Apron Strings (4 page)

While Gordy and Helen followed the script, I straightened, clawed, squirmed, and straightened again, attempting to relieve the misery of my dress. The ladies jabbered away. Gordy nodded like a slinky toy going down a staircase as Miss Eades talked about her godson. I knew she was talking about her godson because that was all Miss Eades ever talked about. Ethel said Miss Eades was “stout.” I thought she was just plain fat. She wore the same kind of stockings Ethel did: the ones that roll up just under the knee. You could see the rolls when she sat down and her dress hiked up. Miss Eades didn’t just spill out of everything she wore; she spilled
on
everything she wore, too. Stuart swore she once saw a whole cucumber sandwich stuck in Miss Eades’s pearl necklace. The pink frilly dress she was wearing showed food stains when she walked in the door. Her purse looked like it might have been a better size for Helen. The tiny little thing was stuck on her wrist like a rubber band and swung about as she sucked from her teacup. I watched as she stuffed a sandwich in her mouth and blew crumbs on Gordy’s shirt. He looked mournfully over at me. I started to laugh, which made my dress start to itch again.

I should have already been mingling. When my mother asked her usual question—”Have you spoken to everyone?”—I would need an affirmative answer before there was any hope of being dismissed; squirmy or not. In the throes of what must have looked like a mild fit, I had failed to pay attention to my surroundings. Mrs. Mason’s approach startled me. I swallowed and tried to remember the crucial steps of the “first greeting” my mother had drilled into each of us:
look them in the eye, remember their names, smile and be pleasant, and above all—no dead fish handshakes!

“Why, Sallee, you are getting prettier and prettier, turning into quite the little lady,” Mrs. Mason said, sitting down next to me before I could jump up and shake her hand. She reached over and patted my knee. I didn’t know if I should stand up and shake her hand or remain seated and smile.

“Thanks…I mean thank you, Miz Mason,” I said, caught in an awkward crouch. I limply reached out my hand to shake hers. She took my
hand in both of hers; an action decidedly absent from the script my mother had drilled. Her charm bracelet jingled. My eyes grew wide with admiration. “Oh, can I…I mean, may I…look at your charms? I love charm bracelets. I can’t wait to be big enough to have one,” I gushed. It wasn’t so terribly difficult to greet someone, especially someone like Mrs. Mason. But my mother insisted it must be done properly, and there were so many rules that only she seemed to know. Mrs. Mason held her gloved hand out for me to inspect the bracelet.

“This charm came from Russia. Look what it does,” she said. She felt around the small golden sphere for an invisible catch. The charm sprung open to reveal six tiny picture frames. The pictures were so small the people could have been anyone. Mrs. Mason said they were her children and her grandbabies.

She let me inspect the pictures for some time. Of all of my mother’s “tea party” friends, Mrs. Mason was my favorite. She was pretty, but old—probably around fifty—though she didn’t act that old. She smiled more than most old women, and her smile never seemed fake. She didn’t smell old, either; more like loose powder and faint flowers.

She lit a cigarette. “What are you doing to keep yourself busy this summer?” she asked. Mrs. Mason exhaled smoke over my head as she tilted her’s to catch my response.

“I don’t know,” I replied absently. “Nothin’.” I tried to think of another topic that might interest her. I patted her arm gently. “Well, Miz Mason,” I said, “how’s your pig?”

A trail of smoke escaped her lips. She smiled, her forehead crinkled with confusion and amusement. “Pig?” she asked. “Honey, I don’t have a pig. Where on earth would you come up with a notion like that?”

I blushed, flustered. I tried to recall details from my mother’s conversation. “You know, the one that gets all sunburned,” I offered. “The one the doctor said you can’t take outside anymore unless she’s wearing a hat and gloves.” Mrs. Mason’s expression was still puzzled, but no longer amused.

She laughed nervously. Just then my mother appeared. “A pig, Sallee?” Mrs. Mason asked. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” She eyed my mother suspiciously.

“Sallee Mackey, you apologize this instant!” my mother commanded. She looked earnestly at Mrs. Mason. “Dorothy, I am so sorry. I don’t know what I am going to do with this child. There are times when she can’t tell fact from her own stories. I don’t know how she comes up with this stuff.”

Mrs. Mason stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette, the charms of her bracelet jingled and banged against the ashtray. “No doubt she is only repeating something she has heard,” she said, not looking at my mother. “Ginny, it’s been a lovely party, but I really must be going.” After she gathered up her purse and cigarettes, Mrs. Mason turned to me. “In the future, young lady, you would be well advised not to ask so many questions.”

“I’m sorry,” I sputtered. Mrs. Mason brushed past me. The other guests hadn’t noticed a thing. My mother swooped down, grabbed my arm, and escorted me to the parlor door hissing like a mad goose. I scurried upstairs in shame. In that instant I was jealous of Stuart. She didn’t care what our mother thought of her. I wished somehow I had her distance, her cool detachment.

When my mother walked into the kitchen later that night as we were eating dinner, I noticed Ethel quickly tipped out the contents of a tin cup into the sink. The cup must’ve been nearly full. She refilled it with water from the faucet and took a sip. She placed the cup back beside her on the sink and continued washing the tea party dishes. My mother leaned against the counter.

“I love those old girls,” she said, “but dear Lord, it is getting harder and harder to entertain them. And Betty Chambers, who calls herself my best friend, won’t even come.” She mimicked Miss Chambers in a high-pitched voice. “‘Oh, Ginny, you are such a darling to keep inviting them, but who has tea anymore, really?’” Then she answered in her own voice, “Della Eades, that’s who, though she gets more food on her dress than in her mouth, poor dear.”

Ethel chuckled as she finished drying the teapot. She began to stack the cups and saucers on a tray.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to consider it my civic duty,” my mother said. “But we don’t have to do it quite so often, do we? I wish they could play
bridge.” She folded an arm across her chest, leaned her opposite elbow on it, and held her chin in her cupped hand. She tapped her cheek lightly as her cigarette smoldered between her fingers. “Emily said shopping centers are all the rage in Connecticut—as if she’d know. The old dear is just trying to be sweet. This whole shopping center business is getting so messy,” she sighed. “I wish Joe would just give it up. Why can’t he leave things the way they are?”

“Mm-hmm,” Ethel answered from the pantry as she carefully placed the china back in the cupboard.

Gordy, Helen, and I sat at the table, silent as sheep.

Ethel came back into the kitchen. “You and Mista Joe havin’ supper tonight?” she asked. “I ain’t had time to fix nothin’ for ya yet, but I can whip up a Welsh rabbit if’n ya want. I think Stuart’ll eat that.”

“She made a sandwich when she came back from tennis,” Helen offered. “She went up upstairs and told us to leave her alone.” She looked at Gordy and me for affirmation.

“No, Joe’s not coming back ‘til late,” my mother said. “I’ll get something then.” She went into the bar. We could hear her pouring herself a drink. She came back to her spot by the counter. “You’d think he was in love with that construction site by the way he—”

“You chil’ren get on upstairs an’ put yo night clothes on. I’ll be up in a minute,” Ethel said, cutting in.

I jumped up and ran out of the room. I heard Ethel say to Gordy, “You don’ need no mo’ sweets, boy, ya already had enough. Now go’n wit’ yo’ big self ‘fore I get me a switch.”

I heard my mother giggle; the ice clinked in her glass.

Summer had blossomed in all its glory and agony. One day—so hot having skin touch me was just plain annoying—I walked around holding my arms away from my body and keeping my legs as far apart as I could. Ethel had the afternoon off. Gordy was playing with a friend and Helen was napping. Stuart, who could never be counted on for entertainment, was “out.” With no hope of finding companionship, I resigned myself to a dull, hot afternoon watching TV.

My mother was working on a jigsaw puzzle on the table in front of the sofa when I entered the den, my arms and legs akimbo. She greeted me with a forced smile; as if it was my fault that Ethel had the day off.

“Is Ethel coming to fix dinner?” I asked.

She nodded her head without so much as a glance in my direction.

“It’s so hot. Why don’t we go to the beach anymore?” I whined, irritated by the heat and her acting like having to stay home with us kids was the end of the world. “Remember how much fun we all used to have? Remember?”

She nodded again.

“Can we go to the beach? It’s too hot here.”

She didn’t look up from her puzzle. “Mmm, that would be nice, but no, we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because your father’s too busy, that’s why. You wouldn’t want to go without him, would you?”

“I guess not,” I lied. At that moment I would’ve sold the whole family for a bus ticket to the ocean.

Resigned to no beach trip or TV either, I pulled up a chair and sat down to watch her. “Momma, tell me ‘bout when you was big as me.”

“Sallee you say, ‘Tell me…,’oh, never mind.” She hesitated a moment then sighed. “When I was your age, I had a piebald pony named Puddin’ Head. He was so fat his belly nearly dragged the ground. He looked more like a cartoon than a real live pony.”

“Did you ride Puddin’ Head to school? I think it would be so fun to ride to school.”

“No, we had cars just like we do now.”

“You had those old-timey cars without any windows like in the
Little Rascals
?” It was always a mistake to mention television to my mother—you could never tell if she was going to say you watched too much and put an end to it forever.

She laughed; it sounded like beautiful, tinkling chimes. “My daddy’s cars were the finest money could buy. One day when your Uncle Gordon was a few years younger than you, he decided that, if horses
ran on oats, cars must too. He put a whole big scoop of oats in the gas tank of one of Daddy’s brand new cars. He ruined that car. Try as they might—and believe me they did try—they were never able to get that car to run right after that.”

“Boy, oh boy, Granddaddy musta been mad about that!”

“You know, Daddy laughed and laughed,” she smiled. “He never once raised his voice in anger.”

I wondered about that. It certainly never seemed to be that way in
our
house.

“He thought it was the funniest thing. I remember he bragged about how smart his son was,” she said.

He doesn’t sound so smart to me
, I thought, but I knew better than to say so.

“Daddy boasted to everybody who would listen, ‘My son is barely five-years-old and already he’s using deductive reasoning. That boy is going to go far.’ He was so proud of Gordon. He was proud of all of his children. You would’ve loved your grandfather. I’m so sorry you never got to meet him.” She sighed.

“Did your daddy like my daddy?”

“Oh, he died when I was in my teens. I hadn’t met your daddy yet.”

“You didn’t know Daddy when you were little? I thought Uncle Gordon was his friend.”

“They were friends in college—Uncle James, too—but not when we were children. Your daddy came from up north. He came here to go to college. That’s where he met Uncle Gordon, in law school.”

I looked at one of the jigsaw pieces and tried to find a fit. “What was it like to have your very own pony?”

“It was the grandest thing. After the fire—remember, I told you my parents’ house burned to the ground when I was just a little older than you?—we moved to Appin, my father’s home place out in the country. You know, beyond Belfield School? Remember where Granny Bess used to live?”

I laughed. “That’s silly. Granny Bess didn’t live in the country.”

“It was country then,” she said. “After we moved, Daddy bought me a much bigger pony, twice the size of Puddin’. He was beautiful, black as
pitch, with a white heart shape on his forehead. I named him True Love. He could run like a racehorse. Our stable boy, Cy, took such good care of Puddin’ and Lovey.” She paused for a moment to turn a piece of the puzzle between her fingers. She put it in place.

“There are no pictures,” I said. “How do you put this together?” I inspected another tiny piece and peeled my sticky arm off the table. “Aren’t you hot?”

She nodded her head slowly. “Don’t think about it.”

“This is harder than my puzzles. I don’t think I could ever do one of these.”

“Each piece is part of the picture. You can’t see the picture until the whole thing is done.” She took the piece I was holding, examined it, and then fit it into the puzzle.

“But I’ve got to have pictures. Did you play with Cy?”

“Lord, no. It wasn’t allowed. I learned that quickly. I had put Cy’s picture in a locket Daddy gave me for Christmas. It was the prettiest little locket, heart-shaped with a small diamond. I told Daddy I put Cy in my locket because he took such good care of Puddin’ and Lovey. He told me to take it out. He said it wasn’t right to have his picture in my locket. What did I know? I was just a silly little girl.”

She glanced up at me looking almost embarrassed. She picked up her pack of cigarettes and lit one, holding it in her mouth as she undid all her work on the puzzle and knocked all the pieces back into the box. She told me to go help Ethel in the kitchen. I didn’t bother to remind her that Ethel was off.

Chapter 3