Gone South

by Meg Moseley

  Walking toward a trash can, Mel watched traffic backing up for a red light half a block away. It was getting too dark to recognize faces inside the vehicles. They were like cocoons made of glass and metal, keeping people boxed up and separated from each other when they were only a few feet apart. Like people could be boxed up in separate rooms in a house, so close to each other but never talking.

  She wished she could call her mom and tell her about the job. Maybe she would be just a little bit proud.

  On foot in the brisk night air, George turned onto Jackson. Away from the streetlights on Main, he could hardly see the sidewalk curving away in front of him.

  He’d chased Daisy down Main for half a block, then slowed to a walk and let her run ahead. He knew where he’d find her. And he didn’t blame her. He was drawn to the old house too, and not just because he used to live there.

  When he’d nearly reached Tish’s place, piano music floated into the night. Someone was playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”—but slowly, like a dirge. The playing broke off in the middle of a line. After a short silence, light spilled onto the porch as Tish opened the front door. She turned on the porch light and stepped outside. About to call out, he decided to approach quietly. He wanted to know if Tish, like Si, secretly encouraged the dog’s visits.

  Now he was close enough to see Daisy bounding up the steps and into the light. Tish, barefoot and wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, crouched in front of the door, wasting a perfectly beautiful smile on the mutt.

  “You little nuisance,” she said. “You think it’s still your house, don’t you?”

  George stopped at the beginning of the flagstone walk as the dog rushed Tish in a frenzy of joy. While Daisy feinted attacks and play-growled, Tish played with her and lapsed into baby talk.

  “But this is my house, yes it is! Nobody’s gonna run me off. Nobody. I’m staying, yes I am! I live here. If people don’t like me, who cares?” Her voice wavered on the last two words.

  George wanted to blurt that he liked her just fine, but he kept his mouth shut.

  After one more play-growl, the dog trotted to the door and lifted her head to stare at the doorknob.

  “No.” Now Tish’s voice was firm. “Sorry, baby. I live here. You don’t. We’d better call George.”

  He cleared his throat and entered the yard. “No need. I’m here.”

  “George?” Her cheeks rosy with the cold or maybe with embarrassment, she picked up the dog. “Were you listening while I blathered on?”

  “I caught a little bit of it. I just wanted to see if you’d be like Si and give her doggie treats and then complain that she won’t leave you alone.”

  “Nope. No treats here. I just hope I didn’t sound like an idiot. It hasn’t been a great day.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Sorry about the little nuisance too. I stayed late in the shop to do paperwork. When it was time to head upstairs, she pulled her disappearing act.”

  “She’s quite the repeat offender. How does she get out so often?”

  “She has a crate in the back room, but I can’t latch it. If I shut her in or tie her up, she makes an unending, ungodly howl that turns my brain inside out. So I give in. I leave the crate open. Sometimes she makes a run for the door before I can get a leash on her.”

  “I see,” Tish said slowly. “Well, since you’re here, can you stay awhile? I’d like to talk about a couple of things.”

  “Sure.”

  They sat halfway down the steps, out of the porch light’s glare. Daisy curled up in Tish’s lap, happy as could be.

  “It was kind of you to offer Mel a job,” she said. “She’s so excited.”

  “I know. I warned her that it’s not official until we’ve talked about my rules and requirements, but she didn’t seem to hear that part.”

  Tish was silent for a moment, scratching the dog behind her ears. “I’m just glad you’re more merciful than Farris.”

  “Ed Farris at the bank?”

  “You know him?”

  “Everybody knows him. He’s a nice guy. What did he do?”

  “He practically offered me a job when I first came to town, but that’s all changed. Long story short, I went to the bank to give Marian copies of some letters that Letitia wrote and—”

  “You have Letitia’s letters?”

  “Yes. A couple dozen, and I scanned them. I can e-mail the files to you if you’re interested, but I won’t let the originals out of my sight.”

  Her earnestness made him smile. Old letters written by ordinary people weren’t worth much money, but that wouldn’t affect their nostalgic value. “I’d like that. Thanks. But what happened with Marian?”

  Tish let out a sharp sigh. “I thought the letters would soften her attitude, but now she claims to have proof that Nathan was a thief. Not just hearsay but proof from the historical society. To top it all off, Farris changed his mind about me. Now I’m persona non grata.”

  George frowned. “Because you’re a McComb? Or because you got into a row with Marian?”

  “Neither. Farris won’t hire me because I keep bad company.”

  It took a moment for that to sink in. “Mel? He won’t hire you because you took her in?”

  “Precisely. All his employees must be beyond reproach.”

  “Seems a little over the top.”

  “You think?” Tish let out a wobbly laugh. “I don’t want that job anyway. Marian would be awful to work with.”

  Afraid she was about to lose it, George reached for her hand, then lost his nerve and petted Daisy’s head. “So Marian claims to have evidence from the historical society. That’s the key word. Historical. Whether or not the stories are true, they’re in the past.”

  “I know. I should focus on the present.” Tish turned toward him, her face framed softly by long locks of red-brown hair. “No matter what happened here in 1870, this is my home now. Nobody’s going to scare me away.”

  “You know the difference between a Yankee and a … well, a Yankee who’s bound for eternity in the lake of fire?”

  “The ones who visit versus the ones who stay? Yeah, I’ve heard that old joke, but I’m staying. I don’t care what people call me. I don’t care what they think of me either.”

  “No?”

  “Okay, sometimes I do. Sometimes I care too much. I want very badly to be accepted, but sometimes I forget to mind my manners and I speak my mind instead. Someday, I’m afraid I’ll say things I shouldn’t say. Do things I shouldn’t do.”

  She could be direct, all right, and maybe she didn’t always think before she acted, but at least she did something. “If your heart’s right, your actions can’t be too far off. Case in point, the way you reached out to Mel.”

  “You did too,” Tish said. “It’s very generous to hire her, and I don’t mean just about the wages you’ll pay. It’s … moral generosity.”

  George squelched a grin. If he’d known hiring Mel would cast him in such a noble light, he might have hired her sooner.

  “I see moral generosity on your side too,” he said. “Even though you’re a Yankee.”

  She laughed. “Careful there, Mr. Zorbas. You’re skating on thin ice.”

  “I know, but I grew up listening to my grandfather always preaching against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Sometimes he mentioned Yankees in the next breath, so I started to think Yankees and devils were one and the same.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He leaned closer, enjoying her cynical little smile. “But I’d be first to admit that some of y’all aren’t too bad. And some of y’all are mighty pretty.”

  “And some of you southern gentlemen are mighty forward.” She moved Daisy to his knee and got to her feet.

  “Forward? I only—”

  “My feet are freezing. Good night, George.”

  He rose too. “Tish, I—”

  She’d already escaped inside, shutting the door firmly behind her. He carried the dog home, brooding over his extraordinary tal
ent for ruining good conversations.

  In the back room of the shop, Daisy moaned and nudged her empty bowl with her little black nose.

  “Don’t give me that,” George said. “I fed you.”

  She collapsed on the floor as if she’d succumbed to starvation.

  “Knock it off. I don’t need a diva dog on top of everything else.”

  He half dreaded Mel’s first day on the job and half welcomed it. She would be a challenge, but she’d give him something to think about besides the way Tish had shut him down.

  Long before Mel was scheduled to show up, he’d moved the change drawer from the safe to the cash register. He’d found a sales-tax chart too, and placed it beside the receipt book and a pad of paper for Mel’s benefit.

  He’d left the pricier jewelry in the safe where it always stayed overnight. He wasn’t sure how long he would keep it there. If he didn’t have it on display, he couldn’t sell it. But he couldn’t sell it if Mel stole it, either. It was a dilemma.

  The back door swung open, and she stuck her head in. “Is it okay if I walk in like this?” she asked in a timid voice.

  “Sure. Come on in.”

  She entered, carrying a lunch bag, and scooped up the dog with her other hand. “Daisy! How are you today?”

  Suddenly recovered from her swoon, Daisy sniffed the bag, her tail wagging.

  “You might want to stick that in the fridge.” George pointed to the tiny refrigerator in the corner. “So the dog can’t get to it.”

  Mel stashed her lunch beside his and then nuzzled the dog. “Poor baby,” she murmured. “Doesn’t grumpy old George feed you enough?”

  “I feed her plenty. She’s a glutton. She has a food dish here, and upstairs, and now out in Tish’s garage too.”

  “She’s not a glutton. She’s a hungry girl.” Mel smiled at him over the dog’s head. “I’m ready to get to work if you are.”

  “First things first. We need to have a little talk.”

  She hid her face in the dog’s fur. “Am I in trouble already?”

  “No, but I want to remind you that this is your chance to prove to your dad—”

  “Ex-dad, you mean.”

  “Show a little respect. If you refuse to call him your dad, at least call him Dunc or Mr. Hamilton. But back to my point. I’m afraid he’s tired of giving you second chances. If you wind up in trouble again, that’s it.”

  “Isn’t it ‘it’ already if I’m not even allowed in the house? How much further can he go, George? Anyway, it’s hopeless. I know I’ll mess up again someday, somehow, so I might as well mess up ten times. Or a million times.”

  “I see your point, but don’t give up. Just do your best.”

  “I do,” she said fiercely. “I always do.”

  “And that’s all I ask of you as an employee. I’ll forgive honest mistakes, but I won’t tolerate dishonesty, laziness, or rude conduct. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then. I’d like to have you work three or four days a week, but the particular days might change from week to week. Will that work for you?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  He placed an application and a pen on the worktable. “Here’s your paperwork to fill out.”

  “Fun, fun, fun.” She sat with the dog in her lap and picked up the pen.

  Leaving her to it, he walked through the showroom, turning on lights and straightening merchandise. At the front door, he unlocked and flipped the Closed sign over to the Open side. When he returned to the back room, Mel was scrawling her signature at the bottom of the application.

  “Here ya go,” she said, holding it up.

  He took it and looked it over. Her penmanship was wretched, and her spelling was worse.

  “You didn’t write down your driver’s license number.”

  “I don’t have one. I lost it.”

  “Lost it? As in … the state took it away?”

  “You mean like for a DUI? What kind of girl do you think I am? Geez, George. No, I lost it. It was in my wallet, and my wallet was in my duffel bag, and I lost the bag in Florida.”

  “A duffel bag is a pretty big item to lose track of.”

  “I was hitchhiking, okay? And the guy turned out to be scary so I jumped out at a red light. I didn’t have time to grab the bag, but I saved my bedroll.”

  “And your life, maybe. Hitching a ride is dangerous.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  He squinted at her application, trying to decipher her chicken-scratch printing. He made out her date of birth. She was coming up on her twenty-first birthday, but she’d listed only two previous jobs, both in Noble.

  “Didn’t you tell me you worked in a restaurant in Orlando? Where’s that info?”

  “I didn’t put it down because I don’t remember the phone number. Or the manager’s name. I mean, his name was Rocky, but I don’t think that was his real name.”

  George imagined a swarthy, tattooed hoodlum running a biker bar. “No, probably not. Name of the restaurant?”

  “Fishy’s.”

  “A high-class joint, obviously.”

  “It was all right. They had good fries.”

  “Were you a waitress?”

  “No, I bussed tables.”

  “It’s the restaurant where you got framed for stealing cash?”

  “Yes.” Her cheeks colored.

  “Did you have access to the register?”

  “No. It was a jar. A glass jar. You know, one of those charity things? For a little girl who’d been burned in a house fire. Somebody was collecting money to help with the hospital bills. Geez, I wouldn’t steal from a three-year-old with third-degree burns. The jar just sat there on the bar. Anybody could have taken the money. They said it was me, but I didn’t take it. I put money in a few times. Not a lot, but I wanted to help.”

  “You’re sure you were framed?”

  “I’m sure. Go ahead and call, if you can find the number. Ask for Rocky or Marlene. They’ll tell you I was a hard worker. They didn’t want to let me go.”

  “But they did let you go. Because they thought you stole from a charity.”

  “That’s what they thought, but they were wrong.”

  She said it so sincerely that he found himself believing her. Wanting to, anyway.

  He studied the sloppy application again. “Did you work at Fishy’s the whole time you were out of town? Two years?”

  “Well, no. There were a few other jobs too, but I didn’t want to put them down because”—she squirmed in her chair—“it’s embarrassing.”

  He waited. Remembering stretches of Florida interstate that were crowded with billboards for strip clubs, he felt sick. Not Mel. Not Stu’s baby sister.

  “Okay, okay!” she said. “I was a housekeeper at a trashy motel just off I-75. It was horrible. And I picked strawberries with a bunch of people who didn’t speak English, and I worked for an old guy who sold orchids and oranges by the side of the road.” She paused. “Oh yeah, and I worked at a car wash.”

  “There’s nothing dishonorable about manual labor. You don’t need to be embarrassed unless you were doing something illegal.” Thinking of a blue Corvette and a gold watch, he dropped the application on his desk. “Okay. We’re open for business. Customers seldom show up before 9:30, but that gives us time to do a few chores.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What kind of chores?”

  “Like chores at home. Basic housekeeping.”

  She heaved a dramatic sigh. “All right.”

  “Melanie,” he said in his sternest voice, “if you don’t want to do the work, save both of us some grief by telling me right now.”

  “No, I’ll do it.”

  “With a good attitude.”

  “With a good attitude.” She mimicked his severe tone perfectly.

  “Your attitude is especially important when you’re dealing with customers. Pretend you love working here, even if you don’t. Even if you can’t stand the customers. Even if so
mebody wastes an hour of your time while she makes up her mind about a cheap teacup, and then asks you to gift-wrap it.”

  She puckered her lips as if she’d eaten a lemon. “You want me to be a phony?”

  “I want you to be courteous.” He pointed toward the front of the store. “Let’s make sure you remember how to work an antique cash register.”

  She followed him behind the counter. Hands clasped behind her back, she studied the ornate gilt surfaces of the machine. “Wow, that’s a fancy one.”

  “Of all the registers I’ve restored, this one’s my favorite.” Not for sentimental reasons, though, but for its extravagant style. Every curlicue of the design seemed to celebrate the process of collecting money.

  “It’s even older than the one the Howards use at their gift shop,” he added.

  She showed no reaction to the name. “Huh. Can’t you afford a newer one?”

  Enjoying the irony, he refrained from telling her how valuable an antique NCR could be. “I love the old ones. There’s never a paper jam or a problem with the power supply. But as you know, a 1910 model can’t tell you how much change to give back. You have to use your head.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know.”

  “Show me. Pretend you’re ringing up a sale. Let’s say it’s a twenty-dollar item, plus tax.” He handed her the chart for calculating the sales tax.

  She flashed him a look of unadulterated irritation but consulted the chart. Twice. Then she rang up the sale, seeming to enjoy the clash and clang of the machine as much as he did.

  “There,” she said. “Happy now?”

  “Yes ma’am. That’s the sound of commerce, even if it’s only a trial run. Now, here’s an important tip. If somebody gives you, say, a twenty, don’t put it in the drawer right away. Leave it on the ledge above the drawer until the customer takes the change and seems happy with it.”

  She frowned. “Why?”

  “So somebody can’t give you a ten, wait until you’ve closed the drawer, and then claim they gave you a twenty.”

  Comprehension dawned in her eyes. “Oh, wow! Sneaky!”

  Hoping he hadn’t given her a brilliant new idea to try sometime, he led her into the back room and introduced her to his vintage Bissell sweeper. Never having seen one, she was intrigued.