From Glowing Embers (3 page)

Startled, Julie Ann looked up to see a young man standing in the doorway, a white poodle squirming under each arm. She squinted nearsightedly at him, and for a moment she didn’t know who he was. “Hardly ever if I talk to them. Are the twins there my rush job?”

He nodded. “I can see where talking to them would help. You have a beautiful voice.”

Julie Ann blushed all the way down to her toenails. In her world compliments were so rare as to be almost nonexistent. And male compliments were unheard of. “Well, it’s a voice dogs like,” she joked self-consciously.

“It’s a voice men like, too. I can guarantee it.”

She squinted as the man moved closer and came into focus. Her face registered her surprise as she recognized him. The man was Granger Sheridan, Gray to his friends—or so she’d heard. She wasn’t one of the blessed herself, but she knew about Granger. She knew about all the Sheridans. One of them, Granger’s father, had put her daddy in jail.

“So what’s the rush with the dogs?” she asked, rubbing the Chihuahua so hard he yipped in protest.

Granger set the poodles down to explore the floor while he stood at the end of the table and watched her work. “The little darlings got outside and rolled in something they weren’t supposed to. I hosed them off, but my mother says it wasn’t good enough. They still stink, and she’s having a bridge party at two.”

“My, my, we can’t let them spoil the party.”

“Do I know you?”

Julie Ann lifted her head and met his eyes for a moment. “I doubt it.”

“You look familiar.”

“We haven’t met, but I know you’re Granger Sheridan. I’m Julie Ann Mason.”

“Call me Gray. You still look familiar.”

“You went to school with a sister of mine. We look alike.”

“Did she have a name?”

“Mary Jane.”

Julie Ann turned her attention back to Pedro and unwrapped the towel. She held the little dog with one hand as she turned on the blow-dryer, checking the temperature to be sure it was low enough.

“I remember Mary Jane.”

Julie Ann imagined that he did. Probably every boy at Junction High remembered Mary Jane. She had slept with most of them, or so the story went. Julie Ann wondered if Gray Sheridan had been one of Mary Jane’s back seat tussles.

“So you’re one of the Mason kids,” he said.

“One of them,” Julie Ann acknowledged. There was a lot more she could say, but she didn’t expect that Gray Sheridan would believe any of it, or care.

She was one of the Mason kids. One of six. Most of the time that was all she had to tell anybody for them to form an instant, unshakable opinion about her worth. The Masons were poor white trash. Everybody knew it; everybody laughed about it. There was no good in the Mason family. Being born into it was like being born under a curse.

Julie Ann’s father had been a drunk. In Mississippi there was no such thing as a white trash alcoholic. Among the wealthy, alcoholism was considered a disease to be treated, but in the Masons’ social stratum, anyone who drank too much was a drunk, a pariah beyond help.

Willie Mason had never held a real job. The only times he had ever approached employment were when he took on an odd job or two to earn a drink. He’d been hauling trash for a local barkeeper when he slammed his truck into a live oak thirty feet inside someone’s front yard. He’d gone to jail on a drunk driving charge, and he’d died there quietly and without fuss. It was the only time in his life that Willie had done anything without fuss, and Julie Ann still marveled over it.

Julie Ann’s mother didn’t drink. She had babies and she screamed a lot, slapping any kid who dared ask for anything as trivial as food to eat or clean clothes to wear to school. The Mason kids had raised themselves with the help of an often-absent welfare system that provided them with commodity foods each month and free medical care if they were well enough to make it to the hospital emergency room.

They lived on Black Creek Road, a dirt road at the edge of town, and their house had no indoor plumbing. The only time they had electricity was when one of the kids could get to the mailbox before their parents to get the welfare check to pay the electric bill. It wasn’t an easy way to live, and two Mason kids hadn’t made it through childhood. Those who had, found different ways to cope. Mary Jane traded her favors for the luxuries or the love she had never gotten at home. Jerry was in the same jail where his father had died. Billy had said goodbye to Granger Junction on the day he turned sixteen and hadn’t been heard from since.

And then there was Julie Ann, who had coped by trying all the things her parents had never thought of. Hard work. Studying. Dreams.

“How long have you been working here?”

Now that he knew who she was, Julie Ann was surprised Gray was still talking to her. “Two years. I started at the beginning of my sophomore year. I just cleaned up the place for Dory at first, but I got along so well with the dogs that she gave me a job washing them.”

“Dory’s Doggy Den,” he sing-songed.

“Not my idea,” she reminded him. “I just work here.”

“You’re going to be a senior at Junction?”

Julie Ann turned off the dryer and slipped her glasses out of her jeans’ pocket to perch them on the end of her nose. She began to brush the Chihuahua’s fur. “That’s right.”

“You look younger, but you seem older.”

“I’m eighteen,” she acknowledged. “I was held back in first grade. I couldn’t see well enough to read, but nobody figured that out until the second time around.”

“That’s why I hadn’t met you. I was out of Junction before you got there.”

It was on the tip of Julie Ann’s tongue to point out that even if they had been in school at the same time, he never would have met her. The Masons and the Sheridans didn’t travel in the same social circles. The Sheridans owned the town of Granger Junction. The Masons weren’t even fit to live in it.

“Are you home for the summer?” Julie Ann asked, trying to change the subject.

“I’m working in my dad’s office.”

Julie Ann imagined that Judge Robert Sheridan would have insisted on that. He was probably grooming his son to take his place when he stepped down from the bench. She carried Pedro over to one of the small kennels in the corner and put him in, checking to be sure there was fresh water in it before she closed the door and latched it.

When she turned to face Gray, she realized he was examining her. She felt suddenly embarrassed. Without Pedro as a shield she felt completely exposed.

There wasn’t much of her that was worth looking at. Her eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses were nice, and her skin was clear, but she was skinny, both from the haphazard diet she got at home and her own whirlwind schedule. Dory’s Doggy Den wasn’t the only place she worked, and she didn’t have much time left over for taking care of herself.

Julie Ann knew she was all legs and arms and bones. Mary Jane had told her bluntly that unless she prettied up, no man was ever going to want her, and from what Julie Ann had seen of men, that was fine with her. So she didn’t bother with makeup she couldn’t afford anyway, and she kept her thick unruly hair chopped off, like a short cap that hugged her head, so it would be easy to wash under the hose behind their house. Between the huge smock she wore when she washed dogs for Dory and her lack of any feminine wiles, she was worse than plain. She was homely.

She wondered what Gray Sheridan had seen to hold his interest this long.

“You don’t really look like Mary Jane,” he said finally. “Just around the eyes.”

“Mary Jane’d be glad to hear you say that.” Julie Ann stooped down to intercept one of the poodles. “Are we just washing them, or is Dory going to give them a trim and a manicure?”

“Just washing them.”

“Then I’ll have them ready for you in an hour.”

“When I pick up the dogs, would you like to have lunch with me?” he asked.

Julie Ann kept her head turned away from him. There was a leaden weight in her stomach. There was only one thing that men like Gray wanted from girls like her, and it certainly wasn’t a friendly conversation. “I think you have me mixed up with my sister,” she said finally. “She’s the good-time girl. I’m nothing like her.”

“I never knew Mary Jane well enough to know what kind of girl she was. And it’s you I’m asking to lunch.”

She had to know. “Why?”

He smiled at her as if he were fascinated that she was giving him such a hard time. “Because you interest me. Nothing much has interested me lately.”

“I don’t think I can make it. Dory needs me.”

“Shall I ask Dory if it’s all right?”

Julie Ann knew just what Dory would say. Dory was a romantic. Unless Julie Ann was honest with Gray and told him that she wanted to stay in the safe little world she had created for herself away from anyone who could slow her flight out of Granger Junction, she would have no choice but to accept.

“I’ll ask her,” she said, hoping she could persuade Dory to say no.

“I’ll come with you,” he said with a grin.

Gray’s grin was Julie Ann’s undoing. He had the long, lean body of an athlete, the clean-cut features of a young politician, and the regal bearing of an aristocrat. But it was only when he flashed her that grin that she realized he was just a man. And suddenly the girl who had handled poverty and neglect and social ostracism knew she could handle a man.

“All right.”

DORY HAD SAID
yes, and Gray and Julie Ann’s first afternoon together had been spent sitting on the patio of the local Dairy Queen eating hamburgers and drinking milk shakes. Julie Ann wasn’t oblivious to the peculiar looks thrown their way, but she didn’t care about anything else besides the man sitting in front of her. Once she got over the shock of Gray asking her for a date, she enjoyed herself.

She soaked up his stories about school and the people he’d met there. College was a dream for Julie Ann. She’d been working and saving for two years, and she’d been studying to make the highest possible grades so that she’d be eligible for a scholarship. Now she was able to ask questions about everything she didn’t know, and Gray seemed delighted to answer her.

After lunch he walked her to her afternoon job at the TG&Y, where she worked in the dry goods department cutting dress lengths for customers and keeping the shelves and pattern file cabinets stocked. As she waved goodbye to him, she felt a heady sense of pleasure. The world hadn’t been a friendly place, but perhaps it had its compensations after all. Time spent with an intelligent, handsome man might just be one of them.

SHE SAW GRAY
regularly after that, much to her surprise. Several evenings a week he showed up after work, and they went to the movies or out for a ride in his car. He never came inside when he dropped her at home, and she never invited him to. They had an unspoken understanding that they were friends despite their differences, but neither of them had any desire to point out how huge those differences were.

Once they ran into his parents, and Gray introduced Julie Ann with the good manners that were as much a part of him as his grin. Julie Ann caught the look of utter astonishment on his mother’s face when Gray murmured her full name. His father stared at her as if she had been judged and found wanting. Neither had been rude, but both had been perfectly clear about their feelings. Julie Ann had fully expected that to be the last time Gray sought her out.

Instead he sought her out more often. And as they spent time together, Julie Ann realized she was falling in love.

She hadn’t seen enough love in her life to recognize it at first. She knew she waited anxiously for Gray when she thought she might see him. She knew she felt empty and bleak on the nights when she didn’t, and insanely jealous on the nights when she knew he was out with other girls. She found herself studying her face and body in the mirror, trying unsuccessfully to think of ways to make herself more attractive, and she began to use the old treadle sewing machine at home to make herself clothes out of TG&Y remnants.

The symptoms of her growing feelings for Gray were only that, however, until one Thursday night in July. She had worked late at the TG&Y, and she hadn’t expected to see him at all. To her surprise, when she emerged from the store he was waiting for her in his sporty little Plymouth.

“Your dogs need washing again?” she asked with an uplifted eyebrow.

“I thought you might like to drive down to the coast and look at the moon with me.”

“I can see the moon from here, and I’m not even wearing my glasses.”

Gray laughed and patted the seat. “Come on. I won’t keep you out too late.”

She pretended to think about it. “Only if you promise to respect my Southern womanhood.”

Gray laughed, and Julie Ann got in. No one would notice if she didn’t come home. Sometimes there were advantages to the way she’d been raised.

“So, how was your day?”

Julie Ann felt a glow at the simple question. Sharing with Gray, even sharing the most mundane things, made a day special. “Boring. I was at Dory’s till noon. The Lamberts’ collie took a hunk out of my hand. I forgot to keep talking.”

“Let me see.” Gray frowned and took her hand, propping it on the steering wheel as he drove. “Lord, Julie Ann, that looks deep. Did you put anything on it?”

“I dabbed something on it at Dory’s. It’ll be fine.” She was faintly embarrassed at the attention. She wasn’t going to die; she’d had a tetanus shot in June, and the Lamberts’ collie had been wearing a current rabies tag.

“You don’t take care of yourself.” Gray lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it before he let go.

Julie Ann caught her breath. “What did you do that for?”

“To make it better.”

“More germs,” she muttered.

He laughed and reached out to ruffle her hair. “You don’t like to be touched, do you? How come?”

Julie Ann had never thought about it, but if what Gray said was true, the answer was simple. She knew where touching led. It led to babies, and it led to a bad reputation. Being a Mason was enough of a strike against her.

“I haven’t been touched much,” she admitted. “I’ve stayed away from boys.”