Secret Lives

by Amoss, Berthe;

  “Lavender means grieving. Nothing wrong with grieving when the time comes.”

  “Yes, but Aunt Eveline and Aunt Kate are always grieving—they’re always mourning for somebody! They start off in black, which has to be worn exactly one year for fathers, mothers, husbands, or wives, six months for sisters and brothers, and three for cousins, then they ‘go into lavender,’ and they never do get past lavender to real colors before black sets in again!”

  Nini laughed at me. “Your Aunt Eveline was young once—just like you—and your mama—and she had a laugh like this.” Nini tapped a crystal glass with a spoon. “Until—but if you want to stand there gabbin’, hand me that polish and here’s your cloth, and we’ll get this silver shining before Holly comes.”

  The very thought of her granddaughter put Nini back in a good humor, but I was tired of hearing about Holly since I had never even seen her. I gobbled my peanut butter, mayonnaise, and banana sandwich, rubbed one spoon, and went upstairs to draw.

  I started off drawing clothes for Jane Whitmore. I remembered a snapshot Aunt Kate has of my mother that she keeps in her tin box of souvenirs. In the snapshot, my mother is waving from the deck of the ship that took her across the ocean. She is wearing a fur coat, and a hat so low on her forehead that her face is in shadow. I drew a cloche hat for Jane Whitmore.

  It bothers me that I have to look at pictures to know what my mother looked like and ask other people to tell me about her. I wish I could remember her for myself, but I can’t remember anything before my sixth birthday—nothing about my mother, my father, or the hurricane. It doesn’t bother me as much about my father. I guess I miss him. I know I would if I could remember him, but it’s as though my memory was born the day I sat down at the heavy oak table at Three Twenty Audubon Street and saw a pile of neatly wrapped birthday presents surrounded by a garland of butterfly lilies and four-o’clocks. I remember exactly that one of my presents was a lace-trimmed handkerchief with A embroidered in the corner and a paper sticker that said PURE IRISH LINEN. Everything that happened before that is lost, as though the tidal wave had swept it away with our house. A terrible dream about the wave comes again and again, so real I can’t tell if it’s a nightmare or a memory.

  Suddenly, I realized I had stopped drawing clothes for Jane Whitmore and was drawing male profiles, and, yes! there he was, Edmond Hilary de St. Denis, cleft chin, blue, steady eyes (or eye, I should say, since it was his profile), sensitive mouth, and short straight nose. He was absolutely beautiful, the best thing I had ever done. I pulled out a Photoplay magazine from the stack I have, ripped the inside out, and pasted the tops and bottoms of the cover to form an envelope. I hid Edmond inside and slid the cover in between two other Photoplays.

  I heard Aunt Eveline coming out of her room, so I quickly slid Jane Whitmore and her new clothes into the envelope with Edmond and picked up a book.

  When Aunt Eveline came in I asked, “Aunt Eveline, did my mother learn a lot in Florence?”

  “Oh, yes! She loved Florence, and her professor considered her most talented. Most talented!”

  “I wish I had one of her paintings.”

  “Unfortunately, dear, she did her mature work in Honduras and her watercolors were all lost in the hurricane when your house was washed away. Naturally, your father only had time to try to save you and your mother. We have only her early watercolors! Exercises, really.”

  I had seen the exercises in a box in the attic.

  “All of the good ones were lost?” I asked. “Every single one?”

  “I’m so sorry, dear! But—well—as a matter of fact, I do have one! Yes, one. In my armoire. I’ll get it.”

  Just like that! I followed Aunt Eveline into her room. It was a place I seldom entered. There was not a trace of cloves. Only fresh air and the expensive scent of Roget and Gallet soap, Aunt Eveline’s one concession to luxury.

  Aunt Eveline opened the heavy armoire door, and I saw a pile of watercolor papers neatly stacked on a shelf. Aunt Eveline picked up the top one and then, noticing for the first time that I was standing right behind her, she quickly closed the door.

  “Here, dear. Your mother did this.”

  I held a landscape of the lagoon in Audubon Park. The colors were pastel and overlapped in some places, blending together into deeper shades that gave me the feeling I could walk right into the painting. It was a fresh and happy watercolor, a moment caught forever by an artist who knew how to paint.

  “Oh,” was all I said.

  “You don’t like it?” Aunt Eveline asked anxiously.

  “I love it,” I said unhappily. “It’s just that—I’ll never be that good.”

  “Of course you will, my dear! You have her talent and you will get training—the very best. Don’t forget, this is your mother’s mature work, at the peak of her power. She didn’t do anything as finished as this at your age.”

  “Could I have it?”

  Aunt Eveline hesitated only a minute before saying, “Of course, my dear. We’ll have it framed.”

  Chapter IV

  The day after Aunt Eveline gave me my mother’s watercolor, we had dancing school.

  “No, no, no!” Miss Rush clapped her hands to stop Miss Morrison at the piano. “Sandra Lee! Listen! And one and two and one and two—and one . . . Now, begin! And one . . . Sandra Lee, no!” Miss Rush looks at arms and hands, feet and legs. No amount of lash-batting and nose-twitching diverted her attention from Sandra Lee’s jerky hands and stubby feet moving in opposition to the rhythm of the music.

  I loved the dumb look on Sandra Lee’s face.

  Miss Rush turned away from Sandra Lee. “All right, Miss Morrison, begin again. And one and two and—good, Addie!”

  Sandra Lee continued to fight the music and the tears forming in her eyes. It would be different Friday night when we have ballroom dancing with boys. The boys love Sandra Lee. They don’t notice her hands and feet; they fall for all her fakiness. Harold always asks her a week in advance for the contest. She doesn’t know what it’s like to have to duck in the back before the contest starts, or talk with another girl, laughing and pretending you don’t want a partner.

  Prominent among the wallflowers is Denise, who, when bent like the letter C, remains four inches taller than the tallest boy; Elizabeth, who wears glasses as thick as Coke bottles; and me, shaped like a pencil. Our personalities, no matter how jolly we make them, do not make up for the physical realities—nor for Aunt Eveline.

  “Aunt Eveline, no one will wear a dress like this!” I was standing on a box while Aunt Eveline pinned the hem up.

  “That’s just it! This dress is an original Lily Dior. Your mother wore only lovely things, and, in its day, this dress was all the rage. You don’t want to look like everyone else at dancing school, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, Adelaide, what makes you interesting is being different from others. Being yourself.”

  “Sandra Lee isn’t different. She’s more like everyone else than anyone I know and she’s popular.”

  “I’m sure you’re popular, too, dear.”

  “I’m not! Tom is the only one who dances with me, and he just does it because the teachers make him. Half the time I don’t get a partner for the contest, and I have to pretend I love talking to Denise and Elizabeth. We laugh and act like we’re having so much fun, and the teachers come over and ask how our parents are. Aunt Eveline, what can I say to make the boys like me?”

  “Just be yourself, dear. Boys will like you. After all, you don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry crazy about you.”

  “Yes, I do!”

  “Addie, that’s common. Now, hold still while I pin this hem.”

  “Aunt Eveline, did my mother have a lot of boyfriends?”

  “Certainly not!” Aunt Eveline exclaimed, shocked. “She had many male acquaintances, but her only ‘boyfriend,’ as you so quaintly put it, was your dear father. There now,” she added, standing back.

  I looked at myself in the m
irror. The dusty-rose gown gave my skin a sallow color. The V-neck, decorated by a huge rhinestone brooch, showed that my chest was only a chest, and the accordion pleats, hanging from my shoulders to the floor without a ripple, proved there were no curves anywhere. I might just as well have been a boy. Please, Lord, let me develop, just a little. I promise I will never . . .

  “Perfect! Simply elegant!” exclaimed Aunt Eveline. Was she blind? Was I missing something? I looked again, and there, reflected behind me, was Sandra Lee, with an expression on her face that told me everything I feared was true.

  “Aunt Eveline,” I said, “thank you so much! It’s just perfect! It’s not every little girl who can wear a Lily Dior to dancing school!”

  Sandra Lee’s expression faltered. That girl was dumb! You could make her think anything.

  “It looks Grecian, don’t you think?” I said gaily to Aunt Eveline, ignoring Sandra Lee. I swung around, hoping to create a swirling effect, but the stubborn pleats only buckled slightly and then fell into permanent straightness.

  “Not Grecian. Venetian,” said Aunt Kate from the hall.

  “Venice?” asked Aunt Eveline, puzzled.

  “Blind. Venetian blind,” said Aunt Kate, toddling on down the hall to the Glorious Mysteries.

  It was too great an effort to pretend anymore. I made up my mind that I would at least do away with the shield that passed for a brooch. As I pulled the Lily Dior over my head, I caught a whiff of the perfume that clings to all of my mother’s things. My mother had worn this dress, but on her it must have revealed, in a modest way, of course, her tiny waist and curves.

  “God’s nightgown!” said Tom on Friday night. One of the chaperones had pried him loose from the wall and shoved him in my direction in the middle of the third dance. He pulled me to the dance floor, and holding me as though I were contagious, started shouting to overcome the noise of the piano and the distance separating us. “Your dress looks like a nightgown! It is a dress, isn’t it?” he yelled, swooping me across the floor in a giant box step.

  “It’s a Lily Dior,” I whispered.

  “A what?”

  “A Lily Dior.” If I spoke low enough maybe he’d notice that the whole dancing school could hear him.

  “Somebody doesn’t know the difference between night and day! Did you finish Lad?”

  “I’m not deaf, Tom,” I said, giving up, and shouting back. “I’ll bring it back tomorrow. Do you mind if I borrow the next one?”

  “You can read them all. Doesn’t Pumpkin remind you of Lad? I’m training Pumpkin to be just like him. She’ll . . . ”

  But the piano stopped, releasing Tom from dancing and conversation, and he retreated to the wall in mid-sentence. Holding my head like Jane Whitmore, I marched toward the back room, trying not to look abandoned.

  “Stuck-up!” Harold hissed at me.

  “So what?” I snapped back. Let him be in love with Sandra Lee, I didn’t care. Not one of those boys even vaguely resembled Edmond. Tom least of all, with his freckles and straw hair and long, skinny arms and legs. He only danced with me because his mother was a friend of my family, and she told him he had to. I didn’t care if any of those boys liked me or not. Especially Harold.

  “Addie, what are you doing back here?” Miss Rush came in just as Edmond was about to discover me, dressed in my simple white dress.

  “Uh, nothing.”

  “I saw you dancing with Tom. He’s a nice boy, isn’t he?”

  “His mother or somebody probably made him.”

  “Told him to dance with you? Nonsense! He chose you.”

  I refused to answer such an obvious lie. I guess Miss Rush saw I was close to tears, because she turned sincere.

  “Addie, dear, don’t worry if no one asks you for the contest. You’re going to be lovely when you grow up! How well I remember your beautiful mother! And—and, I’m going to speak to Eveline about your clothes—now! Good heavens!” Words failed her as she contemplated the Lily Dior.

  “It’s a Lily Dior,” I said timidly.

  “It’s terrible. But you! Those eyes and that figure!”

  Family Nose, I thought. What figure?

  “Eveline told me you like to draw. Are you going to be an artist?”

  “Maybe.” I hate conversations with grown people where they pretend to be interested in me. “Miss Rush, I’m going home now.”

  “Oh, no, dear! You can’t leave before your Aunt Toosie comes for you!” she said in alarm. “I’ll call you the minute she gets here.”

  I don’t like pity, either, so I didn’t say anything, but when Miss Rush gave up and went back to judge the contest, sure to be won by Sandra Lee and dumb Harold, I slipped out the back into the warm, moist air and moon-cloudy night.

  When I got home, crawled into bed, and tried to enter into my secret life, Aunt Eveline came in, supposedly to tuck me in, but actually to pry out of me why I’d left dancing school before Aunt Toosie came.

  “What’s wrong, dear?” she said a million times in tragic tones. “Is it your mother?”

  “No,” I snapped. “It is not my mother or anything else. Everything is fine and I am sleepy. Good night.”

  I rolled over, making further conversation impossible, and she finally left.

  “Jane! Jane, my darling!” Edmond whispered lovingly to me, but I was too tired to answer, and fell asleep, straight into my giant-wave nightmare. It begins with Fear. Just the feeling. I don’t know why I’m afraid and I try to figure out what is terrifying me. Then I hear it—a great roaring noise coming closer, and I know it is the sound of a tidal wave twenty feet, fifty feet high, rolling in out of the Gulf of Mexico. I try to run but my legs go in movie slow motion. It is too late to get away. I see the wave coming toward me, towering over my head, cresting and breaking with a mighty crash, swallowing me into its green underbelly. I look up through miles of transparent water, unable to move my arms or legs. I know my mother is near, but if I open my mouth to call, I’ll swallow water. I hold my breath until real panic and the need to breathe wake me, gasping for air and sobbing with relief.

  Chapter V

  Addie! Addie! Is Pumpkin with you?”

  “No,” I said, desperately trying to remember exactly what I’d done when I left the shed before school. I was sure I’d closed the gate we keep across the door—wasn’t I? “I’m positive I closed the gate,” I said, not positive.

  “No use what you did, child.” Nini had come out on the porch. “Tom, your Uncle Malvern done let Pumpkin out first thing this morning. Came in this yard with a handkerchief tied round his face like a thief mask! ‘Nina!’ he say. Can’t never get my name straight. ‘Gotta borrow this here dog for a few years!’ He laughed like he’s making a big joke. ‘Mr. Malvern,’ I say, ‘I wouldn’t mess with Pumpkin if I was you.’ ‘But you ain’t me,’ he say, ‘and you ain’t allergic to dog hair.’ So he goes in the shed and next thing I know, he’s running out, yelling he been bit and he can’t breathe, and Pumpkin is a-chasing him and I ain’t seen Pumpkin since.”

  Tom didn’t say a word. He turned and ran to his house. I ran after him. I caught up outside Uncle Malvern’s door. Uncle Malvern was standing there saying, “Shore sorry, boy. Didn’t mean for her to get away. Thought I’d take her to a place I know in the country for a day or so. Country air, ya know. A dog needs country air.”

  Tom’s fist was clenched and I’m not sure what he would have done. We heard a bark. There was no mistake. It was Pumpkin. Tom took the back steps, using the handrail to swing himself down in two leaps, and I found him hugging Pumpkin, who was licking him and wagging the whole back half of herself. She knew she was Tom’s dog even though she lived at my house. I watched and thought, Pumpkin has a nice face and her ribs don’t show anymore, but, well, the truth is, she’ll never be pretty. “Too bad she’s so ugly!” I said, not thinking.

  Tom turned on me. “The trouble with you is, you don’t care about anything! Nothing that counts. It’s not how she looks that counts! And you’
re the same with people. They’re nice to you and you’re not nice to them. You just don’t care!”

  I just stood there with my mouth open. I started to be mad, but the truth of what he’d said sunk in. I knew what he meant. I really didn’t care. Not about Pumpkin or Aunt Eveline or anyone. Except—myself. I burst into tears.

  “Aw, Addie, come on, now. Don’t cry! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry!” Tom pushed a crumpled, only half-dirty handkerchief in my face. I cried all the more. First, because he had turned nice and I couldn’t help it; then, because I realized I was having a good time.

  “I’m sorry, Tom. I shouldn’t have said that about Pumpkin. Maybe she will be beautiful someday. I’m so sorry, Tom!” A flood of tears.

  “Addie, I know you are! Don’t cry! Look, look, here’s something for you.” Tom was handing me a piece of bubble gum. He grinned when he saw I’d stopped crying long enough to see what he had. “Chew it,” he said. “You can’t chew and cry at the same time!” Tom has a nice smile. It reminded me just a very little bit of Edmond. I smiled back. He put his arm around me and pulled me to him. I sighed and put my head on his shoulder. He held me tight and put his mouth close to my ear and whispered, “Addie?”

  “What?” I asked, breathless.

  “It makes me feel good to know—to know Pumpkin came back to me.”

  Pumpkin wiggled herself between us and kissed me. Oh, Edmond, my darling! Forgive me for being unfaithful!

  Chapter VI

  A few days later, it was Aunt Kate’s birthday and the whole family was coming to dinner. Aunt Toosie and Uncle Henry had invited an out-of-town friend called Edgar, and Aunt Eveline was fussing about having a “guest,” which was dumb because there were already a dozen guests invited, relatives so far removed, no one could remember where they fit into the family.

  “Malvern is a guest, too, Eveline,” Aunt Toosie said peevishly. “If you only wanted family, why did you have to ask him?”

  Sandra Lee and I were weaving the garland of four-o’clocks and butterfly lilies to go around Aunt Kate’s plate, and Sandra Lee stopped to give her opinion. “Yes,” she said, “why ask Tom’s Uncle Malvern?”