I thought I heard him chuckle as I headed downstairs, to open up the sleep sofa that Cal had shown me how to use. In my arms I had sheets, blankets, and a wonderfully soft goosedown pillow. For the first time in my life--a bed all my own. A room all my own, filled to overflowing with such a colorful zoo it's a wonder I was able to sleep at all.
The moment my eyes opened I thought of that new school, where there'd be hundreds or even thousands of new kids and I wouldn't know even one. Although my clothes were ever so much better than they used to be, I'd already seen enough in Atlanta to know the clothes I had now weren't what most girls my age wore. They were cheap copies of better dresses, skirts, blouses, and sweaters. Lord, don't let them laugh at me in my too-large clothes, I prayed silently as I took a quick bath and pulled on the best of what Kitty had selected.
Something must have happened in Kitty's bedroom that night, something that made her grouchier than usual in the morning. In the kitchen her pale eyes raked over me from head to feet. "Been easy on ya so far--but t'day begins yer real life. I expect ya t'be up early, an cookin every mornin from now on, not fiddlin in t'bathroom with yer hair fer hours on end."
"But, Mother, I don't know how to use a stove like that."
"Didn't I show ya how yesterday--t'day before?"
From the range to the dishwasher to the garbage disposal to the refrigerator she showed me again how to do everything. Then once more she led me down to the basement, where there was a pink washer and dryer set in a little alcove all its own, with shelves to hold more of Kitty's animal collection, and cabinets for boxes and plastic bottles of soap and detergents, softeners, bleaches, waxes, polishers, cleansers, window cleaners, toilet cleaners, brass and copper polish, silver polish- why, it went on forever. I wondered how they had any money left for food.
Food had been the main objective in our lives, back home in the hills; none of these cleaning products had even been imagined, or considered in the least necessary. Only lye soap for everything from shampoos to baths to scrubbing filthy clothes on the washboard. No wonder Kitty considered me a heathen.
"An ova there," said Kitty, pointing to a large space full of technical-looking equipment, "is where Cal has his home workshop. Likes t'fiddle away his time down here, he does. Now, don't ya botha none of his stuff. Some of it could be dangerous. Like that electric saw and all those carpentry tools. Fer gals like ya, not used t'stuff like that there all, only thin ya kin do is stay away. Keep that in mind, ya hear?"
"Yes."
"Yes what?"
"Yes, Mother."
"Now back t'business. Ya think ya kin wash an dry our clothes without tearin em up or burnin em?" "Yes, Mother."
"Ya betta mean it."
Back in the kitchen we found Cal had put on water for the coffee, and he was now sitting down to peruse the morning newspaper. He put it aside and smiled when we joined him. "Good morning, Heaven. You're looking very fresh and pretty for your first day at a new school."
Kitty whipped around. "Didn't I tell ya she'd look all right soon enough?" she quibbled, sitting down, snatching up a section of the morning paper. "Gotta see what celebrity is comin t'town . ." she mumbled.
I stood in the middle of the kitchen, not knowing quite what to do. Kitty looked up, her eyes hard, cold, ruthless. "Okay, girl, cook."
Cook. I burned the thinly sliced bacon I'd never fried before. Our kind came in thick slabs, not done up in narrow slices and wrapped in fancy packages.
Kitty's eyes narrowed as she watched without comment.
I burned the toast, not knowing I'd moved the lever to dark when I'd wiped away fingerprints with the sponge Kitty had given me earlier, telling me I had to keep all chrome appliances free of spots and fingerprints.
The sunny-side ups that Cal wanted I fried too long. He barely ate his rubbery eggs. The coffee was the final straw. In a flash Kitty was up and across the slick kitchen floor, delivering to my face a stunning slap!
"ANY DAMN FOOL KIN TOAST BREAD!" she screamed. "AN IDIOT FOOL KIN FRY BACON! I should have known, should have!" She dragged me to the table and shoved me down. "I'll do it t'day, but t'morra it's you from then on--an if ya do what ya did t'day, I'll BOIL ya in wata next time! Cal, ya take yerself off t'work, buy anotha breakfast somewhere. I'll have t'stay home from work anotha hour t'enroll this kid in school."
Cal put a kiss on Kitty's rouged cheek. Not a long, passionate one, only a dutiful peck. "Take it easy on the girl, Kitty. You're expecting an awful lot when you know she's not accustomed to modern gadgets. Give her time and she'll do just fine. I can tell by her eyes that she's intelligent."
"Kin't tell by her cookin, kin ya?"
He left.
Alone with Kitty I felt a fresh wave of anxiety. Gone was the considerate woman who'd brushed my hair and curled it over her fingers. I'd already learned to fear the irrational, tempestuous swings of Kitty's moods, learned enough not to be fooled by her attempts at caring. Yet, with surprising patience, Kitty taught me all over again how to operate the kitchen range, the dishwasher, the trash compactor; and then she was instructing me on just how I had to stack the dishes, precisely stack them.
"Don't eva wanna look in these cabinets an see one thin out of place, ya understand?"
I nodded. She patted my cheek, hard. "Now run along an finish dressin, fer it's off-t'-school time."
The brick building had looked huge from the outside. Inside, I feared I'd be lost. Hundreds of adolescent children swarmed, all wearing wonderful clothes. Mine didn't fit at all. Not another girl had on the ugly kind of saddle shoes I wore, with white socks. The principal, Mr. Meeks, smiled at Kitty as if overwhelmed to see such a voluptuous woman in his office. He beamed at her bosom, which was on his eye level, and darn if he could raise his eyes long enough to see she had a pretty face as well.
"Why, of course, Mrs. Dennison, I'll take good care of your daughter, of course, why, of course . . ."
"Gonna go now," said Kitty at the door that would take her out into the hall. "Do what teachers tell ya t'do, an walk home. I've left ya a list of what t'do when I'm not there. Ya'll find t'cards on t'kitchen table. Hope t'come home t'a cleana, betta house-- understand?"
"Yes, Mother."
She beamed at the principal, then sashayed down the hall, and darn if he didn't follow out to the hall to watch her departure. I realized from the way he stared after her that Kitty was the woman of many men's fantasies, all her feminine differences
exaggerated.
It was hard that first day. I don't know if I imagined the hostility, or if it was real. I felt selfconscious with my long, wild hair, my cheap, illfitting clothes (better than any I'd owned before, and yet I wasn't happy), my obvious distress at not knowing where to go or how to find the girls' room. A pretty-looking girl with brown hair took pity on me and showed me around between classes.
I was given tests to see which class my country education had prepared me for. I smiled to read the questions. Why, Miss Deale had covered all this a long time ago. And then I was thinking of Tom, and tears slipped from my eyes. I was placed in the ninth grade.
Somehow I found my way around the school, and managed to get through a day that was
exceptionally long and tiring, and slowly, slowly, I walked home. It wasn't nearly as cold here as it had been in the mountains, nor was it as pretty. No white water bubbling over rocks, and no rabbits, squirrels, and raccoons. Just a cold winter's day, a bleak gray sky, and strange faces to tell me I was an alien in this city world.
I reached Eastwood Street, turned in at 210, used the key Kitty had given me, took off my new blue coat, hung it carefully in the hall closet, then hurried into the kitchen to stare at the five-by-eight cards on the kitchen table. I could almost hear Kitty saying, "Read those ova. List of instructions. Read em an learn yer duties."
"Yes."
"Yes what?"
"Yes, Mother."
I shook my head to clear it, then sat to read the cards in the sunless kitchen that didn't look so c
heerful without all the lights on. I'd been warned to use the lights as little as possible when I was home alone, and never was Ito look at TV unless either Kitty or Cal was looking too.
The lists of what to do and not to do filled four cards.
DO'S
1. Every day, after every meal, wipe up the countertops, scrub the sinks.
2. After every meal, use another sponge to wipe off the refrigerator door, and keep everything inside neat and tidy, and check the meat and vegetable compartments to see nothing is rotten, or needing to be thrown out. It's up to you to see everything is used before it goes bad.
3. Use the dishwasher.
4. Grind up the soft garbage in the disposal, and never forget to turn on the cold water when it's running.
5. Washed dishes are to be removed
immediately, put in cupboards in exact placement. Never stack cups one inside the other.
6. Silverware is to be neatly arranged in trays for forks, knives, spoons, not tossed in the drawer in a heap.
7. Clothes have to be sorted before washing. All whites with whites. Darks with darks. My lingerie goes in a mesh bag--use gentle cycle. My washable clothes, use cold water, and cold water soap. Wash Cal's socks by themselves. Wash sheets, pillowcases, and towels by themselves. Your clothes wash last, by themselves.
8. Dry clothes as instructed on the dryer I showed you how to use.
9. Hang clothes in closets. Mine in mine, Cal's in his. Yours in the broom closet. Fold underwear and put in correct drawers. Fold sheets and cases like what you find in the linen closet. Keep everything neat.
10. Every day wipe up kitchen and baths with warm water containing disinfectant.
11. Once a week, scrub kitchen floor with liquid cleanser I showed you, and once a month remove buildup of wax, then reapply wax. Once a week, scrub bathroom floors, clean grout in shower stall. Scrub out tub after every bath you take, I take, and Cal takes.
12. Every other day run the vacuum over all the carpets in the house. Move the furniture aside once a week and sweep under everything. Check under chairs and tables for spiders and webs.
13.Dust everything, every day. Pick things up.
14. First thing after Cal and me are gone, clean up the kitchen. Make the bed with clean linens, change towels in bathrooms.
The cards fell from my hand. I sat on, stunned. Kitty didn't want a daughter, she wanted a slave! And I'd been so ready to do anything to please her if only she'd love me, and be like a mother. It wasn't fair for fate to always rob me of a mother just when I thought I had one.
Hot, bitter tears coursed down my cheeks as I realized the futility of my dream of winning Kitty's love. How could I live here or anywhere without someone who loved me? I brushed at my tears, tried to stop them, but they came, like a river undammed. Just to have someone who needed me, who really loved me enough to be caring, was that too much to ask? If Kitty could only be a real mother, gladly I'd do everything on her list, and more--but she was making demands, issuing orders, making me feel used without consideration. Never saying please, or would you?-- even Sarah had been more considerate than that.
So I sat on, doing nothing, feeling more betrayed by the moment. Pa must have known what Kitty was, and he'd sold me to her, without heart, without kindness, forever punishing me for what I couldn't help or undo.
Bitterness dried my tears. I'd stay only until I could run, and Kitty'd rue the day she took me in to do more work in one day than Sarah had done in a month!
Ten times more work here than in the cabin, despite all the cleaning equipment. Feeling strange, weak, I stared at the cards lying on the table, forgetting to read the last one, and when I tried to find it later on, I couldn't.
I'd ask Cal, who seemed to like me, what Kitty could have written on that last card. For if I didn't know what not to do, ten to one I'd be sure to do it, and Kitty would somehow know.
For a while I just sat on in the kitchen, everything clean and bright around me, while my heart ached for an old rickety cabin, dim and dirty, for familiar smells and all the beauty of the outside world. No friendly cats here to rub against my legs, or big dogs that wagged furious tails to show how mean they were. Only ceramic animals of unnatural colors holding kitchen utensils, cat faces grinning from the wall, pink ducks parading toward an unseen pool. Dizzy, that's how I felt from seeing so many colors against all the white.
When next I glanced at a clock, I jumped up. Where had the time gone? I began to race around-- how to finish before Kitty was home again? Those panicky butterflies were on wing again, battering my self-confidence. I'd never be able to please Kitty, not in a million years. There was something dark and treacherous in Kitty, something slippery and ugly hidden beneath all those wide smiles, lurking in those seawater eyes.
Thoughts of my life as it had been came like ghosts to haunt me--Logan, Tom, Keith, Our Jane . . . and Fanny--are they treating you like this, are they?
I vacuumed, dusted, went carefully from plant to plant and felt the dirt, all damp. I returned to the
kitchen to try and begin the evening meal, which Kitty said should be called dinner because Cal insisted the main meal of the day was dinner and not
suppa. About six Cal came in, looking fresh enough to make me wonder if he did anything all day, and then he was smiling broadly. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
How could I tell him that he was the one I instinctively trusted, that without him here I couldn't stay on another minute? I couldn't say that during our first time alone together. "I don't know," I whispered, trying to smile. "I guess I expected you to look . . . well, dirty."
"I always shower before I come home," he explained with a small, odd smile. "It's one of Kitty's rules--no dirty husband in her house. I keep a change of clothes to put on after I'm finished for the day. Then, too, I am boss, and I have six employees, but I often like to pitch in and do the trouble-shooting in an old set."
Feeling shy with him, I gestured to the array of cookbooks. "I don't know how to plan a meal for you and Kitty."
"I'll help," he said instantly. "First of all, you've got to stay away from starches. Kitty adores spaghetti, but it makes her gain weight, and if she gains a pound she'll think it's your fault."
We worked together, preparing a casserole that Cal said Kitty would like. He helped me slice the vegetables for the salad as he began to talk. "It's nice having you here, Heaven. Otherwise I'd be doing this by myself, as before. Kitty hates to cook, though she's pretty good at it. She thinks I don't earn my way, for I owe her thousands of dollars and I am in hock up to my neck, and she holds the purse strings. I was just a kid when I married her. I thought she was wise, beautiful, and wonderful; she seemed to want to help me so much."
"How'd you meet her?" I asked, watching how he tore the lettuce and sliced everything thin and on an angle. He showed me how to make the salad dressing, and it was as if his busy hands set free his tongue, almost as if he were talking more to himself than to me as he chopped and sliced. "You trap yourself sometimes, by thinking desire and need is love. Remember that, Heaven. I was lonely in a big city, twenty years old, heading for Florida during spring break. I met Kitty quite by accident, in a bar my first night here in Atlanta. I thought she was absolutely the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen." He laughed hard and bitterly. "I was naive and young. I had come for the summer from my home in New England while I was still going to Yale, had two more years to go before I graduated. Alone in Atlanta I felt lost. Kitty was lost too, and we found we had a lot in common. After a while, we married. She set me up in business. I'd always planned to be a history professor, can you imagine? Instead I married Kitty. Haven't been on a university campus since. I've never been home again, either. I don't even write to my parents anymore. Kitty doesn't want me to contact them. She's ashamed, afraid they might find out she didn't finish high school. And I owe her at least twenty-five thousand dollars."
"How'd she make so much money?" I asked, half forgetting what I was doing.
&
nbsp; "Kitty goes through men like castor oil, leaving them weak emotionally and drained financially. She told you she married first when she was thirteen? Well, she's had three other husbands, and each has provided for her very well--in order to get out of a marriage each must have found abominable after a while. Then, to give her credit, her beauty salon is the best in Atlanta."
"Oh," I said, with my head bowed low. His confession was not what I'd expected. Yet it felt so good to have someone talk to me as if I were an adult. I didn't know if I should ask what I did. "Don't you love Kitty?"
"Yes, I love her," he admitted gruffly. "When I understand what makes her what she is, how can I not love her? There's one thing, though, I want to say now, while I have a chance. There are times when Kitty can be very violent. I know she put you into hot water on your first night here, but I didn't say anything since you weren't permanently harmed. If I'd said something then, she would be worse the next time she has you alone. Just be careful to do everything as she wants. Flatter her, say she looks younger than I do. . . and obey, obey, and be meek."
"But I don't understand!" I cried. "Why does she want me, except to be her slave?"
He looked up, appearing surprised. "Why, Heaven, haven't you guessed? You represent to her the child she lost when she aborted your father's baby and ruined herself so she can never have another child. She loves you because you are part of him, and hates you for the same reason. Through you, she hopes one day to get to him."
"To hurt him through me?" I asked.
"Something like that."
I laughed bitterly. "Poor Kitty. Of all his five children, I am the one he despises. She should have taken Fanny or Tom--Pa loves them."
He turned to put his arms about me, and tenderly he held me the way I'd always wanted to be held by Pa. I choked up and clung to this man who was almost a stranger; my need to be loved was so great I grasped greedily, then felt ashamed and so shy I almost cried. He cleared his throat and let me go. "Heaven, above all, never let Kitty know what you just told me. As long as you are valuable to your father, you have value for Kitty. Understand?"