(no subject)
Title: Tobacco Road 3/?
Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13 (this chapter; smut in the next one I promise)
Pairing: Brenda/Sharon, Brenda/OFC
Summary: Brenda Leigh and Anna Grace become close, and something unexpected happens.
A/N: I just want to say that, for the record (hey it’s a pun!), I did do my research and all of the songs mentioned in this chapter would have been on the radio in 1983. And If Brenda turned 40 in season 2, which aired in 2006, she would have been 17 in 1983. Math is hard.
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She came to me one evening
Hot cup of coffee and a smile
In a dress that I was certain
She hadn't worn in quite a while
There was a difference in her laughter
There was a softness in her eyes
And on the air there was a hunger
Even a boy could recognize
-“That Summer”, Garth Brooks
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Brenda woke early the next morning, and she found herself motivated by a singular purpose. She would not spend the day abed in Darlene’s empty house; she would go to Tobacco Road. The farm had come to her like a gift from on high, a chance to actually spend her summer with people she found interesting.
Darlene, true to her word, had bought groceries the day before. Brenda fixed herself some toast, and rummaged through the house until she found a piece of paper. She scribbled a note for her aunt and began the hour-long trek to Tobacco Road. While still insufferably hot, it was at least slightly cooler at 8 am than it had been at 10 the day before, and the anticipation of what awaited her put a spring in Brenda’s step.
When she finally reached the bright red gate, she realized she had no idea where to find Anna Grace. Jimmy was nowhere in sight, and though there were a few workers out and about in the yard, Brenda didn’t know any of them by name, and she was suddenly overcome with a feeling of awkwardness. She didn’t belong here. Maybe Anna had simply taken pity on her the day before. She’d given no indication as to whether or not she wanted Brenda Leigh to come back.
Brenda’s feet dragged her reluctantly toward the barn. Her mother’s insistent lessons on manners had taught her that it was rude to show up to someone’s home uninvited and unannounced, and so she stayed away from the farmhouse. The blast of heat and noise Brenda felt upon opening the barn door took her as much by surprise today as it had yesterday. Everyone seemed to know exactly where they were going and what they needed to do, except for Brenda, who tentatively entered the barn, trying to hide her own confusion.
She must have looked just as out of place as she felt, however, because Jimmy spotted her from the far side of the barn. He approached her, offering a toothy grin.
“Miss Brenda Leigh,” he said cheerily, “And how are you this fine day?”
“Hey Jimmy,” she replied, incredibly grateful for his timely appearance. “I’m looking for Anna Grace.”
Jimmy nodded. “You gonna work again today?” he asked, motioning for her to follow him as he led the way out of the barn.
Brenda nodded in response to his question. “If she’ll let me,” she said, and Jimmy laughed.
“Anna Grace never turned away nobody who wanted to work.”
He was taking her down the tractor path, away from the house and the barn and the little building where Brenda had spent the day gluing labels on cans. The longer they walked the more Brenda began to realize just how large of an operation Tobacco Road really was. As they meandered up and over a small hill, the vast fields below came into view.
Brenda stared awestruck at the acre upon acre of tobacco and hay. Off to the right she could see the small fencing of the horse paddocks, a stable sitting proudly in their midst.
“Anna Grace is down with the horses this morning,” Jimmy said, pointing to a small figure a ways off. Even from a distance Brenda could clearly make out Anna’s shape, her brown hair and straight posture. It occurred to her that after only one day she really shouldn’t be this familiar with Anna Grace and the way that she looked, but Brenda pushed those thoughts aside.
“You want me to go with you?” Jimmy asked, stopping in his tracks.
Brenda shook her head. “I can make it on my own. Thank you,” she remembered to add, and once again, Jimmy smiled.
“My pleasure, Brenda Leigh,” he said before turning to make his way back to the barn.
Brenda continued on her own, the morning sun bright on her face. She felt as though she were floating, her feet lifted off the ground by the buoyancy of hope. A hope that stemmed from the mere existence of Anna Grace, a woman who had in a very short span of time begun to represent everything Brenda Leigh wanted in life. Anna Grace was free, and she was freedom. She was a woman who ran her own life, who answered to no one. Brenda had begun to wonder what it might be like to be Anna Grace, to make her own rules. People jumped when Anna snapped her fingers, rushing to do what she asked not from fear or sense of duty, but from a desire to make her happy. The girls Brenda had met the day before had spoken of Anna Grace the way Brenda’s friends back home talked about celebrities. Brenda wanted to be closer to that kind of power.
Anna seemed to sense Brenda’s approach despite the fact that she was facing away from the blonde, and she turned around with a smile on her face.
“Brenda Leigh!” she called, raising one hand while keeping the other wrapped securely around the reigns of a large chestnut-colored horse.
“Morning,” Brenda answered, opening the small metal gate to let herself into the paddock where Anna stood.
“Didn’t expect to see you again,” Anna said, and Brenda smiled sheepishly.
“I probably should have called,” she said, even though it occurred to her that she didn’t have Anna’s number.
Anna waved her hand dismissively. “No need for that,” she said, “You’re always welcome at Tobacco Road.”
Brenda could have hugged the woman in that moment.
“I appreciate that,” she said sincerely.
Anna motioned for Brenda to follow her as she led the horse out of the paddock and down towards the stable.
“You wanna help out today?” Anna asked, and Brenda nodded fervently. “The farrier’s coming to shoe the horses, and we could use an extra pair of hands.”
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The day passed in a flurry of activity and pleasant conversation. The farrier was a huge man with a thick beard who barely opened his mouth when he spoke, making his words nearly unintelligible. Anna Grace seemed to have no trouble understanding him, however, and often interpreted what he was saying to a very confused Brenda Leigh.
Brenda had never in her life worked as hard as she did that day, managing the horses and running equipment to and fro, but she had also never been quite as happy. Anna Grace expected much of the girl, giving her responsibility and watching to see how much she could take. Brenda found that she did not want to let the woman down. She had begun to live for Anna’s smiles and infrequent compliments. Each smile was worth more to her than diamonds, and each compliment she treasured in her heart.
As the day passed, Brenda found herself more and more just watching Anna Grace. The curve of her cheek, the fullness of her lips, the strength in her hands, the skin of her lower back that revealed itself when she lifted her arms; Brenda stole furtive glances, memorizing every detail. She didn’t ponder why Anna’s body held her so enchanted; she simply drank in the sights presented to her.
The walk back to Darlene’s in the dark that night seemed much longer than it had the day before. Each step carried her away from Anna Grace, and towards a vast emptiness that for Brenda had grown to represent her life before this chance meeting. It was with a heavy heart that she turned the doorknob and stepped into a cloud of Darlene’s bitter complaining.
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Aunt Darlene thought it strange that Brenda had volunteered to spend her sunny days down at Tobacco Road with that woman, but she was glad to have the teenager out of her hair. She made no move to keep Brenda at the house, but she also made no attempt to stem the flood of snide comments she had stockpiled concerning Anna Grace. Darlene thought her wild, rude, and unsophisticated, and she made her thoughts known.
Brenda couldn’t have cared less.
Each day she rose early and made her way down to the farm. If she arrived early enough, she would sit in the farmhouse’s yellow kitchen, drinking strong black coffee and planning the day ahead with Anna Grace.
At first she had found the coffee almost unpalatable, but Anna liked it that way, and Brenda persevered until she too enjoyed the taste. Anna paid her less now than she had that first day; the woman explained matter-of-factly that she had given Brenda extra because the girl looked sad and she thought they would never see each other again. If Brenda was going to work everyday, she was going to make the same money as all the other farm hands.
Brenda would gladly have paid Anna Grace for the opportunity to work beside her every day, and so accepted whatever Anna saw fit to give her without complaint.
The days turned into weeks, and, much to soon for Brenda’s liking, June came to an end. There was much eager discussion about the festivities planned for the fourth of July. Moonshine and hotdogs and firewood rolled into Tobacco Road, and Jimmy went with a few of the younger men on a run to South Carolina to buy fireworks. Everyone who worked on the farm and their families all planned to attend, and Brenda felt she was about to burst from the excitement. It would be a daylong celebration lasting well into the night, and Jimmy had promised to slip Brenda Leigh some moonshine when Anna wasn’t looking. Darlene was going to visit friends for the night, leaving Brenda to do as she wished, and the freedom that afforded the girl filled her with an unmistakable joy.
The day before the party when Brenda arrived, Anna Grace was sitting in one of the wooden rocking chairs on the porch, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. She offered a wave, and Brenda approached her with a smile on her face.
Anna motioned for her to sit, and she did, offering her thanks when Anna reached over and handed her a cup of coffee. The mug was ceramic and deep red, with a chip in the paint near the lip, and Brenda had begun to think of it as her mug.
“What are we doing today?” Brenda asked, realizing as she spoke that her Georgia drawl had begun to fade in favor of the high-country lilt. The thought made her happy.
“Well, I’ve got to run up to Boone and meet with one of my distributers,” Anna said. The woman paused to take a sip of coffee, allowing Brenda’s heart a moment to expand in her chest as hope filled her. Anna was going up to the mountains, to the place Brenda had dreamed about since her first night in this town. Could it be that Anna wanted her company on the trip?
Anna was watching the girl out of the corner of her clear green eyes the way she sometimes did when she was waiting to see how Brenda would respond to a challenge. Brenda remained quiet, warring with herself. She wanted to ask if she could go, but she didn’t want to impose upon Anna.
“Would you like to go?” Anna asked softly, and Brenda nearly jumped for joy.
“More than anything,” she said emphatically, and Anna laughed.
“In the future, Brenda Leigh, if you want something, just ask for it. The things you want aren’t just gonna fall in your lap.” Her tone was good-natured, not admonishing, but Brenda couldn’t help but feel that the advice Anna had just offered was more than just empty words. The things Anna wanted didn’t just fall into her lap; she had worked for them. She expected the same of Brenda, and the girl wanted nothing more than to be like the dark-haired beauty who had so effectively enraptured her.
They remained on the porch together a while, sipping coffee and watching as the workers arrived for the day, turning Tobacco Road into a buzzing beehive of activity. Jimmy came wandering up the tractor path from the fields, heading for the porch, and Brenda wondered not for the first time where exactly the old man lived. He was always there when Brenda arrived in the mornings, even that one time she got there before the sun rose, and he always remained after she left. It had occurred to her that he might live with Anna Grace, but Brenda had never seen him enter the house.
“Mornin’, Jimmy,” Anna said, and he smiled.
“Mornin’, Anna Grace, Brenda Leigh,” he returned, nodding the way he so often did. “Y’all girls going up the mountain today?” he asked.
Brenda stared at him. Had Anna told him she was taking Brenda? Had she made up her mind before she ever even asked?
Next to her, Anna was still talking with Jimmy. “Yeah, probably leave here in the next few minutes. You ok to run things down here by yourself?”
Jimmy laughed. “I figure I’ll just send everybody on home. Give ‘em the day off. When the cat’s away,” he said, running his bandana over his sweat covered face.
“I bet they’d just love that. No one here to boss them around,” Anna said with a smile, but there was something in her eyes, some sadness, that alarmed Brenda.
“Everyone here would be lost without you!” Brenda said passionately, more intensely than she had meant to, and she immediately blushed scarlet.
Anna cocked her head to the side as she stared at Brenda, looking for all the world as though she were trying to think of something to say. And Anna Grace was never speechless.
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The ride up to Boone would have taken an hour in an ordinary car, but in Anna Grace’s beat-up Chevy truck, it took at least thirty minutes longer than it should have. Brenda Leigh, however, was in heaven, and she fervently wished the trip would never end.
The truck’s windows were rolled down, letting the air blow Brenda’s hair about in her face a curly blond tangle, sunshine warming her skin. She watched the land change, watched the hills give rise to mountains, the road rising up ahead of them like a great black ribbon, the wrapping on a present Brenda had wanted from the moment her feet had touched the ground in this place. The radio in Anna’s truck only picked up one station, country, of course, and Brenda had learned the words to every song over the course of her time at Tobacco Road. She liked the sad ones; Willie Nelson singing Always on my Mind, Ronnie Milsap singing He Got You, and of course I Will Always Love You; but her favorite was Dixieland Delight. Nothing could have made this time more perfect, really. Anna Grace was sitting on the seat next to her, cussing the truck and cracking jokes and running her fingers through her perfect hair that never seemed to be out of place, even with the wind blowing.
The truck had gone quiet and Brenda was so caught up looking at the trees rising around her resplendent in their summer green that she almost didn’t immediately realize it when Anna Grace began to sing along to the radio softly in that same low, smoky voice that warmed Brenda’s heart every time she heard it.
“Sometimes I wait when I really should go,” she sang, “and Lord only knows what I do that for, and when I get home and he holds me close, I try not to think what I'm thinking most.” She stopped short, and Brenda couldn’t help but pick up where she’d left off, singing along with the twangy woman on the radio, “You’re the first time I’ve thought about leaving, and I really don’t know what I’ll do; you’re the first time I’ve thought about leaving him, I’ve never known someone like you.”
They finished the song together, and though her eyes were fixed determinedly on the road ahead, the slightest hint of a smile was tugging at Anna Grace’s lips.
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The distributor Anna needed to talk to turned out to be a portly man with a handlebar mustache and an unpleasant personal smell. There was a wad of dip tucked into his bottom lip, and he occasionally lifted the plastic cup in his hand so he could spit a stream of brown disgustingness into it while he talked. They met him in his warehouse, and he made no secret of the fact that he had absolutely no respect for the two of them.
“Now look here, girl,” he said to Anna as they walked through the warehouse, “You’re charging me too damn much. I know this is your business, but sweetheart you gotta remember that I worked with your daddy for years. We had a good thing going, me and him. And then you went and raised the rates! I know you’ve gotta make ends meet, honey, and I feel for you there, but I do, too, and I can’t keep paying these prices. I’m gonna pay you what I paid your daddy, and not a cent more. And I’ll tell you what else,” he spit, then continued, “I’d be more than happy to take that farm off your hands. It’s a lot of work for a pretty little thing like you, and I’ll pay you twice what it’s worth. What do you think about that?”
He stopped and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, looking thoroughly proud of himself. Anna Grace, however, was wearing an expression that Brenda had only seen on her face a few times before, a stoic, impassive mask that could only mean trouble was coming. The teenager prudently took a step back, and just in time, too, for the second Brenda was out of the way Anna leaned back and smacked the potbellied man so hard across the cheek his dip flew out and landed with a spattering sound on the concrete floor of the warehouse.
“Now, you listen here, boy,” Anna said as he rubbed a hand over his jaw, her voice low and calm as always, “You cheated my father for years because he was sick and tired and old and didn’t know any better. I was willing to overlook that because you’ve been a good partner, and I asked you to pay what everyone else pays. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit here and listen to you call me girl and try to talk me out of business. Tobacco Road is mine, and if you ever drag me all the way up here just so you can pull another stunt like this, you’ll be eating through a straw for the rest of your life.”
She spun on her heel and headed for the warehouse door, Brenda Leigh practically running to keep up, stunned by the display and the quiet danger in Anna’s even voice.
Anna stopped with her hand on the doorknob and looked back over her shoulder at the distributor, whose lip was cracked and bleeding. “Thank you,” she said, “Thank you so much.”
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Brenda had been walking on air for the rest of the afternoon, filled with a sort of pride for Anna Grace and the way she had stood up for herself without hesitation. It was almost as though Brenda herself had been victorious, she was so elated after the confrontation with the insufferable little man. Anna for her part had not gloated. She smiled tolerantly when Brenda spoke of her triumph, but she did admonish her when she felt Brenda was going on about it too much. “I’m not some comic book hero, Brenda Leigh,” she’d said with a bemused sort of expression on her face, “I didn’t save the day. I just did what’s right.”
“Well, I think you’re a hero,” Brenda told her, only realizing once the words were out just how childish they seemed. Anna Grace just kept looking at her like she’d never seen anything quite like Brenda Leigh ever before.
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It was late when Anna’s truck rolled up in front of Darlene’s home, and through the curtains on the windows all Brenda could see was darkness inside. She so badly didn’t want to get out of that truck, to end the glorious adventure that had been her day, but she knew that she had to. She said goodnight to Anna and slid out of the truck, closing the door with a rusty creak behind her. She was halfway to the front door when she heard Anna call her name.
Brenda wheeled around, heart in her throat. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, but she felt suddenly like the heroine in one of the books on Darlene’s shelves. Her mind raced as she wondered what Anna had to say, but she also tried to remind herself not to be ridiculous. It was probably something about the farm, or the party the next night.
“I got you something,” Anna said, climbing out of the truck and reaching behind the front seat to pull out a thin package wrapped in brown paper. “I bought this in that record shop while you weren’t looking. I hope you like it,” she said, walking over to where Brenda stood rooted to the ground.
Brenda reached out and took the record from her, sliding it gently out of its paper cover. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes; she couldn’t help it.
“You’re the First Time I’ve Thought About Leaving,” she said, staring at the record in wonder.
Anna shrugged, looking uncomfortable with the girl’s sudden display of emotion. “I thought you’d like it,” she said, sticking her hands awkwardly in her pockets.
Anna had remembered. They had sung that song together in the truck and Anna had remembered and Anna had bought her the record when she wasn’t looking.
Brenda couldn’t stop herself; she threw her arms around Anna Grace’s neck, careful not to damage her new record, and kissed the older woman on the cheek. Anna tensed for a moment, but then relaxed and hugged the girl back.
“I just wanted to thank you for today,” Anna said in her ear. “I’m glad you were there.”
Brenda couldn’t recall a time in her life when she’d been happier. She did realize, however, that she couldn’t stand there hugging Anna Grace all night, no matter how much she might like to, and so she made to pull away.
Something happened then that she was not expecting.
It was the kind of dark that isn’t dark at all, the moonlight and the stars casting a silver glow through the leaves of the trees, lightning bugs dancing in the air and cicadas singing all around them. Anna’s arms were slung low across Brenda’s back and her face was barely inches from the girl’s, and Brenda found that the last thing she wanted was to step away. If anything she wanted to draw closer, to feel Anna’s arms tight around her, to listen to their hearts beat together. It scared her, this need to be close to Anna Grace; she had never felt this way about anyone, not even the boys she’d dated, and she didn’t know how to explain it.
And then Anna Grace took a deep breath, leaned across the space between them, and kissed her full on the lips.
It wasn’t a quick peck like the one Brenda had left on her cheek, either. It was a real kiss, long and slow, and Brenda had kissed boys before and she figured she knew where this was going. She felt like she’d been struck by lightning; she was terrified that at any second Anna Grace might come to her senses and pull away, she was confused (after all, she’d never kissed another girl before, where the hell had all these feelings come from?) and she desperately wanted to know what Anna Grace tasted like.
Anna seemed to have read her mind, because Brenda could feel the woman’s lips part beneath hers, could feel the brush of her tongue against her lips and Brenda obliged. The feeling was electric and Brenda shivered as their tongues tangled, as Anna’s hands slid down her back to rest on her waist.
And then, as quickly as it had begun, the kiss was over.
Anna practically leapt away from her, gasping and staring at her in something akin to horror.
“A-Anna?” Brenda asked, hating the way her words stuttered, the fear that Anna didn’t feel that way about her now back with a vengeance.
Anna Grace ran her fingers through her perfect hair, and her face assumed a calm, unreadable expression not unlike the one Brenda Leigh had seen just before Anna slapped the fat man with the mustache.
“Go to sleep now, Brenda Leigh,” Anna said finally, offering the saddest of smiles before walking back and climbing inside her truck. Anna started the truck, but waited until Brenda was safely inside before driving off.
Brenda found sleep elusive for most of that night, and when she finally drifted off it was to the sound of a twangy country song and the memory of a soft body, warm against her own.