Tallulah Falls by Christine Fletcher

Author:Christine Fletcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Published: 2006-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

The women gathered around her again, murmuring and soothing. “I’m all right,” Tallulah said, her voice hiccupy with tears. She waved a hand in front of her face. “Really. I’m all right.”

Next to her, a beer bottle thudded down on the scarred wood of the table. Poteet swung his leg over the bench and sat astride it. “You haven’t seen my orchids yet,” he said. “Come on, I’ll give you the tour.”

“Poor girl just saved a baby,” Ruth said. “Leave her a bit, can’t you?”

“Nonsense. Best thing for her.”

Tallulah stood up. In the past half hour the conversation at the table had drifted from speculation about the accident, to rose pruning, to breast-feeding, and she’d heard all she could take on all three subjects.

Instead of going straight up the hill to the greenhouses, though, Poteet led Tallulah down to the lake. He didn’t say anything and Tallulah was grateful. An absence of words suited her.

The lakeshore cupped inward, cradling the water like the palm of a hand. Tallulah stood on the bank, a sloping three-foot wall of rocks, and watched the waves lap beneath her feet. The water was dark, almost black, glistening silver where the sun hit it. It wasn’t as smooth as she would have imagined.

As if he’d overheard her thinking, Poteet said, “Wind’s kicking up a chop.”

“I didn’t know you lived on a lake.”

“No reason you should,” he said, and then added, “It’s artificial.”

“Oh.” Clouds scudded toward them. They looked like marching columns, charcoal at the bottom, their humped tops blinding white.

“We meant to get a boat ourselves,” Poteet said. “Go out on the lake of a Sunday.” A plastic ball swirling with color bounced toward them, three children hard after it. Poteet bent down and scooped the ball up and tossed it to the boy bringing up the rear. The kid flubbed the catch but got it off the ground and began running in the opposite direction. The other children yelped and scrambled after him.

Poteet turned and began walking up the hill. Tallulah followed him. A little way ahead, Jolene was bending over one of the coolers, her son hanging onto her knee. Tallulah had never seen her out of hospital scrubs. She was wearing a sleeveless denim blouse and shorts; her hair, freed from its usual braids, broke in dark blond wavelets almost down to her waist. She fished out a piece of ice and gave it to her son, giggling at his attempts to hold it, catching it—whoopsie!—when it slipped. She had the same absorbed, cheerful manner with him that she did with her patients, only merrier, the dimples in her cheeks deeper. Seeing those dimples made Tallulah wonder, again, how someone so soft with little helpless things could be such a crab to her co-workers.

Jolene straightened up. Poteet waved to her. In an instant both laughter and dimples disappeared, replaced by the grim-eyed flintiness she’d shown him all day. She picked up her son and turned her back.

Poteet sighed. “Ruth’s after me to make nice,” he said.

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