The Truth According to Us (42 page)

Jottie's birthday was coming, and Bird and I were getting exercised about her present. When we were little, we'd generally made her face cream from aspirin and hand lotion or picked her flowers from her own garden, but this year we'd decided we were going to get her a real present, a bought present. Mae and Minerva were going to take us shopping. It would be an adventure, Mae said, a daring expedition into the throbbing heart of the city. We were going to Krohn's Department Store.

We got ten cents a week each, Bird and me. It wasn't much, and it was less after we'd coughed up a nickel for collection on Sunday. That was one ice cream a week, the plain kind, not even a double dip. It took us two weeks to save up for a milk shake. When I was ten, I'd succumbed to the devil and learned how to plump my hand fist-down into the collection plate and lift it up again real quick with my nickel safe and sound inside. But it preyed on my mind. So I gave up plumping my nickel and hewed to the paths of righteousness, and pretty soon the Lord rewarded me: I got hired to take ticks off dogs for a penny apiece. A penny apiece! I couldn't believe it. Mrs. Harvill was my first customer. Ticks made her weak at the knees, especially when they were chock-full of blood and stuck fast to her dog, Seneca (Mr. Harvill taught Latin). I made a lot of money on Seneca, and then Mrs. Harvill
told Mrs. Fox and Grandma Pucks, and they hired me for their ticks, too. Then Harriet asked me to come fix up her Ruffles. He was a nasty dog with ticks all over, and by the time I was done with him, I was squeamish. But I didn't tell Harriet. She was a nice lady, and, besides, I needed the money. Altogether I had a dollar and sixty-eight cents, and I was willing to spend it all on Jottie's present.

I knew just what to get her. It was a pocketbook. It came in Autumn Leaf, Plum, Araby Green, and Dubonnet, and tucked inside it were a compact, a comb, and a tiny coin purse. There was a place inside for a handkerchief, too. It was one dollar and ninety cents at Krohn's Department Store, which struck me as a fair price for such a wonderful pocketbook, but I needed Bird to go in with me. Bird didn't want to. She had seen a Myrna Loy movie the week before and wanted to buy Jottie some lounging pajamas.

“Jottie wouldn't be caught dead in lounging pajamas,” I argued as we walked. “Not in a hundred years.”

“You don't know. She doesn't have any,” said Bird, jingling her coins. She carried them in a paper bag.

“Well, I'm not putting in my money for stupid lounging pajamas. Wait till you see this pocketbook. Araby Green is the best.”

“They have some of those faille gloves,” said Mae to Minerva.

Minerva made a face. “Hot.”

It was awful hot. Even ladies like Mae and Minerva had big circles of wet under their arms and across their backs.

“I swear, my kneecaps are sweating,” Mae groaned softly. “Wish someone would give us a ride.”

But no one came along, and we walked on down Council Street.

“Perfume?” said Mae.

“They have those Evening in Paris sets with powder and soap,” Minerva said thoughtfully.

Mae wrinkled her nose. “Evening in Paris.”

“Well. Coty's?”

“Maybe,” said Mae. “We'll give it a sniff.” She sighed faintly. “Remember when Vause brought her lily of the valley?”

Minerva patted the back of her neck with her handkerchief. “Uhhuh.”

“Did it smell nice?” I asked.

“Mmm,” said Mae, remembering. “Like a dream.”

“I guess she threw it out,” Minerva said, after a minute.

Mae nodded regretfully.

We were on Prince Street now, and Bird said that all she really wanted in the world was a tiny little bite of ice cream, but Minerva said we had to put our noses to the grindstone. “Krohn's before pleasure,” she said.

“Pearls before swine,” said Mae.

It was fun to shop with the two of them. We looked at everything—jabots, cuffs, hankies, gloves, scarves, hose, snoods, housecoats, bed jackets, nightgowns. They let me and Bird sniff all the perfume we wanted, and when Mae bought a new lipstick, she let me try it. Carefully, I smoothed it on, making sure I dabbed extra up on my top lip. It was called Cherry Pie, and when I looked in the mirror, I saw a grown-up lady, twenty years old at least, looking back.

“You have to blot it, honey,” said Mae.

“No. I like it like this.”

“Only hussies don't blot,” said Mae.

“Floozies,” agreed Minerva.

“Girls with anklets,” added Mae.

“Let me leave it,” I begged. “Just for now. Please. I'll blot before we go home.”

Minerva laughed. “I guess nobody's going to take you for a floozy. Let's go look at the jewelry.”

Mae thought Jottie would like a locket. “She could put in a picture of each of you girls,” she said.

“Or two of me,” said Bird.

“Yeah, one of the front of your head and one of the back,” I said.

It took Mae and Minerva almost twenty minutes to persuade Bird that Jottie had no use for blue silk lounging pajamas, and it took twenty more for me to be convinced that Jottie'd rather have a locket than an
Araby Green pocketbook. The locket was real gold and it cost four dollars and fifteen cents, so we all chipped in, and Minerva still had enough left over to treat us all to ice cream.

When we stepped out of Krohn's, it was past the middle of the afternoon, but the heat was still pushing down like hot bricks. The few people out were gathered under the store awnings, trying to keep to the shade.

“Speaking of noses to the grindstone,” said Minerva suddenly.

Father was leaning against a stair rail, drinking from a sweating-cold bottle of Coca-Cola. Mae put her hands on her hips. “I swear, Felix,” she said, “if you got any more relaxed, you'd be dead.”

Father looked up and smiled. “Hey, girls.” He lifted his Coca-Cola. “To your health and prosperity.”

“Pooh to that!” Minerva said. “Buy us ice cream!”

Mae laughed and said something, but I didn't hear, because Father's eyes had moved away from them and come to rest on me. His eyebrow flew up as he looked at me. “What did you do?”

I felt a red-hot blush shooting up my neck and face. I'd forgotten to blot. “Mae let me try her lipstick,” I mumbled.

“You look all grown up.” He stared at me. “My God, I feel old.”

“Don't be a wet blanket, Felix,” said Mae. “It's cute.”

He made a face. “If you say so.”

“You'd better get used to it,” Minerva warned. “She's growing up. Pretty soon she'll be going on dates. Dates and dances. It won't be long before you'll be walking her down the aisle.”

“And after that, you'll be a grandpa!” crowed Mae.

They were laughing, but Father wasn't. His eyes came back to me, not in the usual way but kind of leery, like you'd lift up a rock and see what was underneath.

I quick rubbed the lipstick off with the back of my hand.

—

The sun went down, but the heat stayed put. It was too hot to eat. We all just picked at our food, until finally Jottie said, “Oh, let's give up.” Out on the porch, we could hear the other rockers and chairs along
Academy Street creaking, but no one called hey-you. It was too hot. Bird laid herself out like a dog on the floor. I plopped into a chair and then regretted it when my skin stuck in every ripple of wicker. Father was sitting next to Miss Beck on the far side of the porch, and the light from the front room was shining on the pair of them. Every once in a while, he'd bend his head toward her and speak softly, but I couldn't hear what he said. Minerva and Mae were fussing about how hot they were, and Jottie was just stirring pensively at her ice-coffee. I wondered if she was thinking about her birthday, about what her present might be.

After a while, Richie and Harriet arrived, and then my uncle Henry. And then silly Marjorie Lanz, with her sleeves stuffed full of handkerchiefs the way they always were. She plucked one out to wave it like a fan, and I thought of telling her it would make her hotter, but I didn't. I didn't feel like it.

Richie was talking about the strike, something about getting food in, and I was halfway listening. Richie had the deepest voice I'd ever heard. It was like a big boat on water. “…it's driving Shank loony,” he was saying, and I saw Miss Beck reach over to touch Father's knee. He turned to her and smiled, so warm and soft that I almost groaned. Actually, I did groan, just a little.

Jottie set her glass down kind of sharp and cleared her throat. It was the quickest thing anyone had done that night, and we all turned to her, expecting something. “This here is Bastille Day, in France,” she announced.

“No, it's not,” said Henry. He was sitting in a rocker with both his feet planted on the floor so it wouldn't rock. “Bastille Day is the fourteenth of July.”

Jottie ignored him. “Bastille Day is when the French Revolution began,” she said to me. I nodded. “The poor people broke open the doors of the jail, and the prisoners surged out and chopped off Louis the Sixteenth's head.” She glanced at Henry. “And Marie Antoinette's, too. She said, Let them eat cake.”

“That's not what happened,” Henry argued.

“Oh,
Henry
,
”
sighed Minerva.

“Well, it's not.” Henry never understood Jottie.

Jottie's eyes were sparkling. “It was something like the time the drunks broke out of jail and took over the library.”

I loved Jottie. “I never heard that one. Tell.”

Father's head dipped close to Miss Beck's. “I wouldn't put this in your book, if I were you,” he said.

“Hush!” commanded Jottie, waving her finger at him. He laughed and sat back, away from Miss Beck. “Now,” she said. “It all began because Mayor Tapscott thought the inmates were eating too much—”

“Which was true,” Henry said.

“How much is too much?” Jottie said. “You've never been hungry a day in your life.”

“Yes, he has,” said Minerva. “He almost starved to death in Pittsburgh once.”

“Well,
Pittsburgh
,
”
scoffed Jottie.

Mae and Harriet choked on their coffee.

“You were saying, Jottie?” said Richie, real solemn.

“I was saying that Mayor Tapscott believed—rightly or wrongly, who's to know—that the indigents were spending all their relief money on hooch to work themselves up to disturbing the peace so they'd get a free meal in jail.”

“One hundred percent true,” said Henry.

“So he cut their food back to half a turnip and a piece of bread scraped with lard.”

“That is just not so,” said Henry indignantly. “They got—”

“No! I lie! They got a cup of water, too. Naturally, they were hungry as bears inside of a day, and after two days, they were chewing on the soles of their shoes. That's when they decided to revolt.”

I swallowed a giggle. “How'd they revolt?”

“Well, first they overwhelmed the jailer, which wasn't too difficult, because it was Dale Purlett and he hasn't got but one foot, and then they charged on the library. They chased Miss Lucinda Mytinger into
the lavatory and turned the lock on her, and then they took all the books off the shelves and mixed them up.”

“Tell what you did,” said Father, chuckling.

Jottie laughed. “I got a crowd of my girlfriends together and we decided to go sing hymns on the sidewalk below. We thought our angelic voices raised in song would cause them to repent of their sinful ways.”

“Did they?” I asked.

“They threw books at us and told us to go to hell.”

Everyone—except Henry—burst out laughing.

“This family is berserk,” said Henry grumpily.

“Too late. You're in it now,” Minerva said.

“Bye, honey!” sang Harriet as she disappeared into the night, clinging to Richie's arm.

“Watch out there, now,” his low voice grumbled.

Jottie closed her eyes and dropped her head against the back of her chair, listening to the click of Harriet's high heels recede down Academy Street. “She's going to break her ankle someday,” she murmured.

“She is kind of large to wear such heels.” Layla yawned. “I'll take the coffee cups in,” she offered halfheartedly.

“Oh, sit for a minute,” Jottie said. “I think I felt a breeze.”

“That was me, opening the door.” It was Felix, with his hat on.

“Where are you going?” Layla asked, trying to sound casual. In the gloom, she saw the white brilliance of his smile.

“Going to see some friends.”

“Now?”

An eyebrow shot up. “Yup.”

“You want some company?” She stretched a little to show off her legs.

“Nope.” He glanced around the porch and then bent swiftly to kiss her. As she reached for him, he broke away. “A girl your age needs her sleep. Get on up to bed. I got to talk to Jottie.”

Reluctantly, she stood, her hand lingering in his until the last possible moment. “I'm not even tired,” she pouted.

“Too bad.” He smiled and pressed his thumb against her lips. “Get.” When she had gone inside the house, he turned to Jottie. “Wake up.”

“I'm awake,” she said, opening her eyes. “I'm just trying to keep the veil of decency drawn.”

He laughed. “Think clean thoughts.”

“My thoughts are plenty clean. Yours could use some work.” She sat up. “What do you want?” Lightning flared silently, illuminating the shabby porch.

“How much money do you have?” he demanded.

“Fourteen dollars and eighty cents.”

“Oh, hell. That's all?”

“That's all I have here. If you wait until tomorrow, I can go to the bank,” she said.

“No. Can't wait. Give me ten.”

“You can have it all.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “No. Just ten.”

That meant he didn't know what was going to happen. When he didn't want to leave her without money, that's what it meant. Her stomach tightened. “Don't.”

He lifted an eyebrow of inquiry.

“Don't do something bad.”

He smiled. “I never do anything bad.”

She nodded. “Let me get my purse.”

When she returned, he was standing, facing the street, his hands jingling in his pockets. “Thanks,” he said as she handed him two bills. “I'll pay you back.”

“I know.” She hesitated, watching his dark head bent over his wallet. “Felix?”

He grunted.

“Can't you leave her alone?”

He looked up in surprise. “Who?”

“Layla!” she said, exasperated.

“Oh.” He grinned. “I didn't know I was bothering her.”

“Stop it. She's crazy about you.”

“Is that right?” he snickered.

“Don't laugh. She's in love with you.” Jottie wiped perspiration from her upper lip.

“She's pretty cute.” He shook his head fondly.

“She thinks you're going to marry her.”

“She's in for a surprise, then.” Again, lightning, dead white and off again.

“Don't break her heart. Please, Felix.”

His eyes widened. “I won't. I wouldn't do such a thing.”

She nodded. “Good. What will you do, then?”

“Me? I'm going out.”

“Felix! What are you going to do about Layla?”

He smiled and tipped his head close to Jottie's. “I'm going to get her into my bed as fast as I can,” he whispered in her ear.

She seized his arm. “No! For God's sake, leave her alone!”

He stiffened. “What's it to you? Since when do you care more about her than me?”

He was getting angry, but she was beyond caring. “She's a nice girl. She doesn't deserve to have her life ruined. For once, Felix, have pity!”

“Pity?” His face was scornful. “She doesn't need pity. And let me tell you, Jottie, going to bed with me isn't going to ruin her life. You don't know anything about it.”

“I do too know—my heart broke, I wished I were dead. I wouldn't want a dog to go through what I went through.”

He drew a tight breath. “That wasn't me.”

“I'm not saying it was you. It was Vause. But I know what I'm talking about. Please, Felix? Can't you leave her be?”

He turned away, toward the street. For a moment he stared into the massive dark, and then he reached for her and patted her shoulder. “You worry too much.”

She had failed. Again. Always. “You don't worry enough,” she said wearily.

“Sure I do,” he said, and slipped away into the lightning.

“Be careful!” called Jottie. A flick of lightning revealed him, mid-step, on the sidewalk, before he was erased by blackness. Maybe that's the last time I'll see him, she thought, and felt a tiny, shocking tingle of relief.

August 9—no, 10—1938

Dear Rose,

You'll excuse my handwriting, darling, when I tell you it's not drink but love that makes my hand shake. My stomach is diving and swooping like a starling, and I can't eat a thing, though perhaps that's the heat. Do you feel this way around Mason? If so, I don't understand how you manage to play tennis the way you do. I couldn't hit a ball to save my life just at the moment.

Oh, Rosy, I had no idea, none at all, that I could feel as I do, connected in my blood to another being. It would be alarming if it weren't so wonderful—I feel him come into a room, my senses are suddenly magnified, and for the first time in my life I truly believe in evolution, because it's
instinct
, this feeling I have—I must have a wolf in my ancestry to feel this keenness, this awareness of his tiniest movement. And there's the tenderness, too, the ferocious desire to keep all harm from him. I think, dear, that I am learning—finally—what it is to care more for someone than for myself, and what it is to be cared for. He watches over me, so quiet and calm, so generous and forgiving of wrongs—you'll see how wonderful he is when you meet him. And you, you alone, will see how it is between us. For no one else knows, darling. Up on the surface, where the world watches, we're chums. But below, we're simmering. Our eyes meet, and it's a delicious secret between the two of us—no one else can see the invisible strings that are pulling us nearer and nearer each other.

I may die of excitement.

When I think of how I begged Ben not to send me to Macedonia, it makes me glad that he detests me, glad that Father cut me off, glad even that he wanted me to marry Nelson. Though of course it would never do to tell Ben or Father how happy I am. They disapprove of me being happy. I'm supposed to be in the school of hard knocks, facing stark reality, and pulling myself up by my bootstraps. So, for the next few weeks, you must keep my secret locked up tighter than the crypts of the pharaohs and eat this letter if anyone threatens to read it. Don't worry, I won't make you take it to the grave, for I have a marvelous plan to bring Felix to Lance's engagement party. (You know about that party, don't you? Mother swore she wasn't going to tell a soul, so I expect half of Washington—including you—has been invited already.) That way, you'll be able to meet him, and Father will, too. And I will have the divine satisfaction of watching Father realize that his plan to make me miserable has been a failure and that my happiness no longer rests in his hands—but in Felix's.

Oh my, look at all those dashes! Don't worry, they're indicative of my racing heart, not a new prose style. My book is coming along at a great pace, though my typewriter seems to be afflicted by a poltergeist. I assume it's a Confederate ghost offended by my Union sympathies; for all I try to be impartial, I let out a little wheeze of triumph whenever the Federal troops outfox the Rebel raiders that swarmed over this part of the state.

Is Cape May gloriously cool and breezy? I would envy you, except there's no Felix Romeyn at Cape May.

Love,

Layla

P.S. Can you picture me as a stepmother? I must say, I can't. Every one that I can recall attempted to poison her new children immediately, which seems rather high-handed. I believe I'll try a more measured approach.