Stockings straight and skirt brushed, Esme raised her chin, proud. She was wearing her Sunday best and bravely assured herself that if she did as good as she looked, she'd do all right. With a determined stride she headed for the store.
Her sisters had really gotten her into this, she supposed. The twins were now seventeen and, to Esme's thinking, the prettiest girls in the county. Most considered them to be identical—even Pa couldn't tell them apart—but Esme found that difficult to understand. To her they were as different and distinct as any two persons, and they sure to graces had the same shortcomings!
Presently, both of them were calf-eyed and mooning over Armon Hightower, and a more worthless piece of Tennessee manhood never existed, except maybe for Esme's own pa.
Ma had been just like the twins, all starry-eyed over a handsome face and broad shoulders. Well, Ma had won her handsome face and broad shoulders, and then she'd worked herself to death for them. Esme was determined that her sisters wouldn't meet the same fate. That's why she was here.
"Momin', Mr. Tyree, Mr. Denny," Esme said as she stepped onto the porch of the store. The two men sat on the long bench in front of the store swapping stories and spitting tobacco.
"Who are ya?" Tyree asked, squinting at her as his jaw continued to work its tasty wad.
"Esme Crabb," she answered simply.
"What she say?"
"She said, 'Esme Crabb,'" Denny hollered to Tyree. "You know, she's one of Yo's daughters."
"She one of the pretty ones?" Tyree asked, squinting again.
"Nay," was the definitive reply.
Esme felt herself flushing as she stepped through the door. Being compared unfavorably to her sisters was as common as slugs in springtime, but this morning she needed a bit more of what God had granted the twins so liberally.
The tiny bell over the door tinkled loudly in the quiet of the store when she stepped inside. He was standing behind the north counter, papers and ledgers strewn before him. He raised his head and glanced politely at her.
"Good morning, miss. Have yourself a look around. Let me know if you see anything you like."
His attention immediately went back to his papers, and Esme began to wander as casually as possible around the store. Two long narrow counters ran the length of both sides. On the walls behind them were shelves of tobacco jars, kitchen wares, and canned goods. Near the front there were cupboards full of cloth and ready-mades and drawers with notions and hair tonic, suspenders and fishhooks. Above her, dangling from rafter hooks, were harnesses and baskets, washtubs and chamber pots. In the far corner was a latticework of cubbyholes and a counter with different plates of ink and rows of carved wooden stamps that represented the official U.S. Post Office of Vader, Tennessee.
Usually Esme considered a trip to the store an adventure, but today Esme's mission precluded any careless frivolity.
She looked back toward the man behind the counter. He was tall and lean looking. It was obvious that he didn't spend his life pushing a plow and looking at the back end of a mule. His shoulders were, however, nicely squared in his crisp white shirt and bisected neatly by gray suspenders. His long arms, now resting elbows against the counter, were not heavily muscled, but were thick enough, Esme thought, for him to defend himself in a row. His hair was dark, but not black. A rich brown color, it was parted in the middle with distinctly pomaded curls facing each other across his forehead. As she moved closer, she saw that his pencil was held by long graceful fingers crowned by the cleanest fingernails she'd ever seen.
"There!" she heard him whisper under his breath as he marked one of the numbers in the long column of figures he was working on. As he made his correction, he smiled, and the sight of his warm smile made something inside Esme go real still.
"Cleavis Rhy! Are you crazy?" She could still hear her sisters laughing at the suggestion.
The discussion last night had begun, as had all discussions for the last several weeks, with the name Armon Hightower.
"The man is strictly up to no good," Esme told the twins sternly. "He's not at all the kind of man I want for either of you."
"Armon Hightower is the finest-looking man in these mountains," Adelaide protested.
"Every dang girl in this part of Tennessee is after him. Why shouldn't we be?" asked Agrippa.
Esme put her hands on her hips and sighed loudly. "Because after all these years of living with Pa, you ought to know that sweet talk and a comely visage don't put beans on the table."
The two quieted at that. Food was always in short supply this late in the winter, and hunger was not to be taken lightly. Since Esme was the undisputed breadwinner of the family, as well as the brains, what she had to say on any subject, especially about eating regularly, always bore listening to.
"Well, what kind of man were you thinking of?" the pretty blond sisters finally asked her in unison.
Esme's brow furrowed in thought for a moment. "Well, I was kind of hoping for Milt Newsome, before he up and married that Maud Turhell."
The twins gave each other a wild-eyed glance that Esme didn't catch. Gratefully they both raised their eyes in thanks to heaven on Milt Newsome’s fortunate marriage.
"Milt's farm was the best run in shouting distance, and I was real hopeful about that." Esme shook her head sadly.
"Also, it's got to be someone that's got a big house. I ain't willing to live in this hole forever." Esme gave a pointed look around at their less than ideal surroundings. "We'll need room for all of us to come live with the bride." Beginning to slowly walk back and forth across the room, Esme was thoughtful. "It would be best if the man had some money stuck back for hard times. The way our luck seems to go, hard times are always cropping up."
Stopping her meditative pace, Esme stared sightlessly into the distance, mentally examining each man in the community and subsequently discarding him. Her sisters were very special to her, but the welfare of the whole family counted on one of them marrying well.
Her eyes suddenly lit with excitement. "Of course! I should have thought of him first!"
"Who?" the twins asked in unison.
"The storekeep, Cleavis Rhy!"
"Cleavis Rhy!" Their reaction was immediate. "Are you crazy?"
"He's perfect," Esme declared. "He's not nearly so old as Milt Newsome, and think of that house! There must be a half dozen rooms in there. And getting down off the mountain might be good for Pa's health."
"There is nothing wrong with Pa's health," Adelaide said.
"You can't really expect us to marry up with someone like that?" said Agrippa.
"And why not?" Esme demanded.
"He's not like us, Esme," Adelaide wailed. "He don't even talk like us. I wouldn't even know what to say to him."
"You don't have to say nothing to him, you just have to look pretty. That's all men want anyway."
The two pretty sisters refused to listen. "You don't know a blooming thing about what men want," one declared honestly. "You ain't never let one get within a stone's throw of you."
“None that was worth a poot ever tried," Esme said, then quickly she moved the subject back to the problem at hand.
"If either of you'd just give that storekeeper a second glance, the whole bunch of us would be living in a big white house and feasting on fried chicken for the rest of our lives!"
The sisters shook their heads obstinately.
"Not me," Agrippa proclaimed.
"Me, neither!" Adelaide parroted.
"You like Cleavis Rhy so much, then you marry him!"
"Why, he must be thirty years old!" the twins remarked incredulously.
"May I help you?" Cleavis Rhy had raised his head from the compelling pile of papers before him to look at his customer. His "gift-from-heaven" smile was still in place, and added to it, Esme found herself being watched by the warmest, palest blue eyes she'd ever seen.
Her throat went dry. Her heart pounded like a blacksmith's hammer. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.
&n
bsp; "How old are you?"
Cleavis Rhy was momentarily startled by the question but quickly recovered himself.
"Twenty-six," he answered, his look now quizzical.
Esme nodded. "I thought you weren't as old as you act."
Cleav blinked at the curious statement, then looked at her more closely.
"You're one of Yohan Crabb's girls, aren't you?"
"Yep," Esme replied, raising her chin a bit defiantly.
He looked slightly uncomfortable now. "You understand that I can no longer extend credit to your father. However, if there is something vital that you need—"
"Don't need a thing," Esme answered quickly, swallowing the lump of shame that formed in her throat.
His smile returned, but it was a more kindly expression now. "There's cheese and crackers back on the barrels. Go help yourself."
"I didn't come 'cause I was hungry," Esme insisted, pride evident in every word.
"Of course not," he said. "But you can have a bite just the same."
Embarrassed now, Esme took one step away and saw him immediately return his attention to his papers.
It was now or never. She had come all the way down the mountain to say one thing. If she didn't say it now, she never would, and her family would be grubbing for toads and eating poke salad forever.
"You wanna marry me?"
"What?"
Esme stood ten feet away from him, their gazes were locked. Across the man's face she saw nothing less than shocked horror. Her face flamed like a fire, and she made a hasty prayer that the heavens would open up and strike her with lightning.
"I said, you got any huckleberry jam?"
A momentary strained silence followed. Finally Cleav's brain absorbed the question.
"No, no huckleberry," he said quietly. "There's peach preserves and some plum butter."
Esme gave a slight nod and hurried toward the rear of the store. As she fished a cracker out of the barrel, her hand trembled. She doused the thin wafer heavily with plum butter, realizing that it was very unlikely that she would be able to swallow.
Cleav watched her go, his thoughts spinning crazily. Had she said what he thought? Of course not, he assured himself. But could his ears play such tricks on him? He clearly heard her ask him if he wanted to marry her. No, he must have misunderstood.
She stood next to the cracker barrel now, with her back to him. Her hair was wild and curly, a dark blond color that was plaited in three or four strokes at the nape of her neck, the rest hung in disarray down her back just past the rim of her shoulder blades. The ragged wool coat she wore reached just past her hips and her heavy serge skirt had seen better days. Even at a distance Cleav could see the frayed hem, which was a good two inches shorter than fashion and good taste dictated. But the shoes were the worst. The black hobnailed work boots belonged on the feet of a plowman, not a young woman.
Had she really said . . . ? No, Cleav reassured himself. His ears were just playing tricks on him these days.
He forced his eyes to return to the bookkeeping. He'd found the three-cent error that had plagued him all morning, but he still needed to balance the books. Even as he worked, his eyes continued to stray from the neat rows of penciled figures to the female person standing warming herself at the stove and munching on crackers.
Esme was trying to decide what to do. She'd taken one bite of the sweet-smeared cracker but found it totally tasteless. The cane-seat chairs around the stove looked comfortable, but she remained standing. All the chairs were turned to the front, and she just couldn't bear the thought of having to face Cleavis Rhy again.
She should have planned more carefully. Instead she just blurted out her offer like a madwoman. Maybe he hadn't heard her. He had to have heard her. She prayed that he hadn't.
Truth to tell, all last night she'd lain awake struggling with her decision, trying to convince herself it was for the best. After all, here she was willing to sacrifice herself, her personal happiness, on the altar of a loveless marriage for the sake of her family. It had never occurred to her that he might not be interested. But she began to fear that he might not be.
Especially now that she'd really taken a good look at him. He wasn't so old, after all, and he was fairly good looking. Not like Armon Hightower, of course, but the face of Cleavis Rhy would never curdle milk. And that smile . . . Esme was surprised to hear herself sigh. It was just dog-it unfair for a man to be rich and pretty, too!
She took another bite of her cracker and shook her head. If just one of the twins had shown the slightest interest in him, they'd already be swimming in gravy!
The curvaceous cotton-headed Crabb twins caught the eye of every man they passed, young and old, and each and every one of them would be proud to have such a beauty walking at his side.
Esme was different. She always had been. From the moment that she had been old enough to understand anything, she'd realized that the twins didn't know "come
here" from "sic 'em." It was clear that God had put Esme on this earth to keep those two beautiful, feather-headed creatures safe. Neither of her older sisters could be counted on to keep from drowning in a spring shower by closing her mouth, let alone coming in out of the rain.
Esme had taken on the job immediately, gladly, lovingly. She could hardly remember her ma. And Pa, well, he was simply Pa. Her sisters were the most important thing in Esme's life, and only on rare occasions did she envy their perfect complexions and their extravagant bustlines.
This was one of those rare occasions. At least a full bosom would be something to offer Cleavis Rhy. Esme's was decidedly lackluster.
Well, she was sure to graces smart as a whip! she reminded herself. But would Cleavis Rhy be impressed with a smart woman? Esme knew that he'd been all the way to Knoxville to school. In a big town like that he had probably met dozens of smart folks; some of them might have even been women.
She knew that when his pa died, he had had to give up his education to come back and run the store. But Pearly Beachum at the church said that he'd managed to finish his high school diploma by mail. That was nothing to be sneered at.
Pearly's latest gossip was that he was paying call on Sophrona Tewksbury, the preacher's daughter. Sophrona played the piano at church. She'd always been right civil to Esme and the twins, but Esme didn't understand her much. She studied the Bible almost constantly, and just about everything she said was quoted verse. Esme thought there was just something you couldn't trust about a person who never had anything of her own to say. She wondered if that was the way to impress Cleavis Rhy. Esme'd memorized her share of Bible verses; in fact she could recite the whole
thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. At least she thought she could, as she quietly began to murmur to herself.
"'Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a . . ."' Wait a minute. She stopped herself abruptly. Charity. Charity was not one of her favorite words. She'd certainly heard it more than she wanted. And it would never do to remind Cleavis Rhy that last Christmas he had forgiven $42.73 worth of credit that he had extended to Pa over the past few years.
How about Proverbs 31? Maybe that would impress him. "'Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.'" Oh, turd-buckets, Esme thought, money again. This would never work.
She'd never be as beautiful as her sisters, and it was sure to graces she wasn't Sophrona Tewksbury. She was just plain Esme Crabb, and the kind of things she knew how to do—skin one possum and feed four people with it for a week—would probably not make a fancy fella like Cleavis Rhy sit up and take notice.
How was a nothing-special woman supposed to get a man anyway? It was a question she'd never bothered to ask herself in the past. Now it was suddenly of utmost importance.
Lost in her thoughts, she felt the nagging discomfort of her stockings beginning to sag again. With an exasperated sigh, she propped her foot on the edge of the nearest chair and jerked up her skirts. As she leaned o
ver to grasp the errant stocking, she froze in place. She felt his eyes upon her. Unwilling, yet unable to stop herself, she turned her head to look at him.
Cleavis Rhy stood stiff and silent twenty feet away, his warm blue gaze locked on Esme as if mesmerized.
Her eyes widened at his appraisal and her first instinct was to right her skirts and run from the building. But something stayed her.
As she watched him watch her, a hot honeyed glow seemed to envelop her. Her breathing became labored and her lips parted slightly. She looked away from him, looked at the leg she bared before him and suddenly wanted him to see her.
All her years she had wondered about the thing between men and women, never truly understanding it. It was all necessary, of course, to have babies. But it had always seemed a decidedly embarrassing thing to do and a deucedly stupid way to act.
Now suddenly, in the middle of a Tuesday morning in the M. Cleavis Rhy General Merchandise, she felt for the first time the sweet, dark rush of desire.
Glancing back to Cleavis, she saw that his gaze had never left her. With pleasure she watched the rise and fall of his chest as if he too found the interior of the store suddenly short of life-giving breath. His powerful-looking hands lay flat on the counter, as if bracing himself. And the pencil he had been using now stood, in silent testament, broken between his fingers.
Esme turned her attention back to her stocking, carefully, and oh, so slowly smoothing the black wool up over her thigh. She sort of accidentally pushed the skirt a little bit too high, giving a momentary glimpse of the frilled hem of the leg of her white cotton drawers. Then she gently rolled the stocking down into place, revealing her smooth white satin skin. She twisted the corner and tucked it into place casually. With unnecessary drama she slapped her skirts back down into place before removing her foot from the chair.
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