Chapter Nine

It was Saturday and Riley had a schedule. He generally spent Saturdays catching up on his chores and doing his laundry—only he’d already done all that during the week. Saturday is also when he’d watch some television, catch up on a book or go fishing. Then at lunch he’d head down to Michael’s Buffet for the fried chicken, or over to the Whistle Stop and afterwards perhaps get ice cream at the Twin. He’d come home and nap and then head over to Stubby’s to hang out with his cousins and their friends.

He decided that since he had a nice fat check, he’d head over to the bank to deposit it before it closed. Riley grabbed his keys and headed for his truck, not worrying about the SUV parked behind it. The driveway wasn’t anything but a bunch of gravel and he easily went around.

It was a nice SUV, a late model Lexus. Still, they went for a pretty penny. He wondered what Stella did for a living. Well she probably had some rich ball player in her life, or maybe some high paid corporate type. She seemed the type to date a guy that never got his hands dirty.

He frowned as he thought about his college football dreams. He never allowed his mind to drift to such thoughts. They still hurt. The loss of a dream never completely faded from memory no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself otherwise.

 

 

Stella heard Riley drive off while she was exploring the little ginger bread house. Her first impressions of him hadn’t been as bad as she had expected. He was polite, even friendly. But he kept his distance and that was something that she completely understood.

She put the food into the Frigidaire and went around admiring all of the nice touches. Adam showed her the little door in the loft and she frowned.

“I don’t want you playing in there.” The last thing she wanted was for Riley Pranger to get mad because Adam broke something.

Adam just held up his hands innocently. “I am not going into that scary place.” He turned his attention to setting up his PlayStation to the miniature television set that she’d allowed him to bring. Luckily so since the television in the living room looked like the last thing that had appeared on its screen was Lawrence Welk or Hee Haw.

I am in the whitest place in America. She glanced at Adam then and felt slightly ashamed. She had learned to temper her strong opinions about whites and America in general. Stella had a few white friends, some of them were even good friends. But whites never really understood what it was to be black.

For the most part, that didn’t matter. What did she know about being Asian or Muslim? Nothing. But sometimes the ignorance of white people got in the way. Sometimes she wanted to say, your opinion on something that has never hurt you means nothing.

There were times when she almost wrote on her social media accounts ‘If you say all lives matter one more fucking time, I will delete and block your ignorant ass!’

She didn’t allow herself to go there, because she did have a son who was half white. And if she said all that she truly felt in her heart, then she would end up teaching him to dislike that side of himself.

“When we get settled lets go out and explore.” She said.

“Okay,” he replied, distracted with his gaming system. She knew that he really didn’t care about going outside in the heat—not when there were video games and his IPod inside of an air-conditioned gingerbread house.

But she’d done a great deal of research on Estill County, specifically Cobb Hill. And although she was here for more than just a vacation, she still intended to enjoy her summer.

Stella had to practically pull Adam away from his game but once he was outside in the fresh air he looked around curiously.

“I don’t see any mountains,” he said.

“That’s because we are on the highest point of Estill County. Cobb Hill is the mountain.”

He gave her a dubious look. “There’s no snow.”

She placed her hand on his shoulders and smiled. “The word mountain might be a stretch by every day standards. Now let’s explore.”

“Okay Mom, but there might be bears.” Adam said. Although now that he was outdoors he was interested in taking in the sights.

“We’ll probably smell a bear before we see it.”

Behind the two homes was a cultivated area including an old picnic table, clothes line and barbecue grill made from a rusted barrel. From there they could see a small creek that was narrow enough to leap over…well if you had long legs like Stella and her son. After only getting slightly wet they went on a short hike, being sure to keep the house in their sights.

During her research, Stella had read that these woods led right into West Virginia. She had her cell phone with her but there was no way that she wanted to get lost in them. She warned Adam not to go out alone.

He gave her a look of surprise as if to say that he wouldn’t be in them now if it wasn’t for her. A squirrel darted up a tree right next to them and Stella ducked as if a bat had tried to land on her head. Adam’s eyes brightened in interest.

“That squirrel was so close I could have touched it.”

“Well don’t. It might bite.” She replied.

He continued to stare up at the large tree, craning his neck. “I want to climb that tree. Can I?”

“Okay, go ahead. I’m going to as well.” Both discovered that the tree was much too big for them to climb without some type of handholds so they found a smaller tree with branches closer to the ground.

They found themselves perched fifteen feet in the air straddling sturdy branches. Stella couldn’t help but think that if they were back at home she wouldn’t dare allow her son to do this. But climbing trees in the country was what this vacation was all about.

When they were done with that she climbed down first and then stood cautiously beneath her son as he quickly made his way down, leaping to the ground for the final four feet. He smiled at her proudly.

They explored a while longer, picked flowers, watched birds and rabbits. And once the heat began to cause their clothes to stick to their bodies they made their way back to the house.

“I’m getting hungry.” Stella said once they were back at the cottage. “What about you?”

“I’m starving.”

“I think we should see if we can find a restaurant close by.” She pulled out her smartphone and began a search for nearby restaurants.

“Pizza?” He asked hopefully.

“Yep, that sounds good. Go wash your hands.”

A search for a pizza joint was not to be found on Cobb Hill so they drove down to the nearest town. Adam looked around nervously as they made their way down the winding road.

“You just said that you weren’t going to drive down this hill again until it was time to leave…”

It was true that the steep hills had made her sweat despite the frosty air conditioning. “If I can navigate through the Smokey’s then I can navigate this ginormous hill.”

“More people probably drive up to the Smokey’s then this road,” He said sensibly. She ignored his comment, carefully taking a sharp corner at just ten miles an hour. It was so narrow that she wondered what would happen if another car approached going even a smidgen faster.

She exhaled in relief once they were down the mountain. Even Adam relaxed in his seat. She gave him a wry smile.

“Scary, wasn’t it?”

“Nope,” he said.

They drove around for a while, not worried about getting lost. The navigation system had gotten them up Cobb Hill the first time with no problems at all and she had no doubt that it would do it again. They past a few pizza joints but after the strenuous drive down the hill they both agreed that a chain pizza joint was not close to a payoff for all the stress that they’d just endured.

They decided on a buffet at a restaurant called Michaels, which had very good reviews on Yelp! It was pretty crowded for just lunch so she knew the food would be good. Once inside she looked around and saw no blacks except ones working in the kitchen. She wondered if all blacks did a similar search when they visited an establishment in an all-white town.

The hostess greeted them and showed them to a booth. She walked with confidence although nearly everyone at some point stared her up and down. She always walked with confidence just for that reason, and also she never wanted her son to see her being anything less.

They checked out the buffet together and Adam gave her a curious look.

“There’s no pizza or hamburgers on the buffet. No French fries either.”

“That’s because this is a country buffet. We eat food like the people in these parts eat.” She had no complaints about the selection. There was the standard fried chicken and fried catfish but to Stella’s surprise there was also a full Thanksgiving spread including real turkey, fluffy dressing, turkey gravy, and a chunky cranberry sauce. There were also things that she wasn’t quite used to such as cabbage and a dish made of green peas floating in an off-white sauce. When she saw others taking up big piles of it onto their plates she dished a bit onto hers but didn’t hold out any high expectations. 

Even though Adam was disappointed that there was not much of the food that he preferred, it was hard to tell once he began to stuff himself with three fried chicken drumsticks, a pile of mashed potatoes and gravy and a smattering of green beans to appease his mother.

Stella indulged with Thanksgiving in June—and she went back for seconds of the green pea dish.

After their hearty meal, Stella left a big tip—as normal, while the waitress gushed over them and told them to return.

“That chicken was the best! I mean, other than yours…” Adam said.

“Where should we go next?” She asked while looking around.

He paused to squint at her. “Are you scared of driving back up the hill?”

“Nope.” She grinned at him. “But maybe we should go to the grocery store again so that we don’t have to drive back down here anytime soon.”

 

 

When Riley returned from town he saw that the Lexus was gone. He was curious about where his boarders had gone off to but then forgot about them as he sank into his reclining chair to watch SportsCenter on ESPN. For the first time since being fired he felt relaxed. A thousand bucks had been deposited into his bank and someone was sure to call him for a job, maybe even as soon as next week.

Even though he had been accused of something that he hadn’t done, the people who knew him best didn’t care and the ones that judged him wrongly didn’t matter. He picked up the Daniel X book and read for a while before dozing off contentedly to the backdrop of a new sportscaster that had been covering high school sports in Texas prior to getting this sweet gig. Maybe life could be so good for him again.

Stella saw that Riley’s truck was back in the drive-way when they returned from the grocery store. She and Adam had seen a small market right on Cobb Hill which had lunch meat for sandwiches as well as burgers and hotdogs that she hoped to put on that grill that she’d seen in the back yard. She had even picked up some charcoal briquettes and corn on the cob, which was on sale for a steal.

As usual, she and her son had been met with the expected stares, and although staring was rude, the people were all pleasant. One lady even asked her if she was here to visit Ashleigh and Christopher—who she assumed was the other black family in the area.

She knew that the teeny refrigerator in the cottage was completely packed with the items that she had brought from home, so she decided to take Riley up on his offer to store some things in the walk-in freezer in the main house.

Carrying paper sacks of groceries, Stella tentatively knocked on the front door before remembering what he had said about the door being unlocked.

She pushed open the door slowly, but Adam barged right in, heading straight for the kitchen with his grocery bag in his arms.

“Hi Mr. Riley,” he called casually, walking past the man that had been clearly dozing in an easy chair.

Stella closed the door in chagrin when Riley jolted, a book resting on his chest falling to the floor with a clatter.

“Sorry…you said that it was okay to use the freezer…” Stella said hesitantly.

His look of confusion quickly cleared and he nodded and yawned. “It’s fine. I was just relaxing.” In truth he had forgotten the offer, but he didn’t have a problem with them using the old freezer. There wasn’t anything in there anyways except for a few pounds of deer meat.

“I see you found J&B’s Market.” He said as he spied the brown paper sacks with the familiar logo printed on it. He rubbed his eyes, discreetly checking for bits of grit.

“Yes,” she called over her shoulder. “It’s a tiny spec but it has everything we’re likely to need.”

“And Mom won’t have to drive down that scary hill.” Adam added. Now that he was free of his package he was back in the living room checking out what Riley had been watching on television.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Stella said as she decided what items she wanted to freeze. Tonight she would grill some burgers and dogs. “Is it okay if we use that old grill out back?” She called.

Riley followed her into the kitchen and was watching as she unloaded her groceries. “Yeah. It’s fine.”

“We bought our own charcoal and lighter fluid.”

His brow lifted. “Lighter fluid?”

“Yeah. You know that stuff to light the briquettes.”

“Well, there’s some hickory and pecan wood out back. You can feel free to use it. I haven’t grilled out in ages so you might as well put it to use. You don’t have to use anything to catch it on fire if you use the chimney.” Besides why would someone spoil the taste of grilled food with fumes from lighter fluid?

“The what?” She asked in confusion.

“Well it’s a,” his hands formed a pattern when he found it hard to explain. “If you want I’ll just light the fire for you.”

She nodded. “Okay. But if you start the fire then you have to join us for dinner.”

He shook his head but smiled. “No. But thank you, though. You don’t have to do that.”

She felt disappointed that he had declined the offer. It would have given her a perfect opportunity to find out more about him. “Are you sure? You could tell us more about Estill County. I did some research and it’s very pretty. There’s a lot of history here. Plus, we bought a lot of dogs and burgers and there was a sale on this corn on the cob.”

He took in her hopeful expression and decided that she wasn’t just offering out of politeness. “Okay,” he conceded. “Thank you.” He looked at half a dozen ears of corn still in a paper sack and hid his disapproval. “You don’t have to buy any vegetables while you’re on the hill. My neighbors give away their corn; they grow so much of it. There are all the tomatoes, beans, potatoes and onions that you can eat. One thing is for sure; a person won’t go hungry on Cobb Hill. I tell you what--I’ll bring a basket of veggies to add to the meal. Is that okay?”

“Yeah.” She nodded in gratitude. Garden fresh vegetables free of charge? What fool would turn that down?

They made plans to meet in the back yard at five thirty to get the grill started. She had to practically drag her son from the television set. He didn’t even watch sports but he was standing in front of it just because there wasn’t a flat screen television in the cottage.

“Come on Adam. Let’s go.” She said while waiting at the front door for him to follow.

Riley followed them to the door. “See you at five thirty,” he called in his lazy country drawl.

Stella looked behind her and grinned and then she stopped. Why was she grinning like a fool?

“See ya,” she called.