CHAPTER 6

WE SPEND NEARLY EVERY AFTERNOON of the next nine days together. I’ve managed to pilfer a copy of Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned from Mrs. Campbell’s nightstand, along with a lovely cut-glass candy dish, should we ever again feel safe to have a dish of candy exposed to the open air. Every day, when Russ leaves to tend to his pastoral visits and Ariel waits for the minute hand to fall to the six (sometimes taking longer than thirty minutes, due to my surreptitious setting of the clock), I venture down to the shop with a tray of lunch for Jim, stationed behind the counter should a customer wander in. Few ever do, and those in need of a saw blade or a bag of nails find me busy feigning inventory while Jim, engaging in enough charming banter to encourage a return visit, completes the transaction with a notation in our book of pending payment. Then, alone again, the novel emerges, and we read.

I take my turn first, reading while he eats, a tacit acknowledgment of how difficult it might be to accomplish both tasks at once. Then, when he finishes, he asks politely if I’d like to take a break.

That first day, I am thankful for the refuge of text —something to keep me in his company while excusing me from small talk. By the second day it is an accepted habit, as he tells me he doesn’t read a single word in the time between. I am soon invested in the story of Anthony Patch and the glamorous life I am supposed to condemn. I read, he eats; he reads, I listen. On the third day I bring myself a glass of water to ease the dryness of my mouth, and on the fourth I bring four fresh-baked cookies —two for him, two for me.

Every day, before Ariel comes downstairs, before Russ can interrupt our story with the ringing of the shop bell, Jim slips in the scrap of cardboard to mark our place and I slip the book deep in the back of one of the drawers where we keep the files of customer accounts. With times so hard, Russ has all but given up on expecting payment from anybody, so I know he’ll not likely find it there.

And that, of course, means he doesn’t know. About the meal, yes. It is Jim’s payment for watching the store in the afternoons. But not about the book, and not about my presence.

Perhaps there’d be no harm had I said, on any given day, when he asked what I did with myself all afternoon, “Oh, nothing much. Your friend who’s been watching the store? That Jim? He and I have developed a little lunch routine of reading an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel together.” There are times when such a confession burns at the base of my throat, especially when Russ’s voice tugs at the edge of my thoughts, asking me where I’ve gone away to, and I have to come up with an answer that has nothing to do with beautiful, damned people.

It is dangerous enough how often he invades my thoughts, how I find myself structuring my day in terms of before and after lunch. My salvation has been knowing that when Russ comes home, Jim goes away. Out there, somewhere in the dusty streets of our little town. I have no idea where he comes from in the midmorning, or where he goes at night —an ignorance that keeps my feet on solid ground when thoughts of him threaten to uproot me.

“No,” I tell Russ. It is late at night —dark, at least, and we are sharing a last piece of pie, which itself is the last of the meal we shared with Jim that evening. It has taken nearly two weeks for me to fulfill my promise. Finally, though, I found time to spend an afternoon at Rosalie’s getting my hair freshly set and spent half our weekly grocery budget on a beef roast and enough potatoes that none of us would have to share. I used the money from my kitchen purse to pay the grocer, leaving Jim’s half dollar hidden at the bottom of my talcum powder, for reasons I cannot even explain to myself.

Ronnie sits at the table with us, fretting over a math problem. Ariel busies herself on the sofa in the front room, cutting out newspaper furniture for her paper dolls.

“He doesn’t have anyplace else to go. There’s no choice.”

The subject of our disagreement is Jim Brace, who at that moment sits downstairs, having been sent there with his battered duffel bag slung across his back.

“Where has he been staying until now?”

“He’s been renting a room at Bernice’s,” Russ says, an odd impatience to his reply.

“So why can’t he stay there?”

Russ looks at me, his brows knit together. “I told you last Sunday that Bernice was leaving town. Going to live with her sister in Oklahoma City.”

“Sorry.” I pick up our plate and rinse it in the sink. “So many of our people are leaving, it’s hard to keep track. My mind clouds up with everybody’s stories. It’s a shame she can’t let him stay there, look after the place until . . .”

“Until when? He decides to move on?”

“Well, how long are we going to keep him here?” I keep my back to Russ and train my words to hide my thoughts. “Do you think it’s a good idea to keep a drifter under our roof? Aren’t you worried about the children?”

“He ain’t a drifter, Ma,” Ronnie says.

“I don’t know what else you’d call him.” I scrub the plate harder. “Man who can carry his life around in a duffel bag. Blowing into town like the wind, stirring everything up.”

Russ asks, “What has he stirred up?” and I turn the tap on stronger to rinse the dish.

“We’re stretched thin enough already. I suppose taking him in will mean breakfast and supper. Inviting him upstairs to listen to the radio of an evening.”

“Gee, you sound like Paw-Paw,” Ronnie says, and the very tone of his voice makes me too ashamed to face him. “It’s a matter of hospitality.”

“We have enough,” Russ says, now behind me, reaching around to take the too-clean dish from my hand and set it on a towel to dry. “We’ll always have enough, and since when are we unable to share our blessings with those in need?”

I will myself to relax in his embrace and lean my head back against his chest. “You’re right, of course.”

“That’s my girl,” Russ says with a kiss against my temple. “So if you can round up some sheets and blankets, I’ll get him settled in the storeroom. He’ll need help setting up that cot.”

Ronnie closes his math book and his pencil rolls across the tabletop. “I’ll help too. If that’s okay.”

Russ and I both turn to look at him, surprised at his willingness to do anything unprompted.

“He’s interesting. He’s the only person I know who isn’t from here.”

“Don’t ask him about the war,” I say, wanting to protect them both. “He might not feel comfortable telling those stories, and I don’t know that I want you to hear them.”

Russ skirts my instruction. “Just tell him we’re on our way down.”

And with a scrape of a chair Ronnie’s gone.

I glance back at Ariel, ensuring that she is still engaged in her play, then lead Russ back into our bedroom, where a tall armoire holds our extra linens.

“Why is it so important to you to help this man?”

Russ stands back, ready to take whatever I hand to him. “It’s a hurting time, Nola. We have to do what we can.”

“No.” I run my hand down the neatly stacked sheets, wanting to avoid giving him those that have been overused of late as nothing more than protective covers. The cot, I know, is narrow, and not made to be fitted with proper bedding, but I want him to feel comfortable. And welcome, no matter how much I protest to my husband. How much I protest to myself. “It’s more than that. This town is full of people, some from our church that you’ve suffered right alongside, and we’re not taking any of them in. Or feeding them every day for doing nothing.”

“He’s watching the store.”

“There’s nothing to watch and you know that. I can’t remember the last time so much as a nickel went into the till. We may as well prop open the door and let the whole town loot us like we do every other abandoned home.”

“We’re keeping an account. Things will turn around.”

“Why him?” Satisfied with a faded set of blue sheets, I hold them to my face and breathe in, ensuring they are clean. Nothing these days is ever as sweet and crisp as in the days before the storms, but I still take in a hint of borax and last week’s sunshine before handing them over to Russ and returning to look for a blanket.

“He needs help.”

“Everybody needs help.” It takes far less time to find a thin afghan, crocheted myself the previous winter.

“He went to war.”

“Lots of men went to war.”

“I didn’t.”

And there’s the truth of it.

“Oh, Russ . . .” He tries to look away, but as he is somewhat trapped against the linens, arms full, I take his face in my hands. It is soft, even at this time of night, when other men might have cheeks shadowed with stubble. “You don’t owe him for that. He didn’t go in your place. It’s not right for him to come here and make you feel . . . uneasy.”

Russ shifts his bundle to one arm, captures my hand in his, and draws it away, kissing the tips of my fingers. If that were the only gesture of affection ever exchanged between the two of us, it would capture his love for me. Tender, protective, and enough to steel me for the question that follows.

“Does he make you feel uneasy, Nola?”

“Of course not.” My reply is a little too glib, covering a multitude of fears. “But really, darling, how well do you know the man?”

“As much as I know any man, I suppose. I didn’t even think of us as friends. He was just the nice, smart guy who worked cleaning up the campus. Truth is, I thought he might have been on some sort of work scholarship; he was smart enough. Then when he asked if he could write to me, I realized —he must not have anyone else. Not a single soul to know or care if he lived or died. I thought, how am I ever going to be able to shepherd a flock if I can’t be a friend to this one man? He wrote me once from over there, and a letter every year or so since then.”

He drops the bundle of sheets and blanket on the edge of our bed and goes into the bathroom, causing me to raise my voice with the next question.

“So, you wrote back to him?”

There is a beat of silence before he comes back with a clean towel and washcloth, as there is a tiny water closet and sink attached to the storeroom. For Jim to take a shower, though, he will have to come up here —a thought I can’t bring myself to consider at the moment.

“When I could. When I had an address, the times he stayed in one place long enough to get a letter.”

“Did you tell him about me?” I don’t know why I have to know, but I do. Without an immediate task to busy my hands, I ram them deep into the pockets of my apron.

“Of course I did. Even sent him a picture a while back. An old one, from our wedding.”

His back is to me while he’s bundling the linens together, as if what he says had no consequence. I know the picture in question. Russ looks handsome, if bewildered, wearing a dark suit, with the waves of his hair held in slick submission. I’m wearing a pale-peach dress, though we only had the color tinted in the single print framed in our bedroom. I stand within three inches of Russ’s height, and had refused the photographer’s suggestion to sit with Russ’s hand on my shoulder, or to have him stand on a slight rise so that my head would barely come to his chin. I look tall and strong, my hair all soft curls with a coronet of wildflowers. My figure is full, though nobody would look at the photograph now and know that the bouquet in my hands rests on the beginnings of the tiny life within. I’m looking straight into the camera’s lens, my eyes dark —my lips, too, and lifted into a smile I’ve never replicated since. There is humor and peace, but also a challenge to anyone who could somehow break through the frame and take me away from the inevitable future of this beautiful bride.

“Why would you do that? Send him that picture?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He’d ribbed me a little in a letter, after I’d told him how smart you were. He said no woman could be beautiful and smart. He wanted proof, and I knew we had plenty of copies of that picture, so I sent it.”

I’ve grown cold during the course of this conversation, and perhaps pale, too, because Russ cocks his head in concern. “Are you all right?”

“You should have asked me,” I say, my words like ice. “Before sending my picture to some total stranger. You had no right.”

“Darling —” he folds me in his arms, pressing my body against Jim’s bedding —“you’ve never looked more beautiful than the day we married. And it’s my picture too. Not that anybody would notice me. I suppose I wanted to show you off a little.”

“Still —”

He squelches my protest with a kiss.

“It was years ago,” he says when he pulls away. “I don’t know if he even got it. He’s never mentioned it, and to tell the truth, I’d plumb forgotten until this conversation.”

“Don’t ask him about it.” To my relief, Russ doesn’t demand an explanation for my request. Because I know full well Jim Brace received that picture. It explains the imbalance I felt the moment I met him, that unsettling feeling that we’d met before. That familiarity came from Jim, strong enough to wrap me in it.

Later, much later —in fact, the first hours of the next day —I lie stock-still beside my sleeping husband. We made love the minute we hit the bed, my participation more enthusiastic than anytime in recent memory. He is now at deep, enviable peace while I rage with the silent conflict of the physical satisfaction of my husband, and the constant mental intrusion of the stranger he invited into our home. I attempt to placate myself with assurances that he is not exactly in our home, only to wage a new battle with the realization that neither is he a stranger.

Any other sleepless night would send me out for a stolen cigarette, but my pack, newly purchased three days ago, sits fat and square in the pocket of my cardigan, which, last I knew, still hangs on its hook in the storeroom where Jim now sleeps. I like to think my husband would have moved it, not wanting his wife’s garment to share a room with another man, but Russ seems far too trusting to even think of such a breach. And Ronnie? Russ reported that his idea of helping had been to pester Jim for story after story about all the places he’d been, until Russ had to herd him out like a wayward calf.

I fixate on the thought of my cardigan, hanging in the darkness. Wondering if Jim has touched a sleeve. Or if he found the cigarettes in the pocket —and possibly smoked one. Giving us another secret to share.

Secret.

Something Russ said in our earlier embrace, after bringing his mouth away from a deep kiss to bury it in the warm recess of my neck.

Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe, waiting on the bathroom shelf.

I’d misunderstood, thinking he meant my little pink box, covertly delivered in plain brown wrapping a year after Ariel was born. My small, perfect shield against another pregnancy. Russ hated the thing —what it meant, at least —and we never spoke of it by name. Rarely did he initiate its use, and on this night, I dared not let any cautionary space between us.

Thinking back, though, I hear his teasing tone, and I know he found my sweater, its pocketful of cigarettes, and I slide out of bed. Sure enough, on the shelf of the cabinet above the sink, a fresh box of Lucky Strikes, and the lighter I use to soften the tip of my kohl pencil whenever an occasion is special enough for me to line my eyes. I draw out two cigarettes, stash them and the lighter in the pocket of my robe, and make my way through the dark house.

Surely he will be asleep, back in the room-behind-the-room, leaving a clear path to the back door. I pad across, quick and silent, slide the bolt more noiselessly than usual, and slip outside.

No moon. Pure dark, but windy, and my robe and nightgown wrap around my legs. I have to cup my hand around the flame of the lighter, and still need three attempts before I successfully touch it to the tobacco. I breathe in deep, filling myself with smoke and heat, holding both as long as I dare before letting them out in a puff that blows straight back into my face.

“Can I get one of those?”

He speaks from behind me, and for the first time I admit to myself that this is what I wanted. When Russ sent him out of our kitchen, duffel over his shoulder, with the promise of our storeroom, I envisioned just this —a clandestine meeting. Bringing him into my night. Now that we’ve arrived, I don’t know whom I hate more.

“I’ve only got one,” I say, handing him the second cigarette from my pocket. He puts it between his lips and takes the lighter. Expertly, he turns his back to the wind, tucks his head down, and lights the tip on the first try before handing the lighter back to me.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, breaking our smoking silence.

“Should you?”

I don’t dare look at him, because I know the answer. “In our home, I mean.”

“It’s a back storage room. Hardly your home.”

“It’s too close.” I turn to him now. He leans against the door, the tip of his cigarette glowing red, blocking my way.

“Too close for what?”

A challenge, and I won’t answer. I refuse to voice a pathway to my fears.

“You can’t show up from out of nowhere and expect to stay on. Not like this. It’s not what people do.”

“What kind of people?”

“Good people.”

“And you’re good people?” Amused now; I sense a smile in the darkness.

“Russ is. You wouldn’t be here at all if he wasn’t.”

“For which I’m grateful. He’s a good friend.”

“He’s not your friend. At least he wouldn’t be, if he knew . . .”

“Knew what?”

I take a final drag on my cigarette and stub it out —half-smoked —on the railing.

“Nothing. I’m going back inside.” But there is no way to go inside except through him, and he doesn’t seem willing to move, even though I say, “Excuse me,” and “Let me pass, please.”

“What does he need to know, Nola?”

His words are smoke and I breathe them in. Why you’re here, I answer silently. How you saw my picture and had to meet me. But then I seize with a fear of being wrong, that he never saw the picture at all, and there’s no way for me to not sound crazy, or worse, vain.

“Nothing,” I say, feeling foolish. “It’s silly.”

To my relief, he moves aside, but catches my arm as I walk past. “I’ll go. Tomorrow if you want. But I’d like to stay —if nothin’ else, long enough to finish the job Russ has for me. Then, trust me, I’ll move on.”

I resist the urge to thank him and walk over the threshold, through the nearly empty storeroom and empty shop. His touch, still, burns at my wrist, somehow smothering every touch from my husband. Not until I’m halfway up the stairs do I stop.

“The job Russ has for me.”

Apparently my husband has a secret too.