Just as the sun began to light my room, I heard the telephone ring. The house was so quiet and still that the abrupt sound of the phone rolled through my body like thunder, and I could hear my mother speaking as plainly as if she was standing next to me.
“What? When?” There was a long pause. “The doctor said what? Damn it. Well, what am I supposed to say, Mama?” And suddenly I knew my plans for the summer had changed. There was another pause, and I could hear my mother tapping her foot on her bedroom floor as though she was sending out some angry message in Morse code.
“Of course I care about Daddy. It’s just that this gala is very important. Well, I’ll try. I cannot promise a thing. I said I’d try. Don’t bring that up again, Mama; that was a long time ago and doesn’t have one damn thing to do with Daddy’s heart.”
Mother slammed the phone down on her nightstand and then began slamming doors. She was mad, and every door in the house was her victim. I pretended to be asleep, tightly closing my eyes and sliding farther under my covers. And even though I was desperate to know what had happened to my grandfather on the other end of the telephone, it was ten o’clock before I braved leaving my room and wandered downstairs.
I found Mother sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee in one hand and the telephone receiver in the other. A lit cigarette was resting on the edge of a round, silver ashtray, a gift from Mrs. Hunt. She’d bought it at Tiffany. Mother had never held a cigarette before she met Mrs. Hunt, but now she could balance one perfectly between her long, thin fingers no matter what she was doing, even while she was combing her hair. When the surgeon general announced that smoking caused cancer, Mother only laughed, saying that a government-paid doctor is hardly one to be trusted with your life.
“Evelyn, it’s absolutely unbelievable,” she moaned, sniffling a bit for added effect. Mother always sounded like another person when she was talking to her friends, particularly to Mrs. Hunt. She sounded like somebody I wished I knew.
“I’m still in shock. She just called this morning before I’d had a chance to have even one cup of coffee. I mean the girls’ trunks are packed and everything. They’re ready to go.”
Mother tapped her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray.
“The poor man, yes, I’m sure he was working too hard. I’ve tried to get him to sell that farm, but he won’t hear of it.”
Mother put the cigarette to her mouth and drew the smoke into her lungs. “Camp? In North Carolina? No, I really hadn’t thought of that. Oh, but you’re right. It probably is too late to send the girls this summer.” She sighed, blowing smoke in my face as if I wasn’t even standing there. “But yes, do remember us for next year. The mountain air would be so good for Sister’s complexion. Yes, yes, I know. Thanks, Evelyn, so very much. You’re such a dear friend.”
I stood cautiously by my mother’s side, afraid that even the slightest movement might annoy her. She finally waved her left hand, motioning for me to sit down while keeping the receiver tightly clutched in her right. I wondered for a moment if my grandfather was dead, maybe lying motionless in a field surrounded by stalks of young corn he was nurturing into adulthood. But Mother sharply slapped her hand on the table in front of me, and my thoughts and attention quickly fell back to her.
“Well, you know Charles has Nathaniel tied up all summer building that damn barn, and for what, a couple of old horses that should be in a bottle of glue.
“Maizelle? Lord, no. I can’t trust that woman to get anything right but a hot buttered biscuit. I swear I think her mama dropped her on her head when she was a baby. Did you know, Evelyn, that I found her in Adelaide’s bathtub the other day taking a hot soak?”
I hated it when Mother talked about Nathaniel and Maizelle that way. Nathaniel was only building that damn barn because Mother wanted every inch of Grove Hill looking its best come September since she would be hosting several luncheons at the house in the weeks before the ball. She even wanted the horses looking their best and had told Nathaniel to start giving them better feed and to brush their coats every day. And poor Maizelle, she had only taken that bath because her back was hurting from kneeling on the kitchen floor, scrubbing the baseboards with something not much bigger than a toothbrush. I was the one who suggested the hot soak. I even gave her some of my bubble bath.
“Oh, yes, I was going to fire her, excuse my French, colored ass right then and there, but Charles wouldn’t let me. She’s been with us since the day Sister was born, and Charles said it wouldn’t be right to fire her after all these years.” Mother sat there nodding her head, agreeing with whatever was being said on the other end of the line. “I know it. She and Nathaniel both have to be reminded of their place from time to time. I think they’ve been listening to that damn Martin Luther King again. Anyway, dear, remember we have a meeting at the club at eleven. The chef hopes to have the menu prepared for a final tasting. I’ll see you then. Bye bye.”
Mother gracefully placed the receiver back on the telephone base and pulled her ashtray toward her. The smoke from her cigarette was drawn to my face. I closed my eyes and saw my grandfather waving his arms, begging for help. I turned away and hid in the smoke, shielding my cheeks behind the palms of my hands and wondering why my complexion was suddenly my mother’s concern. I had seen only one pimple on my chin, and Mother had grabbed me and squeezed it dry, telling me to hush as she pinched my skin between her nails.
“Mother,” I said very cautiously, not wanting to upset her any more than she already was, “what happened to Pop?”
“What? Oh. Yes. Well, it seems, at least according to your grandmother, that your grandfather has had a heart attack—or something like that,” she said flatly, not sounding as though she was truly convinced that her father was ill at all.
“I know, I’m worried sick about him too,” she added, more out of a sense of obligation, I imagined, than any real concern. Then she pulled another breath through her cigarette. “Your grandmother said he is going to need lots of quiet and rest. Doctor’s orders or something like that. So it seems you girls will not be going to the lake this summer, and Lord knows I have a thousand meetings between now and September twenty-sixth.” Mother stared at the kitchen wall, again blowing smoke in my face, as if she had yet to notice I was sitting there next to her.
“Honestly, I do think your grandmother is being a bit ridiculous about the whole thing,” she said, as much to herself as to me. “You girls spend most of your days outside anyway. Besides, I just don’t know where all this love and concern is suddenly coming from. I’ve always said she’d be the one to put that poor man in his grave, picking on him the way she does.”
My mother and I rarely had a conversation about anything. And now it felt as though she was looking to me for some kind of comfort or advice. I patiently listened to every mean and mocking word she had to say about her mother, and then I scooted my chair slightly closer to hers and made her an offer. “I can watch her for you, Mother. Adelaide, that is. I can take care of her. I’m fourteen now. Cornelia started babysitting the Jamesons’ little boys when she was only thirteen. Besides, you know Adelaide, all she wants to do is play with her babies anyway.”
My mother’s eyes darted from left to right as she considered my proposition. The Iris Ball was, in Mother’s very own words, the single most important event in her life. I truly didn’t understand why she was hesitating to accept, unless, of course, she thought it best to call Mrs. Hunt first.
“Okay, Sister,” she finally said, pulling the cigarette back to her lips. “If you think you are up for the job, you can have it. You’ll be on your own for the most part. And you have to stay out of sight and out of trouble. Nathaniel is going to be very busy, so you can’t get in his way or ask him to drive you all over town. That barn has to look good, and I don’t think that man can do two things at once and get either one of them right.” She paused for a moment, as though she was rethinking her decision. Then she sat back in her chair and released a slow, steady breath, the smoke
forming loose rings as it filtered through the air. “Be sure and keep an eye on Maizelle too.”
I nodded my head as if I understood her concern.
“Well, go on and get dressed. It’ll be noon before you know it. And just because it’s summer doesn’t mean you can walk around here looking like an orphan child. This is not your grandparents’ house. Put on those Bermuda shorts I bought you in Atlanta.” She waved her hand in my face again, this time motioning for me to leave.
I ran up the stairs, skipping every other one, eager to tell Adelaide of our new summer plans. My little sister jumped up and down when I told her she would be staying at Grove Hill, and then she ran to wake Baby Stella and share the news with her. I told them both that if she didn’t mind me, Mother was going to ship Adelaide off to some camp in North Carolina where baby dolls were not allowed. My sister threw her arms around my waist and promised to be a very good girl. She said Baby Stella would be good too.
I couldn’t stop smiling, knowing that it was me, Bezellia Louise Grove, who had been the one to rescue my mother. Not even Mrs. Hunt could help her dear friend this time. And giving up one carefree summer at the lake would all be worth it, because maybe, come September, my mother would love me a little bit more.
chapter three
Mother left shortly after breakfast almost every morning, not even taking the time to linger in bed and drink her coffee. She was gone until dinner, sometimes not coming home then, choosing instead to stay at the club and eat with her friends. Some afternoons Mother and Mrs. Hunt arrived at Grove Hill, and the two of them sat on the porch, nibbling chicken salad sandwiches and sipping gin and tonics, all the while talking about the ball, devoting much of their conversation to the design of their gowns and the final invitation list.
Mrs. Holder would be invited. Her husband was a prominent attorney in town. He took her to Paris for their tenth wedding anniversary. Mrs. Warren would not. She was fake and inconsiderate. She bought her clothes at Castner Knott but told everyone they came from Neiman Marcus, shipped all the way from Dallas.
Father stayed home a little longer in the mornings. Most days we’d sit on the front steps together, waiting for Nathaniel’s truck to pull in the drive. I’d lean against my father’s stiffly starched shirts and fill my head with the musky aftershave he had sprinkled all over his face. He said he needed to check Nathaniel’s work, but I think he was just enjoying the opportunity to visit with his old friend. The two of them would stand by the barn and point toward its roofline every now and again, but mostly they just talked about horses and fishing and long afternoons spent down by the creek when they were young.
As for me, I spent most of my time tending to my little sister, just as I’d promised my mother I’d do. I helped her bathe and dress her babies and set up tea parties on an old, worn quilt under the oak tree in the front yard. Maizelle wouldn’t let Adelaide put tea or lemonade or even water in her little plastic teapot unless we went outside to play. She said she was not cleaning up any more of Adelaide’s messes in the house. That was my job now. But when Adelaide was napping in the afternoons, I would sprawl across the chaise lounge on the porch and read the collection of Nancy Drew mysteries that Uncle Thad had given me for my fourteenth birthday. He had written a short message inside the first book.
Dear Bezellia, hoping you solve life’s mysteries. Happy Birthday, Uncle Thad
I must have looked kind of puzzled when I read his inscription, because he patted me on the back and told me not to worry. He said I’d figure it out someday because I was a smart, plucky girl just like Nancy Drew. I loved that he thought I was plucky, although I wasn’t really sure what that meant. I just hoped it had nothing to do with his chickens.
At the very end of June, Mother announced at dinner that she and Mrs. Hunt would be traveling to New York to buy some imported table linens for the Iris Ball. She would be gone for four or five days, and Adelaide and I were to behave. Then she turned and looked at my father, and with the stern and serious tone a parent would use to caution a child before crossing the street, she warned him that she would be spending an afternoon at Tiffany. Mrs. Hunt had already scheduled a private appointment with the store’s manager.
When Mother left, she hugged me good-bye. Even now, when I close my eyes, I can still feel her arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders. She looked so beautiful, dressed in a coral silk suit and her hair tucked neatly under a matching pillbox-shaped hat. A large diamond brooch in the shape of a G was attached to her lapel. Father had given it to her that morning at breakfast, pinned to her napkin. They had even exchanged a brief kiss.
As the Cadillac headed down the driveway, Mother looked back at her daughters and waved a final good-bye. I ran behind the car as it made its way to the road. Mother watched me from the rear window. She smiled so sweetly. Surely she was going to miss me. Then the car turned to the right, and my mother was suddenly out of sight.
Adelaide kicked up some dirt with her new white tennis shoes and then turned and walked back to the house. Before she got into the car, Mother had warned Adelaide not to get this pair of shoes dirty. Of course, when Maizelle saw them, she snorted something about a mother buying a child anything white to wear must be a mother who never has done a load of laundry. Then she shook her head and walked down the stairs to the basement carrying a basket full of our dirty clothes.
Adelaide wasted no time in telling me that her babies needed a good bath and a long nap. I warned her not to get water on the bathroom floor again, because I, like Maizelle, was not cleaning up another mess today, and then I stretched out on the chaise lounge and opened my book. My eyes were already heavy, and I found myself staring at the same words over and over again.
Nancy Drew began peeling off her garden gloves as she ran up the porch steps and into the hall to answer the ringing…
Nancy Drew began peeling off her garden gloves as she ran up the porch steps and into the hall to answer the ringing …
Somewhere I could hear the sound of a car pulling up the drive, the tires crunching over the gravel as they rolled forward, the noise forcing its way through my sleep. Drowsy and confused, I dropped my book on the floor and started looking for my mother. But it was only Nathaniel this time, perched behind the wheel of his old blue pickup truck, with his worn brown hat pulled low on his forehead. I squinted my eyes a little tighter and sat up a little straighter, trying to wake myself. It was Nathaniel all right, but somebody else was sitting next to him, somebody I had never seen before.
He looked about my age, maybe a year or two older. He had chocolate brown skin and deep, dark eyes. He was wearing a pair of worn-out blue jeans that rested low on his waist and made his legs look slender and long. He was almost as tall as Nathaniel, but he didn’t really look like him, at least until he smiled. And it was a smile I had known since I was a baby.
“Miss Bezellia. Hey, I saw you up there behind that book. Hope that sister of yours hasn’t gone and drowned a baby doll or two by now. I can hear the water running in the upstairs tub from here.” Nathaniel laughed, pointing to the open window on the second floor. “Come on down here and meet my son before we need to start building Adelaide an ark of her own.”
Nathaniel had three girls and a boy. He’d told me so. He talked about them every now and then, always with a brightness in his eyes. But for some reason, I’d never really believed they were real. Or maybe I just didn’t want to.
“Samuel’s going to help me this summer. I promised your daddy I was going to get that barn looking like new before the end of the month, and I need Samuel’s strong back if I’m to keep my word.” Nathaniel was grinning from ear to ear, clearly so proud of his strapping, good-looking son.
Samuel smiled too, obviously enjoying his daddy’s praise.
“It’s nice to meet you, Samuel,” I said.
“What you reading there?” he asked as he buckled an aged leather tool belt around his waist.
“Reading? Oh, Nancy Drew.”
“Never heard of
her.”
“She’s more for girls, I guess. You probably read the Hardy Boys.”
“Nope. Never heard of them either. Nice meeting you, though,” he said, and smiled again, leaving my body feeling anxious and relaxed all at the same time. He hoisted some boards over his right shoulder and followed his father into the barn. I stayed on the porch, hidden behind my book.
Nancy thoroughly enjoyed herself and was sorry when the affair ended. With the promise of another date as soon as she returned from Twin Elms, Nancy said goodnight and waved from her doorway to the departing boy.
I lingered on the chaise lounge for a while longer, letting the sound of their hammers slapping against the wood lull me in and out of a light sleep. Maizelle was calling my name from somewhere deep within the kitchen, but I kept drifting away from her voice and finding myself floating across the field behind the house. The grass was dotted with Queen Anne’s lace and black-eyed Susans. The sound of the water rolling through the creek was pulling me downstream, and the sun was warming my face. Samuel was ahead of me, waiting on the other side of the cherrybark oaks, extending his hand toward mine. The water isn’t deep, he said, motioning for me to follow him. Then Maizelle tapped her foot on the porch floor, and I fell right back onto the chaise lounge.
“You better go check on your sister. You promised your mama you’d look after her, and the minute your mama leaves town, I find you out here sound asleep. I haven’t heard a word from Adelaide in the last twenty minutes. She’s either done fallen asleep like you or is cutting that poor doll’s hair again. That baby’s not looking quite right, if you ask me. Something in her eyes is just plain evil.”
Susan Gregg Gilmore Page 4