Rubyfruit Jungle (6 page)

“I ain’t sittin’ nowhere until you button your fat lip and do this right.”

We struggled and pushed each other, until I caught her off balance and she tripped on her long cloak. As she started to fall, I gave her a shove and she flew off the stage into the audience. Miss Potter zoomed out on the stage, took my
hand and said in a calm voice, “Now ladies and gentlemen, let’s sing songs appropriate to the season.” Miss Martin at the piano struck up “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

Cheryl was down there among the folding chairs bawling her eyes out. Miss Potter pulled me off stage, where I had started to sing. I knew I was in for it.

“Now, Molly, Cheryl did wrong to talk out of turn, but you shouldn’t have shoved her off the stage.” Then she let me go, not even a little slap. Leroy was as surprised as I was. “It’s a good thing she ain’t mad but wait until Aunt Carrie and Florence get a hold of you.”

True enough, Carrie nearly lost her liver with rage and I had to stay in the house for a solid week and all that time I had to do the chores: dishes, ironing, wash, even cooking. That made me give up the idea of marrying Leota B. Bisland if she wouldn’t do the chores or at least half of them. I had to figure out a way to find out what Leota would agree to.

That week I thought of how to ask Leota to marry me. I’d die in front of her and ask her in my last breath. If she said yes, I’d miraculously recover. I’d send her a note on colored paper with a white dove. I’d ride over to her house on Barry Aldridge’s horse, sing her a song like in the movies, then she’d get on the back of the horse and we’d ride off into the sunset. None of them seemed right so I decided to come straight out and ask.

Next Monday after school Leroy, Leota, and I were walking home. I gave Leroy a dime and told him to go on ahead to Mrs. Hershener’s for
an ice cream. He offered no resistance as his stomach always came first.

“Leota, you thought about getting married?”

“Yeah, I’ll get married and have six children and wear an apron like my mother, only my husband will be handsome.”

“Who you gonna marry?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Why don’t you marry me? I’m not handsome, but I’m pretty.”

“Girls can’t get married.”

“Says who?”

“It’s a rule.”

“It’s a dumb rule. Anyway, you like me better than anybody, don’t you? I like you better than anybody.”

“I like you best, but I still think girls can’t get married.”

“Look, if we want to get married, we can get married. It don’t matter what anybody says. Besides Leroy and I are running away to be famous actors. We’ll have lots of money and clothes and we can do what we want. Nobody dares tell you what to do if you’re famous. Now ain’t that a lot better than sitting around here with an apron on?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then let’s kiss like in the movies and we’ll be engaged.”

We threw our arms around each other and kissed. My stomach felt funny.

“Does your stomach feel strange?”

“Kinda.”

“Let’s do it again.”

We kissed again and my stomach felt worse.
After that, Leota and I went off by ourselves each day after school. Somehow we knew enough not to go around kissing in front of everyone, so we went into the woods and kissed until it was time to go home. Leroy was beside himself, because I didn’t walk home with him any more. One day he trailed us into the woods and burst in on us like a triumphant police sergeant.

“Kissing. You two come out here kissing. I’m gonna tell everyone in the whole world.”

“Well now, Leroy Denman, what you want to tell for? Maybe you ought to try it before you shoot your big mouth off. You might want to come here after school too.”

Temptation shone in Leroy’s eyes, he never wanted to miss anything, but he hedged. “I don’t want to go kissing girls.”

“Kiss the cows then, Leroy. There’s nothin’ else to kiss. It feels good. You’re sure missing some fun.”

He began to weaken. “Do I have to close my eyes if I kiss you?”

“Yes. You can’t kiss and keep your eyes open, they’ll cross forever.”

“I don’t want to close my eyes.”

“All right then, stupid, keep your eyes open. What do I care if you got cross-eyes. It’s not my problem if you don’t want to do it right.”

“Who do I kiss first?”

“Whoever you want.”

“I’ll kiss you first, since I know you better.” Leroy puckered up and gave me a kiss like Florence gives at night.

“Leroy, that ain’t right. You got your mouth all screwed up. Don’t squinch it together like that.”

Leota was laughing, and she reached out to Leroy with a long arm, drew him to her and gave him a fat kiss. Leroy began to get the idea.

“Watch us,” Leota advised. We finished a kiss, then I gave Leroy another one. He was getting a little better at it, although he was still stiff.

“How’s your stomach feel.”

“Hungry, why?”

“Don’t your stomach feel funny at all?” Leota asked.

“No.”

“Maybe it’s different for boys,” she said.

After that the three of us went off after school. It was okay having Leroy around but he never did get to be an accomplished kisser. There were times when I felt kissing Leota wasn’t enough, but I wasn’t sure what the next step would be. So until I knew, I settled for kissing. I knew about fucking and getting stuck together like dogs and I didn’t want to get stuck like that. It was very confusing. Leota was full of ideas. Once she laid down on top of me to give me a kiss and I knew that was a step in the right direction, until Leroy piled on and my lungs near caved in. I thought maybe we’d do it again when Leroy wasn’t around.

Leroy convinced me not to tell anyone that we were kissing and all going to be famous. He figured it was another one of those rules and the grownups would keep us from running away to act. And the grownups did keep us three from running away together, but not because we were kissing in the woods.

One bitter night in February with the oven on and the gas heaters going, all the adults asked us into the kitchen. They told us we were moving to
Florida as soon as school was over. There’d be warm weather all year round, and you could pick oranges right off the trees. I didn’t believe it, of course. It can’t be warm all year round. Another trick, but I didn’t say anything. Carrie assured us we’d like it because we could swim in the ocean, and jobs were easier to find so there’d be something for everybody. Then they put us all to bed. Going to Florida wasn’t so bad. They didn’t have to tell lies to get me to go. I just didn’t want to leave Leota, that’s all.

The next day I told Leota the news and she didn’t like it any more than I did, but there seemed to be nothing we could do about it. We promised to write each other and to keep going out into the woods until the very last day.

Spring came late that year and the roads were muddy. Carrie and Florence had already gone through the house, throwing things out, packing things we didn’t need for everyday use. By May everything was ready to go save for a few kitchen utensils, the clothes we wore, and a few pieces of furniture in the living room. Every day I felt a little worse about it. Kissing in the woods made it worse. Even Leroy started to feel the pinch, and he didn’t care about Leota or kissing quite the way I did. It seemed like if I was going to leave I ought to leave knowing more than kissing. Leota wasn’t far from the same conclusion. One week before school ended she asked me to spend the night with her. She had a bedroom all to herself so we wouldn’t have to share it with her little sister, and her mother said I could stay over. This was one time things worked in my favor. There was no question that Leroy could be asked to spend the
night. If Carrie wouldn’t let me sleep in Leroy’s room, it was a sure bet that nobody was going to let Leroy spend the night at Leota’s. Leroy didn’t care much anyway. Sleep was sleep to Leroy.

I put my toothbrush, pajamas and comb in a paper bag and walked down the road to the Bislands. You could see their house from far away because they had a t.v. aerial on it. We stayed up and watched the Milton Berle show. He kept getting pies in the face and everyone thought that was so funny. I didn’t think it was so funny. They should have eaten the pies instead of throwing them at each other. If they were mad why didn’t they just knock the crap out of each other? It made no sense to me but it was fun to watch. I didn’t care if Milton Berle didn’t know better.

After the show, we got into bed and pulled up the sheets. Leota’s mother closed the door and shut off the lights because they were still watching t.v. That was fine with us. Soon as the door was shut we started kissing. We must have kissed for hours but I couldn’t really tell because I didn’t think about anything except kissing. We did hear her parents turn off the t.v. and go to bed. Then Leota decided we’d try lying on top of one another. We did that but it made my stomach feel terrible.

“Molly, let’s take our pajamas off and do that.”

“Okay, but we got to remember to put them back on before morning.” It was much better without the pajamas. I could feel her cool skin all over my body. That really was a lot better. Leota started kissing me with her mouth open. Now my stomach was going to fall out on the floor. Great, I am found dead in the Bisland home
with my stomach hanging outa my mouth. “Leota, that makes my stomach hurt a lot more but it’s kinda good too.”

“Mine too.”

We kept on. If we were going to die from stomach trouble we were resolved to die together. She began to touch me all over and I knew I was really going to die. Leota was bold. She wasn’t afraid to touch anything and where her knowledge came from was a secret but she knew what she was after. And I soon found out.

The next morning we went to school like any two sixth-grade girls. I fell asleep during fractions. Leroy gave me a poke and snickered. Leota looked at me with those dreamy eyes and I hurt all over again. We couldn’t move to Florida, we just couldn’t.

But we did. Leota came down on the day we packed up the old Dodge truck and the 1940 Packard. She and I hung around while Carrie put the last things away then called me to the car. I threw my arms around her neck and kissed her then ran to the car. We wrote a few times after that, then the letters drifted off. I didn’t see Leota again until 1968.

Our raggedy caravan kept to the coast as we moved slowly through the flatlands of the South. Carl and Ep detoured to take us kids to Richmond and there we saw a stuffed seal that had come down to swim around Richmond in the 1800s. There was a stuffed Indian too, but he made me sick. Leroy, Ted, and I liked the Civil War uniforms best. The Confederate ones were the prettiest because they had gold braid all down on the cuffs of the sleeves. Leroy confessed if he didn’t become a famous actor, he’d become a soldier so he could wear gold braid on his sleeves. I said that was okay but then he couldn’t wear lipstick and he’d have to follow orders.

The journey dragged on and we nearly went crazy cooped up in the car. Carrie invented a license plate game that helped. First one to get one hundred points wins. The plates of the state
you were going through counted one point. Every state in the South aside from that state was two points. Northern states were five points and Midwestern ones were ten. Western states were twenty points and California plates were thirty. I knew we’d never see California plates because only movie stars lived out there, and why’d they want to be driving around these washed-out lands?

Once in Athens, Georgia, we pulled over to eat and go to the bathroom. Leroy, Ted, and I popped out of the car and zoomed into the dinky restaurant that smelled of years of grease. I sped past the door the boys used and into the next one. Carrie seized my arm as I was coming out.

“You got no sense, girl. You do that again and I’m gonna whale you good, you hear me? That’s the colored room and you stay out.” I wasn’t about to argue with her in front of strangers, but when we got back in the car I asked Carl what all that meant. Carrie turned to him. “See, she won’t listen to me. You make her listen.”

“Down South things are a little different than up in York. Here the whites and the coloreds don’t mix and you’re not to mess with those people, although you are to be mannerly should you ever have to talk to one. Your mother was trying to save you from getting in trouble someday.”