by Ann B. Ross
“Maybe she’d like to find a job,” Sam suggested. “I don’t know what she’s qualified for, but a job would give her something to do and a little independence, too.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said, my spirits reviving somewhat. “I’ll ask her what experience she’s had, and maybe we can steer her to something similar. But first, from the looks of what she’s wearing, we may have to refurbish her wardrobe. Lloyd, would you mind bringing in her suitcase? It’s in the trunk of my car, and I can only hope there’s a better selection in it.” I stopped and thought for a minute. “Maybe Hazel Marie will help with her hair. I just don’t feel I can take her to Velma with the way she’s been acting. If she were to scream and cry in the shop the way she’s carried on here, the whole town would know about it and that would be the end of any job possibilities.”
“It’ll work out, honey,” Sam said, trying to reassure me, but falling short. “She’ll calm down, and we might end up enjoying having her around.”
I just looked at him. “And what are your plans for tomorrow?”
“Oh, I’m meeting with my campaign folks in the morning, then I’ll be speaking to the Rotary Club at lunch. There may be a committee meeting afterward.” Then he got a sheepish look on his face. “Shall I guess what you’ll be doing?”
“No guessing about it. I’ll be entertaining Trixie all day long.”
When we went upstairs to bed, Trixie’s door remained closed, and I didn’t disturb it or her. I did not, however, rest well. As the clock approached, then passed 12:45, I visualized the bus that should’ve been carrying Trixie back to Georgia and felt that a golden opportunity had just passed in the night.
—
The three of us—well, the four of us counting Lillian—had little to say at breakfast the next morning. We were all awaiting Trixie’s appearance and the beginning of her summer with us. She didn’t come down, so we ate without her.
“Just carry on with whatever you’ve planned for the day,” I said to Lillian. “It’s up to her to fit in with us, not us with her.”
“Miss Julia,” Lloyd said as he finished his breakfast, “we get out about noon today, so I’ll come by and see if Trixie wants to go to the pool or the tennis courts.”
“That’s fine, honey, and thoughtful of you. I doubt, though, that she’ll want to do either one. So don’t change your plans if she doesn’t.”
As Sam and Lloyd prepared to leave for the day, Sam took me aside and said, “I’m sorry that most of this is going to fall on you, but I’ll do what I can to help. Why don’t you see if Hazel Marie will spruce her up a little, and I’ll be asking around about job openings.” He hugged me and I hugged back. “We’ll get through this, sweetheart, and if we don’t, just think—if I get elected, we can move to Raleigh.”
I laughed and sent him off, but I was thinking that, even if he got elected, I could still be stuck with Trixie the rest of my life.
—
Nine o’clock, then ten, came and went, and still Trixie did not come down. Lillian kept looking at me, as if to ask if I were going to wake her, but I’d decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
“Miss Julia,” Lillian finally said, “I need to vacu’m upstairs. You reckon the noise bother Miss Trixie?”
“You go right ahead, Lillian. Do whatever you need to do.”
Lillian gave a worried glance up the stairs. “You don’t reckon she sick or something, do you?”
“I think we’d have heard from her if she was. No,” I went on, firmly determined to remain coolly detached, “let’s just go about our business and let her go about hers.”
When I heard the vacuum cleaner turn on upstairs, I went into the library to call Hazel Marie, confident that my conversation would not be overheard.
“Hazel Marie,” I said when she answered, “if you have time to talk, I have a monumental problem and I need your help.” Then I went on to explain what had happened and what we had on our hands that had to be put up with for the foreseeable future. “So, what I’d like from you is some help with improving her appearance. The only relief I can foresee is for her to get a job so she won’t be on my hands all day every day.”
“Oh, I’d love to,” Hazel Marie said. “You know how I like to fiddle with hair and makeup. The babies will be down for a nap about two this afternoon. Why don’t you bring her over then, and I’ll make an appraisal.”
I happily agreed and thanked her for her willingness to take Trixie on for some external modification by the application of brushes, paints, and hair curlers. My job would be to set an example of gracious acceptance of what apparently could not be changed.
Chapter 8
I lingered at the desk after hanging up the phone, listening to the household sounds Lillian was making upstairs while trying to come to terms with Elsie’s finely tuned takeover of our summer.
I tried to pray about it, asking for a change of attitude and a willing heart to accept what I was unable to change. Except I kept thinking of ways I could change the situation into something more to my liking. In other words, I was not content in whatsoever condition I found myself—I wanted out of Elsie’s trap; I wanted rid of Trixie; I wanted our summer back just the way we’d planned it.
With all of that running through my mind, I worked up a tear or two of pure frustration, as well as an increasing anger from being at the mercy of someone I couldn’t get back at.
Then, like a bolt out of the blue, I realized that this was not the first time that I’d had these exact same feelings. I clutched the edge of the desk as a wave of memories washed over me, bringing back the time years before when I’d had the same frustrated anger toward someone who had put me in an untenable position.
Wesley Lloyd Springer, my late unlamented first husband, had done the same thing to me when his mistress and their bastard son had shown up on my front porch, announcing themselves two weeks after he was dead and buried, too late for either recrimination or revenge.
Burying my face in my hands, I recalled the depth of anger and humiliation I’d experienced at the revelation of his breach of marital faith, particularly since he’d demanded so much of me. Even worse, I remembered how I’d despised the very sight of that child, looking as he did so much like Wesley Lloyd. The boy was proof positive—if I’d needed more than his mother’s testimony—that my marriage had been a mockery and I was the town’s laughingstock. I don’t know how I’d lived those weeks so burdened with fury at the unfairness of it and my inability to exact revenge on a dead man.
I took it out on the child—I know I did. At the time I couldn’t seem to help it, for I paid back the unfairness done to me by being unfair to him. I ignored him. I held my head up in unbending aloofness, both to disconcert the town’s wagging tongues and to indicate my feelings toward that innocent child. I was awful to him, and the terrible memories brought me figuratively to my knees—which was the best I could do, given the state of my aging joints.
It was only the sweetness of that little boy, as well as the need that was so obvious as his eyes followed my every move, that finally thawed my frozen heart. From the very first, Little Lloyd adored me, craving my approval and emulating my actions until such unadulterated—and I use that word advisedly—need to please broke through my defenses, working a miraculous makeover from the inside out, and I became a different woman.
And here I was, not so different after all, having the same anger and bitterness toward another innocent person. Of course the situation wasn’t the same—Elsie had broken no vows, and Trixie was hardly a child—but my feelings of outrage were the same.
So, I asked myself, if my feelings toward Lloyd had changed so drastically, couldn’t my feelings toward Trixie change as well? Probably not, I answered, because Trixie wasn’t Little Lloyd. She had no desire to please me or even to be in my company. She wanted to go home, which should’ve made us allies, because I wanted the same thing.
>
The fact of the matter was that I couldn’t do anything about what Trixie wanted or how she felt, I could only manage myself. I might not like the situation, but I was stuck with it. There was no alternative but to make the best of it.
Having made that decision, I made another one—to lay down the law to Trixie. If we had to put up with one another, she would have to conform to our routines. No more lying in bed all morning—here it was past eleven o’clock and still no sounds of rising from Trixie’s room.
I went upstairs, bypassing Lillian with a dustcloth in her hands, and walked straight to Trixie’s door. Knocking loudly, I opened the door, saw her suitcase open with clothing strewn around the room. She was still in bed with the covers pulled over her head, so I marched over to her and firmly said, “Get up, Trixie. I want you dressed and downstairs in fifteen minutes.”
She moaned and flapped her hand at me to go away. I stepped back, overcome by her audacity. I was accustomed to having even my suggestions immediately obeyed, so being flapped at as if I were a nuisance just flew all over me. But what to do? Drag her out of bed? Threaten her—with what? I’d heard mothers complain about the difficulty of getting teenagers out of bed, but Trixie was no teenager.
This, I decided, was a battle of wills, and if I didn’t win the first battle, I’d have no hope for the rest of the summer. I walked over to the television set across the room, turned it on, then turned the volume as high as it would go. Going back to the bed, I leaned over Trixie and said, “In fifteen minutes, I’m coming back with a pan of water. If you’re not out of this bed by then you’ll sleep in a wet one tonight.”
Then I stomped out, unsure as to whether I’d established my authority or lost it entirely.
Passing Lillian again as I headed for the stairs, I just barely heard her say, “Guess the vacu’m won’t bother her none now.”
—
Twelve minutes later, I heard Trixie shuffle into the kitchen. I followed her and, pretending that all was well, greeted her warmly.
“I’m hungry,” she mumbled.
“I expect you are,” I said breezily, “but it’s so close to lunchtime that you’ll have to wait. I’ll be having tuna fish salad, but I’ll ask Lillian to make you a peanut butter sandwich. But, Trixie, around here and from now on, we all eat whatever Lillian serves. I know that will probably take some getting used to, but she’s not a short-order cook. We either eat it, fix our own, or go without. I’m sure you’ll fit right in once you understand the way we do things.”
She glanced sullenly at me from behind a fall of stringy hair that tended to hide her face. “I can fix me something.”
“Not today, we have other things to do. While we’re waiting for lunch, run back upstairs and comb your hair. And,” I went on, taking note of the same dress she’d worn the day before, “you might want to change. We’re going visiting in a little while.”
“Don’t want to.” Mumbling again.
“Of course you do. We’re going to see Hazel Marie—you’ll love her. She is beautiful and just as sweet and kind as she can be. We’re going to begin doing what your grandmother sent you up here to do—fix you up and get you beautified.”
She covered her face with her hands and started bawling. “I don’t want to,” she wailed. “You can’t make me, and I want to go ho-o-me! I want my Meemaw!”
That’s when my patience ended. “Stop that!” I yelled, startling her so bad that she stopped crying and glared at me. “Listen to me, Trixie,” I said in a softer tone, “you don’t have a home to go to and that’s your Meemaw’s doing. Now the sooner you reconcile yourself to the facts, the better we’ll get along. So go upstairs, wash your face, comb your hair, change clothes if you have anything to change into, and come back down for lunch. We are going to visit Hazel Marie and see if she can get done what your Meemaw wants done. In other words, we are following her orders for you, and, believe me, it’s not something I want to do either.”
Surprisingly, she wiped her face with her arm, whispered, “Yes, ma’am,” then turned and shuffled off to do what I’d told her. So, I thought, bullying works better than kindness, and I was moved by a tinge of pity. Maybe being told what to do while having her own wishes ignored was what she was used to. Well, maybe gradually we could change that, but for the time being, I now knew how to deal with her.
Chapter 9
After lunch and after Lloyd came in saying he was putting away his book bag for the duration, Trixie and I walked the four blocks to Hazel Marie’s house. Trixie was not happy about it, complaining that her feet hurt and mumbling that she didn’t know why people had cars if they weren’t going to use them.
“The exercise is good for us,” I replied, thinking that she needed much more than four blocks’ worth. “In fact,” I went on, “I’ll sign you up for a fitness class at the Y. You’ll feel so much better for it.”
She didn’t respond, just plodded on as if each step was a misery to her. I had begun to notice, however, that she had a habit of grinding her teeth when things didn’t go her way. I expect there were words she wanted to say, but dared not, and I also expect that she’d formed the habit from dealing with her grandmother. So I didn’t take it personally, just worried about the condition of her teeth.
Things changed, though, when we got to Hazel Marie’s house, for Trixie was immediately entranced with her. Hazel Marie had undergone a transforming makeover herself now that the babies were toddling around on their own and James was back in the kitchen and Granny Wiggins had become a household fixture. Hazel Marie now had time to keep up her appearance and I no longer had to worry about Mr. Pickens looking for greener pastures. She had gained some weight so that her curves were more in evidence, and her hair was back to the color it had been for so long that everybody assumed it was what she’d been born with, and she was back to using the lavish amount of makeup on a daily basis so that no one was startled to see her without it.
James was back to his usual complaining self, except now he had set himself up as the local weatherman, saying that the wrist he had broken could predict rain and that his sprained ankle told him when snow was on the way. Granny Wiggins just cackled when he came out with some of his portentous pronouncements, telling him that her arthritis, or arthuritis, as she called it, could outpredict his old bones any day of the week.
When we got there, Hazel Marie took us into her living room and immediately began an appraisal of what Trixie needed in the way of polish and sprucing up. I was afraid that Trixie might resent it, but she was so taken with Hazel Marie that she just sat there with her mouth half open, following every move that Hazel Marie made.
“I think a haircut is in order,” Hazel Marie said. “With maybe some layering so all you’ll have to do is wash and dry it. It may be thick enough to go right back into place if you have the right cut.”
Almost starry-eyed at the attention she was getting, Trixie mumbled, “I was lettin’ it grow out, but whatever you think.”
Hazel Marie, with a finger on the side of her face, stood in front of Trixie studying the situation. “We’ll need some foundation with, I think, a yellow base to cut down on some of the redness. But, Trixie, you’ll have to remember to clean your face real good every night. You have very sensitive skin, so we want to take good care of it.”
I didn’t say anything during all this, just sat and marveled at Hazel Marie’s tact as she complimented Trixie when she could and offered suggestions for improvement when she couldn’t.
Throughout the appraisal, Hazel Marie spoke in such a sweet and caring manner that Trixie was not in the least offended. In fact, she seemed grateful for it, except when Hazel Marie said, “Now, Trixie, you should make it a habit to shave your legs and under your arms at least once a week. That’s what fastidious young ladies do, although we can try some of the hair removal products if you’d prefer.”
Trixie immediately took umbrage. “Meemaw sa
id only loose women do that.”
“Do what?”
“Shave theirselves.”
“Oh, no,” Hazel Marie said. “Keeping yourself free of unsightly hair is part of every woman’s beauty routine. You want to have good hygiene and that’s part of it.”
“Well,” Trixie said, her lip beginning to poke out, “Meemaw—”
“I tell you what, Trixie,” I said, unable to stay out of it, “let’s keep in mind what your Meemaw sent you up here for and forget about everything else she said. If she thought she was doing such a good job of it, she’d have kept you home. Listen to Hazel Marie and forget Meemaw.”
When Hazel Marie began to go over Trixie’s diet, telling her to eat lots of vegetables and drink lots of water, I began to get restless. There were things to do at home, and just sitting there while Hazel Marie explained what most children learned in grammar school was driving me up the wall.
I gathered myself when Hazel Marie began making out a shopping list for Trixie’s new clothes—things she obviously needed because she was still in the same ill-fitting sheath. As I moved toward the door, I said, “Hazel Marie, if you have time to do this, I’ll leave you with it. Call me when you’re through, and I’ll come get Trixie.” And I took myself off, breathing a little easier to be on my own for a while.
—
I wasn’t breathing easily for long, though, and neither, apparently, was Sam. As soon as I stepped in the house, Lillian came running toward me, her eyes wide and frightened, a dishrag flapping in her hand.
