Six of One

by Rita Mae Brown

  As the bride and groom descended the church steps, everyone waited with handfuls of confetti and rice.

  Louise grumbled to Julia. "Why do people throw rice anyway? It's a waste of food."

  "Supposed to mean fertility." Julia readied a load.

  "Looks like maggots." Louise dropped her handful on the ground. She felt that she was the something old, the something borrowed and the something blue for this wedding. As to what was new, she couldn't think of anything.

  It wasn't until Mary and Extra Billy safely drove off in an old Plymouth trailing tin cans that the wedding party learned of the something new. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Father Dan had heard it just before he went out to perform the ceremony. He thought it best to keep the terrible news to himself until after the newlyweds departed.

  Extra Billy heard the news as he turned on his car radio. The next morning at 8 a.m. he stood in line to enlist as a marine. Chessy Smith and even Pearlie went down to the recruiter. Pearlie wanted to reenlist in the navy and Chessy said he'd go wherever they needed him. Ted Baeckle, remembering his distant talk with Julia, informed both men they were a bit too old. Instead he suggested that Chessy head up the Civil Air Patrol with Pearlie. He reassured them if enough younger men did not enlist he'd take them.

  When Louise learned of Pearlie's action she threw a giant hissy fit and pulled all her drapes off the windows and the telephone out of the wall. It was bad enough Mary leaving for that lout; now her own husband wanted to desert her.

  March 27, 1944

  "Mother, this is a disgrace!" Louise whipped through Celeste's back door, nearly taking it off the hinges.

  "What?" Cora was covered in flour.

  "Rillma Ryan is pregnant!"

  "Oh, hell. I ain't got the strength to be bothered with that."

  "I do. What about our family name?"

  "You think you scrubbed it clean by marrying Mary off in the nick of time?"

  That stung. "That union is sanctified in the eyes of the Lord God almighty."

  "You sure set store by a bunch of words."

  "Mother, it's unnatural that a daughter should have to instruct her mother in morality."

  "Yes. Why don't you shut your trap and rest your mind?"

  "Aren't you going to do anything?" Louise was bug-eyed.

  "When Rillma came here from Charlottesville she properly visited us and we properly found her a job and a nice place to live. She comes by about once a week and what she does is her own business." Cora slammed the dough on the table.

  "She's your niece. You're responsible." Louise clung to her outrage.

  "I haven't seen Hannah in years. My mother remarried when I was out on my own. Hannah's fifteen years younger than me. Momma settled in Charlottesville, raised Hannah, and died. Hannah got married, raised Rillma, and now Rillma's fixing to raise another."

  "It's a disgrace."

  "Having a child is no disgrace. It's natural." Cora belted the dough.

  "Out of wedlock it's a disgrace. Common as dirt."

  "Just because you're born average don't mean you got to be common." The large woman shot her daughter a wicked glance.

  "For all you know, the father could be black as spades."

  Cora quietly replied, "Don't matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice."

  Julia opened the door, came in and shook the mud off her boots. Before she could sweep it up, Louise hit her with the bombshell.

  "Rillma's pregnant."

  "Good for her." Juts sought out the broom.

  "You're as bad as Mother."

  "I'm my mother's daughter." Julia carefully swept the clods into a dustpan. "Happy birthday. I brought you a present."

  "How can you even think of celebrating at a time like this?" Louise wailed.

  'There's a war on, sister. Women are bursting like seed pods. So what else is new?"

  "Ugh." Louise rammed her butt into a kitchen chair and folded her arms across her chest.

  "Ran into Orrie Tadia today. She retold me the story for the three thousandth time about how she whapped the Fed over the head with her umbrella when he came to take Noe away."

  "I hate violence." Louise put her hand over her heart.

  "If they carted Chessy away because his relations are German I'd punch their lights out, too."

  "We're all mongrels." Louise tossed her head.

  "I thought you were tracing us back to Count von Hunsenmeir who fought with Charlemagne." Cora whacked the dough again before pulling it into little muffin-shaped globs.

  "Which reminds me." Louise tapped her finger on the table like a schoolteacher. "The father of this bastard is that Frenchman, Bullette."

  "Handsome fellow." Cora nodded.

  "Yeah, well, the handsome fellow is on his way back to France now that it looks like the Allies will win the war," Louise sneered.

  "Come on, Louise. He did good work raising money for the underground." Julia untied her boots.

  "How do you know? Maybe he pocketed the whole shebang and ran to Canada."

  "Live and learn." Juts shrugged. She wasn't going to play with Louise.

  "Thought you didn't know who the father was?" Cora asked her.

  "Yes, I know. I also heard that Julia and Chessy are thinking of taking the baby," Louise steamed.

  "Maybe." Julia tried to sound noncommittal.

  "I don't want no damn French brat in this family." Louise tapped the table again, an irritating gesture.

  "What's it to you?" Julia flared.

  "Those people gave up their country without a fight. They lack moral fiber. We don't need one." Louise sniffed.

  "Louise, the baby's not even on earth yet and you blame it for the fall of France?" Juts put her hand to her forehead in disbelief.

  "They eat snails." Louise trotted out this evidence of depravity.

  "So?" Julia eyed her mother, who was opening and closing kitchen cupboards more briskly than usual. That meant the old lady was getting mad.

  "I still say no one of French blood should be in our family. They welcomed Hitler with open arms. If he came here I'd fight until my last breath." Louise pounded the table like a melodramatic orator.

  "If he came to America you'd welcome him with open arms. Hitler is Catholic." Julia told the honest truth.

  Louise screeched, "Liar, liar, your pants are on fire!"

  Cora banged the cupboard door shut and yelled, something she rarely did. "Just a goddamned minute, both of you! I have had enough. If one suffers, all suffer. That poor Rillma's young and scared. Put yourself in her shoes. She been turned every way but loose. She can't keep the baby. She knows that. Now what good do we do this world if the baby gets put in a home because it was born without papers, I ask you, Louise?"

  Louise, terrified at her mother's display of temper, moved her mouth but not a word came out.

  Cora continued. "I don't care if Adolf Hitler is the father of this little one, or Bullette the Frenchman. A child gets born, needs love and care, and grows up as best it can. If Julia wants this baby then she'll have it. Do you hear me, Louise Hunsenmeir!"

  "Yes, Mother." Louise cowered.

  Cora turned toward Juts. "You are doing the right thing, Julia, but you and Louise wrangle. It takes two. If you two are going to pull each other's hair out, do it outta my sight. You understand your old momma?"

  "Yes, Mother."

  Celeste, aroused by the uproar, had tiptoed to the kitchen door and opened it a crack. Cora, still riled, yelled, "All right, Celeste, get your sweet ass in here."

  Celeste jumped through the door as if she'd been shot. "I couldn't help but hear the family hour."

  "Looks like Julia here will take Rillma's baby when it's born in November. Now you know, so that puts an end to it." Cora marched over to see how her rolls were rising.

  "Julia, I think that's splendid." Celeste beamed. "Perhaps there is such a thing as the milk of human kindness after all."

  "She's so full of it she moos." Louise smarted.
>
  Julia zoomed right for her. "Louise."

  "I take it back. I take it back."

  Knowing Louise, Celeste thought she'd needle her since she had been so busy tormenting Juts. "Louise, dear, I forgot to tell you—the paper says there's to be no Easter this year."

  "What?" Louise stammered.

  "They found the body." Celeste smiled.

  Cora, Julia and Celeste howled. Louise sent aloft a fervent prayer for their salvation. The sisters stayed for supper. Louise attempted to make up for her churlish behavior by being overly polite. At the table she sweetly said, "Please pass the chicken bosoms."

  November 27, 1944

  Celeste skipped across the cold earth to Fannie's Sans Souci. She'd be sixty-seven tomorrow. Rillma expected her baby tonight or tomorrow. Celeste found herself strangely excited about the baby. She hoped it would come form tomorrow. She was tired of sharing her birthday with William Blake and Friedrich Engels. Celebrating earthly renewal with a new person might be fun. Her tall, erect figure darted among the last leaves of autumn. Last night had inflamed her imagination. She might be getting up there, but she and Ramelle could still roar like tigers. She imagined herself a rampaging tart on the plains of pleasure and laughed at herself.

  Fannie didn't open up for business until six in the evening. They would have plenty of time to chatter.

  "Celeste, happy day before your birthday." Fannie checked out her cash register and rang up a few items.

  Celeste stopped dramatically, put her gloved hand on Fannie's forearm and whispered, "Listen. They're playing our song."

  "You!" Fannie led her to the upstairs, where she lived. "Did you hear?"

  "What?"

  "Minta Mae Dexter died last night in the Capitol Theater."

  "Alas, poor Minta Mae perished amid the juju bees." Celeste appeared forlorn.

  "She was a bother, but I'll miss hating her. Wonder who will take over the Sisters of Gettysburg?"

  "The ghost of Lincoln, just to haunt you."

  "Celeste, you look twenty-five today."

  "Love keeps me young." She removed her soft gloves.

  "Me, too, but I tell you, Celeste, this business of watching our old cronies and enemies push up daisies is tiresome."

  "Reincarnation. They'll all be back," Celeste lightly informed her.

  "Well, at least you aren't going to give me a lecture about God," Fannie mumbled.

  "God is someone who comes after menopause."

  "And you, of course, haven't endured the swan song of the ovary." Fannie's eyes gleamed with merriment.

  "Why tell you?"

  "Doesn't seem to have slowed down your appetite for Ramelle." Fannie admired her friend's continuing lust.

  'To few much is given and much expected," she cryptically replied.

  "Shall we toast today?" Fannie broke out a bottle of champagne, Celeste's favorite year.

  "Irresistible." Celeste collected the glasses while Fannie popped open the bottle. "I guess you heard that Louise is turning Maizie into a holy virtuoso."

  "Maizie can't make up her mind whether to be a nun or Dale Evans."

  Celeste held her glass high and touched the rim of Fannie's sparkling glass. "Prosit."

  "Prosit." Fannie relished the first sip. "Nice to know Latin is good for something."

  "Rillma's baby is due today or tomorrow."

  "I'll root for tomorrow." Fannie smiled. "Rillma still pining over that French jerk?"

  "So I gather." Celeste savored the champagne. "Anyone who ever died of love deserved it."

  "Heartless."

  "You'll never guess what arrived in the post today."

  "Fresh fruit from Curtis?"

  "Fannie, how mundane. No. Never mind, I'll tell you. Another book by Sigourny Romaine."

  "My God, she's inexhaustible."

  "Quite."

  "What's this one about?"

  "Inner motivation. She set it during 1870, hoping to slide by whatever censors are left in Paris."

  "Inner motivation? Might that be a laxative?" Fannie poured more champagne.

  "Oh, what can we expect of a pretty girl who married herself out of a small town in Minnesota?"

  "You mean Grace Pettibone?" Fannie looked slightly perplexed.

  "After all these decades, what else can you call it but a marriage?"

  Fannie reflected. "Yes, I suppose. God knows you all did better than I did on longevity and love."

  "Mixed marriages never work, dear. That was your first mistake."

  "Celeste, you should have been the writer."

  "I have nothing to say." She appeared surprised.

  "Nonsense. You've such an original mind."

  "Ah, if I could find a solar verb, yes, then I would write." Celeste gave herself up to the soft sofa.

  "More?" Fannie held the bottle.

  "A tad. Thank you. Back to this Sigourny business. Life shrouds its mainspring. Can art, if truth is the goal, be any different?"

  "No, but I'm not the reader you are." Fannie felt warm inside. She didn't know if it was a conversation with her dearest friend or the champagne or both.

  "Whatever the art form, a self-conscious culture is inauthentic. I'm convinced of that."

  "I tell you you ought to write."

  "Flattery will get you everywhere."

  "Yes, I know. It already has." Fannie nodded. A lovely sapphire ring graced her left hand. It was about all she had left from her jewelry. Having hocked everything to get Sans Souci off the ground, she found, once it made money, she no longer had any interest in jewelry.

  "Devil." Celeste enjoyed another sip of liquid.

  "Speak of the devil, did you hear about Juts and Napoleon Rife?"

  "No."

  "He's been going around giving pep talks. Invited by other factory owners, you know? He showed up down at the mill, Red Bird mill."

  "We own it, Fannie. The new manager apparently does not yet know our policy concerning the Rifes."

  "I forgot. Isn't that funny?" Fannie stared out the window for a moment, shocked at her blanks when it came to other people's sources of income.

  "Well, what happened?"

  "Pole gives a little wartime hoohaw. Then he starts bitching about the workers up at the munitions and how they misunderstand him, blah, blah, blah."

  "At least Julius is intelligent." Celeste ran her finger around the rim of her glass.

  "Juts tires of all this bull and yells out, 'Now you know how Marie Antoinette felt.' "

  "No!"

  "I swear. Ev Most told me when I ran into her on the square."

  "Julia Ellen never was one to back down." Celeste recalled the little girl who used to do her homework in the kitchen. "We grow old so fast. I can see her at seven as clearly as I can see that ring on your finger."

  "Where does it all go?" Fannie wondered.

  "When we were young, society was as frozen as the hierarchy of playing cards. But now the slow striptease of history has left us bare. I wonder how it will be for young people maturing after this war?"

  "I suppose they'll back into the future instead of walking into it," Fannie quipped.

  "Maybe that's how we all did it."

  "My life didn't turn out as I expected, but then if everything ran according to plan think how bored we'd be."

  Celeste paused a moment, then said, "You know, I've been thinking a lot about the Amish lately."

  "Whatever for? Chessy comes from Dunkards."

  "I remember that. I'm beginning to believe that of all of us, the Amish are the wisest. The rest of us listen to the radio, drive automobiles, plug in vacuum cleaners, etc., ad nauseam. Not our Amish brethren. We rush for anything mechanical. They refused all that. They insist upon living their lives, defining their lives, by their standards. We find ourselves tangled in a mass of electrical wire, of telephone lines. We've concentrated on the means to life and forgotten about life itself. This grotesque war convinces me of that more than ever. The Amish are the only intelligent people in Am
erica."