That pretty much left Mother.
Yes. The books belonged to Mother, Nina would have staked her life on it. Mother had surely heard of sexual things, otherwise she wouldn’t dress the way she did. Or laugh the way she did. Or smile at Neville Pillwater the way she did whenever he came around with new drapery material for her to poke through. Yes, Mother would read these sorts of books and like them, Nina felt certain of it.
The thought of uncovering one of her Mother’s secrets made her heart jump track. Surely such naughty information could prove useful? Luckily, Nina was clever and knew to keep the books to herself until the time came when Mother’s secret might benefit her in some way
There were some close calls in the years to follow. Ever since Aunt Fancy’s Sicilian husband went in the red and jumped off the Bucatunna Creek bridge, she’d been dropping her boys off for weeks at a time, unable to deal with their rambunctious presence during her endless period of mourning. As a result, Nina had been all but permanently saddled with the Timpone cousins for every waking hour of the day. And every sleeping hour, too.
Guido Bertrando Innocenzio Timpone, who was four years younger and a perpetual baby, once knocked Lady Chatterly out of bed when he crawled in during an electrical storm.
Guido had been born with a fear of storms, and Nina cursed herself for not thinking ahead when she heard the first clap of thunder. Guido switched on the light, picked up the book and said, “Whatcha reading under the covers, Neen?”
Nina dearly liked having something on her mother, but she didn’t want Guido having something on her. She folded the book against the pearl buttons of her nightgown as the first fat rain drops began to tap at the panes. “I’ll confide the truth if you don’t tell,” she whispered.
Guido lifted her arm and put it over his quaking shoulder, his eyes growing double in size in the flash of lightning that followed. He could be chicken-hearted, but he was a sucker for secrets and kept them surprisingly well, unlike Rich Rich, who was a mere four months younger than Nina and generally rotten to the bone. Once, at Christmas dinner, Rich Rich announced that Nina had written a love letter to one Eugene Starks of her third grade music class, then he proceeded to delight the entire table with snippets of heartfelt verse that had been meant for ‘Dearest sanguine-haired Eugene’ alone. The whole horrid transgression occurred not so much because Rich Rich had been born with loose lips, but because he knew the effect it would have on Nina, who turned so purple with rage, she flicked maple syrup pie at his big head in front of God and everyone. The pie-flicking resulted in Mother sentencing Nina to her room during the wine toast—which, as Rich Rich knew perfectly well, was their only shot at wine-toasting for the entire year.
Guido was not Rich Rich, however, and vowed to seal his lips up like a tomb, even as he pulled the bed sheet over their heads.
“Well,” Nina began, clicking on her flashlight inside the dark sheet-den. “I didn’t get my reading done at school on Friday, and if Father gets wind of it, I’ll have to read double this weekend for sure.”
Guido had been born with the face of Gabriel, but in that precise moment, his Gabrielic face screamed disappointment. Nina smiled and propped the book up on her knees. “Want me to read you some of it?”
“No!” Guido crowed. “I’ve had enough of school this week.
Nina was nothing if not understanding. “I’ll just put it up for now.”
Another time, The Stinkberry yelled at Nina for messing up the cushions on the window seat. “You know your Mother insists that you keep away from the books in this room,” the old bat said, even though it wasn’t a bit fair. Rich Rich had left his disintegrator pistol in the middle of the floor, and there was a big glob of grape jelly on the ship clock that everyone had been ignoring for three days. The room was hardly the museum The Stinkberry made it out to be. Still, Nina reminded herself to be more cautious in the future. After she straightened the cushions, Miss Dinkleberry poked her beak-sharp nose around the window seat so suspiciously, Nina almost wet her pants.
The only thing better than reading the dirty window seat books was concocting scenarios in which Nina caught her mother reaching into her stash. This had, in fact, become Nina’s favorite daydream. She had been born with her father’s love of the hunt. She’d made her first bellow’s call out of a piece of shoe rubber when she was only a kid of seven. Father bragged that Nina could shoot skeet to beat the band. In order to jump shoot Mother, she fancied the idea of a hidden jerk string that set off bells and whistles and exposed the woman to deepest embarrassment when everyone in the household ran to see what all the fuss was about. Other times, she imagined leaving drops of Guido’s model glue on the back cover of a book so that, when Mother picked it up, it stuck like a little airplane wing to the palm of her hand. Oh, wouldn’t it be funny to watch Mother trying to drive Neville Pillwater into a state of erect passivity with a nasty book stuck on her hand?
For a while, Nina toyed with the idea of telling Rich Rich about her plans. Sneaky as he was, Rich Rich had the necessary skills to come up with something truly inspiring to snare the woman. Getting back at people was just about his favorite pass-time, and he would have appreciated the opportunity to pay his aunt back for what he commonly referred to as the Kix Cereal Incident. The Kix Cereal Incident came to pass when Mother saw to it that her face all but blotted out his own the day the newspaper came out to photograph him for winning the Kix Cereal Contest. Under the big bold headline—Local Boy Wins Kix Cereal Contest to Name Silver’s Son—there appeared a picture of a beautiful middle-aged woman in a fluffy fox scarf next to one half of a boy’s head.
“I will never forgive her for the Kix Cereal Incident,” Rich Rich vowed.
But, alas, the dirty books were Nina’s secret, and she liked it better that way. Rich Rich would have to find his own form of revenge.
###
On the surface, Nina’s mother looked harmless enough, fingering her hair in such a delicate way, people might think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She was head of the Christian Women’s League and the Afternoon Bridge Girls, and co-chairperson with Mr. Keaten Powers of the Madison County Optimist’s Club.
Behind their backs, she said of her fellow optimists, “If not for having Keaton to look at every week, I couldn’t abide all that optimism.”
Mother had her charities, there was no forgetting that. She managed to work them into at least every other conversation and with such finesse, people never failed to gasp and say, “What a tireless soldier you are for the needy, dear.” To which she would inevitably respond by quoting that corny old quote that hung in Grandpa’s house, “Never forget where you come from, I always say.”
Of course, Mother came from one of Beattie’s Bluff’s finest old mansions. Nina knew because she had slept in Mother’s mansion when Mother and Father went to Niagara Falls to rekindle the old fires. No matter how nobly Mother managed to say it, Nina couldn’t understand what was humbling about remembering the mansion you came from.
The charities were but a minor grievance in the scheme of things. Rich Rich particularly detested Mother’s nightgowns, which he said were enough to make him want to form his own charity; The Charity for Boys Who Cannot think of Anything But Their Aunt in a Slinky Nightgown. Guido was too sweet to find flaw with anyone. He liked to point out that Mother’s nightgowns made terrific Ming-the-Merciless capes.
Mother admitted that she was not the mothering sort. “I do not cuddle,” she liked to say. “But I plan a damned fine birthday party.” And this was true. When it came to Nina’s mother, one had to be content with ponies and clowns and inordinately large cakes covered with icing-roses the size of your head. She was not the parent you went to with a splinter or a torn teddy bear arm, but, if you reminded her that you were soon to turn twelve, she would pull out all the stops. Nina, however, was far too smart a girl to be wooed by fancy birthday parties. She had her own ax to grind with the woman.
It might just as well been called the Miss Bell Inciden
t for it was much like The Kix Cereal Incident only Nina’s incident involved a dance recital instead of a contest. Despite the fact that Nina was the one who danced the cha cha so terrifically, Mother managed to have the whole auditorium crowded around her immediately after the performance. Mother had presented a plaque to the dancing director, Miss Bell, on behalf of the Beattie’s Bluff Sisters for Wholesome Art, and everyone thought this was so dear of her. Nina remained calm by picturing her mother with the Kamasutra glued to her hand. Mother would not have been in a position to discuss wholesome art, had her hand been weighted with her dirty little secret.
Likewise, when Nina was buying her Turkey Hop dress at LuLu’s Bewitching Glamour Gowns, the salesgirls would have been too ashamed to go on about how pretty Mother’s new hairdo was if one of the window seat books had been conspicuously stuck to her person. And if the men of the Happy Hunting Club had any clue how phony she was, they would never have used up important bulletin board space by covering over the photograph of Nina holding twenty-five quail, with the newspaper picture from the Kix Cereal Incident.
Never did Nina wish to use the secret more, though, than the night her mother made eyes at Del Wiggins, her slick-haired Turkey Hop date.
“Holy bangtails, Nina! Your mom’s a real looker,” Del was dumb enough to say after they left for the dance. Delbert was a big reader of detective stories and always spoke hard-boiled. “I just hope I don’t dust the old man’s bucket, I’m so lit just smelling her,” which, in detective-speak, meant that Del was worried he would crash his daddy’s car because Mother was a big hussy.
It was the night before her sixteenth birthday, and Nina was in no mood to come in second place to her mother again. “Aw, close your head,” she told Del Wiggins, which in Spade-speak meant shut-up.
In reality, she couldn’t really blame poor hapless Del. Mother had wiggled up so close for the Mother/Turkey Hop-Date picture, she might be pregnant with his child. Anyhow, Nina was used to it, or she tried to be. Disgusting as it was, her mother seemed to have that effect on men. Later, after a long gloomy night of listening to Del bump gums on the subject of her mother’s gams, Nina expressed her fury the second she got home.
When she came in at ten o’clock and asked if they could talk, Mother was brushing her hair in her bedroom.
“Of course, dear!” Mother said, taking Nina by the hands and hugging her against her great big silk-entombed busts. “I want to hear all about the dance. Did Delbert kiss you goodnight?”
Nina untangled herself from the busts. “Nope. I’m sure he would have been happy to kiss you though.”
“What?” Mother laughed, clearly tickled by the thought. “Don’t be a silly-nilly.”
“What do you expect, Mother, rubbing up against him the way that you did? The boy was in utter agony all night long.”
Mother clapped her hand to her throat. “Now wait a minute, Nina,” she said. “Delbert Wiggins is a child. I would never . . . ”
“I shouldn’t have even went to that stupid old dance,” Nina snapped. “It was a total calamity, thanks to you.” “Calamity” was Nina’s word of the week.
“Well that’s a fine way to say thank you,” Mother said. “After all the trouble I went to with Viv Wiggins, too. I swear to God, Nina, you are the most ungrateful creature God ever created.”
Nina dropped down on the bed. “Do you mean to tell me you arranged for Del to invite me to the dance?”
Mother resumed her brushing. “Damned straight I did. No boy in his right mind would have the gumption to ask out a snotty tomboy like you. They’d be afraid you’d shoot them dead.” Mother found it despicable that Nina liked to hunt, probably because it was the one thing Nina did with Father that Mother didn’t know how to do.
“I hate you,” Nina said, and it was the god-awful truth. With her big blonde hair and her big blue eyes and her big old bosoms hanging out for all to see, the woman was just about unbearable. “I wish I’d never been born.”
Mother threw her brush down on the vanity. “Sometimes, Nina darling, I wish the same.”
###
Nina had kept mum about the window seat books for five long years, but the time had come to use her leverage. She wanted revenge on her mother and couldn’t think of a better way to achieve this than by exposing the woman as a Bible-reading fraud. Wouldn’t the ladies of her charity groups die of shock when they learned what secrets Mother hid in her lovely little Reading Room?
Nina planned to hide in the window seat and, when her mother came to sneak out a book, jump up and scream her head off for all the town to hear. Maybe she would even see to it that some of Mother’s dirty books went flying out the window. Nina had noticed that the books in the seat were almost always moved around on Tuesdays. She had also noticed that Mrs. Pearlie Cooper-Carter’s temperance group met every second Tuesday of the month on the lawn next door to make angry signs and eat lunch. Mrs. Pearlie Cooper-Carter was one of the gossipiest women on the street. Thus it came to pass that, on the Tuesday after the Turkey Hop, Nina ditched school, pushed opened the Reading Room windows, and hid in the window seat, praying her mother would think herself alone and feel in a reading-mood.
It was hot and the seat and felt like a casket. Nina couldn’t quite stretch out her legs. Hurry up, Mother, she silently pleaded, shifting miserably in the coffin-like gloom. Already, she regretted hiding in the seat. It had been at least an hour, and Mother hadn’t come in for a single book. The temperance ladies sounded like they were putting up their hammers and getting ready for lunch.
Finally, the Reading Room door squeaked open, and Nina almost jumped out then and there, she was so happy and relieved. But no. That would ruin everything. “Shh . . . ” she heard her mother whisper. “The Stinkberry is downstairs.”
Nina wasn’t sure what surprised her more, discovering that her mother was not alone, or hearing her refer to Miss Dinkleberry by the same name the kids used for their governess. In any case, whoever she was with said nothing in response, but Nina heard other noises. Lip-smacking noises. Breathing noises. Grunts.
Ewww, Nina thought, she’s with Father!
Nina got so alarmed, she almost upset the stack of books wedged under her ribs. It occurred to her that if she were caught now, she would be the one with egg on her face. She covered her ears and prayed with all her heart that whatever they were doing, it would be over quick.
“Slow down,” Mother said--Nina wanted to bawl. “Little Rock is hundreds of miles away. There’s no need to rush.”
Little Rock? It was then that Nina remembered that her father had left for Little Rock the evening before to attend The Amazing Buck Stanton Red, White & Blue Auto Rally. But if Mother wasn’t kissing Father, who was she kissing? Neville Pillwater? Del Wiggins? Sucking in her breath, she raised the lid and peeked out in the room.
Holy Spumoni! Nina said to herself, “spumoni” being the new word of the week. Mother is kissing the gardener!
This was even better than the dirty books.
He was old, of course. Twenty or thirty or maybe even sixty. He opened doors for them and pulled weeds and drove them around. What else did she know about him? He had a Negro mother who worked for Grandpa Browning. After Rich Rich discovered that Mrs. Crump was actually the mother of their Crump, they had taken to calling him Sambo behind his back.
Why is Mother kissing Sambo? she thought.
She was vaguely aware that he was nicer than some, but since when did Mother appreciate folks that were nice? Nina felt entirely sure that her mother got giggly around the draper because he had a dirty smirk and pinched her bottom under the barkcloth. Neville Pillwater was not nice. He was not polite. He was a letch! Then again, listening to Mother finishing up with Crump, he sounded pretty lecherous himself. They were knocking books off the shelves, and it was downright icky the way Mother kept saying, “Yes . . . oh . . . yes . . . oh . . . yes oh!” Nina didn’t relax until she heard the sound of books being slid back into place.
“I’m goi
ng to need the Mercedes waxed and ready for the Founder’s Day Picnic, Hadley,” Mother said.
Hadley? Was that his last name? His first name? A pet name like Annie Oakley’s Little Sure Shot? Nina lifted the lid to watch how they said goodbye. Her crafty mind reasoned that this might tell her whether this shocking thing with Crump had ever happened before.
Mother was tugging her dress into place, and Crump was buttoning things. “He’s in Jackson again on Thursday,” Mother said, like she was telling him which bushes to trim.
Crump kissed her cheek. He was younger than Mother. Or maybe just shorter. “Okay,” he said. Like he’d just agreed to get those bushes for her.
All told, Nina spent more than two hours in the window seat before she could make her escape, but it was worth it. Afterward, she had the giddy feeling that her life might never be the same again.
That afternoon, she watched Crump tend a flowerbed from behind the curtains of her bedroom window. There was something strangely violent about the way he went after weeds, beating them silly as though they were dirty thoughts come to ruin his flowery world. But he was gentle, too. At one point, he came across a broken bloom, smelled it, and tucked it in his pocket. After what she’d witnessed earlier, she wondered if perhaps those weeds weren’t really more like his conscience, and the dirty thoughts the treasures he carefully saved up in his pocket.
When Rich Rich and Guido came bounding home from school, Crump stood up from his work and said hello. He was nice like that, Nina realized. Rich Rich threw a football right through the petunias he’d been working so hard on, yet Crump laughed and tossed the ball back. After the boys bounded inside for Fig Newtons, Crump grabbed hold of his shirttails and stripped off his shirt.
The Reading Lessons Page 21