“Melia!” said Janey.
It was Sunday afternoon, and Hiram was dozing in his armchair, and Janey and Earle was sitting under the dining table—their den of thieves, they liked to call it—playing their ten millionth game of old maid, and I thought my way to the door was clear, but then Janey poked her head out.
“Where you going?” she asked.
“No place.”
“How come you put on a dress?”
Now it was Earle’s head poking out.
“Would you look at that? For crying out loud!”
“Reckon I’m allowed to wear a dress,” I said. “Don’t have to be just for funerals.”
But Janey was crawling toward me now like a bluetick on a coon. “It’s more ’n that. You combed your hair and washed your face.”
“Sweet Jesus,” said Earle.
“Something ain’t right.”
I was about to answer, but the heat went rolling up my throat. The next second, Janey sprang to her feet.
“Holy smokes! Melia’s going out with a feller.”
“No, she ain’t,” said Earle.
“She is, I tell you!”
“Melia, are you going out with a feller?”
“Well—Jesus, I’m—I’m goin’ out is all.”
“Who with?” Janey wanted to know.
It crossed my mind to lie.
“Dudley Blevins,” I mumbled.
“Who?”
“Dudley Blevins. Now you leave it there or…”
But Janey was giving me her look. That I’m-so-sorry-you’re-so-stupid look.
“What?” I said.
“You sure took your ever-sweet-lovin’ time about it, that’s all.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking ’bout.”
“Dudley’s been sweet on you since forever,” she said. “What’d he have to do, hire a crop duster and scrawl it cross the sky?”
This was news, I confess.
I started running through all the things Dudley would do around me. Tip his head to one side. Shove his hands in his pockets and jangle the coins real loud. Sometimes I’d catch him leaning back against the car, like he owned it, only as soon as I caught him doing it, he’d straighten right back up and start itching round the back of his head. That’s what being sweet was?
“Nuff of your fool talk,” I said. “This ain’t a date. It’s a business meeting.”
“Bet I know what business,” said Janey.
“Hush up.”
“Business!” she shouted.
Just loud enough to shake Hiram out of his nap. He come rolling up from his chair, eyes wild. “What? What is it?”
“Guess who’s goin’ walkin’ with Dudley Blevins?”
The clouds on Hiram’s face melted off. “Well, now,” he said. “Mr. Sun Tzu would be most pleased.”
We stared at him.
“The Art of War,” he explained.
We stared some more.
“If your enemy’s forces are united, separate them,” he said.
“But Dudley ain’t our enemy,” said Earle.
“He let me bandage him all the way to the shoulder,” said Janey.
“He may or may not be our enemy,” said Hiram, “but he’s most definitely related to our enemy. As such, he might be useful.”
Well, if there’s one word I’d never have thought to put alongside Dudley Blevins, it was useful. How exactly was I supposed to use him? I thought of Mama plying herself against Mr. Wallace Paxton from the First Bank of Virginia, and then I thought of me banging teeth with Dudley, and it was like two different games.
“Y’all make my head ache,” I said.
I was nearly to the door when I heard Janey say, “You shoulda put on rouge.”
Now, I was too shamed to admit it, but I’d spent a good half hour looking for Mama’s rouge. Her clothes was all where we left ’em, still full of her smell, but those little female tricks she used to have at her call—the lipstick tube and the eye pencil and the face powder and the tortoiseshell hair clips—they was as good as gone.
Well, never mind, I thought, walking out to the road. I wouldn’t have known what to do with ’em anyway. He’s gonna get the real me, I thought. God help him.
Now, it so happens I also had particular notions about my first courting. The feller was supposed to get there on time, for starters. He was supposed to roll up in—well, not a Bugatti or nothing, but a Caddy or a Packard. He’d be wearing a shirt with peppermint stripes and suspenders and a nice boater and black patent-leather shoes. Maybe an alpaca scarf.
Well, Dudley wore a work shirt and scuffed work shoes, and he rolled up ten minutes late in an old DeSoto delivery sedan that looked like it’d been driven round the moon and back.
“Where’s the Chevy Eagle?” I asked.
“Hell, my uncle’d kill me if I took that out on a Sunday. This here’s my buddy Elmer’s. Drives like a peach.”
“I bet.”
“Climb on in.”
Also in the courtship of my dreams, the feller was gonna open the door for me.
“Where we going?” I asked.
“I dunno.”
But he drove straight and true, like he had a place in mind. Sure enough, once we’d gotten off the Loop Road, he pulled over in a clearing and cut the engine.
“What about here?” he said in a casual kind of way.
I peered out the window. All I saw at first was a row of poplars, but from the late-afternoon shadows, a little notch peered back. A trailhead.
“Holy Christ,” I said. “You want to go walking in the woods?”
“Sure.”
“But I didn’t wear no dress so I could get all nature-y.”
To be honest, it wasn’t even the dress I was thinking of, it was Mama’s sandals. She’d seen Joan Crawford wearing them in a Movie Mirror feature, so she’d ordered knockoffs from J.C. Penney’s, but they never did fit right, so after a couple of weeks, she’d tossed ’ em to me.
“You’re the one that’s got the dainty feet,” she’d said.
And what a wonder it was. To know I had something dainty about me and to be wearing Joan Crawford’s shoes. Point is, I didn’t want nothing happening to those sandals.
“Can’t we just walk on a street somewhere?” I said. “Like normal folks?”
“It’s cooler in the woods.”
Well, here was something Mama and I had never got the chance to talk about. What exactly happened to gals who went walking in the woods with boys?
“I don’t know, Dudley.”
“What’s to know?”
“It’s just I ain’t exactly acquainted with this here stretch of woods.”
“I am.”
“Besides, I gotta be back in an hour. Two hours tops. They’re expecting me.”
“We’ll be back,” he said. “I brung my pocket watch.”
With a little smile, he drew it out of his dungarees. Old as time itself.
“Your uncle give that to you?” I asked.
“My granddaddy. He was with the railroad thirty years, and they let him keep it. Ain’t it fine?”
Something in how he said that—proud and shy.
“All I care is if it keeps time,” I said.
“It does.”
“Well, okay, then.”
I got out of the car slow. Watched Dudley hoist a rucksack over his shoulder and amble toward the forest. Long, easy strides.
“How ’bout I go first?” he said.
“Okay.”
“Keep me in sight, now.”
“Then don’t go fast.”
He slipped into those poplars like some kind of woodland critter, but me, I stopped right on the verge of that trailhead and made myself look back. There was the sky. There was the road. Dudley’s cousin’s sedan.
“You coming?” Dudley called.
The first step was the hardest. By the tenth, the sun had flown off, and the air was cool on my skin, and the sound of birds was tunneling into my ear. Robin, sparrow, yellowthroat.
The path was grown over at first, but it opened up soon enough, and before I even had my bearings, we was standing in front of a creek. A creek I’d never seen in all my days. Mighty and spring fed, frothing up on each side, clear all the way to the bottom.
“Does it have a name?” I asked.
Dudley shrugged.
“Well, which way do we go?” I asked.
“Up.”
“I don’t see no trail.”
“Gotta follow the creek bed.”
That water was rushing on down like judgment, and I weren’t gonna go nowhere near, but then Dudley said, “Less snakes this way.”
So there I was, stepping from one stone to the next in my Joan Crawford sandals, the moss making every rock slippery as a hog butcher’s fingers. More than once, I thought I was fixing to tumble right in, dress and shoes and everything, but Dudley’s hand found me each time—it seemed to know.
No denying he had a firm grip, and being as I was following him, I had time to study the rest of him, too. His waist, which was tinier than I’d have guessed. The ridge of his shoulders. Legs dancing from rock to rock, never missing a step. The place on his arms where now and then his sleeve would pull up to show a little rectangle of white skin against the red of his forearms. Seemed like that was the only way I could keep my balance sometimes, staring at that white band.
We saw but the one snake—a cottonmouth, wrapped round a fern. It didn’t pay us no never mind.
By now it was hard to tell if the water soaking my dress was from the creek or my own sweat, but I felt freer with each step.
“Not much farther,” said Dudley.
Farther to where? I wondered. How long had we even been gone? I saw berries shining out of arbutus bushes. Cedar creeping under a pine tree. Sun and shadow, shadow and sun. Off in the distance, Massanutten Mountain, changing from blue to gray and back again. And just up ahead, the biggest damn boulder I ever seen, splitting the creek in two.
“We’re here,” said Dudley.
He helped me up the side of the rock, and what do you know? Turned out there was a big ol’ granite shelf on top, ten feet in every direction, with a view clear down to the valley.
There’s folks would’ve paid ten thousand dollars for that view, but Dudley, he flung himself down on that rock like it was his birthright. Stretched himself flat on his back and gazed up at that sky. I was figuring to do the same, but I’d had so damned little practice wearing a dress I couldn’t figure how to settle myself without showing too much leg. I ended up tipping onto my hip and tucking in my knees tight as I could.
“You hungry?” said Dudley.
He reached into that rucksack of his and brought out … peanut butter sandwiches … fried chicken … strawberries … fresh biscuits. Even a little jar of apple preserves. Now, I have heard a young lady is never supposed to be hungry in front of a young man, but I was ready to eat ten boars, so I piled in. And I will say it was tolerable nice, sitting there on top of that rock, eating chicken and licking the grease off my fingers.
“Dudley,” I said, “can I ask you something?”
His mouth was full, so he nodded.
“Why you bothering with me?”
He give a shrug, kept chewing.
“No, I mean it,” I said. “Best I can recall, I ain’t never tossed you a kind word. Been nothing but a torment to you from the day we met.”
“That’s so,” he allowed.
“Well, then, what is it? I would truly like to know.”
He folded one arm over his head.
“My daddy,” he said. “’Fore he died, he told me if a gal don’t give you the time of day? Why, you pass right on by ’cause your chances ain’t good. But if a gal takes a real pleasure in devilin’ you, why, you stick around ’cause it probably means she likes you all right.” He give me half of a smile. “I’m only telling you what Daddy said.”
“Oh, yeah? What else he say?”
“Well.” He set down his sandwich. “He said don’t you never fix your sights on a gal till you see her for real. A lot o’ girls, they can put on the pretty, but you make sure you’re lookin’ at ’em when they’s natural. And hell, Melia, you ain’t never been nothin’ but natural. I can’t even believe you wore a dress today. I mean, I’m not sayin’ you don’t look right nice in it. What I mean is, you look okay the way you are.”
Made me right glad I hadn’t bothered with the rouge. (Would’ve washed off anyway.)
“I reckon that’s a compliment,” I said.
“Yes, ma’am, it is.”
Say something nice back. But all I could think to say was …
“How’d your daddy die?”
His eyes squeezed down a hair.
“I mean, I was just wondering,” I said. “Did he take sick or something?”
“He was working a coal seam. Over in Mill Creek on the West Virginia side. They was down about two miles—my daddy and four others—and they hit a pocket of firedamp. Death was instant, that’s what the company said.”
I stared down at my sandals. “That when your uncle took you in?”
“It was more my aunt. She and Uncle Harley didn’t have no kids of their own, so…”
“There you was.”
“I guess.”
“They treat you okay?”
“Good enough.”
“You like driving him around all day?”
“Beats mining.”
The boy had a point.
“What about your ma?” I said. “Did she—”
“She run off when I was two.”
“You know where?”
“Nope.” He jerked his head toward the water, but his voice was soft when it come back. “Used to think we had that in common, Melia. Me and you. Growing up without a parent and all. And then when your daddy come back…”
My face flushed hot.
“No, it’s okay,” said Dudley. “I was gonna say when he come back, I thought it’d piss me off ’cause we didn’t have that in common no more. But I set and thought on it and turned out I was happy for you after all. ’Cause how often does it go like that? I mean, family comin’ back to you.”
“It’s a rare thing,” I allowed.
“Boy, you said it.”
No longer was I thinking about my dress or if my knees was locked tight enough. I was thinking about kissing him. I tipped myself forward and brought my face right up to his. Wondering as I closed my eyes if we’d find each other, and we did.
His lips tasted of sun and chicken.
“That was the nicest one yet,” he said.
“Well, there’s only been the three, so…”
“So let’s do another,” he said.
And that was nice as well.
“Is this rock taken?” I said, pointing to the part alongside him.
“Why, no, it is not.”
So I laid there, and he laid beside. Neither of us quite touching. The breeze was tickling on down from the hills, and the sun was mopping up the water from my skin. I should’ve been at ease, but something stole over me without my knowing.
Useful. He might be useful.
“Hey, now,” I said. “What does your uncle say about me?”
His eyelids fluttered a little.
“Nothing much.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I’m serious. He don’t bring up business with me.”
My fingers crawled toward Dudley’s hand. Did a little dance in his palm.
“I know he wants our station,” I said.
“That’s just business, Melia. It ain’t personal.”
His hands closed lightly round my fingers.
“You know what I was thinking?” I said. “We could come here every Sunday.”
“Yeah? You think so?”
“Why, sure. We could bring food, and we could—you know, talk on things.”
“What things?”
“Oh, you know, whatever folks talk about. I mean, if we’re gonna be friends and all, friends share things, don’t they?”
“I guess.”
“Like things they know. I’d tell you stuff I know, and you’d tell me stuff you know. And that works out for both of us, see?”
That was when I felt his hand pry itself loose from mine. He sat up. He said, in a soft, lost voice, “You want me to spy on my uncle.”
I confess I underestimated the boy.
“Whoa, now,” I said. “Hold on there. That ain’t what I—”
“That’s what you meant.”
“No. It ain’t. I swear.”
But he was already on his feet.
“Jesus. Is that why you come out here with me? To drag secrets out of me?”
“Don’t talk crazy.”
“You think I’m crazy?” Next second, he was on his knees, leaning his whole body at me. “How far was you planning to go, Melia?” He hooked his hand round the back of my neck. “How much was you thinking of sharing? For friendship’s sake?” He pulled my head toward his. “How much?”
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t.”
He stared at me a long time, then let go his hand. “That’s what I figured.”
He stood up, walked to the edge of the rock. “Write me down,” he said. “Biggest fool ever lived.”
“No.”
“Thinking you was—”
“I am! I mean, I could be.”
From where Dudley Blevins was came the saddest laugh.
“You could be.”
“Listen,” I said, rising to my feet. “You gotta understand. I don’t know nothing ’bout—’bout feeling. All I know is fighting. And holding on. At the end of the day, I don’t got much left for nothing else.”
“Jesus, Melia. Everyone I know is holding on. They can still find a place for other folks.”
“Yeah? Well, tell you what.” I was walking at him now, slow hard steps. “Tell you what, Dudley. You get your uncle to back the hell off. You get him to call off his dogs at First Virginia Bank and the juvenile court and leave us the hell in peace and maybe then—maybe then I can be one of those lovesome lovebirds you’re so hot on. Till then, I got a station to run and a family to hold together. So pardon me if I can’t be your little chippie.”
It was like the water itself went quiet. Dudley stood a long time, staring down the valley. Then he half turned round.
“There’s still some strawberries,” he said. “If you want any.”
“You eat ’em.”
“I ain’t hungry.”
“Me, neither.”
“Then we’d best get back,” he said.
* * *
Going downhill should’ve been faster, but it was about the slowest walk I ever took. I didn’t slip once and wouldn’t have cared if I did. When we come back out the trailhead, Dudley took out his granddaddy’s pocket watch and, with a face grim as winter, said, “Look at that. Two hours on the dot.”