Catching Moondrops Read online

  Regardless, he shut Malachi up, and for the next five minutes we all watched him finish his job with skill and finesse. When he’d fixed the last of Malachi’s face, he stood and clapped his hands. “Suppose that should do it. Don’t see need for any stitchin’ up today. Let’s hope there’s no cause for it in future.” Then he looked at me. “You got someplace out here where I can wash up?”

  I held my hand toward the front door. “Bathroom’s upstairs.”

  He hesitated. “I’d just as soon wash up out here.”

  I caught the reason for his hesitation but didn’t know what to say. As usual, Gemma did.

  “I done lived in this here house for six years now, and I’m just as brown as you. You can feel free to go on up to the bathroom, you hear?”

  He looked from Gemma to me, then back to Gemma before nodding. “Yes’m.” And then he disappeared inside.

  “‘Ma’am,’” Gemma muttered under her breath. “Ain’t old enough to be called ma’am, least of all by a man no more’n a few years older’n me.”

  “You know what happens once you start gettin’ them crow’s-feet . . .”

  Gemma whirled about and gave Malachi the evil eye. “Don’t go thinkin’ I won’t hurt you just because you’re all bandaged up.”

  Noah got up and paced the porch until Tal came back outside. “Doc, you have any problem gettin’ your schoolin’?”

  Tal shrugged and leaned against the porch rail. “No more’n most, I guess. There’s a lot to learn. Why? You thinkin’ about goin’ to college?”

  You could have heard a pin drop on that front porch. Never, and I mean never, in all the days Calloway had been on the map, had there ever been a single person, white or black, to step foot at a college. The very idea of that mark being made by a colored boy was a surefire way to start war.

  And Noah knew it.

  He looked at his feet and kicked the heel of one shoe against the toe of another. “Ain’t possible. I was just wonderin’ aloud, is all.”

  “What do you mean it ain’t possible? All’s you’ve got to do is work hard. You can get scholarships and things.”

  But Noah took a look at his brother, whose face was hard and tight-lipped, and nodded toward the road. “Nah, there ain’t no use talkin’ over it. We’d best get home, anyhow.”

  Tal didn’t push the subject. He just picked his hat up off the porch swing and plopped it on his head. “Miss Jessie, Miss Gemma, it was a fine pleasure to meet you and a kindness for you to give us a hand.”

  “You should stop by sometime and meet my parents,” I said. “They’re off visitin’, but I’m sure they’d be right happy to know you.”

  “I’m sure I’d be right happy to know them, too.” He turned his attention to Gemma. “You said you worked for a doctor?”

  “I worked for Doc Mabley. He was a white doctor. Died some two months ago.”

  “He let you assist?”

  “Only with the colored patients. Doc Mabley was kind enough to help some of them out when they needed it. Otherwise I kept his records, kept up his stock.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Miss Gemma, I could sure use some help if you’d be obliged. An assistant would be a good set of extra hands, and I could use someone known around here to make my introductions.”

  Gemma eyed him before slowly nodding. “Reckon I could.”

  “Wouldn’t be much pay now, you know. Ain’t likely to get much in the way of fees from the patients I’ll be treatin’.”

  “Don’t matter so long as I have good work to put my hands to.”

  “That it would be. My office is right across the street from the Jarvis house.”

  Malachi snorted. “Shack’s more like it.”

  “Room enough for me,” Tal said. Then to Gemma, “You think you could stop in sometime this week to talk it over?”

  “I can come day after tomorrow if that suits.”

  “Nine o’clock too early?”

  “No, sir. I’ve kept farm hours all my life.”

  He grinned at her. “Nine o’clock then?”

  “Nine o’clock.”

  Malachi watched the two of them with his swollen eyes, a look of disgust growing more evident on his face. He’d made no secret over the past year about his admiration for Gemma, and the unmistakable attraction that was growing between her and Tal was clearly turning his stomach.

  “Mind if we go home?” he muttered. “Before I fall down dead or somethin’?”

  Gemma tore her eyes away from Tal to roll them at Malachi. “Would serve you right if you did.”

  “And on that cheery note—” Malachi groaned on his way down the steps—“I’ll bid you ladies a fine evenin’.”

  I gave Noah a playful whack to the head, but he ducked, so I only clipped the top. “Luke will be back home tomorrow evenin’. He’ll be itchin’ to see you, I’m sure.”

  “I’m itchin’ to see him.” He took the steps in one leap, tossing dust up when he landed. “You tell him to come on by and see us real soon.”

  “And tell him to bring his cards,” Malachi added. “He owes me a poker rematch.”

  I squinted at him suspiciously. “Only if you play for beans.”

  “I hate beans.”

  Malachi leaned on Tal for support, and Noah scurried to catch up and help. I watched them go, but I wasn’t thinking much about them. I was thinking about Luke. It had been two months since he’d left to collect customers for his furniture-making business, and every day had seemed like an eternity.

  The very thought of him got my stomach butterflies to fluttering, but one look at Gemma told me it was another man who had stolen her attention. “That Doc Pritchett’s a fine man.” I smirked at her. “Looks about twenty-five or so.”

  “So?”

  “Good marryin’ age.”

  She crossed her arms defiantly. “Jessilyn Lassiter, what’s that got to do with anythin’?”

  “Only what I said. I’m only statin’ fact.”

  “Mm-hm. I hear ya. You’d be better off keepin’ your facts to yourself.”

  She grabbed the first aid box and headed inside, but the sound of that door slamming told me I’d got to her.

  It told me Tal Pritchett had got to her too.

  Chapter 2

  We’d had all sorts of troubles in Calloway. We’d had violence, hate, sickness, and death. We’d seen droughts and floods, lost crops, and run out of money. But this late May day in 1938 wasn’t a day I wanted to think about past pains or wonder about future ones. Today was the day I’d see Luke Talley for the first time in months, and there wasn’t any room in my mind for sadness.

  Which is why I scowled extra hard at the leaflet Gemma had found stuck to our porch rail with a thumbtack. Scrawled across the top was a ridiculous cartoon depicting a colored man reading the Constitution upside down. The text below read:

  Meeting to discuss the potential uprising of Negroes in Calloway County. June 15 at seven in the evening. Cole Mundy’s barn.

  “Cole Mundy’s barn!” I balled the paper up tight and threw it onto the table beside the rocker where Gemma sat. “Ain’t nothin’ but evil goes on in Cole Mundy’s barn, you ask me. I wouldn’t step foot there for all the world. It’d be like steppin’ off into hell.”

  Gemma clucked her tongue at me for saying hell, but I just rolled my eyes.

  “Anyways, what sort of confounded idiot goes tackin’ somethin’ like that up to our house, of all places? Makin’ colored men out to be dim-witted morons. Daddy sees that, he’ll be on a manhunt.”

  “Then he best not see it.” She reached over to snatch the paper, but Daddy came out of the house and beat her to it.

  “You got somethin’ I should know about, Gemma?” He stood there and looked from one of us to the other. “Reckon a man ought to decide for himself what he should and should not see.”

  I looked at Gemma and shrugged. “Maybe it’s best he does see it.”

  She put her hand protectively over the paper for about five seco
nds, but that was all it took for her to figure she wouldn’t win any sort of argument with my daddy. She sighed and handed him the wrinkled-up paper. “If you want, but it ain’t nothin’ but drivel.”

  Daddy unfolded it, and I watched his face for a reaction. It didn’t take long for his cheeks to light up, for his jaw to start doing that little dance it does whenever he’s riled. But he didn’t say a word. He took one good, deep breath, puffed his cheeks, and then let it out with a long sigh. The paper got squished into a tight ball again. “I ain’t goin’ to dignify this with a remark” was all he said. “Where’d you get it?”

  I nodded to the post I was leaning on. “It was tacked up to the porch.”

  He didn’t say anything, just retreated into the house, threw the leaflet into the fireplace, and struck a match.

  I watched through the window as he leaned against the fireplace and stared until every speck of paper transformed into black ash. Then he slammed his fist into the mantel so hard that Momma’s candlesticks shook.

  Gemma and I jumped at the noise of it, and Gemma turned around in her seat to look inside. “What in the world . . . ?”

  Daddy stomped off into the kitchen, where I could hear him giving Momma a whispered earful. I stopped staring through the window and slid into the other rocker. “That was Daddy takin’ his frustrations out on the fireplace.”

  “I knew it’d be best if he didn’t see it.”

  “No, you knew he’d get upset about it; that don’t mean it weren’t best. A man ought to know what sort of nonsense is goin’ on about him. How else can he protect his family from it?”

  “The more we stay out of it, the better he’ll be able to protect us.”

  “That’s a coward’s way, Gemma Teague.”

  She flashed me one of her angry momma looks that always made me feel pity for her future children. “Call me a coward, call me crazy, call me whatever you want, but one thing you can’t call me is a pot stirrer. I ain’t out there just itchin’ to get white people mad at me. I know my place, and I keep it.”

  “Oh, and your place is livin’ with a white family like kin?”

  She put her head back down to study her needlework, but I wasn’t letting up.

  “You think you’d have had a good home after your momma and daddy died if we hadn’t decided you belonged with us no matter what people thought? You wish we’d decided you should ‘keep your place’ then?”

  We didn’t say anything for a few minutes until she dropped her needlework in her lap and sighed. “Won’t they ever just go away?”

  “Who? Men who hate colored folk? Klan? Not unless someone makes them go away. There ain’t no reason, Gemma, why a couple dozen men should be able to say what’s what when there’s a couple thousand able-bodied people out there who could come together against them.”

  “There ain’t a couple thousand hereabouts who’d fight for colored folks.”

  “All right, a couple hundred. Any which way, they ain’t got the right to spread this sort of nonsense on our property. You see what they’re tryin’ to do, don’t you? They ain’t never wanted nothin’ but to tell colored people what they can and cannot do, and now that there’s some talk stirrin’ about colored people havin’ more rights, they aim to shut ’em down right off.”

  I pointed through the den window in the direction of the charred remains of the leaflet. “That thing there weren’t no gentlemanly invitation. That was a threat. You think they thought in a month of Sundays we’d show up there? All they’re doin’ is bein’ heavy-handed with us, mockin’ us, and Daddy won’t stand for it.”

  She shook her head. “I done told those boys they were askin’ for trouble, tryin’ to get into whites-only places and whatnot. Malachi and his lot . . . they should’ve known better.”

  “Gemma Teague!” My whisper came out sharp between clenched teeth. “Them boys is just tryin’ to get somethin’ more out of life.”

  “Oh, they’ll get it, all right. They’ll get it at the end of a gun barrel . . . or a rope.”

  “And what about Doc Pritchett? You’re plannin’ on workin’ for that colored doc, and you know good and well folks in this town don’t take kindly to what they see as a colored man goin’ above his proper station.”

  She didn’t look at me, so I knew I had her. “That’s different.”

  “Ain’t different nohow.”

  Gemma couldn’t say much back. She couldn’t argue with me once I made it personal.

  I stood up and remembered why I was out here waiting on the porch in the first place, then went back to pacing the whitewashed floorboards just like Momma always does when she’s anxious. It didn’t escape my notice how much I became like her as I grew older, but Lord knows I didn’t model her in all ways, and Gemma was first to say it.

  “I swear you’re the edgiest woman I ever done seen. Why can’t you be more calm and peaceful like your momma?” She glared at me from her post on the rocker. “You got to do that? You’re makin’ the porch shake.”

  I didn’t pause or reply. I just dug my eyes into hers as I paced in her direction, then spun around and headed back, nearly tripping over Duke, our ages-old basset hound. Years earlier, he would have scurried under the porch to escape my worrisome mood, but now it was all he could do to lift his eyes and glance at me.

  “That dog may as well be nailed to the floor.” I looked down the road both ways. “You sure there weren’t any calls?”

  “Would’ve told you if there were.” She had her needlepoint in her hands, her face so close to it I was surprised she wasn’t cross-eyed. “You ain’t gone nowhere all day, anyhow. Think you would’ve heard if the phone rang.”

  I studied her face with squinty eyes, hands balled up on my hips. “You need spectacles. You can’t see a thing two feet in front of your face.”

  Gemma rubbed the space between her eyes, though I guessed it was more in exasperation than eye fatigue. “You ain’t got to boss me, Jessilyn. They’re my eyes. I ought to know when they need fixin’.”

  “You know full well they need fixin’; I ain’t arguin’ that. It’s just you won’t admit to it. You worried about lookin’ funny around Tal Pritchett?”

  “I ain’t so vain as that, Jessie.”

  I backed away from the fiery stare, worried she might prick me with her needle. “Then you’re worried about money.” I tapped my toe waiting for her to answer, but she ignored me and went back to her needlepoint. “I’m full aware why a colored doctor won’t be able to pay much, but I already told you I’d help buy you some spectacles. I been workin’ for Miss Cleta more and more, and she’s as generous as the day is long. I got me more than I need.”

  Her pointed focus on that needlework got under my skin, and after a good minute of silence broken only by the squeak of the rocker, my nerves were so raw my palms itched. But I was determined to play at nonchalance.

  “Fine, then. Let yourself go blind. Next thing you know, you’ll be sewin’ your fingers together with that there needle. I reckon you’ll think twice then.”

  A tuneful whistle off in the distance broke through our quarrel, and I nearly jumped out of my new shoes. I tipped a finger under Gemma’s chin and made her look at me. “How do I look? Is my hair still put up nice?” I pulled my skirt out by the sides and inspected it. “My dress wrinkled?”

  Gemma sighed and set her needlework on the table beside her. “It’s only Luke, Jessie. Ain’t like he’s a stranger now. Don’t get so riled up. You look right nice.”

  “I ain’t seen him in two months,” I managed to murmur even though my voice gave out halfway through. “Leastways, he ain’t seen me in two months neither. What if he don’t think I’m much to look at?”

  “What d’you think’s changed so much in two months? You stopped growin’ two years ago, you ain’t changed your weight none, and your hair’s still long and golden brown like ever.”

  “But I’m wearin’ it different.” I lifted one finger and ran it across my forehead. “I added five more
freckles, too. Before you know it, I’ll be nothin’ but freckles.”

  “Age sure has made you vain.”

  “I got to worry about my looks now. I’m runnin’ out of time to make Luke notice.”

  “You’re not even nineteen years old, Jessie Lassiter. Time ain’t runnin’ out for nothin’.”

  “And Luke’s twenty-five. How much longer you think I got before some city girl snags him up?” The whistling got louder, but I could barely hear it over my heartbeat. “Luke’s gone off all the time, now he’s all famous and whatnot. For all I know he’s got a sweetheart in every town.”

  “Luke’s a carpenter. He ain’t Valentino.”

  “Everybody within a hundred miles of Calloway knows Luke Talley’s furniture,” I argued. “Ain’t no one works wood better in this whole state.”

  “I didn’t say there was.” Gemma looked up the road behind me and reached out to pinch my cheeks twice.

  “Ouch!”

  “You’re pale as a ghost. And he’s just about to turn up the walk, so you best get that silly, sour look off your face and put a smile on.”

  The stupid grin I manufactured was enough to make Gemma have to bite her lip to avoid a laugh, but it was all I could manage without having my mouth quiver.

  Gemma gave me a shove and then stepped back into the shadow of the doorway, leaving me and Luke alone and chaperoned all at once.

  Luke stopped whistling and walking the minute I managed to make it off the porch and step into the sunshine. There was a good early summer breeze, and it picked his golden hair up and skimmed it across his forehead. He was dressed up like it was a church day, a new hat gripped in his hands. I watched his eyes for any sign of affection; it was all I could do to keep from running down to toss my arms around his neck. I reminded myself that only happened in my daydreams and stood my ground, waiting for him to make up his mind what to do.

  He strolled slowly up the walk, a smile building with each step, and when he came within two feet of me, he stopped. “Jessilyn, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” Then he tossed his hat on the porch step behind me and pulled me close.