TWENTY

COLEMAN MAXEY DID not understand why he awoke suddenly, fully alert, from a black, dreamless sleep, knowing where he had seen Lottie Lanier. The mind must keep working when the body shuts down, was Coleman’s theory. Like a pocket watch tucked inside a pocket. You couldn’t see it at work and you probably couldn’t hear it ticking, but still it worked, still unwound minutes and hours off the spring inside its steel casing. The mind had to be made up of things like watch springs, Coleman decided. And thinking hard and constant about something was like twisting a watch stem tight; it worked even when you were busy with other matters, or when you slept so hard you were only a breath or two away from death.

He sat up in his bed when the memory came to him, and he thought: Well, by God. That’s it.

Lottie Lanier was the same woman who had bought a quart of moonshine whiskey from him all those years ago when Ben Phelps had made the baseball hit against the one-armed giant and was later beaten up and the giant found murdered.

Coleman was sure of it. She was dressed better now, and she was older, and she seemed to possess a quiet nature that could easily be mistaken for haughtiness, except for the gentleness of her eyes. Yet, in Coleman’s thinking, it was her eyes that gave her away. A man could not look into such eyes without being haunted by them.

The memory was immediately clear to him. A town boy hired for helping to set up the tents came to him late in the afternoon, saying one of the men in the baseball show wanted to buy a quart of good makings, and he told the boy—Farley Roberts was his name, now moved away—that he would have the order ready at first dark and to have the man meet him at the rail yard where the cars for the carnival had been routed and uncoupled.

He was startled when the girl appeared.

“You Mr. Maxey?” she asked.

“That’s me, little lady,” Coleman answered. “Who’s asking?”

“I come for the jar,” the girl replied.

“Well, by damn,” Coleman muttered. “I was expecting some fellow.”

“He sent me.”

A broad smile crawled over Coleman’s face. “You got money, or you planning on a trade?”

The girl thrust two dollars toward him.

“I’m up to trading, if you want to keep that for yourself,” Coleman told her.

The girl did not speak or move.

“Damned if you not the prettiest thing ever been in this town,” Coleman said eagerly. “You work the girlie tent when they got it up, don’t you?”

Still, the girl did not speak.

“Why don’t I throw in the jar and five extra dollars,” Coleman suggested. “And me and you crawl up in one of them train cars and get this deal done.”

The girl turned and started to walk away.

“Wait a minute,” Coleman called. “Where you going?”

The girl stopped and turned back. “To tell him what you said.”

Coleman laughed nervously. He had seen enough carnival gangs to know they stood together, and he knew he had pushed too hard in his bargaining. “Aw, I was just fooling around,” he said. He stepped to her. “Here’s the jar.”

The girl handed him the two dollars and took the jar and lifted her face to him and fixed him in her gaze. It was then that he put her eyes away in memory.

“Hope he likes it,” Coleman said weakly.

The girl walked away.

Coleman laughed softly, a cackle from his throat, and then he fell back on his pillow heavily, causing his bedsprings to squeak. He stared at a wash of moonlight in the corner of his room, a quaint light spill that had the appearance of a dangling triangle. He thought: I knew I’d seen her. He whispered in amazement, “Well, by God.”

ARTHUR LEDFORD SAW Coleman step from his shoe shop and wave, and he frowned wearily. It was twenty minutes before eight o’clock and the morning sun already baked the concrete of the sidewalk. Too early and too humid for Coleman Maxey, he thought. Besides, he had seen enough of Coleman over the past week, Coleman showing up to buy items he would never wear and for no other reason than to steal glimpses of Lottie Lanier. It was embarrassingly childlike behavior, making each visit a deplorable charade to be suffered. If possible, Arthur avoided Coleman and all men like him. He did not like the rough style such men adopted. They were barely civilized, and nothing seemed to matter to any of them—nothing beyond their lust and the pleasure of that lust. None of them knew the souls of women they pawed over. They knew only the heat of flesh and the swelling of their loins. Love, to them, was won in brawls of taking, not giving. None of them understood the conquering power of a gentle embrace, or the surrender offered in touches so light they seemed like water running warm over the body.

A weakness gathered in his chest. With Lottie, he had been like those men. Or, if people knew what he had done with her, they would think of him in such a way. Yet it wasn’t the same. To him, the tenderness had mattered. More than passion, more than taking.

Still, there was shame. Great shame.

He stopped at the sidewalk opposite Coleman’s store. He saw Coleman quick-striding toward him. He thought: Lottie. The memory of her body, slender and firm, pressed against him, and a surge of sorrow filled his chest.

“Arthur, wait up a minute,” Coleman called.

“Good morning, Coleman,” Arthur said in the voice he used in his store. “Warm enough for you?”

“It keeps this up, we better think about renaming this place Hell,” Coleman replied with a grin. He stepped onto the sidewalk to stand beside Arthur.

“I’ll bring that up at the next council meeting,” Arthur said.

Coleman’s grin turned into a laugh. He glanced down at the sidewalk. “Say, Arthur, you remember me telling you I thought I’d seen that girl you got working for you down at the store?”

“Mrs. Lanier?”

“Yeah, her,” Coleman said. “Lottie. That’s her first name, right?”

“Yes,” Arthur replied. “Why?”

“Well, I remembered,” Coleman said proudly.

Arthur could feel the muscles across his chest tighten. He tilted his head to look at Coleman. “You did?”

Coleman’s head wagged vigorously. “Sure did. Woke up in the middle of the night, bolt up in bed, and it come to me. She was working that carnival that come through here six or seven years ago, the one when Ben got beat up and that one-armed fellow got his head split open. I met her.”

A chill rippled over Arthur’s shoulders. He could feel his eyes blinking in surprise. “You must be mistaken,” he said firmly.

“Well, could be, I guess,” Coleman said, “but there’s some faces a man don’t never forget, and that’s one of them. I’m telling you, Arthur, that’s her, and it makes me wonder about her showing back up here with Ben. You ask me, there’s more to it than meets the eye.”

Arthur crossed his arms at his chest to calm the trembling. He said, “Have you mentioned this to anyone else?”

“You the first one,” Coleman told him. “Since she’s working for you, I thought you ought to be the one to know.”

“I appreciate that,” Arthur said quietly. “Personally, I think you’re wrong. I think she may look like somebody you’ve seen, but Mrs. Lanier couldn’t have been that same girl. She’s been living in Kentucky for several years now.”

“Like I said, it’s been six or seven years,” Coleman reminded him.

“That’s true enough,” Arthur said, “but we don’t want to harm the reputation of a good woman by making statements that could be wrong, do we?”

Coleman shrugged. “Never said I wanted to do that. I just thought you’d like to know, that’s all.” He paused, flicked a smile toward Arthur. “But if it is her, I’d say her reputation was in question a long time ago.”

“How’s that?”

“I told you: I met her. She was working the girlie tent as far as I could tell, even if they had that tent packed away when they stopped off here.”

For a moment, Arthur did not speak. He lowered his head and nibbled on his lower lip. Coleman Maxey was a despicable man who could not be trusted, yet he had no choice but to trust. “I’ll inquire into it,” he said at last. “But I’m going to ask you to do the gentleman’s thing, Coleman. I’m going to ask you to keep this between us. There’s more at stake here than the possibility that you may be right, and it’s personal with me. Maybe you don’t know, but Ben asked Sally to be his wife last night, and this is the sort of thing that could cast suspicion on him and bring great grief to my daughter. I don’t want that, and I don’t think you do either. Am I right?”

Coleman nodded again. He had never had a man of Arthur Ledford’s standing confide in him with such sincerity. “Lord, no, Arthur. I hadn’t heard about Ben and your girl getting promised, but I sure don’t want to be part of anything that could come between them. They’re fine young people.”

“Good. Let’s have it stay between us,” Arthur said. “At the appropriate time, I’ll find an opportunity to ask Mrs. Lanier about it—in a roundabout way, of course. I think I’ll know if she’s covering the truth. And then I’ll let you know what I’ve learned.”

“Fine with me,” Coleman told him. “And don’t you worry. You say so and I’ll take it to my grave.”

Arthur licked his lips. He stood stiffly and extended his hand to Coleman. “I’m in your debt,” he said. Then he inhaled and added, “I’m grateful for your friendship.”

Coleman grinned. He squeezed Arthur’s hand deliberately hard. “I’ll stand with you, Arthur, but I know I’m right,” he said. “I don’t never forget a pretty face, and me and you both know she’s got the prettiest face this town ever saw.”

ARTHUR WATCHED COLEMAN cross the street, lifted a hand of acknowledgment—of comradeship—when Coleman turned to flick a wave before stepping into his shop, and then he walked away, continuing toward his store, his pace slow, his legs lead-heavy, his mind aching.

He had not slept the entire night. Could not. What had passed from his thoughts, and from his lips, as prayer had seemed little more than hollow begging. He had wanted to say to God, and to Lottie, “Forgive me.” Yet he had not felt the condemnation of sin. Sadness, yes. Great sadness. And confusion. It had been impossible to hide under the covering of his bed from the presence of God, or of Lottie, and he had lain awake through the night, not moving, waiting for the voice of God, or of Lottie, to grant him pardon for his weakness. In the seeing of his mind, the eyes of God were murderous with anger. The eyes of Lottie were soft and merciful.

He could sense her face against his shoulders, the moisture of her breathing coating his chest, and he swept his hand over his throat to ward off the feeling.

She had submitted to his clumsiness quietly and gently, letting her body unfold in his hands like the cloth of silk, and he had been stunned at the ease and grace of her giving. He had whispered stupidly of her beauty, had apologized shamefully for his behavior—behavior he could not stop—but she had not seemed to hear him.

“What I’ve done is wrong,” he had said painfully as he walked her to the door of the store. “I can only ask you to forgive me. It won’t happen again. You have my promise.”

She had looked at him warmly, as though she did not understand why he was suddenly sad, had reached to touch his face, and then she had said, “I’m glad you don’t hold it against Ben, me being here.”

And that, too, was something that had lingered in his sleeplessness. Her concern for Ben seemed to be more than appreciation; it seemed deeply personal. And perhaps neither she nor Ben had told the whole story. Perhaps her husband was not dead, and she was only fleeing from him and had confided in Ben, and Ben had taken it upon himself to protect her. It would be like Ben to do so. He had his father’s compassion for people who needed help, and since he had stopped boasting of his skills in baseball, he had become almost invisible when attention was turned on him. How would he explain being the protector of a woman on the run to Sally—or to anyone?

And maybe it meant nothing, what Lottie had said. Maybe it was the only thing she could think to say. He did not believe she had given herself so freely simply to shield Ben. There was too much in the giving, too much.

He stood inside his store, at the window, and searched the street for her, watching the early-morning shoppers arriving in their motorcars and buggies. He wondered if she would return to work, and if she did, what he would say to her.

She would leave Jericho soon, and it would be best. In time, he would remember her only with joy, not fear and regret.

He thought of Coleman Maxey.

Coleman was not right about Lottie. Believing he had seen her with the carnival was only the wildness of his imagination, the kind of trick that magicians used when they locked someone in a box and twirled it and then keyed open the locks to show it empty, and moments later called the disappeared person to materialize in the back of the auditorium.

Coleman wanted Lottie to be the girl of the carnival. It would make his fantasies of her worth the gossip he was bound to spread after she left.

He would not question her about the carnival, Arthur decided, but he would tell Coleman different. He would say he had asked her directly about it and she had provided him with certain proof that she was in Kentucky at the time. And then he would propose that no one else in Jericho had remembered her from the carnival, and she had been seen by most of the townspeople since coming to work in his store. Not just seen, but stared at, examined. He would say that he, too, remembered a girl—pretty like Lottie—but the girl he remembered was much shorter and had a dull, used look hidden in her soft eyes. With persuasion, Coleman might change his story. He might say that Lottie had a look-alike. Pretty, but shorter, a dull, used look in her eyes. Almost a dead ringer, though. Almost.

He saw Lucille Bellflower crossing the street in her curious waddle, her protruding chin bobbling with her steps. She had found her buy in the window on the day before and had pondered over it and now was returning to take it away with her. She would prattle endlessly over its size and color, and she would solicit praises from him for the wisdom of her selection. And he would gift-wrap the item, knowing her secret of sitting alone in her living room, pretending there were onlookers as she carefully unwrapped the surprise present from her addled husband. Before she left the store, Lucille would also remind him that it was her husband who had campaigned for him to sit on the city council. A tender illusion, Arthur thought. Her husband had not been out of his home in ten years. Those who knew him knew he still believed the Civil War raged outside the windows of his home.

He glanced past Lucille and saw Lottie, and he stepped back from the window. A single, hard blow struck in his chest and he inhaled quickly to calm himself.

IF IT WAS false energy, as his mother cautioned, Ben was glad to have it. He had slept well after Lottie’s visit, and when he awoke, he was eager to be out of bed and to move about. His muscles were tender from bed rest, but his lungs did not ache and his vision was clear. He ate a hearty breakfast in the dining room with Sally and Little Ben keeping him company, and then he announced that he felt fit enough to walk with Sally to the store.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” his mother fretted. “It’s already hot and you’re not used to it. You’ll tire out.”

“It’s not that far,” Ben said. “And I won’t rush things. If I get tired, I’ll stop and rest.”

Margaret Phelps sighed defeat. “You talk to him, Sally. He won’t listen to me, but he’d better start listening to you.”

The assignment pleased Sally. It was Margaret Phelps’s first act of surrendering Ben to her care, a small but significant gesture of understanding that went unrecognized by Ben, yet established territory between the two women. “Maybe he needs to learn for himself,” she said. “I’ll watch him. If he pushes too hard, I’ll make him come home.”

A glance was exchanged between Margaret and Sally. Nods that were not nods. Eyeblinks. A rite of passage exercised in the kind of secrecy that only women could share.

“All right,” Margaret said, and she sounded pleased.

To Sally, the moment was important enough to write about in the journal she had begun keeping, beginning with a line that read: Today, Ben’s mother began to let me become part of his life in the way it will be when I am finally his wife….

The walk with Sally from his home to Ledford’s Dry Goods—only a few blocks away—was more taxing that Ben had predicted, but it was not from the summer heat or from his disappearing illness; it was from chattering good wishes flung toward them as they passed neighboring homes and, eventually, the stores and shops of Jericho. To Sally, the voices were like bright strips of confetti rained over a parade—something to reach for and keep as souvenirs—and she seemed to dance around Ben, pirouetting to touch hands or to be embraced by women who were celebrating romance remembered, or wished for. To Ben, it was a feeling of awkwardness, of being looked upon as a trophy from a hunt. He had no defense for the giddy spiels of prattle other than a grin that felt lopsided and foolish on his face. It was not a walk of leisure for Ben, but a sentence of the gauntlet, and realizing his discomfort amused Sally.

“It won’t be so bad after today,” she whispered to him.

“It was easier playing baseball, having people hooting at you,” he confided.

Sally laughed. The sun was on her face, the music of voices surrounded her. She had never felt as grand.

At Brady’s Cafe, Vernon Brady stepped from the door and intercepted them. Vernon was a small, smiling man, generous and likable. The apron he wore seemed a permanent part of his dress, like a costume on an actor. His wife vowed that he slept in it.

“Well, by heavens,” Vernon boomed, “he’s up and about.” He extended his hand to Ben, shook heartily. “We’ve missed you, boy. You feeling better?”

“Sure am,” Ben told him.

Vernon turned to Sally. “And I think I know why this pretty young lady looks so happy, but I want to hear it firsthand. It is true that you finally got him hog-tied?”

“Well, we’re engaged,” Sally said, “but I think I like your way of saying it better.”

Vernon’s laugh rolled down the street. “Come on in for a minute,” he insisted. “I want to hear all about Boston and how Milo’s doing, and I’ve got a peach pie just out of the oven. My treat.” He laughed again. “And probably my wedding gift, too.”

“Maybe we better take up that offer another time,” Ben said. “Sally’s already late for work.”

“Good Lord, Ben, you don’t think her daddy’s going to fire her, do you?” Vernon teased. “Arthur can wait, but that pie can’t.” He opened the door to the cafe and motioned them in with a sweep of his arm. “He gets uppity about it, tell him I’ll hire both of you away from him. Besides, it’s too early for him to be doing anything but raising the prices on everything.”