“Why not me?” I asked indignantly just as Luther Parker opened the door.
“Excuse me,” said Cyl, and Luther stepped back to let her pass.
His chocolate-brown eyes moved from Cyl’s disappearing back to my usurpation of his desk.
“Something going on I should know about?”
“What’s her real problem, Luther?” I asked him bluntly.
He looked at me over his rimless glasses. “You mean right now or in general?”
“Either one.”
He shrugged. “Beats me. But then I’ve always lived in Makely, so how would I know? My wife knew her when she was a kid, though.”
I was confused, knowing that Cyl grew up down near New Bern. “Really? Louise has down east connections?”
“No, but Ms. DeGraffenried has Cotton Grove connections. When she first started working for Woodall, I remember Louise said something about seeing her at church with her auntie or granny or somebody when she was just a little girl.”
Louise Parker’s great-great-grandfather had been Mount Olive’s first black preacher and, according to Maidie, she’s never moved her membership over to Makely even though she and Luther must be married at least thirty years.
“Was Cyl wired this tight back then?” I wondered aloud. “Is that why she grew up and turned into a Republican?”
Luther’s big dark face crinkled with laughter. “You say Republican like some people say Satan. Democrats have no monopoly on virtue, Deborah, and this is a yellow-dog, big D Democrat saying it to you.
“Who said anything about virtue?” I asked.
10
When I came down the hot marble steps of the courthouse that afternoon, Ed Gardner was sitting on a green slatted bench beneath the magnolia tree that shades our memorial to those Colleton County boys who died in the First World War.
A bronze doughboy in khaki leggings and campaign cap holds a carbine at the ready and squints into the sunset. He’s as feisty as the Confederate general rising in the stirrups as his fire-breathing stallion plunges into battle on the other side of the courthouse. World War II’s monument is a tall slab of white marble with the names of our dead in brass letters. Daddy’s brother Pat’s name is on that one.
None of my eleven brothers were old enough for Korea, but Frank was a machinist mate with the Sixth Fleet in the Far East during Vietnam. He wound up making a career out of the Navy and has now retired to San Diego. One of the lucky ones.
“Ever notice anything odd about monument horses?” Ed asked as he ambled toward me.
Smiling, I said, “The fact that they’re usually well-endowed stallions and almost never geldings or mares? Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
He crushed out his cigarette and buried the butt in the border of bright yellow marigolds that lined the walk. “Must’ve played hell with battle formations every time a couple of mares went into heat.”
I laughed. “Wonder how many lieutenants got busted to corporal because their mares led a general’s stallion astray?”
“We’ll never know,” said Ed. “They always leave the good stuff out of the history books.”
He glanced up at my high-heeled white sandals. “I was gonna ask you if you had time to take a walk along the river, but those shoes aren’t made for dirt, are they?”
In times past, we’d have automatically headed straight for the lounge at the Holiday Inn where you can drink and smoke, but Ed’s quit drinking and cigarettes aren’t welcome at most alcohol-free places these days, even in North Carolina. Besides, it was a nice day. Hot, of course, but at least a breeze was blowing.
“Dirt’s no problem” I said. “I keep a pair of sneakers in my car.”
We crossed the street to the parking lot, catching up on gossip as we went. I asked about his wife, Linda (“She’s doing good, just working too hard”), he asked about Kidd (“Doing just fine”), and we both agreed it was too bad we didn’t see much of each other now that neither of us hung out at Miss Molly’s anymore. I changed shoes, locked my purse in the trunk of the car and stuck the keys in the pocket of my beige and white coatdress.
From the parking lot, it was only a short walk to one of the steps that led from the adjacent street down to the town commons. There’s a scattering of benches and picnic tables and some grassy play areas where you first enter, then paths meander off along the riverbank through clumps of azaleas. The azaleas had finished blooming, but butterfly bushes made colorful splashes of purple, yellow or white, and swallowtail butterflies floated from one to another as we passed.
Ed’s eight or ten years older, so gray hairs are popping out on his brown head and in the closely cropped brown beard that softens a jutting chinline. A couple of inches taller than I, he’s compactly built and gives off the vibes of a tightly wound spring. As usual, he wore a short-sleeved cotton shirt—today’s was brown checks with white buttons—jeans and scuffed brown boots that looked as if they’d been walking on charred wet ashes.
“You just come from Balm of Gilead?” I asked.
“What’s left of it. Which is damn little.”
