by Gwen Roland
Her skin was pale to begin with, even lighter than Loyce’s, who never went outside. But on top of that, Fate noticed her face was coated with something like whitewash. It caked into the creases around her lips and eyes and then ran kind of ragged around her ears and jaw. There were bright orange spots on each side of her face and dark smeary circles around her eyes. He thought her yellow hair was right jaunty but so thin in some places that her pink scalp showed through. Pieces of hair that had squirmed loose from their pins were uneven and cottony like singed feathers from a yellow parrot.
She twittered around the store, her chest jerking from side to side without ever touching the stiff top of the low-cut frock, which anyone could tell had been made for a full bosom like Mrs. Barclay’s. The bodice had a mind of its own, too, pointing straight ahead no matter which way the bony little chest turned inside of it. She flitted around until her eyes lit on Mrs. Barclay standing in the gloom. She never noticed the sniff nor the glare coming from that direction but just launched right into talking as if she had been invited to speak her mind.
“Howdy! You must be Roseanne. I’m proud to meet you. My name’s Cairo Beauty, but everyone just calls me C.B. Named after a jar of pickles, I was. By the time Mama had eight boys she was wore-out and about half-crazy. I guess the surprise of having a girl baby was just too much for her, and she saw that pretty little label on a jar in a store and just stuck that label on me as well. Never could afford to buy a jar of pickles in her life, but being poor didn’t keep her from looking.” She stopped for breath and then added, “Oh, that young man out there said to send Adam out.”
“I’ll have to go get him,” Mrs. Barclay said. Then she nodded as much to tell Fate to keep an eye on things as to excuse herself across to the kitchen.
While waiting for Roseanne to return, Fate cocked an ear toward Val and the others on the porch, asking questions of the stranger. The man, Sam, talked so low Fate couldn’t make much of the answers.
When Adam stepped out, trailed by Roseanne, Fate noted the stranger offered his hand right away. Even if he didn’t talk much, Sam Stockett had his manners; Fate would give him that. Adam finished wiping his own hands on the flour sack tucked in his pants before accepting Sam’s greeting.
Fate also noticed that Mrs. Barclay didn’t waste any time getting back inside the store to keep her eye on the woman.
“I’m looking for Josie Landry—ain’t this the post office?” The stranger just couldn’t get past that subject, Fate thought. Well, Adam would put him straight.
“Landry was my wife’s maiden name.” Adam’s voice was soft, even for him. “She died more than ten years ago. How did you know her?”
“She and my granny wrote back and forth for years. Granny being housebound, her biggest pastime was reading letters people sent her from all over. Pen pals, she called them. Said you found out stuff newspapers didn’t think worth printing. Josie’s letters made this sound like a place where a fella with not much but gumption could make a go of it. After Granny died, I kept her box of letters.”
“What do you know about that!” Adam shook his head and smiled at the memories the man’s story jostled up for him. “Josie couldn’t get enough of reading and writing. She found pen pals like your grandma listed in magazines that came through the post office, and she sent her own name and address to every magazine that kept pen pal lists. I teased her that she was the reason the post office saw fit to keep a branch open way out here.”
Lost in memories, Adam stood silently for several moments. Never one to let a conversation lag, Fate jumped in to keep the talk moving. It was a job that fell to him uncommonly often, but he could handle it; in fact he was good at it.
“How’d you know to find Bayou Chene? Did Aunt Josie draw your grandma a map?” he prompted.
“I worked at a shoe factory in St. Louis since I was a kid. Got a map from the Corps of Engineers office right there near the wharf. I could tell it was all downstream from St. Louis to Bayou Chene and with any luck at all I should be able to find my way. When I saved enough money, I bought a used skiff and started saving again for food. The other stuff I scrounged from alleys and along the docks. When I figured I had enough to make the trip, I just went to my skiff one morning instead of to the factory.”
Sam seemed worn-down by the long spell of talking, so Fate pitched in to give him a rest.
“That’s the one I found, Uncle Adam. The blue and black one. I told you it come from up north with them high sides and wide bottom.”
By now Sam was squatting on the porch. Fate noticed that his heels were flat on the porch floor. Most men around the Chene squatted in just the same way. They could sit on their heels for hours, giving them a solid base for running lines or working with nets. Fate never could get the hang of it, blaming his long legs for taking up too much room under his chin.
Right then he noticed that the dog—Drifter or Maggie, who-ever she was now—sat as close to Sam as she could get. Her head was tucked under his arm for good measure.
“What’s Drifter—uh, Maggie—got to do with it?” Fate asked.
“She was hanging around the factory. I used to throw her a bite of my vittles now and then. On the day I left, she seemed to figure there wasn’t much of a future there without me, so she just hopped in the boat. We did pretty good coming down, made it off the Mississippi and into the Atchafalaya with no trouble.”
He stopped to rest again. Fate opened his mouth to stir things up with another question, but Sam had gathered up enough words for another run at his story.
“We was so close to here when trouble hit. Right up there above Bayou Tensas. It was mainly for Maggie I tried to rope that deer for supper one evening. Swum across right in front of us. Venison seemed pretty good to me, too, after days of beans and bread. Almost worked, too, if that buck hadn’t wrapped the line around my arm and liked to pulled it out of socket. Next thing I knew I was on a showboat heading back upriver, every mile undoing the work I had already put in. The crew said they found me on a sandbar being dragged around by one mad buck. I don’t know if they’d a stopped just for me, but they had in mind getting some of that deer for supper. Natchez was their next stop. They put me off there.”
“Whew, boy! And a sight he was too!” His wife had joined them on the porch. Now she jabbed the folded umbrella in Sam’s direction. “We’d just closed down a show, and there wasn’t nothing to do till we got to Natchez, so I took him upstairs to my cabin for the rest of the trip. Skin was rubbed plumb off his hide everywhere except his privates, which I guess even unconscious it’s a man’s instinct to protect. There’s this Royal Princess Face Cream that’s really good for bruises and cuts—I used it plenty of times, myself. He didn’t seem to be in a position to put up no fuss about what I smeared on him. Kept saying the name Maggie over and over. Well I figgered that was his woman, but as days went by and he got better, I found out Maggie was his dog! My own situation had recently turned sour as a green persimmon, and it was time for me to get off that boat, if you know what I mean.”
When she stopped to take a breath, so did the listeners. Then she was off again.
“Working the boats is a good way to save money ’cause there’s nowhere to spend it. It didn’t take long for us to figger out that throwing in together made more good sense than bad. Since he’d lost everything trying to prove hisself to a black dog and a wild-ass buck, we used my stash to buy this flatboat and some supplies. Got married on the way out of Natchez.”
Heads bobbed back and forth following the violet umbrella as it punctuated the rest of the story about their trip down the rivers to the post office dock. The only contribution Sam made was an occasional affirmation in response to “Ain’t that right, Sam, you correct me if I’m wrong,” before she was off again. Sam blinked slowly but never corrected her on a single point.
When the newcomers asked about a place to tie up and settle in, Adam gave them directions to an old homestead up Graveyard Bayou.
“Been vacant a
s long as I can remember—you’ll see it just past the cemetery,” he told them. “Won’t take much work to make that old dock sound, and there’s even a slab shack on the bank until you build something better. A houseboat’s your best bet until you decide where you want to stay for good. Find out where you going to be fishing and such.”
Val and Fate helped them load supplies the woman had purchased. The dog scurried back and forth in excitement. Sam settled C.B. into her chair and then, without looking up, made a little clicking sound with his tongue.
“Load up, Maggie.”
Drifter bounded down the plank walk, but when she reached the dock, instead of jumping in the boat, she stood and barked. Then she ran back up the bank to the porch, looking behind at Sam. She flew back and forth twice more without stopping.
“Maggie, git on in here now. We need to go,” Sam called.
Obediently, she jumped off the porch and headed back down the walk but not with abandon this time. She walked purposefully but then stopped halfway. Her eyes locked onto Sam’s. She strained with stillness. Only the tip of her tail moved back and forth, ever so slightly. He blinked. She didn’t.
“Maggie, I mean it. I’m untying this line.” He bent over the knot. She watched. He held her eyes briefly, once more, before turning his back.
“Well, stay if you want, it matters none to me,” he said, but his voice sagged.
He turned his back to her and pushed the pole against the dock; the flat eased into the current. Sam continued poling them away without looking up to wave good-bye. C.B. made up for his dismissal by shouting, “Ya’ll come see us when we get settled,” and waving madly until they disappeared around the bend. The dog whined and watched until they were out of sight but didn’t move to follow along the bank.
“Whew, what a trial to be trapped with that woman on a flatboat day and night!” Adam said, shaking his head as he turned toward the kitchen. “No wonder that man doesn’t have much to say.”
Roseanne stood with her arms folded across her bosom, sniffing in the way Adam had come to know. He stopped in the doorway and turned.
“I wonder what he’d have to say if he knew she was in here wanting to buy French female pills to get rid of her baby,” she said.
8
“Mr. Snellgrove, this just won’t do!” Roseanne bustled into the kitchen, where Adam was standing over a black iron skillet. “I’m not a person to just sit and wait for disaster to strike!”
“And I’d be amiss to take you for one, Mrs. Barclay.” Adam couldn’t look up at that crucial moment of stirring a handful of flour into a pool of melting lard. He knew it had to be quick and smooth. Let the tiniest bit of flour scorch, and the roux would turn bitter as quinine. Nothing to do with it then but throw it out. He knew enough about that from the times he had tried to sneak in some reading while cooking.
“And what impending disaster might this be?” he asked, when the roux had smoothed to silk. Nothing to do now until it turned the color of chocolate on bottom and needed stirring again. He glanced up at Roseanne’s flushed face.
“Humiliation, Mr. Snellgrove,” she sniffed. “I’m in danger of being severely humiliated.”
He had come to recognize her sniff and knew that sometimes she also used it to breathe in the fragrance of something he was cooking. He could tell that skillet of browning roux was on her mind in a powerful way. Adam’s gaze stayed on her face when he dropped in the chopped onions, then the bell pepper and garlic. She didn’t even know what he was making, but those smells were getting the best of whatever she was upset about. He lowered his eyes so she couldn’t see the merriment in them. Mrs. Barclay didn’t take kindly to not being taken seriously.
She drew in another breath as deep as her waist would allow, which wasn’t much. In fact, it was tighter than when she had worn it the week before. He remembered it because the russet color made her eyes less black, warmer somehow. Adam knew all about russet, just another one of those things you have to know if you are going to help women shop from a catalog. Don’t let them order russet if they really want plain brown or bright red. You’ll be sending it right back.
Right then Mrs. Barclay’s eyes were as black as the jet combs holding up her hair, and her cheeks looked rosy like she’d been running. Then he remembered the sound of crates and barrels dragging around the store all morning. She must have been putting away stock whenever there was a lull between customers. He’d never had a chance to get ahead like that since the drownings. Was that a decade ago? As far as he knew, some of the things she shelved might have been sitting there since that fateful night.
Roseanne blew out a breath, and a curl that had sneaked out of her combs puffed out with it. She must have kept on talking while he was thinking about russet.
“I know we agreed that I would assist in the store in exchange for room and board until my husband sends passage for me,” she said. “But I find my clothes are not suited to the work. Why just now I had to open a bottle of smelling salts to keep from fainting. Not only does that deplete the inventory, Mr. Snellgrove, but what if I had fainted and someone saw me fall out right onto the floor, with my skirts all askew and my hair falling down, unconscious, not even knowing who was looking at me?”
She sniffed at the image. “I might well die from the humiliation.”
He pondered the scene for himself, and it wasn’t until she “ahemmed” with another puff of air that he ventured into the stream of that particular conversation.
“Your husband will probably send for you before it comes to that, Mrs. Barclay—didn’t you write him a letter about your mishap? Surely he’ll be sending passage for you soon.”
“Well, most certainly,” she snapped, with more force than seemed necessary. Her eyes glided up and to the side in that way she had, bringing to mind how a fish in a trap swims right past your hands until sometimes you have to drain all the water out before you can catch it.
“But there’s no telling how long it will take for that letter to find him,” she continued in that slippery way. “Perhaps he’s not even staying at the same establishment this trip. The reality is, Mr. Snellgrove, I may be here longer than I first expected, and my traveling clothes simply won’t do. I propose that you consider adding a small wage to my food and lodging in exchange for me taking on more responsibility for your business. Even you must have noticed more goods are actually being sold now that it’s easier for your customers to find what they are looking for and that I am on hand to actually collect payment, rather than allowing people to just pay when they feel like it. Mr. Snellgrove, as I’ve heard my own father and husband say many times: ‘When it comes to profit, management wins over product any day of the week!’”
“Well, Mrs. Barclay, I won’t argue with you there,” he admitted. “I never did have a head for this stuff, and it just came to be too blamed much for one man to stay on top of. I tell you what, how’s $1.75 a week sound? We can keep it up as long as what you are doing around here brings that much extra. I can advance you two weeks’ wages to order them frocks.”
“You have yourself a manager, Mr. Snellgrove,” she said right back. Then she stuck out her hand to seal the bargain. He passed the cooking spoon to his other hand and held hers but a moment. Then she swept away across the dogtrot, leaving him to ponder what he had just done.
9
Loyce was still mulling over the business transaction she’d heard from the kitchen when Mrs. Barclay tap-tap-tapped across the dogtrot to the store. In two more seconds she was tapping back again and settling into the chair across the porch. Loyce knew that when people had something to read, they sat with their back to the outside, so she wasn’t surprised when pages started rustling across the way. She could tell it was the catalog used to order everything from the canned goods on the shelves to mule harnesses.
She hadn’t learned much about Mrs. Barclay in the few weeks the mysterious woman had lived upstairs, but one thing was sure—if something needed doing, she hopped right on it. No jawing and
worrying or trying to talk herself out of it, like some people do. Loyce had lost count of the times Fate had hit on a scheme to make quick money and then talked it over, around, and upside down until the notion passed. His mouth ran away from his brain every time.
Mrs. Barclay, now, she was just the opposite. Some idea for an improvement would come to her, and she would dive in without stopping to tell Adam or Loyce. The next thing they knew, pattern books and sewing supplies were all together in one corner of the store. Mule collars, saddles, and other bulky items hung from the rafters instead of lying in heaps on the floor.
Loyce couldn’t imagine going back to the way they lived before Mrs. Barclay. She knew how to keep things moving in the right direction, for sure. They never ran out of clean clothes anymore. Loyce didn’t have to worry about grabbing a handful of fishhooks that weren’t supposed to be on the kitchen table or next to the washbasin. Despite Mrs. Barclay’s quick way to jump to conclusions about some things, Loyce dreaded the day her husband would come for her.
Now catalog pages snapped from across the porch, signaling another project launched.
“Loyce, I’ve never ordered a ready-made dress.” Roseanne’s voice was matter of fact. “I’m leery of the whole process—working from drawings, size charts, and fabric descriptions. I’m accustomed to seeing the fabrics and feeling them against my skin. Back home a seamstress measures me for every new dress, and we have several fittings before it is finished. I just don’t know about this.”
“How can it be that complicated?” Loyce queried. “Other people have always decided what I’m going to wear. Just so it’s short enough that I don’t trip over the hem, nothing else matters much.”
