Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

If he took the back roads, he’d avoid the highway patrol; he wouldn’t have to worry about them punching in his license plate and seeing that the car was stolen. It would be a slower drive, but he could be there in a week, ten days tops. Ralph Angel looked through his side window. He’d liked being out west, wished things had turned out different. Phoenix, Billings — maybe someday he’d come back and give them another go. He hadn’t wanted to show up in Saint Josephine till he was back on his feet, hadn’t wanted to show up till he had something to brag about. But ’Da’s call had been like holding a flame to a pilot light.

“Pop, you going to answer me? Have you worked things out?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Seven days of driving. Ten tops. By all rights, half that farm was his. And even if he’d fucked things up and couldn’t get it for himself, he’d get it for Blue. “Buckle up,” Ralph Angel said, and he squeezed Blue’s shoulder, thinking of the man and the boy in the canoe. He made a U-turn in the road, eased the car up to eighty, set the cruise control.

“Are we going back?”

The sun had sunk below the horizon, the last of its crown blazing fiery gold above the pine. “I got a better idea,” Ralph Angel said, and flipped on his high beams. “We’re going to Saint Josephine, buddy. We’re going home.”

At the sound of Charley’s car, two dogs lounging under the screened porch dragged themselves into the sunlight, and the smaller dog, a scruffy terrier mix with fur like pipe cleaner bristles, barked and ran toward her. Charley greeted him cheerfully but gave him a wide berth as she pocketed her key and crossed the unfenced yard.

Like so many country houses she’d seen in the last few days, this one sat on brick pillars a few feet off the ground, surrounded by a collar of packed red dirt, and beyond, a wall of neatly groomed sugarcane. It was a tidy little house with stepping-stones, a screened porch, and window boxes overflowing with glossy yellow daylilies and deep purple irises. Finding that the porch door was locked, Charley cupped her hands, pressed her nose to the screen. In the late-morning sun, she could just make out two rocking chairs angled toward each other, as though the people who lived there preferred talking to each other rather than watching for cars or passersby.

“Hello?” Charley called, then she walked around the side of the house where bamboo trellises sagged under the weight of okra and tomatoes. An old Ford pickup sat parked on the grass. “Hello?” Charley called again. “Anybody?”

The bigger dog loped toward her just then, his long whip of a tail swinging. He was the color of raw sugar and slobber hung from his black muzzle in long, foamy ropes. Charley froze as he circled her, but when he whined and galloped back toward the front door, she followed.

Behind the screened porch a door creaked open. “Who’s there?”

“I’m looking for Prosper Denton,” Charley said, climbing the steps again. It was exactly what Miss Honey had warned her not to do. “You don’t just drop in on Prosper,” Miss Honey had said as they drove from the disastrous meeting with Frasier, heat rising off the fields and making the road undulate. According to Miss Honey, Prosper Denton ran the farms of the biggest white farmers around before he retired.

“If he’s retired why should I see him?” Charley had asked.

“You don’t see him,” Miss Honey had said, ominously. “You call him. Tell him what happened.” She had his number in her book. “But I’m telling you, if he agrees to meet with you, you can’t go over there forgetting yourself. You can’t come apart like a ball of twine that’s hit the floor.”

“My name is Charley Bordelon,” Charley said now. “I’m Miss Honey’s granddaughter.” She waited for the man to respond, to throw the door open at the mention of Miss Honey’s name, but he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t move at all. “I’m sorry to drop in unannounced. I tried calling yesterday but your phone just rang.”

“What can I do for you, Miss?” His tone was cautious.

“I’d like to talk to you about sugarcane.” Charley wished he’d step outside so she could see him, so he could see her. He would see the dark crescents of fatigue under her eyes, crescents she’d tried (and failed) to conceal with makeup. He would notice that she had made an extra effort to look nice: ironed her skirt, finally sewn that button on her blouse; that she was wearing heels , for Christ’s sake, and white nylons even though it was eighty degrees and her crotch was beginning to sweat, but worn them anyway because it seemed the proper Southern thing to do. But he didn’t come outside. “I understand you’re an expert.” Charley took a half step closer. “I’m in a bit of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I own some acreage out near the Old Spanish Trail.” Charley paused. “My manager quit.”

“What manager would that be?”

“Wayne Frasier.”

“Frasier manages LeJeune’s operation.”

“He used to,” Charley said. “My father bought it from the LeJeune family. When he passed last year, he left it to me.”

The man said nothing.

“I tried to phone—” Charley began, but mercifully, the screen door opened and she stood face to face with Prosper Denton. Brown skin smooth as a new baseball glove. Head shiny as a gumball. He could have been in his late fifties, Charley thought, if his sagging jowls and neck hadn’t told the real story.

Denton appraised her over the tops of his bifocals, then elbowed the screen door open. “Maybe you better come in.”

• • •

The kitchen was tight but tidy. Shellacked homemade cabinets, dishrags folded neatly over a gleaming sink. Denton pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and motioned for Charley to sit. Someone must be taking good care of him, Charley thought, because his overalls and short-sleeved button-down were not only pressed but starched. Only his black brogans with their frayed laces and run-down heels were scuffed and dusty — probably as old was he was.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” Denton said, some of the gruffness fading from his tone, “I’m a bit lost in this kitchen when my wife’s not here.” He set a glass of lemonade in front of Charley, then tore a square of paper towel, folded it in half for a napkin.

Denton struck Charley as the kind of man who never wasted energy on extra movement or idle chitchat. He was foursquare Sonny Boy Williamson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a Silvertone guitar, older than old school.

He sat in the chair across from her. “So.”

“I apologize for not calling,” Charley said for the third time, and took a sip of lemonade. It was fresh-squeezed, with the perfect amount of sugar and not a hint of pulp. If summer had a taste it would be this. She could drink the whole pitcher. But when she looked up, Denton was waiting and not looking any friendlier. Charley set her glass on the table. Better get right to the point.

“My dad owned a lot of rental property back in Los Angeles.” Charley pictured the four units in Paramount whose front doors all opened onto a small courtyard filled with palm trees and ferns, the duplex in Culver City around the corner from the Italian bakery, the condo in Long Beach with a view of the Queen Mary . “He believed real estate was the only thing worth buying. ‘Real estate is the horse you need to ride,’ he always said. When he died, I thought his lawyer would give me a list of properties. Instead, he said I’d inherited a farm.”

Back up , she’d told the lawyer the day after the funeral. Eight hundred what?

Acres of sugarcane , the lawyer had repeated, lifting the sheet of paper from the file. Two hundred acres of plant cane and another six hundred of something called first-year stubble. He’d rubbed his chin.