Swan Place (25 page)

“Paris
 . . .
” I murmured, because I really couldn’t imagine such a place.

“See,” Buzzard went on, and I could see that she was warming up to tell us a good story. That way, she was a lot like Aunt Mee. “Mr. Swan came from a real wealthy family, and they’re the ones who built this house in the first place. But when he was in France during the war, he met a beautiful French girl. Couldn’t bear to leave her behind when he was sent back to the United States, so he married her and brought her home with him.”

“That’s lovely,” I said.

“Oh yes,” Buzzard agreed, nodding her head and looking into her cup. “He’s been dead many years now, but she still keeps this house, where she came as a bride. Except now that he’s gone, she likes to stay in France most of the time.”

“Don’t you get lonely when she’s gone?” I asked.

“A little bit,” she admitted, and then she laughed out loud. “Let me tell you about the funniest thing Miz Swan ever did.” She paused and looked around at us, to make sure we were paying attention. When she seemed satisfied that she had a firm hold on center stage, she went on: “When I first come here to work for the Swans—he was still alive back then—Miz Swan said she liked me right well and wanted to hire me. But she didn’t like my name. Said it was purely sinful for a Mama to give her girl a name like Buzzard! So she said that if I wanted to work for her, I’d have to call myself Boo-zar. ‘Cause she says to me that French people don’t say the last sound of words, so we’d just let the ‘d’ get lost and I’d be Boo-zar. And by golly, that’s what she called me from that moment on. Just that easy. And once I got used to it, I guess I liked it better than plain old Buzzard, sure enough!” She looked at us expectantly, waiting for us to let her know we liked her story.

“Which do you like?” I asked. “Because whichever one you like, that’s the one we’ll use.”

“Well, with Miz Swan gone
 . . .
to France, I mean
 . . .
I guess the name my mama gave me is just fine. I’m not fancy-sounding Boo-zar at all. Just plain old Buzzard!” She laughed loudly, and then she surprised me by reaching across the table and patting my hand while Molly and Little Ellis studied us.

“These two little ones always so quiet?” she asked, drawing her brows together.

“Mostly,” I said. “I guess they’re kind of solemn, but that’s the way they are,” I explained.

“Solemn, yes,” Buzzard said. “But they been through a lot. What all do they like to do?”

“They love watching cartoons,” I said. “And having me read to them.” I stumbled to a stop, with nothing else to add. “I guess that’s about all.”

“Well, they’re certainly the quietest children I ever saw.” Buzzard studied Molly and Little Ellis for another long moment before she suddenly slapped her hand on the table, making all of us jump. “Well, come on! Let’s show them the garden! If there’s anything that can make little feet want to run and play and help us get some color into those cheeks, it’s the garden.” Buzzard led us across the back porch and out into the yard. A big expanse of grass, and farther down the yard, a long line of trees. A real little forest that reminded me of the backyard grove we had shared with Aunt Mee. On the other side, lots of azalea bushes and dogwood trees, and at the last, we could see a small pond.

“Used to be there were big white swans in that little duck pool down yonder.” Molly and Little Ellis, who, typically, had said nothing at all, grabbed each others’ hands and started running toward the pond.

“Wait!” I yelled. “You’ll fall in!” I started after them, but Buzzard held me back.

“Shucks, honey,” Buzzard laughed. “It isn’t deep enough to hurt anybody. Why, Little Ellis could stand up in it and it wouldn’t come to more than around his middle. Let those little ones do a bit of running around. Be good for them.” So Buzzard and I followed at a nice, slow pace, and when we got to the pond, Little Ellis was throwing pebbles into it and Molly had found a little branch and was drawing it across the water. I got to thinking about how that pond must have looked when Mr. Swan was still alive, with beautiful Mrs. Swan by his side and lovely real swans gliding back and forth.

“I’ll bet it was just lovely, with the swans,” I said, not even realizing I was going to say anything until I heard my own voice.

“Oh, yes,” Buzzard agreed. Then she added, “Did you see the white swan on the mailbox when you all came last night?”

“I sure did. That’s how we knew we were in the right place.”

“Well, I’m glad you found the Swan Place so easily.”

“Swan Place?” I asked.

“That’s the name of this house and garden,” Buzzard said.

Why, I’d never heard of such a thing in my whole life! A house and garden with its very own name!

“Swan Place,” I murmured.

“Swan Place,” Buzzard echoed.

When we went back into the house, Buzzard showed us around. Right inside the back door, there was a small room with a big, comfortable reclining rocking chair. Molly and Little Ellis spotted the television and looked up at me.

“Yes, they can watch cartoons in here,” Buzzard said, turning on the set and settling Molly and Little Ellis onto the big chair.

“Across the hall there is my room,” she said. “You all don’t go in there.”

“Yes’m,” I said. Then she showed me the dining room, with a huge, shiny mahogany table and a crystal cabinet just loaded to the hilt with every kind of beautiful plates and glasses you could imagine. “You all don’t play in here,” she intoned.

“Yes’m.”

“Then here’s the parlor. “You all don’t play in here either.”

“Yes’m.”

“Well, that’s about it—you already know where the kitchen is—except for upstairs. There’s your rooms and two other bedrooms. You don’t play in either of those. One of them is Miz Swan’s very own room and you don’t mess around in it.”

“Yes’m.”

“Let’s us get those dishes done now, and then we’ll make out a shopping list and go into town for some groceries. I didn’t know what you all like, so I figured I’d just wait until you got here and you could tell me.”

So we washed up the breakfast things, but when we came to Crystal’s cup she’d had for her tea, Buzzard put it aside. “I think we’ll want to make sure that one gets washed separately,” she said. “Just in case whatever made Crystal sick is contagious.” Afterward, we sat down at the table and Buzzard gave me a pencil and a piece of paper. “Let’s make out a list,” she said. “What do you all like to eat?”

“Well, Molly and Little Ellis like SpaghettiOs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And we all like tuna sandwiches.” Then I suddenly remembered Aunt Bett’s good pork chop and rice recipe. “And I know how to make a real good pork chop casserole.”

“Write that all down,” Buzzard said. “And put down milk and eggs and bread too. What do you all like for breakfast?”

“Mostly cereal,” I said. “But those biscuits you made us this morning were the best I ever tasted.”

Buzzard beamed at the compliment. “I
do
make good biscuits, don’t I?”

“You sure do.”

Then she turned serious on me. “Now when we go to town, to the grocery store, if anybody talks to us, you leave it all to me. And no matter what I say, don’t you contradict me.”

“Yes’m.”

“And let’s get you and the little ones dressed up a little bit, for going into town.”

I wanted to ask her why, but I didn’t.

Within a few minutes, I had Molly and Little Ellis and me dressed in some of Aunt Bett’s best Sunday clothes, and when we came downstairs, I saw that Buzzard had changed from her faded house dress and into a stiffly starched black dress with a spotless, snow-white collar and cuffs. Buzzard studied us, looking over our somewhat wrinkled clothes—wrinkled because of how fast we’d had to throw everything into the trunk when we left home—just as I was looking over her crisp, black dress.

“We need to iron your clothes a little bit before we go into town,” Buzzard announced. So Molly and Little Ellis sat at the kitchen table wearing only their underwear and shoes while Buzzard ironed their clothes on a pull-down ironing board that came right out of the kitchen wall. When she was done, and Molly and Little-Ellis’s clothes were well-pressed, Buzzard turned to me.

“Give me that blouse for a little minute, and I’ll freshen it up for you.”

Why, I was so surprised, I couldn’t even speak, and my arms took on a mind of their own and flung themselves across my chest. I felt my ears going all hot, and I must have had a terrible look on my face, because Buzzard’s mouth fell open.

“Oh!” she sputtered. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.” I couldn’t even speak, and that was probably just as well, because what was ready to fly off my tongue was a loud, ugly way of saying that I wasn’t a
child
, for Heaven’s sake! At least not a child like Molly or Little Ellis, who didn’t mind one little bit to sit around without their shirts.

“Tell you what,” Buzzard almost whispered. “You go into the pantry and hand me out your blouse through a crack in the door.” That sounded fine to me, and I was glad she’d realized I wasn’t a child.

So I went into the pantry, took off my blouse, and passed it to Buzzard through the mostly closed door. Then I stood in that dim, strangely sweet-smelling little pantry, reading the labels on the cans. I still had my arms crossed over each other on my bare chest, and I uncrossed them and looked down at myself. Flat as a pancake. Why, I didn’t look a bit different from Molly or Little Ellis, so maybe Buzzard just didn’t realize how much older than them I really was.

“Here’s your blouse,” Buzzard muffled voice brought my arms right back up over my flat chest as she passed the freshly ironed blouse back to me. The blouse was smooth and still warm from the iron. When I came out of the pantry Buzzard looked us all over once again and pronounced, “Well, now that we’re all presentable, let’s go.”

We followed Buzzard down a little path that ended at a small stone building I hadn’t noticed before. When we walked around the side of it, I saw that it was really a low kind of garage—three sides and a roof, but no windows, and the floor was just gravel, right on the ground. And sitting there in all that cool dust and darkness was the biggest, blackest car I had ever seen.

“You all wait until I back it out,” Buzzard said. “Don’t want you walking through all that gravel and tracking it into the car.” So we waited, standing out of the way. Buzzard got into the car—not without groaning about a bad knee—and then she turned the key. A big belch of blue smoke came out of the tailpipe as the engine started. And then the car came slowly, slowly backing out. I guess it was the biggest, strangest-looking car I had ever seen. Huge, actually, and with kind of a strange, square-looking hood.

“Well, come on and get in,” Buzzard called to us, and I opened the back door and started getting Molly and Little Ellis inside.

“Don’t put your feet on the seats back there,” she said, and Molly and Little Ellis both looked at me with wide eyes.

“You do as she says,” I reminded them sternly. They looked at each other and then, as they always did, they obeyed. I got into the passenger seat beside Buzzard, and was surprised to find that the car was so big,
my
feet almost didn’t touch the floor.

“You ever see a car like this?” Buzzard asked.

“Never in my life,” I answered.

“You know why?”

“No.”

“‘Cause this is what they call an honest-to-goodness Rolls-Royce auto-mobile!” she chanted. “It’s just about the most expensive car in the whole world. This is Miz Swan’s car.” I thought of the lovely Miz Swan, elderly now, but of how she must have been so young and beautiful, riding around in this very car with Mr. Swan and him so dapper and handsome at the wheel, and of how lucky I was to get to sit right there in Miz Swan’s very own seat. Buzzard backed up a little more and then shifted the gears and went flying around the side of the house and out in front—all the way down that long driveway we sped, and by the time we reached the mailbox with the big swan painted on it, I’d quit flinching at how close we’d come to some of the trees. She did stop before we entered the main road, and I was ever so glad of that.