Georgia Bottoms (22 page)

From the expression on his face she might have said she was a part-time whale hunter.

“This look like rich people’s house,” Nathan said.

“My great-grandfather had money,” said Georgia. “By the time it got down to me, there was nothing left but the bills. Sorry, maybe you were thinking you’d come up here and inherit the family fortune, but there ain’t one.”

“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’ ” Nathan said.

She laughed at his display of brass. “Isn’t,” she said.

Nathan said, “I didn’t come up here for money.”

“Well, then? Why did you?”

He shrugged again.

“I mean, I’m sure you had some reason in mind when you got on the bus.”

He shook his head. “See what you look like.”

“Okay well, you’ve seen me. What do you think?”

His eyes flashed. “Nothin’.”

“What does that mean?”

“I thought maybe you’d like me or something,” he said. “But you don’t. I’m just like a stranger to you.”

“You think I don’t like you? It’s too soon to say that. We’re just getting to know each other.”

“I guess,” he said.

“Well? Better late than never,” she replied. “You’re still hungry, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

She couldn’t help it: she did like this kid. He reminded her of herself at that age—headstrong, fearless, immortal. Hungry all the time. Although in her case that meant hungry for boys.

She went to the oven for the Stroganoff casserole. Nathan went back to being a bottomless eating machine. The more he ate, the more relaxed and happy he became, until he was slouched over in his chair humming a soft little tune, forking in his third plateful.

Georgia tried not to hover. She came and went, performing her regular late-afternoon chores while he ate. She’d gotten an early start on the day, so the apartment was ready for Jimmy Lee Newton.

Whenever Georgia had let herself think about Nathan, she had always pictured a kid like the young Michael Jackson—a snub-nosed charmer, winning smile, ingratiating talents. She wasn’t prepared for this raw-boned young black man. Obviously there was nothing special about him, nothing prodigious except his appetite.

And so? Whose fault was that? Who abandoned whom? Who gave up her baby to a woman with a taste for Riunite and convicted felons? It was ridiculous of Georgia to blame anyone for how he turned out. If she’d wanted something better for him, she could have raised him herself.

“You can stay here tonight,” she said. “But then I’m gonna have to put you on the bus back to Mamaw.”

He regarded her with a plain expression, almost blank. But there was something in his eyes, a little touch of disappointment that pricked Georgia to keep talking.

“No offense,” she said. “You seem like a nice enough guy. I’m sure we would like each other if we got to know each other. But
as you may have noticed, I’ve got a lot on my plate here. Mama’s not all there, mentally, and I have a—my brother’s in jail.”

“Really?” Nathan sat up, his first show of real interest. “For what?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Conspiracy to commit a terroristic act. And an explosives charge.”

He did an exaggerated double take and said,
“Dayum.”

“It’s all a misunderstanding. But like I said, my hands are full right now.”

“Mamaw didn’t say nothin’ about all that,” said Nathan. “She said you was a straight-up white lady.”

“I am,” Georgia said. “At least, I think I am.”

L
ittle Mama spent a restful night, thanks to the Ambien that Georgia added to her evening pills. With Nathan camping out in the guest room, Georgia didn’t want any incidents.

Jimmy Lee Newton got stomach flu and canceled at the last minute, so Georgia’s night was peaceful too.

The next morning she fed Nathan a big breakfast, put him in the car, and drove him to the Texaco. Bennie Fisher said there was only one bus going south these days. It didn’t run Fridays or Saturdays. The next one was Sunday, at one fifteen in the afternoon.

Georgia tried to think of someplace she could stash Nathan until then. Too bad the LaSalle Hotel on the courthouse square disappeared years ago, with the last of the traveling salesmen.

In normal times Georgia would phone Krystal and explain without having to explain, and Krystal would say, “Hell, bring him over here,” and that’s what she would do. But too much time had elapsed since the disaster at the League of Women Voters. By now Georgia should have called Krystal and apologized at length. Instead she had let the rift stretch out, unmended, over a whole day. Normally she and Krystal would have exchanged five or six phone calls in that time. The phone hadn’t rung once.
That meant Krystal was still mad. Nothing to do but leave her alone until she got over it. Georgia didn’t dare ask a favor.

She took a swing by Hull’s Market to refill the fridge. She made Nathan wait in the car while she went in. She drove him the long way home, around the bypass and in from the north, to show him more of Six Points. On the way by the No-Tell Motel she took particular note of whose beat-up Chrysler was parked next to whose red pickup in the middle of the day.

She took Nathan home and installed him in Mama’s TV den. All afternoon she left him in there eating chips, watching in silence, flipping between the channels.

“Listen, Nathan, I’ve got a prior engagement this evening,” she said. “I have to go out for a couple of hours. Just stay out of Little Mama’s way, all right?” If he got hungry again, she told him, he was welcome to anything in the fridge. If he wanted to take a shower,
hint hint,
she’d put soap and shampoo and fresh towels in the downstairs back bathroom. She would also be very happy to wash any clothes that were dirty. Anything else would have to wait until she returned.

He agreed about washing clothes. Together they started a load, and she showed him how to work the dryer.

She hurried to her room to freshen up. She put on a yellow polka-dot sundress and tied her hair back in a ponytail for Sheriff Bill. She stopped by Little Mama’s room to issue a stern warning, which she hoped would penetrate the fog of cranky forgetfulness that had been hanging over her all day. Mama scowled the whole time Georgia was talking, waved her away like a gnat.

Georgia went downstairs. “Okay, Nathan, I’m going now,” she chimed from the hall.

He didn’t answer. She poked her head into the den. All that
comfort food had finally kicked in. He lay sprawled across Little Mama’s recliner, asleep, head tucked into the crook of his arm. Behind him, a car chase roared softly on TV.

He looked almost sweet in that pose. She picked up his baseball cap from the floor and placed it on his knee.

Whizzy snoozed on the rug beside him. That was a sign. Whizzy always had been a good judge of character.

Georgia forced herself to stop standing there, staring at him.

Half an hour later she was stretched out beside Sheriff Bill, breathing his whiskey breath, as the recording of the old-timey
Grand Ole Opry
broadcast played on the CD player concealed within the antique radio. The Opry at very low volume helped set the right mood for the sheriff. He was a man of famously few words; it took years of careful prodding for Georgia to tease out such basic information as what kind of music he liked. Gradually she realized that their Friday nights were a re-creation of a specific scene from the sheriff’s adolescence. It wasn’t clear if it was something that had actually happened to him or a fantasy he had carried with him all this time. Really it didn’t matter. Georgia was the stand-in for a specific young woman in a yellow dress. The first time she wore yellow, Bill complimented her so lavishly she’d worn yellow for him ever since.

The low whine of the Opry fiddlers was another part of the scene, and the lights off, the sheriff in his white V-neck undershirt wiggling his skinny butt on the bed, shucking off his Fruit of the Looms… They had done this exact thing the same way dozens of times. To Georgia it felt furtive and stale and a bit deadly, but Sheriff Bill found endless reward in replaying the scene. Sometimes he got to breathing so hard he was positively wheezing with pleasure.

Tonight he was in a lazy mood. He wanted to cuddle, to cradle her head on his chest and stroke the hair of that girl from long ago. On a normal Friday, Georgia would be glad to take time for this kind of thing, but she could not quite relax knowing Nathan was in the house, snoozing in front of Little Mama’s TV. At least she hoped he was snoozing.

Bill murmured some little endearment. Ten to one they were re-creating the night he lost his virginity. Men are so fascinated by their own navels, and nearby organs. They spend the first part of their lives trying to lose their virginity, the rest of their lives trying to get it back.

Georgia felt like a girl in an Opry song—caught between the sheets with Sheriff Bill and his old friend Jack Daniel’s. What is it about sex that makes a man want to drink? And what about drinking makes a man so horny? Why does he have to forget himself, lose all thought of who he is, in order to become the wild thing the occasion demands? Are we all so stuck in the rut of our little ant lives, our notion of ourselves as upright purposeful creatures engaging in useful endeavor—gathering crumbs for the anthill—that we can’t enjoy ourselves unless we get drunk?

If Georgia took a drink every time she poured one for her gentleman friends, she would be a hopeless alcoholic. She only pretended to drink, because men don’t like to drink alone. Also they don’t like women who drink. Georgia’s usual practice was to pour a neat whiskey, take one sip to get the taste on her lips, then after the man leaves, use the little funnel from the seven-drawer highboy to pour it back in the bottle. That stuff was too expensive to waste.

“Oh goodness,” the sheriff sighed into her hair. “Oh me.”

“What’s wrong, Bill?”

“Naw, nothing.” He patted her cheek clumsily, pat pat.

“Something on your mind?”

“Aw, not really,” he said. “It’s just… nothing.”

She lifted up, resting her chin on the bone in his shoulder. Usually the only way to get him to talk was to wait.

Finally he said, “Maybe best not to talk about it.”

Georgia squeezed his arm. “You can tell me, or not. I don’t care.”

“Oh, I was just… daydreaming.”

“Mmmm,” she said, to coax it out of him.

“Like, if I could get free,” he said. “We could go off somewhere. I could get another job.”

Dear God. These were the most words Sheriff Bill had strung together in a long time. She wished he hadn’t done it. Of all her clients, she would have picked Bill as the
least
likely to fall into this kind of longing.

Georgia’s usual reaction was to thank the man for such a sweet thought, then invent some reason she couldn’t keep their next date. Usually a week off was enough time for him to come to his senses.

“That’s a sweet thing to say, Bill,” she said. “Is something wrong at home?”

“Just—”

She waited.

He got started again: “Hate to think I might lose you ’cause I never said nothing to you.”

“Aw now, Billy, you’re not gonna lose me. Not a chance,” she said lightly. “What on earth makes you think that? I’m not going anywhere.”

“But—I’d like to…”

“What, marry me? No you wouldn’t. Think about it. You’ve been with Raynelle how long? Thirty years?”

“Thirty-four,” he said, like a man serving a life sentence who knows exactly how many days remain.

Almost as long as I’ve been alive,
Georgia thought. “Remember how in love with her you were, until you married her?” she said. “That’s what would happen with us.”

“It’s different,” he said. “You’re different.”

“After a while, I’d be the same.” She put her feet on the floor. “Same old Georgia, just like she’s the same old Raynelle to you now. She’s a good lady, Bill. You don’t want to mess that up.”

A flicker of lightning etched the lacy pattern of the sheer curtains on the opposite wall.

Bill sat up.

Another flicker, and another. The bluish flash was too rhythmic to be lightning.

“That’s a squad car,” Bill said. “What the hell?”

Georgia rushed to the window to see a pair of squad cars splashing blue light all over the side of her house.

“Oh
God!
” She grabbed up the sundress. “I’ve got to get down there.”

The sheriff was down on all fours groping for his underwear, showing his skinny white butt.

Georgia wrestled the dress over her head. “Bill, do
not
come down there, you hear me? Let me handle this.” She hurried out the door, down the stairs, through the backyard, toward the house. Here came Nathan out the side door with his hands cuffed behind him, hustled along by a deputy on either side. Little Mama watched in triumph from the front porch, brandishing the pellet gun she used to chase squirrels from her bird feeder. There were two cops on the porch with her to protect her from the dangerous Negro.

In a flash Georgia saw one possible future, in which she gazed coolly at Nathan in the arms of the law and said,
I’ve never seen him before in my life.

Easiest thing in the world. No action required—just stand back and watch them take him away. He would never come nosing around her house again.

But she did not think she could do that.

It wasn’t that Nathan was her own flesh and blood—hell, they carted Brother off to jail all the time, and Georgia barely roused herself to protest.

The truth was, she already cared about Nathan. She knew that watching him sleep had been a big mistake. In just those few moments, she had formed an attachment. He started to matter to her.

This went against her long-standing rules against emotional engagement, but what can you do? It’s not every day your own
issue
shows up at your house.

And not every day the armed forces of Cotton County join with the city of Six Points to arrest him. Georgia knew these men—those were the Six Points cops, Jimmy Wagner and Jack Logan on the porch with Mama, sheriff’s deputies Clay Ford and Lester Pine frog-marching Nathan toward their blue-flashing car. Georgia had gone to high school with Lester. He dated Eileen Simmons the summer of their junior year.