“We do eat a lot,” I said, annoyed. I didn’t want to be made to feel awkward about all the food that was on my mind. “We eat like men. And we’re famished right now from our arduous journey and exploration of the island.”
“Of course you are,” Tootie said with a smile. “Down this hall and in that room over there is where we eat. Looks like the other boarders are just now sitting down for supper. Why don’t you go in and introduce yourselves, get acquainted. Several are just like you, new to the island and staying with me until they claim their land or build their homes.”
I turned my nose toward the smell of food. “Let’s go,” I said. “I’m so hungry I could eat a raccoon about now.”
My mother took hold of my arm. “Wait, young lady,” she said. “I can’t go in there looking like this.”
“Like what?”
“A mess, all dirty, like I was playing in …”
“Dirt?” interrupted Dahlia. “You were, Abby.”
“But we’re meeting new people, and this is going to be a new start for us. It’s important to make a good first impression. That’s why we spent a fortune to have these new dresses made, so we might arrive on the island looking like classy Southern ladies for the first time in our lives. I just need to go wash parts of this dress before we go in there.”
“Mama,” I said, pulling her down the hall toward the room. “It’s not important what we look like on the outside. It’s all about our intellect and views on the inside. Besides, I don’t care if there’s dirt on my dress. It shows that I’ve got better things on my mind than striving to look like a prim and proper girl.”
“I’m trying to raise a young lady,” Abigail said to her mother. “Why is it so hard?”
Dahlia chuckled, then lowered her voice and didn’t think I could hear as she said, “She reminds me of you, Abby, when you were her age. I prayed back then that one day you’d have one of your own to deal with. The good Lord does answer our prayers, doesn’t He?”
When we entered the room, I noticed families eating at large wooden tables set up throughout and no one was wearing elaborate dresses like ours. They wore the kind of clothes that people wear when working the land and building homes.
Boys were looking my way. It was always they who watched me as if I were a rare and beautiful bird. I tiptoed to a table across the room, one without any boys my age. I didn’t want them observing my every move, especially the way in which I was about to devour my food. I was ravenous and not about to pick away like a proper, dainty bird.
I chose a seat the farthest away from any boys, but still, they stared my way as if holding binoculars. I learned a lot from the way boys watched me. I learned I must be beautiful. Maybe it was my long, thick hair, with colors of auburn and chestnut, and streaks of black throughout. I got my hair from Grandmalia, although hers turned gray in her forties, I was told. I knew I should take advantage of my looks before they left, and I know most girls would find outer beauty a commodity, but I didn’t want to be admired for my feathers or hunted down like those poor old Roseate Spoonbills. I wanted people to hear my whistle, to listen to what I had to say. I had a bold but honest whistle, the kind that hurts the ears of some and scares off others and only attracts a certain kind.
Dinner was good—grits and fried fish. I could tell Dahlia was tired by the way her head kept dropping to the table and Abigail looked calm and content after picking away at her food. All she ate were crumbs, but they settled her mind, and I was glad.
It was good talking to the other settlers. We learned of some who had been living on Sanibel under the pre-emption and homestead laws at least as early as 1884.
“I want to understand this,” I said to a man sitting next to me. “We can acquire as much as one-hundred-and-sixty acres of free Sanibel land?”
“Providing,” he said, “you are head of a family or over twenty-one, reside on the property or cultivate it for five years and pay proving up fees.”
“And the Pre-emption Act of 1841?”
“It permits you to locate a claim of one-hundred-and-sixty acres and after six months of residency purchase it for as little as $1.25 an acre.”
We talked with others, who, like us, had come for Sanibel’s healthful climate. We were told there was a pastor on the island who, together with his family, moved here from Maine after he contracted tuberculosis. There was a childless widow, we were told, who saw life on an island as both an adventure and opportunity so she left her home in Cincinnati, Ohio, and came to Sanibel. Families had been arriving from Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, and all over the country. Some members of their families, we were told, lived but a short time after coming to the island and were then buried on their land.
And we learned that Stewart wasn’t the only man to become interested in tarpon. Tarpon stories from this area had been spreading worldwide, and wealthy sport fishermen, captains of industry, renowned politicians, and playboys were all arriving in Fort Myers for tarpon fishing and then falling in love with the area and staying.
I still couldn’t imagine an obsession so strong that men were relocating their families across the country in pursuit of a silver fish. Maybe the fish, like the flowers, had a way of casting a mysterious spell on people because none of it sounded logical to me.
Lydia
When I heard footsteps crossing the room in my direction, I slid the journal under a textbook, looking up and returning myself to the administrative office at school, where I was still waiting for the bell to ring.
“Tell me, Lydia,” Mr. Smith said. “Did your father do any fishing while in Florida? I’ve got a brother-in-law who went there back in the forties and came home talking of nothing but tarpon. The following year, he quit his job and moved his family there.”
I laughed. “I wished that would happen to my father, but you could cast the strongest spell on him to quit his job and fish instead, and he’d still show up to work every day, maybe with a fishing pole, but he’d still work.”
Just then, the bell rang, and I was off. “Mr. Smith,” I called back. “What’s for hot lunch today?”
“Turkey.”
“Free-roaming?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking, Lydia.”
“Never mind. I’m so hungry I could eat a raccoon about now.”
I could hear him laugh as I hurried out the door and down the hall.
But as I approached the lunchroom, there was nothing I desired more than knowing whether Ava’s daddy returned to the family. There were times when I wondered whether my own father would ever return. He was always at that bank trying to secure, not a tarpon, but something just as silvery called money.
My friends screamed when they saw me, and we chatted over lunch, but then I excused myself and went alone to the bathroom. It was unusual, I know, for we usually flock together to powder our noses, but I wasn’t in the mood for gossip or small talk or to hear about their latest purchases and adventures to the department stores. I found Ava’s journey to the island so much more interesting, and as I walked into a private stall and locked the door behind me, I could hardly wait to read more. In my eyes, she was becoming the bold and courageous leader she had envisioned for herself. She was doing an excellent job taking charge in the absence of her father, and I wanted to study her words and learn her ways.
I took a seat on the throne and continued to read.
Ava
“Where’s your husband?” I asked Tootie once she started stacking our dinner plates. “You’re married, aren’t you?”
“Ava,” exclaimed my mother. “A lady doesn’t blurt out such questions.”
“It’s all right,” Tootie assured my mother nonchalantly. “I was her age once. I may have four wrinkles and eight gray hairs, but I remember being her age like it was yesterday.” She carried the dishes over to a bench and returned. “It’s good for a woman to remember the young girl she once was.” She walked back to the bench with more plates and started scraping our scraps into the garbag
e. “I’ve got a husband. He’s in Fort Myers, lingering around the saloons while I’m here doing all the work.”
“Men,” I said, hoping my mother wouldn’t hear. “They sure can be lazy asses.”
Tootie bent down and picked a fallen piece of bread up off the floor. “Ava, how old are you?” she asked me.
“Fourteen, going on twenty-one,” answered Abigail for me. “Almost fifteen,” I corrected.
“As you probably noticed,” my mother told Tootie. “All kinds of bold and fearless words slip out of that girl’s mouth. My Ava has a big space between her two front teeth, and I’ve never wanted her to feel self-conscious about it, so for years I never corrected anything she said. Now I’m in trouble.”
“Outspokenness will serve her well,” said Tootie. “Girls are trained to be perfect little ladies and then they enter the real world and don’t know how to stand up for themselves or be rude to a rude person or strong in a bad situation. But what do I know? So what are you all planning to do with your land once you claim?”
“Grow watermelons,” I answered. “They’re the ‘money crop.’”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Ava,” my mama said. “I was thinking tomatoes.”
“Muck. I hate tomatoes. Let’s grow grapefruits—but only the pink ones.” Dahlia shifted in her chair and pointed her forefinger at me, then shook it lightly as she always does just before adding her own opinion. Something about that finger gave confidence to what she was about to say and shushed us so we’d listen.
“Yellow grapefruits,” she announced. “They’re the easiest to grow.”
I made a face, the kind of face one makes when they eat a yellow grapefruit. “Yuck,” I whined. “The yellow are bitter.”
“Some people like the bitter,” she said.
“Yes, it’s an acquired taste,” added my mother.
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. “Well, unless they’re a bitter person, I don’t know why anyone in their right mind would ever like the taste of a bitter yellow fruit,” I stated.
“I do,” said Dahlia.
“Yeah,” I said looking through her eyes and into the resentment she had toward her husband leaving her and my father disappointing her as a son-in-law. “I’d have guessed you to be the sort that likes the bitter fruit. I don’t at all,” I continued with a proud smile. “I only like the pink.”
“People’s tastes change,” said Dahlia. “Just wait and see. One day you’ll prefer the bitter as well. It’s a natural progression. If we start growing the yellow now, they’ll be mature and ripe for you when you reach that point in life.”
“No way,” I insisted. “I’ve still got years of pink in me.”
“Stewart and I will be the ones to decide what we grow on our land,” Abigail said, slapping me with her look that reminds me I’m still young and therefore I don’t know as much about the world as an adult, yet I’m no longer a child and not yet a lady, but lingering between the two, like in that state called purgatory, only for a young girl no longer a child and not yet a woman, I call it a state of temporary frustration and I need as many prayers as possible to get me out of it.
When I folded my hands and tilted my chin down without any back talk, her eyes then softly patted Dahlia with that look that reminds her she’s getting old and therefore must surrender her knowledge about the world, because the world has changed since her heydays, and now Dahlia is lingering between two states—wisdom, which I believe timelessly transcends a changing world, and senility, which grows roots around wisdom, eventually strangling it.
Grandmalia started fidgeting with a splinter of wood on the table, and I could see she was struggling not to talk back as well. She and I were alike in that we both liked having the last word on matters and speaking our minds without all the fake and sickly embellishments. I didn’t think it was fair of my mama to shut her own mama up. I respected my Grandmalia for the portions of her wisdom unaffected by senility, and I wanted my ownwisdom to start off where hers ended, and in order for that to happen, I needed the chance to hear some of her wisdom, which I never got to hear because my mother would shut her up.
I disagreed with which grapefruit color she wanted, but I didn’t mind her expressing herself. I liked a good debate. I don’t know why people were always so quick to end one before it ever started. And I was actually interested in what Dahlia was trying to say about the fruit and how a person’s tastes change throughout life. But then my mama shut her up.
Is this what happens to us women? We spend our entire lives acquiring wisdom only for it to be covered up by a blanket of senility that others throw over us? The thought of it made my stomach curdle and it made the words that were rumbling deep within me start trekking upward through my system and toward my mouth as if I were going to puke. I knew what had to be done. I had to voice and express all my opinions and knowledge immediately before it was too late and before my own children would one day try to shut me up, like my mama did to Dahlia.
“We’re growing the pink! Final word! I have spoken!” I blurted out so loud that heads from other tables turned my way.
“Ava,” Mama said sharply. “You will quiet yourself.”
“That’s not fair,” I said. “I’m smart, and I feel strongly about growing pink grapefruit on our land.”
“Why, darling?” my mother said hoping the word ‘darling’ might soften me somewhat so I wouldn’t cause more of a scene. “Is it because pink is your favorite color?”
I heard a couple of the boys snicker, and it infuriated me. “Of course not,” I said, rolling my eyes toward them. “Sugar is expensive. You don’t need any sugar with the pink.”
“She thinks she’s smart,” a male voice in the crowd whispered loudly. He was the same man who before was scratching his chin and making a face, the kind that says, “You ladies, with all your irrelevant chitchat are not capable of productivity.”
“She’s got a good point,” defended my mama when she saw the look on the man’s face. “Sugar is expensive.”
The man reared his ugly head once more, this time, more directly. “I think you ladies better sit tight until the man of the household returns,” he said. “Let him make all the decisions.”
I could contain myself no longer. I knew that a lady should never raise her voice or show a temper, that she is meek and humble and knows when to speak, but I stood up from the table, then slammed my hands down onto the wood, and looked directly into the man’s eyes. “Sir, I beg to differ. Men know nothing in comparison to what women know, and it troubles me every time to think my fellow women were the ones who actually gave birth to men with attitudes as stringent as yours.”
I looked away from him and over at my mother. Her eyes had darkened from blue to brown, and I felt sad and sorry for what I had said and for the anger it had caused her, not the man.
“Ava, apologize,” scolded Abigail.
“No, Mama,” I said. “I can’t.”
And I couldn’t. As sorry as I felt for putting my mama through so much strife, I had to believe that the greater cause—of speaking up on behalf of all the women of the world who are shushed by men and told that they don’t know anything—was more important than my momentary outburst of disrespect. And besides, verbal expression is a form of art. And all the eyes in the room were studying me as if they had just for the first time in their lives seen the art of rebellion. Some liked it, I think, but because art is all in the individual interpretation, my mama and a few others had a right not to like it.
“Ava,” she snapped again. “You will apologize or you will go to the room now.”
“Fine,” I said, looking back at the man. “I don’t give a damn what color grapefruits we grow.”
All the eyes in the room were stuck on me like bugs stuck to damp skin. I knew now if I backed down further it would be one giant step backward for womankind, and so I remained standing and took this as an opportunity.
“Giving my opinion has nothing to do with lack of honor, or fail
ing to be a lady,” I said to the entire room. “Having an opinion and being able to express it is a natural right. We have left behind nearly everything we owned. We have said good-bye to everyone we ever knew. If we are going to survive on this island, we have to start from scratch! And that means leaving behind the archaic and ridiculous rules by which women live. For starters, we need to rid ourselves of the corsets that potentially harm our internal organs and change our personalities.”
“Oh, Lord,” my mother muttered, waving herself with a napkin. “She’s onto the corsets again and how she wants to dress.”
I continued. “Regarding all that ladylike stuff,” I said, looking down upon some little girls, “toss it out to bay. We shouldn’t have to hold our tongues pretending that men know more than us.” I noticed the mothers of the little girls covering their daughters’ ears, and a couple of them left the room, but I continued. “If anyone cared to ask me, they’d discover I know a lot of intelligent things.”
“Someone shut her up,” said a man’s voice. But that didn’t stop me.
“For instance,” I went on. “… cattle, sugar, molasses, fish scales, shells, bird plumes—which I’d never consider profiting from—deer skins, hides of alligators, otters, bears, panthers and beavers are all principal exports. If a lady has to pretend to be ignorant, for the sake of a man’s ego, then I no longer want to become a lady.”
Suddenly my mother dropped her napkin to the floor, her eyes rolled back, and she slipped out of her seat and down onto the ground. Everyone jumped up from their seats and formed a circle around her and several started fanning her. I scooped her up in my lap and tapped her cheeks. “My God, is she all right?” I cried.
“She’s fine,” said a man. “She just fainted, that’s all. Probably those crazy things you were saying.”
“It’s the heat,” I said. We’ve had a long day, a long sixty days, and a long winter before that. It’s been hard now for a long, long time. You have no idea.”
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