The Member of the Wedding

  Frankie closed her eyes, and, though she did not see them as a picture, she could feel them leaving her. She could feel the two of them together on the train, riding and riding away from her. They were them, and leaving her, and she was her, and sitting left all by herself there at the kitchen table. But a part of her was with them, and she could feel this part of her own self going away, and farther away; farther and farther, so that a drawn-out sickness came in her, going away and farther away, so that the kitchen Frankie was an old hull left there at the table.

  "It is so queer," she said.

  She bent over the sole of her foot, and there was something wet, like tears or sweat drops on her face; she sniffled and began to cut for the splinter.

  "Don't that hurt you none?" asked Berenice.

  Frankie shook her head and did not answer. Then after a moment she said: "Have you ever seen any people that afterward you remembered more like a feeling than a picture?"

  "How you mean?"

  "I mean this," said Frankie slowly. "I saw them O.K. Janice had on a green dress and green high-heel dainty shoes. Her hair was done up in a knot. Dark hair and a little piece of it was loose. Jarvis sat by her on the sofa. He had on his brown uniform and he was sunburned and very clean. They were the two prettiest people I ever saw. Yet it was like I couldn't see all of them I wanted to see. My brains couldn't gather together quick enough and take it all in. And then they were gone. You see what I mean?"

  "You hurting yourself," said Berenice. "What you need is a needle."

  "I don't care anything about my old feet," Frankie said.

  It was only half-past six, and the minutes of the afternoon were like bright mirrors. From outside there was no longer the sound of whistling and in the kitchen nothing moved. Frankie sat facing the door that opened onto the back porch. There was a square cat-hole cut in a corner of the back door, and near-by a saucer of lavender sour milk. In the beginning of dog days Frankie's cat had gone away. And the season of dog days is like this: it is the time at the end of the summer when as a rule nothing can happen—but if a change does come about, that change remains until dog days are over. Things that are done are not undone and a mistake once made is not corrected.

  That August Berenice scratched a mosquito bite under her right arm and it became a sore: that sore would never heal until dog days were over. Two little families of August gnats picked out the corner of John Henry's eyes to settle down in, and though he often shook himself and blinked, those gnats were there to stay. Then Charles disappeared. Frankie did not see him leave the house and walk away, but on the fourteenth of August, when she called him to his supper, he did not come, and he was gone. She looked for him everywhere and sent John Henry wailing out his name through all the streets of town. But it was the season of dog days and Charles did not come back again. Every afternoon Frankie said exactly the same words to Berenice, and the answers of Berenice were always the same. So that now the words were like an ugly little tune they sang by heart.

  "If only I just knew where he has gone."

  "Quit worrying yourself about that old alley cat. I done told you he ain't coming back."

  "Charles is not alley. He is almost pure Persian."

  "Persian as I is," Berenice would say. "You seen the last of that old tomcat. He gone off to hunt a friend."

  "To hunt a friend?"

  "Why, certainy. He roamed off to find himself a lady-friend."

  "You really think so?"

  "Naturally."

  "Well, why don't he bring his friend home with him. He ought to know I would be only too glad to have a whole family of cats."

  "You seen the last of that old alley cat."

  "If only I just knew where he is gone."

  And so each gloomy afternoon their voices sawed against each other, saying the same words, which finally reminded Frankie of a raggedy rhyme said by two crazies. She would end by telling Berenice: "It looks to me like everything has just walked off and left me." And she would put her head down on the table and feel afraid.

  But this afternoon Frankie suddenly changed all this. An idea came to her, and she put down the knife and got up from the table.

  "I know what I ought to do," she suddenly said. "Listen."

  "I can hear."

  "I ought to notify the police force. They will find Charles"

  "I wouldn't do that," said Berenice.

  Frankie went to the hall telephone and explained to the Law about her cat. "He is almost pure Persian," she said. "But with short hair. A very lovely color of gray and with a little white spot on his throat. He answers to the name of Charles, but if he don't answer to that, he might come if you call Charlina. My name is Miss F. Jasmine Addams and the address is 124 Grove Street"

  Berenice was giggling when she came back, a soft high giggle. "Whew! They going to send around here and tie you up and drag you off to Milledgeville. Them fat blue police chasing tomcats around alleys and hollering: Oh Charles, Oh come here, Charlina! Sweet Jesus!"

  "Aw, shut up," Frankie said.

  Berenice was sitting at the table; she had stopped giggling and her dark eye roved in a teasing way as she sloshed coffee into a white china saucer to cool.

  "At the same time," she said, "I can't see how it is such a wise idea to trifle around with the Law. No matter for what reason"

  "I'm not trifling with the Law"

  "You just now set there and spelled them out your name and your house number. Where they can lay hold of you if ever they take the notion."

  "Well, let them!" said Frankie angrily. "I don't care! I don't care!" And suddenly she did not care if anybody knew she was a criminal or not. "Let them come get me for all I care."

  "I was just teasing you," said Berenice. "The trouble with you is that you don't have no sense of humor any more."

  "Maybe I'd be better off in jail."

  Frankie walked around the table and she could feel them going away. The train was traveling to the North. Mile after mile they went away, farther and farther away from the town, and as they traveled to the North, a coolness came into the air and dark was falling like the evening dark of wintertime. The train was winding up into the hills, the whistle wailing in a winter tone, and mile after mile they went away. They passed among themselves a box of bought store candy, with chocolates set in dainty, pleated shells, and watched the winter miles pass by the window. Now they had gone a long, long way from town and soon would be in Winter Hill.

  "Sit down," said Berenice. "You make me nervous."

  Suddenly Frankie began to laugh. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and went back to the table. "Did you hear what Jarvis said?"

  "What?"

  Frankie laughed and laughed.

  "They were talking about whether to vote for C. P. MacDonald. And Jarvis said: Why, I wouldn't vote for that scoundrel if he was running to be the dog-catcher. I never heard anything so witty in my life."

  Berenice did not laugh. Her dark eye glanced down in a corner, quickly saw the joke, and then looked back at Frankie. Berenice wore her pink crepe dress and her hat with the pink plume was on the table. The blue glass eye made the sweat on her dark face look bluish also. Berenice was stroking the hat plume with her hand.

  "And you know what Janice remarked?" asked Frankie. "When Papa mentioned about how much I've grown, she said she didn't think I looked so terribly big. She said she got the major portion of her growth before she was thirteen. She did, Berenice!"

  "O.K.! All right."

  "She said she thought I was a lovely size and would probably not grow any taller. She said all fashion models and movie stars—"

  "She did not," said Berenice. "I heard her. She only remarked that you probably had already got your growth. But she didn't go on and on like that. To hear you tell it, anybody would think she took her text on the subject."

  "She said—"

  "This is a serious fault with you, Frankie. Somebody just makes a loose remark and then you cozen it in your mind until nobody woul
d recognize it. Your Aunt Pet happened to mention to Clorina that you had sweet manners and Clorina passed it on to you. For what it was worth. Then next thing I know you are going all around and bragging how Mrs. West thought you had the finest manners in town and ought to go to Hollywood, and I don't know what all you didn't say. You keep building on to any little compliment you hear about yourself. Or, if it is a bad thing, you do the same. You cozen and change things too much in your own mind. And that is a serious fault."

  "Quit preaching at me," Frankie said.

  "I ain't preaching. It is the solemn truth."

  "I admit it a little," said Frankie finally. She closed her eyes and the kitchen was very quiet. She could feel the beating of her heart, and when she spoke her voice was a whisper. "What I need to know is this. Do you think I made a good impression?"

  "Impression? Impression?"

  "Yes," said Frankie, her eyes still closed.

  "Well, how would I know?" said Berenice.

  "I mean how did I act? What did I do?"

  "Why, you didn't do anything."

  "Nothing?" asked Frankie.

  "No. You just watched the pair of them like they was ghosts. Then, when they talked about the wedding, them ears of yours stiffened out the size of cabbage leaves—"

  Frankie raised her hand to her left ear. "They didn't," she said bitterly. Then after a while she added. "Some day you going to look down and find that big fat tongue of yours pulled out by the roots and laying there before you on the table. Then how do you think you will feel?"

  "Quit talking so rude," said Berenice.

  Frankie scowled down at the splinter in her foot. She finished cutting it out with the knife and said, "That would have hurt anybody else but me." Then she was walking round and round the room again. "I am so scared I didn't make a good impression."

  "What of it?" said Berenice. "I wish Honey and T. T. would come on. You make me nervous."

  Frankie drew up her left shoulder and bit her lower lip. Then suddenly she sat down and banged her forehead on the table.

  "Come on," said Berenice. "Don't act like that"

  But Frankie sat stiff, her face in the crook of her elbow and her fists clenched tight. Her voice had a ragged and strangled sound. "They were so pretty," she was saying. "They must have such a good time. And they went away and left me."

  "Sit up," said Berenice. "Behave yourself."

  "They came and went away," she said. "They went away and left me with this feeling."

  "Hooee!" said Berenice finally. "I bet I know something."

  The kitchen was silent and she tapped four times with her heel: one, two, three—bang! Her live eye was dark and teasing and she tapped with her heel, then took up the beating with a dark jazz voice that was like a song.

  Frankie got a crush!

  Frankie got a crush!

  Frankie got a crush!

  On the Wedd-ing!

  "Quit," said Frankie.

  Frankie got a crush!

  Frankie got a crush!

  Berenice went on and on, and her voice was jazzed like the heart that beats in your head when you have fever. Frankie was dizzy, and she picked up the knife from the kitchen table.

  "You better quit!"

  Berenice stopped very suddenly. The kitchen was suddenly shrunken and quiet.

  "You lay down that knife."

  "Make me."

  She steadied the end of the handle against her palm and bent the blade slowly. The knife was Umber, sharp, and long.

  "Lay it down, DEVIL!"

  But Frankie stood up and took careful aim. Her eyes were narrowed and the feel of the knife made her hands stop trembling.

  "Just throw it!" said Berenice. "You just!"

  All the house was very quiet. The empty house seemed to be waiting. And then there was the knife whistle in the air and the sound the blade made when it struck. The knife hit the middle of the stairway door and shivered there. She watched the knife until it did not shiver any longer.

  "I am the best knife-thrower in this town," she said.

  Berenice, who stood behind her, did not speak.

  "If they would have a contest I would win."

  Frankie pulled the knife from the door and laid it on the kitchen table. Then she spat on her palm and rubbed her hands together.

  Berenice said finally: "Frances Addams, you going to do that once too often."

  "I never miss outside of a few inches."

  "You know what your father said about knife-throwing in this house."

  "I warned you to quit picking with me."

  "You are not fit to live in a house," said Berenice.

  "I won't be living in this one much longer. I'm going to run away from home."

  "And a good riddance to a big old bad rubbage," said Berenice.

  "You wait and see. I'm leaving town."

  "And where you think you are going?"

  Frankie looked at all the corners of the room, and then said, "I don't know."

  "I do," said Berenice. "You going crazy. That's where you going."

  "No," said Frankie. She stood very still, looking around the queerly pictured wall, and then she closed her eyes. "I'm going to Winter Hill. I'm going to the wedding. And I swear to Jesus by my two eyes I'm never coming back here any more."

  She had not been sure that she would throw the knife until it struck and shivered on the stairway door. And she had not known that she would say these words until already they were spoken. The swear was like the sudden knife; she felt it strike in her and tremble. Then when the words were quiet, she said again:

  "After the wedding I'm not coming back."

  Berenice pushed back the damp bangs of Frankie's hair and finally she asked: "Sugar? You serious?"

  "Of course!" said Frankie. "Do you think I would stand here and swear that swear and tell a story? Sometimes, Berenice, I think it takes you longer to realize a fact than it does anybody who ever lived."

  "But," said Berenice, "you say you don't know where you're going. You going, but you don't know where. That don't make no sense to me."

  Frankie stood looking up and down the four walls of the room. She thought of the world, and it was fast and loose and turning, faster and looser and bigger than ever it had been before. The pictures of the War sprang out and clashed together in her mind. She saw bright flowered islands and a land by the northern sea with the gray waves on the shore. Bombed eyes and the shuffle of soldiers' feet. Tanks and a plane, wing broken, burning and downward-falling in a desert sky. The world was cracked by the loud battles and turning a thousand miles a minute. The names of places spun in Frankie's mind: China, Peachville, New Zealand, Paris, Cincinnati, Rome. She thought of the huge and turning world until her legs began to tremble and there was sweat on the palms of her hands. But still she did not know where she should go. Finally she stopped looking around the four kitchen walls and said to Berenice:

  "I feel just exactly like somebody has peeled all the skin off me. I wish I had some cold good chocolate ice cream."

  Berenice had her hands on Frankie's shoulders and was shaking her head and staring with the live eye narrowed into Frankie's face.

  "But every word I told you was the solemn truth," she said. "I'm not coming back here after the wedding."

  There was a sound, and when they turned they saw that Honey and T. T. Williams were standing in the doorway. Honey, though he was her foster brother, did not resemble Berenice—and it was almost as though he came from some foreign country, like Cuba or Mexico. He was lightskinned, almost lavender in color, with quiet narrow eyes like oil, and a limber body. Behind the two of them stood T. T. Williams, and he was very big and black; he was gray-haired, older even than Berenice, and he wore a church suit with a red badge in the buttonhole. T. T. Williams was a beau of Berenice, a well-off colored man who owned a colored restaurant. Honey was a sick-loose person. The army would not include him, and he had shoveled in a gravel pit until he broke one of his in-sides and could not do heavy work any
more. They stood, the three of them, dark and grouped together in the door.

  "What you all creep up like that for?" asked Berenice. "I didn't even hear you."

  "You and Frankie too busy discussing something," said T. T.

  "I am ready to go," said Berenice. "I been ready. But do you wish a small little quickie before we start?"

  T. T. Williams looked at Frankie and shuffled his feet. He was very proper, and he liked to please everybody, and he always wanted to do the right thing.

  "Frankie ain't no tattle-tale," said Berenice. "Is you?"

  Frankie would not even answer such a question. Honey wore a dark red rayon slack suit and she said: "That sure is a cute suit you got on, Honey. Where did you get it?"

  Honey could talk like a white school-teacher; his lavender lips could move as quick and light as butterflies. But he only answered with a colored word, a dark sound from the throat that can mean anything. "Ahhnnh," he said.

  The glasses were before them on the table, and the hair-straightening bottle that held gin, but they did not drink. Berenice said something about Paris and Frankie had the extra feeling that they were waiting for her to leave. She stood in the door and looked at them. She did not want to go away.

  "You wish water in yours, T. T.?" asked Berenice.

  They were together around the table and Frankie stood extra in the door alone. "So long, you all," she said.

  "'Bye, Sugar," said Berenice. "You forget all that foolishness we was discussing. And if Mr. Addams don't come home by dark, you go on over to the Wests. Go play with John Henry"

  "Since when have I been scared of the dark?" said Frankie. "So long."

  "So long," they said.

  She closed the door, but behind her she could hear their voices. With her head against the kitchen door she could hear the murmuring dark sounds that rose and fell in a gentle way. Ayee—ayee. And then Honey spoke above the idle wash of voices and he asked: "What was it between you and Frankie when we come in the house?" She waited, her ear pressed close against the door, to hear what Berenice would say. And finally the words were: "Just foolishness. Frankie was carrying on with foolishness." She listened until at last she heard them go away.