John pulled Hildie out of the auctioneer’s arms and held her himself.
“That was a fine piece you gave last week,” said Perly, leaning slightly toward the Moores and looking from one to the other.
Gore was making a pile of pebbles in the road with the toe of his boot. “You know the firemen came off with more money than they ever did on their own?” he said.
“We’re goin’ to keep Harlowe a wonderful place to live,” Perly said, “thanks to generous souls like you.”
Bob Gore stood with his thumbs hooked in his belt. “What have you got this week?” he asked.
John stood, Hildie still in his arms, and did not answer. Gore was wearing a small leather holster strapped onto his belt, and the gun. John looked at him. He had gone to school with Gore, only two years ahead of him, in the one-room schoolhouse up at Four Corners where a bunch of hippies lived now. They had had their moments together. “How many of them fancy leather holsters you pay for?” he asked.
“People was good enough to buy their own,” Gore said.
“Which people, exactly?” John asked.
“We got a terrific special,” Perly said, and his face opened up in a grin that showed his straight white teeth. “It’s like having a genie, the way doors open to us around here.” Balanced lightly on the toes of his boots, Perly stood perfectly still like an axis around which pasture, pond, and woods—even the other three adults—revolved.
“That how you see it?” John asked.
Without moving, Perly shifted his gaze to John, his dark face settled in easy contemplation. The silence stretched. John took a breath and kicked at the hubcap of the truck.
Mim touched the auctioneer’s sleeve. “Upstairs,” she said softly.
John turned on Mim, his face coloring deeply. Then, quite suddenly, he turned to Perly and shouted so sharply that a slight echo came back from over the pond, “We got nothin’ for you!”
The auctioneer seemed not to hear. He smiled down at Mim and nodded just slightly.
Mim stood paralyzed, watching as John lurched away from them and marched into the barn, slamming his open hand against the doorpost as he entered. When his form disappeared in the shadows, she looked up at the auctioneer.
“Where?” he asked gently.
She stood still, undecided, her clear eyes studying the auctioneer’s face.
He gave hei a quick smile that embarrassed her, then turned and walked up to the front door, opened it, and bowed to usher her in. She paused, then obeyed, brushing past him in the doorway and leading the way up the stairs. She could hear Perly’s light tread behind her and Gore’s heavy one in back of him.
She turned into their bedroom and indicated the dressing table without a word. It was walnut with a pattern of flowers and leaves stenciled in fading colors on the delicate curved drawers. When he saw it, Perly said, “That’s fine, just fine.” He turned and leaned over Mim, tense and sober. “You’re a very giving woman.”
Gore lifted the dressing table himself and stood in the doorway trying to maneuver it through. Perly and Mim were trapped in the room.
“This is not for me, you know,” Perly said, the strong beat of his voice held down to a murmur. “It’s for the town. For all the things I know you want as much as I do.”
The blood rose to Mim’s face. “I don’t want you to have it,” she said. “It’s special to me.”
He leaned closer to her and spread his broad palm to touch her face, then arrested it an inch away, as if to catch her warmth.
“You know, I’m really sorry Hildie didn’t come to Sunday School again. Now is the time for teaching her right and wrong. You know right well—a woman like you—the day comes when the blood gets high and you can hardly help yourself.” Perly’s eyes gleamed like polished mahogany, and Mim couldn’t stop searching for her reflection in them.
“You frightened her,” she said unsteadily.
“I never frightened anyone,” Perly said, as if reciting something from the very center of his stillness.
“And what about Caleb Tuttle?” Mim whispered.
“Tuttle?” Perly said, without letting her eyes go. He sat down on the bed and made room for her beside him.
Mim didn’t move.
“Was he a friend of yours?” he asked. “Are you grieving for him? I’m so sorry.” He reached out and gripped Mim’s waist in his big hand. “Why do you say this to me? Is there something you want me to do for you?”
Mim whirled and ran down the stairs, practically stumbling over Gore, who was still lumbering down the last few steps, carrying the cumbersome dressing table ahead of him.
As Perly helped Gore lift the dressing table into the van, Mim walked back through the house and stood watching from the kitchen door. Then, while Gore padded the table with the old quilts and tied it securely, Perly walked back up the stone path toward Mim. He opened the screen door and walked in, forcing Mim to retreat. He looked around the kitchen. “I thought Id say hello to Mrs. Moore,” he announced. “She’s something of a favorite of mine.”
“She’s not up to company,” Mim said loudly.
“Mim,” he said. She stood with her back to the wall, and he planted himself before her, leaning slightly so that she could feel his coiled tension like the heat waves rising from the pasture in summer. “Does it mean so much to you? I know the pleasuies of a dressing table to a good-looking woman. But there are other things-better schools for Hildie, year-round church, more ready cash, more comforts... I know what I want.
Mim could not move without flailing out at the man and making him back off, and she trembled from the effort of suppressing her need to do so.
“Comfort,” he said almost fiercely. “You’ve never known much comfort, have you, Mim?”
Mim raised her eyes to Perly’s, blue and defiant.
Perly dropped his gaze to Mim’s hands, pressed flat and angry against the wall behind her. Slowly he raised his eyes to Mim’s again, his face curling into lines of pleasure, perhaps of triumph. “You and I will have to get together someday, Mim,” he said. “I admire a woman with grit.” Then, with his own glittering stillness, he held Mim motionless against the wall while the clock in the kitchen chimed over and over again. When she dropped her eyes, he moved quietly away.
After the truck began to move, Mim slammed the kitchen door and leaned against it, the chipped enamel on the panels cool against her face.
Gradually, she began to hear Ma’s calls, and realized that they had started even before Perly left.
She came to life abruptly and lunged into the living room. “Where’s John?” she shouted at Ma. “Where is he?”
Ma was standing up halfway across the room. She had abandoned the chattering television set and begun the journey toward the kitchen. “What right had you, you fresh miss?” she hissed. What right had you? This is my house and I had things to say to that man.”
“What can you want to say to him?” Mim asked. “What can a body say? He don’t care—”
“No. That’s what,” Ma said. “No. No. No. Not the pair of you together can muster an ounce of gumption. Give the man a chance. You never said a word to hint you wasn’t just as happy to give away your dressin’ table. You never-”
“It’s not the dressin’ table, Ma,” Mim screamed. “I don’t give a hoot about the dressin’ table.” She turned abruptly and sat down on the piano bench with her back to Ma, staring at the dusty keys that no one knew how to play any more.
Ma sighed. “Miriam dear,” she said. She turned and hobbled back to her couch. She settled herself with a cushion against the small of her back and her bad leg up on the stool. Then she said, “Was a weddin’ present from your mother, if I remember right.
Mim nodded.
“Such a pretty thing you was,” Ma said. “A dressin’ table she gave you. This was a mean place for the likes of you.