Jocie looked at him, but she couldn’t say that she forgave him. Not without lying. So instead she said, “I’ve got to get to class.” The first bell rang right on cue.
“Yeah, me too.”
“I’ll work on it,” she said. “The forgiving thing.”
“Okay.” He started to turn back down the hall but then he stopped. “Oh, by the way, maybe you should tell your friend Noah to be careful. I’ve been hearing talk.”
“What kind of talk?”
“Oh, just the regular stuff. You know, what went on last night. I hear you were there.”
“Are you talking about those men? The Klan?” Jocie shivered a little as she said the word. “You don’t have anything to do with them, do you?”
“No, no. Never.” Ronnie looked totally shocked that she’d even think such a thing. “But I know some guys that know some other guys. Anyway, maybe you ought to warn Noah to be watching out. Him and his family. The talk isn’t good.”
“If you know something bad’s happening, you should go tell the sheriff.”
“I don’t really know anything for sure. I’m just hearing stuff. Why don’t you tell Brother David and maybe he can find out more about it, okay?”
“Okay,” Jocie said as the second bell sounded. She was right beside the door to her class so she might be able to slip in without getting a tardy, but Ronnie wasn’t going to be so lucky.
She watched him head back down the hall. It was going to take some getting used to not making him invisible when she saw him. And he’d actually sounded almost nice. As if he really cared if she forgave him or not—and about Noah and his family. That was going to take even more getting used to. Ronnie Martin being nice. In fact, the question now was whether she could feel nice enough to wipe the slate clean and start over with him. She’d just have to pray about it.
She seemed to keep piling up prayers. The rain prayer. Tabitha’s baby prayer. Wes getting better prayer. A forgiving spirit prayer. But maybe the Lord wouldn’t mind. Her father was always saying the Lord wanted to hear from his people. That was good. For sure she couldn’t do this forgiving thing on her own.
35
David spread out the pictures that he and Jocie had taken the day before at Sidewalk Days on the table in the pressroom. Wes had come down early and had the pictures ready before David even got to the office.
“It sure is good having you back in the saddle,” David told Wes, who was sitting over by the press with his leg propped up on another chair, waiting for David to pick the pictures for this week’s issue.
“Well, I don’t know about being in no saddle, but I’ve got my head full of the smell of ink again, and coffee just tastes better out of this old pot out here.” He held up his cup.
“I’m not sure better’s the right word.”
“Oh yeah,” Wes said and took a sip. “Strong and mean.”
David shook his head a little. “I don’t know how you can keep drinking coffee as hot as it is in here.”
“I figure my insides might as well be as hot as my outsides,” Wes said. “Besides, the heat never bothered me. I ain’t so sure about old Zell. Something wrong with her?”
“What do you mean, wrong with her?”
“She’s been sort of jumpy ever since I come back. Like a frog leg in a skillet of hot grease. It’s like she thinks I’m gonna look cross-eyed at her and say boo or something.”
“I guess now that you mention it, Zella has been a little short with everybody lately. Could be the heat. Maybe I should see about getting a fan to put out there by her desk.”
“No, that would never work. Might blow one of her curls out of place and then she’d really get curious on us. Besides, when you think about it, she’s always been a little short with everybody. Excepting maybe Leigh, and who in their right mind could be short with that girl? She’s got the sweetness market cornered.”
“You won’t get any argument about that out of me,” David said. He made a mental note to plan something special with Leigh for Friday night. Of course, the high school was playing a home football game that night, so David would have to take pictures. Saturday night might be better if he could get his sermon prepared early enough. Maybe they could drive over to Dove Lake and rent a rowboat. A rowboat and moonlight. Even Zella would think that was romantic.
“Well, see, that should make old Zell happy, what with her matchmaking going so well. But then maybe it’s just me. Or maybe it’s Noah. She don’t seem too happy about him being on board even though he seems to be a right smart help.”
“He is. And you’re right about Zella.” David looked over his shoulder at the door out of the pressroom. “She didn’t want me to hire Noah. Thought it might cause problems with some of our subscribers. I still can’t imagine why.”
“From the looks of those pictures there, the problems have already shown up. Whatever the cause might be. Jo got some interesting shots.” Wes pointed over at the table. “Looks like I missed all the excitement when I went up the stairs to contemplate my window fan.”
“Were you okay by yourself last night?” David glanced at Wes and then back at the pictures.
“It was a heap quieter, but some lonesome. And tuna fish sandwiches ain’t near so good for breakfast as they are supper. Besides, I done got used to the girls around. Jo waiting on me, Lovella talking Bible to me, and Tabby creeping down to the john in the wee hours of the morning. Poor child looks about ready to pop.”
“She’s ready, but the doctor says it may still be a couple of weeks or longer.” David picked up a couple of the pictures and laid them aside.
“She’s taking it well. Being in the family way, I mean. But she does seem awful set on having a girl. Done come up with a name for her and everything.”
“I know, but once the baby is here, she’ll be happy whether it’s a boy or a girl.” David kept telling himself that, hoping it was true.
“Maybe so, but you’d better be ready with some words of wisdom just in case.” Wes took another drink of his coffee.
“My wisdom reservoir has been pretty empty the last few weeks.”
“Now that ain’t the case. Unless you used them all up on me.”
David turned to look at Wes. “I don’t know if my words to you were wise enough.”
“You mean, because I haven’t come out and walked the aisle?” Wes kept his eyes on the press.
“Walking the aisle’s not what’s most important. What’s in your heart is the most important thing, and that’s what the Lord pays attention to.”
“I’m still thinking. You got to give me some time, David.”
“But none of us know how much time we have.”
“I’ve been shown that’s true enough.” Wes mashed his mouth together and stared a hole in the press.
David wished he’d picked his words a little more wisely at this moment. “I’m sorry, Wes. I didn’t aim to bring back bad memories for you.”
“Them kind of memories don’t have to be brought back, David. They just lay there ready to spring up and bite you all the time.”
“The Lord is ready all the time too. He can help you with that. With everything. He’ll walk side by side with you and help you through hard times and rejoice with you in good times.” David stopped himself before he started really preaching.
“Is that the way it is for you?” Wes looked around at him.
“It is. Proverbs says he’s ‘a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’ And it can be that way for you too. All you have to do is trust him.” He kept his eyes locked on Wes as he offered up a silent prayer.
For a few seconds, there was a stillness in the air between them, and David thought Wes might take that step into trust, but then Wes was saying, “You’ve been a friend better than a brother to me, David. I thank you for it.” He turned his eyes back toward the press. “And I ain’t ignoring your wise words. I’ll keep thinking on them.”
David gave it one more try. “Sometimes it’s more important what you
feel in your heart than what you think in your head.” He never understood why some people fought so hard against the pull of the Lord on their hearts. Why couldn’t they just accept the love the Lord so freely offered? All they had to do was believe. If only David could believe for them, but each person had to make his own choice.
“I’ll try to remember that,” Wes said before he looked around and pointed toward the pictures on the table again. “But we’d better get back to work if we’re going to get the Banner run on time. What do you think about those pictures? I’m betting there’s some you won’t be putting in our good paper.”
David looked down at the pictures laid out in rows, starting with the ones he’d taken of the shoppers and merchants while the sun was beating down and the sky was a merciless blue. People looked hot, but happy enough as they shopped. Then Jocie had taken the pictures of him and Myra Hearndon and Rev. and Mrs. Boyer at the counter with Mary Jo hovering in the background looking worried. The picture of Grover Flinn and the sheriff rushing up the street toward the Grill was black and white, but even without Grover’s red nose, it was easy to see the man’s agitation. David couldn’t put that one in the paper. Not if he ever wanted to eat at the Grill again.
He could definitely use the one of the dancing dress in the wind as Miss Pauley tried to push the dress rack inside her store ahead of the storm. Jocie had an eye for capturing the moment. She had captured the moment with the KKK too. The men in their white against the black storm cloud was chilling. He picked the picture up and moved over closer to the light.
Wes got up and hobbled over to look at the picture. “You know any of them?”
“Not that I can make out. Some of their faces aren’t that plain,” David pulled the photo up for a closer look. “But I heard they were all from out of town.”
“It’s a great shot.”
“It is.”
“You gonna run it?”
“No. No need giving them free ink.”
“But they were here. Marching right down our Main Street. You could say that was news,” Wes said.
“You could. And it is.” David put the picture back down on the table. “But if I put that in the paper it would be like printing an obscenity in big black letters. I wish Jocie hadn’t taken the picture.”
“You give that girl a camera, she turns into a regular Lois Lane.”
“But with no Superman to rescue her if she gets in trouble.”
“She’s got you.”
“And you,” David said.
“I can’t do much flying right now. Leg’s too heavy.” Wes shook his head a little. “What about the other one? The one of the sit-in at the Grill. Who’d have ever thought we’d have a sit-in here in Hollyhill? By the way, how’d it turn out? Seems like we’re missing the end photo.”
“Mary Jo took things in hand. Locked out the Klan. Told Grover to sit down and shut up. Made the chief do his job and get rid of the men out on the street. Then poured us all soft drinks.”
“Mary Jo?” Wes sounded surprised.
“Mary Jo.”
“Jo should have taken a picture of her.”
“She started to, but Mary Jo threatened to smash her camera.”
“And Jo listened?” Wes sounded even more surprised. “It wasn’t a good time to cross Mary Jo.”
“You don’t say? Sounds like a good story.”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that.” David frowned down at the photo. “I wouldn’t want to cause trouble for Mrs. Hearndon or the Boyers. Or Mary Jo.”
Wes tapped his finger on the picture of the Klan. “I think the trouble is already here.”
In the end they put the sit-in story on the back page. It was front-page news, but David put it on the back. Maybe being a preacher and a newspaperman wasn’t a good combination when real news happened. He didn’t want his town torn apart, but at the same time he knew Myra Hearndon had every right to sit wherever she wanted to sit. It was time things changed in Hollyhill, but he wanted the change to be peaceful. He didn’t want front-page news like the big papers had. Marches and riots. Policemen making arrests. National Guard troops in the streets to keep the peace. That kind of thing happened in Birmingham or Atlanta maybe, but not here in little Hollyhill. At least David was praying not.
By the time Jocie and Noah showed up at the office after school, David and Wes had the papers nearly ready to run. Leigh showed up right on schedule as they began putting the papers together. “I think we’re going to get another storm,” she said when she came in. “Let’s hope this one has some rain and not just thunder and lightning.”
“It rained last night,” Jocie said.
“Just enough to make the grass sizzle,” Leigh said as she sat a plate of sandwiches and a pan of brownies down on one of the chairs.
“You’re a girl after my own heart, Miss Leigh.” Wes smiled at Leigh and then shot a look at David. “Course I know it ain’t my heart you’re after, but that’s okay. I can still eat a brownie.”
Leigh’s cheeks flashed red as she laughed. “Now, Wes, I believe you’re trying to embarrass me.” She went over and gave him a hug. “But it’s good to see you back in the thick of things. It’s been pretty dull around here without you.”
“You know, I used to think Hollyhill and Dullville were one and the same, but things has been changing some here lately. Churches getting blown away. Sit-ins up at the Grill. Preachers going courting,” Wes said.
“You just never know what might happen around here,” David said with a smile at Leigh. “Thanks for coming and bringing food.”
“I’ll second that,” Noah said as he grabbed a sandwich. “We can just dig in, can’t we? I missed lunch.”
“We’re supposed to fold papers and then eat,” Jocie told Noah.
“How about if I eat one sandwich now to keep from fainting away and then another one later?” Noah took a bite of the sandwich.
Leigh laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Jocie. There’s plenty and Noah’s a growing boy. He has to keep his strength up.”
David watched Leigh and silently thanked the Lord that she hadn’t given up on getting him to notice her. For sure he was noticing her now. Noticing her gift of lighting up a place. Noticing how she had a way of making all of them smile. Even Noah, who had come in after school looking as if he’d been in a fight. He had refused to talk about it to David or Jocie other than to say a boy like him with a mother like his had to expect a few black eyes now and again.
And David was smiling too. Inside and out as he watched Leigh work her magic with Noah. He’d find a minute before the night was over to suggest the rowboat and moonlight. And maybe he could give Jocie the camera at the football game Friday night while he sat up in the stands with Leigh and cheered the Hollyhill Bulldogs on to victory or, if that was too much to hope for, then to a few first downs. In between plays they could decide on a time for Jocie’s birthday party the next weekend.
“Where’s Zella?” Leigh asked as she looked around.
“She was out here awhile ago, but I think she was afraid I was going to put my crutch down on her toe or something,” Wes said.
“Oh, she probably just had a curl out of place or needed a fresh coating of lipstick before she could start folding papers,” Jocie said. “You know Zella. Everything has to be just so. Or then again, she might be hiding in the restroom. She doesn’t like storms.” Thunder rumbled outside and the lights flickered.
“I hope the electricity doesn’t go off before we get done,” David said.
Leigh eased over closer to David and lowered her voice. “But then Zella’s been after us to do something by candlelight.”
“I don’t think it was folding papers.” David kept his voice low too.
“But we have sandwiches and brownies. That could equal a candlelight supper just like we talked about last week. It’s not peanut butter, but chicken salad’s okay.” Leigh smiled.
“With the whole crew? About as romantic as you can get, right?” David
grimaced.
“Well, fun anyway.” Lightning flashed outside and the following clap of thunder rattled the windows. Leigh looked toward the small window in the back. “That was a close one. Maybe I’d better go check on Zella. See if she is hiding out in the restroom or under her desk.”
Leigh was almost to the door out of the pressroom when there was a crash that had nothing to do with the thunder and lightning. When Zella screamed, David ran past Leigh into the front offices. Wind carrying the moist feel of rain hit David in the face as he went through the door. The front window, the one with Hollyhill Banner painted across it, lay shattered on the floor. Zella was staring down at the blood bubbling up out of a cut on her arm.
“What in the world happened?” he asked her.
Zella looked up at him with eyes almost popping out of her head as she held up her arm for him to see. “They could have killed me! A piece of that glass could have killed me!”
“What happened?” David repeated. “Did the storm blow something into the window?”
“It wasn’t the wind.” Zella pointed toward a rock in the middle of the shattered glass.
David stared at the rock. A rubber band held a folded piece of white paper to it. He didn’t want to pick it up. He didn’t want to read what was sure to be written on the paper. He wanted to be back in the pressroom laughing with Leigh. Not standing here with storms breaking out all around him.
36
Jocie stared at the rock surrounded by the broken glass, but she didn’t try to step past her father to pick it up. It was as if the rock was a snake coiled, ready to strike and sink its poisonous fangs into whoever reached for it. Perhaps the poison was already in the air, sinking in through their pores, and that was why they were all just standing there not moving.
The wind pushed in through the shattered window, making the pieces of glass still stuck in the window frame screech as their broken sides rubbed together. Jocie jumped as one of the shards of glass was jarred loose and crashed to the floor.
Wes eased up beside her father on his crutches. “It’s just a rock,” he said.
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