Queen Sugar: A Novel (24 page)

He smiled. “Keep talking. I’m hanging on every word.”

“I’ve talked enough. Tell me about your farm.”

“You don’t want to know about that. It’s nothing special.”

But Charley insisted that she did.

“I lease three fronts,” Remy said. “Colette, over in Saint Abbey, is six hundred and fifty acres, and Emilie, out near the bay, is four hundred. The biggest, Genevieve, out near Four Corners, is almost a thousand, with the rest in bits and pieces sprinkled around the parish. All in all, it’s about twenty-one hundred acres.”

“Twenty-one hundred acres. That’s enormous.”

Remy smiled modestly. “It’s respectable. Just wish I owned it.”

Charley had grown accustomed to Alison, who yelled, and to Denton, who, while her partner, also projected a quiet authority that required a certain respect. But Remy’s manner put her at ease. He talked to her farmer-to-farmer, in a way she found she liked.

“Colette, Emilie, Genevieve,” Charley said. “Sounds like you’re talking about your children.”

“Not mine,” said Remy. “Back in the eighteen hundreds, farmers always named their fields after their daughters.”

And right then, Charley decided to name her biggest parcel Micah’s Corner.

Where did the time go? Six thirty, and the sky was a sultry cobalt with clouds like wisps of orange sherbet. Everything tinted to gold—the shop’s tin roof, the tangle of wildflowers that clung to fence posts, even the dirt.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Charley said as she walked Remy to his truck. “I mean it.” She was thinking that Remy wasn’t quite like anyone else she’d met. Not just his voice (though she could listen to it all night), or that he was thoughtful enough to bring them a whole truckload of shrimp. He had an up-from-the-bootstraps scrappiness she found interesting. And there was something else. Remy seemed to have come up
through
the land, seemed connected to it in a way other farmers weren’t. Like when he described how the land changed with each phase of the growing season: “In January, there’s just dirt,” he said, “then by April, the new cane sprouts, and by July, you’re surrounded by green fields. Come December, all the cane is cut again and, suddenly, you can see for miles. It’s always changing,” he said, “a new view every four months,” and she wondered who else paid such close attention. “I would rather be out there in my fields than anywhere else,” he said.

Remy started his engine. “Tell Mr. D. I’ll catch him next time.” He squared his baseball cap.

“He’ll be sorry he missed you.” In twenty years, Charley thought, he’d look like all the old farmers who gathered every morning around the back tables at the Blue Bowl, swapping stories and solving the world’s problems. She waved as he pulled away, then stood in the middle of the road. He was probably married with a house full of kids, Charley thought. And besides, she had too much to do on the farm.

•   •   •

“Well, well,” Violet said, when Charley called her that evening. “The plot thickens.”

“It was only a sack of shrimp,” Charley said. “And he didn’t just bring one for me. Besides, he really came to see Mr. Denton.”

“I bet,” Violet said. “Let me fill you in on a Southern man. There are only three things he’ll sit still for: football, duck hunting, and a woman who’s caught his eye. Remy Newell may have stopped by to see Mr. Denton but he stuck around to talk to you. So, are you going to ask him out?”

“Violet!”

“What?”

“What kind of woman do you think I am?”

“Girl, you’ve got to loosen up. This isn’t the 1850s. Women ask men out on dates all the time. It doesn’t even have to be a date. You could meet him for lunch or a cup of coffee.”

“Since when did you start working as a matchmaker?” Charley asked.

“Since when did you become such a stick in the mud?”

On Thursday morning, Miss Honey asked Ralph Angel to put gas in her car. “I have a prayer meeting tonight and I won’t have time to stop,” she said, handing him forty dollars. And since he had nothing better to do, Ralph Angel obliged. Rather than drive straight home after filling up (thirty in the tank, ten in his pocket), though, Ralph Angel drove in the opposite direction, followed the Old Spanish Trail all the way out to where he believed the turnoff led to Charley’s farm. He didn’t set out to do it. He just wanted to take a drive, get out of the house for a while, which he’d been reluctant to do in his own car since the trooper pulled him over. But out on the open road, curiosity tugged at him, the need to see with his own eyes what he’d been missing, what he’d been
cut out
of, like a cupped hand nudging him forward. He didn’t know exactly what to look for, and had guessed, by piecing together little bits of conversation he’d overheard, where Charley’s farm might be. He was about to give up when he spotted her car.

Ralph Angel parked. Far enough down the road that Charley wouldn’t notice Miss Honey’s old blue sedan if she happened to look up, but close enough that he could watch as she and two men in overalls stood talking, a large sheet of paper the size of a road map held between them. Ralph Angel watched as Charley studied the paper, then pointed across the road to the wall of sugarcane; watched, a few minutes later, as a biplane dropped out of the sky and swooped low over the fields, gray mist streaming out from beneath its wings; and twenty minutes after that, he rolled down the window to let a little air in and watched, with a growing sense of indignation, as the black man, probably Denton, worked a raggedy tractor, while Charley and the other man—
who could that be?
—schlepped back and forth between the yard and the shop, loading boxes into the back of a pickup. Ralph Angel watched and thought,
Fuck her
. Fuck Charley and her talk of needing time to figure out how best to bring him in, she couldn’t afford him, there wasn’t enough work for another man. It certainly
looked
like she had enough work. Ralph Angel peeled off his sweat jacket, leaned back. He didn’t know how, but he’d show her he was good for something—he was practically an engineer, after all—and when he figured out a plan, his sister would realize what she had missed out on and come begging. Ralph Angel watched for a long time. And when Charley and the two men finally disappeared inside the corrugated metal building, he went back down the road the way he came.

On his way back to Miss Honey’s, Ralph Angel drove through Jeanerette, past LeBlanc’s bakery, where the red light signaling that fresh French bread was ready for sale glowed like a flare. He turned down the short gravel driveway that ran alongside the brick building. Folks used to say that Jeanerette had everything you could want, you never needed to leave town, and thinking back, Ralph Angel supposed that was true. As a boy, when he came to Jeanerette with Miss Honey, he bought candy from the two Sicilian sisters who owned Machioni’s Fruit Stand. Vee’s five-and-dime sold everything from school supplies to china to aquarium fish, and at Gomez’s Army Surplus, clerks scaled tall wooden ladders to reach merchandise stacked to the ceiling. There’d been three movie theaters once, though he could remember the name of only one; the National Mercantile Company, where, when he visited, his dad always took him to buy blue jeans; Grisiaffi’s Grocery, a little mom-and-pop operation where you could buy a slushy for thirty cents; Rose Culotta’s liquor store across the street; and down on the corner, the Fitch Family Hotel and Restaurant, where you picked up to-go orders at the side window. All that was in the past, though. These days, Jeanerette was closer to a ghost town than a boom town, the bakery practically the only business still open on Main Street.

Ralph Angel slammed his car door, and even before he reached the entrance, the sweet aroma of French bread wafted out to greet him. Just inside, a man in baggy shorts and a faded gray T-shirt stood at the cash register.

“Morning,” the man said.

“How you doing?” Ralph Angel said, “How much is a loaf?” and saw that from his face to his sneakers, the man was covered in a fine dusting of flour.

“Three dollars,” the man said and sniffed. “Ginger cakes are a dollar fifty.”

Ralph Angel pulled out his wallet. There was nothing better than a loaf of LeBlanc’s French bread hot out of the oven, maybe with a little butter, though you didn’t need it. “Give me two loaves,” Ralph Angel said. He’d buy one to eat in the car, all by himself, and one to take home. Blue would like that.

The man disappeared through the swinging doors, and when he emerged, he held two plump golden loaves, which he laid on the long wood counter. He wrapped each loaf in a sheet of crisp white paper, swaddling it like a baby.

“Plastic or no plastic?” the man said.

Ralph Angel looked at him, confused, then remembered that each loaf came with a plastic storage bag to keep it fresh if you weren’t going to eat it right away. “One with plastic,” Ralph Angel said. “And give me one of those ginger cakes.”

The man tucked the loaves and a ginger cake into a paper bag. Ralph Angel held out the ten left over from Miss Honey’s gas money, waited for his change.

But as the man put the bills in his hand, he frowned. “Don’t I know you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You from around here? ’Cause I swear your face is familiar.”

“Grew up in Saint Josephine,” Ralph Angel said. “Went to Ascension High School, then my grandmother had me transferred to General Taylor.”

“That’s it!” The man snapped his fingers. “I went to General Taylor too. Man, I
knew
I knew you. Name’s Ralph Angel, right? Man, it’s me, Johnny. Johnny Fontenot.”

Ralph Angel looked more closely at the man, tried to think back. The name registered vaguely; he’d gone to school with a whole bunch of Fontenots, but he couldn’t place the man’s face, especially not with all that flour on it. But the man was looking at him with such naked delight that Ralph Angel said, “Oh yeah, of course I remember you, man. What’s up?”

They shook hands and Johnny Fontenot slapped Ralph Angel’s arm playfully. “Man, it’s been what—twenty-five, twenty-six years?” As he spoke, his Cajun accent thickened. “You ain’t changed one lick. I’d know you anywhere. Where you livin’ now?”

“Been out west,” Ralph Angel said. “California first, then Arizona. Phoenix.”

“California, man, that’s a
loooong
way from here, I’m telling you. You like it out there?”

“Yeah. It’s nice.”

“I got out there once. Too big. It was pretty, though.” Johnny ran his hand over his dusted hair and wiped it, absentmindedly, on his shorts. “So, you back home for good or just visitin’?”

“Haven’t decided.” Ralph Angel thought about Charley out there at her farm, how she’d stood with those two men, all three of them looking so satisfied as the plane flew over. “What about you? How’ve you been? How long you been working here?”

Johnny shrugged. “Since I got out of college. It’ll be twenty-three years next week.”

“No shit,” Ralph Angel said. “You must really like baking bread.”

“Ain’t had a choice,” Johnny said. “Daddy was ready to retire, my older brother joined the service, so it was up to me. Either that or let some of my coon-ass cousins run it.”

“You
own
this place? But I thought your last name was Fontenot.”

“Bakery is on my mama’s side. Her people came from France, then down through Nova Scotia before they settled here. Been in the family since 1884, right here in this building. Five generations.”

“I’ll be damned,” Ralph Angel said, and studied the framed black-and-white photos on the wall above the register. It was like looking back through time. “So how’s business?”

Johnny shook his head wearily. “Pretty good till this morning. My best guy quit; said he’s moving to Mississippi. I’m down to two guys, which would be okay, but we got to fill a huge order for that zydeco trail ride over at the old Fruit of the Loom factory tomorrow. Two hundred loaves on top of our regular orders. I’m usually up front in the office, not back here on the floor, but we got to get them loaves out of here.”

Ralph Angel looked at Johnny, then through the entrance, out at the gravel lot, and felt another page turn. “If you’re shorthanded, maybe I could help you out.”

Johnny looked at the ground. He ran his sneaker across the floor, which was itself covered in a quarter inch of flour dust. “Naw, I couldn’t ask you to do that, man. But thank you.”

“What’s the problem?” Ralph Angel felt a sudden urgency bloom in his chest. “I got the time and I’m good with numbers. Was an engineering major in college. You need the help.”

“You serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

Johnny thought for a moment. “Okay, then,” he said. “You got a deal. And of course, I’ll pay you.” He shook Ralph Angel’s hand, then hugged him. “Man, I sure appreciate this. You don’t even know. I was sweatin’ bullets trying to figure out how I was gonna get all this work done.”

“What are friends for?”

“You’re really saving my ass,” said Johnny. He went to the register, counted out seven dollars and fifty cents. “Take your money. Those loaves are on the house.”

•   •   •

Twelve thirty a.m., and Ralph Angel, back in Miss Honey’s blue sedan, drove the twelve-mile stretch between Saint Josephine and Jeanerette, appreciating, for the first time really, how quiet the country could be on a summer night. He crossed the high bridge that spanned the widest section of the bayou and looked out over the dark cane fields and the mill lights twinkling in the distance. He’d heard a story once, about a man who was crossing the bridge on his bike when a truck came along and knocked him over the guardrail. The man fell thirty feet into the water, but managed to swim to the bank even though his right arm, his right leg, and three ribs were broken. Some people were just born survivors.

After his conversation with Johnny that morning, Ralph Angel had stopped off at Goodwill. He bought a nice white dress shirt and tie—navy with red stripes—stylish but not too flashy with the $7.50 Johnny gave back to him. He hadn’t mentioned the job to Miss Honey, though he’d wanted to, and he certainly hadn’t said anything to Charley when she got home. Thought he’d stay quiet till she started griping about how hard she was working and asked him to join her, then he’d spring the news on her. He couldn’t wait to see the look of surprise on her face.

Everyone arrived at the bakery at 1:00 a.m., Johnny had said, which Ralph Angel thought was early to be starting office work, but he’d agreed. Now he pulled into the gravel parking lot again, past the two white delivery trucks he hadn’t noticed earlier, and parked in the last spot near the fence. It wasn’t one o’clock yet, but the lights inside the bakery were already on, and through the open windows, Ralph Angel heard men’s voices and the clatter of machinery over the radio.

“Hey, good buddy,” Johnny called as Ralph Angel stepped over the threshold. “Right on time.” Johnny had showered and shaved, changed into a new pair of shorts, but wore the same gray T-shirt and sneakers, and looked surprisingly alert, Ralph Angel thought, considering the early hour. He gave Ralph Angel a puzzled look. “What’s with the shirt and tie?”

Ralph Angel looked down at his shirt, then up at Johnny. “Can’t go around the office looking like vagrant.”

“The office?”

“Yeah,” Ralph Angel said. “You said I’d be doing office work, right?”

Johnny’s brow furled. “No.”

“But this morning—you mentioned working up front. Said your best man quit.”

“That’s ’cause
I
work up front,” said Johnny. “I was talking about my head baker quitting; a guy named Leroy.”

“Oh.”

“I moved Joe up to Leroy’s position and got Billy to take over for Joe, but now I need someone to take over for Billy.”

Ralph Angel stuffed his hands in his pockets. “What does Billy do?”

“He’s on the mixer. Mixes up all the batter.”

“I see.”

“Hey, look, man, I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I should have been clearer.” Johnny put his hands on his waist and let his head drop. “I understand if you don’t want to do this. A guy like you—a professional and everything—I can see how this would be beneath you. Actually, that’s what I was thinkin’ this morning when you offered.”

Disappointment settled down around Ralph Angel like a shroud. He’d been so excited at the prospect of working at the bakery; had imagined himself up front, in an office right next to Johnny’s (though smaller, of course), his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, the knot of his tie loosened after a full day of taking phone orders, jotting names and numbers on a small pad, entering figures into a computer. He’d looked forward to taking coffee breaks and maybe, after he earned his stripes, long lunches down at the café. Ralph Angel sighed. He thought of Charley, the expression on her face—determined, purposeful, focused—as she carried those boxes from the shop,
her
shop, to the truck, then he tried to picture himself dumping big sacks of flour into an industrial mixer. Not exactly what he’d signed up for. But it was still work; it was still a job. “No sweat,” Ralph Angel said. “I’ll do it. A deal’s a deal.” He unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves.