The Cotton Queen (4 page)

L
ANEY

L
IVING
WITH
Uncle Warren and Aunt Maxine was great. He seemed as constant and dependable as a rock. She was a font of sweetness and simply doted on me. My cousins were great, too. Renny and Pete were in high school. Both were tall and athletic. They didn’t pay that much attention to me, but Pete would sometimes give me rides on the handlebars of his bike. And Renny would give me nickels to buy candy. The twins, Joley and Janey, were twelve and they loved the idea of having a younger sister. It seemed like every day we played school and I was the student.

On Sunday afternoons Uncle Warren would drive me out to the Hoffman farm. Most times, I’d get to play with Cheryl and Nicie. Even if neither of them were available, there were always grandkids around. The Hoffmans made a fuss over me, too. I knew I was special. Both because my daddy had died and because everybody was mad at my mother. I didn’t know what had happened, but I overheard plenty of snide comments made between my aunts and uncles.

Ned told me directly.

“Your mother is selfish, disrespectful and she never really loved your father.”

I didn’t really know what the first two things meant, but I knew she did love my dad, so Ned was either lying or the Hoffmans were wrong. I never gave Ned much credit for honesty.

But beyond the few worrisome undertones, my life was great. I had lots of cousins to play with, pretty clothes and plenty of attention.

It didn’t make up for the fact that Daddy was gone forever, but it helped.

So, it was unbelievable to me when, just as things were going so well, Babs comes home with the news that we’re moving to Dallas. Overnight the homey house filled with comfy furniture and happy people was replaced by a sad little duplex apartment. The entire neighborhood of green grass was exchanged for one small patch between the duplex’s two back porches, beyond that it was all concrete driveway.

Everyone was excited and happy. Uncle Warren told Mom how proud he was of her. And Aunt Maxine cheerfully volunteered to help Babs unpack things and line the cabinets with shelf paper. Even my cousins didn’t seem sad to see me go.

Babs drove me out to the Hoffmans that Sunday and she stayed and talked with the whole family while the kids all played outside. I didn’t hear any screaming or yelling, so I guess it was okay.

She took me aside before she left. “Have a real nice time with your cousins today,” she said. “Once we move to Dallas, you won’t get to see them so often.”

Babs seemed okay with that arrangement. Apparently the Hoffmans were not.

“My parents want to adopt you,” Nicie told me.

“Adopt me?” That seemed unreasonable. “Why would anyone need to adopt me?”

“A single woman in the city has no business trying to raise a child,” Cheryl told me, undoubtedly parroting adults she’d overheard. “The only way you’ll have a chance at any decent upbringing at all is if someone takes you in.”

I wasn’t sure what a “decent upbringing” was all about, but my cousin did point out some positives.

“You’d have a lot more stuff if you’re Nicie’s sister,” Cheryl told me.

“My mom can’t have more children,” Nicie explained. “The only way I could have a sister is to make you part of the family.”

“I can’t be part of somebody else’s family,” I informed them both. “My mom and I, we’re our family.”

“Two people is
not
a family,” Cheryl said emphatically. “Without your dad, you’re an orphan. Your mother will never be able to provide for you.”

I hadn’t really thought of myself that way, but Cheryl was in first grade. I was pretty sure she couldn’t be wrong.

I imagined myself as Nicie’s sister. It was a great fantasy. All those clothes, all those toys, they could be mine.

But Nicie and I didn’t look much alike. She had big blue eyes and blond curls. Both my eyes and hair were like my mom’s, nondescript brown.

“We don’t look anything alike,” I complained to Cheryl.

She looked at the two of us critically.

“If you had the same haircut, that would help,” she said.

Nicie’s curls hung down to her waist. My hair was cropped close to my head in what my mother called a pixie.

“You could let your hair grow out,” Nicie said.

“That would take forever,” Cheryl assured us. “I’d better cut yours to match hers.”

Nicie didn’t like the idea much, but once Cheryl sneaked the scissors from Grandma Hoffman’s sewing basket, there was no going back.

It didn’t take Cheryl very long. All of my cousin’s beautiful curls were hacked off and thrown in the dirt. And her hairdo didn’t look anything like mine.

Nicie cried. Her mother screamed. Cheryl’s daddy spanked her. Nicie’s daddy spanked me.

Babs was furious. Not at us.

“How dare you strike my child!” she screamed at Uncle Freddie.

“Look at Denise’s hair,” he growled at her.

Babs only shrugged. “It’s hair, it grows back,” she said.

Nicie and her mother both began crying again. That just added to the noise of the argument.

Years later I wondered if it just wasn’t all too convenient. My mother never came to pick me up at the Hoffmans, Uncle Warren always did. Then, just before we were to move to Dallas she came herself. And the harsh words exchanged gave her an excuse to put aside any plans for future visits.

The ride back to town was quiet.

“Uncle Freddie and Aunt LaVeida wanted to adopt me,” I told her.

Babs glanced over at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I guess they won’t want me now,” I concluded.

“Well, you dodged a bullet on that one,” she told me. “I can’t imagine that you’d be happy with a family who put so much value on hair. And besides, who would share my cute little Dallas duplex with me?”

We moved in the next week.

Pete and Renny unloaded the heavy boxes. Aunt Maxine helped Babs clean and put things away. The twins played with me. We turned somersaults on the tiny piece of lawn between the pair of tiny concrete back porches and we skipped hopscotch on the wide expanse of driveway in front of the garage.

While everyone was there, the place seemed fun and new. But, at the end of the day they went home and it was just the two of us. I sat, crestfallen at the drop leaf table in the kitchen.

“Well, here we are,” Babs said. “Mama and Laney against the world.”

I nodded, but I didn’t feel much better.

“We have our own room and we can eat whatever we want and get everything as messy as we want and not be bothered by anybody,” Babs said.

“But it’s so lonely,” I told her.

She sat down beside me and rubbed my back.

“It won’t be lonely,” she assured me. “We’ll have friends. We’ll have neighbors.”

She was right about that. The very next day, the woman in the other side of the duplex, Mary Jane, came over and brought us brownies. She was expecting her first baby just before Thanksgiving. Her stomach already seemed very big to me.

She sat and talked with Babs for hours. I sat in the next room, setting up my own girly gabfest at the coffee table with Tiny Tears and Teddy Bear.

My mom listened to Mary Jane’s excitement about the baby’s layette. Babs gave advice about bassinets and whitening diapers. When the subject turned to us, she told Mary Jane, very briefly about my father’s death, but mostly Babs talked about her hopes for the future.

“I’m going to be working as a dispatcher for a cement company,” Babs explained. “I’ll radio the truckers to let them know where they should head next. It’s not my dream job, but it’s a start.”

“Oh, a job like that,” Mary Jane said enthusiastically. “Think of all the men you’ll meet! I’m sure after...well, after a decent interval, you’ll be able to find a nice man to marry.”

Babs seemed a little surprised by the idea.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Tom was a very special guy. I loved him so much. I don’t think I’d marry for anything less.”

“I know what you mean,” Mary Jane said. “My husband, Burl, is truly my hero. I can’t imagine a world without him. But you have to think of your daughter,” she added in a whisper. “All little girls need a daddy.”

Babs didn’t respond to that, instead she changed the subject.

“What I’d really like is to get on with the telephone company,” she confessed to Mary Jane. “That’s really my dream job. It’s about the most a working woman could want in the world. They pay so well. And there’s opportunity there. The supervisors of the women are women themselves. If you’re smart and dedicated and work very hard, it’s possible to actually move up in the company. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“I don’t know,” Mary Jane said, uncertainly. “But the telephone girls do have lovely clothes. That would be very nice.”

A minute later Mary Jane issued a little cry of alarm as a car pulled into the driveway.

“Oh, my goodness, Burl is already home and I haven’t even started dinner!”

She rushed out to the man; we could hear her apologizing for her lateness before he even got out of the car. Surprisingly they came to our back door instead of their own.

“I’m bringing my husband to meet our new neighbors,” Mary Jane said. Babs eagerly invited them in.

Mary Jane’s husband was very tall. He had thick blond hair that he combed back away from his face.

He came through the back door with such a sense of confidence, it was like he felt right at home.

Mary Jane made the introductions. “Honey, this is Babs Hoffman.”

“Hi, Babs,” he said. “It’s great to meet you. Has my Mary Jane been bending your ear?”

My mom laughed. “Some of that and some of me crying on her shoulder.”

“Well, you’ll have to give that up,” he said. “There’s nothing but sunshine and happiness in this neighborhood.”

“That sounds good to me,” Babs said.

“Who’s this?” he asked, grinning at me. He had the whitest, most perfect teeth I’d ever seen. “She looks like you. It must be your kid sister.”

“I’m her daughter,” I told him.

“Daughter!” He pretended shock as he turned back to my mom. “You must have married at the age of twelve.”

Babs laughed again.

“Mary Jane,” she said. “You’d better get your husband’s eyes checked, he’s liable to walk straight into a post if he can’t see any better than that.”

“What’s your name, little sister?” the man asked me.

“Laney.”

“That’s a good name,” he said. “I’m Burl.”

He offered his hand. I took it just like a grown-up.

“Hi, Burl.”

“Laney.” My mother shook her head and made the tut-tut sound. “You must call him Mr. Grimes. And Mary Jane is Mrs. Grimes.”

He grinned at Babs and then leaned closer to me, like he was telling a secret, but he said it loud enough that anyone could hear.

“She can call me Mr. Grimes if she wants,” he said. “But you call me Burl.”

He winked at me.

I laughed.

The duplex, I decided right then, was not a bad place after all. And maybe my favorite part of it was Burl. From that day forward he was always around. He was always funny and helpful. Mom and I both liked him a lot. With him around, I didn’t miss Uncle Warren, Aunt Maxine, my cousins, the Hoffmans or anyone in McKinney.

B
ABS

M
Y
JOB
at Big D Cement was not easy. It could have been. If I’d only been asked to do what I was hired for, keeping track of the loads. That would have been a full, but doable eight-hour day. Unfortunately the company didn’t mind paying for laborers, but they hated to pay for office work. The owner, Mr. Donohoe, did all the paperwork himself. Except that he didn’t.

“Darlin’,” he’d say to me. “See if you can make heads or tails out of my chicken scratching.”

Then he’d put another pile of work orders, product receipts or time sheets in front of me.

The more I figured out how to do, the more things I would find shifted into my workload. After only a couple of months I began to feel like I started every day running at full speed and didn’t catch a breath until closing time. A lot of women might have complained. But truthfully, I was grateful. As the numbness from Tom’s death began to wear off, I found myself feeling a desperate sadness and a great sense of being adrift in the world.

I liked Mr. Donohoe. He was an older man with a thick white handlebar mustache. His once muscular frame was now lean and bent, but he still held himself as if he were powerful, protective. Somehow I liked him immediately.

And he seemed to like me, too.

“Six girls,” he said. “That’s what my wife and I had, six girls. A whole house full. I can’t stand working here with these men all day. I need a soft-spoken voice around me. I think yours will suit me just fine.”

I liked the job. I liked our little duplex. I liked Laney’s little neighborhood school. We were settled in Dallas and we were happy.

We rarely saw Uncle Warren and Aunt Maxine. They had a busy, active life with their own children.

And I’d sworn off the Hoffmans completely.

A couple of weeks after our run-in at the farm, I received a letter from Freddie. I assumed it was going to be an apology, but I was absolutely wrong.

Freddie, Tom’s brother just a year older than him, had married LaVeida Raymond, the girl who’d been selected Cotton Queen over me. They’d had Denise a few months before Laney was born. But things had not gone well. After a difficult birth and a life-threatening infection, LaVeida had been given an emergency hysterectomy. That was all sad and I was very sorry. But now she and Freddie had decided that they should adopt Tom’s daughter. They simply informed me that they were adopting my Laney.

When Laney had first mentioned this to me, I’d assumed it was some story the kids had made up, but there it was in black and white. They thought that they should take Laney into their family and I should go on with my life as if she’d never been born.

“Of course it’s harder to find a husband with a young child already in tow,” Freddie wrote. “You can, with a clear conscience, leave Laney with us.”

According to Freddie, it is tragic to see a child growing up without a father. Freddie thought he personally could fill the bill. Laney was a Hoffman, he said, and as such she should live with Hoffmans. As if she weren’t any part of me and I hadn’t given birth to her!

I ignored the letter. That seemed like the best thing to do. Then a second letter arrived, this one on a Dallas lawyer’s letterhead. Mr. & Mrs. Frederick Ernst Hoffman were pursuing the adoption of their niece Alana Helen Hoffman.

I was stunned. And I was angry. Laney was my daughter. Mine and Tom’s. And she was all of Tom that I had left. I didn’t know what to do, who to call, how to protest. I knew Uncle Warren would help me, but they had done enough. I needed to figure out the world on my own. I needed to find a way to manage things myself.

On my lunch break I pored over the attorney listings in the yellow pages. Several times I picked up the phone with the intention to call. But I just couldn’t contact a total stranger and spread my whole personal life in front of them. It was just too humiliating.

The solution came, as they often do, unexpectedly. On Sunday afternoon, I was talking long distance to Aunt Maxine. She called once a week to check on us. She also loved to keep me posted on all the happenings in my hometown.

“The Sloan house was finally sold,” she told me.

The beautiful two-story Queen Anne with intricate gingerbread moldings and wraparound porches had been sitting and rotting since the death of Old Miss Sloan nearly a decade earlier.

“Oh, I hope they’re not going to knock it down,” I said. “I’ve always loved that old house.”

“No, it’s not being knocked down, it’s being renovated and you’ll never guess who’s doing it.”

“Who?”

“Acee Clifton.”

“Acee?”

“Yes, he’s back from law school and he’s set up practice here in McKinney,” she said. “He’s bought the Sloan house and has an army of carpenters fixing up the place. Though why a single man would want such a huge old house, I don’t know.”

“Acee Clifton is a lawyer?”

“Yes, honey,” Aunt Maxine said. “Hadn’t you heard that?”

“I had no idea,” I admitted. “I hadn’t heard anything about him since high school.”

The conversation continued and I made all the appropriate responses, I suppose, but all I could think of was that Acee Clifton was a lawyer and no stranger.

I called him the next morning at ten o’clock. A woman answered the phone.

“Acee Clifton, Attorney at Law.”

“Hi...ah...hello...is...ah...is Acee in?”

“May I tell him who’s calling?”

“This is Barbara Hoffman. He may remember me as Barbara Quarles.”

It was less than a minute later when he picked up the phone.

“Babs! What a surprise. It’s great to hear from you.”

He sounded like himself, but not really. His voice was more confident and upbeat than I remembered. There had always been a bit of an underlying dispiritedness or high school unhappiness that was not now in evidence.

“I...I just heard that you are back in town,” I said.

“The Sloan house,” he replied. “I never imagined that buying that place would make me an instant celebrity in my hometown.”

“I didn’t know you were a lawyer.”

“Yes, I love it. My mother wanted me to study agriculture and take over the family business,” he said. “But this is much more to my liking.”

“Well, that’s good.”

Now that I had him on the phone, I was suddenly less eager to share my problems with him.

“So are you and Tom back in McKinney? He’s in military service, right?”

I hesitated. The words stuck in my throat.

“Tom was killed last summer,” I said, deliberately keeping my voice even.

“Oh, my gosh, Babs! I hadn’t heard. I’m so sorry.”

I knew how uncomfortable grief was for people, so I quickly moved on.

“Actually that’s why I’m contacting you,” I said. “I need some legal advice and I wanted to talk to someone that I know I can trust.”

“Is there a problem with his estate?”

“His estate?” The word struck me funny. “The only ‘estate’ Tom left me was a 1959 Ford with a bad water pump,” I told him.

There was a polite silence on the other end of the line. I assumed that my financial tightrope was only humorous to me.

“I have a daughter,” I went on to explain. “She’s in kindergarten. I got a letter from a lawyer here in Dallas telling me that Tom’s brother Freddie is pursuing an adoption of her.”

“And you don’t want this?”

“I’m not giving up my child,” I stated flatly.

“I’m sure a lot of women in your position would consider this a very good solution,” he said. “I’m sure that Freddie is more than able to provide for your daughter. And not having a child in tow would certainly make it easier to find another husband.”

Both those things were true, of course. No one believed that women needed to be paid real wages. Those who worked earned “pin money.” It was assumed that the husbands or fathers would be the ones to provide for them. And men looking for prospective brides tended not to be interested in those who already had children who needed support. It wasn’t a fair world, or one that made allowances for catastrophe. But it wasn’t as if widows were unheard of.

“I’m not giving up my daughter,” I repeated. “She won’t be better off with anyone but me. And if her existence runs some man off, well, he’d never be right for me anyway.”

There was a low chuckle on the other end of the line.

“Babs, you haven’t changed, have you,” Acee said. “You’re just dad-blamed determined in whatever you do. You never let other people’s logic gum up what you’re thinking.”

The way he said that, it was hard to tell if it was a compliment or a criticism.

“Are you going to help me?” I asked.

“Are you going to need help?”

“Well, they sent me this letter,” I said.

“It’s a letter,” he told me. “It’s meant to put some scare into you. To see if you’ll just come around to their way of thinking.”

“So they can’t really take her?”

“Well, they can if...if you’ve been imprudent,” he said.

“Imprudent?”

“If you spend your evenings in beer joints or nightclubs,” he said. “Or if you’ve taken up with gentlemen friends who sometimes stay overnight. There’ll be a lot of judges that will snatch a child away at the first suggestion of immorality.”

“Oh, my goodness! I mean no, no, of course not,” I replied, thoroughly shocked. “I’ve never been inside a beer joint in my life. And men, well I...I mean...Tom just died. I certainly haven’t even thought about...about being with another man.”

“No, of course not,” Acee agreed reassuring me. “Send me the letter from the lawyer and I’ll respond. That will be the end of it. As long as you avoid any appearance of impropriety you’ll be perfectly safe in keeping your child.”

Relief swept over me.

“That’s wonderful,” I said. “Oh, thank you, thank you. Acee, you don’t know how frightened I’ve been.”

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” he said with certainty.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked tentatively. “Or are you going to bill me.”

“No charge,” he said.

“That doesn’t seem right,” I told him.

“Can’t I do a favor for an old friend?”

We weren’t really friends and never had been. But I didn’t have a lot of money to spare. Somehow I hated for Acee to know that, to even suspect it. But I thanked him and kept my mouth shut.

* * *

As the days passed Laney and I were going along very well.

And a lot of that was due to Mary Jane and Burl. Mary Jane insisted that Laney stay with her after school.

“It’s silly for you to pay somebody to keep her, when I would love to have both the help and the company.”

I didn’t know how much help a five-year-old could be to a pregnant woman, but Mary Jane walked to Bowie Elementary every afternoon at two and kept Laney with her until I arrived home at five. She was wonderful.

And Burl was wonderful, too. When the sink got stopped up or a fuse blew out, he was always there getting things back in working order. He even made a special trip to the salvage yard to swap out the water pump on my Ford. It was great. It all seemed great.

As the birth of Mary Jane’s baby grew nearer, I kept close to the phones at work. It was already decided that I would drive her to the hospital and Burl would meet us there. It was a Friday afternoon when the call came.

I gave the news to Mr. Donohoe and he shooed me out the door. It all went perfectly. I got Laney from school. I got Mary Jane to the hospital. Her husband was by her side within minutes of arriving.

Only a few hours later, they were pulling into the driveway of the duplex.

“False labor,” Mary Jane told me, disappointed.

“It happens,” I told her shrugging.

“I hope it doesn’t happen too much,” Burl said. “I missed a whole afternoon of work for nothing.”

“I’m sorry, honey, I’m really sorry,” Mary Jane apologized over and over.

I’d cooked a meat loaf for Laney and me. I cut it in half and took it over so she wouldn’t have to worry about dinner.

“Thanks so much,” she said at the back door. “I’m so very sorry.”

“Mary Jane, forget it,” I told her. “You can’t tell false labor from real labor until it happens. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“I just hate being a bother to you and Burl,” she said in a whisper.

“We don’t mind,” I said. But something in her expression, her demeanor, gave me my first hint that maybe I spoke only for myself.

Over the next few days I was thrown into the company of my neighbors a lot. For the first time, I began to see that everything was not as it had seemed. Burl was not always smiling and helpful. Sometimes Mary Jane appeared almost afraid of him.

It was just anxiety over the coming of the new baby, I assured myself.

The following Tuesday, Laney and I spent a quiet evening together. I read her favorite bedtime story until she fell asleep and then sat up alone to watch
Perry Mason
on the TV. I was just thinking to turn the light off and go to bed when I heard a tap on the back door. It was certainly Burl or Mary Jane and I thought it might be real labor this time. I hurried through the kitchen. I peeked through the curtain and saw Burl. Immediately I tightened the sash on my bathrobe and slid back the bolt.

“Are you going to the hospital again?” I asked.

Before he even answered, he sort of slid past me stepping inside as casually as if he owned the place.

“No,” he said. “Mary Jane’s resting. I thought I’d come over and see how you’re doing.”

“Oh.” I was caught off guard. What was he doing coming to my place so late?

“I want to thank you for all you’ve done for Mary Jane lately.”

His words were ordinary and he had a big smile on his face, but there was something about them that felt strange.

“Well, you’re welcome. Mary Jane has been wonderful to me. She’s my closest friend,” I managed to mumble.

He shut the door behind him.

“Laney’s asleep, I guess.” It was more of a statement than a question.

I nodded.

“Yeah, I was just getting ready to go to bed myself,” I admitted.

Burl sort of tilted his head and made a tutting sound. “So sad,” he told me. “The beautiful young widow sleeps all alone.”