A True Southern Belle

        Chapter Eleven

   Bella was right.  The river was beautiful. Its bed was made of soft sand and smooth pebbles the size of pennies, all different colors. Most of then were shiny, but a few were duller. The banks were bursting with life: beetles, reeds, and water lilies thrived there. Jason plucked up a water lily and tied it to Charlie's hair after he caught five fish and pushed her in for a catty remark about his fishing abilities. But she'd gotten back at him by hiding under the old wooden dock and grabbing his pants' leg when he leaned over to worriedly look for her. They played like rowdy, carefree children. Charlie couldn't remember the last time she'd  had so much fun with someone, and was surprised this fun was with Jason no less.

  Jason was also surprised to have such a great time with Charlie - and in such a close way. The fact she was a girl was equally flabbergasting.

  After swimming and splashing and talking about fishing - and throwing mud at each other and washing it off  - the two if them lay drying off, partially on the pebbly bank, partially on the grass. Jason had his hat over his face and Charlie was twiddling with and smelling her lily.

  She assumed Jason was taking a nap and sprawled out on her back, looking up at the cloudless blue sky, listening to the chickadees, woodpeckers, bluejays, and cardinals in the forest and meadow nearby. Her hair was still damp whereas his was already dry, except for the few areas still plastered to his forehead, neck, and temples. Their clothes were soaked; the reason they were out in the sub was to dry them. Charlie had long ago taken Bella's boots off, and Jason was letting his dry, after his unexpected swim. (But he couldn't really think Charlie would let him get away with pushing her in. He was going to face some consequences.) Charlie smiled, remembering how she'd dragged him in. Their apparel was molded to their bodies and Charlie, who's shirt was stuck ti her torso, as Jason's was to his, was glad she'd kept her undergarments, from the day before, on. With the exception of her corset.

  Luckily they were made of dressing gown material. Not at all made of the flimsy stuff she generally had to wear for balls and whatnot. It almost looked as if she had on a corset, without the pain of one, or the visibility of not having one.

  The only reason she thought of how fortunate this was, was because she had not intended to go swimming - and still felt she hadn't fully repaid that debt to Jason. It would have been embarrassing to her if she had not been wearing the garments.

"Charlie?" Jason said, startling her. He put his hat on the ground and shifted up on one elbow.

  "Yes?" She copied his posture.

  Jason thought a moment. "You always seem to spit out the word 'girly' or make it sound like an oath or a curse. Why?"

  For a moment, her old fire towards him came back. She wanted to yell that he had no reason to ask her that. But she knew that response would not satisfy his curiosity and would just be a waste of time.

  "Because to me, it is."

   "Why?"

   Charlie sighed and looked away. "You'll laugh at me. Or say I'm crazy. Or stupid or foolish. You are going to laugh at me - look, you're laughing now!"

  "Yes. Because you are assuming things. And you're being ridiculous. I promise I won't laugh." Jason replied, honestly, calmly.

   A change had taken place since she had turned away from him. When she looked back, her eyes were blazing.

  "I can't drink, I shouldn't iwb property, I can't be a soldier, or a politician, I can't live on my own or run a business or work. I can't race Copperfield   without pretending to be something I'm not. I can't say what I really think without editing several words, I can't swear in public, and I can't marry. All because I was born a girl."

  Jason raised a quizzical brow. Charlie smiled a bitter smile.

  "That last can't it my own rule because I refuse to belong to a man, to have him manage my life, my friends, my wardrobe, my activities, mind, and finances, etc. Going to him for money, explaining why I need it - while not being able to know anything about the state if his finances  - finances that should be ours, since I should be on the other half of that marriage. Well... it's just not something I will do. I don't want someone running my life. For fifteen years - almost sixteen - I have gotten along just fine on my own. With a little help from my father, yes. But my sisters each had dowries of eight thousand. I could survive on my own with that much for a year. They spent theirs in a month.

  "I don't want someone interfering with my life. Being an old maid is a sort of heaven all other old maids don't understand." She looked angry. "I can't decide how many children I want or what I want to name them, or how I want to raise them. He'll have to decide that. Mother was lucky that Father wasn't interested in us. I won't... can't marry... I am not about to let someone take over my life."

  Jason grinned and patted her hand. "You've picked the poor thing to pieces." Charlie looked down.

  "Oh." Her anger at her nonexistent husband fled when she realized she'd torn her lily ti pieces during her tirade.

"Back to the conversation, you did not explain  about your other 'can't's.'"

  "I can't do those other things because I'm not a man - since clearly they are too cocky, stupid and set in their ways. They always want to be right and pretend to be overly dominant."

   Jason took thr flower from her hands and threw it away. "I'll try not to be offended by the way you just insulted my masculinity - by defining it by all the things.I am not."

   Charlie laughed.

   "But," Jason said, stretching, putting his hands behind his  head, flopping over onto his back. "I can't marry for the same reason. I refuse to marry a creature who doesn't want or know how to think for itself. I could never devote my life to a fluttering woman who was too unintelligent to the point of not being able to add two and two. That, to me, is like taking care of something worse than a child. And I am too busy looking after my own affairs - and occasionally the affairs of others - to watch my wife's. If a woman can't do something without asking someone else... I won't marry her. If she can't tie her own shie laces, I certainly can't and won't."

   "Oddly enough," Charlie grinned wickedly. "I respect you for that."

   "As I repect you for your choices, and for having a mind - and incredibly intellectual mind at that. Though I shouldn't compliment you as all you do is insult and degrade me.

  "I would be all for letting women run businesses. Many are far more level headed than men and would make superb traders. Yes, Charlie, I have just insulted my own sex. And I support lettinf them wear less painful clothing," he poked her in the ribs, the hard cage of her undergarment not alowing her to feel it at all. "But could you picture your mother reading account books? Could you picture. Or Bella being a doctor? Or any of your sisters doing those things? No? I feel the same."

  Charlie was having laughing fit now, at Jason's tone, and he was laughing with her.

   "I really do have a higher esteem for you now, more than before. I can like you Jason. When you aren't being rude, obnoxious, or belittling me."

   "I like you too, most of the time - but again with the degradation? I've highlighted your... highlights all day, yet all you can do is criticize me."

  "Does it make you feel better when I say that my perspective has changed and you are the only man I've met and all other men are merely boys?"

   "Much better. Thank you, Charlie."

  Jason stood and helped her up. "Come, I'll get you another lily. But please don't kill this one."

    "You kill it the moment you pluck it."

   "Science is a mere technicality."

   "Shut up and get the damn lily, Jason, dear."