live in town.”
“Oh, this whole countryside will have electrical service.”
“Well,” she allowed. “They say it’s real nice.”
“No more fetching water from the well. Washing the week’s clothes in half the time. No more stoking. You just turn the stove on, and it’s ready to cook.”
“That does sound like an improvement.”
“The problem is, we’re sort of in a fix. We’ve got to get people to sign up for the cooperative. You see, we can’t sell the electricity to the individual families. Federal law won’t allow that. So we sell it wholesale to a cooperative of local families. They split the costs up amongst themselves, paying for the electricity with their member dues.”
“I haven’t heard anything about this,” Claire said.
Hull frowned. “Very few have. That’s why I’m here, to get the word out. But what our effort really needs is someone local, someone who knows these people and could help us convince them that signing up is going to be good for them.” He held her gaze until Claire realized he wasn’t just making idle conversation.
“Oh,” she said, blushing, “if you mean me, I’ve left my mother minding my children long enough.”
“Are you sure? We’d pay you for your work, and we’d be most grateful.”
Claire glanced at Irma. If her aunt had strong feelings about what was being said, her face revealed nothing.
“Do women even do this sort of work?” Claire asked, uncertain.
“You’d be my assistant, no different than a secretary. Only instead of working in an office, we’ll be traveling the county.”
“But I can’t walk much yet, on account of my illness. I get tired out.”
“We’ll have a car, so you wouldn’t walk any farther than from the street to the porch. With someone local like you with me, we’ll sign up lots more people.”
“I wouldn’t think people would take that much convincing.”
“Look around this table. We’re outsiders. For all they know, I’m going to take their five dollars and run off. They’re simple people,” he said, leaving it as his explanation.
Claire thought about it. Money would mean that she wouldn’t be dependent on Travis. Or her mother.
“Well, I suppose I could help,” Claire said. “But only when I’ve recovered a bit more.”
Hull nodded. “You can start only when you feel up to it.” He meaningfully offered her a manicured hand, and she shook it, sealing the deal.
“That’s enough business talk at the supper table, Mr. Hull,” Irma said. Hull smiled at Claire.
After dinner Nathan excused himself and went up to his room to work. At midweek he’d arranged with Irma for a second, larger lamp for his room. Each night since, he’d gone up after dinner to spread his work across his small table, the chest of drawers, and the bed. With the additional light, he was making progress, but it didn’t change the fact that he was a week-plus into his ninety days and he had only a livelong day’s pile of assignments to show for it. There would be no shortcut to putting his head down and doing the work and he had no strategy beyond the one that had brought him to this place. If he didn’t get picked by Maufrais to stay on at the end of his ninety days, if he couldn’t make this work, then he was out of ideas.
It had been a hot afternoon and his room was warmer than usual. He got up and opened the window as far as it would go and rolled up his shirtsleeves. The drawings smeared under his touch, and the papers glued themselves to his bared forearms.
It had been surprisingly nice to have Irma’s niece join them that evening. Her appearance at the table had altered things, had recast their bachelor meals as something more akin to a large, extended family dinner. It was a strange thing to chance upon something you’d not realized you were missing, but felt after the fact like a shock to his system. He missed his family, his friends, his old life. It wasn’t his nature to hole up with himself like this night after night, but he knew there wasn’t anything to be done. Not for eighty more days, at least.
He thought of his parents and the last time he’d seen them. His father had been white-lipped and angry with him, his mother had clung to him as if he were going into his grave instead of running away. But now that he considered it, dead or not, his old life was buried, just the same.
Downstairs someone coughed. He pictured the boarding house as if it were a child’s miniature, each of them a doll in its own compartment. There was only the cough, the scuff of a shoe, the sudden voice raised in laughter, that told you someone was really there. A half-dozen lives playing out in parallel. The cough came again, then the squeak of a loose board trod upon downstairs, and he stopped to listen. It might be somebody getting up for a drink from the ceramic jug that Irma kept in the kitchen. He had heard someone on the stairs two nights in a row earlier in the week and knew that his fellow boarders were not above creeping around in the night.
He listened for a few minutes before realizing that he’d lost the thread of the circuit he’d been drawing. Fitzsimmons would be asking after the plans in the morning, and Nathan had at least another hour’s work on them to go. He rubbed his eyes and unbuttoned his shirt’s collar, began tracing the circuit anew, but try as he might, his thoughts would not stay fixed there.
He stood and went to his dresser, opening the top drawer. His flask lay amidst his socks and underwear. He picked it up and shook it, though he knew it was long empty. He returned it to the drawer and rummaged further, until he found the torn envelope with the clipping. He unfolded the clipping and stood studying it under the lamplight, as if it might reveal some new truth that would release him, but his thoughts would not settle. He put it away.
Again, a cough from downstairs. He went to the open window and leaned out, feeling the coolness of the night air on his face. A car passed noisily on the street below his window, chasing the light it cast before it. Perhaps a walk would settle his mind. He gathered up his cast-off shoes, listened at his door, and then slipped out of his room and down the stairs.
ON MARKET DAY, WHEN HE WAS IN TOWN, THE RED-HAIRED boy would sometimes drift down to the big elm where the other young people gathered while waiting for their families to finish the day’s errands.
Kids that were older than him, teenagers mostly, would sit against the tree to smoke and talk. Most often their discussions were about Memphis, where things happened, where there was nightlife and excitement. In their talk it was a given that they were missing out on something, that their lives in Dawsonville were a cheaper version of what they could be in the city. Memphis was out there through the trees, across the river. They would spit towards the road, studying it, as if it held some secrets by merit of it winding its way west to where the buildings grew up tall and the night shone with electric light. He was too young to fully understand the draw, but he felt it in a vicarious sort of way when the older boys talked of it. He wanted to understand.
“After the harvest is in,” one of them said, “I’m taking my pay and going. My parents can’t stop me. I’m old enough now.”
“You think there’s work to be had?” another asked.
“Shoot, I’ll do anything, as long as it’ll keep a roof over my head. No city job can be as tough as farming.”
The red-haired boy glanced around at the others. The younger boys made no attempt to hide the awe on their faces. Could it be done?
“’Sides,” the plotter continued, “I’ll find me one of the career women that lives by herself. I’ll slip in there and have her cooking