Davis jumped to his feet. “Hey, Babe Ruth.”
I worried a little that liking Davis was like thinking Elvis Presley was hubba-hubba—too easy, too predictable. But like him I did.
“What are y’all doing here?” I asked, letting that “y’all” slip right off my tongue. Davis might live right next door, for all I knew.
“We’re here a lot,” Buck said. “What are you doing here?”
“Dropping this off.” I put the envelope down near Gracie’s drink, hoping she wasn’t inclined to open it now and see my not-up-to-par handwriting.
A ceiling fan with varnished wooden blades beat at the air.
“You want a drink, Roo? Can I call you Roo?” Gracie asked. “It fits you better somehow than Ruth.” She slipped her fingers into her empty glass and fished out an ice cube for Frooshka, who gratefully chewed it up.
“Sure,” I said. “Sure to both.”
Gracie got up and stretched her legs, slipping the note into the pocket of her fern-green skirt. Her fern-green skirt that was, of course, the proper length.
“Hey,” Davis said, now standing exactly next to me. “I’ll keep the dog out here while you refresh the drinks.” He was close enough I could see that group of freckles, a constellation of them, on his eyelids.
I handed over Froo’s leash, and she leaned right into him. He passed the poodle test.
Once we were inside, Gracie said, “Y’all are kind of cute together.”
“The poodle and me?” But I knew what she meant, and I liked what she meant.
“You and Davis. The game, the mixer, the porch.” Gracie handed me a Coke.
I took a sip. “What about Claudia? She’ll hate me. She’ll hate me more.”
“That die was probably already cast. I should tell you, though, the last girl who tussled with Claudia transferred to public school.”
I thought of Mr. Hank’s comment about how, why, and when Covenant sprang to life. “That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it?”
“Well! Depends who you ask on that one.” Gracie tilted her head and looked right at me. “I’m glad you’re here, Roo.” She said it in this very straightforward, non-sugarcoated way—like it was simply a fact. And I was struck that in one afternoon two people had told me the same very lovely thing.
“Let’s talk about something other than Claudia—or Davis Jefferson,” I said.
“Agreed! Enough with boys, boys, boys.”
“Garçons, garçons, garçons,” I echoed. Gracie and I had French together with French-braided Mademoiselle Tremblay.
“Is French harder here or in New York?” Gracie asked.
I shrugged. “It’s easy in both places.” I didn’t add: I’m good at languages—for instance, Hebrew.
“I want to spend a year in Paris like Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.” Gracie closed her eyes like she was dreaming in French, and I took note of her admiration for another former New Yorker, like moi. “Jacqueline spent her junior year at the Sorbonne and said it was the high point of her life. Not marrying the handsome senator. But studying in Paris—by herself.”
“I wonder if Mademoiselle started in Paris? The magazine, not the person.”
“Most likely.”
“Maybe I could work there in Paris. Why not?” Who would have guessed I’d be living in Atlanta. Paris was as likely/unlikely.
“Doesn’t that sound incroyable?” Gracie said.
It did sound incroyable, but before I could add my deux cents, someone—Davis—yelled: “Wait! Stop! Dog! Poodle!”
I banged through the screen door to see Frooshka in full sprint.
“Chipmunk!” Davis said, by way of explanation. He ran after Froo. I ran after him.
Frooshka, in hot pursuit of a woodland creature, took off toward a tall stone fence and scampered up and over.
“Shitshitshitshitshit!” I screamed.
“I’ll get her,” Davis said.
I backed up a few steps and bounced up and down on the balls of my feet. Then I charged the fence.
I got my hands on the ledge and hoisted myself up, hoping to get at least one foot on top before throwing myself the rest of the way over. It wasn’t pretty, but I made it.
“Holy smokes,” Davis said behind me before he veered off somewhere.
On the other side of the fence was a large, fancy garden. It took a second for me to see that many of the shrubs were sculpted into cones and spirals and such. And there was Frooshka, fiercely sniffing the grass under the shade of a giant orb.
I yanked her leash.
Davis had walked the long way around and was leaning against an impressively tall tree. It turned out I needn’t have done my hurdler imitation. The fence ran only in front of the house, not on the sides. The grandeur was just for show.
“Who clips all their ivy into shapes?” I asked, still catching my breath.
“The Harrises do—this is their place. And it’s not ivy—these are yews. English yews.”
“How can you possibly know?” I said, smoothing my skirt back down and walking back in the direction of the street. I wondered how much of my slip and gunders were on display when I’d hopped the fence. “I didn’t mean for you to see all that.”
He paused to look at me. His eyes were a good blue—not intense enough to look fake. “You New York girls know how to chase down your animals.”
Froo trotted faithfully beside me, unaware of what I’d done on her behalf.
“The yew,” I said, even though I didn’t care about it. “How do you know the name for some bush?”
“It’s a tree, a conifer. I spend a lot of time outside.” He pinched off a leaf with a cluster of purple berries. “Beautyberry,” he announced. “There are lots of specimens here. Black walnut, loblolly pine—” He stopped again and looked at me. “I can’t believe you. You’re not like any girl around here, that’s for damn sure.”
“Because I swear? And run after my dog?”
He shook his head, and that hair of his flopped forward. “Didn’t you say you kiss on the second date?”
“Are you saying this is a date?” Then I remembered I wanted to think about something other than boys. What came out of my mouth without my permission was: “Do you know the story behind Covenant?”
“Who cares?” The sun streamed down in little fingers through the trees, whatever species they might have been. Right there on the Harrises’ brick walkway, surrounded by shrubs—trees—clipped into odd shapes, Davis laced his fingers under my hair. Who cares, indeed.
Even though it was a jillion degrees out, a chill ran down me, nose to toes.
Then he leaned down, confident hair and confident boy, and kissed me. He tasted like Coca-Cola.
He broke off to look at me a minute and pull a sprig of something out of my hair. And we kissed again for five seconds, five minutes, Frooshka lying on my feet the whole time, like my kissing this boy was an everyday occurrence.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, thinking too much of what Mother—or Claudia—would say.
“I have an idea for our third date. Ruth, go to the Fall Ball with me.”
I thought about Fontaine, who’d be pleased as non-communist punch.
I thought about how many Saturday services I’d have to sit through in exchange for the dance. I thought about how I’d break the news to Mother that I was falling—fast and deep—for the frippery after all.
Then, of course, I said yes.
11
The Rabbi and the Rebel
Mother was in a panic. The rabbi and the rebel were coming to dinner, and somehow she’d forgotten she didn’t cook. Dad had always made dinner in New York—well, Dad and Shanghai Palace, which we’d had delivered twice a week—and since arriving in Atlanta, we’d been living off the leaning tower of frozen casseroles. Two days ago, someone had left a “La
zy-Day Lasagna” on our doorstep, and the week before, we got a delivery of Hawaiian chicken with pineapple and paprika.
Apparently, it was bad manners to serve frozen food to company, so Fontaine had sent Birdie over to fix up her fluffy meatloaf. The way Birdie was slamming drawers around, she seemed none too pleased.
Nattie didn’t much notice. She still looked gloomy more than any of us liked. Nattie’s sole request was that we change into plaid—a skirt for me and a jumper for her, in like-minded tartan. The dress-alike thing cheered her a bit.
Birdie had moved on to stabbing cubes of cheese with frilly toothpicks when the doorbell sang its Dixie song.
Mother quickly fastened the hook and eye of her skirt—paisley, A-line—then opened the door.
“Bienvenue.”
“What does that mean?” Nattie whispered, standing so close to me our two plaids melded into one.
“It means Mother is nervous.”
The rabbi shrugged off his blazer and fisted it, all casual. His daughter, Leah, handed Mother a jar of peach preserves and Nattie a brand-new deck of cards. Max, no respectable jacket in sight, smiled and, for some reason, my heart sped up a half beat. Then I thought of Max and his “I don’t have time for a girlfriend,” and Max and his arrogance, and Max and his too-big glasses, and—and!—Davis, of course, Davis and our upcoming Fall Ball, which I’d yet to mention to Mother. I slid Max to the side of my mind.
Nattie sat next to Leah on the too-white carpet, shuffled the deck, and started a game of Spit.
Mother squeezed past the card table I’d helped Birdie set up, half in the foyer, half in the kitchen, holding her own gin and tonic in one hand and a tray of cocktails in the other. Perhaps with the help of Beefeater, she’d regained her composure—even her pageboy had put itself back in place.
The ceiling fan lifted the rabbi’s hair straight up. “If we’re going to talk about an alliance to integrate Atlanta, let’s start tonight. Let’s come together for a common cause.”
Birdie came in with a platter of appetizers.
“Do you want to sit and join us?” Max asked Birdie, helping himself to a Triscuit. “Join our conversation? About integration?”
Birdie tilted her head. “I’m working, thank you.”
Mother took a long sip of gin.
“And at my church, we’re having plenty of conversations,” Birdie said.
I saw then that the rabbi’s shirt was blotched with sweat at the collar. “Reverend Ingram and I are allies,” he said.
“Mm-hmm,” Birdie said, mouth tight. “I’m sure you are great allies, sir.”
The conversation made me wish I could take a long sip of Mother’s drink, too.
The rabbi stood up and shook Birdie’s hand. Her eyes flew to the ceiling for a second, but she shook back. “I know some people think this is not my fight,” he said. “I feel—and my conscience feels and my teachings tell me—it is. We’ve been fighting for ten years to live justly in unjust times, and we keep on fighting.”
Birdie stepped back into the kitchen without another word.
Max cupped a handful of peanuts. He offered a few to Nattie, who popped them in her mouth. She didn’t even like peanuts, but she seemed to like Max. I tried to see Max like Nattie did—to look past the owlish eyebrows to see the charm of a guy who was generous with snacks and working to make the world a fairer place.
The rabbi nodded. “It’s the goal—should be—of American Jews—”
“Nattie?” I said. “Kitchen.” I’m sure the rabbi was a good man and he was saying things I agreed with—of course I agreed with him—but my debutante deal with Mother didn’t include sitting through lectures, and anyway I wanted to go see Birdie.
“I’ll help,” Leah said.
“And me,” Max said. He whispered, “I’ve heard this before—a hundred times.”
Birdie was unmolding the Jell-O ring, topping it with dollops of mayonnaise with a hard flick of her wrist.
“Miss Ruth, cut the flowers on the angle,” Birdie said. “Miss Natalie, you and your friend can help.”
Nattie handed me dahlias from the garden. I snipped the stems while Max peppered Birdie with questions. Where did she live? Did she have children? Were they in school? What was her church? Did she have a mister?
I listened for the answers. It said something not very nice about me that I had seen Birdie every day for the five or so weeks we’d been here and didn’t know important things about her (I knew she had kids, of course, but I was blurry on other key details). And it said something about Max that he felt entitled to breeze into someone else’s house and ask whatever popped into his head of a Negro woman, who might have felt compelled to answer.
“You’re being presumptuous.” I pointed at Max with the garden shears.
“No violence, Ruth Robb,” he said, smile in place.
Meanwhile, Birdie answered Max’s questions without fuss but without looking at him either: Southeast; two daughters; one at Spelman College and one working for the phone company; Ebenezer Baptist with Reverend Martin Luther King Sr.; and she did—but he passed a year ago.
“Sorry to hear,” Max said.
“Like us,” Nattie said, turning to Birdie.
“Exactly, sugar,” Birdie said, squeezing Nattie’s hand.
“Sorry about your dad,” Max said to me. He was down on the floor scratching Frooshka behind the ear. I crouched and took the other ear, wondering if Birdie went home to an empty house, wondering how she could afford to send her daughter to college, wondering what she would be doing if she weren’t employed by Fontaine and Mr. Hank.
“I’m making place cards,” Nattie announced, and I realized I hadn’t worried about her all night, and that made me not-hate Max even more.
“Why ever?” Leah asked.
“We’ll be squished, Nattie.” I took Max’s offer of a hand up from the linoleum. “I don’t think we need to bother with place cards.”
“We do! More than four people and we have to have them,” Nattie said. “We find our seat and bon appétit.” To Leah, she added, “It says so in this pink book.” Quoting the pink booklet was serious business for Nattie, but she surprised me by busting into giggles.
I hoisted myself onto the kitchen counter. Max hoisted himself up next to me.
“Who knew fomenting a little revolution could be so funny,” I said.
Birdie was spooning a lemon sauce over the asparagus—fomenting a little hollandaise—and I stopped laughing, because my comment might not seem so very funny to her. As if Birdie could hear my thoughts, she shook her spoon toward Max and me. “Do not park yourselves on the counter, especially while food is being prepared.”
In my mind, I added: Especially while food is being prepared by a Negro housekeeper for a group of white people discussing integration.
I hopped right down, my neck astonishingly hot. “Thank you, Birdie,” I said, my usual refrain.
“Thanks for preparing dinner, ma’am,” Max added.
In all the years I’d been visiting Fontaine and Mr. Hank, I’d never before heard anyone in the house address Birdie as “ma’am.”
After a dinner during which the rabbi talked about the “two” of everything—two drinking fountains; two places to sit at the movies; two Bibles in a courtroom; two schools—that he wanted to change to one, Mother brought out the peach melba for dessert, and I brought out coffee and sugar cubes.
The rabbi scooted his chair back from the table, gearing up for another lecture. “So, Leo Frank,” he said. “Does the name ring a bell?”
Mother grabbed her EZ-on-the-Eyes notebook off the counter.
“Mr. Frank was a Jew, raised in New York, as it happens.” The rabbi tied his napkin into a knot. “He was accused of beating and strangling a thirteen-year-old girl named Mary Phagan when she came to collect her paycheck at the pencil factory
where he was a supervisor. This was some forty years ago.”
“Strangled,” I said, hand to my throat.
Max interrupted. “He was framed. His crime was being Jewish.”
“It’s rather a long story,” the rabbi said.
I liked the rabbi well enough, but he didn’t seem to know a short story, and I wasn’t sure this was a story I wanted to hear, no matter its length.
The rabbi didn’t pause. “The case had many twists in the testimony, and that, along with a whole lot of anti-Semitism, led to a conviction. Mr. Frank was sentenced to death,” he said. “People lined the street, yelling ‘Hang the Jew.’ The governor, who believed he was innocent, reduced the sentence—”
“Remember—framed,” Max repeated.
“—to life in prison.” The rabbi tested the knot he’d tied in the napkin, and that was when it hit me that it wasn’t a knot he’d tied. It was a noose. “Seven carloads of men calling themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan broke into the prison and took Mr. Frank, bound and gagged, to a park north of here—near where Miss Phagan grew up.”
“Nattie,” Mother said, “why don’t you take Frooshka out for her evening stroll.”
“I know the end,” Leah said. “Dead.”
The heat of the night, of this talk, snaked up my neck.
“Frooshka,” Nattie called, her voice crackly. She stood up from Dad’s chair, and the pillowy plastic deflated with a hiss.
“I’ll come, too,” I said, quick to my feet.
Mother shook her head almost imperceptibly. “I need you to know this, Ruth.”
I was glad Birdie was gone. I didn’t want her to hear us talk about lynching. But then I thought Birdie probably knew a lot more about it than I ever would, and probably knew about people who were closer to her than this man I’d never heard of who died decades ago would ever be to me. I sat back down.
“These men tied his ankles,” the rabbi said.
I uncrossed mine. Mrs. Eleet’s “What letter should a lady’s legs make?” question popped into my head. Who cared about the curve of a calf if your ankles were tied together?
In the Neighborhood of True Page 10