“Our secret.” She pinched my knee.
Beanie Jones and Mr. Jones were leaving Morgan Millard just as we were walking in. He was as handsome as she was pretty, but there was a waxiness to his skin and a rubberiness to his lips. Even his thick light brown hair looked fake. It was parted to the side and as neat as a wig.
“Hi, Beanie Jones!” Izzy said. And then she gasped and turned her face into my belly as she remembered the secret of Jimmy and Sheba.
“Hi!” I nervously waved.
“Hello, hello!” Beanie Jones had a too-big smile and she nodded as she examined wigged Sheba, then wigged Jimmy, and lastly, wigged Mrs. Cone.
“Tommy Jones.” Mr. Jones stuck out his hand and shook Dr. Cone’s hand.
“Richard Cone. We’re up the street from you,” Dr. Cone said. He seemed stiff, uncomfortable. Jimmy wandered away and stood at the maître d’ podium with his back to us.
“I’m so glad to finally meet you in person!” Beanie Jones said. “It’s taken a while to meet all the new neighbors, what with people gone for the summer.”
“Thank you so much for the angel food cake!” Mrs. Cone’s voice was higher and more singsong than usual. As if she were overacting in a church play.
“Are you neighbors too?” Beanie Jones put her face so close to Sheba’s, she could have licked her.
“Jenny Johnson. We’re visiting from Newport, Rhode Island.” Sheba’s voice was nasally, low, and filtered through pinched lips. It reminded me of Thurston Howell III’s voice on Gilligan’s Island. Izzy’s head bopped and her lips made a little pfft sound as she tried not to laugh.
“Jenny Johnson, so nice to meet you!” Beanie Jones grinned. Mr. Jones was talking to Dr. Cone, who kept glancing away at Jimmy. “And your husband is?”
“Johnny Johnson,” Sheba said.
The maître d’ approached us with menus. Jimmy lurked behind him. Sheba said to Beanie Jones, “Dahling, it was lovely to meet you and your husband. Do let us know if you’re ever in the Newport area.”
“Yes, I’d love to visit—”
“See you around the neighborhood!” Mrs. Cone cut off Beanie Jones with her overacting voice.
Izzy and I both waved and Dr. Cone shook Mr. Jones’s hand before he followed the rest of us to the table.
After being seated, we looked at each other with pursed lips or big, gaping smiles. No one spoke for a few seconds as Mrs. Cone leaned toward the window and looked out to make sure Beanie and Mr. Jones were gone. When she sat back in her chair and started giggling, we all fell apart laughing. Izzy laughed so hard, she began hiccuping and that made us laugh even more.
Sheba kept the joke going all night. By the time dessert was being served, everyone was talking like Jenny Johnson of Newport, Rhode Island, using words no one in the household used, like trousers and de rigueur and on the contrary, my dear.
When Dr. Cone pulled up the station wagon in front of my house, I thought I might weep. I wanted to stay with everyone, put on that water-soft nightgown, and sleep in Izzy’s plush bed. I wanted to wake up in that house, where I felt like I existed as a real person with thoughts and feelings and abilities.
Mrs. Cone leaned over the seat and gave me a kiss goodbye on the cheek. Then Jimmy leaned over Izzy and kissed the top of my head. Sheba kissed my cheeks and Izzy climbed onto my lap and kissed me all over my face. “Mary Jane, I’m going to miss you SO MUCH!”
“I’ll be back before breakfast on Monday!” I said cheerfully. But I wanted to kiss Izzy all over her face and say the same thing to her.
Sheba got out and stood by the open door. “See you Monday, doll.”
“Can I have my bra?” I whispered. I’d have to put it on before I entered the house.
“Yes!” She dug into her purse and handed it to me.
“I left your nightgown on top of the washing machine, but I never started a load because we were so busy with the books and everything.”
“No, you have to keep it! Take it home with you. It’s yours now!” Sheba leaned in and held me for a second before kissing me again on the cheek.
I watched the car drive away, then I walked to the darkness at the side of the house, out of reach of the porch light. My hands shook as I lowered the straps of the dress and put on my bra. It took a few seconds to get the hooks latched in the back. Once they were fastened, I pulled up the straps of the dress and then walked inside.
8
On Saturday, I helped my mother in the garden. She talked about the neighbors: who she’d seen, who was away at the Eastern Shore or Rehoboth Beach, and who had played in her tennis foursome. This reporting was interrupted periodically by instructions on how to properly deadhead flowers and pull weeds. I listened to all of it, the stories and the directives, but my mind was on the Cones, Jimmy, and Sheba. I felt like the outline of a fourteen-year-old girl pulling weeds and nodding at her mother.
At four o’clock my mother and I changed into dresses. We were due at the Elkridge Club at four thirty. She was meeting friends on the porch for tea and lemonade before our six o’clock dinner reservation with my dad, who had been at the club all day playing golf.
As we were about to walk out the door, my mother looked me up and down. “Mary Jane, is there something you can do with your hair?”
I pushed my hair behind my ears. “Should I put on a headband?”
“Headband, ponytail, braids. Just don’t walk around as if you’re a child with no mother looking after you.”
I ran upstairs, went into my bathroom, and opened the drawer that held my brush, comb, and hair bands. I put on a blue floral headband that matched my light blue dress, and examined myself in the mirror. With my hair pushed back like that, my forehead looked broader, and my dark eyebrows stood out. Just then, I could see that maybe someone might notice me someday: my smooth skin, my wide mouth, my orangey eyes.
“Mary Jane!” my mother called from downstairs. “Do not dillydally!”
My mother and I were silent in the car on the way to Elkridge. Just as we pulled into the lot, she asked, “Have you figured out which club the Cones belong to?”
“Well, Mrs. Cone isn’t Jewish. And Dr. Cone is Jewish, but he’s really a—” I stopped myself before I said Buddhist. My mother might think a Buddhist was worse than a Jew.
“Really a what?”
“Well, he prays but he doesn’t seem so Jewish. And she’s Presbyterian, like us.”
“How do you like that! I wonder how their families deal with that.”
“I’m not sure. Their parents both live in other towns. No one’s around to help.”
“Maybe they don’t want to because it’s a mixed marriage.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I didn’t want to betray Mrs. Cone’s trust and tell my mother that Mrs. Cone’s parents didn’t talk to her specifically because Dr. Cone was Jewish.
“So what is Izzy? Presbyterian or Jewish?”
“I guess she’s both.”
“Does Mrs. Cone take her to church?”
“Mrs. Cone is sick, remember?” The lies came out so smoothly now, I barely thought about them.
“Before. Did she take her to church before?”
“I don’t know, Mom. Right now no one is going to church.”
“Hmm. You’d think with her sick, now would be the time to go to church.”
“I guess.”
“We’ll pray for her tomorrow.”
Lately all my prayers had been for Jimmy to get better and for me to not be a sex addict. “Okay. That would be nice. I’ll tell her on Monday.”
While my mother and her friends drank iced tea and lemonade on the porch, I stared out at the vast green lawn and watched the men play golf. I’d been coming to the club my entire life and had never seen it the way I did that day. What in the past had seemed normal suddenly felt abnormally hushed, quiet, and contained. It was like we were in a play that went on forever and ever without any dramatic tension. The waiters and waitresses, bartenders and busboys at Elkridge were Black men
and women. I’d seen and known many of them since I’d first started walking. But it wasn’t until this day with my mother that I could see myself, my mother, and her friends the way the employees might. What did they think of all these quiet white people? What did they think of the pastel-colored dresses and pants and the hairdos that were frozen in place with Aqua Net and hair bands? What did they think about working in a place that wouldn’t accept them as members?
We’d learned about the civil rights movement in school. It made me feel hopeful, like change was happening all around us. But sitting at Elkridge that day, I felt stuck in a time-warp atrium of segregated politeness.
At dinner that night, my mother told my father about the Cones’ mixed marriage.
“Hm.” My dad sawed off a thumb-size bite of steak. “How can he play golf?”
“How can he play golf?” I repeated. I didn’t understand what golf had to do with it.
“The Jew clubs won’t take him because of his wife. And the normal clubs won’t take him because he’s a Jew.”
When I didn’t answer quickly enough, my mother said, “Your father is speaking to you, Mary Jane.”
“I don’t think Dr. Cone plays golf,” I said. In all my organizing and searching of the Cone house, I’d never seen golf clubs. Even though this was a deflection, it wasn’t a lie.
My dad shrugged. Chewed. Stared down his steak. I forced in another bite of lasagna.
“We’re going to pray for Mrs. Cone on Sunday.” My mother trimmed off a rim of fat from her steak. It looked like a thick white worm.
“Why are all the people who work here Black?” I asked, not looking up from my lasagna.
My mother’s face shot toward me with the speed of a bullet. “What kind of a question is that?”
“Good employees.” My dad put another thumb of steak in his mouth.
“I just mean, well, don’t you think it’s strange that Black people work here but aren’t allowed to join? Why don’t white people work here?”
My mother put down her fork and knife and laid both her palms on the table. “Is this appropriate dinner table talk?”
My dad sawed away at a bloody center bite. “Ted is white.”
“He’s your caddie.”
“Yes, he is.” Dad spoke while chewing.
My mother picked up her fork and knife and went after another worm of fat. “I don’t think this is appropriate dinner table talk.”
“Why don’t you have a caddie who’s Black? Why is the bartender Black but not your caddie?”
My mother put down her fork and knife again. “Mary Jane! What has gotten into you?”
My father stabbed his fork and knife into the meat. He looked directly at me. It was so unusual that I could only look back for a couple of seconds before I turned my head toward my lap. Finally Dad said, “The bartender, Billy, makes the best Manhattan this side of the Mississippi. That’s why he’s the bartender. And Ted is a damn good caddie. If you can find me a Black man who can caddie like Ted, I’ll take him. And if you can find me a white man who can mix a drink like Billy, I’ll take him.” It was the most I’d heard my dad say in a long time, maybe ever. Perhaps it was because we’d never discussed golf or drinks before.
“If Billy wanted to join the club, would you let him?” I looked up from my lap.
“Not up to me.” My father started sawing again. “But the club rules say that no, he can’t join.”
“I don’t approve of this conversation.” My mother had lowered her voice and slitted her eyes. I could tell she was worried someone might overhear us.
“But I will tell you this, Mary Jane”—Dad put another bite in his mouth—“if we had to let another race into the club, I’d rather have a Black than a Jew.”
“Can we please change the topic?” my mother asked.
My father pushed his chair back and sat straighter. “Most Black men know their place. They don’t assume anything. They’re a pleasure to be with. The Jews, now. The Jews think they’re smarter than everyone else. And that makes them unpleasant, untrustworthy, and unreliable.”
I looked back and forth between my mother and father. If you had asked me at the beginning of the summer if I knew my parents well, I would have said yes. But these two people sitting here were utterly foreign to me. In school we’d learned about anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, racism, and the civil rights movement. What we’d never learned was that sometimes ideas of racism and anti-Semitism were sparked to life by the very people you lived with.
“I don’t think it’s right that Black men should have a place to know when they’re around you,” I said. “And Dr. Cone is none of those words you used to describe Jewish people.” My lips quaked. This was the first time I’d ever voiced a disagreement with my father.
Dad turned his head toward me. “You don’t know him, Mary Jane. You work for him.” He went back to his steak.
What my father said about my knowing Dr. Cone stuck in my mind. I did think I knew him. Was I wrong? Was I just an employee to the Cones, and was their affection for me something like my father’s affection for Billy the bartender? Did they only like me when I knew my place?
“Are you done?” my mother asked. She meant was I done talking. And, really, she wasn’t asking.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m done.”
The kids were restless at Sunday school, so my mother started playing “Rise and Shine” on the guitar. I wondered if the Cones would mind if I taught the song to Izzy. Mrs. Cone seemed disapproving of the church and Dr. Cone was a Buddhist Jew. But Izzy would love the rhymes and naming all the animals on Noah’s ark. And Jesus never even got a mention, so maybe they’d think it was okay.
After Sunday school my mother walked home to drop off her guitar and I hurried to choir practice. Mr. Forge, the choir director, rapidly clapped his hands together as I approached. “Hurrah!” he said. “Our greatest voice is here!” He was an enthusiastic man who smiled often and bounced on his toes when he conducted. When I saw Liberace on television, I thought of Mr. Forge. They had a similar exuberance. A like-minded festiveness.
When it was time for the service, I put on my red robe, waited for the other choir members to sit, and then took the empty front-row choir chair beside the pulpit. I watched my mother chat with other mothers as she made her way down the aisle to the second pew from the front. My father slowly stepped behind my mom. His tie knot bulged at his neck.
Usually I listened carefully at church, but that day I drifted in and out. When it was time for the first song, “Dona Nobis Pacem,” Mr. Forge put his pitch pipe to his mouth and played G, the first note. He pointed in order to me, Mrs. Lubowski, and Mrs. Randall. He meant that we three were to sing the opening lines. The song was a canon, a round, and with each additional verse, more voices would be added in until the entire choir was singing.
Mrs. Randall put her hand on her throat and shook her head. She’d been complaining of a cold when we’d first sat down. Mr. Forge nodded at her, and then looked at me and waved his hands upward. I stood, as did Mrs. Lubowski. When directed, I shut my eyes and sang: “Dona nobis pacem pacem, dona nobis pa-a-a-a-cem. . . .” I thought of Jimmy as I sang, and the peace he would feel if his addiction faded away, left his body.
Just as the song was picking up, I looked out at the congregation. My father was staring off into space, as usual. My mother was staring up at me, her head tilted, her mouth closed with a thin-lipped smile.
I looked past my parents, down the aisles, and then my heart flipped around and I almost spit out a burst of laughter. Seated in the back row, in matching black pixie-cut wigs, were Sheba and Jimmy. They had huge smiles painted across their faces and were moving their heads to the music. I could see that Sheba was singing along. She looked far more pleased with me than my mother did. And Jimmy looked totally relaxed and joyful. Like this was a space where he didn’t think about doing drugs or breaking dishes or throwing books.
When the song was over, I smiled at them. Sheba lifted her hands an
d gave me a silent applause. Jimmy lifted one fist and mouthed, Right on!
Sheba and Jimmy snuck out before the service ended. As I walked home with my parents, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way they had looked at me while I sang: as if I mattered, as if I were seen. My father wasn’t talking, as usual, but I didn’t feel the weight of his silence. My mother was talking, as usual, but I could barely hear her palaver.
Mom was making a pork roast for dinner that night. I paid close attention so I could make it for the Cones on Monday. I wondered if they had a meat thermometer; I couldn’t recall seeing one during my many organizing and cleaning sprees.
After I set the table, I stood alone in the dining room and looked at President Ford on the wall. The words sex addict knocked around my head, like my brain wanted to put the worst thing I could think of in front of the face of our president.
“Mary Jane!” my mother called.
I went to the kitchen and put on the yellow quilted oven mitts I’d gotten for Christmas last year. Together, my mother and I placed all the food on the table: pork roast, mashed potatoes, buttered peas and carrots, Bisquick rolls and butter.
My mother sat and put her napkin in her lap. I sat and put my napkin in my lap. We both looked in the direction of the living room, where my father was in his chair, reading the Sunday paper.
“I don’t know why they sing songs from that Jesus Christ Superstar.” My mother was referring to the third song we’d sung, “Hosanna.” She didn’t like Jesus Christ Superstar, though she’d never seen it. I hadn’t seen it either, but we had the record from the Show Tunes of the Month Club. When I played it, I had to turn the volume real low.
“I think if you heard the whole record, you’d like it.”
“Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar. What are people thinking? They don’t show respect for the church.”
I remembered Sheba’s and Jimmy’s faces one night when we sat in the car and sang Godspell songs. They both knew all the words to every song. Jimmy was so into it, he lifted his foot and stubbed out the joint into the tread of his sandal. And I could tell by the way Sheba shut her eyes at certain lines that she respected the church.
Mary Jane Page 13