“We have an uncle in Byler,” Liz said.
“I think we’d better call him,” the clerk said.
After talking to Uncle Tinsley, the clerk ordered us each a ginger ale that came with a maraschino cherry, as well as a plate of little sandwiches—turkey, shrimp salad, cucumber—with the crusts cut off, and we ate them at a tiny table in the enormous column-filled lobby. An ambulance had arrived at the back entrance for Mom, the clerk told us, and the doctor had helped her into it. The bellboy brought our suitcases down, and after we finished our sandwiches, we sat there waiting. The clerk kept coming over to see if we were all right. As the hours passed, the bustling lobby grew quieter, and by the time Uncle Tinsley showed up, pushing through the revolving doors just before midnight, it was deserted except for our new friend the clerk straightening things up behind the counter and a janitor polishing the marble floor with a big electric buffing machine.
Uncle Tinsley’s footsteps echoed off the high ceiling as he walked through the lobby toward us. “I was hoping to see you again,” he said, “but I never imagined it would be this soon.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mom had me a little worried, but to be honest, I was relieved to be back in Byler. I hadn’t been looking forward to moving to New York City, where, according to Uncle Tinsley, if you screamed for help, all people did was close their windows.
After a couple of days, Mom called. She was feeling a lot better. She’d had a little bit of a meltdown, she admitted, but that was due to the stress of going back to Byler after all those years. She talked to Uncle Tinsley, and they decided that what made the most sense was for Liz and me to stay in Byler for the time being. Mom said she would go on to New York by herself, and once she’d gotten settled in, she would send for us.
“How long do you think it will take Mom to get settled in?” I asked Liz.
We were getting ready for bed, brushing our teeth in the birdwing bathroom. To save money on toothpaste, Uncle Tinsley mixed together salt and baking soda. Once you got used to the taste, it did make your whole mouth feel well scrubbed.
“There’s getting settled in,” Liz said, “and then there’s getting a grip on things.”
“How long will that take?”
Liz rinsed and spit. “We might be here a while.”
The next morning, Liz told me she hadn’t slept all that well because she’d been thinking about our situation. It was entirely possible, she said, that for whatever reason, Mom wouldn’t be ready to send for us by the time summer was over. That would mean we’d go to school here in Byler. We didn’t want to be a burden to Uncle Tinsley, who was clearly set in his widower ways. Plus, although he lived in a grand house and his family used to run the town, the collars of his shirts were worn through and he had holes in his socks. It was obvious his tight budget didn’t include providing for the two nieces who’d shown up on his doorstep unannounced and uninvited.
“We need to get jobs,” Liz said.
I thought that was a great idea. We could both babysit. I might be able to make some money delivering Grit magazine, like I had in Lost Lake. We could mow lawns or pick up branches in people’s yards. Maybe we could even get store jobs working cash registers or bagging groceries.
At breakfast, we told Uncle Tinsley about our plan. We thought he’d love the idea, but as soon as Liz started explaining, he began to wave his hands as if to dismiss the whole thing. “You girls are Holladays,” he said. “You can’t go around begging for work like a couple of hired hands.” He dropped his voice. “Or coloreds,” he added. “Mother would roll over in her grave.”
Uncle Tinsley said he believed that girls from good families needed to develop discipline, a sense of responsibility for themselves and their community, and they got that by joining church committees or volunteering as candy stripers at the hospital. “Holladays don’t work for other people,” he said. “Other people work for Holladays.”
“But we might still be here when school starts,” Liz said.
“That’s a distinct possibility,” Uncle Tinsley said. “And I welcome it. We’re all Holladays.”
“We’ll need school clothes,” I added.
“Clothes?” he said. “You need clothes? We’ve got all the clothes you need. Follow me.”
Uncle Tinsley led us up the stairs to the little maids’ rooms on the third floor and started opening musty trunks and cedar-lined closets stuffed with mothball-smelling clothes: fur-collared overcoats, polka-dotted dresses, tweed jackets, ruffled silk blouses, knee-length pleated plaid skirts.
“These are all of the finest quality, hand-tailored, imported from England and France,” he said.
“But Uncle Tinsley,” I said, “they’re kind of old-timey. People don’t wear clothes like this anymore.”
“That’s the shame of it,” he said. “Because they don’t make clothes like this anymore. It’s all blue jeans and polyester. Never worn a pair of blue jeans in my life. Farmer clothes.”
“But that’s what everyone wears today,” I said. “They wear blue jeans.”
“And that’s why we need to get jobs,” Liz said. “To buy some.”
“We need spending money,” I said.
“People think they need all sorts of things they don’t really need,” Uncle Tinsley said. “If there’s something you really need, we can talk about it. But you don’t need clothes. We have clothes.”
“Are you saying we’re not allowed to get jobs?” Liz asked.
“If you don’t need clothes, you don’t need jobs.” Uncle Tinsley’s face softened. “You do need to get out of the house. And I need to concentrate on my research. Take the bikes, go into town, visit the library, make friends, make yourselves useful. But don’t forget, you’re Holladays.”
Liz and I walked up to the barn. We’d had a hot spell recently, but an early-morning shower had brought some relief, and the wilting butterfly bushes had sprung back to life.
“Uncle Tinsley’s wrong,” Liz said. “We do need to get jobs. And not just for clothes. We need our own money.”
“But Uncle Tinsley will get mad.”
“I think Uncle Tinsley doesn’t really mind us getting jobs,” Liz said. “He just doesn’t want to know about it. He wants to pretend we’re all still living back in the day.”
Uncle Tinsley had patched the flat tire on the bike he’d ridden as a kid. It was a Schwinn, like Mom’s, only it was a guy’s bike and it was blue, with a headlight and a saddlebag. Liz and I got the bikes out of the garage and rode into town to look for work.
We had forgotten that it was the Fourth of July. A parade was getting under way, and people were lined up along Holladay Avenue, entire families sitting in folding chairs and on the curb, eating Popsicles, shading their eyes against the bright sun, and waving enthusiastically as the Byler High School band marched along in red-and-white uniforms. It was followed by the pom-pom-waving cheerleaders and baton-twirling majorettes, red-coated foxhunters on horseback, a fire truck, and a float with waving women in worn sequined gowns. Finally, a group of older men in a variety of military uniforms turned up the avenue, all of them looking very serious and proud, those in the lead using both hands to hold big American flags out in front of them. Right in the middle of the group was Uncle Clarence, dressed in a green uniform, moving stiffly and looking a little short of breath but keeping pace. As the flags passed, most of the people in the crowd stood up and saluted.
“Here come the patriots,” Liz whispered in that sarcastic tone she’d picked up from Mom.
I kept quiet. Mom, who’d gone to antiwar rallies where protesters burned flags, had been telling us for years about everything wrong with America—the war, the pollution, the discrimination, the violence—but here were all these people, including Uncle Clarence, showing real pride in the flag and the country. Who was right? They both had their points. Were they both right? Was there such a thing as completely right and completely wrong? Liz seemed to think so. I usually had pretty strong opinions, but now I wasn
’t so sure. This was complicated.
When the parade passed, the people in the crowd started folding up their chairs and spilling onto Holladay Avenue. We walked along pushing our bikes. Ahead, we saw the Wyatts coming up the street. Joe was carrying Earl, who held a little American flag. Uncle Clarence had medals above the breast pocket of his green uniform, and he wore one of those skinny army caps with patches and pins covering both sides.
“I do love Independence Day,” Aunt Al said after giving us both hugs. “Reminds you how lucky we are to be Americans. When my Truman comes home, he’ll be marching alongside Clarence in that parade.”
“But he’s thinking of reenlisting,” Joe said.
“Why?” Liz asked. “We’re losing the war.”
“We’re losing the war here at home with all these goddamned spoiled draft-dodging protesters,” Uncle Clarence said. “We’re not losing the war over there. Our boys are just trying to figure out how to win. They’re doing a hell of a fine job. Truman himself says so.” He turned on his heel and stalked off.
“I didn’t mean to upset him,” Liz said. “Doesn’t everyone know we’re losing?”
We all started walking up Holladay Avenue toward the hill. “People have different views,” Aunt Al said. “It’s a touchy subject around here. There’s a tradition of service in these parts. You do what your country asks you to do, and you do it with pride.”
“I’m enlisting when I graduate,” Joe said. “Not waiting to be drafted.”
“My Clarence was in Korea,” Aunt Al went on. “So was your daddy, Bean. Got the Silver Star.”
“What’s that?”
“A medal,” Aunt Al said. “Charlie was a hero. He ran out into enemy fire to save a wounded buddy.”
“You’re enlisting?” Liz asked Joe.
“That’s what guys around here do,” Joe said. “I want to fix helicopters and learn to fly them, like Truman.”
Liz stared at him in disbelief, and I was afraid she was going to say something sarcastic, so I changed the subject. “We’re going to go looking for jobs,” I told Aunt Al.
“That’s a tall order,” she said. There was not a lot of work around Byler these days, she explained. The folks on the hill sure didn’t have money to spare. She and Clarence couldn’t even afford a car, and neither could a lot of the neighbors. Over on Davis Street and East Street, where the doctors and the lawyers and the judges and the bankers lived, most people had coloreds who did the cooking and washing and gardening. However, there were retired folks around town who may have the odd job or yard work.
“Sometimes I get little jobs, but I make more money selling fruit and scrap metal,” Joe said.
“Still,” Aunt Al added, “you might land something, God willing and the creek don’t rise.”
Liz and I spent the next couple of days knocking on doors all over Byler. Most of the folks on the hill apologetically explained that in times like these, they were lucky if they could pay their bills each month. They couldn’t afford to fork over hard-earned cash to kids for jobs that they could do themselves. Our luck wasn’t much better at the fancier houses on East Street and Davis Street. A lot of times, black maids in uniforms answered the doors, and some of them seemed surprised when they learned we were looking for the kind of work they were doing. One older lady did hire us to rake her yard, but after two hours’ work she gave us only a quarter each, acting like she was being extravagantly generous.
At the end of the second day, Liz decided to check out the Byler Library and I rode over to the Wyatts’ to tell Aunt Al that the job search wasn’t going so well.
“Don’t be discouraged,” she said. “And wait right here. I got a surprise for you.” She disappeared down the hall and came back with a ring box. I opened it, and hanging from a little red, white, and blue ribbon was a star-shaped medal.
“Charlie Wyatt’s Silver Star,” she said.
I picked up the medal. The star was gold and had a small wreath in the middle surrounding a tiny second star that was silver. “A war hero,” I said. “Did he have a lot of war stories?”
“Charlie was quite the talker, but one thing he never did like to talk about was how he got this Silver Star. Or, for that matter, anything about that danged war. Charlie never wore that star, and he never told people about it. He saved one buddy, but there were plenty others he couldn’t save, and it weighed on him.”
Little Earl, who was sitting next to Aunt Al, stretched out his hand, and I passed the medal to him. He held it up, then put the star in his mouth. Aunt Al took it back, polished it with her dish towel, and passed it to me. “Uncle Clarence was keeping this in memory of his kid brother. But it’s yours now.”
“I don’t want to take it if it’s important to Uncle Clarence,” I said.
“No,” Aunt Al said. “We talked, and Clarence thought about it and decided that Charlie would want his little girl to have it.”
Charlie and Clarence had always been close, Aunt Al went on. Their parents were sharecroppers who had been killed in a tractor accident. It happened one night when they were trying to bring in the tobacco crop during a big storm and the tractor turned over on a hillside. At the time, Charlie was six and Clarence was eleven. None of their relatives could afford to feed both boys, and since Charlie was too young to earn his keep, no one wanted him. Clarence told the family taking him in that he would do the work of two hands if they took Charlie as well. The family agreed on a trial basis, and Clarence worked himself to the bone, dropping out of school to take on the responsibilities of a full-grown man. The brothers stayed together, but those years hardened Clarence, and when he went to work at the mill, most of the women thought he was downright mean.
“I saw the hurt orphan inside the bitter man,” Aunt Al said. “Clarence just wasn’t used to being cared for.”
“I should thank him for the star,” I said.
“He’s out tending to his garden.”
I walked through the Wyatts’ small, dark living room, which was behind the kitchen, and out the back door. Uncle Clarence, wearing a battered straw hat, was kneeling in a few dirt rows of green beans, staked tomatoes, and cucumber vines, working a trowel around the base of the plants.
“Uncle Clarence,” I said. “Thank you for giving me my dad’s Silver Star.”
Uncle Clarence didn’t look up.
“Aunt Al said you two were close,” I added.
He nodded. Then he put the trowel down and turned toward me. “Damned shame about your momma going crazy,” he said, “but that woman should have the word ‘trouble’ tattooed on her forehead. Meeting your momma was the worst thing that ever happened to your daddy.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Liz and I continued our job hunt the next day. Most of the houses in Byler were old, both the grand ones and the dinky ones, but late in the afternoon, we turned down a street that had newer ranches and split-levels with breezeways and asphalt driveways and little saplings surrounded by pine-needle mulch. One of the houses had a chain-link fence around the front yard with a bunch of hubcaps hanging on it. A shiny black car was parked in the driveway and a man had his head under the hood, fiddling with the engine, while a girl sat in the driver’s seat.
The man shouted at the girl to turn the engine over, but she gave it too much gas and when the engine roared, he jerked his head up, banging it on the hood. He started cussing loudly, yelling that the girl was trying to kill him, and then he turned around and saw us.
“Sorry, ladies. Didn’t know you were there,” he said. “I’m trying to fix this damned engine, and my girl here’s not being much help.”
He was a big man. Not fat, just big, like a bull. He pulled up his T-shirt and used it to wipe his face, exposing his broad, hairy belly, then wiped his hands on his jeans.
“Maybe we can help,” Liz said.
“We’re looking for work,” I said.
“That so? What kind of work?”
The man walked over to where we were standing. His walk was lumbe
ring but also strangely light-footed, as though he could move very quickly if he needed to. His arms were thick as hams, his fingers were thick, too, and his neck was actually thicker than his head. He had short blond hair, small but very bright blue eyes, and a broad nose with flaring nostrils.
“Any kind of work,” Liz said. “Yard work, babysitting, housecleaning.”
The man was looking us up and down. “I haven’t seen you two around before.”
“We’ve only been here a few weeks,” I said.
“Your family move here?” he asked.
“We’re just kind of visiting,” Liz said.
“Kind of visiting,” he said. “What’s that mean?”
“We’re staying with our uncle for a while,” I said.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Well, we’re just spending the summer with him,” Liz said.
“We were born here,” I said. “But we haven’t been back since we were little.”
Liz gave me the look that said I was talking too much, but I didn’t see how we were going to get jobs if we didn’t answer the man’s questions.
“Oh, really?” he said. “And who’s your uncle?”
“Tinsley Holladay,” I said.
“Oh, really?” he said again, leaning in like he was suddenly interested. He was so big that when he got close and looked down on us, it felt like he was swallowing up the sky. “So you’re Tinsley Holladay’s nieces?” He smiled, as if the idea of that was amusing. “Well, Tinsley’s nieces, do you have names?”
“I’m Liz, and this is my sister, Bean.”
“Bean? What kind of name is that?”
“A nickname,” I said. “It rhymes with my real name, Jean. Liz is always rhyming and giving things her own names.”
“Okay, Liz and Bean-rhymes-with-Jean, I’m Jerry Maddox. And that’s my girl, Cindy.” He motioned at her with his finger. “Cindy, come over here and meet Tinsley Holladay’s nieces.”
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