FICTION

Excerpt from If I Die Tomorrow

Down at the Magnolia grocer, Maurice Landry was ritualistically straightening the shelves like he had every day for the past twenty years. When the clock hanging behind the till proclaimed it was three o’clock and there were no customers in the grocer, Maurice would put away the broom he was holding, put down the newspaper he was reading, or step away from the money he was counting and begin restocking the shelves and straightening the items on them. I think it gave Maurice a feeling of control and purpose.
	Main street was always resting at that time of day. The children were in school, men were at work, women were napping far away from the oppressive heat, and the Magnolia bus stop and diner sat empty except for a few pieces of newspaper scuttling around the pavement. Movement outside the window caught Maurice’s attention. Someone was on Main Street. Maurice straightened the last few cans of beans before walking over to the window and squinting out.
	‘Well, I’ll be….’ Maurice wasn’t sure who he was talking to, since there was nobody else in the grocer.
	Over the past few days, people kept coming in and telling him that Grant Broussard was back in town, and, sure enough, he was. Just as tall and lanky as Maurice remembered, he was standing outside the diner, poised like a man preparing himself to walk near a cane fire.
	‘What’re you doin’, son?’ Maurice asked as he watched Grant walk past the front door of the diner twice. Then, he walked behind the diner. At this point, Maurice probably decided that he was looking for Eli.
	I think Maurice always cared for Eli; his care was expressed through selling chocolates to Eli as a child and refusing to sell him alcohol as an adult, not that his decision did much as Eli still managed to stagger into town muttering what sounded like poetry every day. He was not surprised that Eli managed to find alcohol. Everyone around town knew that there must have been as still on the Kitchens farm somewhere; after all, Josiah drank his way through prohibition. Maurice shook his head slowly and began sorting the coins at the till. He was still at it when the door opened.
	‘Well, good afternoon, Ms. Sara, what can I do for you?’
	‘I just need to get some things.’ Sara Andrews bustled off toward the back of the store where the flour sacks sat like the posts of a fence.
	Though he rarely engaged in gossip, Maurice knew more about the inhabitants of Magnolia than even Father Tate. He knew what they ordered and when, what they ate, and, being near the bus stop on Main Street, he knew all their comings and goings. He knew that Saint and Sara struggled to have enough money for food, no matter how hard Saint worked and what Doc Andrews gave them. And he knew that Sara had seemed stretched beyond her limit since a little before Anthony Jr. was born. She had fallen down the staircase around that time and was so banged up that Helen Rose had to go fetch Doc Andrews. She was in bed for about a week. Maurice always felt like that was the day all hope inside of Sara broke, like she finally learned life had no mercy and the townspeople were never going to accept her.
	Maurice later told me that Sara always reminded him of a story his father had told him about a girl that would sing to the river every day, summoning a magical fish. Every time Maurice’s father told the story, the fish did something different that was magical and beautiful. But the story always ended the same way, with the girl’s father killing the fish. Maurice’s father always ended the story with her diving beneath the waves and becoming La Sirène. Maurice’s uncle told it differently. In that version, the girl cried by the side of the river until the ground swallowed her up. Sara was like that girl, crying beside the river, sinking a little deeper into the ground every day that Saint had to leave for a different job, her parents did not talk to her, and the tab remained unpaid. She had been destined from day one to fight a bigger battle than her, Maurice decided.
	‘So, what were you doing in New Orleans yesterday, Ms. Sara?’ Maurice asked. A can slipped through Sara’s fingers onto the floor, she dropped on her knees to retrieve it and then struggled to get back up again.
	‘I wasn’t in New Orleans yesterday.’
	Maurice did not know what to say; he had seen her get on the bus with his own two eyes. Sara looked at him as if she was pleading with him to believe her, shifting the can from one hand to the other. Maurice just looked back at her.
	‘Please, Maurice, don’t tell anyone. I lost part of Mama Andrews’s silver tea set. I had to go get a replacement.’
	‘Don’t you worry none. I won’t tell a living soul.’
	Sara smiled. ‘Do you have any ground coffee, Maurice?’
	‘Yes’m, I do. It’s in the back though.’
	Maurice had just ground some coffee that morning, but it took him a moment to remember where he had put it. He had been setting aside that coffee for the Theriots, but he could always grind more before Nanette came by. While he was still searching for the coffee, he heard the front door open and the low rattle of voices. When he came out of the back, he stopped short and stared at a woman he had never seen before.
	She wasn’t from around here—Maurice knew that immediately. Nothing that well-formed grew in Magnolia. She looked like a blonde Gretta Garbo that had somehow walked out of a moving picture. A navy Homburg hat with an upturned rim shadowed half of her face. Her lips were deep red. Her skirt and suit jacket looked like they were new. None of the women around here would wear something quite that modern yet nice. Her shoes were unlike anything Maurice had ever seen in his life. They were little heels that covered her toes yet left the rest of her foot exposed except for a tiny strap that ran across the top of her foot and wrapped around her ankle. Somehow, Maurice could not quite stop looking at her, even when she started saying something about gas. 
	‘Hmmmm?’ was all he said.
	‘I need to purchase some gas.’
	Maurice glanced out the window. There was a smart-looking car parked by the pumps. He thought it was a Chevrolet Master Deluxe.
	‘And where is the nearest hotel or boarding house?’
	Maurice had to stop and think.
	‘It would have to be up in Bayonne. I don’t think there is anything in St. Stephens or even all the way down in Bondye Delivre.’
	The young woman’s face wrinkled like she was smelling something unpleasant.
	‘No, in this town. Where is the hotel in this town?’
	‘You’re standing on it. We had a hotel, but it burnt down in 1853. The fella that owned the store before me said this is where it used to be.’
	The wrinkled look stayed on the woman’s face.
	‘How long will you be here for?’
	Her words came slowly, as if she regretted each one of them. ‘I am supposed to be staying here for a few months. I am an architect with the Works Progress Administration, and we are building a new courthouse at the end of the square.’
	Maurice had never heard of a female architect before, yet, if one existed, she probably dressed like that, he decided. Either way, she should know that they had a courthouse.
	‘We already have a courthouse at the end of the square. A good one too. We were the county seat until about 20 years ago.’
	The woman waved her hand in front of her face.
	‘Yes, I know. We have been commissioned to tear it down and build a new one.’
	‘What about it being a historical sight?’
	The woman stared blankly at him.
	‘The Historic American Building People, or something like that, came through here a few years ago and photographed it. Sure was a sight to see.  They let the kids out of school to go see them out there with their cameras. Those people said the courthouse was a landmark or something. I guess because the Emma Walker trial happened here. My Papa was alive when they hung her. They say she’s the youngest woman executed in the state.’
	The woman blinked a few times before she found her words. ‘I was unaware that the building had significance. Maybe…I was just told to replace it. The Historic American Buildings Survey is another government project, and it does not directly communicate with the Works Progress Administration.’
	Maurice chuckled. ‘Sound like Uncle Sam just throwin’ money at everybody hoping something will stop the hard times.’
	The lady did not laugh; she just started at Maurice like he was a squeaky door that she could not silence.
	‘Excuse me.…’
	Maurice had forgotten that Sara Andrews was there.
	The woman turned stiffly to look at her.
	‘Will the Works Progress Administration be hiring men to build the courthouse from this area?’
	She nodded.
	‘Yes, although some are probably going to come in from quite a ways.’
	‘My husband is a carpenter, and he’s been out of work for about two and a half weeks now. He was just getting ready to go back to Baton Rouge looking for work.’
Maurice thought he saw pity in the city woman’s face as she looked at Sara. Doubtless, she could see the scuffs on Sara’s shoes and the dirt under her fingernails.
	‘What’s his name?’
	‘S—Anthony, Anthony Andrews, but he goes by Saint.’
	The woman’s eyebrows retreated about an inch up into her forehead.
	‘Saint?’ Maurice was not sure if it was a joke or a question. ‘Sounds honest. I approve; though I am more of a sinner than a saint myself.’
	She extended her hand.
	‘My name is Beatrice Smith.’
	‘Sara Andrews.’
	‘Make sure your husband stays in the area, Sara. I just looked at the courthouse today, and I am going back to Baton Rouge to draw my sketches, but I will also be the supervisor--I will be here while the courthouse gets built and can make sure Saint gets hired. I can get him a good position.’
	Sara looked like a child who had just been handed a lollipop.
	‘Really?’
	Beatrice nodded curtly. ‘If I can find a place to stay, that is. No hotel or boarding house as far as Bayonne….’
	“You can rent our spare room.”
	Maurice felt like Sara was not being completely truthful, but he didn’t think it would be proper to say anything.
	‘Your spare room?’
	Sara nodded.
	‘It has a bed, a writing desk, and a lamp. And you can join us for meals too. We have children, but they don’t usually make a lot of noise.’
	Maurice knew that was a lie, and so did everyone who walked within 50 feet of the Andrews home.
	Beatrice looked at Maurice as if she expected him to suddenly remember that Magnolia did in fact have a hotel, and then she looked up Main Street as if a hotel were going to materialize, then she looked back at Sara.
	‘I’ll give you five dollars a month for the room and three for the meals.’
	Sara shook hands with Beatrice enthusiastically. She bought her groceries and left the grocer in a mood of joyous triumph, but she probably started having a lot of second thoughts as she marched down the sidewalk. She had a lot to do in the next few weeks. She needed to make the house presentable, weed the flower bed, and, most of all, she needed to solve her most pressing problem—the fact that she and Saint did not have a spare bedroom.