The Truth According to Us

by Annie Barrows

  They laughed harder than ever.

  53

  “Emmett!” It was Sol’s voice. “Hold up!”

  Emmett paused, one hand on the door of the New Grocery, his eyes sweeping over Prince Street. He frowned, puzzled—

  “Over here,” Sol said breathlessly, banging open the door of Statler’s Ice Cream. In his hand was a very large heart-shaped pink satin box emblazoned with the motto Sweets to the Sweet. “Glad I caught you.” He shifted the box to whack Emmett on the arm. “Listen, I have to meet with George and the strike committee, so I can’t come over—you know, to see Jottie tonight. Will you give her this?” He nudged the box into Emmett’s stomach.

  Emmett looked at it and quickly back at Sol. “Why, sure! I’ll take it right over!”

  “Thanks, pal. I owe you. It’s just a little something for Jottie,” he said, nodding with pleasure and pride. “Got to stay on her good side.”

  “Right,” said Emmett, nodding back with gusto. “Right you are! Candy! I’ll tell her you’re tied up tonight.”

  “Good, okay.” Sol glanced at his watch. “I’d better get going. Thanks. Tell her”—his smile was wide and guileless—“sweets to the sweet.”

  “You bet!” said Emmett, and watched as Sol hurried away, past the barbershop, café, hardware store. Then, glancing with distaste at the box in his hands, he entered the New Grocery.

  —

  Back on Prince Street, he juggled a coffee can with the box of candy. They couldn’t be combined. Scowling, he stuffed the candy under one arm and held the can casually in the same hand. It was stupid. He put the can in one hand and the box in the other. Damn Sol and damn his candy. Walking fast, he turned up Council Street and found himself swiftly overtaking Layla’s back. He’d recognize that back anywhere.

  There was nothing for it. “Hello,” he said too loud.

  She spun around, startled first and then, he saw, pleased. “Oh, hello there!” Her eyes fell on the pink satin box and veered away. “Have you been shopping?” she asked, and then gave a flustered laugh. “Obviously.”

  “This”—he jabbed the box in the air—“is not mine. It’s from Sol. To Jottie.”

  “Oh,” she said. She stole another look at it. “My.”

  He grimaced. “Yeah.” He matched his steps to hers, and they walked in silence for a bit. “I don’t think Sol understands Jottie very well,” he said.

  She glanced at him. “I was thinking the same thing. Though,” she said slowly, “I couldn’t say why, exactly. I mean, it’s just candy. Candy’s nice.”

  “It’s the box,” said Emmett, eyeing it. “I think there’s something the matter with the box.”

  She began to laugh.

  “What?” He stopped, his brow furrowed. “What’s funny?”

  “What you said.” Layla smiled. “I think you’re right.” She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling. “Can you imagine Jottie’s face?”

  He laughed and shook his head. Then he sobered. “I thought they’d make each other happy,” he said worriedly.

  Her smile faded. After a moment, she said, “Do you remember him?”

  A sidelong glance. “Vause?”

  She nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “Was he so—so—what was he like?” she asked.

  “Well, I was nine years younger than Vause, so what I remember is kind of piecemeal, you know?” He hesitated, thinking himself backward. “Everyone shouting because Vause had won something—a race or a football game or something. Him lighting the bonfire on Halloween. That kind of thing. Mostly I remember having the feeling that wherever he was, he and Felix, and Jottie, too, that was the most exciting place to be. That’s where everyone was laughing and happy and, you know, lively.” He paused mid-step on the sidewalk. “I can see that smile of his now—he had one of those devil smiles, you know?” He glanced at Layla and she nodded. “I was only eight when they left. For the Great War. And then Vause didn’t come back until—what?—1919. He had a cane when he got back, and everyone was worried about him. But not me.” He grinned. “I hated him.”

  “You hated him?” cried Layla. “Nobody hates Vause Hamilton!”

  “Yeah, well, I did. He stole Jottie.”

  “Ohh.”

  “Yep. She was mine; she raised me, more than my mother ever did. She was like a mother, only fun. She took me everywhere, she played with me, she saved my hide when I needed it. She made us a secret code and wrote me notes in it. She told me things, too, about what she thought and what she studied.” He smiled. “Though she never mentioned anything about Vause. Not a word about him. I only found out after he got back. I guess everyone could see it then, but not me. I didn’t know a thing until they started using me as a decoy.”

  “A decoy?”

  “You know, Let’s you and me go to the river for a swim, Emmett, and we’ll take a picnic, too. Won’t that be fun? And of course I fell for it every time, so off we’d go to False River, putt putt, have our picnic, and then—surprise!—who would show up but Vause Hamilton! I guess Daddy and Mr. Hamilton were trying to stop the whole thing, which is why they had to meet out of town. But was I mad! Sometimes Vause would try to make it up to me—he’d throw a ball with me—but I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand him. I’d go off in the trees and sulk.” He shook his head ruefully. “I can’t say I put much of a damper on the two of them, though. Jesus, they were in another world.” He hesitated and then said slowly, “One time, I came sneaking back; I guess I had some idea I was going to throw a rock at him. But even then, when I was a stupid kid, I was…I don’t know what’s the word—jarred, maybe?—by the sight of them. They were just holding hands and talking, but—well, I’m glad I had the sense to go away and leave them alone.”

  Layla nodded dreamily. “It must have been something special, what they had.”

  “Nah.” He looked fixedly ahead at some distant point. “That’s just what being in love is like.”

  Her face flamed.

  Sol took his cigarette out of his mouth. “If I were you,” he called to Bird, “I’d find a branch that was thicker than a pencil.”

  “Pooh.” From the throes of the maple, Bird waved her hand dismissively. “I’m a bird, ain’t I?” She tested her weight on a slender bough.

  “You’re a birdbrain, I can tell you that,” he laughed.

  Jottie looked at him sideways. “Twenty years ago, you would have been climbing up there after her, trying to save her life.”

  His eyes flicked toward her and back to Bird. “I’ve learned a thing or two since then.”

  She nodded. He had.

  “Sol?” called Bird.

  “What?”

  “I’m stuck.”

  “Told you.”

  “Come get me.”

  Sol laughed and nudged Jottie, didn’t-I-say-so? “Here I come,” he said, stubbing out his cigarette.

  Jottie watched him trudge sturdily over the grass toward the maple tree. In the future, she would see this again and again; this would be a common scene. Now he held up his arms, his white shirtsleeves slipping backward, his kind face upturned as he coaxed Bird down. She was going to drop on him, Jottie knew. He wouldn’t be expecting it, but he would catch her. Might hurt his back a little, but he wouldn’t mind. He’d look at Bird, cradled there in his arms, and he’d forevermore take her into his heart, because that was the kind of heart he had.

  Jottie turned around to peer into the mesh of the screened porch, where Willa perched like a raven, a ruin, stringy with exhaustion, her ferocious, unswerving heart indifferent to its own injuries, enduring in wreckage that anyone else would flee. For as long as Jottie watched her, she didn’t move.

  When Jottie finally turned away, she saw that it had happened just as she expected. There was Sol, with Bird in his arms, dappled, smiling, delighted.

  What’s it worth if it’s so easy, she asked herself.

  It’s not worth a nickel.

  —

  It was getting to be the
end of summer. You could feel it happening. Not that it wasn’t hot; it was—sweltering, even, in the afternoons. But it wasn’t crushing anymore, and there was a winey tang in the morning before the heat came on. From where she stood on the front-hall rug, Jottie looked through two layers of screen out to the tree-lined street, panning for the sheen of gold among the leaves. None yet; only the exhausted green of late summer. School would start soon, and Emmett would stop coming. He’d been there every day since Felix left, his steady presence masking the other’s absence. They would miss him. Beyond the porch, trees rustled in some slight gust, and Jottie opened the coat closet in the front hall. Soon they’d resume their duties, the coats. Before she could stop herself, she hoped that Felix had enough money to buy a coat, wherever he was. She closed the closet door and leaned against it for good measure. Her eyes fell on the hall table. “Letter here for you!” she called. Silence. “It’s from Charleston,” she called again.

  “I’m coming,” said Layla, stepping into the hall. Jottie looked at her approvingly. The disheveled phase was over. Soon, very soon, she’ll be all right, Jottie thought as Layla slit the envelope.

  “Well?” prodded Jottie. “What’s she say?”

  “She likes it,” said Layla, reading.

  “Of course she does!” Jottie said. She couldn’t help feeling proud.

  Layla let out a whoosh of air. “She wants me to do another one.”

  “Well, that’s no surprise,” Jottie said. “Didn’t your uncle say she would?”

  “About apples.” Layla grimaced. “She wants me to write a book about apple farming in the Eastern Panhandle.” She handed Jottie the letter. “Sounds deadly, doesn’t it?”

  “Huh,” said Jottie, reading. “They’re more interesting than you think, apples.”

  Layla eyed Jottie closely. “Are they?”

  “Sure,” said Jottie. She began to sing, “Autumn’s jewel, fruit on the bough, a treasure far greater than gold—”

  Layla raised her eyebrows.

  “Don’t you know that song?” Jottie asked, nonplussed. “I thought everyone knew that song.” She smiled at Layla. “What?”

  “Let’s do it together!” Layla said. “You and me! You could show me the wonderful world of the apple. We’d have fun.”

  “Pooh.” Jottie flapped her hand. “I can’t write a book.”

  “Pooh yourself,” retorted Layla. “You can too. You wrote half the last one.”

  “I did not,” said Jottie. “And, besides, it’s a WPA job. You got to be on relief.”

  “If I can be on relief, you can, too.”

  “No, I can’t. I’ve got those farms, remember? Even though they don’t make a dime nowadays.”

  Layla’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, Jottie, do you want to do it? This apple book?”

  “You live here as long as I have, you end up knowing a lot about apples.” Jottie read the letter again. “I know a lot more than she does, that’s obvious.”

  Layla peered over the edge of the paper. “You’re a better writer than she is, too.”

  “Well.” Jottie had to agree.

  “Listen.” Layla’s voice grew strong. “If you can’t get on relief, that’s all right. We’ll share it between us, and they don’t have to know a thing about it down in Charleston.” She nodded encouragingly. “We’ll write it together and I’ll give you half the money, and they’ll never be the wiser.”

  “But that seems like tricking Mrs. Chambers,” said Jottie, wavering.

  “Oh, her. She wouldn’t care if a goat wrote it, as long as it came in on time.”

  “It’s not like I couldn’t use the money,” said Jottie reflectively. “It’ll save us from the poorhouse, anyway.”

  “I doubt Mr. McKubin would let his fiancée go to the poorhouse,” Layla said, smiling.

  Jottie looked furtive. “I guess not.”

  “You’re still—going to get married, aren’t you?”

  “ ’Course I am,” Jottie said. “Yes, indeed.” She nodded for emphasis.

  Layla hesitated. “If we did it, this book, is it all right about—me?”

  “What about you?”

  “If I stay?” Layla asked, gazing at a point slightly to the right of Jottie.

  “Oh, honey.” Jottie touched Layla’s shoulder. “Of course. But I thought your daddy said you could go home now.”

  Layla nodded. “I don’t want to go home.” Her eyes remained on the point to Jottie’s right. “I want to stay here.”

  Jottie glanced at her worn front room. “I don’t know why. I bet your house is real nice.”

  “It’s you-all,” muttered Layla.

  “Us-all?”

  “I want to stay with you-all,” Layla said. “When Parker came the other day, all of you helped. Minerva and Mae and you—you sat there and fought for me, even—even after what happened. Even though I made such a mess.”

  Jottie reached to brush back Layla’s curls. “Honey—”

  But Layla wasn’t finished. “You treat me like I’m one of you, even though I’ve caused so much trouble and made such a fool out of myself. You don’t hate me. Except for Willa, no one hates me.”

  “She’ll get over it,” said Jottie. She’d said it before.

  “At home, they hate me,” Layla continued.

  Jottie smiled tenderly. “I don’t see how that could be true.”

  “Well, I’m a black sheep, anyway.”

  “Then they must be awful particular,” said Jottie. “There’s one good thing about Felix,” she added. “He made the rest of us look like angels. Listen, you can stay here as long as you want. I don’t know why you’d want to be, but you’re practically family.”

  Layla caught up Jottie’s hand and squeezed. “That’s what I want.”

  54

  “Jottie!” yelled Emmett, thundering up the front stairs. “You need any butter?”

  “What?” she squawked from the cellar.

  “What?” he called, moving into the kitchen. “I said—oh.” He caught sight of Layla and broke off.

  “She’s in the cellar,” said Layla, pointing to it unnecessarily.

  “I’m here,” said Jottie, rising into the kitchen with her hands full of tomatoes. “What are you yelling about?”

  “I’m going to big farm,” said Emmett, his voice sliding awkwardly from loud to quiet. “Wren called. The DeLaval broke, so I’m taking the other Reliance from mountain farm.”

  “Honest to God, I don’t know what Wren does to those separators.”

  “What does it separate?” asked Layla. “A separator?”

  They both looked at her as if she had grown horns. “The wheat from the chaff,” said Emmett.

  “Oh.”

  “She doesn’t know you’re joking,” said Jottie, shaking her head. “These city slickers.”

  “They’d starve to death if it weren’t for us,” said Emmett.

  “I was just asking a question,” protested Layla. “Don’t I get credit for being interested?”

  Emmett shook his head. “No. If you want credit, you got to come to the farm and touch a cow.”

  “All right. But isn’t that how you get scarlet fever?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” he exploded.

  “I’m joking!” she interrupted, rising from her chair.

  His eyes moved over her summer dress and her high heels. “You really coming?”

  “Yes. If”—she hesitated—“that’s all right?”

  He nodded, flushing a little. “Yes. Of course.” He looked at Jottie. “Can I borrow a towel?”

  —

  “I’m sorry to put you to the trouble,” said Layla after a few minutes.

  “What?” said Emmett, glancing from the road to her.

  “The towel,” said Layla. She plucked at the towel she was sitting on, embarrassed.

  He smiled. “You’re less trouble than Bird. She won’t ride inside. Because of the smell, she says. I have to tie a rocking chair in the back, so she can sit o
n it like a queen.”

  Layla laughed. “You’re an indulgent uncle.”

  “I guess.” He looked toward her. “It does smell pretty bad, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “One of the hoses leaks,” he said. “I just roll the windows down, but I guess it kind of knocks you out if you’re not used to it.”

  “It’s, um, bracing,” said Layla.

  “That’s a nice way to say it.”

  They fell silent then, passing through a spate of dark trees and emerging on a flat road lined by fences and marked at long intervals by gates and mailboxes. Layla stared out the window at the undulating green dotted with cows and rocks. The engine whined over an incline and dropped the Model T into a valley where a wide, deceptively smooth river seemed to repose on one side of the road.

  “False River?” asked Layla.

  “Mm-hm,” said Emmett. “Yes.”

  There was another silence. She looked sideways at Emmett’s quiet profile. What did he think? What did he think of her? He had every reason to despise her. She despised herself, and he was not the kind of man who wanted a woman to be a fool. Surely he thought her ridiculous and weak. Not to mention loose. A tramp. How could he think otherwise? Except, she thought, the way he looks at me sometimes, with those unreadable black eyes, like he’s waiting for something. No. Probably my imagination. Probably he’s waiting for me to go away. She stole another glance at him. He can’t think any worse of me than he does already. She licked her lips. “You—” she began.

  “You—” he said at the same moment. They stopped. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “I was,” she said laboriously, “going to say that I feel—well, that you must think I’m an awful fool. After what happened.”

  “A fool?” he said, frowning. “No. I don’t think that.”

  “I meant tramp,” she said harshly. “That’s what I meant.”