EIGHTEEN

LOTTIE LANIER, as Sally predicted, was an immediate attraction for both women and men at Ledford’s Dry Goods, and after they had had their look at her and had purchased their excuse items, they went away with her name spilling from their lips.

In Jericho, Lottie was either a saint or a harlot, depending on the teller of the gossip about her involvement with Ben Phelps. To some, she was a Lady Samaritan, sacrificing her time and dignity to help someone deathly ill; to others, she was too beautiful not to have bent Ben’s attention away from Sally, and there she was in his home, sleeping in a room across the hall from him. Two doors and a few feet of separation meant nothing to a woman ripe for taking.

“I think about half the town’s been in for one thing or another,” Sally said to Ben, “and I don’t know who’s the most curious, the women or the men. The dress Lottie was wearing yesterday, we sold three of them—one to old Miss Mayhall. She’s going to look ridiculous in it, but she thinks she’s going to look like Lottie.”

There was an edge to Sally’s voice, the sound of nervous energy. “Do you see her a lot?” she asked Ben hesitantly.

“No,” Ben answered. “She comes in with Mama and Little Ben maybe once a day, just to see how I’m feeling, but that’s about all.”

It was not a lie. Ben had reversed his sleeping habits, night to day. At night, when he was awake, Lottie was asleep.

“I just wondered,” Sally said. “I ask her about you and all she says is that you look like you’re getting better. It’s like she doesn’t want to talk about you, and that seems a little strange to me.”

“Maybe she thinks it’ll make you feel funny about her being here,” Ben said. “And, like I said, I don’t see her at all hardly.”

Sally smiled to hide her doubts. “It’s all I want to do—talk about you. I sometimes think I do it too much around her, but she doesn’t say anything. Just nods and smiles and keeps on working. She’s a good worker, though I can tell she’s never been around really nice clothes—the way she looks at them and the way she’s always touching the material—but she’s not lazy.”

“She won’t be there much longer,” Ben said. “It won’t be long before I’m back.”

“You’re not coming back until you’re well,” Sally insisted. She laughed. “Besides, I don’t think everybody in town’s been in yet. It’s like a Christmas sale around there.”

ONE OF THE visitors to Ledford’s, and later to Ben’s home, was Keebler Colquitt, editor of the weekly Jericho Journal. He had heard of Lottie and wanted to do a story about her and about Ben. The story read:

WIDOW PUTS ASIDE GRIEF
TO ASSIST MR. BEN PHELPS

Nobody wants to get sick, especially on his own, away from his home and the tender care of loved ones concerned about his health. But sometimes things don’t work out the way people would like them to, and that was the case this last week with local businessman Mr. Ben Phelps.

Mr. Phelps, renowned in these parts as a swatter of baseballs off one-armed carnival giants and then living to tell about it, was returning by train last week from that northern-most city of Boston, Massachusetts, when he became unexpectedly ill after doing a good deed for a fellow passenger and her son.

On that same train was a Mrs. Lottie Lanier, who, two days earlier, had buried her husband in Kentucky and was returning to her hometown of Augusta, Georgia. She was traveling in the company of her three-year-old son, also named Ben, and it was that coincidence of two people named Ben that caused Mr. Phelps and Mrs. Lanier to strike up a polite conversation.

As fate would have it, the young Ben became sick on the trip, and Mr. Phelps volunteered to help care for him, being of good Christian character and from one of Jericho’s finest families. After a stop in Nashville, Tennessee, to have young Ben observed and treated by a physician, Mr. Phelps himself fell ill, in all likelihood to the same uncertain ailment suffered by young Ben Lanier. However, determined to return home to Jericho as soon as possible, Mr. Phelps insisted on departing Nashville. As it turns out, it was a hasty decision. Not long out of Athens, headed east, Mr. Phelps collapsed in the passenger car and was immediately assisted by Mrs. Lanier and a gentleman of the cloth from the Baptist religion, who was also a passenger on the train.

Delivered to the home of his mother, Mrs. Elton Phelps, by Mrs. Lanier and train station manager Akers Crews, Mr. Phelps and young Ben Lanier were immediately attended by Dr. Oscar Morgan, who pronounced Mr. Phelps ill with a suspected case of rheumatic fever. Dr. Morgan reports that young Ben Lanier may or may not have the same ailment, but, if so, it is not as severe as that suffered by Mr. Phelps. Young master Lanier, in point of fact, has been observed lately in the company of Margaret Phelps, and seems to be recovering nicely under her care.

Word of Mr. Phelps’s illness soon reached the ear of his employer, Mr. Arthur Ledford of Ledford’s Dry Goods, and Mr. Ledford has done his part in expressing the community’s appreciation to Mrs. Lanier for her brave attention to Mr. Phelps. He has afforded her a temporary position in his store until Mr. Phelps is well enough to return to work. Many citizens of Jericho have found time and reason to visit Ledford’s since Mrs. Lanier’s employment, and they have come away highly praising the good nature of our visitor. Reports of her beauty and kind smile are being spread throughout the area, and all marvel over her composure after suffering the loss of her husband only days ago.

In a brief meeting with Mr. Phelps at his home, this scribe learned that his trip to Boston was made to enjoy watching his boyhood friend and former Jericho resident, Milo Wade, take the diamond for the Red Sox baseball team. Mr. Phelps said he was unaware of any reports regarding the recent accusation that Mr. Wade was cited as a wife-beater, laying the blame for such slanderous allegations squarely at the feet of the Boston newspapers. Mr. Phelps also stated that he was unable to visit with Mr. Wade due to the failure of the Red Sox office staff to relay messages to Mr. Wade. However, he brings back the news that all of Boston continues to be amazed by Mr. Wade’s magnificence at bat and in the field.

For laggards who have yet to pay their respects to Mrs. Lanier for her Christian-like concern in regard to Mr. Phelps’s hour of need, Mr. Ledford assures us that she will likely remain in his employ for at least another week.

Coleman Maxey read the story that Keebler Colquitt had written and decided to see for himself if Lottie Lanier was as pretty as everyone said, and as Keebler had suggested in his newspaper. Thirty minutes after entering the store, Coleman emerged with a new straw hat too dandy for his wearing, and with a smile waffling his face that very much resembled his slack-jawed drinking smile.

“Lord bless Ben Phelps,” Coleman crowed to Bill Simpson, who was waiting in Coleman’s shop to retrieve a pair of restitched dress shoes. “He gets dog-sick and shows up with the prettiest damn woman I ever laid eyes on. It’s like that time he got that hit off that old one-armed boy at the carnival. Every man we had on the team tried, and couldn’t come close, and then old Ben steps up and slaps it out of sight. But that’s nothing compared to this woman. I swear, Bill, Ben could fall in a tub of cow turds and come out smelling like a barber shop.”

“I hear that Sally Ledford’s a little touchy about that woman,” Bill suggested.

“If she is, she don’t look it,” Coleman said. “She was dragging her all over the store, introducing her to people.”

“Well, you can’t believe everything you hear,” Bill allowed, thinking of the tight-lipped opinion his wife had delivered after meeting Lottie Lanier. His wife was more than a little suspicious of Ben’s illness. “Probably caught it from that woman,” his wife had guessed.

“The way Keebler wrote about it, Ben sounds pretty sick,” Coleman said. “Maybe she’ll be around longer than another week.”

“You got that look, Coleman,” Bill said. “I know that look.”

Coleman grinned, smacked his lips. “Won’t get past dreaming,” he said. “That woman’s too pretty for me. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“I wouldn’t go saying that out loud,” advised Bill.

“Why not?”

“People that know you might think you getting old.”

“I guess I am,” Coleman said. His body rocked in a nod, in the way of a man preoccupied with a thought, and then he added, “You been by to see her yet?”

“Not yet,” Bill told him. He thought again of his wife. “The wife went by. Said she didn’t look plain, but she wadn’t all that pretty.”

“You got a jealous woman,” Coleman said. He added, “Tell you what, though, the first time I saw her, I could swear I’d seen her somewheres before. I just can’t place where.”

“Well,” Bill drawled, “you did say something about dreaming.”

“I never had no dreams like that,” Coleman said. He shook his head in admiration. “Maybe I’m just wishing I’d seen her before.”

“Lord, Coleman, I’m yet to lay eyes on the woman, but everything I heard about her, I wish the same thing.”

Coleman sighed. “All I know is, Ben Phelps is in hog heaven and he probably don’t even know it.”

BEN REALLY KNEW only one thing: he felt caged. He was regaining strength daily, but slowly, from his mother’s pampering attention and from the doctor’s assortment of medicines. Still, he was confined to his bedroom, except for bathroom visits, and everything that was happening around him seemed vague and fragmented. Sally was there early each morning and often late into the night, and the way she occupied his time was territorial and numbing in its intensity. When Lottie appeared, always with his mother or with Little Ben, she was as distant as a shadow. Her silence, Ben thought, was Lottie’s signal that she understood her place in his life. She was a patient but uneasy guest, waiting for him to take her home.

At least, Keebler Colquitt’s story of his misfortunes had provided one reprieve for Ben: he would not have to sidestep the questions about being in Boston, and he knew that Lottie had kept her word about holding secret his time in Kentucky.

There was still a chance that his mother would question him about Boston, Ben reasoned. Later. When Lottie and Little Ben were gone and she needed the words to fill the silence, she might ask him about it one day. Idly. An afterthought. And he knew it would be hard to keep the truth from her. Or maybe she would not think about it. Maybe she would think only about the emptiness of Little Ben’s absence. Because of Little Ben, the instinct of mothering—or of grandmothering—had erupted in her, filling her with a joy that seemed inexhaustible. From his bed, Ben could hear her laughter, her cheerful chattering, the lullabies she sang to Little Ben at nap time, and he knew that she was clinging desperately to the awakening of a maternal passion long contained.

One afternoon, alone with him as Little Ben slept, his mother asked, “When they leave us, do you think they’ll be all right?”

And Ben answered, “I hope so. They’re good people.”

“He’s so small for his age,” his mother whispered.

“He’s bigger since he’s been here,” Ben suggested.

His mother smiled warmly. “He is, I think. And he talks more, too. He asked me this morning where his daddy was.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him his daddy was in heaven with Jesus and the angels. He said his daddy was in a box.”

“He’s just a baby, Mama,” Ben said.

For a long moment, tender in its lingering, Margaret Phelps did not speak, and then she said, “I wish they lived here.”

“They’ve got their own lives, Mama.”

“Maybe Arthur will give Lottie a full-time job,” his mother said hopefully. “Sally tells me she’s a good worker and that a lot of people have started coming by since she’s been there.”

“Mama, that’s just from being curious about her,” Ben warned. “That won’t last. Anyway, Mr. Ledford wouldn’t have her around with Sally there. What he’s doing now is charity he got pushed into doing. He won’t do it long.”

BEN WAS WRONG about Arthur Ledford.

Each day that Lottie appeared at his store, a spell that could have been witchcraft worked its way out of her eyes and wrapped Arthur in a vapor as lethal as poison. And it was that—exactly. He inhaled her, felt her coating his lungs and then flooding through his bloodstream. He also knew it was not something that she worked on purpose. It was simply a part of her, as her hair was a part of her, or her fingers. He was sure that no one could see it, or sense it, but him. It was not obvious. It was even hidden by her off-looks and her bowed head and her whispered talk in his presence.

He would not speak to her of his feelings, he vowed to himself, even though the impulse to do so seemed stationed in his throat. He was her employer, a married man, a family man, a citizen of standing in the community. He had lived long enough to know it was not uncommon for a man in his late forties to be distracted by the beauty of a younger woman, and in his case, there was probably more danger of it than for a normal man in a normal situation. Since before the birth of Sally, his wife had turned cold and unresponsive and somehow competitive in the way that people are when they set themselves like a post, refusing to be moved. He did not know why. He had discussed it privately with the doctor, Oscar Morgan, and Oscar Morgan had no answers, only guesses. A physical change, perhaps. A chemical disorder that affected her mentally and emotionally. And Oscar Morgan had added, “Could be, Arthur, that she’s just now catching up to her family traits.” Her family traits included a mood of meanness that left welts on the souls of victims. For seventeen years, she had denied him her body, but more damaging, she had denied him any show of tenderness, and tenderness was like oxygen for Arthur Ledford.

And Lottie Lanier had been blessed with tenderness. Anyone who looked into her eyes would know that. A weak man would crumble before her. A strong man would know to keep his distance.

Arthur believed he was strong.

He was not.

One week from the day he first saw Lottie Lanier, Arthur opened the door to his storeroom and found her standing beside Ben’s rolltop desk. It was late afternoon, after closing, and he believed he was alone in the store. Seeing her startled him.

“Lottie,” he said. It was the first time he had called her by her familiar name. “I thought you were gone.”

“No sir,” Lottie said nervously. “Sally left.”

“Why—are you here?” Arthur asked.

“I had some things to do,” she said, “but more than anything I just wanted to thank you for all you been doing for me, knowing Ben will be coming back soon.”

“No need for that. You’re a good worker. You’ve been an asset.”

Lottie touched the desk as though she needed to lean against it. She said, “I never worked in a store before.”

“Well, you have a talent for it,” Arthur told her. “I have some friends in the business in Augusta. If you’d like, I could—”

“No, sir,” Lottie said quickly. “You already done more than enough.”

Arthur nodded his understanding: she would not be a user.

And then she asked the question she had stayed to ask: “You don’t hold it against Ben, do you? Me being here.”

Arthur glanced at the opened storeroom door. From across the store, through the front window, he could see the withered figure of Lucille Bellflower peering in at the displays. He closed the door. “Of course I don’t,” he replied. “What you did was an honorable thing.”

“Ben, he helped me out. I couldn’t just leave him at the train station.”

“I understand,” Arthur said. “Everything’s worked out for the best.”

Lottie did not reply. She dipped her head, then looked up again, and a faint, uncertain smile tipped across her lips, then quickly vanished. She began to move to the door. As she approached him, Arthur put out his hand and touched her shoulder. She stopped, turned her face to him, and the power of her eyes drove into him. He whispered painfully, “God help me. God help me.” And then he caught her gently and pulled her to him. She wedged her arms stiffly between his chest and her breasts and twisted her face away from him, hard over her shoulder. She could feel him trembling, could hear him sob-gasping to breathe, and she slowly pulled down her arms and moved obediently to fit against him.

BEN HAD DRESSED for supper, had even walked outside for a few minutes, taking in the late sun and the still-thick summer air. He tired quickly, but the walk invigorated his spirits. He had lost weight and strength and there was a tenderness in his chest, like a bruise, yet Oscar Morgan had proclaimed him fit enough to be out of bed, and that was enough for the time being.

“You’ll have to go easy, Ben,” the doctor had said. “If it’s rheumatic fever you’ve had, you’re going to have to pay attention to it the rest of your life. We don’t know as much as we need to, but we know it can cause you heart troubles down the road.”

It was a judgment that would sentence Ben to caution and worry until the day the warning became true, like a debt collected, in his early seventies.

Sally arrived to find him sitting in the porch swing, with his mother seated nearby in a rocker, cuddling Little Ben, who was looking at pictures in a children’s book.

“You’re up,” she said in delight. And then she saw the pale coloring of his face. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Are you sure you’re ready to be out of bed?”

“Just a little winded,” he told her. “I took a short walk.”

“It’s too hot,” Sally protested.

“I didn’t let him go far,” Margaret said. “Just to the corner and back. Little Ben walked with him.” She paused, peered down the street. “Where’s Lottie?”

Sally sat in the swing next to Ben. “She stayed to put away some things that came in today. I told her it could wait, but she wanted to do it.” She laughed lightly. “If Ben doesn’t come back to work soon, I’m afraid Daddy’s going to dismiss me and hire Lottie. She’s really a good worker.”

“A few more days,” Ben said. “Maybe by Monday or Tuesday.”

“Not until you’re ready,” cautioned Margaret. She wiggled Little Ben from her lap. “You two visit,” she said. “Little Ben and I are going over to Betty Render’s house to get some tomatoes she picked from her garden this morning. She told me they were almost as big as the ones Ben’s father used to grow, but I doubt it. Nobody could grow tomatoes like Elton. You remember them, don’t you, Ben?”

“Yes, Mama, I do,” Ben said.

“We won’t be gone too long,” Margaret said. Then, to Sally: “Don’t let him stay out here but a few minutes. The heat cooks the energy right out of a person.”

“I won’t,” promised Sally.

Ben and Sally watched Margaret and Little Ben leave the yard and cross the street. Little Ben ran ahead of her, then back, ahead and back, like a happy puppy, playing his child-game.

“She sure loves that boy,” Sally said quietly.

“She does,” Ben agreed.

“It’s going to seem awfully lonesome for her when they leave,” Sally added.

“I guess,” Ben said.

“She’ll need to keep herself busy,” Sally suggested. “Find something else to occupy her time, something that’ll take her mind off what Little Ben might be doing.”

Ben rocked the swing gently. He knew the hints, had listened to them for a week. The something else that Sally wanted for his mother was the preparation for a wedding.

“I think you’d better go inside,” Sally said. “It’ll be cooler.”

“In a minute,” Ben told her.

“I promised your mother—”

“I know. Just another minute.”

“All right,” Sally said in surrender. She reached for his hand, stroked it with her fingers. “Coleman Maxey came back in the store today,” she said in a cheerful, racing voice. “That’s three days this week he’s been in, and I don’t think I ever remember him even opening the door before. You should see him around Lottie, Ben. He’s just plain silly. Bought a shirt today. Yesterday, it was a pair of work pants. And I told you about the straw hat, didn’t I? It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen on a man. You could wear it, and it’d look wonderful, but not Coleman. But it’s Lottie he’s coming to see. Every time he looks at her, he gets red-faced. He even asked me if she’d ever been here before. He swears he’s seen her.”

Ben thought of the carnival. It had been years, and Lottie had only worked a food tent, but Coleman could have seen her and remembered. Coleman had an eye for beautiful women.

“I don’t know where he could have,” he said.

“I told him it must be somebody who looks like her,” Sally said. “Everybody’s supposed to have somebody who looks like them. I saw a man on the street one day that looked enough like my daddy to be his twin brother, but he was just somebody who was doing business with the quarry. He was from Italy, Daddy told me.”

“I think I remember him,” Ben lied.

“You can pretty much predict when Coleman will take to his bottle again,” Sally said. “When Lottie leaves.”

“Maybe so,” Ben said nonchalantly.

Sally laughed easily. “But he may not be the only one that mopes around when she’s gone.” She squeezed his hand, stopped the motion of the swing with her foot. “I’m just glad you don’t drink.”

For a moment, Ben did not speak. Then he said, “I think I’m just going to be glad when she’s on her way home, after all she’s done for me.” He paused. “Anyway, I’m going to be too busy to think about it.”

“Too busy,” Sally said hopefully.

“At the store, getting back to work.”

“Oh,” Sally said.

“And I’ve got that other thing to do,” Ben said.

“What other thing?”

“I’ve got a wedding to get ready for.”

Sally could feel a quivering in her chest. She whispered, “Whose wedding?”

Ben turned to look at her. “Mine,” he answered. A grin broke on his face. “Or did I forget to talk to you about that?”

“Ben—”

Ben furrowed his brow. “I could swear we talked about this. I did ask you to marry me, didn’t I? Or did I dream it when I had the fever and my mind was wandering all over the place?”

“Ben, don’t tease—”

Ben touched her lips with his finger. “Well, if you don’t remember, I must have dreamed it and it wouldn’t count, of course, but I’ll tell you about it if you want me to.”

Sally could hear the echo of her heartstroke. She inhaled, held the breath.

“We were sitting here in the swing—just like we are now,” Ben said casually. “And you were saying to me, ‘Marry me, Ben Phelps. Marry me.’ And you sounded so desperate about it, I thought the only kind thing to do was to ask you, so I did. I said, ‘Sally Ledford, will you marry me?’ “

“Ben—”

“I don’t remember your answer in my dream,” Ben said.

Sally began to cry. She leaned her face against his shoulder. “Ask me again, Ben.”

And Ben whispered, “Will you marry me, Sally Ledford?”

“Yes, Ben, yes,” Sally said. And a cry of exultation flew up from her throat.

Across the street, standing in front of Betty Render’s home, Margaret Phelps heard the cry, knew what it was, and she smiled relief. Soon she would have the daughter she wanted.