by Scott, Jamie
I waved to an empty doorway and went home, where the aroma of Ma’s peanut butter cookies drew me into the cool kitchen. ‘Hello miss.’ I started at the unfamiliar voice. I’d forgotten all about Dora Lee.
Our maid had turned up at the kitchen door in the middle of breakfast that morning. It’d be decades before convention would allow her through white front doors. Ma let her in and introduced us all around. She was tall and sturdy, of indistinguishable age, though some gray hair peppered her head. She had a kindly face and a smile for each of us. I struggled to remember my manners to keep from staring at the first black woman I ever met.
‘Well ma’am, I thank you, and you too, Mister Powell, for hiring me. I sure do appreciate it.’ Ma and Duncan nodded like sock puppets. ‘Now ma’am, just so I know how you’d like me to work. Do you have a schedule?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘For the big chores, ma’am. Washing, ironing? Baking?’
‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t, I haven’t ...’
‘I see. Well, that’s all right. Maybe it’s best just to start fresh with today. What would you like me to do?’
My mother was no shrinking violet but being the lady of the manor was too much for her. She wouldn’t meet Dora Lee’s gaze. She started mumbling and stammering and wringing the life out of a perfectly innocent dishtowel. Dora Lee had to work hard to understand what she was carrying on about. I could barely make it out myself. It served Ma right. If she’d had a backbone, she wouldn’t be in this position. Before I had the chance to see if she’d escape the interchange with any of her dignity, Jim buzzed the door and I had to go. Duncan ducked out behind us.
Ma had regained some composure since breakfast. In fact, she looked almost comfortable with Dora Lee pottering around the kitchen in an apron.
She hugged me eagerly. ‘How’d it go?’
‘Fine.’
‘Did you meet lots of kids?’
‘Some.’
‘Are your teachers nice?’
‘I guess.’
‘Is Jim in any of your classes?’
‘Just one.’
She made the frustrated noise through her nose that she always did when I stonewalled her. I was glad.
‘More cookies?’
‘Okay... did you make them?’
‘What a question. Of course I did.’
‘Well I don’t know. Maybe you made Dora Lee do them.’ I was glad for the hurt look that flashed across her mouth. ‘I suppose she’ll cook dinner for us now too.’
Dora Lee looked up from the sink and said, ‘Yes miss, she sure will.’ I turned red. ‘She’s making chicken and dumplings tonight. With gravy. And potatoes. She does them real nice.’
Admiration welled up around my embarrassment. Dora Lee was going to teach me a thing or two about smart answers. I caught a wink as she turned back to peeling the potatoes.
It took broad daylight streaming through my bedroom curtains on Saturday morning to make me bold enough to venture into the attic. I wasn’t afraid of the dark. I was afraid of what I couldn’t see in the dark. The attic door belched hot air when I wrenched it open. I had to tiptoe on stairs designed for daintier feet. My aversion to rodents made sure I didn’t put my hands anywhere I couldn’t get a look at first. Two windows set into the eaves threw dappled light around the room. Boxes were piled neatly, and trunks and furniture crowded the floor. I could walk upright through the middle of the room but had to stoop around the edges to keep from cracking my head on the roof beams. Most of the boxes held books. Our old house had ancient tomes of the same ilk. Their smell was comforting, like paper that’d been in the rain.
There was mainly old furniture in the middle of the floor. All the pieces matched those downstairs, dark wood, cherry or walnut, their high gloss showing through the shiny tracks my finger made across years of dust. They looked like they’d lasted a hundred years already and would have no problem surviving a hundred more. Tucked in a corner were a couple of steamer trunks that held more interesting possibilities. It took some climbing to get to them, but they weren’t locked so I didn’t have to feel guilty about breaking into someone’s luggage. I was merely snooping in the bounty that lay before me. The heat was almost unbearable as I struggled to shift the trunks to where I could open them. Sweat ran a merry race between my shoulder blades, intent on making its way into my underpants.
The first trunk was filled with perhaps two dozen ladies shoes. Each was absurdly small with a dainty curved heel and squared off toe. They were silk or suede, white, pink, yellow or blue, with a single strap or flower across the front. Leather boots with rows of buttons up the sides were stuffed with cotton wool that made them look like amputations. I was astounded to see so many shoes owned by one person. I got two pairs each year, painstakingly chosen from the Sears, Roebuck catalog just in time for school.
The contents of the second trunk took my breath away. Carefully I freed each gown from its tissue paper skin and shook out the whispering silk. A scent wafted from their layers, sweet but fresh like new daffodils. From their style I knew they were old, but except for some crinkles they were in perfect condition. I laid all eight out around the attic to catch the afternoon light. Their skirts, set loose after years of confinement, ballooned over layers of crinoline. I greedily ran my eyes over their sherbet colors and intricate lace. There were pictures downstairs of the old lady. It was hard to believe she was once a young woman who wore such spectacular clothes.
It was a dream come true for any girl who’d ever played dress–up. I stepped into a particularly delicate lilac confection and shimmied it over my shoulders. Tiny buttons ran up the back that needed defter fingers than mine to fasten properly. It was tight at the waist and loose on top. I twirled in the dusty sunlight, sneezing and giggling, dangerously like Miss Havisham. Little bags matched each dress, their delicate satin drawstrings meant for tiny wrists. I drew open the purple silk. Inside was a nearly translucent hair comb with long mother–of–pearl tines and tiny pink flowers, gold birds and pale leaves inlaid along the top. I rubbed it gently between my fingers. Its warmth surprised me. What an extraordinary little trinket.
I nearly missed the letters in my excitement over the frocks. There were dozens tucked right into the bottom of the trunk, tied with faded ribbon. Best of all, in the middle of the stack was a slim diary. It was the Mother Lode, surely the envy of busybodies everywhere. Mister Henry Plunkett of Atlanta had a lot to say to Miss Mirabelle Reynolds of East York Street back in nineteen seventeen, and I intended to read every word.
A stern rocker waited for me at one end of the lofty space. The window casement swung open easily, letting in a refreshing breeze for the first time in goodness knew how many years. A quick dusting of the seat readied it for my silk–clad bottom. I eased a letter from its envelope but, like starting a book from the middle, I had no idea what was going on. I delved deep, found some patience and set my mind to organizing them. I had no way to know as I held those most personal possessions that Mirabelle’s life, and love, would be much more than idle entertainment for a nosy teenager. It was a chain of events set in motion in World War I, whose unfolding story would color the Savannah I was just beginning to get acquainted with, not to mention my own future.
They were too fascinating to keep to myself, but I decided not to write to Lottie about them. I planned to be there within a week to show her instead. We worked out the details of our scheme in the weeks running up to my move. It was a brilliantly conceived plan involving a bus, a horse barn and the age of consent.
Chapter 4
I was tempted to tell Jim that I was leaving. He was becoming a friend, or at least a somewhat constant companion owing to our distance from the high school. Our houses were a good twenty blocks away, much too far to walk for kids with normal parents. My parents and Jim’s Nan, though, were cut from the same cloth. So while our classmates arrived fresh and cool in motorized splendor each morning, Jim and I worked up a glow on foot through the Victorian distric
t. At least it was a pretty stroll, peaceful and leafy. Our houses weren’t very old compared to the mansions downtown – as Jim said, not nearly old enough to harbor ghosts. He’d have preferred ghosts, but had to content himself with the fact that our neighborhood had carved out a tiny corner in the city’s history. It was plantation land in the old days, until some particularly greedy grandchildren sold it off to developers, who built the first streetcar suburb in Savannah. Homeowners downtown flocked south in droves, leaving historic Savannah to slide into decay. Many of the big houses on the squares were broken up into apartments. Others were left to fall apart. Jim was keen to show me the plantation’s master house on Abercorn Street, intent on running me ragged in his pursuit of historical trivia.
Jim’s prominence in my social life was based mostly on the fact that he was the only kid who’d talk to me. Even the girl assigned to be my friend didn’t so much as smile at me again. In Savannah I was an oddball, the kind of girl I was used to whispering about to Lottie. I didn’t know anything about karmic principles, but I suspected a cosmic comeuppance might be at work. It was a frustrating, hopeless feeling to be unwanted, especially since no one even gave me the chance to prove I deserved their rejection. If I’d spit in someone’s soup or snatched her boyfriend, at least I’d have myself to blame. Then they’d have to talk to me, if only to yell, and a door would open. Being ignored was worse. I was ready to get back home where I belonged.
My last dinner with Ma and Duncan was unusually melodramatic. I hung on Duncan’s every word in the most sensational way. I wanted a meaty discussion to cement my memory, maybe a confession of some kind, or a dark secret revealed. But my parents proved remarkably unforthcoming, forcing me to manufacture dramatics to fit the occasion. That’s the last time, I thought wistfully, he’ll ask me to please pass the string beans. Joan of Arc had nothing on me. My hysteria even made me charitable towards Ma. When she asked how school had gone the truth came tumbling out, along with a copious amount of tears. She reached over to hug me but the pity in her eye, as if I was to blame for my friendless circumstance, brought me to my senses. ‘Well for crying out loud, what did you expect?’ I shoved my plate aside and started for my bedroom.
‘May!’
‘Sarah, best leave her alone. She’ll come around in time.’
I snickered as I hopped up the stairs. No, she wouldn’t.
I did it. I got on the bus and it started off and I was officially a runaway. Nobody asked me what I was doing there, though I had a story ready, so I settled by the window for the long journey home. It took some doing to get together the $4 I needed for the one–way bus ticket, but between my saved up allowance and a raid of Duncan’s sock drawer that I wasn’t proud of, I did it. Greyhound ran a service every day from Savannah to Williamstown but I’d have to transfer in Richmond, New York, Albany and Pittsfield. I traveled light, having settled on the things that I couldn’t borrow or replace: my toothbrush and Mirabelle’s letters. In making our plans, Lottie sensibly pointed out that I’d have to wear her clothes. Otherwise Missus Assaro might notice that she was washing strange underpants, and we couldn’t risk that until after my birthday.
As I watched the passing cars, I worked on a deep sense of self–righteous indignation. It served them right that I was leaving. I relished the scene when Ma realized I wasn’t coming home from school. First she’d be exasperated, eyeing the Hammond clock on the counter, muttering to Dora Lee that I hadn’t mentioned staying late. By five o’clock, when Duncan came home, she’d be halfway between mad and scared. By the time dinner was ready, they’d fear I’d had an accident. Ma would put all the food back in the oven to dry out, sending Duncan next door to check with Jim on my whereabouts. But he hadn’t seen me. I dodged him, sneaking around the back of the school to begin the long walk to the bus station. That’d get them worried, for who, if not Jim, would know where I was? They’d call all the hospitals, and take the news that I wasn’t there with a bittersweet mix of emotions. Eventually they’d come around to the idea that I’d been kidnapped. It was only natural to think so. And then they’d curse their decision ever to have left our hometown. They’d cry and cling together, wishing they could do anything to bring me back. But I wasn’t coming back.
I did plan to write to them after my birthday in November when I became an adult in the eyes of the law. By then they’d have no hold over me.
The bus wasn’t very full. There were a couple of Negroes in the back. Those were the days before Rosa Parks took her stand on an Alabama city bus to sit where she pleased. Every so often the old lady sitting opposite me cast a curious but kindly eye in my direction. She reminded me of my grandmother, or at least I imagined she did. My lack of extended family caused me to covet other people’s relatives. Everything I knew about Duncan’s mother came in a somewhat biased secondhand parcel. He said that by the standards of the day the Powells were a new family in Boston, a classification that ran firmly against their own aspirations. Unfortunately for them, though, the city’s social system was intractable. So they were stuck with the label, at least until they spent or married their way out of it. My grandmother planned to do both. I gathered that their townhouse was the arena for some quite daring feats of social climbing. Victory from Missus Powell’s point of view was right there in black and white on her guest list. She hosted dozens of parties, and all the crème de la second drawer people came, but she was much too busy gauging her success to enjoy a single one of them.
Missus Powell had a lot riding on Duncan. She hired him a nanny, Elizabeth, whom he adored. While his parents groomed him to take his place in first–rate society, Elizabeth kept his feet firmly nailed to the ground. She taught him that people came in more than two flavors, us and them, and that everyone deserved some consideration. Over time, Missus Powell detected an unwelcome broadmindedness creeping into her son’s personality. She didn’t take long to settle on Elizabeth as the culprit. The nanny was fired but her principles stuck, encouraging Duncan to nurture his ideals well away from the Powell roots. By the time he was ready for college his parents didn’t much like him and he didn’t much care. That didn’t stop Missus Powell , though, from trying to hitch him to a good old Boston family. Duncan was a catch. He played along, escorting his fair share of Boston’s well–connected lovelies around town but to his mother’s frustration he never gave them more than a polite handshake and a passing thought. When I asked Duncan what she was like he’d replied: tepid soup in fine china.
It was only about an hour’s ride to Charleston, where we stopped to pick up more passengers. What I saw made me jealous, at least until I reminded myself that I was going back north where I belonged. Where Savannah was falling apart, Charleston thrived. Instead of sadly battered squares, manicured gardens showcased antebellum houses. Palm trees and oaks lined the streets and flowers bloomed in the window boxes of pastel townhouses. It was everything that a Southern city should be. Our neighbor to the north signed the country’s first preservation ordinance in nineteen thirty–one, paving the way to protect her gems. Savannah didn’t get cracking until the nineteen fifties, too late to save several notable buildings from the wrecking ball.
After staring at the dusty roadside for a couple hours I applauded my decision to bring Mirabelle’s papers along. Forty–eight hours was a long time to sit, even when occupied with the idea of being on the lam. I let myself read just a few pages at a time, preferring the sweet anticipation, like lingering over the wrappings on a Christmas present. Mirabelle was a steadfast chronicler of her thoughts and the world around her, and her writing became particularly intimate after a letter or visit from Henry. I settled in guiltily to read, but after a few minutes the satisfaction of delving into another’s life overcame my reservations. Besides, no harm could come of it. She was, after all, well and truly dead.
Chapter 5
Savannah, 1917
Mirabelle had a luxuriant haven at the back of the garden where she mooned over her beloved’s letters. Banana trees twice her h
eight nodded above the stone bench where she sat listening to the bronze boy tinkling into the fountain. Her mother hated the fountain, but was too busy patting herself on the back over her good marriage to object when her new husband bought it. Mirabelle greatly admired her father. He’d been to Belgium as a young man and was taken by the self–deprecating humor of its people. The Mannekin Pis was his remembrance of that worldly time. Maybe Mirabelle saw a little of her father in Henry. He was worldly too, coming from Atlanta after all. And he was kind and funny and she just loved the stuffing out of him nearly at first sight. Happily it looked like her affections were returned in spades.
The way she imagined telling the story to their grandchildren someday, a lucky pigeon brought her together with Henry. Though to be truthful the pigeon wasn’t so lucky, having been eaten by Mirabelle’s mother. The ensuing food poisoning wasn’t so lucky for her mother either, but it was a stroke of good fortune for Mirabelle’s love life. Her father was itching to go to their neighbor’s party and insisted she go with him in place of her nauseated parent. Mirabelle knew it was pointless to argue with him. Mister Reynolds, a pillar in the community, a shrewd businessman and by all accounts a fiercely independent fellow, was afflicted with a crippling fear of arriving at social engagements alone. Her mother retired to her bedroom, leaving Mirabelle to go with her father.
In Savannah society, most people knew each other either directly or through the gossip that attended parties like ants at a picnic. So the arrival of an outsider was always good cause for celebration. Not that Savannahians needed much cause. A newcomer just gave them something to fix their gaiety upon. The party was just a few blocks from home and the night welcomed a walk. They ambled in silence, Mirabelle gazing at the houses they passed. So many of them ruined, she thought, slashed into tiny apartments and left to rot ignominiously. Her parents liked to reminisce about the old Savannah, the city of their childhood. It was magically intact to them, insulated, and so too to Mirabelle. But, in reality, neglect’s canker had taken hold of her treasures. Only a few of the original families still lived in their townhouses along the squares, their homes small islands of gentility awash in decline. She resented all the people who gave up their heritage to the tenement dwellers and moved into the new homes in Ardsley Park. Yellow bellies, she thought.