The Mulberry Tree

“Wait a minute,” Violet said as she heaved herself up from the table. “You’ve been such a good sport, I have somethin’ to give you.”

“No marijuana!” Bailey said instantly.

“ ’Fraid it’ll loosen you up so you do start rollin’ around with that hunk that’s movin’ in with you?” Violet asked as she held out a battered paperback book.

“I’m more afraid of jail sentences,” Bailey said as she took the book and looked at it. The Golden Six, by T. L. Spangler, it said on the cover. “Were they glorious young men or were they instigators of a great hoax?” the copy read. “You decide.”

“Take it and read it,” Violet said, her eyes twinkling. “Maybe it’ll give you somethin’ to do when you’re in bed alone at night.” She shook her head. “Your generation are fools. In my day we—”

“Didn’t have AIDS or herpes, or morals, as far as I can tell,” Bailey said pleasantly.

Violet didn’t take offense. “That Matt Longacre could make a nun forget her vows.”

“I’ll consider that before I take mine,” Bailey said as she pushed open the door. She was smiling at Violet’s laughter, but then she saw that Violet had an odd look on her face. “Is something wrong?” she asked as she wiped her hand across her cheek. “Do I have flour on my face?”

“No,” Violet said, “no flour. I just thought for a moment that I’d seen you before. Probably the grass. You go home and take care of that man.”

Smiling, Bailey left the house. Outside, she looked up at the shade trees. Violet Honeycutt was lazy, manipulative, could be taken away to prison at any second, and was quite rude at times, but Bailey felt as though she’d made a friend.

In the car, she tossed the book onto the passenger seat and started the engine. It was three P.M., she hadn’t had lunch, and she had yet to buy anything to make for dinner for Matt tonight. Maybe she should stop by that nice Mr. Shelby’s farm and see what he had for sale besides pigeons and rabbits. It had been his sign, “Rabits 4 Sale,” that had made her stop at his roadside stand instead of the many others along the highway. If she remembered correctly, she’d seen some collard greens growing in the back.

Eight

Matt parked his truck under a shade tree next to Bailey’s Toyota, and for a moment he leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. It was after eight in the evening, and he was exhausted. He wasn’t used to doing construction. He’d had too many years sitting at a desk looking at a computer screen or at a drawing board. His visits to the work sites had been quick and nonstrenuous.

But, to be fair to himself, today he’d really pushed it. He’d driven his two nephews until they were threatening mutiny. But Matt had wanted to finish the job to have the weekend free, so he’d done three days’ work in one. The fact that his brother and nephews had helped him move into Bailey’s house during their lunch break didn’t lessen his fatigue.

Of course it hadn’t helped that Patsy had called him six times today on his cell phone. By the fifth call, he was ready to smash the thing. “This better be good, Patricia,” he’d said as he stood up on the roof and took the call.

“She’s spent the entire day with that horrible old Violet Honeycutt,” Patsy announced.

“Bailey—if that’s who you mean—couldn’t have spent the entire day there, because you’ve already told me that she spent the morning with the gossipmonger of Calburn, Opal. So which is it?”

“You know exactly what I mean, Matthew Longacre, so don’t get smart with me. And are you seeing that my boys wear their shirts and that they have on sunblock?”

Matt glanced down at the ground. His big nephews had on no shirts, and right now they were drinking water out of plastic cups and letting the water pour down their sun-bronzed, muscular chests. They’d seen “some dude” do this on TV, and the girls had gone crazy. So now there were half a dozen teenage girls in the neighbor’s yard across the street, studiously pretending that they weren’t looking at Joe and John pouring water all over themselves.

“Yeah,” Matt said into the phone. “I coat your babies down with sunscreen every forty-five minutes. Patsy, I have work to do. I don’t have time to listen to everything that my landlady does.”

“Oh? Then I guess you don’t want to know that after she left that Violet Honeycutt’s house, she visited Adam Tillman’s house.”

“She did what?” Matt yelled so loud that his nephews stopped pouring water down the front of their chests. Actually, he was so loud that the girls across the street stopped not looking at the boys and turned to stare at Matt on the roof.

“No, she didn’t,” Patsy said sweetly. “But she could have. I tell you, Matt, you better not let this one get away. So, are you two coming over on Saturday?”

“Patsy,” Matt said slowly and with exaggerated patience. “I hardly know the woman. For all I know, she has friends in this area. Maybe she’s going to spend the weekend with other people.”

“Then that means you better step on it and get her locked up. Oh! The oven timer went off. I gotta go.”

Matt flipped the phone shut and counted to ten, then shouted down at his nephews to get back to work. Yelling helped to alleviate some of his anger, but not much. Damn Patsy and her meddling anyway! Hadn’t he already pushed Bailey as much as he could and as fast as he could? He’d just met her yesterday, and this afternoon he’d moved into her house.

But even that hadn’t been fast enough for his sister-in-law. “She won’t last long,” Patsy had said at lunch as she helped toss Matt’s belongings into boxes. “She won’t stay in Calburn long. She’ll get bored and get out of here. You have to do everything you can now.”

“If I’m out of your house, what does it matter to you who I get involved with?” Matt had snapped at her.

At that Patsy had thrown up her hands as though to say that she’d never met a dumber man in her life. “You tell him, Rick,” Patsy said. “I can’t talk to him.”

Rick said, “Well, uh, Patsy thinks, I mean, we all feel that—” He broke off and turned to his wife. “You’re so much better at explaining things than I am, honey.” Behind her back, he looked at his brother and shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea why she was pushing Matt so hard.