“Yes, I suppose I am hungry.”
“You seem different this morning. Did something happen last night?”
Lovey realized that he was right. She felt different. She almost felt happy, and for the first time in months, she actually had an appetite. She wanted to eat rather than having to force herself to eat something.
“No, nothing special happened. I just went for a walk and it was a lovely night. How many eggs would you like?” Lovey turned to look at her father before she opened the icebox.
❖
Royal waved back at Frank as she headed up the steps. Her mother was in the kitchen pulling biscuits out of the cast iron stove as she pushed through the door. The smell of hot buttermilk biscuits hung in the air. She figured if heaven had a scent this would be it. Her stomach growled in response.
“Royal, is that you?” her mother asked.
“Yeah.” She settled into a chair at the table, a bit exhausted by her escape and walk into town. Her head ached, her heel was surely blistered from her boot slipping with every step, and she now realized she was starving. What an impressive mess. No wonder Lovey thought I needed assistance.
The large black iron pan clanged loudly on the stovetop, causing Royal to jump like a spooked rabbit. Her mother regarded her with a look that seemed to be a mixture of fear and anger. She knew what was coming next and chided herself for not cleaning up before coming into the house.
“Lillian Royal Duval, what in God’s name have you gotten into? Have you been in a fight? Did you wreck your car?” Her mother’s voice got progressively louder with each question.
“I bumped my head is all.” Royal’s mind raced ahead of her words as she attempted to conjure up a believable story that would bear no resemblance to what had actually happened. “Ned and I were goofing around in town at the tavern and I fell. You know what a dead hoofer I am.”
“I’ve never seen you dance poorly enough to knock yourself silly. Don’t lie to me, Royal.”
“Momma, I’m tellin’ the truth. I got distracted by this girl, and the next thing I knew my feet were all tripped up and I banged my head on a table as I went down.” The sincerity she could muster for a complete fabrication amazed her. Maybe because her encounter with Lovey had made her dizzy, but she reckoned the rest of the story was more to protect her mother from the truth than to be dishonest. This occasion had to be the one instance when telling a lie was the more honorable thing to do.
When she was a child, her father had been killed in a similar accident. The last thing she wanted was to frighten her mother by telling her she’d rolled the Ford. Her cousin Ned would help her get the car back on four wheels and no one would be the wiser.
“You chasing girls is gonna be the death of me.” Her mother huffed, bracing her fists against her hips.
While her mother would likely never completely embrace Royal’s boyish dress or her attraction to women, at least she’d come to terms with it on some level. Royal had been incredibly stubborn as a child, or so she’d been told. Her mother had stopped trying to coerce Royal into wearing dresses by age nine.
Her mother had been equally tolerant of the long spells Royal spent hidden away in her room. What have you been doing in there for so long, her mother would ask upon her emergence. Thinking and writing things down, would be Royal’s response.
She’d discovered a book, a collection of selected poems, in her father’s things one afternoon, and ever since had been captivated by poetry. Royal would pronounce to her family that poetry didn’t tell you how to think, it told you how to feel. Royal was lucky that both her mother and her grandfather let her find her own path.
“Go wake your brother. He’s got chores to do.” Her mother spoke over her shoulder as she stirred eggs in a pan.
Royal begrudgingly got to her feet. After all, she’d just sat down and still hadn’t managed to snag one of those hot biscuits. “And put on a clean shirt before you come back to the table,” her mother shouted.
Royal stepped into her brother’s room and shoved the bed frame with her boot. “Teddy, get up. Breakfast is ready.”
Her brother moaned but didn’t move.
“Get up!”
“Stop shakin’ the bed, Royal. I’m up.” She couldn’t see his face, hidden in the covers, but she heard his muffled voice.
“Don’t make me toss you out of that bed.”
He pulled the covers back so she could see his annoyed look. “Don’t make me toss you outta this room.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell Momma you’re coming soon.” Theodore Duval was sixteen going on twelve in Royal’s opinion. In their father’s absence, their mother babied him no end, so she felt like it was her sisterly duty to toughen him up. Or at least try. She’d experienced only limited success in this endeavor, as he was very sensitive for a boy. He’d cry at the drop of a hat when he was a kid, and in his daily life was far more empathetic to others than anyone she knew. She hoped he’d choose a different path away from the family business because she feared he was too kindhearted for the moonshine trade. She did her best to shield him from it, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t give him a sisterly hard time now and again.
As he lingered under the covers, she silently slipped the lace out of one of his boots before heading upstairs to her room for fresh clothes.
A few minutes later, Royal returned to the warmth of the kitchen, finishing the last button on her clean shirt as she sat down. Teddy sleepily dropped into the chair across from her and reached for a biscuit. Their mother slapped his hand. With his tousled, short blond hair and tanned, sharp features, he looked like a slightly younger, slightly lankier version of Royal.
“As long as I’m in this house we’ll say grace before we eat.” Their mother clasped her hands together and gave them both a withering look.
“Yes, ma’am.” Teddy settled back, folded his hands, and closed his eyes.
Chapter Five
Lovey had just finished washing the breakfast dishes when Cal came through the front door. Cal was a local woman that her father had taken on for cleaning, cooking, and washing. Since Lovey had returned she’d taken to cooking certain meals but was thankful to have Cal’s help for all the other tasks around the house. When she’d first arrived, Lovey had been so depressed that she’d hardly left her room. She figured she owed Cal’s fine cooking for keeping her alive during that sad transition.
Cal had smooth, dark skin, and her full figure was a testament to her skill in the kitchen. Her cakes were legend. More than one young bride in the county in need of a wedding cake had hired her.
“Good morning, Cal.” Lovey hung the drying towel near the sink.
“Morning, Miss Lovey.” Cal set her purse and a brown paper sack of groceries on the table. Her dark eyes followed Lovey as she moved to leave the kitchen. “Are you goin’ out, Miss Lovey?”
“Um, yes, I thought I’d take a walk.” Lovey noticed the surprised expression on Cal’s face. Had she really been that much of a recluse the past few weeks? Maybe. Lovey leaned against the door frame as Cal unpacked the groceries and stowed them in the pantry.
“Is Cal your real name?” Lovey felt remiss that she’d been spending time with Cal for months and had never asked this question before.
“It’s Callalily, but everyone has always called me Cal.”
“That’s a beautiful name. And a beautiful flower.”
Cal stopped what she was doing and gave Lovey her full attention. “You seem different today, Miss Lovey.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, miss, and I’m glad to see it. You seem lighter. Whatever it is you’ve been up to, you should keep doin’ it.”
Lovey smiled. “I’ll definitely take that under advisement, Cal.” First her father and now Cal had mentioned a shift in her demeanor. I do feel lighter.
“I’ll see you later. If my father asks, will you just tell him I’ll be back shortly?” She turned and left Cal to her tasks.
She puzzled over her own shift in mo
od as she stepped off the porch and began her walk. She turned left when she reached the road, headed back to where she’d seen Royal’s car go over the bank. She hoped the car would still be there, which meant she might see Royal again. As she neared the turn, she saw there was an old pickup truck with wooden slats in the sides parked on the shoulder.
As she reached the crest of the curve, near the parked truck, Lovey registered her heart rate increase. The upturned car looked scarier in the full light of day. Royal was standing down near the upended sedan, her white shirt contrasted against the dark auto, her posture pensive.
With the boyish clothes, Lovey would have definitely described Royal as a tomboy, but would never have described her as masculine. There was something decidedly feminine about Royal that she’d noticed the previous night in the kitchen. Her features, while strong, were unmistakably feminine. Royal had high cheekbones and heart-stopping blue eyes, shadowed by long lashes. Lovey had taken in all these details the night before and was now enjoying the view from a small distance. Despite feminine features, Royal’s stance was confident and assured; it carried an element of self-confidence usually only observed in young men.
Motion caught Lovey’s eye. Royal wasn’t alone. Two young men were nearby attaching a system of pulleys and a winch to the upturned car. Lovey decided to step behind some trees and watch.
As she observed the men work, Royal held her thumb at her mouth as if she’d just been in some deep thought. Noticing this detail only served to pull Lovey’s attention to Royal’s lips, her mouth. Allowing her gaze to linger there for a moment caused her insides to stir in an unexpected way. Aware that she was staring but as yet unseen by Royal, Lovey decided to step a little closer behind a different tree so that she could better see the goings-on undetected.
Finding Royal’s face more than a little distracting, she refocused her attention on Royal as a whole. The fresh white shirt and pressed, clean trousers made Lovey wonder who waited at home for Royal. That the question had entered her mind at all struck her as unusual. Who was it that cared for Royal and waited up for her at night? Or was she alone in the world? Royal had said that if she didn’t return home from time to time that no one would worry. Remembering that statement made Lovey feel sad.
Lovey stood, sheltered from view just below the crest of the small rise watching Royal and the two young men working below to reorient the Ford sedan. Had the car tumbled a few more times it could easily have ended up in the pond that lay just beyond where the car had come to rest on its roof. An underwater rescue might have been much more dangerous in the dark. Maybe even life threatening. Lovey shuddered at the thought of it.
Royal cranked the pulley and increased the pressure on the cables. She was wearing only an undershirt now, her collared shirt thrown over a nearby shrub, no doubt in an attempt to keep it clean. Royal’s tanned arms had a slight glow from the exertion of cranking increased tension on the pulley. The two men were on the other side of the car pushing in the same direction that the cables were tugging. The sound of rocks scraping metal followed the motion of the large sedan as it rocked slowly back to its rightful orientation. The car thumped heavily onto all four wheels in a cloud of dust. The cables, now slack, dropped into the dirt in front of Royal. Had the car not come to rest at an angle, almost on its side, the tow cable might not have had enough torque to pull the auto over.
One of the young men clearly had a family resemblance to Royal. The second young man, dark-skinned, tall, skinny, and clad in overalls that had been worn so thin they’d lost most of their color, circled around the car to check the damage. He began to gather up the equipment and stowed it in the back of an old Model A truck parked near the dark sedan.
Lovey could no longer see Royal from her hiding spot behind the wild hydrangea. She felt silly, hiding like a teenager. For goodness sake, I’m a twenty-six-year-old woman, hiding like a schoolgirl.
She shifted to her left a little and leaned around the base of a large spruce about to make her presence known. But before she could announce herself by saying hello, she felt a fuzzy tickling inside her skirt. And then a second. And then a third.
And then the first sting! Yellow jackets! She’d stood on a nest in the ground and they were buzzing around inside the draped light cotton fabric of her dress. Oh, no! No! No! No! She practically jumped out of her skin from the second sting.
Lovey yelped and danced around, stomping her feet to dislodge the aggressive insects. Then she took off running, all the while swatting at her lower half, but it was doing no good. The bees were in a frenzy now, traveling with her, under her skirt and stinging whenever they found a piece of skin to light on. A flurry of arms and elbows, she sped off down the hill toward the pond. Not caring who was nearby, Lovey raised her skirt up, exposing her skivvies and legs to anyone who was within earshot of her squeals.
She screamed as she tore past them waving her arms madly. In a full-on frightful fit, she sprinted toward the pond with her skirt practically pulled up over her head, shoes flying off as she took the last bounding leap, like a wild woman, into the pond.
❖
Royal jerked her head up from under the hood of the Ford just in time to see Lovey with flailing arms tear past where they stood. She hadn’t even seen Lovey walk up and had no idea where she’d come from. The two young men standing near her followed Lovey’s trajectory with surprised amusement.
“Who in tarnation was that?” Ned wiped grease from his hands on a rag he kept in his back pocket.
“That was the girl who rescued me last night, Lovey Porter.” Royal leaned around Ned just in time to catch a glimpse of her light blue skirt as she made a running leap into the pond.
“Well, she seems a bit touched in the head, but she’s got nice legs,” said Ned.
Royal punched Ned in the shoulder. “I think I’d best go check on her.”
“I should go with you and make sure she doesn’t need help.”
Ned and Royal left the open hood and trotted to the pond where Lovey was treading water sunk up to her chin. Sam hung back by the car. After a moment, he walked toward the pond, but at a slower pace.
“Did you have the sudden urge for a swim?” Royal crossed her arms in front of her chest as she stood on the bank.
“Say, miss, do you need assistance?” asked Ned.
“Lovey, this is my cousin, Ned, and the other fellow up the hill is Sam. They were just helping me tip the car over. Which you might have noticed as you ran by if your skirt hadn’t been over your head.” She turned and motioned toward the pond. Sam stood a few feet behind them, seeming to give Lovey a bit more respectful distance. “Ned, Sam, this is Lovey Porter.”
“Nice to meet you.” Lovey paddled a little closer to the pond’s edge but stayed hidden under the water’s surface.
“Are you all right?” asked Royal.
“Yellow jackets.”
“What?”
“I said I stepped on a yellow jacket nest.”
“I’m so sorry.” Royal was trying hard not to laugh but failing.
“It’s not funny.” Lovey splashed around as she treaded water.
“Okay, fellas, why don’t you leave me to assist Miss Porter? I don’t think she’s going to get out of the water with you standing here.” Royal motioned with her thumb for them to head back up the hill.
“Why not? I think we pretty much saw the whole show already.” Ned pretended to plant his feet as if he wasn’t going to leave.
“Go on!” Royal shoved him playfully. “Git!”
“C’mon, then, Ned.” Sam tugged at Ned’s arm.
Royal called after them. “I’ll see you later back at the house.”
Ned waved a hand in her direction. Lovey was still submerged, observing the entire exchange from her watery roost. Royal stood watching her until they heard the Ford’s V-8 engine roar to life. Royal turned and waved as the vehicle headed up the slight grade and back onto the road.
“Hang on. I’ll be right back.” Royal trotted ba
ck up the hill and pulled the old wood slatted truck closer to the pond and into the shade.
“It’s awful hot. Maybe I should join you.” Royal hadn’t put her collared shirt back on. She began to slip out of her trousers and then she waded into the water in a tank T-shirt and boy’s style boxy undershorts. The long-hanging shorts had buttons at the front and drawstrings at the sides. She pushed off the bank and swam out to the center of the pond where Lovey was still treading water.
“I’m so embarrassed.” Lovey blew bubbles over the surface.
“You shouldn’t be. You did the right thing.” Royal skimmed her arms back and forth across the surface a few feet away. “Bees are serious business. They hurt like hell.”
They paddled around each other for a moment not talking. Then Royal swam a little closer. “Are the bites still stinging?”
“A little.”
“If you let me I could put some wet clay on the bites. It’ll pull the stinging out.”
“I’m soaked through.”
“I’ve got a blanket I could spread out near the truck in the shade.” Still facing Lovey, Royal started swimming backward toward the bank where the truck was parked.
Chapter Six
Lovey knew that if she climbed out of the water, the soaked, thin cotton dress would leave little to the imagination, but she figured there was no way to avoid that now. She followed Royal to shore and stood, arms across her chest, while Royal spread a blanket out for them on a patch of thick grass between the truck and the pond. This spot was far enough away from the crest of the road and additionally sheltered from view by a small grove of live oaks.
“Here, sit down and let me have a look.” Royal was kneeling next to an open space on the blanket. Lovey settled herself as best she could, shyly aware of how her wet clothing clung to her torso and breasts. Her hair was mostly dry except at the ends where she pushed it self-consciously away from her flushed cheeks.
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