Mae swung through the door, holding a bowl of string beans. When she saw Miss Beck in her brown roses, she stopped and carefully moved her cigarette to the side of her mouth. “Dinner is served,” she said.
The lamplight grew yellower as the dusk drew in, making them look hotter, even, than they were. Layla Beck, lustrous in her silk dress as dinner began, was now gleaming with perspiration and surreptitiously dabbing her napkin to her neck and temples under the guise of patting her mouth. Minerva and Mae exchanged smug glances, the girl’s discomfort adding some minor honey to the uniform sourness of their grapes.
Jottie’s eyes flicked around the table automatically, checking plates. Miss Layla Beck did not care for her apples; that was clear. Jottie watched her pushing them around her plate and told herself that it made no never mind to her whether Miss Beck swallowed a single mouthful. It was just that Bird was watching her like a hawk, and now, Jottie knew, she’d have to hear about how fried apples were so revolting that no one could eat them, no one, when last week the child had downed half a pan. Jottie suppressed a sigh; next time she would tell Mrs. Cooper that she only took boarders who ate every last bite. And didn’t wear silk dresses. Or white suits, either. Jottie wiped the sweat from her palms with her napkin and switched from plates to manners. Willa’s arms were beneath the table—good—but she’d gone dreamy and silent—bad, because her head would sink lower and lower over her plate until she looked like an ape-girl. Mae, who never cared about food, was idly tucking her beans under her ham, while she listened to Miss Beck and Felix chatter about—what? Oh. The führer.
“To me, the change in Berlin seemed quite striking,” Miss Beck was saying.
“So you’d been before?” asked Felix, and Jottie busied herself by imagining the saga of Miss Beck’s sorry fall from riches to relief against the backdrop of her perennial—though defunct—picture of Berlin: the kaiser’s pointed helmet glinting among dark columns.
“Oh, yes, years ago; was it 1930?” Layla paused. “Yes, 1930. Of course, I was only a child”—Mae shot a lightning look at Minerva—“but I remember how terribly gloomy it was. The streets were lined with beggars and people selling things, old family heirlooms and so on, for nothing. Mother—” She paused again. “Well, it was terribly gloomy. But last year—obviously, we went there in the spring, so there was that, but the people seemed to be much more cheerful. And the buildings were so clean.” She glanced at Felix and put down her fork. “Not that I approve of Hitler, you know.”
“Of course not,” murmured Jottie, adding to her picture a frivolous yellow-haired mother who frittered away the family fortune on German heirlooms. No, better, ran off with a strapping Nazi, leaving Miss Beck to earn her passage home by—what? Dusting? Seemed unlikely. English lessons? Yes, much better. Jottie was just manufacturing an ill-fated romance between Miss Beck and a piano-playing consumptive when Willa came to.
“We’ve got dessert after this,” she assured Layla earnestly. “We’ve got a dessert course.”
Jottie smiled at her niece. Dreamy Willa—who knew how her thoughts landed where they did? “As long as we’re on the subject”—Jottie stood—“do you care for sugar or cream in your coffee, Miss Beck?”
“Sugar and cream, I’m afraid,” said Layla. “Thank you.”
Felix chuckled. “Uh-oh.”
“Is that not done?” she asked gaily.
Felix lifted his dark eyes to his sister’s. “What about it, Jottie? You going to toss Miss Beck out on her ear?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. Traitor. “Miss Beck can have whatever she likes in her coffee.” She turned to enter the kitchen. “Mae, will you help clear? And you, too, Willa, since you saw fit to disappear before dinner.”
“I’d be glad to help,” called Layla, looking after her.
“No, no, you just sit right there,” said Jottie. “Willa.”
Willa scraped back her chair. She loaded her own plate on her arm and set her glass on top of it. Then she put her fork in her glass. She sighed heavily and stumped toward the kitchen.
“It’s a shame how that child suffers,” said Minerva, assembling plates as she rose. Laden, she backed expertly against the swinging door and entered the kitchen, joining her sisters at the sink. In silence, Jottie scraped Mae’s plate.
“Go on, Willa,” said Mae, pointing her chin at the door. “Go get some more dishes.”
Willa plodded away.
Silently, Minerva and Mae watched as Jottie placed the knives and forks in the sink.
Mae cleared her throat. “Used to being waited on, isn’t she?”
“She didn’t even stand up,” said Minerva.
Jottie set a platter carefully on the counter. “Of course, she’s only a child. And clearing the table is so terribly gloomy,” she said.
Mae’s face brightened. “Not in the spring. Obviously.”
“Oh, obviously,” said Jottie. “I just love the spring.”
“That’s funny,” said Minerva. “So do I!”
The three sisters snickered and returned, rejuvenated, to the dining room.
—
“Close tonight,” Jottie sighed, waving her napkin to and fro.
“I heard you make yourself hotter doing that,” said Willa. “The waving makes you hot.”
“Let’s us go sit in the cool,” said Mae. “We can do the dishes later.”
Jottie rose. “Care to join us on the porch, Miss Beck?” she asked, pitying the girl in spite of her silk dress and uneaten apples.
Layla’s eyes veered to Felix, but there was no help there. He was watching Bird as she took a guilty finger-scoop of Spanish cream from Mae’s half-filled bowl and crammed it into her mouth. He tossed her his napkin, and she caught it with a practiced gesture.
“I think—I’m rather tired—and tomorrow—” stammered Layla. “Well, I think I’ll say good night. Thank you for the delicious dinner, Miss Romeyn.” She stood, clutching her napkin against her dress, her face glistening in the dull yellow light.
“We have breakfast at seven,” Jottie said. “I hope that’s convenient for you?”
“Oh! Yes. Seven,” repeated Layla. “Yes, of course.”
“Now I’m done,” said Bird, licking her fingers.
“I should think so. Good night, Miss Beck. Come along, girls.” Jottie nodded with what she hoped looked like friendly detachment and led the procession to the porch.
“Good night, Miss Layla Beck,” simpered Bird as she went.
“Good night,” Layla said flatly.
Felix stayed behind, his arms crossed over the back of his chair, his eyes on the table. “Good night, Miss Beck,” he said after a moment. He turned his head to look at her and added gently, “You’ll get used to it.”
Layla nodded, hard, and walked stiffly toward the stairs.
5
The screen door slammed behind them as they came out onto the porch, exhaling the final labored breath of day, taking in the first calming draft of night. Up and down Academy Street, supper was drawing to a close, the last brittle ping of spoons sounding on coffee cups, the collective woody rumble of chairs moving away from tables. The houses that lined the street looked alike in the thickening light, their massive horizontal bulk broken by golden rectangles of windows and doors. And now, as one, they began to disgorge their inhabitants, pouring them out into screened porches to lower themselves into wicker divans and decrepit rockers. Voices, high and low, wheeled like bats over the wide lawns.
Same as ever, same as ever, Jottie thought, sinking into her shredding seat. She watched her nieces commence their nightly rite of selecting chairs. They were young and they didn’t understand. They believed that one chair was better than another. They believed that it was important to make distinctions, to choose, to discern particulars. Like crows, they picked out bits from each evening and lugged them around, thinking that they were hoarding treasure. They remembered the jokes, or the games, or the stories, not knowing that it was all one, that each tiny vibratio
n of difference would be sanded, over the course of years, into sameness. It doesn’t matter, Jottie assured herself. They’ll get to it. Later, they’ll know that the sameness is the important part.
After deliberation, Willa picked a desk chair that had migrated on an unknown current from the parlor, and Bird arranged herself across a rocker, lolling her head over the arm to better accommodate her full stomach.
“I’m stuffed,” she announced. No one said anything. “I ate too much,” she explained. “My stomach is distended.”
“Oh, hush,” said Mae.
The night was no different from any other. Soft-edged in the gathering shadows, the adults talked and drank coffee. The children waited for something interesting to happen. Idly, Bird rubbed her stomach and half-listened as her aunts talked about the price of something or other. Her eyes moved to her father, his dark head bent over a cigarette. “Daddy?” she inquired, for the pleasure of seeing him look up.
“Hm?”
A second ticked by while she searched for something impressive to ask. “Was Jottie ever bad when she was little?”
“Never,” Jottie said at once. “I was good as gold. A model child, virtuous and pious and kind to the little animals. And clean! So clean!”
“Jottie.” Felix shook his head reprovingly. “You’ll fry for such lies.” He smiled at Bird. “Jottie did so many terrible things that it’s hard to pick just one.”
“Felix! You were far worse than she was,” cried Minerva. “Than anyone was.”
“Slander. Base slander and calumny,” Felix said, dismissing her words with a flip of his fingers. “Did you know Jottie almost drowned a man once?” he asked his daughters. “On purpose, too.”
“You helped!” Jottie protested.
“Tell!” Willa looked between her father and her aunt, her face shining with happiness. “Tell!”
Felix lifted his chin at Jottie, delegating the task.
“It was nothing,” Jottie began. “Nothing terrible. The Reverend Holy James Shee came to town once a year to save everyone’s soul. Every year, he’d go to the quarry and walk on water, and folks would scream and cry and get baptized and give Holy James Shee all their money.”
Felix chuckled. “Jottie couldn’t stand that part.”
“Well, I knew he was walking on something,” Jottie went on. “So Felix and I drove out to the quarry and went swimming around, and sure enough, we found a big board stuck right under the water for Holy James Shee to walk on, the old sinner.” She paused. “So we took it.”
“And then what?” urged Willa breathlessly. “Did he fall in?”
“He did,” Jottie said. “He didn’t notice that the board was gone until he stepped out of his little holy boat and sank like a stone.”
“Jottie stood there and laughed,” Felix said.
“I did not! Not the whole time, anyway. Once his white robes got wrapped around his neck and he started shrieking for help, I didn’t laugh.”
“You ran,” said Felix. He grinned at Willa. “Jottie turned tail and ran, and that was how everyone knew it was us who’d done it.”
“I was only a child! I was scared!”
“She was guilty,” said Felix. “And do you know who our daddy whipped? Me. He whipped me until his switch broke, and he had to go out and cut himself another one to finish up.”
“Poor Father,” mourned Willa, reaching to touch his sleeve.
“I’m sorry, honey,” said Jottie sympathetically.
“Don’t be,” said Felix. “Daddy got a lot of pleasure out of it.”
“Felix! Daddy whipped you because you were so bad the rest of the time, he figured it was your idea!” said Minerva. “You were the worst boy in town!”
“Wasn’t,” said Felix.
“Oh! You!” Her wicker chair crackled with her indignation. “Who practically chopped Jottie’s hand off with a sword? That you stole! Who put that ladder on the roof of the Statesman Saloon?” Her voice rose. “Who took Daddy’s barn apart piece by piece until it fell over? Sold his own baby brother to the Gypsies? Stole Gaylord Spurling’s coatrack every single week like clockwork and put it in Miss Shanholtzer’s parlor?” she demanded. “Who?”
“I give up,” said Felix blandly. “Who?”
“Yoo-hoo! Jottie! You-all up there?” Harriet and Richie bobbed out of the darkness, the first of the evening visitors.
“Wait!” Willa held out a hand to stay the moment. “Tell about the coatrack. Why did you put it in—” But it was too late. Felix was rising to his feet. Willa slumped back in her chair.
“Harriet!” cried Jottie. “How-you, honey? Hey, Richie. Come on and sit down!”
“Why, Felix! I haven’t seen you in a hundred years!” Harriet cried. She flapped her hand at him. “Lord, honey, sit down! It’s too hot to stand up.” She squinted across the gloom. “I don’t know why you don’t get any older, Felix. The rest of us look like something the cat dragged in, and you’re just the same as twenty years ago.”
He grinned at her. “I got gray hair.”
“I don’t see any gray hair,” said Harriet. She moved toward him across the dark. “Show me a gray hair.”
He bent his head, and she stretched out her hand—
There was a loud crack as Richie shifted in his chair, and Harriet snatched her hand away. “Dark as a pocket tonight, isn’t it?” she said to no one in particular, plopping down beside Bird. “I’ll bet we’re going to get a storm before the night’s out, don’t you?”
Underneath the talk of heat, the low voices of the men began. “How’s the chemical business these days?” Richie asked.
“Can’t complain.” Felix drew on his cigarette.
“That right?” said Richie. “Then you’re the only one who can’t.”
“I heard everything down at Everlasting was fine.”
Richie made a disgusted noise in his throat. “Shank fired forty-four men this afternoon.”
Like a ripple, like a stone dropped in water, Jottie, Harriet, Mae, and Minerva shifted in their chairs. In the darkness, Willa lifted her head.
Felix whistled softly. “Hard times.”
“Yeah, and he don’t make them any easier. Forty-four guys, all off the line. Management stays put.” Richie’s low voice was rising.
“Look at that Packard out there,” Harriet said nervously. “I’ve never seen that car before.”
“You’re all right, then,” Felix said.
“That’s not the point. Your father wouldn’t have done it,” Richie replied.
“Mm.”
“Shank don’t give a”—Richie glanced at the children—“a hoot about what’s right. Sol”—someone drew in a breath, and Willa’s eyes circled, trying to discern who—“he does what he can, but Shank don’t care. Sol says he’ll get on a loom himself if he has to.”
Felix said nothing.
“He’ll do it, too,” Richie said with satisfaction. “He would. Sol’s a right guy—” There was an audible intake of air as Harriet kicked him. “Well,” he said, after a second. “It’s hard times for everybody, just about. It sure is.”
“You girls, look at all those lightning bugs out there in the yard,” said Jottie calmly. Willa watched Minerva and Mae collapse slightly against their chairs. “I wouldn’t let such a chance go by, if I were you.”
“I’ll get you-all a jar,” said Felix, rising. He slid inside the house.
“Hey-you!” called a voice from the sidewalk. “You girls sitting out?”
“We’re just sitting here waiting for you, Belle!” called Jottie. “Come on up.”
Through the flurry of greeting, of coffee-cup getting, Willa waited. Then through the talk of rain, the mayor, Mrs. Roosevelt, cows…
Felix did not return.
Willa leaned forward to put her hand on Jottie’s arm. “Where did Father go?” she whispered.
“Oh, I guess he needed some cigarettes,” said Jottie carelessly.
Willa’s eyes narrowed and she sat back in her ch
air.
Well, I’m damned, thought Jottie in alarm. She knows I’m lying.
—
The rain came, finally, in the early hours of the morning. Jottie awoke in a brilliance of white as lightning made a ghost of her room. She counted, and the thunder rocked her on two. She yawned, rose, and went down the hall to the children’s room. They always slept through it, and she always checked. Yes, fast asleep, both of them, Bird splayed flat in her bed as if she’d been dropped from the ceiling, Willa curled up tight as a snail. Jottie moved to the window and slid the sash down quietly against the rain. She touched Willa’s smooth cheek as she passed back toward her own room and was reassured. Still a baby, really. The old mattress sank beneath her as she lay down. She thought of the porch chairs, rockers thrashing drunkenly to and fro in the wind, fallen ash growing sodden on the floor. A wave of deep, cool air blew in her window, and she shivered ungratefully. Pulling her sheet close around her, she wondered whether Miss Beck had been awakened by the storm. No matter. The girl would get used to it.
6
May 28, 1938
Mrs. Judson Chambers
Deputy Director, Federal Writers’ Project
Works Progress Administration
The Smallridge Building
1013 Quarrier Street
Charleston, West Virginia
Dear Mrs. Chambers,
I am in receipt of your letter of May 14, regarding the History of Macedonia to be sponsored by that city’s town council. Your objections to the project have been noted, but as stated in the General Memorandum on Supplementary Instructions #15, the Central Office is exceedingly interested in these local and other-than-State Guide publications and wishes to encourage them as far as possible. In order to relieve the personnel deficiencies you mentioned and thereby allow your office to undertake this important local publication, I have assigned a new field worker to the West Virginia project. As she will be conducting her field work exclusively in Macedonia, rather than in the Charleston office, and as the town council is eager to have the publication as soon as possible, in order that it will coincide with their sesquicentennial celebrations, I did not feel it necessary to send her down to your office but rather directed her to Macedonia, where she will begin work on the history of the town within the month. She will, however, be an employee of the West Virginia Project and her Field Editorial Copy will be filed to your office. I trust that you will convey the information of this new staff member to Mr. Oliffe, as he, the State Field Assistant, will necessarily have the most involvement in this publication.