Delores would show me around. In the front room there would be a couple chairs and the one bed that they pushed to the side during the day like a lot of the sharecroppers had done back in Red River. I thought maybe there’d be a picture or two hanging on the walls. Old folks looked out from inside the tarnished frames, not a one of them smiling and all of them with their eyes looking black in the shadows of their deep brows.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick would come into the room with an apron tied around her tiny waist. It would be dirty, that apron. Her dress would be, too. Scrubbing laundry inside wouldn’t have been so easy, especially since she didn’t have any room to set up her wash basin.
I’d tell her it was all right, that it didn’t bother me to see her grimy clothes. And I’d offer for her to bring her dirty things on by the house whenever they needed being done. I’d tell her that Opal wouldn’t care about scrubbing a handful of extras.
But even in my daydream I knew Mrs. Fitzpatrick would have just looked at me and shook her head. She never would’ve wanted so much help, especially not from a girl like me. A girl with a clean and starched dress that fit me right, if not a little too big. She’d not want pity from somebody who got fed more than she could eat or who could take a hot bath whenever the fancy struck her. There was no way that a mother like Mrs. Fitzpatrick wanted somebody like me feeling sorry for her.
Even if she was married to a bad man.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I’d rushed home from school fast as I could. So fast, I was plumb out of breath by the time I got to the front door and Opal made me sit and rest awhile before she’d even think of starting the dancing lesson.
“You’re going to need all the breath you’ve got,” she said. “The lindy-hop goes fast.”
“The who?” I asked.
“This dance is called the lindy-hop.” She raised one of her eyebrows. “You’re sure you want to learn?”
I let my eyes grow wide and I nodded my head.
“You ready?”
“I think so,” I answered.
“All right.” She reached over the davenport to pull the curtains closed over the window.
“Why’re you doing that?”
“I have caused enough stir already, don’t you think?” She looked at me over her shoulder. “I don’t need to lose my job over this.”
“Daddy wouldn’t fire you for teaching me to dance,” I said.
“If it makes too much trouble for him, he just might.” She got to the middle of the living room and put out her hands. “Come on over here.”
“Should we turn on the radio?” I asked, getting up and going to stand in front of her.
“Not yet.” She took my hands and pulled me closer to her. She put her right hand on the middle of my back and held my hand in her left the way I’d seen dancers do in the movies. “Not too tight. Stay loose.”
“Like this?” I asked, wrapping my fingers around her hand.
“Looser. That’s it,” she said. “Now, follow my lead, okay? And don’t tense up.”
I nodded and tried to relax even thought my heart pounded hard.
“This first move is called the groove.”
“The groove,” I repeated.
“All you have to do is put your right foot out. Yup, like that.” She smiled. “Keep both feet planted, all right? Don’t pick them up just yet. Now, rock back and forth. Like this. Bend at the waist and bend that right knee.”
She guided me, the two of us leaning forward and back, forward and back.
“Like this?” I asked.
“You’re getting it,” she answered.
We did that at least ten times before she told me to bounce at the knees whenever I rocked one way or the other. She counted to eight more than a couple times as we moved.
“You like it?” she asked, still guiding me in the groove.
I sure did.
“Try tapping your toes as you go.”
I was a little off the beat she counted. She didn’t stop, though. Didn’t get frustrated or give up on me. Opal just kept on going until I started feeling it, the one-two-three-four, until I moved in time to the five-six-seven-eight.
“That’s it,” she said. “Ready for the next part?”
“Yes,” I answered, not sure if I was or not.
“Now, watch me. Keep your left foot where it was, all right? Then step back with your right. Like this.”
Counting to eight, she slid her right foot so it was even with her left, twisting her body and guiding me so we were standing side by side. Then she stepped forward, pulling me so I faced her again.
“Got it?” she asked.
“I think so,” I answered.
I tried moving my body like she’d shown me, her holding my hand and gently pushing on my back. The first couple times I about got my legs tangled up and I couldn’t seem to remember which foot was supposed to go where.
“It’s all right,” Opal said. “We’ve got plenty of time. Once you get this, you’ll be able to do anything.”
I didn’t know about that, but I still gave it a few more tries, almost catching up to Opal’s counting.
“There you go,” she nodded, leading me through the move a couple more times. “Miss Pearl, princess of the double-back.”
She was just being nice and I knew it, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t felt so good in a long time.
“Want to put that all together?” she asked. “We’ll do two counts of eight for the groove then one count of eight for the double-back. Then we’ll stomp our foot and peck three times.”
“Peck?” I asked.
She smiled wide and jutted her head out back and forth like one hen going after another. I couldn’t help but laugh before trying it for myself.
“That’s the way,” she said. “Ready for the whole shebang?”
We moved through those three steps half a dozen times, her calling them out as we went. Each time they felt more and more natural. After a while I realized Opal wasn’t counting anymore. Instead she was singing—not words, but she made noises like “dah-dah” and “bum-bum-bum” and “wah-waaaaaah.” She sounded like an instrument and I felt like we could have gone on like that forever.
“You did good,” she said, letting go of my hand and stepping back. “Best partner I’ve had in a long time.”
“Better than Lenny Miller?” I asked.
She chuckled and nodded. “He’s too full of himself to be a great dance partner.”
“Can you teach me more?” I asked, trying not to let her see how hard I was breathing and hoping she couldn’t hear the light wheezing from my lungs.
“Tomorrow,” she said, looking up at the clock on the wall. “Now we need to see to supper.”
I didn’t say a word of complaint when she had me peel the potatoes and chunk them. In my head I kept hearing Opal’s voice, counting out from one to eight, and let my toes tap to the beat.
I thought I’d be happy if I could go on dancing all the days of my life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Delores didn’t come back to school until that Friday. She wasn’t as late as usual and her hair looked fresh cleaned. I smiled at her as she walked past my desk. She must not have seen me, though, because she didn’t smile back.
We finished up our arithmetic lesson and Miss De Weese dismissed us for lunch. I waited in my seat until all the other kids had filed out and the room held just the teacher, Delores, and me.
“You wanna come to my house for lunch?” I asked, turning in my seat to look at her.
Delores shook her head but didn’t look at me.
“You sure? Opal’s making chicken and dumplings,” I told her. “It’ll be real good.”
Delores didn’t move, not to shake her head or shrug or anything. Not even to breathe, it seemed. It made me think of how a deer could sit still for hours so nobody’d be able to see them. I wondered if she was hoping I’d just stop talking to her and leave her be if she didn’t bat an eyelid.
“Come on, Delores,” I sa
id. “Daddy said you could come for lunch any time you want. It’s no bother.”
She pulled her lips in between her teeth and bit down on them. Then she peeked at me real quick.
“Does she always eat with you?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Your girl,” she whispered.
“You mean Opal?” I asked. “Course she does. We don’t make her eat in the kitchen.”
“My mother said I can’t go to your house no more,” she whispered, turning her eyes down to her hands folded in her lap.
I leaned closer to her. “Why not?”
“She said I ain’t suppose to eat with them.”
“With who?” I asked, knowing who she meant but wanting her to have to say it.
“With people like her. She tries passin’ as white, my mother said, but really she’s a …” She paused and took in a breath. Then she looked to be sure Miss De Weese wasn’t listening before opening her mouth again.
Of all the cuss words I knew to use there was only one I’d never dared say. It was one Daddy’d warned me not to let slip out of my mouth, threatening a lick of a switch to my behind if I did. Some folks’d used it back in Red River, but never Daddy. Not once.
When Delores opened her mouth, she used that word for Opal. Even in her small, whispered voice it sounded like a growl.
“Don’t call her that,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice calm even though it wanted to break into a holler. “Don’t you ever call Opal that.”
It was a good thing I felt sorry for Delores. Had anybody else called Opal that word I would’ve given them a bloody nose.
Instead I left her to eat her sad little lunch all by herself.
Still, I didn’t feel good about it.
No matter how much I tossed or how many times I turned, there was no falling asleep for me that night. All I could see was the way Delores’s lips had moved around the bad word she’d called Opal and all I could hear was the “grrr” of the word grinding out of her mouth.
When Daddy came to check on me like he did most nights, I didn’t pretend to be asleep. I just kept my eyes open and said hi.
“I thought you’d be sleeping,” he said, stepping into the room.
I shook my head and propped myself up on my elbow.
“What’s bothering you?” he asked, sitting on the edge of my bed. “You feeling all right?”
I nodded.
“You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
He gave me a grin and told me he hoped I would.
“I don’t want to go back to school,” I said. “Can I stay home? I can learn everything from here. There’s plenty of books I can get at the library.”
“Darlin’, you gotta go to school,” he said. “I’m fixing to see you graduate from high school. You know, you could even go on to college if you wanted.”
I sighed and made sure he heard it. “I don’t want to be in school all my life.”
“I thought you liked school.”
“I guess,” I said. “It’s all right.”
“Somebody giving you trouble?”
I shrugged.
“Something happened today?”
“I guess so.” I turned my face up so I was looking at him. “Why’s that word so bad?”
He wrinkled up his brow like he was thinking hard. “Which word?” he asked.
“The bad one.”
“Can you spell it for me?” he asked.
I shook my head. “You’d whup me.”
“That bad, huh?” He nodded. “I think I know the one you mean. It starts with an ‘N’?”
I nodded. “It’s a real bad one, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” he said. “And you wanna know why it’s so bad, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, darlin’, far as I know it’s another word for Negro.”
“That’s not so bad.”
“But it’s more than just the definition. It’s what’s behind the word,” he said. “When somebody calls another man that word, he’s saying that man is worth hardly anything at all. It takes away a man’s humanity to call him that. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Calling a man that is saying that he has no soul, that he wasn’t made to be like God,” he said. “It’s saying he’s no better than an animal.”
“Why would anybody say something like that?”
“I guess maybe they don’t have any love for the person they’d say that about.” Daddy let out air from his mouth and shook his head. “Did you hear somebody say that word?”
I nodded. “Delores said it.”
“Hmm. Well, I imagine she doesn’t know better.”
“She said Opal was one.”
“And we know that’s not true,” Daddy said. “We know Opal’s a good person, don’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Delores told me she can’t come eat with us anymore because we let Opal sit at the table.”
Daddy nodded. “Well, we aren’t going to change what we do, are we?”
“Mama wouldn’t let her eat with us,” I said. “Remember?”
“I do.” Daddy stood before bending over to kiss my forehead. “I want you being as kind as you can be to Delores, hear?”
I nodded. “I’ll try.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
January ended even colder than it started. It didn’t seem to matter how many pairs of socks I slipped over my feet or how hot I let the water get for my baths, I couldn’t manage to thaw out.
February didn’t start off any different, either. In fact, I heard folks grumble that it just kept getting colder and colder by the day. I started doubting whether or not spring would ever come.
Millard had written at the beginning of the month to say that Pastor and Mad Mable had packed up and left.
“I don’t know where they took off to,” he wrote. “There’s just a few of us left sticking it out here. Sure is lonely and I miss y’all something awful.”
“I do wish he’d come live with us,” Daddy’d said, folding up the letter. “Wouldn’t it be nice?”
Ray and I both agreed. But if there was one thing we knew wouldn’t happen in a hundred years it was Millard Young moving away from his Oklahoma home.
After church most Sundays we’d have dinner at Uncle Gus and Aunt Carrie’s table. We’d spend the better part of the day there, the men listening to the radio and snoozing in their chairs or poking around at this or that in the barn. Once we got the dishes done up and put away, Aunt Carrie and I would visit the hens until we couldn’t stand the cold anymore. Then we’d sit in her room reading, she in her bed and I in a chair pulled into a corner, both of us bundled in blankets and quilts.
That day she had her favorite book of poetry and I had the last couple pages of Peter Pan to finish up.
Peter and the mean old fairy Tink sat inside the nursery of the house where Wendy and her brothers had lived before Neverland. They were hoping to keep Wendy and the boys from coming back to their family. If anybody’d asked me, I would have told them that Peter Pan was the most selfish boy I’d ever heard of. It wouldn’t have bothered me one bit if he’d gotten himself swallowed by that gator, the way he treated the lost boys and Wendy. He was the kind Mama would’ve had no trouble whupping on a regular basis.
He’d never had a mother to care enough to give him what for, though. Just the thought of that made me sad for him.
Still, he wasn’t as nice as he could have been.
He and Tinkerbell listened while Mrs. Darling played on her piano. She played, not knowing anybody was listening. Even though the song didn’t have any words, Peter knew Mrs. Darling was using it to call out for Wendy to come on home.
“You will never see Wendy again!” Peter had hollered.
I shut the book right then. If I could have, I’d have taken that book right back to the library, marching myself up to Mrs. Trask’s desk and letting her know that the book was foul. Th
at I didn’t want to read anymore of it.
I’d gladly read a book of her choosing rather than spend one more minute with a story about Peter Pan. Even if her book had swishy skirts and women swooning on their couches over men that said just the right words at just the right time.
It was the third time I’d read the Peter Pan book to that very point and stopped short of finishing. Something had kept me from going on every time.
All I could think of was how I wished Mrs. Darling would get up from her piano to check the window. She’d stand there with her hands on the sill, looking out into the night for her children to come rushing back in. But then she’d hear something in the room. A little tinkling bell from the tiny fairy and the breath of a little boy.
Turning, she’d see Peter there.
She’d ask him how he got into the nursery and he’d tell her he’d flown through the window. Mrs. Darling wouldn’t scold him for being rude or for not calling her ma’am. She’d know just by looking at him that the boy didn’t have anybody looking after him.
Nobody had ever cared for Peter Pan. Not really.
Taking a step toward him, she’d ask where his mother was and he’d clam up. Peter’d look at Mrs. Darling—her soft smile and pinned-up hair, clean clothes and fresh scent—and he’d realize that he wanted her to be his mother. Not Wendy or any other little girl. He wanted that grown woman as his mama.
I only hoped Mrs. Darling would have taken him by the hand and told him he was welcome to be her child. He’d follow behind her, learning how it felt for somebody to care for him. He’d be her son and she’d be his mama. And she wouldn’t ever walk away from him. She’d be a true and good mother.
She’d never leave him.
Aunt Carrie held the book of poems to her chest before placing it on the stand right beside her bed. Then she swung her legs off the side and let them dangle there.
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