Maggie climbed on top of me and held me down, my arms pinned beneath her knees. We were laughing so hard my stomach hurt.
“Truth,” she said. “Do you want to marry him?”
“Truth?” I sobered.
“Truth.”
I looked at Maggie for a long time, wanting desperately to make her happy, to side with her in whatever her dreams and goals might be. I ached to be as cool as she was, and as worldly, but I knew I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t even possess the strength to confide in my own sister and admit that I didn’t want to marry Jimmy Lee. I shrugged.
“Uh-uh. That doesn’t work, Pix.” She pressed her knees harder into my arms.
“Ouch!”
“Mama and Daddy can’t make your life into what you want, Pix, only you can. This is about you. Tell me.”
I turned my head, gazing out the window, and praying for strength. “I don’t know.”
Maggie slid off of my arms. I rubbed the pulsing soreness from them.
“That’s better,” she sighed. “Now that we know the truth, tell me more.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do you want to marry him? Are you sure he’s the only person, the only man you want to be with? Ever?” She turned “man” into a two-syllable word.
I bit my lower lip.
“Pixie, I’ve been your age. I know what’s goin’ on in that body of yours, the way your hormones are dancin’ ‘round in ways Mama and Daddy would kill you for.”
My cheeks burned with embarrassment.
“Yeah?” There was that mischievous smile again. “So, tell me.”
“I can’t,” I said, moving away from her.
“Have you done it?” she asked.
My jaw dropped open. “Sheesh, Maggie. A little direct, aren’t you?”
“Real, maybe,” she smirked. “Come on, I’m your sister. Okay, I’ll start.” She crawled over to where I was sitting and leaned against my back. Maggie must have known that it would be easier for me to talk to her if I didn’t have to look her in the eye. “I did it when I was your age. Remember Mr. Crantz?”
“That substitute from Mississippi?” I was mortified. “He was so old. Gross.”
“He was not. He was twenty-seven, and he was adorable.”
“Gross.”
“Okay, your turn.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Pixie, what are you afraid of? That I’ll run and tell Mama and Daddy? Uh, no. This is me you’re talkin’ to.”
I locked my eyes on the tips of my fingers, tapping them up and down on the hay.
“Are you careful at least?” she asked.
I nodded against the back of her head.
“Always?”
No. “Yes.” Another painful lie. My stomach tightened.
She let out a relieved sigh. “Good, because the last thing you need is to get pregnant.” She spun around and in the next moment was sitting next to me. “Is that where you were last night?” The high-pitched excitement in her voice matched my fear of her knowing.
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“Gosh, Pix, do you think I’m dumb? You went to bed with your clothes on. Anything you’re doin’, I’ve already done—many times over.”
I doubt that. I put my head down on my knees.
“You don’t have to tell me, but you know if Daddy finds out you’re dead meat.” She went to the window and tapped on the panes. “See the path? Daddy will see that one day and you’ll be in a lot of trouble. You need to be more careful.”
I looked at the flattened plantings, a clear path leading to a large flattened area where we were last night. I crossed my arms to stop them from shaking.
“Pix,” Maggie said, turning my head with her hand so I was facing her serious eyes. “You can’t get caught. You hear me?”
The truth in her words was more significant than she knew.
“Girls?” Mama’s voice sang into the loft from below, stealing my chance to tell Maggie what was really going on. “Let’s go.”
Before we climbed down the ladder, Maggie whispered in my ear, “Don’t confuse sex for love.”
Chapter Ten
The pungent smell of flowers greeted us at Mrs. Watson’s front door. I looked around for a vase of newly picked stems, but saw none as we walked through the threshold of the old farmhouse. Lace doilies covered every surface of the dark furniture. Mrs. Watson bustled around us in her skirt and newly-pressed blouse.
“I can’t believe the big day is so close!” Mrs. Watson clapped her hands together. Though she was only in her mid-sixties, she moved slowly. Mama wondered who would take over the invitation business when Mrs. Watson no longer wanted to sell them. From her enthusiasm, I wondered if that day would ever come.
When she leaned in to hug me, I realized that the overpowering, sweet smell was coming from Mrs. Watson’s perfume.
“You’ve grown up so much, Alison.” She embraced Maggie. “Oh, dear, when are you gettin’ married?”
Maggie looked at me and rolled her eyes, then turned on a charming smile and said, “I don’t know, but I’ll be sure to order my invitations from you when I do.”
Mama glared at Maggie.
“Of course you will.” Mrs. Watson led us to the living room, nicely appointed with braided rugs and a dark wing chair at the front, which she stood behind as she pointed to the couch. “Please, sit.”
Mrs. Watson’s gray hair was piled high on her head like a puff of frosting. She sat down in the wing chair, setting a thick, paper catalog on her lap and a permanent smile across her thin lips. “Alison, this is a big decision for you. Do you have a color scheme in mind?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her nose. I had never noticed the way it pointed and turned toward the right, just slightly at the tip. I blinked away my stare. The idea of planning a wedding with Jimmy Lee turned my stomach. Instead, I thought of what I might want if I were to marry Jackson. “Yes, ma’am. Beige and white, please.”
She sat up straighter and moved her feet in closer, knees so tight they could hold a penny between them. “Beige? For a weddin’?”
“Alison likes things simple,” Mama offered.
Maggie kicked my foot. I looked at her out of the corner of my eyes and she mouthed, You can still get out of this.
“Girls, pay attention,” Mama said.
I snapped my eyes back to Mrs. Watson’s nose. “Yes, ma’am. I like things simple.”
She said, “Well, it is your weddin’, dear,” but her tone said, It will be ugly, but it’s your choice. She flipped through the catalog, sighing and glancing up at me. “We don’t have much with beige.” Flip, flip, flip. “I don’t believe I’ve ever ordered beige invitations before.”
I wanted to run out of the room. I didn’t care what she wanted, and with Maggie sitting beside me, I couldn’t stop thinking about what she said about love and sex. Maybe I was mixing up sex and love with Jackson. Ugh! My life had become much too complicated.
Finally, after what felt like an hour, but in reality was only minutes, Mrs. Watson said, “Here we go, beige,” with feigned enthusiasm. She pointed to two invitations, one with brown letters and one with a lighter shade, though not exactly beige. The embossed flowers were so tiny that they looked like bugs crawling on the paper.
Maggie grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Pix, do you like these?” The laugh she held at bay bubbled behind the back of her free hand.
“I, um, I’m not sure. They’re not really beige, are they?”
“Well, we could go with gold,” Mrs. Watson offered.
“Gold?” Mama asked.
“Yes, gold.”
“That’s a little flashy, don’t you think, Mama?” I said.
Maggie chimed in, “Well, you could change your whole weddin’ to be gold and white. You could even put gold glitter on the cake.”
The ridiculousness of the comment tickled my ribs and I stifled a snort, which spurred Maggie’s laughter.
&nb
sp; “And you could wear gold shoes!” Maggie chortled.
Laugher burst from my lips. Maggie fell over in my lap in a fit of giggles. Mama tried to rein us in.
“Girls!” she chided. “Girls, don’t be disrespectful.”
My belly hurt from laughter. I saw the sparkle in Mama’s eyes, right before she swallowed hard and turned a stern face and a strong apology to Mrs. Watson. Maggie and I folded our hands in our laps and choked back our giggles.
We were led out the door five minutes later with instructions to return only when sincere decisions were to be made.
We drove into town in silence. Mama glanced at us every few minutes with a look of disbelief. I waited for her to lecture us, especially Maggie, who really should have known better.
Mama parked the car in front of the drugstore and turned in her seat to face Maggie. “Gold shoes?” she said, then laughed.
I held my breath, waiting for her to stop laughing, but she didn’t, which made me laugh, then Maggie chimed in, “Don’t forget the gold gloves!”
Mama threw her head back with a loud laugh, mouth wide, eyes tearing up. She wrapped her arm around her stomach and bent over the steering wheel in a fit of giggles. Never before had I witnessed Mama laugh so unabashedly, and though I didn’t know it was possible, Mama looked even more beautiful.
“Aren’t you mad, Mama?” I asked.
She cleared her throat, looked in the mirror and patted her hair, then said. “Mad? No. Embarrassed? Yes. You know the whole town will be talkin’. She’ll probably pray for the two of you in her Monday night prayer group, to rid you of the evil influences that abound.” Mama climbed out of the car and we followed her.
“Mama, can we wait out here?” Maggie pulled me toward a wooden bench in front of the building.
Sugar maple trees lined the sidewalk. The street bustled with Saturday shoppers from neighboring towns. Saturdays were “town” days for most local folks. Errands were run and friends visited. I watched with new interest the way the colored folks kept their eyes low and pulled their children toward them as they hurried down the sidewalk. For the first time, I noticed the glances they cast behind them as they walked toward the back of the diner, and the way the little children hung onto the front glass window with longing in their eyes. Then I noticed something that turned my stomach. The slight lift of the chin from the white folks as they passed the coloreds, a snub so small it’s not surprising I missed it for so many years. A snub so small I was certain the coloreds felt it like a momentary disappearance of the air they breathed.
I thought of Clara Bingham being chased out of town, and wondered if she was missing this side of Forrest Town or if she was happy to bid farewell to the chin snubs. I hoped she’d found a better place in Mississippi, but if you only know one place for so many years, I can’t imagine it would be easy to start over somewhere else.
Maggie watched a little colored boy standing on his tiptoes, begging his short and stout mother for ice cream. She tried to pull the toddler from the window, speaking in crisp whispers. Maggie’s smile faded and she stood and grabbed my arm.
“Come on,” she said.
In the diner, Maggie purchased a vanilla ice cream cone with money I didn’t know she had. She walked back outside, bent down, and handed the cone to the boy with the enormous, dark eyes and tight, black tendrils. The little boy reached for it with a squeal. His mother pulled him out of Maggie’s reach and into her arms.
“No, thank you,” she said, her eyes darting from side to side.
An elderly couple slowed to watch as the mother took a step backwards.
Maggie stepped closer, the ice cream held out in front of her. “Take it. It’s a gift for the baby.”
The child reached for the cone, “Want it!”
His mother stepped further away from Maggie. “Thank you, ma’am,” she said, her eyes on Maggie’s feet. “No, thank you. Please.” Her eyes begged to be left alone. A murmur rose from the bystanders.
Maggie’s lips formed in a tight line. She turned to the gathering crowd. “It’s an ice cream cone. He’s a child.” She thrust the ice cream toward the woman.
The woman hurried away. The child screamed in her arms, his hands outstretched over his mother’s shoulder.
Maggie walked right up to the group of people who lingered with mumbles of “wrong” and “nigger lover.”
Just as Mama stepped out of the drug store, Maggie thrust the ice cream cone at the bystanders and said through gritted teeth, “They’re people. People! Not niggers or any less worthy than you.” She pointed at a heavy-set man. “Or her.” She pointed at a toddler in a white woman’s arms.
“Margaret Lynn!” Mama’s face was as red as the sunset, her eyes as angry and ashamed as if Maggie had walked outside naked. She grabbed Maggie’s arm in one hand, holding a bag of groceries in the other, and pulled her toward the car repeating, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” to the crowd.
I followed on Mama’s heels, in awe of Maggie’s courage.
Chapter Eleven
The clinking of forks to plates in between stretches of chewing filled our dining room that evening. Tension mounted with every bite for everyone, it seemed, except Maggie. My father had yet to look at either of us. Jake stared at Maggie, his nose down, irises riding atop the whites of his eyes. Only Maggie ate without any noticeable tension. Her shoulders didn’t ride up high, each cut of her knife was slow and careful. Every so often she looked up and smiled at me, shrugged at Daddy. I wondered what had happened in New York to make her not care about what our father thought, or what he might do. I worried that although Daddy wasn’t a whipping man, he might stop paying for Maggie to come home to visit, or even worse, not pay for her to go back to New York. All afternoon she’d acted as though nothing had happened in town. She and Mama baked bread while I worked on the wedding list, which was only about twenty-five people long, because I couldn’t think past the pencil-thin man in overalls who had called my sister a nigger lover. He had it wrong. I was the nigger lover.
My father sat at the end of the table with the sleeves of his t-shirt pushed up, revealing his milk-white skin beneath and the tan line that all farmers sported. He chewed slow, determined, as if each bite held his full concentration.
“Daddy, there’s an art course that’s gonna be given at the University of Mississippi that I’d like to take. I could work off the money on the farm.” Jake’s eyes were hopeful.
My father looked at him, then wiped his mouth with a napkin and set it on the table next to his plate.
Jake looked at Maggie, then shifted his eyes to his plate. “One of my teachers told me about it,” Jake continued. I had a feeling it was Maggie who told Jake about the class, but I knew better than to ask right then.
My father looked at me, then back at Jake. “Art class? What a waste of money. Art class,” he laughed. “What on earth can someone do with an art class under his belt? Draw cartoons?”
“No, sir.” Jake sat up tall. “I can do lots of things. I can learn to design buildin’s or—”
“Pipe dreams, son. You stick with your business courses. You’ll do just fine.”
“Daddy, what if Jake doesn’t want to be a—”
My father cast harsh eyes on Maggie. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and said in a serious, dark tone, “I know what’s best for my children, includin’ you.”
Maggie set her fork down and crossed her arms, meeting Daddy’s stare.
“I heard about you today, little missy. Disgracin’ the family like that. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Maggie looked at Mama, who had conveniently begun clearing her plate, avoiding Maggie’s pleading look.
My father shook his fork in Maggie’s direction. “I don’t want you girls goin’ into town while Maggie’s home. There’s no good gonna come from what you did today.”
“No good? Ashamed? Daddy, please, I tried to give a child an ice cream.” Maggie picked up her fork and poked at the green beans on her plat
e.
My father stabbed a piece of meatloaf. “You listen to me, Margaret. You will not go into town. You’re leavin’ tomorrow night, and I don’t need anymore strife from you.”
Maggie pushed her chair from the table. “It was an ice cream. He was a child, a little boy no different than Jake was as a child. How dare you—”
“How dare I?” Daddy yelled. His chair shot out behind him as he sprung to his feet. A lump grew in my stomach heavy as lead.
Please stop, Maggie, I silently pleaded.
“Those people are not the same as Jake, or you, or me, or any of us.” He swung his arm around so hard I thought he might hit her. “Don’t you sass me, young lady.” He stood with his face two inches from Maggie’s.
Tears burned in Maggie’s eyes. “Know my place, right Daddy? I’m a white girl so I should act like one?”
Shut up, Maggie. Shut up! I clenched my hands into fists, praying as hard as I could for Maggie to stop needling Daddy. She didn’t catch my prayer.
“I’ve seen other parts of the world, Daddy. I know about civil rights and I know that this damned town you live in is ass-backwards, and I’ll do whatever I can to fix that.”
My father’s hand connected with Maggie’s cheek with a crack so sharp she stumbled backward. Mama flew between them, arms spread out wide.
“Ralph! Stop!” It was a command, not a plea. She pushed Maggie behind her with the order to go upstairs. When Maggie remained, too stunned to move, a pink mark blossoming on her cheek and hatred glowing in her wide eyes, Mama said in a strong, even tone, “Go.”
My father reached for Mama’s arm. I watched in horror as Mama’s eyes narrowed. Fear laced every fiber of my being. I couldn’t watch Mama get hit. Jake’s hands were on the table, elbows bent, like a cat ready to pounce.
Mama lifted her chin just as those white folks had on the street, casting a silent warning between them that could only be read by husband and wife. My father hesitated, then lowered his hand. His chest heaved up and down, his teeth clenched. To my relief and sorrow, he stormed out the front door. I flinched when the screen door slammed against the frame, making a mental note to bring my books indoors before bed. There would be no sneaking out tonight.
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