Scattered Leaves (6 page)

She was naked to her waist, and her jeans
looked unfastened. Her bosom was small, but perky.
She had a silver cross on a silver chain that sat
between her breasts.
A boy, who had been beneath her, appeared
quickly, turning on the sofa.
He was wearing only his underwear. The sight
stole my breath.
They were both African Americans. The girl
noticed the light pouring in from behind me and
turned my way.
"What is it? Why you stop?" the boy asked her. "Who the hell are you?" she demanded, looking
at me and not bothering to cover up. She put her
hands on her hips.
I closed the door quickly, my heart thumping so
hard that
I
thought
I
wouldn't be able to catch my
breath. Without hesitation. I charged up the stairway,
not worrying about the weak steps. I switched off the
light and stepped into the hallway, closing the door
quickly behind me.
I stood there gasping like someone who had
been underwater a little too long.
"Good." I heard Great-aunt Frances say. She
was peering out the kitchen doorway again. She didn't
notice anything unusual about me. "Now let's have
our first meal together and get to be Great friends.
^-
She clapped her hands.
I looked back at the basement door and then at
the peaches in my hand.
I don't care what I imagined
you told me, Ian,
I thought.
Even you would think
about running out of the house and begging Felix to take you home.

Before I reached the kitchen, the front door opened and Felix entered, followed by an African American man a few inches taller, who. I imagined, was Lester Marshall, He had milk-white hair and a very closely cut white beard and mustache that looked more like rock salt sprinkled over his face. He was stout and wore a long-sleeved blue shirt outside his jeans and a pair of very dirty black shoe boots. His shoulders were thicker and wider than Felix's, but he had a little stoop. Grandmother Emma would make him parade about with a book on his head while she cried. "Posture, posture. posture!"

Felix pointed to the chandelier and said. "Well?"
"I asked her about it," Mr. Marshall said. "She told me she didn't want so much light in the house. She said she'd rather hide herself in shadows and not be reminded about how she looked. That's why I ain't done nothing with the ones upstairs either. I swear." he added, raising his right hand.
"Everything's changed now." Felix said. "There's a little girl here. Mrs. March wants this house brought up to speed quickly. You follow?"
"Yes, sir, I do. Nothing is seriously broken. I'll fix this door promptly and mend the porch in a day. She forgets, but I wanted to fix the doorbell and she told me not to bother. No one comes to visit. Plumbing is fine. Oil burner is fine. Ain't a single short in any of the electric either. Winter comes, this house be as warm as fresh toast.'
"All that doesn't explain why the grounds look like no one's lived here for years,"
"Oh. I had some back problems and some equipment broke down so it just got away from me. but I'll get it looking shipshape real soon."
"If Mrs. March drove up here with me today, you'd be on a ship all right, a ship sailing for the South Pole," Felix replied.
Mae Betty stepped out of the living room. She clutched bags of garbage in each hand as if she'd been holding two errant boys by their hair. She looked as worn and frazzled as a maid who had been working for hours and hours.
"This is just a tenth of it!" she said.
"I warned you that you had to stay on it or it would get far past you, girl," Lester told his daughter.
"Don't put no act on now. Daddy. You agreed it was a waste of time cleaning up this place."
"There's a little girl come here to live now." Lester told her.
"Well, how's I supposed to know about it? You never said so."
"I told her, but she forgot." Lester explained to Felix. "She works nights at the Canary Bar and--"
"I don't care. Just get it all up to speed quickly. I'll be back with Mrs. March soon, or they'll send me back with young Mr. March, and you don't want to disappoint the Marches, especially now with all their personal troubles. You'll be out of here in a
heartbeat," he warned.
"No problem," Lester said. He glared at his daughter, who pulled her shoulders back and headed toward me. Her eyes looked like they could shoot flames in my direction. I fled into the kitchen. My heart was still pounding from what I had seen in the basement, and Mae Betty's glaring at me didn't slow it down.
Great-aunt Frances was seated at the kitchen table. She had cleared away some space for two bowls and two spoons on napkins beside them. She had poured a glass of milk for me and laid two cookies beside it. I saw that the cream for the peaches was already in the bowls.
Mae Betty came in behind me, nudging me out of her way without saying "Excuse me," as she started across the kitchen toward the laundry room. Miss Puss practically leaped under the table to avoid being stepped on.
"Oh." Great-aunt Frances said. "I forgot it's hard to open those jars. You can't do it. and my hands are as soft as cotton candy."
"Don't ask me. I got more than enough to do with the mess you made." Mae Betty tossed back at us and continued walking toward the laundry room.
Felix and Lester Marshall were walking by, and Gneat-aunt Frances called out to Lester.
"Yes, ma'am?" he said. stopping.
"Would you be so kind as to open that jar of peaches for us, Lester?"
"Glad to," he said, taking it from me. He clutched it in his big hand and almost effortlessly turned the cover. We heard it snap, and Great-aunt Frances clapped.
"Lester is about the strongest man I ever met," she told me.
"Not anymore, Miss Wilkens. I'm not what I was. Bones are creaking so loud, they keep me up nights. I'm about to reach Social Security."
When he smiled. I saw he was missing teeth on both sides of his mouth. He glanced at me with kind eves. He had the sort of face that gave birth to a smile around his eyes that rippled down to the corners of his lips. "Welcome, Missy," he said.
"Her name is Jordan. Jordan March." Greataunt Frances told him.
"A truly holy and wonderful name. You know it was in the river Jordan that Jesus was baptized?"
I nodded.
"Welcome. Jordan." "Thank you," I said.
He handed the jar of peaches back to me and hurried out to join Felix, who was taking him through a survey of the house. We heard them talking in the hallway. It was mostly Felix rattling off this and that for repair and Lester saying. "Yes sir. got it. Yes sir. I'll be on that right away."
"Scoop the peaches into the cream," Great-aunt Frances told me.
As I did so. Mae Betty returned from the laundry room. There was a door that opened to the outside, through which she had gone to dump garbage. She glared at us and shook her head as she walked by toward the hallway. She paused in the doorway.
"I ain't tending to that cat's litter box. That's not part of my job." she declared, and as she walked away, she added, "it's overflowing."
"I always forget," Great-aunt Frances said. "Miss Puss never makes a mess anyway. You take enough?"
"Yes." I said and handed the jar to her so she could scoop out peaches for herself.
I wondered if I should now tell her what I had seen in her basement.
Surely, she should know there is a half-naked girl down there and a boy down to his underpants
,
I thought. but I was afraid of starting trouble so soon after I had come, especially with all this commotion going on. So I didn't say anything.
"You must tell me all about yourself, about living with my sister, about her grand house, about your mother and your father. You must tell me all the things you like to eat, too. I'll have Mae Betty and Lester buy them for us, but don't expect me to be as good a cook as Emma's cook."
"I can make some things, too," I said. "Like scrambled eggs and toast, oatmeal. and--"
"Oatmeal? Ugh. You like it?"
"Nancy makes it with honey and raisins. It's good."
"Who's Nancy?"
"Grandmother Emma's maid and cook.'
"Oh. Good. I'm glad you learned how to make things. We'll help each other. I just love having you here. When Emma's lawyer. Mr. Pond, called to tell me about Emma and how she was sending you to live with me. I thought, finally, finally my family remembers me. I thought I had been put on a raft and shoved out to sea. I can't remember when I last got a telephone call from anyone in my family.
"So," she said, folding her hands together. "Where do you want to start?"
"Start?"
"With yourself, talking about yourself? You can start as far back as you remember. I don't care. I love stories. Oh. I have all the soap opera magazines, so you can catch up and watch them with me. I also love to watch Yesterday's Hungry Heart. It's about romance during the time when there were lords and ladies, knights and princesses. You'll be home from school before it goes on. too. I checked the time, The moment the bus drops you off, just come into the living room and we'll watch it together. okay?"
I didn't know what to say. I never watched television right after school at Grandmother Emma's house and certainly never watched a soap opera. I couldn't imagine doing it instead of schoolwork, and I could never imagine Grandmother Emma watching such a thing.
"You look so serious. Oh. I know. You're worried about doing your homework, but you don't want to start right in on schoolwork after you've just come home from school, do you? I never did. Emma did." she revealed. "She always addressed her responsibilities before anything else. She loved to say. 'If you do what's expected of you, you'll do what you expect of yourself.' Well. I never expected anything of myself." She laughed. "Whenever I told her that, she would get so angry that her ears would turn red." She leaned toward me to whisper. "You know what Emma's fond of telling people about us?"
I shook my head.
"She's fond of saying we're so different we're like night and day. It must have been another postman. Do you know what that means?"
I shook my head even harder.
"Good. Don't ask," she said, pulling back. She began to eat her peaches and cream, obviously savoring every bite.
I tasted mine and thought it was delicious even though it was probably not the proper thing for lunch.
"Do you like it?"
"Yes."
"Good. We only do things we like here. Na one tells us what to do, what to eat, when to go to sleep and get up and what to wear."
She paused, as if she was afraid someone was listening, and then she added in another loud whisper. "No one except Emma, of course. Emma always told everyone what to do, even our mother. But let's not think about it." she followed quickly. "Let's not think about anything unpleasant. Happiness and joy," she said, holding up her child's charm bracelet. "That's what each of these means. This is a smiling face. See?"
I nodded.
"You saw my Christmas stockings hanging on the fireplace, didn't you?"
"Yes, why are they there now?"
"Every day is Christmas in my house." she said and leaned toward me. "And here, we can still believe in Santa Claus if we want to."
She laughed and continued to eat.
She was right,
I
thought. She and Grandmother Emma were like night and day. Whatever "it must have been another postman" meant, it was probably right,
"Where's your other earring?" I asked her, now that she was showing me her jewelry.
She put her hand to her ear.
"Did it fall off again? We'll have to go on a treasure hunt. Later, we'll try to find it, and whoever finds it gets a prize. What will the prize be?"
"A clean towel," Mae Betty said, returning with two more bags of garbage, which she had picked up from the living room. "In this house, that's a prize."
Great-aunt Frances laughed.
"Oh, don't exaggerate. Mae Betty," she said, waving at her.
"You can wash up your own lunch dishes at least," Mae Betty muttered at us as she went by.
"Of course we can. But will we?" Great-aunt Frances added and laughed.
"I can," I said.
Great-aunt Frances didn't look up to reply. She ate much faster than I did and when she finished, she rose and took her bowl and spoon to the sink. I watched to see if she was going to wash anything. She looked at the dishes left to wash and the things in the kitchen that had to be cleaned and thrown out, and then she shook her head and spoke to the dishes.
"We haven't time for you right now," she said. "You'll have to be patient. I have to go upstairs with Jordan and organize our bathroom and help her with her clothes. Mae Betty will just have to put up with it." She turned to me. "Are you finished yet. dear?"
"Yes," I said. I brought my bowl and spoon to the sink, and she took it immediately from me and put it on top of hers.
Felix and Lester Marshall were coming up the hallway toward us. I saw that Lester had two window shades under his arm.
"I'll be installing these in the young lady's room," he told Great-aunt Frances.
"How thoughtful," she said. "We're going upstairs now, too."
Felix looked at his watch. He was obviously staving longer than he had intended, but he urged Lester on and followed. We all ascended the stairway. Great-aunt Frances enjoying the fact that she was leading the little parade.
"Let's fix up the bathroom while they work on your bedroom," she told me when we reached the top.
I
followed her in, and she immediately began to pick up things.
"Emma would burst a blood vessel if she saw this bathroom. I'm sure. but I'm so used to living alone that even after I knew you were coming. I just simply went on in my usual way. You get forgetful when you reach my age. Jordan. be depending on you to remind me about things all the time. Little girls don't forget anywhere as much."
She knelt by the tub and began to wash it. I gathered as much as I could off the sink and began to straighten up the cabinet. I thought
I
would keep one shelf for my own things. I had enough tampons for a while. but I wondered now what Great- aunt Frances had been told about me. How would she react to the news? Did she know all about Ian and Miss Harper?
"Do you know where Ian is?" I asked, hoping she had been told.
She paused and turned, sitting on the floor.
"Ian?"
"My brother.
"Oh, Ian. Yes. I do remember there's an Ian. That's right. He's not all that much older than you. He needs to be with someone. too. Where is he?"
"He's in some institution. I have letters from him to read and then I'm going to write letters to him. Will you mail them for me?"
"Of course
I
will, I mean. I'll tell Lester to mail them. I haven't mailed anything to anyone for years. We have rural free delivery here. The postman drives up, puts mail in our mailbox and takes away the mail Lester sends. I don't even pay bills. Emma's always taken care of the bills-- or someone who works for her. Oh. I had better be sure to have Lester buy us stamps." She laughed. "I don't even know how much a stamp costs these days. But she said, waving at me, "I'm sure you know all about it. Children know so much these days. When I was your age. I was lucky to know the way home."
She turned again to the tub, then paused and turned back. "Where did you say Ian was?"
"It's an institution where children go when they do a bad thing."
"A bad thing?"
"I don't know how long he'll be there or much more about it." I said. "Maybe he tells in his letters.
I
wasn't given the letters until this morning.
Grandmother Emma had them in her office but never gave them to me."
"Emma decides everything for everyone." she said.
"I told you. Ian did a bad thing?"
"Maybe you should call Grandmother Emma's attorney and ask him all about it. You can't call Grandmother Emma herself, She can't talk on the phone yet because of her stroke."
"She can't talk at all?"
"She tries, but it's hard to understand what she says. They're giving her speech therapy."
I shook my head. Why hadn't they told Greataunt Frances everything? I wondered.
"Emma must be so furious. I wouldn't want to be in the same room with her." She thought again. I'm afraid Emma has told me so little about our family." She smiled. "That's why I am so happy, so very happy you're here. We'll spend hours and hours talking, and you'll tell me everything about everyone. That is, anything you remember and are permitted to tell me, of course. You don't have to talk about the bad thing, whatever it was. In fact, try not to tell me anything unpleasant, and remember, we don't gossip. Gossip. Emma used to say, is words made of air. Real conversation is full of facts. You know what facts are. right?"
"Yes," I said. "'My brother was full of facts."