The Swan House (12 page)

Rachel rang our bell at seven that night. She had her driver's license, and her parents let her drive at night if she wasn't going too far. It didn't take her more than two or three minutes to drive from her Tudor-style house on the corner of Andrews and Cherokee to mine. She walked straight through the entrance hall and into the breakfast room, where she plopped down at the big round oak table.

“Tell all,” she demanded. She was curled up in the chair, her thick blond hair falling on the table as she leaned on her hands.

“You want some ice cream?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Swan, quit stalling. Out with it!”

“Do you want some ice cream?” I repeated. “I'm dying for some. We just got some chocolate at the store.” I opened the freezer and removed the carton.

She rolled her eyes at me. “Fine. Sure. So what's up?”

I took two bowls down from the bright yellow cupboards, the ones Mama had painted with different fruits on each door. This door was covered in cherries.

“I've met someone interesting,” I stated as I piled the bowls high with scoops of chocolate ice cream.

“More interesting than Robbie Bartholomew?”

“Very different.” I handed her a bowl and sat down.

“Okay, so? Where'd you meet him?”

“At church.”

“Right. Come on, Swan. 'Fess up.”

“It's true. I met him at church. He's nineteen and . . . and you may get to meet him sometime.”

“Impossible. Remember, I'm Jewish. I don't go to church.”

“No, not at church. You might meet him someday at Oakland Cemetery. He goes there a lot.”

She rolled her eyes again and took a big bite of ice cream. “You're nuts.”

“He lives right down the street from the cemetery.”

I let that sink in.

Rachel set down her spoon, narrowed her eyes, and said, “You met him at church, and he lives near Oakland Cemetery. Hold on a minute. Do you mean that he's
black
?”

“Yep. Name's Carl.”

Rachel had uncurled and leaned across the table, grabbing my hand. “This is not talk for the kitchen. Come on!” She pulled me up from my chair, leaving our bowls half filled with ice cream there on the table. We dashed through the hall and up the stairs until we reached the third floor and fell, laughing and panting, on my bed.

For a moment, every thought of Mama was gone. I reveled in my story. Rachel was as much of a rebel as I, and this ranked right up with the last poem I'd transformed in Mrs. Alexander's class. So I told her about Mt. Carmel Church and Miss Abigail and serving spaghetti with Carl and not knowing how to wash dishes. We giggled until our sides hurt. And then I told her about visiting Carl's house and his siblings and how his mother died and anything else I could remember, and I had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes grow bigger with each fact I related.

Finally she asked, “Do you like him, Swannee? Is that what you're telling me?”

“Yeah, I like him. We're gonna be friends. I guarantee it.”

“What do you mean by ‘friends'?”

“Oh, that you'll just have to wait and see.”

We talked long into the evening, stretched out across my bed, the windows wide open and the faintest breeze ruffling the curtains. And I didn't consider once what I meant by the fact that Carl and I were going to be friends. But it wouldn't take me long to find out.

I could hardly wait for the next Saturday to roll around. The prospect of seeing Carl, and maybe Puddin' and Mike and James, and of visiting Mama's grave filled me with some sort of adrenaline. I thought about it the whole week, and how much I wanted Rachel to meet Carl, and then I had a crazy idea. I decided I would ask Carl to be my second assistant with the Raven Dare.

Way back in June I had made up my mind that I couldn't ask Daddy or Ella Mae to help me. Daddy would never have approved of me digging around in the past, and every time I mentioned anything about Mama, Ella Mae's eyes started shining with tears. Daddy and Ella Mae would have the surprise of their lives when they attended the Mardi Gras celebration and found out that I was the Raven and that I had solved the Dare. It was maybe a bit presumptuous of me to think like that, but it gave me the courage I needed to face each day. That became more important as the days slipped away and the new school year approached. It would be my secret, and I would solve that dare and bring Mama's lost painting back to the High Museum even if it killed me.

So that next Saturday at Mt. Carmel, standing beside Carl, I could not contain myself. He listened and at least acted interested as I explained the Raven tradition at Wellington, and how I'd been chosen and had found the clue at midnight with Rachel.

He made a face. “Sounds awful silly to me, Mary Swan.”

“But it could be important for the school and the museum.”

“If you say so, Mary Swan.” He swatted at a fly that was hovering over the spaghetti sauce.

“Haven't you ever heard about the paintings that disappeared right before they were to be donated to the Atlanta Art Museum?”

“Nope. I've never been to no art museum. Never heard nothin' about it.”

“You'd like the museum, Carl. I know you would. Two of Mama's paintings are going to be on display there. Another one should be, but it just disappeared. That's what the Dare is about.”

“Two of yore mama's paintings are there, you say?”

“Yeah—they will be soon.”

He whistled low and smiled. “They let black folks into that museum?”

“Of course!” I said indignantly, but really I had no idea. I couldn't recall ever having seen anyone black there except for Ella Mae when she went down with Mama and me.

“All right, then, Mary Swan Middleton. I'll go with you ta that museum, and I'll help you with that silly dare, if ya want.” He poked out his lower lip, shook his head, slopped some sauce on a plate, and said, “My, my. If that don't beat all.”

“But you've gotta swear you won't breathe a word about it to anyone, Carl.”

“Gee, Mary Swan. Who in the world am I gonna tell about a big black bird?” His eyes twinkled.

“I don't know. But you can't tell Miss Abigail and certainly not Ella Mae. Or anyone. If you do, I'll be disqualified. Do you swear?”

“Ain't good ta swear, Mary Swan.”

I started to protest, but he laughed and assured me, “I won't tell a soul. Not a soul.”

I wiped my hands on my apron when the last plate had been served. Today I was ready to wash the dishes with Carl. I started with the glasses and felt rather proud when I'd washed the last pan and only changed the dishwater once. As I was taking off my apron, I caught sight of Ella Mae in the big room and called out to her, “I'm going down to Oakland Cemetery.”

Ella Mae frowned, put her hands on her ample hips, and shook her head. “No, ma'am. You cain't be a goin' over there by yorese'f, Swannee. It ain't safe.”

Miss Abigail came into the kitchen, wilted tendrils of hair sticking to her face. She ran her hand across her perspiring forehead and shook her head with a wry smile. “The Lord's provided again. Just the right amount, praise His name. We've only got a spoonful of sauce and half a pot of noodles left. And we just ran out of bread and brownies and iced tea. Everyone's been fed plenty.” She held up the half-filled ladle of sauce as evidence.

She liked to remind us of “God's provisions,” as she called them, how God always provided just enough, and the way she talked, you did kind of get caught up in her enthusiasm. She joined Ella Mae, and before long both women were sitting in those folding chairs talking to other women, the women Ella Mae had described as having a “heap o' troubles.”

“I'll take ya to the cemetery, Mary Swan.” Carl was drying his big hands on a wet dishrag and then wiping it across his shining face.

“You don't mind?”

“'Course not. Go on.”

So I ran over and told Ella Mae, who wrinkled her brow and admonished me to be careful. Carl left the dish towel on the back of a metal folding chair, and I followed him out the basement door of the church, squinting as the sun struck me hard in the face. The walk took us at least ten minutes, and we didn't say much, I don't think. But when we got to the opened gates, he said, “This cemetery is divided into different parts for the whites, the blacks, the Jewish folk, and the Confederate soldiers. And way over there”—he pointed with a long finger—“is what's called Potter's Field.”

“What's Potter's Field?”

“It's where all the unmarked graves are.”

“Oh.”

I had just been to the cemetery a week ago, but my sense of direction wasn't too keen. I squinted in the distance, looking for a grave with lots of fresh flowers. The cemetery wound around in several interlocking circles, and it was easy to get turned around. The road inside the cemetery was cobbled with red brick, and over the years the ground had shifted so that the brick was broken and uneven, with little green weeds growing in it. I tripped once on the bricks as I searched for Mama's grave. Finally I found it.

I knelt down on the grass and let my knees touch the freshly turned soil. It was warm and moist from several days of rain. I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out a little package of dirt and sprinkled it over the grave. Mama loved the feel of the red Georgia clay in her hands. Sometimes before she started to paint in the backyard, she'd stoop down and wipe her hands in the dirt, bring some to her nose and smell. She said it got her in the mood for painting.

“I know you're not here, Mama,” I whispered. “But I just thought it would be kind of fitting for your grave to have some of the clay from home. So I brought it to you.” The tears came.

Carl was standing off at a distance, as if he knew his place, and it wasn't by me. Then I saw him walk down the hill toward another part of the cemetery. I cried for a while, and then I knelt down again beside the fresh dirt and smelled the thick scent of the flowers. All of them had wilted in the heat. I picked a white daisy from one of the bouquets and placed it on an open patch of dirt. “I miss you, Mama,” I whispered. Then I got up and brushed the dirt off my jeans.

I found Carl. “Thanks for bringing me,” I said.

“It's okay.”

We were just outside the entrance to the cemetery when three white boys walked up to us. They looked about seventeen or eighteen and were dressed as if they'd just gotten out from under some dilapidated car. One of them was staring at us with a sickly sort of grin on his face, which made my stomach twitter inside. He was skinny and even taller than Carl, and his blond hair was cropped in a crew cut.

“My, my, my. What do we have here?” he said sarcastically, his cheeks bright red. “Ain't this a sight to see? A white girl with a piece of black trash.”

Carl touched my arm, and we started walking faster, away from the boys. But they followed us.

“Hey there, boy! Don't you ignore me when I'm talkin' to you! What are you doin' with this white girl? You aimin' to hurt her or somethin'?”

I wheeled around, heart pounding, furious, and said through clenched teeth, “It's none of your business. Leave us alone!”

I saw then, out of the corner of my eye, that Carl looked terrified. That was the only word for it.

“You're a feisty one, ain't you, missy!” This came from the boy with a reddish brown crew cut and a pudgy, smooth face. His T-shirt was soaked in sweat, and his jeans hung low on his full belly. “Not afraid to hang around with trash, eh? Maybe that's because you're just white trash yourself.”

I stopped in my tracks, eyes flashing and hissed, “I'm not trash. You're the trash! Now leave us alone.”

The sickly sweet smile on the first boy's face disappeared, and he grabbed my arm, squeezing it until it hurt. He was skinny as a rail, but his hand gripped my arm almost fiercely. I tried to pull loose. Then I saw that the others were circling Carl like two hungry wolves. Carl looked at me, and his wide eyes signaled me to be quiet.

“The colored boy knows when to be afraid,” the skinny boy said. He motioned to the others, the pudgy one and his friend, who was shorter than the other two, wiry, with a head full of blond curls and greenish eyes and an evil sort of smile and a lot of muscles. They latched on to Carl savagely, just like wolves. I'm sure Carl could have beaten them both and gotten away if it hadn't been for me. But I knew he wouldn't leave me there.

They started hitting him in the face and the stomach while the skinny boy held me with my arms pinned behind my back. “Stop it!” I yelled. “Stop it!”

“Ain't no one around to hear you, girly,” he whispered, obviously enjoying my mounting terror.

I bent my head down and bit his arm as hard as I could. He cursed and swung his hand hard on my face. I went reeling and fell to the ground, hitting my head on the pavement.

“Hey, watch out, Richie!” the short, wiry boy yelled in between punches. “You wanna get us in trouble for foolin' with a white girl?”

“She bit me! And anyway, I've got an idea. Knock the boy out. We'll have a little fun with the girl and then leave her here and tell the police we found that colored boy aggressin' her. They'll hang him for sure.”

Carl groaned and I went numb, with my head throbbing and my cheek stinging. Richie dragged me behind a car, and I kicked and screamed and bit until he took his hand and slapped me hard again, cursing. I fell back against the pavement. I thought if I acted like I'd been knocked out, maybe they'd leave me alone. So that's what I did.

“You idiot,” the wiry boy screamed. “We gotta git outta here. Quick. Tell the police it was him, but let's git!”

I lay perfectly still, forcing myself not to sob or heave or scream my guts out like I wanted to. Carl was about ten yards away, kind of crumpled up. I didn't know if he was unconscious or dead.