Yankee Girl (17 page)

“Yessir, that sounds pretty.” Mary Martha handed the florist the money. “Could we see them before you deliver them?”

“Why, surely. I'll have 'em waiting for y'all after school.”

We jingled back out the screen door. My heart felt lighter. I'd done something for Valerie.

After school, I called Mama from the office to tell her where I was going.

“Mrs. Goode can bring me home,” I said, since Daddy had the car. I hung up before Mama could think of more things to worry about.

Mary Martha and I walked back to Culver's. The tree shadows were deeper now, the air hot and thick with the scent of a hundred spring gardens.

“Where should we send the flowers?” Mary Martha asked.

“The newspaper said the viewing is at Harrison's Funeral Home on Pearl Street,” I said as we pushed open Culver's screen door. “Viewing” was such a weird word for looking at a dead body. I was glad I wasn't going to the viewing.

“They're all ready,” said Mr. Culver. He disappeared in back, returning with an armload of red and white carnations. “Now, where do y'all want this delivered?” Mr. Culver's pencil was poised over a delivery slip.

“Harrison's Funeral Home on Pearl Street,” I said.

Mr. Culver's pencil still hovered in the air. Suddenly the room seemed too sunny. Too quiet.

“They're for Reverend Taylor's funeral,” I explained.

The florist scowled. “I don't have time for foolishness, young lady. Mary Martha, where are these flowers going?”

“She's not fooling,” she said. “Reverend Taylor's daughter is in our class.”

“Do your folks know you're sending flowers to a dead nigger preacher?” The florist's face purpled, sun flaming off his gold-rimmed glasses.

“They do,” said Mary Martha. “Will you please deliver them?”

“No, ma'am.” Mr. Culver's jaw jutted. “I don't deliver in Niggertown.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“That's your problem.” Mr. Culver tore up the delivery slip, shoved the carnations across the counter to Mary Martha, and marched us out the door. He slammed it so hard, the bells flew off the door spring.

We stood, dazed, in the afternoon heat. Mary Martha clutched the spray of flowers, looking for all the world as if she had just won a beauty contest.

“Now what?” she said.

Sun shimmered on something bright at the end of the block. Maids in white uniforms, waiting for the bus. The bus to the Negro neighbourhoods.

“We'll deliver the flowers ourselves,” I said. “I'll ask those maids which bus to take. C'mon.”

I took a few steps before realizing Mary Martha and the flowers hadn't budged.

“Well, are you coming?” I asked.

“Are you
crazy
?” said Mary Martha. “Go to a coloured funeral home? On a
bus
?”

“Well, yeah.” What did she think would happen? “Why not?”

Mary Martha stared into the carnations.

“Why not?” I repeated loudly. “You're not scared, are you?”

“I can't. I just can't,” Mary Martha whispered.

“But you're a million times braver than me. You got Valerie her curtain call in the Christmas pageant. Remember?”

“That was different.”

Voices crowded my head.

Mary Martha.
White people in a coloured neighbourhood. Who knows what could happen?

Jeb.
Buses ain't for white people.

And everyone else, over and over.
That's just the way things are. That's the way they've always been.

I was mad. At Mr. Culver. At Mary Martha for finking out on me. At the stupid rules about white people and black people.

Time for
my
rules. The Alice Rules.

“Give me those flowers.” I snatched them from Mary Martha. “I'll go by myself.”

Mary Martha's eyes looked sad. I knew she
wanted
to come with me. She
knew
it was the Right Thing to Do. She just couldn't.

But I could. I was
mad
.

Mad enough to put one foot in front of the other all the way to the bus stop.

“Excuse me, does this bus go to Pearl Street?” The maids looked at each other, like this might be a trick question from a smart-mouth white girl. Finally, a young woman in beat-up Keds said, “Yeah. It go that way.”

A green city bus roared up in a cloud of exhaust.

“Little girl?” said the driver as I dropped my emergency dime into the fare box. “Where do you think you're going?”

“Pearl Street.” I sounded a lot cooler than I felt.

He eyed me and the flowers. “Do your mama and daddy know where you're going?”

“Yessir.” What was he going to do? Call them up and ask?

The only empty seat was at the back. I staggered down the aisle, holding the flowers in front of me like a shield, passing seat after seat of uniformed maids. Were they whispering about me? Was I the first white person to ride a city bus?

Don't be chicken, Alice. Remember the Alice Rules.

A tall woman with reddish brown hair swayed down the aisle, clutching at the seat backs as she went. Inez Green, the Mateers' maid.

“Miss Alice?” Inez slid into the seat beside me. “Where you goin' with them flowers?”

I told her. I waited for her to say I was crazy. Or to ask if my mama knew where I was. She didn't.

“You know what stop to get off at?” she said.

“Pearl Street, wherever that is.”

“I'll get off with you. I want to pay my respects to the Reverend myself. Now, less us open this window 'fore we smother to death.”

The bus groaned through white neighbourhoods, stopping every couple of blocks to take on more maids. Down Capitol Street, past Kennington's Department Store, the Paramount Theatre, and the King Edward Hotel, then through the railroad underpass.

On the other side of the underpass, the world was all Negro. Barbershops and beauty salons and a corner grocery with Negroes bustling in and out. We stopped at a red light. Through the open bus window, Junior Walker and the All Stars' “Shotgun” blared from a loudspeaker outside a record store. I didn't like that song. It began with a shotgun blast. I shivered, glad when the light changed.

We rode down narrow streets lined with unpainted shacks. Up streets with houses so bright and tidy they reminded me of birdhouses.

“Pearl Street,” announced Inez, standing up. “We getting off here, Miss Alice.”

Pearl Street didn't look like the other neighbourhoods. Big old-fashioned houses with wide porches, set far back from tree-shaded kerbs. Velvety, terraced yards. Sweet-smelling, big-headed hydrangeas drooped in the afternoon shadows.

“You sure this is the right street?” I asked.

“You tellin' me I don't know my own part of town?” Inez smiled, so I knew she wasn't mad. “This be where the doctors and lawyers live. There's well-off coloured people, y'know. We ain't all dirt-poor.”

Well-off coloured people. It was something I'd never thought of. I knew Valerie wasn't dirt-poor. Her dresses were as nice as anyone else's in 6B. Her parents' station wagon was no fancier than our Chrysler. I figured Valerie probably lived in a house that looked a lot like mine. Not too big, not too small. Nothing like the houses on Pearl Street. These were big, old-fashioned two-storey houses, with Cadillacs and Lincolns gleaming in the driveways.

At the end of the block sat the biggest house of all. A blue neon sign on the lawn announced HARRISON'S FUNERAL PARLOUR, SINCE 1919. A stream of Negroes trudged up the terrace steps and into the house.

I felt very, very white, just like that day at the football game. Unlike that day, though, everyone was too sad to notice a white girl in school clothes carrying carnations.

Inez and I joined the line of mourners that snaked up the block. People in their Sunday best, hats and gloves, suits and ties. Men in overalls and uniformed maids coming from work. The line crept silently along. It was spooky, that many people, and nobody making a sound.

On the street, cars and pick-up trucks crawled by, honking, Confederate flags snapping from radio antennas. Over the horns, white men and boys leaned out the windows, screaming. A long string of sounds, but I couldn't pick out words.

A mud-splashed truck pulled up to the kerb. A teenager yelled out the window. “Hey, white girl. You lost?”

“Nah,” shouted the driver, leaning across the boy. “She must be one of them nigger-loving Yankees.” They hooted as they gunned the truck back into traffic.

More cars. More trucks. More screaming. Now I could tell what they were saying. White men screaming ugly words at the Negroes, who never looked up. Words hard and hateful enough to kill.

Then I knew. They weren't just words. Words show what's in your heart. Words spoken. And words unspoken.

All the words I left unsaid. Have to find Valerie. Tell her about the words.

The line slowed at the terrace steps, stretched up to the porch and into Harrison's. We shuffled forwards. I was glad to be away from the street.

I had plenty of time to look around. News cameras rimmed the yard. Some white people stood on the lawn, smoking cigarettes and sipping from Dixie cups, as if this were a sad kind of garden party.

Inez nudged me. “Look over there.”

I followed her gaze. A Negro man with a handsome round face leaned against a magnolia tree, talking to a shorter man with light brown curly hair.

“Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman,” said Inez.

Reverend Taylor knew
movie stars
? Valerie never mentioned it. Valerie told us nothing.

We don't know you at all, Valerie.

A Negro girl and woman came down the porch steps, tears streaking their faces. Where had I seen them before? La Petite. The girl who wanted the pink lace dress. Today, she wore a white shift with daisies embroidered on the hem. I wondered where she bought it. New Orleans?

One step and another and we were on the porch. Two steps more brought us into the dim front hall. Fans on tall poles whirred in the corners, but they didn't help unless you were standing right under one.

I wasn't. My blouse was soaked with sweat, the skirt waistband limp and soggy. My hair stuck to my neck in damp strings. My sticky hands reeked of carnations. A blanket of smells smothered me: candle wax and furniture polish, hair pomade and a hundred clashing perfumes.

Valerie. Have to find Valerie.

At the head of the line stood a tall Negro gentleman in a dark suit. “You are here for…?”

“We're here to see the Reverend,” said Inez, as if she did this every day.

“Parlour two.” The man waved us to the left, where even more people stood in line. “There are so many flowers, we are putting them in parlour three.” He pointed to the other side of the hall.

The flower room was empty of people, late-afternoon sun slanting through the ruby-coloured windowpanes. Empty of people, but floor-to-ceiling with flowers.

Roses and gladiolas and lilies and chrysanthemums. Wreaths with ribbons that said OUR FALLEN LEADER in glittery script. Sprays like ours, only bigger and fancier.

I tucked the carnations next to a gigantic basket of roses. The only bouquet smaller than ours was a bunch of garden flowers tied with package ribbon. “From the First Grade of Parnell School,” said the card, manila drawing paper folded in half. I wondered how the first grade got
their
flowers here.

“Look a'here.” Inez stood before a mass of calla lilies, a florist card dangling from her fingers. “From Marlon Brando, the actor. The Reverend sure did know a lot of famous folks.”

I stuck my nose in the flowers. Calla lilies do not smell pretty. Something rotten lurked beneath the perfume. It made my head hurt.

Inez's eyes widened as she inspected a spray of white roses. “From President Johnson hisself,” she whispered. Then she sort of shook herself and said, “We best be payin' our respects. Buses stop running out your way at six.”

Back to the packed hallway. Sweat trickled down my back as bodies pressed me on all sides. The humming fans and moans from the viewing room jumbled together in a nightmarish way.

My stomach roiled. Black fishlike spots swam before my eyes. I had skipped lunch to buy the flowers.

I will not pass out.

“Child, you all right?” Inez flapped a hanky in my face. “You look like you fixin' to faint.”

“I'm fine.”

I will see Valerie. I will.

The line inched forwards. I stared at the dusty toes of my shoes. The black fish spots went away, but my head still hurt. Cold sweat prickled the back of my neck.

Have to find Valerie. Tell her I'm sorry. Sorry for everything.

A familiar scent drifted over the stink of sweat and too many flowers. Yardley's English Lavender. A brown dress brushed past me.

“Miss Gruen?” Was I seeing things? “What are you doing here?”

Miss Gruen didn't look surprised to see me. “I am paying my respects to a student who has lost her father.” She smiled. I didn't know she even
knew
how to smile. “I'm happy to see you, Alice. It will comfort Valerie to know a classmate is here.” Then she was gone, lavender scent trailing her.

A door creaked open, and men's voices mumbled. One, a little clearer than the rest, said, “I'll see if she can see you. No one will know you're here.”

Men in dark suits elbowed past us. The crowd parted, and for a minute I saw Valerie, expressionless, in her beautiful white Class Day dress. She sat with her mother and Lucy next to the closed casket.