Right now, I needed to lock things up and haul the bags of trash stacked by the bayberry hedge over to the church Dumpster next door. The kids could show up anytime, depending on whether they rode home with Rowdy or took the school bus.
The bus rumbled by a few minutes later as I was crossing the yard, moving like an overloaded pack mule, with one bag slung over my back and another dangling from my arm. I’d stuffed them full, and they were getting longer by the minute, the plastic stretching and growing translucent. “Please don’t break.” If they did, I’d have moldy SpaghettiOs and rotten apples all over me. I had cleaned out the refrigerator, while trying not to gag up my lunch, and the bins were drying on the counter now.
“My eye, it looks like Santy Claus is a-comin’!” Brother Guilbeau’s voice was easy to recognize, even without looking up. Rather than run the risk of stopping, I continued my trudge toward the Dumpster.
“You don’t want these presents, trust me!” The next thing I knew, I was smiling under my pack, my ribs convulsing in withheld laughter. I could just imagine what I looked like.
“You don’ got a mess’a fried crawfish in that pack for a hungry man?” Brother Guilbeau teased, his tone as casual as if we were old friends who talked every day. His feet moved through the grass with a shuffling swish-swish.
“There’s some stuff in there that might’ve been crawfish once.” I made it to the Dumpster —thank goodness —and rolled the heavier bag off my back. “But I’m not making any promises. You can dig for it if you want.”
He grinned, craning his neck forward and pretending to consider the bags of trash. I pulled my hands away, offering to surrender them. I liked Brother Guilbeau, despite the fact that my experiences with church people in the past hadn’t always been the best. He seemed different. Maybe there came a point in life where you had to quit categorizing whole groups of people by a few bad experiences.
I grabbed a bag, pitching it into the air with a Hail Mary swing. It sailed over the Dumpster rim and landed inside with a gushy plop. Brother Guilbeau reached for the second bag, but I snatched it up and threw it in as well. “My hands are already dirty.”
“Sha, you pretty strong for a little thing.” Brother Guilbeau was impressed.
“I’ve schlepped a few hay bales and feed sacks in my day,” I said, feeling strangely pleased with myself.
Brother Guilbeau nodded. “Your boy, he was tellin’ me his mama was a horse rider. Jumpin’ horses, was it?”
A pang of surprise hit me, sudden and sharp like when my daddy would flick a finger and thump me in the head for not obeying quickly enough. “Yes, but not for a long time now.” The answer was intentionally vague. Had Brother Guilbeau been pumping J.T. for information?
He seemed to guess at my thoughts. “Couple horse riders went by in the woods the other day while we were sharin’ us an Icee out back of Bink’s store. He mentioned his mama rode jumpers.”
“He likes animals,” I said blandly and then turned the conversation to the need for more trash bags, finally finishing with “I really didn’t want to come by the church and ask since you’d told me to keep my work here kind of quiet. I don’t know any of the history involved, but I get the impression that some people didn’t like Iola . . . and that there may be some issues about ownership of the house.” I was the one fishing for information now. That still, small voice in my head was insisting, Tell him the roof needs attention. Now. What might happen if I did? “I just didn’t want to get in the middle of things and have everyone asking me questions about it. I won’t know what to say to them.” A load of guilt was quickly settling on my shoulders. I knew I was wimping out on getting help for the house, opting for self-preservation instead.
Brother Guilbeau pulled out his wallet, thumbed through bills, and handed me a fifty. “Yes, mmm-hmm, I see that point. I do, sha. Less said, better till we got all the legal mumbo jumbo cleared up.”
My first thought as I took the money was that I’d be able to buy gas to get to work tomorrow. Then I wanted to bash my head against the Dumpster. I would not do that. I wouldn’t. I’d find some other way to get gas money. Like being honest with Sandy and admitting that I needed an advance.
“Now, you do any drivin’ around for the supplies, you use some a’ that to pay the gas,” Brother Guilbeau instructed, and my mouth fell open. “My mistake, I didn’t get some cash money over there to you sooner on. Been a busy week round here.”
“Oh . . . that’s okay,” I stammered, goose bumps pricking over my skin.
Brother Guilbeau checked his watch. “Got potluck and music t’night here at the church.” He was already angling in the direction of his car, on his way to somewhere. “C’mon join us, bring that boy. Bring his big sister, too. Haven’t had much chance to talk to her, but that boy loves his big sister.”
“Oh . . . well, we’d better not, but thank you.” The excuse spun off my tongue like silk. “I have a new job —just temporary, but I think I’ll be crashing early tonight. I’m doing some drywall work at a shop down in Hatteras Village.”
“Drywall?” Brother Guilbeau’s eyes bugged. “Well, my foot! You didn’t tell me you knew how to put up drywall.”
I explained to him that I’d been working with my father on construction jobs since I was little. I almost cycled around to bringing up the problems in Iola’s house, but fear won out again.
“Lotta folks round here need that kind a’ work right now. You decide you want to do more, you make me some signs wit’ your phone number, I’ll share them in town, tell ever’body we got a new home handywoman.” He was walking backward now, checking his watch again.
“Thanks . . . oh, okay . . . thanks!” I waved at him, the fifty-dollar bill still dangling from my fingers.
He spun around and hurried off to his car, and I walked back toward Iola’s house with a new wind in my sails. Home handywoman . . . me? I’d never, ever considered that all those times my father had kept me out of school to drive him to jobs might actually come in handy for something. Maybe I really could start some kind of business. Brother Guilbeau seemed to think I could.
The funny thing about having people believe good things about you is that, without even realizing it, you want to make those things true. I wanted to be the person Brother Guilbeau saw, the person Sandy saw. I wanted to be worthy of their trust. This place, this house, everything about it was changing me. The prayer boxes, the grace water was slipping inside me like vapor, the life water of a different person, of someone completely new. The more I breathed it in, the more it filled me. The more I dipped my toe in Iola’s river of grace, the more it washed away the stains of the past.
Laughing, I threw my head back and my arms out and drank in the day as I walked back to the house. I wanted to savor this feeling, to keep it.
A horn honked and I opened my eyes, my poetry moment shattering all around me.
Ross’s truck was rolling in. Behind the wheel, he was grinning ear to ear. I blushed, picturing myself standing there in the yard in my old jeans and T-shirt, my arms thrown out and my head tossed back. I must’ve looked like some kind of a drunken ballet dancer.
Ross hopped out of the truck still laughing, and my heart fluttered upward at the sight of him. It was almost impossible to remember from one time to the next how good-looking he really was. He was a magazine photo in the flesh —the cover of Sports Illustrated.
“Hey, babe!” He crossed the yard and swept me up with one arm, his broad smile telling me that, whatever he’d been doing, it had been a good day. He looked tanned, rested, and happy. “I’ve got eighteen hours and forty-two minutes before the old man sends me off to Natchez with a load. Let’s go have some fun.”
He set me on my feet and kissed me, and for a minute I lost track of where I was —and everything else.
CHAPTER 16
ROSS WAS TRYING TO TALK me into going down to Ocracoke Island for the night. There was a party brewing at one of his favorite dives, and then he was crashing overnight at the little saltbox house he seldom used.
His fingers toyed with the ends of my hair as he smiled down at me, his eyes twinkling. “Man, you haven’t seen a beach until you’ve seen the one by that house. You’ll like it. You can meet my dog. Mama said if I didn’t come get him out of her yard, she was gonna call the pound, so I put him at the Ocracoke house. Anyway, you’ll love the place, and the sunrise is awesome there.”