Her Own Place (16 page)

Mae Lee pulled open kitchen cabinets and drawers, searching for something. She sighed. “I just tucked my picture pin somewhere a minute ago.”

After their mama left the room, Annie Ruth fastened the pearls around Amberlee's neck. “Ellabelle won't even ask, she'll be so glad not to have to wear these,” she whispered.

Annie Ruth pointed to pictures on the wall that she had so painstakingly hung at eye level, but now were hung almost up to the ceiling, “What if Mama had fallen off that ladder?”

Amberlee grinned. “I bet you won't find me taking anything down that Mama puts up again. Remember the time the two of us took down the patchwork quilt hanging on the wall at the head of her bed, and she made all five of us, including Taylor, hang it back? She went on about it for a solid week, ‘That quilt belonged to my daddy's grandmama. A lot of hard work went into that quilt, mine included, I quilted the border. And just because the colors clashed with some five-and-ten-cent store sheets, one of my daughters takes it down and puts it in a box.'”

“‘And I never, ever,'” Annie Ruth added, mimicking her mama,” ‘want to know for sure which one it was. Of course, I have a pretty good idea that it was Annie Ruth, but I don't want to be absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of doubt. You see, the Lord is my shepherd who watches over me, and I
don't want him to see what I might do to my own child, my own flesh and blood if ever I found out.'”

They stopped laughing when Mae Lee entered the kitchen. “I found what I was looking for,” she said as she held up her picture pin. She smiled shyly at her daughters and daughter-in-law. “I wonder if this and my first lady pearls would be a bit too much. I'd like to greet my guests with it on.”

“Yes, Mama,” they all hurriedly agreed. “It would be a bit too much. Actually, much too much.”

Mae Lee gazed down at the picture. She was glad it was made before her little Tread had the earring put in his ear. Grudgingly she put the picture pin of her grandson in a drawer.

Taylor brought in a freshly churned container of ice cream to put into the freezer. He took one look at his mother, wife, and sisters, pearl-adorned, grinned, then smothered a laugh when he caught his mother's eye. He read the satisfaction there. “The Bobbsey twins multiplied,” he said, smiling broadly.

He turned to his mama. “Miss Reid said you should stop and get a little rest so you'll be refreshed when your guests arrive.”

Mae Lee dabbed at the perspiration on her brow with the corner of her apron. “Tell Miss Reid to eat her sandwich. I promise I won't embarrass her.” She looked out the window. “I wonder what's keeping Ellabelle and Clairene?” Ellabelle's car was in the shop for repairs and she was coming with her friend Clairene.

“They're coming down the street now,” Taylor said, reaching for a lemon biscuit. Mae Lee slapped his hand. “Get back to cranking your churn, child.”

Ellabelle met Mae Lee in the kitchen doorway. “Hey, Mae Lee, do you look pretty! I was coming to get you. Your guests are starting to come.” She blocked the doorway. “One car just pulled up. Look who's driving Mrs. Wells: that handsome grandson of hers. He's home for the summer. I guess the young women in his circle will go crazy.” Amberlee moved to take a look.

“Whoa,” she said, “he is drop-dead gorgeous.”

Mae Lee watched him open the car door for his grandmother. “He is kind of cute with his no-socks self,” she admitted. “But you should have seen his daddy when he was about that age. The man was so good-looking he didn't look real. The talk among the women down at the hospital this week was about how Brandon Wells was coming home from some fancy college in the North. All I can say is as long as he's in town, all of them with daughters had better lock the pasture gates at night.”

Mae Lee took off her apron and brushed past Ellabelle to greet her guests. They all arrived within minutes of each other. Mae Lee stood with her children near the front porch steps. She greeted everyone, introducing her family to them, along with Ellabelle, Clairene, and Nora Reid. The ladies began set-ding into chairs around the tables. There was a certain amount of awkwardness. Mae Lee moved about the group, accepting their compliments on how nice her children looked.

It turned out that Ellabelle and Linda Salter had known each other. “Didn't you work at the munitions plant during the war?” Linda Salter asked.

“I sure did,” Ellabelle replied. “Didn't you work in the paymaster's office?”

“Yes indeed!” Linda Salter said. “And you used to come in to pick up the checks for your shift!”

“That's right,” Ellabelle laughed. “‘Course I quit early and moved away. Mae Lee was there the whole time, though.”

“Oh, Mae Lee,” Bethel Petty said, “don't tell me you worked there too?”

It turned out that not only had Mae Lee and Linda Salter and Bethel Petty worked during the war at the shell factory, but so had a half-dozen others, even including Mrs. Wells.

“It's too bad we didn't know each other then,” Linda Salter said. The reason they had not, as all present knew only too well, was that the white women mostly had been employed as secretaries and clerical workers, while the black women had been able to get jobs only on the production line or the cleanup crew. Even during the war, they had worked as they had lived, in two different worlds.

It was time to serve the ice cream and tea and lemon biscuits. Mae Lee ushered her children from the porch and into the kitchen. “I guess they
didn't
know each other,” Annie Ruth said to Amberlee in a low voice. “How could they have known Mama, when on the bus riding to work and back they couldn't even do something as simple as sitting next to each other to talk?”

“We've been talking about your vegetable garden, Mae Lee,”
Fran Bratton said when Mae Lee returned. “Ellabelle said you do all the work yourself except the plowing. Let me tell you, I haven't seen tomatoes that size since before my daddy died.”

Mae Lee laughed. “Well, you must help yourself to some. All of you,” she added. “Everyone around here has so many, I can't give them away.”

Jeanne Nelson walked to the edge of the porch. “I have tomatoes,” she said, “but oh, Mae Lee, I would love a cutting, if it can be done from this beautiful plant. What is it?” She studied the plant's exotic pink flowers. “It's the most beautiful flower I think I've ever seen.”

“It's called the hummingbird plant,” Mae Lee said. “Ill give you cuttings, they're easy to root.”

“Every time someone gives me a cutting it dies on me almost before I get it home,” one of the ladies said.

“Maybe it's because you say ‘thank you' when it's given to you. The older people used to say that cuttings wouldn't live if you do,” Nora Reid answered.

Mae Lee's daughters served helping after helping of Taylor's ice cream and her warm lemon biscuits and poured the tea. Every time the plate was passed, Mary Lou Rice and Pamela Rhoades reached for another biscuit.

“Linda Salter,” Melanie Findley called out, “you swore even homemade ice cream couldn't pull you off your diet and now you're on your second helping.”

Linda Salter flashed a pretty smile and dropped her head. “I guess I'll just eat crow for supper. Crow again.”

Mae Lee was about to comment. Amberlee walked over to her side. “I think your lemon biscuits are burning, Mama,” she
said, taking her by the arm and pulling her in the direction of the kitchen.

Mae Lee looked over her glasses. “I just put them in the oven.” But she went anyway.

“Please, Mama,” Amberlee begged, “please don't tell these women how your mama used to cook crow all the time. How she would smother it in brown gravy and cook beaten biscuits to sop up the gravy. Having to ‘eat crow' is just a slang expression, Mama. It means you've misspoken, it's like having to eat your words. People really don't
eat crow.”

Mae Lee eased her oven door open for a quick peek at her biscuits. She didn't turn to face her daughter. “We did. And we were lucky to get it sometimes.”

“Don't tell those ladies that, Mama, please don't,” Amberlee urged. “Not now. Sometime when you're not serving food to them.”

Mae Lee started taking dishes down from a cabinet. “Well. . . ,” she started, a little smile on her face.

“Oh, Mama, there's that look that never makes me sure if what you've said is true or not,” Amberlee groaned.

“Go pick up dirty plates, baby.” She waved her daughter from the kitchen, “Shoo, shoo, scat clean out of my kitchen, little pest, out of my way.”

It occurred to Mae Lee that she hadn't seen Taylor for a while. “Where's your handsome husband gone to?” she asked Bettina, who was serving cakes to Linda Salter and Mrs. Wells at a table near the side porch.

“Last time I saw him he was out on the side porch,” Bettina said. “You know what he's doing out there.” She winked.

Mae Lee went out onto the porch. The television set was on, with the Braves game. Taylor was seated in one chair, and in another was Bethel Petty. The two had their backs to her, watching intently.

“Don't throw him a change-up,” Taylor said. “Not now.”

Mae Lee could recognize who was pitching for Atlanta. She watched as Zane Smith glanced back toward second base, then came in with his pitch. The batter swung and missed.

“What's the score?” Mae Lee asked.

“Three to one Braves, bottom of the seventh,” Bethel Petty said without turning her head. “Two out.”

When the last guest had said good-bye, Mae Lee plopped into her front porch rocking chair. Ellabelle settled into the porch swing. “I'm too full to go home.” She laughed. “I've got to let some of this food digest first.”

Taylor laid his hand on his mama's shoulder. “Bettina and I are going to head home now.”

Mae Lee leaned her face against his hand. That was usually the extent of Taylor's hug. Taylor had never been a huggy-kissy child. His cousin Warren had teasingly told him he would never grow tall and strong if he let his mother and sisters hug and kiss him all the time and the little boy had believed him. When he was ready to go away to the Vietnam War, his mama had to run down the road after him for a good-bye kiss.

“We pulled off a lot of work, didn't we, Mama?” Taylor said. “Put the two of us together and things get done.”

“Look who's talking and taking the credit,” Annie Ruth
grumbled. “All Taylor did was pick up the ice and take a few turns hand-cranking the ice cream with Amberlee. There are dirty dishes piled everywhere, but we only heard his wife offer to help. ‘We pulled off a lot of work,' We did. Uh huh!”

Ellabelle stood up. “How about dropping me off at my house, Taylor? I'll never make it home on foot.”

“Well, it's over,” Annie Ruth sighed. “Over and done.” She pulled a chair close and put her feet up. “I think, on the whole, They tried to put their best foot forward, Mama. Mrs. Wells thought she was doing you a favor by telling you she couldn't remember a time she'd enjoyed a summer afternoon more.”

“Yeah,” Amberlee agreed, “and another one even patted Mama on the back by saying she grew tomatoes as good as her own daddy had.”

“I guess they had to prove to themselves and each other that they could
so
come and break bread with us people,” Bettina said.

“And live to tell about it.” Annie Ruth giggled.

“They were on their best behavior for us. Right, Mama?” Amberlee asked.

Mae Lee leaned her head back against the top of her rocker and gazed out into the darkness. “They're no better than colored people,” Mae Lee said. “And no worse.”

Several days after the August tea party Taylor drove up to his mama's house with airline tickets for Atlanta, Georgia, to see the Braves play. Taylor handed her the tickets and an envelope with money inside. “Everything has been taken care of, Mama,” he said. “It's a token of our love. It's from all your children.”

She hugged her son. “I don't know how you children ever thought of this.”

“It didn't take much doing. Not with you calling every day since the baseball season opened saying how happy you'd be if you could only see the Atlanta Braves play just one baseball game at their stadium in Atlanta.”

His mama lowered her head. “One thing I can say for my son, he always speaks his mind. Always has.” She leafed through her travel packets. “Looks mighty expensive to me.”

She told Ellabelle about the trip to Atlanta. “Go on, girl, go on,” Ellabelle sang out.

A few days later, Mae Lee started getting her clothes ready.
She laid her blue hat out on her company bed beside her dress. She looked at the pretty dress with her first lady pearls and a bracelet nearby, and tried to pull in a protruding stomach that would not be pulled. She couldn't figure what in heaven's name was inside her stomach. There wasn't that much fat in the world. It was like she was pregnant again, almost. She had new ‘no bulge' gear to wage battle with her body: a waist belt that promised you'd look slimmer instantly. From the same Walter Drake Good Buys mail order insert in the newspaper, she'd also ordered a shoulder brace to combat the effects of stooped shoulders. A brace you would barely know you had on, the advertisement had said. It was true; she'd barely known she had it on, and it also barely helped at all.

On the morning Mae Lee was to make the trip she called her son at six o'clock. She hadn't slept all night. “I'm sorry to call so early,” she apologized, “but I am afraid you might oversleep. It's my first plane trip.”

“It's all right, Mama,” Taylor sleepily answered. “I know.”

At the airport she stood out among the crowd of passengers. Clad in the well-placed mantle of dignity belonging to women of a certain age, Mae Lee was anxious even so. “Do my earbobs look all right, Taylor? My skirt isn't twisted, is it?”