“
“You go get your daddy the proper way,” I yell. “What I tell you about yelling in my house?”
Kindra rolls her eyes at me like she’s just been asked to do the stupidest thing in the world. She stamps her feet down the hall. “
“
The kitchen is the only room in the house we can all fit in together. The rest are set up as bedrooms. Me and Leroy’s room is in the back, next to that is a little room for Leroy Junior and Benny, and the front living room’s been turned into a bedroom for Felicia, Sugar, and Kindra. So all that leaves is the kitchen. Unless it’s crazy cold outside, our back door stays open with the screen shut to keep out the flies. All the time there’s the roar of kids and cars and neighbors and dogs barking.
Leroy comes in and sits at the table next to Benny, who’s seven. Felicia fills up the glasses with milk or water. Kindra carries a plate of beans and ham to her daddy and comes back to the stove for more. I hand her another plate.
“This one for Benny,” I say.
“Benny, get up and help your mama,” Leroy says.
“Benny got the asthma. He don’t need to be doing nothing.” But my sweet boy gets up anyway, takes the plate from Kindra. My kids know how to work.
They all set at the table except me. Three children are home tonight. Leroy Junior, who’s a senior at Lenier High, is bagging groceries at the Jitney 14. That’s the white grocery store over in Miss Hilly’s neighborhood. Sugar, my oldest girl, in tenth grade, babysits for our neighbor Tallulah who works late. When Sugar’s finished, she’ll walk home and drive her daddy to the late shift at the pipe-fitting plant, then pick up Leroy Junior from the grocery. Leroy Senior will get a ride from the plant at four in the morning with Tallulah’s husband. It all works out.
Leroy eats, but his eyes are on the
“How they do that?” Felicia points at the picture. “Sit there without fighting back?”
“That’s what they supposed to do,” says Leroy.
“I feel like spitting looking at that picture,” I say.
“We talk about it later.” Leroy folds the paper in quarters and tucks it under his thigh.
Felicia says to Benny, not quiet enough, “Good thing Mama wasn’t up on one a them stools. Else none a them white folks had any teeth left.”
“And Mama be in the Parchman jail,” says Benny for everybody to hear.
Kindra props her arm on her hip. “Nuh-uh. Ain’t nobody putting my mama in jail. I beat those white people with a stick till they bleed.”
Leroy points his finger at every one of them. “I don’t want to hear a word about it outside this house. It’s too dangerous. You hear me, Benny? Felicia?” Then he points his finger at Kindra. “You hear me?”
Benny and Felicia nod their heads, look down at their plates. I’m sorry I started all this and give Kindra the keep-it-shut look. But Little Miss Something slaps her fork down on the table, climbs out of her chair. “I hate white people! And I’m on tell everbody if I want to!”
I chase her down the hall. When I catch her, I potato sack her back to the table.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Felicia says because she’s the kind that’s going to take the blame for everyone every time. “And I look after Kindra. She don’t know what she saying.”
But Leroy smacks his hand on the table. “Nobody’s getting in that mess! Y’all hear me?” And he stares his children down. I turn to the stove so he can’t see my face. Lord help me if he finds out what I’m doing with Miss Skeeter.
All THE NEXT WEEK, I hear Miss Celia on her bedroom phone, leaving messages at Miss Hilly’s house, Elizabeth Leefolt’s house, Miss Parker’s house, both Caldwell sisters, and ten other society ladies. Even Miss Skeeter’s house, which I don’t like one bit. I told Miss Skeeter myself:
The irritating part is, after Miss Celia makes these stupid calls and hangs up the phone, she picks that receiver right back up. She listens for a dial tone in case the line doesn’t go free.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that phone,” I say. She just keeps smiling at me like she’s been doing for a month now, like she’s got a pocketful of paper money.
“Why you in such a good mood?” I finally ask her. “Mister Johnny being sweet or something?” I’m loading up my next “When you gone tell” but she beats me to it.
“Oh, he’s being sweet alright,” she says. “And it’s not gonna be much longer until I tell him about you.”
“Good,” I say and I mean it. I am sick of this lying game. I imagine how she must smile at Mister Johnny when she hands him my pork chops, how that nice man has to act like he’s so proud of her when he knows it’s me doing the cooking. She’s making a fool of herself, a fool of her nice husband, and a liar out of me.
“Minny, would you mind fetching the mail for me?” she asks even though she’s sitting here all dressed and I’ve got butter on my hands and a wash in the machine and a motor blender going. She’s like a Philistine on a Sunday, the way she won’t take but so many steps a day. Except every day’s Sunday around here.
I clean off my hands and head out to the box, sweat half a gallon on the way. I mean, it’s only ninety-nine degrees outside. There’s a two-foot package sitting next to the mailbox, in the grass. I’ve seen her with these big brown boxes before, figure it’s some kind of beauty cream she’s ordering. But when I pick it up, it’s heavy. Makes a tinkling sound like I’m toting Co-Cola bottles.
“You got something, Miss Celia.” I plop the box on the floor of the kitchen.
I’ve never seen her jump up so fast. In fact, the only thing fast about Miss Celia is the way she dresses. “It’s just my . . .” She mumbles something. She heaves the box all the way to her bedroom and I hear the door slam.
An hour later, I go back in the bedroom to suck the rugs. Miss Celia’s not laying down and she’s not in the bathroom. I know she’s not in the kitchen or the living room or out at the pool and I just dusted fancy parlor number one and number two and vacuumed the bear. Which means she must be upstairs. In the creepy rooms.
Before I got fired for accusing Mr. White Manager of wearing a hair piece, I used to clean the ballrooms at the Robert E. Lee Hotel. Those big, empty rooms with no peoples and the lipsticked napkins and the leftover smell of perfume gave me chills. And so does the upstairs of Miss Celia’s house. There’s even an antique cradle with Mister Johnny’s old baby bonnet and silver rattle that I swear I can hear tinkling sometimes on its own accord. And it’s thinking of that tinkling sound that makes me wonder if those boxes don’t have something to do with her sneaking up to those rooms every other day.
I decide it’s time I go up there and take a look for myself.
I KEEP AN EYE ON Miss Celia the next day, waiting for her to sneak upstairs so I can see what she’s up to. Around two o’clock, she sticks her head in the kitchen and gives me a funny smile. A minute later, I hear the squeak in the ceiling.
Real easy, I head for the staircase. Even though I tiptoe, the dishes in the sideboard jangle, the floorboards groan. I walk so slowly up the stairs, I can hear my own breathing. At the top, I turn down the long hall. I pass wide open bedroom doors, one, two, three. Door number four, down on the end, is closed except for an inch. I move in a little closer. And through the crack, I spot her.
She’s sitting on the yellow twin bed by the window and she’s not smiling. The package I toted in from the mailbox is open and on the bed are a dozen bottles filled with brown liquid. It’s a slow burn that rises up my bosoms, my chin, my mouth. I know the look of those flat bottles. I nursed a worthless pint drinker for twelve years and when my lazy, life-sucking daddy finally died, I swore to God with tears in my eyes I’d never marry one. And then I did.
And now here I am nursing another goddamn drinker. These aren’t even store-bought bottles, these have a red wax top like my Uncle Toad used to cap his moonshine with. Mama always told me the real alcoholics, like my
