Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

The old plantation house—or Maybelle’s Manor as it was called—was a cross between an historical relic and a building so derelict it should have been condemned decades ago. The facade itself was a warning that whoever dared enter, did so at their own risk. Ivy spidered its way up the cracked walls and two-story-tall porch columns, and Spanish moss flowed from the eaves and draped itself like curtains around the window shutters.

Suitcase in one hand, I picked up Chet in the other and followed Maybelle through the enormous oak doors leading into the vestibule of the plantation mansion. “Welcome to Maybelle’s Manor,” she said, pointing her walking stick to the dilapidated grand staircase, the peeling wallpaper, the grill-door elevator and the old chandelier with cobwebs binding one string of crystals to the next. “Beautiful, ain’t she?”

I put down my suitcase but continued clinging to Chet. “It’s… nice. A real fixer-upper.”

Maybelle laughed. “Oh, this place is as fixed up as it’s ever gonna get. This is the way it should be. You see, it once belonged to the Landry family. They still own this land. Once upon a time they owned my ancestors too. But after the incident at the crossing with their son Lamar all those lifetimes ago, the Landry mansion fell into disrepair… as did the family itself. There was madness, there was death, and eventually, there was a need to abandon this house forever. These days, the Landry family lives in Savannah, Atlanta, Palm Beach. They’ve got much bigger plantations than this all over the state. They use big machines to harvest the crop. They lost the gentle art of picking the cotton by hand, all for the sake of big business. They don’t care. We’re the smallest plantation they own now, and we like it that way. We farm the cotton for them, we deliver it to them, and they stay away from our town.”

“Why would they not want to invest more resources in one of their properties?”

“Because after what happened to Clara at the crossroads, they know better than to come back. They know to leave the past in the past and not to interfere. Now we live unhindered and untethered in the town they left behind. Which means the mansion in which my ancestors cooked and cleaned is now mine, so’s I can keep the people of Clara’s Crossing safe from harm.”

“You mean, this is some sort of hotel?” I asked, looking up at the drip coming from the ceiling high above and the bowing floorboards that were a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Maybelle laughed once more. “No, my dear boy. This isn’t a hotel. It’s a home. When you have this many rooms in a mansion, you need to fill them with people you love. Half the town lives here. Mind you, half of Clara’s Crossing ain’t exactly a lot, but it’s enough to fill the manor.” She suddenly thought to ask, “You don’t mind sharing a room, do you?”

“Sharing a room? Oh… I don’t share. Not with strangers.”

“People are only strangers when they meet. Once you get to know Lovesong, you’ll feel like he’s been in your life forever. He’s that kinda person. He sees things exactly how they are.”

“Wait, did you say Lovesong?”

“That’s his name. Lovesong Valentin. He’s the son of the reverend and his wife, although he moved outta their home and into here a few years ago. Course, his folks weren’t exactly supportive of the idea. But Lovesong needed his independence. I dare say that’s as far as his parents will let the chain out though. They’re what you call overly protective.”

I hadn’t listened to half of what Maybelle had said. All I could think was, “Sorry, I can’t share a room with him.”

“Why not? You ain’t even met him yet.”

“I just… can’t. What if he doesn’t like dogs? What if he doesn’t like Chet?”

Maybelle’s shoulders jiggled with a chuckle. “Lovesong likes everyone. And everyone likes him. That ain’t to say he don’t have a hurt in him that goes all the way to hell. But Lovesong Valentin is a good man. You need to trust me on this.”

“I’m not sure I do. No offence. But is there anywhere else I can stay?”

“Well, you can bunk in with Li’l Leroy if you like, but I warn you, that boy’s flatulence is capable of performing exorcisms. Other than that, you can sleep in the church or make a bed out of today’s cotton harvest that the pickers will stack out back in Cybil’s shed ready for tomorrow’s delivery, but I dare say it’ll be wet through. If I were you, I’d be taking the bed in Lovesong’s room. Follow me. You mind if we take the elevator? It’s been twelve years since I’ve been able to take the stairs. I hope you don’t have cleithrophobia.”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

She stepped into the elevator and warily I stepped into the tight space beside her. She slammed the grill doors shut and answered, “It’s the fear of being trapped. This ain’t the fastest elevator in the world.”

I gulped silently.

I noticed there were no buttons to press, but rather a lever that Maybelle pulled, the only indicators on it being the words “Up” and “Down.”

With a bouncy jolt, the elevator began to slowly ascend. There was grinding sound and an occasional shudder, and while I didn’t suffer from cleithrophobia that I knew of, I found myself clamoring for conversation just to keep myself distracted. “So, what happened at the crossroads? You said there was an incident at the crossroads, lifetimes ago. Do you mind me asking?”

“What hasn’t happened at them crossroads is more the question. Why do you wanna know?”

“We met a boy there today. He’s probably drenched now. I hope he found his way home.”

Maybelle turned to me and stared, and ever so slowly a knowing smile curled its way up the corners of her lips. “You met Iggy? You met little Iggy Spoons?”

“He was playing the spoons, so… I guess I did.”

“Well I’ll be. You must be here for somethin’ special.”

I felt seen. I felt exposed. What could the boy with the spoons possibly have to do with me being there in Clara’s Crossing?

“No,” I said defensively. “I’m not here for anything special. I’m… I’m nothing special. My car broke down, that’s all.”

The elevator bumped to a halt on the upstairs level.

With a yank and a clang, Maybelle hauled open the grill doors of the elevator.

The boards creaked in time with Maybelle’s limp as I followed her past the top of the grand staircase. I noticed half the steps were broken or bowed and realized the elevator was perhaps the lesser of two evils, no matter how slow it was. As Maybelle led me down a long hallway, doors on either side, I wondered if the rotten staircase was in fact the reason she was limping in the first place.

“Over there’s the door to the bathroom,” Maybelle pointed. “That’s a share situation too. Be respectful and you’ll find there’s enough personal time for everyone. There’s a kitchen downstairs that you’re free to use anytime, but unless you’re the type who gets peckish at midnight you won’t be needing it. I feed everyone under my roof. Lunches I pack for the cotton pickers to take into the field with them, but I’m happy to pack you one too. Breakfast I serve in the dining room at six, supper at eight, straight after church every night.”

“There’s church… every night?”

“Reverend Jim likes to remind us on a daily basis to avoid the Devil’s temptations. But between you and me, it ain’t the reverend’s sermons that we all go for. It’s Lovesong on the organ. You ain’t heard gospel music till you hear Lovesong play it.”

At the mere mention of his name, I braced myself, a flush of nervousness making my hands shake. I clutched Chet and my suitcase a little tighter. “Is he here now? Lovesong?”

“He’ll be back soon. He’s been out in the fields with the other cotton pickers. Apart from those of us who work here in town, just about everyone else in Clara’s Crossing works the fields.”

I felt a hint of relief, but it didn’t blow away the cloud of dread altogether. I had come all this way to confront Lovesong Valentin, but I wasn’t ready to see him quite yet. I knew I would come face to face with him soon, and when I did, I would need to muster up the courage to look him in the eye and tell him who I was…

Why I was there…

What he did.

“Here’s your room.” Maybelle turned the old brass knob on a door at the end of the hallway. She pushed the door open to reveal a large, high-ceilinged room containing two beds, each pushed up against the wall on either side. Both beds were neatly made with a tall antique dresser standing beside it. The only difference was, one bed was surrounded by musical instruments: an electric guitar on a stand with a portable amplifier beside it, an acoustic guitar hanging by its guitar strap from a hook on the wall, a banjo hanging from another hook, a violin in an open case atop the dresser, a trumpet on the pillow, and a double bass leaning drunkenly against the wrought-iron footer of the bed. There were piles of sheet music on the floor, and on a small stand a few feet from the bed sat a record player, with a pile of records stacked against the wall beside it.

In contrast, the other half of the room was waiting for someone to occupy it. There was nothing but sheets and pillows on the bed opposite, nothing but a small leadlight lamp, a set of towels and an old porcelain wash bowl and jug atop the dresser.

The room smelled of old wood, as well as the scent of rain that drifted into the room through the open French doors leading out to a balcony. Sheer curtains swayed in the breeze, and suddenly I picked up another scent in the room. A smell I knew from interviews with classical musicians and visits to Joel’s classroom at Juilliard.

It was the piney smell of rosin, the waxy substance used to condition the strings on a violin or cello bow.

There was one other thing that struck me about the room.

The walls were almost completely blank.

No framed photos or painted canvases.

No posters of musicians which one might expect given the clutter of musical instruments on one side of the room.

There wasn’t even a clock on the walls, keeping time with the hours of the day as they slowly crept away.

The only exception was a simple wooden crucifix hanging on the wall above the head of Lovesong’s bed.

Thoughts of Joel’s sister Regina and her hellbent religious ways flickered through my head and I promptly pushed them away as Maybelle flicked a switch on the wall.

Overhead a fan ticked into motion.

“It’s nothing fancy, I’ll grant you,” she said. “But it’s a roof over your head, and unlike most of the rooms, this one don’t leak. At least not yet. I hope you’ll find yourself comfortable here, for one night at least, Mr.—” She paused, her brow creasing as she realized. “I’m sorry, how rude of me. I ain’t even asked your name yet.”

“Noah. Noah Van Owen.”

“Well, you certainly brought the deluge with you Noah Van Owen. I’m Maybelle Sugarbaker. Pleasure to meet you.”

I hesitated a moment, then awkwardly said, “I’m sorry about before.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry that I snapped at the others. They were only trying to help. I guess I let the tension get to me. It’s… it’s damn hot down here.”

“My dear boy, welcome to the Deep South. It’s a pressure cooker alright. The trick is to let it simmer, ’cause you got no other choice. Just let things simmer without ever boiling over. When things boil over… that’s when the Devil takes hold.”

Through the open French doors, there came the sound of voices.

Busy chatter.

Laughing.

Calling.

Maybelle smiled. “That’s them. The cotton pickers. It’s quittin’ time.”

She made her way across the room and stepped out onto the balcony. I followed her, and there across the street, spilling out from behind Cybil’s general store, were half a dozen men and women, their loose-fitting clothes drenched and their hair matted. The women were wringing out the muddy hems of their long dresses. The men were peeling off their slick wet shirts, sodden and stained with patches and smears of dirt. Two of the men were older, perhaps in their forties, but one of them was almost half their age.

He caught my eye immediately.

His hair was short and sun-kissed blond.

His skin was brown, his body muscled.

And his hands, his fingers… were nimble.

Relaxed…

Assured…

Seeking something to touch, like the fingers of a pianist lost if they can’t find the keys of the nearest piano.

They fell upon the bare shoulders of one of his male co-workers, as his colleague poured the water out of his boot and they laughed.

The others watched and joined in the simple joy of being caught in the rain.

I remembered a day when I was six, when a summer downpour caught my mother and me by surprise on our way home from the park. I wanted to cry, but all my mother could do was laugh, so I laughed too… all the way home… where she poured the water out of my shoes.

I hadn’t thought about that day in thirty-two years.

How odd a handful of strangers in a faraway land could bring that back to me so suddenly. With such clarity.

On the street below, the half dozen cotton pickers made their way across the muddy road, springing between puddles with a grace and agility that reminded me of dancers in a Broadway production. All except the blond man, who splashed through the puddles like he didn’t give a damn.

The light was fading, the melting clouds now giving way to purple streaks of dusk.

Maybelle and I returned through the French doors, back into the room.

In the next moment I heard the thunder of footsteps up the grand staircase. They were irregular steps, yet swift. I could tell that the cotton pickers were leaping over the rotten steps on the stairs, doing it with such speed that it was clearly a fractured staircase they knew well.

“I hope y’all left those muddy boots at the door,” hollered Maybelle.

I froze as I heard steps bounding down the hallway, getting louder and louder until suddenly the shirtless blond man arrived in the doorway of the room, panting and grinning and hoisting his loose trousers up to the shin, revealing his wet bare feet. “You know we did, Maybelle. We ain’t a bunch of naughty children.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Maybelle said.

Instantly Chet’s tail began to wag, and I had to hold him tighter, unable to take my eyes off the man in the doorway, no matter how much my chest tightened and my jaw clenched.

Part of me wanted to storm up to him and confront him right there and then.

Part of me wanted to scream… and wail… and weep.

And yet part of me wanted to hold back, keep my grief and my anger in check, and deliver my vitriol of rage when he least expected it. After all, he had no idea who I was.

And I had no idea who he was either.

All I saw was a man standing before me, a stupid, kinda clueless grin on his face, the sheen of the storm still glistening on his muscular frame.

Around his neck hung a crucifix, sitting long and low against his abs.

He tussled his blond hair, trying to flick it dry, and I wondered why he wasn’t even looking at me. Me, the stranger standing next to Maybelle. Me, the stranger with the dog in his arms… until the man’s smile spread even wider, his pale blue eyes wandering around the room as he stated the damn obvious—

“There’s a dog in here. Maybelle? You found a dog?”

“No, Lovesong. I found you a roommate with a dog.”

That was when Chet could contain himself no longer.

With a bark, he sprang out of my arms and scurried across the room to my damn nemesis.

Lovesong gasped with joy and crouched, his arms reaching high and wide like he was drunk, unable to pinpoint where Chet was until the dog bounced into his knees, jumping and licking.

“Hey fella! Who are you? What’s your name?”

“His name’s Chet,” I said.

“You’re kidding,” said Lovesong, talking not to me but the dog. “Now I know two Chets. You… and Chet Baker. Not that I knew him personally. But I got a bunch of his records. Maybe you and me can listen to ’em together one night, hey boy?”

Chet licked at Lovesong’s face like he’d just found an old friend, and Lovesong couldn’t help but giggle, playfully giving in to the abundance of love being showered upon him.

I had to catch my breath.

He knew who Chet Baker was?

Of course he knew who Chet Baker was.

But he didn’t know my dog, so what the fuck was my dog doing, acting like this man was a long lost friend?

I felt cracks in my wall, chinks in my armor.

Chet was Joel’s.

Chet was mine.

Chet was not—

“Chet! Leave the man alone!”

“Aw, he’s all right,” Lovesong said. “He’s just full of love, that’s all. He don’t mean any—”

“ Chet! ”

The dog whimpered, and although he stopped lapping at the shadow of a beard on Lovesong’s chin, he lingered with the stranger a moment longer.

“Chet! Come!”

The smile faded from Lovesong’s face and he nudged Chet away. “Go on then, boy. Back to your daddy.”

Chet reluctantly crossed the floor, but didn’t quite make it to my feet before he sat, midway between me and the stranger he’d just met, his eyes still on Lovesong in case he saw a chance to sneak over to him for more kisses.

Lovesong stood and looked past me at the fading light through the curtains.

“That’s one cute dog you got there, sir. My name’s Lovesong. Lovesong Valentin. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Without taking a step forward, Lovesong held his hand out for me to shake.

I laughed, my anger beginning to bubble inside, and before I could stop myself, I said, “Oh nice. Not only do you refuse to look me in the eye, you can’t even be bothered to come up and shake my hand. You want me to come to you ?”

My initial interaction with Lovesong may have been blunt, but I was there to find myself a villain.

I was there to crucify the man responsible for my lover’s death.

I didn’t care if the people of Clara’s Crossing thought the sun shone out of this man’s ass, I was determined to prove them wrong.

I felt Maybelle tense up beside me, perhaps bracing herself for the harsh truth I was about to unravel.

I watched as Lovesong squared off his shoulders, perhaps ready to admit his arrogant ways.

I smirked as he took one step, then two steps toward me, his hand still in front of him, ready to be shaken.

He took a third step, and I saw him veer a little to the left.

I was now convinced he’d returned from the cotton fields drunk.

He took a fourth step and was now headed toward Maybelle.

He took a fifth step and stopped in front of her.

That’s when I noticed his icy blue eyes weren’t looking at her.

They were looking through her.

They were looking beyond her.

Suddenly my anger shrank into a ball of shame. “Oh shit,” I breathed.

Maybelle simply reached forward, took hold of Lovesong’s arm and turned him to face me. “Lovesong, please meet Mr. Noah Van Owen. Noah Van Owen, please meet Lovesong Valentin.” With that, she guided Lovesong’s hand to mine.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry,” I blathered, feeling my face burn with embarrassment. “I didn’t realize you were…”

“Such a nice guy?” Lovesong finished for me, his smile returning. “That’s okay. I didn’t realize you were such an asshole.”

Maybelle laughed loudly. “Didn’t I tell you, Mr. Van Owen? Lovesong sees things exactly how they are.” She limped toward the door, calling over her shoulder, “I hope we’ll see you at church at seven, Mr. Van Owen. A little humility would do you good. After that, supper will be served. And after that, I’ll introduce you to Moonshine Maybelle.”

“There’s another Maybelle in town?” I was flustered… confused… still embarrassed… my hand still in a handshake with Lovesong.

Maybelle stopped in the doorway. “No, there’s only one of me. I got facets is all, just like a diamond. Ain’t you got facets, Mr. Van Owen?”

Yes, I had facets.

Grief.

Denial.

Anger.

Despair.

Rage.

Misery.

Fear.

Self-loathing.

Fury.

And now, as I stood with my hand still locked in the grip of a blind man who looked straight through me…

Utter humiliation.