CHAPTER
3
Lula Peak lived in the tiny bungalow on Pecan Street where she’d grown up. While her mother was alive the furnishings had been adequate, if old. Now, however, the kitchen sported a spanking new Frigidaire electric refrigerator, a bathroom with hot and cold running water and in the living room a new Philco radio.
At eight o’clock that night the Philco and Lula were both tuned to Atlanta, both blasting out “Oh, Johnny, Oh.” Dressed in a slinky red-orange wrapper, Lula tilted toward the bathroom mirror, scavenging with the tips of a tweezer for any wayward hair with the audacity to be growing beyond the periphery of her pencil-thin eyebrows.
Oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny, how you can love...
She stopped her fruitless search and ran her palms up her silkcovered arms as she’d seen Betty Grable do in the movies.
Oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny, heaven’s above...
She made a moue at her reflection in the mirror, then shimmied and dipped her knees, letting her palms brush the sides of her breasts. The satin rubbed seductively over her nipples and they popped up like balloons taking air. Lula loved getting hot, either by herself or with someone else—didn’t matter which. But to really cool down, she needed a man. Lula always needed a man, and Whitney didn’t have enough of them. When Lula itched, she needed scratching. And Lula itched all the time.
She plucked up a bottle of Evening in Paris cologne and spun twice while dabbing it on, watching her face flash across the bathroom mirror. After a third spin she balanced one high-heeled foot on the toilet seat, then touched some of the cologne to the thick thatch of blond hair revealed by the gaping gown. She dropped the foot to the floor, then ran her hand down her belly while giving the mirror a sultry kiss, leaving the imprint of vermilion lipstick on the cold glass.
“Lula, what the hell’s goin’ on in here?” Harley Overmire bellowed from her living room. “Music’s so goddamn loud any bum coulda walked in here and you wouldnt’a even known it.”
“Harley-honey, is that you?” The music suddenly dimmed and Lula came flying out of the bathroom, pouting. “Harley, turn that back up! That’s my favorite song!” She darted to the Philco—a flash of white limbs and flaming silk—and cranked it up.
Oh, Johnny, oh, Johnny, oh...
Harley immediately turned it down. “Lula-honey, I didn’t come over here to get my eardrums broke.”
“Oh, yeah? Then what did you come for, Harleykins?”
Lula turned the radio to a thunderous volume.
Oh, Johnny...
She swung toward him, her expression sultry as she pressed the sides of her ample breasts, accentuating the deep cleavage as she stalked him and slipped one white leg through the break in the garish satin wrapper. Her painted lips pouted voluptuously as she sidled close and rubbed herself against him, straddling one of his thighs.
Harley’s eyes became hooded, his lips dropped open with lascivious expectation as he lifted his knee against her.
“Ooh-hoo-hoo, Lula-baby, sugar-pie, you sure know how t’ do it to a man.”
“You bet I do, kiddo, and you’d like it right now, wouldn’t you?”
He gripped her hips with both hands. “I’m here, ain’t I, baby?”
She took his hands and transferred them to her breasts. “Feel that? I got gumdrops just thinkin’ about you. Wanna know what else happened when I thought about you, Harleykins?”
“Yeah,” Harley growled, low and lusty, manipulating her pelvis. “What?”
They ground against each other in earnest. Harley’s root had sprung up like a mushroom after two weeks of rain. She grasped his neck and put her lips to his ear and whispered something coarse, for good measure.
He laughed gutturally and said, “Oh, yeah? Let’s see,” then reached for the thatch of blond hair and slipped a finger inside her.
“Ooh-hoo-hoo, Lula-baby, you need your damper turned down, and how.”
She unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it off till it hung from his waist, all the while riding his hand, which was braced against his thigh. She looped both arms around his neck, nipped his ear, licked the inside of it and suggested, “What I need is one of them new electric fans that turns back and forth. I seen one down in a hardware store in Atlanta last time I visited my sister Junie.” She eased down and ran her lips across his chest, then splayed her hands on the black curly hair. “Mmm... I love my men hairy. Gets me itchin’ somethin’ awful.”
Harley was nearly at the bursting point already. “Honey, I ain’t made of money, you know.”
She bit his nipple, then tugged it until he yelped and jerked back, nursing it. She gazed into his eyes, her face feigning innocence as she gyrated against him. “I bet your wife’s got one o’ them electric fans already, hasn’t she, Harley?”
“Come on, Lula, let’s go to bed. I’m hurtin’, honey.”
“What about that fan?”
“Maybe next payday.”
She pouted her vermilion lips and ran one finger down her damp cleavage. “Next payday’s too late. Why, it’s been so hot, I just can’t hardly sleep nights at all.” She wiped her collected sweat beneath his nose.
“Lula, be reasonable. I already give you that Frigidaire and the Philco and had that closet made into a bathroom for you. I had to do some fancy explainin’ to Mae about where the extra money went.”
Abruptly she gave him a shove and flounced away from him, throwing her hands in the air. “Mae, Mae, Mae! I swear that’s all I hear from you, Harley Overmire! Well, if you won’t get me that electric fan, I know somebody who will. Why, just today Orlan Nettles was in the cafe and all I’da had to do was crook my little finger and it woulda been him here tonight instead of you. I’ll bet you five dollars Orlan never did it the way I had in mind to do it with you tonight.”
“You thought of a new way?” Harley was pure miserable by this time.
With her back turned, she inspected her painted nails. “It was a good one, too.”
The music on the Philco had changed to “Paper Doll.” It continued blasting as he came up behind her and clamped his teeth on her neck, reached around front and started convincing her again. But Lula had coercion down to an art. She dipped her knees and got the most out of Harley’s strokes, but she could remain unyielding till she got what she wanted, and it was always more than just an orgasm. If she was going to live the rest of her life in this little jerkwater town, she’d live it in luxury, by God. The fan and the bathroom and the Philco were just the beginning. She intended to have a Ford, and a carpeted front room and an R.C.A. Victor phonograph before this was over.
Behind her, Harley was breathing like a winded horse. What he had inside his pants felt like it belonged to a horse, too. She reached back to help Harley make his decision.
He groaned against her neck and said, “Okay, Lula-honey, I’ll get you the fan.”
“Tomorrow, Harleykins?” she purred.
“Tomorrow. I’ll think of somethin’ I got to run down to Atlanta for.”
Lula didn’t expect something for nothing. The change in her was immediate and inspired. She swung around and began removing Harley’s clothes, licking his chest, fondling him while backing him toward the kitchen.
“What’s your favorite kind of sandwich, Harleykins?”
He stumbled over a pantleg and laughed. “Roast beef and mustard.”
“Mmm... roast beef and mustard. You like mustard, do you, Harley?” She knew he liked mustard. She knew everything about Harley Overmire and used every scrap of knowledge to best advantage.
“Damn right, and Mae, she’s always forgettin’ to put it on.”
“That’s the trouble with Mae,” Lula purred, pushing his boxer shorts to the floor. “Mae doesn’t know what a man likes. But I do.” Harley chuckled, thinking he’d get Lula the biggest damn fan in the city of Atlanta. “And where should a man eat his roast beef and mustard sandwich, Harleykins?” She stroked him till he felt hard and pulsing as a jackhammer.
“At the kitchen table?” Oh, mercif
ul heavens, he thought. This is gonna be good.
“That’s right, honey-lamb. I got cold roast beef in my new Frigidaire, just waitin’ for you, and all the mustard you want, and I’m gonna serve ‘em both to you on the kitchen table, and afterwards you and me’re gonna climb in that beautiful new bathtub and run some of that luscious hot water from my brand-new water heater, and we’re gonna put some Dreft in there and get lost in the bubbles, and everytime you open your lunch pail up at the mill and see a roast beef sandwich without mustard, you’re gonna remember who it is that treats you right—aren’t you, Harleykins?”
They spent forty minutes on the kitchen table, and the things Lula did with that mustard would have sold millions of bottles, had the manufacturer had the ingenuity to suggest such uses.
Later, in Lula’s shiny new porcelain tub, she ran her bare toes up Harley’s hairy chest. His eyes were closed and his beefy arms rested on the wide edge.
“Harley?”
“Hm?”
“A stranger came into the cafe today.”
“Hm.” He sounded disinterested.
Two minutes passed in silence while Lula patiently rested with her eyes closed. She was bright enough to know that if she asked, she’d arouse his suspicion. But if Harley thought he alone could scratch her itch, he was sadly mistaken.
“Don’t get many strangers through here,” she murmured in due time, as if half asleep.
Harley lifted his head. “Tall guy? Wiry? Wearin’ a battered cowboy hat?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” she replied dreamily, following with a throaty chuckle. “Hey, Harley, how come you always know everything before I can tell you?”
He chortled and laid his head back. “You got to get up pretty early in the mornin’ to put one over on old Harley.”
“He just read the paper and moved on.”
“Prob’ly lookin’ at the want ads. I fired him from the mill today.”
“What’d he do wrong?”
“Done five years in Huntsville State Pen for killin’ a whore in some whorehouse down there.”
Lula’s foot hit the water with a splash as she sat bolt upright. “My God, Harley, he didn’t!” Her blood ran fast at the mere idea of being in the same room with a man like that. “Lord, we women won’t be safe on the streets.”
“That’s what I told him. Parker, I said, we don’t want your kind around here. Pick up your pay and git.”
So his name was Parker.
“Good for you, Harley.” She lay back and stroked his genitals with her heel. Beneath the bubbly water they were sleek. She began growing aroused again, touching Harley, but picturing the tall, taciturn cowboy who’d said so little and had hidden beneath the brim of his hat. Still waters, she thought, and felt her heart begin to race. Going to bed with a manlike that would be the ultimate excitement; she imagined it in vivid detail—the danger, the challenge, the sexual drive behind a man who’d been cut off from women for five years. Lord a-mighty, it would be one she’d never forget.
“Bet I know somethin’ you don’t know, Harley.” She let her toes climb his chest like an inchworm.
“What?”
“He went up to see crazy Elly Dinsmore about that ad she run.”
“What!” The water slopped over the edge of the tub as Overmire shot up.
“I know damn well he did ‘cause first he asked to see the paper, then he sat and read it, then he asked how to find Rock Creek Road, and when I told him he headed off in that direction. What else would he be goin’ up there for?”
Overmire roared with laughter and fell back in the water. “Wait’ll I tell the boys about this. Jesus, will they laugh. Crazy Elly Dinsmore... ha, ha, ha!”
“She really is crazy, isn’t she?”
“As a bedbug. Advertisin’ for a husband. Christ.”
“Course, what could you expect after she was locked up in that house all her life?” Lula shivered.
“I went to school with her mother, you know. Course, that was before she dropped her whelp and they locked her up.”
“You did?” Lula sat up and reached over the edge of the tub for a towel. She stood and began drying herself. Harley did the same.
“She stared at the wall a lot, and drew pictures all the time. Once she drew a picture of a naked man on a windowshade. The teacher didn’t know it was there and when she pulled it down the class went crazy. Course, they never proved it was Lottie See drew it, but she was always drawin’, and who else’d be crazy enough to do a thing like that?”
Harley stepped from the tub and began drying his legs. Suddenly he stopped and stared at the hairless insides of his thighs. “Damn it all, Lula, how’m I gonna explain these mustard stains to Mae?”
Lula explored the evidence, giggled and turned to the mirror, tightening one of the combs that held her upsweep. “Tell her you got the yellow jaundice.”
Harley guffawed and slapped her fanny. “Hey, Lula, you’re all right, kid.” Abruptly he sobered. “You’re sure tonight was okay to do it—I mean, you couldn’t get pregnant or anything, could you?”
Lula grew piqued. “You’re a little late askin’, aren’t you, Harley?”
“Jesus, Lula, I depend on you to tell me if I need to use anything.”
She dabbed Evening in Paris behind her ears, between her thighs. “How dumb do you think I am, Harley?” She capped the bottle and slammed it down. He was always asking the same question, as if she were too ignorant to use a calendar. She’d answered it scores of times, but it always left her feeling empty and angry. So, she wasn’t his wife. So, she couldn’t have his babies. Who’d want ‘em? She’d seen his kids and they were stubby, ugly little brats that looked like bug-eyed monkeys. If she was ever going to have a kid, it sure as hell wouldn’t be his. It’d be somebody’s like that Parker’s, somebody who’d give her handsome, brown-eyed darlings that other women would envy.
The thought of it gripped her with a sense of urgency. She was thirty-six already and no marriage prospects in sight. She’d live the rest of her life in this stinking little dump where she’d probably die, just like her mother had. And when she got so old Harley didn’t want to do it on the kitchen table anymore—or couldn’t, for that matter—he’d retire to his rocking chair on the front veranda with his precious, boring Mae. And all those homely little monkeys of his would turn out more homely little monkeys and old Grampa Harley’d be happy as a tick on a fat sheep.
And she—Lula—would be here alone. Aging. Going to fat. Eating beef and mustard sandwiches by herself.
Well, not if she could help it, Lula vowed. Not if she could by God help it.
CHAPTER
4
Eleanor awakened to a pink sunrise creeping over the sill and the sound of an ax. She peeked across her pillow at the alarm clock. Six-thirty. He was chopping wood at six-thirty?
Barefoot, she crept to the kitchen window and stood back, studying him and the woodpile. How long had he been up? Already he’d split a stack waist-high. He had tossed his shirt and hat aside. Dressed only in jeans and cowboy boots, he looked as meaty as a scarecrow. He swung the ax and she watched, fascinated in spite of herself by the hollow belly, the taut arms, the flexing chest. He’d done some splitting in his time and went at it with measured consistency, regulating his energy for maximum endurance—balancing a log on the stump, standing back, cracking it dead center and cleaving it with two whacks. He balanced another piece and—whack! whack!—firewood.
She closed her eyes—lordy, don’t let him leave—and rested a hand on her roundness, recalling her own clumsiness at the task, the amount of effort it had taken, the length of time.
She opened the back door and stepped onto the porch. “You’re sure up with the chickens, Mr. Parker.”
Will let the ax fall and swung around. “Mornin’, Mrs. Dinsmore.”
“Mornin’ yourself. Can’t say the sound of that ax ain’t welcome around here.”
She stood on the stoop in a white, ankle-length nightgown that exag
gerated her pregnancy. Her hair hung loose to her shoulders, her feet were bare, and from this distance she looked younger and happier than she had last night. For a moment Will Parker imagined he was Glendon Dinsmore, he really belonged here, she was his woman and the babies inside the house, inside her, were his. The brief fantasy was sparked not by Eleanor Dinsmore but by things Will Parker had managed to miss in his life. Suddenly he realized he’d been staring and became self-conscious. Leaning on the ax, he reached for his shirt and hat.
“Would you mind bringin’ in an armload of that wood so I can get a fire started?” she called.
“No, ma’am, don’t mind at all.”
“Just dump it in the woodbox.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The screen door slammed and she disappeared.
He hated to stop splitting wood even long enough to carry it into the house. In prison he’d worked in the laundry, smelling the stink of other men’s sweat rising from the steaming water as he tended the clothes in a hot, close room where no sunlight reached. To stand in the morning sun while the dew was still thick, sharing the lavender circle of sky with dozens of birds that flitted from countless gourd birdhouses hung about the place—ahh, this was sheer heaven. And gripping an ax handle, feeling its weight slice through the air, the resistance as it struck wood, the thud of a piece falling to the earth—now that was freedom. And the smell—clean, sharp and on his knuckle a touch of pungent sap—he couldn’t get enough of it. Nor of using his muscles again, stretching them to the limit. He had grown soft in prison, soft and white and somehow emasculated by doing women’s work.
If the sound of the ax was welcome to Mrs. Dinsmore, the feel of it was emancipation to Will Parker.
He knelt and loaded his arm with wood—good, sharp, biting edges that creased his skin where his sleeve was rolled back; grainy flat pieces that clacked together and echoed across the clearing. He piled it high until it reached his chin, then higher until he couldn’t see over it, testing himself again. This was man’s work. Honest. Satisfying. He grunted as he stood with the enormous load.