by Bryan, JL
Mrs. Fulner, and most of Mrs. Fulner’s class, let out a pained gasp. Jenny felt a sickening, falling sensation.
A thick red rash of swollen pustules covered Ashleigh’s face, hands and arms. One big bump high on her cheek burst and leaked a fat teardrop the color of Elmer’s Glue.
“Ewwwwwwwwwww!” a dozen kids squealed from the playground.
“She’s got chicken pox!” a boy yelled from the back.
“It’s from her!” Ashleigh screeched, pointing at Jenny. “She gave me pox!”
“She gave you Jenny pox!” Cassie said.
“Jenny pox!” one kid shouted, and others took it up: “Jenny pox! Jenny pox!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Mrs. Fulner said. “Ashleigh, let’s go visit the nurse, honey. I’ll call your mother.” She walked Ashleigh up the gravel path to the school building. She reached out a hand, nearly touched Ashleigh’s shoulder, then thought better of it and pulled back. The teacher shot a glare over her shoulder at Jenny.
The crowd of kids chanted “Jenny pox! Jenny pox!” until Mrs. Fulner and Ashleigh were inside the building. Then all of them turned their heads and stared at Jenny.
“What?” Jenny asked.
The whole class ran away from her, screaming, to the other side of the playground.
CHAPTER THREE
When Jenny heard the crash, she was alone at her house, working at the little foot-powered potter’s wheel she’d bought secondhand from Miss Gertie’s Five and Dime. She’d paid for it herself, with money saved from her after-school job at the library. The wheel occupied the corner of the dining room, which she and her dad never used for dining. The dining table itself was invisible under heaps of scattered hand tools, assorted junk her dad was supposed to repair, and mail no one had ever opened.
Jenny could spend hours sculpting clay. She loved the rich hues and textures, the way it turned warm and fleshy and pliant the more you worked it with your fingers. It was satisfying to turn the raw shapeless clay into something useful and beautiful. Jenny could touch plants without killing them, but clay was the closest she could come to touching skin.
She’d only had the wheel for six months, and already ‘Miss Gertie’ (actually, Rose Sutland) was selling some of Jenny’s creations on consignment at the Five and Dime. Jenny had just finished her junior year of high school, so she was finally on summer vacation and had plenty of time to make more.
The crash came from the side of the house, where the metal trash cans were stored. The sound broke a deep silence, startling her. She’d been so absorbed in the new flowerpot, she hadn’t even noticed the record player had long ago finished Side 1 of Patsy Cline’s “Sentimentally Yours.”
It was ten o’clock at night, and her dad wasn’t home. She didn’t expect him anytime soon. He’d found some work repainting an old house in town, so he’d probably stopped by McCronkin’s for a drink or ten.
Jenny lifted her foot from the pedal and let the wheel spin to a stop. There was another crash. It definitely sounded like a trash can. Probably a possum or raccoon scrounging for a bite. Her dad must have forgotten to bolt the trash enclosure again.
Jenny swung through the kitchen for a broom and then walked out onto the screen-walled back porch, which faced the heavy woods behind the house. Her father had built the porch before she was born. Most of the old house had been built or rebuilt by his hands at one time or another.
The night was hot and sticky and full of buzzing insects, but very dark, lit only by shafts of moonlight through the tall pines. She wished the exterior lights on the side worked, but they’d been defunct for years. If something wasn’t used much, her dad had a tendency to put off repairing it, possibly forever.
Jenny looked out through the porch’s screen wall, but even if she could have seen anything in the thin moonlight, the house blocked her view of the trash enclosure. She went to the screen door, lifted the hook from its eyehole, and pushed it open.
She cautiously descended the stairs to the yard, holding the broom out before her like a weapon. She crept past the thorny tangle that had once been a flower bed and looked around the corner of the house.
She held back a gasp. She’d expected a small scavenger, but the creature rooting in her garbage was much bigger then a possum. She couldn’t see it very well. She tried to remember if coyotes were aggressive, or easy to run off.
Her dad had built the trashcan enclosure out of mismatched fence pieces, with a metal “ROAD CLOSED” traffic sign for a roof. The gate was from a child’s wooden playpen, complete with a row of colored sliding rings on a crossbar and a smiling sun painted at the corner. The gate was open now and the creature hunkered behind it ripping open a white kitchen bag.
As her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she realized that it wasn’t a coyote, but a skinny mongrel dog with wild, matted fur. The dog was tearing apart the Hardee’s take-out bag Jenny’s dad had brought home. There wasn’t anything in it but empty ketchup packets and greasy napkins.
The dog wouldn’t find much to eat in their garbage. With her dad’s uncertain, off-and-on income, they couldn’t afford to waste food.
Jenny went back inside. Her pantry didn’t contain much that was good for a dog, mostly grits, cereal and soup, but she did find a can of Chef Boyardee beef ravioli. She popped it open, dumped the ravioli into one of her early, misshapen clay bowls, and warmed it in the microwave.
Back outside, the dog was still at his hopeless rooting. Jenny stood by the corner of the house, well away from him, holding the warm bowl.
“Hey, doggie,” she said.
The dog jumped, took one quick look at her, and ran into the woods. His head bobbed up and down like a galloping horse. By the sound of it, he didn’t go too far into the woods before he stopped. Jenny hoped he was watching her.
She placed the bowl on the ground where the dog had been, near the scattered spill of garbage. She walked back to the corner of the house, squatted to the ground, and made herself as small and nonthreatening as she could.
“Come on, doggie,” Jenny said, in a high baby-talk voice. “It’s gonna be okay!”
She heard a little pawing in the woods, and then the dog whined. He could probably smell the heated ravioli floating in meaty red sauce.
“Gonna be okay,” Jenny tried to assure the dog.
After another minute, the dog finally crept out of the woods into the moonlit yard. He kept his head low and looked at her warily, his big black nose snuffling the air. He step-hopped over to the bowl, and now Jenny saw why he walked so awkwardly, head bobbing up and down, body rocking from side to side. He only had one front leg. The other one was just a three-inch stump.
“Oh, baby,” Jenny said. “What happened to you? Were you chasing cars?”
The dog lowered its snuffling nose to the ugly makeshift dog bowl and sniffed the ravioli. He slurped it all down in less than ten seconds. He continued the licking the bowl for a minute to search for any trace of sauce. Then he knocked the bowl over and licked the underside for a while, just in case. As her eyes adjusted more to the moonlight, Jenny could actually see his ribs outlined against his skin.
Jenny watched the stump leg to see if the injury was recent or old, if the dog needed emergency care. It didn’t seem to be bloody, or wet, or dripping. She didn’t have a way to take him, anyway, since her dad was still out with the truck.
When the dog was finished, he turned his head at Jenny and wagged his tail.
“No,” Jenny said. His tail stopped wagging. “If you eat more now, you’ll get sick. You go on, now. I’m too dangerous to you.”
The dog lowered his head, hop-stepped toward her, and gave another wag.
“I’m serious,” Jenny said. “You’ll die if I pet you. You’ll get the Jenny pox.”
The dog took another tentative hop-step toward her. Clearly he couldn’t be reasoned with, so Jenny stood up on her tiptoes, raised her arms above her head, and shouted “Go!”
The dog flinched, then streaked away into the w
oods.
***
Jenny awoke early the next morning and made her dad’s favorite hangover breakfast: one tall glass of milk, one over easy egg on toast, one mug of extra-strong black coffee, with a little space left in it so he could add a shot of whiskey when she wasn’t looking.
“How’s the painting job?” she asked as they ate.
“Ugh.” He shook his head. “Paint fumes. I’m not looking forward to the rest of the day.”
“Which one are you painting?”
“One of those big old places on Magnolia. Ripping down kudzu and poison ivy all over it. House hasn’t been used since the 1960s. I guess Mr. Barrett thinks he can clean it up and sell it.” The Barrett family owned the Fallen Oak Merchants and Farmers Bank, and with it half the decaying properties in town.
“Who’s gonna buy it?” Jenny asked. “Can’t nobody in Fallen Oak afford one of those big places, and nobody rich is gonna move here.”
“Who cares? A fool’s money spends as well as anybody’s. And I got to get on my way.” He drained the coffee, to which he had, of course, added that crucial dash of cheap whiskey when she’d looked away.
She stood up with him. “Can I ride to work with you and borrow the truck today?”
“It’s almost out of gas.”
“I’ll put some in. I have money.”
Her dad jingled the keys to his ancient Dodge Ram truck.
“Maybe you better drive,” he said. “I’m gonna nap on the way. I still got a little drunk left in me from last night.” He hadn’t shaved or showered, but Jenny supposed that didn’t matter too much for house painting work.
Jenny navigated the big old truck into town. It was big and hard to turn, but she was a an old pro at steering the clumsy thing around, since she’d never driven anything but the Ram.
She dropped him at a decaying mansion on Magnolia Street with wraparound porches on the bottom two floors and a balcony on the narrow third floor. Magnolia was once the center of town society, ages ago, when it was home to large landowners, cotton brokers, and horse and cattle traders. Most of those families were gone now, or still here but broke, like the Blackfields clinging to their one dirty gas station on the south end of town.
The Mortons were a little like that, too. Jenny’s great-great-grandfather had owned hundreds of acres of farmland around Fallen Oak. Her late grandfather, and now her father, had sold off the good fields bit by bit in order to survive. They were now left with twenty-five acres of brambles and woods on hilly, rocky land that was no good for farming. Jenny was determined not to lose what remained.
She passed through the town square, which centered on a green lawn with a bandstand. In the afternoons, the courthouse overshadowed the green. Whoever built the courthouse had clearly expected Fallen Oak to grow into quite a city. It was two stories high, brick, with a row of fat white columns out front supporting a triangular pediment, like the front of a Greek temple. On the pediment, the sculpted frieze depicted farmers bearing corn and cotton towards the central figure of Justice, blindfolded and holding her scale high.
Wide brick steps led from the sidewalk up to the front doors. Big, gnarled old oaks flanked the steps. Supposedly, a slave had once been hung for sorcery on the largest tree, back in the 1700s, generations before the courthouse was built.
The bottom floor of the courthouse held the courtroom, the police department, the town jail, and the mayor’s office. The upper floor was mostly storage.
Also facing the grassy square were the Fallen Oak Baptist Church where Ashleigh’s father Dr. Goodling preached, and the Barretts’ bank, and a two-story brick building with a few shops and a lot of vacancies. Dusty FOR RENT signs hung inside whitewashed windows. Jenny parked in front of an empty shop.
Miss Gertie’s Five and Dime occupied a space near the end of the building. A clump of bells and chimes jangled as Jenny pushed open the glass door.
The interior of the store was beyond dusty, and so cluttered it made Jenny’s house look organized. The store had racks of old romance novels, outdated calendars, antique tables and chairs shoved together so tight you could barely pass, wind-up clocks, creepy china dolls, creepier nutcrackers that looked like soldiers with giant teeth, typewriters, gas lanterns, faded postcards, an overcrowded clothing rack, a disused wood-burning stove that now stored handkerchiefs and embroidered linens. A bookcase near the front window displayed Jenny’s bowls and flowerpots, along with assorted hand bells, Christmas ornaments, picture frames and collectible salt and pepper shakers.
“Ms. Sutland?” Jenny called out.
Eventually, Ms. Sutland emerged from her back office, while positioning her rectangular-framed glasses on her nose. She was in her eighties and walked slowly, one arthritic hand trembling on the brass duck-head topper on her cane. Every day she pulled her white hair into the same loose and sloppy bun, with hair spilling out in every direction.
“Is that little Jenny Morton?” She may have smiled a little, somewhere within the cobweb of wrinkles on her face. “Wouldn’t you like some iced tea?”
“No, thank you, ma’am,” Jenny said. “I’m just—”
“Hard candy? I may have licorice. Let me check…”
“No, thanks, Ms. Sutland—”
“How are your mother and father, dear?”
“My dad’s fine, thanks,” Jenny said. It was pointless to remind Ms. Sutland that Jenny’s mother died when Jenny was born. The elderly lady would try to comfort her as if it had just happened, as if Jenny had ever known her mother.
“Hm. I suppose you’re just visiting for your money, then, aren’t you?”
“Money?” Jenny asked. “Did somebody buy one?”
Ms. Sutland shuffled to her mechanical cash register. She might be fuzzy about the world beyond her shop, but when it came to inventory, her mind was razor sharp. “Two little flowerpots and that lovely mixing bowl.”
“Wow!” Jenny said.
“I shouldn’t say, but all three went to Mrs. Barrett. She said she’d like more of them.”
“Really?” Jenny was stunned. If Mrs. Barrett was a fan of her work, there was money to be made. Jenny and her dad were desperate for it.
“I told her it was a South Carolina girl made them,” Ms. Sutland said. “Didn’t tell her it was anybody here in town.”
“That’s fine, Ms. Sutland. I’d rather she just buy them all through your store.” Jenny didn’t bother pointing out that ladies in town probably wouldn’t buy the pottery knowing it was made by crazy, white-trash Jenny Morton.
The bell on Ms. Sutland’s cash register clanged as she opened the drawer. She fished out four twenties and passed them into Jenny’s brown-gloved hand. Jenny accepted them gratefully. She had expected to spend money at the Five and Dime, not receive it. This was a huge amount all at once.
“Thank you!” Jenny said.
“Oh, my pleasure, dear. Would you like an iced tea?”
“No, thank you, ma’am. I actually came for a new pair of gloves. These are wearing through.” Jenny looked at the clothing rack, with its careless mixture of coats, hats, ties and dresses. Jenny’s favorite shelf displayed gloves and scarves.
“I’m so glad you reminded me, dear,” Ms. Sutland said. “I don’t know where my mind is today. I found these for you in the back room.” She placed a heart-shaped candy box trimmed in bits of pink satin and yellowed lace on the counter. She lifted away the lid.
Jenny leaned over to look inside. The old candy box held a pair of very delicate white gloves made of lace and ribbon, laid out on a silk handkerchief. They were something a lady might have worn to a Magnolia Street wedding, many decades ago.
“Those are beautiful,” Jenny breathed.
“I knew you’d like them, with you wearing them gloves all the time.”
Jenny pulled the brown cotton glove from her right hand and reached into the box. She touched the lace gloves gently with a fingertip, feeling the soft, almost ethereal lightness of them, the incredible attention and work that had
gone into them. Finally, she forced herself to pull back and hurried to replace her brown glove.
“Only…” Jenny said, “They’re too nice for me, Ms. Sutland.”
“Impossible, dear.”
“I need thicker gloves. I would just tear those up.”
“I understand.” Ms. Sutland sounded a little sad. She replaced the lid and moved the box under the counter. “You need something to protect against the sun, don’t you? Ghostly little girl. You must burn like a lobster.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jenny smiled at her. Ms. Sutland never gave any appearance of knowing that Jenny Morton, around town and especially around school, was “Jenny Mittens,” the freakish loner who wore gloves and long-sleeve shirts every day no matter the heat. Ms. Sutland never spoke of it, and Jenny was grateful.
“Jenny Mittens” wasn’t as bad as her horrible elementary school nickname, the awful “Jenny Pox.” No adult had believed Jenny was capable of giving Ashleigh Goodling a sudden outbreak of running sores and swollen pustules just by touching her. Eventually, the kids grew up and stopped believing what they’d seen, and over the years the tale of “Jenny Pox” had gone the way of cooties, the boogeyman, and the neighbor who hides razors in apples on Halloween. The frightening girl with a wicked supernatural power had become merely the scrawny, friendless “Jenny Mittens,” who wore gloves all the time and dressed in a lot of her deceased mother’s old clothes. You avoided Jenny Mittens because you despised her, not because you feared her.
As far as Jenny could tell, “Jenny Pox” was long forgotten, and she could not be happier about that.
Jenny picked out cheap gray gloves and paid for them out of her new pottery money. As Ms. Sutland rang them up, Jenny apologized for not buying the fine white pair.
“Never you mind about that,” Ms. Sutland said. “I’m just glad you didn’t buy these at the Wal-Mart like everybody else.”
“I never go to Wal-Mart,” Jenny said, and it was true. The Wal-Mart over in Apple Creek, fifteen minutes away, was always crowded and full of running children that could bump into you. Jenny never went anywhere more crowded than the Piggly Wiggly, and even that was almost too much. Even with gloves and a full set of long clothes, Jenny lived in fear of touching somebody.