Rita Will

by Rita Mae Brown

  I couldn’t believe it. Then I thought about it some more. Maybe I was a lesbian. Mostly I didn’t give a damn.

  I did what I always do. I shut up.

  Snickers and titters followed me. One boy took it upon himself to insult me on a few public occasions. I had always liked him, so I let it go. If he thought he’d scare me into going to bed with him to prove I wasn’t gay, he figured wrong.

  A couple of my teachers cracked down on me, but most of them didn’t pay much attention to what was going on, for which I was grateful.

  My senior year turned into one long siege. The tennis coach made me run extra laps. When that didn’t break me down, she told me that if I even thought of looking at another girl in the locker room, she’d throw me off the team.

  I would have given anything for Betty Rinehart to be out of the convent or Jerry to be home from college.

  Mother, on her feet but miserable, crossed swords with me over college. She and Aunt Mimi pounded at me about going away.

  I’d had it. I’d applied to Ivy League schools, Duke and the University of Florida. Duke accepted me straightaway and I wanted to go. Aunt Mimi hit the ceiling. After a fight wherein I was called everything from “ungrateful” to “selfish” and had the usual “You aren’t one of us” thrown at me, I left the house and stayed out all night. I slept in the student council room at school.

  When I came home the next night, Mother, a bit frightened that I’d walked out, said, “You know how I feel, but if you want to go, I won’t stand in your way.”

  I replied, “How about if I go to the University of Florida? It’s not so far away. If something happens, I can take the bus home.”

  The bus ride back then was about twelve hours—if two roads crossed, the bus stopped.

  She thought about it. “Well, that Smith College is awful far away. Even Duke is far away.” That meant she liked the idea as much as she could.

  I promised her that I’d have greater earning power with a college degree and that she would never have to worry about money as long as she lived.

  I kept my promise.

  36

  Boiled Peanuts

  Each year the Senior class at Fort Lauderdale High participated in Senior Work Day. Each of us had to work for a day, and local merchants, fishermen and farmers hired us. What a wonderful way to test the waters of career choices. Some of us worked in clothing stores and bakeries, on charter boats and with printers.

  I was governor of the great state of Florida. Farris Bryant, the state’s Democratic governor, happened to be in Japan during our Senior Work Day. Before the big day I wrote to ask if I could be his shadow in Tallahassee. I wanted to learn how state government really worked. He wrote back and told me I could not be his shadow, but I could be his stand-in.

  The state flew me to Tallahassee, my first airplane ride. I loved it.

  I sat in on a legislative wrangle about stone crabs, then a healthy industry in Florida. Reporters asked silly questions. I tried not to be quite as silly in return. Just because I was seventeen didn’t mean I was stupid. I’d been lucky enough to attend Girls’ State, been elected party whip for the Nationalist Party, and was voted the alternate to Girls’ Nation. Killed me when neither of the two delegates got sick.

  Then as now, many a legislator is a venal, self-aggrandizing third-rater. Then as now, some legislators and executives love their state and country, are honest and really work. I’d had the example of Jack Young to teach me very early about how politics really worked.

  I toured the capitol. The highway department impressed me. At that time, the engineering level was so high it set standards for the country. Florida was the first state to paint white lines on the outer edges of highways to help motorists stay on the road at night. They would also develop a good plan for unpaved roads and a realistic budget for eventually upgrading some of these secondary and tertiary roads. No one could have predicted the population explosion Florida was about to experience. However, if you drive through Florida today, you’ll notice that the state roads are quite good. Remember, federal roads are separate from state ones.

  The governor’s desk, impressive enough, was made more so by the nearly life-size portrait of Andrew Jackson that hung behind it. The hero of New Orleans, thumping crack British troops, was also the first governor of the Florida territory, appointed in 1821. Although he subdued the Seminoles, neither Jackson nor anyone else conquered them. When I was in high school the Seminoles still had not signed a peace treaty with the United States government. McArthur High School, then a new school in Hollywood, Florida, had a couple of Seminole kids. One of the guys played football barefoot.

  Tallahassee is the home of Florida A&M and Florida State. It’s a pleasant city and I wished I’d had more than a day there.

  I flew home in triumph. Mother greeted me at the airport. No bragging was allowed in our family.

  “How was your plane ride?”

  “Pretty neat, Mom, you’ve got to do it.”

  Aunt Mimi piped up, “If God had wanted us to fly, he would have given us wings.”

  “If God had wanted us to have peace and quiet, he would have removed your tongue.” Mother headed back to the old white Plymouth with a plastic orange stuck on its radio antenna so she could find it in the parking lot.

  The celestial aspects of flying occupied their attention until we reached home.

  When Mom opened the door, the dog scampered out and the cat strolled out from under the hibiscus. Mom paused in the bright sunlight and then she burst into tears.

  Aunt Mimi glared at me.

  I wondered what the hell I had done. I hadn’t said two words.

  Mom collected herself, whispering, “If only Butch could see this.”

  They boohooed, made coffee and then launched into an argument about my proper station in life. Aunt Mimi, furious that she hadn’t been able to thwart my plans for college, lit into Mom.

  Mother, clever, said, “She’ll find a man with prospects at college. Better than working here.”

  This new concept somewhat mollified Aunt Mimi. Neither wanted to hear the details of my trip.

  I grabbed a mess of boiled peanuts and a Coke and walked over to the railroad tracks. I wondered if I would ever luxuriate in anything I’d accomplished. Well, maybe I’d be proud of myself, but I didn’t think Mom or Aunt Mimi would pay more than passing notice. That was okay. Sometimes it wiped the shine off an event, but I told myself I’d be out of there soon enough.

  I never wanted to be a child even when I was one. I wanted to be grown, in full command of my body and mind, earning my keep. And I never wanted to be beholden to anyone.

  While I ate my boiled peanuts Mom and Aunt Mimi’s argument escalated. I heard Aunt Mimi peel out of the driveway. “Leadfoot strikes again,” I thought.

  Did I want to go back and hear the wail of discontent?

  I had barely put my foot over the threshold when Mom started shouting. There were the usual accusations about Aunt Mimi’s being a religious nut, about her keeping too tight a rein on her daughter, about her meddling in Kenny, Wade and Terry’s upbringing. That was the warm-up. She opened her second round of fire about Sis’s pushing her to get a lawyer.

  This was news to me. A lawyer for what?

  Reuben and Caroline Brown had died within six months of one another barely six months before Dad died. Dad and I had driven up to the funerals. I felt bad for Dad even though I had no love for either of his parents.

  Their will stated that their sons, in order to inherit, must survive them by a year. If not, the estate would be divided among whoever was left. Dad had not survived them by a year. Their savings, property and worldly goods went to Earl and Claude.

  By the time they died Mamaw and Papaw, not rich, had achieved comfort. Mom said we would have received ten thousand dollars, a fortune by our standards. Hey, I’d be happy for it right now.

  Aunt Mimi, shrewd about business, couldn’t get Mom to hire a lawyer to contest the will.

&
nbsp; In Mom’s defense, she had no fight in her for a long time after Dad’s death. That first year she was a zombie. Each year after that she recovered some, until after five years she seemed like her old self. At that time she couldn’t afford a lawyer though, not emotionally or financially.

  So I whipped out the phone book, found the name of a lawyer who was the father of a high-school friend, borrowed the car and hurried down there. He told me I was underage and had no legal rights. I couldn’t contest a thing.

  I left having been taught a brutal lesson about American law: I was a nonperson. I also weighed how much the Browns had disdained me. I was their only grandchild, yet they had evidenced no concern for my well-being.

  That floored me. Not because I’d thought they would someday magically start to love me, the stray cat, but because Dad loved me. Dad was the apple of his mother’s eye. If he felt I was his daughter, how could Caroline Brown violate her son’s wishes?

  I was glad they were dead. And so goddamn mad that if they hadn’t been, I might have killed them.

  I felt sorry for Mother, too. All the years she’d catered to her mother-in-law, done her best to appease the rest of Dad’s family—all for nothing. What a slap in the face.

  We needed the money. We were scraping by on the day-old stuff that Mom brought home from the bakery, plus hamburger and other inexpensive meats. I taught myself handwriting analysis from books so I could earn my lunch money at school.

  Uncle Claude, a lot like Dad, sent Mother half of his inheritance once the will was settled. She put it in savings against a rainy day, which was so unlike Mom that I nearly passed out. She wouldn’t give me any for college, though.

  Earl, the middle brother, never shared a penny.

  But I understood, finally, why Aunt Mimi had blown up when Mom refused to get a lawyer. She loved her sister, knew she was in need, and couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t fight for her.

  I thought the two Buckingham sisters would settle this. I told Mom what I’d done. She wasn’t mad at me. I told Aunt Mimi. She was thrilled, but outraged that I couldn’t file a suit due to my youth.

  Neither sister would talk to the other, though. The famous “deep freeze.”

  At first, Mom sang in the morning because she didn’t have to deal with her sister the bossyboots. That lasted three or four days. Then she fretted because Russell wasn’t swinging by to see her either. He had been stopping by every day since Dad died. Uncle Mearl stayed out of it. He had to.

  By the beginning of the second week, the strain began to show. Mom called Aunt Mimi’s friends for a report. Sis called Mom’s buddies. Neither one would make the first move, lest they lose face.

  Russell and I hatched a plan. We were good friends despite the sixteen years between us. Lots of folks speculated that we were having an affair. He was blond and blue-eyed, with the body of Adonis, and I was seventeen, not a beauty queen but nice-looking. After a time even Julia Ellen grew suspicious.

  Small towns. Small minds. Of course, I was later to find out minds are equally small in New York City and Los Angeles. Some people live life and others talk about it.

  Russell stuck close to me because he was the only person to recognize how deep my loss was and how alone I felt. There wasn’t much he could do about it but be there. As I’ve said before, I’m not much of a talker. We’d snorkel early in the mornings, staying close to shore because the barracudas and sharks were feeding.

  One time out there, as the sun was rising, Russell was underwater and I came up for air. And straight in front of me an enormous manta ray rose out of the water, wings curled at the tips, water spraying off in red and gold droplets. Its little eyes met mine. The animal glided over calm waters and then silently slipped back into the sea.

  No wonder ancient shore dwellers worshipped gods from the ocean.

  Despite the swirl of gossip, Russell came to the tennis courts or drove me to Royal Palm so I could hot-walk ponies.

  Both sisters had always IV’d coffee. Prices rose sharply that year because the weather had soured in South America. The “girls” cut back on their coffee drinking to save money, especially Mom, because she didn’t have the money in the first place.

  Russell and I put together our own money and bought two big cans of ground coffee. He was to take one to Aunt Mimi. I was to take the other to Mom. We’d tell each sister that the other had bought it for her as a peace offering.

  Off we went. I handed Mom her coffee.

  “You saw Sis?”

  “No, I saw Russell. He said it’s a peace offering.”

  Mother squinted at the blue can. “I don’t trust her. She’s up to something.”

  “Maybe she is, but you might as well drink the coffee.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “She’ll never admit she was wrong. He didn’t tell you one thing that she said?”

  “No, ma’am, but you know she feels bad or she wouldn’t have spent the money. You know how cheap she is, Mother.”

  “Prudent is her word.” Mother laughed, opened the coffee and perked a fresh pot.

  Russell sheepishly knocked on the door and let himself in. He put a can of coffee on the kitchen table.

  “She said she doesn’t want it and you can’t afford it.”

  “That bitch.” Mother spat, then stopped. “What do you mean, she doesn’t want it? She’s giving me two cans of coffee?”

  “Uh …” The explanation followed.

  “You two stay out of my business.” She nonetheless served Russell coffee.

  She noticed that the other coffee can had been opened. It had a plastic lid on top of it. She picked the can up.

  “Put it in the refrigerator to keep it fresh,” I said.

  “I will.” She frowned at me.

  After all, that was the obvious solution. One should not state the obvious. But when she pulled the plastic lid off, a palmetto bug, gigunda, flew up out of the can.

  “What the hell—” Mom threw the can up in the air, spewing ground coffee everywhere.

  “Oh, shit.” Russell spilled his coffee.

  That fast, Mom jumped into her car.

  “Russell, it’s World War Three,” I said.

  We tailed her. She hit eighty at one point, barreling up Fifteenth Street into Wilton Manors.

  She was already in her sister’s house by the time we pulled into the driveway. We could hear them. The entire neighborhood could hear them. Mom and Aunt Mimi needed cotillion more than I did.

  We took a deep breath, then hurried inside. The decibel level dropped.

  “Mean. Hateful mean.” Mom’s eyes misted.

  “You threw the can up?” Aunt Mimi asked.

  “It hit the ceiling.”

  “Julia, I told you the ceiling in your kitchen is too low. Well, as ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

  “I don’t grow coffee. This has nothing to do with the Bible, Sis. You’re hateful.”

  Aunt Mimi, struggling to hide her glee, folded her hands. Her composure was harder to take than a full-blown hissy.

  Russell and I confessed our part in what we had hoped would be a peacemaking.

  Mother, still teary, said, “All that expensive coffee ruined.”

  “Sweep it up and use it anyway,” Aunt Mimi said to torment her.

  “I am not drinking cat hair.”

  “You do it now. You just don’t know you’re doing it.”

  This went on. Back and forth. The shuttlecock of contention.

  “You always exaggerate.” Aunt Mimi rose. “I’m going over there to see for myself.”

  Three cars drove back to our house—the Pink Pagoda, as I called it.

  When Aunt Mimi beheld her handiwork, her calm demeanor exploded into laughter.

  “It’s not runny.” Mother pouted.

  Aunt Mimi walked to the utility room and handed Mom a broom. Then she grabbed the dustpan and they cleaned up the mess, laughing all the while.

  Neither one ever
did ask me about being governor for a day.

  37

  Gators

  The bus for points north picked me up behind Howard Johnson’s just north of where the tunnel is now. The long ride passed through tiny Deep South hamlets—Winter Haven, Leesburg, Oxford. Today people think of Florida as a glitzy retreat for snowbirds. I think of it as God’s waiting room. But back then, Florida, an important agricultural state, had more in common with Alabama and Georgia. The panhandle of Florida and the southeastern part of Alabama we called Floribama.

  We docked at the Greyhound station in Gainesville early in the morning. I picked up Russell’s army duffle bag and walked to my dorm, Jennings, then brand-new. The two- or three-mile walk revealed many small wooden houses and water oaks, as well as businesses splashed with blue and orange, Florida’s colors.

  My roommate, Faye, a premed student from Jacksonville, showed up the next day. A wild woman, she figured rules were meant to be broken. She immediately set about finding one of the building maintenance people and paid him off, thereby ensuring she had a basement window to crawl in and out of after hours. This was a girl after my own heart.

  I pledged Delta Delta Delta sorority, a neat trick with no money, but they needed good students to raise their grade point average. Also, I liked them.

  Faye thought sororities a waste of time. Much more interested in fraternities, she passed on being one of the girls. She smoked, she drank, she swore, she exhibited hilarious contempt for authority and she was beautiful.

  I made the number-three spot on the varsity tennis team, eventually moving up to number two. Alice Luthy, later Tym, locked in the number-one slot. Since she was a senior, I thought I had a chance for a good college tennis career my sophomore, junior and senior years.

  I was part of an honors course. They had selected thirty freshmen for the program based on board scores, IQ and grades. Fortunately we weren’t joined at the hip. You might be with the honors group for certain classes, then back with other students for others. It kept us from being too segregated.