Billie Standish Was Here

by Nancy Crocker

  It was absolutely the wrong thing to say and I was sorry that instant. He looked more disappointed than angry, but he walked out and didn’t speak to me anymore that day.

  The next day Christmas break started, and four days running he refused to come to the phone when I called. I cried and shut myself up in my room and wrote him letters that I tore up. I told Miss Lydia the whole story and threw myself on her mercy for advice.

  “You’ll sort it out, I expect,” was all she would say. But I could tell it bothered her too.

  Christmas morning I answered the phone and heard his flat “Hi.”

  I started blubbering—“Oh, Harlan, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—” but he interrupted.

  “What time are we having Christmas with Miss Lydia?” he said. He was trying to sound cold but couldn’t quite pull it off.

  I felt twenty pounds lighter. I said, “Well, we’re going over at noon. She insisted on cooking. Why don’t you come, too? You know she’ll have enough for twenty people.”

  “Naw,” he said. “Mom’s cooking too and the girls are all home this year. We got aunts and uncles and cousins coming out our ears . . . probably four o’clock is about the earliest I can sneak away.”

  “I’ll tell Miss Lydia,” I said, “and I’m sure she’ll be fine with that. Oh, and Harlan?” I added. “Merry Christmas.”

  There was only the least pause before he said, “Merry Christmas to you too.” I felt all fuzzy inside.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  W  hen I was fifteen, Miss Lydia was closing in on eighty. She had gradually done more spectating and less participating when we worked around her house, but Harlan and I noticed her really starting to slip. She forgot things. It was so hard to get up and down she quit doing it very often.

  Come summer I started taking her mail over at eleven instead of noon, making the excuse that I wanted to visit with her alone before Harlan got there. Really it was so I could help her cook. She never let on but I knew she was grateful.

  We were caught up with all the big projects by then. We had tilled and fertilized her garden, pruned her shrubs, reseeded her lawn, done everything we could think of. We did another major cleaning job inside, but it only took a fourth the time as before.

  So we started to just spend time with her visiting. It seemed like what she needed most. We asked questions and let her tell all her stories, even the ones we had heard before. She brought her brothers and her Avery back to life one story at a time. We got to see glimpses of her as a girl in the shine of her eyes.

  One day I went to put one of her picture albums back in the dresser upstairs and just as I started to close the drawer I saw something under the edge of the liner paper. I pulled out two pictures that had been lying loose. The one on top looked like Curtis and some woman his age, but the picture was way too old. I stared. It had to be.

  I flipped the picture over. “Evie Lee and Haney Sanders, 1901” was written on the back. Miss Lydia’s parents.

  I looked at the second picture. Still Curtis, I’d testify in court. I felt cold all of a sudden.

  Every time Miss Lydia had looked at her grown son she had seen the face of her daddy. The man who was supposed to protect her and didn’t.

  She hadn’t killed just Curtis that night. She had killed the man who hurt her too. A little worm of guilt I hadn’t even realized lived within me sprouted wings and flew away.

  I tore the pictures into tiny pieces and flushed them down the upstairs commode. Miss Lydia wouldn’t want to visit them again, I knew, and neither would I. Nobody else needed to know. As the water swirled them away I whispered, “Amen.” Then I scrubbed my hands in water a lot hotter than it really needed to be.

  When I went downstairs I could see the child inside that old woman’s failing body and I wanted to take her on my lap and rock her like a baby.

  Not that she had gone all soft or feeble-minded. She’d threaten to whip us if we tried to do more for her than she wanted. She was kidding, of course—but we were half-convinced she could. She was still in charge, no doubt about it.

  But it was clear she wasn’t going to be leading any more crusades for higher knowledge. Any more debates on world events. She’d get the flashcards out every once in a while, I think mainly to reassure herself, but she wasn’t making up any new ones and the magazines piled up beside her chair unread.

  I knew she couldn’t concentrate long enough to read long articles. She lost the thread of our conversation so often I learned the look that came into her eyes and I’d change the subject. She had always allowed me my dignity even though I was just a kid. The least I could do was return the favor.

  Sometimes after lunch she would fall asleep in her chair while Harlan and I did the dishes. We took those opportunities for Harlan to give me driving lessons.

  When I turned sixteen in November, Miss Lydia baked an angel food cake from scratch. It was so light that every bite was like snapping at the wind. But her birthday surprise came the week I got my driver’s license.

  She had asked Mama to take her to Milton that Saturday, and that morning she asked if I would go along too. Mama waited for me to say, “No, thank you,” and a little cloud passed over her face when I didn’t. But she did hold her tongue.

  We got to town and Miss Lydia asked Mama to drive her to the Walsner-Fusz car dealership. And Mama sat at the Fourth and Main stop sign until the car behind her laid on the horn. Then she pulled away about one mile an hour like she was moving under protest and said, “Lydia, you are not buying that girl a car. I won’t have it.”

  Miss Lydia stared straight ahead, hands crossed atop the pocketbook in her lap. “I’m not. I’m buying one for myself.”

  Mama gave her a “don’t bullshit me” look. I know it well. It’s deadly.

  Miss Lydia pointed her chin at the windshield. “Might be just what I need to attract a boyfriend.”

  I about blew my brains out my ears trying to hold back that laugh. Even Mama couldn’t last more than three seconds. We all laughed our way to Walsner-Fusz.

  Eugene Walsner first tried to talk Miss Lydia into a new car instead of used, saying she’d just be buying someone else’s problems. She fixed him with a steady look and said, “Eugene, are you saying you’ve got a whole lot full of problems out there for sale, but you’re going to do me the favor of not selling me one?” And he blustered and blushed and started showing her around the used car lot.

  Mama and I trailed them and Mama weighed in with as many opinions as Mr. Walsner. Talking at the same time, it was hard to understand either of them. But Miss Lydia took her time and nodded every so often, walking around cars and occasionally looking up at me. I didn’t know what she wanted from me but I guess she found it when we got to the Cadillac DeVille sitting back in the corner. It was a 1965 but its mermaid-green paint job looked brand new and, at least to me, it looked more like a jewel than a car. Miss Lydia took one look at my face and smiled.

  She asked Mr. Walsner to take her for a test drive in it but he was already on to the next car, a 1970 Ford, telling her how it was better suited to her needs. “Do you always argue your customers out of what they want?” she asked and he went inside for the keys.

  Mama and I rode in the back seat while Mr. Walsner drove around three blocks and came back. He parked on the street in front of the showroom and Miss Lydia turned to me and nodded.

  We all went inside and the negotiations began. Mr. Walsner started out asking $1800 and it was a long, hard road down to the $1450 they finally settled on. Along the way he told Miss Lydia, among other things, that she was a real good horse trader and she told him he reminded her of one specific part of a horse. He had big sweat rings on his blue shirt and no doubt believed he had earned every one-hundred-dollar bill she counted out on the counter. And then some.

  He threw a “Come back again!” at our backs that sounded like it was automatic.

  Miss Lydia turned and fixed a look on him that took another inch off his height. “If I ever fin
d myself in need of another car,” she said, “you’ll be hearing from me, all right.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He knew she wasn’t talking about the prospect of another sale down the road. You could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

  I drove Miss Lydia home in that land yacht with the Cadillac emblem on the hood and felt like we were flying. The only thing I had ever driven was the Willitses’ old beater of a pickup and compared to that I was chauffeur to the queen.

  I did hope I would never have to parallel park the thing. Even the steering wheel was so big it felt like I was playing grown-up. Miss Lydia kept looking out the side window. I’m pretty sure she couldn’t see over the dashboard.

  I knew better than to tell her she shouldn’t have bought it. I just pulled up into her driveway where Mr. Jenkins used to park and handed her the key. She nodded, pleased with herself, and started the long haul out.

  She had one foot on the ground when I got to her and I did more lifting than steadying to get her on her feet. She had been getting smaller while I kept growing. By then I was a head taller than her and probably outweighed her by fifteen pounds.

  She rested before starting for the house, then said, “You run on. I expect your mama’s got up a full head of steam by now. When she gets through bawling you out for what you didn’t do, come on back. I have something.”

  But Mama didn’t say a word about the car while I helped her carry in groceries. While we were putting things away, I got it. She wasn’t saying anything at all. The whole car affair had knocked her nose out of joint. She threw me a look when I told her Miss Lydia needed me for a while. I shrugged it off as soon as I was out the door.

  I found Miss Lydia sipping iced tea in the kitchen and poured myself a glass. She slid a fat manila envelope across the table after I sat down.

  I slipped the sheaf of papers out and read “Last Will and Testament” across the top of the first page. Tried to say, “Oh no, Miss Lydia—” but she cut me off.

  “Oh, now, I don’t plan to go anywhere anytime soon, so don’t get your undies in a bunch.”

  It didn’t work. I couldn’t laugh and my hands were shaking.

  She said, “Read. Read first and talk later.”

  So I read. There was a lot that might have been written in Portuguese for what I understood. It must make lawyers feel smarter to pretend they have their own language. But the gist of the thing was that everything went to me. The house, the land, the money, the car. Everything.

  A maintenance allowance for the house would be mine no matter when she died. The rest would be held in a trust, if need be, until I turned eighteen.

  My teeth were chattering when I finished. I looked up and told her, “It’s not fair.”

  “For me to do what I want with my own money?” she asked.

  “I don’t deserve this,” I started.

  She was calm as can be. “Who does deserve it, then?”

  She had me there. I fumbled the pages back into their envelope.

  “Billie Marie.” The way she pronounced it I knew she had rehearsed a speech. “I wanted you to know what was in it. This is a copy—the original is with Ernest Troutman in Milton. When I’m gone you can do whatever you want. I don’t care if you give away every penny after your college has been paid for.”

  “But I’m not—” I began.

  “Oh yes, you are,” she finished. She was nodding. Agreeing with herself. “If I’m still alive, I’ll kick your behind all the way there if I have to.”

  I had to smile at that image.

  “. . . and if I’m gone, well . . .” She went blank for a second. Then a wicked grin spread across her face. “I’ll haunt you till you go, that’s what I’ll do.”

  College. She was going to send me to college. No matter what Daddy said. No matter what he thought, I was going to college. A pulse throbbed at my temple. Then I had another thought.

  “What about Harlan?” I asked.

  She answered with a shrug that said, “What about Harlan?”

  I said, “I mean, shouldn’t he—shouldn’t you—” then caught myself. I had no business telling her what to do with her money. But maybe I did. No, I couldn’t. My thoughts were fragments.

  Miss Lydia was nodding. She had thought about this. “Harlan’s parents likely expect him to go to school and would have the money to pay for it, too. Or if they don’t—well, honey, scholarships are still a whole lot easier to come by for boys than girls. It’s not fair, but—”

  “But what if, what if—” The least possibility of going off and leaving Harlan down on the farm felt like a betrayal.

  “If all else fails,” she went on, “then either you or I can do what needs to be done when the time comes.” She nodded at the envelope between us. “There’s enough there for two college educations. More than enough.”

  A shudder shook my backbone. It was starting to sound like blood money.

  “Honey.” Miss Lydia reached and patted my hand. “Like I said, I have no plans to go anywhere. But the fact is, someday I will go. And I wanted to let you know about this now because you need to start planning for that. And for college. I had a notion your peckerhead daddy’s words were still stuck in your head and your face is telling me I was right.”

  I was pretty sure the idea of college would grow on me. But life without her? Plan to give up life as I knew it now? I was still in a daze when I got home.

  It was hours before it registered that she had called Daddy a peckerhead.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I  t might have all been written on my forehead, self-conscious as I felt. Harlan asked once what was wrong. I told him I couldn’t talk about it and he was so understanding I wanted to brain him. It seemed like the least he could do was hound me with questions until I broke down and told him without it being my fault.

  My studying took on an urgency. Harlan and I had pushed so far beyond our class it was a laugh but now it wasn’t nearly far enough for me. I went from book to book at such a frantic pace I wasn’t learning anything. That made me panic even more.

  Then one day during study hour Harlan told me to lighten up and that was all it took for me to come unglued. I started screaming with all the logic of a newborn baby, then collapsed in a heap and commenced to cry like one. He somehow got me up and on his lap. Sat there rocking while I soaked his shirt.

  He petted my hair and said, “Shhh,” in my ear. I couldn’t remember anyone but Miss Lydia ever giving me such comfort and that made me cry all the more.

  But nobody can cry forever, even if they want to. After a while I became aware I was on Harlan’s lap. My arms were around his neck. His were around my waist. I lifted my head from his shoulder, our cheeks brushed, and then we were kissing. I’m pretty sure I started it.

  I felt that first kiss in every cell of my body. And then some.

  If I’d ever thought about it I would have predicted any speck of romance at all would start our friendship down the road to ruin. But when it happened it was like Harlan and I had both been holding our breath without realizing it. Now we could let go and breathe. It felt that natural.

  I asked him to leave his truck at school that day and walk with me to Miss Lydia’s. On the way I told him about her will.

  He wasn’t a bit surprised. “Well, good God, Billie Marie,” is what he said. “You’re all the family she’s got. What would you expect?”

  And I loved that thought so very much it began to feel all right.

  I found my way onto Harlan’s lap again during study hour the next day and after a little nuzzling said, “Should we tell them?”

  He frowned. “Tell who, what?”

  “Our parents? Miss Lydia? About us?”

  He gave me a little kiss on the neck that made my pulse flutter and said, “Billie Marie, if Miss Lydia didn’t know before we did I’ll eat my hat. And just what would you tell your parents?”

  “Um . . . that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend now?” Those words sounded so stupid out loud I
cringed.

  He said, “And . . . how is that different than before?”

  “Well, completely,” I told him.

  “For me too,” he smiled, “but how would you describe what’s different to them?”

  I shrugged.

  “You want to tell them . . . we’ve started . . . making out? Scare them into watching us? Maybe even trying to keep us apart? Teenage hormones and all that?”

  I jumped up like his lap had caught fire. “No.” I smoothed my skirt and sat down in my own chair. The heat spread to my cheeks and my eyes started to sting. I hadn’t thought about kissing Harlan as leading anywhere.

  But maybe he had. He would, wouldn’t he? That’s how boys were. Teenage hormones and all that.

  “What? What happened? What’s the matter?” Harlan’s eyes were huge. I shook my head. I couldn’t say anything.

  Never mind that I knew Harlan so completely we were practically extensions of the same person. Suddenly he was a stranger, that Y chromosome of his jumping out like a roadblock between us. My breathing turned ragged and I wanted to bolt.

  He leaned forward, took both my hands in his and started rubbing his thumbs over my knuckles. I tried to pull away. I didn’t want to be touched, not even by him. Ever again. I got my hands free and crossed them under my arms in a self-hug.

  Harlan studied me a good while before saying, “Billie Marie, I don’t know what you’re afraid of, but I would hope you know I’d sooner throw myself into the river than hurt you. Ever. You have to trust me on that.”

  I turned away because he was looking me in the eye. How could I explain that “trust” had turned out to be the biggest word I knew? The one with the sharpest edges, for sure. I didn’t answer him.

  He was hurt. Of course. He was quiet the rest of the day and drove off after school without saying good-bye. I felt it as a physical ache in my chest. There’s a reason they came up with the image of a little guy shooting arrows as a symbol for falling in love.

  I knew I couldn’t bring myself near what I’d have to tell Harlan to make him understand. I spent a long while in my room that night searching the mirror for answers, but that girl didn’t have any either. That was okay. I didn’t trust her either.