Dillon’s scowl deepened. “He’d been in a fight, had a bad scratch. I poured peroxide into it and patched it up. That’s all.”
“I don’t know, Dillon,” she said breezily. “I think you’ve got a pet for life.”
He switched subjects by nodding out over the crowd. “Did you expect this?”
“Yes. For the first time, my name appeared in the local newspaper yesterday evening.”
His gaze swung back to her. “Any reason why your name should spark so much local interest?”
“There might be. I grew up here.”
He reacted to that as to an electric shock. His hazel eyes focused on her sharply. “Funny how you failed to mention that.”
Before she had an opportunity to reply, Palmetto’s mayor approached her. “Ms. Sperry, let’s give these folks another five minutes or so to find a seat, then you can make your presentation. How long d’y’all figure it’ll take?”
“Approximately ten minutes. Then I’ll open the floor for questions.”
“Mighty fine. Take all the time you want, little lady. This is a landmark day. I still can’t get over it.”
Cutting short his sexist effusiveness, she introduced Dillon to him. As the two men were shaking hands, Jade chanced to glance between them and spotted a woman seated in the crowd.
Reflexively her lips formed the name. “Donna Dee.”
Her former friend had never had her overbite corrected; her small face still came to a point above her upper lip. She was wearing her hair in a short bob now, but it was still unrelentingly straight.
Nevertheless, there were marked changes in her appearance. She no longer looked comically animated, but harsh. Her eyes seemed to have receded into her skull, making her look more furtive than ever. She resembled a mistrustful animal peering at the world from inside its lair.
Her gaze now was uncharacteristically still, fixed on Jade. Time had etched distinct lines on each side of her protruding mouth. Jade and Donna Dee were the same age, yet Donna Dee looked at least a decade older.
Jade felt a sharp twinge of remorse that she couldn’t remember with fondness all the nights they had slept over at each other’s house, giggling and planning their futures, which invariably revolved around the men whom they would marry—Gary and Hutch. At least one of them had gotten her wish. Jade’s thoughts must have manifested themselves in her expression because Donna Dee was the first to break their stare. She lowered her eyes to her lap.
It was odd that Hutch wasn’t in attendance. There were a number of deputies helping to control the crowd, but Hutch wasn’t among them. Hutch had always been big and strong, but basically a coward. No doubt he was trying to avoid their first confrontation in fifteen years.
There were several faces in the crowd that were vaguely familiar to Jade. She could put names with others. She hadn’t spotted Myrajane Griffith, but then Myrajane wouldn’t be one to fraternize with the general public, believing most to be riffraff. And, of course, Lamar wasn’t there. Jade had heard from him only once after seeing him in Morgantown. As before, he had pleaded for her understanding. She regretted that his death had been so tragic, but her resolve hadn’t diminished—he had died unforgiven.
The mayor approached her again. He checked his wristwatch and importantly tugged on the hem of his coat. “Well, whenever you’re ready, Ms. Sperry, I reckon we can start.”
Feeling a rush of energy, she said, “I’m ready.”
The mayor waxed poetic at the microphone until everyone in the audience was either torpid with boredom or fidgeting restlessly. At last, he introduced Jade.
The applause from the audience was polite but reserved.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming this morning. Your number indicates to me that GSS has made an excellent choice for the site of their TexTile plant. Palmetto was chosen for several reasons. Among them were its availability of raw building materials and its accessibility to the shipyards, which will make the transportation of goods feasible and relatively inexpensive to domestic and foreign markets.
“The overwhelming reason for the selection of this location, however, was the duality of the benefit to be derived from this enterprise. The TexTile plant will provide hundreds of jobs. It will resuscitate a flagging economy. And TexTile will prosper because of a strong, willing, and resourceful labor force—in other words, you.”
Jade held her breath. As she had hoped, there was a smattering of applause, then a groundswell of it, until it was deafening in the crowded room. She smiled inwardly, knowing that she had them. Strategically, she hadn’t begun by trying to impress them with the wealth and might of GSS. That would have spawned only resentment. Rather, she had flattered the region and its people.
The mood shift was palpable. The crowd assumed a more cordial personality. Her audience was no longer suspicious of the Yankee company that was going to muscle its way in and inundate their county with outsiders. She talked them through the plant’s procedure, from the time the ginned cotton arrived until it left in the form of ready-made garments, destined for any number of world markets.
“This plant will belong to the community,” Jade stressed. “The more you put into it, the greater the payoffs will be. It will generate thousands of dollars each year in local taxes alone, which can be channeled into making much-needed improvements for the community. On an individual basis, it will mean better job opportunities for workers in numerous and diverse fields of endeavor.”
“What kind of jobs?” someone shouted from the back of the room.
“Assembly line, shipping and freight, maintenance and engineering,
clerical. The list of opportunities is virtually endless. To begin with, we’ll need construction workers. At this time, I’d like to introduce Mr. Dillon Burke. He’s our general contractor.”