The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove (5 page)

Mother gracefully placed the receiver back on the telephone base and pulled her ashtray toward her. The smoke from her cigarette was drawn to my face. I closed my eyes and saw my grandfather waving his arms, begging for help. I turned away and hid in the smoke, shielding my cheeks behind the palms of my hands and wondering why my complexion was suddenly my mother’s concern. I had seen only one pimple on my chin, and Mother had grabbed me and squeezed it dry, telling me to hush as she pinched my skin between her nails.

“Mother,” I said very cautiously, not wanting to upset her any more than she already was, “what happened to Pop?”

“What? Oh. Yes. Well, it seems, at least according to your grandmother, that your grandfather has had a heart attack—or something like that,” she said flatly, not sounding as though she was truly convinced that her father was ill at all.

“I know, I’m worried sick about him too,” she added, more out of a sense of obligation, I imagined, than any real concern. Then she pulled another breath through her cigarette. “Your grandmother said he is going to need lots of quiet and rest. Doctor’s orders or something like that. So it seems you girls will not be going to the lake this summer, and Lord knows I have a thousand meetings between now and September twenty-sixth.” Mother stared at the kitchen wall, again blowing smoke in my face, as if she had yet to notice I was sitting there next to her.

“Honestly, I do think your grandmother is being a bit ridiculous about the whole thing,” she said, as much to herself as to me. “You girls spend most of your days outside anyway. Besides, I just don’t know where all this love and concern is suddenly coming from. I’ve always said she’d be the one to put that poor man in his grave, picking on him the way she does.”

My mother and I rarely had a conversation about anything. And now it felt as though she was looking to me for some kind of comfort or advice. I patiently listened to every mean and mocking word she had to say about her mother, and then I scooted my chair slightly closer to hers and made her an offer. “I can watch her for you, Mother. Adelaide, that is. I can take care of her. I’m fourteen now. Cornelia started babysitting the Jamesons’ little boys when she was only thirteen. Besides, you know Adelaide, all she wants to do is play with her babies anyway.”

My mother’s eyes darted from left to right as she considered my proposition. The Iris Ball was, in Mother’s very own words, the single most important event in her life. I truly didn’t understand why she was hesitating to accept, unless, of course, she thought it best to call Mrs. Hunt first.

“Okay, Sister,” she finally said, pulling the cigarette back to her lips. “If you think you are up for the job, you can have it. You’ll be on your own for the most part. And you have to stay out of sight and out of trouble. Nathaniel is going to be very busy, so you can’t get in his way or ask him to drive you all over town. That barn has to look good, and I don’t think that man can do two things at once and get either one of them right.” She paused for a moment, as though she was rethinking her decision. Then she sat back in her chair and released a slow, steady breath, the smoke forming loose rings as it filtered through the air. “Be sure and keep an eye on Maizelle too.”

I nodded my head as if I understood her concern.

“Well, go on and get dressed. It’ll be noon before you know it. And just because it’s summer doesn’t mean you can walk around here looking like an orphan child. This is not your grandparents’ house. Put on those Bermuda shorts I bought you in Atlanta.” She waved her hand in my face again, this time motioning for me to leave.

I ran up the stairs, skipping every other one, eager to tell Adelaide of our new summer plans. My little sister jumped up and down when I told her she would be staying at Grove Hill, and then she ran to wake Baby Stella and share the news with her. I told them both that if she didn’t mind me, Mother was going to ship Adelaide off to some camp in North Carolina where baby dolls were not allowed. My sister threw her arms around my waist and promised to be a very good girl. She said Baby Stella would be good too.

I couldn’t stop smiling, knowing that it was me, Bezellia Louise Grove, who had been the one to rescue my mother. Not even Mrs. Hunt could help her
dear friend
this time. And giving up one carefree summer at the lake would all be worth it, because maybe, come September, my mother would love me a little bit more.

chapter three

M
other left shortly after breakfast almost every morning, not even taking the time to linger in bed and drink her coffee. She was gone until dinner, sometimes not coming home then, choosing instead to stay at the club and eat with her friends. Some afternoons Mother and Mrs. Hunt arrived at Grove Hill, and the two of them sat on the porch, nibbling chicken salad sandwiches and sipping gin and tonics, all the while talking about the ball, devoting much of their conversation to the design of their gowns and the final invitation list.

Mrs. Holder would be invited. Her husband was a prominent attorney in town. He took her to Paris for their tenth wedding anniversary. Mrs. Warren would not. She was fake and inconsiderate. She bought her clothes at Castner Knott but told everyone they came from Neiman Marcus, shipped all the way from Dallas.

Father stayed home a little longer in the mornings. Most days we’d sit on the front steps together, waiting for Nathaniel’s truck to pull in the drive. I’d lean against my father’s stiffly starched shirts and fill my head with the musky aftershave he had sprinkled all over his face. He said he needed to check Nathaniel’s work, but I think he was just enjoying the opportunity to visit with his old friend. The two of them would stand by the barn and point toward its roofline every now and again, but mostly they just talked about horses and fishing and long afternoons spent down by the creek when they were young.

As for me, I spent most of my time tending to my little sister, just as I’d promised my mother I’d do. I helped her bathe and dress her babies and set up tea parties on an old, worn quilt under the oak tree in the front yard. Maizelle wouldn’t let Adelaide put tea or lemonade or even water in her little plastic teapot unless we went outside to play. She said she was not cleaning up any more of Adelaide’s messes in the house. That was my job now. But when Adelaide was napping in the afternoons, I would sprawl across the chaise lounge on the porch and read the collection of Nancy Drew mysteries that Uncle Thad had given me for my fourteenth birthday. He had written a short message inside the first book.

Dear Bezellia, hoping you solve life’s mysteries. Happy Birthday, Uncle Thad

I must have looked kind of puzzled when I read his inscription, because he patted me on the back and told me not to worry. He said I’d figure it out someday because I was a smart, plucky girl just like Nancy Drew. I loved that he thought I was
plucky
, although I wasn’t really sure what that meant. I just hoped it had nothing to do with his chickens.

At the very end of June, Mother announced at dinner that she and Mrs. Hunt would be traveling to New York to buy some imported table linens for the Iris Ball. She would be gone for four or five days, and Adelaide and I were to behave. Then she turned and looked at my father, and with the stern and serious tone a parent would use to caution a child before crossing the street, she warned him that she would be spending an afternoon at Tiffany. Mrs. Hunt had already scheduled a private appointment with the store’s manager.

When Mother left, she hugged me good-bye. Even now, when I close my eyes, I can still feel her arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders. She looked so beautiful, dressed in a coral silk suit and her hair tucked neatly under a matching pillbox-shaped hat. A large diamond brooch in the shape of a
G
was attached to her lapel. Father had given it to her that morning at breakfast, pinned to her napkin. They had even exchanged a brief kiss.

As the Cadillac headed down the driveway, Mother looked back at her daughters and waved a final good-bye. I ran behind the car as it made its way to the road. Mother watched me from the rear window. She smiled so sweetly. Surely she was going to miss me. Then the car turned to the right, and my mother was suddenly out of sight.

Adelaide kicked up some dirt with her new white tennis shoes and then turned and walked back to the house. Before she got into the car, Mother had warned Adelaide not to get this pair of shoes dirty. Of course, when Maizelle saw them, she snorted something about a mother buying a child anything white to wear must be a mother who never has done a load of laundry. Then she shook her head and walked down the stairs to the basement carrying a basket full of our dirty clothes.

Adelaide wasted no time in telling me that her babies needed a good bath and a long nap. I warned her not to get water on the bathroom floor again, because I, like Maizelle, was not cleaning up another mess today, and then I stretched out on the chaise lounge and opened my book. My eyes were already heavy, and I found myself staring at the same words over and over again.

Nancy Drew began peeling off her garden gloves as she ran up
the porch steps and into the hall to answer the ringing…

Nancy Drew began peeling off her garden gloves as she ran up
the porch steps and into the hall to answer the ringing …

Somewhere I could hear the sound of a car pulling up the drive, the tires crunching over the gravel as they rolled forward, the noise forcing its way through my sleep. Drowsy and confused, I dropped my book on the floor and started looking for my mother. But it was only Nathaniel this time, perched behind the wheel of his old blue pickup truck, with his worn brown hat pulled low on his forehead. I squinted my eyes a little tighter and sat up a little straighter, trying to wake myself. It was Nathaniel all right, but somebody else was sitting next to him, somebody I had never seen before.

He looked about my age, maybe a year or two older. He had chocolate brown skin and deep, dark eyes. He was wearing a pair of worn-out blue jeans that rested low on his waist and made his legs look slender and long. He was almost as tall as Nathaniel, but he didn’t really look like him, at least until he smiled. And it was a smile I had known since I was a baby.

“Miss Bezellia. Hey, I saw you up there behind that book. Hope that sister of yours hasn’t gone and drowned a baby doll or two by now. I can hear the water running in the upstairs tub from here.” Nathaniel laughed, pointing to the open window on the second floor. “Come on down here and meet my son before we need to start building Adelaide an ark of her own.”

Nathaniel had three girls and a boy. He’d told me so. He talked about them every now and then, always with a brightness in his eyes. But for some reason, I’d never really believed they were real. Or maybe I just didn’t want to.

“Samuel’s going to help me this summer. I promised your daddy I was going to get that barn looking like new before the end of the month, and I need Samuel’s strong back if I’m to keep my word.” Nathaniel was grinning from ear to ear, clearly so proud of his strapping, good-looking son.

Samuel smiled too, obviously enjoying his daddy’s praise.

“It’s nice to meet you, Samuel,” I said.

“What you reading there?” he asked as he buckled an aged leather tool belt around his waist.

“Reading? Oh, Nancy Drew.”

“Never heard of her.”

“She’s more for girls, I guess. You probably read the Hardy Boys.”

“Nope. Never heard of them either. Nice meeting you, though,” he said, and smiled again, leaving my body feeling anxious and relaxed all at the same time. He hoisted some boards over his right shoulder and followed his father into the barn. I stayed on the porch, hidden behind my book.

Nancy thoroughly enjoyed herself and was sorry when the affair ended. With the promise of another date as soon as she returned from Twin Elms, Nancy said goodnight and waved from her doorway to the departing boy
.

I lingered on the chaise lounge for a while longer, letting the sound of their hammers slapping against the wood lull me in and out of a light sleep. Maizelle was calling my name from somewhere deep within the kitchen, but I kept drifting away from her voice and finding myself floating across the field behind the house. The grass was dotted with Queen Anne’s lace and black-eyed Susans. The sound of the water rolling through the creek was pulling me downstream, and the sun was warming my face. Samuel was ahead of me, waiting on the other side of the cherrybark oaks, extending his hand toward mine. The water isn’t deep, he said, motioning for me to follow him. Then Maizelle tapped her foot on the porch floor, and I fell right back onto the chaise lounge.

“You better go check on your sister. You promised your mama you’d look after her, and the minute your mama leaves town, I find you out here sound asleep. I haven’t heard a word from Adelaide in the last twenty minutes. She’s either done fallen asleep like you or is cutting that poor doll’s hair again. That baby’s not looking quite right, if you ask me. Something in her eyes is just plain evil.”

“She’s only a doll, Maizelle,” I told her, and I laughed and cocked my head to the right like I always did when I wanted her to know that her imagination was getting the best of her. Maizelle could be brave and fiery one minute and then skittish and scared the next, sometimes falling from one extreme to the other like a yo-yo dancing on a string. I sat up and rubbed my eyes and realized Maizelle was carrying a tray piled with sandwiches and fresh fruit and a large bowl of potato chips. I rubbed my stomach and waited for her to offer me something to eat.

“This ain’t for you, girl. This is a meal meant for those who have been working hard. Now get up from there and find your sister. You promised your mama you wouldn’t take your eyes off her. I’ll feed you two in a little bit.”

Maizelle stepped off the porch and slowly walked toward the barn. She never rushed anywhere, said there was nothing on this earth worth running to anyway. But as soon as Samuel saw her coming, he ran to greet her and quickly shifted the tray into his own two hands. “This is the best-looking sandwich I’ve ever seen, Miss Maizelle,” he declared, and grinned real big, revealing a band of perfect white teeth. Even from where I was sitting, I could see Maizelle’s cheeks turn pink as a rose and her hips jiggle from side to side.

“Oh, your mama better not hear you say that, Samuel Stephenson, or she’s gonna have you bringing a sack lunch tomorrow,” she answered, and then she laughed real hard and playfully swatted him on his arm.

“Oh, Miss Maizelle, my mama is a wonderful cook, but she don’t make sandwiches like this. Is this bread homemade?” he asked her, and then winked, as if to reassure her he wasn’t telling lies about her cooking.

“Lord, son, you got your daddy’s smile, something dangerous for sure. I bet you got yourself at least a girlfriend or two, hmm, don’t ya?”

Samuel only smiled. He seemed to know that was all he needed to do. Then he glanced up toward the house, and I suddenly felt like his teasing was as much for my entertainment as it was for Maizelle’s. I dropped my head against the back of the chaise lounge. I didn’t think it was really right for a colored boy to be flirting with me, even if I did kind of like it.

Maizelle swatted Samuel on the arm again and then pointed to the barn. “You better get your daddy’s lunch delivered before that man passes out from hunger,” she told him. She laughed to herself as she walked back to the house, every now and then stopping to pull a weed thriving among my mother’s flowers. I snuggled farther down on the chaise lounge and closed my eyes again and listened to the hammer, and the saw, and Samuel’s laugh, and Nathaniel’s singing, all woven together and drifting through the air like a redbird coming to offer me some lonesome morning trill. If Mother’d been here, she’d have told Nathaniel to quit singing that Negro music.

“You’re not a slave, old man,” she’d snap. “You’re not working on some cotton-picking plantation.” And Nathaniel would look at my mother and tip his cap and say the same thing he always said. “No, Mrs. Grove, you’re right. This
ain’t
no cotton-picking plantation.”

For the next two days, I woke to that same soothing sound. And by the time I’d made my way downstairs and taken my place at the kitchen table, Maizelle would already be carrying a tray loaded with sandwiches and fresh chips to the barn. She said when you’ve been working since daybreak, lunch comes early, and it might do me some good to remember that. “The early bird is the one that ends up getting the worm every time.”

Maybe. But I didn’t care too much about that worm. All I knew was that when I wasn’t tending to Adelaide or Baby Stella, I found myself right back on that porch, drawn to it like a moth to the light. Samuel and I would exchange glances every now and then, never more than that. But it was all the encouragement I needed to keep coming back.

“Bezellia, whatchya doin’, child?” Maizelle asked late one afternoon as she stood in front of me, swaying from one foot to the other. Mother’s body was stiff and rigid, but Maizelle’s body was never still. Even when she was standing in place, her body was always moving. And even when she was trying to be stern, she could never completely hide the smile in her voice.

“Nothing,” I answered, keeping my eyes closed and my nose buried behind my book.

“Uh-huh, I can see that,” Maizelle said. “When I was your age I had been taking in ironing for more than a year. Never had the time to do nothing. Now take this lemonade out to Nathaniel and Samuel. And then take your little sister down to the creek for me.” I had left Adelaide sitting on the grass feeding her babies some crackers and ice water. Now the garden hose was pulled to her side and water was trickling onto a patch of dry, dusty earth. Stacked between her legs sat a pile of newly made mud pies.

“While your nose done been buried in that book, your little sister’s been out playing in the mud again.” Hearing herself spoken of, Adelaide looked up and grinned. Her arms and legs were covered in a fresh, wet coat of mud. “I don’t want her inside getting anywhere near your mama’s furniture. She’ll take a switch to all three of us if one tiny speck of mud finds its way into this house,” Maizelle told me sternly.