Her Own Place (21 page)

That said, he told Taylor stories about his hunting and fishing days. Mae Lee threaded needles with the different thread colors she needed for her embroidery designs and stuck them into a pincushion. She thought of her husband, Taylor's father, how nice it would have been if he had been a man like Fletcher Owens. Taylor had deserved a good daddy. A son needs a daddy.

Later, when Taylor and his mama were alone, Taylor told her that he thought Fletcher Owens seemed very levelheaded and honest. Mae Lee smiled. “I kind of think so too, son. Now you can call your sisters and tell them what you think of your mama's new roomer. And don't raise your eyebrows as if you are surprised, Taylor. You know your sisters asked you to find out what kind of man Mama's new roomer is.” Taylor grinned and dropped his head.

It was strange, but she found herself freely telling Fletcher Owens little things that had always embarrassed her. She told him of the day she found out why her daughter had been ashamed of her. She had taken Annie Ruth's lunch to school. The little girl had forgotten it.

She realized later that she had worn one of her faded, loose-fitting, homemade, everyday cotton dresses with white ankle socks and, without thinking, had put on her Sunday dress-up blue straw hat, the one with the red cherries. Little Annie Ruth had kept her head down, barely glancing up at her. “Where are your manners, honey?” she asked. “Aren't you going to
tell your little classmates that this is your mama?” Of course she knew them all and they all knew her. Her little Annie Ruth didn't raise her eyes. “This is my mama,” she mumbled, grabbed her lunch and ran away.

“You know something, Mr. Fletcher,” she said, “when I later noticed my wide body in the mirror in a loose, homemade, cotton dress two sizes too large, I understood why my child had been ashamed. I laughed until I cried.” And she and Fletcher Owens laughed some more.

She did wish she hadn't told him the story about Nellie Grace's new baby shoes. But she'd been dusting the shelves in the den one morning and took down the shoebox with one new white shoe inside while he was sitting there. She told him about the shoe.

She had bought the little baby girl the new white Sunday shoes. She had quarreled with her husband, the baby's daddy, and to keep her home that Sunday, he'd angrily tossed one of the new baby shoes on top of the house. Neither she nor her husband ever made an attempt to take the shoe down. So the little shoe stayed there, partially hidden, a bitter reminder of a Sunday turned sour. If someone stood in a certain spot and turned their head just so, they could see it. But it took some doing even for Mae Lee, and she knew exactly where it was.

After she spilled out that particular story to Fletcher Owens, Mae Lee decided not to reveal any more family secrets. Her mama had always reminded her that a woman should hold back on a few things. Never tell a man everything about yourself. For a woman to always have a certain air of mystery, she had to hold back a little.

Then there was the singing. He loved to sing and had a
good singing voice and so did she. They seemed to sing almost the way they started to speak, with one voice. There were so many little things she liked about him, especially that he cupped his ear to listen to her. It made her feel he thought what she had to say was important.

But there were also some things about him that started to grate on her. The way he clicked his teeth when he was reading. Maybe she ought to buy him some Dentu Grip, she thought. The way he could sit for hours on end and twiddle his thumbs was annoying. She once asked if he ever tired of just sitting, twirling his thumbs over and over the same way. “Oh, yes,” he'd said, and smiled. “But then I stop and twirl them the other way.”

Later, she started to ask him something, but he was sound asleep, with his hands clasped across his chest. His full head of white hair was combed straight back, his strong face fully bared. His lower lip sagged slightly, but his mouth was closed, the furrows in his laugh line long and deep. His face was old only when he was asleep.

Whenever he talked about his coon dog, Colonel Yadkin, his face turned boyish. “Sure miss old Colonel Yadkin,” he'd say. “That coon dog could tree a possum better than a possum hound.”

One evening Mae Lee and Ellabelle sat in the semidark watching a quarter moon edge its way above the towering pines. Ellabelle slapped a mosquito biting away on her leg. “She's full of somebody's blood,” she complained, wiping her fingers on an empty paper bag. “I hope she didn't fly up here
from the house down near the railroad tracks. I don't want to catch nothing.”

“She's been sucking up my blood all evening. All you'll probably catch is what I have, old age.”

“I'm kind of hungry for something sweet,” Ellabelle said, after a while. “Didn't you bake an egg custard yesterday?”

“I did,” Mae Lee groaned, “but you seem to forget I have a boarder now.”

“Oh,” Ellabelle faked surprise, “is
that
what they are called nowadays?”

Mae Lee stiffened. “That wasn't nice, Ellabelle.” She leaned forward in her rocking chair, lowering her voice to a concerned whisper. “People haven't started to talk, have they? They don't think that I'm ... well, you know . . . ?”

“Oh, Lord no, Mae Lee, I'm just teasing,” Ellabelle assured her.

Mae Lee leaned back, relieved. She took a deep breath and made her usual vain attempt to pull in her stomach. After all those years, it was nice to have a male presence in the house. It gave her a reason to dress up more often.

Fletcher Owens's arrival in Rising Ridge, South Carolina, had indeed brought about change in Mae Lee's life and thinking. She had almost forgotten that there were things to talk about other than children and cooking. She also realized how truly lonely she'd been before he came. His very presence was comforting.

She felt a sense of security with Fletcher Owens that she hadn't had with her husband. She imagined it would be really wonderful to be married to someone like Mr. Fletcher. The
thought of marriage played on her mind, and she couldn't help wondering what her children might think. Especially her girls. She had the feeling that Taylor might be pleased.

Then, at half past seven in the evening, on the nineteenth of August, Fletcher Owens received a phone call. When he finished Mae Lee could tell he was nervous.

“I hate to get a call like this,” he said. He frowned. “When a person gets older, it's hard on them to be put under this kind of pressure, to have someone just call and say come.” He left the room.

Mae Lee heard Ellabelle's shuffling footsteps on the front porch. “Pick up your feet,” she called out. “It's too early in the week for the lazy woman's shuffle.”

Ellabelle slid into a chair. “I've been cleaning up my house. Getting ready to try and find me a mister to take in,” she laughed.

Mae Lee didn't smile. “I believe my roomer is fixing to leave.”

Mr. Fletcher appeared in the doorway. He wore the same gray pinstriped suit he'd worn the day he arrived, his coat draped across his arm. The top button of his clean white shirt was unbuttoned, the knot on his necktie loosened just below, shoes clean, but not shined.

Mae Lee liked that kind of look on a man. Obviously, Ellabelle did, too. “Lord have mercy, that's a pretty tie,” she gushed, glancing at his worn suitcase. “Seems like you are fixing to travel, Mr. Fletcher?”

He looked worried. “I'm afraid I am,” he said. “I'm going to have to catch that midnight train out of North Point tonight.”

Mae Lee thought, that's a reserved train. “If you don't have a reservation you might not be able to get on that midnight train, Mr. Fletcher,” she said.

“Oh, at this time of night, they'll find room for me,” he said. He turned to face Mae Lee. “I've been called away. I don't think I'll be gone for more than a week or two.” He forced a weak smile. “But I hope I can count on having a room when I get back. I'll leave my trunk with you, if it's all right.”

Mae Lee felt a wave of relief sweep over her. “Oh, yes, Mr. Fletcher,” she said, “you can count on your room being right here when you return.”

“I'll need to get to North Point in order to catch that train. Is there a taxi I can call, Mae Lee?” he asked.

“Oh, I'll drive you,” Ellabelle hurriedly spoke up.

Mae Lee glared at her friend. “I see my mouthpiece will be able to take you. I think I'll go along too.”

Mae Lee rode in the front seat with Ellabelle. She tried to make light talk. “There's not too much traffic out this time of night, so we'll get you there in plenty time for the train, Mr. Fletcher.”

“Good,” he said quietly.

“I sure hate to see you pull up and leave on such notice, Mr. Fletcher,” Ellabelle said sadly. “I hope you didn't forget anything.”

Fletcher Owens was thoughtful for a few minutes, then he said, “Um-mmm, I think I left my old corncob pipe behind. Probably just as well I left it. I'm trying to quit. Smoked my pipe yesterday for the first time in a couple months,” he said.

“It was nice knowing you, Mr. Fletcher Owens,” Ellabelle said when they saw the train coming.

“Wait a minute,” he smiled. “Like I said, I'll be back.”

After the train pulled away, churning its streamlined cars through the darkness, Ellabelle still waved.

Mae Lee was impatient. “Are you going to stand there all night? It's well past midnight.” Mae Lee watched Ellabelle shuffle to straighten her body, and although the train had long since disappeared into the darkness, Ellabelle pulled her fat legs into a proud strut.

“It's probably best that Fletcher Owens is going away for a while,” Mae Lee said. “When he is around, you almost strut yourself to death.”

On the way home Ellabelle asked Mae Lee where Mr. Fletcher was going. She couldn't believe that Mae Lee didn't know, and beyond that, hadn't even asked him. She also couldn't imagine how Fletcher Owens would leave without telling Mae Lee where he was going. “Most people don't leave the house where they live and not tell where they're going,” she told Mae Lee.

She had fully intended to ask Mr. Fletcher where he was rushing out to in the middle of the night, but had kind of held back, waiting for him to say. And it seemed the next thing she knew, he was on that train and gone.

But he had asked her to save his room. She also remembered he'd left his trunk behind. “He'll be back,” she told Ellabelle.

It was one-thirty in the morning when they drove up to Mae Lee's house. “See you in the morning,” Ellabelle said, then laughed. “It is the morning.”

Knowing that her boarder wasn't there seemed to make the house even emptier than before. She was alone in her house, her children long gone, now Mr. Fletcher as well. Maybe I should get a dog, or a cat, or a parrot or something, she thought, just so there will be something living in the house with me. She went to bed, but lay awake for a long time, hearing the night noises outside, an occasional automobile on the highway down the way, the bell on the Presbyterian church steeple downtown ringing three o'clock, a dog barking off in the distance somewhere. But inside her own house, not a sound. She was all by herself in the dark.

Before sunrise Mae Lee got out of bed and cooked breakfast, but she only picked at the grits, bacon, and eggs on her plate. She looked at the empty chair facing her. Mr. Fletcher had roomed in her house for only nineteen days, but she missed him. She would be glad when he returned.

It seemed having Mr. Fletcher out of the house cleared her mind, unclogged her thinking. She hadn't been able to think straight for almost a month. Perhaps now she'd get back to her volunteer work at the hospital. Well, anyway, she was not without resources. She had money in the bank, and over five thousand dollars here in the home.

Maybe she should buy an automobile. Taylor could teach her how to drive it. If she had a car and could drive, she could
have taken Mr. Fletcher to catch the train last night without needing Ellabelle to go along.

She thought of what Ellabelle had said about it being odd that Mr. Fletcher hadn't told her where he was going, or why. Ellabelle was trying to make her suspicious of Mr. Fletcher; perhaps Ellabelle was a little bit jealous. She wondered where Mr. Fletcher
was
going. Why did he have to leave so suddenly, without any warning? From what she had heard of his telephone conversation, money was involved. She could have loaned him a little money, but he hadn't asked her to do it. Of course Mr. Fletcher had no way of knowing how much money she kept hidden away right there in the house.

He was coming back. After all, he had left his trunk up in his room, hadn't he?

She rose to her feet. Slowly, she began to feel knots tightening in her stomach. This is silly, she told herself. She'd been watching too many shows on that TV set. She walked over to the earthenware vase by the front door, where she kept her umbrellas, and reached down into it for the cotton drawstring bag with the money.

It was not there. No, she remembered, she had moved it from the vase last Sunday and put it somewhere else. Behind the flour bin in the kitchen? She hurried into the kitchen, pulled the bin away from the shelf. It wasn't there.

She began to feel hot all over. Where had she last hidden the money? She swept a stack of magazines off the top of the old wooden chest in the hallway, opened it, pushed aside the toys she kept there for her grandchildren. The bag wasn't there, either.

Oh, Lord, she thought, oh, Lord. Where did I hide the money? I've forgotten where I put it the last time I hid it.

Something else that Ellabelle had said now flashed into her mind. Ellabelle had said that it seemed strange that Mr. Fletcher could be so sure of getting a seat on a reserved-seat train like the Southerner, when he had no reservation. It was true; he had seemed to go right aboard the train without so much as even asking the conductor whether there was any room for him inside. It was as if he already had a ticket, Ellabelle had said. But if—