He needn’t have worried. This was an intelligent family and they knew where the line was drawn. That was emphasized when Mrs. Gray said, “We need to let you eat your lunch. This is good food, isn’t it?”
Gabe was having lamb with vegetables and intended to have chocolate cake for dessert.
He turned to Makima who hadn’t said a word, but he’d felt her intense interest. “What do you do other than your clinic project, Makima? Do you have a nine-to-five job?”
“I work at the community center.”
“Here in Grayson or in Swinton?”
“Grayson. It isn’t much of a center yet but we’re trying to expand it.”
“Are you the director?” He couldn’t imagine her being anything else.
She smiled. “At one time I thought I would be but now I’m glad that didn’t work out. I’m the office manager.”
“Who else do you have?”
“Program director and maintenance man, both part-time. We did have a part-time bookkeeper but he went to a full-time job in Orangeburg.”
“Do you have any hobbies, Gabe?” Alana asked. She was looking at the dessert menu. “You don’t cook by any chance, do you?”
“Drew and I are both trying to learn how. Why?”
“There’s so little to do in Grayson, you have to make your own entertainment. I was just thinking, Makima, we ought to get the crowd together and have a cooking contest. Wouldn’t that be fun?” She sparkled at Gabe.
“Sounds like fun to me. Is there anyplace to dance around here?”
“There’re a couple of clubs but we don’t usually go to them.”
“I should hope not,” Mrs. Gray said. “You always hear about trouble at those places.”
“Someone has a house party on the weekend if we’re lucky,” Alana said.
“What about the community center?” he asked Makima.
“We have a big spring ball and a few other events.”
Gabe looked at the dessert menu. “I’m going to have a piece of this luscious-looking chocolate cake, and maybe I’ll get inspiration to make one for the cooking contest when you have it.”
“I tasted it once and it was great but today I’m going to have the banana-cream pie,” Alana told the waitress. “They use real whipped cream, Gabe.”
“I’ll try that next time.”
“No dessert?” he asked Makima, noting she’d ordered only coffee.
“Alana can eat anything,” she sighed, “and never gain an ounce. I’m not so lucky.”
“I can’t understand why women think they have to be skinny.”
“Not skinny. Slender,” she corrected him.
“Not slender. Thin.” He liked getting a rise out of her.
“It makes our clothes fit better,” she flashed back.
“Clothes look better when they fit around curves.” Gabe let his appreciative glance at her make his point and was pleased when he saw the color rise in her face.
His cake came, two layers high with a deep fudge icing. It was absolutely delectable.
“Wouldn’t you like a piece?” he teased her.
“Enjoy it, Gabe, and leave me to my coffee,” she said dryly.
“Will you be home this coming weekend, Makima?” Alana asked.
“I have to go to Spartanburg on Saturday and I’ll stay overnight. But I’m free the following weekend.”
“We’ll plan the cooking contest for that Saturday, then. Okay with you, Gabe?”
“You can count on me. Just let me know the details in time.” He slid his glance over to Makima on whose saucer he’d placed a small piece of his cake while she was talking to Alana.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she protested even as she was taking her last bite.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“It was delicious.”
“I stand absolved.” A piece or two of chocolate cake would just add a little more definition to her curvy figure and he saw nothing wrong with that.
When Gabe pulled out his credit card at the end of the meal, Mr. Gray said, “Put that away, Gabe. We invited you and Drew and we never let guests pay.”
Gabe protested and offered to at least leave the tip, but Mr. Gray was firm, so Gabe kept quiet. This might be a part of the southern hospitality he’d often heard of, for this family had certainly made him feel welcome.
He asked Drew about it when they arrived home after the Grays had dropped them off with an invitation to come visit them.
“I thought you were going to pay for us like usual. You should’ve given me a signal or something.” He was reproachful as he hung up his navy sport coat. “That’s why I ordered the fried chicken dinner and the cake for dessert.”
“I did the same thing—ordered the expensive lamb, which I wouldn’t have done had I’d known Mr. Gray would insist on paying.”
“They’re pretty generous,” Drew said, “and real easy to talk to.” He put on some jeans and a white T-shirt. “Jeff said Miss Makima used to be a teacher.”
“Really? Wonder why she quit. She told me today that she works at the community center.”
“Jeff goes over there to play basketball. You know what else he told me?” He followed Gabe into the office.
“What?”
“Most people think Great-Grandfather’s trees are haunted.”
Gabe was incredulous. “How can trees be haunted?”
“Jeff said the woods have been there so long and no one has ever been able to walk through them like you can through the other woods around here.”
“That’s why they’re haunted? There has to be a better reason than that,” Gabe scoffed.
“Jeff said there’re stories of boys trying to climb the fence and every time they get scared and run away.”
“They’re scared of the barbed wire on top of it and rightly so.”
“I’m just sayin’ what he told me,” Drew said, denying all responsibility.
Gabe looked at him speculatively. “When you’re in the field near the woods, do you feel anything? Or hear anything?”
When Drew didn’t answer right away, Gabe’s interest sharpened.
“Maybe the first time we sat on the bench I kinda had a feeling that perhaps Great-Grandfather was around someplace,” he said almost timidly, which was unlike Drew.
“I felt the same way,” Gabe said quietly.
“You did?” There was relief in Drew’s voice.
“We’re his great-grandsons.” Gabe was matter-of-
fact. “That has nothing to do with the woods being haunted. Did Jeff say he ever tried to get in?”
“No. I don’t think he would have tried that,” Drew said positively.
“He doesn’t strike me as a kid that’d get into that kind of mischief but you never know,” Gabe agreed. “What about your schoolwork? Have you done any of it yet?”
“No. You said I could have a little vacation.”
“Vacation’s over. We’ve been here over a week so it’s time to do something other than loaf around.”
“I haven’t been loafing. I’m cooking and learning to garden,” Drew defended himself.
“Point made. Now begin the schoolwork and let me see it. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Gabe wished he could assign himself something as simple as school lessons.
His homework was complex and discouraging yet imperative. For over a week he’d been searching for clues to his treasured destiny, and all he had to show was an indecipherable scroll.
Chapter 11
Makima was glad she’d gone to Rockwell’s. Now she wouldn’t have to bother with cooking. That meant she had a rare Sunday afternoon and evening with nothing to do, no meetings, no visits to be made to the shut-ins on the church list. She could spend the time however she desired.
She changed into some old woolen pants and a baggy sweater with USC on it. She looked out the window of her second-floor apartment at the flowers the owner had set into the ground last week. They were beginning to raise t
heir lavender blossoms already. She wished she had talent for gardening or doing something outdoors. But she didn’t. Her hobbies seemed to be indoor activities. Except for swimming. That she liked and when she’d been in college she’d found bicycling fun.
She surveyed the room with its sofa, chairs, tables and lamps. It was comfortable, but suddenly it didn’t suit her. Wouldn’t the sofa look better on the other side of the room?
She thought so but wasn’t sure, so she put aside some chairs and tables and using her hip, pushed and nudged and pulled until the sofa was in its new position.
That meant that the chairs and tables and lamps had to be moved around as well. The one thing that didn’t get moved was the compact entertainment center. She wasn’t about to disconnect all those wires.
Several hours later the room looked quite different. For one thing, the entertainment center in its maple cabinet was no longer the focus of the room. She liked that. Some of her groupings had been quite inspired.
She liked the feel of the room. Perhaps she’d subconsciously used some feng shui concepts. Whatever it was, it had worked.
The restlessness that had been inside her was gone. She made a pot of tea, put it on a tray with her thinnest teacup and saucer. She set it on the table beside the chintz chair in its new corner facing the window.
With a sigh she settled in the chair and slowly enjoyed her tea. This was an indulgence she seldom had the time or the inclination for these days. There was always something urgent to do about the clinic after she got off from work.
When she’d stopped teaching to take on the clinic project, Mom and Dad had begged her to come back home so she wouldn’t have the worry of an apartment to maintain. She’d tried it for six months.
The director’s position at the community center had come up and she’d applied for it but had been passed over for a man. She swallowed her pride and took the position of office manager a few months later.
Her salary plus her savings from teaching had been enough to pay for this apartment and she’d made the break from her parents’ house. They said they could understand since she’d been on her own since college, but she knew it had been difficult for her mother.
Occasionally the apartment seemed lonely but mostly she loved coming home to her own place. The tea was soothing and as she gazed out at the darkling sky she could see the stars beginning to appear.
What was Gabe doing? she wondered. The day had been full of surprises where he was concerned. She’d no idea her mother was going to invite him to lunch with them or that he’d go. Or that he would sit beside her. She thought for sure he’d sit beside Alana who certainly expected him to. But somehow he was standing behind Makima and pulled out a chair for her, so what was she to do except sit in it? The biggest surprise was to find herself feeling relaxed and confident enough to make a joke of the salad incident. She’d felt like a schoolgirl, almost giggling about it with him.
Alana had been dying of curiosity but there was no way she could tell her sister that embarrassing event. Alana would have handled it in her own unconcerned way and turned it into a laughing matter.
Her sister had no problem showing men she liked that she found them attractive. They usually returned the attention. She was sparkling all over Gabe and had certainly caught his interest as far as Makima could see.
But that was another surprising thing. He’d asked about her work and that was okay as it was impersonal. But that bit of back-and-forth wordplay he’d started about dessert and curves was personal.
And fun! She had to admit it. Not even Reggie had displayed that kind of wit. As she finished her tea she reflected on the differences between her and Alana. She was the oldest of the siblings and was already five when Alana was born.
It was Makima who accompanied her mother on her frequent rounds to visit the elderly and the sick, who learned how to sit attentively and listen to people, who went to church and helped her mother and the other ladies to take care of the flowers and the altar. She learned how to pray by observing her mother.
She also learned instinctively how to conduct herself as the eldest of the Gray children whose forbears had been so distinctive that the community had been named Grayson after them.
Decorum and dedication sat lightly on Alana from the beginning. She charmed people with her gay spirit, her laughter and her ceaseless energy.
Makima loved her younger sister with all her heart and knew she could never be as comfortable and natural with men as Alana was. She worried about her sometimes.
“I hope the right man comes along soon, I’m tired of waiting,” she’d told Makima the last time they’d had a sister-to-sister conversation.
“Don’t get too tired, honey. That can lead to mistakes,” Makima had said affectionately. “Why don’t you pray about it?”
Alana had shrugged that off. “I’m not like you, sis.”
Makima got up from her chair, took the tray into the kitchen and washed out the teapot and the cup.
Maybe Alana had prayed after all, and Gabe Bell was the right man who’d finally come along.
She stood still, looking into space.
She’d see how things were between them in two weeks at the cooking-contest party. Meanwhile she’d tend to her own business and pray for assistance about land for the clinic.
Monday it started to rain. Tuesday it was still raining. The local television channels said the rain was welcome news to farmers. Rivers and creeks needed it also. It wasn’t welcome news to Drew Bell, he didn’t care what the TV said.
“Sam and I were s’posed to go get the stuff for the garden but now we have to wait until it gets dry,” he grouched, kicking his toe against the back door at the water streaming down the window.
“It’s not going to last forever so practice a little patience.” Gabe set a plate of waffles and sausage on the table. He was feeling some frustration himself. “Do your homework this morning and if the rain hasn’t stopped by this afternoon, there’s something I want us both to do.”
“What’s that?” Drew showed a spark of interest as he forked half a sausage onto a square of waffle. Food always made Drew feel better.
“We need to go through everything in this house, looking for pictures. They must be hidden somewhere. It seems very strange to me that we haven’t seen a single one.”
“Didn’t you look before?”
“A little, but my mind was on finding clues, not pictures.”
Drew gave the matter his full attention as he drank a glass of milk. “Maybe they didn’t believe in taking pictures. I saw a story on TV where some tribe didn’t want their pictures taken because they thought the camera would steal their souls or something.”
“Those tribes weren’t familiar with cameras, but you can’t say that about people now, especially Americans.”
“I guess you’re right. We’ll probably find them someplace with both of us looking,” Drew said.
The rain didn’t stop and although the two of them searched the house, no photographs were found.
“That’s really weird,” Drew observed.
“It’s more than that. There must be a reason for it and maybe it’s a part of the whole business. I can’t imagine what part but it has to mean something.”
When they’d explored the garage on Saturday, Gabe had been hopeful that he’d find another rich source of material that would yield at least one clue. He should’ve known better.
The garage held a pickup truck and a Ford sedan. The floor was clean enough to eat on. Tools for the cars and for gardening hung on the wall in order. There were no boxes of odds and ends stacked up as Gabe had anticipated. The only items not on walls were fertilizers for the garden.
Great-Grandfather had built an addition to the garage that served as his workshop. Here again, all was in spotless order, no sawdust on the floor, nothing piled on the worktable. Drawers held neatly arranged tools. The tools were beautiful in themselves.
“Wish I knew what these were for,” Drew said a
s he picked up first one and then the other.
“It’s amazing how well he kept them, isn’t it?” Gabe was thinking there’s a lesson to be learned here.
As they went back through the garage, Drew asked, “Can I drive the pickup? I can get a learner’s permit.” He opened the door and hopped onto the driver’s seat.
“You can’t drive it and I can’t either.”
“Why not? You’ve got your license.”
“Because it isn’t insured in my name.”
“Can’t Mr. Moultrie do something about that?”
“I don’t think so but I’ll ask.”
Gabe remembered this promise as Drew went back to his room on Tuesday after they’d come up without any photographs.
The attorney’s answer was as he’d expected. “I’m sorry, Gabe, but the vehicles are a part of the total assets which will be released to you at the end of the three-month period or whenever you have been able to fulfill the terms of the will. You might be able to do that before the three months are up and I’m hoping you will.”
“I have found something and even though I don’t know what it means, I’m certain it’s a part of the treasured-destiny business,” Gabe said.
Moultrie’s voice became more alert. “Please tell me about it.”
Gabe described finding the scroll and taking it to the library “We still don’t know what it means but the librarian calculated that it might be an African language.”
“You’ll be glad to know, Gabe, that the scroll is one of the items you’re supposed to find.” He sounded pleased now.
“It is? I knew it!” If he’d been a kid he’d have jumped up and down. Instead, Gabe let out a whoosh of relief. “That’s great news. Can you tell me what it means?”
“No, I can’t. But hold on to it and keep searching. Let me know the next time you find a clue.”
As soon as he hung up, Gabe yelled for Drew.
“Yeah? What?” Drew said, appearing at the office door.
“I just talked with Mr. Moultrie. He said the scroll is one of the clues I was supposed to find!” The brothers high-fived each other.
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