On Snowden Mountain

by Jeri Watts

  “Thank you, Miss Pearl. How do, ma’am.” He nodded to Mama.

  My mother’s eyes drifted to him. She blinked. “You look like Hannah?” She said this in a tiny voice.

  He smiled.

  “Yes’m. I ’spect she’ll be by in the morning to see you.” He backed out and then, as he passed me in the kitchen, he smiled big and nodded. “Seems good.”

  Yes, I thought. Yes, she did. So why did I feel worried something would go wrong?

  THANKSGIVING MORNING DAWNED overcast and chilly. A thick layer of frost decorated the world, and I thought of Russell’s mama and wondered if she was about in it. Had she always liked the mornings? Had she and Mama gone out to see touches of frost when they were new friends? I wished I could learn more about when they were girls, before the sad took Mama, before Rooster Armentrout took Hannah Tucker.

  And how could she go out in the mornings now, knowing he might catch her, knowing his anger if he did? She was very brave or very stupid. I wasn’t sure which.

  I stretched in bed and snuggled deeper under a drunkard’s path quilt. I tried to look properly scandalized when Aunt Pearl first told me the name of the design, although I could easily see why it had the name, with the sprawling path of the color blocks stitched askew on the plain white background.

  Before I saw the drunkenness of Rooster Armentrout, Mama and I saw a drunkard once in Baltimore, when we were walking home from market. He wore a finely tailored suit, but it was stained and dirty, and he kept smoothing at his hair with his hand, as if that would somehow make him look reputable. He approached Mama with an “Excuse me, ma’am,” but she brushed by him and hurried me along. The smell of liquor hovered like a cloud around him and seemed to cling to my nostrils, because I swear I smelled it for blocks and blocks and blocks. Mama said that was nonsense, and I suppose it was, but sometimes, when I was about to fall asleep, even in Virginia, I could smell it again, and it would fill me with a hollowness that made me ache. Was Mama hollow when her sadness came?

  Mama said, back in Baltimore when she still said things, that ladies don’t speak of drunkards or despair. Ladies. Hannah Tucker Armentrout didn’t say anything about her husband; she was a real lady. But Moselle Toms said plenty and, in my mind, she was no lady at all. But, of course, I hadn’t realized that in time to save myself from saying yes to an invitation that kept me awake much of the night before. That reminded me of the fact that I would be facing the dreaded Thanksgiving dinner in very little time.

  I had overslept.

  If only I could stay at the house, think about Mama, maybe even talk to Aunt Pearl about Mama’s younger days. I realized there was so much I didn’t know about the past, my mother’s past, Aunt Pearl’s past. Maybe I could figure out where Aunt Pearl got her money. More important, maybe I’d figure out ways to avoid becoming like Mama.

  I sprang out of bed and hurried downstairs. The delicious odor of cooking turkey wafted through the entire house. Aunt Pearl worked at the sink, scouring a dirty pan.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I overslept.”

  She cast a glance over her shoulder and went back to her scrubbing. “I thought to let you sleep in. Teenagers need more rest.”

  “I’m only twelve,” I reminded her.

  She shrugged. “Close enough. Besides, it’s Thanksgiving. Your mama is still in bed.”

  Mama was always still in bed, unless Aunt Pearl hauled her up. I edged toward my aunt, pulling my robe close. “Aunt Pearl, I’ve decided I don’t want to go to Moselle Toms’s house for Thanksgiving. I . . .”

  “You accepted, did you not?”

  “Well, yes, but . . .”

  “Then you must go. In this family, we keep our obligations.”

  I sat heavily in a chair at the table. “How would I know anything about family obligations? I don’t know anything about this family.”

  “Rubbish,” she said. “Stuff and nonsense. Your mother has told you.”

  I cut her off. “Mama has told me nothing. Or almost nothing.” I rose, pushed my chair against the table hard. “Just as well. Who wants to know anything about this family? I’ll get ready for Mrs. Toms’s.”

  In my room, I pulled on whatever came to hand first. What did it matter what I wore? I represented a family of — well, I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. My mother had never told me anything about her upbringing. Russell’s mother had said something about Mama going off to boarding school, but I’d never heard about that before. Aunt Pearl had said something about the family moving here from Baltimore; I’d never known Mama grew up here. My family was a mystery, and it seemed my father might know some of it. Or all of it.

  But no one had bothered to tell me.

  I pulled on my coat and headed out the door. Angry. Confused. And determined to get this over with.

  The walk calmed me some, although I was still so agitated, I didn’t look about or allow myself to think. I marched. Pure and simple. I marched, looking only at the old dead leaves on the path. At noon exactly, I arrived at Moselle Toms’s house.

  She opened the door before I could even knock. “Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving,” she said. Her voice was welcoming, and she was wearing the most incredible outfit I’d ever seen. A jacket of brocaded silk, the color of cranberries, with flowing sleeves that were sheer and cuffed at the wrist. I wondered how she could cook in those sleeves. And she had . . . trousers. Trousers that were also of cranberry silk, but the brocade design was highlighted with touches of gold and silver. It was exquisite.

  She laughed, a hearty guffaw that made a mockery of her elegance. “You like?” She pirouetted.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. I thought of how Aunt Pearl had looked when I’d left, an old besmirched apron covering some old dress, her face slightly flushed from all the activity of putting together the meal: the turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes . . . A feast, and in the midst of preparing it, she was getting Mama ready, laying out the fine silver and those lovely dishes, setting a gorgeous table with an autumn theme — for while I wouldn’t be there, apparently there would be plenty of people there to share the Thanksgiving bounty. I’d left the house in a snit, but Aunt Pearl hadn’t noticed. She’d been busy, busy, busy — preparing for a meal of joy with honored friends who would know her wonderful cooking and her . . . love?

  I stepped inside, ready to be enveloped in the smell of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, or hot turkey, ready to be in the house of a person who appreciated me. I inhaled deeply, but smelled only Moselle Toms’s strong, flowery perfume.

  I smiled weakly and looked around, prepared to meet the elite of Snowden, to be gathered in by all of the society people Moselle Toms would host for Thanksgiving. Perhaps there was the family who owned the nearby paper mill, a family dripping in culture and knowledge. Or maybe Moselle Toms had invited a friend from Washington, D.C. — surely, she had acquaintances from big cities.

  Rucker rose from his perch on one of the spindly chairs and nodded a greeting. No pencil sat behind his ear, yet he still somehow looked as if he’d just gotten up from a desk. He held a glass in his hand, plain and filled with cold tomato juice. He was the only other person in the room.

  “Rucker, take her coat and offer Ellen some tomato juice. Then we’ll eat. You’re right on time, Ellen.” I accepted my tomato juice (which she had pronounced to-mah-to) and managed to get a couple of sips gagged down. Thick and viscous, the consistency always left me gagging slightly. Anyone who knew me knew that tomato juice (however it was pronounced) was not a beverage of choice if I had a choice.

  Moselle Toms (I still could not make myself think of her by her first name alone) guided me to the table, a spindly, delicate object itself, and we perched carefully on the dining-room chairs. Food rested on the sideboard, the only sturdy piece of furniture I’d seen in the house. The room was dark, the drab draperies drawn.

  Moselle Toms placed her thin hands into a clasp, and I realized she would lead the prayer. Her manicured nails, painted cranberry, of course,
contrasted with her pale skin. “Lord,” she said, “thank you for the special food on our table and we offer our praise. Amen.” Her hands spread then, pointing to the display of food on the sideboard. She crowed, “Our entire dinner is catered. I read about it in one of the ladies’ magazines, and this is all the rage in big cities like Baltimore. Now, it’s true that no one brought it right to us — I mean who in little old Snowden would know a thing about that? — but I had a caterer prepare it, and then I brought it here myself. Met her Tuesday. I had to work quite a bit, let me tell you, coordinating gourmet foods and traveling needs, but Rucker said, ‘Spare no expense. You deserve the best.’ I mean, why in the world would I want to spend the entire day slaving in the kitchen when we can have the food fixed ahead of time by someone else?”

  I looked at Rucker, who kept his hands in his lap and his eyes on his plate. His empty plate.

  “Fine homes, like this one, serve from the sideboard, not family style. So, as our guest, please take your plate and help yourself, Ellen.”

  I rose, with Rucker close behind me, and moved through the line of offerings on the sideboard. They were meager. A cold turkey, sliced so thinly you could just about see through each slice, tomato aspic, jellies, pickles, and a tray of some sort of pastry rolled around a grayish mixture. I took a bit of each, saw that my plate still looked amazingly empty, and eased back onto my seat at the table.

  “Eat up! I am just so excited, I could pop. A catered meal and, let me tell you, Ellen, it was no easy trick to pull this off.” She smiled at me, her lips perfectly drawn with her cranberry-shaded lipstick. “I had to go to Roanoke — can you believe Lynchburg doesn’t have a single caterer to meet my standards? And Rucker was working on the paper mill’s books, so I had to do it all by myself.”

  I nibbled at the pastry item. The gray mixture tasted a lot like I imagined paste would taste. I knew a boy in second grade who ate paste. I wished he were at the table to eat mine.

  “Um, thank you for inviting me, Mrs. — I mean, Moselle. It was kind of you to include me.” I slid my tongue around my teeth, hoping I didn’t have any gray stuck on them when I was talking.

  I cut my turkey, sitting cold on a plain white plate. I could tell it was fine china — it had that clear sound to it when my knife propped against the edge — and I know plain white can be elegant, but it was so unadorned, so . . . plain, that it appeared bland. I suppose Moselle Toms herself did sparkle more next to those plates, a nice contrast, you might say, as with the cranberry polish and her skin, but I missed the pattern on Aunt Pearl’s willow dishes. Or perhaps I was just missing home (had I really started thinking of it in that way?), and I was just being too harsh and judgmental.

  “You know, honey, it’s really so nice to have a friend like you. I mean, I haven’t had anyone to talk to for ages, isn’t that right, Rucker?” He nodded and I smiled, trying not to make my knife screech as I cut my sliver of turkey. She went on. “Everyone around here only cares about canning and tatting and whether there’ll be a good harvest. What I want to talk about is fashion and hairstyles and, well” — Moselle Toms looked at her plate — “I’ve just never cared for the things that are important in this community. Always an outcast.”

  I stopped chewing. Adults could feel like outcasts too? I nodded and swallowed. I guess I hadn’t thought about the fact that what set Moselle Toms apart from Aunt Pearl was what would set her apart from most everyone in Snowden. I tried to smile a bit more, while still ignoring the casual questions she asked about Mama’s “condition” or my relationship with Russell.

  Moselle Toms scarcely touched her food, and she danced from one topic to another. “Oh, Ellen, honey, you should’ve seen the spectacle at MacIntosh’s the other day.” “Ellen, did I tell you about the time Rucker took me to New York City?” “Ellen, have you noticed the way Pearl rubs her nose with her wrist just like you do? Like two peas in a pod. I always say, an apple never falls far from the tree. I say that all the time, don’t I, Rucker?” Rucker said nothing, just shoveled more of the gray paste into his mouth.

  I tried to respond as best I could, agreeing that hats were an important part of an outfit, that gloves added a nice touch. I stayed quiet on the observation that Aunt Pearl and I shared a mannerism — could that be true? — and finally accepted the obvious fact, though with a sinking feeling, that Moselle Toms was a surface person. I found this more dismaying than her desperate nosiness, her nasty gossiping. I doubted very much that she’d ever noticed the sky in the morning; I didn’t think she ever talked to Mr. Pritchard when he delivered her mail. I sighed as slightly as I could. It wasn’t the food alone that was causing me to feel dismayed; it was the conversation and the way I felt in this house. A person I thought I “clicked” with was no deeper than the leaves I’d kicked around on my way walking here. This confirmed what I’d thought before about myself.

  At the end of the meal, she served a flaming rum pudding — at least I think that’s what she said it was. It tasted scorched and had hard raisins in it and was so bad I wished for the thick tomato juice instead. At last, mercifully, the meal ended and I begged my leave. Moselle Toms, I learned, spent every Thanksgiving afternoon “resting” — although I don’t know how a person could get tired from having a catered meal. I had a feeling it might not be napping Moselle Toms had in mind; perhaps she’d be planning her next “social success.” Whatever she had to do, I wanted out of there all the same. I certainly didn’t want to talk to Rucker, so I thanked Moselle Toms and hurried away.

  After I got down the road a ways, I decided to stroll around; I wasn’t ready to go back to all the wonderful smells at Aunt Pearl’s, smells that matched good food I’d missed. Warm turkey, earthy sweet potatoes swimming in freshly churned butter, hot homemade rolls. The dinner at Moselle Toms’s, in its emptiness, had reminded me of all I used to have with Thanksgiving in Baltimore: mornings filled with endless cooking and busy chatter, Daddy peeling potatoes, Mama caught up in the holiday spirit as she mixed and baked and basted, and me the official taster. I kicked at the frozen ground.

  “Got a problem with dirt?” It was Russell, his plaid jacket buttoned tight and a hat pulled low to cover his ears from the chill.

  I laughed. “No. Just a little frustration.” I looked at him more closely. “Why are you out on Thanksgiving? Aren’t you celebrating the holiday?”

  Russell snorted. “Traps gotta be checked. Ain’t no holiday at my house. Least not for me or Ma.”

  I closed my eyes a moment and imagined what Thanksgiving would be like there. His dad, drunk, passed out maybe, if they were lucky, and his mama, tiptoeing about so as not to upset him. I shuddered and thought again of the Thanksgivings I’d enjoyed in Baltimore with Daddy and Mama, the delicious smells and the time to talk and reminisce.

  I opened my eyes to find Russell looking at me. I shrugged. “Well, I’d invite you to Thanksgiving at Aunt Pearl’s, but I wasn’t invited either. I had to go to Moselle Toms’s house.”

  Russell smiled sympathetically. “Hmm. Want to walk?”

  I fell in beside him, and we aimlessly plodded the path to Aunt Pearl’s. “One year, Mama was really . . . strong, you know?” He nodded. “We invited half of the neighborhood, it seemed like. Mama loved to have parties, did I tell you that? The Smarts were there, and the Campers. Oh, we must have had close to twenty people, what with the McNeils and the Pirkles. The McNeils had quite a brood. And Mrs. Smart brought a delicious pound cake that slid down your throat like butter. And Mama laughed and ate until she thought she would bust and . . . and well.” We walked in silence.

  “What’d you have for eating at Mrs. Toms’s?” Russell offered his words carefully.

  I shook my head. “Not much.” I didn’t feel like explaining catered meals and fancy food. “Have you eaten today?”

  “Had some breakfast. Went out early and got some tree sugar. Mama boiled it and we had it on biscuits. That’s my favorite.”

  “It’s just maple syrup.”

&nbs
p; Russell looked at me like I was stupid. “I suppose you could call it that. But it’s tree sugar here. No need to be snooty, Ellen.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, really. I’m sorry.” I smiled at my friend. “Besides, tree sugar is a much prettier name.”

  Russell sniffed and looked up. “Smells like snow.”

  I took a deep breath, something I hadn’t been able to do around Russell until a few days earlier, when, because of the cold, the skunks took to hibernating. I spoke truthfully. “I don’t smell anything.”

  He smiled. “It’s there, though. I cain’t describe it; it’s a lightness or maybe a heaviness.” He shrugged. “A thick smell in the air, and I know it’ll snow soon.”

  I looked at the sky. Gray rolls of clouds banked like the pleats of a skirt. It looked like weather, that was sure. I pulled my coat closer, wished for the trousers that lay in my drawer back in Baltimore.

  “You two coming in?” It was Aunt Pearl, calling from the porch. “There’s a turkey in here waiting.”

  Russell began to stutter. “No, ma’am, I . . .”

  She came down the steps heavily, her Sunday dress swirly about her calves, and grabbed us, one arm in each sturdy hand. “Now, I got all this food in here; it can’t go to waste. Come along.”

  “But I thought you’d eaten already,” I said.

  Aunt Pearl shook her head. “Sakes alive, child, I couldn’t have my Thanksgiving without you among us. Besides,” she sniffed, “in Baltimore, we never ate holiday dinners before three in the afternoon. It simply wasn’t done.” And she winked at me.

  We allowed ourselves to be led in. The hall blazed with light; candles filled the surface of the occasional table and even the newel post. The lanterns were lit for the first time since my arrival in September. Light flooded the spaces, and a feeling of gaiety hovered.