“Then let's go.”
On the porch, I turned back to Mrs. Travis, who stood in the doorway. “Thank you for yourâfor the lemonade.”
On the front walk, Daddy dropped his cigarette and smashed it under his shoe, leaving the butt and a black smear.
An article in the Sunday paper identified Mary as a colored housemaid from Charlotte, North Carolina, who'd been assaulted and beaten to death. Her body would be sent home. There were no suspects.
I sat on the stoop of our cabin and watched Davie pull his toy train through the dirt. I wanted to dive to the bottom of the pool to let the pressure push my headache away. I held out my hands. “Let's go to the pool.”
“Choo-choo.” Davie put pebbles on a flatcar. “Choo-choo.”
I knocked over his train with the toe of my sandal. Stones tumbled from the flatcar and Davie began to scream.
I bent to pick him up. “C'mon.”
“No-o-o-o.” His body went limp and he slid through my hands, pushing at me. “Mary!”
“Stop it.” I stamped my foot. He turned over on the ground. The Band-Aid on his hand was filthy. I kneeled. “Please, Davie, let's go to the pool.”
Tears made tracks on his dirty face. “Mary?”
“Mary's gone.” Mama had said not to tell him Mary was dead because he wouldn't know what that meant. I pulled him into my arms, putting my lips to his hair. “Mary's gone, Davie-do.”
He let his head rest on my chest, sobbing, “Mary! Mary!”
The words slipped out. “Mary's dead, Davie.”
He stopped crying, arched his back so he could look at my face. He put his thumb in his mouth and dropped his head back down.
Daddy told us they'd bought a coffin. “It's the least we can do.”
“I wish we'd gotten the one with satin padding.” Mama stood by the Chrysler, smoking. She had on a sundress, her hat, her slingback sandals. She held her straw clutch in one hand.
Daddy jingled the car keys. “Hey, kiddo, wanna go get the Packard? They're meeting us at the garage on a Sunday afternoon. Can't beat that for service!” He was trying hard to cheer me up.
“Okay, Daddy.”
“And your mama needs to tend to business while we see about the Packard.You can drive.”
That got through to me. “Drive? Me?”
“You. Stell's staying with the kids.”
“What if the policeâ”
He smiled the smile that always melted Mama. “You have a South Carolina license,” he winked, “but you can't find it, remember?”
I opened the driver's door. Daddy said, “Sit in the back, Pauly, me girl. Miss June Watts is your chauffeur.”
“Bill, this is not a good idea.”
“Oh, c'mon. She knows how.” Daddy got in front with me, Mama in back. I adjusted the seat and mirrors, switched on the ignition, and drove out of Sally's Motel Park, remembering to put on the turn signals as Daddy had taught me. I hit the brakes too hard, making him brace himself against the dashboard, but he didn't say anything. We let Mama out downtown. I was pretty sure she was heading for the colored funeral parlor. She didn't want me to see her go in there because it would upset me.
J and J's Garage had a rubber hose running across the parking lot, and bells rang as I drove over it. I didn't see the Packard. Daddy told me to park in front. “I'll find out what's going on.” A plate-glass window was painted in bold black letters : J
AND
J'
S
G
ARAGE
, E
STABLISHED
1946. Through the window I saw Daddy talking to Jake Stirewalt. When Daddy sat down, I knew it would be a while. I walked over to one of the empty bays and looked at the grease pit. Small steps led into it. In the bottom was a pink rag, a broken fan belt, a wrench. Wouldn't anybody who worked in a grease pit want to be someplace else? And what sort of person built coffins? I turned away from the smell of gasoline and creosote, and walked into the sunlight to see Mr. Stirewalt driving our Packard around the building.
Daddy stood outside. “Hey, Jubie, look there.”
Mr. Stirewalt handed Daddy the keys.“She's running good. The motor warn't messed up much. You might need a new rade-yater sooner later.” He looked at the mashed fender. “Wisht we'd of had time for that.”
“We'll take care of it in Charlotte. The motor sounds great, don't you think so, Jubie?”
He was showing off, being a good father. “Yes, sir.” I wished he could really care instead of just pretending. I felt tears rising, blinked my eyes, looked away from him. If he saw how sad I was, he ignored it.
“Now all I've got to do is pay for it, right?” Daddy pulled out his checkbook.
“That's right, Mr. Watts.” They walked back inside.
I sat on a bench, turning my face to the sun. One sentence jumped out sharply from the rumble of voices in the garage office. “Then again, the only good nigger is a dead nigger, right, Mr. Watts?”
Daddy said, “So I make this out to J and J's Garage?” He should have told Mr. Stirewalt how wrong it was to say such a thing.
“No, to Jake Stirewalt.”
We got in the Chrysler. Daddy drove.
Mama was waiting on the same corner where we'd left her. She looked like she'd been crying, but when she got in the car, she just said, “Is the Packard ready? Please tell me it's ready.”
“It's ready,” Daddy said. He patted her shoulder but didn't say anything about her swollen eyes.
“The train is at nine fifteen in the morning. I can have us packed to go right after that.”
“What train?” I asked.
They looked at each other, then Mama said, “We have to send Mary back to Charlotte. There are regulations about embalming and shipping bodies. I was seeing to it.”
I thought about Link and Young Mary, how sad they must be. “Have you talked with her kids?” I asked Mama.
“Last night, yes.” Mama stared out the window. “They're distraught.”
“Do you know when the service is? We could go.”
Daddy said, “No.”
We rode in silence back to J and J's. Daddy handed Mama the keys to the Packard. “We'll see you at the motel.” I opened the car door and stepped out onto the hot pavement.
“You riding with your mother?” Daddy asked.
“I'm walking.”
“Get back in this car, young lady.” Daddy's voice was dangerous.
“No.” I didn't look back.
C
HAPTER 24
J
ust after nine on Monday morning, Mama, Daddy, and I watched as three men wheeled a flat hand truck through the train station, loaded with a long box that looked more like a shipping crate than a coffin. M. L
UTHER
was stenciled in black on the raw pine boards. We followed the hand truck past benches where half a dozen people sat dozing or reading papers, and past a closed door with a sign: N
EGRO
W
AITING
R
OOM
.
The men tilted the coffin to get it into the boxcar and I imagined Mary sliding inside; I hoped her head was at the top so she'd slide feetfirst. Mama walked to the end of the platform and stared down the tracks.
They pushed the coffin across the floor to the back of the car, where light didn't reach. Daddy put his hand on my shoulder and I caught a whiff of cigarettes and aftershave. The boxcar door slammed shut with a thunderclap. Mama's heels clicked on the concrete as she came back to us. Her gray dress and hat made her look sad and plain.
“Let's go,” she said.
“It's horrible in that boxcar. Dark and horrible.”
“Mary's not suffering anymore, Jubie.” Mama reached toward me with her gloved hand.
I turned away. “When is her funeral?”
Daddy said, “A day or so. No more than two, not in this heat.”
“Then we have time to get there.”
Mama and Daddy looked at each other.
I walked over to the train. I wanted to climb in and ride with Mary. The rusty door of the boxcar was rough to my touch. “I want to go to the funeral. Iâ”
Mama said, “Bill, we could go back to Charlotte for Mary's service, then to Pawleys for a few more days of vacation.”
Daddy shook his head. “We're not driving five hundred milesâfrom here to Charlotte to Pawleysâfor an hour-long funeral. As soon as we're packed, we'll go on to the beach.”
The engine chugged to life. The train began to move, clanking slowly out of the station, gathering speed. I watched until the caboose was a red smudge far down the tracks.
Mama pulled me away from the edge of the platform.
We walked back through the train station. A colored man was sweeping the floor in the waiting room, singing,
“Tum-te-dee diddle-de-dee tum-teedy-ay.”
He stopped sweeping to let us pass, standing with his broom at his side like a soldier at attention. As we left the station, the swish of his broom started back up, and his singing,
“Tum-te-dee, diddle-de-dee . . .”
Before we left our cabin, I checked beneath the beds to make sure we hadn't left anything and found Mary's terry cloth slippers. I stuffed them into the bottom of my suitcase.
Stell, Puddin, and I rode in the Packard. Mama, Daddy, and Davie led the way in the Chrysler.As soon as we got out of Claxton, Daddy pulled way ahead. He put his hand out and waved, urging Stell to speed up, but she drove as if the speedometer were stuck on fifty-five.
I stretched out across the backseat with my bare feet on the ledge of the open window, wiggling my toes in the rushing air. All I could see were the tops of pine trees and the clouds. It was too early to fall asleep, even with the tires humming and the wind lifting my skirt, but I closed my eyes anyway, trying to hum in the same pitch as the tires. Leesum would be settled in Charlotte by now, living at the preacher's house, wearing the new clothes Uncle Taylor had bought him. I kept thinking about writing to him, wanting to tell him how much I missed Mary. He would understand.
I sank into the seat where she'd sat for all those miles, tall and straight in her cotton dresses. I pressed my face into the upholstery and thought about her until I felt her bosom against my cheek, smelled her. My throat hurt with a knot that got bigger and bigger until I let the tears come, sliding from the corners of my eyes into my hair and ears.The car hit a pothole. Mary was gone.
“What in the world?” Stell asked.
I sat up, wiping my eyes. Daddy had pulled onto the shoulder and was waving us around. Stell slowed to a crawl. Daddy hollered, “Go on ahead. We'll be along in a minute.”
“Huh.” Stell accelerated back up to fifty-five.
I looked out the rear window. The Chrysler pulled onto the road, got large fast. When it was a few feet behind us, Daddy honked.
“What is he doing?” Stell screamed.
Daddy blew the horn in short blasts, his arm out the window waving in a forward motion.
“He wants you to speed up.”
I stared at the Chrysler. Mama's face was set, turned to the passenger window.
Stell hit the brake, and Daddy swerved to miss us. Mama slid against Daddy and he steered with one hand, pushing her away, his mouth moving, his face angry. I thought of Davie bouncing around on the backseat.
Puddin whimpered. “Shush.” I reached up front to pat her shoulder. She'd been so brave about Mary.
Daddy laid on his horn. I wished Stell would speed up, anything to get him off our tail. She slowed down even more. I looked at the speedometer. Forty.
The Chrysler whooshed around us, spraying grit, as Daddy hollered through Mama's open window, “Get a move on!”
Stell got back to fifty-five and stayed there. The Chrysler disappeared around a curve.
“They're leaving us,” Puddin cried.
“Don't worry,” Stell said. “I can get to Pawleys Island. And he knows it.”
“I want Mama,” Puddin whined.
Stell said, “Cut it out. Find us the map for North and South Carolina.”
Puddin sniffled and opened the glove compartment. Maps spilled onto the floor. She sorted through them, sounding out words under her breath. “I got it!” She held up the map.
“Let Jubie help you find the road we're on.”
Puddin tossed the map onto the backseat and followed it, sliding over on top of me. Her elbow jabbed me in the stomach. I gasped.
“Damn it, Puddin.”
“Bad word. I'll tell Daddy.”
“You won't, you brat.”
She put her arms around my neck. “I won't, Jubes, not for anything.” She felt bony and sweet.
Stell said, “Jubie, we're on Highway 17. We just crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina.”
I sat up and studied the map. “Take Alternate 17 at Limehouse. From there it's a hundred and seventy miles to Georgetown, fourteen miles to Pawleys.”
“Ha!” shouted Stell Ann. “We'll show the old poop.”
I searched the map for the highways leading to Charlotte. “Stell? Don't you want to go to Mary's funeral?”
“Yes.”
“Then why aren't we going?”
“Mama and Daddy want things back to normal. For us to get over it.” Stell moved her hands on the steering wheel. “Besides, I'm not sure her family wants us there.”
“Why not?”
“She was working for us when she died.”
“But she was our friend.”
“We paid her to be.”
When we got to Pawleys Island, we saw the Chrysler parked in the glare of a pole lamp at the pier, Daddy in the driver's seat, a cigarette in one hand, his flask in the other. Mama stood outside the car, talking to Carter beside his blue Ford coupe.
“Ooh-h-h,” Stell squealed under her breath, looking at herself in the rearview mirror. She ran her fingers through her hair and pinched her cheeks to make them pink, as if Carter would notice in the dark. “How do I look?”
Her hair needed combing, her shorts were wrinkled, and she looked like a kid. “Fine.”
We got out and Carter walked up. He took Stell's hand. “Your letters are great.”
“Yours, too.”
“Hey, Jubie,” he said. “You all right?”
“I'm okay.” I got a whiff of Aqua Velva.
“That's great.” The last time I saw him was in the tree house.Was he thinking about that? “Where'd your dad go?”
Mama stood beside the Chrysler, holding Davie, Puddin leaning against her. “He'll be right back.” She touched my cheek. “Such a long face.”
“I've had a headache all day.”
“I'll look for aspirin when we unpack.”
Daddy came from under the pier, zipping his fly. “Let's go.” His eyes shone in the streetlamp. He was already tipsy.
Carter held out a key to Daddy. “Y'all's house is real nice, right on the beach.”
“Hop in your car,” Daddy said. “Lead the way.”
We parked behind a weathered two-story house set off by itself at the end of the island. A wraparound porch was filled with rockers. The hinges on the screen doors needed oiling and the floorboards creaked under our feet.
Carter said, “I'll help Mr. Watts with the luggage. Maybe y'all could open some windows.”
“And, Carter?” Mama said. “The flowered bag in the trunk of the Packard?”
“Yes, ma'am?”
“Don't bring it in.” She walked around inside the house while Stell and I opened windows.
Daddy came through the front door with suitcases. “Pauly?”
Mama stood in the kitchen doorway, Davie on her hip.
Daddy asked, “Where's this stuff go?”
“You, me, and Davie down. Jubie, Stell, Puddin up.” Mama held Davie as if she didn't know what to do with him. The light from the bare bulb over her head turned her hair into a halo. Davie whimpered when she shifted him in her arms. Mary would have put him to bed.
I dragged Puddin's bag and my suitcase up to our room. I was lucky to be sleeping with her. Davie kicked, but Puddin never moved after she got to sleep. The café curtains in our bedroom, white cotton with yellow and green apples, looked like they'd come out of somebody's kitchen. Our mattress drooped in the middle and the throw rugs felt sandy. When I went to hang my toothbrush, I saw that the toilet and sink had rust stains. Mama would have gotten Mary to scrub them with Dutch cleanser.
After Carter helped empty the cars, he and Stell Ann unpacked the kitchen things and Mama said, “We've got to get ice first thing in the morning.”
While I was making our bed, Mama came in with a black fan and set it on the dresser. She handed me a bottle of mosquito repellent that smelled like turpentine. “When you're ready for bed, rub this on you and Puddin.”
I was in the kitchen taking aspirin when Daddy crossed the front room, a bottle of bourbon in his hand. He let the screen door bang behind him.
“I'm going with Daddy,” I called over my shoulder, racing down the porch steps before Mama could stop me.
The dunes were pale hills in the moonlight, the salty wind cool. Daddy was nowhere in sight. A path led to a cut in the dunes and as I came to the rise, I saw him sprawled in the sand, lifting the bottle. He took a long drink.
I called out, “Hey, Daddy.”
“Hey. C'mon down.”
I sat beside him.
He pointed at the moon with his index finger, his thumb up, like he was holding a pistol.
“What're you doing?”
He took another gulp, propped his bottle in the sand. “Gonna shoot the moon, Jubie girl.”
I looked up. “Mary said when it's not quite full, it's a âgive-us' moon. Like in the Lord's prayer.”
Daddy snorted. “Gibbous.”
Was he making fun of Mary? “You can't shoot it anyway, it's too far away.”
“Browning said, âA man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?' ”
“What about a woman's reach?”
“The only thing a woman has to reach for is a man.” He took aim with his make-believe gun, his ring glittering in the moonlight.
I put my hand on his arm. “Leave the moon alone, Daddy. Let's go back to the house.”
He staggered when he got up, and I put out my hand to help him. We walked back over the dunes, arm in arm.
Mama stood in the living room, Davie asleep on her shoulder. “Jubie, it's time for bed.”
Daddy brushed past her to the kitchen. The icebox door opened and closed, followed by the sound of a church key cutting the top of a beer can.
Mama went to the kitchen. “Bill, please . . .”
His voice became low and husky. “Aw, honey, just put the boy down and come on to bed.”
Mama said something I couldn't hear and Daddy said, “I'm tired of everybody making such a racket about it. We can get another maid.” How could he talk about another maid? I ran upstairs and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. No one could take Mary's place. I sat on the toilet, crying until there were no more tears, then shuffled down the hall to our room.