“Somewhat,” she said with hesitation. “We’re better acquainted now. In fact, she’s watching my daughter as we speak. But I knew George first. He would come by my workplace on occasion.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a whore, mostly.” She said it as though she were a seamstress.
He kept chewing, contemplating the image of George even standing next to a woman this beautiful, let alone being so close to her. He would never have thought George had so much as talked to a woman other than Isabelle until this very instant.
“It has its perks,” she went on. “It’s possible the sheriff is falling for this ruse of us being related, but it probably has more to do with my promise that he could have a few free visits, girl of his choice. I’ll owe someone back at the house a favor—a rather large one, considering.” She appraised Hackstedde again. “But life is all about compromises.”
“For me.”
“For you and yours. The Walkers are good people. If they say there’s a man in need, to bring him a basket of fruit is not too much to ask. But I ramble. Tell me about yourself, Prentiss. I’d be curious to know the man who’s caught the Walkers’ fancy.”
No one had ever uttered such words to him—even George hadn’t been especially curious about him—and he was at a loss to speak of himself, even to know where to begin. He told her about Morton’s plantation, about the sorrow he’d found there, and she was quick to cut him off.
“We don’t need that,” she said. “Not now. Not here.” She slapped her knee and put her fist under her chin, grinning mischievously. “Tell me a secret. Something you haven’t ever told a soul.”
He had to think hard about what to share, all the more difficult with Clementine’s eyes locked on him.
“Well, there was a girl once,” he said, and looked down bashfully.
“Do tell,” she said.
“I feel silly saying it.”
“I bet you haven’t got your fill of silly your whole life, and a man’s entitled to some. Make up for lost time.”
So he told her. First of his brother, for the story started there. Never had he seen a man so obsessed as Landry was with the Mortons’ fountain, and it made him curious every time he saw his brother stare. He told her of Landry’s love of water and how he’d never understood how one could have such an intense fascination with any one thing until a certain afternoon, when he got his own obsession.
“And just like that,” he said, “I start thinking about girls like I ain’t never done before. Just that age, I s’pose.”
There was one in particular, he said, name of Delpha.
“She had eyes like yours, you lock in on ’em and they wouldn’t let you go for a whole afternoon. Thin as a branch, couldn’t pick to save her life. She was too small to take a beating, but the overseer would make her life hell, just like the rest of us, and one day I couldn’t take it. All day I been watching her and I knew her sack was only half full, and it was nigh on weighing time. I had to do something to help her out.”
He laughed on recollection, and the sudden joy on his face brought another smile to Clementine’s, too.
“Oh, you played her savior.”
“You go on embarrassing me I won’t be able to finish out the story. But I tried, yes I did. I spy the overseer, name of Gail, big fella, dumb as a cow, halfway ’cross the field, minding another boy, so I make a run for her row.”
“You don’t.”
“And I’m reaching into my sack, already pulling out handfuls of cotton, ready to cram it into her own, to show her just how far I’ma go for love.”
Clementine had her hand over her mouth.
“Now I’m three, maybe four rows away, calling her name, ‘Delpha, Delpha, turn around,’ and right as she does, I trip over myself, fall forward, and land right square on a cotton stalk. I broke it off at the root, and what’s left of me slides down the other side. I got scratches all on my face, burrs in my hair, and the next thing I see is the hooves of Gail’s horse pounding my way, and I know I got a bad night in front of me.”
They laughed together, so hard that Hackstedde told them to quiet down.
“But you were courageous,” Clementine whispered. “Women are always swooned by bravery.”
“There weren’t no bravery when I took that whipping, I’ll tell you that much. You feel that skin peel off and…” The flicker of unease in her eyes told him to stop. He tried to laugh again, to rekindle the joy of the previous moment, but it was gone.