Singing Hands (4 page)

"That's my old spring formal, Gussie! It's way too fancy for church. And besides, it's too big for you. You're swimming in it."

"Well, good," I had called back happily through the screen door as Nell and I set off. "I'll just keep swimming right on over to the Advent. Ta-ta! Have fun at the fellowship lunch!"

I checked my wristwatch. Only five minutes until the nine o'clock service. We could have caught the earlier streetcar if Mother hadn't forced us to eat before we left. Now my breakfast of eggs and toast flip-flopped in my stomach as the car rocked around the circle at Five Points and picked up speed on Twentieth Street, rattling past Daddy's bank, the five-and-dime, and Hillman Hospital. Normally, I wouldn't have minded being late for church, but I didn't want to be too late for our first time at the Advent.

At Morris Avenue, the streetcar stopped to let a Negro family on—three little boys, a mother, and a grandma, all dressed in church clothes. The grandma was huffing, probably from rushing to catch the car. Slowly she heaved herself up the steps, paid the conductor, and made her way panting down the aisle. There were empty spaces up front, where I wished she could sit and rest. But, of course, we had to wait for the whole family to file to the colored section in the very back.

"Put your gloves on," I told Nell as the streetcar started off again. "We're almost there." We weren't used to wearing gloves to church. At Saint Jude's we could never keep them on for very long since they made it too difficult to fingerspell. I snapped open my white patent-leather purse. My gloves were buried at the bottom, under a pile of pennies. Nell leaned over to peer inside my pocketbook as I fished through the jangling change.

"Good grief," she said. "Why'd you bring all those pennies?"

"For the collection plate," I told her. "It's all I had left from my allowance last month. What have you got?"

Nell reached into her plastic change purse and proudly held up two shiny dimes.

"Well, goody for you," I said with a smirk. Nell was a lot better at resisting temptation than I was. I could never leave Morgan's corner drugstore without at least a
True Detective
magazine and maybe a Baby Ruth or a Sugar Daddy. Nell, on the other hand, was oddly happy just to browse through the magazine and candy racks and dream about what she might buy next time.

"Sixth Avenue North!" the conductor called out as he yanked the door lever. It was our stop. I could see the huge carved doors of the Advent across the street. They were already closed. Only a few stragglers were rushing up the wide front steps.

"Hurry," I whispered to Nell. There wasn't enough time to take the crosswalk, so we dashed straight across Twentieth, holding our hats on our heads as we ran.

"Gussie, you're jingling!" Nell panted. "Slowdown."

We collected ourselves as we climbed the stairs. Nell bent over to refold her ankle socks. I straightened my hat and repositioned my purse tightly under my arm so the pennies would stop clinking. Then I took a deep breath and hauled open the heavy oak door. Nell scooted in behind me, and for a minute we both stood in the vestibule, letting our eyes adjust to the shadowy light.

"Gee," I heard Nell say softly. The Advent couldn't have been more different from Saint Jude's. Daddy's church was what you would call a no-frills establishment—linoleum floors, whitewashed walls, plain pine benches, and a simple wooden cross hanging behind the altar. Sure, there were a couple of fancy things—the cloth embroidered in gold that covered the altar, and the smooth marble font where babies were baptized. But compared with Daddy's church, the Advent reminded me of an overgrown peacock. Everywhere you looked there was something magnificent, from the mosaic tile floors to the tall stained-glass windows all around us that seemed to glow with ruby red and gold light.

With our shoulders touching, Nell and I moved toward the stone arch that led into the sanctuary. Just as we walked through the opening, a grand-sounding pipe organ and choir exploded into song. Nell craned her neck, searching the vaulted ceilings, as if she thought the music was truly coming down from heaven. But the choir was up front, behind the high pulpit in facing pews, with its members arranged as neatly as chess pieces in their long black robes and white surplices.

I poked Nell in the side with my elbow. "Where should we sit?" I mouthed. The back rows seemed to be filled with babies and toddlers, all being hushed and bounced by their doting parents. At Saint Jude's, parents let their babies whimper and wail till their faces turned blue.

Nell gave a little shrug, scanning the packed pews for space. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was an old man, trying to tell me something. "Here," he croaked over the music, "let me show you young ladies to a seat. There's an empty place or two up front." We had no choice but to follow his slow, shuffling steps down the wide center aisle. He was so stooped and withered, he looked like he had been ushering folks down church aisles for the last fifty years—without ever taking a break between trips.

I tried to ignore the heads turning as we passed each pew. Nell didn't seem to mind a bit that everyone was staring. She might as well have been Miss Alabama riding on a float in the Cotton Bowl parade, the way she kept smiling at people on both sides. I half expected her to fling up her hand and wave to the crowd.

Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer. I turned my head to see what she was beaming at, and in one glance from right to left, I spotted two kids from her class at South Glen peering over the tops of their hymnals at us. And there was the boy who ran the soda fountain at Morgan's, looking strange in a tie and a fresh crewcut instead of his apron and pointed paper cap. I glanced away before he could catch my eye.

The old man hobbled to a stop at the third row on the right—just as the hymn was ending. He stood patiently waiting for the dark-haired girl at the end of the row to notice us, then slide over to make room. When the girl finally looked up, I felt the corners of my mouth lift in a sickly grin. Missy DuPage. Last year's queen of the South Glen Fall Fun Festival.
What was going on?
Did everyone who went to South Glen have to be Episcopalian? I had thought everybody but us was Baptist or Methodist. And did they all really have to look up at the exact moment that Nell and I were escorted in late, without any family, by the wobbliest usher in Birmingham?

Missy pretended that she didn't recognize me at first. She and her fashion-plate mother and her handsome father and college-boy brother slowly scootched toward the other end of the pew. But I knew Missy was giving Nell and me the once-over as we quickly knelt, then settled ourselves next to them. I could feel her gaze scraping its way along my hand-me-down formal and landing on my skinny shins poking out like Popsicle sticks. Suddenly, the skirt of my dress felt downright poufy, as if someone had blown up the slip with a bicycle pump.

I tried to tuck a couple of handfuls of taffeta under my legs, then opened my prayer book and flipped through the pages, searching for the right place. Nell was looking, too. I waited for Missy or her mother to lean over and whisper the page number, but they didn't move.
Rude,
I thought, my fingers itching to make the sign for "rude" and waggle it under Missy's turned-up nose.

Luckily, Nell found the right page, so I could pay attention to the service and try to forget that I was ten inches away from the festival queen and her perfect family. The minister had begun to read the first Lesson. How easy this was. Most of the time at Saint Jude's, I gave up trying to decipher the meaning of Daddy's prayers and sermons after he swept his hands through the first few signs. His signs were always brightly illuminated by a spotlight carefully positioned above the altar, but the sad truth was that if I focused too long on those lightning hands, I went home with a headache from thinking too hard.

But here I could close my eyes and let the minister's words and the fine voice of the soloist in the choir wash over me. I could understand the message without even trying, and just like Daddy said, I could
sing.
Maybe he was right. Maybe the Advent was the best place for Nell and me after all.

Nell gave me a nudge. "Money."

"What?" I said, blinking back to attention.

"Get your money," she whispered. "They're taking up the collection. Then we're supposed to go out to Sunday school with the other kids."

"Sunday school?" I had forgotten about Sunday school.

"Shhh," she warned. "We go in just a minute. Right before the sermon."

All at once the ancient usher was standing at the end of our pew again, handing Nell the silver collection plate. It was full of tidy little pledge envelopes with money tucked inside, but since we were new to the Advent, we didn't have our envelopes yet. Nell dropped in her two dimes while I fumbled in the bottom of my pocketbook for a handful of pennies. It was hard to pick them up with my gloves on, and I could feel Missy DuPage peering over my shoulder, waiting.

I took the collection plate from Nell, trying to slip the pennies in quick, so that Missy wouldn't notice my pitiful offering. But she noticed, all right. Working to get my fistful of coins into the silver plate quietly, I didn't realize that my purse, still open, was tipping sideways in my lap. Then I heard it. Everyone heard it—the sound of pennies striking the hardwood floor under the pew. Most of them simply scattered, but a few rolled slowly down the slightly pitched incline toward the altar. Several folks up ahead turned around to investigate or looked between their knees for the source of the sound.

Missy stared at me. She stared as if I was a piece of dirty bubble gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe. It was the same look she had given me that day last year when all the contestants for the Fall Fun Festival queen had gathered on the stage during a school assembly to hear the principal announce the winner. There were five of us, and the student body had voted during the two weeks leading up to the festival by putting coins in glass milk jugs underneath our school pictures. Whoever had the largest amount of money in her jug would not only become queen but would also have the honor of buying the most tickets for needy children to attend the fair free of charge.

Missy had squealed when the principal announced her name. "Our new queen—Missy DuPage!" Mr. Ryker shouted. "Twenty-five dollars and ninety cents!" All the students clapped as he pointed proudly to her jug, which was brimming with nickels and dimes and quarters.

Then, unfortunately, Mr. Ryker had felt the need to list the wonderful contributions earned by the other worthy contestants. "Gussie Davis ... four dollars and twelve cents." I saw Missy glance in my direction with that bubble-gum-on-the-shoe look. My jug was only half full ... of nothing but pennies.

And here I was, queen of nothing but pennies again.

I passed the collection plate to Missy, trying to appear unruffled, as if I had just dropped a five-dollar bill on top of the pile of envelopes. But Mrs. DuPage was pointing to a spot in front of Missy's stylish slippers.

"Missy, dear," I heard her whisper, "pick up that penny by your toe for the little girl next to you."

Missy dutifully bent over to fetch the penny, and I held out my hand to take it. Then, as if I could possibly feel more humiliated, I noticed Missy raise one eyebrow when she looked down at my hand. I looked down, too, and almost gasped. The palm of my glove was filthy, smudged all over with black. I must have run my hand along the banister on my way into church or touched the sides of the streetcar. Why was I surprised? Everything in Birmingham was covered with soot from the steel mills at the edge of town, churning coal dust from their smokestacks around the clock.

Missy dropped the penny into my palm, making sure not to touch any part of my glove. When I murmured "Thank you," she gave a little sniff and turned back toward her mother. No one she associated with would ever show up at church wearing dirty gloves.

With my cheeks still burning, I squeezed the penny in my hand tighter and tighter, as if I could wring blood from copper. The minister was announcing that it was time for all the youngsters to head to their Sunday-school classes. I knew I'd probably be assigned to the incoming junior high class with Missy and all of her snow white-gloved friends.

The truth was I didn't belong at the Advent any more than I belonged at Daddy's church for the deaf. Still, there was nothing to do but stand and file out of the pew behind Nell, stepping over my fallen pennies as I went.

I couldn't wait to get to the Cussing Woods after church that day. I hadn't been there since my old best friend, Barbara Blackwell, moved away. Barbara and I used to spend all kinds of time in the vacant lot two blocks from my house. It was there that we discovered how good it felt to say out loud all the bad words we knew—and at the same time whack leaves off the scrubby trees with switches we had made out of sweet-gum branches. We knew only four or five cuss words worth repeating, but even though we had to say the same ones over and over, nothing cured a rotten mood faster than a good round of cussing and switching.

Nell didn't approve of the Cussing Woods. Whenever Barbara and I headed in that direction, she usually stayed behind. But my silence all the way home from the Advent on the streetcar must have worried her. She tagged right along behind me when I stepped off the car and turned toward the vacant lot.

But naturally she couldn't follow me without complaining. "Come on, Gus," she said as we reached the edge of the woods. "Why don't we go home and change our clothes first? Our dresses will get ruined in there."

"Good," I snapped, ducking under a low-hanging branch. "I'm never gonna put this dress on again as long as I live."

Nell stopped a few paces behind me. "Why not? I think it's pretty."

"Then you can have it," I grumbled, yanking a fold of taffeta away from a blackberry bush that hung over our old dirt path. Every summer the little patch of woods seemed to spring to life with honeysuckle, kudzu vine, and pine saplings for a couple of wild green weeks before falling back to its usual scraggly, dusty-looking state.