Autumn Street

  Sometimes Charles and I tasted the dusty Pennsylvania earth that accumulated on our feet. Tatie said that everyone had to eat a peck of dirt before they died. I worried about Charles, because he confessed to me that he had eaten quite a bit already.

  "Aren't you afraid of dying?" I asked him.

  He sighed his patient, you're-so-dumb-Elizabeth sigh. "Children don't die," he pointed out.

  Charles was so logical and reassuring. And he was daring. Once he had even tasted a worm.

  Sometimes I wondered vaguely if my father had eaten his peck of dirt. Grandmother, I was quite sure, hadn't, and would probably live forever.

  "You better not bang that door," Tatie said, as I pranced through again from the porch.

  "I'm not," I said haughtily, closing the screen door with exaggerated care. "I never bang the door."

  "Ha." She spat on a brown index finger, hissed it against the iron that stood on one end of the ironing board, and unrolled a dampened tablecloth.

  I leaned against the tall wooden cupboard that held the kitchen dishes, scratched a smeared-open mosquito bite on one leg with the toe of the opposite sandal, and watched her iron with broad, heavy strokes. Sometimes she let me do the napkins. "You want to see what I did outside? I made a flower store."

  She set down the iron with a muted thump and looked at me. "You didn't pick any flowers, did you?"

  Some.

  Her hands went to her wide hips and she leaned toward the windows. "You didn't pick them roses, did you?" She checked the rose bushes through the window and relaxed.

  "Of course not. I'm not stupid. I picked hollyhocks. There are three billion hollyhocks out there and nobody likes them anyway and if you turn them upside down they make a lady in an evening dress. Look on the steps. It's not a flower store any more, it's a beauty contest."

  She went with me to the back porch and looked patiently at the rows of upside-down hollyhocks, ladies in pink, red, and white gowns, standing on the steps, curling quickly in the sun.

  "Be the judge, Tatie. Be the beauty contest judge." I was prancing again. "Which one should be the winner?"

  "Can't pick. They all alike, except for them colors. Boy, would I like to have me a long red dress."

  She and I both looked at her carefully ironed blue uniform, her starched white apron, and at my tightly sashed yellow sundress, and chuckled. "Me too," I said, gathering up the wilting beauty contestants. "I will, too, someday. So will you. I'll buy you one."

  "Ha." She went back into the kitchen, moved the ironing board to one side, and began preparing lunch. On the staircase landing in another part of the big house, a clock chimed twelve times. "Your grandpa be home soon. Throw away them flowers and you can help set the table."

  "Okay."

  "You better not let your grandma hear you say that."

  "Say what?"

  "Okay."

  I shrieked with laughter. "You said it, now! Wait'll I tell Grandmother you said it!"

  She swatted my rear, lightly. "You not going to tell your grandma nothing except lunch is ready in a minute. Help me set the table now, and then you can go ring the bell."

  "Wait!" I will, but wait. I want to tell you something. Guess what Grandfather's bringing me. An autograph book! He promised. He's bringing it today."

  She made a face at me. "What kind of book is that? You can't even read good yet."

  "It's a book people write in. Your friends write in it. Then you have a book with messages from all your friends, just for you. And I can too read good. I can read very, very good."

  I tossed my head, wishing for long, thick curls like Jessica's instead of skimpy too-tight braids. Following Tatie into the large, dim dining room, I trailed behind her around the oval table, placing the napkins in their silver rings beside each plate. Then I pranced off to the hall to ring the delicate, hanging chime that signaled lunch.

  Grandfather arrived home from the bank, walking, each day at fifteen minutes past twelve. In the summer he wore a white suit and carried an intricately carved cane. Winters, his suits were dark blue and dark gray, and the cane that he carried had an icepick on the tip, to disarm the slippery sidewalks. In February, shortly after we had come to his house to live, I had played with the icepick cane, marred the front steps of the big house, and been reprimanded.

  Grandfather sat at one end of the mahogany table at mealtime. Grandmother sat at the other, her tiny imperious feet resting on a cushioned footstool underneath; she would stretch one leg down, pointing her toe, to the buzzer concealed under the Oriental rug, with which she summoned Tatie from the kitchen. My mother sat on Grandmother's left, beside me, her eyes and face in a listening look, always, for sounds from the fretful baby upstairs. Directly opposite me was Jessica, flawless and ringleted. I made hideous faces at her, across the table, under the prismed chandelier, and she ignored me with disdain.

  Ritualistic and precise, Grandfather ended lunch each day by rolling his folded napkin into a tube, fitting the tube into the monogrammed ring so that it extended to the same length on either side, commenting graciously on the quality of the meal to Tatie as she removed the plates, and rising from his chair. Somehow, no one except me ever seemed to dirty the napkins; I always folded the soup stains, which were on top of the breakfast egg stains, which were on top of the previous evening's gravy stains, into the center so they wouldn't show. Tatie wrinkled her nose and shook her head at my napkin when she unrolled them all every other day so that Lillian could include them in the laundry.

  After lunch, Grandfather always took a ten-minute sitting-up nap in the blue wing chair in the corner of the library. Under no circumstances, not even if the house caught fire or the Japanese appeared with their drawn swords at the front door, was I to interrupt Grandfather's nap; I was not to bang a door, shout, sing, or thump my feet on the stairs while Grandfather slept after lunch. At one o'clock he would open his eyes, stand, take his carved cane from the place where it rested in the hall closet, and walk back to the bank.

  I waited impatiently for him at the front door, caught him as he was going out, and reminded him of the autograph book. Unsurprised, he removed it gravely from his briefcase, glanced through its slippery pastel pages, signed his name solemnly on the first page, and put the book in my hands.

  "Look," I told Tatie later, as she wiped the Spode luncheon plates with a linen towel. "Blue, green, yellow, and pink. What color page do you want?"

  "Me? I don't want no color. I'm not going to mess up nobody's book."

  Sitting perched on a kitchen chair, I giggled at her, and leafed through the pages, feeling the soft leather cover. My Friends was the title, embossed diagonally in gold. I had seen the autograph book in the window of the stationery store next to Grandfather's bank, had wheedled gently, and now it was mine.

  "Come on, Tatie. What color? Grandfather wrote on a blue page. Look, the very first page. Look what Grandfather wrote. His bank name."

  It was his flourished signature, the one I had seen on documents and papers that occasionally lay briefly on the hall table. I hadn't the slightest idea what Grandfather's name was. Although I had been able to read since I was four, I couldn't read his signature, which included initials and was formed with broad, magnificent strokes.

  Tatie looked, impressed. "That's real nice. Did your grandma write yet?"

  I grimaced. "Yes. On yellow. Listen, though." I sounded the words out carefully, reading Grandmother's message in a Grandmother-like voice: "'Good manners and good morals are sworn friends and fast allies.'" I clutched my stomach and did my throwing-up imitation. Tatie shrugged.

  "Here's Mama's, on the green page. I can read it all right, but I don't understand it. 'I pine fir yew, and sometimes balsam.' Do you know what that means?"

  Tatie thought. "No," she said, "but I never could understand your mama too good, not even when she was little."

  "Here's Jessica's. It's on green, like Mama's. Listen: 'Too good to be forgotten.' No, wait. You have to look: '2 good 2 B 4 gotten.' G
et it? See how the numbers are?"

  She leaned over from the sink and glanced at the pale green page. "You know what I think," she confided matter-of-factly, "I think Jessica thinks she really is too good for some of us."

  I giggled again, wondering what Grandmother would say if she heard Tatie talk that way about my sister. "Well," I said, redeeming Jess a little, "her writing is nice and neat, though."

  I had to explain something to Tatie, and I was embarrassed. "I can't ask Charles to sign it," I said, finally, "because he can't write yet. After he starts school and learns how to write, then I'm going to give him one of the best pages.

  "What color do you want, Tatie?" I asked again.

  "Told you already. I don't want no color."

  "I'm saving one of the blues for Daddy. When he gets home from the war."

  "That's right, baby," she said, smiling, remembering my father. "You save the best ones for your daddy."

  "Come on, Tatie. Pick a page. I've got to go out and get other people to sign. Pick a page." I dangled the book in front of her. "And don't call me baby," I added.

  "Pick a page, pick a page," she mimicked in a high, baby voice, hanging up the dishtowel and ignoring my autograph book. "Not Tatie. Tatie's not picking no page. Now go on outside."

  I stood still for a moment, angry at her broad, turned-away back. "Smarty-pants," I said loudly, and stuck out my tongue. She didn't reply, didn't turn around, busied herself silently at the sink, and finally I walked to the screen door. "Smarty smarty smarty," I chanted spitefully and went outside, letting the door bang.

  "Ha," I heard her mutter as she scrubbed at the spotless sink.

  ***

  The shades that had been drawn in the library against the early summer heat were raised in the evening, just after dinner, as the sun was setting. Grandfather sat, as always, in the blue wing chair, listening somberly to the seven o'clock news from the big radio in the corner. Grandmother, her feet on a small rush stool, sat upright on one of the summer-slipcovered chairs and stitched at something fragile and elegant. Grandmother's hands seemed never to be still; she stitched, polished, arranged, adjusted, and examined things with precision—and me, sometimes, with distaste.

  "Idle hands are the devil's playthings," Grandmother said often. I thought darkly that the devil probably knew more about fun than Grandmother ever would or had; but I sighed in guilt each time she said it, and hid my own idle hands, with their bitten nails, in my pockets or behind my back.

  Mama was at the Governor Winthrop desk, writing a letter on pale blue rustling paper. Jessica sat on the rag, her dress tucked neatly around her legs, looking at a National Geographic; I wondered idly if she were looking for naked people, the way I did. Upstairs, the wailing baby had finally surrendered to sleep in the small pine crib which had held my half-orphaned mother thirty-four years before.

  I read and reread the smudged, cryptic, and sentimental verses in my autograph book.

  "Fourteen people signed it today," I announced when the radio news had ended.

  "So?" remarked Jess, smoothing her curls. "How many of them were movie stars?" Then she quickly turned her magazine page, avoiding Grandmother's cold glance.

  "Would you like me to read you some, Grandfather?" I asked.

  "Certainly. Read me a few while I get out the Chinese Checkers," he said obligingly. We always played Chinese Checkers after dinner. Grandfather always had the blue marbles, and Grandfather always won. Again and again he pointed out to Jess and me how we could win if we'd only plan ahead. But we floundered and hesitated. The blue marbles overtook us every time.

  "Listen, everyone. This is from Anne. 'I auto cry, I auto laugh, I auto give you my autograph.' It's on a yellow page."

  Mama looked up and smiled.

  "Here," I said, holding up the book. "You have to see this one. See how the writing goes around in a circle? Listen: 'Remember the girl from the city, remember the girl from the town, remember the girl who spoiled your book by writing upside down.' Nancy Norcross wrote that."

  "Did the Norcross girl really spoil your book, Elizabeth?" asked Grandmother, neatly snipping off a thread.

  "No, Grandmother. It was just a joke. Here, listen to this one, it's from Mrs. Hoffman: 'Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, the other gold.'"

  "Yes, that's nice, dear," said Mama, looking back at her unfinished letter.

  "May I assume that no one else wants the blue marbles?" asked Grandfather, already arranging them in his point of the star. We all shook our heads.

  "Tatie wouldn't sign it," I said, pouting.

  Mama looked up again. "Don't bother Tatie with it, Liz. She's too busy."

  "What do you want her to sign it for anyway? It's supposed to be your friends," said Jess.

  "Come on, come on, the game is starting. Who's red tonight? Who wants to be black?" Grandfather was already examining his blue marbles, planning ahead, plotting his moves.

  "She is my friend. I want her to sign it on this pink page I'm saving for her. Can you tell her to sign it, Grandfather?"

  "What? Tatie? No. No, I can't tell her to do that. She can make her own decisions. Don't pester her with it, though."

  Mama sighed and looked up again. "You have plenty of friends. You don't need her to sign it."

  Grandmother had settled her sewing into a wicker basket and was moving to the Chinese Checkers table. "I'll be the white marbles tonight, I think. She can't write, anyway." She began arranging her starpoint meticulously.

  "What do you mean?" I stood up belligerently and faced Grandmother.

  "Just what I said, miss. Now take off that frown and arrange your marbles."

  "She can too," I said.

  And the room was suddenly, startlingly silent. Jessica looked up at me with a kind of fearful admiration. Mama stopped writing, bit her lip, and said nothing. The clock on the staircase landing chimed once. Seven-thirty. I glared at Grandmother.

  "Watch your tongue, Elizabeth Jane," she said, through brittle lips. "Tatie cannot write. Nor can she read. She has never been to school. You are not to torment her with that silly book anymore. Now sit down. We are waiting to begin this game."

  Jess moved to her place around the star and began arranging the red marbles silently. I watched her for a moment and then turned and left the room.

  Tatie was in the kitchen, humming as she put away the silverware. She looked at me, grinned, and said, "You better watch out your face don't freeze that way, you might scare somebody."

  I put the autograph book on the table, turned to a blank pink page, and handed her my pencil. "Just write your name," I commanded. "You don't have to write a poem or anything."

  But her face went as stony and stubborn as mine. "I told you this afternoon," she said, "I don't care nothing about writing in that book."

  I grabbed her hand, still damp from the dishtowel, put the pencil into it, and begged. "Please. Just your name is all. I really need it, Tatie."

  She wiped her hands slowly on the white apron of her black evening uniform, watching me. Then she leaned to the book with the pencil, smoothed the page flat, and made the beginning of a mark: a careful, curling line at the side of the pink page, before she put the pencil down. "I can't," she said, with angry, challenging dignity.

  "You can too," I said defiantly, putting the pencil again into her hand and clasping my own hand around hers. I forced her hand to the page and guided it into a T, and then an A. "See? I told you you could. You make me so mad, not wanting to write in my hook!" I muttered, through clenched teeth, pressing her hand into an unresisting T, an I, and an E. "Now cross the T's."

  "What?" She looked at me in bewilderment.

  "Cross your T's," I ordered, tears hot behind my eyes. "You always have to cross your T's. Here." And I took her hand once more, more gently, as gently as she had often taken mine, and guided it to the top of the uncrossed T's. She drew the lines herself.

  Then she looked at the pink page, at the huge, wavy signature, and chuckled
. "Well, that don't look too bad," she said.

  "Thank you," I whispered, and ran from the kitchen.

  In the library the Chinese Checkers game was proceeding without me, in silence. Grandmother and Jess were carefully tending their marbles in little groupings across the board, and over them, with his blue marbles, Grandfather was jumping in direct, well-plotted lines, toward his win.

  I held out the autograph book, open to the pink page. "She can too," I said.

  "Sit down," said Grandmother, "and put that book away until your manners improve."

  I held the book closer, insolently, in front of her smooth, unrouged, tight-lipped face, and waved it back and forth. "She can too can too can too" I cried over and over, stamping my feet on the thick, muffling carpet. The tears came and fell onto the star-shaped board, onto the marbles; my nose dripped onto my upper lip and I screamed at my grandmother, who sat stiffly immobile, "Say she can! Say it! Say she can!" until my mother rose from the mahogany desk and swiftly, silently, holding me close to her, carried me out of the library and up the long staircase to my bed.

  8

  ONE WEEKEND LATE in June, Charles took me into the pantry, behind the door, where Tatie couldn't see us, and showed me that he had a knife. It wasn't much of a knife: rusty, with a chipped blade; and when it was folded into its holder, it was very small. Still, it was both frightening and exciting that Charles had a knife.

  "Where did you get it?" I whispered.

  "Found it by the railroad tracks," he said.

  "Maybe it belonged to Willard B. Stanton."

  "Who?"

  "The guy you told me about. The one who got flattened by the train."

  Charles shook his head at me and rolled his eyes. "Elizabeth, you so dumb. Willard B. Stanton got flattened about twenty years ago. This ain't his knife. Anyway, it don't matter who it belonged to. Because now it belongs to me. This here is my knife."