Folly (21 page)

“Nope.” Mary Lou closed her mouth around the word as if she had let out too much at once.

“What happened to your room?”

“Nothing. I cleaned it up. Took the baby pictures down.”

“Oh.” Folly didn't want to let on how relieved she was that her first thought hadn't been right. The room looked bare, but at least it had Mary Lou in it. And for the moment it contained them both, though Folly felt the discomfort of the intruder.

“Where's Martha?”

“She went home.”

“Oh.”

So much for that conversation. Folly studied Mary Lou's posture which seemed to declare she was ready to live in misery for the rest of her life. Mary Lou's bones were more prominent than hers, proud of their shapes on their own, but her sad face hung over them, making policy, and Folly stopped herself short of saying anything about saving her supper.

“Is Martha okay?”

“About Daisy, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“She seems to be.” Silence, then Folly continued. “How about you?”

“What about me?”

“How come you didn't come out this afternoon? All that food and we had people stopping by . . . . ”

“Gross. I don't see how you can eat after a burial.” She stuck her nose up in the air.

“Don't mean your body stops needing food for nurturance.”

“Nurturance,” Mary Lou repeated. “It's gross if you ask me.”

“What's bugging you?”

Silence, again. Mary Lou worked a hand into her pants pocket, bit at her bottom lip and wouldn't look at her mother. Folly wanted to take the word
nurturance
back, away from Mary Lou, away from this room, and keep it for herself, where it was cared for, between her and Martha. She was infuriated at the hard finish on Mary Lou, shellac; she shined with a purity that Folly could not penetrate.

Finally, barely containing the spit behind her teeth, Mary Lou said, “How am I ever going to learn to drive if we don't have our own car?”

They were both fantastically relieved by the presence of this concrete problem where there had been none before and began breathing full breaths of air deep into their lungs.

“We'll have to talk to Martha about it. I don't think she'll mind.”

“You don't?”

“No.”

Folly saw tears flood Mary Lou's eyes. “What you crying for?”

She shrugged and tried to stop herself, grabbed a wad of tissues and held them over her eyes like sponges. She couldn't tell her ma it was because she was glad to be talking to her again. And because if she could drive she could go off and leave them when she needed to get away. She was thinking of how she would have driven off after the funeral and spent the whole day riding, watching the horizon, turning off on back roads, deciding her future. Should she go up to Alaska and make money? Quit school and keep working in the store? Go to college? She still couldn't believe Lenore had said that.

Folly realized Mary Lou was both older and younger than she had been thinking of her. She thought of her leaving the paychecks, endorsed, after that first time, week to week. Folly thought of herself, also, as being both older and younger than she had been before she and Martha had become lovers. For that moment, age seemed a lost point of reference between them.

Mary Lou sat very still, as if she knew what was coming. Folly's mouth opened and closed several times without words coming forward until she found a way to start. “I want to tell you about me and Martha. You know ever since she moved here we've been tight friends, still are. But now we're lovers, too. We love each other very much and we're havin' a time that is beautiful to us.” Folly let that sit on the silence before going on. Her mouth was dry. “I hope it don't seem ugly to you. I didn't know, until now, I could love a woman like this, but I do. I haven't told Skeeter and Tiny, yet. I don't know what it will mean to you.”

“I knew it.” Mary Lou said. The tears squeezed out of her eyes and she blotted them again. “I knew it.”

“How?”

“I could see it.”

“What'd you think?”

“I thought I better grow up fast because this was coming. I thought I'd run away. I thought you'd never talk up close with me again.

“Why?”

“Cause you were all the time busy, either with the union stuff or else with hanging around with Martha, and cause I was always working at the store.”

“How come you didn't run away?”

“Cause I never could get the bill paid off at the store.”

Folly felt touched by this daughter, and light with the release of her secret. “Sometimes you gotta just move, regardless of the bills, but in this case, I'm mighty glad you didn't.”

“So,” Mary Lou said, slowly, “does this mean you and Martha are lesbians?”

“Yes.” Folly was surprised at her own clarity. Until now, she had only asked this question and answered it inside herself, flinching at the naked feeling it gave her.

Mary Lou swallowed hard around the answer. She kept thinking she should say, “I'm happy for you,” but that was what mothers said to daughters when they got married, not when they found out they were lesbians. Also, she was not the mother. Also, who was Martha anyway if not their friend, their next door neighbor?

“Ask anything you want,” Folly offered.

Mary Lou couldn't think of a single askable question. Not that she wasn't barraged with them, but they were all too private to ask. What does this mean you do? Do you and Martha sneak off in your room
and make it while I'm asleep in here? Or do you only do it in Martha's trailer? She tried to picture them sprawled out on a bed together, touching, kissing. She could see Lenore and Betsy almost clearly, (in fact it turned her on to fantasize them), one's hand stroking the other's body. Their breasts, did they touch them or avoid them, must touch them, she decided, realizing she didn't avoid her own when she masturbated. But her mother and Martha, her mind didn't stretch that far.

After a long pause, she finally came up with a question. “Does this mean you always were?”

“What?”

“A lesbian.”

Folly realized it was easier for Mary Lou to say that word than for her. She felt a stranger to it and a recognition at the same time. She let the word loll around in her mind, remembering the company lawyer, the way he looked as if he kept a word in his mouth for half an hour after he pronounced it. “It's like going down a long, back road, winding round and round, getting so used to going on and on, winding along, that you don't even know you're still looking for something; then all of a sudden you're not exactly looking but you found something, you're home where you wanted to be. So I don't know if that answers you exactly. I feel like I was moving all along to this, but I sure wouldn't a known it if you'd of asked me.”

“What about my father?”

“What about him? I got you and Skeeter and Tiny out of him. I ain't complainin'.”

“You better tell Skeeter. He's all the time going around callin' people queer.”

Folly tried to numb herself to the feeling evoked by Mary Lou using that word. It took her a second to find a voice strong enough to counteract it. “Well, I reckon this news will hush him.”

“I guess,” Mary Lou said.

They sat without talking for a long time. Mary Lou was tired and hungry, but she didn't want to admit that to her ma. She felt as if three days had transpired in the last few hours, breakfast (the yucky eggs) had been years ago. Her ma was her ma, but was she? She was a lesbian. She loved Martha. Lenore loved Betsy.
Daisy,
she said to herself,
who am I? What do you think of all that's going on. I don't know. I read that book and I still don't know about me. I guess my ma wouldn't mind, though, and that's kind of weird. I'm so tired and hungry. I haven't eaten since they put you down.

“I saved your supper,” Folly said, as if overhearing.

“You did.” Mary Lou had to blot her tears of gratitude.

Folly made tea and sat at the table while Mary Lou ate rapidly, filling some of her hollows. “You know, Ma, I been thinking about some things. I wanted to ask you a question.”

“What?” Folly tried to ready herself for almost anything.

“What do you think about the idea of going to college?”

“Of who going?”

“Me.”

“I always sort of have it in my mind that maybe you will.”

“You do?” Mary Lou was shocked. “How come you never told me, then?”

“You weren't much more than a child 'til this summer.”

“Well, I was growing up . . . even when you weren't noticing.”

“You watch yourself, girl. I don't miss much.”

Mary Lou stopped herself from saying, “Except when you're in love with Martha.” Instead, she said, “Where would I go to college?”

“I don't know. We'll have to think about it. You got two more years yet, before you have to worry.”

“I know, but I'd like to have an idea where I'm going, if I'm going somewhere. I always thought I'd just end up down at the mill with everybody else.”

“I wouldn't want you to. Not that I mind the work myself, but they're too hard, the way they push you now. All they care about in that place is how many stupid pairs of pants they can walk out of there.”

“But how could I afford to go to college?”

“We'll get up the money somehow.”

“I get my last full check at the A & P this week.”

“Maybe you can get that job again next summer.” Folly recalled the way Mary Lou had moped around before she'd gone to work—critical, self-centered, looking to provoke her more often than not. “I gotta say how proud I am,” she said. “I guess I did miss something. I mean here you were one day, snipping around here complainin' about the length of the day, and next thing I know . . . well, I reckon you been pretty much feeding us all. And not complaining once. And I'm grateful to have you.”

“Good,” Mary Lou said, “cause I'm keeping this last check, the whole thing.”

“What you gonna do with it?”

“Don't know yet. I'm letting my mind wander a while before I decide. Might open a savings account, start saving up for something, none of your business what.” College or a car, she was thinking. “Will you take me down to the bank and show me how?” She was washing her plate in the sink.

“Sure.”

Mary Lou kept her back to her mother. “Sure wish that Daisy coulda lived a while longer.” She let out a long sigh and went back to her room.

23.

Folly did not go to Martha's that night. She slept alone and dreamed of herself being lifted, possibly flying. She knew there would be more to dealing with Mary Lou, but nothing as hard as the silence which had finally been shattered without fracture. She felt the coolness of the morning air, the release of another summer. That and the release of Sunday, a day of belonging to no one.

She propped herself with pillows and started on a new mystery. She was well into it when Mary Lou appeared in the doorway, her hands in her back pockets and her weight shifting back and forth from her heels to the soles of her feet. “Ain't you going over to Martha's?”

“Later, I reckon.”

“See ya.”

“You goin' somewhere?”

“Yeah, to town.”

“Hitchin'?”

“Yup.”

“Want me to drive you?”

“No thanks.”

Mary Lou turned to leave. “Goin' anywhere particular?”

“Nope. Just stopping by Lenore's.”

“Oh.” That stopped her.

Mary Lou was already down the hall. Now what did that mean, Folly wondered as she took her book up and let herself back into the mystery.

Martha was sorting Daisy's papers. She had finished the closet already, saving little for herself. As she had taken the dresses out, one by one on their hangers, she'd been moved by how clearly she could see
Daisy in them. She'd folded each one carefully, buttoning buttons if they were open, placing them gently in the box. They were nothing but old housedresses; no one would wear them but another old lady like Daisy, but Martha would take them to the Goodwill. They were clean and well pressed. Martha remembered way back, Daisy standing stern, tapping the iron with spit on her finger, then lighting into a pile of clothes.

She remembered times when she'd thought she'd like to live with more room to expand, when her own room, her own closet had felt cramped. Now that the closet was empty, she couldn't think what use she could put it to. She kept alternating between forgetting Daisy had died, expecting her to come around the comer, saying, “What's taking you all this time, messing around in here all morning,” and remembering that's why she was doing this. She'd heard people say it was hard to go through someone's possessions after they died, but it seemed to her as good a way as any to sort through your feelings. She was glad she'd been here these last few years with Daisy. Otherwise she'd have known her mainly through her childhood memories, and her childhood sat firmly in her but not forward. Also there was Folly next door. She was overwhelmed by her good fortune with Folly. She wondered if Daisy had ever felt this sense of being cared for, as she did now. Martha's father had died when she was a small child; he'd been run over by a train while working on the railroad, and Daisy'd never gone looking for another man, though she must have been young, Martha realized.

She remembered when they'd lived in Carrboro, and Daisy worked in the hosiery mill there. Martha had gone everyday after school and waited for her mother to finish work. That was the old days, before production and other ideas about efficiency had changed things. Martha captured the thought that it wasn't such a terribly long time, after all—it was Daisy's lifetime. But the changes had been extreme, and were always described in the name of progress. She remembered Daisy looping, her best friend, Hattie, sitting with her machine up next and talking the whole day, talking and laughing. What about, Martha didn't know, but she knew they'd had fun. “That Hattie could take your mind off a toothache,” she remembered Daisy saying, but she'd gone and had her tooth pulled anyway. She tried to picture the hosiery mill, back then. It hadn't been very big . . . maybe twenty women looping, and the knitters upstairs, old Carl, the fixer, and Raymond, the bossman . . . . Windows up and down both sides giving plenty of light. Nowadays the windows in all the old mills had been bricked over. Martha wasn't sure why, but guessed it was to prevent the workers from looking out. But the
noise must have gone out the windows at the hosiery mill then. It hadn't ever been loud there, just a purr, enough of a purr so that she and the other kids could play after school without their mothers hearing every word they said. Seamless stockings. When was that? Seamless stockings had closed down the hosiery mill, she couldn't remember what year.

She had cleaned out the drawers and thrown out all of Daisy's old seamed stockings, wondering where the hosiery mill was that had gone on making them. In the bottom drawer she had found the shoe box of papers, taken them to the kitchen table and fortified herself with another cup of coffee. She felt more frightened of the papers than the clothes. Daisy had never done much with papers: she had not known how to read or write.

Martha unfolded the papers as carefully as she had folded the clothes, found her own birth certificate, some papers from the railroad about her father's death, and her own old report cards that she had always assumed the school kept. “Punctual and careful with her work,” one said. Had she read these reports to her mother? She couldn't remember doing so, but otherwise, how would Daisy have known what they said? Behind the report cards she found a paper from the Royal Insurance Company, a life insurance policy for $3,000. She had nearly thrown it out. She had nearly thrown the whole box out without looking through it, feeling that she had no business here. Then she found another paper, which looked exactly the same but had a different date on it. It also said $3,000. Probably nothing by this time, she figured. They were old. She didn't know of Daisy ever buying anything like this since she'd lived with her. She would have to take them to someone in town. Who? Someone to tell her if they were worth anything. One thing clear was that she was the beneficiary, and Daisy had signed them; she could write that much, in fact her signature showed a good hand.

Folly came in as Martha was reading these papers for the third time, unable to convince herself that she was reading right. “Lord, woman, you came just in time. Wait'll you see what I got here.”

Folly stood behind Martha and stooped down to kiss the back of her neck. “What? What y'all showing?”

“My mother's life insurance.”

“I thought she didn't have none.”

“So didn't I, but it's right here, sure as life.”

Martha handed the two papers over to Folly who sat down to read them. “Do you think they're the same policy written out twice, or two different ones?”

“I don't know. They got two different dates.”

“Yeah.”

“God Bless us,” Martha said, covering Folly's hand with her own. “We must of done something to deserve this.”

“We better take it somewhere and find out before we get all excited about it.”

“Where?”

“I guess look up this insurance company and see where they have an office.”

“I doubt they have one in Victory. My luck they'll have folded ten years back,” Martha said, containing herself.

“No, I don't think they can do that. I mean, someone has got to be good for the money.”

That made Martha start to feel more secure about the money as reality, and her mind began wandering into the opening up of possibility that a lump of unexpected money could mean. “What do you think, Fol? What would a person like me do with that kind of money?”

“Put it aside for early retirement.”

Martha was disappointed by this suggestion, which seemed dull and out of keeping with the surprise of the policy. “Me? What would I do if I was retired? Turn into an old lady?”

“Well, we both got that to look forward to some day.”

“Sure, but I always thought money should lead you to feeling younger, not older.”

“I suppose. Did you get some sleep last night?”

“Better than the night before,” Martha said, “but I'm still tired. I went through her closet this morning and her drawers. I'm nearly done with that. This trailer'll be full of her still, even when her stuff is gone.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw her mother's cane propped against the wall at the end of the hall. “I keep feeling like I'm expecting her home any minute.”

“She leaves a clear memory,” Folly said.

“Yeah.”

An idea had begun turning in Martha's mind, and of course, it was right, it had been there all along, but she had only now reached it consciously. It was perfect. She allowed her excitement to grow while she thought of a way to broach the subject with Folly. She squeezed her hand. “Listen, I got it. If the money comes through, I mean if it's real, I want you to get the house.”

“What house?”

“You know, that house you been wanting all along.”

“Oh, that,” Folly dismissed it, releasing Martha's hand. “Been so long since I thought about that house, I forgot all about it.”

Martha felt hurt. She thought she'd known Folly better. How could she forget her dream? She crossed her arms on her chest, feeling the loss of her mother acutely. They sat this way, separate, each with her own thoughts. Folly was thinking about the house again. It wasn't true that she'd forgotten it, but she'd put it far, far back in her mind. And she wouldn't think of taking Martha's money for it. Only the day before she'd thought about putting a decent wall between her and Mary Lou. She remembered barricading herself against the threats of Fartblossom with fantasies of the house. But being in the company of Martha and Mabel and other women like them had done much more to alleviate her fears than any wall could have. She returned to feeling Martha's presence, Martha's reaction to her. She hadn't meant to push her away, but she had, she could feel her remoteness.

Martha felt she had let herself in for this hurt by crossing some unspoken boundary. She had not meant to suggest they live together, though Folly might think she had. She had gone too far, she had let her life mix up with Folly's in such a way that if she had to withdraw it, she would not know quite what to take. She remembered those weeks of the walk-out, carrying around her guard as well as her picket sign to watch over what she did, to control her reaching out for Folly, to keep the sound of her heartbeat hidden. There had been a clear line of demarcation between them then, a zone, hot with current. And she had kept moving into it and away, testing, like Daisy's spit finger sizzling on the iron.

They were both, now, painfully aware of the feeling of mental and physical separation between them. “I'm sorry,” Folly said. “I guess I haven't thought much about the house because of us having such a convenient arrangement, I mean living next door, and me being able to leave the kids over there and all.”

“It's true.” Martha hadn't thought about where the house might be, how much traveling distance it might create between them. “I wasn't thinking of myself living in this here house we're talking about, in case that wasn't clear. Just you and the kids. Me living here in my trailer. I'd hope it wasn't too far away.”

“I couldn't possibly . . . . I couldn't even think of us using your money if you weren't going in with us,” Folly said.

Martha swallowed hard. “I just wanted you and the kids to have it.”

Folly frowned, even though she felt moved by Martha's generosity.

“It wouldn't be any too good for your kids, living with two women loving each other. Might confuse them.”

“Bullshit,” Folly said. “It might be the best thing ever happened to them. Wait 'til you hear what happened with Mary Lou.”

“Well, tell me. What you waiting on, woman?” Martha breathed deeply with relief. Folly got up and practically danced around the kitchen, telling about how she'd come out to Mary Lou.

“Some guts you've got, girl,” Martha admired, “and so hasn't that kid. Think she's gonna be okay with it?”

“She might still brew up an explosion. That wouldn't surprise me at all. But I'm telling you where it feels real good is in me.” She embraced her own belly.

“I wish I'd told Daisy, right out,” Martha said. “I wanted to. I tried to, but I never just plain got it out. It's about the only thing I regret with her.”

“But she knew,” Folly said. “Don't you think so?”

“I believe so. I told you before about Daisy's special powers, about how she come out of that first stroke seeing lights and currents and things other people didn't see. ‘Don't you ever tell that doctor,' she told me, ‘less you want to have your mama put away in one of them booby traps.'”

Martha imagined her and Folly standing at her mother's bedside, the circles of light around their heads drawing them together in Daisy's eyes.

Folly was on the same memory. “I remember that day after we came back from the picnic, standing by her bed next to you. It was all we could do to keep from holding hands, anyway, and she opened her eyes and looked up at us, and clear as a bell, I thought, she knew.”