Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden

Author:Bernice L. McFadden
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: akashic books
Published: 2011-03-13T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

When Charlotte Custer knocked on the front door in the fall of 1929, Hemmingway despised her immediately.

“Afternoon, ma’am.”

It was the parasol Charlotte held over her head. Hemmingway hated parasols and so instantly hated any woman who carried one.

“Is Mr. Payne at home?”

A hazel-eyed, blond-haired, prissy little snake. She wore a bonnet and laced gloves that climbed all the way to her elbows.

“No, ma’am. Who may I say was calling?” Hemmingway asked the question and broke the cardinal rule of the South when she brazenly looked directly into the white woman’s eyes.

“You may say that Charlotte Custer came to call on him.”

Charlotte Custer? What ole type of stupid name was that? Hemmingway wondered as she raised her hand to her mouth and coughed a laugh into her palm.

“When do you expect him to return?”

Hemmingway could feel the smirk still resting on her lips, so she kept her hand positioned over her mouth. “Thursday, ma’am.”

Charlotte Custer frowned. “Oh dear,” she murmured before extracting an embroidered kerchief from her sleeve and used it to swab her forehead. “That’s three days away, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh dear,” she moaned again. “Well, that is that then. I will return in three days.”

Hemmingway watched her walk down the steps to the waiting carriage.

In three days Charlotte Custer returned, without the parasol. This did nothing to endear her to Hemmingway.

Hemmingway showed Charlotte into the drawing room, invited her to sit, and then went to fetch Cole.

“I don’t trust her,” Hemmingway hissed from the doorway.

Cole was working on his bottle art. But unlike other enthusiasts of the craft, he did not construct miniature boats in his bottles—he constructed Native American teepees.

“Indian houses?” Hemmingway had questioned the first time Cole showed her his work.

“Well, yes and no,” Cole responded. “They’re called teepees.”

A year after the flood, Cole had begun to talk about taking a trip out west.

“For what?” Hemmingway had asked.

“Just to see.”

“What’s to see?”

“Well, the Pacific Ocean for one.”

“Ain’t you had your fill of water?”

The only time Cole had ever stepped foot outside of Mississippi was to visit Melinda’s cousins in the neighboring state of Louisiana, and he hadn’t even wanted to make that trip. But since the flood—since he had cheated death and survived to tell the tale—Cole had started to wonder about the world beyond Mississippi. When his wondering transformed into yearning, he went out and purchased a black 1928 Ford Model A and announced to Hemmingway that he was going to drive it all the way to the California coast.

Hemmingway had simply shrugged her shoulders and said, “Okay, have fun.”

Cole was gone for two and a half months. When he returned, he was freckled, brown as lightly toasted bread, and filled with stories of Indians.

Hemmingway had listened, and yawned as Cole droned on and on about their customs, traditions, and the brutality they’d suffered under the white man’s occupancy.

“Yeah, well,” Hemmingway reminded him on various occasions, “black folk still suffering.”

Cole dedicated one of the empty rooms to his craft. Bottles of all sizes and shapes lined the baseboard like glass soldiers.

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