When We Were Saints (5 page)

Archie squinted when he first entered the room. "I can't see," he said, holding one hand above his eyes for shade.

"That's all right," the man said. "I can. Have a seat. Wherever you'd like."

Archie looked around. The room had chairs, sofas, end tables, and lamps, and nothing else—no knickknacks, no books, no plants, and no other furniture. He picked an old stuffed, blue-and-white-plaid chair sat down on the edge of it, and waited.

The man held out his hand. "Scott Simpson," he said. "And you're Archibald Caswell, grandson of the late Silas Benjamin Caswell."

"Everyone knows that," Archie said, taking the man's hand and shaking it.

"Let's get down to business then."

Mr. Simpson sat down across from Archie and studied him, looking first at his feet.

"You wear Nikes, huh? But you don't run, although you're built for it—long bones, narrow body. You got a lot of good red mud clumped on them, so you wear them out to feed the animals, do your chores, climb the mountain—that kind of thing."

Archie shrugged as if to say, "Big deal. I'm not impressed."

"You wish you were bigger. You've tried to bulk up with dumbbells, but it doesn't work. You've even tried your grandmama's Ensure, drinking it with your meals. That hasn't worked, either."

Archie slid himself back in his seat. The man was making him uncomfortable. "You're just guessing," he said.

Mr. Simpson laughed. "Of course I am, but I'm right, aren't I?"

Archie didn't answer.

Mr. Simpson continued. "You don't like all the freckles on your face, do you? Don't worry; they'll fade when you're older. You've got an intelligent face. You're smart, but I'm not sure you read much. You're by vourself a lot, too, but you're not lonely—you just think you are. You think you ought to be lonely, but truth is you're your own best company."

Archie had never thought of that. He liked it. He liked someone telling him it was okay to enjoy being by himself. Wasn't that what Mr. Simpson was saying?

The man kept studying his face, concentrating on the eyes the longest. The way he studied him reminded Archie of the time his great-aunt, long dead, had him sit for a portrait. He'd had to hold still for hours. He was only eight. His great-aunt was surprised at how well he sat. "Some people pass out from sitting so long, but look at you, sitting just like a statue of yourself," she had said.

Archie didn't know if he was allowed to blink, but he couldn't help it, the lights in the room were so bright.

"You're a creative type, although you haven't had much of a chance to use your creativity in a big way yet." Mr. Simpson took one of Archie's hands in his and examined his long fingers. "Art?" he asked.

Archie shrugged again. "Yeah."

The man turned Archie's hand over and looked at his palm. "Calluses. Old ones."

"We rented out the farmland a few years back because my grandfather couldn't work it anymore. Clyde Olsen farms it now. I've been working for him but not lately, not since my granddaddy died."

The man returned to Archie's eyes. "You like cars. You like fast cars, sports cars. You like speed. You like baseball over football because you like the speed of the ball. You like the sound of the ball making contact with the bat. You like it because you can play it well. You can move around those bases fast, but you wish you liked football better."

"You can read that in my eyes?" Archie closed his eyes a second, then opened them again and saw Mr. Simpson still staring at him, his eyes squinting, his lips pursed.

"You're upset about something. Now I'd say it was your granddaddy, but that pain is already etched in your face; this is more recent, this is right here. You've heard some disturbing news today. Your grandmama isn't sick, I hope."

Archie flapped his hands. "What good is telling me stuff I already know? And no, she's not sick."

"Sometimes, son, we know what's happened, but we don't know how what's happened has affected us," Mr. Simpson said. "Then sometimes we don't know what we know, or how we feel about what we know. That's all."

"I could go to one of those psychologists if I wanted that kind of information."

"You could—for fifty dollars or more. Or you could talk to a friend for free. Just so happens, you came to me."

"My grandmama is going to sell our house and move us into Miss Nattie Lynn's house," Archie blurted out. "Do you know Nattie Lynn Cooper?"

Mr. Simpson nodded.

Archie told Mr. Scott Simpson, a perfect stranger what little he knew of his grandmother's arrangements. The man didn't offer any advice; he just listened, but Archie felt better anyway. He didn't tell him about his experience up on the mountain. He thought he'd save that for another time, maybe, but then Mr, Simpson said, during a pause in the conversation that had grown too long, "Now there's something else, something ... What do I see here? Something..." He paused and leaned forward to get a better look at Archie's face.

Archie resisted the urge to lean back. His heart pounded in his chest. He didn't want this stranger knowing things about him that even he was unsure of—but then again, he did. He wanted someone to know. He wanted someone to talk to.

Mr. Simpson sat up, raised his brows, and said, "You're spiritual!" He squinted at Archie and said, "Ah, but you don't like it; it scares you."

"It does? I mean, it does."

"So tell me about this saint business."

Archie was startled. He felt the pressure above his belly button and covered his stomach with his hand. "You heard about that?" he asked.

Mr. Simpson nodded. "I reckon everybody around here has heard about it. Is your granddaddy right? Are you a saint?"

Archie eyed the man, searching for a mocking glint in his eyes, but he looked sincere. "I don't know," he said. "I don't even know what a saint is."

Mr: Simpson studied Archie, his blue eyes squinting, then not squinting, then squinting again. "I think you know very well what a saint is."

Archie turned his head away and got a shot of bright lights in his eyes. He looked down. "Anyway, I'm not a saint—far from it."

"That's too bad. The world could use more saints, don't you think?"

Archie looked at him. "I know what a saint is. I know what it feels like to be a saint," he said, recalling the minutes on his knees beneath the pine trees. He rubbed his stomach.

Mn Simpson sat forward in his chair as if he really wanted to know. "How does it feel?"

"It is a deep hungering and thirsting after God."

The words had slipped out of Archie's mouth before he even thought to say them. He didn't know that was what he knew until he said it, but that was what was in his heart—what had been in his heart ever since the time on the mountain.

"You know then," Mt Simpson whispered. "You have that hunger."

"But I hate going to church on Sundays, and I've never even spoken in tongues like my granddaddy, and the only reason I'm saved is because it got embarrassing for my grandparents to stand in church every Sunday and see me just sitting there like a lump of candle wax stuck to the seat when they called the sinners to the front."

"Still, you have that hunger" Mt Simpson said.

"Maybe," Archie said.

The two of them sat facing each other in silence. Archie was trying to read Mr. Simpson, but he couldn't.

Then Archie looked at his watch and stood up. "I got to go pick up my grandmama now, so—thanks for everything, and all," he said. "I reckon I got my ten dollars' worth."

Mr, Simpson stood up, too, and shook Archie's hand. He opened the door and let Archie out of the room.

Archie stepped into the hallway and saw a girl coming toward him wheeling a bicycle beside her; The room appeared dark to him after his sitting so long in such bright lights, and Archie could not make out the girl's face. She was just a shadow floating down the hallway.

Mr: Simpson spoke up behind Archie. "This is my daughter Clare. Clare, this is Archibald Caswell."

Clare leaned her bicycle against her hip, shifted the apple she was eating into her left hand, and shook Archie's hand.

"I've never seen you before," Archie said, surprised, now that she was close enough for him to see her better:

Mr: Simpson said, "She's been living in North Carolina with her mama the past several years. She's living with me now."

"'Archibald Caswell,'" Clare said. "The saint."

Archie blushed and mumbled that he had to get going.

Clare grabbed his arm. Her grasp was firm, strong. "I want to talk with you."

"Yeah, sure. We'll get together sometime." Archie wanted to leave. He backed up toward the beaded curtain. Clare, still holding on, moved with him, the bicycle making a
click-click
sound as it rolled forward.

"Tomorrow," she said. She propped her bike against the wall and took another bite of her apple.

Archie shook his head. "Oh, well, I don't know. I've got stuff..."

"It's a Saturday. I'll ride out there in the morning. Be there round nine." She squeezed his arm and let go. "You'll be glad to know me, Mr: Archibald Caswell."

Archie drew in his breath, recognizing the voice. "You're the girl!"

Clare smiled, brushed past him, and said over her shoulder "See you tomorrow."

A
RCHIE AND HIS
grandmother rode in silence most of the way home from town that afternoon. Then just before turning off onto the long dirt road leading to the Caswell farm, Emma Vaughn said to her grandson, "I've made arrangements with Century 21 to rent out the house for us until you're old enough to claim it for yourself. I have left it to you in my will."

Archie replied, "I'm going to the public high school next year."

The two Caswells understood each other perfectly. Archie knew it was too late to argue about the move; his grandmother had already set things in motion. Emma Vaughn knew that her grandson would no longer submit to being home-schooled, especially not by four elderly women, so nothing more was discussed by either of them that night.

Early the next morning Archie came in from mowing the lawn around the house and sat down to breakfast. He looked at his plate loaded with biscuits and gravy, bacon and eggs, and pushed it away.

"Sorry, Grandmama," he said, "but I can't eat this; my stomach is upset." He rubbed his stomach just above his belly button, where the discomfort was the greatest.

"Go fetch the Pepto-Bismol, sugar: It's in the upstairs-bathroom cabinet."

Archie stood up. "If you don't mind, I think I'll just finish up the chores you're wanting me to do. There's a girl coming to see me at nine. Her name is Clare. Clare Simpson."

"Oh?" Emma Vaughn's tiny mouth turned up. "Is this my grandson's first little girlfriend?"

Archie opened the napkin his grandmother had set by his plate and covered the food with it. Seeing all that bacon and gravy made the pain in his stomach worse. "I only just met her Grandmama. And she's at least as tall as I am, so she's not 'little.'"

"Well, all the same, I think it's sweet." His grandmother paused and tilted her head. "
Simpson.
The only Simpsons I know live down yonder in Talcum. Who's her daddy?"

Archie left the table and headed for the doon "You don't know him. His name is Scott—Scott Simpson."

Archie left the house and set out for the barn. Before he could get to it, he heard the screen door open. His grandmother called out, "Ivy Simpson's boy?"

Archie turned around and his body sagged. "I don't know, Grandmama," he said, the exasperation evident in his voice.

"Don't you be getting sly with me, Archibald." Emma
Vaughn came down off the porch and stood with her hands on her hips. The sun peeked out from a cloud momentarily, and Archie saw the pink skin beneath his grandmother's thinning white hair. It made him feel sad and his shoulders sagged some more.

"All I said was I don't know, Grandmama, and I don't."

"The palm reader's son?" Emma Vaughn said, tapping her foot in the mud.

"Probably." Archie picked up the hose he had used earlier that morning to rinse out the old pig trough and tried to look as if he had too much work to do to be standing around chatting.

"Did you go see that palm reader yesterday?" Emma Vaughn took a few steps closer. "Did you pay him to read your palm?"

"Grandmama!" Archie said, not wanting to admit to anything, knowing she wouldn't understand.

"Did you pay him?"

"It's my money. I earned it."

"I didn't raise a fool." Emma Vaughn shook her finger at her grandson. "You're going to go back there this afternoon and get your money back, or ... I don't know what."

Archie threw down the hose and straightened his back. "I will not. Mr. Simpson earned it. He more than earned it. I am a satisfied customer."

Archie had never had a real argument with his grandmother before. If she'd had anything to say to him, she'd gotten Silas to say it for her. Both of them seemed to realize at the same time what they had just done, and neither one knew what to do next.

Archie stared at the mud puddles his hose had created earlier that morning, and his grandmother stared at the clouds.

Finally Emma Vaughn turned around and walked back toward the house. She stopped at the porch steps and turned around again. "You be sure to bring that Clare girl on inside and introduce her to me, you hear?" She made her voice sound firm.

"Yes, ma'am," Archie said, relieved that their first confrontation was over.

Archie worked hard the next two hours cleaning out the barn, a job he had promised his grandmother he would do a week earlier. It was a gray-brown day, according to Archie, cool yet clammy, and he was soon soaked with sweat, though the work felt good to him. His mind was so preoccupied by the argument with his grandmother and the impending move—and thoughts about the visit from Clare—that he didn't hear her come up behind him, and he jumped when he heard her say, "Good morning, Mr. Archibald Caswell."

Archie spun around and there she stood, with her bicycle leaning on her hip the way it had the day before. This time Archie could see her face, and he was surprised to realize that she was pretty. She was more than pretty. There was something extraordinarily attractive about her although Archie couldn't identify exactly what it was. Her dark, shoulder-length hair was damp and lay flat against her forehead where her helmet had pressed down too hard. She wore no makeup, but her cheeks were ruddy and her eyes sparkled with an intense joy, as though nothing in the world was greater than that moment standing outside the barn in the gray-brown light with Archie. She was as tall as
Archie, which made her about five foot eight, and she stood with her back straight instead of hunched over the way so many tall girls Archie knew did. She had on tights and a shiny blue, form-fitting cycling shirt, and Archie could see the slender muscles in her legs and arms. Her violet eyes and her smile lit up her whole face, and Archie decided he had never seen eyes that color or teeth that white. He wiped the sweat off his face with a rag he had stuffed into his back pocket, took note of the bicycle, a Cannondale road bike, and said hello.