Laurey
Laurey flinched at the sound of Jud's heavy, slow footsteps outside the kitchen door. She glanced at the stairs, but it would have been impossible to go up to her room without making it obvious that she was trying to avoid him.
She'd hardly noticed him when he first came to the farm a few years before, she was still so distraught over her parents' passing away that she didn't leave her room most days. She thought of him as just another hired hand, maybe a little more intimidating and certainly a good deal uglier than the ones they'd employed before. But as the years had gone on, she began to notice the way he looked at her, like she was one of the girls in the filthy pictures he kept on his wall. Or like he wanted her to be a girl like that. And then when she started hearing his footsteps under her window some nights, like he was trying—well, those implications weren't fitting to think of. She hated them, those footsteps that made her skin prickle, that started a low heat deep in her belly. It was a heat she couldn't understand, but every night she locked her door against it.
"Miss Laurey" he inclined his head towards her.
"Hi, Jud" she smiled, but kept her eyes lowered. He cleared his throat as though he had something more to say, as though they ever talked beyond exchanging pleasantries.
"Box Social's comin' up next month."
No. No, no no, that couldn't be what he wanted. He seriously couldn't think she'd go with him— a man who started fights and got drunk, and god only knew what else. Being seen with a man like Jud would be more shameful than even going to the social by herself, let alone with Curly, even if he was just a cowman.
"That right? Can't believe it's June already. Seems like it was winter just yesterday."
"Yeah. S'pose it does. But what I was wonderin' was if you'd—"
"Can you get us some more apples?"
"Huh?'
It wasn't exactly graceful, but it was the first thing she could think to say. "I'm gonna bake a pie, and I need more apples."
"Oh, right. I can do that. I like your apple pies."
"It's for Curly. He just got back from a round-up, so I wanted to make him somethin' special." She thought about clarifying who Curly was, call him her sweetheart out loud for the first time, but that would be needlessly cruel. He hung around the farm often enough that Jud had to know him. And she certainly didn't owe Jud an explanation of their relationship, not when she was still unsure herself.
She supposed that was one positive thing about Curly's acting like her sweetheart—that aura of male protection could keep her safe from men like Jud.
"Right" his voice became softer than she ever heard it. "I'll-I'll go now, then." He took up the basket, comically small in his large hand, and walked out, letting the door slam behind him. Laurey's shoulders straightened the moment she was alone. She wished she could like him better—he took his meals in the house and Aunt Eller would never fire him, he was too good at his job for that. But the gloominess and dirtiness that always clung to him made her skin crawl, made her unable to relax until he was out of her sight.