I nervously chuckled and nodded my head in agreement, but Miss Claudia never drifted her attention away from the rosebuds outside her kitchen window.
“Directly, Mama had another baby. Little Madeline. Oh, she was just the sweetest thing you ever did see. After the store closed, I’d hurry and get my lessons done so I could rock her before fixing supper. I liked to pretend I was Madeline’s mama. Problem was, Old Man Maxwell pretended I was her mama too. One evening when Mama was still in bed recovering from the birthing, he made his intentions known.
“I was used to closing the store by myself, so I was surprised to look up and see Old Man Maxwell’s long, bearded face in the glass front door. The image disappeared as soon as I pulled the green shade down. But he had that musky scent, just like a water moccasin lets off before it strikes.
“When I began cleaning out the cash register, he moved in on me. I edged away from the cash register, still clutching pennies in my hand. His old, prickly beard rubbed against my neck. I yelled for him to behave, but he just kept on with it. I can still feel his dry tongue on my neck. I reckon it was reflex that made me throw those pennies as hard as I could at his baggy eyes. It was the first time anybody ever slapped me on my face.
“Poor Mama was so weak with anemia from having the baby that I thought it best not to talk about such things with her. I could fight him off, I decided that night with the covers pulled tight over my sweaty head. The next morning over his runny eggs, I looked him dead in the eye and told him if he ever tried to touch me again, he’d be sorry. The dishes in the kitchen cabinet plumb vibrated from his laughing.”
Miss Claudia’s hand trembled when she adjusted her glasses. I was on alert, waiting for her to stop talking and go to crying—my cue to jump in and rescue her by changing the subject.
“Mama got better, but my situation sure didn’t. Whenever I’d try to mention his behavior, she’d just start chirping about how Old Man Maxwell saved us from the poorhouse. To keep away from him, I started working in the bait and tackle shop. I’d dig for earthworms, slice minnows, and put weights on fishing line, anything to keep away from that creature. In the process I ran right into another one.
“Luther Ranker was a regular in the bait shop. He owned two fishing boats and hired out three colored men to help him. Mama always said he tried to get by on his looks. He seemed sweet at first. Every day he’d come in the shop and tease me about us running off and getting married. I called him silly, handed him his minnows and new hooks, and sent him into the bay. Two months later I stood at the courthouse and promised to honor and obey him.
“I still remember the day I made up my mind to marry Luther. It was a hot morning. July, I believe. I was getting everything ready to open the shop, when the Old Man caught me by myself and pushed me to a corner where some nets were stacked. ‘I put a lot of money into you, girlie, and it’s time to pay up,’ he said. The bacon my mama had made him was still fresh on his breath. When I heard his zipper go down, my vocal cords dried up. I just…never thought it’d go that far. And my poor mama…just inside the store putting money in his cash register. If only I could’ve done…”
She squeezed my hand until the knuckles ached, her gaze set far above the pink and yellow roses beyond the window. We both jumped at the slap of the screened kitchen door.
“We’re not having breakfast this morning?” Richard stared at the empty frying pan.
Miss Claudia quickly released my hands and dabbed the sweat beads on her forehead with a nearby napkin. A ghostly white imprint remained on my fingers.
“Umm…yeah, I’m getting a late start this morning.” I returned to my proper place at the frying pan and began melting the butter. Imagining the black coils as Old Man Maxwell’s beard, I slammed the pan on the eye of the stove. The loud bang made Richard turn towards me.
Miss Claudia casually patted her hair like she had walked through a gust of wind and smiled. “Sleep good?”
“Yes, ma’am. I did.” Richard joined her at the table and went over all the drama that had taken place in Wiregrass the night before—knowledge thanks to the police scanner that ran constantly in his garage apartment. “You never know when a good lawyer might be needed,” he reminded us this morning, like he did every time he reported a car wreck or burglary scoop learned from his faithful mechanical friend.
I eyed Miss Claudia real close, trying to think of some question to ask Richard in case she needed more time to gather herself. She gracefully propped her left hand on her chin. While Richard told of a fire downtown, she nodded her head in agreement, and the white rock on her left hand sparkled. He never realized she was sitting at the table for the first time since her fall. He just continued his 911 report, spoke of his need of prescription refills, and asked about his doctor’s appointment for the day. “Remember they changed the appointment to three o’clock,” Miss Claudia said with a point of her finger. The lady of the house was back where she belonged.
Four
After repeated attempts to get me to see a lawyer, Miss Claudia finally set up a meeting with the one she used. I knew I had to go meet with him as soon as Richard offered to represent me. Miss Claudia winked when Richard made the offer over a plate of chicken and dumplings. A wink similar to Patricia’s when one of the third-graders reports a tall tale in the cafeteria. Albeit, my lawyer couldn’t have been more than twenty-nine, my own daughter’s age. Miss Claudia insisted he was top-flight. Like Patricia, he had a line of framed degrees decorating his fancy downtown office. The baby-faced man with slicked-back blonde hair addressed me as Mrs. Jacobs and made me feel confident that quick action would be taken. While he rattled on about no-fault, unfit parenting, and quick proceedings, all I could think of was my ailing car out in the parking lot. The pair of pliers had become a trusty companion, but sooner or later that switch would need replacing. He took a breath, and I jumped at the chance to ask the cost. He simply waved his hand and continued talking pending divorce.
Every evening when I stepped inside the trailer, the first thing I’d see was the white phone cord spring from behind the kitchen wall. Cher told me she was talking with Laurel, her first friend in Wiregrass. The girl was a year older than Cher. Her bright blonde hair and a hint of too much eye shadow made me question what kind of girl Laurel might be. I thought it curious that Cher would spend so much time talking with Laurel since she lived in a double-wide across from us. Why didn’t the two girls just meet in the middle of the crumbled asphalt street to do their talking? But after raising two kids, I knew all sorts of odd things the early teen years did to kids. Besides, I trusted Cher. I always told her I’d trust her until she gave me reason not to.
Then the phone bill came in.
Our bill jumped to seventy-five dollars, decorated with phone calls for various area codes in Louisiana. She passed it off as trying to locate her missing friends. I refused to let this one go by. Although I didn’t want to involve Miss Claudia in this, Cher had to learn a lesson. I brought her with me to work the last two days of her spring break, and she washed all of Miss Claudia’s downstairs windows.
“Morning. Time to get on up,” I said on the second day.
She lay in bed, mumbling and grumbling, until I took an ice cube and tossed it in her bed. She screamed and told me I was a child abuser for making her go through such torment. Maybe Mama was right about her being spoiled.
Stopped at a red light just a mile from Miss Claudia’s, the car died. With blaring horns and the roar of automobiles, I jumped out of the car, and with the aid of my handy pliers we were back in business. An old man in a long blue car pointed his finger at me and shook his head. “Yeah, Buddy,” I screamed with raised hands. What did he think, I had planned all this to slow him down?
Cher slumped down to the floorboard and refused to lift her head above the door for fear she might be recognized. I laughed at her and threatened to put a sign on the car the next day saying I was her chauffeur and that she hired me to drive her around. “Nuh-uh,” she said while s
haking her long brown hair. Even she laughed at that one.
Miss Claudia made a fuss over Cher the minute she laid eyes on her. “Erma Lee, this child has the prettiest skin I ever did see.” By that time, Miss Claudia was doing much better and dressing herself. Even sitting around the house, she wore the nicest clothes. Cher picked up on her fashion sense and asked her all about the store her husband once owned. They hungered for each other, Miss Claudia never having had any grandchildren, and Cher looking to someone who could be a grandmother image. I was too busy trying to be Mama and Daddy for her. After an hour, I had to remind the two of them why Cher was there. As Cher washed and rinsed the windows, Miss Claudia sat outside on her porch, praising her work. Miss Claudia could always give a compliment that made you feel like she really meant it.
On Friday afternoon, Miss Claudia hobbled on her cane and tried to make lemonade. When she scared me to the point of picturing her falling on the knife she was carrying, I took over. She said she wanted to go outside and have a lemonade party. My warnings that she was spoiling Cher fell on deaf ears. “You hush. A little spoiling never hurt nobody.” So we sat on iron chairs surrounded by latticework, carpeted grass, and award-winning roses and listened to Miss Claudia’s lecture on the finer points of nature. I loved to watch Miss Claudia’s hazel eyes dance as she carried on about this rose or that one.
“Do y’all know the story about the dogwood tree?” She pointed with her cane to the tree decorated with white blossoms.
We shook our heads. With a lift, Miss Claudia sprang up from the chair and put her arm in Cher’s as she escorted her towards the tree.
Miss Claudia carefully opened the bloom and informed us that the tree had a message for us. As if reading a tea leaf, she told us about Jesus dying for us and how He rose up. I stiffened to think she was going to start preaching. Cher pulled her chin down, intently listening to Miss Claudia, and then she examined the white petals shaped like a cross. “See here. The red stains on the tips of the bloom reminds us that He loves us so much He died for us. You know today is Good Friday, the day Jesus went to that cross.”
“Today?” Cher cupped the bloom in her hand.
Miss Claudia smiled and nodded her head. She made it all seem just that simple.
“And Sunday we’ll celebrate the resurrection. The new life He gives us, don’t you know. I just love Easter. Patricia and her husband will take me to church. Maybe even Richard will go this year.” Miss Claudia leaned on her cane and raised her head to soak in the full beauty of the big tree. Without looking away from the branches, Miss Claudia said, “I declare, I’m just falling in love with the two of you.”
Cher looked at me for guidance. I didn’t know what to say. The woman surprised me at every turn. I wondered what she wanted from me and racked my brain to recall if there was a doctor’s appointment next week. Did she want me to bring her?
Holding her cane, she reached out her arms. Afraid she’d get drunk-headed, I quickly grabbed her arm, and she pulled me into her bony chest. Cher leaned into her other side, and she roped her arms around us. Her silver cane pointed forward with all the authority of a compass. I tensed, not knowing why this woman I had met only a couple of weeks before was acting so suspicious. Maybe she had the beginnings of Alzheimer’s? Maybe she thought Cher needed the attention? Cher didn’t liked to be babied, I could’ve told her that. I felt Cher’s arm snake under my chest to hug Miss Claudia. A young child taken in so easily.
“Why keep love in your heart, when you can give it away for free?” Miss Claudia said. For a minute I was terrified Cher would go to crying. Then what would I do? But nobody said or did anything. We just stood together on that thick-carpeted grass, feeling the rising and falling of each other’s chest. Three females entwined together by a past of hurts.
Saturday night was a welcome relief. After Cher paid off her portion of the phone bill, I let her use what was left over to go skating with Laurel. Laurel’s mama offered to take them and everything. After the week I had, I needed the time alone to unwind. I had finished washing my hair when the phone rang. I knew it wasn’t Bozo, because on Saturday night he and his frying-pan girlfriend would be at a honky-tonk.
“I hope I’m not calling at a bad time,” Patricia said, not giving me time to respond before she continued. “Well, I’m in the doghouse with Mama.” She offered a long, dramatic sigh. “Mama is just all to pieces. Doctor Tom and I promised her we’d take her to church tomorrow and then have lunch at the club. Well, naturally I assumed Mama would want to go to First Methodist like we always do. Then this evening she springs on us that she wants to go to Missoura’s church.”
I stood holding the receiver with one hand and combing the conditioner through my hair with the other. “Uh-huh.”
“Now Erma Lee, you know I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. You see me at school. I hug on the little black children just like I do the white ones. But with Doctor Tom being a dentist…Well, some people around here are just small-minded. It won’t look good.”
“Missoura?”
Patricia paused. “You know her. She comes to visit Mama all the time.”
I had forgotten the tiny woman’s name. She never lolled during a visit. She went straight back to Miss Claudia. “Now is she kin to that woman, Bertha, that used to clean the house?”
Another pause. “What?” Her voice was shrill, and I sensed she didn’t want to answer any questions. Patricia probably was off to some party, I imagined.
“No, no. She and Mama are both from Apalachicola. Old-time friends. But anyway, I had no idea Mama promised Missoura she would go to Easter services at her church. It’s not my fault, you know.”
I sensed she wanted an agreement. I sat silent this time.
“Now, if you have plans just tell me,” she said, not really meaning it, knowing full well I had no plans of my own. Cher had asked soon after the dogwood story if we were going to church for Easter. I was aggravated with Miss Claudia for pumping her up. Cher knew how I felt about religious holidays. If you didn’t go throughout the year, then why be two-faced and show up for Easter and Christmas?
“But it would be so nice if you’d call Mama and offer to take her. Don’t say I called or anything. You know, just call to check on her.”
I hated being on call like this. “And will Richard go?” He could at least drive a car, I thought, wondering why on earth he couldn’t take her.
“Honey, you should know the answer to that by now. Every single little thing he sees fit not to do becomes a bad case of nerves. I tell you, it’s just left all up to me. That’s why I’m so grateful you’re here. Mama just thinks the world of you. Oh, and Cher too.”
Don’t do this to me, I wanted to shout. Don’t try to reel me in with some decorated compliment. I visualized Patricia at home on the phone either showcasing that toothy grin of hers or shooing her husband to wait for her out in the car. As she rambled about my sainthood, I remembered how excited Miss Claudia was about Easter. She said it was her favorite holiday. The woman had been through the wringer.
“I’ll take her,” my words sliced through the phone line of bull.
Cher paraded in and out of my cramped bedroom, modeling a little black sundress with yellow flowers. Saturday night when I told her we were going to church, she jumped on the phone to Laurel and ran across the street to borrow the dress. I couldn’t believe Cher didn’t have a decent church outfit. But then again, there was no need for such fancy things as dresses. I only had one myself. The white one with big black flowers. And had it not been for Aunt Stella’s funeral ten years ago, I wouldn’t have had it on hand.
I looked for unsightly bulges as Cher zipped me up. Good thing I’ve kept my frame in line.
Instead of the usual rubber band to hold my hair in a ponytail, I dusted off the black cloth barrette and clamped it to the long braid Cher had created. I gave a final inspection in the wooden mirror nailed to the back of my bedroom door. “You think this looks okay?”
Cher smi
led and nodded her head in approval.
Miss Claudia had us walk around the living room one at a time while she sat in a wingback chair and bragged on us. Cher ate it up and twirled around with her hand on her hip. I felt silly and waved away Miss Claudia’s compliments about my braided hair and slim figure. I have to admit, her words made me feel like a tall woman.
Richard used Miss Claudia’s Polaroid camera to make a picture of all of us in front of her rose garden. He made an extra copy for me and Cher to keep. I studied the picture and marveled at the way Miss Claudia’s wide white hat with its navy band made her look so glamorous. She smiled and directed what setting and which person was to be photographed. If she was upset with Patricia and Doctor Tom for standing her up, she didn’t show it. “I’d rather go with y’all anyway,” she had said when I called her the night before.
I was nervous driving Miss Claudia’s long Lincoln. Cher leaned over the front seat to watch the computerized dashboard. As Miss Claudia directed me to Bethel AME Church, I asked about Missoura.
“Oh, goodness. I guess I’ve known her almost my whole life. Well, soon after I married the first time.”
“You were married before Mr. Tyler?” Cher asked leaning over the front seat.
“That’s right. He was a fisherman. Lost at sea.” Her scripted answers let me know she didn’t want to talk about him. “Anyway, Missoura’s husband, Aaron, worked for my first husband. She’s just as sweet as she can be. I’d walk through fire for that gal.”
Cher persisted. “Did she move to Wiregrass the same time you did?”
“Soon thereafter.” Miss Claudia clamped the handle of her white purse.
“Did her husband come with her?”
“Oh, sure. There was more work here, don’t you know. He passed away five years ago. Now Erma Lee, you’re gonna turn left at the next red light. Cher, tell me about that little dress. I just imagine all the girls are wearing that kind.” She managed to direct Cher away from any more questions for the time being.
A Place Called Wiregrass Page 4