There would be no more of these jars sitting in our windowsills after Fraya left. She started to make the lotion in her apartment. She had left home and taken her dandelions with her.
Trustin moved into her old bedroom. Flossie complained at first, but she knew Trustin needed space separate from Lint.
With Fraya now gone there was a noticeable absence. Mom tried to fill it by collecting Depression glass she bought for pennies at yard sales. She’d set the glass out in the rooms as if it meant a full house. She started doing other things, too, like making my bed and brushing my hair.
She’d sit on the top step of the back porch while I sat in between her legs, her bare feet on either side of me. For all of her clacking footsteps on the floors in her high heels, I remember my mother barefooted at times the ground seemed to be most dangerous. She was the type of woman to wear high heels on linoleum floor, but go barefoot for a walk across gravel.
While brushing my hair, my mother would either talk or not talk. It was absolute either way. When she didn’t speak, the silence could be crushing. When she did talk, she spoke of things that hit me suddenly, like a punch to the gut.
“I went to the bus stop one day,” she said, pulling the hairbrush through my hair. “It was some years ago. I had bought a one-way ticket to New Orleans. I don’t know why New Orleans. Maybe it was the cheapest route for that day. I don’t remember. What I do remember is that I took a brown bag keepin’ a hard-boiled egg and a bruised apple. To get to my seat, I had to step over vomit in the aisle. Sawdust was everywhere.”
“Sawdust?” I watched a small fly skim across her red-painted toenails.
“Jesus Crimson. They put sawdust on vomit so it don’t move. You’re ten years old now, Betty. You should know these things.”
She laid the brush down and began to rake her fingers through my hair.
“As I was sittin’ on the bus,” she said, “waitin’ for it to take off, I looked up and saw your daddy standin’ at the front of the aisle. The bus was full. I was all the way in the back, so he hadn’t seen me yet. The bus driver was askin’ him for a ticket. Your daddy ignored him, so the driver started to push him off.
“ ‘Get outta here.’ ” She dropped her voice low like the bus driver must have.
“Your daddy wasn’t havin’ none of that. Just as he was throwin’ a punch, he saw me sittin’ by the back window. The punch ended up knockin’ the driver out. Your daddy stepped over him and lumbered toward me. He was barefoot and wearin’ only his hat and a pair of underwear. I remember he was sweatin’ so goddamn much, even though it was January.”
She began to French-braid my hair, pulling it tight enough at the crown to make me wince.
“He handed me a buck,” she said. “One lousy buck.
“ ‘I’m sorry it’s not more,’ he said, ‘but when I saw you come here, all I had to sell was my clothes. It won’t get you far, but it’ll get you farther from here.’
“Before he got off the bus he tossed me his Apache tear.”
She dipped into her bra, pulling something out which her fist was closed around.
“Long ago,” she said, “the Apaches were caught off guard in a surprise attack from the U.S. Cavalry. The tears of the Apache women turned to stone in their hands.”
Mom opened her fingers, revealing a smooth black rock.
“Your daddy got this when we were passin’ through Arizona,” she said. “In your hand it looks like it’s just another black rock. But the light changes it.”
She held the dark rock in the light of the sun.
“Do you see, Betty?” she asked. “How you can see right through it? They say those who have a tear of the Apache will never weep again because the Apache women will cry for them.”
She dropped the rock back into her bra and spit on her hands before rubbing them through the sides of my braid.
“After your daddy gave me the Apache tear,” she continued, “he stood outside on the curb with his dirty hands and his messy hair.
“ ‘He really loves you,’ the hag sittin’ beside me said. ‘Folks think it’s when they beg you to stay, but it’s when they let you go that you know they love you so goddamn much.’
“Do you think that’s true, Betty? What the old hag said?”
“I reckon she wouldn’t have said it if it don’t mean nothin’,” I quickly answered.
I waited for a crow in the woods to stop cawing before I asked her why she didn’t leave.
“You were already on the bus,” I said. “Why didn’t you stay on it and go to New Orleans?”
She chewed the inside of her cheek before telling me to imagine a sheet up on a clothesline to dry.
“The sheet is put there against its will,” she said. “No matter how hard it tries, it cannot free itself from the clothespins bindin’ it. The sheet stays there for years. Over time, its fabric becomes battered and torn by the seasons. The flowers printed on it fade. Then a day comes that’s so stormy, the sheet wonders if it’ll survive.
“One day, though, the sheet got free from its clothespins. The sheet thought it could make it on its own. Then it saw its reflection in a puddle of rain from the storm. The fabric was no longer lovely and all the holes were lettin’ the cold in. The sheet realized it was just another discarded thing by the side of the road. Somethin’ no one could ever care about. But with the clothespins holdin’ it to the line, the sheet could be high above the ground as if it were somethin’ special. Although it would be anchored to the line and never completely free, at least three of its sides would be able to move in the manner of its choosin’.
“That was enough for the sheet so she allowed herself to be blown back to the line and hung up by his pins. The sheet only regrets her choice on good days when anything seems possible. Then comes the bad days when the sheet is glad to be held by the clothespins because who else in this damning world will hold her as tight as him? This sheet, this she—she—” Her voice dropped and she lowered her eyes with it. “Funny that ‘she’ should be in ‘sheet,’ ain’t it? I reckon it’s just another way to lay on a woman and get away with it.”
She raised her eyes to mine and asked, “Betty, do you love me?”
Somewhere a chainsaw was revving up. But I was silent.
“You know, in some cultures, silence is taken as a yes,” she said. “But in most, it’s taken as the opposite. Oh, I’m not surprised you don’t love me, Betty.” She leaned her head against mine. “I’m not surprised because my momma told me I would not find love in this world and this world would not find love in me.”
24
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.
—1 JOHN 1:8
Flossie had been staging plays all of that summer. At first, she thought of holding them on A Faraway Place. She decided she liked the willow tree better because she could stand under the tree’s weeping branches and pretend she was emerging from a stage curtain.
In advance of a new show, she would cut small rectangles out of paper and write on them: ADMIT ONE TO THE GREATEST SHOW IN THIS UNIVERSE OR THE NEXT, STARRING FLOSSIE CARPENTER.
I helped her make these tickets as she memorized her lines from a book of Shakespeare’s plays.
“All great actors start with Shakespeare,” she had said when she staged her first play, which was Hamlet. She played the title role, as well as the supporting cast.
That weekend was to be Romeo and Juliet. I was sitting on the floor of our bedroom writing this on the backs of the makeshift tickets as Flossie lay on her bed, perfecting her dying Juliet. She had draped sheer scarves over the lampshades.
“To set the mood,” she said as her shadow was cast on the wall in the dim light.
She had our hairbrush in her hand and was waving it about.
“O happy dagger.” She used both hands to jab the handle of the brush to
ward her chest. She leaned into it, heaving over and rolling across the bed as she released a handful of cherry sours as if they were her blood. “Oh, pity me. For I am dyin’ now.” She attempted a British accent as she tossed herself around gurgling. Her eyes rolled back as the hairbrush fell out of her hand.
I giggled before noticing Trustin standing in our doorway.
“What’s the matter with Flossie?” he asked.
“She’s dead,” I said.
Flossie slightly opened one eye. She quickly squeezed it shut as Trustin got closer.
“I can see ya breathin’, Flossie,” he said.
“Cannot.” She thrust herself up on her feet and bounced on the bed as she announced, “I play dead as well as a corpse.”
Trustin picked up a cherry sour and plopped it in his mouth. Flossie was still going on about how good she could play dead when Trustin grabbed his throat with one hand and pointed into his open mouth with the other.
“He’s chokin’.” I quickly stood, the tickets spilling from my lap.
Flossie jumped off the bed and slapped him on the back.
“Spit it out, stupid.” She hit him harder.
I smacked him on the back, too, but he fell forward on the bed. He gurgled before going limp. His saliva, colored red by the cherry sour, ran out of the corner of his mouth.
“He’s dead, Betty.” Flossie drew in her breath.
“He’s not dead,” I said, trying to pull Trustin up.
“We’ll have to wrap his body in a sheet to get him out of the house without anybody seein’.” Her eyes were so wide, I thought they were going to pop out of her head. “We’ll bury him by Corncob in the woods.”
“Corncob?” Trustin sat up.
Me and Flossie screamed and jumped back.
“You jerk.” Flossie pulled his hair.
“Ouch.” He slapped her off. “What’d you two do to Corncob?”
“Exactly what we’re gonna do to you, pinecone piss.” Flossie lunged toward him, but he quickly got farther back on the bed. She climbed up after him until they both fell off and landed with a thud at the same time.
“You ain’t gonna have to play dead no more.” Flossie got up with her fists ready. “You’re really gonna get buried this time.”
“Help me, Betty.” Trustin crawled under the bed.
“Leave ’im alone, Flossie.” I tried to block her path.
Trustin shot out into the hall, sliding across it and into the wall. Flossie nearly had him, but I pulled her hair, giving him the chance to escape.
“You’re supposed to be on my side.” She pushed me before storming back into our room.
When I got in there, she was lying on her bed. She had the hairbrush in her hand and was reenacting the death scene once more. I sat on the floor and continued cutting out the tickets. We were great at picking up where we last left off.
Come Saturday, I stood with Flossie behind the curtain of branches at the willow while she rehearsed her lines. Over her shorts and tank top, she wore an outfit she’d sewn herself. It consisted of a long patchwork skirt made out of Mom’s worn aprons. The upper part was fashioned out of an old fruit-printed tablecloth.
“I look all old-timey, don’t you think?” she asked.
For the rest of her costume, Flossie had sewn two lace doilies together to make a glove for her left hand. She also had a cream lampshade. Trustin drew the faces of the play’s major characters around the outside of the shade. When Flossie wasn’t taking on the role of Romeo or Juliet, she would slip the lampshade over her head and play the remaining characters with their faces showing as her own. She deepened or raised her voice accordingly.
She was practicing this as Fraya stepped in under the branches to join us.
“This side of my face is Juliet.” Flossie turned her right cheek toward Fraya and me.
Her right eye was heavy with mascara and she had been generous with the blush and lipstick. She had darkened her brow with eyeliner.
“This side is Romeo.” She showed her unadorned eye. She had no blush on her left cheek and this half of her lips was bare. She’d also pulled her hair back with a clip.
“I hope I don’t die today,” Flossie said. “Like Juliet.”
“Why would you say that?” Fraya asked.
“I haven’t felt well since this mornin’. My stomach hurts.”
“It’s just nerves,” Fraya told her.
I pulled back the tree branches slightly to see that Trustin, Lint, and Dad had arrived with a bowl of popcorn. Even though the show was free and Flossie had handed the tickets out, no one but us Carpenters were in attendance. That didn’t matter to Flossie. She would perform as if she were in front of hundreds.
“I’m ready.” She placed her hands together in front of her. “Open the curtain now, curtain people.” She spoke with an air of aristocracy.
I exchanged a glance with Fraya before we pulled the willow’s hanging branches back, allowing Flossie to emerge onto her stage. Dad immediately clapped while the boys continued to eat popcorn. Once Flossie was in her place, me and Fraya let the branches swing back together so we could take our seats on the grass.
“Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene.”
Flossie had memorized the opening without fault. It was the middle to later part of the play that would give her trouble. With the book open on his lap, Dad fed her lines when she faltered. Despite this, Flossie would oftentimes make up dialogue all her own.
“Oh, Romeo, you look like James Dean.” She kissed her hand passionately. “Oh, your kisses, Romeo, they taste like a soda pop.”
Lint and Trustin both booed as she continued to make out with her hand.
“That’s enough, Flossie.” Dad cleared his throat. He gave her the next line in the play as her cue.
Fraya couldn’t stay the entire time. She had to go back to work. After she left, Lint had more and more difficulty sitting still. Then he noticed he had some wrinkles in his shorts, so he spent the rest of the time using a rock to iron them out. Trustin started to draw on paper he’d brought with him, capturing Flossie on the stage in charcoal. After he rubbed his finger on the paper to give the willow’s branches more movement, he leaned over to whisper to me, “If she slits her throat, I’ll applaud.”
“Slits her throat?” I whispered.
“No.” He shook his head. “I said if she quits this goat.”
Perhaps I had heard him wrong, but only because Flossie had started to slide her fingers across her wrist. It made me think about what Fraya had said.
“I’ll kill myself, and it’ll be all your fault, Betty.”
I lay back and listened to Flossie’s voice float above me. A short while later, Trustin and Lint got up to leave. They had stayed as long as they had promised Dad they would. A monologue later, and Flossie was finally taking her bow. Dad stood and clapped before gathering dandelions to throw at Flossie’s feet.
“Oh, what beautiful roses,” she said as she collected the dandelions into a bouquet.
Dad told us we should take them to Dandelion Dimes and get a treat from Fraya, but Flossie said she wasn’t hungry.
She walked ahead, carrying the bouquet back toward the house, but dropping blossoms along the way to clutch her stomach.
Me and Dad took our time getting back. He had a new letter from Leland.
“It came this mornin’,” Dad said before silently reading.
“What’s it say?” I asked.
“Says he ain’t drivin’ the truck no more. He got carpenter work in Alabama buildin’ church pews. He’s talkin’ an awful lot about that church down there.” He folded the letter. “Sounds like he might make a go in it.”
“What you mean?”
“Sounds like minister talk if I ever heard it.”
“Minister?” I stopped walking. “He can’t be no minister.”
“Well, it’s not the vocation I would pursue.” Dad stopped walking, too. “But if that’s what the boy wants.”
“I mean he can’t be a minister. He ain’t good enough.”
“They teach ya everything you need to know,” Dad said as if thinking of all the lessons himself. “He’ll get good at it.”
“I don’t mean that, Dad. I mean his soul ain’t good enough. God wouldn’t want him.”
“What do you mean, Betty?”
I wanted to tell my father, but I was afraid if I did, Fraya’s blood would be all over my hands.
“Nothin’,” I said. “Never mind.”
I raced ahead, getting in the house before Dad. When I got upstairs, I found Flossie in bed.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
She rolled over and showed the back of her pale yellow shorts. There was a red spot. The sheet beneath her was spotted, too.
“What’d you sit in, Flossie?”
“I didn’t sit in anything, manure face.” She clutched her stomach even tighter.
It was then I realized the thing that Fraya had told us would happen to our bodies had happened to Flossie.
“I thought you’d be happy you started,” I said.
“You ever been happy with a pain in your stomach, Betty?”
“But you wanted the bra and the—”
“I wanted those things for myself. This is forced upon us.”
“Fraya said it don’t hurt that bad.”
“She only said that so we wouldn’t be scared, Betty. Besides, I’m not Fraya. And this ain’t her body. It’s mine.” Flossie glared at me. “And don’t you tell anyone it’s happened. I don’t want ’em thinkin’ they’re gonna look at me any different.”
“Fraya says it means you’re a woman.”
“Why we have to bleed to earn it?” Flossie slammed her fists on the mattress. “What happens when we get old and it stops? What then? We stop bein’ a woman? Ain’t the blood that defines us. It’s our soul.” She held her hand on the bridge of her nose, the exact place Dad always told us our souls were. “Souls don’t have a monthly cycle. Souls just are.” She curled up, holding her stomach. “Do somethin’, Betty. It hurts.”
Betty Page 25