“What? Oh,” he said, looking down at the cantaloupe. “Well, they say as fruit is good for you.”
Lucy laughed so hard her shoulders shook but stifled it quickly and turned it into a nod when she saw that Delnor was serious. “That’s true. They do say that.”
“Hey, what’s this I hear about you and LouEllen? Y’all is going to have a baby?”
“Me and LouEllen? No. I mean, I am. But not LouEllen.”
Delnor looked confused. “Huh. ’Cause she’s going around telling everyone who will listen that you and she are going to raise that baby. At first, I was confused. Like, was it part of one of them lesbian kind of couples? But then I said, ‘Delnor, now. Lucy’s half her age. That can’t be right.’ But then I thought, it must be like how we got my brother—Aunt Betsy come over crying one night when I was a kid and supposed to be asleep. This was before she up and left, you know. Anyway, she was talking about she was too young to be having a kid. My mama said she’d take care of it, and next thing you know, I wake up and we’ve got a new brother. I figured maybe that’s what LouEllen is doing for you.”
“What? No! This is my baby. No one is taking it and saying it’s hers,” Lucy said, her arms wrapped protectively around her middle.
Delnor held his hands up. “I didn’t mean to start no trouble. I probably misunderstood is all.”
Lucy could feel her nostrils flaring and could see the fear in Delnor’s eyes. How dare LouEllen talk about this baby like it was hers? Was this why she’d been doing all that reading, all that studying up on babies? Lucy very much doubted that LouEllen had any expectation that Lucy would up and leave her baby, but it was clear that LouEllen expected to play a primary role in this baby’s life. She was walking around town making Delnor and who knows who else think she was about to be a lesbian mom, for God’s sake. Lucy closed her eyes and tried to breathe.
“Don’t get bothered about it now, Lucy,” Delnor said. “I’m sure I just heard it wrong.”
Lucy opened her eyes and smiled weakly at Delnor. The poor man. He’d stumbled straight into a snake pit. One that Lucy was about to have to walk into herself.
“It’s okay, Delnor. That’ll be $14.20,” Lucy said, and waited patiently while he counted out a ten, four crumpled ones, and two dimes. The ones had probably been in Lucy’s hands at some point, or in her wallet even. At Judy’s Delnor didn’t tip much, but he always left one hand-smoothed dollar under his glass at the end of every night.
As he handed the money over, he looked up at her shyly and said, “Sorry about that. I’m glad to hear it. I was right sad to think you might not raise that baby.”
“Thanks, Delnor. I appreciate that,” Lucy said.
Grabbing his bags, he nodded goodbye at her. Lucy reached up and flicked her light off. Teresa could shove it. She needed a break.
9
JEPTHA HAD FALLEN ASLEEP with his hand cupped against the whisker-roughened spot where Lucy had kissed him the night before, wanting to hold on to the warmth of the moment. Clear of the booze that he usually steeped in, he’d dreamed of nothing but Lucy all night. When he awoke, the sun was topping the trees on the mountains across the valley. It had been weeks since he’d woken this early and this sober—in fact, he realized, it had been the last time he was supposed to take Lucy out to the Fold. Shaking his head of the memory, he pulled on a sweatshirt, grabbed his mandolin, and went out to the porch, Crystal Gayle padding along behind him. Fog clung to the valley bottoms where the sun hadn’t hit yet. But higher up, the early morning sun, bright and clarifying, was starting to touch the world. Even the tobacco looked pretty in the morning—the leaves glowed caterpillar green.
As he picked out the notes to “Shady Grove,” he thought of Lucy’s smile when he’d played it the night before. It was a little thing, playing a song for someone, but it made her smile. Jeptha would be happy to make her smile every day for the rest of his life. If he felt like that and didn’t ask her to marry him, maybe Judy was right. Maybe he was a coward. But he didn’t want to be. Not anymore.
He set the mandolin down on the floor and stood up. Within a second, Crystal Gayle was up from her nap, her tail wagging as she leaned her weight against his legs.
“I’m going to do it, girl,” he said to her. “I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
Her tail stopped wagging.
“You worried?” Jeptha asked, petting her from ear to tail the way she liked. “Worried she’ll replace you? Never gonna happen.”
Crystal Gayle woofed and flopped back down.
Jeptha smiled. He rubbed his chin, trying to think of what he had saved up. He had the $200 Cody had given him last night from their gigs, but he was pretty sure he’d spent everything else he had. No self-respecting man, particularly one with as hard a row to hoe as he had in getting Lucy to marry him, could hope to persuade a girl to say yes with a $200 ring. The tobacco payment would be coming soon—he hoped he’d get a couple thousand, like last year, but who knew. It would get him through to the new year, but it wouldn’t help him much with getting Lucy a ring tonight. He groaned, knowing what he’d have to do. At the sound, Crystal Gayle looked up at him, worry in her eyes.
“I’m alright, girl. Just got to go do something I really don’t want to do,” he said. Jeptha went back in, pulled on his work jeans and a t-shirt already stained brown from last weekend’s work, and set out to find Bobby.
He combed the fields for five minutes, looking up and down each row, grumbling as he saw how much work they had to do. The plants were over his head, their tops green with accumulated chlorophyll that they’d need to be cured of in the barn, the bottoms already turning a crinkly, tawny brown. He’d be dog-tired by the end of the day. Still, he smiled when he saw he’d beat Bobby out to the fields for the day. He couldn’t think of the last time that had happened. Jeptha plopped down on an overturned cinderblock on the edge of the tobacco to wait for Bobby to come plodding down the hill.
A few minutes later, Jeptha saw a flash of blue on the next farm over. He shaded his eyes and peered through the morning haze at Bobby crossing the barbwire fence back onto their property from the next farm over. Jeptha inhaled sharply as he saw Bobby straddle it, the barbs dangerously close to his balls. Bobby had always been too lazy to crawl under a fence. He’d rather risk castrating himself than have to get all the way down on the ground and then all the way back up. Jeptha’s brother had inherited their mother’s family build—short and stocky—while Jeptha’s long legs and rangy figure were all from the Taylor side. Jeptha could clear that fence with barely a thought, but since it wasn’t their farm, he’d never needed to. What on earth was Bobby doing over there?
Bobby tramped over to Jeptha’s trailer, banged on the door so loud the trailer jarred a little, and then stomped back down the stairs, a look of fury on his face. Jeptha laughed to himself as he watched Bobby’s angry little trot down to the fields.
“Hey there, slowpoke,” Jeptha said when Bobby got close.
“What the hell?” Bobby said, his eyes narrowed at Jeptha. “You’re here? I been up there banging down your door.”
“I’m here.”
“Is this some kind of joke? Are you still drunk from last night? Did you sleep out here?”
Jeptha stood up lazily and stretched his arms overhead. “Thanks for the faith, brother. Nope, not drunk—went to sleep stone-cold sober in my own bed last night and woke up ready to work. You got a problem with that?”
“Will wonders never cease? I’ll take it,” Bobby said, a smile on his face.
“Hey—what was you doing over on Old Man Keller’s land?” Jeptha asked. The smile fell from Bobby’s face.
“I wasn’t,” he said, his eyes looking up to the sky.
“Bobby, you’ve been a shitty liar all your life. Even if I hadn’t of watched you climb over that fence, I wouldn’t of believed you.”
Bobby took his tobacco-stained cap off his head and stared at the ground, his hands twisting the brim until it was nearly a circle
.
“He letting you use it or something?” Jeptha asked.
“He … um. Well, truth is, I bought it,” Bobby said.
“You what? When?” Jeptha asked. He hadn’t heard hide nor hair of it being for sale or of Bobby buying it. They’d talked for years about how much better it would be if they could work a larger plot, buy up Keller’s quota, and really make a go of it. And now, here Bobby went and did it without him. Jeptha stood up, hot with rage that his brother had cut him out of the deal.
“Last fall,” Bobby said. “He was sickly and looking to offload it.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me? I’d have gone in on it,” Jeptha said.
“With what? You got some cash hidden away somewheres?”
Jeptha’s cheeks burned, even more so because he knew he’d have to swallow his pride in a few minutes and beg Bobby for money. He felt that occasional ache of wishing he was another kind of man, the kind who could get a job, keep it, and stash money away. He’d thought it when he found out Lucy was pregnant, and again right now.
“I might have been able to find it if you’d let me know there was the possibility of doing something with it. Where’d you get the money?” Jeptha asked. He knew Bobby worked hard, but somehow the numbers didn’t add up. How’d he saved that much? They did the same thing, both of them out here farming the same land. Somehow Jeptha had hardly anything to show for it—not even enough to buy a ring for Lucy—but Bobby had enough money laid back to buy more land.
“In case you ain’t noticed, Jeptha, I work. I save. I don’t spend my money as soon as it comes in. Unlike some of us, I’m not sitting at Judy’s every day of my damn life.” It was a righteous-sounding speech, and even in his anger, he knew Bobby had a point, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that Bobby hadn’t yet looked him in the eye.
Jeptha had no reply. He was so angry and confused he didn’t trust himself to speak. He picked up his knife, a bundle of sticks, and the spear, and turned into the fields. He nodded to Juan and Santiago, the two Mexican migrants they hired every year at the cheapest price they could possibly pay, who were standing at the edge of the field, waiting for Bobby to give them instructions. Most farms the size of theirs would have hired a bunch of guys, but they hired as little help as they could and tried to keep as much of the profits as possible. What had been the point of that if he had nothing to show for it at the end of the day? Jeptha found himself wondering as he walked all the way to the other end of the field to put as much distance as possible between himself and his brother.
Once he reached the end of the row, he angrily stuck the stick deep into the ground, not even feeling bad that he was pretending the ground was Bobby’s heart. He jammed the sharp metal point on top of the stick. Leaning down, he aimed one expert hack at the very bottom of the stalk closest to him. It split in two with a satisfying thwack, and he hefted up the plant with his free hand, ramming the bottom of the thick, fibrous stalk through the point and onto the wooden stick below. He bent down to get the next stalk and did it all over again.
Before he even realized it, he was through three rows and he’d left the worst of his anger somewhere about halfway down the second. Bobby’s purchasing the land still galled him, there was no doubt about that, but he couldn’t deny that Bobby was right; he didn’t have any cash to put up for it. No bank or person in their right mind would have lent him the money. Maybe Cody. But it wasn’t like he had extra cash rolling around with two kids of his own. Besides, Jeptha was the first to admit he wasn’t a great investment.
Jeptha grabbed another bundle of sticks and headed back the way he’d come. He worked steadily for the next four hours, the repetitive work and the hot air calming him in a way that nothing but his mandolin usually did. He paused only to sip water out of a gallon milk jug and check his phone to make sure Lucy hadn’t called to cancel. Looking out, he felt no small sense of accomplishment as he slowly decimated his part of the field until he was finally able to see out to the cars traveling on the road in front of the farm.
“You ready to call it?” Bobby called out from two rows over, startling Jeptha with the first words in four hours.
“You sure? It’s only—” Jeptha pulled out his phone from his back pocket. “Twelve.”
“Yeah. We’re in good shape. I’m all right doing more tomorrow if you are. Especially if you are able to work like you was today.”
Jeptha nodded. “I will be.” It was the first compliment he could ever remember his brother paying him.
“All right then. Be the first year ever I won’t be bitching about splitting the money with you.”
Jeptha took a deep breath, once again choosing to ignore his brother. “Hey, speaking of money …”
“This ain’t about that land again, is it? I should of maybe told you, but I knew it wouldn’t matter.”
Jeptha’s belly tightened with renewed anger. He swallowed it down, along with his pride. “No, I don’t want to talk about that. I was wanting to know, could I get an advance on this year’s split? Even five hundred dollars would help.”
“Why?”
Jeptha wiped sweat off his forehead and stared over the highway, up to the sun-hazed hills that formed the valley they sat in. He didn’t want to say anything to anyone, particularly his family, until he knew Lucy’s answer.
“You up to something, Jeptha?” Bobby asked. “Shit. I should have known there was a reason you was up early, so ready to work. What are you into?”
“Nothing.”
“Is it that pot idea you talked about that one time? Am I gonna find a bunch of plants hidden over in that side of the field?” Bobby said, nodding at the rest of the uncut crop.
“No, man. It’s nothing like that. It’s nothing bad,” Jeptha said, blushing as he thought of the ring he wanted to get Lucy.
“You’re going to ask Lucy to marry you, aren’t you? Son of a bitch.” His brother laughed so hard the fat around his eyes crinkled up until there was no space for him to see. Everyone knew she was pregnant by now; word had got out it was his. There was no use denying what he was about to do. Jeptha nodded.
“Oh, man. That is amazing,” Bobby said, still chuckling.
“I know,” Jeptha said. The smile that momentarily lit his face fell away when he realized Bobby didn’t mean it kindly. “She’s pregnant. And I … well, she’s pregnant.”
Bobby was shaking his head. “She ain’t never gonna say yes.”
“She might. A baby has a way of changing a woman’s mind,” Jeptha said, parroting Judy’s words from the night before.
“That’d have to be a hell of a pregnancy,” Bobby said. “Way I hear it, she was lighting you up at the Fold couple weeks back. Didn’t seem like she liked you much.”
“I made it right.”
“You got her pregnant. How you ever gonna make that right?”
“I’m gonna be there for her. Don’t that count?” Jeptha felt his face flush, knowing his brother would never respect him. He’d done everything that needed to be done for the crop this year, barring those few drunken weeks after sleeping with Lucy, but Bobby would never think better of him. To his brother and sister, he’d always be a lazier version of his dad.
“Not if she didn’t never want you or that baby to start with.”
“Dammit, Bobby,” Jeptha yelled. “I ain’t done nothing to you today. I worked my ass off and asked you to borrow some money that’s by rights already mine. You aiming to give it to me or what?”
“Oh, I’m gonna give it to you. I’d give you extra if you’d let me be there when you ask her. I’d kill to see you fall flat on your face.”
“She might say yes.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Bobby said, laughing. As he walked away up the hill, he said over his shoulder, “Come on up to the trailer after you get a shower. Better make sure you read the fine print on that return policy at the jewelry store. That’s my only advice.”
THE GLASS OF the jewelry counter creaked ominously as Cody shifted
his weight onto his elbows. “I got to say, I could not fucking believe it when Marla told me about Lucy being pregnant,” Cody said, his breath steaming up the glass.
The Zale’s sales lady in front of him stiffened at Cody’s language. “That one,” Jeptha said, and pointed at a small round diamond in a gold band. Jeptha was starting to wonder if he’d made a mistake in bringing his best friend with him on this mission.
“I mean, we ain’t had a chance to talk about it, but wasn’t you surprised?” Cody went on.
“You could say that,” Jeptha answered, holding the ring up to the light. “Think she’d like this one?”
“It’s all right,” Cody said, shrugging his shoulders. “I mean, I can’t say I was surprised when Marla got pregnant. That was like the natural order of things. Not that I would have minded a few more years of freedom. It was the prom, after all. But Lucy? With you? Now that one set me on my heels a bit.”
“You and everybody else, apparently,” Jeptha said. Giving the ring back to the woman, he pointed at another one, the stone slightly wider at the top and set a little closer to the ring. “I’m beginning to wonder why I’m friends with someone who thinks I’m such a piece of shit.”
“Don’t be like that, Jeptha. I mean, it’s surprising is all. Lucy Kilgore. Pregnant. With your kid. That is not the natural order of things, I’ll say that much.”
Jeptha liked the sparkle of the one he was holding, liked the way the stone nestled close to the finger, not sticking up high and asking to get caught on every single thing. He could see this on Lucy, see her wearing this around, even at the bar. It wasn’t anything huge—even Marla’s was bigger—but it was what he could afford, sort of, and Jeptha reckoned that anything else ought to go to the baby.
He nodded yes at the woman as he handed her back the ring and turned to Cody. “So, should I not be doing this? Bobby says there is no way she is going to say yes. Am I an idiot for asking her?”
Cody scratched his belly through his t-shirt, thinking on it. His head was turned to the left slightly, as if the thought required some real work on his part. Finally, he clapped his hand on Jeptha’s shoulder. “Hell, man. You’ve done got further than anybody thought you would. Might as well go all the way.”
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