“Easy. Get out.”
Mrs. Romeyn took a step backward. “You’re so harsh with me, Felix. You were the sweetest baby.” Her eyes filled. “But now you’re just cruel. Maybe it’s the shock, but honestly, anyone would think I was the criminal, the way you talk to me.”
Felix smiled, and the whiteness of his teeth was startling.
Mrs. Romeyn swallowed pitifully to allow time for an apology that didn’t come. Then she said, “We’ll see you at supper?”
“Maybe.”
She gave a theatrical sigh and rustled away. Felix set the figurine down and turned back to Jottie.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
“My pleasure.”
“Don’t leave.” If he left, she would die.
“Remember what I said? I’ll stay by you. You’ll see. Now, let’s us go for a little stroll.” He studied her, frowning, and then fastened the top button of her coat. “There. Let’s go.”
“It’s just that—that everyone knows—” She broke off, shaking and helpless.
He waited. When she said nothing, he urged, “Everyone knows what?”
“Everyone knows”—her voice sank to a whisper—“that I believed him. Everyone knows he made a fool out of me. They’re going to look at me and feel sorry for me and I can’t—I can’t—”
Felix looked at the floor and nodded. “I know. But he did it. Not you. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Vause lied. He did wrong. Not you. Got that?” She shrugged. “Come on.” He picked up her hand and drew it through his arm. “Here’s what: You don’t have to look at anyone. You just hang on to me and I’ll stare ’em down for you, okay? Because neither of us did anything wrong. Okay?” He wheeled her around to face the mirror. “Okay?”
“I loved him.”
“I know. Me too. Come on.”
As they stepped off the front porch, her trembling fingers dug into his sleeve. He looked down at her and smiled. “See how nice it is out here?” he said. “Smells like spring.”
Jottie took a long, glad pull on her cigarette and waved the match out. Then she swung around to look at Layla. “Wasn’t I going to tell you about Reverend Goodacre this afternoon?”
Layla smiled. “I certainly hope you are! Let me get my notebook.”
18
Father came home from his business with Clayton V. Hart on Tuesday, but he had to leave again after a few days, to go to Columbus, Ohio. He said he had been hired by the town fathers of Columbus, Ohio, to inspect their statuary. It wasn’t true, of course. He was joking. But I wondered what he was really going to do there. Was he going on business for Cooey’s Red Apple? I couldn’t decide, and I couldn’t ask him, either. I watched his face and thought he probably was. A minute later, I thought he probably wasn’t. I was in my room, trying to figure it out, when I heard his car crunching down the dirt alley behind our house. He was gone. I decided to go over to Capon Street to see Geraldine. I wanted to throw some plums.
Mrs. Lee pushed back the rhododendron branches and found us. “Thought I heard something.”
Geraldine was trained for capture. “We’re just sitting here, Mama. Just talking about holy baptism.”
“That right?” Mrs. Lee peered at me. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Willa, Mama. You know.”
Mrs. Lee looked doubtful. “Willa Romeyn?”
“Yes’m,” I said.
“Whoo. You sure don’t look like your mama, do you?” I didn’t answer and she turned away, wiping her hands on her faded dress. “Romeyn through and through.” She made it sound nasty.
Geraldine waited until Mrs. Lee was back at the clothesline. “You don’t have a mother.”
“I do, too,” I said. I hated this conversation. “She’s sick.” I waited. I knew what was coming, but there was no reason to hand it to her on a silver platter.
“What’s she got?”
“Leprosy,” I said, shaking my head sadly. I’d recently read Ben-Hur, and leprosy had struck me as exactly the right kind of sickness for my mother. People who had it were sent away, far away, where no one had to see their falling-off noses. This was the first time I’d used it.
“I never heard of it,” said Geraldine.
“Oh, it’s just awful,” I said. “Your eyeballs hang down over your face, and your skin gets all scaly, and your limbs twist around backward. Sometimes.” Ben-Hur’s sister got holes in her lips, but I didn’t want to overdo it.
“Nuh-uh,” said Geraldine.
“It’s true. Haven’t you ever read Ben-Hur? You’d like it. It’s a real religious book.”
“Your mother’s eyeballs hang down over her face?” Geraldine stared at me. I began to think that maybe leprosy was not the perfect sickness. I wondered should I go back to smallpox.
“No. No. She has a mild case of it. But she had to go to a leper colony all the same. That’s where they keep them, all together, because they’re the only ones who can stand to see each other.” Really, my mother lived in sin in Grand Mile with Mr. Parnell Rudy. Mr. Rudy was married to someone else, a lady who would never ever let him go, according to my mother. But I wasn’t going to tell Geraldine about that. That was none of Geraldine’s beeswax.
“If my mother had leprosy, I’d stand it,” Geraldine said proudly. “I wouldn’t let them take her away.”
“Yes, you would. Otherwise, you’d go crazy. That’s what happens if you see a leper. It’s a known fact.”
“Jesus healed the lepers,” she said.
“I know. That’s in the book, too. But that’s Jesus.” I looked at her sternly. “Jesus is God. I don’t set myself up to be as good as Jesus.”
I had her there. She unbent a little and said, “Let’s practice spying.”
I didn’t feel like it. And I didn’t want to run afoul of Mrs. Lee again, either. “I got to go home now,” I said. “I have to scrub the floors.”
Geraldine nodded sympathetically. “Okay. Tomorrow, then?”
“Maybe,” I lied.
—
I turned down Blooding Avenue. The name sounded like butchers, but it was a real pretty street, with trees all along, and I enjoyed walking in the shade. I got cooler there and stopped fussing. I didn’t care what Mrs. Lee thought, not about anything, and especially not about my mother. Twice a year, Bird and I had to go to Grand Mile to see our mother. We hated those visits. She gripped us too tight and moaned about how we were lost to her. One time I said, “You’re the one who left, aren’t you?” but that only made her moan louder. And she always made Monte Cristo sandwiches for lunch. She called it a treat, but it was the only thing she knew how to make, and Bird usually threw up on the way home. Sometimes, if I held her hand real hard, she didn’t, but mostly she did.
I came to an old bridge made of yellow stone and stood still for a bit, watching the cloud of bugs that hung over Academy Creek. Geraldine’s army hadn’t been as much fun as I’d expected anyway. I slipped round the end of the bridge and made my way down the soft, rotsmelling banks to walk along the water. I liked being alone. There was a chance I’d be a hermit when I grew up.
I hadn’t been down there long when I saw Father, walking along the sidewalk about twenty feet above me. He wasn’t in Ohio any more than I was! I almost called out, and then I thought better of it. I wasn’t sure he’d be glad to see me. For a couple of seconds, I stood there, thinking maybe I should let well enough alone. But as Father walked away, I decided to follow him. It would be almost like we were on an adventure together.
So I trailed behind and below him, keeping on the lookout for branches and nettles and, at the same time, watching as he moved along, quick and sure. Then, from one second to the next, he disappeared. I scrambled up the dirt banks as fast as I could, wondering where he could have gotten to. Then I saw. I’d come up in back of Mr. Russell’s house, the Tare Estate. It was one of the biggest houses in town, a real mansion, with real gardens, too, like the ones you read about in books—flower beds tidy inside low bo
xwood hedges and a fountain with a naked cherub boy in the middle. All that grand place belonged to little Mr. Russell, who mostly just sat on his veranda and drank ice-tea.
Jottie paid Mr. Russell a call now and then, and it looked like my father did, too. I stood behind the stone wall and watched Father skim through the garden, twisting and turning among those boxwood hedges as if he did it every day of his life. He was so fast. In no time, he reached the house, and then he did a thing that surprised me. He didn’t follow the path that led to the front porch, the way you’d go if you were visiting; instead, he turned the other way, toward the back of the house, with its towers and porches and the conservatory that bulged out. I squinted, watching him stop at a small black door that was in the bottom of a tower. He didn’t have a key, so far as I could tell. He just opened it and went in.
Five blocks east of Willa, Jottie proceeded along Prince Street, keeping step with Inez Tapscott as they retreated from the home of Mrs. Sloan Inskeep, where the Daughters of Macedon had been edified by a towering cherry cake and a demonstration of Mrs. Inskeep’s tapestry work on international themes.
“Those tapestries were real interesting,” Inez observed. “She must be busy as a bee, making all those.”
Jottie nodded vigorously. What could she say? “I liked the one about Argentina.”
“Oh, my, yes! So exotic, with all those—things!” Inez exclaimed. “Though I can’t say I like those little pencil mustaches. Do you?” She sent an inquiring look at Jottie.
Pencil mustaches? What on earth was she talking about? Gracious and pleasant, Jottie reminded herself. She took a stab at it. “I guess I like them better than those great big ones that look like a weasel taking a nap.”
“A weasel—” Inez began to giggle. “Jottie Romeyn, you just slay me!”
Abruptly, Jottie came to a halt. “Oh, Inez! I almost forgot! I promised I’d get the girls some ice cream! I’m just going to run in here! Such a good time! So interesting!” The words streamed from her into Inez Tapscott’s pleased face. “Thank you kindly for letting me come along! I sure will look forward to the next meeting!”
Once inside Statler’s, she leaned against the door, inhaling the candied air of freedom.
“Jottie! How-you? Been a long time!” Armine Statler, big and pink, lay a meaty hand on his counter. “What can I do for you?”
Refuge came at a price; you couldn’t expect otherwise. “I’ll have a chocolate soda, thanks, Armine,” she said.
As he busied himself with scooper and glass, Jottie pressed her hip against the cooler. If only she could press her whole body into the chill of the metal. Her head, ensnared in her best hat; her hands, ensnared in white gloves; and her bowels, ensnared in a girdle borrowed from Mae. “Stupid,” she muttered under her breath.
“Beg pardon?” shouted Armine Statler. His head was inside the cooler and he couldn’t hear a thing.
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” Jottie said.
“Oh. Thought you did.” He pulled his head out. “Chocolate, right?”
“Yes. Chocolate.” Chocolate, indeed! As if she needed a chocolate soda at four-thirty in the afternoon! At a cost of ten cents! Perfectly good money thrown away because she couldn’t think of one more thing to say to Inez Tapscott. Loyal, good-hearted Inez, who had never once failed to greet Jottie like a long-lost sister—and how had Jottie repaid her? She had run away. She was ashamed of herself.
Jottie set her purse on a little white table and sat down. When Armine Statler brought her soda over, she looked with distaste at the brown bubbles foaming up the sides of the glass. She didn’t even like chocolate sodas. Vause had liked them; that’s what it was. When, long ago, she’d come to Statler’s with her friends, after school, she’d waited for him—not in a way that anyone else could see, but with her ears alive for his voice, her skin open to the heat of the bodies that flocked around him each afternoon. Felix came, too, of course, and usually Sol, and a pack of other boys and girls, but Vause was the center. Vause, separated from her in public by two years and his various forms of celebrity, would eventually see her, or Felix would, and she would glory in the brief acknowledgment: “Josie!” Sometimes one of them would come to her table and talk for a moment.
“Ain’t you going to eat it?” Armine Statler said.
Jottie jumped. “Oh! I’m woolgathering, Armine.”
“Gonna get real hot in all that wool, Jottie. Ha!” Armine slapped himself in merriment.
“I was just thinking about how we used to come here when I was in high school. Back when your father ran the place.”
Armine nodded. “Uh-huh. I worked out in the back then, but I remember.”
Impulsively, Jottie said, “Do you remember Vause Hamilton? He used to have a chocolate soda pretty near every day.” It didn’t matter if she talked about him to Armine. Armine was in the business of being agreeable. He wasn’t likely to point out that Vause had burned her father’s factory down.
“Sure. Vause—he spent a lot of nickels in here.” Armine smiled warmly. “All the kids did then. Not like now.” His good humor vanished. “Ice cream is the first thing folks stop buying. The first thing.” He frowned at her soda. “Ain’t you going to eat it?”
Jottie picked up the glass and took a long, obedient sip. Milky bubbles filled her mouth. “My, that hits the spot, Armine,” she said.
He nodded complacently and moved away as another customer came in. Jottie looked at the reflection of her hat in the window. She looked like a lady. But she wasn’t a lady; she was a coward. All the flower-arranging in the world isn’t going to make Willa safe if you can’t be gracious and pleasant for one afternoon, she scolded herself. But I don’t understand what they’re talking about half the time, she pleaded. Doesn’t matter, the scolding voice snapped. Pretend.
The door slammed and a man in shabby trousers came in. “I need another doggone carton of vanilla, Armine.”
Armine smiled. “That’s fine. I’ll get that right up.” He called over to Jottie. “Bill, here, his wife likes her vanilla ice cream.”
“She’s expecting,” explained Bill.
“That’s nice,” said Jottie.
“Every day, she eats ice cream,” Armine added. “It’s good for you, see?”
“I reckon so,” said Bill. “Costing me an arm and a leg.”
Jottie turned again to the window. Everlasting’s out, she observed, as Prince Street filled with tired-looking men. Great eddies of people surged by and fetched up around Coca-Colas, around lampposts, around jokes that made them laugh hoarsely.
And there, suddenly, was Sol, walking on the sidewalk opposite, more impressive than he ever was in her memory. Stately, even, in a dark-blue suit. Concealed behind a drooping curtain, Jottie allowed her eyes to follow him, to read him like an illicit book. He was dignified. When had that happened? Her default Sol—dancing with fear, his fingers gripping hers, his eyes on Felix and Vause far, far above, They’re going to fall, I know it, I know it!—had disappeared, and in his place was a man grown solid and calm and admirable. And he had done it without her, without Felix or Vause or her, when once he had sought only their approval.
“I can’t believe Sol still cares,” Emmett had said. Did he? After all this time? Her thoughts moved back to the parade, to the plea that had appeared on his face: Can’t you forgive me? Can’t we be friends again?
But the Sol walking along Prince Street made no such supplications. He was no beggar. She watched him, mesmerized by his steady tread, the casual lift of his hand, the brief laugh, the slapped back—the serene recessional of the well liked and universally respected. Faces turned toward him in anticipation as he approached, looked after him with friendly regret as he passed. Hungrily, Jottie gleaned every detail.
Before she could stop herself, the thought came: If Willa had a father like Sol, she’d be safe forever. And then, even more unthinkable: If I married him, I could make her safe. It was a shocking thought; it was a heady thought. It would mean instant
respectability, instant freedom from the past. Instant pudding, she jeered at herself. It’s going to be a real trick, marrying someone you haven’t talked to in eighteen years.
Emmett said he still cares.
She assessed the possibility while Sol strolled on. No. But, then again, maybe. He had cared, once. How watchful he’d been, trying to see what she thought before he spoke, trying to slip into the chair beside hers before anyone else did, trying to take her away from the others with questions: Is that a new dress? What’re you reading? I can help you with that geometry if you want.
Imagine being married to Sol. It would be so easy, pressing shirts and passing coffee cups, nothing more, nothing hard. And in exchange: an honorable estate, the sweet peach of unimpeachability, safety without end, amen. Jottie pictured it in longing detail: Willa and Bird, immaculate skirts swishing as they came up freshly painted front stairs, carefree and ignorant. And there she was herself, at the door, with a plate of cookies in her outstretched hand, her smile simple and straightforward, nothing more or less than what could be seen. The girls will be fine, she reminded herself halfheartedly; I joined a club, didn’t I? She studied Sol through her eyelashes. The small, milky boy had disappeared; he’d become almost handsome. Better than handsome. Assured. The suit had something to do with it. Did Violet pick out his clothes? They picked them out together, probably. In Washington, maybe. She was willing to bet they went to Washington to shop. Not Krohn’s—she’d put a nickel on it. Imagine going to Washington to buy clothes.
Across the street, Sol lifted his hat to a lady passing, a lady she didn’t know—and there, he smiled, too. He was happy. Sol’s face never lied. He was perfectly happy. She was a fool. He didn’t care about her, not anymore. He probably had a girl. He was probably in love with some sweet little twenty-year-old girl. He had his own life.
It hurt.
She sat at her table for a few moments longer, until Sol turned up Council Street. Then she stood, fumbling her purse over her arm. “Thanks, Armine,” she called as she made for the door. She stepped outside, gulped a breath of sodden air, and turned right, in the direction of Academy Street.