Silk and Stone (22 page)

Frowning, Jake tucked the small square of yarn into the pocket of his flannel shirt. “But who watches out for you?” he asked gruffly.

“Me. I do.” She pointed to herself. He didn’t mention that she hadn’t done too well at it today. “You can leave now,” she added. She inched away from him, her arms sunk between her legs, as if she were trying to become invisible. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

He stared at her. “Why?”

“You’re a Raincrow.” She trembled. “Go away. It’s important. And I’m not married to you either. People can’t get married before they can vote and have babies.”

“Well, I don’t recall asking you to do either one.”

“People have to stick to their own kind.”

“Is that what your aunt told you?”

“Aunt Alexandra is my friend. You hate her, so you’re
not
my friend.”

Jake carefully put a hand on her shoulder. She shivered and tried to move away, but he held just tight enough to stop her. He felt her fear and confusion, her unhappiness. He saw a thin gold chain peeking between the parted hair at the nape of her neck. Jake caught it with his fingertips and pulled. She grabbed at her chest, but the small stone popped up between the open collar of her shirt.

He remembered the mediocre ruby—not worth five
dollars, he knew now—but a proud treasure when he’d found it. And when he’d given it to her.

She wrapped both hands around it and glared at him. Jake nodded. “You can’t tell a lie to me. Don’t even try.”

Her eyebrows shot up. She gazed at him desperately. “Please, please, go away,” she said in a small, fractured voice. “And don’t ever come back. When I’m old and have plenty of money, I can talk to you. But for now I have to do what’s best for Mom and Charlotte.”

The truth was suddenly clear to him. She was caught in the middle of her aunt’s twisted generosity, and Aunt Alexandra had made certain she wouldn’t stray. “Listen to me,” he said, moving around in front of her, then dropping to his heels so they looked at each other on the same level. “You take care of your folks. You take care of yourself. But don’t ever think you’ll get caught in a dark place where I can’t find you. That’s just the way it’s going to be. I’ll come to get you, and there won’t be a thing your aunt can do about it.”

She shut her eyes and clamped her mouth tight. Jake sighed, stood up, and walked to the corner of the delapidated old building. Mr. Black spotted him and blew the truck’s horn. Jake looked back at her. “See you later,” he said.

She whipped around and called his name. Jake halted. Her hands splayed on the stoop, she leaned forward and looked at him urgently. For a split second she wasn’t ten years old. Like watching a special effect in a movie, he saw an older version of herself superimposed on a small girl’s image. It shook him. He knew how he’d feel about her then, and the power of it sank in forever. “When?” she asked.

Jake blinked. The image was gone, but not the memory. He cleared his throat and said as casually as he could, “When you’re old enough to vote.”

It was new, and bright, and clean. Outside the huge plate windows was a wide covered walkway with wooden
benches at regular intervals, and dwarf Japanese maples in handsome stone planters. Next door was a dry cleaners run by a young Vietnamese couple who had brought them a bowl of glazed orange slices as a welcoming gift. On the other side was a bookstore, and beyond that, a florist’s shop, a hardware store, and a shop that sold sports equipment. The parking lot was clean, and tall lampposts kept it well lit at night. The busy four-lane street brought a steady stream of customers into the shopping center.

No winos on the doorstep. No dank cellar full of dusty antiques. No exposed electrical wires or giant rats speeding across the kitchen floor.

Frannie sat down on one of the cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked in the new home of New Times Health Food and Vitamins, and cried with relief. “This is incredible.”

Sam, who was placing packages of granola bars on brand-new metal shelves along one wall, stopped working and stared at her worriedly. Charlotte, who had been opening boxes under Sam’s supervision, gave a little mewl of alarm and ran to their mother. “What’s wrong, Mommy? Did you see a roach?”

“Not even one,” Frannie answered, wiping her eyes with one hand and riffling Charlotte’s short blond hair with the other. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe that a stranger walked into the old place a month ago and said he wanted a health food store in his new shopping center, and now, here we are. I can’t believe the rent isn’t a penny more than what your aunt was paying for the other place. I think your daddy is watching over us. I think he sent an angel to help us out.”

Sam began stacking granola bars again. “Mr. Gunther doesn’t look like an angel to me. He looks like a smart man who had an empty shop to rent.” She paused, and for Mom’s sake, added, “But maybe Daddy whispered in his ear.”

Charlotte leaned against Mom and looked at her earnestly. “When is Aunt Alexandra going to visit us? Doesn’t she want to see our new place?”

“I think your aunt’s in shock, honey.”

Sam jammed a package into place with firm resolve.
I think Aunt Alexandra’s not real happy about our good luck
. But she didn’t say that, because Aunt Alex was still, after all, paying the rent.

Mom’s angel walked up to the glass door and pushed it open with a cheerful shove. “Getting settled, ladies?”

Mom jumped up and said hello to Mr. Gunther, who owned the shopping center. They began discussing an ad Mr. Gunther planned to run in the Sunday paper, listing all the shops and their hours. Sam studied their new landlord furtively while she worked. Mr. Gunther was short and big-bellied, and he wore western shirts with little string ties at the collar, and pants that hung so low on his butt that he needed wide western belts with huge belt buckles to keep his pants from falling down around his cowboy boots. He had thin brown hair, and little gray eyes that disappeared when he smiled, and his stubby little hands were covered in rings made of silver, with colorful stones.

He was the strangest-looking businessman Sam could imagine, but very nice. “Now, where did I leave my notes for the ad?” Mom said, frowning.

“I put them in a file folder and marked it Ads,” Sam answered. “On the desk.”

“Thank you, sweetie. I’ll go copy them for Mr. Gunther.” When Mom went into the back room, and Charlotte trailed after her, Sam walked over to Mr. Gunther to study his rings.

“You are one solemn little lady,” he said, squatting down on his boot heels and grinning at her.

“I’m running a business,” she told him. “I intend to make a lot of money. To pay for the rent and the bills and send my sister to college someday. So nobody can tell me what to do.”

“My, oh, my. That’s a very respectable plan.”

“What do those letters on your pinkie ring stand for?”

He held out his right hand. The ring on his little finger was all silver, and the only ornament on it was
three raised letters that looked like a G, a W, and a Y—but with curlicues attached to them.

“That’s the word for
Cherokee,
” he explained. “The Cherokees are the only Indians who have their own writing. A man named Sequoyah invented it, way back when.”

“Are you an Indian?”

“Yep.”

Her mouth dropped open. Mr. Gunther looked even less like an Indian than Jake did. Jake had black hair, at least, and a face that was mostly cheekbones, and deep eyes, and a tan. Mr. Gunther looked like an ordinary person. “I have an Indian … friend. But you don’t look like him,” she said.

“My great-grandmother was Cherokee. Besides, being an Indian is all up here.” He pointed to his head. “And here.” He tapped a ringed finger on the center of his chest.

“You think you’re an Indian, so you are one?”

He laughed and nodded his head. “Something like that.” He cupped his hands, palms up, as if he were holding a ball in them. “If you’re an Indian, here’s the world. Every being has a place, and everyone shares. The people, and the mountains, and the trees, and the animals.” He moved his hands apart. “If you’re not an Indian, the people are on one side, by themselves. They’ve forgotten how to share. They don’t even share with each other.”

“So because you’re an Indian, you’re sharing your shopping center with us?”

He tapped the tip of her nose the way he’d tapped his chest. “I’m a bonafide rockhound, and when I see fine quality stones stuck in the mud, I can’t help but put them where I can watch them shine.”

The threads of a question had been scattered in her mind. Now they came together in a brilliant pattern. “My friend knows all about stones.” Her voice was a secretive whisper. “He knows where to find them. He gave me one.” She pulled her necklace from inside her sweater and let the ruby rock dangle between her fingers. “I bet he could show you where to find rocks. I bet you’ve
heard of him, since he’s an Indian. His name’s Jake. Jake Raincrow.”

When Mr. Gunther pursed his mouth but said nothing, and just smiled at her, she exhaled slowly.

Mother came back then, waving a piece of notepaper at Mr. Gunther, and he winked at Sam as he stood up.

Sam walked to their beautiful big windows, and stood with her ruby clasped in one hand. Jake had sent Mr. Gunther to help them. Mom was happier now. Charlotte wouldn’t be squealing and jumping out of a rat’s way anymore. And as for Aunt Alexandra, well, Sam hadn’t asked Jake to help them, had she? She hadn’t broken any promise to her aunt.

And when she was old enough, and had enough money to take care of her family, so that she owed Aunt Alexandra nothing, she would find Jake, and tell him what she felt right now.
I love you, Jake Raincrow
.

Chapter
            Ten
 

“P
omp and Circumstance” collapsed into chaos the moment the last of the honor graduates—which was Ellie—filed out of the school auditorium into a brightly lit lobby hung with banners celebrating the Class of ’79.

The majority of the senior class was still pacing up the center isle, held in check by protocol and the watchful eyes of a thousand family members and friends. As her classmates turned to her with shocked stares and questions, Ellie wished Jake—who was bringing up the rear of the class procession by reason of a respectable but ordinary grade point average as well as a lack of alphabetical priority—would hurry up.

Courage was a lonely thing.

The other honor graduates bombarded her so quickly that she could only stand in grim silence, listening.

“What happened to the valedictorian speech you practiced in speech class last week?”

“Are you
crazy
? Why’d you say all that stuff about the new people turning Pandora into their own private playground and turning everyone else into beggars?
My
parents aren’t ‘smug and condescending.’ When my dad was having our tennis court built, he let the whole crew of hillbillies swim in our pool during their lunch break.”

“God, Ellie, you
made fun of
Senator Lomax’s commencement speech! I saw Mrs. Lomax in the audience, and she looked like she wanted to
kill
you!”

“What was so awful about what the senator said? He was only pointing out that progress is a good thing.”

“My mom says we wouldn’t have this new high school if he and Mrs. Lomax hadn’t pushed the county to build it.”

Ellie removed her cap and took a deep breath. “Senator Lomax is a bullshit artist who married my uncle’s money to get ahead.”

The rest of the class was crowding through the auditorium doors and crowding the lobby, turning it into a black and white flower garden of robes and caps, of stares and whispers directed at her. Ellie looked around for Jake, but couldn’t see him.

She made another pivot and came face-to-face with Tim’s furious blue eyes. His face was as red as his short-cropped hair, and he had Uncle William’s blunt, broad features but none of his gentleness. Her cousin was junior class president, and he wore a sash over his dark blue suit, denoting usher status for the ceremonies. He was tall, thick-necked, with bulky arms and an oversize chest from weightlifting—a menace on the football field, where, over the years, his timidity had evolved into arrogance.