“You sound like you mean that,” Dr. Shaver says, looking at me in a new way, not with the piercing, staring, Mama-eyes that he had before. So, here is the last person in the world I thought I would’ve told anything to, but I went and told him the one thing I couldn’t tell anybody. I start to ask him if he works for the FBI, but I think the real Elizabeth would, or should, be serious about this. But isn’t that the real Elizabeth? Being funny, slightly sarcastic at times?
Since neither of us is talking, and it seems he is playing the waiting game for me to start, I finally say, “Do you work for the FBI, or something?” And I halfway laugh when I say it, so he can see I am joking, since he doesn’t know me too well.
He halfway laughs, too. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you have this way of making me keep on talking when I tell you I don’t want to talk about it. That’s real good, you know, for a . . . for a ’shrink’ to be able to do that? I hope I can do that someday.”
“You have a good place to start,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“At home.”
“But she won’t talk with me. Not like I’d want her to talk with me. She won’t say what she really, truly feels.”
“In that case, you just have to do the best you can.”
“And I did. When I was home. I did. But . . . I’ll just have to do better, won’t I? I’ll just have to learn to say to Mama what I really and truly feel and learn, maybe, to say it in a way that will help her say what she feels. But not just her, Dr. Shaver. I have to try to get other people to talking, too. Not just Mama.”
“Then you might enjoy being a shrink,” he says, getting up from his chair, a signal that he is ready to go, that this is all over. “Where are you thinking about going?”
“To the state university,” I say.
“That’s a good school,” he says, opening the door, so I can go on out. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
I found out Miss Hansom went to the state university. “If you like a lot of partying and sororities and the rah-rah-rah of football games, then you should go to a big university,” she says. “But if you don’t care for all that, you might want a smaller college.”
Never being one to party and to go to football games in high school, I probably won’t be any different in college, but the idea of going to a big university sounds good to me. Big is opposite to Littleton, and anything opposite Littleton is what I want. I won’t be partying anyway, I will be studying and working and getting people to talking. So it doesn’t matter.
I want so to be telling all this to Dr. Adams. But Dr. Adams is gone for good, except he drops by every now and then to say, “Hello,” or to play a game of Ping-Pong, if he has the time. I’m getting so good at Ping-Pong, I actually beat him sometimes, and I feel ridiculous for feeling good about myself just because I’ve learned to play Ping-Pong. But I don’t feel ridiculous learning all the dances—waltzes and rhumbas and fox-trots and the two-step. Who knows, dancing might come in handy, if I do ever make it to a party in college.
One Saturday night when Dr. Adams is on duty, he joins us for dancing. Mr. Fleet puts on “Hernando’s Hideaway,” about a dark, secluded place, a place where no one knows your face, and we start off, Dr. Adams and I—do, doomp . . . do, doomp . . . do, doomp, doomp, doomp! Do, doomp . . . do doomp . . . do doomp, doomp, doomp! And Dr. Adams can outdance any one of us there, except for Mr. Fleet of course. But ah, dancing with Dr. Adams is like really heavenly, him so smooth and moving around so free and graceful through all the steps, turning me this way and that. I fall in love with him more and more. Even if he is gone from the floor, and even if I am leaving soon, I can’t help it. It just makes me feel so . . . I don’t know, so alive, moving my body around so carefree and easy. For the first time, ever, I truly feel my heavy body turning light, as if it were about to drop away from the wings of Angela that have weighed me down all these years, and I feel me starting to sprout a new pair of wings and take flight away from all that has been pressing me down forever, so that I am feeling “free, free, free-e-e-e . . . so free . . . like a bird in the tree.”
After dancing with Dr. Adams and feeling so free with him, I can’t help wondering what there is about Dr. Shaver that just turns off my lightness in one way, but that in another way just opens me up. Now I know this sounds selfish, but I don’t care for him because I can’t see myself too good when I am talking with Dr. Shaver. Talking with Dr. Adams is almost like looking into a mirror and seeing Elizabeth reflected back. So I am always looking at myself with Dr. Adams, looking this way and that and deciding if I am being the way I want to be and if not, then I can change the way I am. A mirror. That’s what Dr. Adams is for me. A mirror that reflects the Elizabeth I want to see, and now that my mirror is gone, how will I ever get to see myself again?
On the other hand, I can’t go around looking in a mirror for the rest of my life just to make sure I am here. Because now I know that I, Elizabeth, I am here. Or there. Or wherever I am or happen to be. Maybe what I need now are windows to look through and see out of, and maybe Dr. Shaver is more like a window, one that maybe I can even open up and just fly on my new sprouted wings, fly away out through the window, fly, mind you, like a bird, free, like I have those kind of wings that fly, not angel wings, the kind that just float and go nowhere. I, Elizabeth, have to go somewhere.
Miss Hansom is a little like a mirror, but she is more like a mirror in a woman’s compact that she keeps in her purse and pulls out to check her makeup and primp a little bit, whereas Dr. Adams is like a full-length mirror, and I can see almost into any and every corner of me that I want to look at. And I mean every corner, because at night, and I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but at night after I go to bed, I sometimes have these visions in my head of me and Dr. Adams. I’ll just take the picture of Sheriff Tate in the cemetery and put Dr. Adams in his place, and I don’t mind Dr. Adams feeling around on me; in fact I love it so much I’m soon into loving myself.
So, even though my mirror is gone, I still sometimes need to have these visions of myself. Does that mean I am vain, that I want so much to see myself in someone else? Does that mean I am such a little person that I need someone else to hold myself up to so I can see that I exist in this world? Why can’t I look at my long, slim fingers as they curve around the piano keys and see that at least I have hands, and if hands, then a body, and if a body, then surely I exist. I was who I was. I am who I am. God all over again. Well, if that’s good enough for God to have to keep declaring that He is who He is, then it’s good enough for me. Next time Dr. Shaver asks who is Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s going to be “I am who I am,” me, Elizabeth Miller, pressed down for good measure but running over the brim at the same time. No, full up and running over, except not crying all the time like poor Belinda, but full up with living and just being Elizabeth. I am who I am. Amen.
And I say double amen to Miss Hansom’s idea on Saturday morning to take some of us on a “shopping excursion,” as she calls it. “Elizabeth,” she says to me, when we are down at the drugstore, “have you ever thought about using a little touch of makeup on your face?”
“Lord, have I,” I say. “How many times is more the question.”
“Then why don’t we get some and fix you up?” she says, as if she is at a banquet table waiting for the feast to begin. “Wouldn’t that be fun to see what you look like with a little makeup on?”
What can I say? No, my mama wouldn’t like that? Not to peachy Miss Hansom. Not to anyone really. No, I can’t say I don’t wear any makeup because Mama and the people at Littleton church where I go believe makeup is a temptation of the devil. It sounds so ridiculous for me to be thinking it, that I know I could never say it, and if it sounds so ridiculous thinking it, why I shouldn’t even think it at all, should I? So I say, “Sure. Why not?”
My money that Daddy gave me when I went home is about to run out, and I have to save some of it back. Why? Just habit, I guess. You just always save
some of your money since you never know when a dire emergency might come up. So, all I can get is a lipstick and a pencil for my eyebrows. But I know Miss Hansom is talking about the whole shebang—powder, blushing stick, fingernail polish—everything. So on Monday she brings some extra makeup she had on hand at home, she says, some that she couldn’t use anymore, and before I know it, we are in the bathroom at the mirror drawing me on eyebrows, spreading on clear ivory liquid makeup, pressing on powder, then blush, then some strawberry polka lipstick.
“You look absolutely fetching!” she raves, and even though I like Miss Hansom an awful lot, I know that she can spread on the sugar at times, and this is one of those times. “Well?” she says, as if waiting for me to say something about my new look. So what can I say when I think I look a little bit clownish. Something safe. That’s what Elizabeth would say to someone she likes as much as Miss Hansom, something safe. So I say, “That’s really different, isn’t it?” And of course she takes it for a compliment on her way of making me up, because she has fixed me the same way she fixes herself, which is thick and heavy.
“That’s the fun thing about makeup,” she says, “you can experiment. Do it different anytime you want and anyway you want. So here,” she says, handing over her makeup case to me, “have fun with it.” Then she gets up real close to squinch her eyes at my eyebrows. “I’m trying to decide if you need some plucking, but no, I don’t think so. Lucky you. You have hardly any strays, and they’re so light, you can’t see them anyway. No. I wouldn’t pluck, if I were you.”
It’s good she’s decided that, because I’m not planning to pluck anyway. Mary Jane Payne had tried that once on me, and it hurt too much. I can’t see going through so much pain to get rid of something that you can’t see anyway. And all that liquid stuff, yeah, it’s fun for every now and then, but not every day. It’s just too messy putting it on and taking it off, putting it on and taking it off. So, finally I end up with a little eyebrow pencil and a smidgin of blush and some lipstick. No powder, for it feels like chalk on my cheeks. But what I end up with looks right, I think, for me. It isn’t right for Miss Hansom, but then I’m not Miss Hansom. I am Elizabeth. I am who I am.
That, I decide is what I will tell Mama when she starts into ranting and raving about my makeup: “I am who I am, Mama. Just like God.” But the only problem with that is: Mama is who she is, too.
19
. . . . . .
It’s the first letter from Mama in about a week—she usually writes at least twice a week reminding me to be good and to not forget about that all-seeing eye upon me. And she is in top form.
“Elizabeth,” she wrote, after she told me about Eunice frying her hair too done and fussing on about that, “when are you planning on coming home from down there? Don’t you know it looks bad on your daddy and me for you to keep on staying down there? A poor reflection on us, that’s what it is. Besides, we need you here to do things for us, we’re not getting any younger, you know. And Mr. Palmer, bless his heart, is doing the best he can at the piano on Sunday mornings, but that ain’t much. Anyway, everybody’s saying how much better the worship service is when you’re here to play, and asking when you’re coming back, so can’t you tell me something, Elizabeth, and stop keeping us in the dark about what’s going on?”
I squeeze the letter into a little ball when I finish reading it because that’s just about how my stomach feels—squeezed into a little ball at the thought of going back to Littleton. Yet, I know I can’t stay here forever. And I know it’s time to mention the idea to Mama and Daddy about me going off to college. But an awful thought comes to me. Am I wanting to go to school just to get away from Mama and Daddy, or am I wanting to go to truly try and make something better of my real self, so that I can learn all about how to get people to finding out about their real selves. And the awful answer is I think it’s a little of both. I want to leave home, yes; but more than that is this newfound longing, strong longing, I mean, to learn all about what’s in people’s minds and why it’s there and what makes them do and think what they do. And, too, I’d like to learn how I should have talked with Hemp. Never again, if it is within my power, will I not talk with someone, really and truly, about what they are feeling.
As for how Mama will take it, me going off to college and leaving home, well, it will be sad. For Mama. And I, Elizabeth, will just have to try to help Mama all I can help, all she wants to be helped, anyway. Daddy, I’m not too worried about, other than Mama may make it hard on him. She could put all her misery on him, without me around. So, I, Elizabeth, will help Daddy, too, as much as I can. But, and this may sound selfish, but I know now I have to help Elizabeth first. Anyway, people are supposed to leave home eventually. At least normal people are. If things go according to nature, they are.
I was out in our backyard one time sitting at the old oak tree watching a mama bird nudging her babies one at a time off the limb, so they’d fly on out into the world and make the world their home. And I often wanted so bad for Mama to nudge me to try my wings, just to see if I could fly out in the world to see, you know, what it was like. But Mama wouldn’t hardly even let me out of the nest, much less walk out on the limb and flap my wings to see what would happen, if I were given half a chance.
Since I am measuring nearly everything I do by Miss Hansom these days, I wonder how it would sound to her if I said, “Miss Hansom, I can’t go off to college, because my mama needs me at home.” Well, I know how it would sound. It’d sound like a child leaving home to go into first grade, thinking it can’t leave its mama behind. Why, I’ll bet those little birds didn’t give a second thought to their mama once they got out in the big world. And I don’t mean I want to forget Mama completely, but, well, what am I supposed to do? I’ve determined I’ve got to be Elizabeth from now on, but what do I do with Mama all this time I’m being Elizabeth? And what about Mama’s feelings toward me, will she even own up that I’m her child anymore, if I leave her and go off to the state university?
Now, Daddy will be glad, I’m sure he will, to know his daughter is thinking about going to college, because he knows education is a good thing. And well, Mama, deep down, I really think does too. For other people’s children. If it doesn’t make them stop going to church. Poor Mama. Why can’t she see that it’s people themselves, and what they see and hear at church that makes them want to go or not want to go. It’s not that they’re turning against God, Himself. What if she had more schooling than seventh grade. Would she be so afraid at letting me go to get some more? I finally figure out, I think, why she is so afraid of me coming to Nathan. I think she might have been wondering, afraid, maybe, that I might talk about what she used to do. Okay, so I can understand that now. But will she be afraid for me to go off to college for the same reason? I don’t know.
Anyway, I don’t see any way of putting off mentioning it to them, so that’s what I do in my next letter. I mention it after I ask how they are doing and how the flowers are coming along, and if the frizz in Mama’s hair has come out. That’s when I go into what all I had been thinking about.
Mama and Daddy, I want you all to know that I have missed you a lot while I’ve been here, (and I have, really and truly) and I have come to realize just how important you have been to me. As you probably know, the main reason for me coming here was to try to get some help in getting myself straightened out. I know y’all have probably been tired of seeing me going around so droopy for so long, and I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that I’m feeling much better about myself. And I think one reason I’m feeling so much better is that I’ve decided, I think, that I don’t want to work in the pants factory for the rest of my life. I think there’s more to life than fooling around with men’s pants zippers all day long, and I just want to see what else there is in this world. That’s why I’ve been talking with the people here about the chance of me going on to college, even at my age. Everybody here says it’s never too late to go, and that I should do fine in college, and although I know it
will be hard, maybe really hard, I’ve decided that to get into the kind of work I’d rather be doing, which is maybe being a counselor, so I can get people to talking, so they don’t kill themselves, I’m going to have to go to college. They say here that the state university will probably cost less. And Dr. Adams says I can try for scholarship money, plus I can also get a job working at the college to help pay for things. And, too, part of the savings in the bank is mine, so I don’t think it would be a burden on y’all. And I sure don’t want to be a burden on you any longer, that’s one thing I’ve learned here.
I start writing “what do you think?” but then I scratch that out, since I know I am going to hear what Mama thinks anyway. So I put the letter in the mail and wait and wait to hear what they think, but no letter comes, not for days. Maybe I just nudged myself out into the big world all by myself. Maybe they’ll have nothing more to do with me. It’s like the song “Some glad morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away, oh, glory, I’ll fly away, in the morning,” except it isn’t to a home on God’s celestial shore, I don’t know where I’ll fly to, somewhere maybe, between Nathan and home and the university. Right at the moment I don’t quite fit in any one of the places, and that is a free, flying-floating feeling, and at the same time a scary feeling, not feeling a real part of anywhere.
But I have to take responsibility for my feelings from here on and not put them on doctors, nor Miss Hansom, nor Aunt Lona nor Mama, even, and not even the Lord. I put my trust in the Lord for twenty years, now, ever since I got baptized when I was eight years old, and that’s okay to trust in Him, but I see now that’s not enough. I’ve also got to put some trust in myself, no matter what Preacher Edwards says about bringing all your burdens to the Lord and leaving them there. Well, I carried Angela to Him a thousand times, but I never left her there, and maybe that has been my fault. Maybe I did the first part of what Preacher Edwards was saying, I carried her there, but I sure didn’t leave her. But how could I with Mama bringing her back out all the time?
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