From the other side of my head came the preacher who tries to keep me from acting only in my own self- interest. “
“
But there had been something odd about Val Ames’s words: “We don’t need the help of any damn Knotts.” As if it weren’t just me he was angry at, but other members of my family, too.
Had some of my nieces or nephews insulted him since the carnival came to town? Or gone down to Widdington last month and caused trouble? None of my brothers’children are bad kids, but they aren’t Sunday school saints, either. Andrew’s son A.K. spent a couple of weekends in jail last summer for vandalism and Herman’s Reese has brawled his way into overnight lockups a time or two. Some of the others, including the girls, have collected DWIs and misdemeanor possession of marijuana before settling into respectability. And let’s not talk about the times I’ve danced with the devil myself.
Haywood’s Stevie has always stayed out of trouble, though. So why had he and Eric Holt sneaked away from the carnival without telling Dwight’s people that they’d played the Dozer?
I wasn’t crazy about any of the possible answers.
Maybe it was time to listen to the pragmatist for a change, or as Daddy’s housekeeper Maidie would say, “Don’t trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.”
Nevertheless, blood-smeared quarters troubled my dreams all night, only they were blue beneath the blood, not silver.
CHAPTER 4
SATURDAY MORNING
Saturday dawned hot and sunny. My calendar might say this was the last weekend in September, but nobody had told the thermometer that it was no longer summer. Cutoffs and sneakers had been fine last night; unfortunately, today’s obligations called for more formal wear.
A policeman’s lot is not an ‘appy one, according to Gilbert and Sullivan. The same might be said of a judge’s. Most of the time, we’re called upon to pass judgment on society’s offenders “who’d none of ‘em be missed.” But at least there’s dignity in the courtroom. So why are we always being asked to judge things outside the courtroom?
Which is to say that rather than catching up with laundry and all the household chores I tend to let slide during, the week, I was due to spend this Saturday morning judging the Some Yam Thing or Other contest at the harvest festival.
Sweet potatoes are a big money crop in Colleton County, and farm kids have always had fun with some of the oddities to be found when digging potatoes in the fall. I still remember one in which the root end was so forked that it looked like a man on tommy-walkers. If the contest had existed back then, I’d have painted that yam in a red, white, and blue Uncle Sam suit with a cotton beard and entered it. Today I could expect anything from yams shaped like cell phones to Elvis look-alikes. The only rule is that the base potato has to remain uncut. Contestants can augment, but they’re not allowed to carve.
A silly event to get involved with (thank you very much, Minnie), but when you have to run for elective office, it’s politic to show that you can be a good sport.
I settled on a two-piece blue chambray dress that does good things for my eyes and sandy blond hair, thick- soled straw espadrilles that would help keep my feet out of the dust that was sure to be churned up around the exhibit hall, and silver dangles for my ears. As I rummaged in my jewelry box for an elusive earring back, I had to move several bags made of treated brown flannel that keep my silver pieces from tarnishing. Before I had a house of my own, inexpensive silver jewelry was a popular Christmas or birthday gift from my sisters-in-law. Now they’re into sheets, towels, and cookware.
Earrings in place, I rooted around for a silver pin I hadn’t worn in ages. It didn’t seem to be there. I pulled Open my lingerie drawer and poked around at the back where I keep odd pieces I don’t really like but hate to throw away. No luck.
I’d just about given up on the pin when my fingers felt an unfamiliar shape inside another of those tarnish- resistant bags. I opened it and there was the silver charm bracelet my mother had started for me when I was a toddler.
Dangling from the first link was a calendar page for August with a tiny little peridot marking my birthday. Next came a doll, a teddy bear, an ABC, a pair of scissors, a dog—
Lord God in glory. How long was it since I’d last thought of Tricksy? I was nine when he ran under a tractor wheel and had to be put down. I cried for two days, yet I’d almost forgotten buying this charm, which I swore would keep him in my heart forever and ever. As I had forgotten this Empire State Building and a domed Capitol, souvenirs of my first trips to New York and Washington with Mother and Aunt Zell—“Just us girls,” Mother had said.
She adored Daddy and was crazy about her sons and her stepsons, but sometimes all that maleness got overwhelming and then she’d call her sister and it was off to the beach, off to a big city, off to the mountains for a long weekend of purely female indulgence.
The bracelet was so bound up in memories of her that I hadn’t worn it since I was eighteen, since the summer she died.
Yet here it was, hardly tarnished at all, and thick with tiny objects whose symbolism I could barely recall. It reminded me of the gold charm bracelet Tally Ames had worn when she testified in court, the delicate jingle when she placed her hand on the Bible.
I clasped the bracelet around my wrist and looked at the effect in the mirror. It echoed the gleam of my silver earrings. Festive, but not flashy. And time to get another haircut, I noted. I like to keep it right at chin line, not brushing my shoulders.
