"Cora."
"Hey, Celeste." Cora put down her hoe and walked over to her.
"I've come to apologize."
Cora looked at her.
"You know how I get when my pride gets into it."
"Yes, I do. You go so far out on a limb you can hear the wood cracking."
"I think I have a solution to the piano affair."
"Don't tell me you'll give it to Louise, or I'll die." Cora laughed in spite of herself.
"You do know me, don't you?" Celeste replied softly-
"I know the fat's in the fire."
"I propose to send Louise to Immaculata Academy, run by my sister, Carlotta. She'll receive a good education there and special attention will be paid to her musical talents."
"Does she stay overnight?"
"She could if you want her to."
"No, I want her with me and with her sister."
"I'll see she's brought to and from school."
Cora didn't say anything. Celeste waited a moment and then asked, "Is that acceptable to you?"
"It's handsome of you, but I'm not the one going to school. Louise needs to make up her own mind."
This had never occurred to Celeste. "Oh—well, yes, of course."
"When she and Julia Ellen get home from school I'll put it to her, and give you her answer tomorrow morning."
"Could you possibly do something before then?"
"What?"
"Fannie Jump Creighton is hosting the monthly meeting of the Daughters of the Confederacy, and all her servants walked out. Do you think you could convince them to serve tonight?"
Cora laughed. She knew people had left work even though she hadn't stirred them up. "I'll see what I can do, Celeste."
"Cora."
"Now what? You're as bad as the children."
"I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings." Celeste never had an easy time speaking about her emotions.
"I was riled some, but it was Louise had a fit and fell into it," Cora said warmly.
"I—Tm very fond of you, Cora. I would hate to cause you pain."
"I know that and I thank you for it."
"You forgive me then?"
"Forgive you? Hell, Celeste, even when I'm mad at you I love you no end."
Startled, Celeste blurted out before she could defend herself, "I love you, too."
Cora wrapped her strong arms around Celeste and gave her a bear hug. "There now, go on home and I'll see you in the morning with Louise's answer."
Celeste jumped lightly into the saddle, touched her crop to her hat and spurred her horse into a gallop. All the way home she fought back the tears in her eyes. Why was there no one like Cora in her family? She loved her two younger brothers, Spottiswood and Curtis. She tolerated her older brother, Stirling, and her sister, Carlotta, she actively disliked. Even with love her people were starched, somehow narrow. Why weren't there more Coras in the world? Why wasn't she more like Cora?
Louise and Juts skipped up the hill until catching sight of the house, when they raced each other to the door.
"Mother, we're home."
"Hello, my little kittens." Cora gathered them up and kissed them.
"Guess what, Momma, guess what?" Juts' eyes got as big as a cat's.
"What?"
"I recited all the Presidents in order!"
"Me and Orrie Tadia coached her," Louise said.
"Louise, Miss Chalfonte rode up here today."
'The piano, the piano!" Louise clapped her hands.
"Not exactly. She will send you to Immaculata Academy, where you can study music proper—and manners, too."
Louise's jaw fell open.
Juts started to sniffle. "I don't want Wheeze to leave."
"Now, honey, she'll be home at night just like now."
"Who'll walk to school with me?" Juts cried.
"Ev Most lives down at the bottom of the hill. Surely you're big enough to get down the hill alone."
"I want my sister."
"Julia, don't worry," Louise counseled. "I'll be home every night"
"Made up your mind, did you?"
"Mother, can I really go?"
"Celeste is as good as her word."
"Then I would like to go if I can play the piano every day."
"That's the idea behind it, honey."
Juts cried some more. "I want to go with Wheezie. She needs me to play the black keys."
"Julia Ellen, good things will happen for you, too. This time it's Louise's turn." Cora stroked Juts' hair. This seemed fair to Julia. She stopped crying.
"Mother, why is Celeste doing this? What does it mean?"
"Mean?" Cora thought a moment, then kissed Louise on the cheek. "It means you can reach the Lord through the back door as well as the front"
The next morning Cora reported Louise's decision. That very afternoon Celeste took Louise out and bought her uniforms and shoes. The morning after that Celeste rode with Louise to school, properly introduced her and made certain the child would not be too frightened. Above all, Celeste didn't want Louise to look out of place or poor. She remembered how cruel children could be. Louise was deliriously happy. Teachers lavished attention on her and Carlotta, sensing a cloth that would easily absorb a religious dye, took Louise under her wing. Louise would look back on these days as the happiest of her life. Julia would remember them as when Louise got religion and piss elegance at the same time.
April 11, 1912
Orrie Tadia, an animated pudge, waited for Louise to come home from the academy. She and Juts walked around Runnymede's square, looking in the shops, pausing to admire the Yankee general on his horse on the north side of the square and then crossing the line to look at the Confederate statue: three soldiers fighting, one on his way to the ground from a wound.
"Orrie, think you'd like to be in a war?"
"Only if we won."
"Celeste Chalfonte's brother is in the army, but there's no war." Juts wondered about this.
"I think it's something men gotta do. Like women having babies."
"Orrie, you gonna have babies?"
Being four years older than Juts, Orrie breathed deeply and said in a far-off voice, "You're too young to speak of such things."
"Now you sound like Louise. High-tone. One minute she talks regular and the next she talks funny."
Celeste's work carriage pulled into the square, driven by the gardener, Dennis. On bright days he let Louise out on the square so she could play with her Runnymede friends. Otherwise he took her straight up to Bumblebee Hill. Juts and Orrie ran over to Louise, resplendent with long curls.
"Louise, you'll never guess what Yashew Gregorivitch did today!"
Louise couldn't wait. "What? What?"
"He kissed Harriet Wildasin on the cheek."
Louise slowed their pace toward home. "I hope Harriet atones for this blotch on her character."
Juts intruded into the big girls' gossip. "Harriet don't have no pimples."
"Really, Julia Ellen, you're too young." Louise frowned at her.
"You'd let Yashew kiss you," Juts asserted.
"I would not."
"He can't get to you 'cause you go away to school."
Orrie defended her newly sophisticated friend. "Louise doesn't kiss. It's vulgar."
Louise took this moment to make a revelation. "Ill never kiss anyone. I'm becoming a Catholic." She whipped rosary beads out of her book bag.
Juts stopped walking. "What's wrong with being a Lutheran, Louise?"
"I've seen the light."
Orrie swooned. "Oh, Louise, you're so deep."
Yelling "Louise sucks green monkey dicks" was on the tip of her tongue, but Juts held back. She sensed a new dimension. As the two friends blathered about their mutual sensitivities, Julia searched for ammunition.
"If you're a Catholic you gotta take orders from the Pope."
Louise was unmoved. "So you take orders from the President."
"Oh, no I don't. I don't take orders from nobody," Juts
barked.
Orrie questioned, "Do you take orders from the Pope?"
"No, I take them from Mrs. Van Dusen," Louise answered. Van Dusen was Carlotta Chalfonte's married name.
"Is she a Catholic?" Juts pressed.
"Yes. She's a saint."
"Then she takes orders from the Pope." Juts was adamant.
Louise rolled her eyes toward heaven. "Mrs. Van Dusen's got a telegraph line to the Pope."
"Whatcha gonna do if Mrs. Van Dusen says one thing and the President another?"
Orrie stared at Juts. Why did she and Louise always get stuck with her?
"Mrs. Van Dusen's got a telegraph line to the Pope and the Pope's got a telegraph line to Jesus, so I must listen to him and Mrs. Van Dusen."
"Louise, you're a bad American." Julia Ellen pronounced judgment.
"His Holiness is Christ's Liquor on Earth."
"What's that mean?" Orrie, a Methodist, puzzled.
"That's like being Vice-President if the President ascended into the highest clouds. He's on earth," Louise calmly explained.
"Well, I don't give two shits, Louise. I think you are making this all up."
"Liar, liar, your pants are on fire!" Louise sang out.
"Talking through your hat," Juts sang back in the same tune.
"I am not. Mrs. Van Dusen and Sister Mary Margaret told me I must obey God."
Orrie envied Louise. "I wish I could go to school with you "
Juts was totally disgusted. "Anyone who takes orders is soft."
Louise clapped her hands prayerfully. "May the Lord forgive you your smart mouth, Julia Ellen Hunsenmeir."
"You know what else?" Juts continued, undaunted.
"What?"
"The Pope is Eye-talian."
"He is not. He's Christ's Liquor on Earth."
"He's Eye-talian, nummy. You are taking orders from a wop!"
"He is not."
"Does that mean he's like the Constantinos?" Orrie asked.
"No!" Louise shouted.
"If he's not Eye-talian, then he's like Idabelle Mc-Grail. She's Catholic." Juts grasped for connections.
"You don't know anything," Orrie disdained.
"Idabelle McGrail is Catholic and she kisses Mr. McGrail. And Mrs. Constantino kisses Mr. Constantino."
"So?" Louise walked faster in order to lose Juts.
"If you become a Catholic it doesn't stop you from kissing," Juts triumphed.
"Some Catholics kiss and some don't. I'll be the kind that don't."
"Some things are too fine for you to understand, Julia," Orrie pointed out to her.
"Pay no attention to her, Orrie. She's out of sorts."
"Maybe she has worms." The bigger girls laughed at this and ran away from Julia Ellen, who would be damned if she'd cry even though she felt awful.
May 21, 1980
"Are you going to sit here all night? You're hanging on like a tick," Juts said.
Twilight embraced the porch. Crickets carried on conversations and Louise did seem stuck to her chair.
"God knows what you'll say when I'm gone."
"Oh, Louise, you think everyone talks about you. They're watching television."
"I don't think everyone talks about me, but I know you do,"
"Out of sight, out of mind." Juts rocked herself in the big porch swing.
"So that's the thanks I get."
Juts ignored her.
"All I've done for you, sister mine."
"This ain't no pity party, Louise. I asked for nothing.
"You do talk about me. Orrie told me you said I meddled."
"I don't talk to Orrie."
"No, you talk to Ev Most and she talks to Orrie."
"I didn't say you were meddlesome."
"You did too."
"I said you got a nose blister from sticking it in everyone's business."
"You're trying to insult me. Trying to get me to leave so you can tell Nickel more stories about me. I know you, you sneak."
"You gonna sit on the porch for two weeks?"
"I'm not sitting on the porch for another two minutes. It's getting cool." I got up, pushed open the screen door and headed for the sofa. Outside, the two sisters continued negotiations. I missed part of their bargaining.
"Promise?" Aunt Louise asked.
"I promise."
"Don't tell her about our dear mother and Aimes, neither."
"I won't."
Satisfied, Louise cut through the back yards to her car. Mother came in, sat down on her upholstered rocking chair and checked out the TV Guide before switching on her set. We heard Louise's car motor start up. Louise loved to rev her motor.
"She's got so many medals hanging from her rear-view mirror I don't know how she can see the road And that Jesus on the dashboard with the open-heart-surgery pose—that's downright gruesome. If I had to look at that I'd have an accident. The only time I wish my cataracts would get worse is when I'm in my sister's car: Saint Christopher, the Blessed Virgin. If I'm gonna go blind then I wanna go fast. I'm sick of looking at all that religious crap." Mother let out a war whoop.
"Mother?"
"What?"
"Who was Aimes?"
"None of your business."
July 3, 1912
The night before, Celeste, in her wildness, had torn off Ramelle's blouse. Though she was a strict believer in good manners, there were no rules for the bedroom as far as she was concerned. Still, suspecting she might have behaved a bit beastly, she had ten new blouses arranged like the rainbow on the breakfast table.
"Celeste, how beautiful."
"They're not beautiful until you put them on."
Ramelle paused between sips of coffee, then said, "Do you think other women feel the way we do?"
"About each other?"
"No—I mean about physical things. My mother never breathed a word about it. I'm not at all sure how she conceived children. Aside from the fact that we're together, do you think we're odd because we enjoy. .."
"Sex?"
"Celeste!"
"Ha! You can do it but not say it!"
"No one we know seems to enjoy such things except for Fannie Jump Creighton."
"Darling, I never think there's anything wrong with me or you for that matter. As for the rest of the world, they are their own problem."
Cora dropped a spoon in the small pantry off the breakfast room. Ramelle jumped in her seat. Celeste, eyebrow arched to her hairline, turned toward the noise. "Show yourself!"
Cora opened the pantry door, hand on hip. "What do you want, Miss High and Mighty?"
"You heard everything, I presume?"
"I ain't deaf."
"And what, might I ask, were you doing in there?"
"Polishing the silver, like you told me."
Celeste, remembering that she did assign her that chore, put her napkin next to her plate. "I rely on your discretion, Cora."
Ramelle sat motionless while color slowly returned to her cheeks.
"Hell, I've got no one to talk to."
"Lest you think harshly of Ramelle, I want you to know I am the one who initiates such acts."
Ramelle spoke up. "Spare us your Southern sense of honor, madam. I'm in this as much as you are."
"What are you two squawking about?" Cora still had her hand on her hip. "All I see is love. There's precious little of that in the world. Finish your breakfast." She stepped back in the pantry to finish the silver.
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