Jobynas blues, p.15
Jobyna's Blues, page 15
As she sketched, the sun rose high across the clear blue sky until noon, then began to move toward the horizon on her left. Jobie was lost in her work, carried away by the breathtaking vista that unfolded below her.
“Wow. That’s beautiful,” a voice behind her said.
Jobie started with surprise, almost losing her balance on top of the rock. A steadying hand held her while the other hand reached out and caught the sketch pad as it slid off the rock.
“Sorry. I wasn’t sneaking up on you. I thought you must have heard me.” The girl stepped around into Jobie’s field of vision. She wore jeans with the cuffs rolled up over boots and a short-sleeved green shirt with the Sewanee logo appliquéd over the left breast pocket. Her curly dark brown hair was cut short, and her dark eyes matched its color.
She held the sketch pad at arm’s length and studied Jobie’s work. “I’ve seen a lot of people climb up here and try to capture the beauty of these woods with paint or cameras. You’re the best so far.”
“Thank you.”
The young woman handed the sketch pad back to Jobie. “Aren’t you the folk singer?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m the Domain Manager.” She stuck her hand out. “Cindy.”
“Jobie.” Jobie crawled down from the boulder and shook Cindy’s hand. “What’s a Domain Manager?”
Cindy laughed and nodded. “We call these thirteen thousand acres the Domain.” She made a sweeping gesture that took in the woods and valley. “I’m responsible for land management decisions across the Domain.”
“How do you become the Domain Manager?”
Cindy shrugged. “I have an MS in wildlife biology and forestry, and I was in the right place at the right time. You’re thinking I’m too young, right? I get that a lot. Don’t people say that about you, too?”
“Yes, but I’m just responsible for myself, not for decisions about thirteen thousand acres.”
Cindy leaned against the boulder. “I guess. Anyway, I saw your show last night, and I love your music. My grandpa used to tease me by saying I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. He played the fiddle when he was young, but he was too busy trying to support his family to do much with it. We found his fiddle in the attic when he died, and I have it. But I could never play it. So, which is your true passion, folk singing or painting?”
“I’d love to spend more time on my painting but singing pays the bills. With the singing, I was in the right place at the right time, like you with your domain management.”
“Don’t some people, if they’re good, pay the bills with their art?”
“Some people do make a living with their art, of course. I’ve just never been confident enough in my talent to take the chance. And singing has come so easily. I went to New York after high school, and my music caught on faster than my art. That’s my home now.”
“Where were you raised? You sound like you’re from around here.”
“I was raised in Jasper.”
“Oh, close to here.”
“Yes. I’m going there tomorrow to visit my grandparents.”
“Do you ever miss Tennessee? Living in New York?”
“I didn’t fit in very well in Jasper.”
“I feel that way sometimes, but I have only one passion, and there aren’t very many domains to manage in New York. Not much wildlife, I’d guess.”
“Pigeons and squirrels.”
“Right. Well, I’d better get going. A student reported there’s a rockslide blocking the trail a little farther along. I’m on my way to check it out. Good to meet you, Jobie.”
“Yes, I have to get back soon. I have the show tonight.”
“I know, I’m planning to see you again.” Cindy started off at a trot down the trail. She stopped and turned back toward Jobie. “Sing good.” She pantomimed playing the fiddle and waved goodbye.
Jobie climbed up on the rock again. She wanted to take as much advantage of the light as possible before she started back to the main campus to prepare for her second show. As she worked over her drawing, she thought about the question Cindy asked, whether art or music was her true passion. If she focused on her art, she would have to spend her full time building up an inventory of works that she might, just might, be able to get placed in a gallery. How would she live in New York in the meantime? She could move back home to Jasper, Tennessee, but what about Deedee? And where did things really stand with Deedee? There didn’t seem to be easy answers to any of these questions. She looked out over the Domain, as Cindy called it. The hills and valleys, with their solid deep green canopy of trees, were as still and silent as the drawing she was working over. Better to just take things one at a time, and the next priority was her show tonight. She climbed down and headed back to the campus.
Chapter Twenty-six
JOBIE SAT AT THE white enameled metal kitchen table, struggling to peel apples while her grandmother made pie dough. “Clearly skill at peeling apples isn’t genetic. You’re so good at it, and I’m so bad.” The knife slipped from Jobie’s hand and bounced off the linoleum floor. “I used to watch fascinated while you peeled a whole apple in seconds with one long unbroken string.”
Lily looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Practice.”
Jobie leaned to retrieve the knife and held up a section of apple skin. “Look at this, I’m leaving more apple on the peel than on the apple.”
“Don’t throw those peelings away. I’ll make applesauce with them.”
Jobie blew a stray lock of hair out of her eye. “I was so excited to see you and Papa waiting for me at the bus. Do you remember that you stood on the same spot to see me off for New York four years ago?”
“Of course, I remember.”
Jobie laid the knife on the table and flexed her fingers. “It was raining. You chased after the bus as long as you could keep up with it, crying the whole time. I was so excited about starting a new life that I didn’t realize how traumatic that was for you. Do you forgive me?”
“Yes. I knew you had to get out into the world, even if it was hard on us.”
Jobie gazed around the kitchen, so familiar to her after living there her first eighteen years. “You haven’t asked me yet how long I can stay. That’s always the first thing you ask when I come home.”
“I’ve been dying to, but you and Papa always tease me when I do. I’m trying not to appear so needy. But how long can you stay?”
Jobie laughed. “I’m planning to stay a week.”
“Only a week?”
Jobie nodded. “I’ve been gone on this tour for a long time. I have to get back.”
Lily stepped to the refrigerator and returned to the mixing bowl with a light-yellow brick of butter. The stoneware bowl that she was working over was a relic from the eighteenth century, passed down through generations of women in her family. Jobie watched her grandmother cut the cold butter into the flour with a fork, leaving tiny pearls of fat that would melt in the oven to make the flaky crust her grandmother was so proud of.
“Will Papa come home from the store for lunch?”
“Since you’re here, probably. He usually keeps the store open all day right through lunchtime. He’s concerned someone may need something and not be able to get it.” Lily glanced out the screen door. “Even if he has to step away for a minute, he leaves the door open and puts a sign and a coffee can by the cash register, telling people to take what they need and put their money in the can.”
“And he trusts people to do that?”
Lily nodded. She dusted her rolling pin with flour and began shaping the dough into a pie crust. “When she was a little girl, your mother loved watching me work with the dough. She would stand on her knees in the chair where you’re sitting right now. I’d give her a pinch of the dough to roll out with a piece of wood dowel that Papa cut for her. She fashioned little cookies in the shapes of animals and sprinkled them with sugar and cinnamon, and I’d bake them for her, along with the pie.” Lily stopped her work and stared into space. “She was so good at making those little animals. I always thought she would turn out to be an artist, like you have.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist.
“I miss her too, Mama, even though I never knew her.”
“I know you do, honey.” Lily sat down, took the knife from Jobie, and began to quickly and efficiently peel the apples.
“Tell me about her again.”
Lily’s knife paused over her work. “Your mother was the image of Papa, in looks and in personality. Sometimes it seemed like she just dropped into my lap from nowhere. I never saw any of my faults reflected in her. She got up happy every morning of her seventeen years. Never had a bad word to say about anyone and never held a grudge. When we found out that you were coming, I was after Papa to call the boy and his parents out. I think I wanted to kill them all, but she wouldn’t tell us for sure who the father was. She’d just say it was a white boy she met in town.”
“You’ve always told me you don’t know who he was, my father, and I’ve always believed you’d tell me if you did. You would, wouldn’t you?”
Lily put down the apple she was peeling and embraced Jobie. “Of course, we would. She never brought anybody around. For years after you were born, I stared at young white men on the street and in stores, thinking I could recognize one of them in you, but that was silly.” She smoothed Jobie’s hairline. “After she told us you were coming, she went to stay in Chattanooga with my sister, your great-aunt Martha, until you were born, and we never spoke of the father again. She just started looking forward to you coming. She never complained about the headaches until she was about seven months along, and by the time we got to the hospital the day you were born, the doctors had to bring you into the world early to try and save her life and yours.”
Lily wiped her eyes with the bottom of her apron. “My sweet daughter didn’t make it. You were tiny, only three and a half pounds, but thank goodness you had a strong set of lungs. Martha and I heard your first cry all the way out in the waiting room. It was more a yell than a cry. I remember we just had to laugh. You sounded surprised to be out in the world so early. Right then I suspected you’d be a singer.”
“And you named me after Jobyna Jones. I know you traveled with her show, but you never talk much about that time.”
“Oh, honey, that was so long ago. I’ve crossed many rivers since then, as our old folks used to say.”
“I know, but you must have amazing stories to tell, and you must have had a special connection with Jobyna, to name me after her, I mean.”
Lily looked up from the apple she was peeling. Her eyes took on a faraway look. Jobie thought she was about to go on and talk about Jobyna. Lily glanced at the clock on the stove. “Oh, goodness, look at the time. Papa will be home any minute, and I’ve got to get this pie in the oven, and I know y’all will want cornbread.”
Lily mixed the cornbread batter and poured it in a black cast-iron skillet she had been heating in the oven. The skillet had been passed down through the family along with the old mixing bowl. She put it in the oven with the apple pie and sat next to Jobie at the table.
Jobie began to collect the apple peelings in a bowl. “Will you teach me to make cornbread? I was explaining to a friend in New York the difference between good cornbread and Yankee cornbread.” Jobie got a picture of Clair’s profile against the firelight at the Coach House. Could she do a drawing from memory?
“I’ll gladly teach you. You never wanted to spend time in the kitchen when you were growing up. You were too busy with your music and your art. Cornbread is easy. The secret is cooking it in a cast-iron skillet, the more seasoned the better. I inherited mine from your great-aunt Martha, God rest her soul, and she inherited it from our mother. No telling where Mother got it.”
The two women heard off-key whistling outside followed by footsteps on the back porch. Arthur Greene pulled the screen door open, and Jobie heard the familiar screech of the hinges. “I need to put some oil on that,” Arthur mumbled to himself. He was tall and thin, and moved with the grace of a young man even though he was in his sixties. His hair and mustache were grey, but his face was wrinkle-free, except for smile lines at the corners of his sparkling eyes.
Jobie jumped up from the table and threw her arms around his neck. “Please don’t put oil on it, Papa. I love that sound. It reminds me of you and Mama and all our mornings in this kitchen.”
Arthur chuckled. “Most of the time I don’t even hear it. You being home brings it to mind.” Arthur joined Jobie at the table. The kitchen began to fill with the mouthwatering smells of baking apples and cinnamon.
“Your Mama and I sometimes sit at this table and wonder if you might ever come back to Jasper, or Chattanooga, to live close to us.”
Lily said, “Arthur, don’t hector her.”
Jobie hugged Arthur again and kissed him on the cheek, feeling the familiar tickle of his mustache on her face. “I don’t feel hectored. In fact, I was daydreaming the other afternoon about concentrating full time on my art, living here until I can build up enough works for a show in New York. My recording contract is up in a few weeks.”
“Oh, Jobie, if you would do that we’d be overjoyed.”
“Even if it meant giving up my singing?”
“You wouldn’t have to give it up forever, would you? Papa could make you a studio in the old smokehouse out back. We never use it anymore except for storage. He could put in lots of windows for ventilation and light, and maybe even a skylight. Couldn’t you, Papa?”
“I sure could, but won’t your record company be after you to sign another contract?”
“They’re going to put out a live album from this tour I just finished. I suspect that may be my last one with Vanguard. Folk music isn’t as popular as it used to be, at least my folk music. I’ve got to decide whether to find another label or take a little time off, maybe six months, to build up enough material for a show…I don’t know.”
Lily took Jobie’s hand. “Come home, honey.”
“Who’s hectoring now?” Arthur touched Lily’s cheek.
“I know. You’re right. I’m just saying that she’s welcome. Whatever you decide, Jobie. Help me get this dinner on the table, you two.”
After the meal, Arthur pushed his chair away from the table and patted his belly. “Lily, that was the best meal you’ve ever cooked.”
Lily laughed. “You say that every day, Arthur.”
“I know. It’s true. Don’t know how you do it time after time.”
Jobie stood up and began clearing the dishes off the table.
“Honey, why don’t you let me take care of those,” Lily said. “Go back to the store this afternoon with Papa so the two of you can spend some time together. I hate to think about it, but you’ll be saying you have to go back to New York before we know it.” Lily turned away quickly and started running water in the sink.
Arthur looked at Lily’s back and winked at Jobie. “Yes, that would be nice, Jobie. People in Jasper haven’t seen you in a while. I brag about you so often that some of my newer customers may think I’ve made you up.”
Jobie and Arthur went out the back door, crossed the backyard, and turned toward downtown on a well-worn path that ran next to rusty railroad tracks. “I’ve never known what these tracks were for,” Jobie said. “They’ve never had a train on them during my lifetime. Us kids used to balance on the rails, pretending they were tightropes and we were in the circus. We never worried about a train coming along.”
“There used to be a train that ran between Jasper and Chattanooga, but that was way before you were born. There were sawmills around these parts and the big landowners built it to haul logs and milled lumber back and forth. They closed it down once the lumber played out, but they never took up the tracks. Just left them here to rust. I’ve told you how I rode the train to Chattanooga when I courted your grandmother forty years ago.”
“Tell me again, Papa.”
Arthur patted her hand, resting in the crook of his arm. “Your grandmother was the prettiest thing I ever saw. She was staying with her sister, your great-aunt Martha, and Carl. I went to school with Martha and Carl, he’s my cousin, you know, but Lily was younger. She had come back from being a dancer with a traveling show company. You’ve seen that picture she has of her in the chorus line?”
Jobie nodded.
“Martha and Carl invited me to Sunday dinner. As I look back, her sister had in mind to put Lily and me together, hoping we’d hit it off.”
“And you did.”
“Not right away, we didn’t. I was very full of myself back then. Considered myself a catch. I had made a deal with old Mr. Gable to sell me the store where I’d worked since high school. He wanted to move to Knoxville, closer to his daughter. But Lily paid no attention to me the whole time. Put me in my place, and, of course, that made me even more interested in her.”
“So how did you win her over?”
“I’m not sure. I just kept after her, riding the train to Chattanooga every Sunday morning, walking a mile and a half out to their place for dinner, then walking back to the train and coming home. Some Sundays she wouldn’t even come out of the kitchen. Carl and I sat around on the porch while Lily and Martha made the meal and cleaned up afterward. I just kept coming every week. I think I wore her down.”
The path veered away from the railroad tracks and joined up with a sidewalk running along Jasper’s Main Street. They walked past the storefronts of Clayton’s 5 and 10, Young’s Dry Goods, and The Smart Ladies’ Apparel Shoppe till they came her grandfather’s grocery store. Jobie paused in front and looked up at the porcelain RC Cola sign that hung over the porch with red lettering spelling out Gable’s Grocery.
“Why didn’t you ever change the name, Papa?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Folks were used to Gable’s, and we would have had to make a new sign.”
On the counter by the cash register was the coffee can and a carefully handprinted sign that declared, BACK SOON. TAKE WHAT YOU NEED. ARTHUR. Arthur picked up the coffee can and sorted the money into the cash drawer.
