Finding Home Page 14

  “Phoebe, stop it. I like what you’re trying to do to better yourself. You’ve got more grit than any ten women I know. It’s your gall that’s getting to me.”

  “I’m payin’ my way. Gall don’t have nothin’ to do with it.”

  “Look me in the eye and tell me you weren’t planning a coup.”

  Phoebe didn’t know what a coup was. She looked him in the eye. “I ain’t.”

  “So I’m not going to come in the house one night and find three more Hawleys invited to dinner?”

  Blood drained from Phoebe’s face. “It’s your house. You’d have to do the invitin’. Gage—don’t you like me one little bit? Personal?”

  He emitted a self-deprecating laugh. “Phoebe, women don’t often stay with the first man they’ve known sexually. Not these days. Once the excitement wears off the illusion of love is hard to maintain. No one knows that better than myself.”

  Phoebe heard the word love and leaned into his space. “I hope you ain’t comparing me to Velma. Love is no illusion. Love is real. I can taste it.”

  “Oh, hell!” Gage said doggedly. “Look, I’ll be back inside an hour.”

  Phoebe raced through the house to watch him out the gate. The truck paused and she thought for an instant Gage was going to back up, return to her. The truck pulled away. She let the curtain drop.

  She had given him a unique part of herself. In return he had shown her a secret wonder of life, proved its existence. But now...”I make the biggest mistakes,” she cried forlornly into the air.

  SEVEN

  Phoebe made up her mind. She was going to brazen it out. Ma and Pa and Erlene were arriving Saturday a week and that was that. No doubt there were rooms to be had, or a house nearby. She’d just have to hoard her crab money to pay for it.

  Gage was a matter of the heart. She had to convince him of her love. He didn’t like gall. For him she’d purge every drop. The Bible said the meek shall inherit the earth. If the Good Book said it was so, she reckoned she’d take a stab at it.

  An hour later, Gage was acting like a grizzly with a toothache, which had the effect of making meek more difficult to come by than anger. Phoebe’s squatted amid a plethora of plastic rope and corks.

  Gage chuffed, exasperated. “If you tie it like that, you’ll lose the float. Then you won’t know where the traps are. This time, pay attention.” He demonstrated an anchor knot for the third time.

  Phoebe tied the knot. “When you have time I want you to show me how to tie a hangman’s knot. I might find a use for it.”

  He glowered at her. “You want to trade tit for tat, or learn to crab?”

  “Crab.” She moved to the next trap and attached the float. Gage towered over her like an angry giant. She completed the task on the remaining traps. “Now what?”

  “You missed one.”

  “That’s thirteen. It’s bad luck.”

  “It’s stupid. Crabbing is crabbing, the more traps you have—”

  “Bad luck is bad luck. I ain’t courtin’ it. Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “You’re going to ask it whether I permit it or not.”

  “Are you constipated? Bein’ stopped up can cause a body to be in fearful moods. I can make a really good castor oil—”

  Gage closed his eyes and ground out an obscene word.

  “That’s exactly what warm castor oil will make you do.”

  “I’m not in a mood!”

  Phoebe expelled a disconsolate sniff. “Where’s the bait? I got a notion somebody miswrote a passage in the Bible. I want to get out on the water and ponder on it.”

  The five gallon tub of crab bait smelled worse than dead crabs.

  “You mean to tell me you paid good money for that slop?”

  “It’s called chum. You want to catch crabs or not?” Gage scooped up a can of chum and dropped it into the bait pocket. “Think you can manage from here on out?”

  Phoebe allowed that she could. Dorie couldn’t be pried from the chicks, Maydean from staring at her reflection, so Willie-Boy accompanied her in the boat. Gage had scrounged up some musty straw hats, and these they wore against the glimmer of bright sun on the water.

  He watched her push away from the shore. “Remember what I said. When you set a trap, just throttle back on the motor, you don’t have to shut it off.”

  “I reckon I know about motors. It can’t be much different from driving a truck.”

  “This is exciting, ain’t it Phoebe.”

  “Keep still Willie-Boy. You’ll turn us over.” It was a flat-bottomed skiff and sturdy, but Phoebe was taking no chances. She’d never ridden in a boat before. One hand on the throttle, she turned back to wave at Gage and met his astringent gaze. The boat somehow got off direction and nosed hard into the opposite bank. Phoebe jolted forward, knocking one of the three traps stacked on the bow into the shallow water.

  “Watch where you’re going!” Gage yelled. Phoebe hauled the trap back aboard, grabbed a paddle and pushed away from the shore. She tried the throttle, getting the feel for the rudder. Now she had the hang of it. She could feel Gage’s eyes on her still.

  “You can swim, can’t you?”

  She had had meek up to her eyeballs. She only wanted the junkyard and its owner, not the entire earth. “No, but when I get back you can teach me how to walk on water!”

  “Your face is bleedin’, Phoebe. If we sink, the sharks will eat you.”

  She swiped at the scratch on her face with the tail of her shirt. “Face forward Willie-Boy, a shark ain’t gonna stop me now.”

  It was thrilling being in charge of her fate again, being in business for herself—the right way. It took four trips to set out all the traps along the outer strip of marsh that separated the canal from the bayou and the bayou from the bay. Each time she dropped a trap overboard Phoebe waited breathlessly for the marker float to come bobbing up. Each did. She could almost feel the crisp dollars that Hank would count into her hand.

  When she cut the motor, stepped out and dragged the boat anchor deep on land she felt life was wonderful again.

  She still needed gas for the truck, but now she knew where to get it; in the five-gallon can that Gage kept for the lawn mower. She poured half of it into the truck and ran the motor a few minutes.

  She walked down to the crab house to make sure Hank was buying crabs the next morning. He was. Got all my ducks in a row this time, Phoebe thought.

  Essie called to her from the picking room. Phoebe sidestepped Stout before the supervisor could stop her.

  “The church is sponsoring a trip to Bellingrath Gardens for the kids tomorrow. They have to bring their own lunch. You want yours to go? I can tell the bus driver to pick them up.”

  “I don’t have to tag along?”

  “No, that’s the wonderful part. Sunday school teachers are takin’ ‘em. Ten to about three in the afternoon.”

  “I wouldn’t mind gettin’ the hellions off my hands for a few hours,” Phoebe agreed.

  “So you can have that hunk all to yourself?” Essie said slyly.

  “What hunk?”

  “Gage Morgan.”

  The seafood house wasn’t sacred ground. Phoebe chanced calumny. “We’re distant cousins.”

  “He wouldn’t answer any questions about you, either,” purred Essie.

  “You didn’t pry when I worked with you. How come you’re doin’ it now?”

  “I never got the chance before. Work, work work, that’s all you had a mind to do. He’s prime ain’t he?”

  “Are folks talkin’?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice. They’re watching, though. Especially since he brought you to church, and in Velma’s car.”

  “Velma’s dead.”

  “Ain’t she though.” Essie grinned.

  “That’s enough,” announced Stout. “Essie, you here to pick or gab?”

  Essie went back to work. Phoebe walked home, fierce determination in every step. Hawleys had always had an upstanding reputation. Phoebe
shuddered to think what Ma would say if she arrived and got wind of such sly innuendo. Ma never did think it was her own who had a failing; what she’d have to say she’d say to Gage and ruin everything. Not that she was thinking bad about Ma, who loved her. No, it was just—Ma was Ma.

  At the entrance to the yard Phoebe stopped and inspected her domain. One of these days she was going to coax Gage to move all the junk away from the path that led to the house. The grass around the homestead, now that it could accept sunshine, was turning green. The fence still leaned and the few slats that Willie-Boy had painted stood out like sore thumbs. It was time, Phoebe decided, that Gage knew just how helpful she could be outside of cooking and cleaning—and other things.

  “This afternoon,” she told the children after lunch, “we’re gonna fix the fence, then paint it and the front porch.”

  Willie-Boy was offended. “I already painted the fence. Mr. Gage said I did a fine job.”

  “You did Willie-Boy, as far as you went, but it needs a second coat.”

  Maydean balked. “I can’t work in the sun. It’s bad for my complexion. I don’t want to end up freckled like you.”

  “Freckles don’t ruin the texture of skin, Maydean, but Brillo pads do. Which is what it’ll take to clean yours if you keep lathering on all that gunk. Dorie, you got any objections?”

  “Can my chicks play in the front yard and keep me company?”

  Phoebe nodded. “Now, if you kids work good, you’ll not only have fifty cents, but tomorrow I’ll let you go on a field trip with your Sunday school classes.”

  “A whole day away from you? I’ll do it,” piped Maydean. “If you’ll let me wear mascara. All the other girls—”

  “Ain’t Hawleys. Fifty cents and the trip, or you can stay home and help me wash windows. That’s my final word. Get your hat, Willie-Boy, you can show me where Gage keeps the paint.”

  “I’ll have to wear my hat tomorrow, too. My gum patch ain’t growed out.”

  ~~~~

  It was a hot, sweaty, productive and glorious afternoon. The fence stood straight, each slat gleaming white; the porch railings got white paint and its floor glistened green. Phoebe sent the kids to wash up while she went to get Gage. She helloed from the entrance to the machine shop lest he accuse her of sneaking again.

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  “You are.”

  “I got my crab traps out.”

  “I know.”

  “Me and the kids fixed the fence and painted the porch.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “It looks nice.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  “You’re actin’ more grudgin’ than Maydean.”

  He set aside a huge wrench, picked up another and inspected it. “You’re trying to obligate me to you, Phoebe. I’m not going to let it happen.”

  “I ain’t! I just wanted to do something nice. You’ve been good to us—to me. Better than any—”

  He held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear it. Cleaning, cooking, painting...” He made it sound like a crime. “You’re trying to worm your way into my life.”

  “You’re comparin’ me to a worm?”

  “It’s just a figure of speech.”

  “I ain’t no figure of speech. I’m a person. You didn’t think I was no figure of speech the other night. You didn’t—”

  In one swoop he tossed aside the wrench, grasped Phoebe by her shoulders and shook her, not ungently. “Hush, damn it. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. You have your life and I have mine. They don’t dovetail. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

  Her freckles were subdued by a healthy red-brown tan. The straw hat framed her face, paint spatters and a small scratch gave it a gamin quality.

  Phoebe liked his hands on her. A trembling feeling went all through her. Lor! She had to lock her knees so her bones would hold up her skin. He dropped his hands to his sides.

  “The truth is I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  Phoebe marshaled her pride. “That’s your bad luck.”

  Gage shook his head as if he’d suddenly lost track of their conversation. Every sharp word to Phoebe had sputtered and backfired. “You have a point.”

  She caught the subtle change in his tone and eyed him warily. “You’re not mad anymore?”

  “Only at myself. Come on, show me what you’ve been up to so I can be suitably appreciative.”

  “It looks real good from the road,” Phoebe said as Gage inspected the improvements.

  “So good it’ll shame me into painting the rest of the house and maybe even the cash shack up at the gate.”

  “Sometimes people own a thing, and get so used to it they don’t know what they’ve got.” She sighed wistfully. “You’ve got a whole world here, Gage. A whole world.”

  “And you’d like to get your grubby little hands on it, wouldn’t you?”

  It was a neatly baited hook. Phoebe cruised around it. “I don’t covet. The Bible speaks against it. I only said what I did because you let it run down and it goes against my nature to see a thing wasted. Dorie did her share, in case you want to make mention of it.”

  “I don’t know if I can bear up under all these lessons in child rearing I’m getting.”

  “You’re a good father,” Phoebe said earnestly. “Like as not you’d do well to have three, four more.”

  His diaphragm seemed suddenly to swell, choking off his windpipe. “Back to work for me,” he croaked.

  Phoebe fanned her face with the brim of the old straw hat. “I’ll send Willie-Boy to call you for supper.”

  ~~~~

  Paint, polish and sophistication had never been Phoebe’s long suit and she knew it. But she was willing to use any magic, acquired or bought that would swing Gage around to her way of thinking.

  Once the house was quiet she slipped into Dorie’s room and dragged from beneath the bed the shoe box full of cosmetics and scents. Behind the locked bathroom door she pawed through it. Eye shadow made her look as if she’d run into a door; she scrubbed it off. Mascara made her eyes sting. She tried a bit of glossy lipstick, which made her lower lip appear set in a permanent pout. Not the image she wanted to present to Gage. She found a vial of Wild Flower Musk and tried a drop on her wrist. It made her smell better than soap. Satisfied, she put some on her neck. A thought stopped her before she had her hand on the doorknob. Velma’s cosmetics. Velma’s scent. She smelled like Velma. She didn’t want Velma on Gage’s brain. She washed it off.

  She returned the box to Dorie’s room and tiptoed back to her own. She sat in the dark and waited for the line of light beneath Gage’s door to go out. When it did, she counted to five hundred. She didn’t want him to be wide awake.

  She got as far as the foot of his bed. The lamp snapped on.

  “Out!”

  “I just want to talk.”

  Eyeing her with the wariness of a cornered fox, he adjusted a pillow against the headboard and leaned into it. “About what?”

  “I’m embarrassed to say.” She sat on the foot of the bed.

  “You haven’t been embarrassed since you were two days old. But if it makes you uncomfortable to say, why don’t you just keep it to yourself?”

  Phoebe picked at the sheet that lay over his shinbone. “Remember the other night?”

  “My mind’s blank.”

  Phoebe scoured him with a look she usually saved for Maydean, hoping he was tripping over his own tongue. She couldn’t figure what to do except press on. “I do all right in the daytime, because I keep busy. But as soon as it gets dark I start thinkin’ about it. I can’t stop thinkin’ about it.” She let her hand fall in the area of his knee. “Gage, I get so airy. If I was a balloon, I’d burst. Did you notice at supper? I could hardly swallow for—”

  “You’re worried about your appetite?”

  Phoebe lowered her lashes. This wasn’t going at all the way she planned. “I can go without food for days on end.”

  “Good, tha
t’ll save on groceries.”

  “Why’re you making this so hard for me! Okay. You want me to eat crow? I’m here to eat crow. Can I get under the covers?”

  “No.”

  “I’m taking off my nightgown.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  Phoebe eyed the sheet at the juncture of his thighs. She discerned a bit of activity there. She let her hand slide from his knee to the inside of his thigh. “Don’t you remember how good it felt?”

  “If we keep on we’re going to be in over our heads— emotionally.”

  “I won’t be in over my head. I know what I want. I want to do it again.” Out of the corner of her eye Phoebe saw the sheet rise. Pretending her hand was an alien appendage over which she had no control she drew wider and wider circles with a fingertip on his thigh. Her hand brushed the part of his anatomy that kept moths fluttering in her stomach every time she thought about it.

  The cords on his neck stood out. “Stop teasing me.”

  She scooted up on the bed, picked up his hand, traced the calluses, then pressed his hand to her cheek. “I want you so much. Tell me you don’t want me the same way. Make your tallywhacker go down.”

  He tried to laugh and failed. “I can’t, damn it. You know I can’t. You’re a witch. Sex is new to you. I want you to think about when the magic wears off. What happens if you find someone you like better? Or—”

  Phoebe paled. “You gotta quit comparin’ me with you-know-who. Besides, I ain’t gettin’ naked for anybody else. It took all the gumption I had to get naked for you.”

  Gage broke down and let her in. “Who wins against you?” He slid his hand behind her neck and pulled her to him. Phoebe’s heart pounded and her breath sighed past his ear. He enclosed her in his arms and held her, not moving for long minutes. “You sound so convincing,” he said despairingly and buried his face in her hair.