by Kip Gayden
The shame of it was, the day was Mabel’s birthday, and Walter knew Anna had planned a little family celebration that would start as soon as he got home from the clinic. He’d listened to the dirty-faced boy’s breathless news, and sighed. Then he went to the phone on the wall and cranked it up, placing a call to the house. He told Anna that he had a patient who was in labor and likely to have some trouble, and he’d apologized. “But I have to go, dear. She could very well die if she tries to deliver this baby without some help.” Anna hadn’t said anything other than “I understand, Walter.” He hung up, threw some obstetric instruments, a bottle of chloroform, and another of alcohol into his black bag, and rushed out the door, barely remembering to lock it behind him.
By the time he’d gotten to the Dobbses’ little cabin up in the hills outside of Bethpage, Savannah was, indeed, in trouble. She’d been in hard labor for several hours, but the baby wasn’t moving down into the birth canal as it should. She was gasping for breath, and her pulse rate was fluctuating wildly. He coached Horace to massage his wife’s midsection while he employed forceps to help move the child. He delivered the seven-pound boy, held him up and spatted him, and was rewarded by a lusty yell from a brand-new, healthy set of lungs. He handed the baby to his father, then turned his attention to Savannah, who was hemorrhaging severely. Somehow, he was able to get the bleeding stopped.
He stayed with the Dobbses until he was satisfied Savannah was resting comfortably. “Have you got any family nearby that can help?” he asked the nervous young father. Horace nodded. “My maw oughta be here before morning, and Savannah’s is coming up from McMinnville.”
By the time Walter got home to Gallatin, it was nearly dawn. He didn’t want to risk waking anyone, so he lay down on the couch in the parlor and dozed as much as he could until the sounds of the waking house roused him.
When Anna came downstairs, she looked a question at him. “Mother and baby ought to be all right,” he told her.
“That’s good,” she said. “Mabel remembered you and your patient in her prayers last night.”
“I’m grateful,” Walter said.
WALTER LOOKED AT ANNA, smiling and talking with Charlie and his wife. She was so lively, so pretty. Walter remembered the influenza epidemic, back in 1896 in Lafayette, when he and Anna had labored side by side, round the clock, to care for the ailing. He wished there would have been a way to have her at his side last week, in the small, isolated cabin where he brought the Dobbses’ son into the world and kept Savannah from leaving it. But their lives were more complicated now, and he had to make difficult choices. Walter took a sip of lemonade and wished things were different.
14
Scott wound up and threw the baseball, its arcing trajectory carrying it to the dead center of the red-painted pie plate that was the target for the dunking booth mechanism. But the ball didn’t have enough velocity; it bounced harmlessly off the plate, and Vestal Willits, the town constable, was still sitting high and dry above the trough full of water.
“Now, that don’t hardly seem fair,” said the red-cheeked, laughing man in charge of the dunking booth. “This here boy paid his nickel, just like everybody else, and he hit the target. I think old Vestal oughta go in the water, what do you folks think?”
The crowd cheered loudly and the man nodded, slapping his hand against the pie plate. The lever tripped and the constable fell with a loud splash into the trough.
“Attaboy, Scott!” said a man wearing a red, white, and blue garter on his sleeve that identified him as a member of the Chamber of Commerce. “He’s got an arm, there, Mrs. Dotson,” he said, smiling as he leaned down to shake Scott’s hand. “This boy’s liable to give ol’ Ty Cobb a run for his money.”
“The man had to hit the plate,” Scott said, looking sideways.
“Well, you still hit the target, son,” Anna said.
She strolled on, Scott and Mabel tagging along behind. The town square was draped with bunting everywhere she looked. There were booths set up on the streets and in the spaces between the places of business. Walter had permitted the women from their church to sell slices of pie from the stoop in front of his clinic; a watermelon-seed-spitting contest was underway on the street in front of the drugstore; and Elizabeth Jennings and several other women were passing out suffrage pamphlets from a brightly decorated stall in front of the Jennings Art Gallery. It seemed to Anna that everybody in Sumner County was in the Gallatin town square. The one person she knew that she hadn’t yet spotted was Charlie Cobb.
“Mama, I want some corn on the cob,” Mabel said. “Can we get some corn on the cob?”
“Yes, honey, just a minute.” Anna peered at the knot of men gathered around the “Test Your Strength” kiosk, one of those affairs where you pounded a lever with a heavy mallet and tried to send a metal cylinder high enough up a pole to ring a bell mounted at the top. Several of the high school boys and young single men had their sleeves and collars unbuttoned, panting as they dug nickels out of their pockets to pay for one more chance at the teddy bears that would presumably guarantee the affections of one or another of Gallatin’s young women. A few older men were watching the contest, offering free advice to the sweating contenders. But none of them were Charlie Cobb.
They made their way to the booth selling corn on the cob, where Anna bought an ear for Mabel and one for Scott. She looked up at the clock on the courthouse tower. It was nearly eleven o’clock—time for the band concert.
“Come along, children,” she said. “Eat while you walk. We don’t want to be late for Daddy’s concert, do we?”
A crowd had gathered around the bandstand on the courthouse lawn, where Walter was giving some last-minute instructions to the musicians. Anna looked for a seat near the bandstand, but because it was nearly time for the concert to begin, she had to settle for a place farther back, under one of the big elm trees. She was glad of the shade, but Scott wouldn’t be happy, since he wouldn’t be able to see his father very easily.
The band tuned up, then started in with Sousa’s “Liberty Bell,” one of Walter’s favorites. Walter liked to play tuba on the marches. From here, all she could see of him was the gold-lacquered bell of the tuba, sticking up from the last row of musicians.
Next the band performed an arrangement of Ward’s “Materna,” with a guest soloist, an older woman Anna didn’t recognize. There was nothing old about her voice, though. It carried quite handily over the cornets, the euphoniums, the flutes, and the clarinets. “Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,” she sang. When she finished, she received a nice, enthusiastic round of applause.
Scott was restless because he couldn’t see his father, and Mabel saw a girl from school, sitting close to the front with her family. She offered to take Scott with her and see if they could sit with the other people. Anna nodded, and at the next break between numbers, off they went, dodging between the rows of spectators.
Just as the band started its next selection, someone plopped down on the seat next to her, just vacated by Mabel. It was Charlie Cobb. He scooted in close; Anna could feel him against her, all the way from her shoulder to her knee.
“Happy Fourth of July, Anna,” he said, with his trademark smile.
They were in a more sparsely populated part of the audience, but still Anna was nervous about Charlie sitting so close to her in public.
“Where’s Daisy?” she said without looking at him.
“Who knows? I left her somewhere over on the other side of the crowd.”
“She’s here? Aren’t you afraid we’ll be seen?”
“I’m too crazy in love to care,” he said in a low voice, close to her ear. Anna felt her heart break into a lope. Charlie’s hand was crawling across hers where it rested, wedged between the outside of her thigh and his. His hand covered hers, and the backs of his knuckles pressed upward, into the lower part of her thigh.
Anna felt flushed, and not from the heat of the July morning. She felt an urge to grab Charlie’s fac
e and kiss him, right there and then. The warmth of his hand seemed to run all the way up her arm and into her chest. She wanted to guide his hand up to her breast and feel him touch her there, cup her gently, like a crystal goblet.
“We’ve got to be careful, Charlie,” she said. “There are people all around.”
“And they’re all admiring our fine town band, being led by the good doctor. They’re not paying a bit of attention to two people having a friendly visit, here under this nice shade tree.”
Hearing the faint derision in his tone, Anna was simultaneously repelled and attracted. It was as if Charlie was saying about Walter what she wished she could. Walter was always out front, wasn’t he? Always leading the meeting or directing the band or teaching the Sunday school class or lecturing the Masons. Well, he was missing something today, wasn’t he? He had time for everybody in Sumner County except his wife. Anna didn’t have to sit at home and wait for him. There were people who would pay her some mind, and one of them sat next to her right now, feeding flame into her veins with his touch, his words, his presence.
“How would I send you a letter, if I were to want to do such a thing?” Anna said, looking at him for the first time.
“That’s easy, Mrs. Dotson. Just send it to post office box thirty-five, Gallatin, Tennessee. I’m the only one with a key, and the only one who ever picks up the mail there. What about you?”
“I don’t know . . . Walter picks up the mail from our post office box. He says he doesn’t approve of ladies going into the post office by themselves.”
“What does he approve of ladies doing?”
“Stop it. Somebody is going to hear you.”
“All right. But I want to write to you, too.”
“I know . . . Just tuck the letter into the Argosy magazines. I can pick them up and drop them off at the barbershop, same as always.”
“I’ll do it, Anna my love.” He was getting up to go, but before he did, he slid his hand, palm upward, between the back of her thigh and the park bench. He gave her leg a firm squeeze. Then he was gone.
Anna realized she was trembling. Never in her life had she felt such riptides of desire as she did for Charlie Cobb. It was as though he held some mystical power over her; he had but to appear, speak a few words in her ear, touch her, and she was ready to discard everything she’d ever been taught about fidelity, the sanctity of marriage vows, respectability . . . everything. All for the sake of a single hour in his arms, feeling his flesh against hers.
A part of her mind was able to stand back and take stock of the situation. There was a voice within her that urged her to have nothing more to do with Charlie: to quit walking past Person’s window during the day just to see if he was there, to stop sending him Argosy magazines with handwritten notes in the margins next to the most provocative passages, to do everything she could to distance herself from the unaccountable magnetism he wielded over her heart and mind.
And yet . . . the other part of her—the womanly, feeling part—wanted him desperately. That part of her relished the feeling of domination by a force she couldn’t control. That part of her loved being desired by a man as virile and bold as Charlie Cobb.
The Gallatin Commercial Club Band was coming to the closing bars of its finale, Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.” The crowd on the courthouse lawn was rising to its feet, clapping in time to the music. Owen Pinkney, the druggist, was standing at the front, playing the piccolo solo that never failed to draw enthusiastic applause, despite his numerous missed notes. Anna stood and clapped with everybody else.
WALTER PLUNGED THE BUTCHER KNIFE cleanly through the crisp, green watermelon. It was so ripe it nearly fell open without cutting. The wet, sweet scent plumed out to Anna’s nostrils, smelling of cool refreshment. She’d had the melon in the icebox all day, in preparation for tonight’s dessert.
When she and Walter told the children at the dinner table that they’d be eating dessert in the backyard, they chorused, “Watermelon!” It was a special summer treat to eat cold watermelon in the backyard, the fireflies spangling the darkness above the grass with their tiny yellow beacons. Mabel and Scott were probably a little more careless with the watermelon than strictly necessary—they were eating in the backyard, after all—but Anna didn’t mind so much. She smiled at them as they shoved their faces into the sweet, cool flesh of the melon, coming up with smears from chin to eyebrows. They spit seeds at each other, laughing and chasing each other around the yard.
“All right, now, you two. Time to clean up and go inside.”
By degrees, Anna and Walter were able to coax the children over to the hand pump atop the cistern, close by the fence along the back alley. Walter pumped cool water into their cupped hands, and Anna supervised as they scrubbed the watermelon leavings from their faces.
“Go on to the back porch, and leave your wet things by the kitchen door,” she told them. “Get into your nightclothes lickety-split, and maybe I’ll come read you a story.”
With only a little more playful splashing, Mabel and Scott did as their mother said. Anna went inside while Walter rinsed off the table where he’d sliced the watermelon.
Anna braided Mabel’s hair while Scott finished fidgeting himself into his nightshirt. They piled up onto Mabel’s bed and tucked themselves in on either side of Anna while she read to them from Mabel’s favorite bedtime book, Andersen’s Fairy Tales. To Anna’s mind, some of the stories had a darkness and sadness about them that was worrisome, but Mabel and Scott didn’t seem to see it that way. They never tired of hearing “Thumbelina” or “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.” Anna suspected the brightly colored illustrations on every other page had something to do with it, also.
She finished the story and Scott rolled off Mabel’s bed, padding barefoot to his room. She tucked in her daughter, kissed her slightly sweaty forehead, and reminded her to say her prayers. She went into Scott’s room and repeated the process.
Anna went down the hall to her room. The windows were up, but on this midsummer night, there wasn’t a breath of a breeze. She felt like taking a cooling sponge bath before going to bed. She started to call down to Walter to bring up a pail of water from the cistern, but then she heard him in the bathroom, making ready to go to bed. She decided to fetch the water herself.
She went downstairs and into the kitchen, grabbing the large wooden pail from the countertop by the door. She went out onto the back porch, then down the steps into the backyard. Stepping carefully in the darkness, she saw the whitewashed concrete of the cistern. She set the bucket beneath the pump spout and started working the squeaky handle.
There was a noise in the dark, on the other side of the alley fence. A cough—a male cough. Anna felt her nostrils flare with alarm. “Who’s there? I can hear you, whoever you are.”
“Don’t call the constable, Anna. It’s me. Charlie.”
15
What are you doing here?” Anna whispered hoarsely. “You like to scared me to death!”
“Shhh . . . easy now, Anna. Don’t be scared. I like to come here sometimes. Just to stand here and watch.”
“Watch what? You’re liable to get yourself shot, sneaking down people’s alleys at night.”
Charlie laughed, low and quiet in the darkness. “I don’t bother anybody. And can you blame me, wanting to be close to the woman I love, in the cool of an evening?”
His voice was working its old magic, loosening her up and making her think of things better left alone.
“How long have you been standing out here in the alley?”
“You mean tonight, or—”
“No. How long have you been doing this?”
He rubbed his chin and stared up at the stars for a few seconds. “I guess since about the time Walter played his music doohickey for us. That Sunday evening was the first time.”
“What do you tell Daisy? Doesn’t she notice you being gone from the house?”
He shook his head. Even though it was dark, Anna would have sworn she could fe
el him smiling at her. “I go for walks sometimes, Anna. I told you, I don’t feel the need to tell Daisy everything, just like you don’t tell Walter.”
“Well . . . you’d better get gone, before somebody sics a dog on you.” She grabbed the handle of her bucket.
“Can I carry that for you?”
“Have you lost your mind?” She yanked the bucket up, spilling a good bit of water down the side of her dress. “You’d better go, Charlie.”
“Well, all right. But now that you know I come here sometimes, why don’t you come out and talk to me once in a while?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Anna went back into the house. She lugged the heavy bucket upstairs and into the bathroom, and emptied it into her wash basin. Then she unbuttoned her shoes and her dress, and peeled off her underthings. It felt good to stand naked in the bathroom and let the air play over her skin; for the past few hours she’d felt sticky with the heat.
She stood in the bathtub and soaked a sponge in the wash basin, then squeezed it slowly over her shoulders, the back of her neck, her face. The cool water was refreshing.
Anna unpinned her hair and selected a cotton nightgown from her armoire. Turning down the gas to the bathroom light, she went into her darkened bedroom. She looked at the window by the head of her bed, the one that looked out onto the backyard. Anna went and stood by the window in the darkness, staring out at the place where Charlie had been, in the alley. She thought about him, standing out there in the dark, maybe night after night, just hoping for a glimpse of her. After a while, she lay down on her bed. She was still thinking about him when she finally drifted off to sleep.
“ANNA! ANNA DOTSON!”
Anna turned. Elizabeth was waving at her from across the street, bouncing on her tiptoes. She leaned forward to step into the street, then had to jerk herself backwards as an automobile whizzed past, the driver honking his Klaxon as he barely missed her. When the way was clear, she hurried across the street to Anna.