Scattered Leaves (5 page)

Confused. I left it and tried the last door, but it
was locked. I thought about it for a moment and then
returned to the stairway. I could hear the television. so
I descended and walked into the living room. where I
found Great-aunt Frances sprawled on the sofa
looking dreamily at the set and following the drama,
Miss Puss was sprawled on the floor and looked up at
me, then lowered her head to her paws. Great-aunt
Frances didn't even notice I had entered. It was almost
as if she had forgotten my arrival, just the way a child
might. She was totally absorbed in her show and
looked like she would cry if I interrupted. I decided to
wait for the commercial.
Before it came. I heard the front door forcefully
opened. Felix stepped in and then stepped to the side
to permit a tall. thin. African American woman, with
short hair cropped more like a man's hair, to enter as
well. Her facial features were childlike, diminutive,
with a pair of blazing ebony eyes and firm, taught
lips. She wore a dark blue blouse, opened nearly to
her belly button. She didn't seem to care that her
breasts were almost entirely visible. Her jeans were so
tight that I wondered how she could put them on and
take them off. I saw she wore no socks with her
battered old running shoes. Her ankles looked bruised
and swollen,
"It makes no sense for me coming here to clean.
Believe me, ten minutes after I'm gone, she gonna
turn it back to a pigsty," she whined.
Felix closed the door by pounding it with his
sledgehammer fist. He glared at her.
"And believe me it makes no sense your living
here rent free without doing the work." he responded. "I do the work!" she moaned. "She ruins it, so I
just give up. I ain't a slave, you know."
"You don't decide when to give up," he said
firmly. "Or if you do, you move off the property" She looked away angrily, her gaze falling on
me with stinging fury. I immediately thought she
believed I was the reason she was being chastised. If I
hadn't come, no one would have discovered how
poorly she was keeping the house.
Felix lifted his right hand and pointed to the
chandelier.
"No one can change a lightbulb? What's that
got to do with how Miss Wilkens conducts herself?
And this doorjamb. Why hasn't it been sanded and
adjusted? Look at those shades dangling in rooms.
What about the ones missing from the upstairs
bedroom? I'm afraid to inspect the rest of the house.
Minor repairs have been neglected everywhere you
look here: the porch steps, porch floor, railings, that
stairway and banister. The place is a disaster and it
was once a prime property."
"None of that's my fault. I just agreed to clean
up. That other stuffs my father's job," she said. He
was hired to be the property manager, not me." I was shocked to hear a daughter shift blame
toward her own father.
Felix grunted.
"Don't worry. I'll be talking with him shortly.
Let's first get this place liveable. There's a young girl
going to be living here now."
"Well, don't blame me if it turns back to a
pigsty before you even drive away," she muttered and
charged past me down the hallway to a closet. She
jerked it open and pulled out a pail and a mop, glared
back at us and continued into another room, probably
the kitchen. I had yet to explore the downstairs. Felix watched her and then walked slowly to
the living room doorway, where I stood waiting.
Great-aunt Frances either hadn't heard the commotion
or had ignored it. She was still transfixed on her soap
opera.
"Miss Wilkens," Felix said.
She just waved at him. He looked at me
quizzically. I smiled and shrugged. Finally, the
commercial came on and she turned to us.
"Oh, are you all unpacked, dear?" she asked. "Not yet. I had to find the bathroom first. Is that
the one I'll be using, the one across the hall?" "Yes, it is. We'll arrange it together. Now that
you're here. I'll have to get myself more organized,"
she said. "I'll have to be more like Emma."
More organized? I don't see any order, I I
thought,
"You mentioned you were going to make her
some lunch," Felix said.
"Lunch? Oh, right, lunch. In a few minutes.
Debbie has just learned that her sister's child is her
husband's, too, and her husband is in a panic and just
wandering aimlessly in the city_ . Marcia says he's
like an amnesiac. They don't know if he's pretending." "Miss Wilkens. I have Mae Betty here cleaning
up the house. "Oh, wasn't she just here? I can't
remember."
"If she was, she forgot some things." Felix said
and glanced at me. "I'm sure you want it to be in
better shape than it is. It was once a prime property.
Mrs. March would have a second stroke if she set eyes
on it the way it is now."
"What? Yes." Great-aunt Frances considered
what he said, and then her eyes widened, "Emma's not
coming soon, is she?" she asked, obviously terrified of
the possibility and forgetting what Felix had already
told her about Grandmother Emma.
"No, Miss Wilkens. She won't be coming in the
near future, but eventually, she might."
"Well, let me know first. I'd like to get her
room fixed up the way she likes it. She so likes fresh
flowers in vases on the night tables. No one dares use
that room but Emma, even though she hasn't used it
since... since I can't remember.' She laughed. "Yes, well, as I said, things have to be taken
care of better than they are. Miss Wilkens, whether
Mrs. March comes or not," Felix said. "I'm--" "Oh, it's starting!"
She waved her hand at us to tell us to shut up
and leave her alone.
"I have to go talk to Lester now," Felix said, his
voice filled with frustration. "Just wait a little longer.
I'll return to see that you're getting your lunch." "I'm not that hungry anyway," I said.
He went out again. I thought a moment and
decided to walk down the hallway rather than go in
and watch a soap opera with Great-aunt Frances. The
kitchen was down the hall on the right. Just past it was
the dining room, and across from it was an office and
another door. All the furniture I saw looked old and
worn. Nothing was polished and sparkling like the
furniture in Grandmother Emma's house.
I opened the closed door and saw a stairway
going down into the basement. Then I heard Lester
Marshall's daughter Mae Betty filling the pail with
water somewhere behind me. so
I
closed the door and
went to the kitchen. Looking through it into the
laundry room. I saw her fuming over the sink and
mumbling to herself.
I was glad Felix hadn't come this far into the
house and seen the kitchen. If he thought the other
parts of the house were bad, he would think this was a
disaster. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned up not
only after breakfast but after last night's dinner and
maybe even yesterday's lunch. too. The table was
covered with dishes and glasses and some open food
containers. I wondered how long the bottle of milk
had been out and if it had turned sour.
The sink was filled with dishes. Why hadn't
they been put in the dishwasher? I wondered, but then
again.
I
didn't see anything that resembled a
dishwasher. The small refrigerator and the gas stove
looked old to me. However, although it was not nearly
as big as Grandmother Emma's kitchen, it was a nicesize kitchen with plenty of counter space. When it was
cleaned up, it would probably look very nice. I
thought.
"What's your name?" Mae Betty demanded as
she turned to me from the laundry- room doorway. "Jordan March," I said.
"I knew you was a March," she said, twisting
her lips. "Why you come living here?"
"My parents were in a bad car accident and my
grandmother had a stroke."
"They all dead?"
"No." I said emphatically.
"So? Why you here?"
"My grandmother is in the hospital. My father
is in a wheelchair."
"What about your mother?"
"She's in a coma in a hospital, but she'll get
better," I added.
"Right. And I'll be the queen of England
someday," she muttered, picked up the pail and started
out. "You'll see," she said after she passed me and
stopped in the hallway. "I'll get this place looking
decent and shell turn it back to a pigsty."
"Why are the dishes piled up in the sink? Isn't
there a dishwasher?'" I asked.
"Dishwasher? You're looking at the
dishwasher," she said. "but she don't make it easy.
She'll use a new dish and a new glass every five
minutes. I tried to get her to use paper plates and
plastic forks once and she threw it all in the garbage,
telling me her sister would be furious. What sister? I
asked. I ain't seen a sister here since I come, but you'd
think she visits her every day the way she carries on
about her."
She walked down the hallway to the front
entrance, pushed the coat hanger back, rolled up the
old rug, and began to wash the wood floor. As she
worked, she continued to mumble under her breath. I
thought I heard a slew of curse words. so I pretended
not to hear and instead started to clean up the kitchen.
Once in a while, back at Grandmother Emma's house,
her maid. Nancy, let me help.
I found the dish soap and began to do the dishes
in the sink. As I worked. I suddenly thought that
maybe this was what Grandmother Emma had meant
when she'd told me my great- aunt Frances needed
me. She didn't need me to work on her farm, but she
needed me to help with taking care of her home, with
taking care of her.
"Oh, my, my," Great-aunt Frances said, coming
to the kitchen doorway when her soap opera had
ended. "Look at you. Not here ten minutes and you're
helping out like a little trouper already. That's the way
I was when I was your age, too. I always helped out.
My sister never helped out. She always said. 'We have
servants for that. Frances. If you do their work, what
will they do? You'll put them out of work. Or you'll
make them lazy.'
"Now, guess what I have here for you." she said, coming into the kitchen and going to a drawer under the counter. She opened the drawer and took
out a large manila envelope. "You know what this is?" I shook my head.
"It's all the arrangements for your school." She
handed the envelope to me.
I wiped my hands on a dish towel and opened
the packet.
There were directions about the bus I was to
take, and there was information about my class with
my teacher's name. Mrs. Morgan. There was a
diagram showing where my classroom was, and then
there was a page about how we were to dress and
behave. Grandmother Emma had somehow taken care
of all the arrangements through her attorney. School
was starting the day after tomorrow,
"You should put all that in your room. dear. As
my sister. Emma, always says. 'As soon as you're
capable of brushing your own teeth, you're
responsible for yourself, which means you're
responsible for your own things.'
"Now what do we have for lunch today?" she
asked me. "Of course, you don't know. You just
arrived. Let's look in the refrigerator."
She opened it and stood back, nodding. "Wouldn't you just love peaches and cream? I
have the cream, and the peaches are in jars down in
the basement. I must have eaten all the peaches I had
Mae Betty bring up, or else," she added, leaning
toward me with her eyes on the doorway, "Mae Betty
ate them."
"I never had peaches and cream for lunch," I
said.
"Well now you will. Just go down the stairs and
to your right you will see the shelves and shelves of
canned peaches, tomatoes and onions. Lester Marshall
does that every year for me. I'll set out our dishes and
give you a glass of milk with a chocolate cream
cookie. too."
She looked at the table. I hadn't cleared it vet. "I'll make some room for us. It will be our first
meal together." she said. smiling. "I'll tell you all
about
Hearts and Flowers
, too. The peaches," she
reminded me when I didn't move. She smiled and
nodded at the doorway.
Peaches and cream sounded like a dessert not a
meal. I thought, but I didn't want to be impolite, so I
went to the basement door. She poked her head out of
the kitchen.
"Oh. Jordan, the light switch is on your right." she said. "Be careful. My cousin Arnold fell down those stairs and broke his ankle when he was ten. He was always a careless person, and eventually he got hit by a car and died. It was so long ago. I can't remember the exact day, but I still have a letter Emma sent me. She wrote. 'Arnold was hit by a car and died.' That's all she wrote and the date, of course. Emma always puts the date on her letters so we can look at it when we want and know exactly when they were
sent."
She pulled back into the kitchen. and I searched
for the light switch. A single dangling weak bulb
seemed to struggle to throw enough of a glow down
the stairway. There were so many cobwebs along the
walls and rafters that it looked like spiders had woven
the wallpaper. I certainly wasn't happy about going
down the stairs. The steps felt like they were on the
verge of cracking as I descended. I was practically on
tiptoe to keep from placing all my weight down on
them.
The switch at the top of the stairway controlled
another dangling lightbulb below. Although weak, it
did clearly show me the shelves. They were filled
with jars of peaches, tomatoes and onions, as she had
said. Just as I plucked one off the shelf. I heard the sound of a girl laughing, Then I heard some muffled conversation and looked toward the left, where there
was another door.
Who was down here?
Clutching the jar of peaches tightly, I went to
the door and listened. There were definitely two
people talking very low. The girl laughed again. I
tried the doorknob, and it clicked open. Very slowly, I
pulled the door back and gazed into this part of the
basement. Two windows in the foundation provided
enough light for me to make out what looked like a
living room thrown together with old furniture: a sofa,
a chair, a table. There were cartons and pieces of other
furniture all around, including armoires, dressers, and
chairs, some piled on each other.
At first I saw no one. Then a head lifted over
the wide-armed sofa and I saw a girl. She pulled back
even farther until she was sitting up.