Singing Hands

by Delia Ray

  Suddenly, I felt flustered. "Hi there!" I blurted out without even thinking. A librarian stamping books behind the counter shot me a disapproving glare.

  Miss Grace waited for her to turn back to her work, then winked and began to sign. "Good thing we know sign language."

  I nodded, embarrassed.

  "What brings you here on a Saturday morning?" Miss Grace asked, her hands moving quickly.

  I laid the creased word list on the desk before her. She scanned the paper, then looked up at me, perplexed. With a glance back at the grumpy librarian, I started to whisper, speaking carefully so my lips would be easy to read.

  Miss Grace stopped me with a wag of her finger. "Sign, please."

  I lifted my hands awkwardly to sign. "I need to find the ... the..." I didn't know the sign for "definitions," so I had to fingerspell.

  Miss Grace was studying the word list again. She made the gesture for music with an added O. "You like opera?"

  "Not really," I signed back. "Mrs. Fernley does. She's trying to teach me."

  Miss Grace clapped lightly. "So that's the music I feel coming through the back of my closet every weekend!" She shimmied her hands over her desk as if she was feeling the tremble of an earthquake. "I always wondered."

  I wanted to laugh, but a couple of people waiting at the circulation desk had turned to stare. I was relieved when Miss Grace led me over to a nearby table and told me to have a seat. Before long, she had brought back not just a thick Webster's dictionary but a whole stack of reference books about music. Then she patted my arm and left so I could get started.

  I mournfully surveyed the pile of books, wanting to wail out loud. So much for livening up my Saturday and solving the mystery of Mr. Vincent. For a while, I watched Miss Grace as she worked, admiring how efficiently she helped everyone. I could tell which customers were regulars at the library. They wrote their requests on slips of paper or whispered carefully so she could read their lips. Then, with a quick nod, Miss Grace briskly set off in search of the information they were hunting for.

  With a sigh, I hoisted open the Webster's, but the sight of the tiny printed words quivering like germs on the page made me want to slam it shut again. It was impossible to concentrate. I reached for another volume, The Passion of Opera, A-Z, and lazily began to flip through the pages. The words "love affair" caught my eye, and soon I found myself reading a description of a famous opera called Pagliacci. The next chapter told about Madame Butterfly, the opera I had heard Mrs. Fernley play over and over again. I had never realized that Madame Butterfly was actually a poor Japanese girl jilted by an American naval officer.

  I turned more pages, and read about the bewitching gypsy girl Carmen, who gallivanted around with soldiers and bullfighters and ended up getting herself stabbed to death.

  It was like a cruel trick—the more I read about opera, with all of its tragic stories of love affairs and jealously and betrayal, the more I couldn't help imagining the worst about Miss Grace's past. As usual, my thoughts galloped in crazy directions. What if Miss Grace was like Nedda in Pagliacci, who was carrying on with the peasant Silvio behind her husband's back? Nedda wound up getting stabbed just like Carmen.

  With so much stabbing going on, I practically yelped out loud when Miss Grace came up behind me and touched me on the shoulder. I stared at the big clock over the doorway in surprise. It was already a quarter past noon. I had managed to work my way through a half-dozen scandals described in The Passion of Opera, A-Z, but I hadn't finished a single definition. I slid my elbow over the word list, trying to hide the wide stretches of blank space on my paper.

  "Are you finding everything you need?" she signed.

  I nodded enthusiastically, hunching even further.

  "Want to take a lunch break with me?"

  I couldn't help bounding to my feet like a puppy. Miss Grace smiled and collected her purse from her desk. Then she led me through the main library hallway and out into the sunshine of Wilson Park, where a man was selling hot tamales from a pushcart. I had never tried tamales, so I had to pretend I wasn't nervous when Miss Grace bought us two and handed me the steaming bunch of corn husks wrapped in paper. We found a bench under a shady poplar, and I stole glances at her, trying to copy the dainty way she unwrapped the shucks and then ate the cornmeal-and-spicy-meat filling with her fingers.

  I was still marveling over how good tamales tasted when Miss Grace wiped her hands on her napkin and signed, "So your father's guest left this morning?

  I stopped chewing and nodded. I never imagined she would be the one to bring him up. And now Miss Grace was touching her shoulder with a letter V—the same name sign Mr. Vincent had shown Nell and me yesterday when we met him in front of Saint Simon's.

  "That's what the students used to call him at ASD," she added.

  I gulped down the lump of tamale in my throat and tried to look politely surprised. "Oh, I didn't know you knew each other," I fibbed, working to keep my hands steady.

  Miss Grace kept her gaze on a couple of pigeons pecking crumbs at our feet as she signed. "He was a few years ahead of me at ASD. After he graduated, he stayed on and taught in the woodworking shop. He was a fine carpenter."

  "Daddy says he's an assistant principal now," I told her.

  Miss Grace's hands fell still for an instant. "Oh," she breathed. "I didn't know."

  All at once, I realized how obviously I had been staring, with my mouth practically hanging open in suspense. I took my last bite of tamale, praying she would go on.

  After another minute of thinking, she did. "I'm not surprised he's been promoted," she continued in a burst of signs. "He was a favorite at ASD. When I worked there, I was always a little jealous of how much his students loved him."

  "You worked at ASD, too?"

  She bobbed her fist up and down for "yes." "After I graduated from the high school there, I worked as a supervisor in the girls' dormitory and helped the secretary in the main office."

  "For how long?" I asked in a rush, leaning forward.

  "For two years. I loved my job, but my parents had been begging me to move closer to home. So I finally gave in and came back to Birmingham. I met James at church a few weeks later.... Mother and Father introduced us."

  "You never went back to ASD?"

  "No." She smiled wistfully. "James asked me to marry him."

  I glanced from her hands to her face and back again, searching for some sort of clue, just as I had last night in the parlor. Sure enough, there it was—her palms clasped tightly together in the sign for "marry," so sincere and final. Then she was gazing: down at the wedding ring on her left hand and twisting the thin gold band around and around on her finger.

  I stared at the wedding band, too, my brain racing to fit the pieces of her story together. Mr. Vincent must have fallen in love with Grace when she worked at ASD. But by the time he realized how he felt, he was probably too late. She had married Corporal Homewood, and she was devoted to him. She was devoted to him still, and obviously any spark between Miss Grace and Mr. Vincent had died out long ago.

  "I have a new nickname for you," she said out loud, and poked my arm playfully. "Miss Twenty Questions." I could hear the teasing in her voice. Still, I touched my nose and shook my head, apologizing for being so nosy.

  Miss Grace waved away my apology. "I like your questions. It's good to have you here to eat lunch with ... and to sign with. Sometimes I go days without signing."

  I couldn't keep my face from breaking into a foolish grin. Me. Miss Grace said she liked signing with me of all people. I thanked her for the compliment, pleased with how light and graceful my hands suddenly felt moving through the air.

  ***

  I expected Mrs. Fernley to be disappointed with me. I had finished only half of my word list. But at least she was impressed with the way I used each of those words in a sentence.

  "Well, Gussie," she said, looking up from my assignment. "Your work is incomplete, though I admire your use of the word 'aria,' and I quit
e agree with your assessment."

  She recited my sentence out loud in her crispest voice. '"In Pagliacci, Canio sings one of the greatest tenor arias in opera history.'" She seemed surprised. "That's very good. When, may I ask, did you have the pleasure of hearing Pagliacci?"

  "I—um," I stammered, "I guess I never have. I just read about it."

  Mrs. Fernley drew back, blinking, as if I had just slapped her hard across the face. "Goodness, child! You can't make such claims in your sentences without at least hearing some of the works you're referring to." She fluttered over to her phonograph and briskly flipped through the albums lined up on a nearby shelf. Then, holding one of her records between her fingertips like a treasure from a museum, she carefully laid it on the turntable and bent closer to place the needle in a precisely chosen spot.

  Her skirt and nylon stockings swished as she swept back to join me on the love seat. "Listen," she whispered breathlessly. "This is it. Canio's aria— Vesti la giubba. He's just learned of his wife's betrayal."

  "You mean Nedda," I added proudly. "Canio stabs her, right?"

  Mrs. Fernley nodded and raised a finger to her lips to shush me. She closed her eyes to listen.

  I had to admit—even though I couldn't understand a single word—the music was beautiful ... and sad. Canio's tortured voice poured into the room. First his song drifted off in a sob, and then it began gathering more power, building louder and higher until I found myself digging my fingernails into my palms.

  I peeked at Mrs. Fernley. Her eyes were still shut, and she had leaned back in the love seat as if in a swoon. I let out a deep breath, sank against the pink velveteen, and closed my eyes, too, gradually realizing that Mrs. Fernley had the right idea. Listening to opera might be relaxing after all. Compared to the heartache and nastiness those tenors and sopranos sang about, my own troubles seemed downright trifling.

  Chapter 14

  Two weeks later, Nell refused to believe me when I announced that Missy DuPage was coming over to spend the night.

  "You're lying, Gussie," she cried as I darted around the parlor plumping pillows.

  "I'm not," I said, gritting my teeth. I swiped a layer of dust off the fireplace mantel with the flat of my hand, then stopped and pulled the damp fabric of my blouse away from my sweaty underarms. "She'll be here in two hours. Now, please go upstairs and clean your side of the room. And if you could just hide all those ratty stuffed animals on the dresser, that would really—"

  "But you hate Missy DuPage!" I blew a clump of hair off my forehead and began again, enunciating slowly and carefully this time. "I—do—not—hate—Missy. I told you before. She's nice. We've gotten to be good friends in Sunday school."

  Now I truly was lying. The real fact was that I had barely spoken to Missy until a week ago, when she had followed me out to the church courtyard and informed me she was "on to" my "clever little plan." To my utter amazement, instead of tattling, Missy had asked if she could skip Sunday school with me. How could I say no? I had no choice but to lead her directly over to the Tutwiler and use my offering money to treat her to some Nabs.

  Nell put her hands on her hips. I could swear she was becoming more like Margaret every day.

  "How come you never mentioned this wonderful friendship with Missy before?"

  "I don't know. I didn't think too much about it, I guess."

  Another lie. I hadn't thought of anything else since last Sunday, when I blurted out my spend-the-night invitation to Missy as we were sneaking back into the Advent.

  "Did Mother say it was okay?" Nell persisted. "Daddy's having the church vestry meeting here tonight, you know. And some of the ladies are coming along to visit this time."

  "Of course Mother says it's okay. And believe me, Missy and I won't go anywhere near the vestry meeting." I rolled my eyes and then swooped over to snatch the yellowed crocheted doilies off the arms of the settee. Nell watched with her mouth open as I shoved them underneath one of the seat cushions.

  "You never used to act this nervous when Barbara Blackwell spent the night," she said.

  "Well, that's because this is Missy's first time visiting, and I'm sure she's used to things looking a lot more ... a lot more..." My voice trailed off as I stood surveying the parlor one last time before moving on to the dining room. My gaze lit on a bronze statuette that had been planted in the middle of our coffee table for as long as I could remember. I had never understood the statue or why my parents even owned a figurine of a naked boy riding on the back of a bridled turtle.

  "Missy's used to things looking a lot more what?" Nell demanded.

  I grabbed the naked-boy statue from the table and shook it in Nell's face. "A lot more civilized," I said loudly, and hurried off in search of a place to hide it.

  At five o'clock sharp, the doorbell rang, and I breezed down the staircase in a fresh blouse and pair of shorts, pretending that I hadn't been sitting on the landing for the last fifteen minutes, nervously awaiting Missy's arrival. When I opened the door, I found Mrs. DuPage pressed close to her daughter's side. She was peering over her shoulder at the street, as if she was sizing up the other houses in our neighborhood.

  "Hello there!" she cried, whipping around and flashing me a smile that could have come right out of a toothpaste ad. "You must be Gussie. Missy has told me so much about you, dear."

  Luckily, she didn't seem to recognize me from that awful morning when I'd dropped my pennies at the Advent.

  "Moth-er," Missy drawled in disgust, and impatiently shifted her red patent-leather overnight case from one hand to the other.

  "I know, Missy, honey. You're just anxious to run off with your new friend. But, Gussie, dear, I would like the chance to say hello to your mother ... since we've never laid eyes on each other before. Missy says she'll just ride to church with you tomorrow morning and meet us at the Advent. It's a wonder I haven't run into your mother yet at Sunday coffee hour."

  Missy heaved another sigh. Sitting at the counter in the Tutwiler drugstore last week, Missy had questioned me about the absence of my parents at church as skillfully as any of the inspectors in my True Detective magazines. Before I knew it, I had babbled out my confession: my parents were deaf and my father was the minister of a deaf congregation and they had sent me to the Advent to worship with hearing people.

  "You're kidding!" Missy had exclaimed, and squeezed one of my hands resting on the counter as if we had been friends for years. "How awful," she said, and dropped her voice low, with her look of horror quickly turning to fascination. "You mean they can't hear anything at all? Not even a freight train or ... one of those ... those noisy old jackhammer things?"

  When I shook my head grimly, Missy's eyes had lit up with delight, and she'd launched into another slew of questions about my "poor deaf parents." But obviously she had decided not to share those stories with her mother for some reason.

  Now I was stuck. In my rush to make our house more presentable for Missy's arrival, I had forgotten to make sure my mother would be presentable, too. And at that very minute, she was in our steaming kitchen, up to her elbows in flour and sugar, making a cake and two pies for the church vestry meeting, which would be starting at seven. I had forgotten to tell her exactly what time Missy was coming. Mrs. Fernley's word list popped into my head. Mortification: Mrs. Olivia Davis would surely experience extreme mortification if she was forced in her present condition to meet daisy-fresh Mrs. DuPage.

  Mrs. DuPage was staring at me warily. "Would it be all right, then, dear? To meet your mother?"

  "I'm sorry," I said quickly. "She just stepped out ... to the market. She wanted to make Missy a special dinner."

  "Oh, how sweet," Mrs. DuPage crooned. "Well, I could wait a few minutes." She peeked past me into our shadowy foyer. "How long do you think she'll be?"

  I hesitated, and we all turned at the sound of a car pulling into our driveway. It was Preston Tucker in a red coupe, bringing Margaret home from an afternoon at the Cahaba River. I had never in all my twelve years bee
n so happy to see my older sister. We watched as Preston hopped out of the car and walked around to open the passenger door for her.

  "Isn't that the Tucker boy?" Mrs. DuPage asked, sounding pleasantly surprised and relieved. "The Tuckers live on the next street over from us in Mountain Brook."

  "Yes, that's Preston," I said smoothly. "He and my sister Margaret are dating." Of course, "dating" might not have been exactly the right term to describe their relationship. I hadn't seen a trace of Preston since the Birthmark Baines incident back in June. Most likely he was just now recovering from the shock of all the screaming and underwear he had encountered in our upstairs hallway.

  Margaret said goodbye to Preston and came swinging up the steps, looking pretty in a flowered sundress over her two-piece. Her cheeks were rosy with sun and the thrill of spending the day with the basketball star of South Glen High.

  "Well, hello there," Mrs. DuPage said, reaching out her hand to shake Margaret's. They didn't even need my help with introductions. In no time, they were fawning over each other, gushing about what a fine family the Tuckers were and what a stately colonial they had over in Mountain Brook and what remarkable energy Preston must possess to be able to shoot baskets at the hoop in his driveway until nine o'clock most nights. Mrs. DuPage barely noticed when her daughter kissed her on the cheek and slipped through the front door after me.

  Once I had taken Missy to my bedroom to drop off her overnight case, she asked to see the rest of the house. Suddenly, our Oriental rugs looked more threadbare than usual, and I noticed that the rose-patterned wallpaper in the bathroom was peeling away from the corners. When we peeked into Margaret's room, even the flouncy tieback curtains, the same ones I had always coveted, looked dingy and dusty, as if they had never displayed a single shred of flounce.

  "You wanna go walk around outside?" I suggested as we stood at the top of the. stairs.

  "What about your mother and father's room?" Missy asked.

  I shrugged. "It's not much," I said, and led her into their bedroom, directly over to the prettiest spot by the window seat.