Betty

by Tiffany McDaniel

  I would often tag along with him as he went door to door. One day, as we were ready to head out, Dad stopped us.

  “I want you two to drop off some orders for me while you’re out.” He handed me a box full of three jars of tea, a salve, two tinctures, and an oil. When Trustin picked up the jar of oil, dark sediment slid across the glass bottom.

  “That oil is to be delivered to Ms. Pleasant,” Dad said, handing over a slip of paper that had additional names and addresses. “Those are the folks the other items are for. I’ve written what belongs to who, so don’t get it mixed up. Do you think you two can handle it?”

  Both me and Trustin nodded as I set the box in the wagon. Trustin pulled it down Shady Lane, while I picked up the jar of oil for Ms. Pleasant. I opened the lid only enough to get the scent of roots.

  “What you think she uses that stuff for?” Trustin asked.

  “For her face. Of course.” I screwed the lid back on.

  While Trustin went door to door with his paintings, I made the delivery stops. Ms. Pleasant lived on the other side of town, so we headed there last.

  “Look, Betty.” Trustin nodded at Cotton’s balloon floating up into the sky as we came to Quicksand Lane, where Ms. Pleasant lived. The lane was named for the very same sand Old Woman Slipperwort had told me Lavannah sank herself in.

  “You know, there’s a woman in there,” I told Trustin as I pointed to the sand.

  “Is not,” he said.

  “Is, too. Her name’s Lavannah.” I stepped to the edge of the sand.

  “Hey, Lavannah?” I cupped my hand over my mouth. “You hear me down there?”

  I turned to Trustin and dared him to put his finger in the sand.

  “That is, if you’re not scared.” I clucked like a chicken.

  “I’m not afraid.” He stomped past me.

  He pushed the tall grass aside and knelt by the sand. As he slowly lowered his finger closer, his whole hand trembled.

  “You don’t hafta do it,” I said. “If you’re too chicken.”

  “I told you I’m not afraid.” He plunged his whole arm into the sand.

  I dropped to my knees beside him. “You feel anything?”

  “Just sand.” He moved his arm around in it. “There’s nothin’—wait—I feel—” His mouth opened but no sound came out.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Trustin?”

  “I feel somethin’.” His eyes widened.

  “What?” I prepared myself for the worst. “Tell me.”

  “Her hand. The woman you said was in here. She’s holdin’ my hand. I can feel her fingers. I can feel—” His arm was jerked forward. “She’s pullin’ me, Betty. She’s pullin’ me down.”

  He was yanked toward the sand until he was covered with it up to his shoulder.

  “Don’t let her take me, Betty.”

  The sand was flying from his struggling. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled until I felt him easing out. Another sudden jerk forward and he was being swallowed by the sand once more.

  “Help me, Betty.”

  Digging my heels in and using all of my strength, I tightened my arms around him and pulled until I freed him. He rolled over on his stomach, hiding his arm beneath him.

  “Ow, my hand, Betty. It hurts.”

  I tried to roll him over on his side so I could tell how bad the injury was.

  “Let me see,” I said.

  He shook as if something still had ahold of him.

  “Trustin?”

  He released a piercing cry as his arm shot out in my face. I screamed and fell back, believing for a moment, I, too, would fall victim to the ghost of Lavannah and the myth of the quicksand.

  “Got ya.” Trustin laughed as he stood.

  “You toad turd.” I got up and pushed him.

  “I can’t believe you fell for it. It’s just sand, Betty,” he said, still laughing. “Ain’t no woman in it.”

  I gave the sand one last look before we returned to the wagon.

  Ms. Pleasant resided in a stucco house painted the same ocean blue every few years to keep the color bright. She lived near to the elementary school where she had once taught before retiring. Since then, she’d taken up growing succulents. When she saw us, she removed her gardening gloves and waved them at us.

  “Ah, Carpenter, there you are. Stand up straight, Carpenter.”

  She called everyone by their last name. When me and my siblings were together, it was hard to know which of us she was talking to.

  No one had seen the face of Ms. Pleasant for decades. There were rumors that her nose, right cheek, and most of her forehead were gone. Others said these things were still there, but that they were scarred from acid or fire. No one could be sure of the damage because of the masks she wore. Made out of papier-mâché, her masks were all of the same woman’s face. Those who remembered the way Ms. Pleasant used to look said the beautiful face on each mask was her own before the disfigurement.

  I tried to see her face as she stopped at the wagon. She picked up one of the paintings Trustin had made of our bean winnowing. In the image, he had painted Mom’s bright red dress blowing in the wind.

  “Red? Blah.” Ms. Pleasant threw her hand out. “I’ve never cared much for the shade. Do you like it, Carpenter?” she asked as she reached her finger behind her mask to scratch her forehead. “Do you like the color red? Carpenter, I’m speakin’ to ya. And stand up straight, for goodness’ sake.”

  Both me and Trustin stood up taller. He looked at me to answer.

  “I don’t mind the color red none,” I said. “But I wouldn’t want it to be the last color I ever saw.”

  “Hmm, yes indeed, Carpenter. Good answer. Well, I reckon I’ll take this one.” She placed the painting beneath her arm as she dug her coin purse out from her apron pocket.

  “I got plenty other paintin’s here that don’t have the color red in ’em,” Trustin said, showing her the paintings of our winnowing baskets.

  “I’ve already decided on this paintin’ here, Carpenter.”

  “But you said you don’t like the color red,” he said. “Red’s all over that paintin’.”

  “Boys don’t understand, do they, Carpenter?” She turned to me and nodded at the jar. “Same price your father charged me before?”

  “Same,” I said.

  She handed over enough money for the oil and the painting.

  “You’re both welcome to stay for a cheese plate if you like,” she said. “I only have cheddar cheese but no crackers. However, I do have violet jelly from a batch I made back in the spring. You may dip your cheese block into the jelly. It’s quite good. Come, Carpenter.”

  She turned back up the walk to her house.

  “We don’t hafta stay, do we?” Trustin asked.

  “Why don’t you go to the rest of the houses on this lane and see if you can’t sell more paintin’s?” I said. “I’ll stay and be ready when you’re through.”

  “You want to stay with her?”

  “Maybe she’ll take her mask off.”

  “If she does, tell me what her face looks like so I can paint it,” he said before pulling the wagon away.

  “Are you comin’ or not, Carpenter?” Ms. Pleasant called to me from her door.

  The inside of her house was as orderly as I had imagined. The pastel upholstered sofa and chairs were covered in clear plastic, while the wood trimmings shone like magazine pages.

  “What are those for?” I asked about the cotton bedsheets tacked to the wall in places.

  “They cover mirrors,” Ms. Pleasant said. “I have no use for mirrors, but it felt a shame to remove them completely, so I simply covered them. Don’t step on the rugs now, Carpenter.”

  She herself stepped around the pristinely kept rugs that were as colorful and elaborate as sta
ined-glass windows laid upon her floor as she led me back to the kitchen. The cabinets were white steel matching white Cape Cod curtains, heavily ruffled, framing each window. The white was set against red gingham wallpaper.

  “That’s a lot of red,” I said.

  “Sometimes we have things around we don’t like,” she replied.

  She placed her jar of oil down, then propped Trustin’s painting against a canister marked MOM’S RECIPES on top of the pie safe. She opened the pie safe and retrieved a quilted glass jar of purple-hued jelly.

  “It took me days to gather enough wild violets,” she said. “That’s why folks don’t make this jelly anymore, because it takes discipline and work.”

  She sat the jar on the kitchen table. Out of her refrigerator, she grabbed a block of cheddar cheese and a pitcher of iced tea. She poured us each a glass, topping it off with mint leaves from a small pot in the windowsill. While she got two white saucers, I sliced the cheese.

  “Open the jelly, Carpenter.”

  She had used paraffin wax to seal the jar. I lifted the seal with the blade of the cheese knife. Small pieces of paraffin dropped on top of the jelly. I picked them off before handing the jar to her.

  “Thank you, Carpenter,” she said, scooping her spoon into the jar to drop a dollop of jelly on each saucer. I immediately dipped my cheese in.

  “Mmm, it’s good,” I told her. The jelly tasted sweet and cheery.

  In order for Ms. Pleasant to take a bite, she had to hold her mask away from her mouth. I tried to see her face, but she was careful not to reveal more than she had to.

  “What happened to your face anyways?” I asked.

  “Oh, how I despise rudeness.” She pulled her shoulders back. “I don’t ask what happened to your face, now do I?”

  “There’s nothin’ wrong with my face.”

  “That’s a matter of personal opinion.”

  After a few moments of silence, she asked, “What do you think happened to my face?”

  “I heard it was some kind of acid. Burned you real bad. Some say you did it to yourself. Others say a man done it to you.”

  “I’ve never had a man I couldn’t handle.”

  “So you did do it to yourself?”

  “Of course not. Silly child. God did it to me.”

  She dusted her hands off before pouring us each more tea.

  “When I was a girl,” she continued, “I saw somethin’. Somethin’ terrible. I never said anything to anyone about it, so the one who did the terrible thing got away, while the one who had the terrible thing done to them, lived in misery until she died. Well, I thought, that’s the end of that, but you can’t know somethin’ so dreadful and never say it without gettin’ some of that wretchedness onto you. When we see somethin’ bad, we have a great responsibility to do somethin’ about it. Because I did nothin’, God punished me by taking away my face. Simple as that.”

  “What was the terrible thing you saw, Ms. Pleasant?”

  “The terrible thing no longer matters. What matters is that I told no one of it.”

  She stood and started to gather our dishes for the sink. She stayed there, staring out the little window. I decided to go outside and wait for Trustin. It wasn’t long before he appeared.

  “I sold all my paintin’s.” He nodded toward Ms. Pleasant’s house. “You see her face?”

  “Naw. C’mon.” I hopped off her porch. “Let’s go home.”

  When we got to Shady Lane, a truck honked and pulled up alongside us.

  “Leland?” Trustin ran up to the driver’s-side door. “You back?”

  “Might be,” Leland said out the open window.

  “Well, you best go back where you came from,” I told him. “There’s a terrible sickness in town. Everyone’s gettin’ boils and dyin’. You best get outta here while you still can.”

  “That ain’t true.” Trustin made a face at me.

  I told him to shut up.

  “I think I’ll take my chances.” Leland started driving toward the house.

  I ran after him. He smirked at me out his window.

  “I’ll show you what there is to smile about.” I picked up a handful of gravel and threw it at his truck.

  The small rocks struck the side of his door.

  The brakes squealed as he jerked to a stop.

  “Now ya done it, Betty,” Trustin said, out of breath as he pulled the wagon up behind me.

  Leland threw his door open so hard, it swung back in. He kicked it with his boot as he got out. He landed with both feet on the ground. He was twenty-six then and every inch of it.

  “You wanna play, little girl?” he asked. “Then let’s play.”

  I quickly ran into the field. I tried to run zigzag like Dad said to do if I was ever chased by a bear, but Leland liked the pursuit. I knew how fast he could run and he wasn’t giving it his all. He wanted me to think I could get away.

  When we reached the woods, I tried to use the trees to my advantage, running between them so he couldn’t see me as easily, but he just kept laughing. When I next looked, he wasn’t there anymore.

  I stopped, trying to hear a twig snap beneath his step. There were only the sounds of birds.

  “Leland? Where are you?”

  We had run so far, I could no longer see his truck nor the lane. Feeling his eyes on me, I slowly backed.

  “This isn’t funny,” I said. “I’m gonna tell—”

  “Gotcha.” His arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me to the ground.

  We wrestled in the dirt. I kicked and slapped at him, but he was so much bigger than me.

  “I thought my time away might have tamed you some,” he said. “I see that ain’t the case.”

  Flipping me over onto my back, he grabbed my thrashing arms and pinned them over my head.

  “You sure grew up, Betty baby,” he said as he ran his free hand over my dress, pulling my skirt up. When he grabbed my inner thigh, I screamed and banged my arms against the ground until he had to hold them with both of his hands.

  I was Fraya under him. I was my mother under her father. I was Flossie under the boy who still had popcorn on his breath. And I was fighting. Fighting as they must have.

  “Go on.” He smiled, letting my arms go. “Give me hell.”

  I pushed against him and slapped his face. He only grinned wider. Then he wedged himself between my legs.

  “No.” I clawed at the ground for an escape, trying to pull myself out from under him. But my mother had been right. The heaviest thing in the world is a man on top of you when you don’t want him to be. Still I fought with everything I had.

  “You’re a wild one, ain’tcha?” He pressed on my chest with one hand while he arched his back and tossed his head back to howl. He licked his lips and lowered his eyes to mine. “Little girls shouldn’t walk alone through the woods. You’ll get eaten by wolves. Don’t you know that by now?”

  “I hate you.” I spit in his face. “I’m gonna tell everything. What you did to Fraya and—”

  “What’d I do?”

  “You raped her.”

  “Rape? That’s a big word. You sure you know what it means, Betty?”

  “I saw you. I was in the barn. I watched you rape her in the truck.”

  He grabbed my mouth and squeezed it until I could feel his fingers digging into my teeth.

  “It’s too late to tell now,” he said. “Dad will ask you why you didn’t tell when it happened. You saw this awful thing bein’ done to your sister. You saw her raped, but you didn’t say a thing? You went on smilin’ and playin’ and brushin’ your hair in the goddamn mornin’? If I saw somethin’ like that, I would tell right away.” He paused and thought. “But wait a minute, you said you watched it happen?” With his hand tightening on my face, he moved my head up and down like I was n
odding on my own. “And you didn’t stop it?” He shook my head side to side, forcing my answer. “Why didn’t you stop me? Your sister was gettin’ raped right in front of you and you didn’t do a thing to help her?”

  “Shut up.” My hot tears slipped down my face.

  “You let it happen, Betty,” he said. “You could have stopped it. You could’ve hit me over the head with any number of things in the barn. Hell, you hollerin’ would have stopped it. You didn’t do nothin’. What kind of sister are you?”

  I turned my cheek and loudly sobbed into the ground.

  “If they believe you,” he added, “they’ll think hell of you for not doin’ a damn thing to save her. You might as well have raped her yourself.”

  I slapped him hard across the face. He grabbed me by the collar of my dress and pulled me into him. I was close enough to smell tobacco on his breath.

  “And what about Fraya?” he asked. “You wanna embarrass her like that? All these years, she’s never said a word. Folks will think that don’t add up. If these terrible things were happenin’ to her, well, hell, she’d say somethin’. Anyone would. Naw. No one’s gonna believe you. They’ll think you’re some sick girl who lies about horrible things and embarrasses her sister, draggin’ her name through the mud. I mean all these years, Fraya’s still hung around me. Calm as the color blue. If I raped her, how come she still talks to me? Folks are gonna ask all these questions. You gonna have all the answers?”

  “Leland?” Dad’s voice echoed distantly. “Betty? Where are ya?”

  Leland looked me dead in the eye.

  “You’re as guilty as I am,” he said. “You tell on me, you tell on yourself.”

  I let him yank me to my feet. He started to drag me back through the woods, but stopped when he noticed my dress had come unbuttoned. He quickly fixed it while looking through the trees in case Dad was meeting us halfway.

  “You’re a nasty girl,” Leland said as he looked for anything else out of place, brushing the leaves from the back of my dress. “You ran out in the woods.” He pushed his fingers through my hair, brushing it down. “You wanted me to follow you. You showed me your body. Asked me to touch it.”