Billie Standish Was Here (21 page)

But most of the time it was like dancing in a building full of plodding zombies.

Harlan and I were still the only mixed pair of best friends. But by then nobody seemed to think anything of it at all.

That happens in a small town. Somebody passing through might stop at the grain elevator for a cold drink and be shocked to see an old man feeding his lap dog every other bite of his sandwich, but a local would just say, “Oh, that's old man Sullivan. He's always been sweet on his little dogs.”

I guess it's easier to live in a fishbowl if you just decide to accept the stripes on the other fish.

Then there was the matter of Mama. I don't know if calling her bluff had awakened a conscience in her or if she just didn't find it as much fun to get mad and rear up at someone who didn't care. But she had gotten a whole lot tamer and sometimes it even seemed like we had traded places and she was trying to get in good with me.

A couple of times she asked if I'd like to go along to town with her on Saturday—and I told her “no, thank you.” She moved us all back to the kitchen table for dinner and, for a few evenings, asked me just what we were studying at school. I gave her the shortest possible answer and added, “Thanks for asking, Mama,” each time. I was ever so polite. A week later she went back to eating in the living room.

We weren't any chummier than ever, but just the lack of yelling—and not living on edge waiting for the next firestorm—made for a happier house.

Even Daddy was happier. I guess. I still didn't know much about what Daddy thought other than how everybody was out to get Nixon and the way the goddamned government is always trying to keep the farmer down. That, and he usually had an opinion about whether or not it was going to rain.

But his face wasn't set in a permanent frown anymore. I took that as a step in the direction of happy, anyway.

Ninth grade I went back to school wearing a little mascara and lip gloss. Harlan didn't say anything, but he did start opening doors for me. The second day at lunch I caught a faint whiff of something new. I sneaked looks until I saw evidence he had started shaving.

It was funny to have so many things about us changing while everything else stayed exactly the same. Funny peculiar, that is.

We had exchanged small gifts for birthdays and Christmas two years running. Miss Lydia always gave Harlan and me each a book, I crocheted some little something for her, and by then Harlan had a homemade birdhouse hanging on every branch outside her house that would hold one. For one another, Harlan and I usually bought music albums—something to share.

But that year I gave Harlan a George Carlin album and he gave me tiny ruby heart earrings. We were on the stage during study hour. I opened the little velvet box and was so surprised I just said, “Oh!”

Harlan said, “To go with your pin.” He sounded pretty proud. Of course he knew about the ruby pin that passed between Miss Lydia and me. There had even been times one of us had stuck our foot in our mouth and he'd defused the situation with a world-weary voice saying, “Oookay. Which one of you has the pin?”

When I saw those earrings I was so embarrassed I tried to make a joke—“Well, gee, Harlan, does this mean you're going to pierce your ears so we can pass these back and forth?”

It was absolutely the wrong thing to say and I was sorry that instant. He looked more disappointed than angry, but he walked out and didn't speak to me anymore that day.

The next day Christmas break started, and four days running he refused to come to the phone when I called. I cried and shut myself up in my room and wrote him letters that I tore up. I told Miss Lydia the whole story and threw myself on her mercy for advice.

“You'll sort it out, I expect,” was all she would say. But I could tell it bothered her too.

Christmas morning I answered the phone and heard his flat “Hi.”

I started blubbering—“Oh, Harlan, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—” but he interrupted.

“What time are we having Christmas with Miss Lydia?” he said. He was trying to sound cold but couldn't quite pull it off.

I felt twenty pounds lighter. I said, “Well, we're going over at noon. She insisted on cooking. Why don't you come, too? You know she'll have enough for twenty people.”

“Naw,” he said. “Mom's cooking too and the girls are all home this year. We got aunts and uncles and cousins coming out our ears . . . probably four o'clock is about the earliest I can sneak away.”

“I'll tell Miss Lydia,” I said, “and I'm sure she'll be fine with that. Oh, and Harlan?” I added. “Merry Christmas.”

There was only the least pause before he said, “Merry Christmas to you too.” I felt all fuzzy inside.

W
  hen I was fifteen, Miss Lydia was closing in on eighty. She had gradually done more spectating and less participating when we worked around her house, but Harlan and I noticed her really starting to slip. She forgot things. It was so hard to get up and down she quit doing it very often.

Come summer I started taking her mail over at eleven instead of noon, making the excuse that I wanted to visit with her alone before Harlan got there. Really it was so I could help her cook. She never let on but I knew she was grateful.

We were caught up with all the big projects by then. We had tilled and fertilized her garden, pruned her shrubs, reseeded her lawn, done everything we could think of. We did another major cleaning job inside, but it only took a fourth the time as before.

So we started to just spend time with her visiting. It seemed like what she needed most. We asked questions and let her tell all her stories, even the ones we had heard before. She brought her brothers and her Avery back to life one story at a time. We got to see glimpses of her as a girl in the shine of her eyes.

One day I went to put one of her picture albums back in the dresser upstairs and just as I started to close the drawer I saw something under the edge of the liner paper. I pulled out two pictures that had been lying loose. The one on top looked like Curtis and some woman his age, but the picture was way too old. I stared. It had to be.

I flipped the picture over. “Evie Lee and Haney Sanders, 1901” was written on the back. Miss Lydia's parents.

I looked at the second picture. Still Curtis, I'd testify in court. I felt cold all of a sudden.

Every time Miss Lydia had looked at her grown son she had seen the face of her daddy. The man who was supposed to protect her and didn't.

She hadn't killed just Curtis that night. She had killed the man who hurt her too. A little worm of guilt I hadn't even realized lived within me sprouted wings and flew away.

I tore the pictures into tiny pieces and flushed them down the upstairs commode. Miss Lydia wouldn't want to visit them again, I knew, and neither would I. Nobody else needed to know. As the water swirled them away I whispered, “Amen.” Then I scrubbed my hands in water a lot hotter than it really needed to be.

When I went downstairs I could see the child inside that old woman's failing body and I wanted to take her on my lap and rock her like a baby.

Not that she had gone all soft or feeble-minded. She'd threaten to whip us if we tried to do more for her than she wanted. She was kidding, of course—but we were half-convinced she could. She was still in charge, no doubt about it.

But it was clear she wasn't going to be leading any more crusades for higher knowledge. Any more debates on world events. She'd get the flashcards out every once in a while, I think mainly to reassure herself, but she wasn't making up any new ones and the magazines piled up beside her chair unread.

I knew she couldn't concentrate long enough to read long articles. She lost the thread of our conversation so often I learned the look that came into her eyes and I'd change the subject. She had always allowed me my dignity even though I was just a kid. The least I could do was return the favor.

Sometimes after lunch she would fall asleep in her chair while Harlan and I did the dishes. We took those opportunities for Harlan to give me driving lessons.

When I turned sixteen in November, Miss Lydia baked an angel food cake from scratch. It was so light that every bite was like snapping at the wind. But her birthday surprise came the week I got my driver's license.

She had asked Mama to take her to Milton that Saturday, and that morning she asked if I would go along too. Mama waited for me to say, “No, thank you,” and a little cloud passed over her face when I didn't. But she did hold her tongue.

We got to town and Miss Lydia asked Mama to drive her to the Walsner-Fusz car dealership. And Mama sat at the Fourth and Main stop sign until the car behind her laid on the horn. Then she pulled away about one mile an hour like she was moving under protest and said, “Lydia, you are
not
buying that girl a car. I won't have it.”

Miss Lydia stared straight ahead, hands crossed atop the pocketbook in her lap. “I'm not. I'm buying one for myself.”

Mama gave her a “don't bullshit me” look. I know it well. It's deadly.

Miss Lydia pointed her chin at the windshield. “Might be just what I need to attract a boyfriend.”

I about blew my brains out my ears trying to hold back
that
laugh. Even Mama couldn't last more than three seconds. We all laughed our way to Walsner-Fusz.

Eugene Walsner first tried to talk Miss Lydia into a new car instead of used, saying she'd just be buying someone else's problems. She fixed him with a steady look and said, “Eugene, are you saying you've got a whole lot full of problems out there for sale, but you're going to do
me
the favor of not selling me one?” And he blustered and blushed and started showing her around the used car lot.

Mama and I trailed them and Mama weighed in with as many opinions as Mr. Walsner. Talking at the same time, it was hard to understand either of them. But Miss Lydia took her time and nodded every so often, walking around cars and occasionally looking up at me. I didn't know what she wanted from me but I guess she found it when we got to the Cadillac DeVille sitting back in the corner. It was a 1965 but its mermaid-green paint job looked brand new and, at least to me, it looked more like a jewel than a car. Miss Lydia took one look at my face and smiled.

She asked Mr. Walsner to take her for a test drive in it but he was already on to the next car, a 1970 Ford, telling her how it was better suited to her needs. “Do you always argue your customers out of what they want?” she asked and he went inside for the keys.

Mama and I rode in the back seat while Mr. Walsner drove around three blocks and came back. He parked on the street in front of the showroom and Miss Lydia turned to me and nodded.

We all went inside and the negotiations began. Mr. Walsner started out asking $1800 and it was a long, hard road down to the $1450 they finally settled on. Along the way he told Miss Lydia, among other things, that she was a real good horse trader and she told him he reminded her of one specific part of a horse. He had big sweat rings on his blue shirt and no doubt believed he had earned every one-hundred-dollar bill she counted out on the counter. And then some.

He threw a “Come back again!” at our backs that sounded like it was automatic.

Miss Lydia turned and fixed a look on him that took another inch off his height. “If I
ever
find myself in need of another car,” she said, “you'll be hearing from me, all right.”

“Yes, ma'am.” He knew she wasn't talking about the prospect of another sale down the road. You could see his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

I drove Miss Lydia home in that land yacht with the Cadillac emblem on the hood and felt like we were flying. The only thing I had ever driven was the Willitses' old beater of a pickup and compared to that I was chauffeur to the queen.

I did hope I would never have to parallel park the thing. Even the steering wheel was so big it felt like I was playing grown-up. Miss Lydia kept looking out the side window. I'm pretty sure she couldn't see over the dashboard.

I knew better than to tell her she shouldn't have bought it. I just pulled up into her driveway where Mr. Jenkins used to park and handed her the key. She nodded, pleased with herself, and started the long haul out.

She had one foot on the ground when I got to her and I did more lifting than steadying to get her on her feet. She had been getting smaller while I kept growing. By then I was a head taller than her and probably outweighed her by fifteen pounds.

She rested before starting for the house, then said, “You run on. I expect your mama's got up a full head of steam by now. When she gets through bawling you out for what you didn't do, come on back. I have something.”

But Mama didn't say a word about the car while I helped her carry in groceries. While we were putting things away, I got it. She wasn't saying anything at all. The whole car affair had knocked her nose out of joint. She threw me a look when I told her Miss Lydia needed me for a while. I shrugged it off as soon as I was out the door.