by Ruth White
There was silence in the band room for the first time ever as Mr. Gillespie looked around the room slowly with a very sad look on his face.
“Okay,” he said at last, and raised his arms. “Die Fledermaus.”
June 1958
Dear Mr. Gillespie:
Thank you for what you said in band. But 1 do not want you to be very distressed. What you said helped me a whole lot, and I feel better. I appreciate your concern.
Love, Ernestina
P.S. I will tell Willa.
How could I face Mr. Gillespie after all the loveydovey stuff I said to him in my earlier letters? I could never tell him.
Bobby Lynn won first place in the talent contest with her yodeling. I didn’t even remember to go to the show, but I saw her picture in the paper with all the prizes she won. She was smiling and happy. Aunt Evie brought the paper to me. She was proud of Bobby Lynn.
Mr. Gillespie went to Lexington to get married at the end of June.
I didn’t write to him again. There was nothing left to say to him.
In my next dream, Grandpa Lambert is there. He is mad at Mama for marrying Vern. His eyes are little red-hot coals like in the fireplace, and he has awful wrinkles on his face, and he cusses Mama, and he cusses me. Then he turns into Grandma Mullins, Vern’s mama who died. She laughs at me.
“You thought you were hot stuff in that bathing suit!” she says. “You shoulda took off the ruffles like I told you. Ruffles are dangerous.”
And she smirks and laughs. She wins. Even when she’s dead she can beat me. I hate her and I hate Vern.
I woke up. It was the dead of night and Phyllis was out cold. My window was open and I could hear the frogs croaking down in the creek. I could see the hills silhouetted against a jeweled sky. I pictured the people all sleeping in their beds up and down the holler just like they had always done. They couldn’t imagine the awful thing that had happened.
I wanted to get up and take another bath, but Mama was mad at me for taking all those baths lately. It was hot and very late, and I was thirsty. I sat up, and Nessie lifted her head and started slapping her tail against the bed. I patted her.
I thought there might be one Red Rock Cola in the refrigerator. I would sneak down the stairs and get it. I stepped out into the hall and closed my door so Nessie couldn’t follow me. I could hear Vern snoring. I tiptoed down the stairs and into the kitchen. Yes, there was the Red Rock. I opened it quietly and tiptoed back toward the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs I paused because there in the living room I could see a cigarette glowing in the dark.
“Mama?”
Silence.
“Why are you sitting in the dark, Mama?”
“I couldn’t sleep. Go back to bed, Tiny.”
I had avoided Mama. I had not even looked in her eyes all these weeks because I felt I could never tell her. Even that first night, when I said I had a headache and begged off going to the A & P, she did not ask me a single question. If she sensed something was wrong, she did not mention it. Maybe she did not admit any suspicions even to herself. Maybe she had no suspicions. As I hesitated there at the foot of the stairs, I envisioned going to her in the dark and curling up beside her and crying in her arms like a little girl. Maybe I could tell her …
“Mama?”
“For Pete’s sake, Tiny!” she snapped. “Can’t I never be alone?”
Without another word I went upstairs and back to my room.
Phyllis had sprawled herself all over the bed, and she was snoring just like Vern. I poked her real hard with my elbow.
“Oh!” she said, jumping up. “What’d you do that for?”
“Move your butt over!”
“Well, you didn’t have to poke me so hard! That hurt!”
I turned my back to her.
“You know something, Tiny?” she said angrily. “I don’t like you no more!”
“Well, so what? I don’t like you neither!”
SEVENTEEN
The blue-and-white pokey-dotted bathing suit lay all wadded up in a knot and pushed to the back of the bottom drawer in my dresser. I never wanted to see it again and I didn’t go swimming at the new county pool. The summer sorta ran together in a blur. I think it rained all the time.
In my mind I killed Vern.
Mama grew quiet, and Phyllis was quiet, too, for a change.
The boys spent a lot of time with Cecil.
I spent all my time with Nessie and Willa. We made up a whole fantasy world that summer, Willa and I did. I think there were unicorns. It was a way to get out of the real world. It didn’t matter.
Rosemary called me often. She and Roy were concerned about me. They got me a blind date with Roy’s cousin, but I wouldn’t go. Bobby Lynn finally got over her mad spell when she forgot what it was she was mad about, and she started calling me again. We were going into our junior year and we all moved up to first clarinet in summer band practice, but it wasn’t important anymore.
When school started, I hung out with Bobby Lynn and Rosemary as always at stroll-and-perch time. Roy had been a part of our group since last school year; then one morning, out of the blue, Cecil came over and started hanging out with our crowd. After that he was with us every day. I think he had a crush on Bobby Lynn, but whatever his reasons I was proud to have him with us because he had become a very important football player—an overnight sensation. His name was in the paper every week. And he was my neighbor.
The last week in October, Bobby Lynn invited me to spend the night at her house, and Mama said it was okay. I decided I would go because I hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary for a long time. Though I had been to Bobby Lynn’s house a few times, I had never spent the night. She lived right off Main Street and we walked down there after school on Friday. There were golden leaves all over the sidewalk and little gusts of wind swirled them around our feet. We kicked at them and laughed, and breathed in the crisp autumn air.
Bobby Lynn’s house was small and made of white boards, with a low brick wall running around it, and a cute brick walkway from the gate to the front door. We went in and tossed our books on the couch. It was cozy in there with five rooms all jumbled together, flowered curtains and couch covers to match, doilies on everything, family pictures everywhere, and a piano!
We ate Jell-O with bananas and nuts in it, then she sat down at the piano. She played by ear. Bobby Lynn had told me that when she was in grade school she had taken piano lessons for a few years, but she wouldn’t follow directions or practice scales or anything, and her teacher got so exasperated she gave up. She just sat there and let Bobby Lynn play for fun. And that’s when she really learned to play. She could play anything from “Honky Tonk Angel” to Mozart. All she needed to do was hear a tune a few times and she could play it. I could sing a few bars of anything and she had it. We were doing “The Rock And Roll Waltz” when Bobby Lynn’s mama came in from work and dropped down in an armchair beside me.
One, two and then rock,
One, two and then roll,
They did The Rock And Roll Waltz.
At first Mrs. Clevinger just listened, then she started clapping in time. Then we did the chorus again while Mrs. Clevinger and I hooked arms and started dancing. When we finished we were breathless, and all of us laughed. I completely forgot this was a middle-aged woman I was dancing with.
“That was good!” she said. “Why, Tiny Lambert, where’d you learn to sing like that?”
For an instant the room faded away and I saw me and Willa up on the high porch in the swing, singing softly together.
“Just picked it up,” I said to Mrs. Clevinger.
“Well, don’t you ever lay it back down,” she said, giggling. “And, Bobby Lynn, honey, you played just right—soft in the right places. I can’t believe it. Can you do something else?”
Sure we could do something else, and we did something else and something else again while Mrs. Clevinger fried big slabs of pork and opened home-canned sauerkraut, and made corn bread. Then
we sat down to eat in their cluttered kitchen.
“I have to drive up to Big Lick tonight to go to a wake,” Mrs. Clevinger said. “I sure would like for you girls to go with me. I don’t like driving in the dark by myself.”
I didn’t think I wanted to spend a Friday night sitting up with a corpse, but to my surprise, Bobby Lynn agreed.
“I’ve never been to a wake before,” I said, somehow hoping that bit of information might save me, but I was wrong.
Next thing I knew, we were loaded into the Clevingers’ Henry J, me in the front with Mrs. Clevinger, and Bobby Lynn in the back. We drove a long way up to Big Lick, almost to the West Virginia state line. We were cracking jokes and acting the fool all the way, and I never saw a grownup as much fun as Bobby Lynn’s mama.
Then we turned up a gravel road that led to a great big farmhouse sitting in the crook of a holler. We put on some serious faces then and went in. I’m not sure what I expected a wake to be, but it wasn’t what I found there.
The woman who died of old age was the mother of Mrs. Clevinger’s lifelong friend Arbutus Shortridge. Her coffin was set up in the living room with flowers draped all over it, under it, around it, behind it. It put you in mind of a throne all decorated in finery, and the deceased was the queen presiding over the goingson.
In every room there were clusters of people talking softly together, occasionally wiping away a tear as they told cute and touching stories about the star of the show, the deceased. Dead people are always remembered as wonderful.
Besides the heavy smell of flowers there was the smell of good food. On the kitchen table there was every kind of food you could ever want—stuff the neighbors had brought in. There was ham and fried chicken, freshly baked bread and biscuits, all kinds of vegetables and desserts—pumpkin pie and apple pie, pound cake and red velvet cake—and drinks. I think there were more drinks out in the barn, because the men would go out there looking very somber and sad, then come back in with a smile on their faces and smelling like something.
I discovered the object was to keep the dead body company all night and at the same time enjoy yourself as much as possible without making too much noise. Mrs. Clevinger found her friend Arbutus, and some other old friends she grew up with in Big Lick. So she settled down to talk to them while Bobby Lynn and I wandered around looking for some young people.
“Let’s get some apple pie,” Bobby Lynn whispered.
I followed her to the kitchen. A large-boned country girl perched on a stool by the table. She was pretty in a raw sort of way. She had freckles and brown pigtails, and a silly cock-eyed grin on her face. She tossed her pigtails around a lot and said, “Dead … dead …”
I poked Bobby Lynn and said with a giggle, “What’s wrong with funny face?”
“Oh, that’s Tilly Vanover,” Bobby Lynn said. “She’s not all there.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Well, they say her daddy did you-know-what to her, and she lost something upstairs. She ain’t been right since.”
That bit of news made me feel so funny my knees buckled, and I had to sit down. Her daddy did you-know-what to her.
She lost something upstairs. She’s not all there.
“What’sa matter with you?” Bobby Lynn said as she handed me a piece of pie on a saucer. “You see a ghost?”
“No. Nothing.”
We took our pie into the dining room, where Arbutus’ girl, Pearl, was sitting at a table with some other girls and a couple of boys. She introduced me to them, but for the moment I was so shaken I didn’t hear or see anything. I ate my pie in silence, without looking up, as the young people chattered all around me in low voices.
Gradually I calmed down and silently vowed that I would not think of Tilly Vanover anymore.
There was a cute boy at the table who stared at me. His name was Jesse Compton. He was medium in height and weight, with a blond crew cut and brown eyes. He was seventeen and a senior at Big Lick High School.
After a while I stared back at him.
The other boy was Patton Barber and he was ugly as a mud fence, but Bobby Lynn seemed to like him.
“Knock, knock,” Bobby Lynn said in a whispery voice.
“Who’s there?” we all said.
“Sam and Janet.”
“Sam and Janet who?”
“Sam and Janet evening,” she sang.
We laughed softly.
“I have one,” Jesse said, and looked at me and winked.
My heart fluttered.
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
“Okay, you say ‘Knock, knock,’” he said.
“Knock, knock,” I said.
“Who’s there?” he said.
There was silence for a minute, then we exploded.
A big fat woman came and looked in the door at us with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. We hung our heads in shame. As soon as she was gone we giggled into our hands.
“I got a Little Audrey joke,” Patton Barber said.
“Let’s hear it.”
Jesse and I couldn’t keep our eyes off each other. I had butterflies in my tummy. For about an hour we talked and told jokes as Jesse moved closer and closer to me.
Then a preacher started his sermon over the body. Tilly Vanover could be heard saying, “Dead … dead …” and somebody’s false teeth were clicking as they ate. Otherwise only the preacher’s voice could be heard throughout the house. If it hadn’t been for Jesse staring at me I would have gone to sleep.
When the preacher finished, Mrs. Clevinger tiptoed in and whispered to me, “Arbutus wants somebody to sing ‘Whispering Hope.’ Will you do it?”
I fell back to Earth.
“In front of everybody?”
“Certainly. You can do it.”
“I never did sing in front of people.”
“Go on, Tiny,” Bobby Lynn encouraged me. “I’ll get you started.”
My first reaction was to run. Then I thought, Why not? Why don’t I do it real quick and not think about it, and I won’t have a chance to get nervous?
Jesse was listening to our conversation. Wouldn’t he be impressed? I jumped up so fast I knocked my chair over, and Jesse scrambled to pick it up for me. My heart was flying. Mrs. Clevinger and Bobby Lynn ushered me into the front room. Mrs. Clevinger said something to the people—I don’t know what—then everybody was sitting there watching me and Bobby Lynn expectantly. I could feel my skirt fluttering against my legs where my knees were trembling. We stood by the casket. I looked at the body, then looked away quickly.
Bobby Lynn, with her perfect pitch, hummed a few bars for me to put me in the right key, and I began.
Soft as the voice of an angel,
Breathing a lesson unheard,
Hope, with a gentle persuasion,
Whispers her comforting word.
Wait, till the darkness is over,
Wait, till the tempest is done,
Hope for the sunshine tomorrow,
After the shower is gone.
I saw all the young people crowding into the doorway, watching and listening. Bobby Lynn edged away and stood by her mother. The relatives of the deceased started crying.
Whispering Hope, oh, how welcome thy voice,
Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice.
There were two more verses and I found myself relaxing. My voice rang out clear and true, right on key, even without a piano. I was proud of myself. When I finished, everybody was smiling at me through their tears, and hugging me. After all the compliments, Bobby Lynn and I went back in and sat down beside Patton and Jesse.
“That was real pretty, Tiny,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Do you have a telephone, Tiny?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I have your number?”
“Sure.”
The clusters of mourners shifted around after midnight, and the young people resettled in the main room with the body. The hours started dragging, and a few people left.
The chatter among us slowed down to a near stop. Jesse was beside me, but in spite of his presence, I started to nod around 3:00 a.m.
When I opened my eyes again, I sensed that some time had passed. Everybody in this room was asleep sitting up. Silence lay over the house like a blanket.
Slowly I got up and walked over to the coffin, and looked at the corpse. She was about eighty, I reckoned, all dressed up in silk and laid out in satin. Her white hair was streaked with yellow and slicked back over her pitiful shrunken skull. Her face was nearly as white as her hair, and wrinkled skin lay in folds around her mouth. Her shriveled hands were folded neatly across her waist and she held a single white carnation that was beginning to turn brown around the edges. I found myself watching for a heartbeat in the scrubby chest. What if she opened her eyes and looked at me?
She was once a girl, I thought, her body firm, her cheeks rosy, and her hair some soft, shiny color. She laughed and flirted with boys, and one of them fell in love with her and married her. Did they live happily ever after? And is this the end of ever after?
Suddenly I heard someone breathing behind me, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I turned to face Tilly Vanover.
“Dead … dead …” she said.
She was still standing there a few moments later when I left with Bobby Lynn and her mother. I felt very sorry for her.
On the way back to Black Gap, Bobby Lynn slept in the back seat. Mrs. Clevinger was tired and didn’t say a word. But my mind was busy.
The first frost of the winter had settled during the night. Not a soul was astir in Black Gap, and not a car moving. The little town was sleeping snugly in its pocket against the mountain. I watched the sun rise over the golden Appalachians and everything was sparkling like diamonds in the frost.
“I survived!” I was thinking. “And I am fully alive! I am alive and this is a magic moment because I know I am alive. I am alive and I am sixteen, and it is dawn on a Saturday morning in October in 1958. I am in a Henry J riding up Main Street in Black Gap, Virginia, U.S.A., North America, Earth …”
