Jack turned off the computer and stood. “Okay, well, let’s start the tour. This is my room.”
Lily looked at the overflowing bookshelves that lined the walls. “Quite a book collection you’ve got here.”
“One of my city girlfriends used to tease me ’cause I talk like a hick. She said as many books as I read, I oughta know better.”
“I like your accent.”
Jack looked down. Was she blushing? “I think the way you talk oughta tell people somethin’ about you. I don’t like the idea that everybody oughta sound like they’re reading the nightly news.”
“Me neither.” Lily scanned the volumes in the nearest bookcase—they were all veterinary medicine books, with polysyllabic titles. “Not exactly light reading here.”
“Nope, that bookcase is just professional stuff—boring to everybody but me.” She glanced at the case across the room. “What you want’s probably over there.”
Lily’s jaw dropped when she saw the other book-case— six wide shelves stuffed with lesbian fiction. The books were paperbacks mostly: classics like We Too Are Drifting, Beebo Brinker, Desert of the Heart, and Curious Wine. But there were also several recent titles Lily hadn’t read. “It’s amazing to see so many books like this in a place ... like this.”
“Yeah. Versailles doesn’t even have a bookstore, let alone a place where you can buy lesbian books. Let’s just say I’m on a first-name basis with all the gals who take mail- order calls for Naiad Press.
I call this bookcase the Faulkner County Lesbian Lending Library. If you wanna borrow somethin’, go ahead. I don’t even charge overdue fines.”
“Thanks.” Lily pulled a couple of mysteries off the shelves. “Charlotte used to tease me about how many mysteries I read. She said the difference between her and me was that she read books to put them in a theoretical context, whereas I read books to find out whodunit.”
Jack smiled. “I’m sure she wouldn’t have thought much of my reading habits either.”
Lily winced at the appropriate but still painful use of the past tense in reference to Charlotte. Jack must have noticed it, because she quickly blurted, “So, ready to see the farm?”
The morning sun shone on the green pasture and freshly painted barn, making the pastoral scene so cheerful it could have sprung to life from the pages of a Little Golden Book. Of course, in a Little Golden Book, the horse in the pasture wouldn’t be quite so swaybacked.
The old chestnut gelding’s spine dipped in the shape of a horseshoe. “This ole boy was treated awful mean by his owners,” Jack said. “I figured the least I could do was let him get old and fat.” The horse nuzzled the pocket of Jack’s coveralls in search of sugar cubes. Jack fished out a cube and handed it to Lily. “Here, feed it to him. Just hold it in the flat of your palm. Not that he’s got much teeth to bite you with.”
Lily offered the sugar cube and scratched the horse’s velvety nose.
As they walked across the farmland, they were assailed by dogs— brown dogs, black dogs, yellow dogs, and spotted dogs, all of questionable breeding but unquestionable devotion. Jack led Lily into the barn. A black streak shot past them. “That was D-Con,” Jack explained. “Barn cat. Standoffish.”
