How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler [17]
eight
The man is wearing dark jeans, a checkered shirt the color of roasted duck, and a bright yellow bandana around his head. In his hand is a large wrench. He turns to greet me with a boyish smile. “Well, hello.”
He is not my grandpa back from the dead. Tentatively, I say, “Hello.” I’m in the mountains—home to boiled peanuts and apple cider. Surely everything is congenial and kind here. This man isn’t on “America’s Most Wanted.” I’ve left Atlanta behind.
With arms crossed around his trim waist, he says, “You must be Deirdre.”
“No. No, I’m not.”
He raises an eyebrow and I say, “Maybe you have the wrong house.”
In a methodical tone, as if from memory, he tells me, “Pass the red barn, Memorial Methodist Church, first right.”
Is he giving the location of this cabin? I’m surprised he didn’t mention “And turn down the gravel path that is too narrow to be called a road—the one with no guardrails and no room for any large vehicle.” I thought I was heading over the cliff yesterday.
His eyes are brown and deep-set, and his hair is auburn streaked with wisps of gray. He has the widest mouth I’ve ever seen. When he smiles, I see what appear to be hundreds of teeth stretching for yards. “You’re Ernest’s granddaughter,” he says. “His granddaughter.”
That part he has right. “Yes.”
“Yes siree. Regena Lorraine told me about you.” He shuffles his shoes, looks at them, and then peers again at me.
“Oh?” I imagine my aunt sitting down with this man and spilling out my recent past, fretting over my romance-gone-bad as she encourages him to drink a cup of sassafras tea.
If she’s told him all about me, why did she forget to tell me about him?
With a grin, he says, “Told me you’re from Atlanta. Yes, yes, siree.” His tone has a halting quality about it, almost as though he is reading his words from a script he isn’t fully comfortable with.
“I’m Deena.”
His large, calloused, warm hand grips mine. “I’m Jonas.
I’m here to fix the pipes.”
“Is something wrong with the pipes?” I have visions of water leaking while I sleep and waking to find my bed being carried by torrents out of the cabin, over the cliffs, down to Fontana Lake.
He winks. Few people can pull off a wink without looking corny. He is one of the few. “You can never be too sure. Never too sure.” With that, he enters the cabin, his heavy work boots crushing the hardwood. He seems harmless and a little different.
He sees I’ve been unpacking. I watch his eyes rove among the boxes sitting on the sofa, the countertops, the dining room floor.
“Don’t let me bother you, Deirdre. You go right on doing what you need to do.” He swings his wrench a little too swiftly for my comfort. “Yes siree. I’ll be checking.”
This time when he smiles, I think part of his mouth has stretched clear to Tennessee.
nine
Miriam runs The Center at the Nantahala Presbyterian Church in Bryson City. I suppose her title would be Director. She’s part Cherokee and part Swiss, she tells me. Her eyes are the kind of blue that makes me think of an autumn sky, and her skin is creamy brown. Her hair is shiny, like the coat of a seal. Immediately, I am surprised to see that although she is dressed in Ann Taylor’s newest spring line—a scoop-neck aqua satin blouse and black skirt—on her feet are grass-green tennis shoes.
She tells me that my grandfather was a big supporter of The Center and of her desire to establish a 501(c)(3) organization to keep kids off the streets after school and during the summer months. I am learning new things about my grandpa every day. It’s like Christmas, opening all of these surprising revelations. I used to think all he cared about was food and travel.
We stand in Miriam’s office, a tiny compartment to the left of the hallway in an annexed section of the church. I wonder why a director doesn’t wear heels. She tells me how the younger kids in the preschool program at the church enjoyed having my grandfather read