by Lee Lynch
Gran slapped the table. Berry jumped. It was clear Gran was going to educate Jaudon. Instead Gran made a suggestion. “Why not put her to work in one of the Beverage Bays? To earn her keep.”
“And get shut down by the FBI?”
“Allison has false ID. You wouldn’t be to blame. In one of our afternoon gabfests she told me she worked in a natural food store out West, so she won’t need much training. And she wants to help out. Says she’s going stir crazy, but doesn’t know how she’ll get a job until she clears her name.”
“Someone will recognize her from wanted posters. Cops often come into the Bays.”
“They won’t know it’s Allison when I get done with her.” Gran planned aloud how she’d color Allison’s hair, cut it short, and have her wear glasses. Allison was known to wear short skirts and alluring tops, so Gran wanted to switch her to slacks and polo shirts—and a bra.
“This could work,” said Berry. “They won’t expect to see her directly under their noses.”
“You’ll pay her wages in cash to help her move on, help her go home.” Gran wasn’t asking anymore, she was giving Jaudon orders.
“You want me to pay her to leave?”
“She’d be working off her rent.”
“Would not. What if Momma found out? It’s bad enough we’re hiding her here.”
“Your Momma won’t know anything more than you do. Remember Allison will be transformed. She’ll be whoever is on the fake ID. Employers don’t look any further than that.”
Jaudon looked at Gran. “Do you think it’s safe?”
Gran took out her cigarette purse, undid the clasp, and fished around inside. She kept a book of matches in there for infrequent smoking. Both Berry and Jaudon wrinkled their noses and waved away the smoke. “At this time in my life, young ’uns, I don’t know if anything is safe. I’m more concerned with what’s good, what I’ll bring with me to judgment.”
“I need to weigh the same thing, Gran—what’s good for my family, as much as for Allison.”
“And all women,” Berry said.
Jaudon bent over and slapped her knees in mirth. “Now that’s more than I can take on, Berry.”
“The way I see it, Jaudon, the government is just trying to quiet a very public activist.”
Jaudon decided she was being thick-headed and was puzzled about what. She decided to back off, calm down. “Talk about taking risks, Berry. Can we trust her in the store?”
Berry’s eyes had a teasing look. “She might go for you, Jaudon.”
“She better not try anything. I’ll bean her with a wet string mop.”
Gran weighed in. “I trust Allison. She’s not one to steal from the people who help her. Or anyone.”
“If she has to be so gosh-awful public, can we at least hustle to tell her to find another place to stay? We can’t deny knowing who she is if she’s living here. How about Cullie’s place?”
“I’ll check. Cullie said her old rental is too small for the both of them, but Gran’s trailer may be smaller. More to the point, Cullie said no to the idea before the two of them got so close.” She looked through her eyelashes at Jaudon, trying to be coy. “I’ll tell Cullie if she wants to keep playing with Allison, she’s in charge of putting her up, shuttling her to and from work—and keeping her hands off my girlfriend.”
Jaudon said, “We’re getting in deeper and deeper. You know, in a horror movie, this is when the audience starts screaming, Don’t go in the basement. Don’t open the door!”
There was no laughter.
Chapter Twenty
Jaudon needed a night clerk and stocker, so she put Allison to work. Thanks to Gran, Allison sported dark blond hair in a poodle perm out of their childhoods. Jaudon hee-hawed as boisterously as Pops at the sight of her. Gran outfitted Allison in slacks with a slight flare and a ladies’ Western shirt, with a yoke and pearl-style buttons to take the last of Atlanta out of Allison, who was trying for a Texas drawl when she spoke because the ID Rigo got her was from Texas. Jaudon forbade her to make conversation with the customers beyond How can I help you, please? and Thank you, ma’am.
“What does Cullie think of your getup?” she asked.
“She says it’s a real turn-on.”
Jaudon was skittish around Allison. She avoided touching her and skipped away when they were in the office area at the same time. The idea of going with more than one woman at the same time was foreign and disturbing. The thought crept into her mind whenever she was in Allison’s company.
Over the weeks, Allison didn’t complain about her situation. She worked hard enough, but was inclined to talk and ask personal questions when they were alone in the cavernous steel building.
“I’m not too nosy, am I?” Allison said with that eyelash-fluttering way she had. “I like to know everything.”
Jaudon had already told her how she and Berry got together and how the stores came to be and her ambitions.
“Don’t you want more experiences?” Allison wanted to know. “See the world or be with other women? Florida is a captivating state, but there’s so much more beyond Rainbow Gap.”
“What would I do out there? The same thing as I do here, plus being cold. As for Berry, she’s all I want.” She made no mention of her fear of travel or that she was too self-conscious to relax in new places.
“I don’t think I ever met anyone as small town as you before, Jaudon. I can’t imagine living a life in one place with one person.”
“I’m sorry for anyone who can’t. I’ve got everything I’ll ever need: family, a house, a job for life.”
“And that’s all you want? My father is like you. After his service overseas, it’s enough for him to drive to the same office in the capitol building every day. Other than vacations at the shore, his life is one long routine. My sister takes after him. She teaches at the state university. She’s inextricably tangled up in departmental politics and getting tenure so she can work there her whole life. She doesn’t dare push for women’s studies courses, no matter how much I nag her. I’m the opposite: I rushed out into the world.”
“I don’t get it, Allison. Cullie’s head over heels for you and you’d step out on her?”
“You’re asking the wrong question, Jaudon. Am I her property? Who has the final say about what I want?”
“When you love someone, you want to be with her and her alone.”
“I think you’re equating love with possession, Jaudon.”
“What if I am?”
“Do you think Berry is yours, not her own person?”
“Forever. And that’s a fact.”
“No, you’re talking romance and romance is a product manufactured by male minds to seduce and enslave women.”
“Not my romance with Berry. If it’s manufactured, it’s made by us.”
Allison looked pained. “The concept of romance is taught, Jaudon. It’s not innate.”
“Hogwash. It comes from my heart, not some man’s.”
“We live in a money-based society. We have to own things. Romance is a coin of the patriarchal capitalistic realm.”
“What?” Jaudon wasn’t even going to try to follow. “Bottom line, Allison? Break Cullie’s heart and you’ll have me to answer to for it.”
Allison closed her eyes and drew a long satisfied sigh. “There are too many fascinating women in this world for me to turn my back on every one of them.”
“Why not be friends instead of intimates?”
“I like sex, that’s why. Do you see anything wrong with that, Jaudon?”
Two cars drove in and interrupted the heat of their discussion.
Jaudon wanted to know what made this woman tick. After another flurry of customers, Jaudon asked, “What is women’s studies? Does the class at our house fall under that category?”
“Oh, God, no. That class was a special women’s self-help clinic. Women’s studies teaches about the slavery and disenfranchisement women.”
“Why? We don’t have to sit in the
back of buses.”
“You’re so cute. You don’t have the faintest idea, do you? Too many of us were formed by 1950s America.”
Was Allison making fun of her? She didn’t hardly mind; Allison was becoming a pleasure to look at and listen to, like visiting royalty. She tried to get a rise out of her. “I’m a Florida Cracker. I need to be schooled in these things.”
Allison was not ruffled. She was pulling cartons of cigarettes from boxes and filling rows with single packs. Jaudon ripped open a carton and handed it to Allison.
“The inequities between women and men are endless, starting with wages.”
“We pay everyone the same here at the Bay.”
“And if the big companies ever do, we’ll be okay. But, other than your family, tell me the last time you saw a woman bank president, a woman running Ford or Chrysler, a woman managing a Burger King. Women can’t get to the top. We work the bottom jobs: bank teller, receptionist, cashier. If we do get proper jobs, we’re paid less because men have to support their families.”
Allison ripped open a case with her bare hands instead of the box cutter. Jaudon feared she was aggravating her.
“Cullie is living proof, Jaudon. The guys started out at almost twice what she was offered.”
“And she took the job anyway?”
“She enjoys the work. There aren’t many outdoor jobs a woman can do. At two years they gave her basic health insurance after she signed a document absolving the employer of responsibility in case of injury.”
“Do the men have to sign too?”
“Cullie was told she was more of a risk than the men.”
Jaudon leaned on her push broom. “I never knew.”
Allison moved to the small stock of health and beauty aids the Bays carried, sorting them. “What about women who support families, women living together, or widows, or divorcees, don’t we have families to support?”
“My mother used to employ married cousins who lamented the whole shift about everything they left undone at home.”
“And politics.” Allison was growing more animated. “When will we get a woman president? Or a mayor?”
“You’re going to start a revolution.”
“I wish. Did you see the speech Fannie Lou Hamer gave on TV several years ago? She talked about what women of color in Mississippi face, including sterilization and threats against people trying to vote. If Hamer hadn’t spoken up, no one would have known about it. And her speech is just one example. Look at feminist history. You’ve heard of the suffragettes. You had them here in Florida.”
“Those crazy old maids?”
“They were savvy spinsters and married women, Jaudon. They’re the reason we have the vote.”
“How did men stop women from voting?”
“Like they did black Americans. When the suffragettes tried, they were turned away from the polls because men made registering a woman to vote a crime.”
“You’re talking ancient history.”
“You said it in a nutshell, cutie-pie. His-story. We know what the men did since the beginning of time. We need to teach her-story.”
Jaudon shrugged. “It’s your revolution, not mine. Someday I’ll finish my CPA. I’ll keep running an honest, profitable store and go home to Berry at night. That’s enough for me.”
Allison waited until a line of commuters on their way home from Tampa left. “Okay, what’s your story?”
“Story? I don’t have a story.”
“Of course you do. Tell me why you love Berry. She’s such a gentle soul. She’ll make a great healer.”
“She’s studying nursing, not trying to be a traiteur.”
“Tell me about traiteurs.”
“It’s someone who heals through prayer. The Cajuns have them.”
“Is Berry Cajun?”
“Her mother’s people started out in Louisiana. Nobody handed the treatment prayers down to Berry, but she says it’s in her blood. She thinks it’s why she always wanted to be a nurse.”
“Berry told me you two had no idea what to do. How did you become lovers?”
“Oh, it was like our hearts made an agreement early on.” Jaudon’s face grew hot. It embarrassed her to talk about what she and Berry did. She sent Allison to fill customer orders and stayed on the register for the rest of their shift to keep Allison quiet.
About a week later, Jaudon was studying when Allison came around the counter, swabbing the floor with a wet mop.
Allison put three items by the register with some cash.
“Thanks for the job. I can afford some supplies.”
Jaudon dropped deodorant, toothpaste, and razor blades into a bag. “You’re not planning on doing away with yourself, are you?”
“Suicide will never be on my agenda, but if it was, at least I’d smell good. I need to shave my hairy legs. I hoarded my last blade for my underarms but it’s gone dull.”
“You’re the one scraping your armpits and legs and you think you’re the feminist?”
Allison stopped dead, money in hand. She looked at Jaudon with widened eyes. “Who knows, you may be the real feminist here, and I’m in the throes of the patriarchy, following the boys’ rules.”
Jaudon gave a brusque nod of affirmation. “Doesn’t Cullie have a razor?”
“She doesn’t share.”
So Cullie used a razor. Jaudon wasn’t sure what to make of that.
She decided she liked Allison, but it was hard to be nice to her. The way she lived was poles apart from most people. She went in for such extreme opinions, talked so high-toned. It was in her personality to upset every applecart she passed. Like her or not, Allison spelled trouble.
“Yours isn’t bad, but I’d get rid of it if it was up to me,” Allison said, touching Jaudon’s chin with a finger. “Why don’t you?”
Jaudon jumped away. She knew this time her face was flushed with shame. “You’re talking about my duck fluff? Why should I? Berry wants me to keep it.”
“Oh, cutie-pie, if that’s duck fluff, I’m Che Guevara.”
“Who?” She was glad she knew how to control her temper, because at that very minute, she wanted to wallop Allison’s butt. School kids had made her life hell enough; she didn’t have to put up with comments about her body anymore. So she said, “Well, bless your little pea-pickin’ feminist heart for speaking your mind.” She tried for a sweet yet venomous smile, on the verge of telling Allison not to look a gift horse in the mouth—a job and a place to sleep were hers thanks to Jaudon.
Allison’s remarks about her body were plain rude and she was offensive, crude, and nosy. She’d never hire a fugitive again, no matter who begged and pleaded. She had a mind to turn Allison in.
Chapter Twenty-one
It was five weeks to the day Allison started working at the store that two men came stiff-legged, in reflective sunglasses, jackets, and long pants, to Jaudon’s Beverage Bay. At first, Jaudon thought they were robbers, because they were on foot. They looked so out of place with their long sleeves and big hats in 80-plus degree heat. That was when she took note of the silver five-point badges. Did they find out about Pops’s homemade liquor stored behind the commode wall?
“Good afternoon, sir. We’re U.S. Marshals. Do you have an Allison Millar employed here? Or, I mean, ma’am.”
The photograph shocked her. It was Allison to a tee before Gran transformed her. She tried not to show her fear. Pops taught her long ago to keep her mouth shut and her face shuttered around the police because of his liquor sales.
She shook her head. “No. Not my employee.”
“But you recognized her.”
She tried for a puzzled look. “She could be a customer? Not a regular.”
“Do you mind if we look through the premises?”
“Help yourselves.” She embarrassed herself with a nervous giggle. “To look around. Not to the premises.”
The men hadn’t waited for permission to move toward the shelving.
Allison was there somewher
e. Jaudon’s heart seemed to expand to fill her chest with pounding. From the corner of her eye she saw a dark shadow flit out the rear exit faster than greased lightning. The gravel crunched once before Allison, in tennis shoes, was on asphalt. One marshal looked up and at the exit, but turned away when the sound didn’t repeat.
Jiminy. She caught her breath. Did the marshals know employees seldom worked alone here? Did they intend to search the other Bays or talk to Momma because she was the owner? Allison needed to go into hiding again. At least she’d moved into Cullie’s rental just outside the city of Four Lakes north of Rainbow Gap.
The best, the sole thing Jaudon thought to do was act shocked, but otherwise normal. She prayed for some customers to arrive. Aw, heck. What if those marshals asked for the store schedule, read names from it? She’d tell them Allison, under her Texas name, called in sick, and flesh the tale out by saying she suspected it was one of her kids that got sick. Tell them she was always getting calls from the kids and asking to go home. There, they’d be convinced.
“She leaves me high and dry in the busy times,” she would complain.
“We’ll need the names and addresses of your female employees, ma’am.”
“Not their private information.”
“This is a matter of national security, ma’am. Privacy takes a backseat in this case.”
“National security? My employees are decent Americans—”
The shorter marshal held his hand out, then folded his arms. He looked grim.
She got her box of employee information and handed it over. “Everybody currently working for us is in the front section.” He handed it to his partner who took a small notebook from his pocket and copied with a quick hand.
It occurred to her to ask why they were there or they’d think she knew.
“Routine,” was all the shorter cop managed.
Allison had had plenty of time to hide or catch a bus on busy Buffalo Road. “What else can I do for you?”
They returned the files. “Call us if you see this person or hear of her.” He handed over a business card.