by Jeffrey Lent
She hadn’t moved although her body was arched tight and her eyes electric and furious. She said, “You know what I mean? Hewitt? You ever been down that road?”
He was silent.
After a bit of time she said, “What other questions do you have?”
When he was quiet she said, “You can change your mind you know.”
He finally said, “I’ve seen a few mornings where a hot dog would’ve been mighty welcome.”
He rose from the cooling stone. She had to be cold. She stood also and they were standing close. Twilight draining around them. Less than a foot apart. Her eyes were clear again and she reached up and touched his cheek with one finger and said, “I’m freezing my butt here. Could we go inside now?”
Then they were holding on to each other, hands on elbows, eyes wide. Hewitt said, “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Close your eyes tight. Don’t open them until I tell you.”
“Where’re you leading me?”
“Nowhere. Will you close your fucking eyes?”
She did. He waited. The western low sky was pale bright blue and the sky above that was a void. And as he gazed at the void one and then another star appeared. But look down around and there was plenty of light still pooled around the ground. Caught in the flower beds and blooms.
He said, “Open now.”
She did.
He waited and then said, “Can you see more than before?”
“I be damned.” She still held his arm. “The flowers are glowing.”
“Good,” he said. “Let’s get to the house.”
Three
They entered into days of a slender domesticity. Hewitt continued to cook suppers but the rest of their meals each took when they wanted. Jessica was a sleeper, often not rising until midmorning. At first Hewitt thought this was a womanly thing—his greatest experience with women had been in those years when it seemed all women could hardly be roused from bed. After a couple of days he realized that she was depleted to full exhaustion. All she had told him seemed worth weeks of rest.
Meanwhile he was caught in a splurge of energy, demanding that he set things right about the place. Every June he went through the same ritual. It might after all prove to be the summer his mother or sister and her family or, God bless them, all, might decide to visit. It had been half a dozen years since any had come north for a spot of New England summer. The last visit with Beth and her husband and daughter had been more or less a disaster. And his fault although he’d chosen not to acknowledge this but continued with the yearly round of birthday cards and Christmas gifts, all of which Beth herself, regardless of the recipients, chose to answer. Beth had manners. Beth was a proper citizen. Beth was a colossal pain in the ass. He suspected he was at least partly responsible for her deliberate decision to have only one child. As if her younger brother was an outstanding example of the risk involved. At least his mother had a sense of humor. Although she too tended to stay away but in this case Hewitt had sympathy; it was not himself she wished to avoid as much as the place itself.
The work he’d done on the flower beds was just a beginning and so he worked with wheelbarrow and trowel and hand cultivator to clear the weeds and loosen the soil and transplant a few things that would bear the strain. And sometimes just sit somewhere in the garden and watch around him. In a small nook with a circle of slates perhaps ten feet in diameter with a two-foot opening in the center sprang the most magnificent bleeding heart he’d ever seen, the circle hidden by other plantings on the terrace above and the one below, the pods of white and crimson flowers a treasure available only to those who searched. In the same hidden glade but out where the sun struck fully was another discovery: a stub of granite post buried with an old grindstone resting atop. The granite worked up to a point as if his father had possessed a swage expressly built for stone, so the granite post fit through the grindstone opening as tight and smooth as if they came out of the ground that way. Atop this was an old sundial his father had found somewhere. The bronze base was warped and the crescent wobbly so the dial was never close to accurate time. Which Hewitt was sure had been his father’s intent.
One of those afternoons she changed the oil on her Bug, backing onto a pair of hemlock planks up on concrete blocks. Hewitt showed her where the tools and oil were. Then he sat back and watched. They’d been eating his lunch and her breakfast of peanut butter sandwiches when he suggested it might be a good time to get the work done. Not mentioning he’d like the car out of the driveway and maybe tucked under the ell shed extending out from the side of the barn. Jessica had strawberry jam on her cheek and she wiped it with the back of her hand and told him she’d like to do that if he’d show her his tools. But she wanted to do it herself.
He thought at first it was that taint of mistrust going on, so told her that was fine. But perched on the old milk can where the used oil would be saved, he watched her. Once she went to work he felt like the usual asshole guy who thinks a woman can’t do a thing with a machine, a notion his female friends and neighbors had long since disabused him of. She put tools back where she’d found them. She drained the oil from car to trough to can with slow patience so those last drips came. When she was done she kicked dirt to cover the few spots dripped.
He thought perhaps she was lighter, her smiles easier come by. But couldn’t say for sure. It wasn’t his job to track her. But still it was a strange pleasure to go to sleep at night knowing someone was down the hall in their own room thinking their own thoughts or dreaming their own dreams.
And Hewitt Pearce felt something he could only guess was what a father would feel. One night late stood at his window and looked out at the star and moon lit hillside and wondered if this was his daughter. Not one bred and born but the closest he would get. Some remote undefined rough compensation for that child never born.
Jessica was a substitute for no one.
THREE DAYS ALONG, Bill Potwin showed up middle of the day to cut hay. Hewitt met him in the dooryard and Potwin killed the big John Deere, reared back in his seat and propped one foot atop the fender.
“Bill.” Hewitt nodded a greeting.
Potwin said, “You doing, Hewitt?”
“A bit like always.”
Potwin nodded. “Well now,” he said. “June’s come off nice so far, ain’t she?”
Hewitt nodded. Bill’s eyes traveled the yard even as he pretended to look at Hewitt. He said, “Thought with the weather I’d get to your hay this year fore it gets all stemmy. Got a lady, horse lady up to Corinth, wants some. Told me she wanted rowen and I sat looking at her till she piped up she’d heard I was the feller to call. Shoot, I ain’t gonna sell her my milk hay. The hay’s bright and leafy she’ll be happy. Won’t know the difference. And hear this. She wants six hundred bales.”
Hewitt said, “That right?”
Bill shook his head. “She idn’t got but two horses. And real good summer pasture. It’s them great big Dutch or German horses and I imagine they’ll take a bit of fuel. But Christ. She feeds that all out they’ll look like they got foals to drop come May. But I didn’t tell her that.”
Hewitt shook his head. “Not your job.”
Bill leaned now and spat a line of tobacco juice. “She only asked at the end how much a bale. I said, In the barn? And she looked at me like she was wondering did I expect her to do it. So I told her three and a half. Didn’t bat a eye. Got her checkbook out and I said Now hold on. Wait until the bales is at least in the barn. I think I’d of passed out she handed me a check for over two thousand dollars right then.”
Hewitt said, “You might of took it. She could be asking around.”
“Naw,” said Bill. “She’s got more important things to do. Ride them big friggin buggers every day. All she wants is to see the hay in the barn. Makes me think. I likely could’ve said four.”
“Well Bill, you’re close enough to a price she’ll tolerate, she thinks it’s special quality. So you’re getting rich off my hay
now.”
“Do it yourself, Hewitt.”
“Hell no. I’m glad for you.”
Now Potwin turned his head away to look directly at the Volkswagen parked next to the Farmall. Taking his time registering the car but also the paint job. A minor theatrical that Hewitt waited through.
Potwin looked back. “Got yourself a new car?”
“Nope.”
“They still got your license?”
“For good I guess. I gave up keeping track. I still got my hunting license.”
“Don’t be out jacking deer or they’ll take that too.”
Another stream of juice shot from Bill’s mouth. This one landing an inch closer to Hewitt than the first, still feet away, a gesture too small for most to notice. Potwin said, “Saw Rog Bolton down to the store the other evening. He’s working that job up to Tripp Hill, fancy cabinets in the kitchen and such. Said he saw a girl out along here that afternoon. He was just picking up his beer.”
“That so? He hadn’t already had a couple riding down?”
“Come on now, Hewitt. It idn’t gonna stay a secret for long. You finally got a new lady friend.”
Hewitt made a small frown, his brain an insane chipmunk. The truth of her, at least what he knew, was too odd for general circulation, especially the way truth as it circulates becomes both less and more than how it started. And he knew Bill Potwin had, in studying the car, noted the exotic plates.
He said, “Bill. I’d appreciate if this stayed between us.” Knowing this would get the story spread as fast as possible and perhaps with that speed kill the worst of the speculation. He went on. “You remember the Kimballs?”
Bill squinted. “Those the people summered at the Dodge place when we were kids?”
“Middle of the sixties, Bill. But yup. And the girl, the youngest one, Dana, she and I were friends.”
Bill was still turned back, thinking. “Those Dodges, they was partners with your great-grandfather and them, wasn’t they?”
Hewitt said, “That’s right. The lumberyards and the sawmill and such.”
“They’re all gone now. Cept for the cemetery.”
“When the bobbin business petered out I think what was left of them took their money and went west somewhere. Indiana, Iowa, somewhere like that. But—”
“I recollect those Kimballs now. He wore sneakers without any socks. She was an eyeful of a woman. From Rhode Island, wasn’t they?”
“He was some sort of machine tool manufacturer. But anyway—”
“So their daughter was your little girlfriend, that what you’re telling me?”
“I’d say she was the first girl I kissed but your niece Amber got me first.”
“We all know that. What’s it got to do with a Mississippi Beetle painted like a merry-go-round?”
“Well, some years ago that girl Dana Kimball and her husband came through to see the leaves and stopped and we all hit it off. And kept in touch. Nothing much, Christmas cards and such.” Hewitt paused but was too deeply into what was unrolling to let it stop. “He’s a professor at some university down there. Near Jackson, I think.”
“Got married in a fever. Hotter’n a pepper sprout.”
Hewitt blinked, thought Johnny Cash and laughed. Then was quickly sober. “So this girl, Jessica. She’s their daughter. Been going through a pretty rough patch in her life and her family knows I’ve had some tough times myself. So they called and asked could she stay with me a bit. She needed to get out of where she was. Maybe she got left at the altar, as they say. And so she’s here for a week or so. She’s young. Young take those things hard sometimes. You know what I mean, Bill?”
Bill looked thoughtful. For quite a time. Hewitt was sweating and thinking Bill wasn’t buying any of it. About the time Hewitt registered that Bill was looking beyond, toward the house, Bill said, “I guess here she comes now.”
Hewitt turned and Jesus Christ here she came. In soft tan leather boots to just below her knees and a sleeveless dress of thin copper-colored material that ended just inches above her knees. The dress was thin and so flowed and worked itself against her forward motion. With the boots and the color of the dress against her white skin and her black hair brushed out if not otherwise arranged she was still, for the time and place, something stepped out of the television or the pages of a magazine.
She walked right past Hewitt to the tractor where she leaned up tiptoe, extending her arm and it seemed to Hewitt her whole body projected slightly toward Bill Potwin. Hewitt was without words.
Jessica said, “Hey.” It seemed at the moment that the gravel and accent of her voice intensified. “I’m Jessica Kress from Water Valley, Mississippi. I never once thought the North could be as pretty as this. I always thought it wasn’t a thing but cities. But this certainly is beautiful country. So cool and lovely for June.”
Bill Potwin sat on his tractor looking down at her. He rubbed the several days’ stubble on his chin. Then dropped his hand long enough to touch hers and took it away again. And said, “Jessica. That’s a pretty name.”
She shrugged. “My mama had so much imagination she named me after a song.”
Potwin seemed to roll this information around his mouth. Hewitt guessed he needed to spit from his chew but wasn’t about to. Bill said, “And Hewitt, now he’s an old friend of your mother.”
She’d taken her arm back to her side but shifted a hip which the boot accentuated. “Oh my yes. I can’t ever remember not hearing about Hewitt.”
Hewitt thought That was good—she didn’t flinch.
Potwin said, “I guess this hot we got here idn’t anything you’re not used too.” Getting comfortable looking at her.
And Jessica said, “Oh Lord no. This time of year where I come from hot is like being naked and rolled up in a boiled blanket.” She waited for Bill Potwin to absorb that image and added, “And that’s nighttime.”
Bill leaned back harder against his seat and looked up the hillside to the fields of waiting hay, flowing in patterns as the breeze moved through. He hawked his juice off the far side of the tractor and looked back at her. He said, “Well missy. I got to go cut some hay. But this weather holds a couple days from now I’ll be baling. I like to bale onto a wagon. I need someone who can make a load. If you got long pants and want to work I’d be happy to hire you. I’d show you how it’s done.”
She looked off, appearing to study the haybine although from where Hewitt stood he could see her eyes darting. Then in a brave disdainful voice she said to Bill, “I’ve worked plenty.”
“Well now.” Potwin briefly scrutinized Hewitt. “It depends on what the weather does. You might not get much warning.”
Jessica said, “Right now mostly I’m not hard to find.”
Bill looked at Hewitt. Who did not move. Nor let his face change at all. Bill nodded then and threw high the throttle and fired the Deere and puffs of diesel smoke spouted from the stack and lifted skyward. Bill shouted something down to Jessica. Then put the tractor in gear and it and the haybine went up the hill.
Jessica turned to Hewitt and said, “What did he say?”
He now was free to study her up and down. He said, “Why did you do that?”
She was quick. “I can’t hide, Hewitt. So I figured the least I can do is distract them a little.”
“I’d say you did that just fine.”
She looked at him a disconcerting while. Then said, “Old men are the saddest thing.”
He wasn’t going to let her off so easy. He said, “For a girl trying to stay hidden you can sure put it out there.”
“It’s sex and dreams, Hewitt. Young girls and old men. Me, I’m just waiting for that happy day when I’ll be a ugly old woman.”
He was having enough difficulty with her transformation, as well as his own unrolling spewed story. He hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass. And it was useless to try and explain to her certain women as well as men grew more desirable with age.
She was no longer lo
oking at him. But up the hill where out of sight they could hear the rhythm of the tractor and the chunk chunk chunk of the mower spitting swathes of hay behind it.
Then she turned back to Hewitt and said, “What was it he said? As he was revving up and leaving?”
Hewitt looked at her. She shot her eyebrows and held his gaze.
Hewitt said, “He said if you want to stack hay, you need to get some gloves.” Leaving off “for those pretty little hands.”