Maybe she was concentrating on the shopping list streaming through her head or, like me, she feared straying too far from explicit instructions, leading to an inevitable whipping, maybe even beating. For me it was the difference in who sent me—Lishie or my uncle Bud. For Essie, maybe there was no option.
Regardless of how I justified her coolness, I wanted to believe that I had something to do with her warming. I wanted to believe that years ago I had distracted the fish in the river so that they all swam her way. I wanted to believe that my shying away from the beautiful girl in the trading post allowed her to complete her purchase with accuracy. I was her space to breathe, her freedom to warm in the margin I left for sunlight.
“Well, there’s been children come in to work with their folks, but you never see them leave. Staff can’t report it ’cause they’re not supposed to have kids around anyway.” I took my eyes from the road so as to better gauge her reaction.
“Oh, Cowney. Do you really believe someone would just keep their mouth shut when they’ve lost their own child just so they don’t lose their job?” She rolled her eyes like she’d been practicing the motion her whole life.
Of course I did not believe much of what I found myself telling her, but it seemed to keep her attention and that was motivation enough to continue. “All I know is there ain’t a helluva lot of jobs floatin’ around and maybe they’re afraid for their own lives. Who knows why people do what they do.”
“So why are you going to work in a place like that?”
“Correction. I work for a place like that. I won’t set foot inside unless I have to. And even then, I sure as hell won’t go up to the guest floors. Excuse my language.”
“So I guess I’m just a fool, huh?” Her lips pursed again.
“Oh, gee. No. That’s not what I meant. Ahh. I just wanted to tell you about the place. I didn’t mean to scare you. We all have to work somewhere. It’s probably nothing. Plus, they have all kinds of security at the place. US Army detail scattered like ants on a hill.”
“Are they really prisoners?”
“The guests? Yeah, but not like soldier prisoners. That’s why they call them guests, by the way. Best to remember that. Have to call ’em guests. The way it’s been explained to me in the letter I got last week, they’re foreign diplomats and foreign nationals. Not American, but not Hitler’s frontline henchmen either. Been in the United States for some time, but had to be moved during the war.”
“Diplomats? I thought you said they were bloodthirsty vampires running death camps.”
“Oh, here we go again. You said that. Not me. Just tryin’ to hold a conversation.” I checked my side mirror needlessly. The steep, green banks hugged the car as we bumped along what were little more than plowed dirt paths. A sweet honeysuckle scent seeped in through the cracked windows, fighting its way past the swirling dust. I mentally marked the point in case Lishie needed vines for new baskets. There were only a few wooden guardrails periodically placed, and I worried that I’d take a curve too liberally and we would careen off the bank and roll down into a ravine—possibly never to be seen again. “The manager will tell you all you need to know anyway,” I conceded.
“I’m sorry, Cowney. Sometimes I poke fun when I’m on edge.” Essie settled deeper into her seat and pulled a small, golden mirror from her handbag. She drew an errant strand of dark, chestnut hair from her left cheek and tucked it behind her ear. With her other hand, she steadied the compact in front of her and admired the reflection of the procedure. If she had been like most girls I knew, her next move would be to produce a shiny tube of deep red lipstick and slowly apply it as I wiped away the beads of sweat forming on my own upper lip. Unfortunately, at least in this moment, Essie was not like most other girls. She tucked the mirror back into her black bag and balanced her chin in the palm of her hand, resting her right elbow on the passenger side door.
And still the perspiration came. It edged its way up my spine, forcing me to pull my chest forward into the steering wheel so that fresh air could dry the back of my damp shirt. The sweat then ringed my collar and finally framed my hairline. I rubbed my face as if I was still sleepy from the early-morning departure, but the foggy embarrassment was too much to absorb. Until now, I assumed that I looked at Essie like I looked at every female of a certain age. There was little distinction in my immature lust, not that I had the right to be discerning. She did nothing to evoke a deep longing. She sat prudishly, reserved and so utterly unaware of her femininity that it was as if I was compelled to seek it out on my own. Though I was slightly older, I felt ingenuous in her presence.
From the margins of my peripheral vision, she appeared almost wistful. The car’s right two tires grumbled across the rocky shoulder of the road, and I eased the steering wheel straight so as not to worry her. I was sure the awkwardness of my lame foot anywhere near the gas pedal had already done enough of that, and I didn’t need her questioning my equilibrium on top of everything else.
“It’s okay. I talk too much. Everybody tells me that.”
“No. I mean, it’s a long ride, right? Tell me more. I like a mystery.” Essie smiled, crossing her arms and leaning back.
Fresh air in the car gently circulated and for the first time during the whole ride, I began to really see Essie for who she might want to be: a respected lady rather than a respectable lady. Maybe she would be a detective, a mystery writer, or a scientist. Maybe we would both become scientists, discover cures to childhood diseases and deformities together in our shared laboratory. The possibilities coursed through my thoughts, but I forced myself to confine them there. I gave her that moment. Shut my big mouth and just nodded.
Within half an hour, Essie was drifting in and out of sleep, jerking her head upright periodically and fumbling to make a pillow of her clenched hands. There was a sweet innocence in her uncontrolled movements. It was a vulnerability that made me feel that at least her unconscious self had some level of trust in me, that maybe she wasn’t worried that my gimp foot would cause us to wreck or that my unsophisticated ways would lead us down the wrong road.
The only two people who had ever trusted me to drive them before were Lishie and my uncle Bud, and Bud had to be pretty damn desperate or incapacitated to allow someone else to drive him anywhere. He would huff like a deflating balloon because I was driving too fast or sigh, with a slow leak, because I was driving too cautiously. We shared the car between the three of us, so with me working in Asheville, Bud would have to get used to walking while I was away or get his broken-down pickup fixed after three years sitting idle in the yard. But Essie’s trust, that was something far better than Lishie or Bud could provide, and even though she didn’t say another word to me on the drive for quite some time, I still relished knowing she might be dreaming next to me.
When Essie and I arrived in Asheville proper not long after, she yawned, arched her back, and smiled again. The sidewalks on either side of us seemed to move like conveyor belts as sharply dressed men fell into office buildings and tightly dressed women pulled small children behind them, careful not to drop purses or their early-morning purchases. An almost rhythmic opus of car horns signaled lackadaisical street-crossers and distracted drivers. A haze of dust and cigarette smoke billowed from passing cars. The starched pallor of city dappers (as my uncle liked to call them) was threatened with each turn of the steering wheel or application of the squeaking brake pads. Emerging sunlight sparkled off copper guttering and art deco tile designs framing doorways. I wished desperately that I could tune a car radio to mellow jazz. One of the first items on my list after a few paychecks was to buy a radio. I wouldn’t be able to buy one just for the car, but maybe I could take it with me on long rides if I stockpiled enough batteries. In truth, I didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about jazz, but there was no denying that one true fact—Asheville was a jazz city. It breathed blue notes.
By the turn of the second signal light, I was swerving consistently to avoid an errant stray dog or misguided fruit cart. The tempo had taken a strong upturn. Essie, now fully awake, gripped her purse with one hand and the edge of the seat with her other, signaling her distaste for my navigational talents. “We’re not in that big of a hurry, are we? I think we could