Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

arrival by at least two rooms, had yet to be applied. John had neither smelled nor heard her approach and turned quickly around, closing the private door behind him. He whipped on his best sheepish, got-to-forgive-the-boy smile.
    “I am mightily sorry, Miz Zeola. I had a little bit of extra time, and I jest wanted to make sure everything was at the ready.” He kept his eyes on the dressing-gown belt around his employer’s considerable middle while he let her absorb his words. He had learned, early on, that women loved it when a man gave them a chance to talk.
    “If you got that much extra time, then maybe I needs to cut back on yo’ hours.” The satin of her purple dressing robe rustled as she stepped toward him.
    He felt her eyes climb all over him more than once. He was used to that from women. Zeola was no different.
    “Where you from again, country boy?” Those words on anybody’s lips, male or female, were beginning to wear on his nerves almost as bad as when the white Lawnover farmers called him “boy,” though he was thirty-four years old.
    “Montgomery County, ma’am.” He lifted his eyes to face her, leaving only the slightest trace of a smile.
    “John, ain’t it? How long you been with me?” She turned her face into the feathered boa at her dressing-gown collar and fluffed it with her long scarlet-painted fingernails.
    “Yes’m, it’s John. John Welles. And I’m pleased to say I’ve been working for you fo’ almost three months.” He let the smile flash for just an instant before he dropped his eyes back to the loosely knotted belt.
    “Let me tell you one damn thing, John Welles. If you want to keep on workin’ fo’ me, you will stay where I put you.” She poked one plump hand at him, as the curling rags in her hair wagged with each word she punched into the air. “You will come and go where and when I say you can, and you will not step foot into any place I say you cain’t.”
    John snapped his eyes to her face. He couldn’t recall when a woman had laid into him like this unless it was Annalaura when she fumed over his gambling ways.
    “You got a woman?” She shot the question at him like she was accusing him of stealing her candlesticks right off her table.
    “Yes’m.” John had to think quick like he sometimes had to do with his wife.
    “Chil’ren?”
    “Yes’m.” He let that answer hang in the air while he sized up this woman.
    “But they ain’t here in Nashville, is they?” She folded her arms over her big bosom.
    “No’m. They’s with her family in Montgomery County.” What business of this woman’s was his family?
    “John Welles, yo’ country boy games ain’t gonna work on me. I knows you is in Nashville to make yo’self a killin’ so you can get back to that fine gal you left on some white man’s farm.” Reaching into the pocket of her gown, she dragged out a long cigarette holder. Plunging a hand deep into the other pocket, she pulled out a cigarette and stuck it in the holder. “For all yo’ shuckin’ ways, you ain’t stupid, John Welles, tho’ you would have me believe you was close to simple-minded.” She walked to the safe, pulled open a drawer, and withdrew a box of matches.
    “No, ma’am. I don’t reckon I am stupid. I’m in Nashville to earn enough money to bring up my family.” He raised his head and eased his back up straight to give himself more than a head advantage over the stocky woman. Still, Zeola had a way of making a man feel just a little bit smaller than he actually was.
    “Tell that pretty story to somebody else. Nashville runs thin real fast on country boys. Livin’s too quick here. What you boys really want is big money in lightning time so’s you can git back home and buy yo’ own place.” Zeola turned those hard-as-glass eyes on him, the just lit cigarette dangling from its holder in her hand. “Now, tell me, John Welles, if I ain’t spoke the truth?”
    John didn’t even think Annalaura could read him this well, and she was damn good.
    “I’m not braggin’ on myself, Miz Zeola, ma’am, but I surely will make me enough money to buy my own farm.” He’d given his wife credit for being able to see inside him like no other because of her Cherokee grandmother. “I already got my eye on twenty acres down near Lawnover. Me and my wife could make that work real well.”
    Everybody knew some Indian women had the second sight. That was why he’d taken off for Nashville without a word to Annalaura. If