by Ann Roberts
“That’s probably not the best idea tonight,” Penn said kindly. “You’re hurt and on drugs. And I don’t do hookups.”
The judgment in her voice was unmistakable. Penn turned away without another word.
Chapter Nine
October, 1954
“Vivian Battle, you will wear a dress for your class picture tomorrow and that’s final.”
“I will not!”
“Yes, you will, or you won’t have your sketchbook for a month.”
She held up the dress in one hand and the sketchbook in the other. Art and my friendship with Kiah were all I had. I violently grabbed the dress but unfortunately it didn’t tear in half. She watched as I changed into it then she pushed me into a chair and brushed my hair.
“This rat’s nest is the worst I’ve ever seen it. Why can’t you keep yours nice like Kiah? I thought you idolized her to no end.”
“Not her hair,” I snorted, and that got me a whack on the head with the brush.
“Don’t sass me when I’m holding a weapon,” she hissed. “You make it too easy.”
She pulled and yanked until she was satisfied. I went to the mirror and scowled.
“Get that expression off your face or you’ll never have any friends.” She fluffed my hair and smoothed the skirt and said, “Appearance is important in a friendship and so is compromise. Look at me and the sewing circle. We don’t always see eye-to-eye, but they’re my friends.”
“They’re not your friends,” I said.
She smacked me across the face, and we both froze in horror. She’d never hit me. I ran upstairs and collapsed on my window seat waiting for Kiah to come home from church. I longed to talk to Will, but he spent his time hanging out with a bunch of no-goods. He’d greased his hair back into a ducktail, and he reminded me of Billy Smith. And then one day I’d actually seen them together after school behind the mini-market. Both of them were smoking and taunting a black boy with the hot tip of their cigarettes. I couldn’t believe it. Mama would’ve killed him if she knew, but they never talked either.
****
In the eight months that had passed, all of the trees had been destroyed except for the ones that would sit in the homeowners’ yards, and little cement foundations laid in neat rows went on for a mile. I missed the orange trees terribly, but Kiah was living outside my front door so it seemed like a good trade.
But at school I couldn’t find anyone to like me. So I spent my lunch hours hanging around the art room. Miss Noyce, the art teacher, thought I was incredibly talented. She let me make my own projects and even gave me some art supplies to take home, but only if I kept my grades up.
Tall with long brown hair that she wore in a bun, she was pretty, I thought. She stood perfectly straight, like she was pressed against a board, and when she talked about a piece of art or famous artists it was as if she knew them personally and had invited them over for dinner. She was the one who introduced me to Monet and Renoir and told me I could be as good as they were. I didn’t believe her, but I appreciated her belief in my talent, which she praised every time I opened my sketchbook.
Kiah came up the drive with Mac and when she looked toward my window I motioned to her. She waited until he had gone inside before she climbed up the trellis. Even though she came into our house through the back door all the time, she still liked climbing.
I burst into tears when she hugged me and it took a few minutes to finally explain what had happened with Mama.
She rubbed my back and whispered, “You gotta understand what else you were saying to her.”
I looked up through my tears. Half of the time she had to re-explain whatever she said because I was always three steps behind her.
“I didn’t say anything else.”
She shook her head. “We always do. Every time we speak there are the words that come out and the ones that don’t. And you didn’t say a bunch.”
I looked at her dumbly.
“Think about it, Vivi. Daddy and I’ve been living over here in the cabin for two months and other than those nasty sewing ladies, I haven’t seen one other car come up that driveway except Mr. Rubenstein’s Cadillac and your daddy’s truck once in a blue moon. Does your mama have any other friends I don’t know about?” When I didn’t answer she said, “Those ladies are all she has, and for you to say that they should quit coming around is like saying you think she should be alone.”
I realized then Mama couldn’t be alone.
****
I left for school on Monday wearing the horrible dress with the French braid Mama had insisted upon. By the time I got to my first period American history class, my forehead no longer felt like it was being stretched a mile away from my nose. I slid into my chair and nodded at Gloria Meyer, the only other girl who was as quiet as I was. With her dark hair and long nose, I knew she was Jewish, and I guessed that was why so many of the other kids didn’t talk to her.
Mr. Corliss clapped his hands once and everyone immediately turned around and shut up. “We left off with the Pilgrims coming to America. What did we learn yesterday?”
“We learned that they came here to escape religious execution,” one student said.
“Persecution,” he corrected. “What else?”
“They taught the Indians all kinds of things, like hunting and fishing and sharing.”
“They had a big feast with the Indians and that’s why we have Thanksgiving because the Indians were so grateful.”
I squirmed in my seat. The answers didn’t make sense, but I wasn’t going to say anything.
“Miss Battle, you seem to want to add to the discussion. What did you learn yesterday?”
I shrugged. Maybe he’d pick someone else. I hung my head and tried to be invisible.
He sighed heavily. “Miss Battle, I’m waiting. You are one of the most infrequent contributors to this class, and, for once, I’d like to know what you think. Or do you think, Miss Battle, about anything except the silly drawings that you make when you’re supposed to be taking notes?”
My head shot up and I said, “It can’t be right.”
His eyes narrowed behind his horn-rimmed glasses. “What can’t be right?”
“The story.”
He shook his head and looked like he had indigestion. I could tell he was already sorry he’d called on me. “What are you talking about, Miss Battle?”
I glanced at the students, many of whom had turned in their seats to stare at me curiously. They either didn’t understand what I was trying to say, or they couldn’t believe I was challenging one of the meanest teachers in the school.
“I think it’s ridiculous. How could the Pilgrims get to the New World and teach the Indians how to hunt and farm and fish?”
He closed his eyes like he was praying that I would disappear. “Please explain, Miss Battle.”
“Well, wouldn’t they be dead?”
“What?” he asked in total exasperation.
“The Indians were there first, right?”
“Yes.”
“So if they didn’t know how to hunt or fish or farm, how did they survive? They should’ve been dead. The Mayflower should’ve pulled up and found a bunch of dead Indians lying on the shore.” I heard a cough next to me and his angry eyes immediately shot toward Gloria Meyer. She had her head down, but I thought I saw a smile from underneath the dark hair that fell in her face.
When he mumbled something under his breath and pulled out his packet of office slips, I knew I was in trouble. “Miss Battle, I don’t appreciate your insubordinate attitude.”
“I wasn’t trying to be insubordinate, but I don’t understand how they could be so stupid. Here in Arizona the Hohokam Indians built all kinds of canals and that was thousands of years before the Pilgrims came. I just don’t get it—”
“That is because you are an impertinent girl stupider than any Indian.” He thrust out the pass and waited until I trudged to the front to claim it.
“I’m not stupid,” I muttered u
nder my breath. “It’s your story that’s stupid.”
“What did you say?”
His question hung over me like a raincloud waiting to burst. All I had to say was something simple like, “I didn’t say anything, sir,” but that wasn’t me. I blurted, “The Pilgrim story is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard next to that stupid story of Jonah being swallowed by the whale.”
He pointed at the door and all his blood seemed to be in his drooping cheeks. “OUT!”
****
When Mama came to get me, her face was nearly as red as Mr. Corliss’s had been. She disappeared into Principal Landy’s office for a few minutes before she swooped out and grabbed my arm. She dragged me through the hallway, and if I’d had any friends, I imagined I would’ve lost some out of embarrassment.
We drove home in silence, but I knew from the way she twitched in her seat, played with the radio and took deep drags on her cigarette that she was ready to explode like Vesuvius. And when we screeched into the driveway she chased me into the house, smacking my butt as I walked through the door.
“Vivian Lucille Battle, you are the most ungrateful, disrespectful child I’ve ever known,” she hissed as she followed me up the stairs.
“But it didn’t make sense,” I argued. “How could the Pilgrims—”
“I don’t give a fuck!” She grabbed the wooden paddle off the bathroom door handle. “Bend over.”
My jaw dropped. That was the foulest language I’d ever heard her use, and it was so beneath her as a lady. She shook the paddle at me and I took a step back.
“I’m too old for that. You ain’t hitting me! I’m not a little kid.”
“You’re certainly acting like one. Now bend over.”
“No! That’s Pops’ job.”
And it was. She’d never paddled either me or Will but something changed in her when I spoke the truth.
“You lean your ass over right now! Right now!” she screeched.
And when I didn’t do it, she swung the paddle and hit me in the hip bone. I cried out and started running as it slammed into my back and nearly knocked me over. I righted myself, staring at my door that seemed a mile away, wondering if she would bring the paddle down on my head.
I stumbled inside, gasping for air as I swung the door shut, certain she was right behind me. But as it closed, I glimpsed her leaning against the wall, the paddle dangling toward the floor. I fell on my bed and sobbed.
Later that night Kiah snuck up the trellis, and I cried again in her arms. I told her what happened, hoping she could explain it right like she always did.
“Your mama’s not half as mad at you as she is at your pops,” she said, stroking my hair.
“What does he have to do with it?”
“Everything,” she said simply. “At least that’s what my daddy thinks.”
“I don’t get it. And why doesn’t your daddy come over anymore?” I asked, suddenly realizing that I hadn’t seen Mac at our table in a long time.
“He’s busy,” she said, and I knew she was lying.
She stroked my cheek and kissed me. Soon the dark afternoon in the hallway was forgotten in the tenderness of her lips. When she pressed against me I felt like I was sitting in an orange tree and all the little branches were poking at me in a nice way. Neither of us knew what to do but it felt wonderful just to know we liked it.
We heard the creak of the screen door that Pops had never fixed, and I looked down as Mama appeared on the porch smoking her cigarette. She didn’t look anything like she had earlier. She’d taken a bath, redone her hair and put on some makeup after our shouting match. It seemed like it had never happened. I didn’t understand how she could forget everything so quickly. I’d heard of amnesia and maybe she suffered from it.
Kiah took me by the shoulders, suddenly very serious. “You can’t tell no one about our kissing, Vivi. Not ever.”
“Why not?”
“It’s wrong, that’s why. Double wrong, really.”
“Why?”
“It’s wrong for girls to kiss like we do, but even worse, I’m black and you’re white and mixin’ is illegal. Do you know what the Klan is doin’ to couples who mix?”
I’d never even heard of the Ku Klux Klan until Mac and Kiah had explained it to me one night. Why grown men would run around wearing sheets seemed ridiculous and when I’d mentioned them to Mama, she’d called them a bunch of sons of bitches.
“But the Klan’s not around here,” I argued.
“You don’t think so? I hear boys talkin’ about the Klan all the time at my school. How they’ve run blacks out of the drive-ins or pushed us off the sidewalks. Don’t you hear those kinds of stories?”
I nodded. I heard all kinds of foul-mouthed slurs as Mama called them, not just about the Klan. Nigger, spic and kike were sneers regularly spewed by the white kids at the lockers between every class. It was like hatred took a break for fifty minutes at a time, just long enough for us to learn math, science, history and English before it started again. And lunchtime was the worst, which was why I was glad I spent mine with Miss Noyce.
A car rumbled up the driveway and both of us stepped to the window. Mr. Rubenstein emerged and joined Mama on the sun porch. She scurried away, leaving him to sit on the old divan with his hat in his hand. Two minutes later she came out with a piece of sweet potato pie and a cup of coffee.
“Why does he still come by?” I asked.
“He likes your mama. She’s beautiful and funny, and she doesn’t hate Jews.”
“She doesn’t hate anyone except maybe me,” I added. A shiver ran down my back as I pictured her coming at me with the paddle.
“She doesn’t hate you, Vivi. She loves you most of all.”
She wrapped her arms around me and the shivering stopped. “How long are you suspended for?”
“Three days. Mr. Landy says I have to write a letter of apology to that son of a bitch Corliss. What have I got to apologize for, anyway? I just asked a question. Don’t you think that’s a good question?”
“It’s a great question,” she agreed. “I imagine those Indians were doing just fine without the white folks, just like my people were minding their own business over in Africa before the slave traders came.”
She’d told me fascinating stories about the slave traders who came from America and imprisoned her people. I hadn’t believed her and shown her and Mac my history book, which told us that the blacks liked coming to America. Mac had shaken his head sadly and shared some letters from his ancestors. Then I apologized profusely.
He’d grinned and said, “Miss Vivi, I believe that you will help change the world.” Then he’d gone to his room and when he came back, he handed me his copy of the first Wonder Woman comic book.
“Mac, I can’t accept this.”
“Oh, yes you can.” And then he’d kissed me on the cheek.
I’d sighed and hung my head. “I hate being white. It’s so embarrassing.”
And they’d both laughed for a long time.
Headlights appeared behind Mr. Rubenstein’s Cadillac and my heart jumped at the thought that Pops might be home, but I quickly realized it was another car.
“Who’s that?” Kiah asked.
We peered through the window as a figure emerged in the darkness. It was a woman and there was something familiar about her silhouette, but I didn’t recognize her until the light of the sun porch shone on her face.
“That’s Miss Noyce, my art teacher,” I said. “I wonder why she’s here.”
I suddenly felt sick. She held my sketchbook in her hand, and I imagined she was returning it to me. She’d probably heard about my behavior in history class and now she was kicking me out of art too. Where would I eat lunch?
I started to cry and sniffle.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Kiah said, pulling me close.
She was right. When Mama came out to greet her they were all smiles, and I was surprised when Mama disappeared and returned with another piece of pie and coffee for Mi
ss Noyce. It got later and later but nobody left. From my window I could see Mama’s ruby red lips move each time she added to the conversation. She touched Mr. Rubenstein’s arm periodically and the two of them seemed to be explaining something to Miss Noyce, who nodded politely. Once in a while Mama’s laugh floated up to my window and soothed the pain of the afternoon.
“I gotta go,” Kiah said as she crawled out the window.
“Say hi to Mac for me.”
She gave me a quick kiss and snuck away.
I found a piece of paper from my schoolbag and began to draw a picture of the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock, dead Indians lying on the shore while the white men hovered over them scratching their heads in bewilderment. The hinges creaked as Mama opened my door and I automatically thrust the drawing to the floor. I hadn’t even heard our visitors leave.
She stood in the doorway holding my sketchbook under her arm. She looked like herself and I wasn’t afraid, at least no more than I ever was. She carefully set it on the bed like it was breakable.
“Miss Noyce came by tonight. She wanted you to have this while you’re out of school.” Our eyes met briefly before she looked toward the window. “She showed me your drawings. She says you have talent, Vivi, a gift.”
I thought of some of my sketches—the orchard, Kiah, one of Pops as I remembered him working in the groves, Will sitting on the front stoop thinking and the one of Mama with the expression I wanted her to have.
“She’s right,” she said.
I almost didn’t hear it. She said it so softly that the words almost got sucked through the open window by the passing wind. I almost missed the only compliment she’d ever given me.
And it was another long while, long enough for the wind to announce its presence again before she said in a weak, flat voice, “Please, Vivi. You’re so strong.”
She headed to her bedroom, the tap of her pumps against the oak floor fading away when the door clicked shut.