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  “It’s not him I’m thinking is pretty.” Victor hoped to make Bo laugh and forget about Nadine or Nadine’s father.

  Bo did laugh. That had always been one of the best things about Bo. The way he thought things were funny. Nobody else at Victor’s house thought much was funny. Victor couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his mother or father laugh. Maybe not since Preston Jr. had died. That had been more than three years ago, but there wasn’t much sign that the sorrow was going to lift off the house anytime soon. Preston Jr. was too big a loss. He had been strong, good-looking, intelligent, and ambitious.

  Victor’s father used to brag about what Preston Jr. would do for Rosey Corner when he was governor. He didn’t merely think it was possible for Press to be elected governor. He thought it was a certainty. Then just like that, Press was gone, and all his father had left to pin his hopes on were Victor and his sister, Gertie. Not much chance of anything important coming from either of them, he’d tell people who came into the store. They both took after their mother’s side of the family. Weak blood. Weren’t a thing like Preston Jr., who was a Merritt through and through. That boy had been destined for greatness.

  Sometimes the people listening to Victor’s father talk would sneak a look over at Victor. He’d feel their eyes on him, but he would keep doing whatever he was doing as if he hadn’t heard a word. He didn’t look up and say he was sorry for living when Preston Jr. hadn’t. He couldn’t say that. Not without lying. He might feel guilty about it, but he wasn’t sorry he was still breathing.

  It wasn’t his fault Press drowned. At least that was what Graham, who was there, and Bo, who wasn’t, had told him. Victor didn’t really know. His memories of that whole afternoon had been sucked into a murky quagmire in his mind. Some scrap of memory would surface on occasion and then sink right back into the murk again. He did remember lying on the riverbank trying to throw up and breathe at the same time. And he remembered the terrible silence after Graham quit diving into the water and screaming for Press.

  Bad things happened, and often as not, a person couldn’t do a thing to stop them. That was what Aunt Hattie told Victor, what Bo told Victor, what the preacher who preached Press’s funeral told him. Some days he even believed them. But whether it was a day he believed them or not, he kept breathing, kept on living, going to school, working in the store, trying to cheer up his mother.

  And he kept laughing. Press had liked to laugh. Even after his face got fuzzy in Victor’s memory, his brother’s laugh stayed clear as a bell. So it didn’t seem right to stop laughing himself, or to let everybody else stop.

  Victor set a goal of getting a smile out of his mother at least once a day. He read her Mark Twain’s books. He told her silly stories about a family of crows who lived in Crow Town back in the cedar thicket behind the house. He described what some of the Rosey Corner women wore into the store. His mother nearly always found that interesting and often amusing. Victor didn’t know why. She herself rarely bothered getting dressed after Preston Jr. died. Spent most of her days in dark purple dressing gowns while she sat in her sewing rocker beside the window, doing elaborate needlework.

  Aunt Hattie took care of her. She carried her meals in to her and sometimes spooned the food into her mouth. Victor would hear Aunt Hattie cajoling his mother to eat while he and Gertie sat at the silent dinner table with their father. No conversation was expected or wanted there. Sometimes Victor and Gertie wolfed down their potatoes and beans and stuffed Aunt Hattie’s biscuits and ham in their pockets so they could escape to the backyard to eat. There they could talk and laugh.

  Gertie was four years older than Victor and a little strange by her own admission. “But then isn’t everybody just a little strange?” she’d ask and cock her head to the side. “Especially if their last name happens to be Merritt.”

  She was short, barely came up to Victor’s shoulder. Claimed she was put out on the steps when she was a baby in hopes that somebody might take her, but when no one did, her mother and father had to keep her. She said those days out on the stoop must have stunted her growth and that’s why she was so short.

  By the time Victor was thirteen and found himself hopelessly in love with Nadine Reece, Gertie was actively looking for a suitor in order to escape her father’s house. “He doesn’t have to be handsome,” she told Victor. “He doesn’t have to have money, although I certainly wouldn’t turn down a man with means. He doesn’t have to be a talker. All he has to say is ‘will you’ and ‘I do.’”

  Victor was glad that man hadn’t shown up so far. It was bad enough that Bo would be leaving the beginning of June to play baseball for the Blackbirds in the Negro League. Bo was going to play shortstop and hit homers. Lots of them.

  Now, as they went up the lane to Graham’s house, Bo punched Victor’s shoulder and said, “Boy, you is wading out in deep water where you don’t needs to be going. You’d best back away. It don’t matter how pretty that preacher’s daughter is.”

  “I haven’t even put my toes in that water you’re talking about, but just in case I do decide to wade in, maybe you ought to stick around to keep me out of trouble.” Victor looked over at Bo. He was at least six inches taller than Victor and had shoulders twice as broad. Victor felt scrawny beside him.

  “Now don’t you start that again. You knows I gotta go. There ain’t no place for a colored boy like me here in Rosey Corner and nothin’ to do except haul and tote for somebody else.”

  “That’s all I do. Haul and tote for my father.”

  “Yeah, but what you’s haulin’ and totin’ is all gonna be yours someday.”

  “Someday a hundred years from now if Father doesn’t find a better candidate.” Victor kicked a rock out of the path leading up to Graham’s house.

  “You the only candidate for that, boy. You the onliest one with the Merritt name to pass on to the next generation. You and that pretty preacher’s daughter.” Bo grinned over at him.

  Victor’s face turned red. Even in his daydreams he hadn’t gotten far enough along to imagine being married to Nadine.

  “Oh ho.” Bo laughed. “I done got you thinkin’ about some interesting stuff now, ain’t I? Maybe I’d best be tellin’ you all about the birds and bees before I fly the coop.”

  “I know about the birds and bees.”

  “You probably does if you can learn about it with your head in a book. Maybe you put your head in the Bible enough, you’ll impress that preacher.” Bo threw the ball up again.

  Victor bumped hard against Bo and grabbed the ball out of the air. “I already told you I’m not trying to impress the preacher. Or anybody else right now. Even if I was, I doubt if I could do anything that would impress her.”

  Bo looked down at his empty hands and over at the ball Victor was holding. “Don’t be sellin’ yo’self short, Vic. You just stole the ball from Bo ‘Sure Hands’ Johnson. Could be you’ll be surprisin’ some other folks in a few years.”

  It had taken Victor years to get Nadine to notice him. Oh, she knew who he was. She knew his name and that he was the youngest child of Preston and Juanita Merritt. Everybody in Rosey Corner knew that sort of thing about everybody else. On top of that, she was pleasant enough when she came in the store and would smile vaguely toward him whenever he managed to step into her path at school, but she hadn’t really seen him. Not until a November day in their last year at high school and Miss Opal had him read from Evangeline. Then he’d looked up from the book at her and her eyes had been on him, seeing him the way she never had before. Perhaps seeing him in a way no one ever had before.

  His feelings for her, shut up tight inside him for so long, burst free, and for a minute he thought his skin might split down the front of his chest and let his heart show. He wanted to run down the aisle to her desk and fall on his knees and ask her to marry him then and there.

  Of course he didn’t. Instead he closed the book and handed it back to Miss Opal, who was up on her step stool trilling on about how nothing could co
nquer true love as he walked back to his desk as if nothing unusual had happened.

  6

  ______

  As the days passed, Victor wondered if he had imagined those sparks in the schoolroom. Perhaps he had just been carried away by the words of the poem, because after that, Nadine started avoiding him. She stopped coming to the store. Sent her little brother to pick up whatever they needed.

  Victor filled the orders and kept the lists written in her hand. He traced out her letters spelling sugar or flour with his own finger and wished he could rearrange the letters to make them say I love you. At school she kept her eyes away from him. It was as if she were afraid to have feelings for him. And he knew no way to change that.

  He didn’t even have Bo to talk to about it man to man since he was still off hitting homeruns for the Blackbirds. He thought about asking Aunt Hattie, but she might tell his mother. His mother might mention it to his father and then the chaff would fly. That wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted was somebody to tell him how to get Nadine to look him in the eye again. He thought about Graham Lindell, but Graham was away at school learning to be a doctor like his father. That left Gertie. The only person currently residing in Rosey Corner he could trust to keep whatever he told her a secret.

  Gertie had found her man to say “will you” and “I do” and had been married to Wyatt Calhoun for almost five years. The union had produced no children, but Gertie didn’t seem too worried about that. She assured Victor and anybody else nosey enough to ask that if the Lord wanted her and Wyatt to have babies, he’d send them some. The Bible was full of stories about this or that woman having a baby after everybody else had given up on them. And it wasn’t like she was as old as Elizabeth or Sarah in those Bible stories. Not by a long shot. It still might happen even if her father did shake his head when he looked at her and mutter about weak Gale blood.

  When Victor finally got up the nerve to talk to Gertie, she listened to his sad story without showing the first bit of surprise that he was in love with Nadine Reece.

  “I’m your sister,” Gertie explained. “I probably know more about you than you know about yourself. I like Nadine. She can’t help being Preacher Reece’s daughter any more than we can help being Preston Merritt’s children. We just are.” She looked thoughtful for a moment before she went on. “Father won’t be happy, but then when was Father ever happy?”

  She didn’t expect an answer, and Victor didn’t give her one. He wasn’t worried about his father’s happiness, only his own. “But she won’t talk to me. She won’t even look at me. And now she’s stopped coming into the store. She sends her brother when they need something.”

  “Oh, that means it’s serious. Very serious.” Gertie raised her eyebrows and smiled. “You do realize that Father and Preacher Reece are not on the best of terms. Or more likely that never occurred to you.”

  “Nadine’s the one I’m trying to get to notice me. Not Father or Preacher Reece.”

  “Men.” Gertie sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’re so thick-headed.”

  “I won’t argue that. That’s why I’m asking you to help me. Please.”

  “All right. Now pay attention.” Gertie spoke slowly as if explaining something to a backward child. “Preacher Reece is why Nadine’s got you out in the cold. She knows her daddy isn’t likely to approve of your match or, for that matter, any match for her. And poor Nadine has been living most of her life doing her best to keep from upsetting her daddy.” Gertie smiled again. “But there’s some things I don’t think our sweet Nadine knows.”

  “What things?”

  “Oh, just that the preacher has been paying visits to Carla Murphy down the road. Folks are saying he must be comforting her after the death of her mother a couple of months ago, but I’m thinking the comfort might be going both ways. Carla has always fancied being a preacher’s wife. You remember how in her younger days she used to show up at our church regular as clockwork to make eyes at any preacher we called who wasn’t already married? None of them ever made eyes back. Poor old Carla never was much of a looker even back then. And that laugh of hers. Sounds like a sick crow.” Gertie made a face and shivered a little.

  “The woman can’t help how she laughs,” Victor said, but he couldn’t keep from smiling. Carla Murphy did have a laugh that could make a person wince.

  “I didn’t say she could, but the fact is, when Carla shows up anywhere, people right away forget any funny story they might have been thinking about telling. And who can blame them? She could curdle milk.” Gertie put her hands over her ears before she smiled wickedly and went on. “But that won’t be a problem with Preacher Reece. I don’t think that man has ever told a funny story. In the pulpit or out.”

  “Not even before he lost his wife and baby?”

  “Not that I ever heard of. He says the gospel is too serious for laughing, but don’t you think the Lord intended us to laugh?” She didn’t give Victor a chance to answer her. “I mean, he put laughter inside us. He surely never intended for us to keep swallowing it down and choking on it and getting all dour and full of gloom, now did he?”

  “I’m no expert on the good Lord’s intentions. But do you really think Preacher Reece has gone courting?” Victor could hardly believe that.

  “Stranger things have happened. And it could be that the Reverend has opened his eyes and looked at Nadine and seen that he won’t be able to keep her home forever to wash his shirts and cook his breakfast. Poor girl has spent enough years in servitude to that man already.”

  “You must have your mean shoes on today. That’s not a very nice way to talk about a preacher.” Victor frowned at Gertie.

  “He’s not my preacher. And fact is, nobody that I know of made him king of Rosey Corner. Being a preacher doesn’t mean you can tell everybody what to do any more than holding somebody’s grocery tab does.” Gertie leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “This is going to serve the both of them right.”

  “Not if she won’t even look at me.”

  “We’ll make her look at you. I’m thinking it’s time the two churches got together for one of those box suppers to raise money for the Orphans’ Home. All you’ve got to do is outbid everybody else for Nadine’s box supper.”

  “What if she doesn’t bring one?”

  “She’ll have to. It’s for the orphans.”

  So three weeks later, on the last day of 1916, Victor offered two dollars straight off for Nadine’s box supper, and how he felt about Nadine Reece was no longer a secret. Nobody in Rosey Corner had ever paid that much for the pleasure of sharing any girl’s box supper.

  They retired to a corner pew in the back of the Christian Church. With hands that trembled a bit, Nadine spread a white kerchief between them. Her cheeks flushed pink as she lifted the food out of her basket. She kept her eyes away from his face as she offered him a rather flat biscuit with ham. “I fear I’m not a great cook. Not like your Aunt Hattie. People say her biscuits are so light they almost float up off the plate.”

  “Biscuits are biscuits,” he said as he reached for the biscuit. He let his hand touch hers a bit longer than necessary. He spoke softly to keep any of the other couples around them from hearing. “It’s the company I was bidding for. Do you like other poems besides Evangeline?”

  Her eyes came up to his then, and sparks exploded between them the same as in the classroom. He pulled a tiny volume of poetry out of his pocket and held it out to her. “A late Christmas gift,” he said.

  This time she let her hand linger on his as she took the book. The food sat forgotten between them. She started to open the book but then seemed to remember she was in a church where surely it was a sin to read any book other than the Bible. Instead she slid it into a pocket in the folds of her skirt as she said, “I do love poetry of all kinds. Thank you.”

  Victor didn’t remember eating the food, but he supposed they did because it disappeared. Then he asked if he could walk her home, and she nodded shyly. The
night was clear and cold and their breath was frosty on the air as they walked across the frozen ground to her house. But in the soft moonlight it was easier to talk, and both of them seemed reluctant to reach her yard gate and have the evening end.

  Inevitably the gate was there in front of them. In the glow of a lamp in the front window of her house, they could see her father reading his Bible. He hadn’t come to the social held at the Christian Church. While he could hardly condemn the gathering since it was to benefit the orphans, he didn’t have to give it the blessing of his presence. Gertie had counted on that when she arranged the event.

  Nadine glanced toward the house and then lifted the latch on the gate. The hinges creaked as the gate swung open. “Perhaps we should say good night here.”

  “I’ll walk you to the door,” Victor told her.

  She stared up at him a moment before she said, “I believe you would.” Then whether by intent or not, she stepped nearer to him until he could feel the warmth of her breath near his face.

  He had never kissed a girl. A few girls had given him the opportunity, but it had never seemed the right thing to do since he had already given his heart to Nadine. But he had read about many kisses in the poems and stories he read. So he put his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her face up toward his. She did not try to pull away. He could see the shine of her eyes in the moonlight as he dropped his head down to softly cover her lips with his.

  Her hand came up to touch his cheek, and even after he lifted his lips from hers, they stood there with their breath intermingling for a moment while the earth shifted beneath their feet. None of the poetry he had read had done kissing justice.

  Somehow he managed to walk her on to her door even though his legs felt as wobbly as two willow limbs. And then he raced back across the field straight to Gertie’s house. She was just coming home from the church, and as she came into her yard, he caught her up in a giant hug and swung her around while he let out a war whoop.