by Leah Weiss
Piece after piece, I lay out my crimes for my best friend to bear witness. When the box is empty, I look up and declare, “I steal things, Lu.”
She says, “What’s the last thing you stole?”
“This silver thingy. When we had our birthday tea in the sunroom at Aunt Fanniebelle’s.”
“Well, that is six months back, so you’re slowing down your stealing. Are you going to stop altogether? Is that why you’re showing me?”
Her question stumps me. Is that why I’m showing her these things? I say, “I guess.”
“You can’t be guessing, Bert. You gotta know for sure. Are your stealing days over? Do you need this stuff anymore?”
She makes me squirm, what with her shooting hard words at me. “If I say okay, then what?”
“You’ll give everything back that you can. Tell the truth. Ask for forgiveness.”
Lord’a mercy, that won’t what I wanted to do. “You mean tell Mama. And Trula Freed. And Aunt Fanniebelle what I done?”
“What I did,” Lu corrects me but with soft words. “It’s the only way. Then you’ll burn the treasure box, because you won’t need it anymore.”
I don’t know if I can give up my comforts. I’m darn sure I can’t confess out loud. I whisper, “They’ll hate me. Mama’s gonna throw me out.”
Lu sighs. “That won’t happen. Everybody loves a wrong turned right. Everybody loves you. I think your heart will fly high when you unburden yourself. You have no idea what your stealing’s been doing.”
Why can’t she see these things are mine to keep for a mighty reason?
Lu says, “I’m gonna leave you here with your box of things. If you come down carrying the box, I’ll know you chose redemption for yourself. I’ll help all I can. If you hide it again, the time isn’t right. That’s all. Whatever happens, it’s all gonna work out.”
I ain’t strong enough that day to give stuff back, but I decide to stop stealing. I still get a flutter in my heart to take something that don’t belong to me. The last thing I wanna steal is Irene’s hair comb, crusted with a line of rhinestones, that she hardly wears cause it’s fancy. I tell Lu bout that feeling, and the two of us stand in Irene’s bedroom when she’s at work. We look down on that jeweled hair comb on her dresser.
Lu says, “Pick it up,” and I do so I feel its fine weight in my hand, press the teeth against my palm.
She says, “Put it in your hair,” and I do. I stand there looking at myself in the mirror over Irene’s dresser. I twist my head from side to side so the light sparkles.
Lu says, “Stand there and look at yourself until those feelings go away. Until you can put that sparkly comb down and leave it there. Keep looking till it lets you go.”
I do, and it does, but it takes a while.
Chapter 37
Lucy: Key of G
Like Bert going against her thieving ways, Mama has a softening of the heart. She told our workers to make room on the benches so the men could all eat dinner together, and we put away the makeshift table and chairs.
It’s a lot of little things that makes this big thing happen. The tall one named Joe laughs easy like Everett. At the water barrel where he washes up, he splashes water on his face, throws back his head, and shouts, “Yah,” with a big grin of crooked teeth. With each serving of food that goes on his plate, he says, “Yum yum,” and tickles us.
Wolf is the short one who tends bees and whistles while he works. How that was determined came early when the two POWs were told to hold out their bare arms. Daddy held a chunk of ice on their forearms till the skin got numb, then held a worker bee between tweezers and let her plant her stinger in the cold patch of skin; the men went back to the field, rubbing their arms, looking confused.
The next day, Daddy iced their arms again in the same place and this time he set two stingers in the same patch of skin. Right away, Joe’s arm got hot and itchy. Wolf’s arm looked mildly irritated, so he was the one to work bees. Joe went back to tobacco. Wolf would say he got the sweeter part of the deal, stings and all.
Helen has not softened toward the prisoners. She stays inside at dinnertime and holds tight to her hate. Fearing she’ll hear one of the Germans speak, when dinner starts, she turns up the radio to drown outside voices. Today, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” fills the air. I hear seven-month-old Baby Girl start to cry in her crib in the bedroom Helen stays at the sink, and Baby Girl cries louder.
I shout, “Want me to fetch her for you?” but Helen doesn’t answer. She keeps washing the same plate. “I can bring her to you if you like.” She still doesn’t answer.
Then the crying stops. Baby Girl never stops crying on her own. She stops when she’s fed. She stops when she’s picked up.
I run to the bedroom, and Helen is right behind. The crib is empty, and through the open window, we see our tall German, Joe, holding Baby Girl in his arms. He’s smiling and cooing at her, but Helen goes crazy. She leans out the window with her arms flung wide and screams in a thorny voice, “Get your filthy hands off her.”
Joe freezes, and his face fills with confusion and grief. Mama rushes around the corner all aflutter and takes the child from Joe’s arms while he says, “So sorry, so sorry.” Mama gives the baby to Helen, who grabs her too tight, and the baby squirms to be free. Helen pulls her inside. I lower the shade.
My oldest sister sits on the edge of the bed. She rocks and sobs in a private pain that words can’t find. The radio is turned off, and Mama hurries into the bedroom and kneels in front of Helen. “Dear girl, my sweet girl,” she croons and strokes Helen’s arms. Baby Girl nuzzles Helen’s breast, and her milk lets down. Mama gently pulls back the dress so the baby can nurse. Helen strokes the baby’s soft hair.
“The man who picked up Baby Girl…he won’t do it again,” Mama says, because there is no reasoning with Helen’s wounded mind. Mama doesn’t say that Joe has a baby girl of his own he left behind. Byron told us as a courtesy.
Helen turns glassy eyes to Mama and whispers, “What if Wade dies? What if he comes back like Whiz, broken and lost and no good as a husband or a daddy?”
“Then we’ll help him heal. We Browns are a family of love, and love can cure most everything. But do you want to borrow trouble before its time? You have an important purpose right now, and Baby Girl needs you. Finish feeding her and change your dress. The men have gone back to the fields.”
That evening, Daddy takes Helen and Baby Girl to Aunt Fanniebelle’s house. She needs to heal in an easier place. I wonder if she met Weegee? Maybe she’ll ask her about Wade.
While Helen mends out of sight, our tobacco grows high and peaches grow ripe, and on a regular Tuesday, Mama makes peach cobbler. To celebrate the first peaches and a reprieve from stifling heat, Daddy fetches his fiddle. Lydia, Cora, Bert, and I sing “Keep on the Sunny Side” full-voiced like the Carter Family while Daddy plucks the strings as background. When we finish, we bow, and everybody applauds.
Wolf steps forward and holds out his hand for Daddy’s fiddle. Puzzled, Daddy gives it to him. Wolf deftly tunes the instrument and tucks it under his chin, and out flows a haunting melody in a minor key with the flavor of a gypsy soul about it. The skill is extraordinary. The final notes lie soft in the air. One minute, our German is a farmhand in need of a bath, then he leaves us breathless.
We learn that Wolf played a tune by Felix Mendelssohn written a hundred years ago in our mutual homeland. That evening, like I knew she would, Mama looks up Mr. Mendelssohn in our Encyclopedia Britannica. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, wrote romantic music, and started performing when he was Cora’s age. This sounds like the good part of our German heritage, something to be proud of. Mendelssohn’s parents were musicians, too, and Jewish, but when they were freed from the ghetto, they became baptized Christians and members of the Lutheran Church. I didn’t know a Jew could become something different by saying so. “Did they do it to
be safe?” I ask, but Mama says don’t speculate, because that’s a dangerous thing, and truth is something different. Mr. Mendelssohn was thirty-eight years old when he died.
“How old’s Daddy?” Lydia wants to know.
“Forty-five,” Mama says, then quickly adds, “But Oma was sixty-four. Your daddy’s fine, honey.”
After that peach cobbler day, Wolf plays when dessert is served. Daddy doesn’t mind the minutes it takes to pause and refresh. He read a book by the psychologist B. F. Skinner, who believes positive stimuli elicit better behavior. Wolf’s music is a positive stimulus. It makes our hearts happy. Happy hearts make everything better.
And for the first time in a long time, we get enough rain, and our tobacco grows strong. It’s now time for the opening of market.
Chapter 38
Bert: Movie Stars
When market comes in August of ’44, me and Lu are mostly grown at fourteen years and seven months. I been living with the Browns for fourteen months and fourteen days. Fourteen must be my lucky number.
Some of my mountain tongue has ripened into proper Southern, but for comfort, I hold on to pieces of twang. I read books without pictures now and I’m up to forty-one, sixth grade level. Lu is nearing eight hundred books but tells me it ain’t a contest, so pay no mind to her number. Mama and Daddy don’t even count their reading numbers anymore. Maybe numbers don’t go that high. I feel smart compared to where I come from. I’m ready to hold my own with some college girls.
This opening of market, Patricia Hollingston and her three friends come down from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Lu points out Ithaca on the map, so I know it’s a long way to come to rattle our farming town. Patricia is the late-in-life daughter of Uncle Nigel and Aunt Fanniebelle, and Lu says she has wanted for nothing. I saw lots of pictures of her in frames and on the walls when we stayed in the mansion. And it’s there that Weegee stays in the bottom of the walnut secretary. We only called on her one more time to ask the same question bout Frankie Tender. She gave the same answer as she did for Larry. HOME.
Lu and me are six years younger than Patricia, and we’ve been invited to Friday tea, which is going to be served under the portico, not in the sunroom. The day before, we wash our hair and rinse it with lemon juice so it smells nice. Mama drives us to the mansion so we don’t get rumpled. Daddy and Grady are already at the tobacco warehouse off Main Street. We’ll meet them later and eat supper at Morningside Oyster Bar, then go to the dance. Or maybe I won’t go to the dance. Nasty gossip about me has grown thin, but more than I can say, I wish Frankie Tender would be singing tonight and I could have a do-over. Frankie Tender would want a do-over, too.
We go to the front door like guests instead of the side door like family. When I first lay eyes on Patricia Hollingston, I get the gumption knocked out of me. She’s a movie star like Ingrid Bergman and Gene Tierney, gorgeous and perfect. White teeth, ruby lips, polished nails, hair bobbed, and silk nylons in leather pumps with nary a scuff mark. Standing next to Patricia Hollingston, I’m a cow patty. A pig farmer. A pig farmer who wallows in slop. Next to Patricia Hollingston, I ain’t moved a inch from my plain roots like I thought.
Patricia squeals. She gives Lu a perfumed hug. “Lucy Brown, you’re so dahling,” she gushes, holding her cousin out at arm’s length to study on her. “Turn around,” she orders, and Lu spins, sending her skirt in a twirl, looking young and silly.
She remembers I’m here and turns to me. “And this is my best friend, Bert.”
Patricia’s smile shifts. “Bert? What kind of girl’s name is Bert?” Her voice carries a thorn.
“Her whole name is Allie Bert Tucker, but she only answers to Bert.”
“Well, Allie Bert Tucker, it’s good to meet you.” Patricia insults me a second time and gives me her weak hand to shake instead of a hug, but Lu don’t see it like that. She’s starstruck.
“Pleased to meet you.” I sound stuck-up and shy in my homemade dress that looks every inch homemade next to Patricia’s store-bought one that shows off her womanly curves.
Patricia introduces us to her friends I won’t never see again. They got fancy names like I thought they would: Alice Madison, Ashley Johannson, and Annemarie Moss. They go together like puzzle pieces. I forget their names right away.
Lu gushes, “Alice, Ashley, and Annemarie—with all those A names, are they your A team?” and they giggle.
I think they’re assholes. Asshole one, asshole two, and asshole three. Patricia is the queen asshole.
Lu gushes on, “Tell me about college. What are you studying?”
I want to pinch her so she stops acting stupid.
The A girl with the dark hair parted down the middle and rolled at the neck reminds me of Miz Elvira at the library but not as pretty. She says, “It’s boring since all the men over twenty-one have been drafted in that godforsaken war. But Patricia is the lucky one,” she says, and Patricia holds out her left hand to show off a sparkly ring that’s way too big to be real, but I know it is.
“Oh, Patricia,” Lu squeals. “What’s his name? Where’s he from?”
“He’s a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He looks dashing in his dress uniform, if I may say so. His name is Julian Sanders the Third from the New York Sanders family. He’ll be a partner in his daddy’s law firm one day. I can’t think of a more perfect man for me. Our engagement will be announced in the newspapers soon.” She whispers, “You two are the first people in Riverton to know—other than my parents and Helen. I don’t know where he’s stationed, but he writes every day. It’s the hardest thing for us to be apart.” She tears up perfectly.
“Is it true,” one of the assholes whispers, “that you have Nazis in a prison camp at the docks?”
Lu says, “We have two that help on the farm. One works tobacco. The other bees.”
“Oh my word,” “Heaven help us,” and “Good grief” overlap from the mouths of the prissy girls, clutching their hearts, their eyes big and wide.
Patricia whispers, “Helen said one of them stole Betty Jean right out of her crib.”
I say right back, “He didn’t steal her. He was comforting her. Cause she was crying and Helen wouldn’t feed her. And we like em. The Germans. They our friends. Our Nazi friends.” I want to rile up this perfect world. I don’t care that my words sting. I don’t like these people. They act snooty.
The four college girls stare at me with cold eyes, and I have a pinch of regret for messing up our invite we’ve been looking forward to. Lu looks like she’s gonna cry, and that surprises me. She likes Joe and Wolf, so why wouldn’t she stand up for em and tell the truth?
Patricia takes my hands. She holds them tight so I can’t snatch em away. She’s strong for a college girl. She looks at me and from her perfect mouth says, “I’m going to forgive you that heartless remark, Allie Bert Tucker, knowing my fiancé is in some godforsaken place fighting for his very life and our country’s freedom. And you forget that dear Helen’s husband, Wade, is MIA, all because of dangerous enemies who are no friends of ours. But I did not come home to quarrel. I want to spend a lovely afternoon with my favorite cousin and her wonderful best friend. Can we call a truce and mend this awkward moment?”
I feel small.
I hate her and like her all at once for her bravery.
Nancy Drew would look like Patricia, only Nancy’s got more brains.
I nod, and Patricia gives me a big perfumed hug and says, “Forget the tea for now. It’ll keep. Let’s go upstairs. I’ve been dying to doll you two girls up from the moment I saw you. Makeup, curled hair, fingernail polish, the works. You’re already beautiful, but we’re going to make you irresistible.”
The A team goes to work on Lu’s hair, rolling the back and waving the sides. Patricia works on me. She sits me in front of a big round mirror. Daylight pours in from two tall windows on each side and makes me look bright and c
lean. She opens jars and taps fluffy brushes on her wrist and pats stuff on my face, saying, “Allie, you are a rare beauty.”
I don’t fight when she calls me Allie, cause this is a different girl sitting in front of the mirror.
“See how this blush makes your cheeks look sun kissed? You only need a little. A lady doesn’t overdo. And this is my favorite perfume. Emeraude. You put a tiny dab behind each ear, like this.” Her touch is like a butterfly wing. “I’m going to give you this little bottle, but use it sparingly. It is powerful.”
Then she holds up a finger and says, “Wait, wait, wait. Let me get something.”
I’m left with a stranger looking back at me. I smile, and she smiles.
Patricia come back carrying a dress on a padded hanger. “This teal-blue fabric looks exquisite next to your auburn hair. Look what it does to your eyes and the gold in your skin. Try it on.”
“Now?”
“It’s only us girls, and we’ve seen it all.”
I feel shy in my slip that was Irene’s hand-me-down, a little proud that my bosom is full and high, but a traitor to Mama’s dress she labored over in the evenings. When I put on the taffeta dress Patricia don’t want no more and she hooks the back, buckles the thin matching belt, and turns me around to look at myself, everybody stares. Lu comes beside me wearing a Patricia hand-me-down in purple with white on the edges that is perfect for her.
Patricia says to the A team, “May I present Miz Lucy Brown and Miz Allie Tucker, who will break hearts from one end of Mercer County to the other.”
We stand like happy fools, grinning at ourselves. We are movie stars. We look as sharp as Nancy Drew on her book covers. Nobody can deny the girls in the mirror are smarter than they were before.
Patricia gets her Kodak camera and takes a picture to remember the day. I forget I was mad and grin like the fool.