“Has your Mr. Q inquired after you?”
“Why would he?”
“You missed your”—cough—“appointmentswith him Thursday and Friday. One would think he would be concerned.”
“He is too discreet to call upon me.”
“I didn’t say ‘call upon.’ But perhaps he sent you a note. Or climbed to your window.”
I wasn’t serious with that last suggestion, but she seems to consider it for a fraction of a second. “No, he did not. And your frankness is not appropriate, or appreciated.”
I listen to the horse hooves play a merry duet for at least five seconds. “Fine. Just seems to me that if one’s sham love—Miss Saltworth—pulled a prank on one’s true love—you—one would be concerned. Alarmed, even.” I am speaking recklessly, but something has loosened my stays. Maybe it is the knowledge that my term here is temporary, just until Old Gin finds me a husband. Or maybe it is Miss Sweetie talking. My voice seems more like hers every day.
“Tie your tongue, or I will do it for you,” Caroline hisses.
When we finally arrive at the water trough, while Frederick drinks, she uses the reflection to smooth wayward hairs and pinch her cheeks. And then she is off, treading the thorny path that so many hopeful lovers have tread before.
—
INSTEAD OFSIXPaces Meadow, I let Sweet Potato hoof back toward Piedmont Park in North Atlanta. May at least one of us go where her heart leads her today. Perhaps we can sneak a look at the action on the track.
The smell of cut grass and freshly turned soil digs up a sweet memory. Not long after the Paynes fired me, Old Gin decided we should try to attend the Piedmont Exposition of 1887, the biggest thing to happen in Atlanta since the war. Since the event was whites-only, except for workers, I put on my gray skirt and black jacket, and Old Gin wore his standard groom’s attire. We carried buckets of flowers, as if we actually had somewhere to deliver them. If you walk like you know where you’re going, you can fool a lot of people, especially in a place with so many distractions.
Cannons fired, bands played, and exhibit halls showcased Atlanta’s best, from animals and farming equipment to motorized sewing machines and phonographs. I even saw President Cleveland’s wife, Frances Folsom, buy an eagle carved from local manganese marble. She caught me staring at her, and I plucked out one of my blooms. “May this chrysanthemum bring good luck to your home.”
She took the flower. “A China girl who speaks like a Southerner? I guess Atlanta does have it all.”
With its witch’s-hat shape, the two hundred acres of Piedmont Park, home of the Gentlemen’s Driving Club, features long swaths of green cut with pathways, and surprisingly few trees for a city so full of them.
We approach from the west entrance, both because it is closer to the racetrack, and to avoid the buildings at the main entrance where we are likely to be chased away. A carriage approaches from behind, and I sit lower in the shadows of my hat.
Several single-horse carriages sail by, headed toward the grandstand a thousand feet ahead. Beyond that stretches the mile-long track.
Off the groomed path, a colored man in a white collared shirt and grass-stained trousers pushes a lawn mower in an impressively even line. A boy rakes clippings into piles nearby.
The man finishes a line and stops to mop his face with a handkerchief. Seeing us, he tips the brim of his boater hat. “Looking finer every day.”
I slow, caught off guard, until I realize he’s talking about Sweet Potato.
She whinnies, and I bring her closer. “Good afternoon. Have we met?”
“I’m Leo Porter, and that’s my son Joseph.”
The boy, who must be ten or eleven, stands at attention, chest puffed out, rake held straight as a bayonet beside him. His cheeks are still full of baby fat, and his cap is straight enough to balance a bottle.
“Always nice to meet another Jo, even if it’s a Joseph. I’m Jo Kuan.”
“Hello, miss.”
“You must be Old Gin’s daughter,” says the father. There’s a slight drift to his right eye, so I focus on the left. “He said you were quite a horsewoman.”
“I learned from the best.” But what was Old Gin doing here? Maybe he took the horses here for exercise through the extensive driving trails. He would’ve had to come with Jed Crycks or Mr. Payne, of course. No wonder Sweet Potato is familiar with this route.
“Well, the track’s full of practice runs and horse trading today. There’s no sneaking in. You’ll have to wait till after everyone’s gone home this evening, like usual.”
Likeusual. Old Gin has been sneaking in here? The years might’ve emboldened him, but I suddenly wonder if his attic is getting dusty. Maybe he just came for the joy of the ride. At least the dirt track is smooth, unlike Six Paces, where one could easily lose one’s footing at night. He certainly couldn’t have come for horse trading, as there is no better horse than Sweet Potato with her good temperament and fast legs.
Pretty legs like those would fetch a pretty sum, if Old Gin ever wants to sell,Merritt’s good-natured voice echoes in my mind.
