Before I can respond, Roy orders, “Just a second!”
I hear the cash register ring, and my brain slips into idle while Roy again talks to a customer. I should have waited for Lucy to return from Memphis, but I want Roy especially to have as much time as possible to get used to the idea of a plea bargain before he sees his son. If I have learned anything about Dade, it is that like most kids his age, he has had too many things going his way the last few years to believe the worst can and will happen.
“Go on!” Roy says finally.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say brutally, “whether he’s guilty or not. What matters is what the jury will do. After all is said and done, what this case comes down to is whether the jury, which will be mostly white, will believe Robin or Dade. And now we’re in the position of having to go into the trial without a plausible explanation of why she would make this story up.”
“She could have had a dozen reasons!” Roy sputters.
“And they’ll all be speculation,” I say.
“We don’t have any hard evidence.”
There is silence on the other end for a moment.
“He’ll probably never play pro ball,” Roy says.
“Even if he got a tryout, he’d be at a terrible disadvantage.”
“That’s true,” I say, wishing I could sugarcoat themes sage but knowing I can’t.
“But if they want to make an example of him, they can give him life.”
I hear the jangle of multiple voices in the background, and Roy says, his voice now heavy with resentment, “I’ll talk to Lucy and we’ll call you back.”
“Call me at home or my office,” I instruct him.
“I’d like to drive over and talk to you.”
“We’ll call you later today,” Roy says curtly, dismissing me.
I hang up, wondering if I’m botching this. I should have driven over there and talked to Lucy and not even bothered with Roy. The men in the family have too much pride to act in their own best interest.
Fearful of being caught in a snowstorm in the mountains, I don’t stick around to visit with Barton, who has a client in with him, and drive east with a heavy foot, re playing over and over the events of this morning. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to trust Lauren Denney. I knew that from the moment she walked into Danny’s mat afternoon. Turning south off Highway 16 onto the Pig Trail, I see a band of snow-swollen clouds that appears almost to touch the roof of the Blazer. All I need is a slick road on these turns. Lauren. Sex oozed from her that day.
Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe sex was oozing from me and she never was as confident as she seemed. This morning she was a nervous, apologetic schoolgirl. Still, what choice did I have but to try to use her? What bothers me is that if I truly thought about it, I would have admit ted to myself that she was probably lying even before I talked to Jenny Taylor. Down deep, do I know that Dade is lying, too?
The snow holds off, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the sign for Interstate 40. The sky is lighter in the east. One year is not a lifetime, though it will seem that way to Dade and to Roy, who can close his eyes and see Dade being named all-pro wide receiver. I can, too, damn it. Part of me wants me to say to them that we should stiff Binkie’s offer and go for it. As I slow down behind a Buick Skylark, I hit a patch of ice and almost shimmy off the pavement down a steep embankment, but the Blazer straightens out at the last moment. I slow down to thirty.
Fear. It does wonders for your judgment.
At home there is no one to greet me. I have just missed Sarah, who begins work at five during the holidays at her old video store, and, of course, Woogie now makes his home in Hutto. I check the thermostat, which Sarah has turned up to seventy-five, and rotate the switch to sixty eight If Sarah had her way, we could have a greenhouse in here. When she starts paying for her own utilities, she won’t think I keep the house so cold. I walk into the kitchen before I realize I don’t need to check Woogie’s bowl to make sure he has water. I miss the old kitten eater. Marty called New Year’s Day to say that he was doing great. He goes anywhere he wants. Dogs, she reminds me, practically run the town.
As I am checking the mail (a Christmas card from my old friend Skip, still in Atlanta and gay, fat, and happy, he says. He didn’t use to be fat), the phone rings. It is Lucy, who asks if I would mind driving over tomorrow mo ming to help them decide if Dade should take the prosecutor’s offer. Her voice holds no clue as to how she feels.
Dade, who is about an hour ahead of me, has called a few minutes ago from a service station on Interstate 40 near Brinkley and should be home in an hour or so. I have nothing on my schedule tomorrow morning, but have to be back for Gordon Dyson’s unlawful detainer hearing in the afternoon. Lucy gives me directions to the store, which she tells me is easier to find than their house, and I ask about Lashondra’s ears.
“They’ll be all right,” she says, her voice flat and lifeless.
“At least it won’t take a year to fix them.”
“Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow?” I suggest. She sounds wrung out. I don’t want her to lock into a position I can’t change.
“That’s why you’re coming,” she says without sarcasm.
I can hear a child crying in the background. Bad ears are no fun. We had to put tubes in Sarah’s.
“Did you tell Dade?”
“No,” she says.
“We’ll wait until you get here.”
“That’s fine,” I respond. I do not push her. I tell her I’ll be at the store at eight tomorrow morning and hang up. I am hungry (I missed lunch again), but all I find in the pantry are five cans of Campbell’s soup. I pick up the phone to call Amy and see if she wants to go out to eat but realize she is visiting her mother in Pine Bluff for a couple of days. Well, soup it is. This case is good for losing some weight, at least. I call Sarah and tell her I won’t be waiting up for her. Tomorrow will be another long day.
Cunningham’s Grocery is on the right-hand side of Highway 79 on the road to Memphis outside the small town of Hughes. A small, green wooden structure (perhaps only twelve hundred square feet), it is badly in need of a paint job. With the economy in the Delta so bad and the store this tiny, I wonder how Lucy and Roy survive. I push the door open and set a bell to tinkling and become immediately claustrophobic. The shelves in the store look jam-packed with everything from razor blades to cigarette papers. It reminds me of the Chinese stores in Bear Creek when I was a boy. If you had to, you probably could live out of here for the next fifty years, but at first glance it is visually oppressive because of the cramped space, dinginess, and sheer mass of goods.
On my way to the back of the store, I nearly trip over Lashondra, whom I’ve never met. It has to be Lashondra because she is cradling her tiny ears with both hands.
Standing in the middle of the center aisle, she raises her head and says distinctly, “Hurt.”
Since she barely comes past my knees, I squat down on my heels to make conversation easier. Her dark chocolate skin would make her a mirror of her father but for her straight nose and thin lips. Without a doubt, except for her complexion she looks like Dade. Her huge black eyes and grave manner suggest that she will break some hearts before she is done.
“I’m sorry,” I say sympathetically. I point to my ears.
“Do they make you cry?
Mine hurt too, sometimes.”
Perhaps reminded that she isn’t supposed to be worrying them, Lashondra slides her hands down the sides of a white, long-sleeved cotton sweater decorated with pictures of five-flavored Life Savers and into the pockets of her bright red slacks. Her tea-party expression, so brave until now, collapses following my unexpected empathy.
Her eyes filling, miserably, she nods, “Mama said not to pick at ‘em.”
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” I commiserate. I wonder if she understands anything about what is happening to her brother. How many other brothers and sisters does she have? Two, I think. I have shielded myself from knowing anything about Lucy and her family as if ignorance would lessen my bond to them. This child is making it hard to do. I hear Roy’s voice in the back and say to Lashondra, “I hope you feel better.”
Lashondra stands on her toes and plucks a can of black-eyed peas from the shelf to her right and examines it like a smoker trying to find anything to take her mind off her habit.
