After a brief, startled moment, Aunt Bett said, “Thank you,” and without another word, she put her hand on my shoulder and guided me out of the kitchen. To my great surprise, she led me to the bedroom, where we saw that it, too, had been cleaned and dusted, and fresh sheets were on my cot and on the bed Molly and Little Ellis shared.
“We really gonna lie down?” I whispered, thinking that neither Aunt Bett nor I would be able to bear rumpling those crisp, spotless sheets.
“Of course not!” Aunt Bett snorted.
Because we both knew that to “lie down,” even for a “little minute” was something rich, pampered folks did. Not people like us, who knew all about working hard and keeping on with it, even if you were tired to death. So we stood in the room, not really knowing what to do.
“What are we doing?” I finally whispered.
“Heavens, child! I surely don’t know,” Aunt Bett confessed. Then she added “Doing whatever Aunt Mee said to do, is all.” So there we stood, not wanting to sit on the beds, and not wanting to go against what Aunt Mee had said for us to do. At last, we heard a car door slam, and Aunt Bett looked out of the window.
“They’re here,” she announced, and so we went into the living room, to greet the first arrival of Aunt Bett’s church people and Mama’s beauty parlor people, and Roy Ellis’s chicken plant people, all coming to comfort us.
All during the time of visiting, Aunt Bett kept looking around for Roy-Ellis, even asking me if I had seen him one time. But I hadn’t. There were so many people and so much going on, I didn’t have time to think of Roy-Ellis. I must have said thank-you a hundred times to good folks who wanted to tell me how sorry they were about Mama. And I heard all kinds of comments when folks didn’t realize I was around:
“What’s going to happen to the children?”
“Roy-Ellis certainly can’t take care of them and work too.”
“I’ll bet you anything in this world that Bett will take them in. Her own sister’s children!”
“Bett’s already got enough to handle, what with trying to raise her own.”
It was late in the afternoon before everybody finally left, and when Aunt Bett and I went into the dining room, all the food had been cleared away. The kitchen itself was spotless, and the dishes we had to return to folks were all clean and shining and neatly set aside. The sink had been scrubbed, and in the refrigerator, the leftover food was neatly packaged and marked with little strips of masking tape that said what was in the package. Aunt Mee was gone.
We heard the screen door close in the living room, and in a few moments, Roy-Ellis came into the kitchen.
“Roy-Ellis!” Aunt Bett said. “Where have you been? We had folks here who wanted to give you their condolences, and you weren’t even here.” Roy-Ellis didn’t even answer. He just sat down at the kitchen table with a groan.
“You want some iced tea?” Aunt Bett asked him, her voice lots softer than it had been.
“No, Bett,” he moaned. “I don’t want tea, for goodness sake. What I really want is a cold beer.”
“Don’t you go talking like that around me, Roy-Ellis!” Her face was bright red. “I won’t stay under this roof and see one drop of that nasty devil’s brew go down your throat!”
Under her fury, Roy-Ellis’s face had turned a deeper red than Aunt Bett’s.
“Now do you want some iced tea?” she repeated.
“Yes ma’am,” Roy-Ellis murmured.
“Dove, you get changed out of that good dress and then walk on down to my house and get Molly and Little Ellis,” Aunt Bett said. And then she added, “And be sure to hang the dress up.”
“Yes’m.”
To Roy-Ellis she said, “Now let me get you a nice glass of tea and then we’ll just sit here and figure out what we’re gonna do.” So I went into the bedroom to change out of my good dress, but I could still hear every word Aunt Bett and Roy-Ellis were saying in the kitchen, because they hadn’t shut the door this time.
“Well, what are we gonna do about the children?” Aunt Bett asked right off.
So maybe she had heard some of those comments herself.
“Children?” Roy-Ellis sounded like he’d forgotten we were even in this world.
“Yes,” she said slowly, giving him some little bit of time to remember about us. “The children,” she finally urged.
“What about them?”
“Why, who’s gonna look after them?”
“Oh.”
“Who’s gonna look after them, Roy-Ellis?” she pressed.
“Well,” Roy-Ellis heaved a sigh. “They done all right while their mama was so sick. Dove done okay, her taking care of the little ones.”
“Dove’s just a baby herself, Roy-Ellis. Sometimes I think you forget that,” Aunt Bett said. “And besides, how can she take care of Molly and Little Ellis when she’s got to go to school?”
I felt my face go all hot when Aunt Bett said I was a baby, because I was not a baby, for Heaven’s sake! Why, I was going on fourteen, and I knew how to take care of Little Ellis and Molly too, and myself. I’d been doing a good job of it for a long time, even before Mama got sick. Because Mama said we mustn’t come into her beauty shop while she was working. So I’d learned how to mix up Kool-Aid and make pimento cheese sandwiches, and slice up a tomato without cutting myself, and get Molly and Little Ellis to take their naps. But Aunt Bett was right about school. I couldn’t miss school!
“I’d take them home with me, if I could,” Aunt Bett said.
“Lord have mercy, Bett!” Roy-Ellis interrupted. “You got plenty of your own need tending to. You surely don’t need no more.”
“But my own sister’s children . . .” Aunt Bett went on but there was a relieved sound in her voice.
“I’ll find a woman to come in,” Roy-Ellis said. “I’ll bet I can sure find us somebody good. Hey! How about Aunt Mee?”
Aunt Bett thought hard for a few moments. “Aunt Mee’s getting on in years, Roy-Ellis,” she finally pronounced. “And besides, she’s worked for old Miz Stone, across town, for years. I don’t know that she would leave her.” Silence. So I went back into the kitchen. Roy-Ellis and Aunt Bett looked up at me.
“I thought I told you to change out of that good dress,” Aunt Bett said. Then she added, “Dove, honey, when I bring you dresses to wear, you gotta take good care of them. You’re more’n welcome to the clothes, because you’re of a size right in between my Darlene and my Cassandra. But I gotta have those dresses back in good shape, for passing along to Cassandra.” I didn’t mind Aunt Bett telling me all that again, even though I’d heard it so many times. Every single time, in fact, that she handed down anything of Darlene’s for me to borrow.
“Yes’m,” I said. “In just a little minute, please?”
She looked resigned. I looked right at Roy-Ellis, saw the misery in his eyes, and how his hair was hanging in his face, and him holding that glass of iced tea and knowing how much he wanted a beer.
“Roy-Ellis,” I said so carefullike. “You don’t need to find anybody to take care of us. I can do it. You know I can do it. ‘Cause I been doing it all along. All the days when Mama was doing hair –”
“But she was here, if you needed her all of a sudden,” Aunt Bett interrupted.
“But she wasn’t here on Saturday nights,” I explained to Aunt Bett, and then I looked right at Roy-Ellis and added, “And you weren’t either, and I did just fine, all by myself.”
Aunt Bett looked away. Roy-Ellis’s eyes went dark and sad, probably because he was remembering Mama’s spangle dresses and her laugh and how she sang honkytonk songs.
“I can do it,” I whispered to him, like maybe my saying it louder would hurt him too much in that bruised place behind his eyes.
“Well,” Aunt Bett relented after a minute or so. “Maybe she could, Roy-Ellis. At least until you find somebody. I can take Molly and Little Ellis while Dove’s in school, and she can get them on her way home in the afternoons.” She looked me up and down,
as if she was measuring how big I was. “And I’m just down the road such a little piece, she could practically holler to me from your own front porch, and I’d hear her. Like if she got scared or something.”
Me? Scared? That’s what I was thinking, but I didn’t say a single word.
“Thanks, Bett,” is all Roy-Ellis said, and I knew I’d won.
“Now you go on in there and take off Darlene’s dress and be sure you hang it up,” Aunt Bett said to me. And I hummed Mama’s honky-tonk song while I did exactly as Aunt Bett said.
Chapter Four
Roy-Ellis went back to work on Thursday morning, and I walked Molly and Little Ellis down to Aunt Bett’s before I went back to school. And I guess it felt good to do something completely usual, like going to school. Of course, everybody knew about my mama passing on, and all my teachers—especially Miss Madison, my English teacher—were even nicer than usual to me. I really didn’t expect any of the girls in my school to be nice to me, ever. Because our town has only one school for everybody, and girls from the other side of town—where the houses had real lawns and perfectly painted front porches with matching rocking chairs on them—mostly stayed together and didn’t pay much attention to any of us from the far side of town, the ones who lived in houses where the gray paint was wearing off, and the front porches mostly had begonias growing in rusted cans. So those girls from the nice side of town just clumped together, sitting together at lunch, and walking around with their arms around each other’s waists at recess. Sometimes they all gathered in the shade of a big tree and squatted together, whispering and giggling. But the girls like me mostly didn’t talk much to each other, and we certainly didn’t draw attention to ourselves. We just sort of blended into the background and avoided having anybody notice us, in particular.
But in my secret heart, I really wanted to be like those other girls, because they were so pretty and wore such nice clothes. They liked each other and chattered and giggled together, and they were always spotlessly clean and nice-smelling. Like maybe they used perfumed soap or something like that. Sometimes, when I felt especially lonely at school, I’d imagine what their rooms were like, in those big houses. For one thing, I bet they all had their own rooms, and didn’t share with brothers or sisters. And frilly curtains at the windows, and a maid to dust and clean and cook for them. I guess I wanted so much to be like them, only not mean or cold to girls like me.
But Miss Madison made up for the way those girls treated me. I’d always liked her, ever since the first day of school. Miss Madison was young and pretty, and the first thing she wanted to know was what books we had read during the summer. One boy answered, “Comic books,” and everybody laughed. But Miss Madison didn’t get mad.
“Well, that isn’t what I had in mind,” she smiled, and that smile is what lifted my hand right up into the air. “Yes?” She looked at her roll book. “Yes, Dove?”
“I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”
“Very good,” she beamed. “And what did you think of it?”
“I loved it,” I said simply. “I read it twice, and I’m going to read it again.”
“Why did you love it?” she pressed. I had to stop and think about that for a moment.
“Well,” I started, still thinking. “It was about a family that had a hard time. And after the father died, things were even harder. But they made it through. And it had a girl in it I really liked—Francie—and it was about living in a real city.”
“Fine,” Miss Madison said, nodding her head. “Now try this, Dove. Go back and tell me again, but this time, put everything into the present tense.”
“Present tense?” I wanted to be sure I heard her right.
“That’s right,” she smiled back at me
“Well, the book is about a family that’s having a hard time. The father dies, and things get harder. But in the end, they all make it through. I like Francie, and the story is about living in a real city.”
“Good! Now, do you know why we talk about books and the action in them in the present tense?”
“No, ma’am,” I said, and I knew she was going to tell me, and I couldn’t wait to find out.
“Because the story happens again and again and again, every time we read it. When you talk about what happens in a story, you speak as if it’s happening right now. Because it is. Every single time you read it.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure I understood, but I figured I’d better not ask any more until I got that straight in my head. But maybe it did make some sense, because when I’d look up from reading, sometimes I’d realize that I’d been living another life. In another world.
Later that first day, when I was almost done with my lunch, some of the girls in my class—girls who lived in those big, white houses way on the other side of town from our little house on a dirt road—whispered “Teacher’s Pet” real loud at me, but I didn’t care. I liked talking about interesting things. Those girls wouldn’t even sit at the same table with somebody like me, so I sat all alone, eating my sandwich and thinking about how Francie felt… feels… when she visits her old neighborhood.
Then Michelle—who was absolutely the worst of the snooty girls—came close to where I was sitting, and in a loud, mean whisper, she said, “Dove wears old clothes nobody else wants!” But I didn’t care, because I was absolutely certain that Francie wouldn’t have cared about that, either.
But that had all been a long time ago, and I thought maybe I wouldn’t have any more trouble with Michelle. I was wrong. My mama had died, and that made all the big-white-house girls notice me again. And I should have known that getting noticed was going to lead to trouble, but I didn’t. I was still hurting too bad about Mama to look out for anything like that. But that first day back at school after spring holidays, Michelle came up right behind me at lunch time, with one of her big-white-house girlfriends in tow and said in a loud voice, “Dove’s aunt gives her Darlene’s old clothes to wear.” I didn’t turn around. So she added, “And the aunt is so poor, she can’t even pay good money for clothes. She has to trade pickles for them!” I turned and stared at Michelle, but I said not one single word and I didn’t look at her funny-like or anything.
But Michelle didn’t stop there. She went around telling everybody that all my dresses were the very same ones Darlene wore last year and that we were all so poor, we couldn’t afford our own clothes—but had to borrow clothes from other folks. I’m not sure of why it hurt me so bad, but it did. Maybe it had something to do with my mama and Aunt Bett—like everybody was laughing at how hard Aunt Bett tried to help me and Molly and Little Ellis. So when we were lining up to go back inside after recess, I walked right up to Michelle and stuck my face into hers and bored my eyes into her startled ones.
“You shut up, Michelle. You just shut up. You hear me?” My voice was so strong-sounding, it almost surprised me. Then I turned on my heel and walked away. But when we got into the classroom, Michelle went up to the teacher’s desk and told her something. We had a substitute teacher that day, and that was unlucky for me. The teacher looked at me, and then she wiggled her finger for me to come to her desk, too.
“Dove,” she whispered. “Michelle says that you cursed at her during lunch time. Is that true?” I looked at Michelle, and she had the meanest, happiest look on her face I have ever seen.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I’m not allowed to use curse words.”
“She did!” Michelle shot back, and then she went back to wearing that same look.
The teacher looked back at me, and I blinked at her with my face as open and honest as could be. But I could tell she had already made up her mind.
“Dove, you go down and see Miss Frazier.” And that was the way she dismissed me, and I found myself sitting in the principal’s office. Miss Frazier was a heavyset person, and that day, she was wearing a dress with tiny purple bows in the fabric. Made me think of Aunt Bett’s story about her and my mama taking music lessons. But I knew better than to smile. I’d never been se
nt to Miss Frazier’s office before, and I sat real still, trying to decide if I was mad because of Michelle lying about what I said or if I was scared to death. Miss Frazier closed my file and put her hands together on top of it.
“You’ve never caused trouble before, Dove. Now I know about your losing your mama so recently. Is that why you’re causing trouble?”
“No, ma’am.” I met her gaze without blinking.
“So what happened that you used curse words to Michelle? You hear that kind of talk at home?” I thought of Roy-Ellis and how sometimes he used bad words. But when he’d burned himself on that boiling water when he was helping us dye Easter eggs, he’d stopped himself from saying those words around us. And I hadn’t heard him say anything bad since then.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “But Michelle was saying bad things about my clothes, and I had to tell her to shut up. I did tell her to shut up, but I didn’t use any curse words. And that’s the truth. And it doesn’t have anything to do with . . . Mama,” I managed to add, but then I knew I had to stop talking or I was going to cry. Miss Frazier studied me hard, and I sat there running my hand across the hem of Darlene’s last-year dress.
“Are you telling me that Michelle lied?” The question was sent at me just like a spear.
“Yes’m,” I gulped. “I guess I am.”
She leaned back in her chair and sighed.
“Dove, Michelle’s father is an outstanding member of this community. He has raised Michelle right, and I’m sure she doesn’t lie.”
“But I’ve been raised right too, and I’m not lying, Miss Frazier,” I said in all honesty.
“Well, I want you to stay away from Michelle altogether. I don’t want you to say anything to her. Do you understand?”
“Yes’m.” And I certainly did understand. Miss Frazier believed Michelle and not me.
“You may go now, but remember what I told you,” she warned.
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