Free Life Is Short But Wide by J. California Cooper Page B

beautiful!” He reached out to shake her hand; she saw his long tapered fingers and clean fingernails.
    Leroy spoke in a soft baritone. “I’ve seen you at church, but you never look at anybody, and you always leaving right after the service.”
    Rose tried to smile and say “Yes,” but she was suddenly very nervous. Tingly, with a tremor of excitement.
    Leroy pointed at a section of the fence seen from the porch. “You got somebody to help you patch that fence, Mz. Rose? Is it Mrs. Rose or Miss Rose?”
    Rose blushed in spite of herself, and thought of Tante for some reason. “Yes. It’s Miss. Rose Strong, and yes, I do have someone, Joseph, but he is so busy he just didn’t get to it yet.”
    “I might be able to get to it for you. I just want to do
something
for you, Mz. Rose, to show my preciation for you help in my friend. Anything you need. You are such a nice lady, livin here all alone. And I understand you are a very kind person, too.”
    Rose smiled, but said, “Well, thank you. But I’ll see when Joseph plans to get to it. Thank you, anyway.”
    They said their good-byes then, and Rose watched them walk away toward the little shotgun house. Leroy had a lazy walk, casual. His body was loose and relaxed. Rose thought, “Is that what they call sexy?”
    She thought about Leroy all that evening. She didn’t run over to tell Bertha about her visitor; she kept her thoughts toherself, and they were warm in her heart. She thought about herself. “I am twenty-five and a half years old. I need a man, a husband. They even have automobiles in the streets here in Wideland, and I still don’t have a husband. I need to keep my eyes looking up instead of looking down; maybe I’d see someone sometime. Where’d all these men come from anyway? To work? Here?”
    Before that week was over, the tenant, Will Moore, died. Hypertension heart attack.
    Rose said, “All that fussing and arguing killed that man!”
    Bertha shook her head sadly. “I’m shur glad I got Joseph; a peaceable man! And that poor lady; all alone in the world now.”
    Rose tightened her lips. “She got her mother. And I can’t put her out before she buries her dead husband.”
    Bertha agreed. “No, I wouldn’t do that.”
    “She can’t pay me and bury him, too.”
    Bertha looked closely at Rose. “So … I reckon this week is gonna be free?”
    “Nobody gives me anything free! I have to eat and buy ice for my icebox just like everybody else!”
    Bertha placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Well, the Lawd will bless ya for your help in them, now the Lawd done called him away to heaven.”
    Angry and defeated, Rose stood up, saying, “Nobody called him away! He kept himself upset and angry all the time! It killed him. God does not want anybody like him arguing up in heaven.”
    “Hush, chile.”
    Rose, exasperated, said, “Well, it’s true! The Bible I read says everybody is not going to heaven!”
    Bertha was alarmed. “The preacher say they is.”
    “Who you believe, Bertha, the preacher or God? The Bible speaks for God. The preacher can only speak for himself!”
    Bertha replied, “Well, I rather know what God say.”
    “That’s smart. I’ll give you an A.”
    That night Ethel’s family and friends came to console her; they brought liquor. There were sounds of loud argument almost all night with Ethel trying to get her money together. Ethel’s voice was the loudest among them. And Will’s voice was dead and quiet.
    In a few days the funeral was over. Will Moore had been laid to rest in the Restwell Cemetery. They held a little gathering in the small rented house. Will had quite a few friends who came; many people had liked him. But the new widow didn’t have anything to serve them. She screamed at her mother, who was trying to help her, “Who got some money to spend on the dead?”
    Leroy Aimes was one of the pallbearers of the big wooden box the friends of Will had built. Rose introduced him to Bertha, and he helped