“I was afraid you’d bite me, and I had to get my rabies shots up to date.”
This sent her into a gale of witchy laughter, culminating in a coughing spasm. Cal looped his arm around her and steered her into the house, cussing her out for her smoking the entire time.
Jane pushed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and thought about how there weren’t going to be any easy successes for her the next few months. Now she’d failed the squirrel-skinning test.
She wasn’t anxious to go inside, so she walked across the porch to the place where a brightly colored wind sock whipped from the corner of the roof. The cabin was tucked into the side of the mountain and surrounded by woods, with the exception of a clearing to the side and back for a garden. The way the mist clung to the distant mountain peaks made her understand why this part of the Appalachian chain was called the Smokies.
It was so quiet she could hear a single squirrel rustling through the bare branches of an oak tree. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how noisy a town, even a peaceful suburban one, could be. She heard the crack of a twig, the caw of a crow, and breathed in the damp, chill scent of March woodlands not yet ready to leave winter behind. With a sigh, she crossed the porch to the door. She already knew enough about Annie Glide to realize the old woman would take any retreat as a sign of weakness.
She stepped directly into a small, cluttered living room that was a curious amalgam of the old and gaudy with the new and tasteful. A rich, thick-piled smoky blue carpet held an assortment of worn furniture upholstered in everything from faded brocade to threadbare velvet. The gilded coffee table had a broken leg crudely repaired with silver duct tape, and faded red tassels held fragile lace curtains back from the windows.
There was an obviously expensive stereo cabinet complete with a compact disc player sitting on a wall perpendicular to an old stone fireplace. The rough-hewn mantel held an assortment of clutter including a guitar- shaped ceramic vase filled with peacock feathers, a football, a stuffed pheasant, and a framed photograph of a man who looked familiar, although Jane couldn’t quite place him.
Through a small archway off to the left she could see part of a kitchen with a peeling linoleum floor and a state-of-the-art cooking range. Another doorway presumably led to bedrooms in the back.
Annie Glide lowered herself with a great deal of effort into an upholstered rocker while Cal paced in front of her, glowering. “… then Roy said you pulled your shotgun on him, and now he tells me he won’t come out here again without a five-hundred-dollar deposit. Nonrefundable!”
“Roy Potts don’t know the difference between a hammer and his colon.”
“Roy is the best damn handyman in these parts.”
“Did you bring me my new Harry Connick, Jr. CD? Now that’s what I really want, not some fool handyman nibbin’ into my business.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I brought it. It’s out in the car.”
“Well, go on and get it for me.” She waved him toward the door. “And move that speaker when you get back. It’s too close to my TV.”
As soon as he disappeared, she speared Jane with her blue eyes. Jane felt a curious desire to throw herself on her knees and confess her sins, but she suspected the cantankerous woman would simply smack her in the head.
“How old are you, gal?”
“I’m thirty-four.”
She thought that one over. “How old does he think you are?”
“Twenty-eight. But I didn’t tell him that.”
“You never told him different, either, did you?”
“No.”Although she hadn’t been invited to sit, she found a place at the end of an old velvet couch. “He wants me to tell everyone I’m twenty-five.”
Annie rocked for a while. “You gonna do it?”
Jane shook her head.
“Cal told me you’re a college professor. That must mean you’re a real smart lady.”
“Smart about some things. Dumb about others, I guess.”
She nodded. “Calvin, he don’t put up with much foolishness.”
“I know.”
“He needs a little foolishness in his life.”
“I’m afraid I’m not too good at that sort of thing. I used to be when I was a child, but not much anymore.”
Annie looked up at Cal as he came in the door. “When I heard how fast you two got married, I thought she might have done you bad like your mama done your daddy.”
“The situations aren’t the same at all,” he said tonelessly.
Annie tilted her head toward Jane. “My daughter Amber wasn’t nothin’ more than a little white-trash gal spendin’ all her time runnin’ after boys. Laid her a trap for the richest one in town.” Annie cackled. “She caught him, too. Cal here was the bait.”
Jane felt sick. So Cal was the second generation of Bonner male trapped into marriage by a pregnant female.
“My Amber Lynn likes to forget she growed up dirtpoor. Isn’t that so, Calvin?”
“I don’t know why you’re always giving her such a hard time.” He walked over to the CD player, and a few moments later, the sounds of Harry Connick, Jr. singing “Stardust” filled the cabin.
Jane realized Connick was the man in the photograph on the mantel. What a strange old woman.
Annie leaned back in the chair. “That Connick boy has got him one beautiful voice. I always wished you could sing, Calvin, but you never could manage it.”
“No, ma’am. Can’t do much but throw a football.” He sat down on the couch next to Jane but not touching her.
Annie closed her eyes, and the three of them sat quietly listening to the honey-sweet voice. Maybe it was the gray day, the deep quiet of the woods, but Jane felt herself begin to relax. Time ticked away, and a curious alertness came over her. Here in this ramshackle house lying in the shadows of the Great Smoky Mountains, she began to feel as if she were on the verge of finding some missing part of herself. Right here in this room that smelled of pine and must and chimney smoke.
“Janie Bonner, I want you to promise me something.”
The feeling faded as she heard herself being addressed for the first time by her married name, but she didn’t get a chance to tell Annie she’d be using her maiden name.
“Janie Bonner, I want you to promise me right now that you’ll look out for Calvin like a wife should, and that you’ll think about his welfare before you think about your own.”
She didn’t want to do any such thing, and she struggled to hide her dismay. “Life’s complicated. That’s a hard thing to promise.”
“ ’Course it’s hard,” she snapped. “You didn’t think bein’ married to this man was gonna be easy, did you?”
“No, but…”
“Do what I say. You promise me right now, gal.”
Under the force of those sharp blue eyes, Jane’s own will dissolved, and she found she couldn’t deny this old woman. “I promise that I’ll do my best.”
“That’s good enough.” Once again, her lids closed. The creak of her rocker and her wheezy breathing underscored the smooth molasses voice coming from the speakers. “Calvin, promise me you’re gonna look after Janie Bonner like a husband should and that you’ll think about her welfare before you think about your own.”
“Aw, Annie, after all these years of waitin’ for the right girl to come along, you think I wouldn’t take care of her once I found her?”
Annie opened her eyes and nodded, having failed to notice either the malevolent gaze Cal shot at Jane or the fact that he hadn’t promised a single thing.
“If I’d of made your mama and daddy do this, Calvin, maybe things would of been easier for them, but I wasn’t smart enough, then.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with being smart, you old hypocrite. You were so happy to see your daughter catch a Bonner that you didn’t care about anything else.”
Her mouth pursed and Jane saw where her crimson lipstick had bled into the age lines around her lips. “Bonners always thought they was too good for Glides, but I guess we showed them. Glide blood runnin’ true and
