Cakewalk

by Rita Mae Brown

  “The baby’s due in May. Maybe she doesn’t feel like writing. The closer I got to the due date, the more I just wanted to be rid of the little hitchhiker. It was awful.”

  Celeste and Fairy chimed in unison, “We know.”

  Fairy lowered her already quiet voice, as she didn’t want Juts, wherever she was, to hear. “Do you think Big Dimps will really sue Juts?”

  “How can she? Juts’s a minor,” Fannie Jump said.

  Fairy pressed her line of thinking. “What if she sues Cora?”

  “Then every mother in Runnymede would be sued at one time or another,” Fannie sensibly replied. “Big Dimps will huff and puff. She’ll bedevil Mr. Thigpen, she’ll complain to Pastor Wade. Sooner or later, it will blow over. For one thing, the town hasn’t had this much fun over something since before the war.”

  —

  Paul waited for Louise to get off work and they hurried to the Capitol Theater. Buster Keaton enthralled them. After the movie, the evening air cool, the two listened as the nightbirds emerged on the square. A few bats darted here and there.

  “I like bats,” Louise announced. “And they don’t get in your hair. That’s silly.”

  “They eat bugs.” Paul reached for her hand for the first time.

  He grasped it firmly but not too firmly. She didn’t pull away, so the two walked hand in hand along the square toward Cadwalder’s.

  “By summer, I hope I have enough for an old car. Then I can take you places. Here we always wind up at the drugstore or Dolley Madison.”

  Dolley Madison was a restaurant, part of which hung over a creek three blocks down Frederick Road.

  “I like Cadwalder’s. Best hamburgers ever.” Louise told the truth but she was sensitive to his slender paycheck.

  Once inside, they slipped into a booth.

  Flavius came over. “Spring’s here. I can smell it.”

  “You can.” Louise agreed. “My usual.”

  “I know it well.” Flavius looked at Paul. “Sir?”

  “Hamburger and a milkshake, chocolate.”

  Louise leaned back in the booth. “You could eat five milkshakes a day, I don’t think you’d put on an ounce.”

  The grin on his face faded as Lottie and Dimps Jr. barged up to the table. With them were their dates, Lionel Tangerman and Bill Whittier.

  “If I’d known you were here, we wouldn’t have come in,” Lottie huffed.

  Paul spoke to Lionel and Bill. “There’s room for everybody.”

  Dimps Jr. was plastered to the handsome Bill. While seemingly not as taken with her as she was with him, he didn’t appear to mind. Lionel, the twenty-two-year-old son of the police chief of North Runnymede, had seen Paul around town but didn’t know him.

  Lottie put her arm around Dimps Jr.’s waist. “Your brat sister humiliated my sister, who, you should know, sold more tickets to the dance than anyone has ever sold before.”

  “Selling tickets is very important.” Louise had no idea what to say and didn’t want to lose her temper.

  “And furthermore, I don’t appreciate your behavior in the Capitol Theater,” said Lottie, pointing her finger at Paul. “You were always trying to touch me.”

  Paul did not raise his voice. “I was not.”

  Lionel loomed over him. “You calling Lottie a liar?”

  Paul stood up. “Would you like to step outside? You’ve insulted Wheezie and you’ve accused me of whatever you’re accusing me of.”

  Flavius hurried up. “If you two fight, I will call John Gassner. Lionel, your father may be police chief of North Runnymede, but you’re in South Runnymede now. If you can’t be civil, get out.”

  Lionel knew his father would pitch a fit. Lottie, on the other hand, still hoped for a scene.

  “Who cares?” Lottie tossed her head back.

  “This wouldn’t be good for my father.” Lionel knew that.

  “You care more about your father than me!” Lottie shouted.

  Lionel didn’t reply. Paul stepped back one step, as did Lionel. Bill Whittier had other things on his mind than a fight. He took Dimps Jr. by the elbow to usher her out.

  “What are you doing?” Dimps Jr. protested.

  Bill brooked no interference. “You don’t need another mess.”

  Lottie turned on her sister. “Well, I’m standing up for you.”

  “Lottie, Bill’s right.” Dimps Jr. had some sense. “Come on.”

  Livid, Lottie again pointed her finger at Louise. “I will get even with you and with Juts.” She turned to Paul. “You aren’t worth getting even with. I just went out with you because I felt sorry for you. You didn’t know anybody.”

  She slammed the door on the way out. Paul sat down.

  Louise took a big sip of her Co-Cola, the correct southern term for Coca-Cola. “Pearlie, I have to ask you, what did you see in her?”

  He threw up his hands. “I sure didn’t see this side of her.”

  “But you liked her?”

  “I did. I mean, not so much that I wanted to be around her all the time. Going out once a week was fine and I did meet people. It’s funny, Wheezie, but she would agree with whatever I said and I started thinking that I didn’t know what she thought.”

  “Now you do.” Louise played with her straw. “You kissed her.”

  “Wheezie, I did. I’m twenty-four. Would you want to keep company with a man who’d never kissed a woman? Sometimes in the war, I thought I’d never see a woman, much less kiss one.”

  She considered this. “You held my hand.”

  “I did and I want to do it again.”

  “You haven’t kissed me.” She pouted.

  “You’re right.” Paul got up, sat next to her in the booth, and gave her a convincing kiss. Then he returned to his seat.

  Startled, Louise’s lower lip jutted out slightly. She touched it to see if her light lipstick had smeared.

  “I can kiss you more. I’d like that.” He smiled. “Here’s the thing, Louise. I like you. I’ve never been out with anyone that I could talk to like you. We can disagree, we can agree, you listen and you work hard, too. You’re not some”—he paused—“I don’t know the word. You’re important.”

  Louise realized she’d been holding her breath. She inhaled deeply. “You can kiss me anytime you want.”

  They reached across the table to touch hands as they laughed.

  Mr. Thigpen looked like an anteater as he peeped over his spectacles. “Have you anything to say for yourself?”

  “No, sir,” Juts answered the principal.

  “Were you the organizer of the cow jumping over the moon?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pushing his spectacles back up on the bridge of his nose, the principal looked to Cora. “We’ve known one another a long time. I assume you didn’t know, uh, the condition of the cow.”

  Cora folded her hands on her lap. “I didn’t.”

  “I see.” He sighed. “You can imagine what I had to deal with and whom?”

  “I know Big Dimps is ass over tits.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way, Cora. But, yes, she has been exercising her considerable emotions.” He rubbed his forehead for a moment, then leaned toward Juts on the other side of his huge desk. “Juts, I have seen the decorations, the fork and the spoon, the cat and the fiddle, the little dog. Almost professional. I don’t think any dance has ever had such scenery. Even the cow was charming, except for the obvious.” He stopped, picked up a pencil just to have something in his hand. “Are you sure you have nothing to say for yourself?”

  “No, Mr. Thigpen, I don’t. I’m here to accept my punishment.”

  “All right, then, but I want you to know that Delilah Jr. has also been punished.” He raised his voice. “You’ve got to learn to walk away from provocation, and Juts, you’ve got to learn to consider the source.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, here is what I’m going to do. I am not going to suspend you. You need to keep at your studies. Your math grad
es are excellent, your art class also. English and history, woeful, just woeful. Do you have anything to say about that?”

  “Well.” She sat up straight. “Why should I care about a colon? Or a semicolon? Just a bunch of dumb rules. I want to get things done. I want to make things. And I’m tired of hearing about the dates of wars—” She abruptly shut up as her mother reached out and quietly touched her hand.

  “I see.” Mr. Thigpen took a deep breath. “You are a strong-minded young lady. I won’t belabor this, but all the subjects you take at South Runnymede High are to provide a foundation for the rest of your life. If you don’t get it now, Juts, you never will. You don’t have to like English or history, but you do need to know it. Those who do not know the past are doomed to repeat it.” He gave her a sharp look. “We’ve gone through the worst war the world has ever known. One of the ways to ensure this never happens again is to learn, to head off problems before they enlarge. No, you don’t want to be a diplomat. But Juts, you will become a citizen. It’s important to know these things.”

  “Yes, sir.” She had listened carefully. “No more war. But the kings and leaders who started that war, weren’t they well educated?”

  This startled the middle-aged man. He’d only known Juts as a pretty youngster dashing through the halls, a very good math student. He’d never given her or most of the students much respect when it came to the deeper questions. He’d been bogged down by administration. He was missing a lot and he now knew it.

  “They were.” He held up his forefinger. “Which is what makes it all the more terrible, but I hasten to add, Juts, the men who started and fed the flames of the Great War were not Americans. We tried to stay out of it.”

  Cora uttered one word. “Lusitania.”

  He nodded. “An act of filthy barbarism.” He looked at the unlined face before him. “Juts, please raise your grades in your weak subjects. You aren’t going to be allowed to be part of the many groups you belong to. You go to school and you go home. And this correction will last until you begin eleventh grade. Furthermore, keep away from Delilah Jr. She’s enduring the same punishment you are and I hope you both learn from it, but I warn you, Juts, if she tries to provoke you, walk away.”

  Cora, too, had listened carefully, so she said to her daughter, “Did you hear Mr. Thigpen? And you’d better hear me, keep your nose clean.”

  Looking at Cora, the principal said, “I’ve rearranged some classes so the girls won’t be together. There are a few classes where if I separate them they will need to repeat the class next year, so I didn’t separate them. There’s nothing I can do about the halls, the stairways, the walking to and from school, chance encounters.”

  On the trolley back to Bumblebee Hill, neither mother nor daughter spoke. Celeste had given Cora the day off to see if she could straighten out the mess. The two didn’t want anyone else on the trolley to hear the discussion, but as they walked up the hill at the end of the trolley line, the words flew.

  “Momma, I’m quitting school.”

  “No, you are not.”

  “I hate school.”

  “How can you hate school when you are one of the most popular girls there? This is a fine mess and mind you, I do think you were provoked. You went too far. And that’s that.”

  “Maybe so, but I want to quit school. I want to get a job and make some money.”

  “You can do that after you graduate.”

  “Two more years!”

  “You’ll be surprised at how fast two years can fly by.”

  “Oh, Momma, that’s forever.” They reached the front porch, General Pershing asleep by the door, his thick coat keeping him comfortable.

  “Woof.” The English setter awakened, startled to see Cora and Juts so early in the afternoon.

  Cora petted him, swung open the door. “Juts, start the fire. Take the chill off. It will be cold again tonight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She did as she was told but when finished, she walked outside, where Cora was inspecting her garden on the south side of the house. “Momma.”

  “Now what?”

  “What if I stay till the end of the year and then quit?”

  “No. What if you stay to graduation. Two years. This will all blow over.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’ll want to waste my time in school come fall.”

  “Let’s wait until fall. We can talk about it then. In the meantime, do your best.”

  —

  Having finished her daily ride, Celeste dismounted and untacked her Thoroughbred. Her groom, Henry Minton, stood by, ready to perform this service, but she liked contact with her gelding.

  “Miss Chalfonte, let me take that.” The groom lifted the saddle from her forearm.

  “Thank you, Henry.”

  Henry, a man of color, had been a fabulous rider in his youth. Falls, injuries took a toll on him. He could still ride, and ride well, but he walked with a limp and he woke up each day with pain. Some walking about took care of that.

  Celeste, essentially an open-minded person, was nonetheless a creature of her time and her class. She knew that most of the great grooms and jockeys were black men. Her view of the world was, if you had talent you would come forward. She thought of Booker T. Washington. She felt the same way about factory workers, midwives, people who so often lived hand to mouth. She knew people could be crushed by large forces, by injustice and even bad luck, but she thought little about it. If someone needed her help, she gave it. She thought in terms of the individual, not the group.

  “How was your ride?” asked Henry.

  “Good. I love that we now gain a minute of daylight for each day until June twenty-first. The nights creep in cold but the sun dispels much of it. Winter is on the run.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Henry, ride with me tomorrow, will you? I’d like to pop some hedges and I promised Ramelle I wouldn’t jump alone. She was never nervous before.”

  Grinning, he now took the bridle while Celeste pulled the good leather halter over Roland’s ears. “When my Lily was carrying Tim, she saw a ghost every twilight. That woman was afraid of everything. Something must happen inside. And then when he was born, she worried that a tiny little cough was consumption.”

  “Yes, I do remember. Both Lily and Tim appear to have flourished.” She heard a barn swallow swoop overhead. “They’re back.”

  “Building nests,” Henry remarked.

  “Tomorrow, let’s go about eleven. Dew should be off by then, or the frost. Might freeze tonight.”

  “Once the sun goes down, my bones will tell me.”

  “Henry, you’re more reliable than the thermometer.” She walked outside the stable built to match the house.

  When her grandfather built the house, it was at the edge of South Runnymede, surrounded by farms. He bought a few hundred acres but, not being a farmer, kept them as pasture. Others did the same, but everyone had a stable by their house as well as a carriage house. The cobblestone alleyways between the large homes reverberated with horses’ hooves. They still did, as few owned automobiles. Those who did often left rubber tire marks on the cobblestones when things went amiss.

  Celeste’s father and mother enlarged the house and her mother designed the luxurious gardens based on the great English gardens of her youth.

  Celeste could mount up, ride south or west, and once at the end of the alleyway, be in open country. She could ride through North Runnymede country, too, but the farms and cottages sat on smaller pieces of land, plus there were more factories on the Pennsylvania side, not so many as to be troublesome but enough that she wanted to circumvent them.

  Walking back toward the house, she thought the sky startlingly blue. She’d seen much of the world and much of her own country. Memories of Vienna at night, the Opera House shining, beckoning, of walking into the British Library, or looking toward Constantinople from the Asia side, sailing to England and seeing the White Cliffs of Dover, hiking the Lake District while reading those poets. There was so m
uch beauty on this earth, but her heart always turned toward Maryland. This patch of the Mid-Atlantic was hers. She was born here, nourished here, and she would die here.

  She thought when Ramelle left for Los Angeles that she would ache for her as she ached for Maryland when traveling too long. She missed Ramelle, but surprisingly, the advent of spring, a bracing canter, laughter with her friends swept the ache away. Then again, Celeste thought she wasn’t prone to heartache. Carlotta had hit a nerve, but still, that wasn’t heartache. She would be glad to see Ramelle and the baby when they came home for their six months on the East Coast, assuming the child was healthy. With each passing day, she missed Ramelle less. She loved her. She wanted her happy. If there was more to it, she was unaware of it.

  No sooner did she walk through the door than the phone rang.

  “Celeste here.”

  “Fannie.”

  “What? You rarely call, so it must be good.”

  “I took two rooms at the Belvedere Hotel. We can go down on Saturday, take the early train to Baltimore. Practice game, weather permitting. I’ll bring a blanket just in case. I do so love to watch the boys before the season begins. I’ll introduce you at the hotel get-together after practice. I know most everyone.” She stopped. “You don’t want to stay with Stirling, do you?”

  “No. Margaret would put a good face on it but no one would be happy. I’d rather stay with Olivia Goldoni.”

  “I’m sure you would.”

  “Fannie, it’s not like that. She’s sophisticated, talented, and I hope to hear her in performance.”

  “Oh.” Fannie sounded disappointed.

  “Oh, what?”

  “Nothing. I’m in the mood for a scandal. Except for Juts’s cow, winter has been dull.”

  “I’m sure you can correct that, dear,” Celeste purred.

  A flash of yellow caught Celeste’s eye as the train pulled through Carroll County toward Baltimore. She smiled, chin on her hand, watching out the window. “Next come the redbud.”

  “My forsythias are open but not quite full.” Fannie leaned over Celeste to look. “The closer we get to Baltimore, the further along the spring.”