She could be proud, considering herself the expert among her friends at wheedling a secret out of someone. Still and all she would not find out about Alice Curry. Truth was, I was trying to put Alice out of my thoughts. But the harder I tried the worse I felt. I knew that in a day or two I would call her again. It was a fire Billy had kindled inside me.
I had not gotten a thing for Irene for her birthday. The next morning I rose early. I would make her a belated birthday breakfast.
I prepared a large bowl of egg and water and then chopped vegetables. I grated cheese and cooked a few bacon slices. Irene kept a good supply of baking paper. I tore off a sheet, preparing a baking pan. I would make a rolled egg omelet from all of the things I’d prepared. I set it aside. Next I spent the remainder of the hour preparing a sweet bread and brewed coffee.
Claudia had been asleep in the den on the other sofa. She smelled the food, mistakenly believing her mother was making breakfast for us.
“It’s me,” I said. “Did I wake you?”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m sorry for the way I acted last night.”
“You have popcorn in your hair,” I said, picking out the popped kernel.
She saw the pan of sweet bread cooling on the rack. “Fancy breakfast.”
I slid the egg mixture into the oven to make the roll.
“I was mad at my father,” she said.
“I know. Will you turn on the burner under the percolator? It’s ready to brew,” I asked her.
“He came back with that box from the jewelers. Pearl earrings. He knew she’s wanted them. Honestly, I didn’t think he was coming back,” she said. She pulled out four coffee mugs. “I’m going upstairs to dress. But first I’ll tell them you made them breakfast.”
The Johnsons bedroom was down the hall from the kitchen.
“Birthday breakfast. It’s for Irene.”
She repeated me as if rehearsing.
Irene appeared shortly thereafter in a kimono. Her hair was tied in a scarf.
“I swear, Mrs. Johnson, you could look good in a storm,” I said. “You take a seat and I’ll pour your coffee.”
“I wish some of you would rub off on my daughter,” she said quietly. “Don’t tell her I said that, but I do wish it. Let’s take breakfast out on the deck.” The doorbell rang. She let in her housekeeper, Saffron. I overheard her tell her breakfast was already made. Saffron smiled at me from the kitchen entry. “I’ll fix you a plate too,” I told her, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
I followed Irene out to the deck. I poured her coffee.
She had filled the screened in deck with so many potted plants it looked like a terrarium. Begonias hung from hooks, airplane plants nodding under the ceiling fans that looked like tropical paddles.
Claudia was back quickly, dressed and more awake. She passed me, joining her mother on the deck as I came inside. She sat next to her mother. I watched them conversing through the patio glass, at first pleasant. Then alarm spread over Irene’s face. Claudia was up out of her chair, throwing her arms around Irene.
I wanted to stop whatever was going on. I returned and opened the outside door. “Is your daddy coming to breakfast?” I asked, anxious.
When Claudia looked at me from her poverty of emotions, not answering, I said, “I just need to know how many places to set.”
“He says he’s coming to breakfast,” she said, impassive. “But he has to leave soon.”
“Don’t set a plate for him,” said Irene, drawing herself up. “Mr. Johnson won’t be taking breakfast with us.” She got up from her chair and disappeared upstairs.
Claudia followed her. She wouldn’t look at me. I heard them close the door upstairs.
Irene did not come down the remainder of the time I spent finishing up breakfast. I covered both dishes with foil and left them to warm in the oven.
Saffron came running into the kitchen. “Something’s wrong with Ms. Irene. She up in Miss Claudia’s room crying.”
“Saffron,” said Claudia, stiff and appearing behind her. “Mother says you can have the rest of the day off.”
“But I got floors today, Miss Claudia,” said Saffron.
“You’ll still get paid. Do floors tomorrow,” said Claudia.
But Saffron wouldn’t hear of it. She left us and retreated for her cleaning supplies.
Claudia’s eyes were red.
“Quick, out to the patio,” I told her.
She followed me without a word.
“You told her,” I said. “Why this morning?”
“She figured it out. I hardly had to say anything.”
I felt as if I should leave. “I’ll get Daddy to come pick me up.”
“Don’t leave us. Not now. She doesn’t know how to confront my father. He doesn’t know she knows yet. Stay with us please. You’re a comfort to Mother.”
Claudia returned to the bottom of the staircase where she called for her mother to come to breakfast.
The telephone rang. Irene must have answered it for it stopped ringing right away.
At the same instant, the door opened from down the hall. Out stepped Dwight Johnson dressed for work in a coat and tie. He was cheerful and glad to see me, commenting on how good the house smelled. “I hear you made a breakfast for our birthday girl. Where is Irene?”
“Just a sweet bread and an omelet roll,” I said, miserable.
“One of my favorites, as are you,” he said so elegantly I felt guilty that I had ever conspired to catch him in the act of adultery.
Irene appeared at the top of the staircase.
“There you are? Why upstairs, love?” He looked at Claudia and me. The silence between us stretched the tension into an awkward moment. “Claudia, where is Saffron?”
“We thought it would be nice to have a family breakfast.” Claudia was the first to break the silence. “She’s fetching her things. But Mother’s asked she take the day off.”
“Day off? She’s family isn’t she? Why send her off?”
Irene descended the stairs.
“Mr. Johnson, I’ll set you a place on the deck.” I worked fast to get them all to the table.
“Breakfast outside,” he said smiling although still glancing nervously up the stairs. “We don’t do it enough.”
Irene padded down the hall where she met Saffron outside her bedroom. She managed to get the maid out of the house without much drama. Saffron left, staring after all of us, bewildered.
Irene and Dwight sat opposite one another as was their custom, while Claudia and I served them.
I had known Irene to knock him over with affection coming through the door from work. She stared out at the golf course beyond their tree-shaded lawn. I was intent on elevating the mood, so I said, “I visited the university in Chapel Hill Friday.”
“Good for you,” said Dwight. “One of my colleagues is an alumnus. He says he’s sending all his children there.”
Claudia looked mystified.
“Claudia, the sweet bread,” I said, setting the omelet roll platter in the center. I had made two. “One has bacon, the other is vegetables only.” I sliced the rolls and served them one of each.
Claudia disappeared into the kitchen.
“We’re not experts like you, Irene,” I said, aware my nervousness was becoming all too apparent in my voice. “I hope it presents well.”
She could only force a smile.
Claudia returned and set the sweet bread beneath a rack on the serving cart. “Mother, where is the cake server?” Then for no good reason, and with no consideration for timing, Claudia said to her father, “I want to attend Chapel Hill too. Flannery and I plan to room together.”
Irene put her head in her hands.
“Claudia, you know Yale is our family’s alma mater,” said Dwight, keeping his composure like always. Then he said to me, “You might not know, Flannery, that Yale is a tradition with the Johnsons. I wouldn’t doubt, though, that your application might be considered.” He seemed to disappear in
to a sudden thought. “I’d put in a word for you. You girls could still room together.” He slapped the table, buoyed up by the idea. “As a matter of fact, I’ll see that your application is pulled and considered.”
“She isn’t going to Yale either,” said Claudia, deferring to me. “Are you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, barely getting the words out.
“It’s too expensive, right, Flannery? We’re going to UNC.” She turned away, saying, “And that’s final.”
“Is that what all this tension is about?” Dwight asked Irene. “I thought someone had died.”
Irene looked up and then cut her eyes at him in such a cold stare that she stunned all of us.
Dwight pushed himself up from the table, saying “I’ll tell you what, girls. Why don’t you enjoy your meal and I’ll serve the sweet bread. I still know how to do a few things.” An odd offering since Dwight was not one to help out in the kitchen. He got up from the table and went inside to retrieve a serving utensil.
Claudia’s face contorted slightly, her bottom lip quivering.
“We said we wouldn’t discuss it in front of Flannery,” said Irene.
“She knows, Mother. Flannery saw Daddy at the strip club too. Tell her, Flannery.”
I could not breathe. I glanced through the patio glass and saw Dwight’s back to us as he fumbled, stirring the bowl of icing.
“You know too?” Irene looked horrified.
“I don’t know, Mrs. Johnson, and neither does Claudia,” I said. “Yes, we went to the club on a tip that Claudia would catch her father there with a woman. He was there but we didn’t see him with a woman.” I stared in disbelief at Claudia who, by now, looked betrayed.
“But you saw him at the strip club?” Irene repeated herself.
“We did,” said Claudia. “I told you everything, about the phone call, Drake driving us there, but Flannery was in on it. She gave me the courage to follow Daddy there. Tell her, Flannery, how you went inside and saw Daddy while I only saw him park and go inside. It’s okay, you can tell her.”
“I know this is hard for you,” Irene said to me. “You like Dwight and I know that. But if you saw my husband with another woman, I want you to tell me,” she said, her voice shaky.
“I didn’t, ma’am.”
Claudia was beyond angry with me. She glared at me. “Why are you protecting him?”
Irene was elated. “Then we don’t know he’s seeing someone for certain. Just that he’s visiting a dance club after work when he’s told me he’s working late after hours,” she said. “A lie, but. . . what a relief!”
“That’s all we know, Claudia,” I said. I was feeling pressure to tell the truth, the real reason I went to the strip club. But I could not tell either of them about Alice or my ulterior motive. Nor could I bring myself to confess I had not seen Dwight inside either, although I let Claudia believe I had. It would sound as if I was on a mad mission to ruin Dwight Johnson. The truth was, I had manipulated Claudia from my own desperation to prove my mother was not working in that sleazy place. Words failed me. Claudia saw what she saw and I had no choice but to let the facts lie there unquestioned.
“Girls, unless there’s further proof, we’re going to have to keep this conversation under wraps.”
“Agreed,” said Claudia dismally, but now she wouldn’t look at me.
Dwight Johnson threw open the patio door holding up the found cake server and four dessert plates. “Anyone for sweets?” he asked, waiting as if he expected us to applaud his meager endeavor.
He served me first but I corrected the faux pas, sliding the plate across to Irene.
“You all look as if you’ve not been invited to the party. Smile, everyone!” He sat across from Irene again whose face was finally filling with color.
As I had learned of late, avoiding the worst news was often the only thing holding a family together. Perhaps the Johnsons were like us, after all.
Chapter 12
The relief of returning home to Periwinkle House was soon swept aside. For Vesta had formally filed charges against Theo Miller for arson.
She sat in a dining room chair she had pulled up next to the kitchen telephone. She sucked on a fresh cherry while answering questions fed to her by Winston Grooms’ legal assistant.
Daddy had gone off to work. I doubted anyway his opinion would have held much sway over Vesta. In spite of his assurances that she would not carry out the scheme orchestrated by Grooms and his partners in land development, she not only did it, she seemed to gloat over it.
She repeatedly asked the legal aid to thank Grooms for all of his support. He would surely rise from Mayor to Senator and beyond, she predicted under a blanket of flattery.
I shook my head at her in disappointment. But trying to make Vesta feel guilty was as futile as drawing a confession out of Dwight Johnson.
“I’ve said all along the Millers don’t belong in this neighborhood,” she said, turning her back to me. “There’s Lost City or Taylortown,” she said, speaking of the segregated neighborhoods where the Miller’s relations all lived.
I stayed in my bedroom, not even coming out when I heard Daddy’s car in the drive.
Eventually he knocked on my door. He sat on Siobhan’s bed not talking for a while. Then he said, “I didn’t know all of Vesta’s plans until now. I thought we had talked through it all and that she would drop the charges.”
“You don’t have to sign the papers, do you?” I asked.
“Vesta’s name is on our mortgage, same as me.”
“I don’t understand how prosecuting Theo Miller’s going to change anything for Vesta. They’ll still live here.”
That was when he nearly disappeared inside himself. “Grooms is arranging a plea bargain with the Millers. They must agree to sell their land and move at once.”
“They won’t do it,” I said. “Besides, Grooms won’t offer him near what it’s worth.”
“If they don’t, Miller will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They’re claiming criminal intent, that he had provoked a feud with Vesta. This was his way of punishing her.”
“Daddy, you know Theo was beside himself over losing Anton.”
My father had never won a fight in his life. He walked out of the room and disappeared. Patsy Cline’s sultry voice was all that was heard until sundown.
I could do nothing but sleep. That was until a distant song woke me. It wasn’t Daddy’s record player either. I woke up with a start, like daybreak had tapped on my window. But it was still dark outside. At first the sound of banjo strings seemed like a distant player on the shore of a black swamp, where mists became dreams, like where Dorothea’s ancestors’ ghosts roamed. I moved, not breathing, toward the sound outside my window. The sky was so black it seemed hardened and mad. But then the old thunderhead split in two rolling over town and past our roof. There was the moon. The moonlight, like water trickling over rocks, poured right down into Theo Miller’s backyard. Smack in the middle of his burned out sunflower garden stood a circle of dark figures. They were singing at full volume, like people in the wilderness might do, no worry that anyone might hear, but mournful, women’s voices unsteady, a dissonant harmony.
I had fallen asleep in the same blouse I had worn home from the Johnsons. I pulled on the shorts dropped by my closet door and slipped into my sandals. If Vesta heard Theo’s relatives out singing past midnight, she would for sure call the cops on the whole lot of them. The Millers did not need the wrath of hurricane Vesta coming down on them at four in the morning.
When our old porch door squeaked open, Soomy heard me coming out of the house and ran out of the midst of the aunts. She was sobbing and wiping her eyes with the hem of her skirt. “Flannery, come see,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the circle of women.
I followed her, my heart climbing up my throat and pounding so hard I thought my whole neck would come apart. “What’s wrong?” I whispered to Soomy.
“Bad people are tr
ying to take Uncle Theo’s land.”
I was reticent to step onto the charred soil or interrupt the aunt’s ritual. No matter the facts, I could not bring myself to confess the shame coming from the general direction of Periwinkle House. I already knew.
Soomy told me how Dorothea was beside herself saying the world was coming to an end, so Aunt Rosetta drove around picking up the aunts, so many they had to sit in laps to get them all into the car. “They drove all the way out here to sing down the pain.”
I had heard stories of drawing down the fever from a child’s body wracked with disease, but I had not heard tell of singing down the pain. Nor did I believe Dorothea sanctioned their circle for she had never been one to indulge the aunts in their rituals.
I crept quietly onto the blackened ground, the moonlight still whispering softly overhead. Aunt Rosetta started the next song, plucking an old banjo and singing a hymn about a river. Her whole throat seemed to open up and then spill out all over the women who joined her on the chorus. Sure enough, Dorothea appeared. She stood next to me holding the hand of the aunt next to her and singing so robust it seemed her vocal chords were reaching beyond mortal power.
Then I remembered Daddy picking up a new bottle of sleeping pills for Vesta. I relaxed. She’d be in a deep sleep until sunup.
I held tightly to Soomy while the women sang song after song. Soomy had always been a strong girl but the little girl full out comforted me. Come to think of it, Soomy was strong for a girl child in a way that shamed me for feeling sorry for myself.
Here the patriarch of their family sat helpless, about to lose the one thing that made him different from the rest of the black men in our county, and the women turned the pain to music. All of the women in the Miller’s family were strong beyond words, same as Dorothea.
The women continued in an unbreakable circle, singing down the pain.
I imagined their prayers reaching the ears of God. Theo’s jailers would try to lock him away and then the doors would fly open. Out he would walk, and here he would live.
The thought of it made me laugh. Dogged if it did not land on the women. They started laughing too, and then they cried. We held onto each other while the sun blazed up from beyond the ocean and turned us all sunflower gold.
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