Glory Road

by Lauren K. Denton

  Mama had used no such false front. Last Saturday night, enjoying a milkshake from Jack & Mack’s with Evan and me, she’d marched up to Officer Kellan’s patrol car on Center Street, tapped on his window, and asked him if he would mind accompanying her daughter to dinner.

  I shook my head. “No, baby. I’m not.”

  “How’d you get out of it? Gus was pretty determined.”

  “I just told her I wasn’t going. I said if she didn’t call him and let him down easy, I’d make sure I was wearing my oldest pajamas when he came to pick me up.”

  Evan laughed. “I bet she hated that.”

  “She didn’t talk to me for twelve whole hours.”

  “I’m glad you’re not going.”

  I looked over my shoulder at her. Framed by the doorway with one hand on the jamb and one on her hip, she was one part sassy, one part vulnerable, and I would do anything to protect that vulnerable side, to keep it innocent and sweet. “Why are you glad?”

  She shrugged, and for a moment I thought she might actually let me in on something deep in her heart, some truth she needed to unload. Instead, she let the door close a couple more inches before tossing out, “You’re too old to date anyway.”

  I grabbed a small handful of peas and threw them at the door, but she’d already let it slam closed. She disappeared down the hall to the kitchen, her soft laughter winding its way back to the porch.

  I reached down and tied the handles of the grocery sack together. A few of the empty hulls edged out of the top and fell to the step by my feet. I grabbed the escaped hulls and poked them back in.

  Too old. Of course, in the eyes of a fourteen-year-old, thirty-eight seemed ancient, but I didn’t feel ancient. Sometimes I didn’t feel a day over eighteen. An age when everything felt ripe with promise and possibility. When it felt like everything would work out perfectly, because why not?

  Behind me in the house, the phone rang. Evan answered it, paused, then groaned. “Gus, it’s too early for your singing.”

  I smiled. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good.

  CHAPTER 2

  Tomatoes need consistency over all. Establish a regular watering pattern and stick to it. If you water them too little, then you overcorrect and water too much, your tomatoes can explode—or at least crack. Not a preferable situation for anyone, not least for the tomatoes. They can do quite well with little interference if given the proper growing conditions.

  —EDWIN NICKERBOCKER, 1916 TREATISE ON TOMATOES

  EVAN

  It had felt so strange yesterday to walk down the wide center hallway of the high school during the summer when it was quiet and mostly empty. I imagined how it would be in a couple months when I sailed through the doors as a ninth grader. Probably weird and awkward, but that was nothing new—middle school had felt like that most of the time.

  I hadn’t realized until I opened the front doors of the school that I had no idea how to get through the maze of hallways. Mom, having been a student here eons ago, would have been able to tell me exactly where to go, but I’d made her stay out in the car while I ran in to pick up the packet of information the incoming students were supposed to collect. I wanted to do it all on my own, but I ended up feeling kind of lonely. Every time a door opened, I hoped to see Ruth’s face.

  Ruth Simms was just about the happiest, perkiest girl I’d ever met. Even her hair was perky—her dark curls were often out of control, bouncing and springing everywhere. Looking at us, no one would think we’d be friends, but somehow we meshed. Probably because we were both outsiders. Ruth came from strict fundamentalist Christian parents who didn’t approve of rock music, shorts, or tank tops. They probably didn’t approve of me either, but my obsessions—Eat a Peach, The Sky Is Crying, my vintage concert tees—weren’t the worst they’d seen from kids in Perry, so I guess that made me okay.

  Ruth and I hung out a lot during school and after, although we rarely talked about anything deeper than homework, music (she had a secret love of Joni Mitchell), and our dreams for after college. But I was thankful for her friendship, especially since we were both about to enter this strange new world of high school.

  I finally made it to the gym. Still no Ruth. Two lines of students zagged across the basketball court and led to two long tables set up in front of the bleachers. A handful of bored teachers sat behind the tables in folding chairs, handing out thick white envelopes and directing the students where to sign their names. I took my place in the shortest line and kept my head down but lifted my eyes to scan the kids in front of me. Who would be annoying me come September? Who would maybe, just maybe, be a new friend?

  As the lines crept forward toward the desks, I heard his voice before I saw who the voice belonged to.

  “Nick,” the voice said. “Nick Bradley.”

  His voice was deep—deeper than the guys in eighth grade for sure. I lifted my head. The voice had come from a guy standing a few feet away at the head of the other line. He must have been at least a junior. His phone was tucked into his back pocket and red earbuds snaked up to his ears. He moved his head to a beat only he could hear. I so wanted to ask him what he was listening to, where he came from, something.

  My line shifted then, passing me to the front. When the teacher behind the table asked for my name, I said it quietly. She squinted up from her clipboard. “Name?” she repeated. Loudly.

  A few feet to my right, Nick glanced at me. The look plainly said, “Poor kid.”

  The woman said it yet again, and I muttered my name, my cheeks roasting.

  “Say it one more time, dear. It sounded like you said Evan.”

  “I did. My name is Evan Ashby.” I enunciated so she wouldn’t ask again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nick grab his packet and head for the glass doors at the back of the gym. I turned and watched him go. Just before he pushed the metal bar on the door, he looked back over his shoulder.

  Later on, when I met Ruth at the Gas-N-Go for slushies, I wanted to ask her if she’d seen the guy at school or around town, but talking about boys was something we rarely did. Ruth wasn’t allowed to—I wouldn’t have been surprised if her parents had a secret tape recorder in her backpack to make sure she didn’t talk about anything sinful—and I didn’t often see anyone worth getting worked up over.

  But there was something about this guy.

  As I’d sat on the front porch with Mom this morning, watching her shell those slippery peas, part of me wanted to tell her how Nick had made me feel—all loosey-goosey inside, as Gus would say. Like my stomach and intestines and whatever else was sliding around, bumping into each other. But my mom wasn’t the right person to ask about love.

  Not that the thing with Nick was love—that’d be ridiculous. He was just some guy I’d probably never see again in the sea of seven hundred kids at Perry High School. But the jittery feeling—what was I supposed to do with that? I’d spent the last twenty-four hours trying to keep my mind from bouncing back to this dark-haired boy with the earbuds and those low-slung black jeans. No way would Mom understand feelings like that.

  There hadn’t been a man around our house in—well, ever. Other than Mr. Rainwater who occasionally came up the road smelling like the wrong end of a horse. But it was fine. Better than fine, actually. It had been just me, Mom, and my grandmother Gus for as long as I could remember. My dad was around at one time, of course, but I only had a few memories of our life back in Birmingham before me and Mom moved 250 miles south to Perry, Mom’s hometown. I was only five when we moved. I rarely saw my dad now, and that was fine too. I did worry a little about Mom though.

  Once in a while I’d catch her with a faraway look in her eyes when she thought no one else was around. Sometimes it seemed like she was thinking of something nice, when the corners of her mouth would pull up a little, like she was remembering a good dream. Then other times I knew she was thinking of bad things. Or at least sad ones. A line between her eyebrows sank in when she was concerned about something. When that line showed up, I
tried to say something, anything, to make her smile.

  This morning there was no half smile, but no wrinkled brow either, and the tightness in my chest unclenched a little. She usually seemed fine on her own with me and our house, her garden, and Gus down the road. She never acted like she needed or wanted anything else. But that look on her face when she saw the Jeep fly down the road? That meant something. I just didn’t know what.

  The only thing Mom ever said about my dad was that he was a part of her life that was gone for good. And that she liked this part of her life better. I did too. Our little three-person family had made it this far on our own, and I saw no need to add any unnecessary surprises.

  CHAPTER 3

  Certain plants can alert us to insect intruders, warn us of coming rain or snow, or foretell an especially warm spring. While there’s no plant or flower that can warn us of major life changes, the very act of gardening can be a solace to us in the midst of those changes.

  —SELA RUTH MCGOVERN, THE WISDOM OF GARDENING

  JESSIE

  Long before my parents moved to Perry, maybe even before they were born, this area was nothing but woods. Fifteen miles northwest of Mobile, Perry was incorporated as a town in 1924, but it never grew much past the small, two-intersection town that sprouted up among the oaks, pines, and hickories that dominated the landscape. The smallness of it must have suited everyone just fine.

  These days, most folks lived closer to the town instead of out on the roads and lanes that swirled through the countryside. It was lovely out here though—long sweeps of wildflowers in the summer, fields dotted with cows and horses, straight rows of corn and cotton and soybeans lining the roads.

  My home and the cottage next door that now housed my shop were two of the first houses to pop up alongside this seam of red dirt that was plowed but never paved. Glory Road itself hadn’t changed much between the time the first houses were built and today, as I squatted in the dirt behind my shop with a big bag of potting soil.

  From the road, the driveway split—curve to the right and you’d meander to the front steps of Twig. Curve to the left and you’d arrive at the front door of the yellow house, where Evan and I lived. Sometimes when customers were scarce, I’d head home and make myself lunch or a cup of coffee, returning when chores beckoned or customers appeared.

  After a hot minute of searching for a pull tab, I finally poked my fingernail through the plastic and ripped a hole in my new bag of Potter’s Mix soil. Scissors would have been nice, but I’d forgotten my best pair up in the shop when I headed out to the field beyond my back fence, and I had no reason to preserve the cleanliness of my fingernails. Not with a job like this.

  I ripped the hole open wider and inhaled. I loved the smell of earth—what was once something else mixing with the essence of what already is. The scent of life permeating life. And if it was a day when Harvis Rainwater’s truck was working right, the sharp aroma of manure would soon be mixed in too.

  Mama hated the days when Mr. Rainwater’s truck rumbled up the road from his spread down at the end of the street. As soon as she heard the boatlike chug-chug-chug of the truck’s engine, she’d pinch her nose with her red lacquered fingernails and beat a trail inside. If we were already inside, she’d just pout.

  “I’m sorry, Jessie Mae,” she’d say. “I know it’s natural and it makes things grow, but can’t you just use a normal bag of fertilizer? Why must you insist on the stink? It offends my nose.”

  When I heard the truck today, Mama was repotting a small rosebush in the shade near the back porch of the shop, her hands and forearms sheathed in elbow-length rubber gloves to protect her manicure. I shook the soil from my hands and stood. My knees protested a little too much for my taste, reminding me that squatting for so long wasn’t good for my legs. That plus the early summer heat wave made me wish I had an extra employee to share some of the heavy lifting.

  As it was, Gus and Evan were my only employees, and I used the term lightly—they were part-time at best. During the school year, Evan helped out as much as she could after school and on weekends, and Mama occasionally rang up customers or helped me with simple tasks around the shop. She preferred not to get her hands dirty, and gardening was nothing if not dirty.

  The chugging grew louder, and Mr. Rainwater’s truck appeared around the bend in the road. A flash of Mama’s denim shirt and the slam of the back door told me she’d seen him too. The rosebush lay abandoned on its side next to the new pot, with dirt scattered all around it on the flagstone patio.

  By the time I made it around the side of the shop to the driveway, he was already at the back of his truck, lifting a plastic storage box full of Loretta and Patsy’s offerings. “His girls,” as he called his elderly but still robust mares, unknowingly contributed to the success of my business. Their “contribution” didn’t help so much on the herbs, but for flowers it was unbeatable, if a little stinky.

  “How do?” he said when I reached the truck. “Loretta found her way into a big bag of grapes I left out in the barn, so she’s been running a little rich. Maybe this will help that hydrangea bush you’re having trouble with.” He rested the container on top of the wheelbarrow he always kept tied down in the back of his truck.

  “Maybe so. Not much else has helped. Not even the slivers of peach pie Mama set out at the base of it a few days ago.”

  He laughed. “Augusta up to her antics again?”

  “Not again.” I wiped my damp forehead with the back of my hand. “She never stops. She thinks her pies and cakes can save the world’s problems. Beginning with my stubborn hydrangea.”

  “I tend to agree with her. Her cobblers have solved many a problem here on Glory Road.” He took off his cap and used it to fan his face. “I remember once Mrs. Teebo’s son got into a fistfight with Al Sparkman’s nephew. His nephew was a bit of a pill, but he was here for the summer, so we put up with him. Everyone except Nelson Teebo. He punched that poor boy square in the jaw and would have kept at it if your mama hadn’t slammed out her front door. She carried two slices of cobbler on one plate and a pair of forks. All that squabbling stopped faster than you can say jump-in-the-truck.”

  It was a good story—one I’d heard at least ten times. “Augusta McBride always did know how to stop men in their tracks.”

  “I heard that,” she called from the front porch of the shop.

  “Come on out, Mama, and help us with this wheelbarrow, will you?” I winked at Mr. Rainwater. He shook his head.

  “I’m not coming within twenty yards of that stinking mess and you know it,” she yelled.

  Mr. Rainwater shook his cap, then placed it back on his head, gray hair sticking out over his large ears. “I’m not hanging around to see this.” He steered the wheelbarrow toward my garden in the back where I grew hydrangeas and azaleas, gardenias and zinnias. I loved their colors, their scents, and the stems they provided for small arrangements I tried to keep on hand for customers to take home. I followed him behind the greenhouse to the plastic swimming pool I used to store the manure. A tarp weighted down with bricks kept critters and curious deer out of my stash—not to mention keeping the aroma in check.

  When he’d dumped the load and tied his wheelbarrow into the bed of his truck, Mr. Rainwater pulled a red bandanna out of the pocket of his overalls and wiped his face, then climbed into his seat. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Gus’s sign out on the highway looks good.”

  A month ago, at Mama’s request, Mr. Rainwater had tacked up a wooden board directly below the sign on the main highway that pointed down Glory Road to the shop. Her hand-painted words read: Slice of Gus’s World-Famous Pie or Cobbler Free with Purchase.

  “Has it brought in any new customers?” he asked.

  “I don’t know about new, but just about everyone who’s walked in here has left with a slice of something. She’s charging them for ice cream though.”

  He laughed. “Tell her I said hello and good-bye, would you? I’d tell her myself, but I don’t want to
bother her any more than necessary.”

  “I’ll do that.” I patted his hand on the window ledge.

  He slid into reverse but then paused. “Has she been . . . ?” He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “She been feeling okay lately?”

  I shrugged. “She seems fine to me.”

  “That’s good.” He nodded. “She just seemed a little off last time I saw her.”

  I smiled. “You mean sassier than usual?”

  He shook his head. I thought I saw a faint blush on his cheeks, but it could have just been the heat. “Something like that.”

  He tipped his hat and chug-chugged back down the way he came. I watched him until the truck disappeared around the bend in the road. As I turned back to the front steps, I pondered his words. Mama had been a little different in recent months. Nothing bad, just . . . well, just “off,” as Mr. Rainwater said. I’d dismissed it, but his mention of it made me wonder if I’d been too quick in my dismissal.

  “You can come out of hiding,” I called to her when I reached the top step. As I approached the door, I almost bumped into tiny Elma Dean on her way out. She held a small potted tulip in her hands.

  “Thanks for stopping in, Elma,” Mama chirped after her.

  Elma teetered down the steps and carefully placed the pot in the cup holder of her Honda Civic. From the porch, I could see the three pillows she had to sit on to see over the dash.

  She tooted her horn as she drove away, gravel crunching and spitting under the tires. Inside, Mama poked around the shop, casually dusting here and there as if everything were right in her world. She even hummed under her breath.

  “How much did you charge Ms. Dean for the tulip?”

  “First rule of business, my dear: don’t charge your friends. And she’s been my friend since we were in Mrs. Collins’s first-grade class in the two-room schoolhouse on Mauvila Avenue. You know, the one that’s a Gas-N-Go now?”