Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

“You register yet?” Denton asked, when the last man moved away.

“I wanted to find you first.”

Denton stuffed his oily cloth in his pocket. “Well, hurry up. Things move pretty fast once the bidding starts.”

Inside the office, a woman in floral capris and a flip-flop-wearing teenage girl — the only other women Charley had seen all morning — sat behind a card table sipping Big Gulps and fanning their necks with paper plates. Over the roar of the industrial fan, the older woman explained the buyer’s premium and the 4 percent parish tax while the girl recorded Charley’s license number and handed her a bidder’s card.

Charley was on her way back through the crowd with twin cups of Community Coffee when she saw Denton a few feet from where she’d left him, talking to two men. She recognized Jacques Landry just as Denton saw her, waved her over.

“Good morning.” Charley handed Denton a coffee.

“Nice to see you again, Miss Bordelon,” Landry said. He flashed a big white Pepsodent smile.

“You, too,” Charley said, coolly.

“I’d like you to meet my boss, Samuel T. Baron. He’s the head of Saint Mary’s.”

Baron was twenty years Landry’s senior. His hair was spun sugar. The skin on his neck hung loose like a Brahman bull’s. “Welcome to Louisiana,” Baron said.

“Well, gentlemen,” Charley said, sipping her coffee, “if I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake.”

Baron and Landry laughed, but Denton stayed quiet. Charley glanced at him, struck by the change in his demeanor. Fifteen minutes ago he was shaking hands, slapping men’s backs, now he stood with rounded shoulders and seemed to have taken a step back from the conversation. She tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze.

Landry turned to Charley. “I understand you’ve hired ol’ Prosper here. You’ve got a fine employee, Miss Bordelon. Worked for my daddy for many years.” He laid a heavy hand on Denton’s shoulder.

“Yes, sir,” Denton said. “Your daddy was a fine man.”

Charley’s heart jolted. She stole a glance at Denton, whose expression had gone vacant, as though the man she’d been working with the last three weeks, the man who could recite every cane variety produced since 1957, and just yesterday had fashioned an oil filter from mesh screen and duct tape, had slipped out the back way.

“Hell, Prosper,” Landry said, “if I’d known it was this easy to lure you out of retirement, I’d have asked you to come back to us. But to tell the truth, I’m a little disappointed. Of all people, I’d have thought you knew better than to mislead this lovely lady into thinking she could be a cane farmer.”

Charley imagined Denton’s wife in their tidy kitchen, where all the dish towels were folded neatly into thirds and the counters were clear. She imagined Mrs. Denton fixing her husband’s dinner, arranging the food just the way he liked it, placing it on the table set with water in a pink Depression glass pitcher. She imagined her leaning through the side window and calling out to the garden, Prosper, time to come in. Quick, before supper gets cold , saw Denton raise a hand to let her know he’d heard as he staked the last tomato plant. And then Charley imagined the two of them — two decent, hardworking people — sitting down together as they’d done every evening for the last fifty years: napkins spread over their laps as they bowed their heads in prayer, eating and talking quietly, and maybe even laughing as the radio played.

“It’s Mr. Denton,” Charley said. She stepped closer to Denton, hoping to jar him out of his stupor.

Landry blinked.

The temperature was in the low nineties, but with the heat index it felt over one hundred. Charley poured the rest of her coffee in the grass, and when she wiped her forehead, Landry suggested they move into the shade.

“So, Miss Bordelon…” Landry squinted out over the crowd. “You sure are a long way from Los Angeles. You do much surfing when you were young?”

“Some,” Charley managed. Her hands felt pasty. Sweat trickled down her back, into the waistband of her jeans.

“Well, now.” Landry squared his class ring on his finger and looked right at her. “A black surfer chick.” His gaze slid down to her breast and then down to her crotch and he grinned. “I’m trying to picture that.”

Charley stood very still. She was hot and cold at the same time. She had wondered when this day would come, because you don’t move to a tiny Louisiana town, way out in the middle of nowhere, and expect life to be a stroll through the park; you couldn’t expect to be the only woman in an industry filled with men and not think someone would eventually say something stupid; you couldn’t ignore the long, dark, tortured history of Southern race relations, or pretend everything would be fixed overnight. And maybe you couldn’t force an old black man to stand up for himself, which was deeply disappointing, and not at all what you would have expected for someone otherwise so dignified, and something you’d think about for a long time. But you could be brave. Even while your heart threatened to split your chest open it was pounding so hard, and your ears were ringing, and the hair on your arms was standing up because you instantly knew, in a way you never knew before, what it meant to be black in the South, and this might as well be 1945 with Jim Crow and lynchings, and Ku Kluxers burning down black merchants’ stores and running families out of town. Even then, you could draw a line in the sand. You could do that. Because it was like your father said, You have to bring ass to kick ass.

Charley pulled her shoulders back. “And I’m trying to imagine your tiny pink prick.”

Landry’s head jerked and for a moment it looked like Charley had won. Then the color came back to his face.

But before Landry could respond, Baron cleared his throat and stepped forward. “It appears we’ve gotten off to a rocky start,” he said, in a deep buttery voice. He spoke slowly, as though he didn’t have anywhere in particular he needed to be. “Please excuse us, Miss Bordelon. My apologies for Mr. Landry’s behavior. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by that last comment, and I suspect he was only praising Mr. Denton’s work ethic. But I’m sure you’re already aware of Mr. Denton’s stellar reputation.”

“As a matter of fact, I am,” Charley said. “I’m honored to have Mr. Denton as a partner.”

“Partner?” Baron gave Denton a congratulatory nod. “Splendid. Then I hope you’ll both accept my apology, our apology, and allow me to propose we start over.” He offered his hand.

Charley stared at Baron then looked away. All around her, men were inspecting equipment, raising side panels, kicking tires. A few spoke in hushed tones as if they were in a university library. “Accepted,” Charley said.

And suddenly, Denton was back. He took Charley by the elbow, said, quietly, “We should go.”

But before she could follow, Baron cleared his throat again. “I’m sure Mr. Denton’s already told you, Miss Bordelon, that cane farming is a tough business. Every day, there’s a report of another farm going under, another mill shutting down. It’s depressing after a while.” For an instant, he looked genuinely mournful.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Baron,” Charley said. “We have a good idea what we’re up against.”

“I beg your pardon, but I don’t think you do.”

Denton leaned over. “You don’t have to put a dog in this fight.”

Charley ignored him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Baron.”

Baron’s laugh had a serrated quality to it. “I tell you what. I’m going to make you an offer. I want you and Mr. Denton to go at this cane farming hard as you can. Give it everything you’ve got. And if there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all, I want you to feel free to come to me. But I also want you to make me a promise.”