The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove (10 page)

chapter six

T
he evening paper arrived just as I was coming home from school, but I had already heard the news. It was all my friends had talked about for the past two weeks, ever since Miss Polly Clements, the school’s headmistress, had assembled the junior class for a special meeting in the auditorium to announce a unique and surely life-altering experience.

We had all been invited to Paris. Yes, Paris, France. The ambassador’s wife was apparently the school’s most prestigious alum, and we were going to paint and study for three weeks under her watchful eye. We would embrace Notre Dame at daybreak and capture the warm, golden sunlight dancing across the Seine at dusk. We would study Monet and Manet, Matisse and Seurat, all the while absorbing everything French, from the Brie to the croissants.

After the meeting, Miss Clements pulled me aside. She told me that my painting had depth and passion, and that my French was authentic and ripe with emotion. (And although Monsieur Gadoue never cared for my mother and her feeble attempts to greet him in French, he was quick to say that my accent was pure and honest. He even admitted, in a perfect Parisian dialect, that Mary Margaret Hunt butchered the language like a side of beef.) Miss Clements said she hoped I would take advantage of this unique opportunity, and then she handed me a stack of papers outlining the details of the trip.

I rushed home to tell my parents. For once, I thought, mother and daughter would be in total agreement about what was best for Bezellia Grove. But when Mother discovered that Mrs. Hunt had been slated as the trip’s official chaperone, she threw my father a look, a gnashing, bloodshot stare. And Father, well, he simply glanced at the wall, too afraid or maybe too ashamed to look either of us directly in the eye.

“No,” Mother said abruptly, breaking the silence that had quickly permeated the room. “Sister will not be going to Paris,” and then she slammed her fist down on top of the papers that now appeared wilted and worn under her hand. She quickly turned her chair toward me and caught the disappointment clouding my eyes. She seemed almost startled that her words had delivered such a devastating punch. And even though she left no room for argument, she added in an uncharacteristically kind and empathetic tone, “Maybe later, maybe you can study abroad when you’re in college. It will mean so much more then anyway—when you’re older and all.”

I knew she expected me to sit there quietly and nod my head in agreement, to accept her decision without question—deferential, respectful submission, nothing more. But that was not possible.

“Are you kidding?” I shrieked, this time not willing to surrender without a fight, no matter how futile the outcome was destined to be. “I
have
to go. I’ve taken all these stupid French classes for
you …
because
you
thought I should speak French just like Mrs. Kennedy! I even spent two whole days teaching you how to greet all those snobby friends of yours at that stupid ball. Damn it! I read Voltaire … in French … twice.

“And God only knows how many stupid apples and pears and purple irises I’ve painted, hoping that just one of them would be pretty enough for you. Miss Clements tells me my brushstrokes are gifted. Did you hear me? Gifted! I have to go to Paris! Miss Clements is counting on me. I am going!”

My voice was loud and demanding. It was a voice until this very moment I had never dared use when addressing my mother or my father, let alone both at the same time. And they just sat at the kitchen table looking oddly bewildered, as if they were staring at some crazed hippie high on marijuana or maybe tripping on some LSD.

“I’m sorry, Sister, but this is an impossible situation,” my mother finally snapped, regaining her composure and ending my charge as quickly as it had begun. Then she got up from the table, tossed the newspaper in my father’s lap, and walked away.

“Quel dommage,”
my friends sighed when I explained that I preferred to stay home for the summer.
“Quel dommage,”
they repeated in obvious disbelief when I said that June was a stifling time to be in Paris.
“Quel dommage,”
they said and then ran off giggling and chattering about French-kissing a French man under a French bridge.

“Screw it,” I whispered under my breath, in English.

I knew good and well why I was not going to Paris, and for the first time in my life I found myself hating my father as much as my mother. So when the newspaper came that afternoon announcing my classmates’ “life-altering” trip abroad, I took a big red Magic Marker and wrote a message for my father right across the headline, thanking him for this missed opportunity to finally step foot out of the state of Tennessee.

Merci, Papa merveilleux. Je vous remercie pour ceci?

Bezellia∼

That night I dreamed of the first Bezellia, clinging to her husband’s dying body, his blood soaking her clothes, the rain washing her hair. I’m not sure why she came to me like that, but she did from time to time, never with any warning or notice. The next morning at the breakfast table I announced that I would not be staying at Grove Hill for the summer. Instead, I would be spending my vacation at Old Hickory Lake, with my
grand-père
and
grand-mère
. Furthermore, I would be traveling alone. Caring for Adelaide and Baby Stella was not going to be my responsibility this year, whether Mother
vacationed
in Minnesota or not. Then I stood silent before my mother and waited for her to say no, to reject my plan, to put her foot down with such force that she would rattle the house.

But she simply nodded her head in agreement. And without thinking, I flung my arms around her neck and hugged her so tightly she gasped in surprise. Then I ran up to my room, fell across my bed, and threw my arms over my head like an athlete who had just won the race or a teenage girl who had finally gotten her way. Maybe this trip to Paris was going to be a life-altering experience after all.

The sun came up particularly bright and clear on that first day of June. My trunk was already packed and waiting for me by the front door. I pulled on some jeans cut off just above my knees and a short-sleeved cotton blouse, an ensemble I knew my mother, already dressed in a crisp blue linen suit, would not approve for traveling, not even to the lake. That afternoon she inspected me as she always did, slowly, from head to toe, and then sighed and said, “Fine. I’ll call Nathaniel.”

My father had ducked out of the house earlier than usual, surely feeling guilty that his poorly disguised affection for Mrs. Hunt had cost his daughter a trip abroad. It was just as well, because I was in no mood to act as though I was going to miss him. And even though I still felt rather sorry for myself, for the first time, I felt even sadder for my mother. She had apparently married a cheat and a coward, and I wasn’t really sure which was worse.

Mother stood quietly outside the front door with nothing but a cold cup of coffee in her hand. Maizelle and Adelaide were lined up beside her, each one waiting her turn to hug me good-bye. I think, of the three, my mother was going to miss me the most. She seemed almost afraid to be left at Grove Hill, to be left in charge of a household she really didn’t know anymore. For a moment, I wondered if I should stay. But almost as if Nathaniel sensed my hesitation, he revved the engine and yelled through the open car window that it was time to be on our way. Mother, Maizelle, and Adelaide walked to the edge of the porch and stood there together waving good-bye until the car pulled out of the drive. I looked at them and smiled and then fell back against the seat and closed my eyes.

The trip to Mount Juliet was less than an hour, but we were traveling much farther than that, back through time somewhere, exiting onto Route 171, fifty years or more before we left Grove Hill. A gas station on the far corner of the intersection looked abandoned except for an old man dressed in blue coveralls stacking cans of Quaker State motor oil in the front window. Seeing how there were no other cars in sight, I figured it might take the man the rest of his life to sell all that oil.

I rolled down the window and smelled the wildflowers and the cows that were grazing in the pastures. Mother was right. The air was cleaner and sweeter here, and when I exhaled, every bit of anger and frustration that had been stored in my body floated into the backseat and was sucked right out the rear window.

“There’s nothing like that, is there, Miss Bezellia?” Nathaniel said as he drew in a full breath and held it in his lungs. He scratched the back of his head with his right hand, keeping his left firmly on the steering wheel. Nathaniel’s hair was thinning and turning whiter, and the tiny bare spot where the angel had kissed him so long ago had grown a little bigger. For a minute, I was on my way to elementary school again, sitting as I always did right behind Nathaniel and hoping Tommy Blanton was still waiting for me behind the coatrack. I couldn’t help but wonder if Nathaniel would still be driving me around in my mother’s Cadillac when my hair started turning white like his.

Nathaniel and I hadn’t talked about Samuel since that day I left Cornelia’s house wearing the gold bracelet his son had given me, the bracelet I still wore when I slept at night. Maizelle had told me that Samuel was doing very well at Tennessee State University but was still hoping for a scholarship to Grambling State. He had been elected freshman class president and had a perfect A average. That scholarship seemed sure to come soon, and he was thinking he might be a lawyer or a doctor or maybe even a preacher. A cow mooed in the distance as if he understood what I was thinking.

“Miss Bezellia … Miss Bezellia … hey, are you there?” Nathaniel called, instantly placing me right back on the warm leather seat in my mother’s Cadillac.

“I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“Heavens, child, I said all sorts of things. But most recent I was saying that I bet your grandparents are mighty excited about you spending the summer with them.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” But to be honest, I wasn’t really sure. Nana said Pop hadn’t been feeling too good since Easter. She told me on the telephone that my visit would either perk his spirits right up or put him in his grave, only time would tell. I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by that, but Mother told me to ignore it. My grandmother had always had a twisted way of saying things, she said. I’d just been too young to understand that till now. Maybe, she added, it was a good thing I was spending the summer with them after all.

Nathaniel honked the horn three or four times in rapid succession as he pulled into the narrow gravel driveway in front of my grandparents’ house. A small wooden sign staked low in the ground had two words burned into it—T
HE
M
ORGANS
. Pop had never seen much sense in cutting a drive big enough to hold anything more than his red Ford truck, so Nathaniel steered the car onto the grass.

The day’s laundry, including my grandmother’s bras and panties, was hanging from a line she had strung along the front porch. My grandparents had an old washing machine in the basement but saw no need in owning a dryer as long as the wind was sure to blow. Nana came barreling out the front door, untying her apron as she hustled toward the car. Her thick gray hair was falling free from a loosely wrapped bun low on the back of her head, and two or three wooden clothespins were still clipped to the sleeve of her dress.

Pop, thinner than a stick and not much taller than I was now, came wobbling behind her, using a cane to steady himself. In the wake of my grandmother’s force, he suddenly looked very fragile and small.

“Lord, child, get out of that dang car and give me a hug. Oh, Lord, Macon, look how this child has growed. I bet she’s gonna be taller than the two of us combined,” Nana said, pushing me back from her arms so she could get a good, full look. “Now don’t go and get too tall, hon, or you gonna scare them boys off.”

Cornelia had always said my legs were one of my best features, but now I found myself turning my ankles in toward the ground so I could shorten my body by an inch or two. Pop was standing beside me, holding my elbow for added security.

“Hey, how ya doing?” I asked as I drew my grandfather into my arms.

“Hanging in there, sweetie. Hanging in,” he repeated, sounding lonesome and tired. “My, my, you are something to look at, just like your mother.” He squeezed me again before turning his attention to Nathaniel. “Nathaniel, sir,” my grandfather said, “sure is good to see you too. Been too long, old man.”

But before Nathaniel could answer, Nana interrupted. “How’s that daughter of mine treating you these days? Judging by all that white hair you got, I’d say not so good.”

“No, ma’am. Mrs. Grove is doing good, doing real good,” Nathaniel said, and he smiled at my grandmother and reached out to shake Pop’s hand. Mother
was
doing better. He wasn’t lying about that. But in all the years I’d known him, Nathaniel had never said one unkind word about either my mother or my father, and he wasn’t going to start now. “I’ve got Miss Bezellia’s bags here in the car. Where would you like me to put them, Mrs. Morgan?”

“Miss Bezellia,”
my grandmother repeated in an exaggerated, drawn-out tone. “Just put
Miss Bezellia’s
bags in the front bedroom, Nathaniel. You know the way.” She pointed at the house. “Cain’t you stay and have something to eat with us? Already got the pork chops fried, and the corn bread’s browning in the oven.”

“I’d love to, ma’am, but I best be getting back to Nashville. Took me a bit longer than usual to get here today, and Mrs. Grove’s needing me to get the summer cushions out on the porch furniture this evening. She’s expecting a couple of ladies from the country club tomorrow, and she’s wanting everything to look extra special. It’s been a while …” He paused. “Well, it’s been a while since Mrs. Grove has done any outdoor entertaining what with the cold winter and all. Like she always says, there’s no point in putting your best foot forward till the daffodils have done come and gone.”