Some apparent nervousness pinched the tint from her lips. We were well into our two-hour drive and she hadn’t uttered more than her initial introduction. She clutched her black purse on her lap and left her ankles uncrossed, though seemingly fused together.
The silence pressed deep into my chest. I waited for a change in her demeanor as if I was checking the ripening of a Cherokee purple, unsure of the perfect time to pry it from the vine when it peaks—before it spoils.
Oh well, I rationalized. No better way than to just jump in.
I leaned over and gave her a sideways glance. “There’s rumors about this place, you know.” I shrugged. “Heard it’s built on graves.”
The car’s vibration unnerved my voice.
She feigned interest. “Oh. Whose?”
At least maybe she wanted to pass the time as much as I did. Optimism grew. “I don’t know. People’s, I guess.”
“No. Which people? Indian? White? Your great-aunt Sally?” Essie sighed as if exhausted with her own questions.
“Cherokee,” I gushed. Grateful I had an answer. “That’s what they say.”
“They do, huh?” From the corner of my eye I saw her slip out a smile too glassy for me to grasp.
“Yeah. Lots of people. Heard it’s built on graves.”
The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Of course it is. White folks with money tend to find moving dead Indians easy.”
“Ah, they’re not all bad,” I offered, thinking she might like to hear me acting diplomatic.
“That’s true. But they sure don’t like to be reminded of us.”
I felt a warm, wet embarrassment wash over me because of how confidently she spoke when I was always grasping just to stay in the conversation. I had pissed away my opportunity. Preacherman was right. Anyone could tell by the way she cut her dark, Greta Garbo eyes toward me that Essie was smart or mean or both. I knew I had better figure out which one as quickly as possible or the rest of the ride would be miserable. More troublesome, there would be no second ride, and I could not imagine an existence without at least the possibility of seeing how fully Essie’s long, perfectly curved body would fill out the baby blue maid’s uniform at the inn. These daydreams did not help my execution of words.
“Anyway. Makes sense given some of the rumors about that place at night.”
“Oh, you have friends there?”
“No. People just tell you things when you say you are going to a place like that.” The truth was, if I didn’t have friends in Cherokee, which I didn’t, then I sure as hell didn’t have any in Asheville.
“What kind of things do they say?”
At least she was listening.
Essie stared out the window at the blurred crimsons, gingers, auburns, and verdant greens of the budding trees, a Monet masterpiece appearing through the Model T’s passenger window.
“You’ve heard the stories, right?”
She still did not turn. “What stories?”
“Of those people staying at the inn. Of why they’re there and why the owners can’t keep no help longer than a few weeks.” This would get her.
Essie turned her face toward me, but did not commit her body to the same engagement. “Any,” she responded. It wasn’t a question and she noted my confusion. “Any. They can’t keep any help.” Her tone was sharp.
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Anyway, you’ve heard rumors of those death camps? These are the types of people who run those places. Higher-ups. You think they just left all that behind when they got captured? It’s like a blood thirst.” My hands gripped the steering wheel as if I was driving a tank myself.
“So you’re telling me they’re some sort of German vampires?” She had a way of twisting my words to make me sound fool-ignorant.
I loosened my grip. “Never mind.” I looked into my rearview mirror so she’d know I was too busy to be chided.
“No … I’m sorry, Cowney.”
She remembered my name.
“Go on. Tell me what you think. I need to get as much background as I can if I am going to work there.”
I was beginning to see that this was typical for Essie. That she was somehow cold without wanting to be, just needing to be. My early impressions of her could have been wrong. Maybe all those years ago she wasn’t scowling down at the river but shielding the summer sun from her eyes so that she could better locate the fish. Walking into town alone, speaking to no one, was not chosen isolation. Maybe she was concentrating on the shopping list streaming through her head or, like me, she feared straying too far from explicit instructions, leading to an inevitable whipping, maybe even beating. For me it was the difference in who sent me—Lishie or my uncle Bud. For Essie, maybe there was no option.
Regardless of how I justified her coolness, I wanted to believe that I had something to do with her warming. I wanted to believe that years ago I had distracted the fish in the river so that they all swam her way. I wanted to believe that my shying away from the beautiful girl in the trading post allowed her to complete her purchase with accuracy. I was her space to breathe, her freedom to warm in the margin I left for sunlight.
“Well, there’s been children come in to work with their folks, but you never see them leave. Staff can’t report it ’cause they’re not supposed to have kids around anyway.” I took my eyes from the road so as to better gauge her reaction.
“Oh, Cowney. Do you really believe someone would just keep their mouth shut when they’ve lost their own child just so they don’t lose their job?” She rolled her eyes like she’d been practicing the motion her whole life.
Of course I did not believe much of what I found myself telling her, but it seemed to keep her attention and that was motivation enough to continue. “All I know is there ain’t a helluva lot of jobs floatin’ around and maybe they’re afraid for their own lives. Who knows why people do what they do.”
“So why are you going to work in a place like that?”
“Correction. I work for a place like that. I won’t set foot inside unless I have to. And even then, I sure as hell won’t go up to the guest floors. Excuse my language.”
“So I guess I’m just a fool, huh?” Her lips pursed again.
“Oh, gee. No. That’s not what I meant. Ahh. I just wanted to tell you about the place. I didn’t mean to scare you. We all have to work somewhere. It’s probably nothing. Plus, they have all kinds of security at the place. US Army detail scattered like ants on a hill.”
“Are they really prisoners?”
“The guests? Yeah, but not like soldier prisoners. That’s why they call them guests, by the way. Best to remember that. Have to call ’em guests. The way it’s been explained to me in the letter I got last week, they’re foreign diplomats and foreign nationals. Not American, but not Hitler’s frontline henchmen either. Been in the United States for some time, but had to be moved during the war.”
“Diplomats? I thought you said they were bloodthirsty vampires running death camps.”
“Oh, here we go again. You said that. Not me. Just tryin’ to hold a conversation.” I checked my side mirror needlessly. The steep, green banks hugged the car as we bumped along what were little more than plowed dirt paths. A sweet honeysuckle scent seeped in through the cracked windows, fighting its way past the swirling dust. I mentally marked the point in case Lishie needed vines for new baskets. There were only a few wooden guardrails periodically placed, and I worried that I’d take a curve too liberally and we would careen off the bank and roll down into a ravine—possibly never to be seen again. “The manager will tell you all you need to know anyway,” I conceded.