“Let’s begin,” she said, and smiled a thin tight-lipped smile, “by introducing ourselves and giving the name or names of our ancestors who so bravely served.” She looked around the room, smiling, just as she did when she taught Sunday school; she searched the crowd of us like a hungry eagle poring from the cliff top. Swoop, snag, claw. “Now, I’ll go first. I am Mrs. Theresa Poole,” she said, and laughed as if there could be someone in the town of Fulton who did not know her. “The men in my family served in the the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, World War I and World War II.”
“They must have been real old by then,” I whispered to Misty, and she stifled a giggle, then whispered that old joke to me, “Her people couldn’t get along with anybody”
“My Mr. Robert Manchester Poole”—she pointed to his portrait hanging above the mantel and then to the famous machete she always made reference to, which was propped against the fireplace—“was in the Pacific during WWII.” Mrs. Poole said double-u double-u, and Misty’s elbow dug into my ribs. I knew that when she could without laughing she would whisper dubya dubya.
“We’ll socialize a little later.” She was staring right at us—we felt like bunnies in her fierce talons—and my mother was giving me the eye that said she’d just as soon put me on restriction as breathe.
“Now, I could go on and on with the names of my relatives, but perhaps I’ll focus on the two names you’ll recognize, General Robert E. Lee and Mr. Stonewall Jackson.” She grinned again and even the other women began twitching on their chairs. How could you follow that? “We’ll go around the room now.” I prayed that she would begin the circle so that my mother went first and I could once again hear the public version of her relative who was considered the black sheep of his New England family. Randolph H. Anders was a physician in the Civil War, a convert to the Confederacy who died of pneumonia. My mother had told Mrs. Poole that the man was considered a black sheep for leaving the North and that he was a physician, but had failed to say that he died of pneumonia nowhere near a battle site and was a black sheep because he had become involved with his brother’s wife. It irked Mrs. Poole that she did not have first-hand knowledge of my mother’s family as she did everyone else’s in Fulton. If my mother really wanted to get under Mrs. Poole’s skin, she casually mentioned the Underground Railroad as if it had just been built and she herself had tunneled her way beneath the streets of Boston. Mrs. Poole could not stand to be left out.
“I am Cleva O’Conner Burns,” my mother finally said. “And my great-great-uncle Randolph Anders, a well known New England physician, came to the South and served and died in the Civil War.” She looked around and smiled, then smoothed her hair; she was wearing a long brown tunic, finally swayed to join the fashion trend set by Bea Arthur. Misty leaned in to me and whispered, “Beware of The Maude Squad,” and I had to hold my little tiny napkin that came with that little tiny glass of grape juice up to my mouth to hide a laugh.
“Anyway,” Mama continued, always confident when in a setting of historical discussion, “Randolph Anders was considered a black sheep by all of his family members. I mean you can imagine. His very own brother, Lucas Anders, worked on the Underground Railroad, there beneath the streets of Beacon Hill, helping those poor people to freedom.” Mama’s hands shook a little but she looked confident, her voice ringing with the same force and clarity it had when we had walked the Freedom Trail and she had narrated every little stone path and building along the way. She had shown me the statue erected to commemorate the Union dead; she had shown me the apartment building where she was born, a five-floor brick building with bay windows and a view of the Charles River.
My mother was telling of Randolph Anders’s long work hours as a physician even while he was ill with pneumonia. Mrs. Edith Turner was twitching on her seat, heaving her weight from thigh to thigh; Mrs. Poole lit a Salem and blew a stream of smoke through her pursed fuchsia lips. My father referred to Randolph Anders as that oversexed Southbound New Englander. “They sent their bad blood to the South,” he had said, pencil in hand as he doodled a picture of the East Coast. “States always think they’re one better than the one just below. New York frowns on New Jersey. Virginia frowns on the Carolinas. Everybody frowns on Miami.” He was now filling in the shapes of the states so closely that at first I thought he was tracing a map. “Used to if you were on the outs with the law, you went to Texas and were never heard from again. Then after Texas, Alaska became the place to go and disappear.” He went to the upper left-hand corner of his paper and drew Alaska. “But way back when that oversexed Southbound relative of your mothers had to leave town.. “
“So you have a lot of different lines, Cleva,” Mrs. Poole said, and stood, then realized she had lit a cigarette and had to sit back down. “Now like me, I have pure, solid Southern lines, but you and your family are more in keeping with what we in America call ‘the melting pot.’” She turned and looked at all of us C of C’s as if we were in her Sunday school class for five-year-olds. “The Melting Pot. You can get the picture from that I guess. I mean, can’t you see what is meant by a melting pot?”
“No,” Misty said, eyebrows furrowed in a confused fashion. “Please explain just what is meant by the melting pot.” Sally Jean sat up straight in her chair; it was obvious that she felt totally responsible for anything Misty said.
“Let me,” Sally Jean offered, and smiled at Misty, attempting the mother/daughter bond that she had told my mother she was trying to achieve. “We call America the melting pot because”—her face was flushed bright pink—“well, because, ‘It’s a small world after all.’” She never sang the words, just spoke them, her head nodding in rhythm. “It’s a small world after all?” She looked at Mrs. Poole, who stubbed out her Salem and stood, hands pressed on either side of her head.
“Well, we will just have to finish this over our refreshments because we have got to keep going. Now, Sally Jean, you just after all yourself back to your chair if you please.” Mrs. Poole flipped her hand like she might be shooing a dog while Sally Jean sank back into the big padded wing chair.
Mrs. Poole’s husband, Bo, stared out at us from his portrait above the mantel, his dark beady eyes moving to wherever you stood in the room. “He died of consumption,” I once heard my mother say, and my father laughed until he got red in the face.
“He did!” she insisted. “Anybody will tell you.”
“I don’t doubt that at all,” he said. “I believe he died of consumption.” He paused while she relaxed and then started up again. “I know lots of men who were with him while he was consuming. He consumed a lot. He consumed so much that his nickname was Hooch.”
“Impossible,” Mama said, and he just shook his head and hummed “The Impossible Dream,” followed by “Impossible.”
“Why do you have to always try and find something bad?” she asked. “Why can’t you accept that we all have our good points as well as our weaknesses? Why can’t you say something nice about somebody?”
“Et tu, Clevé?” he asked, eyebrows raised sharply.
I kept staring at Mr. Bo “Hooch” Poole the whole time we went around the circle. It was hard to imagine this man with his silver hair and Teddy Roosevelt moustache, this man who had once run for lieutenant governor, out in the county getting soused.
Mrs. Poole’s house was like a museum with all of her bric-a-brac, little crystal and pewter and silver birds and figurines which my mother ordinarily would have called “dust collectors.” The minutes from the last UDC meeting were boring, the topic meandering from side to side to discuss who had died and who was in the hospital and who had retired. We C of C’s were supposed to just sit and grin and wait until talent time.
Except for Ruthie Sands, Misty and I didn’t really know the other members, for they were several years older. Ruthie was going to be going away to a private high school in the fall, and you could tell by the somber set of her thin flawless face that she would rather have been anywhere except there. She sat with the olde
r girls and other than saying hello, ignored us until talent time when she asked that we hold up her big flannel board while she arranged little blue and gray felt men and conducted one battle after another right up to the surrender at Appomattox.
I sang “Swanee” down on one knee like Al Jolson, my voice as deep and husky as I could make it. Misty had encouraged me to sing, and I had practiced in her cluttered bedroom the whole week before. Misty and Lily Hadley and some other girls were thinking of starting a singing group, and she had said that if I practiced more I’d have no trouble joining. She said they really needed another white girl since they had plans to stand black, white, black, white and do lots of neat designs with their arms and legs like the June Taylor dancers used to do on Jackie Gleason.
I noticed that while I was singing, my mother was staring off, through Mrs. Poole’s large picture window which overlooked her side yard; if the hedge had been trimmed you could have seen our yard with the little white gazebo my mother had ordered in a kit and built herself. Ivy grew up the posts, loose tendrils hanging like threads. My mother’s rose garden was beautiful, too, more beautiful than Mrs. Poole’s but Mrs. Poole had never complimented her on it. I had listened one day as Mrs. Poole complimented everything from the peonies to the hydrangeas, obviously ignoring both the gazebo and the roses. “You could do a lot with this yard if you took a notion, Cleva,” Mrs. Poole had said, my mother standing there large and lifeless, gardening scissors in the pocket of her dress.
People clapped when I finished singing but, instead of looking at me, looked at Mama, who had no choice but to look back and smile. I had told her I was going to tell about our trip to Boston and what it had meant to me to glimpse the history of the other side of the war; I had completely forgotten to tell her of my change in plans. And though she liked to hear me sing and though she often, during a Lord Forgive Me When I Whine session, reminded me of the God-given grace of a singing voice, she was not at all prepared for the deep jazzy Judy Garland style that Misty had encouraged.
When Misty stood up and began her talk on cotton, I felt like I was going to burst out laughing. Other than the relief at having my turn over and having received a few compliments from the older girls, there was no good reason to laugh, but still it came over me like a wave, making my face go red and my whole body quiver. I had to excuse myself and rush into Mrs. Poole’s kitchen; when I got behind the swinging door, I made myself cough again and again so they would think I’d had an attack. I knew Misty. knew this old trick because we had both used it at Sunday school and I listened, expecting her to lose her control but she was as composed and dry as ever. I waited there, peeping through the crack of the door to see Misty modeling her new peasant blouse with the lace and embroidery. “Cotton,” she said. “This is 100 percent cotton.”
I felt another wave coming over me but coughed instead. Whenever my mother allowed me to sit with Misty in church, we played a game where we’d close our eyes, open the hymnal, and then read the two titles with an ending of “in the bed,” such as “Just As I Am in the bed” or “How Great Thou Art in the bed” It was Misty’s game, recently learned from the so very mature Dean, and though it seemed a little sacrilegious, I couldn’t help but shake with suppressed laughter, so desperate for the freedom to let it all out.
Misty bent the label from her skirt waistband and said, “Cotton.” The older girls were trying hard not to laugh, while Ruthie Sands sat there with her cute little nose wrinkled in disgust. “Blends are inferior,” Misty continued, still straight-faced. “Let the ladies feel your blouse, Ruthie,” she said. “Let us now compare cotton to polyester.” I had to put my hand over my mouth and slip back into the kitchen where I couldn’t see or hear. Even my mother had looked as if she were about to lose control.
“You got the giggles, I suspect?” Maralee Landell was standing right behind me. I nodded, my hand still over my mouth. “You haven’t visited over here in a long time, have you?” she asked, and I shook my head, peeked back out into the living room, where a red-faced, jaw-clenched Ruthie stood while people fingered her blouse. “I still see your mama over here right often. I guess you’re old enough to go your own way, have for awhile now.” She began running water in the sink, her tennis shoes squeaking on the spotless linoleum, while she arranged some little sandwiches on a tray. “You want a sandwich?” she asked, and when I said no, turned off the water and went and opened the back door. I saw her waving her right arm in a big loop while she held the door open. As I watched, I couldn’t help but wonder where Mr. and Mrs. Landell went when another day of running Mrs. Poole’s house had come to an end; I imagined them walking out the back door and down to where the pastel houses stood.
“Come on, honey,” I heard her say. “You’ve worked up an appetite I know, and I’ve set aside some goodies for you.” Mama glimpsed me in the doorway and gave me a look that said, Come back in here and sit down, so I faked another cough, all the while expecting to see Mr. Landell come in from the yard and take off the little cap he wore while driving Mrs. Poole around town.
“Yes, it’s getting mighty warm these days. You need to wear some lotion so you don’t burn, got a nose like Rudolph.” I turned just in time to see Mrs. Landell throw her arms around Merle Hucks and give him a quick hug. “What’s this nasty thing you got around your neck, baby?”
“Rawhide,” he said, and pulled away. He still hadn’t seen me. “It’s what people wear these days.”
“Well, looks like a shoe string to me.”
“Yeah, I guess.” He grinned at her and she patted his shoulder again. “I finished edging around the roses,” he said. “Now I’m gonna mow.”
“Well, come cool off a second,” she said. “Is your mama doing any better?” He shook his head and followed her over near the counter, waited for her to hand him a sandwich. “I sure am sorry to hear it.” She retied her apron, the ends barely reaching when she crossed them in the back and pulled them around to the front. “Yes sir, your mama sure has had a time.” She turned and then stopped as if she’d forgotten I was standing there. “Why, I forgot you were here,” she said, and Merle looked over at me. “You two must know one another. Merle lives right behind you.” She motioned with her thumb to the back window. I nodded and looked away. “Kate’s here for a meeting,” Mrs. Landell said, lowering her voice. “Got tickled and had to leave the room.” Merle nodded, still staring at me. He had grass stains on the knees of his jeans. “Do you want some refreshments, too?” she asked, and I shook my head. She fixed a big glass of iced tea and handed it to Merle. “Has your mama been back to the doctor?” she asked but he shrugged, then glanced at me.
“I see,” she said. “We can talk over all that later. You two just help yourselves to those sandwiches over there. Not these though.” She pointed to the silver trays she had finished arranging. “Lord knows, not these. I got to run speak to Mr. Landell and I’ll be right back.” She wiped her hands on a dish towel, patted Merle’s shoulder, squeezed it as if to send him some secret message, and then was gone, out the side door and around past the window. Merle sat down at the kitchen table, and I felt like I was frozen with no place to go.
“What are you looking at?” he finally asked, and I shook my head. “Well, what are you doing here then?”
“A meeting.”
He laughed a loud forced laugh and then rearranged the salt and pepper shakers. They were cut glass with silver tops, and when he held them up, the light from the window hit and bounced in little circles. “I mean in the kitchen.” He shook his head, and I kept waiting to hear him meow but he didn’t. “The meeting’s in there.” He pointed to the door as if to tell me to go on.
“Where’s Frankincense?” I asked, suddenly realizing what a ridiculous thing that was to say; it had been well over a year since the church retreat. When I looked back up, he was grinning, his front tooth that used to be gray, loosened, and chipped long before, was as white and straight as the others.
“Aw, he’s off somewhere with my brot
her, Dexter.” He reached for another sandwich. “They have club meetings, too.”
“You’re not a member?” I was slowly moving towards the table, wishing I could not hear the voices from the other room. Misty was now singing, her voice huskier than mine could ever be, in them old cotton fields back home. I was close enough to read the scribbles on the rubber sole of his tennis shoe, his initials, a peace sign, New York Jets, heavy lines marked to scribble out something else. Then I heard Sally Jean say, “A house is made of brick and stone, but a home is made of love alone.”
“I’m not much on clubs,” he said, giving his head a jerk toward Mrs. Poole’s living room. “Don’t like meetings.” I nodded, and pulled out the chair across from him, lifting carefully so it didn’t squeak against the linoleum. His eyes must have lingered on my cheek longer than he had intended, because he suddenly started and glanced away, raked his fingers through his damp hair.
“What’s wrong with your mother?” I asked, my voice awkward and strained.
“Hysterectomy.”
“Oh.” I felt my face and neck get warm.
“No big deal.”
“That’s good,” I said. Another long heavy pause. “What are you doing here?”
“Working.” He got up and went to get one of the sandwiches, started to put it in his mouth, and then waited. “I do yard work mostly,” he said. “Do your parents need somebody to mow?” Of course he knew where I lived, but somehow it surprised me to hear him acknowledge that he knew. “You can let me know it they do, at school or something.”
“Yeah, okay.” I watched him come back over to the table, this time pulling out the chair closer to mine, across the corner, and when he sat, his knee brushed against mine. “I’ll ask my dad.” I waited for him to say something else, but he just nodded and smiled at me, his hands clasped on the table, dirt from Mrs. Poole’s roses still under his nails, a fine scratch across the base of his thumb. I was about to ask him what happened when he spoke again.
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