The Sweetest Thing (16 page)

Perri gave an awkward little giggle, but her forehead was creased, and she fanned herself with her hand.

“I've got plans to own the biggest empire in America, bigger than Coca-Cola and Rich's Department Store combined. Bigger than U.S. Steel.” He lifted his thick black eyebrows and smiled at Hank. “By the time I finish with Atlanta, people will know I've been here.”

We were halfway up the mountain when Perri, who had been hanging on to Spalding's every word, said, “Is this not the most incredible view ever? Oh, Dobbs! Look at it! I have to get a few shots of this. I simply have to. Boys, y'all go on ahead. We'll be along shortly.” She linked her arm through mine and said, “It's just ferociously hot, isn't it?”

I nodded.

Spalding kept climbing, saying, “Henry and I will find a suitable spot for a picnic. Join us when you can.” Hank followed halfheartedly.

I thought that maybe Perri would share whatever was troubling her, but she didn't. She just walked from one spot to another, snapping pictures and seeming so completely satisfied. I wanted to be happy for her, and content, but I could not ignore my mounting dislike for Spalding.

When we rejoined the boys, Hank took my hand protectively, and I sat down on the blanket beside him. Perri flitted beside Spalding and said, “This is just such a splendid idea, Spalding. I've always wanted to climb to the top of Stone Mountain, and here I'm getting to do it with you.”

I cringed slightly, unused to the silliness that had crept into Perri's voice. Perri was a practical girl who enjoyed having fun, but never would I have expected her to use the ridiculous candy sweetness that some girls adopted around a boy they liked. And yet, now she was fairly oozing the sticky stuff.

As we ate our pimento-cheese sandwiches and potato salad, Spalding launched into a story about how his father got started with Coca-Cola way back when, and how he had made a fortune there and had also been involved in several wise investments. Then, with barely a breath, he switched to the Georgia Tech football players. And on and on he talked with a convincing charm, a complete self-absorption that was nonetheless intoxicating to listen to because Spalding seemed absolutely convinced what he was saying was of utmost importance.

Perri occasionally interjected some inane comment such as, “Oh my! How absolutely fascinating!” or “Well, that is just the most interesting thing I've ever heard, Spalding!” and I tried my best not to roll my eyes.

What I read on Hank's face was a mixture of anger and annoyance and, finally, intimidation. And little by little, it seemed to me that Hank disappeared until, at length, I could not find him. Of course he was still there sitting beside me, but he never made the slightest sound, and after a while he didn't even look at Spalding. Perri occasionally smiled at me sweetly, and I could tell she wanted Spalding to hush up a little, but he paid no attention to anyone except himself.

I had never seen Hank act intimidated before. He always seemed genuine and at ease. I guess that Spalding's pompous self-absorption sucked the life from Hank, and he remained virtually silent on the rest of the date. I felt mortified and then embarrassed and then apologetic, and then I volleyed back and forth until finally, thank heavens, it was over.

Spalding let us off at the Chandlers' and called after us. “Nice to meet you, Henry. Good to see you again, Mary Dobbs,” and he drove off with poor Perri beside him looking after me with an expression of frozen superficiality on her face.

Every emotion tumbled out as Hank and I walked across the vast lawn to the Chandlers' main house. “That was one of the worst picnics of my life. Spalding is horrid, but I was embarrassed too, Hank. Couldn't you think of anything to say, the whole entire time?”

Hank stopped and looked straight at me. “What did you want me to say, Dobbs? He is the most self-important person I've ever met.”

“I know, but you could have said something. Instead you just sat there and looked, I don't know, you looked . . .”

“Stupid?”

“Yes, stupid. No, I don't mean that, but still, it was so terribly awkward.”

“I'm sorry to have embarrassed you, Mary Dobbs.” The formality that crept into his voice took my breath away. We reached the house. “I'll get my things together. Hosea is taking me to the train station.”

I hurried after him. “I don't care one bit for Spalding either—you know that! I think he's very stuck on himself, and . . . and . . . he scares me. But it's just that you disappeared; you became invisible, and I needed you to say something.”

Hank walked down the left hallway toward his room, not looking back at me.

“You're usually so strong and wise. But today you were different, and I didn't know what to do.”

He began undoing his tie, went to his room, opened the drawer with his clothes in it, and put them into his small suitcase. He looked so handsome and so uncomfortable in his suit pants, the ones he had worn, in spite of the humidity, simply because I asked him to. “Do you mind? I'm going to change.”

He closed the door but kept talking to me on the other side. “When someone needs to hear himself talk as much as that guy did, then I'll just oblige him. He took the Lord's name in vain twice when we were setting up the picnic, and when I asked him to please refrain, you know what he said?”

Hank opened the door and stared at me, eyes flashing. He was bare-chested, and I gave a little gasp, but he didn't even notice. “He said, ‘Henry, I'm surprised you want to be a preacherboy with the way the Good Lord's been looking after His people in America. It's enough to drain the faith out of you, I would think.' And then he cursed again.” Hank pulled on a white T-shirt, buckled his overalls, picked up his Bible, placed it in the case, and closed the lid.

He looked at me, and his face softened. “I'm sorry, Dobbs. Forgive me. What could I say? I had no idea what he was talking about most of the time. I did feel totally brainless. I'll give that to the guy. He has a way of overpowering you with his words.”

“But you could have tried!” Immediately I wished I could have taken those words back.

Hank started down the hall, suitcase in hand. “I'm leaving here in about thirty minutes, so hopefully you won't have to go through another—” he thought for a moment, then quoted me—“ ‘terribly awkward' time like that ever again.”

“No, Hank! Heavens, I've never seen you like this. First intimidated and now mad.” We'd never had a fight before, and I felt panicky and afraid.

He kept walking. “Dobbs, it doesn't matter. I'm taking the train to meet your parents in Tennessee for two weeks of revivals there, and then the three of us will come back here for one week of revivals. But after that, I'll probably never set foot in Atlanta, and I doubt I'll ever see Spalding Smith again. I will pray for his soul, though. And I'll pray for your friend Perri, because if she is willing to fall for someone like him, I feel sorry for her. She has a lot less brainpower than I do.”

I should have agreed with him. I
did
agree. But keeping my mouth shut had never been high on my list of priorities. I felt angry, too, and said, “Please refrain from insulting my friends, Henry Wilson.”

He set the suitcase down in the foyer—thank goodness no one else was around—cocked his head, and gave me a sad smile. “You're gonna call me Henry too? This certainly isn't how I wanted our weekend to end.” He reached over gently and took my face in his big rough hands. “I'm sorry, Mary Dobbs, if I've embarrassed you. It was never my intention. You know I'm not very good at pretending to be someone I'm not.”

It was one of the things I loved most about him. I grabbed him around the waist and held him tight and said, “I'm sorry too, Hank.” And perhaps it was just my overactive imagination, but he didn't seem to be holding me nearly as tightly as he had at the club, and he let go quickly.

In that instant, I wanted to pack up Frances and Coobie and myself and hurry back to Chicago with Hank beside me. But my parents needed us to remain in Atlanta while they held revivals and then set off to save the people destroyed by a blizzard of dust. So we stayed.

Hosea brought the Pierce Arrow around front, and Frances and Coobie and Parthenia begged to ride with Hosea to the train station, and so it turned out that there wasn't much room for me in the car. “You've been with him all weekend, Dobbsy,” Coobie complained. “Please let us tell him good-bye.”

Hank took my hand and said, “I'll see you in a couple of weeks.”

I wanted to tell him how much I loved him and how I would be praying for his job and a thousand other things, but instead I stood under the covered entrance and watched the car drive away. Hank turned once and waved, and I waved back. Then I went to my room and cried my heart out, with the sound of the crickets chirping madly just outside my window.

Although I had absolutely no desire to do it, late that evening, I asked Hosea to drive me over to the Singletons', as I had promised Perri. I found her in her pajamas, looking through the latest pile of photographs she had developed in the darkroom.

“Well, our double date was a complete disaster, wasn't it?” I said with a dry chuckle. I hoped she'd admit it too.

Instead, she said, “Yes, it's too bad that our boys aren't very congenial. They're so different, is all, coming from such different backgrounds. But I'm sure they'll get along in the long run.” She gave me a sweet smile, but I felt cold inside, and a tiny bit of awkwardness slipped between us. “Poor Spalding has his hands full with school and deciding about the family business. It's a lot on him. I just don't think Hank could understand.”

A chill ran up my spine. How could Perri defend Spalding Smith? Did she really feel something for him? I had secretly hoped that her “bad news” would be the fact that she'd realized what a louse he was. Obviously I had been mistaken, and even though we were sitting only a foot apart in her room, I suddenly felt very far away from her.

Perri didn't seem to notice. She showed me the photographs—some were splendid—and then told me the story of finding her father's letter underneath the saddle. “It was absolutely horrid and I cried half the day, but I was determined not to bother you and Hank.”

“I'm sorry I wasn't here. You could have called me, Perri. You can call me anytime. Hank would have understood.”

She shrugged. “No, no. And in the end it worked out fine because Spalding came over, without me asking—just like he knew. He was a real gentleman and listened and understood and comforted me. And it worked out okay. Fine, really. Just fine.”

But the tone in her voice was off, falsely light, almost superficial, and even though I stayed for another hour, I felt like I was losing Perri, as if she was retreating into a hidden place, a hard place where she was going to protect everything that mattered to her, and suddenly, I wasn't invited to enter.

CHAPTER

14

Perri

Memories come in strange snippets, parts of days of our lives that are mundane, but for some reason, our mind recalls them. I kept Daddy's note to me between the pages of
Patches from the Sky
, but I took it out one afternoon and stared at his hurried handwriting, and that's when the memory came.

It must have been a year earlier at least. It was summer, and the Chandlers, McFaddens, and Robinsons were at our house. It was late, past midnight, but I tossed and turned in my bed, sticking to my sheets in Georgia's humidity. I got up and headed downstairs for a drink of water. I guess the ladies were still outside, but as I came back from the kitchen, I heard angry voices. First my father's, “Bill, there is nothing I can do about it now! How did this happen?” And Mr. Robinson's reply, “You've got to find a way, Holden, don't you see? You could get in big trouble for this.”

I went upstairs and promptly forgot what I'd heard. But now, looking at Daddy's note, I wondered what Mr. Robinson meant about getting into trouble, and then I wondered why my father scribbled me a note, only moments before he took his life:
I promise I didn't do it.
I had no idea what he was trying to tell me, and I was pretty sure I would never find out.

———

I have wondered, when two people grow as close as Dobbs and I did in such a quick and dramatic manner, if that makes it easier for the bonds to break later. I thought our friendship was rock solid, but after the double date that Dobbs pronounced “disastrous,” I had a nauseous feeling in my stomach that I was going to have to choose between Spalding and Dobbs. Already I was torn between Dobbs and the rest of my friends. Dobbs was in no way discreet, and her disapproval of Spalding was etched deeply on her face, and suddenly, I couldn't tell her everything on my heart. I hated it; it felt like a small death between us. It felt like yet another loss.

We still spent plenty of time together, and when Dobbs had the idea to visit the Alms Houses, I didn't dare say no, especially since Mae Pearl, who was all torn up about us selling our house, loved the idea, and it gave us a chance to be together before I moved.

So on a Sunday in early June, we packed up the picnic baskets with all kinds of goodies that we had helped Parthenia bake for Anna, and Hosea drove us out to the Alms Houses in the Chandlers' old Ford. Mae Pearl and Dobbs and I sat in the back, with Coobie and Parthenia sitting up front with Hosea, those little girls all crazy with excitement.

Barbara was not about to venture there, and she convinced Frances to stay with her at the Chandlers' to paint their nails and probably talk about some boy Barbara hoped would invite her to her first tea party.

I had heard all about the Alms Houses because of Mamma's involvement in the Junior League—they often made things for the residents—and also because for years and years a wonderful man and close friend of Daddy's, Dr. R. L. Hope, was in charge of the houses. Dr. Hope had retired a few years earlier on account of his heart, but we children knew of him because they'd built a school and named it after him right smack on the property where the old Alms Houses used to be, on the corner of Piedmont and Peachtree roads.

But even though Peggy lived just across the street from what Daddy called the “new” Alms Houses—they'd been in that location for years by then—and I went to visit her regularly, I'd never paid any attention to the houses themselves. Now I looked at them and thought they were lovely—not at all what I had expected. The redbrick Alms House, where the white folks stayed, was built in a horseshoe shape with a courtyard in between the two wings. The building had white columns, not unlike Washington Seminary's, out front. It was a big, imposing building but welcoming in its way, with a long banistered porch that flanked all the resident rooms. Behind the house rose a very steep wooded hill, and forest surrounded the other sides, except to the east, where a broad undulating field lay.

I followed Parthenia and Dobbs and Mae Pearl to where the Black Alms House was located not far away. This building was white brick and smaller, with a porch out front and beautiful tall hickory and oak trees shading it on every side. Both houses were immaculately kept and comfortable seeming, which surprised and pleased me.

One of the residents sitting out front of the Black Alms House seemed a little off in the head—holding herself in that awkward way of the mentally unstable with hollow-looking eyes and drooling lips—but that didn't bother Mae Pearl, who leaned over and said, “Howdy, ma'am,” in her sweet voice.

The woman stared at her like she had just received an angel in her midst, and a feeble smile spread across her lips.

“Bless you, chile,” whispered an old toothless colored man who was sitting in a rocker on the other side of the front porch. Mae Pearl immediately knelt down beside him and placed her soft white hand right over his old black hand with its chipped fingernails and splotches of pale scarred skin.

And I saw it then—my first real inspiration, the first time I could literally see something deep and important that needed to be translated into a photo. Their hands. A simple gesture of the one hand covering another. I got tears in my eyes. I knelt down nearby, almost like I'd kneel in church, and it even felt like a holy moment. I put my eye to the viewfinder of the Eastman Kodak and I stared at those hands, breathing so slowly, afraid I wasn't worthy of the photo. Then I pressed the shutter, and it was recorded; a chill of excitement zipped down my back.

I walked out into the yard in front of the Black Alms House and waited and waited, propping myself against a tree so Mae Pearl and the old man couldn't even see me, not that they were paying any attention. The afternoon sun kept shifting through the leaves, and shadows played across Mae Pearl's face. She wore an expression of such natural purity. I snapped the photo. Then the old man started telling her something—the story of his life, perhaps—and Mae Pearl leaned in closer to him, instinctively, and I captured that too, the perfect contrast of light and dark in the faces of the two of them as they were engaged in conversation.

A moment later, Mae Pearl threw her head back, and smooth, musical laughter escaped from her mouth, and the man's skinny shoulders started moving up and down in a jolly way and a twinkle of light came into his tired old eyes, and I caught that too.

Later, all filled up with enthusiasm, I went through the building to the back, where the prison quarters were, behind the regular rooms for the poor people, and I found Dobbs and Coobie and Parthenia there with Hosea and Anna. Parthenia was rattling on about one of Dobbs's strange stories when she saw me approaching. “And this here is her friend, Miz Perri Singleton, and you know about her troubles too.”

For some reason, I felt as if I were warming up inside, as if I were sipping on a never-ending cup of Dellareen's hot spiced tea, the kind she made with lemon and honey and cloves and mint and gave us in the winter when one of us kids had a cold. I wondered at the irony, how I felt the same pure comfort that afternoon, warmed and filled up and comfortable, in a place for castoffs and elderly and prisoners.

Dobbs began talking animatedly about the theft that had put Anna in the Alms House, so I just faded into the background and listened.

“. . . And you see, I've been thinking about your situation, Anna. I'm just begging Aunt Josie to do something.” Dobbs's expression was intense. It appeared she planned to right the wrong—and soon.

Anna's eyes got all dark and scared, and she said, “Don't you be botherin' Miz Chandler with my case. She's tried and tried, and I tell you what—I've learned if you push and push and the door won't open, then mebbe it's the Good Lawd keeping it closed and we should just stop trying. One day or another they'll clear it all up, and until then, well, I got my work.”

“But Parthenia and Cornelius should be in school!” Dobbs blurted out. “Aunt Josie knows that!”

“Miz Chandler's given my family a place to live and all the food they can eat and a way for them to come an' visit me, and for right now, that has to be enough. You understand, Miz Mary Dobbs? Please don't make no trouble for my family. Parthie's got a big mouth, and she might complain a bit, but she don't mind the work, and she'll catch up on her schoolin' when times git better.”

I listened to Anna's words, but what I was really concentrating on was her expression. I had seen her before during parties at the Chandlers', but that day I really
saw
her. She was small in stature, much smaller than Dellareen, but whereas Dellareen was tall and thin as a reed, she was wide around the girth. Anna had a dark blue bandanna tied around her hair and two deep crevasses ran under her eyes, as if maybe she never got any sleep. But she looked sturdy and determined, and something else took me completely off guard. I'd expected a surly woman with a lot of bitterness holed up inside, but what was leaking out of Anna was something wary and tough and peaceful, all mixed together.

Then I knew what it was, and I felt a kinship with her. I understood her in one thoughtful study of her face. She had the same grit in her as I did, that deep protectiveness, that stubborn refusal to give in. She was going to protect her family—no matter if she was locked up on a prison farm; she was going to take care of the ones she loved. I didn't know how she'd do it, but she did.

I felt bound to her in that moment.

Parthenia saw my camera and begged, “Miz Perri, will ya pleeee-ze take a picture of me and my mama,” and I happily consented. That sassy little maid curled up in her mama's big lap, just like a child should, and for that afternoon, Parthenia was no longer the fill-in servant in a family turned upside down—she was just a kid.

Then I took a few photographs of Coobie, who, for all the times Dobbs had described her as mischievous, was actually very docile that afternoon. I got three fabulous shots of her leaning on Dobbs's shoulder, her soft black curls mingling with Dobbs's long wavy black hair.

At length, I left all of them and went walking around the property, taking photos of the fields of corn and wheat, of an old woman with her gnarled hands all drawn up around her and trying to bring a biscuit to her mouth, of three men playing a card game in the shade. Every time I snapped the shutter, I felt warm all over, endless sips of Dellareen's tea. Indeed for the rest of the afternoon, I felt content and free and wonderfully absorbed, away from my family's troubles, looking at another side of life, at people who truly had nothing but had found a home of sorts.

I had brought four rolls of film with me, and after using up every last one, I decided that Dobbs was right.
This
was what I was meant to do—look through my camera and see something that mattered, something simple and important, and put it in a photo so that others could understand. I felt a thrill and congeniality with my heroine, the photographer Dorothea Lange. Like her, I was discovering my passion, my calling, and I wanted to stay out in the fields forever, looking through that lens at a different world.

I had taken to keeping the little volume
Patches from the Sky
by my bed and reading a poem or Scripture verse each night. The first time I held the volume at Daddy's funeral, I had been reassured, at least momentarily, that life could go on. Dobbs said that Hank's grandmother had called it a pathway through grief; I had a feeling the book was leading me on another pathway, too—a pathway toward the Bible and faith.

On the night after that glowing afternoon at the Alms Houses, I held the book and closed my eyes and thought of the way Mae Pearl's sadness and worry at my moving had just gotten erased away as she sat on the porch and listened to a destitute old man. The touch of human kindness had been a balm between them. I hope I had gotten it right in my photo.

I turned several pages in the book to an excerpt I had read a few nights before from Shakespeare's
The Merchant of Venice.

The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesses him that gives and him that takes . . .

I kept repeating that last phrase in my mind, again and again, and I nodded. Yes, mercy. Yes, it blessed him who gave and him who received. Once it was developed, I would slip the picture of Mae Pearl's hand covering the old man's in between this page in the book. That would be my first perfect illustration of reality. I knew there would be others.

———

But another reality forced itself upon me the next day. School was out, so I had no excuse not to join Mamma in packing up the house. Summer in Atlanta usually meant attending fancy tea parties, swimming, playing tennis at the club, horseback riding, and shopping for dresses. But what it meant for me in the summer of 1933 was facing the inevitable—we were moving out of our home.

The bank was providing professional movers to pack up the furniture and paintings and appliances and such, but Mamma expected Barbara, Irvin, and me to sort through our belongings and choose what to take with us and what to throw out or give away. Poor Irvin was completely lost as to where to start. I went into his room and found him lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, throwing a baseball in the air and catching it.

He turned his freckled face to me and asked, “Do ya think I have to give away my stuffed animals, Perri?”

I hurried to the bed, sat down, and grabbed the baseball from him. “Of course not, Irvin McDowell Singleton. You will keep every single thing that means something to you. I'll pack up the clothes that you've outgrown and put them in the stack of things we're taking to the Alms Houses.”

So I stayed with him all that morning. Every once in a while, I'd stop packing long enough to really look at my brother. He seemed so small and fragile, his short brown hair tucked under a baseball cap and all his stuffed animals lined up on his bed like silent friends who were encouraging him on in his dismal task.