The Truth According to Us

by Annie Barrows

  Jottie ignored him. “Bastille Day is when the French Revolution began,” she said to me. I nodded. “The poor people broke open the doors of the jail, and the prisoners surged out and chopped off Louis the Sixteenth’s head.” She glanced at Henry. “And Marie Antoinette’s, too. She said, Let them eat cake.”

  “That’s not what happened,” Henry argued.

  “Oh, Henry,” sighed Minerva.

  “Well, it’s not.” Henry never understood Jottie.

  Jottie’s eyes were sparkling. “It was something like the time the drunks broke out of jail and took over the library.”

  I loved Jottie. “I never heard that one. Tell.”

  Father’s head dipped close to Miss Beck’s. “I wouldn’t put this in your book, if I were you,” he said.

  “Hush!” commanded Jottie, waving her finger at him. He laughed and sat back, away from Miss Beck. “Now,” she said. “It all began because Mayor Tapscott thought the inmates were eating too much—”

  “Which was true,” Henry said.

  “How much is too much?” Jottie said. “You’ve never been hungry a day in your life.”

  “Yes, he has,” said Minerva. “He almost starved to death in Pittsburgh once.”

  “Well, Pittsburgh,” scoffed Jottie.

  Mae and Harriet choked on their coffee.

  “You were saying, Jottie?” said Richie, real solemn.

  “I was saying that Mayor Tapscott believed—rightly or wrongly, who’s to know—that the indigents were spending all their relief money on hooch to work themselves up to disturbing the peace so they’d get a free meal in jail.”

  “One hundred percent true,” said Henry.

  “So he cut their food back to half a turnip and a piece of bread scraped with lard.”

  “That is just not so,” said Henry indignantly. “They got—”

  “No! I lie! They got a cup of water, too. Naturally, they were hungry as bears inside of a day, and after two days, they were chewing on the soles of their shoes. That’s when they decided to revolt.”

  I swallowed a giggle. “How’d they revolt?”

  “Well, first they overwhelmed the jailer, which wasn’t too difficult, because it was Dale Purlett and he hasn’t got but one foot, and then they charged on the library. They chased Miss Lucinda Mytinger into the lavatory and turned the lock on her, and then they took all the books off the shelves and mixed them up.”

  “Tell what you did,” said Father, chuckling.

  Jottie laughed. “I got a crowd of my girlfriends together and we decided to go sing hymns on the sidewalk below. We thought our angelic voices raised in song would cause them to repent of their sinful ways.”

  “Did they?” I asked.

  “They threw books at us and told us to go to hell.”

  Everyone—except Henry—burst out laughing.

  “This family is berserk,” said Henry grumpily.

  “Too late. You’re in it now,” Minerva said.

  42

  “Bye, honey!” sang Harriet as she disappeared into the night, clinging to Richie’s arm.

  “Watch out there, now,” his low voice grumbled.

  Jottie closed her eyes and dropped her head against the back of her chair, listening to the click of Harriet’s high heels recede down Academy Street. “She’s going to break her ankle someday,” she murmured.

  “She is kind of large to wear such heels.” Layla yawned. “I’ll take the coffee cups in,” she offered halfheartedly.

  “Oh, sit for a minute,” Jottie said. “I think I felt a breeze.”

  “That was me, opening the door.” It was Felix, with his hat on.

  “Where are you going?” Layla asked, trying to sound casual. In the gloom, she saw the white brilliance of his smile.

  “Going to see some friends.”

  “Now?”

  An eyebrow shot up. “Yup.”

  “You want some company?” She stretched a little to show off her legs.

  “Nope.” He glanced around the porch and then bent swiftly to kiss her. As she reached for him, he broke away. “A girl your age needs her sleep. Get on up to bed. I got to talk to Jottie.”

  Reluctantly, she stood, her hand lingering in his until the last possible moment. “I’m not even tired,” she pouted.

  “Too bad.” He smiled and pressed his thumb against her lips. “Get.” When she had gone inside the house, he turned to Jottie. “Wake up.”

  “I’m awake,” she said, opening her eyes. “I’m just trying to keep the veil of decency drawn.”

  He laughed. “Think clean thoughts.”

  “My thoughts are plenty clean. Yours could use some work.” She sat up. “What do you want?” Lightning flared silently, illuminating the shabby porch.

  “How much money do you have?” he demanded.

  “Fourteen dollars and eighty cents.”

  “Oh, hell. That’s all?”

  “That’s all I have here. If you wait until tomorrow, I can go to the bank,” she said.

  “No. Can’t wait. Give me ten.”

  “You can have it all.”

  He shook his head stubbornly. “No. Just ten.”

  That meant he didn’t know what was going to happen. When he didn’t want to leave her without money, that’s what it meant. Her stomach tightened. “Don’t.”

  He lifted an eyebrow of inquiry.

  “Don’t do something bad.”

  He smiled. “I never do anything bad.”

  She nodded. “Let me get my purse.”

  When she returned, he was standing, facing the street, his hands jingling in his pockets. “Thanks,” he said as she handed him two bills. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “I know.” She hesitated, watching his dark head bent over his wallet. “Felix?”

  He grunted.

  “Can’t you leave her alone?”

  He looked up in surprise. “Who?”

  “Layla!” she said, exasperated.

  “Oh.” He grinned. “I didn’t know I was bothering her.”

  “Stop it. She’s crazy about you.”

  “Is that right?” he snickered.

  “Don’t laugh. She’s in love with you.” Jottie wiped perspiration from her upper lip.

  “She’s pretty cute.” He shook his head fondly.

  “She thinks you’re going to marry her.”

  “She’s in for a surprise, then.” Again, lightning, dead white and off again.

  “Don’t break her heart. Please, Felix.”

  His eyes widened. “I won’t. I wouldn’t do such a thing.”

  She nodded. “Good. What will you do, then?”

  “Me? I’m going out.”

  “Felix! What are you going to do about Layla?”

  He smiled and tipped his head close to Jottie’s. “I’m going to get her into my bed as fast as I can,” he whispered in her ear.

  She seized his arm. “No! For God’s sake, leave her alone!”

  He stiffened. “What’s it to you? Since when do you care more about her than me?”

  He was getting angry, but she was beyond caring. “She’s a nice girl. She doesn’t deserve to have her life ruined. For once, Felix, have pity!”

  “Pity?” His face was scornful. “She doesn’t need pity. And let me tell you, Jottie, going to bed with me isn’t going to ruin her life. You don’t know anything about it.”

  “I do too know—my heart broke, I wished I were dead. I wouldn’t want a dog to go through what I went through.”

  He drew a tight breath. “That wasn’t me.”

  “I’m not saying it was you. It was Vause. But I know what I’m talking about. Please, Felix? Can’t you leave her be?”

  He turned away, toward the street. For a moment he stared into the massive dark, and then he reached for her and patted her shoulder. “You worry too much.”

  She had failed. Again. Always. “You don’t worry enough,” she said wearily.

  “Sure I do,” he said, and slipped away i
nto the lightning.

  “Be careful!” called Jottie. A flick of lightning revealed him, mid-step, on the sidewalk, before he was erased by blackness. Maybe that’s the last time I’ll see him, she thought, and felt a tiny, shocking tingle of relief.

  August 9—no, 10—1938

  Dear Rose,

  You’ll excuse my handwriting, darling, when I tell you it’s not drink but love that makes my hand shake. My stomach is diving and swooping like a starling, and I can’t eat a thing, though perhaps that’s the heat. Do you feel this way around Mason? If so, I don’t understand how you manage to play tennis the way you do. I couldn’t hit a ball to save my life just at the moment.

  Oh, Rosy, I had no idea, none at all, that I could feel as I do, connected in my blood to another being. It would be alarming if it weren’t so wonderful—I feel him come into a room, my senses are suddenly magnified, and for the first time in my life I truly believe in evolution, because it’s instinct, this feeling I have—I must have a wolf in my ancestry to feel this keenness, this awareness of his tiniest movement. And there’s the tenderness, too, the ferocious desire to keep all harm from him. I think, dear, that I am learning—finally—what it is to care more for someone than for myself, and what it is to be cared for. He watches over me, so quiet and calm, so generous and forgiving of wrongs—you’ll see how wonderful he is when you meet him. And you, you alone, will see how it is between us. For no one else knows, darling. Up on the surface, where the world watches, we’re chums. But below, we’re simmering. Our eyes meet, and it’s a delicious secret between the two of us—no one else can see the invisible strings that are pulling us nearer and nearer each other.

  I may die of excitement.

  When I think of how I begged Ben not to send me to Macedonia, it makes me glad that he detests me, glad that Father cut me off, glad even that he wanted me to marry Nelson. Though of course it would never do to tell Ben or Father how happy I am. They disapprove of me being happy. I’m supposed to be in the school of hard knocks, facing stark reality, and pulling myself up by my bootstraps. So, for the next few weeks, you must keep my secret locked up tighter than the crypts of the pharaohs and eat this letter if anyone threatens to read it. Don’t worry, I won’t make you take it to the grave, for I have a marvelous plan to bring Felix to Lance’s engagement party. (You know about that party, don’t you? Mother swore she wasn’t going to tell a soul, so I expect half of Washington—including you—has been invited already.) That way, you’ll be able to meet him, and Father will, too. And I will have the divine satisfaction of watching Father realize that his plan to make me miserable has been a failure and that my happiness no longer rests in his hands—but in Felix’s.

  Oh my, look at all those dashes! Don’t worry, they’re indicative of my racing heart, not a new prose style. My book is coming along at a great pace, though my typewriter seems to be afflicted by a poltergeist. I assume it’s a Confederate ghost offended by my Union sympathies; for all I try to be impartial, I let out a little wheeze of triumph whenever the Federal troops outfox the Rebel raiders that swarmed over this part of the state.

  Is Cape May gloriously cool and breezy? I would envy you, except there’s no Felix Romeyn at Cape May.

  Love,

  Layla

  P.S. Can you picture me as a stepmother? I must say, I can’t. Every one that I can recall attempted to poison her new children immediately, which seems rather high-handed. I believe I’ll try a more measured approach.

  43

  Jottie’s birthday was on Friday, so on Thursday, Minerva and Mae and Bird and I locked ourselves into the kitchen to make her a cake. The problem was that Jottie was the only one who could cook. Mae and Minerva smoked about fifty cigarettes apiece and pored over an old yellow clipping from a newspaper. Bird and I ran around pulling ingredients from the cupboards.

  “Mix dry ingredients,” read Mae. “With what?”

  Miss Beck came in after a while, but she didn’t know any more than we did. She said she thought we ought to turn on the oven, but Mae said it was so hot she was going to wait till the last minute.

  It looked all right when we put it in, but something happened to it in the oven. The recipe said it would be “airy,” but I don’t think they meant it the way it came out. Minerva and Mae and Bird and I looked at the thing in the pan and Bird said, “Jottie likes ice cream better than she does cake, anyway,” and Minerva and Mae busted up laughing. Then Jottie shouted through the kitchen door that we weren’t going to get any dinner if we didn’t let her in soon, and we decided that Minerva would give Bird and me money to go buy ice cream for Jottie at Statler’s the next afternoon. Mae and Minerva would both be off at their own houses by then, but they said we were big girls and they trusted us not to run off and squander the money on chorus boys. Then they smoked about fifty more cigarettes and criticized the way Bird and I washed the dishes.

  The next morning when I got out of bed, it was already hot, so hot and thick that there wasn’t enough air to breathe. And it was still. I guess the birds were too hot to get up to much singing. It made me feel bad for Jottie that the birds weren’t singing on her birthday, so I sang “Whistle While You Work” as I came downstairs. I could do the whistling parts, too. Jottie said I was an infant phenom.

  It was still real early. Jottie had pulled the shades against the heat, but it came streaming in anyway, and the kitchen turned bright yellow, so you would have thought the world was on fire outside the shades. Jottie poured me some cereal and sat down to keep me company while I ate. I couldn’t imagine how she drank coffee when it was so hot.

  After a while, the others came along: first Bird, who kissed Jottie’s cheek and said she felt sorry for grown-ups because nobody cared about their birthdays, and then Mae and Minerva, who yawned and sang Happy Birthday while they drank their coffee. Father was away on business; he’d left the night Jottie told about Bastille Day, after we’d gone to bed. Bird and I listened to everyone moan about the heat until we couldn’t wait one more second and then we brought out the locket, all wrapped up in red tissue paper. Jottie said it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life and she put it right on, even though she was going to have to take it off again to put in our pictures. She said she knew exactly which pictures she was going to use, and then she hugged us all. Bird muttered a little about lounging pajamas, but even Bird could see that Jottie liked the locket. Miss Beck came in then, and she wished Jottie a happy birthday, too. She even gave her a present, a handkerchief with a rose on it, which was nice, I suppose.

  We fussed over Jottie a while longer, and then the real day had to begin. Minerva went to take a bath, and Jottie poured cereal for Bird and Miss Beck. Henry put his head in the back door and said it was going to get up to one hundred and two degrees later in the afternoon. He’d read it in the paper, he said, along with a story about cows dying of sunstroke. He looked at Jottie. “Many happy returns of the day,” he said, and then he got mad when we laughed.

  After he’d stomped off, Mae lit her first cigarette. “This had just better be the hottest day of the year.”

  “Or what?” I asked.

  “Or I quit,” said Mae.

  —

  Bird and I hunkered down inside the house all morning, putting off the moment when we’d get hot for keeps. As long as we stayed in the dark and didn’t move, we wouldn’t come right out and sweat. We went into my grandmother’s sewing room—I don’t think I had ever before spent more than five minutes there—and lay on the floor. Then we tried the old dead parlor, full of black furniture and dust. It was cooler than the rest of the house, and when I put my cheek down on a little marble-top table, I had a solitary second of cold against my skin. Bird stretched out on the horsehair sofa, to see how long she could stand it without scratching. She said she lasted a minute, but she didn’t.

  We weren’t sweating, but we got awful bored, so after lunch we went down the street to see what the Lloyd boys were doing. We were hoping it was something p
ertaining to a hose, but no such luck. They were digging a grave, Jun and Frank and Dex were. They were going to bury their baby brother, Neddie, alive. It made me pant to look at them, digging away in the stomped-over grass, heaving up big clumps of dirt. Not Bird. She thought it was wonderful, and she offered to be their sample, while I threw myself down in the pitiful shade of their beat-up old maple tree. I looked up through the branches and saw not one leaf stirring. Not one. The sky behind the leaves was whitish gray, like hot metal, and every colored thing had turned pale.

  Bird skipped over, drenched in sweat. “Jun says he’ll bury me alive!” She was thrilled.

  Jun lifted his head and smiled at me.

  “You’re joking, aren’t you?” I asked him.

  “Uh-uh.” He shook his head and scraped up another chunk of dirt.

  I sighed and got to my feet, feeling drops trickle down my back. It was too hot to fight. “Jun Lloyd, don’t you dare. She’ll die of suffocation,” I said.

  “Oh, Willa,” said Bird. “Stop picking on us.”

  Jun was twelve, like me, but he was big. He’d probably give me a black eye. My only hope was maybe his father had said he couldn’t hit a girl.

  “He gave me a glass straw to breathe through,” Bird said. She held it up. “See?”

  Oh.

  For a minute I watched the boys’ shoulders move up and down, turning dirt. They were enjoying themselves, even if it was a million degrees. And Bird, too. She was skittering around the hole, pointing out rocks they needed to remove so she could lie easy in her grave. They were all happy as could be, and it seemed like they were on one side of a window and I was on the other. I thought about it, there under the tree. Maybe this was what came of all the sneaking and spying I’d done. Maybe I was permanently a spy.

  “Don’t kill her, now,” I said over my shoulder as I trudged back down the lawn. I walked slowly home. Inside it would be dark and still, and I’d be able to hear the afternoon ratchet forward on the clock’s metal wheels. I clicked open the door quietly, so as not to disturb Jottie’s sacred resting time. She was in her pink chair, eyes closed, one hand on a book in her lap. I tiptoed by so quietly she didn’t even stir.