“Well,” Priscilla began slowly, “I was surprised that so many women were unhappy. And I had to ask myself, What have they got to be so unhappy about? Most of us colored women would give anything to have the problems described in the book. I mean, Negro women have always had to work. We have to, because our men aren’t paid a fair wage. Compared to white men, I mean. And obviously, there are some jobs—the good jobs—that colored men can’t get at all, through no fault of their own. So the women—colored women—we have had to hold hearth and home together. One way or another, we need to bring money into the household. That could mean picking crops in the field, like my grandma, or working for a white family, like I do. Even the women who seem like they’re not working—well, they’re taking in laundry or ironing or mending. So I guess what I’m saying is that the problems these ladies are talking about in the book—those are luxuries most colored women don’t have.”
Jackie sat back in her chair with a jerk.
Miss Lansbury, using a calm voice, tried to steer the conversation. “So what you are saying, Priscilla, is that the Friedan book may apply more to white women?”
“Yes,” Priscilla said, her eyes downcast. “And I don’t mean to be insulting to anyone’s experience; that’s just my, uh, point of view.”
“And that’s certainly a valid point of view,” Plain Jane piped up, speaking rapidly. “One of the things I love about this group is that we can say what we think! And this is an example of someone opening our eyes! Myself, I am a little ashamed I didn’t see that when I was reading the book.”
I stole a glance at Jackie. She looked stunned. You could always tell when Jackie’s mind was spinning. Her eyes seemed unfocused, as if she was trying to peer into a murky pond, determined to see the bottom.
On the way home, Jackie was noticeably quiet. I think we all assumed she was offended. With each minute that passed, Priscilla sank farther down in the seat beside me.
I don’t know what possessed me, but I tried to rescue all of us—and especially Priscilla—from Jackie’s silence. “I would just like to say,” I began, my voice squeaky, “that this was a very meaningful evening tonight. I think it was very brave and honest for Priscilla to tell us what she thought about The Feminine Mystique.”
I instantly knew I’d just made things worse. I went on, hoping to correct my blunder. “And I think it’s wonderful that we are all friends and that Priscilla is part of our group, and I hope we always stay friends, because I love our friendship, and besides, by being friends we are changing the world for the better, I think, one friend at a time.”
I sounded like I’d just won the Miss Congeniality award at a third-rate beauty contest. I was hoping someone would pick up the thread—Robbie-Lee, for example, but he seemed in over his head on this topic.
No one knew how to follow my goofy, rambling speech. But one nice thing happened—Priscilla reached for my hand and squeezed it.
We learned later that Jackie was crushed by Priscilla’s comments, not because she thought they were unfair or unkind but because they were dead-on right. This, unfortunately, made Jackie even more upset, because on top of everything else, she felt guilty.
Plain Jane and Jackie had a fight about it later that night, after they’d dropped the rest of us off. They didn’t let on at the time, because if they had, they’d have revealed their secrets to the rest of us. Plain Jane admitted that she started it by demanding to know why Jackie had been so quiet when she—Jackie—was usually the one who encouraged Priscilla.
“I’m just confused, that’s all,” Jackie said. “I was afraid of saying the wrong thing, of making things worse. I’ll think about it and deal with it later.”
“That’s cowardly!” Plain Jane almost screamed. “It’s what you say at the moment that counts! Later is too late.”
“Look—you’re not married, and you don’t have kids, so you don’t have the same kind of pressure!”
“What has that got to do with anything?”
“The Friedan book doesn’t speak to you the way it speaks to me,” Jackie replied. “That damn book made me see a lot of things clearly! And then I realized what a fool I am—so caught up in myself—that I didn’t realize how Priscilla would see it. And I feel like a total idiot! I just want to go home and have a drink.”
And Jackie did something she almost never did in front of anyone. She cried.
Now of course that made Plain Jane feel terrible and they agreed to bury the hatchet. “Come in the house and I’ll fix you a mimosa,” Plain Jane said. “I don’t think we should end the evening this way.”
The discussion over mimosas and cocktail nuts was much calmer. “You know,” Plain Jane said, her voice a little woozy after her second drink, “I think I am part of the problem. Those books and articles I write—sex on a desk and all that crap. I’m putting all kinds of stupid ideas in women’s heads. I mean, women actually read that stuff. And believe it! Oh my God, what have I done?”
“Well, I wouldn’t beat yourself up like that,” said Jackie, by now two or three sheets to the wind herself. “I mean look at me—Miss Dreamsville! What kind of garbage is that!”
“But you’re proving a point! Wait till everyone finds out. You can show everyone that a middle-aged mother can be beautiful and sexy. You’ll be breaking down stereotypes!”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Jackie was sleepy or maybe just plain worn out. “What kind of role model am I? I mean, can you read Vogue, love fashion, flirt with men, and still believe in female emancipation?” She lit a cigarette although there was already one burning in the ashtray. “Well, I don’t see why not,” she said, answering her own question. “Maybe freedom means defining yourself any way you want to be.”
“Well, we are a long way from that happening,” said Plain Jane. “At least here in Collier County, I don’t see a whole lot of improvement anytime soon. I think we’re sort of locked in place on this issue, Jackie.”
This was an honest statement, but not one Jackie wanted to hear.
Fourteen
I got a frantic call from Jungle Larry’s Safari, hoping I would help them with an ailing snake.
“But I don’t do snakes,” I reminded Larry, a nice-enough man who had retired, along with some weather-beaten animals, from a traveling circus. “Try the vet in Everglades City.”
I didn’t have anything against snakes but they were outside my area of expertise. And besides, I figured I’d never have the option of getting married again—assuming I’d want to—if I became known as the Snake Lady. Turtle Lady was bad enough.
The next meeting of our reading group was the following day. I hoped the evening would go more smoothly than the last time. I saw right away—and was relieved—that everyone seemed to feel the same way. The Feminine Mystique had caused enough trouble.
Miss Lansbury was even prepared for a diversion: she suggested we read aloud from Little Women, and we quickly got into it, passing the book around the circle. For some reason this was strangely soothing, like drinking tea with honey when you’ve got a nasty cold.
Of course every one of us, except Robbie-Lee, had read Little Women several times. The story was all new to Robbie-Lee, which was kind of interesting to watch, almost like reading the book again for the first time. He even cried when he realized sweet little Beth was going to die. This in turn made the rest of us cry, but it was a healthy kind of weeping—a tonic of sorts.
Miss Lansbury pointed out that critics sometimes pooh-poohed Little Women by calling the book a “domestic drama.” Jackie harrumphed. “Of course it was a domestic drama, that’s all women were allowed to do—stay home! The men go away to war, they go to college. I hated it—still do—when Laurence goes off to college, leaving poor Jo behind.”
Jackie, it seemed, was still grappling with The Feminine Mystique.
“But what’s fascinating—is it not?—is that a great deal actually goes on within the March household.” This was Miss Lansbury. “It is the relationships that matter. It’s an in
genious depiction of a sophisticated social sphere—the world of women.”
This was loftier than we were in the mood for. “Oh, let’s just keep reading the book,” said Mrs. Bailey White. “Forget all that other stuff.”
In the car on the way home, Plain Jane made an interesting point. “With all the times I read Little Women when I was growing up,” she said, “would you believe I never really noticed—until tonight—that the father in the story isn’t present because he’s a chaplain in the Union Army? I just thought of him as having ‘gone off to war.’ It’s a wonder they allowed us to read that book south of the Mason-Dixon line.”
“Maybe that’s because the father is a chaplain. He’s not actually gone off to kill anyone. Maybe that made it all right.” This from Jackie.
“And he’s not a main character,” Priscilla added. “I mean, as a character he is mostly absent.”
“I think it’s because the book is about a family and you become attached to them as people,” I suggested. “You don’t think of them as Northerners, even though it’s very clear they live up north. They could be anywhere. It could be set in the South, with the father serving as a chaplain in the Confederate Army.”
This left everyone thinking to themselves. “We should talk more about this at our next meeting.” This from Mrs. Bailey White. But no sooner had she spoken than we noticed something odd—a strange smell in the night air like burning leaves. The odor got stronger and Jackie panicked, thinking the Buick’s engine might’ve caught fire. She shut off the motor, right then and there, and asked Robbie-Lee to look under the hood.
“No engine fire,” he reported a moment later, “but something is definitely burning ahead.” He sounded anxious, which had the effect of unsettling the rest of us.
“Well, it can’t be a swamp fire,” Mrs. Bailey White said. “No way. Not with all this rain lately.”
“Oh my God,” Priscilla said, her voice trembling, “maybe one of the houses is on fire.”
“Well then, let’s go as fast as we can and see if we can help,” Jackie said. Her voice was almost unrecognizable—about a whole octave higher than usual. She hit the gas before anyone could think of what to say.
The sky grew brighter as we continued. “I think we should turn around,” Robbie-Lee said. “Or stop here and I’ll go ahead on foot and see what I can do to help.”
“There is nowhere to turn around, except at the church,” Jackie replied. The church would be coming up on our left, just past the one sharp bend in the road. The houses were beyond it, perhaps a half mile. I remember asking Priscilla why the church wasn’t built closer and she had smiled. “The church was built first,” she explained. “This was right after slavery days. Once they decided to live here, they picked the best piece of land for the church. They cleared the land there and slept on the ground. It wasn’t till later they built the houses, one by one.”
Just as I was remembering these words, we rounded the bend, and Jackie hit the brakes so hard, I smacked my forehead on the seat in front of me.
Standing straight in front of us were five men in white robes, torches in their hands.
Had they been waiting for us? Or had they seen car headlights headed their way and planned to stop anyone who happened by? Then I saw the rest of them. There were another eight, maybe ten, in the clearing next to the church.
It was the church that was on fire. Even during the few seconds that had just gone by, we could see the blaze was growing worse. Flames burst through a section of the roof. An arc of fire leaped from the roof to an old-time revival tent set up beside the church, on the lawn. The tent didn’t burn, it exploded, tearing itself loose from the ropes that had secured it to the ground.
The most peculiar thing was that the men in robes and hoods—the five that were standing dead ahead in the road—did not turn to look at the progress of the fire. The flames were wild as a hurricane and (to me, at least) surprisingly loud. And yet these men, these strange inhuman creatures, had no reaction, which made them seem even scarier, if that was possible.
Eight or nine seconds passed. I realized that Priscilla was whimpering or maybe praying. Someone else—Mrs. Bailey White—was saying, “Oh. Oh. Oh.”
I heard my own voice saying, “Priscilla, get down.” I pushed her to the floorboard and took off my coat, covering her with it. I knew this probably wouldn’t fool anyone, but it was the best I could do. Mrs. Bailey White followed suit, unbuttoning her cloth coat and laying it on top of mine.
“Priscilla, lay as flat as you can,” Mrs. Bailey White said.
Not a peep came from the front seat until suddenly Robbie-Lee said, “Back up.” Jackie made no attempt to put the car in reverse, and he repeated, “Back up. Back up! Now!”
Plain Jane started yelling, “Turn around, Jackie, turn around!”
But there was no way to turn around. The road was barely one car length wide.
“Don’t turn around! Back up!” This was Robbie-Lee.
“Oh, shut up!” screamed Jackie. “Don’t tell me what to do.” And then she did something that shocked us all. She didn’t back up. She didn’t try to turn around.
She stomped on the accelerator.
The big Buick growled and the wheels dug into the soil, spewing sand and whipping the car from side to side until the tires took hold. We were all screaming, even Priscilla, I think, from underneath the coats. I got a glimpse at Jackie and knew we were all goners. Her eyes were bugging out in a way I didn’t think possible. She was screaming loudest of all, gripping that wheel—and aiming right for the Klan guys like a kamikaze pilot. At first they didn’t move, then scattered like yard birds when they realized the driver of the car wasn’t fooling.
Jackie yanked the wheel to the left and headed for the other Klansmen. She clipped one man and hit a second one hard enough that he bounced across the hood of the car. His watch—or something—hit the windshield, leaving a large scratch or mark. Jackie just kept going. We drove behind the church and came around the other side, past where the revival tent had stood until a few minutes earlier. Bouncing so hard in our seats that we couldn’t speak, we assumed Jackie had gone completely mad, and there was nothing left to do but try to hang onto each other or a piece of the car interior. As we lurched back onto the road, now heading back to Naples, I heard a sound I’d been expecting—a shotgun blast—but it was aimed wildly and didn’t come close.
Jackie continued to make a beeline toward Naples. After a while, though, she slowed down, finally coming to a stop.
“What the hell are you doing now?” said Robbie-Lee.
“You drive,” she said in a faraway voice. “I can’t . . .”
Robbie-Lee climbed over Plain Jane and Jackie and squeezed himself behind the wheel.
Priscilla had dug herself out from the coats and was gripping the seat back in front of us. “Where are we going?” she asked. “What are we going to do?”
“We have to go somewhere and think,” Plain Jane said.
“My house,” said Mrs. Bailey White. “No one goes there. You can pull the car around back.”
This option was so obviously the right one that no one suggested anything else. Robbie-Lee drove fast—almost recklessly—and glanced in the rearview mirror every few seconds. But no one followed. Not yet, I thought.
When we reached Mrs. Bailey White’s meandering driveway and made our way toward the house, I could almost breathe normally again. Mrs. Bailey White directed Robbie-Lee to drive toward two mimosa trees, which seemed to make no sense at all until we were up so close, we could see a narrow path—not much wider than the Buick—that would take us around back. When he turned the headlights off, the night sky was so dark, I thought it might swallow us whole.
All we had to do was follow Mrs. Bailey White about twenty feet to the back door. Robbie-Lee had to carry Priscilla. Then he went back for Jackie. I couldn’t tell which one was in worse shape. We settled them into large, heavy chairs that faced each other by a fireplace. Robbie-Lee commenced to bui
lding a small fire, while Plain Jane and I tried to make Priscilla and Jackie comfortable. Once the fire got going, we realized that both of them were suffering from some sort of shock but were slowly coming around. Mrs. Bailey White pulled down the shades and closed the hurricane shutters.
“If anyone sees a little light from the fireplace or smells the smoke, don’t worry, that will seem normal to them,” she said.
“Nice firewood,” Robbie-Lee said. “Where do you get it?”
“Chop it myself,” Mrs. Bailey White said proudly.
“Don’t you have electric in this house? What about heat?”
“ ’Course I got electric, and I also got a furnace and an oil tank.” Mrs. Bailey White seemed a little miffed. “I just like to do things the old-fashioned way.”
Despite the gravity of our situation, Robbie-Lee could not resist studying the room with a professional eye. “Love the wallpaper. Is it vintage?”
“I guess you could say that.” Mrs. Bailey White almost laughed.
“And those ceramic jars there on the mantel,” he added. “That’s quite a nice collection. Are they cookie jars? I notice they don’t match exactly, but that’s what makes them special.”
“They’re not cookie jars, they’re urns,” she said. “The one on the far left is Grandma. The one next to that is Aunt Fern. This one over here”—she pointed to a third one—“that’s my late husband. And next to him are the dogs. I put them all together.”
I give Robbie-Lee a lot of credit. His eyebrows reached toward heaven but otherwise he didn’t move a single muscle. I’m sure I recoiled, but I was not, thankfully, in Mrs. Bailey White’s line of vision. Even Jackie and Priscilla, who had barely been opening their eyes, turned to stare at the mantel. That’s when I knew they were both going to be all right.
“You mean . . . they . . . these people . . . your family . . . were cremated?” Robbie-Lee had finally found his voice. Most of us were good Baptists or Methodists and expected to be buried six feet in the ground. I had never even heard of anyone in Collier County being cremated and, apparently, neither had Robbie-Lee.
Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society Page 10
