In the midst of all this, Nicole—Nickel to everyone —was relatively O.K. She would turn six in November. Unbeknownst to Julia, the qualities that most infuriated her in Nickel were the qualities the child picked up from her. Like Julia, Nickel proved herself independent, flippant and bursting with entirely too much energy.
This morning, with an ice storm raging, Nickel had barreled outside and crammed snow into every available orifice. In the summers she'd pop tar bubbles. In the spring, mud adorned every inch of skin. In the fall she'd already begun playing football, tearing her clothing and other kids' hair. Aside from tremendous energy, Nickel displayed an early intelligence that baffled Julia. At three years of age she had sat in the middle of the living room and read the newspaper to Cora, Chessy and Juts. Julia Ellen rushed her to the doctor, since children weren't supposed to read until first grade. Old Doc Gibbons told her to leave the kid alone.
At breakfast today Nickel had rattled on about whatever danced into her small head. She wanted to know if butterflies could wear earrings. Julia didn't feel like listening to this. She told the child to shut up. So Nickel sat there and talked to her Rice Krispies.
Julia schemed. If she took her downtown and walked her all around, she could exhaust her. Then, a few moments of peace and quiet. By early afternoon the storm passed, but Bumblebee Hill and all Runnymede was coated with icing. Juts bundled up herself and the child and then waxed the sled runners and zoomed down the hill. At the bottom they left their sled on the other side of a big snowbank and started into Runnymede Square.
"Mother?"
"What?"
"What was Aunt Wheezie talking about last night?"
"Herself, as usual." Julia slipped along.
"She said something about God." Nickel persisted.
"She said God couldn't be everywhere so he invented mothers." Julia said to herself: Unfortunately he also invented children.
"I didn't know you were invented. I thought you were born."
"How do you know I wasn't hatched out of a giant egg?" Julia teased her.
"Because you don't have feathers."
The logic of this struck Julia. The two clung to the iron railing in front of Christ Lutheran Church on the corner before Runnymede Square. A few paces in front of them, a well-dressed woman struggled also. Her high-heeled shoes barely dented the ice. Her feet were covered in light-gray plastic boots but the heel of one shoe pierced through. Wind slashed them all in the face. Julia was determined to walk through the Bon-Ton and to buy a hot fudge sundae. Once Nickel arrived, she had stopped working. Staying inside the house drove her bonkers. She figured Nickel would start first grade this fall and she'd go back to work. She liked working.
"Mother, that lady dropped her panties."
"What?" Juts, engrossed in her thoughts, had missed the spectacle in front of her.
The woman's elastic broke and her underpants bombed down around her ankles. On this treacherous ice she was like a hobbled horse. First she'd shake one foot and crash into the fence. She couldn't lift either boot out of her undergarment. Naturally, she wasn't going to bend over and release it. She had to pretend the underpants clutching at her ankles were not hers but rather a pair lost by some other woman.
"Lady!" Nickel called out.
"Shut your trap."
"But, Mother, she dropped her pants."
Julia squeezed her little arm. "Quiet. You'll embarrass her."
"What's embarrass?"
As Julia strained to answer that one, the woman succeeded in freeing one foot, at the cost of ripping half the pants. The other heel seemed nailed to the white thing.
"Uh—embarrass is when you wish you were somebody else."
"I don't ever want to be anybody else." Nickel's dark eyebrows knitted together.
"If your pants drop right off in Runnymede Square you'll wish to high heaven you weren't you."
"Everyone's got to wear drawers."
"Can't you leave well enough alone? I told you what embarrass is. Now hush."
Up ahead, the mortified woman stepped on the offending undie with her free left foot and liberated it, only to have it now stick against the left foot. She cursed a blue streak. Julia laughed. It was rude but she couldn't help it. After a mammoth tussle, the woman cleared herself of the leechlike obstacle and started to ran away. The ice made escape impossible. She fell flat on her face. Nickel was distressed by the spectacle and worried that the woman forgot her pants, because Julia had taught her not to throw anything out. Even old clothes could be made into rags. Thinking she was being helpful, the child skated up to the pants and picked them up.
"Nickel, no!"
Ignoring her mother, Nickel hurried to catch up to the woman, now crawling on all fours to get away.
"Nickel, you come back here."
"Lady! Lady, you forgot your drawers."
The woman glanced back, a look of horror on her face as she observed Nickel heading toward her waving the damned pants like a flag. She rolled like a polar bear, trying to get her feet under her.
"Nickel, drop those dirty drawers right this minute!" Julia tried to catch up with the child, but she, too, skidded, and landed on her behind. When she attempted to rise she landed right back down again. The ice bruised her bottom. She decided to crawl along.
As Nickel came closer to the woman, she saw her efforts were not appreciated. The enraged woman waved her away.
"They're not mine."
"How could someone else's underpants fall from under your coat?" The child was puzzled.
"They're not mine." The woman crawled faster.
Juts gained on Nickel, who was about six feet from the sliding creature. "Nicole Louise, come back here."
"Mother, she says these are someone else's pants."
"Get back here!" Julia yowled.
Nickel threw the pants, which landed right on the woman's face, and raced back to her mother, on all fours, who raised up on one arm and cuffed her with the other.
"Ow!"
"You listen to me."
"I was. You said, 'Waste not, want not.' "
"Don't get smart with me, young lady. I told you to drop those filthy pants and you didn't."
The woman managed to crawl around the corner, leaving what was left of the panties trampled in the snow and ice.
"Mother."
"You listen to me, hear?" Julia demanded. "Or I'm gonna open up your Oreo cookies and spit in the middle of every one."
May 30, 1952
Ever since Celeste's death Cora had religiously checked in on Ramelle every day. The three months she visited California each year, Cora kept the house. Fannie dropped by frequently also. Today blistered. Once Cora finished her chores she joined Ramelle on the back veranda overlooking the beautiful formal garden.
"Before I take this load off my feet, would you like a lemonade?"
Ramelle glanced up from her book. She was sixty-eight. Her hair was totally gray and laugh lines creased her lovely face. Her eyes had lost none of their unusual luster. "Cora, let's sit back here where no one can see us and drink a beer. God, it's hot."
Cora fetched the cold drinks, put the tray on the wicker table between them and sat down, wiping her forehead with a lovely hanky Nickel had valiantly tried to embroider.
"What a riot of color," Ramelle said, noticing it.
"Nickel."
"She's indefatigable."
"I don't know about that, but you sure can't wear her out." Cora grinned. "What are you reading there?"
"A Midsummer Nights Dream. It was one of Celeste's favorites."
"That's the only thing I regret about my life. I never did learn to read." Cora tucked her hanky between her breasts.
"If only I could be as calm as you."
"You don't look as though you're breaking out in hives."
"No, but I wander between the past, present and future. I ought to stick more to the present."
Cora really didn't understand this. "How's Spotty doing?"
"Fine.
She's sensationally bored with Hollywood. My granddaughter is six years old. I never once thought I'd be a grandmother."
"Little Hallie is six? Time flies. Nickel is near to eight and near to driving Julia around the bend."
"They're a great deal alike." Ramelle closed her book.
"Six of one, half dozen of the other. Nickel is as bullheaded as her mother and every bit as ready to get into trouble. If mother and daughter aren't scratching each other like cats, you can bet they're ganging up on someone else." Cora shook her head.
"How about Fannie Jump and the Gas Alley affair?"
Cora sat up. "She's got the tiger by the tail. Writing up an article for the Trumpet and the Clarion about how those alleys are unsanitary and how conditions got to be improved."
"The fact that the Rifes own every building on both Gas Alley and Frog Alley makes this a heavyweight bout." Ramelle squinted into the sun.
"She's grand. Seventy-five years old and raising hell with what she has. Ever since she got word of Fairy, she's taken on the whole world. Any little thing that Fannie thinks ought to be corrected gets corrected. I tell you I wouldn't tangle with her." Cora approved of Fannie's actions.
"She goes about despotically improving our lot. If only Celeste were here to see it."
"Maybe she is. Who knows what happens when you cross over the river?" Cora mopped her brow again.
"I'd like to think so. She's in my mind every day, every hour. Achilles absent is Achilles still." Ramelle remembered Cora didn't know who Achilles was. "I mean, even dead, Celeste fills the rooms."
"Speak of the sun and you see its rays."
"Yes, exactly." Ramelle sipped some beer.
"She inspired me to pick my tombstone out."
"Oh, Cora!" Ramelle was shocked.
"My tombstone is going to say: 'Born: Yes. Died: Yes.'"
"When Fannie dies we'll have to inscribe the stone: 'At last she sleeps alone!' " Ramelle said.
Cora playfully smacked Ramelle's arm. "Aren't you awful!"
"You know what Celeste used to say: 'Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.' "
Cora's eyes glistened. "I know when one falls out, one steps in, but Lordy, there will never be another like her."
Ramelle grasped her hand. "She loved you, too. Very, very much."
Cora dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "Love keeps on growing. I don't know about all them miracles in the Bible, about Lazarus and such, but in this life I've seen plenty of miracles, yes I have."
"Me, too." Ramelle swallowed hard.
Cora changed the subject so the two of them wouldn't have to sit there and bawl. "As I came on down here today the war memorials were full of old tires."
"I wonder who is doing that? This has been going on since right after the Great War."
"Every holiday plus a few wild-card times in between."
"It must be a soldier who resents the statues or the army or what?"
"Damned if I know." Cora laughed. "I wish they'd catch him. Curiosity is hard to bear over all these years."
"Cora, speaking of curiosity, I've always felt in my heart that Celeste killed Brutus. Does that surprise you?" Ramelle threw out that grenade.
Cora hesitated, drew a long breath. "No. I figured it, too. I always kept it to myself."
"Yes." Ramelle cupped her chin in her hand. "Murder is supposed to be wrong, but you know, I respected her for killing him. I'm afraid I'm a little too impatient to wait for heaven to judge. How do I know the heavenly judges aren't also susceptible to gold? I prefer justice right here on earth."
"Well, I don't know. Can't say as I miss Brutus, though."
"The absurdities of this world threaten to engulf me on some days." Ramelle's mouth pinched together.
"Mother Nature didn't want everything to be perfect. Even the sun has spots," Cora reassured her.
Ramelle paused, digested Cora's wisdom and ventured forth on another long-hidden topic. "Could you talk to Aimes?"
"Most times."
"You know I love Curtis. He is a compassionate, gentle, humorous man. To be loved by two Chalfontes really was and remains quite an honor. With Celeste I could say anything. She knew what I was saying and what I wasn't saying. But with Curtis . . . sometimes he doesn't know what I'm talking about."
"None of 'em do. You have to take them as they are."
"Hmm."
"Look who's whipping around the hydrangeas," Cora called out.
"Hello, Louise," Ramelle greeted her.
"Mother, drinking beer in public!" Louise hissed.
"Oh, hell, Wheezie, leave your old mother alone."
"Would you care for one?" Ramelle asked her.
Seeing that Ramelle was drinking, too, changed Louise's mind. "Well, all right."
"Sit down, Ramelle." Cora put her hand on Ramelle's arm. "Louise, go right on in the kitchen and fetch one. Neither one of us is moving our bones."
Louise reappeared and wiggled herself into a chair.
"Well?" Cora knew Louise was fuming about something. She might as well let the shoe drop.
"Well, what?"
Ramelle opened her book again, pretending to read.
"Louise, your bowels are blocked about something."
"Mother, must you be so vulgar?" Louise patted her lips dry after a sip of beer. "I'm simply nonplused over Julia's performance in the Capitol Theater today."
"Juts performing? You know she can't sing," Cora reminded her daughter.
"No, Mother. We went to see An American in Paris. Everything comes so late here. It was in Baltimore ages ago. I couldn't wait. Well, the movie was wonderful."
"Really? Perhaps I'll go down and see it myself." Ramelle thought out loud.
"Don't go with Juts. She loved it so much she wants to go again."
"Now what in God's name is wrong with that?" Cora asked.
"Nothing, except that after the movie Harvey Spence played the movie music over his loudspeaker in the theater. Trying out a new technique, he says. Just wait." Louise held up her hand for silence. "Julia hears the music and asks Noe Mojo to dance. Orrie was along, too, and Ev and Lionel. Everyone. Noe thinks this is funny, so he dances with her. Then they split up and tap other people on the shoulder. Before you know it, everyone was dancing in the aisles. I was so embarrassed I could have nearly died," Louise huffed.
"That's marvelous!" Ramelle exclaimed.
"It's not so marvelous if you get stuck dancing with Yashew Gregorivitch. He's so dumb he'd steal a bag of dirty laundry. Besides, he stinks like rubber tires. Ugh!"
Ramelle blinked; the thought passed.
"Louise, you take all this too serious. You know Juts is full of the devil," Cora admonished her.
"If Yashew wasn't bad enough, first I had to dance with Diana Williamson." Louise's eyelashes fluttered.
"What's wrong with that? Diana Williamson is ravishing and, my dear, she's half your age." Ramelle smiled.
"She's a girl. I don't want to dance with girls." Louise was adamant.
"Really? I used to do it all the time."
"I don't think it's so funny. Julia got all the good partners. I got all the flotsam. Besides, it's hard dancing in these high heels. I know she did that just to spite me because she knew full well I had blisters." Louise gulped a cool drink.
"High heels were invented by a woman who had once been kissed on the forehead." Ramelle snapped her book shut and glanced wickedly at Cora.
September 20, 1955
"Open sesame." Nickel fluttered her fingers like a magician. A towel wrapped around her head gave the effect of a turban. David, Extra Billy's boy, studied her with his mouth hanging open.
"Open sesame," Nickel repeated in a louder voice.
Juts came to the back door to call them in for early supper. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," Nickel answered. She turned her back and faced the barn door once more. "Open sesame."
"Are you having fits?" Julia put her hand on her hip.
"No."
"Auntie Juts, she's opening the barn door by magic. Just like in the books."
"That towel on her head is overheating her brain."
"Mother, you're disturbing my magic powers."
Six of One Page 34