Agnes was speechless. Cora was a genius.
“This is between us,” Cora’s voice brought her back to the present. She was using her Coraline voice
“Of course!” This had come straight from Agnes’s heart. She’d spent her life keeping things from her older sister, but now she has another reason. She doesn’t like the way Olivia treats Cora. Once the two had been best friends; now Olivia treats Cora like trash. What no one knows is that after their spilt, Agnes had grieved, too. Cora had never called her a pest. Cora had never chased her out of a room.
Coraline the Supine, Olivia had once called her, actually getting up from her chair and rolling on the kitchen floor. Mother had told her to quit acting the fool. Agnes added that she’d always known Olivia was a fool and walked out.
To this day, Agnes doesn’t know what supine means, but it must have something to do with money. Olivia always talks about how much her husband Walter makes selling windshields in Clovington, so much they’d soon be richer than the Valentines. Cora Cooper was lucky Paul Valentine married her,she’d say, as though Cora had held a gun to his head. Lucky.
Agnes graduated from high school last year, and had applied at the bank like everyone else. Cora could have put her papers in the trash, but she didn’t and already Agnes is head teller. It provokes Olivia to no end.
Coraline the Supine. A male voice this time, familiar yet strange. Because she can’t place it, Agnes wishes it would go away.
“Find Otis and tell him what’s happened.” Cora is burning up the line. “He’ll know what to do. Tell him I’ll slip him a five.”
Her plan worked. The only hitch was that Otis had refused the money, but that was understandable. No one talked about Paul’s “medicine” because he’d floated mortgages to all sorts of people who couldn’t get them elsewhere. Otis was one of them.
Agnes hopes Woody Garrett will be one as well, although not for a house. It’s the brick building on the corner of Chestnut and Church where he hopes to open a barber shop. They didn’t need a house. After she’d accepted his proposal, they’d decided to live with her mother because a woman her mother’s age shouldn’t be left alone. Woody is a country boy who lives on Kill Creek with his folks and knows the importance of family. Plus, he’s got plenty of ambition. He’s attended Tri-State Barber College in Clovington for the last six months, and now he’s close to the finish. Last night he’d phoned to tell her he’d passed the written exam.
“When will you be home?” she asked. Hunger was in her voice. Yes, hunger was an appropriate word now.
“As soon as I give a decent haircut. That’s the last part of the test,” he replied, making a smacking sound into the phone. She could hear a woman’s laughter.
“Don’t mind them,” he’d said. “It’s one of those girls.”
Agnes doesn’t mind it. She knows the girls who live on the third floor of the boarding house are a nuisance. Woody says they’re always in the sitting room, waiting to grab the phone. The biggest nuisance is girl named Jenny Parry. Woody has nicknamed her “Parboiled”
She’d waited for him to tell her that he loved her, but he said goodbye.
Agnes knows Woody loves her. She believes that what happened between them on the riverbank has left an indelible mark on their souls. They’re linked forever.
There are lots of quiet spots along the riverbank, but Woody took her to one that was sacred. There, he got down on one knee and proposed. Agnes fell into his arms, and he’d taken her clothes off with an adeptness that was surprising for a country boy, which is what Woody always calls himself. Raw. Green. Fresh off the farm. Finally, she decided he’d known what to do simply by virtue of his sex. He’s a man. Men always know what to do when a woman is willing.
Briefly, Agnes had wondered how her father, rest his soul, had dealt with her mother’s Tite Panty Girdle. She ordered one every year from the dry goods store. Heck’s did a catalog business on the side.
She’d stood before him with her hair down, the length covering both front and back. Woody had reached out to brush a strand over her shoulder when Agnes remembered and stepped back.
That’s Not Love to be con’t.
copyright Joan Spilman, 2023
