“I spoke to your father to ask permission. He will give us his blessing whenever you’re ready to make it official.”
Oh, no, her father already knew. He was in on this too.
“You take some time and think about it. I just wanted you to know I’m serious about you, about us. I’m not just fooling around.” He hesitated a moment before he leaned over and kissed Lovey.
They’d kissed before. The sort of chaste kisses shared with someone you were not yet intimate with. Lovey had tolerated those kisses for the sake of the cover her friendship with Joe provided. But this was a different sort of kiss. Joe put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He was insistent on deepening the kiss. Rather than make a scene, Lovey gave in to him. She placed a hand on his chest to keep some distance between them. They couldn’t fully face each other, seated the way they were, side by side, but Joe had partially turned toward her.
As kisses go, this one wasn’t terrible, but Joe certainly wasn’t Royal. She longed for the soft press of Royal’s lips against hers and the smell of her skin.
Joe finally released her. He smiled broadly and turned his attention back to their route. He left one arm along the seat back, just behind Lovey’s shoulders. Lovey tried to appear relaxed, but inside she was a churning mess.
How far was she willing to go to cover her feelings for Royal with Joe’s courtship? Joe had kissed her and she hadn’t felt the slightest romantic inclination for him. She tried to access the feelings she’d once had for men, the feelings she’d had for George. She knew that these were the feelings she should naturally feel. As a woman, she should desire a man. Should, should, should.
She noticed that Joe was looking at her and so she tried to give him a reassuring smile. But inside, she was anything but sure of anything. What am I going to do now?
❖
It was late by the time Royal finished her run to North Atlanta. The drive had been easy and uneventful. If the federal boys had been out tonight they were on someone else’s route because Royal never saw them. It was around two in the morning, so rather than risk waking her mother, Royal decided to stay at her place.
The room was just as she and Lovey had left it—with rumpled sheets on the bed and empty glasses on the table. She walked to the basin and splashed some water on her face to rinse away a little of the road dust. It would take a while for the adrenaline in her system to ebb enough for sleep so she decided to sit and write. She poured herself a dash of whiskey, little more than a sip, and sank into the chair in front of her typewriter.
Lines of poetry had been floating through her head all along the drive back to the hills. She wanted to write some of them down before they were lost to her.
Desire’s flame burns across my skin
I long for relief
Only your lips can bring
My body holds a space for you.
Sometimes lines of poetry would present themselves to her all at once, in solid stanzas. This was one of those nights. She heard whispered phrases in her head as if she was channeling a voice from some other place or had connected with a deeper part of herself.
What resides in my chest is real
Set against the relentless unreal
Defying convention.
Royal pushed her chair back and studied the words she’d just typed as she sipped at the whiskey. She might actually be able to sleep now that she’d gotten the words out of her head.
She moved across the room shedding her clothes as she went, leaving things where they fell until she reached the bedside in only boxers and an undershirt. Royal flopped onto the bed, careful not to slosh the whiskey from the glass. She slid down onto the pillow, keeping her head elevated just enough to sip without being hindered to swallow. The other pillow she pulled to her face smelled like Lovey. She breathed deeply. The scent of her caused a throbbing ache in Royal’s chest. She wondered what Lovey was doing right at that moment. Probably sleeping. But was she craving Royal’s body the way she was craving Lovey’s? She hoped so.
God, she was in trouble. She’d gone and fallen for Lovey. With iridescent clarity, she knew it. She knew it as sure as she knew the sun would rise. What am I going to do now?
Chapter Twenty-five
Lovey tried to shore up her energy for a long day. First there’d be the Sunday sermon, then lunch on the lawn, and then the decoration of the graves in the old cemetery next to the narrow wood-framed white church. Relatives would return today for the homecoming celebration, so no doubt her father would take this opportunity to reach people he didn’t normally see at his regular weekly service.
From her usual second row, Lovey heard the shuffling of feet as folks settled into the hard wooden pews behind her. Men’s hats lined the walls, hanging from pegs. Mostly, as was the tradition, men sat on one side and women on the other. Lovey fidgeted with the drape of her dress. She just wanted to get through this day and have some time to herself.
Her father announced the theme of his message for the day, the “sins of the flesh.” You’ve got to be kidding. She adjusted herself against the straight-backed seat and prepared for the worst.
“Of grave danger to Christians are the works of the flesh.” Her father held his Bible aloft in front of him as he read from Galatians and then continued his admonitions. “These are the sins which wage war against our very souls. Paul has offered us a list of those sins, and I will read them to you now from the word of God.”
Not Paul again! She was starting to wonder if Paul converted to Christianity just to annoy her.
Her father’s voice as he recited Paul’s doctrine seeped into her thoughts even as she tried to shut him out. Fornication, infidelity, adultery, premarital sex, and homosexuality, probably the absolute last topics Lovey wanted to hear about today.
Christ never mentioned any of these by name, not even during his Sermon on the Mount. Based on that observation, she’d always assumed he valued integrity and truth above all else. And nothing in her life up to this point had seemed truer or more pure than the time she was spending with Royal. How could that be a sin?
“The works of the flesh lead us down the path of moral impurity.” He read a few more choice passages from Galatians before he launched into more of Paul’s list of don’ts again. Today’s morality lesson? She had one choice. Marry a man and have babies, end of discussion. Paul’s view of relationships was extremely narrow, and apparently, so was her father’s.
Several times during his long recitation, Lovey considered escaping to the privy and never coming back. More than once, her cheeks felt so hot she’d have sworn she’d had a hot flash or come down with a fever and might actually faint. It was as if her father could read her mind or that he had some way to know exactly how she’d spent her Friday night while he’d been away. She could hardly look at him as he spoke and instead focused her attention on the floral arrangement in front of the altar.
“Each of these sins is a perversion of something good. And because of the power of sin to corrupt, we must call upon the divine to break us free from its bondage.” The passion in his voice rose to a dramatic pitch toward the end of his sermon before he offered his closing remarks and signaled the pianist to begin the altar call. Lovey stopped counting after the third repeat of the same chorus.
She was desperate for someone to be saved, so they could at least move to the lunch portion of their day. Lovey needed some fresh air.
❖
Royal hadn’t ridden their family’s horse, Midnight, in many days. Sunday morning turned out to be so beautiful that she saddled up the dark mare and made a plan to ride over to Lovey’s church in the hopes she’d catch her after the service. She knew today was Decoration Day so she’d use the excuse of bringing flowers to a few distant relatives enjoying their final rest in the grassy, tree-lined cemetery next to the church.
She and Midnight chose a trail away from the main road that led up the ridge from her mother’s house and then down an old logging road that would put her out very
near the Baptist church.
It was close to one o’clock when she pulled Midnight to a stop under some shady hardwoods and tied her off so that she could nibble some grass. They’d stopped along the way, and as a result, Royal had a handful of wildflowers to leave at the graves.
There was quite a crowd gathered beside a long table, which looked to be where the ladies of the church were laying out all the dishes of food. It took Royal a moment to spot Lovey and then it took Lovey another moment to notice Royal standing at the edge of the church lawn. Royal waved a hello and Lovey walked toward her. It occurred to Royal that this might have been something she should have asked Lovey about before just showing up. They’d never really been together in public except for the occasional encounter at the general store.
She could tell by Lovey’s reserved demeanor that she was uncomfortable.
Lovey stopped a respectable distance from Royal.
“What are you doing here?”
“Don’t you mean hello?” Royal tried to make a joke because she could tell Lovey was nervous. Damn, why had she been so impulsive and just shown up like this? But the truth was, she knew why. Because she wanted to be part of Lovey’s life. Not just her after hours life, but her daytime life too.
“I’m sorry. Yes, I meant to say hello.” Lovey smiled, but her posture signaled tension. “You just took me by surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Royal revealed the flowers that had been down at her side and Lovey visibly flinched. “Don’t worry. These aren’t for you. They’re for my two great-uncles buried somewhere over there.” Royal tipped her chin in the direction of the cemetery.
“Of course.” Lovey fidgeted with her hands along the sides of her dress. “Will you stay and eat then?”
Royal was considering whether she should stay or go. This hadn’t gone quite like she’d envisioned. “What was the sermon about today?” She thought maybe a little small talk would lighten the mood between them.
“Sins of the flesh.”
“You’re joking.” Royal had made things worse by asking.
“No, I’m not joking. I had to sit quietly and listen for more than an hour about how everything that you and I have done together has damned us both.”
Royal swallowed with difficulty, her mouth suddenly dry. “You don’t really think that, do you?”
“No, of course not.” But the look on Lovey’s face was doing little to convince Royal that this was a true statement.
Royal was just about to say something else to try to lighten Lovey’s mood when out of nowhere, Joe Dawson showed up.
“Hiya, Royal.” He pulled his hat off politely with his greeting.
“Hi, Joe.” Royal wasn’t sure how to read Lovey’s reaction to Joe. She seemed a bit sheepish as she glanced sideways up at Joe.
“Lovey, I have a seat for us in the shade.” He smiled down at Lovey. “Come on, this way. See ya later, Royal.”
Lovey nodded and allowed herself to be led away by Joe without any remarks to Royal, who stood and watched them walk away in shocked silence. She couldn’t help noticing how he placed his hand in a protective way at the small of Lovey’s back as they walked back toward the loose array of picnic tables set around the long table with all the food.
Royal placed a hand over her stomach and swayed slightly, suddenly light-headed as a wave of nausea washed up against her.
She knew with certainty she’d just witnessed something she wasn’t supposed to see. She’d just seen something Lovey had meant to keep from her. It was as if her view of the world zeroed down to one small circle of light, like a periscope. At the center of that circle was Joe’s hand at the small of Lovey’s back, and every other peripheral thing went black.
She felt a hand on her arm.
“Royal? You don’t look so good. Do you need to sit down?” Laurel Lee, a childhood friend of hers, held out a glass of tea in her direction and had a concerned look on her slender, girlish face.
“Thank you.” Royal accepted the cool beverage and took a few sips.
“Come here and sit down.” Laurel pulled her toward a bench in the shade and sat next to her. They had a clear view of the table about thirty feet away where Joe and Lovey were seated with others from the congregation.
“You didn’t know they were seeing each other, did you?”
“What?” Royal turned to really look at Laurel for the first time. She was focused on the same scene that Royal had been focused on. Why did Laurel care? And then it struck her. Laurel had carried a torch for Joe since probably third grade. She actually wondered why they never got together. Laurel was pretty in a country girl sort of way. She wasn’t fancy, she didn’t put on airs, but she was kindhearted. Royal had always liked Laurel. Back when school kids made fun of Royal for dressing like a boy, Laurel always took up for her.
Royal slumped back against the bench and took another sip of tea. “How long?”
“It’s been a few weeks now. I get the impression it’s pretty serious.”
Royal leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. She thought she might actually throw up. She felt Laurel’s hand on her back.
“It was inevitable. The church ladies have been pushing them together since the day Lovey set foot in Dawsonville.” Laurel sighed and leaned back, crossing her arms over her nearly flat chest. “What am I, a loaf of bread? No one ever tried to fix me up with Joe. Why is that? What’s Lovey got that I ain’t got? Can you tell me that?”
Royal covered her face with her free hand. She couldn’t believe this was happening. And if she hadn’t shown up unannounced, she still wouldn’t know about it. Did Lovey have any intention of telling her that whatever was going on with them didn’t mean anything? It was obviously just a temporary thing? Nausea and rage battled inside Royal’s knotted stomach.
❖
Lovey tried her best to engage in friendly conversation with those seated around her as Joe filled their plates with food. She wasn’t hungry. All she could see was the hurt look on Royal’s face. Even from this distance she could tell that Royal was very unhappy and angry. She’d ruined everything and there was no way to fix it right now. She just needed to get through this day and then hope that she could find Royal later and talk with her. Lovey hoped that Royal would leave soon. She’d give anything to know what Laurel was saying to her right now.
In the moment when Joe had walked up to them, she knew she’d handled it badly. She should have told Joe to start without her and taken a moment to speak with Royal. But she’d frozen, knowing that Joe and others in the congregation, including her father, were so nearby. She pinched her nose in an attempt to stave off the headache that was just beginning to rage behind her eyes.
Royal was standing now, pacing in front of the bench and running her fingers through her hair. Lovey prayed that she wouldn’t make a scene. Please don’t come over here.
She felt equal amounts of sadness and relief when she saw Royal climb on her horse and head away from the church. She was called back to the moment by Joe’s voice.
“Lovey, aren’t you hungry? You’ve hardly touched your food.”
“I guess it’s the heat.” Lovey smiled weakly and pushed the forgotten food around on her plate.
Sometime later, after the food had been cleared, Lovey noticed one of the deacons talking with her father and her father looked in her direction as if he was displeased with what he was hearing.
Now what? How could this day possibly get any worse?
Well, whatever it was, she wasn’t going to wait around to hear about it. She made an excuse to the ladies she was helping clear the tables with and headed toward the privy at the back of the church. She passed by it and kept walking. She’d given her entire day over to others, and dammit, she needed to find Royal.
Chapter Twenty-six
Lovey didn’t really know where Royal would be, but as she passed by the main square, she saw Midnight tied near a water trough in the shade. That probably meant Royal was in her rented room. T
hank heaven for small favors.
She hesitated at the foot of the stairs. What was she going to say to Royal? She’d been rolling several scenarios over in her head during the walk over, and none of them seemed to lead to a happy ending. She took a deep breath. After climbing the stairs to the second floor, heart pounding, Lovey knocked at the door.
“Go away,” came the muffled reply.
Lovey deliberated for a moment. She wasn’t sure if she should leave until Royal cooled off. No, that would probably just exacerbate things. She knocked again. After a moment, she heard footsteps and then Royal pulled the door open. Her shirt was unbuttoned, revealing her undershirt. And her eyes were red-rimmed. She’d obviously been crying. Lovey’s leaden heart sank into her stomach. Royal was hurting, and she was to blame.
“What do you want?” Royal walked back toward the center of the room, leaving Lovey standing at the threshold.
“I want to talk to you.” Lovey stepped inside and closed the door. She was afraid her voice was going to break. “I need to talk to you.”
“What about?” Royal was obviously very angry so she wasn’t going to make this easy for Lovey. Why should she?
“Royal, I know I upset you. I know that whatever you think is going on with Joe and me upset you. Can we please talk about it?”
“Yeah, we can talk about it. Why don’t you explain to me what the hell is going on? Laurel said you two have been courting for weeks. Exactly when were you going to tell me? Were you ever going to tell me?”
They were standing awkwardly facing each other in the center of the room. Lovey was suddenly lost to herself. What was she going to say? Had she planned to tell Royal? Probably in some part of her mind she’d believed she could maintain her double life for at least a little bit longer. Before she had to choose between what she thought was right and what she wanted.
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