Chapter 2 #2
“Oh.” Mr. Moore sobered. “M’sorry for your loss.” This, at least, was sincere, if a little rote. “Elder?”
“No; younger. Thank you. He thought it up, the blueberries. Whimsy, I believe. Or I suppose he thought I’d like it, being so out of the way. I didn’t know he had done it until the deed was handed to me.”
Harmless enough an answer. But when Chary glanced over again to Mr. Moore—he really must stop looking!—he got a flash-bulb impression, soft black lashes and vibrant brown eyes, narrowed in snakelike contemplation. Then sympathy took over.
“His death was unexpected, I take it.”
“Completely.”
Mr. Moore hummed. “I am sorry. That’s hard.”
“Thank you.”
The calfskin gloves landed back in Chary’s lap, the leather slapping down. He had already forgotten they existed.
“You truly aren’t cold?” he asked, more waveringly than he wanted. “Or in danger of frostbite?”
“No. Lo—” The man grunted. “See?”
“That is the same,” Chary said peevishly, though it wasn’t.
But he did see. Mr. Moore’s forefinger, tan and bare and hot as a coal, slipped over Chary’s left wrist, insinuated its rough self into the space between the leather of the reins and Chary’s sensitive palm. Despite himself, he gave a little gasp.
“I got the reins,” Mr. Moore murmured. “Put your gloves back on.”
Chary gave up the reins and pulled his gloves back on.
Mr. Moore made a horse-calming wheesht sound with his teeth and returned the reins. There was a brief pause as Chary negotiated a particularly bad rut. When the horses had forgiven him for that, he found he had a decision to make.
He maybe chose wrong.
“I’m called Chary, to friends.”
“Might we be that now? Friends?”
It was soft, challenging. Faintly surprised.
“Well, I suppose if you’re going to be so… f-familiar”—his elocution tutor would’ve cried—“and ask questions—”
“Who says I wanna ask questions?”
“I daresay I think you do—”
A shoulder bumped against his, contra-rhythm of the wagon, interrupting him again. “Cherry?” Mr. Moore asked. “Like the fruit?”
He said it without a hint of mockery. Chary tensed anyway. He had heard it all.
“I suppose.”
A slight pause. “Mr. Cherry inherits a blueberry farm?”
“Oh, Lord.” Chary relaxed. “You never.”
Mr. Moore had a smile in his voice. “But I did.”
Chary moaned. “I should have been prepared.”
“Pro’ly.” Mr. Moore leaned back on elbows, knees wide beneath the blanket. He wasn’t especially tall but had long legs; more than their shoulders came into contact. “I’ve picked cherries before.”
Simple fact? Actual truth? Or innuendo?
Probably not.
“I haven’t thought of my name in that context,” Chary said. “In context of the blueberries. August—my brother,” he clarified, “he said it a bit differently than you.” Had given him the nickname, too.
“He said it Uptown, you mean,” Mr. Moore said, and tsked. He stuck out one of those hands in fresh greeting. “Laurie,” he said steadily. “Truly this time. Friends?”
Chary had never had to manage so much one-handed driving in his life. Nor had to manage such an unexpected man, and that was including August.
He shook.
“Chary. As in… extremely discreet and wary.”
Laurie laughed. “Geez. Hi, Chary.”
The drive was simultaneously over too quickly and also unbearably long.
Post-trousers-fiasco, Laurie Moore proved repentant enough and very forthcoming about his own self.
Chary learned he was Scotch-Irish, also a third-generation, which explained the wheaty hair and black brows.
He had a staggering amount of siblings, seven brothers and three sisters.
He was twenty-six, but he looked older, in the tanned, wind-roughened way workingmen often did.
An itinerant laborer, he was currently in from the mink farms of Nova Scotia and had meant to go on home, to upstate New York, for sugaring season.
But the trains’ lurching motion made him sick, he said, and the hills and red thatch barrens had reminded him of his mother’s paintings of purple-heather Scottish moors. He really had wanted a walk.
Chary offered some things in return, what little of himself he could spare.
Nothing of August. But he spoke of the new innovations in the glassworks: heat recovery for energy-saving purposes; the jam jar designs that had, indeed, failed; the household move from Fifth Avenue to Berryfield.
Baseball, too; Wright Glass was a sponsor for Hilltop Park’s Highlanders, and Laurie, of course, was a Giants man.
Chary himself was unaffiliated, which was almost the worse sin.
He was too distracted to speak in depth, anyway. That touch of his hand…
Chary wasn’t the type to seek out sex, and in fact, between circumstance and lack of opportunity, had never done so in his life. Not like this. But he thought he could probably follow a lead when given one. Maybe. Had it been a lead?
But instead of having Chary drive them into Berryfield—the two whole streets of which Chary had frantically combed through his mind, thinking of potential accommodation that wasn’t the house and wouldn’t get either arrested—nothing, as the hotel had closed years before, it’d have to be the house, and then what would he do?
—Laurie begged off at the little train station.
At the sight of tracks, Chary reined in slowly. There was a tight feeling in his gut, like a living thing being strangled within him. Worse than nerves.
Laurie said, “Thanks for the drive.” He swung down.
Politely, and for his own damn good, Chary should’ve said, You’re quite welcome, or Not at all, or Anytime.
He said, “Wait!”
And for the second time that day, Laurie turned his face warily up to him. He must have read and understood everything Chary had splayed over his face, everything Chary couldn’t even try to hide.
“Er… so.” He cleared his throat. “What if— What if perhaps I have changed my mind?”
“What about?” Laurie resettled his cap and glanced backward to the station, but there was no one around, and no more trains for probably half a day. He’d be waiting a while, Chary rationalized hopefully. It was an insidious, irrational plague, hope.
“About… questions?”
Not about questions. Obviously. About other things. Things beneath flannel union suits that he might wish to see after all.
Laurie’s confused face was very good, but he was not an actor. “What I oughta be askin’ ya?”
“Whatever you want,” Chary said, foolishly, and meant it. “Within reason,” he added.
Laurie blinked. “Ah,” he said softly. He coughed. “Better not, friend.”
“But—” Chary swallowed his protests, his confusion. “Have I entirely misunderstood?”
Laurie rubbed at the back of his neck.
Oh, Lord. “I have,” Chary said. “No, of course, better not. Quite. Well, say— I have an excellent cook? Would you—supper, at the least?” He cursed. “Lord. I do apologize. Not at the least. There’s no least. I mean to say—without expectation. Or questions, I suppose. As friends?”
No. It was plain on Laurie’s face. No.
“Not supper, either,” Laurie said. His ease of speech had gone too.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been suggestive with you.
Because I don’t, not with...” He jerked his chin forward, to the whole of Chary seated there, stiff and tongue-tied.
Chary, who bitterly, desperately, in that moment, wished he were more like August. Just for a moment.
No. He didn’t truly wish that. But he very nearly did.
And since Laurie couldn’t possibly have meant queers… “Not with rich men?”
Laurie nodded once.
“Oh, come on, now,” Chary demanded. “Why don’t you say the real reason? Just say it. The truth, for the first time today. For once. I’ve never actually heard it said before, in fact.” Say I’m not attractive enough.
“I’ve not li…” Laurie grimaced again. “That is the reason. Never done it with a rich man.”
“Never.”
“No. See, the balance is wrong between us.” He put hands in jacket pockets. “And that’s even with us both being white.”
“White?” Chary said, baffled. “Balance? Wrong? I hardly chose to be born my father’s son.
” And wasn’t that an understatement. He was never supposed to have led Wright Glass; nonetheless, he was doing so.
“You mean to say you consider all these things upon a normal circumstance of being propositioned for assignation?”
Laurie shook his head. “Ten-dollar tongue,” he murmured. “No, not a normal one,” he said significantly. “Just the queer ones.”
He wasn’t a coward; he held steady and never looked away. That was almost worse.
“I would have—” Chary stopped. He had to go, get out of there, before his mouth got him into even more trouble, in speaking or in its sudden trembling, and giving himself away.
Giving anything away. It was for the best. It truly was.
“Well!” he said helplessly. “I am sure you are aware what I would have.”
Laurie bit his lip, looking actually regretful. “Sorry.”
“I am sorry,” Chary said. “You’re as allowed to change your mind as I am.” He picked up reins. “Lovely to have met you, Mr. Moore. I wish you all luck in your future… questioning.”
Laurie nodded. “Safe travels, Chary Wright. You’ve been kind.”
Kind? No. He hadn’t been, not really. Selfish, careless, wanting, yes. But not kind.
Chary drove off, slowly, turning around on the bench more than once. The last time he looked, Laurie lay reclined on the station bench, arms and ankles crossed, his cap over his eyes.