by Gail Giles
“Hi, Biddy. Good to see you,” I say. “Now, where’s your coat?”
“Not cold enough for a coat,” Biddy say.
“Never was.”
That cold, hard feeling I always had inside me felt like it be slipping a bit sideways. Biddy is plumb scared to come out in the world, and she was coming here to protect me from Robert.
Tears run down my face. I had me too many jumble-up feelings.
I done laundry while Quincy cooked up something. I helped set the table and called Miss Lizzy.
“This is good, Quincy. What you call it?” I asked.
“This be Chicken Parmesan à la Quincy.”
I felt my face go stupid. I figured Quincy would make fun of me. But she smiled.
“That means it’s chicken that has a kind of red sauce and cheese on it. The ‘à la Quincy’ is saying made by Quincy.”
I smiled. “I believe you the best cook in the world.”
“I’ll teach you how to make it,” Quincy said.
Miss Lizzy look up and Quincy remind her she teaching me to cook.
“That’s lovely,” Miss Lizzy said. “And what will Biddy teach you in return, Quincy?”
I wasn’t smart enough to teach. I felt bad.
Quincy looked straight in my face. “Biddy already teaching me lots. Mostly how to be nice to folks that never hurt me.”
My chest ’bout bust open.
We talked and finished our dinner. Miss Lizzy stayed at her chair while I took the dishes. She put her hand on Quincy’s so she couldn’t get up. Quincy jumped when Miss Lizzy touched her. Pulled her hand back. When Miss Lizzy look hurt, Quincy got all upset in her face. “I don’t want you to get no germs,” she said.
“That’s considerate of you, Quincy.” She clear her throat like she got a hair ball in it. “I have something important to talk to the two of you about,” Miss Lizzy said. “I have a special visitor coming here tomorrow evening. Quincy, would you go into the living room? There are two boxes on the sofa and I’d like you to bring them in here.”
Quincy toted those two boxes I seen the deliveryman bring.
“These are for you, girls. The top one is for Biddy and the other is yours, Quincy.” Miss Lizzy waved her hand. “Open them, please.”
Quincy and me took our boxes. Opened the lids. There was softy pink paper and — a dress. Quincy had a dress too.
Something felt wrong. My teachers give me a dress for graduation. This felt — different. I know without looking at Quincy there was thunder and lightning about to bust out. Maybe I helped Quincy learn about how to be nice to peoples that hadn’t hurt us — but Miss Lizzy just hurt us plenty. Only I didn’t know the how or the why of it.
Biddy and I helt up those dresses and then look ’crosst at one ’nother. Lizabeth watch us like she ’spect us to fall on the floor and kiss her bony feet.
I drop the dress back in the box and dust off my hands like they was dirty. Biddy lay hers back in the box and put the lid on real careful.
Lizabeth look from Biddy to me and back again. “Don’t you like them?”
Nobody said nothing.
“Wouldn’t you try them on? I’d like to see how you look.”
We still didn’t say nothing. All that nothing was makin’ a big noise. And all the good dinner smell turn sour.
“I don’t understand,” Lizabeth say.
Biddy look at Lizabeth and nod her head.
I been trying to hold back my bad mouth, but when I saw that beat-up look on Biddy’s face, I couldn’t help myself.
“Lizabeth, I don’t got the right words, but this is like telling us we’re stupid.”
Biddy had her face all twisted up like she was puzzling something out, but when I said that, she seem like she understood what was wrong now.
But Lizabeth didn’t.
“What? I gave you a present.”
Biddy’s voice sound like she was talking through a stack of pillows. “No, Miss Lizzy. This ain’t no present.”
Lizabeth got mad. “I know your teacher gave you a dress for graduation. You weren’t so particular then.”
Biddy looked like she been hit in her stomach.
My mad boil right over.
“Don’t you talk to Biddy like that. You want to be mean about Biddy not havin’ a graduation dress — you go be mean to her granny. And Biddy’s teacher let her pick out her graduation dress. She didn’t say, ‘Here, dress up like I think you should.’ ”
Biddy wiped tears off her face. She used her fists and knuckles like a little child. That hurt me inside my heart some kind of way.
Lizabeth folded the paper back over one of the dresses. She looked a little shamed but she still had some mad in her.
“I don’t see that —”
“Biddy and me earn money now. We bought our own clothes. But you think we’re too stupid to dress proper for your friend. You didn’t give us these dresses for us. You bought them for you. To make sure when you trot us out we don’t embarrass you. Like we was your pet dogs.”
“Quincy! I’ve told you before that you must keep a civil tongue —”
“Lizabeth, Biddy and me ain’t your pets. We ain’t your good deed. You done been mean to Biddy and me and I’m telling you about it. Now you been told.”
Lizabeth turnt to Biddy. “Biddy, surely you don’t . . .”
“Quincy’s right. This ain’t a present.”
“Fine, if you feel that way, I’ll send the dresses back.” Lizabeth pull herself up and into her walker. “Please be in your ‘good dresses’ tomorrow evening to meet my guest.”
“You still don’t get it, do you, Lizabeth?” I say.
“What now? If you don’t want the dresses, fine. I told you that.”
“You don’t get to tell us. If we don’t want the dresses, we don’t need you to tell us it’s OK. And we get paid to cook and clean. You cain’t tell your retarded girls to parade out and show what a good woman you are.”
Lizabeth gasped and Biddy dropped the glass she was holding.
That pretty glass broke all into pieces.
I looked from the glass pieces on the floor. I saw tears in Miss Lizzy’s eyes. It give me a start to know I was crying too. Then I looked over at Quincy. Tears was running down her face.
“I thought you two liked me,” Miss Lizzy said real quiet.
“We thought you liked us,” I said.
Miss Lizzy pushed out the kitchen. Quincy run past me out the back door. I picked up the sharp glass.
The next morning, Quincy fixed breakfast like always. Everybody sat on the edge of they chairs with straight backs. But we wasn’t sitting like princesses.
Miss Lizzy ate her fruit. She sipped her tea. Then, without looking at me, she asked would I please meet her friend tonight.
“Yes, ma’am. You made all the plans.”
“Quincy, would you mind serving the tea and dessert? It’s important that Biddy talk to my visitor, and I can’t handle the cups and plates.”
Quincy nodded her head about half a nod.
“I’ll pay you extra, of course, for your time.”
I ’spected Quincy to blow up like a big bomb, but instead she got that hurt-to-the-bone look.
“Lordy, and folks think me and Biddy the ones that be ‘challenged.’ ” She put her fork down on the edge of her plate. She stood up. “I’ll be here. Keep your money.”
She laid her napkin folded up nice on the table and left.
Miss Lizzy sighed. “Why can’t I say anything right to that girl? I’m tired of fighting with her, worrying about every word I say.”
I waited, thinking out my words. Letting Miss Lizzy settle a little.
“Miss Lizzy,” I said. “If Quincy and me wasn’t here and you invited some friends over for tea . . .” I had to stop. Get everything straight inside my head. “And you couldn’t handle the teacups. Would you ask one of your friends to serve the cake?”
“Well, yes, but I . . .”
I must have caught som
ething from Quincy, because I cut short a full-grown-up woman. “Would you pay her for doing it?”
Miss Lizzy sighed again. “But, Biddy, I already pay you and Quincy to take care of me. And this is something extra I want Quincy to do.”
“Yes, ma’am, but we live here. You asked us to sit at your table. It’s different than Quincy working extra hours at the Brown Cow.”
“I don’t see that . . .”
I done it again. I was for sure catching a bad case of Quincy-mouth. “When I come to you. Asked you to draw me a map to the feed store. Did I pay you?”
Miss Lizzy was getting some smarter. She didn’t talk.
“I asked you a favor, like a friend.”
Miss Lizzy looked off out the window.
“I’m sorry if I’m not explaining it right. I can’t get things lined up in my head.”
Miss Lizzy turned back to me. “I think you explained it the best way anyone could.”
I took those words straight upstairs with me. Talked them right on a tape, ’cause I don’t never want to forget them.
I put in my hours at the Brown Cow. I kept myself to myself most of yesterday and Jen and Ellen purty much give up trying to get me to be friendly, so I fret and chop and clean without no one bothering me. At home I fix dinner and for sure felt like having me a nap. I’m tired to the bone from seein’ Robert ’round every corner when he ain’t really there, I’m weary of jumpin’ at every noise and thinkin’ badness is right there coming to get me, and I’m just sad when I look down at my stomach.
But Lizabeth’s important friend was coming. Lizabeth had a cheesecake from the bakery, so I guess she thought I’d poison her dead if I made the dessert. I was too tired to get stirred up about it.
Me and Biddy took showers and got on our good dresses and tromped to Lizabeth’s. I commenced to slice up the cheesecake and make a tray. I got out white napkins, made tea, and went into the dining room to fetch the silver tea set. I heard voices in the living room and look in.
I almost drop the tea tray. I knew the woman setting on the couch.
It was the judge’s wife. What could Lizabeth be thinking? She couldn’t let Biddy meet this woman.
Quincy come in from the dining room toting the silver tea set. She hardly got the tray to the table in one piece, she was shaking so hard.
“Biddy, you got to listen to me. . . .”
“Biddy,” Miss Lizzy called from the living room. “Could you come in here, please?”
Quincy grabbed hold of my arm. “Don’t go. I’ll tell you why later. Don’t go in there.”
“Quincy, what you so scaredy of ? Who’s in there?”
“It’s the judge’s wife, and I’ll tell you why you don’t want to meet her back at our ’partment, but . . .”
I patted Quincy’s hand just like Miss Lizzy does me. “Don’t worry your head, Quincy. I know ’bout the Mrs. Judge.”
“No,” Quincy said. “You don’t.”
“You know what my granny said to me after I had my baby?”
Quincy stared at me.
“She said, ‘The rich gets richer and the poor gets children and sometimes the rich gets the poor’s children.’”
“But . . .”
I hushed Quincy. “Granny said that when we was in the store. Mrs. Judge was pushing a pretty little blue-eyed baby in a stroller.”
Quincy let go my arm. “I still don’t think you should oughta go in there. That woman ain’t here to make some poor girl’s dream come true.”
I smiled at Quincy. “You don’t know my dream.”
I grab holt of Biddy’s hand. “I ain’t letting you go in there alone.”
Biddy squeeze my hand and smile. It didn’t light her face none at all. She was scared no matter how brave she talk.
We walk through the dining room and into the living room. Lizabeth and the judge’s wife set in big chairs and they talk in low voices that didn’t sound friendly. Lizabeth look mad around her mouth and scared in her eyes and sad in the way she set in the chair.
She look away from her important visitor and hitch up her spine.
“Biddy, please, sit down. Quincy, I would consider it a favor if you would fix the tea.”
Biddy sat on the divan and I plunk myself right down next to her. “I ain’t leavin’ Biddy here by her ownself.”
Lizabeth all but roll her eyes. “Quincy, we’re not going to boil the girl in a pot.”
“Let her stay, Elizabeth. I don’t want tea.” The judge’s wife look at Biddy and I could see her bottom lip kinda straighten out, like she caught a whiff of cauliflower.
“Biddy, I’m sure you are a very nice girl. But Elizabeth is confused about a few things and I want to set them straight.”
That woman’s mouth might say “nice,” but her voice didn’t.
“Janice, stop right now.” Lizabeth stood up.
“You wanted us to talk, so I’m talking,” the woman said.
Lizabeth looked frantic. “Biddy, I know I asked you to come in here, but I’m asking you to leave now. I need to speak to my friend alone for a moment.”
“No, you don’t, Elizabeth. You opened this can of worms. Now I’m closing it,” the judge’s wife say.
Elizabeth look all scared in her face. “Biddy, I’m asking you again to leave. Janice, this girl knows nothing about anything. I just wanted you to meet her.”
“Ridiculous. You’re making trouble, Elizabeth.” The judge’s wife turned and faced Biddy.
“Elizabeth seems to think that since you had a child at about the same time my husband and I adopted one that . . .” She stop talking. And flick a look at Lizabeth that could have set grass on fire. “Elizabeth thinks that I adopted your baby.”
Biddy didn’t say nothing.
“Well, that’s not the case.” I saw the judge’s wife’s bottom lip get a wiggle in it, and I knew for sure she was lying. I also knew for sure that she was covering up scared with mean.
Biddy say, “I know.”
“You know?” I jerk Biddy’s hand. “What kind of fool talk is that? That baby is yours and I know it.”
“Dear girl, you don’t know a thing,” the judge’s wife say. She try to stare me down, but that woman and me — we knew how each other’s insides work.
“Don’t tell me what I don’t know. I heard my foster folk talk about this five years ago.”
“What could your foster parents know about me?” The scared was out there to see now.
“My foster mother was a lawyer woman for the ACLU. She tole her husband about a judge that sign papers that let a retarded girl’s grandmother say the girl was . . . I don’t know, something about not being smart enough to decide things for her ownself. She say the judge sign the papers because him and his wife wanted to adopt the baby.”
The woman look at me like I just slap her ’crosst the face.
“And I ain’t your ‘dear girl,’ neither,” I say.
“Janice,” Lizabeth say as she sat back down. She put her hands to the sides of her head and rubbed like she was tired. “This is a small town. And this is the worst-kept secret in it. My husband was the mayor. You don’t think he knew what a judge was doing? You don’t think nurses tell stories? You don’t think people that work for Child Protective Services don’t know how this adoption was managed? Your child will hear it soon enough.”
The judge’s wife stand and smooth out her skirt. “No, she won’t. Because none of this is true.” She look at Biddy and talk slow with her words all apart like Biddy was deaf. “My baby was born in Russia. I flew there to get her. I’m sorry about your child, but I’m sure it has a better home than a girl with your . . . problems could give her. Lily is not your child. Do not think that. Do not tell anyone she is. Do not come near my child, my home, or me. Do you understand?”
Biddy nod.
“Biddy,” I say, real loud.
“Hush, Quincy,” Biddy say. “Everything is OK.”
“Janice,” Lizabeth say, “I didn’t want you two
to meet so that Biddy could take your child or bother you.” She turned to Biddy. “And, Biddy, I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories for you. I didn’t think that you knew . . .” Her voice trail off, and she look at the judge’s wife again. “I just didn’t know what else to do. This whole affair is a disgrace. I guess what I really wanted was to assure you that Biddy is a lovely girl. To encourage you to let her into your life a bit, and yes, maybe to shame you into letting her see her baby. And since the cat is out of the bag, I think the least you can do is to assure her that her child is loved and protected.”
Biddy smiled a faraway kinda smile then. “Miss Lizzy, that’s just what the Mrs. Judge did.” She stand up and let loose my hand. “Good-bye, Mrs. Judge. I know your baby ain’t mine.” And she walk out. Her back straight as a princess.
The judge’s wife drop into her chair. She cover up her eyes with her hands. “Elizabeth, how could you do this? The last thing I wanted was to be cruel to that girl.”
Lizabeth teared up too. “I never meant that to happen. I’m a meddling old fool.” She wiped her eyes with her hanky. “I thought if you met her and knew she would never want to take Lily . . . that you might bring the child here and allow Biddy to see her maybe just once. Just one time.” Lizabeth’s eyes seemed to go far away when she say that, and her voice got all tight. “Maybe someday you’d feel safe enough to tell her that the child was hers.”
I left them talking and went to Biddy. She was cutting cake.
“I’m thinking about going in there and setting that woman’s hair on fire,” I say.
“Quincy, the Mrs. Judge was just being a good Mama Duck.”
Mrs. Judge thought I wanted my baby back. Who knows? If I was smart enough to know how, maybe I might of tried. All I know is that baby belongs to her now. She’ll never leave her. That makes me feel real good. But I still wish I could ever have held her. Sung her a song.
I wish Miss Lizzy hadn’t never made us meet. The way it was, I could make believe that my baby’s mother might like me. It’s like if you get one thing, you gotta lose something else. I know my baby’s new mama loves her. But it hurts me down deep to know Mrs. Judge thinks I’m trash.