All I had to do was convince them it was because of all the work at the still, lugging supplies, the back-and-forth. Tell them anything. Don’t let them know. I couldn’t let them know. Without thinking, without any plan on what I’d say, I unlocked the door.
“What?”
Daddy jerked his thumb toward the kitchen, then at me. “What’re you doing?”
“Nothing.”
Aunt Juanita had recovered from her initial shock evidently. “Eating on the floor like a dog is what she was doing.”
I raised my chin. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Sure appears thataway to me.”
Daddy said, “Juanita. It ain’t helping.”
She put her hands up and said, “Fine. I’ve tried to in the past. Been on the receiving end of that smart mouth of hers. Can’t nobody tell her nothing. She knows it all.”
She went back to my room and slammed the door. Daddy exhaled, and I chanced a look at him. He had bags under his eyes, new lines in his face. He shoved his hands in his pockets and to my mortification began to try and reason why I’d been doing what I’d been doing.
“Is it . . . you know . . . a, uh, certain time?”
“No! I was hungry is all.”
I followed him back into the kitchen. My belly protested at being so full and felt distended, like my insides were being pushed out. In the kitchen I hurried to get rid of the evidence. I picked up the wrappers, the scraps, everything off the floor. I wiped the counters clean and washed dishes. Daddy sat at the table smoking a cigarette and paying bills, as if already on to other matters. I wanted to go to bed, but I needed time in the bathroom. I wiped my hands on the dish towel, my pulse rate ticking like a time bomb.
I said, “Good night.”
“Jessie.”
I stopped, my back to him.
“It ain’t natural.”
Innocent expression fastened on like a Halloween mask, I faced him and waited.
“Earlier. You, there on the floor like you were.”
“Everyone’s making it out worse than it was.”
“It didn’t look right; you didn’t look right.”
“That might have had a lot to do with what you did, riding my bumper and scaring me half to death.”
“I told you why I did that. I know how they are; they’ll keep on till they’re satisfied.”
I didn’t want to talk about any of this, and I reckon it showed.
Daddy stubbed his cigarette out and said, “Go on to bed, Jessie.”
Dismissed, I left the kitchen, went into the bathroom, and shut the door. I ran the tub full of water to help hide the noises I might make. As it filled, I dropped to my knees as if praying, and gripped the toilet. It took nothing to get started, but I left everything.
In a way, I almost didn’t care if he heard.
* * *
The next morning, Aubrey came tearing up the drive in her mama’s car unannounced right after Daddy left with Merritt to go into North Wilkesboro. She knocked on the front door, and soon as I opened it, she pushed her way into the living room. It wasn’t yet ten o’clock. Uncle Virgil, Aunt Juanita, and Oral were still in bed, because getting up before dinnertime was not possible for them. Aubrey’s hand worked on the tail end of her red shirt, twisting and untwisting it.
She said, “How’re you doing?”
It wasn’t right how she avoided looking at me directly.
“I’m fine. What’re you doing here?”
“Just seeing what you’re up to.”
I said, “It’s early yet. I ain’t doing nothing.”
She twisted the shirt some more and then stopped.
She said, “I came to tell you something. You best be careful.”
I’d been feeling hot, and now I turned cold. “Why?”
She said, “Is your daddy and Merritt here?”
I didn’t explain where they were, I only pointed at the front door, and we went outside.
Out on the front porch, she said, “Willie’s daddy claims to know how that still of theirs was found.”
I had to work at keeping my voice level, uncaring.
I said, “Oh yeah?”
She said, “Yeah. I overheard him tell Royce, ‘It was the Sasser girl,’ when I was with Willie the other night. He looked right at me when he said it too. He knows we’re friends.”
My knees went rubbery, bones too, every part of me sinking, folding, collapsing.
She said, “I thought I better come and tell you. It wasn’t you, was it? I mean, he acted pretty sure,” and then it was like she was studying me, like I was one of those tiny glass slides stuck under the microscope in science class. It was unnerving.
There were plenty of people who might want revenge against the Murrys aside from revenuers wanting to clean up the county. They had enemies up and down these mountains and beyond.
It could’ve been anyone, and I said as much, and then I said, “He can’t prove nothing.”
“So you did say something?”
Maybe she was fishing on their behalf for information. She’d already shown she couldn’t keep what I told her to herself. I remained steadfast to my lie.
“I didn’t say nothing.”
Voices came from inside the house. Aubrey stared at Uncle Virgil and Aunt Juanita shuffling by on their way into the kitchen, up surprisingly early for them.
She lowered her voice and said, “What’re they doing here?”
“Don’t you read the paper?”
“Not unless Mama says there’s something about a sale.”
“Their house burned down. Didn’t Willie tell you?”
Aubrey said, “Why would he bring that up?”
I picked at the porch rail where paint was chipping, and said, “Why wouldn’t he? He likes to brag.”
She said, “You’re saying his family had something to do with it?”
“That still of theirs made front-page news, and then the house where my uncle lives burns down, and you don’t think there’s nothing suspicious about that?”
It was Merritt’s argument, and he’d laugh if he could hear me. She shook her head, and her hair caught the sun, glossy as oil. I wondered if Aubrey knew how pretty she was, that she could have her pick of boys in school, yet she was enthralled with the likes of Willie Murry. Such an unlikely pair.
I said, “You don’t want to believe it because of Willie, but he pretty much admitted it.”
“He did not!”
“He sure did. He got on the bus and asked for my yearbook. Said he would have written: ‘Watch out. There’s more to come.’”
“That could mean anything.”
“It was a threat they’re going to do more, Aubrey.”
“Prove it. Show it to me.”
“I ain’t got it.”
“Then what you’re saying is good for nothing, far as I’m concerned.”
“Don’t be dumb. You know what he meant.”
“I don’t know nothing.”
“Why don’t you ask him, see how he acts?”
Aubrey’s face grew redder by the second, and she tossed her hair. I’d seen her do this a million times when she was ticked off.
She said, “I ain’t asking him nothing.”
“Because you know I’m telling the truth. I can’t believe your daddy lets you have a thing to do with the likes of him. They’re sorrier than sorry.”
Her lips stretched out into a thin straight line.
She said, “You best quit acting so high-and-mighty, Jessie Sasser.”
She stomped down the steps and turned back to face me, her voice raised. “Don’t forget what you told me. How you wanted to bust up your own family’s stills. Willie says you ain’t nothing but a traitor, anyway. He said nobody goes against their own.”
I hurried down the steps, my voice loud, indignant. “Traitor? You’re the one who talks too much, Aubrey Whitaker! Some friend you are! I knew you’d told him!”
She rushed to her car and got in. She even rolled the
window up while keeping her face averted as if the sight of me repulsed her. This was it for our friendship. The End, like in books. I didn’t even care. She cranked the car and was out onto the road faster than a revenuer giving chase. I inhaled leftover exhaust, and felt a headache coming on. I wanted to throw myself on the ground and have a good old-fashioned temper tantrum. Instead, I climbed the steps to the porch, and debated whether to go in or not. From the kitchen came the raised voices of Uncle Virgil and Aunt Juanita already arguing about something. Oral appeared from out of nowhere, mashing his nose against the screen, giving him a strange, piglike appearance.
He said, “Boy, ain’t it something?”
“What?”
“How you can hear everything so good, even when you ain’t tryin’.”
He gave me a calculating look. I pulled the door open, and he stepped backward, grinning.
My voice threatening, I said, “What is it you heard?”
He said, “Her. What all she said.”
“You ain’t heard nothing.”
“Right. Just like she ain’t asking Willie Murry nothing.”
I advanced on him and his smirk grew.
“Traitor,” he whispered.
The raised voices of his parents continued with the persistent drone of a beehive.
I said, “Big deal. You heard a couple things.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I won’t say nothing, but maybe I will.”
The little shit was actually threatening me. He and Merritt had been watching too much Dragnet.
He said, “You keep quiet and I’ll keep quiet.”
Hands on my hips, I said, “Me? About what?”
“That money your daddy’s got hid. I been searching around. Found twenty dollars tucked away, and I aim to find more. I think a pot of gold is behind that there shed, directly.”
“That’s stealing, Oral.”
“No, it ain’t. Finders keepers.”
“It ain’t for you to find.”
“Your daddy owes my daddy; you heard him.”
“You let me catch you snooping around, see what happens.”
“What happens is I’ll tell’em what you were going to do, like she said, to your own family. I’ll tell’em you been talking to them agents and it was ’cause of you our house burned up. Hey, and come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t them Murrys who messed up the still neither.”
He lifted his chin, confident. I couldn’t speak I was so mad, and could only stare after him as he sauntered into the kitchen. Uncle Virgil and Aunt Juanita paused at his appearance, and then picked back up on arguing again. I followed to see what he was about. I didn’t like him thinking he could manipulate me, agitated at the realization he’d heard it. I poured myself a cup of coffee, slopping some of it on the counter when my hand wouldn’t hold steady.
Aunt Juanita touched the pearls, and said, “You’ll have to rip them off my neck.”
She was really good at making dramatic declarations.
Uncle Virgil said, “I’ll buy you more when we get straightened out.”
“We ain’t never going to get straightened out. Not when you can’t keep a job.”
“I got started off on the wrong foot; it ain’t like I ever had a fair chance to begin with. If I’d had what’s owed . . .”
“Jesus! Don’t start on that again.”
Oral grinned at me, nodding ever so slightly, as if to say, See?
Aunt Juanita glared at me and said, “We’re outta milk and coffee,” and walked out, the bedroom door slamming seconds later.
Uncle Virgil said, “Damn it all. She knows just how to piss me off.”
Oral said, “Why don’t we just do what you talked about?”
Uncle Virgil went to hit him and Oral ducked, then made the mistake of laughing. Uncle Virgil sprang up, and Oral scooted around the table while Uncle Virgil cussed a blue streak. He reached across and grabbed Oral’s arm, and yanked it. Oral howled while Uncle Virgil delivered several smacks, not caring where his hand landed.
He let him go and said, “Boy, when you gonna learn to keep that trap of yourn shut?”
Oral rubbed the spots where Uncle Virgil’s hands had landed while giving me a dirty look, like I was the one who’d beat him. Uncle Virgil dropped back onto the chair while Oral glared at the tabletop like he wanted to kill something. Daddy and Merritt had taken the truck, and wouldn’t be back till late, but I needed to get out of the house, away from everything and everyone. It wasn’t even dinnertime yet and I was tired enough to want to go back to bed.
I said, “Uncle Virgil, can I use your truck to go get the coffee?”
He reached into his pocket, handed his keys to me, and said, “Get me a pack of Luckies too.”
I hated having to get the money out of the tin behind the sugar canister with them sitting right there. I washed a glass or two, while waiting on the both of them to become preoccupied. Soon Oral was busy picking his nose and Uncle Virgil had his head on the table like he was about to go to sleep. I dug out a five-dollar bill. There was another five and three ones, and with them two around, I needed to keep up with what was left. I went out the back door wishing I was going somewhere other than Pearson’s grocery. As I drove down from Shine Mountain, I imagined going past Wilkesboro, North Wilkesboro, and on to sights unseen. Going someplace where no one knew me, didn’t know a thing about me, away from the worry.
At the store I got the coffee, Uncle Virgil’s cigarettes, and was about to approach a clerk when I saw Mrs. Brewer holding ajar of mayonnaise only a few feet away. She was dressed different, wearing a pair of men’s overalls, shabby and stained, a work shirt, and a big floppy straw hat with a bandanna around her neck. She saw me too, and approached.
She nodded a greeting, and said, “Sasser.”
“Hey, Mrs. Brewer.”
She gave me the once-over. “You need’n some of that tea.”
“You ain’t got to keep giving it to me. I’m fine.”
“Like hell.”
I was sure I looked the same as I had in school, but she thought different.
She said, “My house ain’t far. Pay for that and let’s go.”
She marched to the front of the store, slammed her bread down, and tossed some money to the clerk. Hands on her hips, she glared about while the clerk developed the same clumsiness I did under heavy scrutiny. After Mrs. Brewer got her change, which was all dropped by the nervous clerk, I paid for the coffee and cigarettes. On the latter she gave an evil glare, and I shook my head denying they were mine. She waved me out the door.
She said, “Hm. Follow me.”
I obeyed. She lived in a nice small house, old but kept up. It was painted pale green, and had a tin roof gone to rust, a yard full of flowers, and a beautiful braided grapevine off to the right, the vines crawling along the old wooden frame. The root coming out of the ground was as big around as my thigh.
She got out of her old clunker of a car, pointed at her house, and said, “It was my grandmother’s. I was borned in this here house.”
She had a small, well-laid-out vegetable garden, and there were chickens running loose in the yard. There was a one-eyed cat sitting on the rail of the porch who arched his back in greeting as she went up the steps. Mrs. Brewer stopped and stroked down his spine before motioning me inside.
She pointed at the cat and said, “That’s Popeye.”
Inside the kitchen were what looked like dried herbs hanging in the corners, and her walls were painted light yellow; the cabinets, white metal. The sink was against a wall and had two legs holding up the front. There was a flowered curtain hiding what was below it. She had an old Philco refrigerator, and on the stove was a dull copper teakettle, and a cast-iron frying pan. The kitchen smelled like sausage, and biscuits. I sniffed again, and my mouth watered. She went to a small wooden box, almost like a miniature dresser. It was situated below a window, and she pulled on one of the handles and slid out a wood tray. She took out some dried-up plants and brought the cluster to a
worktable near the sink. She took down a big knife off a hook and began chopping.
She pointed with the knife and said, “Sit.”
I sat at the small kitchen table, troubled, but curious at the same time. “What’re you doing?”
“Jes’ choppin’ this here. It’s the plant what makes the tea. Pulled leaves from it the other day. Read the dregs in the bottom of my cup, and they said I’d see you. How you doin’?”
“I’m fine.”
“Somethin’s done knocked you off-kilter.”
I shook my head.
“You ettin’?”
I said, “Yes.”
“Naw, you ain’t neither. You got to et, chile.”
Her voice had gone from being prickly to soft. I watched her while she kept working, and for once admitted a tiny truth.
“I eat too much, then feel sick.”
She said, “Start with small meals.”
“I shouldn’t eat at all. I’m too fat as it is.”
Mrs. Brewer set down the knife and said, “Come on with me.” We went into a small bedroom off the kitchen. It was her room, with a peach-colored crocheted bedspread, a dark maple bureau, and one of those mirrors that sets on the floor with legs, same wood as the bureau. She pulled me toward it, and with her hands on my shoulders she set me in front of it.
“Look.”
I turned my head away and said, “I know how I look.”
She took hold of the sides of my head, and gently turned it back to the mirror. “Look.”
I didn’t like a mirror. My heart pumped harder, and then trembled. I put my hand there.
She said, “It beatin’ funny?”
I dropped my hand and didn’t answer.
Her voice was soft when she said, “All I’m saying, child, you ain’t fat.”
I didn’t need confirmation to know what I’d seen before. A mirror doesn’t lie.
She said, “Bones. You ain’t nothing but bones. I’m telling you the truth.”
I raised my eyes to meet hers reflected in the glass. It was apparent she believed what she said, but I couldn’t.
Chapter 16
She was an old woman with bad eyes. She was wrong and plainly couldn’t see I was bloated as a dead coon on the side of the road. No one could tell me different.
Back in the kitchen, Mrs. Brewer said, “I seen gals thinking they’s fat when they ain’t. Getting peculiar ideas.”
The Moonshiner's Daughter Page 15
