Bed & Breakfast

by Lois Battle

  “We don’t need no foreign foods,” Jasper muttered with such unexpected belligerence that Evie patted his knee, then leaned to whisper in his ear.

  Leaning in Reba’s direction, Orrie grimaced an apology. “Don’t mind Daddy. When he’s had a few, he gets—”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Reba said archly, flashing her brightest smile, “I don’t expect all Southerners to be gracious—after all, that would be a cliche.”

  “There’s one more,” Cam gestured to Susan, desperately wanting the whole charade to be done with, fighting an impulse to just get up and head for the door.

  “It’s from Aunt Cam to Grandma,” Susan said, examining the Lord & Taylor box.

  “I just had time to get the one present before I left,” Cam began to explain.

  “Just look at this mess!” Lila exclaimed, grabbing up discarded wrappings and ribbons and crunching them into a ball.

  Josie signaled Orrie with her eyes and he bent forward, whispering, “Just let that go, sugar,” and easing Lila back onto the couch.

  “I hope you’re not planning to drive, Jasper,” Josie said, “because you look”—she covered her warning with threadbare politeness—“too tired to drive.”

  “Of course not,” Evie said indignantly. “I’m going to drive. Jasper, where’re your keys?”

  “I’ve only had one drink, I can drive,” Ricky volunteered.

  “Hush up,” Susan said, “Can’t you see Grandma is opening her present?”

  As Josie drew the rose-colored dressing gown out of the package she said nothing, but as she held it up, a soft exhalation of breath showed her pleasure. “Why, it’s . . . it’s . . .”

  “Beautiful,” Reba said for her.

  “Oh, yes,” Josie agreed. “The color’s like something from a real sunrise and the fabric . . . see how these gathers from the shoulder pads and these pleats from the waistband just . . .”

  “Cascade,” Reba supplied. “Oh, it’s all flow and slither. You’ll feel like a nymph standing in a waterfall when you wear that.”

  “Super pretty. Super sexy,” Orrie agreed.

  “Isn’t it, you know, for somebody younger?” Susan asked.

  “In the privacy of my bedroom, I don’t see why I can’t be any age I wish to be,” Josie declared with a smile.

  “Hey, I feel the same way,” Jasper croaked with a more lecherous intent.

  “Oh, Camilla,” Josie said, pointedly ignoring Jasper’s boorishness, holding the dressing gown up to her breasts. “It’s just . . .”

  “So now I guess you have something else to play dress-up in. You can finally throw out that ragtag lizard-green thing that looks like it belongs in a bordello.” Lila’s voice rasped like chalk scraping on a blackboard. “I’ve been telling her to throw that green thing out for years, but she can’t bring herself to do it because it was from her darling prodigal daughter.” She hauled herself up and went to the drinks cart, sloshing another bourbon into her glass.

  “Lila, I don’t think—” Josie started.

  “You don’t think what, Mama? What don’t you think? Women so rarely say what they think. They just yammer and simper and make nice, like you taught us to do. Except Cam. She always says what she thinks and does what she wants to do, just like Daddy always did. And she doesn’t care who it hurts.”

  “Oh, God,” Cam groaned.

  “She’s ...” Reba whispered.

  “I know.”

  “What are you saying?” Lila challenged, spinning around. “What are you whispering to the friend you imported from the big city so you’d have someone to talk to instead of us dumb home folks?”

  “Hey, I don’t want to be part of a family brouhaha.” Reba, raising her hands as though someone had a knife in her ribs, making a clown’s grimace to ease the general embarrassment, got up and started to back out of the room. “I’ll just go upstairs.”

  “And pack,” Lila said.

  Josie got up from her chair. “Lila, please. Reba, don’t.”

  “No, Reba,” Cam started after her friend but thought better of it, calling, “I’ll be up soon,” then turning back, her rage giving way to icy calm. “Lila,” she said, evenly and quietly, “you’re drunk.”

  “Takes one to know one, Cam. You were drunk at my wedding and drunk at Bear’s funeral. If you think I’m ever going to forgive the terrible things you said—”

  “Mother!” Susan admonished.

  Ricky got up, tossing his keys in the air. “I’ll wait in Granddaddy’s car. You all are comin’, aren’t you? Or do you want to watch a crazy woman go off the deep end the way I have to every night?” The front door slammed behind him.

  “Couldn’t we just—” Evie, close to tears, begged.

  “—‘All just get along,’ like Rodney King’s lawyer told him to say?” Jasper wheezed, dragging himself up, feeling in his pockets. “I don’t hardly want to sit around listening to contentious females scratchin’ in a cat fight. You comin’, Evie?”

  “Just as soon’s I find my purse.” She stared after him, feeling along the edge of the couch until she’d found it. “Mama, I just—” she apologized, getting up. “I mean, I love you all but I just can’t . . .”

  “Oh, cut the crap,” Lila barked. “You wouldn’t even be here if your married boyfriend had been able to get away from his family.”

  Evie stood, helpless as a doe caught in headlights. “Lila, why are you so hateful? What have I ever—”

  “It’s all right, Evie.” Josie went to her. “Go on along. Don’t let either of those boys drive.”

  “Mama, you don’t think—?”

  “Go on along.” Josie reached into her pocket for a handkerchief. “You never could find a handkerchief,” she said, dabbing at Evie’s eyes. “Go on along. Call me later.” Evie, sniffling, gave a weak parting shot—“You’re both so hateful I’m ashamed to call you my sisters,” and left the room. Josie went to the drinks cart, gently taking the bottle from Lila’s hand. “Don’t,” she said gently. “Just go upstairs and—”

  “Take a little nap,” Orrie suggested helplessly, straggling up, then slumping back down.

  “I don’t need a nap! Cam’s the one who takes naps,” Lila snapped. “She’s only here once every ten years but it’s all so terribly trying for her special sensitivities”—her voice rose into a nana-na heckle—“that she gets a case of the vapors and disappears for the afternoon while the rest of us are trying to”—she gulped—“trying to . . .”

  “Moth-er,” Susan shrieked.

  “Trying to what?” Cam taunted with sudden vehemence. “What were you trying to do this afternoon, Lila? Have a little fun? Get . . .”

  Both Orrie and Josie turned to Cam as though they’d heard a gunshot. “Cam!” Josie threatened. “Cam, you sit right back down and hush up.”

  “Wait a little minute here,” Cam said, shaking with indignation. “Wait just a little minute! What have I done wrong?” She stood rigid, hands at her sides. “You beg me to come home at the last minute. I buy a ticket to the tune of seven hundred dollars. Seven hundred-some dollars!—which, since I don’t have a rich husband, I can hardly afford, and when I get here, this uptight, goody-goody hypocrite is snotty to me at her stupid party, insults my friends . . .” Her voice seemed to be coming from some crazyhouse echo chamber. She was a five-year-old who’d been pushed down the slide, sent to bed without supper, a victim of unfairness and stolen love, yowling a tantrum of indignation. “I don’t know why I was stupid enough to think that I could come back here. But I’m sure as hell not going to be stupid enough to stay.”

  “That’s right, run off,” Lila screamed. “Run off like you always do. You’re only around for the big scenes, aren’t you, Cam? You’re the center of the universe. Just like Daddy. Just here long enough to spoil everything. Well, I didn’t want you back this time and I hope you never come back again.”

  “Lila, stop it. Stop it this minute.” Josie shook her. “This is my house. I won’t have either of you t
alking like this.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Mama, ’cause I’m out of here.” Cam turned and walked deliberately to the stairs.

  Josie muttered, “Oh, my God. Oh, my dear God.” Lila collapsed into her arms, sobbing, “She’s always been the favorite. I looked so hard for the right present, then she . . . she can’t do anything wrong and I can’t . . . I try so hard, Mama and . . . it’s just not fair.”

  Patting Lila’s back as though she were burping her, Josie motioned to Orrie.“I don’t know, son. Do you think—?”

  “Yes, I think we’d better go on home. Susan? You want to gather up your things or ...”

  “I don’t care about my shitty things. You’re all hateful. All of you. Mother, how could you?”

  “I’m sorry,” Lila gulped. “I’m so very, very—”

  “Sorry doesn’t count,” Susan shouted.

  “Sorry does count,” Orrie said with unexpected firmness. “Now you, miss, you get your butt out to the car and wait. Your mother and I will be right along.”

  Lila, snuffling, weaving on her feet, wiping water from her nose and eyes, said, “If you think I’m going to apologize to Cam—”

  “It’s too late for apologies. I don’t need apologies and I don’t want explanations,” Josie said with dreadful tiredness. “I’d just like some peace and quiet.”

  After they’d left she sat on the couch, staring at the treasures and debris that cluttered the carpet. Perry Como was singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” for the fifth time and she lifted the needle from the record, took it off the turntable, and cracked it in two, cleanly and quietly as though she was cracking an egg, and let it drop to the floor.

  She thought she should go upstairs, try to smooth things over, convince Cam to stay, but she was too tired for that too. She turned out all the lights except those on the Christmas tree. She looked at her watch, found her purse, and straightened her hair in the hall mirror, though the only light she had to see by was the moonglow coming through the fanlight above the front door. She would have to leave right now if she was going to be on time for Cuba’s service. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to walk to the church, though it was only a few blocks away. But of course, she’d find the strength. She’d promised to be there, and a military wife always fulfilled her obligations.

  Fifteen

  THOUGH RESIDENTS OF The Point were almost exclusively white, the First African Baptist Church had been built just after the Civil War and still had a black congregation. It was a substantial two-story wooden structure with a steeple, well maintained and appealing in its simplicity, located on a large corner lot. Painted white, with pale yellow light shining from the windows, it looked almost luminous in the moonlight. Since there were no sidewalks in the neighborhood, cars were parked higgledy-piggledy on the sides of the streets, and people, mostly black, but a sizable minority of whites who’d come to hear the choir, were streaming toward the church. It had stopped raining but the wind was still gusting and a few carried umbrellas to protect themselves from the drops shaken by overarching oaks.

  As she went up the three steps to the open doors, Josie held her hands at belly level as though she were toting a Bible and looked straight ahead, acknowledging greetings of “Hey there” and “Merry Christmas” with a smile and a slight bow of the head, not bothering to see if those who spoke were acquaintances or merely friendly strangers. Shalalla and Antoinne were behind a card table that held a stack of music tapes, a cigar box filled with bills and coins, a notebook and pencil. Antoinne, so scrubbed his small nose and forehead seemed to glow, looked like a midget man in his bright blue three-piece suit with a red polka dot bow tie. Shalalla wore a full-skirted green taffeta dress bound in red, to match the beads in her hair. Her little arms, poking out of the flounced sleeves, had goose bumps. “It’s cold in here,” Josie said, “I think you should be wearing a sweater.”

  Shalalla shrugged her shoulders. “Heat never come up tonight.” She took a step closer, eyes bright with amusement, covering her mouth with her hand to hide a giggle. “Preacher got so mad he said ‘damn.’ ”

  Josie smiled. “Then you’d best put on a sweater or a coat.”

  “But I wants to show my dress,” Shalalla explained, and, pointing her toe, “See my shoes and socks?” Josie nodded appreciatively at the black, patent-leather Mary Janes with lace-cuffed white socks.

  “Miss Josie, we’re playin’ store,” Antoinne told her, stacking dimes in a pile.

  “We aren’t playing nothing,” Shalalla corrected him. “We’re selling tapes of the choir. Want to buy one?”

  “ ’Member what Grandma said?” Antoinne pinched Shalalla’s arm. “You’re not s’posed to ask. Just s’posed to say Merry Christmas and wait and see if they buys one.”

  “Well, let me see . . .” Josie picked up a tape. She hadn’t known that Cuba’s choir had been enterprising enough to have tapes produced, or, more likely, judging from the look of them—the label had a typewritten quote (“In shady green pastures God leads His children along”), and a primitive drawing of a lamb sitting beside a cross—Cuba had made them herself. “How much are they?”

  “Eight dollars. No tax,” Shalalla said.

  “Why, then I guess I’ll take two.” She thought Dozier would get a kick out of having one.

  “That’ll be sixteen, right?” Shalalla printed the figure in the notebook.

  “Right. And I’m going to give you a twenty-dollar bill, so I’ll get back . . . how many?”

  Shalalla concentrated, biting her tongue. “That’d be four?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You be a teacher, Miss Josie?” Antoinne asked. “You always talks like a teacher.”

  “No, I’m just a mama and a grandma.”

  “Then how come you don’t have childrens with you?”

  Josie paused, wondering how to phrase her explanation, but Shalalla, showing a precocious social grace, reminded Antoinne, “Not s’posed to ask questions from the customers either.”

  Antoinne moved from foot to foot, indicating that he either had to go to the bathroom or had something exciting to say. “Guess what?” he blurted. “My mama come home. She come on the train this morning and she brought me stuff all the way from . . .”

  “Philadelphia,” Shalalla prompted.

  “No. From . . .” The pencil in his cousin’s hand jogged his memory. “... from Pencilannia.”

  “Pennsylvania’s a state. Philadelphia’s a city,” Shalalla told him. “Philadelphia is in Pennsylvania, dummy.”

  “Shouldn’t fuss in front of the customers, either,” Josie said, sotto voce, dropping the tapes into her purse. “Tell your grandma to call me in the morning, will you?” Feeling a presence at her elbow, she added, “I think maybe this gentleman wants to buy a tape.”

  “Yes, I do.” It was H.A. Staples. “And how are you this evening, Mrs. Tatternall?”

  “Just fine. And you?”

  “This is my wife, Constance”—H.A. touched the hand of a handsome woman with her hair ironed into a pageboy, wearing a tailored cream suit with a floral challis scarf draped over her shoulder—“and my daughter, Christine. Christine’s home from Howard University for the holidays.” A young woman with a close-cropped Afro, dressed in a preppie skirt and navy blazer that didn’t quite cover a T-shirt that said FREE ABU-JAMAL, said hello. Her features, potentially even prettier than her mother’s, had an expression of amused condescension, as though she found this small-town Baptist church and its congregation too quaint for words. “I expected Cam would be here,” H.A. said, and, turning to his wife. “Cam’s Mrs. Tatternall’s daughter. The old high-school friend I told you I’d bumped into at Orrie Gadsden’s party the other night, remember?”

  “Cam’s come down with some sort of bug,” Josie said, and lest H.A. inquire after the rest of the family, she looked around and added, “Nice turnout. I guess we’d best go in if we want a seat. Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Staples, Christine. Merr
y Christmas. And children,” she leaned across the card table and straightened Antoinne’s bow tie, “don’t forget to tell Cuba to call me first thing in the morning.” After what had just happened, she knew her Christmas feast wasn’t going to happen and she had four pies and a twenty-pound turkey to get rid of.

  She turned to the stairs, thinking she’d be less likely to be seen if she sat in the balcony, but the staircase was so crowded as to present a fire hazard. The downstairs was packed, too, humming with whispered conversation. She paused, looking for a place, saying, “Excuse me” to a man in jeans who was toting a television camera, and the good-looking blonde she recognized from the local nightly newscast. She didn’t like the notion of a TV camera in a church, but supposed nowadays people couldn’t believe something had happened unless they saw it on TV. She inched down a side aisle, hands clutching elbows—Lord, it was chilly in here!—until a moon-faced black woman she thought she recognized moved over to make a space for her. Sliding into the pew, she muttered her thanks, trying to remember where she knew the woman from. Maybe it was a sign of age, or maybe it was because the town was growing so fast, but she was always bumping into people she recognized but couldn’t quite place. Then she remembered: the moon-faced woman was a teller at NationsBank, and the teenager sitting next to her, obviously her son, was the boy who sometimes mowed Josie’s neighbor’s lawn. She looked around surreptitiously and, thankfully, didn’t see anyone else she knew. She was safe here.

  Then she felt a prickly sensation at the back of her neck, and turning, saw Margaret Crosby, a member of her garden club who planted more gossip than azaleas, flanked by her husband and her bug-eyed daughter. Margaret gave her a smug little smile. So. Now the whole town would know that she’d been alone on Christmas Eve, and conjecture would sprout faster than Jack’s beanstalk. She could imagine the conversations beginning with tutted sympathy—“She always tried to be a good mother, but ...” Her cheeks burned and her throat tightened, imagining what might be said about her. What might be said about her girls hurt her even more. Thank God Bear wasn’t alive!