Pamela Morsi (14 page)

Rome undoubtedly thought her to be a silly schoolgirl swooning within sight of her swain. She did not like the thought at all. But she certainly couldn’t admit
to him the truth, which was in some ways worse. She had so desired to be attractive that she had laced herself too tightly for even the slightest exertion.

The dress she wore was now way too tight in the waist and fit very ill. She hoped that he did not look at her too closely or he would undoubtedly notice the difference. But at least she could draw breath.

When the last strain of the afternoon concert faded away, the applause rang through the crowd. Rome and Gussie rose to their feet, as did most others within the immediate vicinity of the gazebo. The band took their bows.

Rome offered his arm and Gussie took it.

“That was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon,” he said to her.

“Do you never come to the concerts?”

“No, I never have,” he admitted.

Gussie was genuinely surprised. “What do you do on Sundays?” she asked.

A strange expression crossed his face momentarily and Gussie had no idea what he might have answered. He was spared a reply as Wade and Vera Pearsall stepped up to speak to them.

“It was a lovely musical entertainment,” Vera announced. “Simply lovely. Did you and Mr. Akers enjoy it, Gussie? How could you not? Are you quite recovered from your swoon? Well, of course you are.”

Gussie smiled admirably. Vera was one of those rare persons for whom conversation did not require another person.

Rome and Pearsall seemed to simply ignore her, starting up their own conversation about fireworks and the Founder’s Day celebration.

“Don’t let them sell you just a bunch of glittery stars like the ladies want,” Pearsall told him firmly.
“We’re looking for lots of boom and bang. Fireworks aren’t fireworks if your ears aren’t ringing in the aftermath.”

Vera took the opportunity of their distraction to inch Gussie away for a very short but very private dialogue. Her words were low, gushing and furtive.

“I think it’s an absolutely fine idea and you should snap him up as quickly as possible,” she whispered. “I know, I know what you’re thinking. He doesn’t have a lick of fortune or property to recommend him, but a woman of your age can’t afford to be so picky. It was unfortunate that Amos Dewey couldn’t be brought to the point, but you can be grateful you don’t have to compete with Saintly Bess. And who knows why they didn’t have children. Everybody thinks it was her, being so sickly and all, but it could have been that he wasn’t all that he should be in that respect. After all, it’s been close to three years and he … well, there hasn’t been a word of scandal about him and believe me, I’d know if there was one. He doesn’t seem too eager to marry either. We can only imagine what that must mean.”

Gussie had no idea what it must mean or what it had to do with his wife’s barrenness, but there was no need for her to respond, Vera kept up the conversation without her. She pretended to be listening, though her attention was actually focused upon what was being said between Rome and Wade.

“Everybody thinks that the judge did such a fine job,” Pearsall was saying. “He’s a likable fellow, I admit that myself. But folks ain’t seen the books like I seen. They are a pure puzzle going absolutely nowhere. And I write the man letter after letter about when to start construction on the lagoons. He only responds about half the time and then seems to misunderstand everything I say and every question I ask.
Everyone blames me for that, but I can’t schedule construction until I get the paperwork. He set it up just that way, and then he’s too busy to do what becomes necessary.”

“He set it up that way?” Rome sounded surprised. In truth, Gussie was too.

“Yes indeed,” Pearsall answered. “Folks think that I ain’t doing my part, I’m not trying to get the lagoons built as the lines are laid, but the way I see it, Barclay’s just lazy about turning over the land and following through with the permits. He’s probably busy with some gal down in Austin as well. Once a fellow gets a taste of something like that Richardson tart, he ain’t fit for ordinary females.”

Gussie felt her face flush at the implication and tried harder to appear intent upon Vera’s conversation.

Rome’s response was long in coming. The length of silence was strange enough to make Gussie glance in that direction. His face revealed nothing, but his expression was hardened. Somehow the softness of his tone when he spoke sounded almost dangerous.

“I think more was made of that scandal, Pearsall, than was ever verifiably certain.”

Wade made a snorting sound, dismissing the suggestion. “His wife filed for divorce. He left town. Seems to me that says it as loudly as if they’d been caught bare naked together on Broad Street.”

At that moment, Vera, apparently sensing Gussie’s wandering attention, grabbed her by the arm to ensure that she was listening.

“Be very careful in your dealings with Akers,” Vera said. “Don’t reveal your heart, no matter what is in it. You must string him along. It is never good to seem too eager, even at your age.”

The last statement disquieted Gussie. Her immediate
reaction was to haughtily tell the nosy know-it-all that she did not play games with a gentleman’s tender feelings. That if a man did not love her on his own, she would never stoop to trick him into doing so. But that was exactly what she was involved in. Using Rome to play games with Amos. She could cloak it in business terms and economic theories, but it was a deceptive mating game as old as lies and equally as deceitful.

She was saved from making any comment at all by the arrival of Perry and Constance Wilhelm.

“Are you feeling better?” Constance asked, her warm tone tempered with concern.

“I’m perfectly fine,” Gussie assured her. “It was just the heat.”

“Yes, the heat,” Constance agreed, though having been in the circle of women who surrounded Gussie, she was well aware of the restrictive laces that were loosened.

“It’s perfectly miserable already,” Vera piped up. “And it’s not even June.”

An amiable discussion of the vagaries of weather in east Texas generally, and in their little town specifically, commenced. In truth, there was nothing out of the ordinary for the season. But it was such a benign subject matter that it suited casual Cottonwood conversation perfectly.

Joe and Madge Simpson joined them and entered easily into the talk of excess heat and damp, sticky air.

When after several moments it was generally agreed that indeed summer was almost upon them and that the rain last night was welcome if the storm was not, Rome took Gussie’s arm and they began a careful inching away from the crowd. No one made any attempt to stop them. But everyone seemed to have one last word that they wished to say. Finally it was
just the two of them, making their way arm in arm down the park path and out to the street.

They walked in silence for a couple of moments. As the time lengthened and became uncomfortable, Gussie struggled to think of something to say.

“The music was …”

“I thought that …”

They spoke simultaneously and then hesitated. “Please, go ahead.”

“No, you first.”

“I was just going to say how pleasant the afternoon has been,” she told him.

Rome nodded. “I think we’re making real progress as well,” he said. “Amos sounded downright belligerent when I talked to him.”

“He did?”

Rome assured her that it was so. Gussie couldn’t help but be pleased. In a business negotiation, a little blustering and belligerence from your adversary usually meant having the upper hand and frequently proceeded a concession.

“So it’s working,” she said.

“It seems to be,” Rome answered, grinning at her like a mischievous boy. “I think he could come around very soon.”

Gussie smiled at him. She was pleased. She was sure that she was pleased. But there was a stab of disappointment in it as well. She enjoyed being with Rome. He was fun and funny and interesting to be with.

But, of course, he could continue to be her friend.

That thought fluttered through her mind rather surprisingly. She had never been friends with Rome. She had never been friends with any man. Her dealings with men had been either business or social. In neither case could she ever actually let down her guard and be
genuinely comfortable or natural. What a pleasure and a relief it was to be able to do both.

They would be working together, business partners, not employer and employee, actual partners. A friendship should be the natural outgrowth of that.

They reached the picket fence in front of her house. In truth, Gussie was a little loath to go in. She’d enjoyed herself tremendously and in comparison, the evening before her looked long and lonely.

“So when is our next outing?” she asked him.

Rome was thoughtful for a moment.

“The committees for the Founder’s Day are to meet one night next week,” he said. “The married men usually bring their wives to these things and they have food and take on a party atmosphere. Amos will have to be there and will have to see me, since we are on the same committee. I’ll bring you as my companion.”

Gussie’s brow furrowed. “You think I should attend uninvited?”

Rome shrugged with unconcern. “It may be noticed, but that’s what we want, isn’t it? Bring a dish and we’ll simply do it. Just because it hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”

“Ah, innovation,” Gussie replied, teasing him. “Businesses grow and change through innovation.”

They walked up to the porch steps. Rome hesitated and Gussie turned to him. She was on the first step, he still on the walk. They were equal in height now, looking straight into each other’s eyes. He was smiling.

“You can always find a business excuse for everything, can’t you?” he said.

Gussie laughed lightly. “I suppose so. Though I am hard-pressed to explain my fainting spell.”

“That one is easy,” Rome answered. “Supply and demand.”

“What do mean?”

“The supply of air you could get through your corseting was less than the demand that your lungs required.”

Gussie’s face paled and she felt as if she might faint again. He had actually said the word
corset
to her. He’d said it aloud. And he’d been aware that she was laced far too tightly.

“How … how did you know that?” she demanded.

“You told me,” he answered. “When I laid you on the bench, you told me your laces were too tight.”

Humiliation welled up in her, almost too horrifying to bear. Her face flaming in embarrassment, Gussie had no idea what to say. She had told him. She had admitted that very intimate fact to him. He was looking at her as if he had no idea what was wrong. The man was a crass idiot, a completely crass idiot.

“I … I …”

She was simply to mortified to speak. She turned and ran into the house without ever once looking back.

T
HE COTTONWOODS, FOR WHICH THE TOWN WAS NAMED
, were sloughing off seed in the morning sunshine. The fluffy white spores gathered along the ground like small winnows of picked cotton and floated aimlessly on the air, catching the gleam of sunlight.

At the loading dock of the Mudd Manufactured Ice plant, Rome Akers took little note of the beauty of the day as he loaded the wagons. The pressure valve on the water distiller had been acting up and he’d spent the better part of the morning trying to find the problem and remedy it.

If this were his business, he would have long ago replaced the ancient piece of machinery with a newer, more efficient and dependable system. But Miss Gussie was far enough removed from the actual everyday working process to be less easily convinced to make capital improvements. Labor was cheaper than equipment So a few extra hours’ effort to get the same benefit was simply a necessity of doing business and the longer that major purchases were postponed, the better.

Once he became a partner, Rome assured himself,
things would be a good deal different. Miss Gussie was a fine business thinker, but he was the man with his hands on the day-to-day operations of the plant. In that way he was better qualified to see the whole effect of deteriorating machinery and lost productivity. When he became a partner, she would be forced to listen to his assessment.

Old man Shultz urged the hundred-pound blocks of ice down the ramp. To make sure that it didn’t get away from him and slide off onto the ground, Rome placed his body at the end of the long, slick slope. Then, using much of the momentum created by the downward movement, he grasped the block with the heavy ice tongs and slung it into the wagon.

Inside, Tommy Robbins, the plant’s shute boy, stacked it tightly and carefully to ensure minimal loss from melting. The stacking was, in fact, the job of Shultz, who stood now at the top of the shute. But it was the toughest job, requiring the youngest back and the strongest muscles. The older man could no longer do it with any ease. With absolutely no fanfare and hardly a word of explanation, Rome had switched the positions of the two men.

Rome laid another ice block on the wagon floor and turned back to the ramp to see Shultz hesitating. His attention focused beyond Rome, the old man tipped his hat in deference. Rome followed the direction of the man’s gaze and found himself looking directly into the eyes of Miss Gussie. The woman was all dressed for town, her dove-gray walking suit neat as a pin, her parasol unopened in the morning sun and a silly little hat, useless for any purpose but decoration, perched upon her head.

“Good morning,” Rome said, noting with some surprise his own pleasure in seeing her. Usually he considered
a visit from
the boss
somewhat of an intrusion. It always slowed the work and this morning, when they were already late, the sight of her should have been very unwelcome. But somehow it was not.

“You’re still loading the wagons?” She had every reason to be surprised.

“The pressure valve on the distiller is acting up again,” he told her. “It’s not only troublesome and a time waster, it’s dangerous.”

She was, just as he had anticipated, not overly concerned.

“I was hoping to have a few moments to talk to you,” she said.