Five Women (5 page)

Chapter Five

T
HE
A
MERICAN SUBURBS
in the early 1960s . . . the dream. Tree-lined streets, happy children playing in safety, good public schools, a private house with enough room for the kids and the dog, a yard for barbecues in the summer, where you might even eat tomatoes you had grown yourself in your garden, good neighbors, good friends. A place so dark at night, so fresh and clear, that children could lie in their beds and see the stars and the constellations. In the fall there was the smell of wood smoke, and in winter Santa Claus came down a real chimney the way he was supposed to, the way it said in the stories. It was for this dream of a happy, comfortable family life that Felicity Johnson's parents had moved to the white suburbs outside Detroit when she was five and her younger sister, Theodora, was three.

They had a lovely house. It had been decorated by a professional designer in cheerful, contemporary colors, and each girl had her own room. There was a game room in the finished basement, with a television set in front of a comfortable couch, a ping pong table, and shelves of books and toys. It was hoped that the girls would entertain their friends there, but as they grew older it turned out there weren't many friends, and the friends' parents didn't want them to come to a black person's home. There was only one other black girl in Felicity's class, and although there were three in Theodora's, her sister was overweight and shy, and preferred to have her nose in a book to making an effort. Felicity was the sociable one. Her friends were white, which was fine with her. They were all she knew.

There were two kinds of white people, she had discovered early. There were the kids who liked her and she liked them, just as if there were no real difference between them at all; and then there were the other ones, who called her Nigger and Burnt Toast at school, who made her cry and want to disappear. Her mother told her to ignore the mean ones. She told Felicity every day how lucky she was to be living in such a nice neighborhood, with all the advantages that were her right in this country no matter what vile and ignorant people said to her. Her father was a doctor, commuting to the black part of the city, where his patients were. He was successful and respected, and they had enough money. She would go to college someday. She had piano lessons, and ballet lessons and riding lessons, and since her father was always working and hardly ever around, her mother took care of the rest of her education as well.

Carolee, their mother, was a beautiful woman. Felicity was in awe of her. She was tall and slim, as Felicity was, her skin was a creamy light chocolate, and she loved fashionable clothes. She had chosen to be a housewife, because that was an upwardly mobile middle-class thing to be, but Felicity knew she was brilliant and could have done something else if she had wanted to. On Saturday afternoons Carolee took Felicity and Theodora to the sales—dragged them, rather, because they found shopping incredibly boring. Felicity would have rather been with her friends, and Theodora was too roly-poly to look good in anything. At the department stores, Carolee hunted bargains, and showed her two daughters the difference between good clothes and bad ones. It was as much a part of their education as the piano and riding and ballet, as using the right fork and arranging flowers to cheer up a room.

“It's better to have one good designer dress than a closet full of junk,” she always said.

Felicity admired her mother's closet. She didn't have a lot of clothes, but they were all elegant, arranged neatly with their matching accessories nearby. This wardrobe signified “grownup” to her, the kind of grownup she was destined to be—someone who looked right on the outside, no matter what else was secretly going on.

Their happy home in the tranquil suburbs was not what people thought it was, and Felicity wondered if the Johnson family was the only one in the neighborhood with frightened children in it. She thought they might be. How would she know? People knew things and minded their own business.

She was eleven now, and she and Theodora were walking home from school for lunch, as they always did. The neighborhood was a sea of children. Kids were hurrying down the block, the boys pummeling each other, the girls holding arms and whispering.

The trees on their street were so large that they arched over the sidewalk, making shadows. As they came closer she saw the big white Bombagaster Office Supplies truck, parked a block away from her house as if that could fool anybody. They had seen it for three years, almost every day, and lately every time Felicity saw it her face heated up with embarrassment. Her mother's friend, Jake, was there again for lunch with her mother, and right at the start of their friendship, as soon as Carolee had told them his presence had to be a secret from their father, Felicity had known he wasn't supposed to be there at all. Even Theodora knew he wasn't supposed to be there, although she was still too young to figure out what was going on.

Felicity felt helpless, knowing there was nothing she could do about the situation anyway. She never wanted her father to find out. Her poor father, a victim—working so hard, loving her mother, trying to give them everything he could—she only wanted to protect him and save him from learning about something that would make him miserable and humiliated. In a way, keeping the secret made her feel less helpless, knowing she was helping to keep peace in their home.

Peace was important, and you had to get it where you could find it. She already knew that. If her father didn't know about Jake he wouldn't be angry at her mother. When Jake was there her mother wasn't angry at them. She was loving, kissy and happy.

“Hello, cherubs!” her mother trilled. She had her hair tied back and she looked radiant. She was making steak and potatoes and green salad for Jake—he always got a real meal—and there were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the kitchen counter for Felicity and Theodora, as usual. The two girls licked their lips like two little cats and exchanged glances, resenting Jake's delicious-smelling lunch and their mother's attention to him.

“Hello, Mom. Hello, Jake.”

“Hello, young ladies.”

Jake smiled at them. He was the most gorgeous black man Felicity had ever seen in her life. He looked like a movie star. He always wore a suit and a tie when he came to their house, because he sold office supplies to people in companies. But in their kitchen it also made him look as if he had come over all dressed up for a date with her mother; which this was. There was an open bottle of red wine on the kitchen table, and he had the bottle opener in his hand.

Carolee poured milk for her daughters, smoothed their hair while they ate, and kissed them when they were finished, smiling at them and at Jake as if they were one big cheerful family. Felicity loved it when her mother was so nice to her, but deep inside she was also slightly nauseated because her father was being left out and deceived. She felt so sorry for him. She knew it was a terrible thing to be trapped in an unhappy marriage—her mother had told her so often enough—but although she understood her mother, she didn't have to approve of the way she was supposedly solving her problem.

“Let's go,” Felicity said to her sister as soon as they had eaten.

“It's still early,” Theodora whined, but she knew it was hopeless and let Felicity drag her away. She liked these moments with her mother and wished they would never end.

School let out at three o'clock. There were extracurricular activities for another hour and a half for those who wanted them, or you could stay in the school library and study, which Theodora always did, gnawing on her stash of candy bars. Felicity usually went to a friend's house nearby or played in the street with the few other kids who would have her, and then she picked up her sister and they went home. Neither snow nor wind nor early darkness stopped them from staying away from home as long as they could in those afternoons, because they knew what their mother would be like when they came back.

Jake would have left. He had a job and, equally important, he had a wife. The remains of lunch would be cleaned up, and the bottle of wine finished. Another bottle would be open on the kitchen table, and their mother would be drunk and morose.

“If it weren't for you two kids I could leave this marriage and be happy,” Carolee would often say. “But your father would get this house and custody of you, and then I'd have nothing.”

It confused Felicity when her mother said that. Were her children really that important? Sometimes she thought her mother hated them, like on these days when Jake had gone home to his wife.

Felicity and Theodora walked into the house and went directly to their rooms to do their homework before supper. Felicity heard her mother go into her sister's room.

“Is that
chocolate
on your dress?” her mother said angrily. “You've been sneaking candy again. I'm going to cut off your allowance! Who's ever going to look at you? Good thing you got all A's again this month. At least you'll be able to get a job when you're grown up.”

Felicity hunched over her math. She was terrible at math; her mind went in hopeless circles and she wanted to cry. At least she was thin. Her mother came into her room then, and her heart sank. When she pulled a chair over to the desk to help Felicity with her homework, or grill her, rather, Felicity was already trembling.

“All right,” Carolee said, tapping her pencil on the first problem, “show me the answer.”

Felicity pointed wordlessly at the figuring she had done, praying it wasn't wrong. When she grew up, if she was too ugly for any man to marry, she would be a lawyer like Perry Mason. There was no math needed in the law.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong!” her mother said. “Do it again and do it right.”

She tried.

“No, no, no,” her mother said. “Why can't you do it right?”

“I
can't
do it right,” Felicity said. “If I could, I would have.”

“Are you back-talking me?”

“No,” she mumbled, but it was too late. Her mother was already up.

“I'm going to my room and getting my belt.”

It was always this way. Felicity was too stupid, or too fresh, or too obstinate. It was so unfair. If it wasn't a belt it was Felicity's riding crop or anything her mother grabbed. Felicity was crying with fear and outrage before her mother even came back with her leather belt. Then they began their usual chase around the house, her mother flailing the belt, hitting her on her arms, her legs, her backside, her stomach—everything but her face because Felicity always took great care to cover it. She didn't know what she would do if her mother struck her on the face and blinded her.

The belt hurt like fire, like licks of flame. Felicity ran and ducked and weaved, crying hard, and finally locked herself in the temporary safety of her bathroom. She leaned against the cool tile wall, sobbing. She's going to kill me, I know it, she thought. This time she will.

“Come out of there!”

Felicity just cried and shook. Dark welts were already rising on her legs. I can't take it anymore, she thought.

Her mother was hammering on the bathroom door. “Come out of there, I say!”

The door was shaking. She's going to break it in and kill me, Felicity thought.

“If you don't unlock that door this minute, you'll never go to the movies again.”

Silence. Oh, please go away. I hate you. I won't be going to the movies because I'll be dead.

“If I have to break the door down, I'll beat you twice as hard. I mean it. You know I will.”

The door was really shaking now. Felicity opened it. Her mother sprang in, grabbed her arm, and let the belt fly, striking her on the side of her cheek. Felicity heard it as well as felt it. It sounded like someone biting into an apple.

She pulled loose and ran into her parents' bedroom, where the phone was, slammed the door, as if that was going to make any difference, and dialed her father's office. “Doctor Johnson, please. This is his daughter and it's an emergency.”

Her mother opened the bedroom door and just stood there, the belt still in her hand. When Felicity heard her father's sweet, deep voice she started to sob so hard she could scarcely talk.

“She's going to kill me!” she told her father. “Make her stop! It's Mom, and she's beating me with a belt.”

Her mother strode over and took the receiver out of Felicity's hand. When she spoke, her voice was reasonable and amused. “She's lying,” her mother said. “You know what a liar Felicity can be. She'll do anything to get a little attention.”

“I'm not lying!” Felicity screamed. Why wouldn't he believe her? He was supposed to rescue her, protect her. She had told him and told him, but he wouldn't listen. He didn't want to know.

“Try to come home on time tonight,” her mother said in that same pleasant voice. “It would be nice if we could all have dinner together. Oh, well then, see you when you get here.” She hung up. “You'll never win,” she said.

Felicity wiped her running nose with her hand and her mother gave her a tissue. She didn't seem angry anymore, and although she was still drunk, she was rational. She touched Felicity's cheek with her cool fingertips, as if she were just realizing what she had done.

“Oh, my God,” her mother said quietly.

She took Felicity back into the bathroom then and put alcohol on her welts, gently, tenderly, her eyes very sad. Felicity was afraid to look into the mirror at her face. “That will be all right tomorrow,” her mother said, and brought ice wrapped in a towel and held it for her, cuddling her long-legged daughter on her lap. “Poor little girl,” she said, and rocked her.

Felicity was safe again. She relaxed into her mother's arms, and slowly, slowly, she somehow remembered how it felt to love her.

* * *

Felicity didn't know what she would do without her friends. She was twelve now, and her sister was old enough to find her own way home from school, so most afternoons she stayed at her new best friend Jennifer's house until just before Jennifer's father came home from work. Jennifer was white, with blue eyes and straight light brown hair. She had a finished basement, as Felicity's family had, done like a game room, and the two girls spent a lot of time down there sharing secrets and talking about boys and sex and love.