lick of sense. That’s just the way it is with folks.”
Her biblical turn implied a generic reference, not one directed solely at me, except as illustration.
“You have to give people a reason to take you seriously, Avery. People in this town still remember you wearin’ those shiny red satin shorts and those white leather boots off down Main Street.”
“I never—”
“Don’t tell me. I stood right there and watched.” Bud stirred at the sharpness in her tone, ready to leap to her defense, should the need arise. Of course, he’d never actually had to defend Aunt Letha. How could the need ever arise?
“Marched right down Main Street in it.”
The occasion she referred to leapt from a distant memory. “Aunt Letha,” I said, exasperated. “I was three years old. In the Christmas parade, for Pete’s sake.”
“People remember, Avery.”
“You were three years old once, in this same town.” Though, even as I said it, I had trouble imagining it. “People don’t have any trouble taking you seriously.”
“Never pranced down Main Street in red satin and white leather boots with my bare legs a-shinin’.”
“And a baton, Aunt Letha. I twirled a baton.”
“Dropped it a time or two, best I remember.”
Hard to argue with fact.
We sat, studying the gravestones and the bobbing balloons and listening to the distant traffic sounds.
Casually, as though searching for nothing morethan companionable gossip, I asked, “What do you remember about Melvin Bertram?”
“He’s back in town, I hear.”
“Um-hmm.”
“I remember his younger brother in high school. His parents aren’t from here. Moved in after Melvin would’ve been in my class, best I remember.”
Which meant they’d been in Dacus some decades—still newcomers, by Dacus measure.
“His father was with one of the new plants that moved in about that time. From somewhere over in Georgia. Sordid doings, that about his wife.”
“Whose wife?”
“Melvin’s, of course. She upped and disappeared. Must have been"—she calculated in her head—"fifteen years ago. That was the high school’s centennial celebration. I remember Melvin’s mother on the covered dish committee with Vinnia. Tiny, chirpy like a bird. Always wore shoes with a strap across the instep.”
Tiny, next to Aunt Letha, could mean almost anything.
“I don’t remember Melvin,” she continued. “His brother was a smart kid. Better in math than in the verbal arts. You could tell he had to be an engineer—or whatever else that type might turn to. Couldn’t do much else.”
Like my dad, the engineer turned renaissance newspaper publisher.
“But, my, the talk that steamed around town about that wife of his. Lea Hopkins, she was in high school. And quite a little piece of work, even then.Not that old-lady schoolteachers were supposed to know about such, but the football team apparently passed her around with more completions than they did the football.”
I snuck a glance at Aunt Letha, my eyes wide. To be a lady of a certain age, her practical earthiness could jolt me sometimes.
“She headed off to college, but within a year or two, the engagement announcement, photo and all, appeared in the newspaper. Melvin was a bit older than she, but only four or five years. Not enough to be unseemly, you know. Settled in, him working as a CPA. She typed or something in the office at Garnet Mills. I remember because, of course, when she didn’t show up for work and all the talk started, they interviewed everybody who knew her.”
As we sat, side by side, staring across the gray-brown autumn lawn and the cold stones, a figure limped through the gate from the south side of the graveyard.
“Who’s that?” I asked, recognizing the man I’d seen in the Garnet Mills parking lot, the one who’d approached the biker at the gate.
“Nebo Earling. Visiting his momma’s grave, I guess. She died years ago, bad to drink. His daddy took off long before that—nobody ever had
Her biblical turn implied a generic reference, not one directed solely at me, except as illustration.
“You have to give people a reason to take you seriously, Avery. People in this town still remember you wearin’ those shiny red satin shorts and those white leather boots off down Main Street.”
“I never—”
“Don’t tell me. I stood right there and watched.” Bud stirred at the sharpness in her tone, ready to leap to her defense, should the need arise. Of course, he’d never actually had to defend Aunt Letha. How could the need ever arise?
“Marched right down Main Street in it.”
The occasion she referred to leapt from a distant memory. “Aunt Letha,” I said, exasperated. “I was three years old. In the Christmas parade, for Pete’s sake.”
“People remember, Avery.”
“You were three years old once, in this same town.” Though, even as I said it, I had trouble imagining it. “People don’t have any trouble taking you seriously.”
“Never pranced down Main Street in red satin and white leather boots with my bare legs a-shinin’.”
“And a baton, Aunt Letha. I twirled a baton.”
“Dropped it a time or two, best I remember.”
Hard to argue with fact.
We sat, studying the gravestones and the bobbing balloons and listening to the distant traffic sounds.
Casually, as though searching for nothing morethan companionable gossip, I asked, “What do you remember about Melvin Bertram?”
“He’s back in town, I hear.”
“Um-hmm.”
“I remember his younger brother in high school. His parents aren’t from here. Moved in after Melvin would’ve been in my class, best I remember.”
Which meant they’d been in Dacus some decades—still newcomers, by Dacus measure.
“His father was with one of the new plants that moved in about that time. From somewhere over in Georgia. Sordid doings, that about his wife.”
“Whose wife?”
“Melvin’s, of course. She upped and disappeared. Must have been"—she calculated in her head—"fifteen years ago. That was the high school’s centennial celebration. I remember Melvin’s mother on the covered dish committee with Vinnia. Tiny, chirpy like a bird. Always wore shoes with a strap across the instep.”
Tiny, next to Aunt Letha, could mean almost anything.
“I don’t remember Melvin,” she continued. “His brother was a smart kid. Better in math than in the verbal arts. You could tell he had to be an engineer—or whatever else that type might turn to. Couldn’t do much else.”
Like my dad, the engineer turned renaissance newspaper publisher.
“But, my, the talk that steamed around town about that wife of his. Lea Hopkins, she was in high school. And quite a little piece of work, even then.Not that old-lady schoolteachers were supposed to know about such, but the football team apparently passed her around with more completions than they did the football.”
I snuck a glance at Aunt Letha, my eyes wide. To be a lady of a certain age, her practical earthiness could jolt me sometimes.
“She headed off to college, but within a year or two, the engagement announcement, photo and all, appeared in the newspaper. Melvin was a bit older than she, but only four or five years. Not enough to be unseemly, you know. Settled in, him working as a CPA. She typed or something in the office at Garnet Mills. I remember because, of course, when she didn’t show up for work and all the talk started, they interviewed everybody who knew her.”
As we sat, side by side, staring across the gray-brown autumn lawn and the cold stones, a figure limped through the gate from the south side of the graveyard.
“Who’s that?” I asked, recognizing the man I’d seen in the Garnet Mills parking lot, the one who’d approached the biker at the gate.
“Nebo Earling. Visiting his momma’s grave, I guess. She died years ago, bad to drink. His daddy took off long before that—nobody ever had
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