by Dori Sanders
Something slithered into the undergrowth around the car, rustling the leaves and vines. Mae Lee picked up her basket and hurried on.
Now she couldn’t get her thoughts of her mama out of her mind. It seemed Vergie should have been with her on the old wagon road.
After all her efforts, when she reached her cousin’s house there was no one home. She had forgotten to call ahead.
: 18 :
The pleasant spring days had quickly pushed the weeks into summer. Mae Lee couldn’t bear to think of her good farm soil growing only weeds and blooming wild morning glories. When farmland like that lies barren, your money dries up, Mae Lee thought to herself.
It worried her that she had spent so much money on a house, by far too big for a woman her age, and she fretted that she’d even pinched off her savings to take the bus tour.
I guess spending time around people with more money than you have can’t help but affect your spending habits in some way, she thought.
Now that the weather was warm Mae Lee’s front porch was starting to come alive again. Her friend Clairene plunked her tired body down on Mae Lee’s front steps. “I’m not staying,” she announced. She fished around in a big plastic bag and handed Mae Lee an eight-ounce cottage cheese container. “I’m delivering the ‘friendship starter bread’ today. It’s day number ten,” she said tiredly. “I’ve delivered the other two cups. Now remember to follow the directions exactly. Do not use a metal spoon, do not refrigerate, that’s day one . . .”
“I know,” Mae Lee interrupted. “Do nothing day two, three and four. Stir with wooden spoon, day—aw, shucks, I have the directions. And Clairene, please don’t go flashing that old chain letter again. There is no way you’re going to get fifty thousand dollars within sixty days just by sending a dollar here and there to people you don’t even know.”
After Clairene left, Mae Lee headed for the kitchen with the friendship starter bread. But before she had a chance to put it away, there was a knock on her front door.
When she opened it, the clean, neatly dressed, elderly man who stood there seemed respectable enough. He said his name was Fletcher Owens, and he had heard, he said, that she had a room to spare, and he wondered whether she might be willing to take in a roomer.
“I used to live here in Rising Ridge years ago, but my family moved away when I was fairly young,” he explained. “We used to live just beyond Catfish Creek in that old frame house down behind the Boyd’s farm.”
“Oh,” Mae Lee said, “you’re Phil Owens’s nephew.” Although she didn’t know scat about Fletcher, she did know his people, at least his daddy’s family. The Owenses were a close-knit, well-respected family. Eventually they had all moved away from Rising Ridge, but she’d never heard anybody say a cross word about any one of them. She didn’t know where they moved to, and had wondered if they’d sold the land they owned, across the Catfish Creek.
She considered herself a good judge of character. And this man was, to all appearances, in his early seventies at least, while she was in her midsixties. Even so, she had been ready to turn Fletcher Owens away until he offered to pay in advance for a room for a few weeks until he found a permanent place to stay. Mae Lee had never in her lifetime thought of renting out a room. But she thought of the money, and the two bedrooms that were empty of use, and agreed to let him stay.
After installing Fletcher Owens in one of the two vacant bedrooms and getting towels and linens for him, Mae Lee took the four fifty-dollar bills he had given her, got out the cotton bag from behind the flour bin in the kitchen where she had moved it last week, and added the money. She now had $5,240. Now she knew why the palm of her hand had been itching so much that morning. That was always a sign of money. It crossed her mind how it might look to her neighbors if she had a man living in her house, but she quickly dismissed it. He would be a roomer. From the moment Mae Lee had laid eyes on this tall handsome man with his flat stomach, she’d labeled him “kind.” Her concerns over how her children would feel about it lingered on, however.
She somehow felt that it seemed right and fitting that she should call him Mr. Fletcher, not Mr. Owens, and so she did. After a few days, when Mae Lee had seen Fletcher Owens leave the house every morning before he had had breakfast, she said, “I’ll be glad to fix you a little breakfast when I fix my own.” Then she’d only had to say, “Why don’t you come in and sit down and watch TV with me this evening,” for him to make it a regular habit. Fletcher Owens loved television. Mae Lee found they had much in common. They saw the same side of things and loved the same wrong foods. It was all happening so very fast. She started spending less and less time volunteering at the hospital.
She also began sharing little things about her family with him, as well as sharing things about him with Ellabelle and her children. Fletcher laughed with her when she told him that her son, Taylor, wouldn’t allow his wife near the kitchen when she visited. Mae Lee spread out her hand like she was smoothing wrinkled empty space. “Every time I go, it’s the same thing. Mama cook this. . . . Mama cook that. I always said, ‘I’d like to eat your wife’s cooking for a change.’”
Fletcher Owens smiled. “I sure would like to meet your Taylor, he seems like a fine young man,” he said.
“He wants to meet you, too. He said he’ll probably come over here in a few days.”
Fletcher smiled. “I’m glad he wants to meet me.”
Mae Lee had been a little anxious about them meeting. When they did, she busied herself with her sewing, but she listened. Taylor wasn’t blunt or unkind, but he sure didn’t beat around the bush. “My mama tells me you are thinking of getting a house in Rising Ridge, Mr. Owens,” he said.
Fletcher leaned back in his chair. He appeared calm and relaxed. “Actually, I’m hoping to renovate our old family house if it’s not too far gone.” He laughed, but quickly grew serious. “I’m retired now, so I’ve decided to come back to the land where I was born. But it appears that it’s going to be quite a struggle to get a clear deed to the land. It’s all heir property that’s been tied up for a long time. It’s going to take some time to get it all untangled. But I suppose the one thing I do have now is time.”
That said, he told Taylor stories about his hunting and fishing days. Mae Lee threaded needles with the different thread colors she needed for her embroidery designs and stuck them into a pincushion. She thought of her husband, Taylor’s father, how nice it would have been if he had been a man like Fletcher Owens. Taylor had deserved a good daddy. A son needs a daddy.
Later, when Taylor and his mama were alone, Taylor told her that he thought Fletcher Owens seemed very levelheaded and honest. Mae Lee smiled. “I kind of think so too, son. Now you can call your sisters and tell them what you think of your mama’s new roomer. And don’t raise your eyebrows as if you are surprised, Taylor. You know your sisters asked you to find out what kind of man Mama’s new roomer is.” Taylor grinned and dropped his head.
It was strange, but she found herself freely telling Fletcher Owens little things that had always embarrassed her. She told him of the day she found out why her daughter had been ashamed of her. She had taken Annie Ruth’s lunch to school. The little girl had forgotten it.
She realized later that she had worn one of her faded, loose-fitting, homemade, everyday cotton dresses with white ankle socks and, without thinking, had put on her Sunday dress-up blue straw hat, the one with the red cherries. Little Annie Ruth had kept her head down, barely glancing up at her. “Where are your manners, honey?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to tell your little classmates that this is your mama?” Of course she knew them all and they all knew her. Her little Annie Ruth didn’t raise her eyes. “This is my mama,” she mumbled, grabbed her lunch and ran away.
“You know something, Mr. Fletcher,” she said, “when I later noticed my wide body in the mirror in a loose, homemade, cotton dress two sizes too large, I understood why my child had been ashamed. I laughed until I cried.” And she and Fletcher Owens laughed some m
ore.
She did wish she hadn’t told him the story about Nellie Grace’s new baby shoes. But she’d been dusting the shelves in the den one morning and took down the shoebox with one new white shoe inside while he was sitting there. She told him about the shoe.
She had bought the little baby girl the new white Sunday shoes. She had quarreled with her husband, the baby’s daddy, and to keep her home that Sunday, he’d angrily tossed one of the new baby shoes on top of the house. Neither she nor her husband ever made an attempt to take the shoe down. So the little shoe stayed there, partially hidden, a bitter reminder of a Sunday turned sour. If someone stood in a certain spot and turned their head just so, they could see it. But it took some doing even for Mae Lee, and she knew exactly where it was.
After she spilled out that particular story to Fletcher Owens, Mae Lee decided not to reveal any more family secrets. Her mama had always reminded her that a woman should hold back on a few things. Never tell a man everything about yourself. For a woman to always have a certain air of mystery, she had to hold back a little.
Then there was the singing. He loved to sing and had a good singing voice and so did she. They seemed to sing almost the way they started to speak, with one voice. There were so many little things she liked about him, especially that he cupped his ear to listen to her. It made her feel he thought what she had to say was important.
But there were also some things about him that started to grate on her. The way he clicked his teeth when he was reading. Maybe she ought to buy him some Dentu Grip, she thought. The way he could sit for hours on end and twiddle his thumbs was annoying. She once asked if he ever tired of just sitting, twirling his thumbs over and over the same way. “Oh, yes,” he’d said, and smiled. “But then I stop and twirl them the other way.”
Later, she started to ask him something, but he was sound asleep, with his hands clasped across his chest. His full head of white hair was combed straight back, his strong face fully bared. His lower lip sagged slightly, but his mouth was closed, the furrows in his laugh line long and deep. His face was old only when he was asleep.
Whenever he talked about his coon dog, Colonel Yadkin, his face turned boyish. “Sure miss old Colonel Yadkin,” he’d say. “That coon dog could tree a possum better than a possum hound.”
One evening Mae Lee and Ellabelle sat in the semidark watching a quarter moon edge its way above the towering pines. Ellabelle slapped a mosquito biting away on her leg. “She’s full of somebody’s blood,” she complained, wiping her fingers on an empty paper bag. “I hope she didn’t fly up here from the house down near the railroad tracks. I don’t want to catch nothing.”
“She’s been sucking up my blood all evening. All you’ll probably catch is what I have, old age.”
“I’m kind of hungry for something sweet,” Ellabelle said, after a while. “Didn’t you bake an egg custard yesterday?”
“I did,” Mae Lee groaned, “but you seem to forget I have a boarder now.”
“Oh,” Ellabelle faked surprise, “is that what they are called nowadays?”
Mae Lee stiffened. “That wasn’t nice, Ellabelle.” She leaned forward in her rocking chair, lowering her voice to a concerned whisper. “People haven’t started to talk, have they? They don’t think that I’m ... well, you know . . . ?”
“Oh, Lord no, Mae Lee, I’m just teasing,” Ellabelle assured her.
Mae Lee leaned back, relieved. She took a deep breath and made her usual vain attempt to pull in her stomach. After all those years, it was nice to have a male presence in the house. It gave her a reason to dress up more often.
Fletcher Owens’s arrival in Rising Ridge, South Carolina, had indeed brought about change in Mae Lee’s life and thinking. She had almost forgotten that there were things to talk about other than children and cooking. She also realized how truly lonely she’d been before he came. His very presence was comforting.
She felt a sense of security with Fletcher Owens that she hadn’t had with her husband. She imagined it would be really wonderful to be married to someone like Mr. Fletcher. The thought of marriage played on her mind, and she couldn’t help wondering what her children might think. Especially her girls. She had the feeling that Taylor might be pleased.
Then, at half past seven in the evening, on the nineteenth of August, Fletcher Owens received a phone call. When he finished Mae Lee could tell he was nervous.
“I hate to get a call like this,” he said. He frowned. “When a person gets older, it’s hard on them to be put under this kind of pressure, to have someone just call and say come.” He left the room.
Mae Lee heard Ellabelle’s shuffling footsteps on the front porch. “Pick up your feet,” she called out. “It’s too early in the week for the lazy woman’s shuffle.”
Ellabelle slid into a chair. “I’ve been cleaning up my house. Getting ready to try and find me a mister to take in,” she laughed.
Mae Lee didn’t smile. “I believe my roomer is fixing to leave.”
Mr. Fletcher appeared in the doorway. He wore the same gray pinstriped suit he’d worn the day he arrived, his coat draped across his arm. The top button of his clean white shirt was unbuttoned, the knot on his necktie loosened just below, shoes clean, but not shined.
Mae Lee liked that kind of look on a man. Obviously, Ellabelle did, too. “Lord have mercy, that’s a pretty tie,” she gushed, glancing at his worn suitcase. “Seems like you are fixing to travel, Mr. Fletcher?”
He looked worried. “I’m afraid I am,” he said. “I’m going to have to catch that midnight train out of North Point tonight.”
Mae Lee thought, that’s a reserved train. “If you don’t have a reservation you might not be able to get on that midnight train, Mr. Fletcher,” she said.
“Oh, at this time of night, they’ll find room for me,” he said. He turned to face Mae Lee. “I’ve been called away. I don’t think I’ll be gone for more than a week or two.” He forced a weak smile. “But I hope I can count on having a room when I get back. I’ll leave my trunk with you, if it’s all right.”
Mae Lee felt a wave of relief sweep over her. “Oh, yes, Mr. Fletcher,” she said, “you can count on your room being right here when you return.”
“I’ll need to get to North Point in order to catch that train. Is there a taxi I can call, Mae Lee?” he asked.
“Oh, I’ll drive you,” Ellabelle hurriedly spoke up.
Mae Lee glared at her friend. “I see my mouthpiece will be able to take you. I think I’ll go along too.”
Mae Lee rode in the front seat with Ellabelle. She tried to make light talk. “There’s not too much traffic out this time of night, so we’ll get you there in plenty time for the train, Mr. Fletcher.”
“Good,” he said quietly.
“I sure hate to see you pull up and leave on such notice, Mr. Fletcher,” Ellabelle said sadly. “I hope you didn’t forget anything.”
Fletcher Owens was thoughtful for a few minutes, then he said, “Um-mmm, I think I left my old corncob pipe behind. Probably just as well I left it. I’m trying to quit. Smoked my pipe yesterday for the first time in a couple months,” he said.
“It was nice knowing you, Mr. Fletcher Owens,” Ellabelle said when they saw the train coming.
“Wait a minute,” he smiled. “Like I said, I’ll be back.”
After the train pulled away, churning its streamlined cars through the darkness, Ellabelle still waved.
Mae Lee was impatient. “Are you going to stand there all night? It’s well past midnight.” Mae Lee watched Ellabelle shuffle to straighten her body, and although the train had long since disappeared into the darkness, Ellabelle pulled her fat legs into a proud strut.
“It’s probably best that Fletcher Owens is going away for a while,” Mae Lee said. “When he is around, you almost strut yourself to death.”
On the way home Ellabelle asked Mae Lee where Mr. Fletcher was going. She couldn’t believe that Mae Lee didn’t know, and beyond that, hadn’t even a
sked him. She also couldn’t imagine how Fletcher Owens would leave without telling Mae Lee where he was going. “Most people don’t leave the house where they live and not tell where they’re going,” she told Mae Lee.
She had fully intended to ask Mr. Fletcher where he was rushing out to in the middle of the night, but had kind of held back, waiting for him to say. And it seemed the next thing she knew, he was on that train and gone.
But he had asked her to save his room. She also remembered he’d left his trunk behind. “He’ll be back,” she told Ellabelle.
It was one-thirty in the morning when they drove up to Mae Lee’s house. “See you in the morning,” Ellabelle said, then laughed. “It is the morning.”
Knowing that her boarder wasn’t there seemed to make the house even emptier than before. She was alone in her house, her children long gone, now Mr. Fletcher as well. Maybe I should get a dog, or a cat, or a parrot or something, she thought, just so there will be something living in the house with me. She went to bed, but lay awake for a long time, hearing the night noises outside, an occasional automobile on the highway down the way, the bell on the Presbyterian church steeple downtown ringing three o’clock, a dog barking off in the distance somewhere. But inside her own house, not a sound. She was all by herself in the dark.
Before sunrise Mae Lee got out of bed and cooked breakfast, but she only picked at the grits, bacon, and eggs on her plate. She looked at the empty chair facing her. Mr. Fletcher had roomed in her house for only nineteen days, but she missed him. She would be glad when he returned.
It seemed having Mr. Fletcher out of the house cleared her mind, unclogged her thinking. She hadn’t been able to think straight for almost a month. Perhaps now she’d get back to her volunteer work at the hospital. Well, anyway, she was not without resources. She had money in the bank, and over five thousand dollars here in the home.
Maybe she should buy an automobile. Taylor could teach her how to drive it. If she had a car and could drive, she could have taken Mr. Fletcher to catch the train last night without needing Ellabelle to go along.