Sacred Ground

century lamp fixtures.

“There’s a restaurant next to that bookstore,” Drew said. Gabe turned in and found a parking place. He took his new casual jacket from the backseat and slipped it on. After they visited the men’s room and came out into the nicely decorated dining area, Gabe felt a sense of excitement. This was the final leg of their trip. Their next stop would be Swinton.

Business was brisk, with a stream of people at the buffet counter. Many of the tables were already occupied and there was a buzz of conversation throughout.

“The food looks good,” Drew said as he picked up a tray and silverware. “I’m sure hungry.”

“Get whatever you want.” Gabe was behind Drew and had already decided on the steak and baked potato combination, a green salad and cherry pie. A lady farther down the line was having some problem at the cash register. As Gabe leaned a little forward to see what was happening, his attention was caught by the profile of a young black woman just past the third person beyond Drew.

She turned slightly to look at the vegetable casserole she’d passed and seemed to be making up her mind whether to order it.

Her skin, the color of creamy milk chocolate, was flawless and the contour of her face seemed perfectly designed. He couldn’t see her eyes but a turquoise earring sparkled in the lobe of a delicate ear and matched the jacket she was wearing.

As she shifted her shoulder bag, her left hand came into view. It was bare. I’ve got to see her face, Gabe thought.

The line began to move swiftly as a second cashier was added. Drew and Gabe had to answer questions from the server about their steaks and by the time they’d received their meal, the young lady was nowhere to be seen.

“I don’t see an empty table in this section,” Drew commented, and led the way around a partition into a smaller area where the tables and chairs were bunched together.

Gabe was suddenly struck from behind by a tray and felt something damp landing on the left arm of his new jacket.

“What the—” he began and turned while trying to keep his tray of food upright.

The girl in the turquoise jacket was trying to keep the rest of her food from sliding off her tilted tray while apologizing at the same time.

“I’m so sorry.” Big hazel eyes glanced up at Gabe and a deep flush reddened her face.

“Here, let me clean the potato salad off of your sleeve. Someone bumped me and before I knew it my tray hit you. I’m so sorry.”

She needed her hands free but there wasn’t an empty table nearby. Among the diners watching the fiasco was a woman who took the tray and offered a clutch of napkins.

Gabe wanted to be anyplace but where he was. Everyone was looking at them as the girl bent and wiped at the oily salad, making the spot worse than it had been. Where was Drew? He could at least come and get Gabe’s tray so he could move.

“It’s all right,” he told the girl. “Don’t bother with it.” Gabe didn’t think she even heard him, she was so upset as she kept rubbing.

“Little accident?” Drew said with a broad grin as he came up beside Gabe and took his tray. He rarely had the opportunity to see his big brother lose his cool.

Annoyed at being the center of this kind of attention, Gabe captured the girl’s hands. They were slender, soft and smooth.

“It’s only a cotton jacket and it’ll wash out,” he said firmly, letting go of her hands and taking a step away.

Gabe saw she was nearly as tall as he when she straightened up to discard the damp napkins. The profile he’d seen of her at the counter hadn’t prepared him for the interesting tilt of her eyes, the generous shape of her mouth, the nose that fit perfectly with her other features and above all, a sense of strength and determination. No wonder it had been so hard to make her stop her cleaning job.

“I’ll be glad to have the jacket cleaned,” she said. Her voice was businesslike as she met his eyes but her face still had a rosy flush.

“That isn’t necessary, but thanks.” Wanting to put an end to the already overlong scene, Gabe turned away and walked over to the table where Drew was waiting.

“Eat your food so we can get out of here,” he growled as Drew welcomed him with a smirk. “I’m tired of being the afternoon’s entertainment!”

He’d wanted to meet the girl in the turquoise jacket, but did it have to be a disaster?

If this muddle was an indication of things to come in the next three months, he might as well turn the car around and head back to New York.

A few hours later, Gabe was convinced this might be one of the weirdest decisions he’d ever made in his thirty-five years as he slowed his car to a mere crawl, trying to avoid the potholes in the one-lane country road, which was already guilty of layering what used to be his sparkling black Lexus with dust.

The fact that the afternoon sun held a softness that he’d never experienced in New York City in March didn’t make him feel any better, and even though it illuminated spectacular trees, which stood like ancient sentinels, their branches arched over long approaches to houses both stately and modest, his earlier enjoyment waned each time his tire hit another pothole.

When he’d seen the detour sign a few miles back, he’d had no idea it meant going from a four-lane highway onto seven miles of dirt road. Surely this couldn’t last much longer. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw there was a line of cars behind him. If they were in a hurry it was just too bad. He wasn’t taking a chance on injuring his car by going any faster than the fifteen miles per hour his speedometer was registering. Now he understood why there’d been a hand-printed Drive Carefully warning taped to the metal detour notice.

Up ahead he thought he saw another bright orange sign. He accelerated to twenty miles per hour and sure enough, after a slow and careful turn to avoid another large pothole, he was able to get back on the highway.

When they’d left Florence, Drew had grumbled, “I wish we could’ve stayed on I-95 and gone to Florida. At least it has Disney World. But what’s South Carolina got?”

“Lots of alligators. They used to fascinate you.”

“That’s when I was a little kid.” Drew twisted his mouth in scorn.

“Fort Sumter is outside of Charleston. That’s where the Civil War began.”

“Who cares about history? Anyway, we’re not going to Charleston.” Drew turned away from Gabe and fidgeted around in the passenger seat until he found a comfortable place to put his long frame, and in a few minutes had gone to sleep for the umpteenth time since they had left Manhattan and Gabe had pointed the Lexus south.

Gabe was trying to hold on to the notion of adventure this South Carolina trip might have for him and Drew, when he saw a green sign on the right: Swinton, Next Exit.

His heart beat faster and he touched Drew on the shoulder.

“Wake up, Drew. We’re almost there!”

Drew sat up. “It’s about time,” he grouched, trying to hide his excitement as he rubbed his eyes.

Gabe took the exit smoothly and paused at the light. Seeing nothing on the left except more fields, he turned right when the light changed. Cars passed him on the left while he took in the scattering of gas stations and small businesses interspersed with modest frame houses that hadn’t yet been overtaken by the town as it expanded toward the highway.

“Today is March 4,” Gabe observed. “Look at that sign by the bank. What does it say the temperature is?”

“Fifty-five degrees at 3:00 p.m.”

“You have any idea what the temperature at home is?”

“Yeah. I heard on the radio it’s 30 degrees and cloudy,” Drew said.

Although it wasn’t the intense yellow of a summer sun, the light that fell on the brick library, the two-story town hall, the steeple-white Baptist church and the residences that began to appear had a pleasant glow.

“I like this better,” Gabe said. Cold weather had to be endured if you were living in Manhattan but he’d always looked forward to its departure.

“Where do people down here swim?” Drew turned to look at a group of several brick buildings that, according to the sign, comprised Swinton High School.

“The high school might have its own pool and there’s probably one in the park. I saw some lakes on the map, and of course you know we’re not that far from the Atlantic Ocean.” Gabe glanced at Drew to see his reaction.

“How far?” Drew’s expression didn’t change but Gabe heard the interest in his voice.