allie’s place,” he said again as if he were talking to a child. “Nana and her belong here.”
“Like hell.” Carla flashed that wounded, little girl look that didn’t quite work on a woman in her forties. “It’s mine, and if I have to I’ll go to the lawyer and the sheriff to prove it.”
“Go ahead.” Luke didn’t even seem bothered by her threat.
Carla glanced at me. “Nana will give it to me if I ask. You know she will. If I tell her I really need it, she’ll just hand it over.”
“I’ve already told you, Nana doesn’t own this place. Allie does.”
Carla steamed. I could almost see the curl falling out of her dyed hair. “We’ll see about that.”
Before I could say a word, she stormed out, climbed into her emerald green car, and scattered rocks as she drove away.
“She’ll be back.” I leaned against the door frame. “Even if she doesn’t want the place, she’ll try to take it away from me.”
Luke rested his arm just above my head and moved close. “Why would she want to hurt you, kid?”
“Because she blames me for ruining her life. She has since the day I was born. She left me with Nana when I was three and never came back for me.” I looked up at him, not knowing whether to be happy or sad. “Until today I think a part of me always thought she would remember that I was around and magically turn into a loving mother.”
“And now?”
We heard Nana singing a hymn in the kitchen. “Now I’m glad she never came back for me.”
He leaned closer and kissed me on the nose. “You know, Allie, I think you’re a wonder in this world. After knowing Nana and you, I think I’d make that woman driving away take a blood test to prove she’s part of the same family.”
I laughed. “I’ll ask her that next time. From what I can tell, Nana’s given her everything she could and it was never enough.” I closed my eyes. “And now she wants this place.”
“She won’t get it.”
Willie waved as he putted by in his little boat. Luke straightened away from me and I wished we’d had another moment alone. One more minute and he might have had me believing his words.
Chapter 31
Dillon showed up after school. He said his folks wouldn’t expect him home until after football practice and since he was benched he didn’t see any problem with skipping.
The bruises from the night before had darkened to almost black, but his eyes were clear of the drugs. He was a boy on the edge of becoming a man. I wasn’t sure if keeping last night a secret would help him or hurt him.
We circled our chairs on the porch where the afternoon light blinked bright through trees almost bare of leaves.
Luke asked me to try and draw as Dillon described the man who sold him drugs along the bridge road. I never knew how hard it would be to draw another person’s memory. Police artists always seemed to have an easy job in movies. Dillon said the man was average height, thin, and over thirty.
“How much over,” Luke prodded.
Dillon shook his head. “I don’t know. People over thirty pretty much look the same to me until they hit the old level and start to mold into shades of gray.”
“How thin?”
“Thin. He didn’t seem much more than a hanger for the clothes he wore. I’d bet anything the guy never worked out.”
“Do you remember the color of his clothes?”
“No. It was dark and I wanted to make the buy and get out of there as fast as possible. I drove over the bridge, then about another hundred yards and flashed my lights twice. A guy at school said most nights he’s not there, but if he is, he’d flash back from the trees.”
Dillon shivered. “I almost jumped out of my skin when I saw a small light blink back at me, but I put the car in park and waited. He came up to the window and we didn’t waste any time talking.”
The boy looked up and saw Luke still waiting. “His clothes were dark, I guess. I probably would have noticed if he’d had on white. I do remember his hand looked dirty, black kinda, but not oily.”
I got nothing.
Luke had him start with one feature at a time. Round eyes, thin nose, wide mouth. Jeans, maybe. Dark baseball cap with the brim out of shape. Boots, not tennis shoes, maybe. Dillon kept repeating that he really didn’t look.
My drawing looked like an alien with a hat. The only good it did was when Nana walked by, she laughed.
Luke stood and stormed away, probably trying not to show his frustration, but failing.
I offered Dillon a cookie and waited while he ate. “You’re doing great,” I said. “Most people don’t really look at other people. Sometimes I think it’s more a feeling we get about folks than the facts about how they look. When I draw, it’s usually a feeling I’m chasing, not a likeness.”
Dillon nodded. “This guy seemed more nervous than me. He was downright jerky.”
Luke, who’d moved over to pour himself a cup of coffee, looked up. “Skiddery, like those bugs that skim along the top of the water in summer?”
“Yeah,” Dillon agreed. “You know anyone like that?”
Luke frowned. “No, but I’ve seen him. Could his hands have been burned and scabbed over instead of dirty?”
Dillon shrugged. “I didn’t look that careful. I just remember them being black, like they were caked in mud.”
We talked on, but learned nothing more about the stranger. Dillon finally stood and said he’d promised to drop by over at Timothy’s place before he headed back to town.
“You’ve been a great help.” Luke stood.
“You won’t tell my dad about what I did?”
Luke offered his hand. “You have my word, if I have yours that you’ll keep quiet about this. The only way we’re going to catch these guys is by surprise. Don’t tell a soul we’ve talked.”
“I promise.” He took Luke’s hand. “You know, my dad’s wrong about you all. Dead wrong.”
Neither Luke nor I said a word. The boy had to figure it out for himself. Sheriff Fletcher might not be doing much of a job, but he was still Dillon’s father, and letting the sheriff believe his boy was perfect didn’t seem like much of a crime.
We stood on the porch and watched him drive away. The late-afternoon sun danced on the water, turning it to shimmering silver in spots. I folded my ledger book. “I’m sorry I wasn’t much help.”
“You were more than you know.” Luke didn’t look directly at me and I had the feeling he was a million miles away.
“What are you going to do?”
“Wait,” he said. “And watch. I might even drive over the bridge late tonight and flash my lights. Maybe the bad guy will come right to me.”
The mail truck rattled down the road and pulled up a few feet from where we stood.
“Running a little late today, Fred.” Luke didn’t sound too interested in the mailman’s answer. He was just paying a greeting, like when folks ask how you are and then walk away before you answer.
In the weeks I’d been here I’d never thought about asking the mailman his name. He seemed only the unfriendly alien mailman who complained about delivering our mail and drank all the free coffee he could hold as fast as possible.
“I have a special delivery. For what they paid to get this delivered, I thought I’d bring it out fast.”
I studied Fred. Tall, thin, over thirty, hat. He almost fit the description of the drug dealer. Only Dillon would have noticed his long fingers.
Fred handed me a wide, white envelope. “It says I have until noon tomorrow to deliver, but I had to make another delivery out near here so I brought it along. I don’t like the pressure of last-minute things.”
The mail was addressed to me. I’d seen the return address before: Garrison D. Walker, Attorney.
For once Fred didn’t stay for coffee. “Got to run. The wife and kids will be waiting supper on me.”
Luke wished him well. I just stared at the envelope.
After the sound of his rusty blue hatchback disappeared, Luke whispered, “You got to open it, Allie, to know what’s inside.”
I smiled. Nana always said the same thing. I made up my mind. “It can wait until after supper. Want to join us?”
“I’ll see what all she’s cooking.” He smiled and I knew it didn’t matter; he’d love it.
As we went back inside, I dropped the envelope on the shelf in the old office that had become the catchall for things that belonged nowhere. Duct tape, pencil sharpener, old towels too ragged to carry upstairs.
I glanced at the receipt boxes I’d never bothered to toss and decided it would be more interesting to follow Luke to the kitchen than to clean.
When I pushed the swinging door open, Nana was frying up fish Willie had given us. The old man sat at the kitchen table reading last week’s paper aloud, and for once he didn’t seem to smell.
As always, Luke had disappeared without saying goodbye. I wasn’t sure if he planned to eat with us or not, but I pulled down four plates just in case. Willie and Nana debated for a few minutes on whether to have Dr. Pepper floats or Cherry Cokes for our evening’s fine wine.
I pulled out the glasses and silverware, then wandered back to the store. While I counted out the cash drawer money, I listened to Willie read to Nana. If he was a pervert, he was sure taking his time to show his colors. Near as I could tell, he was just a lonely old man looking for company.
When Luke returned, he’d changed into dark clothes and wore a black Windbreaker. His dark hair and short beard added a look of danger about him. He wore his black jeans and boots like a uniform and his shoulders were no longer relaxed. A man on a mission, I thought, wondering what he planned to do once the lake grew dark and still. And if he were fishing for trouble, what did he plan to do with it if he found it?
We moved one of the tables near the bay windows and ate watching night drift across the lake. Fish, coleslaw, and hush puppies made with sweet onion chips inside tasted like heaven.
Willie told stories of his years at the lake-storms, snakes, and wannabe fishermen doing crazy things. He related the year a bunch of drunk college kids had a party and decided to steal all the boats Jefferson rented by the hour. They tied a string of canoes together behind a powerboat. The rope got knotted up and the students were tossed out in the middle of the lake. “None of them could swim worth a lick. If it hadn’t been for the beer coolers, a few might have drowned. Jefferson and me was fishing for college boys half the night. Come morning, he made them pay twelve hours’ rental for every boat.”
We all laughed and I tried not think of the letter in the office waiting to be opened.
Nana told of her first time on a lake. “It was like this one, only not near as many cabins or people. I had just turned sixteen and couldn’t drive. It was my first summer more than fifty miles from Hollis, Oklahoma. Mary, my sister-in-law, was pregnant and thought she had to get away for a few days. We got in the car and drove until we saw a little sign that said CABINS FOR RENT. She let me go watch the fireworks with a boy I’d met at the swimming hole. He was all legs and arms and red hair. We spent almost the whole night sitting on that cabin porch talking.
“The night was hot and full of the sounds of the lake.” Nana smiled as the memory surrounded her. “He won me that wind chime at a little fair we passed.”
I caught the last of her story. She’d never told me about the wind chime. I guess, since it had always been in her kitchen, I never considered where it might have come from.
“What happened to him?” Willie asked.
Nana shook her head. “We wrote for a while, then toward the end it was just once a year. I know he went to the war after that summer. He told me he was going to lie about his age and join up. I got postcards sometimes even after I stopped writing.”
I changed the subject to how pretty the lake looked with the trees turning. Another month and it would go from brown to dead-looking. I was afraid Nana might tell the story of Poor Flo, or worse, start talking about Carla. Nana didn’t mention my mother often, but since she’d shown up this morning, Carla might be on her mind tonight. Nana didn’t seem to have many stories about Carla, and a few she’d told of late were stories of me that she’d just gotten mixed up in her memory.
Carla’s words crossed my mind. What if Uncle Jefferson had meant to put Carla and not me on the will? After all, he had put her as the one person to call when he died. What if my mother was right? A month ago I wouldn’t have cared, but suddenly losing this place would be like cutting a piece of my heart out.
When Willie and Nana collected the dishes, Luke leaned over and whispered, “You got to open the letter, Allie.”
“How did you know I was thinking about it?”
“You’ve glanced toward the office a dozen times tonight.”
“I’ll open it.” I knew it was bad news. I just knew it. Bad news could wait. “Want to go for a walk?”
He raised an eyebrow. “The night’s cool.”
“I’ll get my coat.”
He waited for me out by the dock while I
went upstairs, then faced my demons in the office. I wanted to open the letter alone and steel myself against the pain before I faced anyone. I read the letter, squared my shoulders, and walked out to meet Luke without emotion.
When I stepped close, he offered his hand without turning to look at me. “Where do we walk?”
Pointing in the direction of his place, I waited to see if he’d back away.
He didn’t hesitate. He jumped off the side of the dock, then turned and caught me as I dropped onto the damp sand. The lake was down enough tonight so that the normally muddy beach in front of the willows was almost dry. It wasn’t the direction we should have picked for a walk, but I wanted to catch a glimpse of his place.
I could tell Luke had never taken a walk for pleasure in his life. He marched down the beach as if on a mission.
“Slow down.” I tugged my hand away from his grip.
He stopped, retraced his last two steps, and placed an arm on my shoulder. “Sorry.”
“I don’t see your place,” I said as casually as I could.
“It’s in the trees. After dark, unless I light a lamp, no one would ever find it.”
“Do a lot of entertaining?” I tried to sound funny.
“No.” He laughed. “Last week I did have a possum. She ate all my crackers and left.”
We moved at my pace for a while before I blurted out, “I opened the letter.”
He stopped and turned me toward him but didn’t say a word. The night was cool and a gentle wind whispered in the pines that marked the property line between my place and his. They made a whining sound.
“Garrison Walker wanted to inform me that there would be an inquiry about Jefferson Platt’s will.”
Luke relaxed and took my hand again. “He probably had to notify you.” We walked on.
I followed for several steps before I gulped back a cry. “She’s going to take it away from me.”
“No she’s not.”
I wanted to pound on his chest and make him understand. My mother always got what she wanted. Nana never stood up to her. Even when she’d dropped by for the funeral of Henry, Carla had talked Nana into giving her half the cash we had so she could cover her gas.
