Envy(50)

She glanced down at her casual skirt, shirt, and sandals as though she’d never seen them before. It was an outfit she usually took to their country house for a summer weekend of cookouts and antique shopping. She’d packed it herself in New York just two days ago, but it seemed much longer ago than that and much farther away.

“Mike arranged for my suitcase to be picked up at the hotel and sent over. He went to the dock and met the boat.”

“He’s gone dotty.”

“Pardon?”

“He’s got a crush on you.”

“He’s just being nice.”

“We’ve had this conversation already.”

They had. She didn’t want to repeat it. The last time, it had ended… She didn’t want to think about how it had ended.

A silence ensued. Her eyes had adjusted to the dimness, but she could still barely see him where he remained in the deep shadows of the corner. To fill the awkward silence, she said, “This is a picturesque building.”

“Which you accidentally happened upon?”

“Mike gave me directions.”

“Mike talks too much.”

“Not that much. He gives away none of your secrets.”

“Until a few minutes ago this building was my secret. I come here to be alone.”

She ignored the implication that he didn’t welcome her company and took a look around. The dirt floor was littered with animal droppings and trash. At one time, someone had built a fire. Traces of ash and charred wood were still scattered about. A staircase attached to one wall led up to the second level, but many of the steps were missing, and those that remained appeared incapable of supporting anything heavier than a beetle. All in all, it was a spooky old place, especially the rear portion with its low overhang and antiquated industrial apparatus that looked to her like something an evil giant might use to physically torture an enemy giant. She couldn’t imagine why Parker chose to spend time here.

“What’s its history?”

“Do you know anything about cotton?”

Cheekily she quoted a popular TV commercial. “ ‘It’s the fabric of our lives.’ ”

To her surprise, Parker laughed. A real laugh, not that scornful sound that usually served as his laugh. Taking advantage of this rarity, she added, “It’s also useful when it comes to removing nail polish.”

His laughter subsided, making the resulting silence even more noticeable. Then he said gruffly, “Come here.”





Chapter 11


Parker waited out her hesitation. He didn’t repeat the request, figuring she would call his implied dare, and she did. After a moment or two of consideration, she carefully picked her way across the distance separating them.

Her hair had been gathered into a makeshift ponytail that subtracted at least five years from her appearance. Her white shirt was tied in a knot at her waist. Her khaki skirt was short enough to show a couple inches of thigh. Smooth, shapely thighs that invited libidinous speculation.

“When this gin was first built,” he said, “three sides of it were left open. The machinery was animal-powered.”

“Animal-powered?”

“Follow me.”

He wheeled toward the back of the building. As she followed him beneath the overhang, she reflexively ducked her head, causing him to smile. She had cleared the low, spider-infested ceiling, but not by much.

“I’ve never had that problem myself,” he said. He then pointed to the faint ring in the hard-packed earth. “If you look closely, you can see a circular depression there in the dirt. That’s the path worn by the mules that turned the drive wheel that powered the gin stand.”

“Up there?”

“Right. When cotton was king, it was brought here by the wagonload. Long-strand sea island cotton. High grade. Silky in texture and more easily separated from its seeds than other varieties.”

“Therefore very desirable.”

He nodded. “And the island’s sandy soil was ideal for growing it. It was unloaded onto a platform outside and carried up to the second floor, where the gin separated the fiber from the seeds.

“The lint was then blown out, collected, and carried to an outdoor screw press, which was also mule-powered. Once it was pressed into bales, they were bagged and hauled cross-island to the dock for transport to the cotton exchanges on the mainland.”

“It sounds very labor-intensive.”

“You’re right. From the time a cotton seed was planted in early spring until the last bale of the crop was shipped out, the process took a year.”

“Was this the only gin on the island?”

“Right again. One planter, one gin, one family. The family that built my house. They had a monopoly that made them rich until the whole market collapsed. They tried to switch to oyster canning, which was being done on other sea islands, but they didn’t know anything about it, went completely broke within a year, and cleared out.”

“So this structure more or less chronicles the island’s history.”

“Nineteenth century history for sure,” he said. “It’s documented that in 1878 a little girl, a child of a worker, walked behind one of the mules turning the screw press outside. The ornery animal kicked her in the head. She died two days later. Her father put down the mule, execution-style. The details of what he did to the carcass are gruesome. A duel between feuding brothers is also recorded. They shot and killed each other in 1855.