The Ghost of Jeopardy Belle

by M. L. Bullock

  Together we raced down the hall. I prayed that the boy would stay away and not pop out at us or try to stop us. Before running downstairs, I paused to look behind me, and that’s when I saw the other one.

  The ghost of a young woman, a teenager, wore a long white dress with a faded rose at her bosom. The front of her gown was marred with dark stains, and her dark hair fell over her pale shoulders as she hovered near the attic. Oh God! She had no feet. She has no feet! She reached out to us and began to move slowly toward us.

  “Run!” I screamed at Jesse as we hurried out of Summerleigh. I forgot my shoes and didn’t remember to breathe until we got into his truck. I was pretty sure the gravel had cut my feet, but I didn’t stop to look at the wounds. We sat panting in the vehicle, but this wasn’t far enough. We had to go farther; we had to get out of there. I glanced up at the attic, which was dark now, and imagined I could feel the boy’s dead black eyes watching us.

  “Get me out of here, Jesse.”

  “Where to?” he asked as he cranked the truck and made the trip around the circular drive.

  “I don’t care. Anywhere.”

  We didn’t talk again until we made it to Lucedale.

  Chapter Four—Harper

  Momma spent most of her days sleeping because she spent most of her nights drinking. Even Miss Augustine hadn’t been to the house in weeks. Knowing Momma, they’d gotten into a big row over some silly thing like who would become the next Miss Magnolia or what the preacher’s new wife would wear to the fellowship Sunday next. Not that we would attend. We hadn’t been to church in so long.

  Loxley spent all her time creating “art” on the floor of her room and the porch and anywhere she found a blank canvas. I’d been happy for her when Mrs. Loper surprised her with a box of chalk for her birthday, but it quickly became a source of contention around the house. Momma didn’t like it when she drew on the floor. I didn’t either, but I didn’t think it merited a spanking. Not Momma’s idea of a spanking, anyway.

  We were stretched for school clothes this year. Addison and I had both had a growth spurt, and our skirts were shorter than they should have been, which would no doubt land us in the principal’s office if I didn’t fix them soon. Mr. Alfred was a notorious stickler for proper skirt lengths. In fact, it was said that he kept a measuring tape in his desk at all times. Only Loxley appeared locked in time and hadn’t grown an inch, except her hair. One night, I spent my time letting out the hems of our skirts and giving my sisters haircuts. Loxley cried at the idea of cutting her hair, but I bribed her with a peppermint stick, one I’d kept since Christmas, and I had to promise to cut no more than an inch. Before tucking her into bed, I braided her hair, and she drifted off to sleep soon after. Her sweet face was all sticky when I kissed her cheek.

  Every night when we got home from school, I hoped I would see Aunt Dot pull into the driveway and come to our rescue. But there was no sign of my aunt, and since the phone had been disconnected, I had no way of calling her to let her know how dire our situation was. Just last night the power went out, and I had a sneaking suspicion that this was further proof Momma was not paying the bills and was spending what little money we did have on gin and cigarettes. I’d scrounged up some candles in a bureau drawer, but that wouldn’t last long. I didn’t look forward to taking cold showers either.

  After I finished fixing our skirts, I was just about ready to go to bed when I heard someone tapping on the front door. It was almost nine o’clock, and we didn’t have callers this late unless it was something serious. I pulled my robe around myself to cover up my flimsy nightgown. I even took the trouble to button the top four buttons. Luckily, I hadn’t set my hair yet. The visitor tapped again. Maybe it’s Aunt Dot? Or Jeopardy?

  “I’m coming.” I was suddenly happy at the possibility of seeing someone I loved. I hurried down the hallway before stepping into the Great Room. I saw no sign of Momma, which meant she hadn’t heard the door. The house was so dark without any electricity, and I regretted not bringing a candle with me. With my hand on the door, I felt a sudden sense of dread and said, “Who is it?”

  “Mr. Daughdrill. Open the door, Harper.”

  I almost never saw my grandfather, and for him to visit our home without Momma preparing us first was highly unusual. I opened the door but kept the screen door latched and said, “Yes, sir?”

  “Where’s your Momma? She’s not answering my phone calls; the operator says the phone has been disconnected. Is that true?” My grandfather was a tall man, probably the tallest man I’d ever seen. He wore a loose gray suit and no hat. Mr. Daughdrill had salt-and-pepper hair, which he kept short, and he was always neat. Even his fingernails were neat. You’d never see dirty nails on him, not like Daddy, who always liked working with his hands. I wondered what Mr. Daughdrill did for a living, but I never had the courage to ask him.

  Almost happy to relay the negative report, I answered him, “Yes, sir. The phone is out, and we don’t have any electricity. I’m sure it’s an oversight on Momma’s part. She’s been so upset, what with Jeopardy being gone and all.”

  “Open the door, Harper.”

  As I flipped the hook up, I noticed I didn’t have to stand on tiptoe anymore to open the latch. I stepped out of the way as Mr. Daughdrill walked inside Summerleigh. For the briefest second, I thought I heard footsteps overhead. But it was probably just my imagination, the old house settling in the autumn heat or some such thing.

  “Where is your Momma now?” He pulled off his suit coat and hung it on the bare coat rack.

  “I think she’s in her bedroom. Do you want me to get her?”

  “No. That’s not necessary. My, you’ve become a beautiful young woman, Harper Louise. So much like your Momma.” His cool hand touched my face ever so briefly. “You go to bed now,” he said, smiling at me in the half-light.

  I shivered but smiled back politely. I rarely received compliments, and to be compared with Momma was certainly a compliment.

  “All right, Mr. Daughdrill. Good night.”

  “Harper?”

  “Yes, sir?” I paused in the doorway of the Great Room that led to our bedrooms. He was only a few feet behind me now.

  “I wouldn’t mind if you called me Grandfather. I wouldn’t mind it at all.”

  I smiled again and answered, “Yes, sir. Grandfather. Good night.”

  I hurried off to my room and closed the door behind me. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I heard my grandfather’s footsteps travel down the hall to Momma’s room. He didn’t yell at her, but his voice was loud and stern at first. I couldn’t quite make out the words. Momma cried and argued with him, but the house soon grew quiet and I fell asleep.

  I woke before dawn, surprised to find that Momma was up too. She wore one of her favorite dresses today, the blue and white checkered one that she usually wore only when Daddy was coming home. It broke my heart to see it. Despite her attempt to put on a happy face, she still wasn’t quite together, but at least she was not wearing a robe and didn’t have lipstick on her teeth. Her hair still needed to be fixed, but she wore a smattering of makeup and had taken the time to put on pantyhose and her newest heels. She had a ladder in her hose, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her that.

  As I walked into the kitchen, she smiled sweetly at me and said, “Good morning, Harper Louise. I made y’all some scrambled eggs this morning. Would you like some toast with your eggs?”

  I stared at her, not believing what I was hearing and seeing. Momma never made us breakfast. She rarely cooked dinner, and for her to be up and ready to take us to school was just too much of a coincidence. I attributed her change of behavior to my grandfather’s visit last night.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll go see if Addison and Loxley are ready yet.”

  “You do that. I’ll get that toast going.” I stared at her as she sliced hunks of bread from the stale loaf and placed them on a baking sheet. We didn’t have a toaster, so we had to make toast the old-fashioned way in our hous
e. She smiled up at me and said, “Don’t dawdle, Harper. Get going. I don’t want you girls to be late. And don’t forget to put on pantyhose. You’re too old to go around with bare legs.”

  “Yes, Momma.” I hated wearing pantyhose. In fact, not many girls wore hose anymore except for formal occasions. Bobby socks were all the fashion, but I didn’t have any of them or any saddle shoes. Maybe one day, if I was smart enough to find a job, I would have my own money and could buy the clothes that I dreamed of, like the ones in the magazines. What girl wouldn’t want the latest styles? One day, I would own a whole collection of floral scarves to wear around my neck and hair.

  Addison felt ill, but she usually did before any kind of social activity. It was her nerves, I reminded her, and I coached her through her many worries. Loxley dressed quickly and hurried off to the kitchen to enjoy her breakfast. Addison had another spell of retching, but I helped her clean up. When I walked into the kitchen with her, I was surprised to see my grandfather sitting at the table as if he intended to take breakfast along with us Belle girls. I didn’t like that he was sitting in Daddy’s chair, but nobody else seemed to mind so I kept silent.

  Momma should say something! She should ask him to move! I glanced at my mother’s face and could hardly believe the transformation in her. But no matter how hard she tried, I would never trust her again. The memory of my mother striking me and picking me up by my hair was still fresh in my mind, even though it had happened weeks ago. I wondered what my grandfather would think about her behavior.

  “Good morning, girls,” he said politely to us as he opened his newspaper and placed it beside his plate.

  In unison we replied, “Good morning.” He smiled at us all but winked at me. Momma saw it but didn’t say a word. She kept her eyes on her plate and didn’t eat anything at all.

  “Eat your food, ladies. You need a good breakfast to do well in school. I hear you’ll be graduating in a few years, Harper Louise. Tell me, what are your plans for when you graduate? Are you going off to college?”

  I scooped up a forkful of eggs and said nervously, “I would like to, but I don’t know if we can afford that, Grandfather.” I popped the eggs in my mouth as my Momma’s eyes widened. She drew in a sharp breath and sat up straight in her chair staring at her father and me. Addison and Loxley eyeballed me but kept eating. None of us girls were allowed to call him Grandfather, none except Jeopardy, but now I had that privilege. I instantly regretted using the term.

  “You leave that to me, dear girl. If you want to go to college, I’ll make sure that you do.” He reached for my hand and squeezed it. His hand felt clammy and cold, and I wasn’t used to being touched. There weren’t many hugs administered in this house, not since Daddy died. Once upon a time, Jeopardy had been one to hug you, to show affection in sudden and wonderful ways, but before she disappeared, those spontaneous hugs had become as rare as Momma’s.

  “Girls, let’s go now. It’s time we were off to school.” Momma still hadn’t eaten a bite but sipped her coffee quickly and stood, straightening her dress.

  “Oh no, dear. You can’t go out looking like that. Just look at your hair, Ann.” He clucked his tongue as Momma’s hands flew to her unbrushed locks.

  “I’ll wear a scarf, Father.”

  “I don’t think a scarf will help. I’ll take these girls to school and come back when I’m done. I think it would be good for us to have a chat about Harper’s future. Don’t you?”

  I saw Momma’s hands clench by her sides in tight fists, and she wobbled in her shoes. Would she faint? Her face reddened, and she did something I had never seen before—she defied Mr. Daughdrill. “I’ll take my girls to school, Father, and I’ll be right back. Hurry up, girls. Let’s go.”

  Loxley whined about not finishing her breakfast, but she grabbed her toast and followed behind Momma. I cast an eye behind me to my grandfather’s face. He was clearly furious, but it was the silent kind of fury, the kind I’d seen on Momma’s face so frequently. And then he called out to us, “I will be picking you girls up. Look for my car after school.” Momma didn’t argue back but took me by the hand and led us out of the house and to her car.

  I expected her to say something to us, something about the weirdness of our grandfather being at our kitchen table this morning. Perhaps an apology or some declaration of how things would change and how she would try harder to be a better mother to us all, but she said nothing. She clutched the steering wheel so hard her hands were white, and I noticed she wore no gloves. Momma always wears gloves when she drives the car. She pulled up in front of the school, and even though we were thirty minutes early, we got out of the car and watched her pull away. Momma looked at me with an expression I could not interpret and then left us behind. She was gone by the time I thought to ask her for lunch money, but luckily for my sisters, I had fifty cents in my purse.

  We waited on the bench outside the front door of the school until the principal arrived and unlocked the door. He was polite and made a sweet comment about us being anxious for classes to start. Other teachers arrived a few minutes later, but none of the adults said a word to us about Jeopardy. I could tell they were curious—or perhaps they felt sorry for us. I wasn’t sure.

  The day did not go as planned. My hose kept falling down, and I had to retreat into the ladies’ restroom to pull them back up more than once. I finally gave up about halfway through the day and went into a bathroom stall and removed them completely, shoving them in my purse. My bare legs felt cool, and the strange defiance of going without hose thrilled me slightly. I would never be as defiant as Jeopardy, but I was learning in my own way how to show the same kind of bravery she did.

  How I miss you, Jeopardy Belle!

  Thinking about being at school without her was too much. I didn’t return to class that period but stayed in the stall and cried until the bell rang. I ate lunch with Addison, but Loxley was in the other building. The elementary kids were kept separate from the rest of us. They played separately, learned separately and ate separately. Knowing Loxley, she was having a fine old time. She was never one to go without a friend for too long, and I suspected that the smaller children were not as curious about Jeopardy’s disappearance as were my own schoolmates. It was so strange that nobody mentioned her name. Actually, no one spoke to me much at all. It wasn’t until after lunch that Arnette Loper came walking beside me. Jeopardy used to call her frog-face behind her back. She never cared for Arnette too much.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you for weeks, I’m so happy for you that you got voted into the Harvest Queen Court. And you looked real pretty at the dance, too. Of course, I’m sorry I didn’t make it on the Court, but maybe next year. Older girls have a better chance, they say. I can’t wait.” Arnette ran on and on and then finally saw the sadness in my face as I remembered the night my sister disappeared. She said, “I’m real sorry about your sister. Jeopardy was…”

  I stopped in the hallway, ignoring the impatient crowd behind me. They could walk around. “You mean Jeopardy is, Arnette. She’s not dead. She’s just missing.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that she was dead. Sorry, Harper.” She clutched her notebook to her chest and looked up at me. I was a full three inches taller than Arnette; I was probably the tallest girl in the ninth grade.

  Her voice dropped to a whisper, “Is it true that she ran off with a carnie? You know, the good-looking one who looked like Dean Martin. What was his name?”

  “What are you talking about, Arnette? Jeopardy didn’t run off with anyone. She’s just missing.” We started to move toward our biology class. The bell would ring soon, and I was glad because I really wanted to get away from Arnette.

  “Well, Harper, she can’t just be missing. She’s got to be missing on purpose. I mean, someone would have to be taking care of her, right? It makes sense that she went off to get married, and that would be so like Jeopardy Belle. She was nothing if not romantic.”

  I hadn’t thought about that before, and it cert
ainly was a possibility, but a carnival worker? No way. If Jeopardy was gonna run off with anyone, it would’ve been with Troy Harvester. And where was Troy? His brother Tony held court in front of his locker before last period, but I hadn’t seen Troy in a while. It was like he’d disappeared too.

  “Anyway, I’m real sorry.” She walked away and found a seat at the front of the class while I chose one at the back. Last year, I would’ve been right up front with Arnette, but not this year. I wanted to be as far from the spotlight as possible, plus she’d given me a lot to think about. What if it was true? What if Jeopardy did leave me behind? Would she have done that? I shook my head as I opened my notebook and prepared for the long boring biology speech I was sure Mr. Dempsey was about to give us. Mr. Dempsey might be dreamy, according to Arnette, but he loved nothing better than to talk on and on about nuclei and cells and other boring things. As he talked, I pretended people weren’t looking back and staring at me like they’d done for weeks. I avoided their eyes and wrote Jeopardy’s name about a hundred times before the class ended. I’d never been so glad to be out of school before, but every day without Jeopardy was just awful.

  Arnette caught me in the classroom doorway. “Hey, why don’t you ride with us? We’re going to Lucedale to the soda shop.”

  “Hey, Harper,” a boy with a shiny round face and cropped blond hair said with a nervous smile. I’d seen him before but couldn’t recall ever speaking to him. He didn’t say anything to Arnette, who merely stared at him with her bulging green eyes. The boy didn’t shuffle away but stood with us as if he’d been a part of the conversation from the beginning.

  “Um, hello. Benjamin, right?”

  “Only Dempsey calls me that. I’m Ben or Benny. Hartley.” He was sweating pretty good but extended his hand to Arnette. She shook it.

  “Benny, I was just telling Harper that some of us were going for a soda after school. You game?”

  “Sure,” he said with a grin as he pulled his book strap up on his shoulder. “I’ve got a car. I’ll be glad to drive you, Harper. And you…”