Mockingbird (14 page)

Mary Jo closed the door behind me. Hers was a small, dark, stuffy warren of a house. Many of her neighbors had fat evaporative air-conditioning units hanging from their back windows, but Mary Jo despised them. Instead she kept her heavy maroon drapes closed at all times, so even in the middle of the day there was barely light enough to see inside. As a girl I was forever tripping over some unseen pile of books or porcelain doll or “antique” stool that Mary Jo had collected and left lying on the floor.

The house smelled badly of mildew and wet cloth, window mold and damp paper.

“Would you please examine this?” she said morosely, jabbing something at me in the murk.

“I can't look at anything, it's pitch-black in here. Give me a minute.”

As always I could hear the whirring of fans in the darkness: the thin electric hiss of the new Sears fan back in Mary Jo's bedroom; the whine of the tiny oscillating fan she kept on top of the refrigerator; the great black iron fan, built near the end of World War II, that still patrolled her living room, sweeping his head from side to side, making the drapes and doilies shiver. Above my head, the chopping wooden blades of her ceiling fan swept into eternity.

“It's ruined, is my point.”

My eyes had adjusted to the dim light enough to see that she was holding out an old children's book. “It was on a shelf next to the wall and the rain come in and ruined it.” Mary Jo thrust the book at me again. The cover was damp and warped out of shape. Bubbles had crept under the cloth cover. “Little Black Sambo,” she said, opening it. “Fine story, a fine story for kids. A real collector's item. Now they've took it out of the school libraries 'cause it's got a black child in it. Prejudice, my aunt!” She opened the book to the place where the Tiger is chasing Little Black Sambo around the tree and turning into a pat of butter. “What's prejudiced about that? I'd think they'd want stories with black children in them. Cute kiddo, too, like a little blob of molasses. When I was a girl we called black people niggers, and they did too! Didn't mean anything by it. Like calling you a, a . . . I don't know. Nothing bad. This one old fella name of Nigger Joe used to give my brother a ride on his horse every Sunday and a pinch of tobacco. That old nigger was the kindest, most dignified fellow you ever met. A natural gentleman. Loved us kids to death. They had their own schools then. Churches too. We all got along. Look at him turning into butter. Isn't that the darnedest idea? Your momma used to think of stories like that. I never could. Used to you could find that story right on the menu at the Big Boy, you know.”

“I thought it was Denny's.”

“Was it? I don't recall.” Mary Jo shook her head. “Took it off, of course. Prejudice, my aunt. Got this for fifty cents at a garage sale the year they impeached President Nixon. I hear they built him a statue in California. Can you believe it? You build a statue of a president who broke the law, but you can't have Little Black Sambo on your menus anymore. Gosh he looks like he was made of chocolate cake in these pictures, you could just eat him up. The artist who did this sure knew how to paint.”

Humps of clutter littered Mary Jo's armchair and the dim regions of her sofa, so I eased myself down on the piano bench where she used to make me sing “O Tannenbaum” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” the year I was in fourth grade. (My Christmas solo at school had convinced her I should be a child star and sing on the radio.) Above the keyboard, blotched with water stains, yellowed sheet music stirred and fell still as the wind from the fan passed across it.

“Never find another copy for fifty cents.” Mary Jo's mouth crimped shut like a change purse closing.

The smell of mildew rose powerfully from the damp carpets and curtains.

I sighed. “Mary Jo, you need to get your roof fixed.”

She said, “I had been meaning to mention that.” She laughed, a hoarse smoker's laugh. Not like Momma's, though. Nobody laughed like Momma could. “I got a good banana pudding in the fridge if you want it, Toni. I'm gonna get me a Coke. Want one?”

She came back with one of the little six and a half ounce glass bottles, like Momma favored. “This is the real deal, you know. Not that watery Coke Classic stuff. I wanted that, I'd drink Pepsi. They used to sell that for a nickel cheaper, you know. Nobody would buy it. They must think we're all born idiots to believe that Classic's the same as old Coke before they switched.” She tapped her bottle. “These are imported from Mexico. They never did the switch there. If you get it bottled from a Mexican bottler, you get real old Coke. You can feel the difference in your nose.”

“That's really old Coke?”

“You bet.”

I headed for her fridge. We take our cold beverages seriously in Texas. Half the memories of my childhood (the ones that don't include Momma, anyway) are cold-drink memories: the sound of ice clinking in a glass of iced tea when you're stirring in the sugar; sweat beading on a bottle of Coke; the metallic taste of those big steel milkshake canisters; the way you had to open a can of Dr. Pepper in that brief era between pull-tabs and the current modified pull-tab, when there were two little raised nubs on the top for you to push in, a big one to let the pop out and a little one to let the air in. Daddy explained the whole physics of that to me.

“I buy them at the Mexican grocery down the street. You know, the lady who runs that store had a cousin who just had a third breast removed. It was growing right down from her armpit. Can you imagine?”

“I'm trying not to.” Mary Jo kept her Cokes in the side door between the Pickapeppa Sauce and a jar of Rio Grande green olives stuffed with jalapeños. She didn't seem to be eating any worse than usual: besides the banana pudding, topped in true orthodox fashion with a handful of 'Nilla wafers, I saw about sixteen little Tupperware containers full of yesterday's salad and last week's meatloaf, a package of pimento-loaf sandwich meat, a bag of Wonder Bread, half a bar of rat-trap cheese, three cans of Miller Lite, a bowl of pink marshmallow salad, and of course jars and jars of homemade salsas, jams, jellies, and relishes. There were also Giant Economy Size jars of pickles and applesauce and mayonnaise. “Mary Jo, I'm throwing out this mayonnaise,” I said, dumping the giant jar in the trash beneath the sink. “The best before date is from last Thanksgiving.”

“It ain't like I don't check it, Toni.”

“Uh-huh.” I checked the date on the pickles and applesauce. They were still good for a few more months. On top of the fridge sat a bag of Fritos closed with a chip-clip.

“The doctor said it was entirely normal to have three breasts. If you think about it, a sow has teats right down her ribs. Apparently we can too. There's a switch in your DNA turns them off.”

“Turns what off?”

“Our teats.”

“Oh. —I'll be darned. This does taste like old Coke!”

“You stay in school, honey,” Mary Jo said with her hoarse laugh. “You bound to learn something.”

I brought my little Coke back into the living room and sat on the piano bench. “The thing is, Mary Jo, I don't have the money to fix your roof.
No tengo dinero. Nada. Solamente
zip.”

“Don't whine, Toni. You always were a whiner. Do you see the roof's got to be fixed? Just answer the question.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Let's us stop making excuses, then.” Mary Jo went rummaging through a drawer in the tall glass-fronted cabinet she used to show off her prized knickknacks. “I have here a cashier's check in your name for eighteen hundred and twenty-seven dollars. It's all I can spare. It's all I've got.”

“I can't take that!”

“I made it out in February, so you best cash it directly.”

“Mary Jo!”

Mary Jo coughed. “I really am going to quit smoking. Did you ever see a picture of a smoker's lung? They had one in the
Reader's Digest,
looked like bathtub sponge soaked in motor oil. I tell you, that's it for me. I'm gonna quit.” She folded my hand around the check.

“What am I supposed to do with this? You need your whole roof fixed. That's going to be, I don't know . . . ten thousand dollars, maybe.”

“Baby, you have to look after me.” She held my hand tightly, tightly in her own. “You think I don't wish I could cover it? I make my money stuffing envelopes, sugar. It's all I'm good for. But I always came through for your momma, and she did the same for me.” Her mouth shut tight and her jaw worked. The skin of her face was pale and unhealthy-looking. “Don't make me beg, kiddo. Don't you make me a beggar.”

“We'll look after you, Mary Jo. I promise you that.”

“She left all her money to that baby. Angela. She told me a hundred times she wouldn't forget me when it was time for her to go, but she did after all. She said she was sorry when she got out of the hospital. Every blessed dime to this girl she never seen in nearly forty years, what a crazy thing. And the people here, you and Candy and all of us, not one nickel. Not one dime. All that Friesen money, and where did it go?” Mary Jo gave my hand a squeeze. “Your daddy said you knew about Angie now.”

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Ma-maw would spin in her grave if she saw me living this way,” Mary Jo said. “Pappy would have tanned my hide. Letting water get on the books. He loved his books. I haven't ironed since I don't know when.”

“Mary Jo—”

“There were times your momma would have lost her mind if it wasn't for me,” Mary Jo said fiercely. “If she didn't have someone who knew. Someone she could talk to. Your daddy never wanted to hear about little Angela. She didn't blame him, he was good to her, so good to her, even after he didn't love her anymore.” Mary Jo was crying, a couple of tears on the old soft sallow skin of her face. “She wasn't the easiest friend in the world to have, you know.”

“I know it,” I said.

“That Angela. Hah. I'd like to meet her just one time before I die.” Slowly Mary Jo let go of my hands.

I put the crumpled check in my purse. There are some gifts which cannot be refused.

That was the afternoon before I had my fight with Candy in Slick Willie's. The house was empty when I got home. Daddy was on the road for American Express, swinging through the northern loop of his territory: Waco, Dallas, Texarkana, Little Rock, Pine Bluff, Monroe, Shreveport, back across the Texas line into Longview, Tyler, and home. Seemed like the older he got the harder they worked him. Now at sixty-two he was covering a territory three men used to handle. Sometimes they made him go as far north as Oklahoma City, or as far east as Jackson, Mississippi. I told him they were trying to force him to retire early so they could cut down on his pension and benefits, but Daddy wouldn't complain.

(I'm in the kitchen helping Momma do the dishes. She turns on the radio on top of the fridge. The Astros are batting in the sixth with one out and one on. She catches me looking at her. “I know. It makes no sense.” She shrugs. “When Daddy's on the road I like the company. It reminds me of him.” She cocks her hip and gives an up-from-under smile, imitating how she is when Sugar is riding her, and switches to Sugar's sweet, husky, playful voice. “But when he's at home, I want him to shut the damn thing off and pay attention to
me.
”)

It still surprised me not to find her in that kitchen.

But the kitchen was mine now, if it was anyone's. I meant to live up to it. During the two months of morning sickness I had lost some faith in my pregnancy books for telling me, in tones varying from jolly to menacing, that I had better be eating ten small portions of whole grain starches per day, five or six portions of fruit or fresh vegetables, three portions of hard protein, and enough milk to drown a cat. To a woman living on a handful of Saltines a day it seemed a tad fantastical. It was especially hard to care once I read the fine print, which said that it was only me, not my baby, who would suffer if my diet went to hell. Apparently evolution had its priorities straight; the baby would suck the needed nutrients from my body, leaching the vitamins from my skin and the calcium right out of my bones if necessary. I read this with a sigh of relief and, since I couldn't possibly feel worse than I did already, pushed all thoughts of food away like a bowl of steaming chicken's innards.

But now that I was officially into the second trimester my appetite had returned, and with it my determination. After all, once the baby was born and weaned, I really would be cooking for two. Between college, work, and studying for my actuarial exams, food had been a low priority since I left home: something that came in a disposable cardboard package, soon forgotten. Now, back in the kitchen of my childhood, surrounded by ropes of peppers and bulbs of dried garlic and herbs blooming along the window sill, I was determined to do better.

I flipped on the radio. The Astros were playing their first afternoon game of the year, a businessman's special against the Dodgers. We'd just gone to our bullpen for a jittery rookie southpaw from the Dominican. “This fella's so jumpy—” said Milo Hamilton, the play-by-play man, “—he'd make coffee nervous,” I chorused out loud, keeping Milo company. It was Milo Hamilton who called Hank Aaron's 715th home run, the one that broke Babe Ruth's record, back when he was broadcasting for the Atlanta Braves. Old-time baseball guys have a kind of wit all their own. I think it was Milo who once said, talking about Charlie Hustle, the legendary Pete Rose, “If Pete were to remarry at the age of eighty-five, he'd look for a house near a school.”

Our reliever did his job, inducing a pop-up with a riding fastball at the letters to end the top of the seventh inning with the score tied 2–2. I flipped through a list of Approved Pregnancy Recipes as the game cut away to an ad for Mac Haik Chevy's Good Ol' Boy promotion: buy a pickup truck and they'd throw in a shotgun for free. I had just decided to try a recipe for Wheat Germ Enhanced Lasagna when the phone rang. “Hello?”

“'Bout time.”

“Candy? Is that you?”

“Mostly. You were Out. I called knowing you are always In, but you were Out.”