by Jackie Weger
“I promised the kids I’d take them in to Shambeau’s. We were gonna walk, but what with the rain by the time we got there they’d look like mud daubers.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“I was gonna ask to borrow my tag, just for—”
“I said I’d drive you.”
Phoebe pondered the tone of his voice. It was no-nonsense and bossy. Like hers. “What will people say, seein’ you with me?”
He avoided her eyes. “Don’t suppose they’ll say anything.”
“I mean, what will they think?”
“Why should they think anything? Seems to me I recall Willie-Boy saying we’re cousins.”
“He meant Bible cousins.”
“Ah.”
She was going to cut Willie-Boy’s tongue out! “You have mayonnaise all over your face,” she said, and fled. The heavy galoshes splattered mud a yard wide.
— • —
Phoebe wasn’t looking at Gage and he wasn’t looking at her. But they were getting in each other’s way while trying to herd the kids into the truck.
“I call the window,” yelled Maydean, jumping in and hogging it.
“I’m sitting by Maydean,” said Dorie.
Willie-Boy was all hope. “I’m riding in the back.”
Phoebe grabbed his arm. “You’re sittin’ in my lap.”
“People’ll think I’m a sissy.”
“They won’t think anything if you don’t sit on my lap. They won’t even see you. You’ll be a layin’ on your bed until the rest of us get back. Move off that window, Maydean. Let me in.”
“No.”
“Maydean.”
“I ain’t been nowhere since we got here. I want to see.”
“Come around this side and get in.”
Phoebe scowled. What Gage was suggesting would put her practically in his lap. She was wearing her second-best skirt and blouse with black pumps. She gave the front of the truck a wide berth to avoid mud puddles.
“You want me to carry you?”
“A little dirt never hurt anybody.” She climbed in without his help. He handed in Willie-Boy and got behind the wheel.
“Doors locked? Everybody ready?”
The kids chorused, “Ready!”
Phoebe couldn’t speak. The whole length of her was aligned and pressing against Gage. He had showered and she got the full effects of that. Soap and after-shave wafted by her nose. It made her think about sex.
On the pretext of adjusting Willie-Boy upon her knees she stole a quick look at Gage. Her nearness didn’t appear to be affecting him at all. She sniffed at his indifference.
“You say something?” he asked.
“We’re packed like sardines. It’s hot.”
He rolled his window down.
“That’s blowing my hair.”
He raised it. “That better?”
“It’s hot again.”
“Should’ve let you walk.” He lowered the window yet again.
Phoebe was a network of sensitive strings. When Gage pushed on the brake and gas pedals, his thigh rubbed hers. The strings that were her nerves zinged as if they were priming for a symphony. Once when he shifted gears his arm brushed the side of her breast. Her nipples peaked and began to hum. The sensation left her speechless. She couldn’t even dribble a rebuke when Maydean craned her neck to stare and coo at boys on motorcycles. By the time they arrived at Shambeau’s she felt as if she’d whacked a hornet’s nest and got stung from eyeball to instep.
The children erupted from the truck. Phoebe didn’t trust herself to move.
“You worried about your hair?” Gage asked.
“No.”
“Are you going to get out here or go run errands with me?”
Phoebe jerked. Maydean, Willie-Boy and Dorie were disappearing into the storefront. “Lor!”
Gage took her hand and helped her down from the cab. “You need an hour?”
“Thirty minutes.” Shaken, Phoebe reclaimed her hand. She forced her fingers to clasp her purse.
“Thirty minutes. I’ll be waiting.”
Phoebe took a step then turned back. She cleared her throat. “Gage, do you feel funny?”
“I feel fine.”
It was all one-sided! She hated him. “I feel fine, too.”
“You look fine.”
She loved him.
“Your hair hardly got blowed a bit.”
She hated him. First chance she got she was going to figure out how to bed him. That’d make him sit up and take notice. She spun away and sallied into Shambeau’s.
Chapter Six
Anger flared one minute, love the next as Phoebe banged around in the kitchen. She was fixing supper and handling pots and pans like percussion instruments. Love flowed in only one direction, toward Gage. Her anger flowed in two, at him and herself.
To avoid a scene with Maydean in Shambeau’s she’d spent more than she’d planned. She’d bought the socks, a pair of nylons for herself, a knit shirt for Maydean because she refused to take it off, a pair of shorts for herself, a toy car for Willie-Boy and a coloring book for Dorie.
There had been the same crowded conditions in the truck on the way home. More so because of the purchases and a bag of groceries Gage had set on the floorboard. There had been a six-pack of beer in the bag. Phoebe frowned on that, but Gage was staying home to drink it. He had also bought ice cream and chewing gum. He was sitting in the living room drinking his beer while the kids sat on the floor clacking their jaws. It was enough to drive a body mad. She banged another pot to emphasize her displeasure.
The noise brought Gage to the kitchen. “What’s all the clatter in here?”
Phoebe sniffed. “What clatter? I don’t hear any clatter.”
He cocked a brow. “You probably have the ships out in the channel thinking they’re picking up distress signals.”
“I wish one of ’em would come along and pick me up and take me I-don’t-care-where.”
“What’re you mad about?”
“Nothin’. Do I sound mad to you? What makes you think I’m mad?”
He went to the refrigerator, retrieved another beer, and popped the top.
That’s two, Phoebe counted. “You sure like your booze, don’t you?”
“I like a beer now and then, yes. I told you before, don’t make too much out of it.”
“I’m not. I don’t even care.”
“You want one?”
“I hate the stuff. Hope you won’t be too drunk to come to the supper table.”
“On two cans? Seems to me the beer is just an excuse. What’s really bothering you?”
“Nothin’.” Here she was heart throbbing, knees watery and he not only didn’t notice, he wasn’t reciprocating. “Everything is so fine and dandy I can hardly stand it.”
“I’ll just close the door to the kitchen, keep the noise down. Every time you slam a pot Willie-Boy jumps.”
A surge of guilt scuttled Phoebe’s anger. The doctor back home had said Willie-Boy’s asthma attacks were sometimes brought on by emotion—overexcitement or fear. That was one reason she had him in tow. Vinnie had picked on him something terrible, kept him gasping for breath. “Leave the door open. I’ve about got supper done anyhow.”
After the meal was served, Maydean and Dorie—cautious eyes upon Phoebe—washed dishes without protest. Willie-Boy’s new toy broke. Gage got out a soldering iron and showed him how to fix it. Phoebe stopped clearing the table to give Willie-Boy a hug.
“What’d you do that for?”
“Because I’m proud. Look at you, leamin’ how to weld.”
“This is soldering,” he explained. “Welding is when you wear a mask.”
Later, after the children were bathed and in bed, Phoebe went into the living room where Gage sat, to watch television with him. He pretended not to notice her come into the room. But beyond his aloof expression, she could see the lines of tension around his eyes.
“That was a nice thing you did for Wi
llie-Boy,” she said. “Showing him how to fix the car.”
Gage shrugged.
“Guess I’ll go to bed.” She emphasized “bed” to see if that would get a rise out of him.
“Good night,” he said. He had a magazine in his lap. When a commercial came on television, he transferred his interest to the page.
That wasn’t the response Phoebe wanted. It was unthinkable that all of the thigh rubbing earlier had left him so unaffected. She tossed her head and fumed. He ignored the sighing and tossing. Phoebe got up and went out on the porch.
There was still dampness in the air. More rain in the offing. She swallowed back a self-pitying sigh. She had a roof over her head, didn’t she? Food to eat and money in her purse? This time last week she’d been scrounging for all three. But she didn’t have that elusive fourth—a man of her own. Well, she had him. He was just being thick-minded about it. Reentering the living room she discovered Gage had been tracking her.
“Don’t wake me up when you go past my room,” she said.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” he returned in a tone overlaid with irony. Phoebe locked eyes with him. Her pulse quickened. She had meant noise… but he had meant stopping off in her room. She made a wild accusation.
“You’ve been thinking about it.”
“Like hell.”
His voice had risen a decibel. Defensive.
Phoebe pressed. “I ain’t forgettin’ how you looked at me this mornin’.”
“Any time a woman parades half-naked in front of me, I’ll look.”
“Did I stir you up? Is that why you ran out of the kitchen?”
“I had to go to work.”
She took the plunge. “You stir me up something fierce.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“That’s just it. It ain’t in my head. It’s—”
“Shut up.”
Phoebe’s mind churned. A man didn’t get so riled about a subject for which he cared little, she decided. So he must really like her, because he was so upset. His face was even getting red. He did like her, but he didn’t seem to like the idea of liking her. Best she let him sleep on it, get used to it. She backpedaled. “Now I know why you’re so sour of a morning. You go to sleep that way, it preys on your brain all night.”
“What preys on my brain is how to get you out of my life.”
Phoebe suffered an instant of sharp terror. “You going back on your word? You said we could stay—”
“You can. Just keep out of my way. And wear proper clothing. Just because you’re skinny is no excuse to gad about the house half-dressed.”
“I ain’t the cause of your wicked thoughts,” Phoebe said loftily, convinced now that she was, and thrilled about it. “Good night.”
Head high, chin up, she sailed past him.
Gage glared at the set of her chin, the slope of her neck that was creamy against the dark blouse she wore. “Watch out you don’t stab somebody,” he gibed.
It took Phoebe five minutes to get her teeth brushed. She kept looking at her image in the mirror. Her face was flushed, her eyes wide and glowing. Why, she looked almost pretty. With utter feminine instinct she knew she could go naked into Gage’s room. He wouldn’t turn her away. All his blatant hemming and hawing was for naught.
She didn’t see how she could go to him tonight. Somehow it didn’t seem a fitting claim to propriety to crawl into a man’s bed on Saturday night, and out of it on Sunday morning to go to church. Once she and Gage had an understanding it’d be all right. Lusting outside an understanding was hazarding the risk of sin.
— • —
When it came, the sound did not rouse her at once: the sound of sobbing. It seemed to rise, then muffle itself before Phoebe lifted her head from the pillow. Willie-Boy, she thought, he’s homesick again. She padded into the hall. The sniffling came from Dorie. In the dark Phoebe felt her way into the room and switched on the ruffled bedside lamp.
“Dorie, you sick?”
The child pulled her head out from beneath her pillow. “No.”
“Why’re you crying?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I would. I’m grown up. I know a lot.”
“Daddy doesn’t love me.”
Phoebe rocked on her heels. “Of course he does.”
“He likes Willie-Boy better. He’s never showed me how to solder. He won’t let me into his shop, either.”
“Because it’s dangerous. He doesn’t want you to get hurt.”
“He let Willie-Boy.”
“Men think different about a boy.”
Dorie turned her face into the pillow. “My mother loved me. She said so. Daddy never says he loves me. I want my mother back.”
Phoebe sat on the bed and gently massaged the small shoulders. “You have to keep your ma in your heart, Dorie. You put her there and you’ll always have her with you.”
“It’s not the same.”
“I know. When Grandma Hawley died, I couldn’t stand it. Sometimes I’d forget she was gone, and I’d think about somethin’ to tell her. I’d go into her room and then it’d come on me that she wasn’t there anymore. I cried and cried, just like you.”
Dorie looked up, surprised. “I do that too. On my birthday, I wanted to show Mother my presents.”
“I have a taste for hot chocolate,” said Phoebe. “When I felt bad Grandma Hawley used to make me a cup and let me sit on her lap after everyone else was in bed. The only folks up were me and her and the night elves.”
Dorie perked up. “What night elves? We don’t have any night elves.” She moved off the bed and trailed at Phoebe’s side into the kitchen. Phoebe heated the milk and sugar, stirred in cocoa, then pulled the child onto her lap.
“Everybody has night elves. They sweep up behind the sandman. You know the sandman, he makes you go to sleep. That sandman is messy, his sand bags leak. All night long the elves have to run behind with their tiny brooms.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What else do they do?”
“They get feisty. They used to play pranks on Grandma Hawley all the time. They’d hide her knittin’ needles. Once they hid one in the sofa and my brother Joey found it. He sat on it.”
Dorie laughed.
“Shhh,” Phoebe cautioned. “Or you’ll have the whole house stirrin’. I’ll be half the night fixin’ cocoa.” She told another story and when Dorie’s head began to droop Phoebe held still, allowing the child to drift into slumber.
A shadow fell across the table. She looked up into Gage’s face, his expression a patchwork of curiosity and fear.
“What’s wrong?”
Dorie stirred but didn’t come awake. “She was missin’ her mother.”
Gage pulled out a chair and sat heavily. “What’d she say?”
“She’s not used to her being gone.”
“She looks a lot like Velma.”
“You holdin’ that against Dorie?”
Gage recoiled. “No.”
‘That’s what you say on the outside. Dorie sees it different. You can’t hold her up to the light of Velma. She’s loyal to her mother, she doesn’t understand about…about that other thing.”
The blood drained from Gage’s face. “Don’t you ever—”
“You asked and I told. Fact is, some understandings work, some don’t. Yours with Velma didn’t. I ain’t judgin’ one way or another. Don’t go holdin’ it up to me that I am. I got enough on my plate with my own worries.”
A muscle leaped in Gage’s jaw. During the past year he’d been adapting to a world that had turned itself upside down. He sensed that he hadn’t been adapting as well as he’d thought. He exhaled, his anger collapsing in dull melancholy.
Phoebe noted his look of distress. “Dorie needs somethin’ to occupy her mind. Kids always get bored in summers. Why don’t you get her some baby chicks? I could fix up that shed back yonder to hold ’em.”
“And when she gets tired of them or goe
s back to school?”
“Why, by September they’d be big enough to scratch around on their own. You wouldn’t have to do nothing but gather an egg when you wanted it.” By then, Phoebe thought, Erlene would be in Bayou La Batre and have those chickens following her around like she was the Pied Piper.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Well, you’re her pa, you know best.” She slid her arms beneath the sleeping Dorie. “I’d better get her back to bed.”
Gage insisted upon carrying Dorie himself. He moved around the table and lifted his daughter from Phoebe’s arms. “I’m… I appreciate you comforting her. Truth is, I never could think of what to say to her after Velma died.” In the taking up of Dorie, his fingers brushed Phoebe’s breasts. His eyes suddenly shifted to hers.
Phoebe grinned, and whispered, “More there than you figured, ain’t it?”
“Shameless hussy,” he snapped. But there was more smile than bite in his voice.
The night wind began to creak in the eaves, forecasting the onset of more inclement weather. To Phoebe it was the cheerful sound of her future.
— • —
She was too anxious to eat breakfast herself. While she served up toast and grits she checked off items on her mental list. She had a pork roast defrosting for Sunday dinner, a can of beer sitting out to get room temperature for beer biscuits, which was the only good use she saw of the brew, and was practicing what to say to Gage to get the use of her tag. As she moved around the table she kept bumping into Willie-Boy’s elbow.
“Put your arm down. How can you eat like that?”
“I’m eatin’.”
“You have a headache?”
“No. I like my hand on my head.”
‘This is no time for games. Put that towel on your lap lest you spill food on your good pants.”
He put down his fork and one-handed, awkwardly spread the towel. Phoebe grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away from his head. She glared at the wad of gum with dismay. “Willie-Boy, I told you to throw that gum out before you went to bed.”
“I forgot.”
“After you finish eating I’ll cut it out.”