The Truth According to Us

by Annie Barrows

  She blushed, more breathless than ever, and he stepped closer, his eyes curious. For a moment, it was as if they were all alone in the garden for the first time, watching each other like animals.

  “Josie?” he murmured at last.

  She nodded dumbly.

  “Today’s my birthday.”

  “I know,” she said, and then wished she’d pretended surprise. “Happy birthday.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m eighteen.”

  “Of age,” she said, feeling like a child.

  “Of age,” he agreed. He snickered suddenly. “I could get married.”

  “Don’t,” she blurted, and her cheeks flamed once more.

  He laughed, delighted. “Don’t, huh? You don’t want me to get married?” He bent down so he could see her face. With her eyes on the ground, she shook her head. “All right,” he teased. “I’ll tell Thelma.” Thelma was his girlfriend. “Good old Thelma,” he added absently. There was a pause. “Say, Josie, I’ve got a present for you.”

  “But it’s your birthday,” she protested, relieved to wash up on the shore of a new topic. “I should give you a present.”

  “Shh. Close your eyes,” he said, stepping near. His warmth furled around her, cloaking her against the cool of the morning. “Give me your hand. Like this.” He placed her hand in his. “Now. Close your eyes.”

  She obeyed, feeling the landscape of his palm—calluses and softness—under her fingertips. There was a tiny, cool touch on her hand. Then another and another.

  “There,” he said. “You can look.”

  She looked. Her finger glittered with raindrops.

  “See?” He smiled. “Diamonds.”

  A brisk tattoo of footsteps arose from the front walk.

  “Why, Mr. Romeyn, you’re home early,” cried Layla’s voice.

  “Josie?”

  Jottie rolled onto her stomach and thrust a pillow over her head. There, that was quiet. “Vause?” But he was gone. Miss Beck had driven him away. No, she knew that wasn’t fair. Vause was always an elusive visitor.

  “I could say the same to you,” Felix’s voice replied. “Aren’t you supposed to be chasing down the history of Macedonia?”

  Layla laughed. “I was! I went to the library and the jail, by mistake. I came back here to ask Miss Romeyn if I could borrow a map, but Bird tells me she’s resting.”

  “Is she?” said Felix. “Well, I bet I can find you a map. You wait right here.”

  “I don’t mean to keep you from your business, Mr. Romeyn.”

  “No trouble at all. Don’t want you to get lost in the great metropolis.” Felix’s voice faded as he entered the house.

  Now Jottie was curious, and curiosity was guaranteed to send Vause packing. He slipped in only when she hung between sleep and wakefulness, only when she was weak enough to long for him. She could fend him off when she was upright. You just get out, Vause Hamilton, she commanded, punishing herself for her weakness. You’re a liar and a thief. And I don’t care if it’s your birthday. She threw the pillow back to the top of the bed for emphasis.

  Layla’s voice again: “Oh, thank you, Mr. Romeyn. That’ll be a big help.”

  Paper crinkled. “See, here’s where we are. Academy Street.”

  “I’ve got to go see Mr. and Mrs. Davies tomorrow,” said Layla. “Do you know where Locust Street is?”

  “You ride high, Miss Beck.” Felix laughed. “Locust is over here. So Parker’s going to give you his version of things?”

  “Yes. He said he had a lot of material about General Hamilton. You know, the founder of Macedonia.”

  “Sure, sure, our noble founder. You want to know a secret?” Felix’s voice lowered. “General Hamilton wasn’t really a general. But don’t tell Parker. It’ll break his heart.”

  Layla giggled. “He sent me a long list of people to interview. He says the book is supposed to include accounts of Macedonia’s first families.”

  “Huh. Some history,” said Felix. “Aren’t you supposed to write about what happened around here, the War Between the States and all?”

  “Well, that, too,” said Layla. “And a little bit about civic and natural sites of moment.”

  Felix burst out laughing. “What civic and natural sites of moment?”

  “Um. Flick Park?”

  “Flick Park?” Felix snorted. “A natural site of moment? It’s a park.”

  “The Caudy House? Macedonia’s oldest structure?”

  “Macedonia’s oldest chicken coop, more like.”

  “Dolly’s Ford?”

  “Well, okay, that’s historical. How are you going to get out there, though?”

  “I don’t know, exactly.” Jottie could hear the tiny lift in her voice. “Where is it?”

  “Look.” He was sitting next to her now, Jottie knew. She’d be watching his face, a little dazed, hoping he’d smile again. Jottie had seen it a hundred times. More. “It’s all the way out here,” Felix explained. “You can’t walk that far. Especially in those shoes.”

  “I have other shoes.”

  “Uh-huh, but it’s still too far to walk.” There was a pause. “How about I take you?”

  “Oh, Mr. Romeyn, that would be wonderful! But—you’re busy and all…”

  “I’m not so busy. Listen, will you stop calling me Mr. Romeyn? It makes me feel like a grandpa. My name is Felix.”

  “All right.” Layla sounded shy. “And mine is Layla.”

  “I know. I can remember all the way back to yesterday. Okay, Layla. We’ll go to Dolly’s Ford on—well, let’s see—better make it Saturday. Will that suit you?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  Flutter, flutter, thought Jottie sourly. Felix making plans! Felix never made plans. Or maybe he just didn’t tell her about them, she reflected. Maybe this was the way he did with all those girls she never met. Jottie frowned at her ceiling. Didn’t seem like a fair fight, Felix going after a girl who had to board in his house. My house, she corrected herself. Pooh. She was being foolish. A girl as pretty as that surely had a man somewhere. Maybe she wasn’t watching Felix atall. Maybe she was impervious to his charms. And that, thought Jottie, cheered, is a show I’d like to see.

  “You got any more natural sites of moment on that list of yours?” inquired Felix.

  “Yes, a few. It’s in a letter that Mr. Davies sent me. Upstairs.”

  “Well, you show it to me before we go. Maybe we can kill a couple of momentous sites with one stone.”

  Layla laughed. “Thank you so much for helping me, Mr.—Felix.”

  “Close.”

  “Um, Felix.”

  “Very good, Layla.” He broke her name into two slow sounds.

  “Father! You’re home!” Willa let the screen door slam behind her.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” he said easily.

  “Guess what.”

  “Hm?”

  Willa paused for effect, and Jottie braced herself. She knew what was coming. “Mr. Hamilton burnt a boot today.”

  “He did, did he?” Could anyone else hear the ice in his voice? Jottie wondered.

  “Yes, but Jottie got him to stop.”

  The porch creaked as he got to his feet. “Is that right?”

  “She’s a saint.” Jottie smiled at the echo of Belle Fox.

  “She sure is.” His voice faded as he went indoors.

  And he’s gone, thought Jottie. Poor Willa.

  On the porch, there was a silence with little crackles in it as Layla Beck folded up the map. “What have you been doing today, Willa?” she asked.

  “Watching Mr. Hamilton burn his boot,” said Willa patiently.

  “Who’s Mr. Hamilton?” asked Layla.

  “He lives around the corner.”

  “Why did he burn his boots?”

  “Just one. He just burnt the one. Because he’s sad about his son dying.”

  “Really?” said Layla, surprised. “That’s an odd thing to do.”

  “Oh, he’s always doing it,�
�� said Willa breezily.

  “My! When did his son die?”

  “A long time ago. He smothered to death. In a fire.” Upstairs, Jottie took a sharp breath. Who told her? How long had she known?

  “Oh, how awful!” exclaimed Layla.

  “He was stealing money from my grandfather, and he smothered to death while he was doing it,” said Willa with grisly satisfaction.

  Stop it, thought Jottie.

  “That’s just awful!” Layla said again.

  “Well. I guess. But don’t you think it served him right? For stealing?”

  Stop it. Stop it right now. You didn’t know him; you can’t talk about him. Blindly, Jottie reached for her pillow and pulled it over her head, but the muffled nothing didn’t help her. Vause was gone and gone and gone.

  It was late in the afternoon, and flies were thick in front of Macedonia’s oldest structure, their idiot careening providing the only movement in the landscape. From behind the snaggled remains of a picket fence, Layla batted away flies and tried to find a way to be interested in the stricken building before her. The Caudy House, built in 1824. Could it have been a gathering place? Could it have held dances or meetings or tragic deaths? She eyed the flimsy, bowed walls and the narrow windows and couldn’t care. It must have been a terrible place, even in its prime. Its existence was a fact without meaning. And yet she was supposed to find a meaning in it. She sighed, stepped into the yard, and approached the splintering front wall. On an impulse, she slapped it and felt the whole edifice sway from the blow. Hastily, she backed away and stood gazing, in the airless heat, at history.

  On Layla’s return, Prince Street was crowded with men in work clothes. She paused and moved close to the building beside her. They were all moving in the same direction. Must be closing time at that American Everlasting factory, she thought, and, pleased with her acumen, she smiled genially at a cluster of four or five men arrayed around a lamppost. Their narrow faces stiffened in response; hands went automatically to caps, and one young man—lounging at a dramatic angle against the post—straightened up in a caricature of attention. Embarrassed, Layla turned away, affecting interest in the window behind her, which was usefully full. Teenagers sharing sodas over tables, a child dribbling ice cream, his mother fruitlessly dabbing at his shorts, two older ladies in dark suits—how could they, in this heat—and a man turning away from the counter with a carton: It was Felix! Layla smiled and waved, and he looked at her curiously. His smile grew as hers faltered—it wasn’t Felix at all. This man was taller and bigger, and he didn’t move with Felix’s swift, peculiar grace. But his eyes were almost black, and his hair, too, was thick and dark. Through the glass, the man who wasn’t Felix pointed to himself and then to her and lifted his eyebrows in a question. Layla suddenly realized how long she’d been staring at him and began to blush furiously. He lifted a finger, detaining her, and moved toward the door. Layla glanced at the men around the lamppost, raised her chin haughtily, and plunged into the stream of passersby.

  The tall man looked after her from the doorway. “You know her?” he called to the group at the lamppost.

  “Hey, Emmett,” one of them said.

  “Hey. You know her?” Emmett repeated.

  “Nope. Wish I did,” the man replied.

  “You can just get off right here,” said the one who had been lounging on the post. “I saw her first.”

  Emmett snorted. “I’ll tell Louise you said so.”

  “You hear about Shank?” the first man asked.

  Emmett’s eyes scanned the distant sidewalk for one more moment. Then he turned. “No. What?”

  They told him—forty-four men fired, just like that, yesterday, that bastard Shank, he didn’t care, Tom Lehew, what’s he going to do, sixty-three and his land all run out—and Emmett listened. Then he told them what he thought, and at first they laughed. Union? You’re crazy. He talked some more, and they glanced at one another, jutting their chins out, which was how it looked when they began to agree. Emmett shrugged. Don’t listen to me, he said. Talk to someone who knows. Talk to someone who’s done it. Huh, said one of them. Maybe you’re right. Could be, said another. Maybe. Maybe. Well, Emmett said, I’d better get on home. See you, Emmett. See you. See you. See you later.

  But not once did he stop thinking about the girl outside the window, how she’d smiled at him. He didn’t forget about her for an instant.

  9

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” muttered Jottie.

  “I hates to be beholden to you.”

  “Hell, Ma’am, they ain’t too many of us shiftin’ for a livin’ out here. I’d be a pore man—”

  Jottie slammed The Yearling shut and burrowed into a corner of the sofa.

  “I don’t know why you keep reading it if you hate it so much,” said Mae, pausing at the foot of the stairs.

  “I want to get to the part where the deer dies,” Jottie replied with her eyes closed. “Hush, now. I’m thinking.”

  “Looks an awful lot like sleeping to me,” said Mae. “Good night, honey.”

  “Night,” yawned Jottie. She was thinking. There was never enough time to think, during the day. Especially this day, she reflected, which had begun so long ago with Willa asking after Miss Beck—who knew why—and then Geraldine Lee and her army and her Reds. Cautiously, Jottie approached the painful spot: “I wish we were like everybody else. I get real tired of lying.” It hurt. She examined the wound: Willa lies about us. Why? The enemy voice that lived inside her head supplied the answer readily enough: She’s ashamed. Jottie’s eyes snapped open. Had Irma Lee said something? Had she hinted something about Felix or mocked Willa about her mother? Had she been the one who’d told Willa about Vause? Had she dared?

  I’ll kill her, Jottie promised, breathing shallowly with rage. I’ll kill anyone who makes Willa worried or ashamed.

  It’s not just Irma, her enemy voice continued implacably. You can’t kill everyone in Macedonia, and you can’t keep Willa shut up in a box. She’s going to hear it all, sooner or later. She’ll hear about Felix, she’ll hear about you and Vause, she’ll hear about the fire, and she’ll hear about Sol—she’s already beginning to wonder about that; you saw it last night—and she’ll be worried and ashamed, and there is not one thing you can do to stop it.

  “I wish we were like everybody else. I get real tired of lying.” It was a special distillation of shame, to have to lie about your family, and a special distillation of agony to learn of it. Jottie’s mind flicked over her own heedless childhood, recalling the protection and authority she hadn’t even known she enjoyed. How light and lordly she’d been, how free, how certain that her happiness was the product of her own virtues and powers. How wrong she’d been. How foolish. And how very, very lucky.

  If only Willa could have what I had, Jottie mourned. If only she could be so certain and proud. It was an illusion every child should have. And Willa was losing it, right before her eyes.

  If only we were still respectable, thought Jottie disconsolately.

  Her own thoughts shocked her. No! We’re still respectable! We certainly are! Lots of people like us. And believe in us. And we have the house, too, the Romeyn house. We’re respectable.

  But safe? asked the enemy slyly. What about safe?

  Her heart sagged. Yes. That was what she wanted for Willa. Safety. She wanted them to be safe for Willa. Unremarkable, irreproachable, and safe.

  She imagined how it might sound, being unremarkable: Oh, the Romeyns, yes, of course. Nice people. Real pleasant.

  The comparison came along, an uninvited guest: Why, sure, the Romeyns. They used to be a big family in town. Poor old Mr. Romeyn would just about die if he could see what that Felix is up to now. He always was a shady one; remember the way he used to sneak into every place in town? Jottie? Well, she always pranced around like the Queen of the May, but she got her comeuppance when Vause Hamilton threw her over. Didn’t surprise me any, but she took it real hard. Nobody even saw her for almost a year after the
fire, and I’ll tell you, plenty of people think Sol McKubin was right about that fire. Now? I guess she’s raising those girls, Felix and Sylvia’s girls, and oh Lord, what a fiasco that was, after he practically got himself killed marrying her. After all that, they fought like cats and dogs. I heard stories about the two of them that would curdle up all the blood in your body. It wasn’t long before he brought the children back here and Sylvia stayed up in Grand Mile, and you won’t believe it, but she and Parnell Rudy are living, well, like man and wife—

  Jottie groaned softly to herself and spread her fingers over her face, listening to the clock soldier forward. The darkness inside her hands was calm and soothing. She reached up and turned off the lamp, and her agony ebbed a little.

  There’s got to be some way I can change it.

  For Willa and Bird, I’ll do anything.

  But what can I do?

  I can—she leapt into the abyss—join a ladies’ club. There! That’s respectable! That’s something I can do! I can be ladylike. Why, I can be more ladylike than anyone, as long as I can keep myself from saying the first thing that pops into my mind.

  I’ll fix it, she thought with returning energy. I’ll fix everything. I’ll make Willa safe. I’ll make all of us safe. I’ll start with the ladies’ club. And after that, I can learn about flower-arranging, maybe. And, why, there’s knitting. Anyone can knit. What about canasta? I’ll take up canasta. I can have one of those card parties. And maybe Felix would help, if I asked him. He could do a little gardening. Clip the hedge, maybe, or rake leaves. People like a man who works in the garden. I’m sure he’d help, if I asked him right. And then we’ll be safe, safe…

  When Jottie opened her eyes again, Felix was there. He was sitting on the coffee table, smoking, silent.

  “Felix?” she whispered. “I’ve been thinking—”

  “Listen,” he broke in, “you don’t owe him a damn thing.”

  “Who?”

  “Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton.” He ran a hand through his hair, standing it on end. “I don’t know why you do it. Let him burn his house down. What do you care?” His eyes were bright and hot. “And if you’ve got some crazy idea you’re doing it for Vause, forget it. You sure as hell don’t owe Vause anything, either. I don’t know why you can’t remember that.” He ground his cigarette viciously into the ashtray.