“Good, then we’ll have to have you stop by more often,” she said, her smile growing larger. “Maybe let you help out in the house as well.”
“Thank you, Miss,” he said warmly, oblivious to her undertones.
“Well, I best not keep you or else Floyd will pitch a fit,” she said. “But be sure to stop by tomorrow and we’ll see what work we have for you inside.”
Jesse stood and took the pieces of fruit from my hand, the Missus watching this exchange as if she were a referee awaiting some action that was against the rules. Jesse turned to her, their eyes meeting just as they had on that one day inside the house. Jesse was young and knew beauty, but he also knew not to stare at a white woman too long, and so he quickly made snug the fruit in his hands and took off at a slight jog toward the fields.
The Missus exhaled then turned to me, having lost that smile or any bit of encouragement that would assure me she was still in good spirits.
“Don’t be mad, Bernie,” she said. “It’s just a bit of fun.”
Miss Lula then returned her eyes to the fields and the workers there, later adding once things were much quieter and the sun had completely passed away, “I think it’s a change of heart I’m having, but who can know for sure.”
I didn’t believe her as much as I would a drunk in a bar pleading for another round. That night I took Floyd inside the backhouse and disclosed to him the events of that day. I told him about the Missus’s lust for the boy, as I saw it, and insisted we keep him away from the main house as long as possible. Whatever she was planning, it would happen soon, I said, and could possibly cost the boy his life. It was decided between us to keep this bitter knowledge to ourselves, forcing Silva to remain in the dark a while longer, at least until we knew for sure what the Missus would do. In the meantime, Floyd would take Jesse farther out each day and have him work where the Missus had no chance of seeing him. Floyd would still bring fruit by the house as usual, so as not to draw attention to our deceit, but only at certain times when the Missus was not present, and he would place it on the front porch as if he’d somehow missed us so that she could never inquire about the boy. We would keep this up until further details of her heart were known.
CHAPTER 10
The next day we walked, the Missus and I, around the tulip trees and the magnolias that stretched high up. We followed the paths the tractors left then crisscrossed the fields’ narrow rows. We found a shaded area and slowed our speed then hightailed it to high heavens within a hotspot that had no trees to block the sun. We walked faster until we’d cleared that devil’s beloved playground before finally slowing to our normal pace as we continued toward the sticker bushes and other shrubs outside the house.
The Missus was a thing of beauty, her shawl wrapped around her hair like a turban, her golden ringlets falling in atypical places that made her seem almost thrown together with an effortlessness that befell her like rain. Her eyes looked about her with a sense of expectancy, somehow aware of the future, with no need to wait, hope, or pray as us regular mortals. For her eyes were bent to God as one who commanded His armies and walked with the conviction of that One who had breathed life into every man, and with this she knew her power.
Once our walk had ended beside the shaded porch, she insisted we take another, that omniscience she had leading her to see things I couldn’t, as she declared more animated than at any other time that she just wasn’t tired yet.
“Another?” Silva protested, emerging from the house with drinks to conclude our stroll.
The Missus smiled.
“Here,” Silva said. “At least drink this so you don’t turn to stone.”
Miss Lula took the glass and sipped it slowly, turning to me, for I had not yet accepted mine. Her gaze was sinful, having trapped all that Tree of Knowledge had to give and possessing it now fully in her sights.
“You two, I swear,” Silva fussed.
“Better know good advice when you hear it,” the Missus instructed me.
I reluctantly lifted the glass and drank, the coolness rushing down my throat just as the condensation fell along my wrist and forearm, that chill meeting almost immediately with the sulfur that encases a coconspirator’s heart. I couldn’t stand the sight of Silva, knowing my deceit, yet couldn’t stand the sight of Miss Lula either. Once our glasses were both empty, I was eager to return to the fields, where Miss Lula and I sat with our backs facing each other, feet in the grass, alone in our plots.
The heat provoked a shorter route this time, just around the white flowers and bull bays east of the plantation. Miss Lula picked at their buds while I sat with my hands at my ankles and fanned the flies that dared approach. The Missus looked around for some specific target yet never seemed to find it, her eyes darting wildly and never settling even once in my company. I spied her movements like my very own shadow that bent then spread then covered the world around me. She walked with her hands clasped tightly as the wind kicked up dust, pushing it before her as if it somehow steered the way. Around one corner she met the contempt of a thousand gusts, while around another sat a wind sent straight from the swells of Hades, leaving her blinded for minutes at a time as she marched with one hand out front and the other covering her nose and mouth. Once the blustery assault drew tears from the Missus that were too numerous to continue, she gave up her mission, and we both returned to the house without a single word.
At the porch the fruit awaited us, bundled by a single thread of yarn and placed inside a bowl beside the Missus’s chair. She looked at it furiously, having lost that bit of omniscience that would have surely warned of such an occurrence.
“What’s this?” she said. “What am I, a dog? Some beast that has its food left on the ground until it eats? I would think I’m better than that. Wouldn’t you say?”
“I reckon they were busy today, Miss,” I tried. “Floyd never means any harm.”
“I don’t like what it implies, Bernice,” she said. “Ain’t no decency in it.”
“Yes, Miss,” I replied.
“I won’t stand for it,” she said. “Tell him not to bring it anymore if he’s gonna do it like this, or we’ll just chop the whole damn tree down. Fine with me either way.”
The Missus stamped off and was not seen outdoors for the rest of the evening. Silva snooped to discover the motive for the Missus’s foul mood yet quit her efforts when she deemed it best to stay out of her way or else she’d get an earful, too.
Mr. Kern had settled in his parlor beneath the murky light. He sat with his paper and his pipe, his eyes a magnet to those words even as the Missus crept in, easing by him with the tote containing her needlework and a blanket in case she got cold. She sat in a corner of the room opposite him where her frustrations could be clearly seen, although it still took several minutes for Mr. Kern to actually acknowledge her presence.