When we got back home there was practically a party, with neighbors, friends, and cousins, and Nini going nearly crazy serving coffee and little sandwiches. Finally, everyone left and Aunt Eveline went to her room. I went to mine and took out the little gold heart I’d found at Saint Louis #2.
There was no doubt about it, it was my mother’s. Even the links of the chain, alternating square and round, were just like those in the portrait. The chain was clasped closed, as though a neck had been inside it. I shivered and decided it was time to get some help with the code.
I went next door. Aunt Toosie and Sandra Lee were doing dishes, and I helped them until Sandra Lee went upstairs. Then I said, “Aunt Toosie, look at this.”
“Why, it’s Pasie’s prayer book!” Aunt Toosie took it in her hands. “Where did you find it?”
“In the attic. Look inside. The prayer pages are painted over and it’s all in numbers. Mother wrote them.”
“What utter nonsense! And just like her. What is it supposed to be? Some kind of code?”
“Yes, it’s her diary. I thought maybe you knew about the code.”
“She wouldn’t have told me. How typical—ruining her beautiful book just to be different. Exactly like when she chopped her hair off only days before her wedding—to show off, of course! Who’d care about reading her diary, anyway?”
“I would.”
“Oh, darling, of course you would! How ugly of me! I’m so sorry. Sometimes Pasie still has the power to get my goat. But listen, dear, I did love her. She was irresistible, really. That pretty face and gorgeous hair! Even after she cut it she looked adorable. I’m just jealous, still! Isn’t that silly?”
I tried a new tack.
“Aunt Toosie, if all of Mother’s things are either in the chest or lost in the hurricane, why was her gold heart in Saint Louis #2? Because that’s where I found it.” I produced the heart.
Aunt Toosie turned pale. “It couldn’t be,” she whispered. “She always wore that heart, and she was lost in the hurricane, everything in the house with her.” Aunt Toosie took a deep breath and said with conviction, “You must be mistaken.”
“I picked it up by the tomb, right after you ran away. From underneath Uncle Ben.”
“Oh, Addie!” Aunt Toosie shivered. “You are like Pasie! Daring—and unafraid!”
“Yes, and I’m going to break the code in her diary!” Aunt Toosie was staring at me.
“I don’t think she’s daring,” said Sandra Lee, who, with her usual sense of timing, had come downstairs again. “I think she’s nosy. Miss Butinsky herself. If your mother wrote in code she didn’t want you to know what she said, and it’s none of your business.”
“It is too! After people die you can read their letters. It’s perfectly all right after they die!”
“Not if they didn’t want you to know!”
“She did want me to know. She still does! I can tell. And it’s my mother!”
“Thank goodness! I wouldn’t want a mother with secrets. I wouldn’t want a mother who had a boyfriend that wasn’t my father.”
“Sandra Lee! Go to your room! You are punished!” Aunt Toosie was practically screaming and her hand trembled as she pointed to the door. “Your room, young lady!” I’d never seen her angry with Sandra Lee before. She turned to me. “Addie, dear, run home. I apologize for Sandra Lee. Don’t bother Eveline with this. I apologize . . .”
“But, Aunt Toosie, you didn’t say how you think the heart got there if all of my mother’s things were lost in the Gulf. And—and who was my mother’s boyfriend?”
“Your mother had many beaux before she was married,” Aunt Toosie said nervously, “and she probably left her gold heart at Three Twenty when she went to Honduras. She left many things she didn’t think she’d need. Like her portrait dress. And—and someone put the heart in the tomb in remembrance of her, you know. One of the times the tomb was open.”
Aunt Toosie looked pleased with these complicated explanations and, like all grown-ups, when she made up her mind something was true, evidence to the contrary didn’t change it.
I went home. It would have been a waste of time to argue with her.
JANE WHITEMORE PACKS FOR BELIZE
“Your hair! What have you done with your hair?” Eveline wailed. Her eyes were round, and tears were forming. “Oh, my God, Jane, what have you done?”
“It’s not such a tragedy. I’ve cut it.” I was busy packing my trunk.
“It looks adorable.” Edmond had come into the room and was looking at me sadly. “You look like an adorable little boy.”
My hair, chopped off two inches from my head, formed a curly halo around my face.
“Your veil won’t fit! We’ll have to do the whole crown over,” Eveline said.
“I’m not wearing it. I’m not going up the aisle dripping lace and covered over like a cot with a mosquito net. I’m going to wear my going-away suit, and we’ll be married in the sacristy.”
“The sacristy! You won’t fit. I mean the guests won’t fit in that small room!”
“My sisters will. I don’t care about the rest,” I said, folding my portrait dress carefully.
Edmond laughed uncomfortably. “May a very old friend squeeze into your heart and into the sacristy with your sisters, Jane?”
“Since you think marriage is an institution for the blind, I thought you’d prefer not to see the ceremony. Ha, ha. Get it?”
“Jane! Run along, Edmond, it’s bridal jitters. All brides act this way, I’m told.” Eveline took a deep breath and turned back to me. “Now, dear, we can’t change our plans at this late date. Of course, I’ll alter the crown to fit, but the guests are invited. The curls around your face are—are endearing! You’re just overwrought! Have you talked to George?”
“George and I don’t talk. When we’re together, he makes sure someone else is there too. George doesn’t want to be alone with me.”
“Jane! What nonsense! George asked you to marry him!”
“No, I asked him. And he was afraid to refuse. Oh, Eveline, how can you be such a hypocrite? Everyone knows you wanted to marry George. Unfortunately, they also know George wanted to marry you. Even George knows that but he’s too dumb to do anything about it.”
Eveline’s eyes were dark holes in her white face. “That will be quite enough, Jane!” she said as George walked in.
“Pack only what you need,” George said the minute he saw my portrait dress hanging in the trunk. “And don’t bring jewelry,” he added, looking at the gold heart hanging around my neck. “The climate mildews clothes, and it’s better not to have anything valuable in the house.”
Eveline began taking my beautiful dress out of the trunk.
“I want all of my things,” I said, snatching it from her and stuffing it back into the trunk. “Everything.”
George sighed and did not answer.
“Now, Jane, darling,” Eveline said, “do as George suggests. Where could you possibly wear your portrait dress in Honduras, dear? And I’ll keep your jewelry safe for you, dear! Don’t forget, you are going to a banana plantation, practically in the wilderness!”
“Eveline! I don’t want to go! I’ll die! I know it!”
“Jane!” Eveline looked horrified. “George will take care of you. George—” Eveline turned to George— “don’t worry. She’s so young, and she’s always loved her home. I’m afraid I’ve protected her too much, but she’ll grow up.” George stood silently looking at Eveline. “She’ll love it, I’m sure. Just think: the tropics, the palms, the natives!” Eveline warmed to her subject. “Think of the glorious colors she can paint!”
“Eveline!” George moved closer to her. “Oh, my God, Eveline . . .”
Eveline gasped at the look on his face and rushed out of the room. George stood staring after her, and I stuffed my gold heart into my suitcase without his noticing.
Chapter XVI
Holly helped Nini every afternoon during the week of the funeral. I helped, too. Nini
noticed we weren’t speaking and finally said, “My, my, so busy helping, no time for relaxing! My, my, what good, sweet girls!” I giggled and Holly grinned. We had made up.
“Holly,” I said as sweetly as I could when Nini left the kitchen for a minute, “please tell me who the man in the snapshot is.”
“Offhand, I am unable to say,” said Holly coolly. She looked me straight in the eye. I know a dare when I see one.
“I believe you are a Sagoma, Holly,” I said, concentrating on my most sincere look. “Who is he?”
“Not just like that!” she said.
I smiled encouragingly, like the hypocrite I am. “Let’s go to the attic.”
We went, careful not to creak any more than we had to. My mother was waiting for us. I tried to make myself believe it was my imagination, but she did everything short of materializing. She wanted me to understand her; I was sure of it. I felt as though the three of us, Pasie, Holly, and I were in a conspiracy against the rest of the family.
Holly began. “Sit still,” she told me. “Put your hands on the lid.”
“Holly,” I whispered, “I feel like my mother is here. Her hands are on the lid, too, and she’s laughing!”
“Hush, will you? It’s working, of course. Keep your eyes closed.”
Holly closed her eyes and began to mumble. I kept my eyes slit open. Holly looked so silly, I was sure Pasie would giggle.
“Are your eyes closed?” Holly asked.
“Yes,” I said, closing them.
“Aspasie!” Holly drew the name out in a wobbly singsong. “Aspasie, we are calling you! Are you there?”
A tap and a giggle. I think it was my giggle, but I had not tapped.
“Aspasie! We are waiting. Are you there?”
I could feel a sneeze coming on. I tried to hold it back. I was listening hard. She was going to speak. I squeezed my eyes closed; I was sure I’d see her if I opened them. It was working. If only I didn’t sneeze. In a last-ditch effort to keep from sneezing, I brought my hand up from the lid to put my finger under my nose, but midway up, my hand collided with Holly’s arm, and all at one time, I sneezed, opened my eyes, and someone said, “Ma!”
“Addie, you ruined it! She’s gone.”
She was, giggling all the way.
“She was about to tell us something,” said Holly in disgust. “Can’t you control your animal instincts?”
“There’s nothing animal about a sneeze. I had to sneeze. She made me sneeze just then. I’m sure of it.”
Holly looked at me. “At least you know it’s starting to work, don’t you?”
I thought a minute. “Yes,” I answered. “She said ‘Ma!’ She was trying to say she was my mother.”
“You see! I told you I was a Sagoma! If you hadn’t sneezed, she would have finished telling you out loud what she whispered to me.”
“She didn’t whisper to you!”
“She did too!”
“What did she whisper? Did she say who was in the snapshot?” I played right into her hands.
Holly took her time. She was making up her mind how much information to feed me.
“She didn’t exactly say that.” Holly had decided to hold out. “She said she couldn’t reveal to us at this time who the man in the snapshot was.”
I lost my patience. “Then, that’s exactly what she told me before I sneezed—nothing!”
“You can take it or leave it,” Holly said in a very un-Sagoma-like tone.
“I’ll leave it,” I answered. “I am leaving.”
My exit was spoiled by the fact that I had to go quietly, and could not storm out. Holly was tiptoeing along behind me. At the foot of the steps, just before we opened the hall door, she hissed at me, “How do you suppose I came by her white scarf?” She waved her Sagoma scarf under my nose. “It got thrown out, that’s how, and Nini saved it. Look at the saltwater stains on it!”
Something terrible happened inside me. I felt my head drain. I tasted salt water on my lips. For a second, I thought I was remembering something, then it flashed off. I followed Holly all the way downstairs, unable to speak.
In the living room sat Sandra Lee, glued to the radio, her golden head bent over her paper and pencil. Little Orphan Annie had just finished her latest adventure, and Sandra Lee was poised for the code.
Holly tried to slam the swinging door as she went through the dining room to the kitchen.
“Shhh!” Sandra Lee frowned.
I laughed shakily. “That’s so baby,” I said. “Who cares what they have to say that’s so secret? It’s probably: ‘Drink Ovaltine, dear little members of the Secret Society, and you’ll get round, and pudgy, and all the boys will love you!’ ”
“It is not.” Sandra Lee looked at me scornfully. “And if I were as skinny as you, I’d drink as much Ovaltine as possible, no matter who said what.”
“ ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ ” I snapped, not having the faintest idea what that meant, my thoughts still on the white scarf.
“Beauty may be in your eye, but it’s nowhere else,” retorted Sandra Lee, knowing exactly what she meant.
“All right, boys and girls, gather closer!” said Uncle Andy, the announcer. “Is your brand new 1937 secret message decoder pin ready? Remember, now, nobody but 1937 members will be able to understand the exciting secret message, so if you haven’t been a faithful member of the Secret Society, Little Orphan Annie wants you to tell your mother right away to go out and get you some Ovaltine so you won’t be an Outsider. All you have to do is send us a foil seal from the can and ten cents and we’ll forward you your very own badge and booklet and make you a full-fledged member of Little Orphan Annie’s Secret Society! Ready now? Here we go: This is the seven-A secret code! Twenty-fourteen-A . . .”
I watched Sandra Lee write. Uncle Andy was calling out numbers and Sandra Lee was jotting them down with spaces between some. I stood absolutely still. Over the radio, the theme song was coming to a close: “Who’s that little chatterbox? . . . It’s Little Orphan Annie!” Sandra Lee was spinning the dial on the pin and writing letters above the numbers. The letters formed words, just as the numbers in my mother’s diary might if I had a Secret Society decoding badge. Of course! I’d borrow Sandra Lee’s.
I walked into the kitchen in a daze. Nini looked at me in a funny way and said, “Holly’s gone, honey. She burst out of here fit to be tied. You all sure can fight!” I went upstairs. There was something about the scarf buried in the back of my mind. It was something I didn’t want to remember. I grabbed Lad, a Dog and read straight through to the end.
The next afternoon I ran all the way home from school to beat Sandra Lee. Aunt Toosie was in her kitchen, but she was singing “Tiptoe through the Tulips” so loudly that I was able to get past her and up the stairs without being heard.
Too bad Harold couldn’t see Sandra Lee’s room. What a mess! I went straight to her ruffled dressing table. It was so beautiful with its little gold-framed mirror, glass top for showing off snapshots of friends, and a small, shaded lamp. But the ruffles were smeared with lipstick, and a knotted hair ribbon trailed in an open box of powder. Straight pins, bobby pins, and rubber bands spilled out of a silver dish. Half buried in the dish was Little Orphan Annie’s Secret Society badge. I snatched it up and hurried out past Aunt Toosie, who was still tiptoeing at the top of her lungs. As I headed up the steps of Three Twenty, I could hear Sandra Lee calling goodbye to Harold, who had carried her books home for her.
I tried every combination I could think of, spinning the dial and trying to make letters fit numbers. Nothing made words. At five-thirty, Sandra Lee went screaming around her house looking for her precious badge. I couldn’t risk trying to put it back on her dressing table, so I decided I’d better plant it somewhere here. I tucked it between the cushions of the chair she always sat in and watched her find it just in time for the five-forty-five Little Orphan Annie broadcast.
Chapter XVII
After school the next day, Tom walked
in balancing a plate of pralines in one hand. Aunt Eveline and Aunt Mable were always baking things for each other, and this particular plate had been traveling between Three Twenty and Tom’s house so long no one knew whose plate it really was.
“Tom,” I said, using both hands to take the pralines, and making a decision. “Do you think you could decipher a code?”
Tom helped himself to the praline with the most pecans. “Probably,” he said.
I took the second-best one and told him about the diary and how I’d found it, and then about the heart and how brave I’d been picking it up.
“It was lying there under Uncle Ben’s skull,” I said, stretching the truth a little because Tom was so obviously impressed. “And I snatched it out and ran for all I was worth!”
“I could figure this out,” he said, looking at the diary. “It looks easy. But it’s private.”
“It’s private all right, but that doesn’t matter. She’s dead and doesn’t care.”
“How do you know she doesn’t care?”
“I just know.”
“Why do you care, then?”
“Well, she was my mother.”
“Oh.”
“Will you do it?”
“I guess so. Give it to me for a day. Let me have another one of those things,” he said, still eating the last praline he’d taken.
“Addie! Ah-de-la-eed!”
“I’ve got to help Aunt Eveline straighten Aunt Kate’s room. I’ll get the diary back tomorrow. I’m coming, Aunt Eveline!” I shouted, rearranging the plate to cover the bare spots.
No one had disturbed anything in Aunt Kate’s room since the funeral. It was just as she had left it except for the dust Nini banished daily. Aunt Eveline had decided to air Kate’s room, so at least the window was open when I walked in.
The walls were papered in a faded blue floral design, and the old mahogany furniture gleamed richly under an English wax applied monthly by the joint team of Nini and Aunt Eveline. The potpourri of brown rose petals and black cloves sat on a doily in the center of Aunt Kate’s mirror-topped chifforobe, a small idol ruling over the silver-backed set of hand mirror, comb, and brush, and the painted tin box that held the souvenirs Aunt Kate had saved. The only thing that spoke of Aunt Kate’s absence was the crocheted bedspread, which lay too smooth on the bed. The thick smell of cloves had been saving up for me; I could hardly stand it, in spite of the open window.
Secret Lives Page 9
