I said, “If you don’t want to participate in social situations, then don’t, but it’s embarrassing to me and rude to other people when you say you will and then flake out.”
When he glanced at me, I sensed that his mood had deflected my comments completely; my words were like pennies bouncing off him. He said, “But you don’t want to be a nag, huh?”
“I’d think you’d try to go out of your way to be respectful toward Miss Ruby.”
He held his razor under the faucet for a few seconds, then brought it back up to his face. “Who gave her the impression I’d be here? Wasn’t me, darlin’. If this is so important to you, reschedule—see if they can do it next weekend. All’s I know is I’m about to buy a baseball team.”
“We’ll be in Princeton next weekend.” I took a step backward, into our bedroom. I would go downstairs and prepare lunch, and I’d welcome the Suttons to our home, I’d do this even if Charlie wouldn’t deign to be there and his mother didn’t approve. But first, in a voice so snippy I hardly recognized it, I said, “Don’t leave your whiskers in the sink.”
JESSICA SUTTON HAD grown probably a foot since the last time I’d seen her, and I knew as soon as we greeted the Suttons at the front door that she was, if not an adult, no longer a child. Some sixth-graders are still children—boys more than girls—but in other kids that age, you can see a new, unsettled awareness of themselves and the world. In the best cases, the awareness is also a politeness. When you ask them how they are, they reciprocate the question, and this was exactly what Jessica did, and then she said, “Thanks for having us over, Mrs. Blackwell,” and I felt a small heartbreak for Ella, who was most definitely still a girl and would, I suspected, have difficulty keeping up with the poised, mature young woman Jessica had become. I realized that the default image of Jessica I’d been carrying in my head was from an Easter-egg hunt years before at Harold and Priscilla’s (contrary to what Priscilla had implied, Blackwells did sometimes socialize with their hired help, but it was on the Blackwells’ turf, under circumstances that highlighted their beneficence and largesse without implying that they spent time with these people because they actually enjoyed it). That Easter, Jessica had worn a red skirt with purple stars and a matching purple shirt with red stars, and even her barrettes had been color-coordinated. Her hair had been divided into little squares all over her head, each square gathered into a small ponytail, braided, and clipped with a red or purple plastic barrette; as she dashed about, accumulating eggs in her basket, the barrettes clicked together. Now Jessica was tall and serious, and she was pretty—she wore a pink tank top underneath a pink-and-white-striped dress shirt that she kept unbuttoned, and white slacks—but she was hardly girlish at all.
As soon as she, Miss Ruby, Yvonne, baby Antoine, Ella, and I were settled on the brick patio in our backyard, Ella said, “Can I show Jessica my pop bottle?” and I said, “Honey, they just got here.”
Jessica said, “No, I’d love to see it.” The pop bottle was a prize Ella had won at Biddle Academy’s Harvest Fest the previous fall, a glass Pepsi bottle whose neck had been heated and stretched into distortion before the bottle, emptied of cola, was filled with a toxic-looking blue liquid. Though Ella had acquired this eyesore over six months earlier, it remained a fresh source of pride—when she was seeking to impress, she clearly considered it the most powerful weapon in her arsenal.
“Come back down in ten minutes to eat,” I called after them as they headed inside, and when the girls were gone, I said, “I can’t believe how much Jessica has grown up. And Antoine”—I leaned toward him, widening my eyes and opening my mouth —“I think maybe you’re the sweetest baby ever.” He wore a pale blue sleeper and had large brown eyes, a head of curly brown hair, and that perfectly smooth baby skin.
Sounding amused, Yvonne said, “Alice, you’re welcome to hold him.”
“Mind his head,” Miss Ruby said gruffly as Yvonne passed him to me.
In my arms, Antoine was ridiculously light—at two months, he weighed perhaps ten or twelve pounds—and I found myself making all sorts of semi-involuntary coos and gasps and funny faces, no dispensation of dignity being too great for the reward of his tiny smile.
“Maybe you should have another, you ever think of that?” Yvonne said.
I laughed. “I’m too old.”
Yvonne made a skeptical expression. “Oh, I bet you and Charlie B. still got some juice.”
“Watch your mouth, Yvonne Patrice,” Miss Ruby said, and at this, both Yvonne and I laughed. Miss Ruby had on turquoise linen pants, a turquoise short-sleeved sweater with scalloped sleeves, and flat sandals with turquoise straps, and Yvonne wore a flowered T-shirt and a long denim skirt. While Miss Ruby was slim, Yvonne had wide hips and thick upper arms, large teeth and lips, short hair that she fluffed up off her head, and, I noticed now, swollen nursing breasts.
“I’m sorry that Charlie isn’t here today,” I said. “We got our signals crossed, and he ended up scheduling a business meeting.”
Yvonne waved away my apology. “Clyde’s working at the hospital, so I know all about that. The doctors and nurses still gotta eat on Memorial Day.”
“You and Clyde were married last summer?” I said.
“He’s a real good guy.” Yvonne leaned forward, to where I held Antoine on my lap. “Isn’t that right, Baby A?” she cooed. “Papa’s a good man.” To me, she said, “Antoine looks just like his father, that’s for sure.”
“They always do at this age,” Miss Ruby said.
A few minutes later, when Ella and Jessica returned, I brought out the cold pasta salad I’d made, which had asparagus and chicken in it. With her mouth full, Ella said to all of us, “Want to hear what Jessica taught me?”
“Swallow, honey,” I said.
Ella had been sitting with one leg folded beneath her on a wrought-iron chair, and she stood, still holding her fork while she flung her arms in the air and twitched her hips:
“Basketball is what we do,
And we’ll cheer it just for you.
Shake it high and shake it low,
In the hoop the ball will go.”
“Impressive.” I clapped a little, and Yvonne and Jessica did, too, but Miss Ruby didn’t. I turned to Jessica. “Are you a cheerleader?”
“Nah, I just know that. Maybe in junior high, I’ll do cheer.”
“I hear from your grandmother that you’re quite an English student. What books did you read this year?”
