Chapter 3 #2
“You know what you did.” My cheeks flamed with fury as I headed for the road, baskets dripping yolk into my shoes. I’d said it low, but he’d heard me. Raymond used my soft words to lean in close. His long legs easily matched my angry pace.
Sooty took us in from the other side of the road as we passed the half-buried Ford he’d no doubt been paid to dig free.
I knew what it looked like what with Raymond leaning in like that.
Luckily, Sooty was a man of few words. Not the kind to speak gossip.
I nodded to him with desperation in my eyes.
He gripped his shovel tighter, but Sooty kept to himself.
There’d be no savior on this road. It was a long walk home. Raymond was bound to give up soon.
“I swear on my father’s soul, I had no idea.” The dark, greasy strings of Raymond’s ear-length hair did little to hide the mirth in his steel-grey eyes.
I quickened my step.
“Wait. Mercy. I am sorry. Is that what you want to hear? I’m sorry about your eggs.
” He said it as if it were some minor joke he’d giggled at hours ago and nearly forgotten.
He smoothed his hair back and the wind tossed it forward again.
“Let me make it up to you.” The words sounded like scorpions in his mouth.
Raymond Stanley didn’t make anything up to anybody.
It wasn’t bad enough that we were all caught up in what the newspaper was calling a Dust Bowl of hunger, disappointment, and death.
But we also had to deal with men like Raymond.
It was enough to make me pack a bag and head for the train tracks.
With or without Granma and her walled off heart.
“It doesn’t matter. You’ll be mine soon. Every inch of you.” The words whined in my ear like a wire in the wind.
“What?” My feet slammed to a stop so fast I almost fell over.
“What?” Raymond shrugged his narrow shoulders.
“What did you just say?”
“I said let me make it up to you.”
“No, after that.”
He blinked at me. “I didn’t say anything after that.”
“I heard y—” My thought skipped its track. Had I heard him? I’d heard a high-pitched humming in my mind but had I really heard it with my ears? I took a staggering step toward home. Toward Granma and her secrets.
Had I just heard Raymond’s thoughts?
“And I meant it. Let me make it up to you. I’ve got four dimes right here. See.” Raymond pulled four shiny coins from his left pocket. Something about Raymond showing money made my stomach lurch.
“I’ve got no more eggs to sell.” I gave my baskets a furious yank.
His glassy gaze drifted from the baskets to my billowing dress.
I transferred my right basket to my other hand so I could gather the flapping fabric around me. The nervous gesture seemed to spread a smile across Raymond’s face. I looked behind me but there was no sign of Sooty.
A dark line gathered on the horizon. A storm. I’d had my back to town so I hadn’t seen it. There wasn’t a soul in sight now. I needed to get home. Fast.
“Storm,” I said, pointing west to distract him while I launched into a quick walk. It didn’t work.
“Wait.” Raymond’s hand shot out. His clammy fingers fastened on my wrist. My shoes slid to a stop in the dust. He’d never touched me before. Something had changed. He’d broken the last barrier between us. I stood raw in the wind.
“I brought these dimes for you, Mercy. I can take care of you if you’d let me.”
I needed to stop his words before they led somewhere darker than the horizon. So, I dropped my baskets and jabbed my hand out.
“Fine. Give them to me, then.” I let my empty palm be the new barrier between us.
A smile as greasy as his hair slid across his blue-toothed mouth. I could have overlooked the tooth. I could have made peace with the dirty hair and bad breath, but the look in Raymond Stanley’s eyes was the reason I would never accept him. He was a taker.
Slowly, he released my wrist. But the dimes came no closer to me. I didn’t care about the money. I just wanted this conversation over.
“I’ll tell you what—you can have the goo that has collected in my baskets. Take them both home and pour them in your frying pan to make a scramble.” The baskets skidded in the wind as dirt hissed over them.
Raymond’s expression soured.
“I don’t want your eggs, girl. I already saw what I want.” He took a step toward me.
I took a step back.
“I offered you what’s left of my eggs. And my baskets. I don’t have anything else for you, Raymond Stanley.” I used his whole name in hopes it would snap the decency back into him. He would remember that my family had been knowing his for years.
“I saw what you got on under that dress.”
The blood slid from my brain leaving my skull a cold place.
“I want to see them again. Those panties with the little red dots.”
Grit swept into my gaping mouth as a big gust pummeled us with dirt. Had the skirt of my dress blown up at the market when the table turned over? Had Raymond’s eyes been places they shouldn’t have been? A gentleman wouldn’t have…what was I thinking? Raymond wasn’t a gentleman.
The storm crawled toward us, eating the land.
He held the four dimes cupped in his hand so the wind wouldn’t take them.
“It’s a good deal. Forty whole cents and all you have to do is lift that dress a little. Gimme a good look.” His accent came rushing back. His eyelids sank low as half-filled feed sacks.
I’d used up all my courage on my bold words. I had nothing left with which to defend myself. We needed those coins. I needed out of this moment. My arms fell limp to my sides. I fought the wind to keep my chin level with the ground. We stood there locked in each other’s gaze. Predator and prey.
Is this what it’s like between women and men? I’d hoped for so much more. I’d hoped for gentleness. Nervous laughter. A brush of lips against mine. I’d dreamed of the tickle of butterflies in my stomach like when I’d swing too high on Farmer Allen’s tire swing as a child.
But this was a fallen world. We were all lost in the dust. All hungry for something we couldn’t have.
Slowly, so as not to trigger a movement from him, I gathered some fabric in my fingers. I collected some more. His gaze lowered. My breath stopped in my lungs as the hem of my dress danced around my thighs in the wind. The sting of sand on my exposed flesh felt improper.
A dark rapture filled Raymond’s face as I revealed his treasure. I didn’t look down to see if I’d lifted high enough. The hem of my dress fluttered against my waist. I could tell from the dry bob of his Adam’s apple and the swell in his trousers—everything he wanted was on display.
I took a breath and opened my fingers. The curtain dropped on his private show.
I grabbed my baskets and whirled toward home.
Raymond grabbed my arm a second time. His damp fingers walked down my wrist to my hand.
He pressed the dimes into my palm with a hard finger. Curling my hand around the stiffness.
“I can take care of you. And you can take care of me. We’d make a good team.” His words crept over my skin like fleas. Raymond let go of me and I ran.
The storm blew me all the way home.