GodPretty in the Tobacco Field (3 page)

“Yes, ma'am,” I said, not imagining anything harder than breaking your back in the tobacco.

“Gunnar”—Rose pulled her small frame up and pushed—“I brought some nice shoes back with me. Might find a pair in there for the kid, seeing how hers is—”

“Not till fall,” he growled.

“The fields have worn them out,” I protested.

Gunnar didn't make much off his small tobacco patch. And money for selling the crop only came in the fall. He wouldn't take a draw, and as far as I knew the damn government didn't care considering the sorry state of my shoes and the ugly ankle-length dresses he picked out. He called it being frugal and proper, but I knew he didn't pay attention to my growing and was too tight to buy new things and too stuffy to buy anything colorful.

Gunnar never once peeked inside the town's Feed & Seed's mail-order catalogs that they carried. Instead he went behind the store where Rose parked the traveler and went through her secondhands she'd picked up in the city thrift stores.

Rose frowned. “Fair prices . . . Come take a peek, Gunnar.”

I rolled my worn sneaker in the dirt, remembering when I was seven. In the back of Rose's traveling trader I'd found a spanking new pair of red patent leathers and some ruffled anklet socks that fit like a fairytale.

I have no idea why, but I'd begged for those shiny shoes, promising God and Gunnar (and there weren't much difference at that point) I'd work twice as hard if I could have them.

Rose had put her hands on her wide hips to chide him to spend one more dollar, but Gunnar fixed her with his cold executioner's stare. When she sighed and cut the price to a measly two dollars, Gunnar smacked the shoes out of my hand and reached for a big plain pair of boys' sneakers that cost one dollar less.

When I got home, I saw that Rose had packed those boy shoes with a half bottle of her Faberge Tigress cologne. Thrilled, I'd dabbed the cat perfume all over myself, toes included, and waited for an exciting transformation. I'd practiced purrs and roars, swelling my sentences with them. Nothing happened and no one noticed. Instead, the cologne gave me an elephant-sized headache, and Gunnar had sneezing fits that shook the panes. For three days the bees chased me through the fields, finally sending me off to a creek bath. Soon enough, Gunnar found the perfume, poured out the pale yellow liquid, and buried the bottle under the dirt floor in the barn.

“No shoes till September,” he repeated to Rose, “and not a day sooner.” Gunnar nailed a warning finger to me.

Rose raised a brow. “Your niece's brassiere and panties . . .” She ceremoniously waved the small sack with them and the book inside, hoping he wouldn't look, and that the mere mention of female unmentionables would have him hightailing it back to the house.

I held my breath.

Gunnar fished inside his pocket, pulled out another dollar, and shoved it into her hands for the clothes.

“A gift.” Rose tried to give the money back. “Young lady needs herself a good-fitting brassiere—”

He held up his hand. “Dammit, woman, this is the Lord's day!” Gunnar spun around. “RubyLyn, fix my breakfast and get ready for church,” he roared from halfway across the yard.

Rose snorted and I choked down a giggle.

“We're going to the State Fair, kid!” she declared with a hug, and handed me my package.

“
The 1969 Kentucky State Fair,
” I barely breathed, thinking about the prize money that could get me a new life.

All day long I felt like one of those girls in the Sears, Roebuck & Company catalogs. Wearing the new underwear, holding on to Rose's declaration, and peeking at the glorious new book, I steered clear and refused to let Gunnar spoil it.

That night I leaned out the window, hoping to see Rainey. I couldn't wait to tell him that I'd be going to the city. But the barn shadows stood quiet.

A half hour later, I heard him playing his violin. The soft, airy notes coming from his porch brushed across the tall tobaccos and rose into the quiet countryside. His old-fashioned draw tickling and teasing the summer breeze that mewed through leaves. “ ‘
Wake up, wake up, Darlin' Corey, tell me what makes you sleep so sound.
' ” Rainey sang “Darlin' Corey” in a sweet measure that deepened with the notes. One of those naturals, he'd picked up his daddy's violin when he was four and his mama said that in no time he was making that old fiddle spark magic into the nights.

Like always, he finished with “Sweet Kentucky Lady,” the honeyed ballad he'd first sang for me when I came to live with Gunnar.

A gust of cool mountain air lapped at my skin. I pulled on the quilt jacket Rose had made for my thirteenth birthday, crawled into bed, snuggling into the fabric she'd pieced together from a few of my mama's old clothes that Rose begged from Gunnar after Mama's death. “Hard things can happen in a house without a mama . . . girl should have one close at this age,” Rose had said when she surprised me with it.

I lingered my touch over the fraying seams and faded patches of Mama's dresses, lazed a crooked arm across my eyes. Sometimes when my mind let me, from one patch or another, I'd catch a glimpse of something she'd worn: the swish of her pale-green dress, a wrinkle lying along a daisy-splattered sleeve, the willowy blue sash on her hip, my little hands clumsy and clinging to them, my face pressed into the folds of soft, rain-washed cottons when she held me.

It was like she was still with me. And every thread that had worked itself loose from the jacket and fallen, I'd scoop up and save inside Daddy's tin. Not able to throw any more of her away, or bear to lose another piece of her.

I brushed a sleeve lightly over my hurting jaws and more hard things I knew were headed my way.

F
or Penance, Gunnar sent me to work the back rows of the tobacco alone. But with the State Fair only a month away, I welcomed the Salvation. Quiet field work let me visit loud thoughts of the city I'd soon live in. I'd be sixteen in September, and if Rose made it there at thirteen, imagine what the extra years and prize money would do for me. These were just a few things rattling my brain.

I gathered tobacco seed from the blooms for next year's planting while Rainey worked the rows alongside Royal Road. I was a little relieved Gunnar'd separated us, being I didn't have much talk in me still because of my sore mouth. Not to mention I was embarrassed for Rainey to see my puffy cheeks and swollen lips.

Still, I missed him. Every time my eyes set upon him, worked shoulder to shoulder with him, or heard him humming three rows over, my heart got lighter and my mind rested some.

Shortly before suppertime, I took the hoe to my own tiny tobacco rows, careful not to disturb the prized plants. The last thing I needed was my small patch competing for sun and growth, getting crowded out by Gunnar's tobacco.

After an hour of weeding, I dropped the hoe and looked over at Gunnar's land. Fifty acres of the best in these parts. A breeze rippled over his separate five acres of tobacco, leaving a standing shiver of green rolling toward the east. Gunnar grew some of the finest burley on the rich bottomland, and still left a big plot for vegetables, letting the surrounding acres rest for crop rotation. I dropped my hoe and examined my work.

When Gunnar parked his tractor for the day, Rainey joined me to inspect the leaves.

“I will surely take home the prize money at the State Fair next month,” I slyly announced to Rainey.

“Gunnar told me.” Rainey grinned. “And he wants to send me, too, so I can check out those new tractors he's been hearing about. Rose can tote me in the back.”

“Oh . . . he did? It's going to be swell, Rainey.”

“Swell,” he bounced back.

“Yeah . . . The city—us there, the lights, the people,” I chirped. “I can hardly wait—”

Across the field, Gunnar rang the porch bell.

Happy, I slapped the dirt off my hands and looked over to the big porch aglow from a grayish orange ruffled sunset. “I best go get supper on the table. It's later than I thought.”

“I still got some time,” Rainey said, picking up my hoe.

“You go on, and we'll finish this later.”

He lifted the bandana from around his neck and wiped the beads above his lip. “Just another hour, girl.” Low sunlight sparked his smiling eyes.

I stared at him, thinking how hard he worked. How he hung around extra to help with my burley. How much he acted like my uncle when it came to putting tobacco above everything else—and even the way his hands talked like Gunnar's when he was excited. My uncle had rubbed off on him good.

“You've stayed till eight o'clock every day this week, Rainey Ford. And you've more than earned your five dollars from Gunnar today. It's Thursday night and I bet your mama has a mess of fine fish on the table waiting. Go on and get.” I hiked my thumb to his small house on the other side of the field.

“You know August is coming fast,” he said.

“Only July 24. Sure wish it would come faster,” I said, thinking about the fair.

Rainey shook his head. “
Only?
You know with folks running toward the easy draws, instead of field work or to the coal mines, it'll be hard for Gunnar to get his crop harvested with only the two of us.”

“That's what Gunnar says, too, but he's talked to the Newtons.”

“Now, Roo.” Rainey teased out my nickname. “You know the Newtons ain't gonna work the field beside me . . . not many folks in eastern Kentucky would, I imagine. Hell, Jenks showed up last week and hightailed it back out of the rows when he saw me.”

He was right. Not many would, and most said they'd load muck in the coal mines before working alongside a field nigger.

“What about Mr. Thomas and his son?” Rainey asked.

“They might pitch in.” I studied. “They told me last month they're not taking a draw and said they'd come by as soon as it's housing time.”

When I first came to live with Gunnar, he'd kept me inside and busy with housework—and only taking care of the big house, refusing to let me work in the fields, unless I was being punished. But after President Johnson came to Kentucky and declared his War on Poverty, Gunnar couldn't get men to work the rows. He swore he'd lost money when he had to reduce his crop. And when my punishments started adding up, he gave me a full-time hoe to go along with my dust cloth, sassy mouth, and sins.

Him being a former government man and all and having experience as a hardworking state executioner employee, I reckoned that was his way of working the devils out of me and getting free help at the same time.

Rainey said, “Hope so. Seems everyone around Nameless is thinking up easy ways of doing jobs other than
work
. Even Statler's saying his cow has to be babysat seven hours a day or else she won't milk.”

“Statler clan is always claiming something, mostly pickpocketing good folks' hearts for whatever they can get.”

“Damn government sure 'nuff gave him the draw.”

Gunnar clanged the bell again.

“Sound like ol' Gunnar,” I mused. “Go home, Rainey, it'll get done. We'll make it, we always do.”

“Just a few more minutes, Roo.”

“Well, bye, then, I need to go over and get squash from the garden.”

“Hear, now. We don't have to say good-bye.” Rainey reached for my little pinky with his, tugged. “Thought we agreed never to say that.” He lit a soft smile.

There was that smile again. More and more it was something I needed at the end of the day to get me through to the next.

“Oh,” I laughed, “so tired I nearly forgot.” Because a “good-bye” seemed too sad and forever, and we'd both had our share of that with family, me and Rainey had made a secret pact nearly a decade ago, a childish pinky promise to never say good-bye to each other. Instead, we'd always call out our partings with a pinky squeeze and sweeten it with a “good night.” Morning or night, it was our saying, and the cracked-open door that meant we were always with each other.

“Real glad you're going to the fair with me and Rose. Good night, Rainey.”

Rainey grinned. “Good night, Roo.” He squeezed our pinkies together, holding on a bit longer than usual.

I pressed back. “Don't stay too long now.”

He went back to hoeing. I watched him a second, wondering why everything felt so confusing around him lately. Mostly I'd forgotten the silly childhood promises, but recently, I couldn't stop thinking about them or him . . . and what his grown-up kisses were like. I couldn't help wondering if he was thinking of mine....

Rainey glimpsed over his shoulder. “Need something else, Roo?”

Red-faced, I mumbled good night again and hurried across the field to the garden. I grabbed two squash and headed to the house. Stopping at the pump, I washed up, then stepped over to the clothesline to pluck off linens, stuffing them into a basket.

I toted the basket up to the porch and set it down, surprised to hear a woman's voice inside. I slipped inside and ran upstairs to my bedroom. Below, Gunnar called for me.

Hurrying, I stripped off the old shirt of Gunnar's that I used to protect my arms, and changed out of my heavy work dress into a clean one.

In the kitchen I found Henny and Baby Jane Stump and their mama seated at the table next to Gunnar, who was studying papers.

Henny was my best friend, well, besides Rainey, my only friend who lived close enough to claim. She was sixteen and the oldest of ten kids. Her little sister, Baby Jane, was eleven.

The Stump family lived on the mountain behind us where rocks gather and the pines straighten up scrawny for breath. Gunnar'd been renting some of his land to Mr. Stump so he could grow food to feed his family. Gunnar would hire Henny for field work—when she'd show up.

“Hi, Mrs. Stump. Lena's baby come yet?” I asked about her fifteen-year-old daughter, and tossed a smile to Henny and Baby Jane. “Hey, Henny . . . Baby Jane.”

Baby Jane scrambled up from the table and wrapped her small arms around me. She pressed her face to my chest, squeaking a sob into my dress.

I patted her head and glanced over to the table.

Mrs. Stump's face was packed loosely with folds of hard times. Henny's fragile cheekbones were tight and tear tracked. Henny didn't answer about her sister. Mrs. Stump wouldn't answer, just cut Baby Jane a look.

Baby Jane scurried back to her chair.

I wondered why they were here and what had them so upset.

“RubyLyn,” Gunnar interrupted.

“I was only—”

Gunnar had his spectacles on, studying a letter of sorts in front of him. “You're late,” he said without looking up. “My supper should've been on the table an hour ago.”

I eyed the skillet he'd used to fry himself up a bologna sandwich while I'd been working. “Your bones ain't broke,” I huffed. “Look at this mess. No one thought to wash the skillet?” I said fussier than I'd intended and knowing I was the only “no one” doing chores in this big house.

The Stumps shifted in their seats. Gunnar stopped reading and knitted his snowy eyebrows together.

I set my lower lip in defiance until Gunnar pierced me with his summery green eyes.

“Ru-by-Lyn,” he shoved the syllables through his teeth.

Even in front of company I knew Gunnar would never give. He was one of those people who don't splinter—who grow stronger from others' fractures. He splayed his hands in the air—those loud hands that never seemed comfortable to rest and you wondered where they might land.

“Cleaning and dishes is women's work,” Mrs. Stump admonished quietly.

“Set some extra plates for the Stumps,” Gunnar said, rising from the table. Chairs scraped against the checkered-green linoleum as Gunnar and Mrs. Stump headed into the sitting room.

Baby Jane rushed back to my side, and whispered, “N-n-need some help?”

“No.” I bumped the oven door shut. “What are y'all doing down here anyway? What's wrong?” I rested a hand on my hip and looked over at her sister. “I thought you weren't feeling good, Henny.”

“Pa's worked out a deal with Gunnar and we's just delivering on it,” Henny said, looking away and fidgeting with the collar of her dress.

Before I could ask what type of deal, Gunnar came back into the kitchen with Mrs. Stump. He eased down into a chair and asked for coffee.

They drank mostly in silence while I melted butter in the skillet and tossed in the chops. Mrs. Stump talked a little about fall crops while Gunnar listened with grunts. I sprinkled salt, pepper, and parsley onto the meat and tried to listen, too. When I finished, Baby Jane helped me out by setting the plate of meat in front of Gunnar. Quickly I added a couple teaspoons of vinegar and flour to the butter in the skillet and stirred it into a gravy that Gunnar liked.

Dusk scratched narrow tracks across the walls by the time I put the basket of biscuits on the table. I was hungry and bone tired.

“Iced tea,” Gunnar mumbled as I pulled out my chair to join them.

I banged on the aluminum ice trays, filled five glasses, setting one in front of each of the plates, then plopped into my seat.

With closed eyes, Gunnar leaned into his prayer-clasped hands, and said, “O Lord, if able, bless the weak who share our table—lead, guide, and direct our Sinner who prepared this dinner. Amen.”

The Amens tightened on the Stumps' lips. Gunnar grabbed the plate of cucumbers that I'd prettied atop a pink lettuce-laced plate.

I peeked over at Baby Jane gripping her silverware. Her fork shook and fell onto the plate, clattering. “Ain't . . . ain't hungry, ma'am,” she whispered sideways to Mrs. Stump.

Surprised, I raised my brows. The Stumps were always hungry.

Gunnar poked her with a mean glare.

Mrs. Stump pulled Baby Jane up from the table, smacked her face, and dragged her out of the kitchen and onto the porch.

Henny kept her eyes downcast. Gunnar had another helping of cucumbers. Mrs. Stump returned with a twitching mouth.

After a hushed supper, I collected the dishes and took them over to the sink. Gunnar and Mrs. Stump pushed back their chairs.

“Bring some coffee into the parlor,” Gunnar called over his shoulder.

I got out a tray and two china cups along with the creamer and sugar bowl. “Here,” I said, pouring the coffee and then handing Henny the tray, “help me carry this into the sitting room.”

Henny walked turtle-slow out of the kitchen and into the long foyer. She glanced at the wall of sour-faced Royal ancestors and then up at the gleaming chandelier that she always loved and said she'd have someday. To me, it was one more useless thing to be dusted in this house of old things.

Henny's cups rattled on her tray as we entered the room and she fixed her eyes on the carved box on the mantel that I'd told her about.

Mrs. Stump and Gunnar sat side by side in two flowery wingbacks, waiting. Me and Henny breathed in the cool air of the window unit. I took the tray from her and set it on the small table in front of them, then nudged Henny to follow me out.

As I closed the pocket door behind us, Henny bubbled. “Sure is a pretty room. A family could live in a room like that. Y'all sure do keep it clean and all.”

“Gunnar makes me keep it extra prissy for visits like today.” Though there hadn't really been a
today
for at least a year that I could recollect, unless you counted the preacher . . . And I couldn't recall a time when Mrs. Stump sat
anywhere
but in the kitchen until today. More than anything, Gunnar wanted it pretty for visits with his departed wife.