“Why?”
“I don’t know. He’s always been pretty active in town politics and such—he was county treasurer and on the draft board—mainline.” She shook her head. “I can’t figure any of it out. I honestly didn’t expect such a fuss over me keeping the store. When I found out people would—either because they think its unseemly for a white woman to be out there alone, or because they just plain think a woman oughta be doing something else—I had pretty much in mind who would be nice and who wouldn’t. But I’m wrong a lot.”
Gudren lifted her eyebrows. “Often, it is like that. We do not know who will be a friend and who will not until it is too late.”
“I guess you probably know a little bit about that.”
Mr. Cox delivered their sodas with a flourish, tall glasses nestled in tin holders. Whipped cream dusted with nuts was piled to an almost astonishing level above the glass. On Angel’s was a circle of maraschino cherries. She laughed. “You remembered!”
“Oh, now, it hasn’t been that long. You were still asking for extra cherries when you came in with Solomon.”
“Thank you.”
He winked. “You girls enjoy, now.”
When he bustled way, Gudren asked, “You came here with your husband?”
“Sure. We came to movies and got sodas on Saturday nights when he had money.” She sobered. “Everybody did the same thing.” She drifted away, remembering a night she had come in with her daddy and they’d seen Isaiah walking with his girl Sally. Now she smiled, remembering him last night, so—
“Angel,” Gudren said softly, touching her hand.
In surprise, she looked up. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”
“What is so different about you today?”
Angel flushed and stared down at her soda, feeling blood even at the tips of her ears.
“Oh!” Gudren laughed softly. She reached over the table to take Angel’s hand. “You are so in love!” she said softly. “I am so happy. It is so good, Angel, so good I cannot tell you.”
Blushing even more deeply, Angel opened her mouth to say something, and realized she had no idea what that might be. She closed it again.
“I did not mean to embarrass you.” Gudren squeezed her fingers. “So many times I hoped for this.”
“You did?”
Gudren glanced over her shoulder. The mother and her children were standing up, gathering small packages. Gudren sipped her soda, waiting for them to pass. When the bell rang over the door, signaling their departure, she leaned over the table and said very softly, “While I was healing, he came to sit with me. There was a beautiful garden on the hospital grounds, and it pleased me to be in the open with all those smells and sounds.”
Angel could see it, imagining the nourishment it must have offered after so many trials.
“It was a long time before he spoke of his home. And when he did, it was only stories of you that he told.” Again she looked around cautiously. “I did not understand the . . . trouble, then. But there was such a hungry sound when he said your name. I wanted for him what he most wished.”
“Thank you,” Angel said simply.
Gudren nodded, her eyes going deeply sober in an instant. “But now I say to you that you must never say his name in public, where anyone can see what I just saw. This place is strange to me, but even I know what will happen to you if you are not very, very careful.”
Angel bowed her head. “I know.” The heaviness of it all made her shoulders ache. After a minute, she picked up her spoon with determination. “We’re supposed to be acting like young girls today. No more serious talk.”
“O-kay.” Gudren pulled forth the word like a prize, her eyes glinting.
After they finished their sodas, they lingered awhile, talking about new dresses they wanted, which styles they thought would work for them. On the way out, they stopped at the magazine racks. On one of the movie magazines was a picture of a young man. Gudren picked it up, grinning, “I had a beau who looked like him,” she said. “He played duets with me and kissed my ears when my instructor wasn’t looking.”
Angel laughed. “He’s handsome.”
With an exaggerated shrug, Gudren put the magazine back. “They all were handsome,” she said. “And in love with me.” She shot a quick, amused glance at Angel. “But my great love was a man, not a silly boy: Mr. Vanzandt, my piano teacher. He was at least twenty-seven, and had the most soulful eyes I have ever seen.”
They headed toward the door. “And?” Angel prompted.
“Oh, he was married to a very rich and beautiful woman, but I was sure that he secretly longed for me.” She chuckled. “How vain we are at sixteen.”
The door opened, forcing the women to step back in the crowded aisle. Angel saw who entered and her heart squeezed in sudden and painful fear. She took Gudren’s arm. “Let’s go,” she whispered and made a move to go around the pair.
“Well, well, well,” said the first, a ruddy-complexioned man of thirty. He wore the war-weary look so many men had these days, his face hard-carved, eyes troubled. “Angel Corey.”
Angel forced herself to meet his eyes squarely. “Hello, Tom.” Her voice sounded calm and steady, even faintly polite. “Jacob,” she added, nodding at the thinner man next to him.
“The wife told me you been having a little trouble over at your store,” Tom said, faintly mocking.
“Did she?” Angel returned. “Well, thank her for her concern.”
Jacob stepped one foot forward, smiling. She found herself mesmerized by the yellow shimmer at the end of his eyelashes, and the pattern of freckles over his thin nose. “Too bad you ain’t gonna keep it.”
“Thank you for your concern,” she repeated, and tugged Gudren’s arm, moving toward the door, trying to get around them.
“Hold on, now, Angel. Aren’t you gonna introduce your friend here?” Tom let a bold gaze travel over Gudren’s slim frame. “Pretty skinny, but I reckon you’ll fatten up, won’t you, sugar?”
“Get out of the way, Tom. We have things to do.”
“Yeah, I bet you do,” he said, nudging Jacob. His eyes took on a speculative look as he shifted his gaze back to Gudren. “We heard what all you Jew girls did to get through the camps, didn’t we, Jake.”
Angel glanced at Gudren in alarm. The big black eyes were hot and snapping. She leaned close to Tom, and in a low, sexy voice, she uttered one of the filthiest insults Angel had ever heard.
For an instant, Angel was shocked. Then it took all she had to keep from laughing out of nervous reaction. There was no doubt at all that these two had been part of the vandalism at her store, that they were both mean as skunks before spending years and years getting meaner in war.
At the gathering thunder in Tom’s face, Angel jerked hard on Gudren’s arm. “Let’s go.”
But Jake pushed her, “Nobody told you to go yet. You still haven’t properly introduced us.”
From behind them came Mr. Cox’s voice. “Tom and Jake, where the hell are your manners? Get outta that doorway right this minute. You wanna come in, come in, but don’t stand there blocking the ladies’ way.”
“Ladies?” Tom echoed. But he stepped aside.
Angel pushed by them, the back of her neck rippling. Even out on the street, she didn’t slow until her feet gained a path that led to the river. There, under the heavy shade of an oak tree, she shuddered and shook her limbs like she’d been covered in spider webs. “Ugh!”
Gudren said beside her, “Angel, I am sorry, I lost my temper—it was—”
“Don’t apologize, please, Gudren.”
“But I acted foolishly.”
Angel gave her a wry glance. “Where did you learn to swear like that?”
With a grim twist of her mouth, Gudren said wearily, “You would be surprised at what I know. Much of it, I wish I could forget.”
Angel met her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Neither of them spoke for long moments. Angel felt her fear slipping into the soothing sou
nd of the river as it swished over rocks and eddied into pools. She took a long breath. “I’m so ashamed of them for calling you names like that. After everything that has happened, you would think . . .”
“I knew about America, Angel.”
“What do you mean?”
Gudren pursed her lips, her gaze trained on the opposite bank of the river. “There was a woman with me, in the camps. She was a German Jew who escaped Europe on a ship that sailed to America.” Gudren plucked a long stem of grass, her voice almost completely flat as she continued, “The ship was filled with Jews running away. A thousand or more. It sailed the length of North and South America. No one would let them in.”
She repeated, “No one would let them in. So,” she said with a bitter smile. “The ship came back to Europe.”
The story left a hollow sensation in Angel’s gut. “I do wonder where God was through all of this.”
“God must have human hands, yes?”
“Yes.” She sank down on the grass, and Gudren joined her. “Will you stay here, Gudren?”
“I thought I might,” she said. “But I do not think so. I had hoped that we—my mother’s sister and I—could go to Palestine together, but I think she will not live so much longer. So I will wait and then go alone.”
The sudden thought that Mrs. Pierson, too, would be gone from Gideon gave Angel a thrust of sadness. It must have shown on her face, for Gudren reached over to cover her hand. “Will you come to supper before you go, you and Isaiah?”
“Maybe. I’ll ask him.” But disturbed, she looked back to the river, unable to shake the sense of impending threat Tom and Jake had lit within her.
Something was afoot.
— 37 —
September 10, 1945
Dear Isaiah,
I guess you aren’t going to write any more letters to me. Haven’t had one since July. I keep hoping I’ll get another one, get your new address, but I haven’t got anything yet, so I asked Mrs. Pierson today what the address was where she was writing you.
It’s a good thing, what you’re doing for her. We’ve been hearing all the horrible stories, seeing all the pictures that are coming out of the war zone, all the wretched things the Nazis did. I can’t even imagine how that hurt your heart, Isaiah. I’m so sorry. I don’t hardly know what to say, it’s been so long since your last letter maybe you don’ t want to write any more. I understand that, but Isaiah, if you could come home just to see my daddy before he dies, it sure would be a good thing.
Your friend always,
Angel
PS He’s really sick, Isaiah.
— 38 —
Exhausted from the long night and the week he’d spent working from sun up to sundown, Isaiah slept most of the day. It wasn’t something he had intended to do, but his body took over when he settled on his bed to rest. He didn’t awaken until late afternoon sunshine streamed through his window and in his face. For a long moment, he was disoriented. His head ached vaguely and his shoulder was sore, but he couldn’t remember quite why. Had there been a battle?
No. Home. He was home.
He swung his feet off the bed and his left ankle shot a vicious protest through his leg into his hip. He’d fallen, twisted the damned ankle in the rungs and sprained it good. Rubbing his face, trying to clear the muzziness from his brain, he remembered the fall—slamming his shoulder, bumping his head—
Angel.
A fresh flood of love and heat washed through him as he remembered her plump mouth and fragile, strong body, the fury with she had met his lovemaking. And he remembered the strange, glowing light that had surrounded them in the darkness as they had joined, finally, after so many long years of denial.
Have mercy.
He had loved her a long time. In childhood he admired her will and sense of humor and lack of fear. In adolescence, her slim young body had been the focus of every raging man-thought he dreamed. No matter who slaked the edges, it was always Angel he wanted. As an adult, he thought he had learned to control himself and his unsuitable wishes; thought that he’d learned that nobody in this life got just what they wanted.
God, he loved her. So deeply, so completely, so mindlessly it was like a thing apart. It had only been a few hours since he’d left her and he was already so starved for her company that he could barely stand it.
The aching wish for her propelled him to his feet, and he made his way to the kitchen where his mama kept a rag drawer. The movements made him a little dizzy, and he had to practically drag the foot behind him. He collapsed on the chair near the drawer. There were no scissors there, or anywhere else he looked, so he tore long strips of ancient cotton sheets and wrapped the sausage-swollen ankle tightly. It helped.
He washed up and changed his clothes, and only then thought of his mother, who would soon be coming home to find him gone again. His conscience slammed him with a vision of her worn face and the worry it would show. Her eyes this morning had been filled with a terror Isaiah had never seen. She’d tried so hard to keep from showing it.
Wouldn’t take long to fix her up some supper and leave it warming on the stove. Fighting the sense of urgency he felt to get to Angel, he fried potatoes with onions and bacon, and whipped up a stack of pancakes to leave in the oven. She’d always liked breakfast for supper and supper for breakfast—made her feel like a girl, she said. And it was the one thing she hadn’t been able to enjoy when she cooked for her husband. A man, she used to say in a low voice supposedly imitating Isaiah’s father, got to have meat in the evenin’.
As he baked flapjacks in a heavy skillet, it struck him that he’d always had a very strong, clear picture of his father. That was his mother’s doing. She kept Jordan alive in Isaiah’s heart by telling him over and over what his father had done, and how, and when, making of him almost a legend. He’d been a hero in France, fighting with a French battalion, then came home to battle for the poor and downtrodden in Gideon. He could shoot a deer right through the eyes at 400 paces and skin a catfish clean in about five seconds flat. She had loved him and kept his memory alive for his children with a thousand stories.
This morning had been the first time he’d ever heard even a hint of bitterness. “Talk,” she said. “Lord he could talk.”
When the supper was finished, he left the pan on the back of the stove and put a note on it that said only, Don’t worry, Mama.
He headed out through the back door and toward the river, which had gone down considerably since this morning. Truth was, across the river to the Corey store was about a three or four minute trip and, aside from snakes and the odd flood season, it wasn’t much of a crossing. Down the road and across the bridge was close to a mile.
The water loosened his bandage and he found himself limping hard on the opposite side of the bank, even with the help of the stick. As he reached the thicket of cottonwoods and pines that hid the store, the fogginess in his brain suddenly cleared.
What the hell was he doing?
I never thought I’d see the day you let them kill her. As the back of the Corey house and store came into view, he kicked something. A tin can, pierced with a bullet hole.
Where love had been shimmering through him, a harsh fury now burned—fury at himself. This was no game. Texas wasn’t England or France, where there might have been frowns him loving this woman—and most of those from his own countrymen, not the locals—but no danger to speak of.
This was bloody, bloody Texas. Where the dark forest was filled with the ghostly cries of those who had been punished with beatings and lynchings and worse, for real and imagined infractions of the careful class system that had been so grimly erected here. His daddy had been killed in this very forest. His own nearly-deadly beating had taken place here, and that one over Angel smiling at him. Just smiling. If Edwin Walker knew how much more Angel had now done, there would be no stopping his rage and violence, and this time, it wouldn’t be Isaiah Edwin would punish.
There were things worse than dying.
H
is mind filling with brutal pictures, Isaiah paused, staring in despair at the worn shingles of the old store. Have mercy.
The door opened, and Ebenezer flew out, squawking out a litany of complaint and dire scolding. Isaiah stepped backward in to the trees, waiting for a glimpse of Angel before he took himself back across the river. The throaty sound of her laughter rang through the stillness, and she stepped outside on the back porch. Her dress was pale green with a white collar, the same dress she had worn the day she made pineapple upside down cake because she’d known he couldn’t resist it. He remembered how hard he had fought that afternoon to keep his eyes from her mouth, from her legs, bare and slim beneath the dress.
The bird flew in the pitiful circles it could manage, chirping, and whistling and almost cackling with laughter, then flew right for Isaiah in the trees, shrieking out a greeting. Caught now—and hadn’t he wanted to be caught?—Isaiah lifted his arm. With a tiny scratch of claws, Ebenezer landed and scooted up toward Isaiah’s shoulder, nuzzling against his face like a cat. Isaiah laughed softly. “You funny thing.”
Angel hadn’t moved from the porch and, feeling absurdly shy, Isaiah finally had to look at her. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and her face was a mask of uncertainty.
But in her eyes was the same love he felt burning within himself, so deep a longing that a hundred years couldn’t possibly quench it. Before he knew he would do it, he stepped forward, drawn by that expression. At the bottom of the steps he paused, giving her a faint, knowing smile. “Hey.”
“Hey.” In a calm voice, she said, “I have something for you inside.”
“Is that right.” He smiled, very slowly, and he limped up the steps to follow her inside. She closed the door behind him and turned to fling herself into his arms, standing on tiptoe to kiss him full on the mouth, her eyes glittering, her breasts and belly hard against him. Isaiah let go of the cane, hearing it clatter to the floor as he grabbed her closer to him, threading his fingers through her hair to hold her scalp so that he could fit their mouths together more tightly.
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