The Truth According to Us (21 page)

“Fine,” he repeated, and then cocked his head quizzically. “And what would you be doing?”

She took a long breath of smoke. “That's a good question. I don't know. I don't ever get that far, I guess. Maybe I'd have finished college.” She laughed. “Maybe I'd be like Caroline Betts. A pillar of rectitude.”

“Maybe you'd be married to Sol.”

“Puh. Sol would be married to some nice lady.” She glanced down at herself. “Someone stylish. Someone who plays canasta.”

“Canasta?” He paused. When she said nothing, he went on. “You're
nuts. The whole thing's nuts. You couldn't have known what Vause was going to do. Nobody knew.”

“I guess.” She nodded, unconvinced. “Will you go call the girls?”

He went out in the twilight to find them while she set the last of the cups in the dish drain. Listlessly, she wiped the table, the counter, the stove, and moved to the pantry for the broom. When he came back, the weak wood of the back porch cracking under his shoes, he was carrying Bird under one arm, like a library book. “She dared to resist,” he said to Jottie.

“Carry me upstairs!” Bird ordered.

“Carry yourself upstairs,” Emmett said, setting her gently on her feet.

“Get in the bath, honey. Church tomorrow,” Jottie said.

The door wheezed again as Willa came in. She stopped still, looking at her aunt with narrow eyes. “What?” she said. “What happened?”

Jottie lifted her head and blew smoke in Willa's direction. “Nothing happened. Did it, Emmett?”

It was pretty late by the time we got into bed, almost ten o'clock. “You-all go to sleep,” Jottie said. She flicked the light out and made to close the door, but she sort of faltered as she brought it to, like she knew she wouldn't get away with it or maybe didn't even want to. We knew we had her then, and Bird pounced. “Tell us a story.”

She tried to sound stern. “One story.”

One, we agreed piously, and Jottie came in and settled herself against Bird's pillows and waggled her empty arm for me to snuggle into. Jottie asked what kind of story did we want.

“I want one about me,” said Bird. Like she always did.

“No. Father,” I said. “I want one about Father when he was little.”

“Something bad he did,” commanded Bird.

“Well,” Jottie said, “that makes it easy. You want the one about Slonaker's barn? Or the polo ponies?”

“One we haven't heard.”

She was quiet for so long that I thought she'd gone to sleep. I was preparing to jostle her when she sighed and began to speak. “Now. Listen.” I loved her voice when she told a story, so low and round. “We had an uncle—he wasn't even our real uncle, just someone Daddy liked for some reason—Uncle Dade. He was just a horrible man. He gave the boys presents all the time—never a thing for us girls, but he'd bring the boys all sorts of grisly things, like knives and cap guns. One day, he showed up with a bow-and-arrow set for Felix—not a toy, a real one, with genuine deadly arrows, all knife-sharp points on one end and feathers on the other. Felix was about twelve at the time, and Mama was itching to take those arrows away, I could see she was, but she couldn't do it in front of Uncle Dade, so Felix said thank you and whisked off before she could stop him. I followed him, like I generally did, and together we fixed up a wonderful plan. Felix was going to shoot an apple right off my head, like William Tell. We figured that once we'd practiced it a couple of times, we could sell tickets. Who wouldn't pay a penny to see Felix shoot an apple off my head?”

“I would,” said Bird.

“But that's terrible!” I said. “What if he hit you by mistake? Weren't you scared?”

Jottie laughed softly. “No. I was excited. I thought it was thrilling. And, besides, after he shot the apple off my head, I was going to shoot an apple off his. Sounded fine to me.”

“Huh. And you're always telling us we don't have any sense.”

“Well, I did begin to feel a little flimsy once I was backed up against the barn with an apple resting in my hair. Felix kept squinting and pulling the bowstring and flexing his arm. He said he had to get in the right mood or his hand would shake, which didn't make me any easier in my mind. But right about then, a couple of his friends came climbing over the fence. They saw what he was doing, and one of them told Felix to stop.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Sol. His name was Sol, short for Solomon.”

My eyebrows practically hit my hair, but no one saw in the dark.

“Sol. Sounds fat,” observed Bird.

Jottie laughed. “He wasn't fat. He was small, then, and pale, because his mother made him stay inside and play the violin.”

“Eww,” Bird said.

“I know,” she agreed. “Anyway, he started yelling, but Felix paid him no mind, just kept squinting and aiming, so Sol ran over and yanked me away from the barn. I acted real indignant, but inside I was relieved—and then Felix said Sol had to take my place or he'd shoot at me anyway, and he'd
aim
for my head, he said. Poor Sol didn't know what to do. He looked from Felix to me to Vause—”

“Vause Hamilton?” I asked quickly.

“Yes. Vause was there, too. After a moment, Sol stood up against the barn.”

“Golly,” I said. “Just like Sydney Carton in
Tale of Two Cities.”

Jottie gave me a funny look. “Maybe. Once Sol was standing there with the apple on his head, Vause started to laugh. ‘Stop fooling,' he called to Felix. ‘You ain't really going to do it and you know it. You never were.' Oh Lord, I knew just exactly what would happen next, and it did. That arrow flew through the air and went straight through the apple into the side of the barn, about a quarter of an inch above Sol's head. Any closer and it would have killed him.”

“What did Sol do?” asked Bird.

Jottie's voice slowed. “He stepped away from the barn and looked at the arrow. Then Felix said—oh, he could be so awful sometimes—he said, ‘Missed.' ”

We were quiet. It was an awful thing to say. “Then what?” I asked.

I could see Jottie's eyes glittering in the dark. “Then Sol picked up a rock and threw it at Felix as hard as he could.”

“Did it hit him?” Bird asked.

“ 'Course not. You know how fast your daddy can move. But Vause, he was quick, too, and he lit out after Felix. He was mad. Only time I ever saw him mad at Felix.”

“Is he the one that burnt up?” asked Bird.

“He didn't burn up, he smothered,” I said quick, so Jottie wouldn't have to say it. I glanced at her, to see if she looked sad. But she didn't. She looked regular. “What happened then?” I asked.

Jottie stroked my hair. “Oh. Nothing much. Felix came home a few hours later with a bloody nose.”

“What? Why?” Bird asked.

“Vause caught him and hit him,” Jottie said. “But they were thicker than ever, afterward.”

No one said anything for a long time. I heard Bird fall off, her breath coming smooth and even. “What about Sol?” I asked quietly. “What happened to him?” But Jottie was asleep, too, by then, with her arms circling us. I stayed curled up against her, but I wasn't asleep. I was thinking about that story and how it had ended. Jottie had stopped telling it, but it wasn't really finished. Afterward, something else had happened with Mr. McKubin, something that made Jottie turn pink when she saw him. And afterward, Jottie had liked Vause Hamilton especially. So the story wasn't over. No story was ever really over.

The next day, Sunday, we went to church. Jottie said that getting us cleaned up enough for Sunday school put her soul in such mortal peril that she had to go to church afterward, but I think she liked to go. She walked between me and Bird, holding a hand apiece. Hers was thin and strong. My hat was from the summer before and too small, so that the elastic dug into my throat and I couldn't turn my head. I looked straight ahead, like a soldier.

Jottie's church dress was rose-colored, with little white feathers floating on it and a cloth rose at the neck. She looked pretty. She stepped along, nodding and saying hello to people I couldn't see.

“Well, look here, if it isn't the lovely Misses Romeyn,” called a voice I knew. It was Mr. Bensee. He didn't sit in the grape arbor. He sat on the porch, reading the Macedonia
Sun
.

I yanked off my hat so I could say hello. “Hey, Mr. Bensee!”

“Miss Willa, I have just finished reading a story about you in this very newspaper here,” he said, flapping the
Sun
.

“What does it say, Mr. Bensee?”

He frowned at the paper. “It says you're planning to go to church this morning. It says Miss Willa Romeyn plans to wear a pretty yellow-checked
dress and Miss Bird Romeyn plans to wear a pretty blue-checked one. It's rare these reporters get their facts straight. Let me look at you.”

We stood in front of his porch, side by side.

He nodded. “That's a relief. A reliable newspaper is a fine thing. Well, Jottie, pray for me.”

“Won't do a lick of good, Spencer,” said Jottie.

He laughed, and we walked on down High Street toward the church.

Father didn't go to church. According to Jottie, Father and Reverend Dews had discussed it, and Father had promised to go to church every day of the year in 1952, so Reverend Dews said it was all right if he didn't go until then. We knew better than that. Father liked to sleep late on Sundays.

Someone fell into step next to Bird, a grown lady, I could tell from her shoes. “How-you, Jottie?” she began. Jottie said “Fine” kind of distantly, but the lady went right on. “Who
was
that girl I saw Felix with yesterday? Mary Car said it looked like that cousin of yours from Moorefield, but I bet her a nickel it wasn't.”

It was Mrs. Combs. Her boy, Bobby Combs, was in my class at school. He was all right.

“June,” said Jottie. “Are you asking me to aid and abet in gambling on the Lord's Day?”

“Now, Jottie, you know I'm as stubborn as a mule,” sang Mrs. Combs. “You just have to settle my bet with Mary Car.”

“You won,” Bird broke in. “That was Miss Layla Beck. She lives in our house.”

“She does?”

“She boards,” said Jottie. “She's writing a book about Macedonia. You should buy me a cup of coffee with that nickel, June.”

“Daddy was showing her places for her book,” Bird explained.

“Is that so?” Mrs. Combs's voice rolled out rich and fat. “Ain't that nice of him. They looked so cozy I didn't reckon they were doing business.”

Cozy? What did that mean? I looked at Jottie, or I would have if I could have turned my head all the way. Her hand closed around mine, cool and tight. She didn't say a word.

“Well,” said Mrs. Combs after a bit. “I knew it wasn't that cousin of yours. What's her name? Florence?”

“Irene,” said Jottie.

“Mary Car said she saw Emmett yesterday, too.”

“Mary Car sure had a busy day, didn't she?”

“Oh, you know Mary. She likes to keep an eye out.”

We had come to the stairs of the church by then, and Jottie did some chatting with Mrs. Tapscott and Harriet while I stood quiet and thought. I thought about cozy and about Waldon and Mae and about how pretty Miss Beck was. Even Emmett thought so, and he hadn't taken her specially to Dolly's Ford. I remembered what he had said: “How is it that Felix gets everything he wants?” Maybe Miss Beck was the thing Emmett meant, the thing Father wanted.

Miss Cladine came out and rang the bell, and we all trooped down to the basement to hear Bible stories.

I loved Miss Cladine. In real life, she was an algebra teacher over in the high school, but she was crazy about the Bible. Not in a preaching way, though. She never talked about being good or bad. Instead, she told the Bible in stories, acting out all the parts, with yelling and wailing as necessary. Even the very worst boys, like Harmon Lacey, sat as quiet as mice during Sunday school. Miss Cladine had her favorites—not in the class but in the Bible. She thought Daniel was a sourpuss and a know-it-all, and she didn't like Paul, either. She called him a busybody. The one she loved was Samson. She had a colored picture of him knocking down the pillars, pinned to the walls of the basement. The Philistines were scrambling around with their mouths hanging open in terror. “Serves them right,” Miss Cladine said. “The sneaks.”

Today she was telling about Joshua and Jericho, but I couldn't concentrate. I kept looking at the picture of blind Samson and the scattering Philistines. Maybe the roof fell on them, but it fell on him, too. I didn't think that was such a happy ending as the Bible made out. Beautiful
Delilah had sold Samson down the river. She had stroked his head until he got sleepy and told her the secret of his seven locks. I pictured my father with his head in Miss Beck's lap, her little fingers coiling in his hair as he told her everything about himself, everything he had never told me.

Academy Street drowsed under its Sunday afternoon spell. Time softened on Sundays; it stretched itself out in vast rubbery lengths, and by two o'clock, there was more of it than would ever be needed for anything. There was no point in reading a book, writing a letter, or playing a game, because time was too flaccid ever to proceed to the moment in which the plot would twist, the letter would be sent, or the game would be won. House by house, all activity ceased. Only the tinny radio preachers raved on, unaffected by the lethargy.

Through the open window of the Romeyns' front room, a sermon billowed out onto the porch: “Feel His love! Feel HIS love! When you FEEL His love, though you be a-crawling-crawling-dragging-dragging across the dusty plains of sin—” Abruptly, the radio was shut off.

Sitting by the window in a saggy porch chair, Layla exhaled. “Whew.” Once again she attempted to concentrate on the pamphlet in her hands,
The Christian Mission in the False River Environs
. “The Eel River Council of 1821 influenced the Commission of Disciples in the following ways…”

Her thoughts slid away. Only six days. A week ago, I had no idea that Felix Romeyn existed. One week ago, I was miserable about coming to Macedonia. One week ago, I couldn't imagine that I would be so interested in this town. And in this family. Not just Felix, but all of them. Are they prominent? The house is grand. And they seem educated, especially Felix and Jottie and young Mr. Romeyn. Funny how they're so dark and the twins so fair—

The radio flicked back on. “You, SINNERS, when your hour comes and you repent, will Jesus hear your cry? Will Jesus bend down from
Heaven and pull you from the flames? Will he pour the balm of His tears on your blistered FLESH? Your burning FLESH?”

Layla heard Bird giggle. “Hey, Jottie!” she yodeled from the front room. “That lady preacher is talking about flesh! She says it's going to blister in you-know-where!”

Even more distantly, from the kitchen, came Jottie's voice. “Just turn that right off! She shouldn't be talking about flesh on a Sunday!”

The radio went off. Layla listened to Bird chortle for a few moments. “Bird?” she called through the window.

“Yeah?”

“Where are Mrs. Saubergast and Mrs. Odell this weekend?”

There was a pause, and then Bird stuck her head out the window. “At their houses.”

Layla blinked. “I thought they lived here.”

“Only during the week.”

“Oh.” Another pause. “Where are their houses?”

“Mae's out at Hampshire Downs, that's her farm, hers and Waldon's. And Minerva's just over there.” Bird pointed up the street. “She's got a big old house. She just got purple drapes, and Jottie says it looks crazy, but Minerva likes purple.”

“Purple. My,” said Layla. “Who's Waldon?”

Bird frowned at her obtuseness. “Mae's
husband.”

“Oh! I didn't realize!”

“What?”

“That she was, well—married.”

Bird squinted. “She's called Mrs.”

“Yes, but, I just didn't know,” stammered Layla. “Does Mrs. Odell have one, too?” she asked cautiously. “A husband?”

“ 'Course she does. Henry,” said Bird. “We like Waldon better, though. Waldon lets us jump from the loft into his hay wagon. And he let me watch one of his cows have a baby. He thought I'd faint, but I didn't. I liked it. Henry doesn't let us do anything.”

“Now, that's enough of that.” Jottie's voice, much closer. “Henry's
always been real nice to you, even when you don't deserve it, which is most of the time.” Layla listened, smiling, as a discussion about the relative merits of Waldon and Henry ensued—mostly, on Bird's part, a recitation and evaluation of favors bestowed and presents given, mostly, on Jottie's, a remonstrance, until finally Bird was declared to be no better than a gold digger and sent off to pick weeds.

There was a long silence.

Then Jottie's voice came from the front room. “You can ask why, if you like.”

Layla burst out laughing. “Oh, Miss Romeyn! Are you a clairvoyant?”

Now Jottie appeared in the window. She settled herself comfortably on the wide sill, facing Layla's chair. “You know,” she said, “this Miss Romeyn business is wearing me out. I'd take it kindly if you'd call me Jottie.”

Friends at last! thought Layla. “Only if you call me Layla instead of Miss Beck.”

“Delighted.”