“It’s all right,” he told the girl. “Don’t bother with it.” Gabe didn’t think she even heard him, she was so upset as she kept rubbing.
“Little accident?” Drew said with a broad grin as he came up beside Gabe and took his tray. He rarely had the opportunity to see his big brother lose his cool.
Annoyed at being the center of this kind of attention, Gabe captured the girl’s hands. They were slender, soft and smooth.
“It’s only a cotton jacket and it’ll wash out,” he said firmly, letting go of her hands and taking a step away.
Gabe saw she was nearly as tall as he when she straightened up to discard the damp napkins. The profile he’d seen of her at the counter hadn’t prepared him for the interesting tilt of her eyes, the generous shape of her mouth, the nose that fit perfectly with her other features and above all, a sense of strength and determination. No wonder it had been so hard to make her stop her cleaning job.
“I’ll be glad to have the jacket cleaned,” she said. Her voice was businesslike as she met his eyes but her face still had a rosy flush.
“That isn’t necessary, but thanks.” Wanting to put an end to the already overlong scene, Gabe turned away and walked over to the table where Drew was waiting.
“Eat your food so we can get out of here,” he growled as Drew welcomed him with a smirk. “I’m tired of being the afternoon’s entertainment!”
He’d wanted to meet the girl in the turquoise jacket, but did it have to be a disaster?
If this muddle was an indication of things to come in the next three months, he might as well turn the car around and head back to New York.
A few hours later, Gabe was convinced this might be one of the weirdest decisions he’d ever made in his thirty-five years as he slowed his car to a mere crawl, trying to avoid the potholes in the one-lane country road, which was already guilty of layering what used to be his sparkling black Lexus with dust.
The fact that the afternoon sun held a softness that he’d never experienced in New York City in March didn’t make him feel any better, and even though it illuminated spectacular trees, which stood like ancient sentinels, their branches arched over long approaches to houses both stately and modest, his earlier enjoyment waned each time his tire hit another pothole.
When he’d seen the detour sign a few miles back, he’d had no idea it meant going from a four-lane highway onto seven miles of dirt road. Surely this couldn’t last much longer. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw there was a line of cars behind him. If they were in a hurry it was just too bad. He wasn’t taking a chance on injuring his car by going any faster than the fifteen miles per hour his speedometer was registering. Now he understood why there’d been a hand-printed Drive Carefully warning taped to the metal detour notice.
Up ahead he thought he saw another bright orange sign. He accelerated to twenty miles per hour and sure enough, after a slow and careful turn to avoid another large pothole, he was able to get back on the highway.
When they’d left Florence, Drew had grumbled, “I wish we could’ve stayed on I-95 and gone to Florida. At least it has Disney World. But what’s South Carolina got?”
“Lots of alligators. They used to fascinate you.”
“That’s when I was a little kid.” Drew twisted his mouth in scorn.
“Fort Sumter is outside of Charleston. That’s where the Civil War began.”
“Who cares about history? Anyway, we’re not going to Charleston.” Drew turned away from Gabe and fidgeted around in the passenger seat until he found a comfortable place to put his long frame, and in a few minutes had gone to sleep for the umpteenth time since they had left Manhattan and Gabe had pointed the Lexus south.
Gabe was trying to hold on to the notion of adventure this South Carolina trip might have for him and Drew, when he saw a green sign on the right: Swinton, Next Exit.
His heart beat faster and he touched Drew on the shoulder.
“Wake up, Drew. We’re almost there!”
Drew sat up. “It’s about time,” he grouched, trying to hide his excitement as he rubbed his eyes.
Gabe took the exit smoothly and paused at the light. Seeing nothing on the left except more fields, he turned right when the light changed. Cars passed him on the left while he took in the scattering of gas stations and small businesses interspersed with modest frame houses that hadn’t yet been overtaken by the town as it expanded toward the highway.
“Today is March 4,” Gabe observed. “Look at that sign by the bank. What does it say the temperature is?”
“Fifty-five degrees at 3:00 p.m.”
“You have any idea what the temperature at home is?”
“Yeah. I heard on the radio it’s 30 degrees and cloudy,” Drew said.
Although it wasn’t the intense yellow of a summer sun, the light that fell on the brick library, the two-story town hall, the steeple-white Baptist church and the residences that began to appear had a pleasant glow.
“I like this better,” Gabe said. Cold weather had to be endured if you were living in Manhattan but he’d always looked forward to its departure.
“Where do people down here swim?” Drew turned to look at a group of several brick buildings that, according to the sign, comprised Swinton High School.
“The high school might have its own pool and there’s probably one in the park. I saw some lakes on the map, and of course you know we’re not that far from the Atlantic Ocean.” Gabe glanced at Drew to see his reaction.
“How far?” Drew’s expression didn’t change but Gabe heard the interest in his voice.
“I don’t know exactly, but you can look it up on the map when we get to the house,” he said casually.
After a few more blocks Gabe made a right turn. This was undoubtedly Swinton’s shopping center, with clothing, furniture and other stores, as well as a movie house and several restaurants on both sides of the street.
A blue sign with an H in the middle of it indicated that Swinton had a hospital.
A left turn put Gabe on Grayson Road, where he crossed the railroad tracks. The character of the area changed. The houses were farther apart, accommodating sizable gardens and fruit trees. Chickens roamed some yards and four horses looked up from a field as the car went by.
“Aren’t we looking for an address on Grayson Road?” Drew asked.
“Yep. Moultrie said it was 305 North Grayson Road.”
“That means it’s in the country where they’ve got horses and cows,” Drew wailed.
Gabe looked at the speedometer. “I doubt it’s country in the way you mean it.”
The road sloped down around a bend and over a bridge shaded by limbs of tall trees, which grew on both sides. Up a little hill and the houses began again, some small, some large, with neatly trimmed lawns. Gabe stopped as a yellow school bus slowed to a stop and the door opened to let out a string of elementary-age students.
At the light, the bus turned the corner and after another block or two, a church, a barbershop, a hardware store and a variety of other small business establishments filled the streets. As he passed each corner Gabe looked to the right and left, noting that the area was larger than it first appeared.
The people going in and out of the stores were nearly all black, as were the drivers that passed him and lifted a finger in greeting.
At