Gathering of Waters (14 page)

Tass could not move. The nod was expected, but the wink he’d added unraveled her.

“Come on,” Padagonia said again.

But Tass did not take a step. Instead, she bashfully dropped her chin to her chest and focused her attention on the bright red polka dots that covered her shirt.

Padagonia sighed and skipped ahead. When she reached the porch, she scaled the steps and proceeded to knock noisily on the door. “Mr. Wright! Mr. Wright!”

“He gone to town.”

Emmett’s voice dripped Midwestern nectar. Padagonia kept knocking, just so she could hear him say it again.

“Hey, girl, I said he ain’t home, they gone to town.”

“Oh,” Padagonia cooed coyly before clomping across the porch and plopping down next to him.

Tass was trying hard to mask her jealousy, but even from where Padagonia sat, she could see the rush of steam streaming from Tass’s nostrils.

Padagonia chuckled and beckoned Tass once again:

“Come on!”

Tass turned and gave Padagonia her back.

“What’s wrong with her?” Emmett asked as he tossed the rind down to the ground.

Padagonia shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno, I guess you make her nervous.”

Emmett looked Padagonia full in the face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah!” Padagonia shouted as she leapt from the porch and kicked the rind across the yard. “See you later.” She darted back to Tass and whispered, “You better stop acting the fool ’fore that boy start thinking something wrong with you.”

Tass sucked her teeth and started walking away. Padagonia fell into step beside her.

“Did you have to sit so close to him?”

Padagonia stopped and laughed. “What you say, Tass Hilson?”

Tass kept walking. “Did he say anything about me?”

“Yeah, he said you a few eggs short of a dozen!”

Tass turned horrified eyes on her friend. “He said that?”

Padagonia giggled. “Nah, girl, I’m just pulling your leg.”

“Oh.”

Padagonia stooped down and plucked a dandelion from the blanket of grass that bordered the road. “Here.”

Tass offered her a lopsided grin. “Thanks.” She took the weed and slipped it into her hair. “How do I look?”

“Like the cutest little country girl in Money, Mississippi.”

To Tass, Emmett was everywhere and present in all things. He was all over her mind, pressed into the seams between the floorboards, glowing amidst the stars, and there in the sweet swirl of sugar, milk, and butter in her morning bowl of farina.

Who knows why some fall victim to love so easily?

Tass was smitten from the very first time she laid eyes on Emmett. There was something about his smile and the way he talked; he had magnetism about him that she had never encountered before.

In the three weeks he’d been here, Emmett had barely said more than hi and bye to Tass. But it didn’t matter, she had parlayed those words into reams of conversation that she played out in the privacy of her bedroom.

One afternoon, she draped her hair comb in a dingy white rag and tied a tattered black shoelace around the neck of her hairbrush. She spouted a few silly words of love and then declared, “I do!” as she brought the comb and brush together in a passionate kiss.

Hemmingway had been watching from the doorway. When she stepped into Tass’s bedroom her eyes were sparkling with amusement.

“What in the world are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Tass offered ashamedly.

“Child, you silly enough for two people. Put that comb and brush back on my dresser.”

Tass did as she was told and then headed outdoors where Padagonia was just crossing the road to fetch her.

“Mama gave me ten cents, said we can split it,”

Padagonia announced, and the best friends set out for Bryant’s grocery store.

Outside the store, at the center of a circle of fawning girls, was Evelyn Hall. Evelyn’s mother lived in New York City and sent her crinoline skirts and patent-leather shoes which her grandparents allowed her to wear any day of the week she chose.

When Evelyn looked over and saw Padagonia and Tass approaching, she flicked her shiny Shirley Temple curls and waved.

“Hey, Padagonia! Hey, Tass!”

The circle parted and Tass and Padagonia stepped in.

“What you got?” Padagonia asked, pointing to the heavy brown paper bag Evelyn clutched in her hand.

“Gum balls, lemon drops, lollipops, Mallo Cups, and licorice.”

Padagonia and Tass exchanged glances.

“All of that?” Tass breathed in awe.

“Yeah, my mama sent me a whole dollar.”

Padagonia’s eyes popped. “A whole dollar?”

“Yep, she got a new daddy for me. A new rich daddy,” Evelyn said as she playfully twirled a greasy curl around her index finger.

As far as Tass had heard, this was the
third
new daddy Evelyn’s mother had acquired that year.

“Oh, well, that’s nice,” Padagonia said, and tugged her friend toward the store. “Come on, Tass.”

Evelyn held up her bag of sweets. “Y’all could have some of mine if you want.”

“Really?” Tass beamed and reached for the bag.

Padagonia slapped her hand away. “Thanks, but we have money.”

Tass glared at her. “But she offered—”

“We don’t need her charity,” Padagonia retorted between clenched teeth.

“Suit yourself then,” Evelyn said with a smirk.

The circle around Evelyn closed and the poorest of the poor greedily held out their hands for a piece of her sweet charity.

Inside the store the ceiling fans whirled noisily. Tass and Padagonia floated from one candy-filled fish bowl-shaped jar to the next.

Carolyn Bryant, the wife of the storeowner, closed the comic book she was reading and asked, “Y’all know what you want?”

“Lemon drops,” Tass piped.

“Wait a minute now,” Padagonia said as her eyes continued to skip over the jars. “I’m still deciding.”

Tass pressed her fists defiantly into her hips and pronounced, “I’m done deciding. I don’t have to wait on you. A nickel of that dime is mine.” She turned to Carolyn and said, “May I have five cent worth of lemon drops, please?”

As the woman strolled over to the jar of lemon drops and unscrewed the lid, the door opened and the August heat slipped in alongside a jagged slab of sunlight. Emmett, along with a cousin and a friend, walked in.

Tass sucked air and stepped quickly behind a broad wooden beam.

The boys acknowledged Padagonia and raised a friendly hand to Carolyn, who responded with a “Hey, boys.”

They went to the cooler and retrieved three bottles of Coca-Cola, and then each of them placed a nickel on the counter and started toward the door.

A jar of pickles caught Emmett’s eye and he doubled back to the counter to take a closer look. After a moment of close examination, he swiped his hand across his forehead and let off a long, shrill whistle. “Those are some gargantuan pickles!”

Tass had never heard the word
gargantuan
. Unable to contain herself, she popped out from her hiding place and asked, “What that mean?”

Emmett turned around and grinned. “That means really big.” His gaze floated back to the jar. “I believe I would like to have me one of them gargantuan pickles!”

“I ain’t never in my life heard someone whistle like that,” Carolyn snickered as she unscrewed the top from the jar and stuck her hand inside.

Emmett made a face. “Ain’t you got nothing to fish it out with?”

Carolyn kept reaching. “Nope, just my fingers.” She pinched a pickle between her thumb and forefinger. “Got it!”

Emmett rocked back on his heels and whistled again. “That sure nuff is a big sucka though!”

Carolyn giggled and nodded her head in agreement. “Where you learn to whistle like that?” she asked as she wrapped the pickle in wax paper and handed it to him.

“Back home. Chicago,” Emmett proudly replied as he reached for the pickle. “How much?”

“Two cents.”

Carolyn couldn’t help but notice the large ring on Emmett’s finger. “Is that real silver?”

Puffing his chest out like a blowfish, Emmett declared, “Yes, ma’am, it is.”

Carolyn leaned in and squinted at the letters:

May 25

1943

LT

“You LT?”

“LT stands for Louis Till. That’s my daddy.” His words carried the slightest hint of sadness. “
Was
my daddy. He was killed in the war.”

“Oh,” Carolyn said without offering any condolences.

When Emmett stepped out of the store, his cousin yelled, “’Bout time!”

Tass and Padagonia followed and Emmett asked if they were headed back home. The girls nodded.

“Well, we might as well all walk together then,” he said.

Evening was inching in and it brought with it a breeze that set the tree limbs to quivering and raised goose bumps on Tass’s bare arms.

The group walked along in silence. Tass didn’t need any words, she was happy enough being in such close proximity to Emmett and breathing the same air.

At the bend in the road they bid their goodbyes.

“See ya.”

“Okay, bye.”

The boys went left and Padagonia and Tass went right.

Padagonia glanced over at Tass and saw that her face was plastered with a wide foolish grin. She slapped her playfully on the shoulder and then sprinted away singing, “Bobo and Tass, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!”

Chapter Twenty-Three

M
id-August served up a sweltering platter of heat that demanded that people wear as little as possible in the daytime and sleep damn near naked at night.

Tass and her friends spent their days frolicking in the cool waters of the Tallahatchie River. It was there at the river’s edge that Emmett finally took serious notice of Tass. She was splashing about with Padagonia and a few other girls. She didn’t own a bathing suit, so she was dressed in an old blue dress. Her hat of thick hair was drenched and matted on her head like a sponge. On this day, the sight of her moved something deep within in him that he didn’t know he owned.

Emmett dove beneath the surface of the water and frog-kicked his way to the circle of girls. He brushed his hands against their calves, and they jumped from the water squealing like rats.

When he reemerged he was laughing so hard, he snorted water through his nose.

“I hope you choke!” Padagonia screamed. “Damn fool!”

Emmett spat a glob of foamy saliva into the water. “Aww, come on, don’t say that!”

Padagonia gave him a hard look. Tass tried to do the same, but you know she couldn’t, on account of the way she felt about him.

Emmett raised his hands above his head. “Sorry. Okay? I’m sorry.”

After a while, Padagonia waded back in, past the place they’d been able to stand—out toward the center of the river where she had to tread water to stay afloat. Tass inched out as well, until the water caressed her waist, and then stopped.

“You ain’t coming any further?” Emmett asked.

“Can’t swim,” she said, and scooped up a handful of water and dribbled it down her face.

“I can teach you.”

Padagonia splashed him. “And by
teach,
do you mean drown?”

A chorus of laughter rose up from the group.

“Naw, that’s okay,” Tass stammered as she started back toward the riverbank.

Emmett followed her out and onto the grainy sand. He used his foot to clear away small pebbles and bits of broken tree limbs so that Tass could sit in comfort.

“Sorry I scared you,” he said, and lowered himself down to next to her.

Tass could barely contain her excitement. A scream slithered up her throat and she pressed her lips together to keep it inside.

Emmett reached for a twig and used it to carve a figure of a horse in the sand. When he was done, Tass pointed at the form and said, “Horses don’t have wings.”

“In my dreams they do.”

Tass chuckled. “Well, maybe you eating too many peaches before you go to sleep at night.”

Emmett laughed and raked his hands across the image. “I can draw anything, you just tell me what.”

A cat, a dog, old cock-eyed Mr. Henley—he depicted them all, perfectly.

“You draw really good.”

“If you think this is good, wait till I show you what I could do with a pencil and paper.”

“Who done these?”

“Emmett.”

Tass preferred the tidiness of
Emmett
to the clownish, absurd nickname.

“Who?”

“Bobo, Mr. Wright’s grandnephew.”

“Oh,” Hemmingway murmured in her throat.

Tass had tacked Emmett’s drawings on her bedroom wall. Drawings on butcher paper, lined composition paper, newspaper—any type of paper he could get his hands on. At Tass’s request he had drawn all sorts of magical things: winged pigs, unicorns, angels, and the buildings that made up the famous Chicago skyline.

Hemmingway folded her hands behind her back as she studied every drawing. There was one in particular that made her catch her breath. It depicted a river, and a man and woman—or a boy and girl—holding hands, their feet hovering just above the water.

Hemmingway was no Jesus freak, no Bible-beating Baptist, but something about that drawing felt sacrilegious to her and she tore it from the wall.

Tass gasped. “Mama!”

Hemmingway reeled around; her pupils were on fire. “Only Jesus walked on water,” she snarled.

“It’s just a picture, Mama. He didn’t mean to blaspheme.”

The force in her daughter’s voice snapped Hemmingway to attention and it was then that she saw the woman glowing inside of Tass.

“You certainly spend a lot of time with that boy,” Hemmingway said, and then hung the bait: “You like him like
that
?”

Tass blushed and stammered, “No!”

“Let me tell you something, Tass: boys his age only have one thing on their minds!” Hemmingway aimed the tip of her index finger at Tass’s groin. “You know like I know, you’ll keep that purse of yours closed until you say,
I do
. And if I find out that you even thinking of doing otherwise, I’ma tear your behind up!”

And with that, Hemmingway walked calmly from the room.

When Tass heard the soup pot hit the burner, and was sure that Hemmingway was out of earshot, she whispered under her breath, “Look who’s talking about purses and marriage.”