His name was Principal but he called himself Prince. A visitor from Atlanta to his aunt’s house, he was a good-looking new face with shiny, thin-soled shoes. All the girls were impressed with his big-city accent and what they believed was his knowledge and wide experience. Cee most of all.
Now, splashing water on her shoulders, she wondered for the umpteenth time why she didn’t at least ask the aunt he was visiting why he was sent to the backwoods instead of spending the winter in the big, bad city. But feeling adrift in the space where her brother had been, she had no defense. That’s the other side, she thought, of having a smart, tough brother close at hand to take care of and protect you—you are slow to develop your own brain muscle. Besides, Prince loved himself so deeply, so completely, it was impossible to doubt his conviction. So if Prince said she was pretty, she believed him. If he said at fourteen she was a woman, she believed that too. And if he said, I want you for myself, it was Lenore who said, “Not unless y’all are legal.” Whatever legal meant. Ycidra didn’t even have a birth certificate and the courthouse was over a hundred miles away. So they had Reverend Alsop come over and bless them, write their names in a huge book before walking back to her parents’ house. Frank had enlisted, so his bed was where they slept and where the great thing people warned about or giggled about took place. It was not so much painful as dull. Cee thought it would get better later. Better turned out to be simply more, and while the quantity increased, its pleasure lay in its brevity.
There was no job in or around Lotus that Prince allowed himself to take so he took her to Atlanta. Cee looked forward to a shiny life in the city where—after a few weeks of ogling water coming from the turn of a spigot, inside toilets free of flies, streetlights shining longer than the sun and as lovely as fireflies, women in high heels and gorgeous hats trotting to church two, sometimes three times a day, and following the grateful joy and dumbfounded delight of the pretty dress Prince bought her—she learned that Principal had married her for an automobile.
Lenore had bought a used station wagon from Shepherd the rent man and, since Salem couldn’t drive, Lenore gave her old Ford to Luther and Ida—with the caution that they give it back if the station wagon broke down. A few times Luther let Prince use the Ford on errands: trips to the post office in Jeffrey for mail to or from wherever Frank was stationed, first Kentucky, then Korea. Once he drove to town for throat medicine for Ida when her breathing problems got worse. His having easy access to the Ford suited everyone because Prince washed away the eternal road dust that floured it, changed plugs and oil, and never gave lifts to the boys who begged to join him in the car. It was natural for Luther to agree to let the couple drive it to Atlanta, since they promised to return it in a few weeks.
Never happened.
She was all alone now, sitting in a zinc tub on a Sunday defying the heat of Georgia’s version of spring with cool water while Prince was cruising around with his thin-soled shoes pressing the gas pedal in California or New York, for all she knew. When Prince left her to her own devices, Cee rented a cheaper room on a quiet street, a room with kitchen privileges and use of a washtub. Thelma, who lived in a big apartment upstairs, became a friend and helped her get a job dishwashing at Bobby’s Rib House, fusing the friendship with blunt counsel.
“No fool like a country fool. Why don’t you go back to your folks?”
“Without the car?” Lord, thought Cee. Lenore had already threatened to have her arrested. When Ida died, Cee traveled by car to the funeral. Bobby had let his fry cook drive her. As pitiful as the funeral was—homemade pine coffin, no flowers except the two branches of honeysuckle she had snatched—nothing was more hurtful than Lenore’s name-calling accusations. Thief, fool, hussy; she ought to call the sheriff. When Cee got back to the city, she swore never to go back there. A promise kept, even when Pap died of a stroke a month later.
Ycidra agreed with Thelma about her foolishness, but more than anything she wanted desperately to talk to her brother. Her letters to him were about weather and Lotus gossip. Devious. But she knew that if she could see him, tell him, he would not laugh at her, quarrel, or condemn. He would, as always, protect her from a bad situation. Like the time he, Mike, Stuff, and some other boys were playing softball in a field. Cee sat nearby, leaning on a butternut tree. The boys’ game bored her. She glanced at the players intermittently, focused intently on the cherry-red polish she was picking from her nails, hoping to remove it all before Lenore could berate her for “flaunting” her little hussy self. She looked up and saw Frank leaving the plate with his bat, only because others were yelling. “Where you going, man?” “Hey, hey. You out?” He walked slowly away from the field and disappeared into the surrounding trees. Circling, she later learned. Suddenly he was behind the tree she was leaning against, swinging his bat twice into the legs of a man she had not even noticed standing behind her. Mike and the others ran to see what she had not. Then they all ran, Frank dragging her by the arm—not even looking back. She had questions: “What happened? Who was that?” The boys didn’t answer. They simply muttered curses. Hours later, Frank explained. The man wasn’t from Lotus, he told her, and had been hiding behind the tree, flashing her. When she pressed her brother to define “flashing,” and he did so, Cee began to tremble. Frank put one hand on top of her head, the other at her nape. His fingers, like balm, stopped the trembling and the chill that accompanied it. She followed Frank’s advice always: recognized poisonous berries, shouted when in snake territory, learned the medicinal uses of spiderwebs. His instructions were specific, his cautions clear.
But he never warned her about rats.
Four barnyard swallows gathered on the lawn outside. Politely equidistant from one another, they peck-searched through blades of drying grass. Then, as if summoned, all four flew up to a pecan tree. Towel wrapped, Cee went to the window and raised it to just below the place where the screen was torn. The quiet seemed to slither, then boom, its weight more theatrical than noise. It was like the quiet of the Lotus house afternoon and evening as she and her brother figured out what to do or talk about. Their parents worked sixteen hours and were hardly there. So they invented escapades, or investigated surrounding territory. Often they sat by the stream, leaning on a lightning-blasted sweet bay tree whose top had been burned off, leaving it with two huge branches below that spread like arms. Even when Frank was with his friends Mike and Stuff, he let her tag along. The four of them were tight, the way family ought to be. She remembered how unwelcome drop-in visits to her grandparents’ house were, unless Lenore needed them for chores. Salem was uninspiring since he was mute about everything except his meals. His single enthusiasm, besides food, was playing cards or chess with some other old men. Their parents were so beat by the time they came home from work, any affection they showed was like a razor—sharp, short, and thin. Lenore was the wicked witch. Frank and Cee, like some forgotten Hansel and Gretel, locked hands as they navigated the silence and tried to imagine a future.
Standing at the window, wrapped in the scratchy towel, Cee felt her heart breaking. If Frank were there he would once more touch the top of her head with four fingers, or stroke her nape with his thumb. Don’t cry, said the fingers; the welts will disappear. Don’t cry; Mama is tired; she didn’t mean it. Don’t cry, don’t cry girl; I’m right here. But he wasn’t there or anywhere near. In the photograph he’d sent home, a smiling warrior in a uniform, holding a rifle, he looked as though he belonged to something else, something beyond and unlike Georgia. Months after he was discharged, he sent a two-cent postcard to say where he was living. Cee wrote back:
“Hello brother how are you I am fine. I just got me a ok job in a restaurant but looking for a better one. Write back when you can Yours truly Your sister.”
Now she stood, alone; her body, already throwing off whatever good the tub soak had done, beginning to sweat. She toweled the damp under her breasts, then wiped perspiration from her forehead. She raised the window way above the tear in the screen. The swallo
ws were back, bringing with them a light breeze and an odor of sage growing at the edge of the yard. Cee watched, thinking, So this is what they mean in those sad, sweet songs. “When I lost my baby, I almost lost my mind …” Except those songs were about lost love. What she felt was bigger than that. She was broken. Not broken up but broken down, down into her separate parts.
Cooled, finally, she unhooked the dress Principal had bought her their second day in Atlanta—not, she learned, from generosity but because he was ashamed of her countrified clothes. He couldn’t take her to dinner or a party or to meet his family, he said, in the ugly dress she wore. Yet, after he bought the new one, he had excuse after excuse about why they spent most of the time just driving around, even eating, in the Ford, but never met any of his friends or family.
“Where is your aunt? Shouldn’t we go see her?”
“Naw. She don’t like me and I don’t like her either.”
“But if it hadn’t been for her we would never have met each other.”
“Yeah. Right.”
Nevertheless, though nobody saw it, the rayon-silky touch of the dress still pleased her, as did its riot of blue dahlias on a white background. She had never seen a flower-printed dress before. Once dressed, she dragged the tub through the kitchen and out the back door. Slowly, carefully she rationed the bathwater onto the wilted grass, a half bucketful here, a little more there, taking care to let her feet but not her dress get wet.
Gnats buzzed over a bowl of black grapes on the kitchen table. Cee waved them away, rinsed the fruit and sat down to munch them while she thought about her situation: tomorrow was Monday; she had four dollars; rent due at week’s end was twice that. Next Friday she was to be paid eighteen dollars, a bit over three dollars a day. So, eighteen dollars coming in, minus eight going out, left her about fourteen dollars. With that she would have to buy everything a girl needed to be presentable, keep and make progress on her job. Her hope was to move from dishwasher to short-order cook and maybe to waitress who got tips. She had left Lotus with nothing and, except for the new dress, Prince had left her with nothing. She needed soap, underwear, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, another dress, shoes, stockings, jacket, sanitary napkins, and maybe have enough left for a fifteen-cent movie in a balcony seat. Fortunately, at Bobby’s she could eat two meals for free. Solution: more work—a second job or a better one.
For that, she needed to see Thelma, her upstairs neighbor. After knocking timidly Cee opened the door and found her friend rinsing dishes at the sink.
“I saw you out there. You think sloshing dirty water is going to green up that yard?” asked Thelma.
“Can’t hurt.”
“Yes, it can.” Thelma wiped her hands. “This is the hottest spring I’ve seen. Mosquitoes be doing their blood dance the whole night long. All they need is a smell of water.”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t doubt that.” Thelma patted her apron pocket for a pack of Camels. Lighting one, she eyed her friend. “That’s a pretty dress. Where’d you get it?” They both moved to the living room and plopped down on the sofa.
“Prince bought it for me when we first moved here.”
“Prince.” Thelma snorted. “You mean Frog. I’ve seen no-counts by the truckload. Never saw anybody more useless than him. Do you even know where he is?”
“No.”
“You want to?”
“No.”
“Well thank the Lord for that.”
“I need a job, Thelma.”
“You got one. Don’t tell me you quit Bobby’s?”
“No. But I need something better. Better paying. I don’t get tips and I have to eat at the restaurant, whether I want to or not.”
“Bobby’s food is the best. You can’t eat anywhere better.”
“I know, but I need a real job where I can save. And no, I’m not going back to Lotus.”
“Can’t fault you for that. Your family is crying-out-loud crazy.” Thelma leaned back, curled her tongue into a tube to funnel the smoke.
Cee hated to see her do that, but hid her disgust. “Mean, maybe. Not crazy.”
“Oh yeah? Named you Ycidra, didn’t they?”
“Thelma?” Cee rested her elbows on her knees and turned pleading eyes to her friend. “Please? Think about it.”
“Okay. Okay. Say, matter of fact, you might be in luck. Just so happens I heard about something couple weeks ago when I was in Reba’s. Everything worth knowing you can pick up in her beauty shop. Did you know Reverend Smith’s wife is pregnant again? Eleven already underfoot and another coming. I know a preacher is a man too, but dear Lord. He should be praying at night instead of …”
“Thelma, I mean what did you hear about a job?”
“Oh. Just that a couple in Buckhead—just outside the city—Reba said they need a second.”
“A second what?”
“They got a cook-housekeeper, but they want a maid-type person to help the husband. He’s a doctor. Nice people.”
“You mean like a nurse?”
“No. A helper. I don’t know. Bandages and iodine, I guess. His office is in the house, the woman said. So you’d live in. She said the pay was not all that good but since it was rent-free, that made all the difference.”
THE WALK FROM the bus stop was a long one, hampered by Cee’s new white high-heeled shoes. Without stockings, her feet were chafing. She carried a shopping bag brimming with the little she owned and hoped she looked respectable in this beautiful, quiet neighborhood. The address of Dr. and Mrs. Scott revealed a large two-story house rising above a church-neat lawn. A sign with a name, part of which she couldn’t pronounce, identified her future employer. Cee wasn’t sure whether she should knock on the front door or look for one at the back. She chose the latter. A tall, stout woman opened the kitchen door. Reaching for Cee’s shopping bag, she smiled. “You must be the one Reba called about. Step on in. My name is Sarah. Sarah Williams. The doctor’s wife will see you shortly.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Can I take off these shoes first?”
Sarah chuckled. “Whoever invented high heels won’t be happy till they cripple us. Sit down. Let me give you a cold root beer.”
Barefoot, Cee marveled at the kitchen—much, much bigger and better equipped than the one at Bobby’s. Cleaner too. After a few swallows of root beer, she asked, “Can you tell me what-all I have to do?”
“Mrs. Scott will tell you some, but the doctor himself is the only one who really knows.”
After a bathroom freshening, Cee put her shoes back on and followed Sarah into a living room that seemed to her more beautiful than a movie theater. Cool air, plum-colored velvet furniture, filtered light through heavy lace curtains. Mrs. Scott, her hands resting on a tiny pillow, her ankles crossed, nodded and, with a forefinger, invited Cee to sit.
“Cee, is it?” Her voice was like music.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Born here? Atlanta?”
“No, ma’am. I’m from a little place west of here, called Lotus.”
“Any children?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Married?”
“No, ma’am.”
“What church affiliation? Any?”
“There’s God’s Congregation in Lotus but, I don’t …”
“They jump around?”
“Ma’am?”
“Never mind. Did you graduate from high school?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Can you read?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Count?”
“Oh, yes. I even worked a cash register once.”
“Honey, that’s not what I asked you.”
“I can count, ma’am.”
“You may not need to. I don’t really understand my husband’s work—or care to. He is more than a doctor; he is a scientist and conducts very important experiments. His inventions help people. He’s no Dr. Frankenstein.”
“Dr. who?”
“Never mind. Just do w
hat he says the way he wants and you’ll be fine. Now go. Sarah will show you to your room.”
Mrs. Scott stood up. Her dress was a kind of gown—floor-length white silk with wide sleeves. To Cee she looked every bit the queen of something who belonged in the movies.
BACK IN THE kitchen, Cee saw that her shopping bag had been removed and Sarah was urging her to have something to eat before settling in. She opened the refrigerator and selected a bowl of potato salad and two fried chicken thighs.
“You want me to warm up this chicken?”
“No, ma’am. I like it just so.”
“I know I’m old, but please call me Sarah.”
“All right, if you want me to.” Cee was surprised by her hunger. Being a habitual light eater, and surrounded by hot red meat sizzling in Bobby’s kitchen, she was normally indifferent to food. Now she wondered if two pieces of chicken could even begin to dampen her appetite.
“How did it go, your meeting with Mrs. Scott?” asked Sarah.
“Fine,” said Cee. “She’s nice. Real nice.”
“Uh-huh. She’s easy to work for too. Has a schedule, certain likes and needs—never changes. Dr. Beau—that’s what everybody calls him—is very gentlemanly.”
“Dr. Beau?”
“His full name is Beauregard Scott.”
Oh, thought Cee, that’s how to say the name on the lawn sign. “They have any children?”
“Two girls. They’re away. She tell you anything about what your work here is?”
“No. She said the doctor would do that. He’s a scientist as well as a doctor, she said.”
“It’s true. She has all the money but he invents things. Tries to get patents for a lot of them.”
“Patterns?” Cee’s mouth was full of potato salad. “Like dress patterns?”
“No, girl. Like licenses to make things. From the government.”
“Oh. Is there any more chicken, please? It’s real good.”
“Sure is, honey.” Sarah smiled. “I’ll fatten you up in no time if you stay here long enough.”