Potter Springs

by Britta Coleman

  Amanda freed Mr. Chesters, coaxing his shaking form from the shadows near the back of the cage. She wished, for an instant, she could trade places with him and hide in a small, dark place.

  “Quite a rig you got there.” A tall man with a wide Western belt smacked the side of the U-Haul. “What kind of mileage she get?”

  “Eight to ten.”

  The man whistled through his teeth, low and long. “At least it’s a one-way trip,” he reasoned. “I’m Joe Don Wexley.”

  “Mark Reynolds. Good to know you.”

  “Well, we’re not paying for the return drive, so I guess you’re stuck with us.” The chicken-legged man edged close to the U-Haul and pumped Mark’s hand up and down a few times. “Good to see you again, son.”

  The interview process had been mostly by telephone, but Ervin and Mark held a meeting in Dallas, a halfway point, to shake hands and discuss particulars while Amanda recovered in Houston. She didn’t know what excuse Mark had used for her absence at that final interview, but the miscarriage wasn’t part of the dialogue.

  “No need to air our problems,” Mark had said.

  Our problems. She understood. James Montclair hadn’t told, and the new church didn’t know about the baby or the miscarriage. It would be Mark and Amanda’s secret.

  The new job depended on it.

  Mark’s boss smiled at Amanda. “Ervin Plumley. Glad to finally lay eyes on you.”

  Ervin turned back to the house. “Hope y’all like it. We’ve tried to get her shipshape for you, but if there’s anything you need, just let us know.”

  The house looked like an unruly toddler who’d just had a scrubbing. Freshly painted trim brightened uneven brick, a new cedar swing hung from the tiny porch. Flowerbeds wound around the edges of the house. Plantings of yellow flowers with big, dark eyes bobbed in the wind, nodding hello to the newcomers.

  Joe Don hooked a thumb in his belt loop. “Me and the boys got down under the house for you. Plumbing’s sound. Wiring’s covered, no termites. That’s the thing about pier and beam, you can figure out what the he …”-Joe Don shot a guilty look at Ervin-“… eck’s going on without having to get a jackhammer.”

  A small woman with dark eyes stood on the edge of their conversation. “Pansies.” Her soft voice in the midst of the deeper tones drew Amanda’s attention.

  “I’m sorry?” Amanda put Mr. Chesters down, and he darted to the side of the house, his tail splayed out like a toilet brush. She hoped he wouldn’t go far.

  “Pansies. They’re only annuals-so if you don’t like them, you can take them out.” The woman bit her lip, looking at the cheerful beds. “Do you like them?”

  Dirt formed semicircles on the tips of the gardener’s nails as she twisted the end of her T-shirt.

  “Yes,” Amanda decided. “I’m Amanda Reynolds.”

  “Of course.” The woman raised her hand, then noticed her soil-stained fingers and did a quick retreat. “Oh!” She settled on a short, flappy wave. “Yes, hi. Um, I’m Missy Underwood. That’s my husband, Jimmy.”

  Jimmy was bent over digging in a cooler, so all Amanda could see were jean shorts riding dangerously low on a flat behind.

  “You can meet him in a minute.” Missy’s face reddened and she focused on the flowers again. “We weren’t sure what kind you’d want, or even if you garden. We went with something seasonal that would last. With fall coming on, they should make it through winter.”

  “I don’t know much about gardening, really.” At Missy’s crestfallen expression, Amanda added, “But I do want to learn.”

  “Oh, I’m no expert either.” Missy’s words fell over themselves like eager puppies. “But I can tell you about pansies. I planted some at my house, and they’re going gangbusters.” Missy shoved her hands in the deep pockets of her culottes. “I don’t mean to sound like I’m bragging.”

  “No, not at all.” The smell of the cut grass and new paint wrapped around Amanda like a comforter, even as the ache resonated through her inner thighs to the bottoms of her feet. She hadn’t stood this long in a while.

  Ervin’s drawl to the men overrode their conversation. “Joe Don here runs a farm way south of town, and he’s a handy fella to know when it comes to fixing most things.”

  Joe Don shuffled his left boot under this great praise.

  “He’s the one who did most of the work on the house for y’all,” Ervin said.

  “Thank you so much.” Mark shared a glance with Amanda. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate being able to move right in.”

  “Well, we want you to feel like Potter Springs is home.” Ervin clasped an arm around Mark’s shoulder. “We’re glad to have you, son. So glad to have you.”

  The preacher turned to Amanda. He wasn’t very tall, so she didn’t have to crane her neck to look at him. His eyes were brown and opaque. He took her hand gently, not a shake really, but a hand-holding. “And you too, little miss. Welcome to Potter.”

  Amanda pulled away first. “The house looks beautiful. Thank you.”

  “My gosh.” Ervin slapped his forehead. “Here I am yapping at y’all, and you’re probably dead on your feet. Peggy, come on over here and help these kids inside the house.”

  Peggy radiated competence as she marched up to the group in soft-soled nurse’s shoes. She stood four inches taller than Ervin and outweighed him by thirty pounds. She wore a shiny floral shirt over stretchy pants. Her short curly hair had more than a few specks of gray twisted in it.

  “I’m Peggy, Ervin’s wife. Been married twenty-eight years, and he’s hauled me all over the state of Texas, and some other places too.” She didn’t shake hands but grabbed Amanda immediately into a crushing hug. “I know just how you feel, honeygirl.”

  “Oh, I’m all right,” Amanda murmured into the polyester folds. “A little tired.”

  “It’ll get better,” Peggy assured as she patted Amanda’s back in a soothing rhythm. As if she’d known her forever, or was kin somehow. “And you’ll like Potter Springs too. Maybe not now, but it’ll grow on you. It’s like a fungus that way, but a good kind.”

  When Peggy released her, Amanda realized she’d been hugging the woman back.

  The men circled around Mark, talking, asking him questions. He looked for her over their shoulders, and she nodded to him, I’m okay.

  Nonverbal marital permission. Go ahead and play with the boys, I’ll go crochet with the womenfolk. My heart isn’t broken, and I can’t wait to exchange cookie recipes.

  Mark went back to whatever story he was telling. As Amanda followed Peggy across the driveway, she heard the men’s laughter and knew he had them in the palm of his hand already. Golden-boy.

  Peggy ushered Amanda through the bustling one-car garage and shooed the welcoming women out of the way. “Y’all get back to the truck and start bringing the little stuff in. Amanda here needs to sit down a minute, and she don’t need y’all pecking around her like a bunch of hens.”

  “Who’s calling who a hen around here?” In the kitchen, a rosycheeked woman with oversized pot-holder mittens took a steaming casserole out of the oven. “I’m Shelinda James,” she announced, shoving the oven door closed with one skinny hip. Placing the dish with care on the stovetop, she grinned at Amanda. “Hope you like King Ranch. We’ve got this for your dinner and a few more frozen besides.”

  “Thanks so much, you didn’t have to-” All the faces, the sincere smiles, combined to overwhelm Amanda. She couldn’t arrange her own expression in an appropriate response.

  But no one seemed to notice, or mind in the least.

  “It’s nothing. Really, we’re just busybodies and wanted to be the first to get a good look at you.” Shelinda laughed and covered the casserole with foil. “If I get to vote, I think you’ll do just fine.” She pointed a spatula. “And don’t you talk her ear off, Peggy. We want her to like us.”

  “Shelinda, hush now and get on out to the truck.” Peggy flapped her arms. “You can start with the kitchen things.” />
  “She’s bossy, but good as gold, Mrs. Reynolds. I’ll catch up with you later. Maybe have coffee or something.”

  The woman’s easy manner and offer of companionship pulled at Amanda. She sensed a future friend here. “Please, call me Amanda.”

  “Amanda then.” Shelinda nodded with a smile. “Welcome home.” The ruffled lace curtains on the back door fluttered as she stepped out into the garage.

  Home. She sat in a cool metal card chair in the quiet of the empty den. The house wasn’t much bigger than a cracker box, but the voices outside remained thankfully muted.

  Peggy’s pants made scratchy sounds as she seated herself next to Amanda.

  Red and orange streaks filtered through the high windows from the backyard. Leaves swayed, making cutout pictures of light. A tree. My backyard has a tree. She’d taken trees for granted in south Texas. Not anymore.

  Potter Springs hadn’t been quite the Mayberry she’d hoped for. But not as bad as she’d feared either.

  Dusty on the outskirts, flat all the way through. But green in town, just like Mark had said. Their postage-stamp lawn, the tree, the shrubs here and there. Green meant someone took the time to water. To nurture. Making green must take a long time in the Texas Panhandle.

  Amanda wondered if she’d ever be green again.

  Soft hands covered hers and squeezed. Peggy shifted on the chair to get closer. “Now, tell me, honeygirl. How was the trip? How are you?”

  And to Amanda’s surprise, waves of unshed tears rushed from her eyes and made dotted patterns on Peggy Plumley’s polyester pants.

  CHAPTER 11

  brother’s keeper

  The church resembled a Monopoly house with four square sides and a low-pitched roof. A slender steel gray steeple drove up into the sky like a solitary fence post, and variegated bushes surrounded a brick sign with LAKEVIEW COMMUNITY CHURCH etched into deep grooves.

  Mark climbed out of the passenger seat of Ervin’s white double-cab pickup. A pungent aroma wafted from the blacktop parking lot. All around the brown building, prairie flowed like a gentle pond. Long grasses fluttered like cattails in the breeze. The plains were dry as stacked hay, without a lake in sight.

  “Lakeview?” Mark asked.

  “No lake,” Ervin confirmed. He nestled a wooden toothpick between his teeth. “But you gotta admit, it’s quite a view.”

  A bird called high above, soaring under the wisps of clouds. A tractor far down the road turned off the main route. The grinding machinery puffed dirt in its wake.

  Ervin tossed a set of keys into Mark’s chest. “For your office. And that.” He pointed to a small pickup, blue with white lettering. LAKEVIEW COMMUNITY, it read, with a stylized lake and tree on the side. “For running around in,” Ervin explained. “Smokes a little, but it’ll get you from here to there.”

  “Thanks.” Mark shoved the keys into the pocket of his khakis.

  They entered the building through a side door with a metal frame and handle. Ervin pushed easily inside.

  “Not locked?”

  “Nah. Not during the daytime anyhow. We don’t have much worth stealing. They want it bad enough”-the door squeaked behind them-“come on in and get it.”

  The interior smelled like an old school library, of books, dust and gathered bodies gone stale. “Down here’s the sanctuary.” Ervin disappeared through double oak doors. Mark followed.

  Inside, pews lined straight across with an aisle dividing them. No stage, but a simple oak communion table had the familiar words on the side: THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME. It had been a long while since Mark had seen an altar like that.

  “It’s not so fancy, I know,” Ervin’s voice echoed in the sanctuary. No elegant Muzak filled the silence. “But we’re doing a fall fund-raiser, to spruce up the place a little. Get some greenery. Peggy says we need more greenery.” At this, Ervin placed his hands on his hips, an old coach surveying the playing field. With his belly pushing the elastic of the coaching shorts to maximum support, his white legs encased in tube socks and tennis shoes, Ervin couldn’t look any more opposite James Montclair if he’d tried.

  Mark didn’t guess that Ervin tried much, as far as appearances went.

  “You’ll be wanting to see your office.” Ervin led him down yet another hall, another door. Seated at a small desk, a gray-haired woman in a violent polka-dot dress attacked a typewriter with a vengeance.

  “Hi, Letty!” Ervin called above the rata-tat-tat as if greeting a long lost friend.

  “Hello.” Letty scowled, her fingers frozen above the keys.

  “This here’s Letty Hodges. Letty, meet Mark Reynolds, our new associate pastor.”

  “Mr. Reynolds.” Letty nodded in greeting and adjusted Coke-bottle glasses farther up her pinched nose.

  “You can call me Mark.” He offered a hand. For the briefest of instances, he thought she’d refuse. But then she grasped it, brief and cold, leaving behind the distinctive odor of Ben-Gay.

  “You may call me Ms. Hodges.”

  “Miss Letty’s my best gal Friday,” Ervin said. “Actually, my only gal Friday. Been working here long ’fore I ever showed up. Came with the building, I think.”

  For this, Ervin was rewarded with a one-sided sneer, which might have been Letty’s excuse for a smile.

  “She’ll work for both of us till the board sees fit to throw us more money for another assistant. She’s more’n glad to help out, though. Aren’t you, Letty?”

  “I’ll do my best.” She shuffled papers on her desk and heaved a great sigh.

  “I won’t add much to your load,” Mark offered. “I’m pretty self-sufficient.”

  “Just make sure you give me notice.” Letty sniffed. “I’ve got plenty to do as it is. And I don’t make coffee.”

  Mark thought a retreat at this point might be his best strategy. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Hodges,” he lied.

  She made no reply, but the typewriter roared back to life.

  Ervin laughed at her rudeness. “See you later, doll!” He yelled to Mark over the noise, “Let’s go see your office!”

  They stopped in front of a putty-colored door with a small sign, JANITOR’S CLOSET. From inside, sounds of a deep bass thumped under a steel guitar. The music drifted out in patterned bursts.

  “Is this … ?”

  “No, no. I just want you to meet Benny. Benny!” Ervin pounded on the door. “Benny, it’s me, Erv. Open up!”

  The knob rattled and a skinny teenager holding a half-eaten bag of Cheetos answered. Benny wore a black T-shirt that read SMOOTH. He wiped his fingers on it, leaving orange streaks like snail trails. Behind him, the closet contained shelves of industrial cleaning supplies, a stack of black rubber trash cans, a dusty vacuum and a portable stereo. “Yeah?”

  “Benny, meet Mark Reynolds, our new associate. Mark, this is Benny Ripple, one of our junior custodians.”

  Benny tossed his greasy hair in a gesture of greeting. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” Mark answered in kind. “Cool shirt.”

  A flash of respect crossed Benny’s pockmarked features. “Thanks.”

  The closed door muffled the thumping music again, and Mark and Ervin continued on their way. As they walked, Ervin explained, “Benny’s a good kid, but he’s had a hard run. Him working here is … a favor for a friend.”

  Mark nodded. A favor for a friend. He remembered James Montclair handing him the number in the hospital and wondered if he was yet another favor from Ervin Plumley. At this point, he didn’t care. He needed the job.

  The associate’s office was tucked around the corner from the janitor’s closet. The door had no nameplate, or even a number. In fact, nothing suggested it wasn’t a restroom or an extension of Benny’s hangout.

  “Used to be a book room. Storage for the library,” Ervin said. Inside, a teacher’s desk and two plastic chairs completely filled the space. Wallpaper, printed with a faux paneling design, peeled away at the corners. On the right hung a city map of Potter Springs. An overs
ize calendar, torn to September, covered the warped wood desk. The only decorations consisted of fresh ivy in a daisy pot and a FARMERS FIGHT coffee mug full of sharpened pencils and blue pens.

  “The plant’s from Peggy.” Ervin indicated the container. “Greenery.”

  “Tell her thanks for me.”

  “Don’t have a computer yet. Got a line on a used one, though. Should be here by the end of the month. Until then”-Ervin yanked hard on one of the drawers-“you’ll have to make do with these.” He lifted a stack of yellow pads.

  Mark thought of his state-of-the-art computer in Houston. His executive mahogany desk. “That’ll be fine.”

  “Why don’t you try it out?” Ervin pulled back the plastic chair with great aplomb.

  Mark obliged, arranging his long legs under the desk. If he stretched his feet far enough forward, he’d be able to kick his door shut without leaving his chair. He pulled a pad of paper to the center and scribbled his name on it. “Works great!” He felt like an idiot.

  Ervin stood at the bookcase. “There’s plenty of room for your things, and, hopefully, we’ll get you a stipend to buy whatever else you might need.” He ran his hand down the metal shelves, the corner of which edged up to a woven shade. “What’s this?” Ervin tugged at the tweed fabric, which had to be thirty years old. Dust flew as the shade curled up.

  “Well, I’ll be!” Ervin looked like he’d just discovered plutonium. “Didn’t know this room had a window. Maybe we should swap offices.”

  Outside was a view of the parking lot and a rusty Dumpster with paper cups spilling out of garbage bags. Blackbirds scattered like cockroaches at the noise from the window.

  Not quite the wall-to-wall windows from Mark’s former office, with the breathtaking view of downtown Houston.

  “Oh well.” Ervin sighed at the unappealing sight. “Can’t win ’em all.”

  Mark watched the birds descend again, scavengers on the trash. Their ebony feathers shone, as if they’d pomaded them before making their daily rounds.

  “Listen,” Ervin said. “I’ve got someone else I want you to meet. Dale Ochs, chairman of our board. Sells house policies when he’s not hanging out up here. Kind of the king of the overseers as far as the deacons go. Takes his job real serious.” Ervin winked. “Mighta taken yours too, if he’d been the one deciding. We’ll do lunch on the square, at JoJo’s Steaks ‘n’ More. You’ll find it. It’s next to the jail.”