The School of Beauty and Charm

by Melanie Sumner

  “Well, you don’t have to bite my head off,” he said.

  That year, when I was seventeen going on eighteen, I realized with a shameful thrill that I had a brain. “Bright,” said my teachers at Bridgewater. In Mr. Rutherford’s Advanced Placement English class, when we read Plato’s The Cave, I burned in my desk, bright all over. English was easy for me because there were no correct answers to Mr. Rutherford’s questions; one only had to be Mr. Rutherford—a pleasant task for a girl in love. It was the same with the authors we studied. I pitied students who had to read Light in August line by line; I somehow drank the pages, and when I looked up, I was William Faulkner, dead drunk in Mississippi. I sank into the minds of Flannery O’Connor, James Joyce, William Blake, and wandered there among the ghosts and shadows and patches of dazzling sunlight. There were themes: Man versus Man, Man versus Nature, Man versus God, and questions at the end of the chapter, but these were unimportant. How do you get inside another human being? This was the question. I saw signs everywhere: in the untied lace on Drew’s moccasin, the warm red bricks of wall, the white curve of Mr. Rutherford’s hand as he raised his thumb at me, but still, love eluded me. Then one day, walking off demerits around the lake, I watched a swan dip her long neck, raise it, and glide, and a verse from Blake came to me all in one piece like an egg:

  Never seek to tell thy love,

  Love that never told shall be;

  For the gentle wind does move

  silently, invisibly.

  My light did not shine as well in prealgebra, which I had taken for three years in a row. Mr. Rutherford said not to worry about it—algebra wasn’t part of our religion.

  At the same time I discovered my intellectual powers, I reached the disturbing conclusion that Henry and Florida were feebleminded. They both had college degrees, but apparently college was easier in those days. Florida’s only memory of the experience seemed to be running out in the snow in a bathing suit and high heels with her roommate, at which point she realized Henry loved her because he was afraid she’d get a cold. Henry recalled that when he moved to the front row of the classroom to sit next to Florida, he got better grades.

  It was hard to believe that these two could produce a Bridgewater intellectual, but there I was: black turtlenecks, baggy army pants, a tight ponytail, and small, round tortoise-shell glasses. I was an atheist and a communist. Although I never actually read the Tao Te Ching, I toted it around with me, which made Florida suspicious. She couldn’t get past the first page, but something about it smacked of Looking Out for Number One. Luckily, I had friends. My friends, atheists and communists in black turtlenecks, ponytails, and funny glasses were also burdened with dim-witted parents. We discussed them the way people discuss their mentally ill relatives, but without sympathy. Mostly, we tried to escape them. We passed around a copy of Solzhenitsyn’s First Circle and fancied ourselves imprisoned in Russia. We drank a lot.

  I tried to get Henry and Florida to drink—tried to introduce red wine with spaghetti, cognac in coffee, and champagne at New Year’s—but they were low-brow and Baptist to boot. So I left on the weekends, carrying the lunch bag Florida had packed with my first and last name written on the paper bag, to the radio tower on top of Mount Zion, or the lock and dam, or a field—someplace where I could get drunk with my friends and be somebody else.

  When I announced my acceptance to the Ringling Clown College in Sarasota, Florida, Henry decided to keep me home for a year.

  “Why, that’s the same price as a real school!” he exclaimed. “They’re just taking your money! Why do you want to associate with riffraff?”

  “Gypsies,” said Florida.

  “They’ve never had an opportunity in life,” explained Henry. “It’s not their fault. Most of them aren’t even Americans. My goodness. You’ve been to one of the finest college preparatory schools in the country. I would think you’d want to do better than the circus.”

  “Maybe I can be a snob. The world needs more snobs.”

  “Here she goes,” said Florida. “That mouth.”

  Florida, who had grown up without a flush toilet, was appalled that a girl would stick her hand out for that sum of money and smart off at the same time. Although she was not a political person, she had won her mother an electric refrigerator, the first one in Red Cavern, by writing an essay entitled “Why I Am Proud to Be an American.” She couldn’t put her finger on the connection between communism and clowning, but she smelled a rat. Furthermore, without her there to drag me out of bed on Sunday mornings, I would never go to church.

  I argued. Didn’t Lao-tzu say

  When taxes are too high,

  people go hungry.

  When the government is too intrusive,

  people lose their spirit.

  Act for the people’s benefit.

  Trust them; leave them alone.

  They listened, nodded. True, I was not a joy to live with—not by a long shot, but these were the sacrifices one made for one’s children. Yes, they agreed, I needed one more year of home training before they set me loose. After that, all they could do was pray.

  It was decided that I should stay in Counterpoint for a year and attend the Maude Wilson College for Women, if I got in. One day an application in a lavender envelope printed with magnolias arrived at Owl Aerie. When Ebbie, the postman, tossed it to me from the window of the mail truck, I caught it in midair like a bride’s bouquet.

  Henry took it to Southern Board and had his secretary, Heather, make four copies of it so I could practice filling it out before I typed it. Florida was not allowed to type it because I didn’t want her to read my essay.

  “That suits me just fine,” she said. “I’m tired of staying up all night typing your papers. Last time I was up until 4:00 A.M. I don’t know how you’re going to get by in college.”

  “I can get through Maude Wilson in my sleep.”

  “We’ll see.” She touched her hair. “You need to grow up. You’ve made some poor decisions in the past. Goofed off. Gone wild. I’ll type your papers this year. I don’t mind. I’d just appreciate some advance notice.”

  “Your mother works her fingers to the bone for this family,” said Henry guiltily. “You ought to hug her neck.”

  Florida had nothing against Heather, but she couldn’t help noticing that Henry’s secretaries had always had blonde hair, while she herself was a brunette. Henry claimed this was a coincidence. Florida wondered aloud why Heather had to dress like a showgirl; Henry said it was good for Southern Board’s image. Florida didn’t reply, but her face clearly suggested that Henry thought he was running a casino instead of a corrugated board plant. Finally, she said, “I don’t see how anyone can type with nails that long, but I guess Heather has learned to manage.”

  Henry said, “I vacuumed your car out this morning.” He opened his handkerchief and produced the plastic monkeys that the Kirby had twisted into a gross embrace.

  “Throw them away,” she said. “You didn’t say anything about my hair. I had it done this morning.”

  “I noticed it,” he said, searching for a word. “It looks . . . nice.”

  She turned her back. Her turquoise MacMe jogging suit had once said i am free across the back, in gold stitching studded with rhinestones and sequins, but over time the message had unraveled. Now it said I AM.

  I WAS WRITING suicide notes in chemistry lab at school when Drew, who had received early admission to Harvard, took charge of my educational dilemma.

  “I don’t envy you, Louise,” she said, looking gravely at me through the Coke-bottle lenses of her glasses. “This sucks the big one.” She considered various solutions while she typed up our lab reports. Finally, she said, “Fill out the application. Be honest. Tell them who you really are. Reveal your penchant for rednecks and your banana-peel smoking habit. Mention that you were one of Dr. Frommlecker’s patients. Suggest that you have a drinking problem.” Then Drew did something she had never done in the thirteen years we had been best friends: she hugg
ed me.

  That night, lying on my bedroom floor, sucking a White Russian through a straw, I answered the last question on the Maude Wilson application: Who Are You? (in five hundred words or less).

  I’m a tough broad living on the dock. I know how to start a car with a paper clip, open a door with a credit card, and roll a joint in the dark. I can find my way through a strange room in the middle of the night better than most house cats, and I know how to run. In a fight, I keep my back to the wall, and if I’m losing, I lick the bitch’s ear, as a surprise, then go for her face. Now that I’m staying with my two-ton sugar daddy, Max, I know all there is to know about men. A lot of tough broads on the dock wear makeup and try to look professional, but my girl Dewana says, “Who wants a tired ole ho with brains?”

  I went on to elaborate on my sugar daddy and my girl Dewana, and made a few poignant references to my sordid experiences as a foster child. Using the phone book as a reference point, I did a condensed travelogue of the jails and halfway houses in a hundred-mile radius of Counterpoint. Finally, I edited my work using Mr. Rutherford’s bible, The Elements of Style. Then I took the final copy to Drew. After she made sure I had checked the black race on the application, she gave it her enthusiastic approval.

  “They will never let you in,” she assured me. “You have next year off.”

  Maude Wilson’s reply came five days before Christmas. “Yoo-hoo!” called Florida, striking her heels along the tiled hall. At my bedroom door, she knocked while turning the doorknob with her free hand. When the door opened a crack, she stuck a thin lavender envelope through it. “News for you!” I took the letter and shut the door, but Florida carried on the conversation through the wall. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they offered you a scholarship. Something, if not a big one. Agnes’s niece, you know Agnes—she’s at Shear Heaven now—I quit her, but I might go back because this new girl flubbed my permanent. What did they say?” She tried the door again. “Anyway, I was telling you—Agnes’s niece, Laurin, got a scholarship. Need-based. Cute girl.” She paused to listen to the envelope rip. “What did they say? Louise, I’m talking to you. Why do you have to shut your mother out like this?”

  Behind the door, my tears fell silently on the letter which accepted, with congratulations and a minority scholarship, the application of Frances Louise Peppers to the Maude Wilson College for Women.

  THE LIVE OAK trees lining the entrance to the Maude Wilson College for Women had been planted by Colonel Wilson’s slaves. According to the engraved plaques screwed along the walls of the bell tower, Mrs. Wilson had a religious experience in which God told her to teach the slaves how to read the Holy Bible. Local legend had it that Maude fell in love with one of these tall Senegalese men, and the Sunday School for One Hundred, as it came to be called, was only an elaborate contrivance for them to meet. In any case, the Sunday School was eventually limited to children, and Maude died from an overdose of laudanum.

  I sat under one of these trees on the first day of the fall semester, morosely drinking a warm Bloody Mary in a paper cup. A gaggle of girls in sundresses and espadrilles trooped by. They walked close together, talking in low voices until one of them halted, threw her head back, and screamed modestly. This happened several times. They seemed to be talking about boys.

  “I did not say that! Who said that I said that?”

  “All I know is that I am not partying with them again.”

  “Was it Eric?”

  “My dog could make a better gin and tonic.”

  “Did you see Mason? God, he’s cute!”

  “What was he doing with that girl? I mean, she was nice and everything, but she was heavy.”

  “She’s a cow. She must be his sister or something.”

  “If Eric said that about me, I’m going to talk to his roommate. We’re very good friends. Do you know Tad?”

  “Omigod! You’re good friends with Tad? He’s gorgeous!”

  The bell in the tower rang nine times—Introduction to Shakespeare—but I didn’t move. I sat under the tree, holding a gnarled root with one hand as I looked high up into the limbs webbed with Spanish moss. I thought of the seed in the black man’s hand, the hand forming the brick, the espadrilles on the brick. Then I went across the street and bought a bus ticket to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the last stop on the line.

  The Greyhound turned down Front Street and rattled past the drugstore, Wanda’s Wig Shoppe, the howling wolf in front of the library. Out of habit, I scanned the muddy waters of the New Hope River for the scaly jaws of Earnestine. As we pulled out of town, the driver shifted into high gear, and I leaned back in my seat to think about Florida.

  She didn’t like me. She had more or less said so. From my backpack I removed my thermos of Bloody Marys, added a few tablespoons of paregoric, and stirred the remaining ice cubes with a stick of celery. I kicked my espadrilles off and threw my bare feet up on the seat so no one would sit next to me. Then, sipping my cocktail, I began to review the tragedy of my life. She had practically said she hated me.

  “You twist my words around to suit yourself!” Florida cried. She had just come home from a Christian Women’s Club luncheon, and she was still wearing her sunglasses. Her suit was black: Jones of New York, with padded shoulders, and her nails were lacquered in vermilion. Gripping the railing of the deck with both hands, she said, “You don’t listen to me because you’re afraid to hear the truth. The truth is that you have rejected your mother and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

  “The combination is too much for me,” I said without looking up from the Tao Te Ching. Sipping a banana daiquiri, I stretched out on my lawn chair in the yard below her. Even though Henry had cut the kudzu back, thick foliage cloaked the ground and twisted through the trees, choking off the sun save for a small patch of shimmering green sky.

  “Too much for you? You haven’t done a thing all day. You’ve been wallowing around in that chair all day, feeling sorry for yourself because we won’t send you to the circus for twenty thousand dollars a year. You’ve got to face reality. And let me tell you, young lady, if Christianity is not part of your reality, you’re in for big trouble.”

  “The Constitution of the United States of America grants every citizen of this country the right to religious freedom. Do you know what Kurt Vonnegut said about religion?”

  “I know that you are disrespectful to your mother. You’re the most hateful child I have ever seen. Hateful, hateful, hateful.”

  “‘Religion!’ snorted Newt. ‘See the cat? See the cradle?’”

  “Words, words, words! All you have are words. Get up and do something. Help out a little. Don’t expect me to go in there and make your lunch. I won’t do it! I won’t!”

  “I’m not hungry,” I said. “Let me read you something.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more of your heathen literature.”

  I read aloud, “Throw away holiness and wisdom, and people will be a hundred times happier. Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing. Throw away industry and profit—”

  “You are driving me up the wall!” I raised my eyes. In her shoulder pads and sunglasses, she looked like a giant black hawk. “You’re all take and no give,” she said, flapping her arms angrily. “It’s gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, what can you do for me? Jesus Christ tells us not to be selfish. What does that book say about Jesus?”

  “‘The world is sacred. It can’t be improved.’”

  Florida’s face turned gray. That’s when I knew she hated me, and hated herself for it. She ripped off her jacket and swirled it in the air. For a moment, I thought she might jump. She would rise into the sky with a thunderous clap of wings and swoop down on me. But she remained on the deck. The black jacket fluttered in the air and then sank slowly down until it caught on a low branch of the hickory tree beside my chair. It hung there like a flag.

  Despite my resolve not to become entangled with religious people, my heart was pounding. I couldn’t remember anything else from the Tao Te
Ching, so I blurted out a bumper sticker slogan: “Jesus save me from your followers!” The door slammed; she’d gone inside the house to make lunch.

  Henry came out of the garage holding the weed eater he’d been repairing. “What’s all this fussing out here?” he asked.

  “Religion is man’s defense against God,” I said.

  “What?” He looked up at the jacket hanging in the hickory tree. “How did your mother’s coat get in the tree?”

  “She threw it.”

  He stared hard at me, then shook his head. “You all have lost your minds. I’ll have to get a ladder.”

  When he went back into the garage, I studied the black flag hanging on the twisted old tree. The hickory was proof that lightning does strike twice. Last year lightning had hit the tree then run down the edge of the roof and zapped the intercom system. To me, this was an explicit request from the universe that the Pepperses stop talking to each other. However, Florida didn’t need the intercom. She’d holler through the house, “This family is not communicating!” The first time lightning struck was during the tornado, which led to my salvation and all the trouble I’d had since. Life is hard the first time around; why prolong the agony by being born again? As anyone could see, by looking at the black coat hanging in the hickory tree, Christ did not bring peace to the human heart.

  AT THE NEXT stop, a black woman wearing a red wig sat down beside me. “Rain’s a-coming,” she said. “This ole knee lets me know every time.” I offered her a drink.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” she said, taking the thermos cup. “A toddy for the body. Oh, my bones get to aching, honey. Don’t you get old—you young and sweet.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Sure as the devil has horns, we gonna get us some rain.” Together we looked out the window at a cloudless blue sky. Any minute now, I expected to see the pouf of Florida’s hair and Henry’s bald spot inside a blue Ford Taurus pulling up beside us. Somehow, they would stop the bus.

  She’d say, “I knew this would happen. I just knew it.”