Love (13 page)

The Exit Conference was scheduled for Friday, and when he changed it to Monday, four days earlier, Junior thought a prize or a job offer would be discussed. At fifteen she was free to leave, purged of the wickedness that had landed her there, and return to her family, not one of whom had visited in the whole three years. She had no intention of going back to the Settlement. Correctional had saved her from them. But she did want to see the outside-the-Settlement world; the televised one, the one new Correctional students talked about. Eagerness to get out would have prevented any last-minute infraction; her known good behavior would have disallowed it. Still, the Committee refused to believe her, believed the Administrator instead, and the Guidance Counselor who knew better.

The Exit Conference started out great. The Administrator, relaxed and talkative, described his hopes for Correctional, for her. He strolled to the sliding doors that opened onto a small balcony, invited her to join him and admire the grand trees surrounding. Perched on the railing, he suggested she do the same, congratulating her, reminding her to keep in touch. He was there for her. Smiling, he told her she might want to get a haircut before she left. “Such beautiful hair, wild.” He touched it, patting her head fondly, at first and then, drawing closer, pressed it. Hard. Junior dropped to her knees, and while the Administrator’s hands were busy unbelting, hers went to the back of his knees, upending him over the railing. He fell one story. Only one. The Guidance Counselor who saw him fall and rushed to his aid saw also the loosened belt and open fly. His testimony, arranged of course to keep his job, supported the Administrator, who was as confounded and bewildered as anybody at the “sudden, strange, self-loathing behavior” of a once model student. The Committee, pained by Junior’s use of the word “lick” in her defense, quickly transferred her from student to inmate for a violence they could only shake their heads at.

Junior learned a lot in the next three years. If she ever had a moment’s thought that after Correctional she would fail in life, the thought quickly evaporated. Reform, then Prison, refined her insight. In Correctional real time is not spent; it is deposited, bit by manageable bit. What to do for the next half hour, ten minutes. It will take seven minutes to do your nails; twenty to wash your hair. A minute and a half to get from gym to class. Games, ninety minutes. Two hours of television before lights-out and the falling-down years of sleeping while awake to the “there” of other people’s bodies. Unlike what people thought, in the daily grid of activities, to plan was fatal. Stay ready, on tippy-toe. And read fast: gestures, eyes, mouths, tones of speech, body movement—minds. Gauge the moment. Recognize a chance. It’s all you. And if you luck out, find yourself near an open wallet, window, or door, GO! It’s all you. All of it. Good luck you found, but good fortune you made. And her Good Man agreed. As she knew from the beginning, he liked to see her win.

They recognized each other the very first night when he gazed at her from his portrait. But it was in dream they got acquainted. No fuss, no bother, no recriminations—he lifted her up to his shoulders, where she rode through an orchard of green Granny apples. When she woke in a bright, cold room, the dream-warmth was better than the blanket. A tub bath (at last) before eagerly climbing the stairs partly to show her new boss lady how punctual she was; mostly to catch another glimpse of her Good Man’s shoulders. Heed was sitting in bed, the crown of her head just under the frame’s gilt. Junior told her she didn’t want to go pick up her clothes—that she would wear what she had on until she could afford new things. Heed directed her to a closet where a red suit hung in plastic. It was ugly and too big, but Junior was thinking how much she wanted to undress right there in Heed’s bedroom while he watched.

“Get some breakfast and come right on back,” said Heed.

She did: grapefruit, scrambled eggs, bacon, grits—chatting with Christine in an old woman’s suit.

It was when she had finished, on her way back to Heed, that she knew for sure. In the hallway on the second floor she was flooded by his company: a tinkle of glee, a promise of more; then her attention drawn to a door opposite the room she had slept in. Ajar. A light pomade or aftershave in the air. She stepped through. Inside, a kind of office with sofa, desk, leather chairs, dresser. Junior examined it all. She stroked ties and shirts in the closet; smelled his shoes; rubbed her cheek on the sleeve of his seersucker jacket. Then, finding a stack of undershorts, she took off the red suit, stepped into the shorts, and lay on the sofa. His happiness was unmistakable. So was his relief at having her there, handling his things and enjoying herself in front of him.

Later, on her way back to Heed’s room, Junior looked over her shoulder toward the door—still ajar—and saw the cuff of a white shirtsleeve, his hand closing the door. Junior laughed, knowing as she did that he did too.

And wouldn’t you know it? Right outside Heed’s window was a boy. For her. Everything was becoming clear. If she pleased both women, they could live happily together. All she had to do was study them, learn them. Christine didn’t care about money, liked feeding her, and encouraged her to take the car. Heed worried about gasoline prices and the value of dated milk cartons and day-old bread. Junior saw both Christine’s generosity and Heed’s stinginess as forms of dismissal. One was “Take what you need and leave me alone.” The other was “I’m in control and you are not.” Neither woman was interested in her—except as she simplified or complicated their relationship with each other. Not quite a go-between, not quite a confidante, it was a murky role in which she had discovered small secrets. Among the new, never-worn clothes in the locked suitcases were a short, sheer nightie, aqua fuzz at the hem; a carton that explained its contents as a douche bag; a jar of mustard-yellow Massengill powder. Things needed on vacation? For escape? Christine took a bunch of vitamin pills and poured Michelob into empty Pepsi cans. Both women regularly bought and wore sanitary napkins, and threw them in the trash completely unstained. Heed’s signature on a check was a press of her initials,
HC,
rickety and slanting to the left.

In time the women would tire of their fight, leave things to her. She could make it happen, arrange harmony when she felt like it, the way she had at Correctional when Betty cut in on Sarah at the Christmas Dance and they had fought themselves into Isolation. Junior had brokered the peace when the girls returned, bristling, to the Common Room, threatening behavior that could ruin it for the whole of Mary House. Siding with each antagonist, she had become indispensable to both. How much harder could it be with women too tired to shop, too weak to dye their own hair? Too old to remember the real purpose of an automobile. He chuckled.

She gunned the motor. Vanilla? Strawberry? Romen was in view.

6

HUSBAND

Correctional girls knew better than to trust a label. “Let set for five minutes, then rinse thoroughly” was a suggestion, not an order. Some products needed fifteen minutes; others would cook the scalp instantly. Correctionals knew all about grooming: hair-braiding, curling, shampooing, straightening, cutting. And before coloring privileges were taken away—Fawn practically blinded Helen with a deliberate blast of Natural Instinct—they practiced tint-and-dye with professional single-mindedness.

Junior slid the tail of a fine-tooth comb through Heed’s hair, then filled each silver valley with a thick stream of Velvet Tress. She had lubricated each parting with Vaseline to take down the pain of its lye. Then she tipped Heed’s head gently—this way and that—to check the nape and hairline. The rims of Heed’s ears were lightly scarred, either from old dye burns or awkwardly held straightening combs. Junior ran a gloved forefinger slowly over the wounds. Then she bent the ear to blot the excess liquid with cotton. Satisfied that the roots were wet and steeping, she tucked the hair into a shower cap. Washing utensils, folding towels, she listened to Heed’s drone—the voluptuous murmur that always accompanies hairdressing. Massage, caress by devoted hands, are natural companions to a warm-water rinse, to the shy squeak of clean hair. In a drowsy voice full of amusement Heed explained the barber’s chair she was sitting in. How Papa said no chair in the world was more comfortable; that he had paid thirty dollars for it but it was worth hundreds. How home-decorating issues could not keep him from moving it from the hotel into the bathroom of their new house. How much Heed treasured it, because in the early days of their marriage it was in that very chair that he took pains to teach her how to manicure, pedicure, keep all his nails in perfect shape. And how to shave him, too, with a straight razor and strop. She was so little she had to stand on a stool to reach. But he was nothing but patience, and she learned. Encouraged by Junior’s obedient but interested silence, she went on to say she never felt clean enough in those early days. Folks from her neighborhood were mocked for living near a fish factory, and although she had never worked one minute in the place, she suspected she was suspected of its blight. Even now it was the worst thing about her hands, how limited her habits of hygiene had become.

Junior wondered if Heed was trying to ask for a pedicure as well as a bathing hand. Although it was not the fun of group showers at Correctional, soaping a body—any body—held a satisfaction only a Settlement child could know. Besides, it pleased him to see her taking care of his wife; as it pleased him to watch her and Romen wrestle naked in the backseat of his twenty-five-year-old car; just as it tickled him to know she was wearing his shorts.

She turned on the blow dryer. Warm, then cool air played on Heed’s scalp, stimulating more reminiscence.

“We were the first colored family in Silk and not a peep out of one white mouth. Nineteen forty-five. The war was just over. Everybody had money but Papa had more than most, so he built this house on land as far as you could see. It’s Oceanside now, but then it was a run-down orchard full of birds. Hand me the towel.”

Heed patted her temples and looked in the mirror.

“We had two victory celebrations. One at the hotel for the public; and a private one here at the house. People talked about it for years. That whole summer was a party; started in May and ended August
14
. Flags everywhere. Firecrackers and rockets on the beach. Meat was rationed, but Papa had black-market connections so we had a truckload. I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen, but they needed me then.”

“Why wouldn’t they let you in the kitchen?”

Heed wrinkled her nose. “Oh, I wasn’t much of a cook. Besides, I was the wife, you know; the hostess, and the hostess never . . .”

Heed stopped. Memory of “hostessing” those two kinds of victory parties in
1945
was swamped by another pair of celebrations, two years later. A sixteenth-birthday-plus-graduation party for Christine. Again, a family dinner at the house preceding a public celebration at the hotel. In June of
1947
, Heed had not seen her used-to-be friend in four years. The Christine that stepped out of Papa’s Cadillac was nothing like the one who, in
1943
, had left home rubbing tears from her cheeks with her palm. The eyes above those cheeks had widened—and cooled. Two braids had become a pageboy smooth as the wearer’s smile. They did not pretend to like each other and, sitting at the table, hid curiosity like pros. The sun, dipping and red as watermelon, left its heat behind—moist and buzzing. Heed remembered the baby-powder smell from the bowl of gardenias, their edges browning like toast. And hands: a casual wave at a fly, a dinner napkin pressed to a damp upper lip; Papa’s forefinger playing his mustache. In silence they waited for L. She had cooked a sumptuous meal and prepared a cake. Sixteen candles waited to be lit in a garden of sugar roses and ribbons of blue marzipan. The conversation had been polite, hollow, stressed by the grating ceiling fan and meaningful looks between May and Christine. Papa, in the grip of postwar excitement, had talked about his plans to improve the hotel, including a Carrier air-cooling system.

“Wouldn’t that be wonderful,” said Christine. “I had forgotten how hot it gets here.”

“We’ll do the hotel first,” said Cosey. “Then the house.”

Heed, feeling a flush of authority, chimed in. “The bedroom fans is in good shape, but I do feel badly about the one in this room.”

“You mean ‘bad.’ You feel ‘bad.’ ”

“That’s what I said.”

“You said ‘badly.’ ‘Feel’ is an intransitive verb in your sentence and is modified by an adjective. If you really mean you feel ‘badly,’ then you are saying something like ‘My fingers are numb and therefore they don’t touch things well.’ Now if you—”

“Don’t you sit at my table and tell me how to talk.”

“Your table?”

“Be quiet, you two. Please? Just be quiet.”

“Whose side you on?”

“Do what I say, Heed.”

“You taking her side!” Heed stood up.

“Sit down, you hear me?”

Heed sat down in the thumping silence, aware of magnified hands and gardenia petals until L entered with a champagne bucket. In her presence Heed calmed enough to hold up her glass for the pouring.

“The other one,” he said. “That’s a water glass.”

May didn’t try to hide her glee as she exchanged glances with her daughter. When Heed caught the smile, the look, she burst out of herself and, throwing the incorrect glass at her husband, rushed past him toward the stairs. Papa rose and grabbed her arm. Then with a kind of old-timey grace, he put her across his knee and spanked her. Not hard. Not cruel. Methodically, reluctantly, the way you would any other brat. When he stopped there was no way for her to get out of the room onto the stairs. No way at all, but she made it. The conversation that picked up as she stumbled up the stairs was relaxed, as though an awful smell that had been distracting the guests had been eliminated at last.

Junior cut off the dryer. “What about your own family? You never talk about them.”

Heed made a sound in her throat and waved a fin.

Junior laughed. “I know what you mean. I’d swallow lye before I’d live with my folks. They made me sleep on the floor.”

“That’s funny,” said Heed. “First few weeks after my wedding, I couldn’t sleep anywhere but. That’s how used to it I was.”

Heed glanced at Junior’s face in the mirror, thinking: That’s what it is, what made me take her on. We’re both out here, alone. With fire ants for family. Marriage was a chance for me to get out, to learn how to sleep in a real bed, to have somebody ask you what you wanted to eat, then labor over the dish. All in a big hotel where clothes were ironed and folded or hung on hangers—not nails. Where you could see city women sway on a dance floor; hide behind the stage to watch musicians tune up and singers fix their underwear or take a final sip before going on to sing “In the dark, in the dark . . .” Right after the wedding, her own family had begun to swarm and bite for blood. Whatever it cost in humiliation, the Coseys were (had become) her family. Although it turned out she had to fight for her place in it, Papa made it possible. When he was around everybody backed off. Time after time he made it clear—they would respect her. Like the time they came back from their three-day “honeymoon.” Heed was bursting with stories to tell Christine. Wobbling in her new sling-back pumps, half falling up the steps, she was met not just by May’s scorn but Christine’s sulk as well.

May, of course, started it, laughing aloud at Heed’s new clothes; but Christine joined in with a smirk Heed had never seen before.

“What in God’s name have you got on?” said May, holding her forehead. “You look like a, a . . .”

“Whoa. Whoa,” said Papa. “I’m not having that. Both of you—quit it. You hear me?”

Trembling, Heed looked to Christine for help. There wasn’t any. Her friend’s eyes were cold, as though Heed had betrayed her, instead of the other way around. L came forward with a scissors and cut the price tag hanging from Heed’s sleeve. What, she wondered, are they laughing at? The Cuban heel shoes? The black net stockings? The pretty purple suit? Papa had been charmed with her purchases. He had taken her to a fine department store that did not have a “No Colored” sign or policy, where you could use the bathroom, try on hats (they put tissue inside the crown), and undress in a special room in the back. Heed picked out things glamorous women in the hotel wore and believed that the wide smile of the clerk and the merry laughter of other customers showed their delighted approval of her choices. “You look like a dream,” one of them said, and sputtered with pleasure. As she came out of the dressing room in a creamy beige dress with red silk roses sewed at the shoulder, the low-cut bosom gathered for breasts somewhere in her future, Papa smiled, nodded, and said, “We’ll take it. We’ll take it all.”

Every day for three days they shopped, Papa letting her buy anything she wanted, including Parisian Night lipstick. They played “wrestle” in the morning, then ate lunch at Reynaud’s. Unlike their hotel, the one they stayed in had no dining room, which pleased Papa, who was always looking for colored businesses less satisfactory than his. He took her to Broad Street, Edwards Bros., Woolworth’s, Hansons, where she bought not just high-heeled shoes but huaraches, shiny bedroom slippers, and fishnet hose. Only in the evening was she alone, for a few hours while he visited friends, tended to business. None of which Heed minded, because she had coloring books, picture magazines, paper dolls to cut out and clothe. Then there was the street. From their second-floor window, she watched in gaping fascination the people and traffic below. Black square-topped automobiles, bleating. Soldiers, sailors, women in tiny hats like pincushions. Vegetable stands in front of “Uncle Sam Wants You” posters.

Papa took her to see
How Green Was My Valley, Kitty Foyle.
She sobbed so loud and long at
The Grapes of Wrath,
his handkerchief was squeezing wet. Wonderful as the honeymoon was, she could hardly wait to get back and tell Christine all about it. Hurt by her reception, she kept her stories to herself. The one time she tried to make peace with Christine, offering to let her wear her wedding ring, the kitchen exploded. The four of them—May, L, Christine, and Heed—were preparing vegetables when Heed slipped off the ring, held it out to Christine, and said, “You can wear it, if you want.”

“You little fool!” May shouted.

Even L turned on her. “Watch yourself,” she said. “The streets don’t go there.”

Christine burst out crying and ran through the back door. From the rain barrel, Heed could hear her shouting: “Ou-yidagay a ave-slidagay! E-hidagay ought-bidagay ou-yidagay ith-widagay a ear’s-yidagay ent-ridagay an-didagay a andy-cidagay ar-bidagay!”

Heed examined the string beans as closely as she could while “Ave-slidagay! Ave-slidagay!” rang in her head.

That night when Christine was dragged back by Chief Buddy Silk from a foolish attempt to run away, and got slapped in the face for it, Heed did not speak one word to her. Instead, she stood on the stairs with Papa and took his hand in hers. Two weeks later, Christine was gone, leaving Heed fending for herself. L and Papa her saviors in that puzzling world.

“I never knew my daddy,” said Junior. “He was killed in the army. Vietnam.”

“At least he went,” said Heed.

“And my mother didn’t care a thing about me.”

“Mine, neither.”

“Maybe I should get married, like you did.”

“Be careful.”

“Well, you got this nice big house out of it.”

“My Vietnam. Except I come out alive.” So far, she thought. “But like you say, he did leave me well off.”

“See there? Aren’t you glad he felt sorry for you?”

“Sorry?” Heed bristled. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, not ‘sorry.’ I didn’t mean that. I meant he must have known you’d be all alone.”

“Of course he did. But that wasn’t pity. It was, it was . . .” She couldn’t say it, and after
1947
, she never heard him say it either. Not to her, anyway, and she listened for twenty-four years. The screams that shot from her mouth when he died were in recognition that she would never hear the word again.

“Listen.” She reached back to touch Junior’s elbow. “There is something I want you to do for me. Together. We have to do it together. There’s something in it for you as well as me.”

“Sure. What?”

“There’s some documents I need. But they’re in a place I can’t get to by myself. You’ll have to take me there and then you have to help me find them.”

“Take you where?”

“To the hotel. The attic. We’ll need a fountain pen.”

Junior couldn’t find him. She looked for him in the other rooms, because when she was sitting in his study and wearing his tie, there was no trace of aftershave; no “Hey, sweet thing” whispered in her ear. Maybe she didn’t need him to tell her. To approve. Maybe he took for granted she’d know what to do. First, check on Christine; make sure they were still friendly in case Heed’s plans went bust. Getting Heed out to the car unseen by Christine should be easy, since the house schedule was as reliable as Correctional’s.