Part 8 (1/2)
”Anthony Carl Powell, I'm gonna wear your bottom out!” his mother threatened as she leaped from the porch.
The child dropped the hose and fled, confident that she wasn't really angry, that the chase would end in a tumbled heap on the long gra.s.s under the trees.
Lu and Betty Ann looked at their soggy cigarettes ruefully.
”Time I was getting home anyhow,” said Betty Ann and went off to her truck.
”Me, too,” said Lu as she headed toward her own car. ”You'll be back next Sat.u.r.day, Deborah?”
”Sure,” said Annie Sue. ”She's going to help me pull wire, right?”
I sighed. ”Right.”
”Maybe we could even get started one evening next week?”
”Maybe,” I said noncommittally.
Lu laughed and called goodbye to BeeBee, who was toweling her children off with her son's wet T-s.h.i.+rt so they wouldn't get mud on the seat of her car.
”Y'all aren't leaving now?” BeeBee asked.
”My dad's coming by to check that I've got everything marked out right,” Annie Sue told her. ”I thought he'd be here by now.”
”Probably making sure everybody's gone first,” I said.
”See you next week then,” said BeeBee as she finished buckling little Kaneesha into the backseat. Anthony Carl was buckled up, ready to roll, and both children waved to Paige and Cindy till the car pulled out of sight.
The two girls were drenched to the skin. Their hair hung in wet strands and their thin cotton s.h.i.+rts were plastered to their young bodies, outlining b.r.e.a.s.t.s and nipples.
At that moment, a bright red Jeep without its rag top screeched to a halt and a virile young white man pulled himself up by the roll bar. Sunlight glinted off his mirror shades.
”Well, well, well!” A salacious leer spread itself across his handsome face. ”Did someone forget to tell me about the wet T-s.h.i.+rt contest?”
He stepped down from the Jeep, hitched up his low-slung jeans and strolled across the gra.s.s. ”h.e.l.l-lo, little ladies! I'm your friendly neighborhood building inspector and I'd be happy to inspect your framing any old time you say.”
The girls laughed at his burlesque of crude seducer. I just sat where I was and watched. Motionless on the floor behind the others, my baseball cap perched on one drawn-up knee, I could have been another teenager for all he noticed. He still hadn't pulled his eyes off those wet s.h.i.+rts; but I knew his face and now I remembered his name: C-for-Carver Bannerman, my cousin Reid's lead-foot, the man I'd fined a hundred dollars for grossly speeding in a residential zone and for failure to yield to an ambulance.
”Don't tell me you gals know how to hammer a stud into place?”
He marched right on up to them in that s.p.a.ce-invading tactic men like him use, knowing most women will step back. Annie Sue and Paige did. Cindy stood her ground, dimples flas.h.i.+ng, her green eyes daring him to further flights of outrageousness. Her back was against a porch support and he reached past her to brace himself, his chest less than six inches from hers. With his free hand, he pulled off his sungla.s.ses and stared straight down into her pretty face.
It seemed a good time to pull the plug on this nonsense. I stuck my cap back on my head and leaned forward. ”Good evening, Mr. Bannerman.”
”Just wait your turn, dollface,” he drawled. ”I'll get to-” He hesitated, seeing me now, almost remembering my voice, but unable to think how he knew me.
Paige and Annie Sue were smiling as broadly as Cindy, who slipped out from under his arm and said, ”This is Ms. Deborah Knott. Judge Deborah Knott.”
”Oh, s.h.i.+t!” He downs.h.i.+fted from the cliche of walking p.e.n.i.s to the cliche of boyish penitence, which he'd tried to use on me in court Tuesday. ”Stepped into it again, didn't I?”
”You do seem p.r.o.ne to it,” I agreed.
The smile stayed on his lips, but the eyes went hard before he slipped those concealing gla.s.ses on again. A young man who liked to jab, not be jabbed. He kept his cool though. Continued to tease the girls, albeit with considerably less lechery than he'd used initially. They seemed not to notice and laughed when he asked what part I'd worked on ”so I can judge the Judge.”
They followed him through the house, chattering and giggling. I stayed where I was. Lu had led me to expect a lot of sarcasm and nitpicking, and I didn't want to hear it; but when they returned, Bannerman's only criticism was that two-by-two ledger strips ought to be nailed on the ceiling joists, a valid oversight and something easily corrected.
He dated and signed his okay on the building permit's framing line and hopped back in his red Jeep.
”How old would you say he is?” I heard Cindy ask as Carver Bannerman roared away.
At least twenty-one,” said Paige.
”Twenty-two easy,” Annie Sue guessed.
”Well I don't care,” said Cindy. ”If he's there tonight, I'm dancing with him.”
They stirred restlessly.
”I guess Cindy and I'll go on,” said Paige. ”Want us to come by for you, Annie Sue?”
”Okay.” She looked at her watch for the third time in ten minutes. After six and still no Herman. ”Give me a call when you're ready to come, in case something comes up.
No sooner had they, too, driven away than a teenage black girl walked into the yard. She was the young clerk who'd come up earlier from the convenience store. From the way the two girls greeted each other, I realized they must be cla.s.smates at Dobbs Senior High. ”Your mother just called, Annie Sue. Said for me to tell you your daddy's not feeling good and he's not coming.”
”Thanks, Patsy,” Annie Sue said. ”Give you a lift back to the store?”
”No, thanks. I'm through for the day. And it's Sat.u.r.day night, girl!”
As I feared, I was stiffer than a two-by-two as I rousted myself up off the porch and climbed into the truck.
Annie Sue was almost as lively as she'd been at seven that morning. ”He was kind of cute, wasn't he, Deb'rah?”
I shrugged.
”You didn't take all that stuff he said serious, did you? He was just playing.”
”Half-joke, no fooling,” the preacher said starchily.
”Forgotten what it's like to be sixteen?” asked the pragmatist.
Trouble was, I remembered only too well. Still... ”Yeah, he was cute,” I said. ”Too bad he's too old for you guys.”
”He asked for our phone numbers.”
”Oh?”