The Treble With Men

by Smartypants Romance

  The Marshalls were rich, rich.

  Sent-us-to-a-fancy-ass-boarding-school-from-eleven-years-to-eightteen-years-old rich.

  Jules had private tennis lessons and I had an art instructor when they’d discovered I could draw rich.

  Spent half the summer at his nana’s house in Oak Bluffs rich.

  Spent the other half of the summer at the best sleepaway camp in the entire world rich.

  But putting all those privileges aside, that wasn’t how I knew the Marshalls were loaded.

  After all they could’ve been leveraged up to their eyeballs in debt the same way my parents had been.

  No, forgetting the house in Martha’s Vineyard and the fancy school—the way I knew the Marshalls were rich, was that they never, ever, discussed money.

  Ever.

  And we weren’t allowed to discuss it either, hence Jules and I having a terse exchange wherein he wanted me to accept his charity and I would not. Julian was generous, to a fault sometimes, but he was the exception not the rule.

  The thing about rich people was that they knew how to hold on to money. That’s how they got rich.

  Well … a lot of them got rich through human pain and suffering, but they stayed rich because they knew how to hold on to that money by hook or by crook.

  So while I was well cared for, at least, materially while I was growing up—and was given opportunities most folks could only ever dream of—the Marshall’s money was not and would never be my money. And I never forgot that.

  They never let me forget it.

  Case in point: they were very graciously footing the bill for my college education, with the caveat that I begin paying them back as soon as I graduated, with eight percent interest.

  “Eight for the number of years we’ve done your parents job for them,” was how May, so graciously, phrased it.

  It wasn’t the repayment or the interest that upset me, it was the spite.

  And the helplessness. I would never have qualified for student aid, the Marshalls had too much money and they were for better or mostly worse my guardians. Just to add insult they’d encouraged me to turn down scholarship money over and over again telling me to “consider people who really needed the money” and “that they’d make sure my education was paid for.”

  And they’d made good on that promise, they just hadn’t mentioned it came with stipulations until after I’d already turned the scholarships down.

  So yes, I had … complicated feelings about the Marshalls. On the one hand they took care of me, on the other hand they never let me forget my place, and my place was firmly beneath them in their convoluted minds.

  But I’d learned to get by all right.

  I lived a decidedly frugal life. Eating out, dinners, movies, dates were luxuries I could not afford. I supposed I was lucky, in a way, that dating hadn’t been in the cards for me. The very thought of spending money unnecessarily made my heart race and my palms sweat. I had a plan for paying back Julian’s parents and every spare cent I had went toward that.

  You’re already in debt just like your parents, Trev. Soon you’ll be giving your own kids away in order to get by.

  I rejected the thought immediately, if I were blessed enough to have children I’d never let them out of my sight.

  I squinted at the bright sun as we walked, Jules had started going on endlessly about this fine girl he’d seen and how she must’ve been a supermodel. I was listening but I wasn’t really paying attention.

  Julian’s suggestion that we go out to eat still weighed on me.

  It was the kind of thing that niggled and burrowed deep under your skin because it was so simple. It wasn’t always easy to grow up with personal lack surrounded by folks whose excess had excess.

  But I didn’t mind paying my dues. One day, maybe in the next six or seven years, I’d be able to go out to eat without care. One day, I’d be able to treat Julian to pay him back for always looking out for me. Maybe I’d even be able to take a date to a nice restaurant and have a steak.

  “God, I’m tired,” Julian said, as he lifted his frames from his face and rubbed his eyes. “Who the hell called the house so early this morning? It took me forever to drop back off to sleep.”

  It took everything in me not to groan. “My father.”

  “What?” Julian slowed, his head whipping up. A little of my disgruntled tone must’ve seeped in my voice despite myself, because Julian stopped walking all together and his eyebrows were near touching as he stared at me with concern.

  My parents were a touchy topic.

  “Yeah. Caught my ass at six thirty in the a.m.”

  Jules whistled low, shaking his head.

  At the Marshall’s house the switchboard operator knew how to rig the lines, both his parents and mine were perpetual recipients of the busy tone. Julian’s parents were gone a lot so when we were in Charlotte we were mostly left in peace.

  At Fisk, there was no one to bribe into doing our bidding, so the call had come through, and I’d been dumb enough to pick up.

  “What did he want?” Jules prompted at my silence.

  I sighed. “He wants me to come ‘home’ for the Christmas break.”

  Green Valley was not home.

  Not anymore.

  I hadn’t lived there in years and could hardly remember what life was like when I’d been there. I did remember my parents being stressed about money, all the time, especially after my little brother was born.

  I remembered the distressed look my mother gave me every time she measured me fearing I’d grown another inch and would need new pants. I remembered willing my feet not to grow because I didn’t want to ask for new shoes. That—the feeling of actively trying to be invisible so as not to burden my family—was how I remembered my time in Green Valley more than anything else. I knew they were pouring everything into trying to keep their business afloat, so I’d tried in my own way to stay out of the way.

  It hadn’t worked, you were a burden and they sent you away anyway.

  Julian looked at me, his expression carefully neutral. Too careful. “What did you say?”

  I caught myself before I sighed again, frustrated that I couldn’t get a read on Julian’s thoughts. “I told him I’d think about it.”

  Julian gave a small smile and a nod. “For what it’s worth I think you should go, Trev. They’ve been trying, I think—”

  I shot him a thunderous glare that had him pivoting. “I know I’m not in any position to give advice on parents.” He really, really wasn’t. Julian’s relationship with his parents was as fraught as my relationship with my own. “But can you honestly say you’ve never wanted to go back?”

  No.

  That wasn’t the whole truth. I didn’t think about going back anymore. When I’d first been deposited with Julian’s family, going home was all I could think of. The desire for the familiar terrain of Green Valley, for the way the air smelled up in the mountains, for the familiar faces of towns folks that knew you and your kin, and your kin’s kin, for my friends, for my family, had been consuming.

  The yearning for home was so strong, so acute, that I’d ached with it. I didn’t sleep, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

  It wasn’t just that I’d lost my family, it felt like I’d lost my world. Everything and everyone that I’d ever known. Maybe my family didn’t have money in Green Valley but I’d had a sense of belonging. But as weeks trickled to months and years, without my parents coming to retrieve me, the dream of returning home withered slowly and then died. And all that longing turned to bitterness. And now?

  And now I wasn’t sure how I felt about the idea. While Green Valley wasn’t home, Charlotte wasn’t home either. I had no particular desire to spend my break at Marshall house. The place that felt closest to how I remembered a home feeling was Palmer Memorial, our boarding school, and even that was gone now.

  I didn’t feel as though I had a home to go to.

  Julian took my hesitance as a sign to keep pushing. “
Trevor, your parents have been trying to reconnect with you for more than three years now.”

  I flinched. Julian was right, they’d started really hounding me my senior year of high school and had been persistently reaching out with cards, calls, and letters throughout my entire time at college.

  I mostly ignored them. As the saying went, too little, too late. It seemed cheap to me, to give me away as a child only to try to establish a parental relationship once I was almost grown.

  I knew Julian didn’t see it that way, as the child of people whose interest in his life was inconsistent at best, he took their persistence as something greater than what I saw. He’d come up with all types of conjecture to explain their spurt of interest in me in recent years. “Maybe they regret their actions, perhaps they’ve changed, or maybe they had a good reason for their actions, you should give them a chance—at least hear them out,” he’d lectured over and over again.

  I didn’t want to have this conversation with him again today, as part of me, a very, very small part, was curious about my “family.”

  “I needed to check with you first,” I replied and before Julian could get too high on his soapbox or the conversation got too deep, I ribbed him again. “After all, if I’m going to the backwoods of Tennessee for almost month, I’m sure as hell dragging your pretty city boy, siddity behind with me.”

  He bristled at the word pretty but cracked a smile in spite of himself. “I’ll check my schedule.”

  Daisy

  An hour later we were still standing in line and I’d made at least one good life decision. I’d decided my senior thesis would be titled: “Freshman Move in Day: A Study in Controlled Chaos.”

  A big brown-skinned lady with hair bumped up like Diana Ross wearing a red dress with white capped sleeves sat at the check-in desk in front of Jubilee Hall just as Trevor promised.

  With her at the table? A definite fire hazard.

  Extension cords ran a mile, through the grass, across doorjambs, and under people’s feet, all to connect to a dusty old fan that sat atop her desk.

  Considering the building was up for historic recognition, it was a little alarming.

  I couldn’t really blame her, it was ninety-four degrees in the shade, and we weren’t in the shade.

  I managed not to pass out while listening to the big lady methodically call, “Next!” over that hour. Following each “next” a girl and her family would shuffle to the front, the Big Lady and her two aides would pick through banker’s boxes filled with letter-sized brown envelopes. After a moment the envelope would be located and handed to the Big Lady and she’d hand the envelope to the girl.

  Repeat for one hour … and counting.

  There must’ve been one hundred and thirty girls trying to sign in all at one time. And not just girls, there were fathers overheating, mother’s fretting, while little brothers and sisters ran around making up games to entertain themselves. Boosters walked the line selling cups of water for a quarter, and I was told there were plates of yams, greens, and smothered chops on their way up from who knows where that would be sold for a dollar and a quarter to anyone that got too hungry.

  My mind wandered while we waited and I finally managed to get a daydream going that did not include Trevor or whatever his name was …

  It didn’t.

  It was about being at a Temptations concert with a tall stranger who maybe looked a tiny bit like him, but not really.

  What did his face even look like? I’d already forgotten.

  Finally, finally it was nearly my turn, and I began paying attention again. It was the last part that made this whole thing real and exciting. I noticed that the Big Lady handed the envelope to the girls; not the parents. When two adults interacted the documents were never handed to the child.

  We’re the adults now!

  I’m an adult! Jesus! I can’t wait for Dolly to leave.

  I’m an adult. JESUS! I never wanted Dolly to leave.

  Those two thoughts battled it out in my head and I realized I was being ridiculous. I would be fine. Plenty of people have gone off to college, and they all turned out fine.

  They mostly turned out fine.

  I would be one of the fine ones.

  Dolly eyed me like she knew exactly what I was thinking as I vacillated between biting my lip and grinning like a fool. Her look conveyed that I’d better not get any overly bright ideas about my newfound freedom. I dropped my head to hide my smile, but my grin didn’t fade.

  When it was my turn the girls working with the Big Lady became more and more flustered as they searched for my envelope before the Big Lady finally turned to me said, “Are you sure you’re in this dorm?”

  I looked to Dolly who was already squinting at the lady. “Yes, she is. She is a freshman girl, is this not the freshman girls’ dormitory?”

  The lady eyed her levelly before looking at me and asking, “What was the last name again?” I’d originally given it to one of the assistants who was looking very nervous.

  Dolly interjected before I could respond. “Payton, P-A-Y-T-O-N,” she said in the same voice she used when speaking to a Mill foreman who was dangerously close to feeling her wrath.

  I wanted to die. Why, oh why couldn’t Dolly just once let it go when someone gave her a hard time.

  Oh Lord. The folks behind us were starting to whisper.

  The Big Lady dug back through the boxes and after a moment she pulled free an envelope whose flap had nestled snugly behind another. She scanned the front once, twice, and then lingered on it for a third reading.

  The lady’s eyes cut to me. “You’re Daisy Payton from Green Valley,” she said staring, incredulous.

  Oh God. Did anything good ever come from anyone staring you dead in the face and asking you to confirm your identity? What did they think, that you were a liar? Were they disappointed that you were you?

  I stared back at this lady trying to decide if I wanted to be a disappointer or a liar … She was portly and pretty, her eyes were surprised but not unkind.

  Better to be honest.

  I nodded.

  Her cherry red lips broke into the biggest smile, it transformed her face. Where she’d been methodical and all business before, she was warm and open now. I realized she was much younger than I’d thought.

  “My momma always says the world gets smaller every day! I went to school here years ago with your brother Adolpho! He talked about you all the time. Back then he was the biggest flirt, but that didn’t stop me from having a crush on him.” She laughed self-deprecatingly. “Is he here today?” she asked eyes darting past me hopefully.

  Dolly opened her mouth and closed it twice so fast that she looked like a fish. Before she could say anything, I cut in. “Nope. Couldn’t make it today but I’ll send your regards.”

  “Please do. Tell him Bessie Mitchell said hi,” she said a voice that was a bit dreamy and breathy before she blinked and hastily shoved my envelope into my hands.

  “Now you’re top floor—penthouse level we call it. Corner room diagonal to the stairs. Curfew is at eleven, room inspections are on demand, any of the”—she waved about to guys wearing fraternity insignias and ROTC uniforms—“can help you get your stuff upstairs. Complete dorm rules, welcome letter, freshman directory, and maps are in the back of the packet. See your advisor first thing Monday morning to pick your classes. Orientation today at four thirty, parents invited. Freshman mixer starts at six p.m.” She looked at Dolly. “Students only.”

  I nodded, clutched the packet a little tighter and tugged Dolly away. I managed to quickly flag down one of the guys dressed in a ROTC uniform to help us get my steamer trunk from Dolly’s car. I could feel my sister boring holes in the back of my head but I continued to smile and didn’t face her.

  Yeah … so about those wide open airy spaces in this giant building? Not so much. Maybe folks in the olden days were smaller or maybe they just had less stuff.

  My room was small with pale yellow walls, one window on the f
ar wall, two closets, two raised beds, and a single dresser. I’d beaten my roommate there and claimed the bed closest to the window. We’d made quick work of the cleaning and had gotten a good way through the decorating and hanging my clothes before Dolly flopped on the bed and called me to sit next to her.

  I knew what was coming next. It was one of my favorite Dolly speeches. It was the “Today You Become a Woman” speech. My conservative guess was I’d become a woman twenty-three times in the last few years. It’d happened when I’d gotten my driver’s license, when I’d gotten asked to the junior prom, when I’d gone to the senior prom, graduation day … you get the drift. Dolly was good with marking milestones with big speeches.

  She’d begin gently but I knew it wouldn’t stay gentle for very long, she would poke and pry and try to get me to cry and suddenly I was tired and ready for her to go.

  “Do you like your room?” she asked innocuously.

  I nodded, because I knew she hated when I nodded. Instead of reacting she simply stared and stared until I said, “Yes, it’s nice, a bit small for two people but I’m sure my roommate will be nice and we will make do,” I said it more hoping than knowing.

  Dolly smiled, and then after a moment said, “Don’t be angry with your father …”

  I stared at her confused, waiting for her to go on. She seemed to be struggling for words and so I patted her leg reassuringly. “Don’t worry, I’ll write him a letter. Or better yet, I think I saw a payphone at the end of the hall, I’ll call him and tell him I’m not angry he couldn’t make the trip.”

  She sighed. “No, Daisy, I know you’re not angry over that.”

  There was another pause and she took a deep breath. “Daddy wanted to surprise you. He thought you might be more comfortable in your own room here since you have your own room at home.”

  I continued to stare at her. “He called in a favor with one of his friends at the Alumni Association and they made special accommodations for you … someone will be by to collect the extra bed—”