separated by long pauses when nothing moved but his eyes. She pulled away from the kitchen door, not anxious to let those reptilian eyes rest on her.
Nudging Joe, who was head-down in the ice chest trying to comparison-shop about eight brands of cheap beer, Faye said, “Let’s go. I want to hear this politician speak.”
“What kind of beer you want?” The clicking and grinding of ice on aluminum competed with Joe’s soft voice.
“The coldest one you can find.”
Faye held the can to her face, sacrificing a few degrees of beer chill for the pleasure. Oka Hofobi handed her a blue plastic cup. “Put the beer in this before you go outside. This is still a dry county, and there’s no use asking for trouble.” Faye reflected that it sure was nice to know an insider when you were visiting such alien terrain.
She and Joe stepped out of the cabin, joining the flow of people heading toward the pavilion. Faye proceeded slowly on purpose, to give the others a chance to get ahead of them. She wanted to talk to Joe. Alone with him for the first time that morning, she finally could ask the question that had been bugging her for hours. “Why’d you dress so funny today?”
“What’s so funny? I’m dressed just like you.” And he was. He wore olive drab work pants, a button-front cotton shirt, and heavy boots, an ensemble that was astonishingly like her work-a-day clothes, only several sizes larger. Many, many sizes larger, actually. With an artist’s innate sense of style, he had wisely chosen a baseball cap that advertised a trucking company, rather than emulating her rather feminine floppy hat.
Why on earth wasn’t he wearing his usual garb—traditional Creek-style clothing and hand-made moccasins?
Faye stopped in her tracks to give Joe a good look-over, something she rarely did. When a woman’s closest, most intimate friend is a jaw-droppingly handsome man, her best policy is to try not to look at him without squinting. She succeeded in ignoring Joe’s finer points most of the time, except when some dazzled woman persisted in enumerating them.
Faye had spent most of the summer wrestling with the question of Joe, and she’d decided that a one-of-a-kind friendship wasn’t worth risking—not to pursue a relationship that would have two strikes against it. A nine-year age gap, with her being the older, and an even bigger gap in educational level, just seemed too big a chasm to make love work. Faye had decided to settle for true, pure friendship.
Still, it wasn’t smart to look at Joe too closely.
She did it anyway. Just this once.
His cotton shirt hung nicely over massive shoulders. Its casual drape highlighted his trim waist. Joe did not require buckskin trousers to look good in his clothes. Why did she find his new look unsettling?
A Choctaw woman passed them on the sidewalk. She stood out in the crowd, and Faye realized for the first time that nearly everyone around her was white. Ordinarily, long experience would have prompted her to take a racial headcount, a habit she thought was probably second-nature for anyone born non-white in America. Having spent the morning surrounded by Joe and Oka Hofobi and Toneisha, she’d let her defenses fall, and it had felt good.
Joe’s flustered glance flicked from the Choctaw woman’s face to the back of his right hand. The gimme cap hid his hair, except for the long ponytail down his back, but Faye knew its color, and the woman’s hair lacked the chestnut highlights that kept Joe’s hair from being completely black. His skin, with its unmistakable bronze tint, was still several shades lighter than hers, but Joe’s eyes betrayed him most. They were a clear sea-green. Thrown into contact with people whose Native American blood had flowed unadulterated since before Columbus threw their world into a tailspin, Joe could no longer deny his murky racial status.
The world seemed less safe when Joe, the most centered individual she’d ever met, didn’t know who he
Nudging Joe, who was head-down in the ice chest trying to comparison-shop about eight brands of cheap beer, Faye said, “Let’s go. I want to hear this politician speak.”
“What kind of beer you want?” The clicking and grinding of ice on aluminum competed with Joe’s soft voice.
“The coldest one you can find.”
Faye held the can to her face, sacrificing a few degrees of beer chill for the pleasure. Oka Hofobi handed her a blue plastic cup. “Put the beer in this before you go outside. This is still a dry county, and there’s no use asking for trouble.” Faye reflected that it sure was nice to know an insider when you were visiting such alien terrain.
She and Joe stepped out of the cabin, joining the flow of people heading toward the pavilion. Faye proceeded slowly on purpose, to give the others a chance to get ahead of them. She wanted to talk to Joe. Alone with him for the first time that morning, she finally could ask the question that had been bugging her for hours. “Why’d you dress so funny today?”
“What’s so funny? I’m dressed just like you.” And he was. He wore olive drab work pants, a button-front cotton shirt, and heavy boots, an ensemble that was astonishingly like her work-a-day clothes, only several sizes larger. Many, many sizes larger, actually. With an artist’s innate sense of style, he had wisely chosen a baseball cap that advertised a trucking company, rather than emulating her rather feminine floppy hat.
Why on earth wasn’t he wearing his usual garb—traditional Creek-style clothing and hand-made moccasins?
Faye stopped in her tracks to give Joe a good look-over, something she rarely did. When a woman’s closest, most intimate friend is a jaw-droppingly handsome man, her best policy is to try not to look at him without squinting. She succeeded in ignoring Joe’s finer points most of the time, except when some dazzled woman persisted in enumerating them.
Faye had spent most of the summer wrestling with the question of Joe, and she’d decided that a one-of-a-kind friendship wasn’t worth risking—not to pursue a relationship that would have two strikes against it. A nine-year age gap, with her being the older, and an even bigger gap in educational level, just seemed too big a chasm to make love work. Faye had decided to settle for true, pure friendship.
Still, it wasn’t smart to look at Joe too closely.
She did it anyway. Just this once.
His cotton shirt hung nicely over massive shoulders. Its casual drape highlighted his trim waist. Joe did not require buckskin trousers to look good in his clothes. Why did she find his new look unsettling?
A Choctaw woman passed them on the sidewalk. She stood out in the crowd, and Faye realized for the first time that nearly everyone around her was white. Ordinarily, long experience would have prompted her to take a racial headcount, a habit she thought was probably second-nature for anyone born non-white in America. Having spent the morning surrounded by Joe and Oka Hofobi and Toneisha, she’d let her defenses fall, and it had felt good.
Joe’s flustered glance flicked from the Choctaw woman’s face to the back of his right hand. The gimme cap hid his hair, except for the long ponytail down his back, but Faye knew its color, and the woman’s hair lacked the chestnut highlights that kept Joe’s hair from being completely black. His skin, with its unmistakable bronze tint, was still several shades lighter than hers, but Joe’s eyes betrayed him most. They were a clear sea-green. Thrown into contact with people whose Native American blood had flowed unadulterated since before Columbus threw their world into a tailspin, Joe could no longer deny his murky racial status.
The world seemed less safe when Joe, the most centered individual she’d ever met, didn’t know who he
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