C
HAPTER 19
“S
tell, Jubie, let's go buy fruitcakes.” Mama stood in the door of our cabin.
Stell was brushing her hair, the glossy brown shimmering in a shaft of morning sunlight through the open window. “Ten minutes, okay?”
Mama nodded. She had her hand on the screen door when Mary spoke. “I want to buy some fruitcakes myself.”
“Then we'd have to take Puddin and Davie,” Mama said.
“I'll keep them out of your way,” said Mary.
“I can get the cakes for you. How about that?”
“Yes, ma'am. Want three fruitcakes.”
“Is that all? No problem whatsoever.”
“With citron, those yellow pieces that has such a fine sharp taste.”
“I know what citron is.” Mama started out the door again.
“Not all fruitcakes has citron. I particularly favors it.”
“Most of them do.”
“No, Mama,” I said. “Some signs say âNo Citron.' ”
“Oh-h-h-h.” Mama turned to leave. “Let's not get things too complicated.”
At Claxton Fruit Cake Company, Mama ordered ten tube cakes, five pounds each, in holiday tins, and arranged to have them shipped.
“Okay, girls, let's go.”
“Mama!” She'd forgotten.
“Yes?”
“Mary's cakes.”
“Oh, my goodness. Thanks, Jubie.” She turned back to the man behind the counter. “Three one-pound cakes, please, in a bag. We'll take them with us.”
I asked, “Are you sure she doesn't want bigger ones?”
“I wouldn't think so.”
Mama was in a hurry to get back to the motel, in case Daddy had gotten there; she walked way ahead of me and Stell.We took our time.
From the truck the store displays had looked full of interesting things to buy. Up close, the windows were streaked, the merchandise faded and dusty. The leaves of the dying flowers hanging outside the millinery store had bug bites in them. There were only five things in the display case: two white straw picture hats, a pink cloche, a blue beret, a yellow pillbox.
Burnett's Grocery, with baskets of produce on the sidewalk, had a hand-lettered poster in the window:
TENT REVIVAL!
Friday, August 13, 8 PM.
The Reverend Brian Samuel Cureton preaching.
The Campground at New Smyrna AME Zion Church.
COME TO JESUS!
“I want to see a tent meeting,” said Stell Ann. Mama was almost a block ahead of us.
“You're crazy. Mama and Daddy wouldn't be caught dead in a colored church.”
“I wasn't going to invite them.”
“They won't let us go alone.”
Stell walked up to a man who was napping in a chair in front of the barbershop. “Sir?”
The man's eyes popped open.
“Could you tell me how to get to New Smyrna AME Zion?”
“That's a Nigra church.”
“Our girl wants to know.” Stell lied smoothly.
“It's a ways out Zion Church Creek Road.”
“Could she walk there?”
“Easy. It's not but maybe a mile.” He closed his eyes and sat back in his chair as we walked away.
“Mary will take us,” Stell said. It was settled.
Mary, Davie, and Puddin were at the swing set in the courtyard. I ran to Mary. “Hey! We got your cakes!”
Mama came up behind me. “With citron, just what you wanted.Two dollars and forty cents. Do you want to pay me or should I take it outâ”
“No, ma'am, I'll pay you.” She looked in the bag. “Oh.”
“I'm going over to my cabin.You can give the money to Jubie.”
“All right.”
“What's the matter?” I asked her.
Mama turned around.
“Nothing. They just so little.”
“Well, Mary,” said Mama, “the big ones are awfully expensive.”
“Yes, ma'am. These're fine.”
“Good,” Mama said brightly, and went to her cabin.
I sat in one of the swings.“Okay, so what's wrong? Really.”
“I was going to give one to my friend for a present. One for our church party, one for me and the kids. Thought they'd be big, not them weedy things.”
“I'm so sorry.”
“It's all right.”
I jumped to my feet. “I've got it! We can go to the fruitcake store tomorrow morning. Stell will stay with Puddin and Davie if we explain to her.You can get all the cakes you want.”
She grinned, the gold on her front tooth gleaming. “That'd be real fine.”
I was in our cabin, searching for my
Wonder Woman
comic to read by the pool, when a car door thumped shut. Puddin yelled, “It's Daddy!”
I peeked through a gap in the Venetian blinds where a slat had broken. Daddy had Davie, swinging him high, talking to him. Mrs. Bishop from the motel office was in her driveway, looking toward Daddy and smiling. His hair was sun-streaked and he had a good tan, like he'd been playing golf regularly and fishing at Lake Wylie. He propped Davie on his shoulders, which were so broad Davie looked like a doll. Stell stood several feet away from him. I was sure she was thinking about Aunt Lily. Daddy turned to her, and the sun glinted off his glasses. She shrugged at something he said and pointed toward Mama's cabin.
I backed away from the window. With the blinds closed, the cabin was hot and dim; the only light came through the screen door. I didn't want to say hello to Daddy, because I would have to act tickled to see him. I wanted it to be as if he had been with us all along, so we wouldn't have to make over each other. I was sitting on the bed when Mary came in with Davie, bringing the sunlight with her. The screen door clattered shut.
“Why's this place closed up, hot as it is?”
“I shut the blinds so I could put on my bathing suit.”
“Why didn't you put it on?”
“Daddy's here.”
“Your daddy never seen you in a bathing suit?” She sat beside me, rocking Davie. He had his thumb in his mouth and his eyelids drooped. Perspiration dotted the curve of his nose, and I touched it with the back of my finger. He put his head on Mary's shoulder and closed his eyes. She rocked, humming, rubbing his back. I smelled Davie's baby powder and her soap. My eyes got heavy. Maybe we'd all fall asleep and Daddy wouldn't want to wake us.
Mary stopped rocking. “He gone to sleep?”
“Uh-huh.”
She lowered Davie to the bed, putting him down on his back, smoothing out the cotton bedspread under him. She unglued his hair from his damp forehead and picked up a magazine from the floor. “You didn't come say hey to your daddy.”
“I will, after he sees Mama. Did he ask about me?”
She fanned Davie.“I said you was swimming. Thought you was.”
The screen door opened. Daddy stood in the doorway, blocking the light.
I got up. “Hey, Daddy.”
He hugged me.“Hey, Junebug.” He held me at arm's length and looked at me. “You've grown another foot.”
“Nope, I've still only got two.”
He laughed. “Mary told me you were swimming.”
“I will be, soon's I get my suit on.”
He touched me on the shoulder. “You doing okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
Daddy rubbed Davie's tummy.“I wish I could sleep like that.”
“Bill?” Mama called from the yard.
“Hey, Pauly!” Daddy's face lit up. He went outside. Mama stood by his car, her arms folded across her bosom. Daddy reached in his pants pocket and offered her a gift-wrapped box. “Wanted to bring some joy back in your life.”
Mama took the gift, not looking at Daddy. She tore it open. “Joy!” Mama's favorite perfume. She shook her head.
“We've got to get past this, Paula.” Did he mean Aunt Lily?
“I need time.”
“It's almost a year.” He put his arm around her shoulders and she didn't pull away. As they turned to walk toward Mama's cabin, he asked, “The Packard, is it a mess?”
“It's a mess.”
I went into the bathroom to change so I wouldn't be naked in front of Mary. When I took off my blouse, I thought about what Mama would say if she noticed the hair in my armpits. There wasn't much, and it was so light sometimes I thought it was my imagination, but I knew Mama would make me shave, just as she'd made me wear Stell Ann's old training bras as soon as I started getting bosoms. I put on my suit and draped a towel around my shoulders, the way lifeguards do in the movies, and left the bathroom.
Mary looked up. “That a new swimsuit?”
“What do you think?” I twirled, trailing the towel.
“I think you growed up while I wasn't looking.”
A pencil of sunlight coming through the broken blind played across my thighs and I looked down at the same time Mary did. She put out her hand and smoothed my upper legs as if to wipe away the faint blue and yellow marks.
I'd seen Davie with my comic, so I went to see if it was in Mama and Daddy's cabin. I opened the door and smelled Daddy's aftershave. The bed was made, with the tufted spread hanging just to the dust ruffle. I knew if I looked under the pillow on Mama's side, I'd find her pink nightgown. I tripped over Daddy's white ducks. His seersucker jacket was on the chair back, his khaki slacks folded over the arm. My comic wasn't with Davie's things. Not on the bedside table or on the dresser with Daddy's pocketknife and change. I looked under the dresser and saw Daddy's Zippo gleaming in the dusty shadows. I pushed it behind a leg of the dresser and left it there.
In the bathroom, his Dopp kit was by the sink, and Mama's slippers were on the floor, but no
Wonder Woman
. I stood in the middle of the cabin, ready to give up and go to the pool, when I saw a Tinkertoy beside the night table. I lifted the dust ruffle and there was my comic book, pushed against the wall behind Daddy's brown leather suitcase. I crawled under the bed, grabbed it, and heard Mama and Daddy on the path outside.
“Oh, Pauly, she just wanted to look at the new paint job on the breezeway.”
“Linda Gibson has her eyes on you, and you don't discourage her.”
“I'm only being neighborly.”
The cabin door opened. I pulled my feet up so that I was lying on my side, wrapped around Daddy's suitcase.
“You stare at her breasts.”
“The day I don't notice a nice figure, you can put me under.”
“I wish that's all you did.You don't even bother to be discreet. Ye gods, my brother's wife . . .”
“Let it go, Paula, my love. I've missed you.”
Mama sighed. “Me, too, Bill.”
The grit on the floor was sandpaper on my shoulder.
“C'mon, sweetheart.” Daddy's voice was soft.
“What if the kids come looking for us?”
I made myself lie so still I felt my breathing stop.
“Let's lock them out.” A click. “Come here, Paula.” Daddy sat down and the bed sank to within inches of my face. My right arm was folded under me, the comic in my hand. The floor felt like a hot iron on my elbow. I held my hand over my nose to keep the dust out. “I'll never get enough of you,” Daddy said.
They were quiet, then something fell beside the bed. Daddy's shirt. Mama's sandals landed near my face, her sundress slid to the floor. Daddy said, “Sit up, let me do it.” His shoes dropped off the end of the bed, followed by Mama's bra and panties.
I decided I would kill myself if they found me. It got so quiet I was afraid to breathe. The mattress sank over me, almost touching my face. Mama started making sounds, not words. Daddy growled. The metal bed springs moved up and down, up and down, touching my cheek, then rising again. I pushed one ear against the floor, put my finger in the other one to shut out the sounds. Some of Mama's noises got through. The dust made me want to sneeze and I pinched my nose until tears filled my eyes. One of the hooks holding the bed springs stretched away from the frame. I stared at it, certain it would give way and the mattress would fall on me. I watched it hard, making it not slip any more. Just when I was sure it was going to fail, Daddy shouted something so loud I jumped, certain he'd seen me.
Mama moaned. “Bill, oh, God, Bill.”
The mattress moved, grew still. They panted like they'd been running. Mama sighed and they got quiet. I waited and waited, listening until their breathing slowed. My right leg cramped.Were they asleep? They had to beâthen Mama's feet touched the floor beside my head. She walked into the bathroom and closed the door. In the stillness that followed, Daddy's regular breaths turned into snores. Sounds came from the bathroom, water running, the toilet flushing, the echoing gargling noise of Mama brushing her teeth. I pictured her holding the bridge with her false tooth in it. The bathroom door opened and Mama padded barefoot to pick up her bra and panties. She slid into her sandals. Her clothes rustled. I heard the snapping of her hair as she brushed it, the soft pop of her lipstick tube, the click of the bolt lock. She opened the front door. Daddy mumbled, “Zat?”