Francie

by Karen English

  I looked at my book in Mr. Diller’s hand. My eyes started to fill with tears, but I willed them away. That man knew in his heart that the book belonged to me. But he was gonna stand there and act like I’d done something wrong, just to save face. I didn’t understand white folks sometimes. I’d be too scared to be so mean.

  I stepped out into the bright sunshine, which now seemed to mock my earlier good feeling. I was innocent, but the world had decided to make me guilty. Why did I feel so guilty? I walked toward my hill.

  The ground trembled beneath me. I could hear the distant rumble of the train. I gazed in its direction as it came at me. I stood and waved at it. I was going to be on that train one day. I was going to get out of Alabama, God willing.

  Commencement

  On Monday, after the flag salute, after roll was called, after Miss Lafayette wrote down the problem of the day on the board and we grabbed our slates to start working it, she turned around and said, “Put your slates down for a moment.”

  She gazed around the room and then settled on our eighth-grade section, though all had to listen.

  In her soft voice she began. “Now, you know, the end of the school year is right around the corner. Commencement is at the end of the month. Y’all will be going on to Thomas Jefferson.” She stopped and closed her eyes. “I so much want you to use every opportunity that comes your way. There are scholarships to our Negro colleges and any one of you can get one of those scholarships and go on to become a teacher, or a lawyer, or a doctor even.” She stopped and searched our faces. Already I felt a little buzz of excitement in the pit of my stomach. Even though I wouldn’t be going to Thomas Jefferson, and didn’t know where I’d be going up in Chicago. I just loved the thought of possibilities. It could almost make me forget Diller’s on Saturday and everything I’d experienced like it.

  Just as we started our lunches, Miss Lafayette called Augustine over to her desk, and we all guessed why. Augustine’s sad expression as she walked out of the classroom and went straight into the woods served as proof.

  “She knows she’s gonna be held back,” Serena said.

  “Yea, she knows,” I added, feeling a strange new sympathy for Augustine.

  She didn’t come back the rest of the day. The next morning she sheepishly entered the classroom with welts all up and down the back of her legs. Miss Lafayette didn’t scold her for skipping out on school, and I knew she wouldn’t. She just gave her a sympathetic smile. One of Augustine’s little brothers or sisters must have told their daddy on her. Whatever the case, the wind seemed to be out of her sails. She hardly gave me a glance. For the rest of the day, when I saw her hunched over an arithmetic problem or mouthing words during silent reading time, a knot formed in my throat. Poor Augustine Butler. God had blessed me with knowing I could fight my way out of my circumstances, if need be. But she didn’t know that like I did. No wonder she was so mean.

  “Jesse’s over at the Early farm, helping with the planting,” Prez said two days later when he got home from working after school at the Early farm.

  I stopped in my tracks. “You seen him there?”

  “This very day.”

  “Jesse?”

  “I said he’s there.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He didn’t say nothin’.”

  “He didn’t ask about me?”

  “What for?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know what for.

  For the rest of the evening, I thought about Jesse working over at the Early farm.

  “Turn,” Mama said to me, a spray of pins clenched in her teeth. I turned. “Not that much.” I turned a bit the other way “Stop. Hold still.”

  I nearly held my breath. She was hemming the white organza and taking a long time. A free Saturday—Miss Beach was down in Mobile and had told us to skip this day, since she wouldn’t be there to supervise. I’d arranged to take a lunch to Prez and Perry. I wanted to see Jesse. But for now I was stuck standing uncomfortably on a kitchen chair.

  “I just don’t know …” Mama muttered to herself.

  “When can I get down, Mama?”

  “Not till I’m done.”

  She wasn’t done until a half hour more of pinning, frowning, taking it out. As soon as she was satisfied, I hopped down, changed back into my regular clothes, grabbed the lunch pails, and ran out the door.

  When Prez and Perry saw me, they dropped their hoes and left them lying on the ground. Prez looked back over his shoulder to see what Mr. Early’s boss man Bellamy was doing. He was walking to the woods.

  I held up the buckets and they made their way over.

  “Why’d you take so long? We done missed our dinnertime,” Prez whined.

  “Now we’ll have to work and eat at the same time,” Perry said, his mouth in a pout.

  “Mama held me up, hemming my dress.” I set the buckets down. “Where’s Jesse?”

  “Bellamy has him cutting some wood,” Prez said. He pulled up a drooping overall strap.

  Jesse just then came out of the woods, carrying a stack of logs. I had to resist the urge to shout his name. He dumped them on the edge of the field and went back.

  “Jesse ain’t got time for company,” Perry said. “He been in trouble already. Bellamy pretendin’ Jesse’s not workin’ fast enough for his size. He lookin’ to cut his pay.”

  “That ain’t fair.”

  “Bitcha he gon’ do it.”

  Jesse came out with another load, his head down. I waved anyway, but he went back into the woods without looking up.

  Miss Lattimore mopped her forehead in the hot sun and began reading from her notes. Commencement day had finally arrived. We’d rehearsed the way we’d shake with one hand and take our diploma with the other, all week. Already sweat was running down my neck and making my dress stick to my back. But I didn’t mind. Here I was, wearing Mama’s earrings! I sat in the first row on our little makeshift stage: a thick piece of plywood on bricks. Serena, in her homemade dress of beige muslin, sat beside me. A mosquito landed on my arm and I swatted at it just in time.

  Mama sat in the second row in the swept school yard, next to Aunt Lydia, who had suddenly seemed to blow up even bigger with child. Perry, in clean, pressed overalls, sat next to her, then Uncle June in his black going-to-meeting suit. Prez wore new dungarees Daddy had sent him and a white shirt. Perry and Prez would be going up to Benson with Uncle June later that evening for a week-long visit. Uncle June had been there working in a turpentine factory, planning to move his family after Auntie had her baby.

  Auntie had told Mama she looked forward to the quiet not having Perry underfoot would bring. I looked forward to the peace as well.

  Miss Lattimore’s voice lifted to reach the back rows. Prez squirmed and ran a finger around his collar to loosen it. Mama began to fan. Miss Lafayette looked over at me from the side of our stage and smiled. Finally, Miss Lattimore got to the last page of her notes and with another mop of her face sat down.

  It was time for Miss Lafayette to give out the awards. Serena got the penmanship award. J. Dean got the attendance. I got the award for academic achievement. When Miss Lafayette handed me my certificate in my left hand and reached out to shake my right, I could have floated right up into the clouds. Mama beamed. She was proud. A smile was all I was going to get, but I didn’t care. I knew what was in her heart and mind, and her smile was worth more than gold.

  Sunday at the Montgomerys’

  “You’re going to have to go to Mrs. Montgomery’s, Francie, and start those cakes.” Mama adjusted her hat in front of the little cracked mirror hanging over the basin stand where we washed our faces. “I’ll be down the street at Mrs. Grace’s, since I promised I’d get her floors waxed for her book-club meeting tonight.”

  My heart sank at the memory of Holly Grace and the sting of her slap. I hoped Mama wouldn’t find out about it. Mama took her hat off and hit it against her thigh, then set it on her head again and twisted it a bit. She frowned at herself in the mir
ror. “When we get up to Chicago, I’m sure getting me a brand-new town hat—I’m so sick of this one.”

  She turned to me. “Okay, as soon as you get to Mrs. Montgomery’s, start on the icing. I want it nice and chilled by the time I get there. You can go on and make the cakes, so they can cool, too. You listening to me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  All the way to Mrs. Montgomery’s I dreaded the thought of seeing that priss, Clarissa. Maybe she’d gone back home to Baltimore. I hoped.

  “I’m on the phone,” Mrs. Montgomery told me as she let me in the back door. She hurried out of the room, leaving me standing there in her cool, spotless kitchen. “Help yourself to the radio,” she called.

  I started setting out all the things I was going to need. I had two kinds of sheet cake to make, with three kinds of icing, and if Mama was really late, I’d have to cut the cakes into diamonds and hearts and squares like Mrs. Montgomery always wanted for her teas, with cherries on some and nuts on the others.

  “Stay out of them nuts, Francie,” Mama had warned. “I know how you like to nibble as you go.”

  I found the jar of pecans in the cupboard, opened it, and popped one in my mouth. Pausing at the window, I noticed someone fixing the busted bottom step on the backyard gazebo. I reached for another pecan. There was something familiar about that man, though I couldn’t see his face. I screwed the lid back on the jar and set it down.

  The morning sun was warm on my shoulders as I headed across the lawn. I don’t think he even heard me coming. I walked over to him and looked down. “Hey, Jesse.”

  He squinted up at me. “Hey, Francie.”

  “Been wondering what happened to you.”

  “Workin’ here and there.” He reached for a nail.

  “You left and never came back.”

  “I couldn’t. I had to help my daddy with the late plantin’.”

  “We had our commencement.”

  “I wouldn’t have been part of no commencement, nohow.” I saw the tiny hurt in his eyes.

  “You were learning pretty fast.”

  He looked down at the hammer in his hand. “No mind.”

  I asked carefully, “You still reading?”

  “Some.” He fiddled with his hammer.

  “You going to school, ever again?”

  “Ain’t got time for school. I gotta work. My daddy run off and it’s just me.”

  That stopped me. I’d heard of people’s daddies running off. My daddy wasn’t around, but he sure hadn’t run off.

  “What about your brother and sister?”

  “They with relatives.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “I better go, Jesse.”

  He nodded and I headed back to the house.

  “You got everything you need,” Mrs. Montgomery said, eyeing the table.

  “I believe I do.”

  She pursed her mouth. “Okay, I’ll leave you to your work.”

  As I worked, I listened to Homemaker’s Exchange on the radio. A lady was discussing the three danger zones of a woman’s face—under eye, nose, and throat—and the wonderful rejuvenating qualities of Dorothy Gray emollient.

  I’d just started measuring out the flour for the first cake when a voice from behind me said, “Hi.” I turned around and there was Clarissa Montgomery standing in the kitchen doorway, her hands behind her back.

  “Hey,” I answered, turning to face her. I waited.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making cakes.”

  “You know how to make a cake?”

  Was she funning me? Who couldn’t make a cake? “Yea,” I answered. She moved into the room and I stiffened, neither of us saying a word. Finally, she held something out to me.

  I stared down at my book. My Nancy Drew—The Secret of the Old Clock. She laid it on the table. “I bought it—but it was always yours.”

  I felt my face grow hot, remembering the shame of being accused though innocent. I hadn’t even confided that horrible incident to Serena. Now I found my voice and said, “I wouldn’t steal no book. My teacher gave me that book.”

  “I believe you.” She didn’t explain why she didn’t come to my defense, and I didn’t care to ask her about it. I never expect a white to take up for me, anyway. I was mostly glad to get my book back.

  “Thank you.”

  Clarissa sat down. I started in on my work, trying to ignore her.

  “I was waiting to give that book to you.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said again and continued working.

  She watched in silence for a moment. “What’s that?” she asked.

  I looked at the object in my hand. “A sifter.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “For sifting.”

  “What’s sifting?”

  How could she not know about sifting? “Mixing stuff together and making them powdery,” I said. I handed her the sifter. “Here. I’ll let you do it some.”

  She took it and began to squeeze the handle. “You have to hit the side with the palm of your hand from time to time.” She hit it and I sat down.

  “That boy outside,” I started. “How long has he been working for you all?”

  “Jesse Pruitt? Awhile,” Clarissa answered. “Aunt Myra hired him to get the gazebo ready for her outdoor brunch coming up.” She switched hands.

  “I used to tutor him,” I said, not knowing why.

  “Oh?” She looked toward the window. “In what?”

  “I was teaching him to read.”

  “Didn’t he know how to read?” She stopped and shook her hand. “My hand hurts.”

  “Not much.” I picked up the sifter and took up where she left off.

  Suddenly she looked over at the stove clock. “Oh no! I’m supposed to be dressed. Aunt Myra’s going to kill me.” She was gone in a flash.

  The cakes were in the oven, the icing was in the refrigerator, and I was alone with my thoughts. I swished my hand in the warm sudsy water in the sink and began washing the dishes, so they wouldn’t pile up.

  Suddenly Clarissa was back and standing in the doorway, shyly holding another book. “Please give this to Jesse. Aunt Myra has all of Cousin Victor’s books still up in his old room and I found this one.” She held out the book. “He’s been gone to college for two years now. Don’t think he’s still interested in books he read as a kid.”

  It was a copy of Aesop’s Fables. Miss Lafayette had lent me that book last spring and I’d read every one of them fables. Jesse would like it. I dried my hands and took the book. I opened it. The stories were short, I was reminded, and simple.

  “He can have it?”

  “Why not? Auntie was getting ready to donate it to the library fund-raiser, anyway.”

  I looked out the window, imagining Jesse bent over his work, sweating in the hot sun.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I know he’ll be happy to have it.”

  She left me alone then. I went back to work on the dirty dishes.

  Mama didn’t get there until after one. “Mrs. Grace had me do some light ironing,” she said. “I couldn’t refuse.” She looked over at the iced cakes and sighed. She tied on an apron and went to the sink to wash her hands. She kind of moved me over with her hip and went to work, pulling crusts off bread for the finger sandwiches, chopping onion for the salmon mold. I watched, then wandered over to the window to check on Jesse, but I didn’t see him. The step looked finished, except for needing paint. Jesse was probably in the work shed right then, mixing some.

  Mama started to sing “Sweet By and By,” which meant she was already lost in her work. I could disappear for a few minutes. I slipped out the door and across the yard, around to the shed. It was padlocked. I’d been all prepared to see his smile when I gave him the book, and now I was too late. He’d already gone. I felt like I was in a deep pit. The kind you drop down into from a place of high hopes.

  “Mama, Clarissa Montgomery did something nice for me.” We were walking home in the la
te afternoon.

  “Mmm.” Mama was tired and she didn’t talk much when she was tired. But I wasn’t feeling tired at all. I wanted to tell Mama the whole story, but I couldn’t. I’d get myself into trouble for going into town without permission and for tutoring Jesse instead of coming straight home every day. “That was good of her.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  Then Mama looked me over, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t you be too fooled by that. I’ve seen ’em friendly one minute and turn just as fast the next. Depending on their mood.”

  I’d seen the same thing. Soon as you began counting on white folks to be one way, they’d remind you of your place. I didn’t care. I had my book back.

  The sun was sinking behind the trees and Mama and me were walking step-in-step and I was feeling satisfied. How was I going to get Aesop’s Fables to Jesse? Mentally, I made a list right then of all the books I wanted him to read. Miss Lafayette would help me find a way to keep teaching him. I only had to convince Jesse. We’d take him on as our project. He was motherless and fatherless. He was without even his little brother and sister. I knew Miss Lafayette felt nearly as sorry for him as I did.

  Janie Arrives

  Janie’s early arrival spiced things up a bit. We were expecting her at the end of the month, but in early June, long after everyone had been good and asleep, there was a banging on the door. I sat up with a start and Mama jumped out of bed and ran around, trying to find her robe. “Auntie’s time must be here,” she said.

  Prez beat me to the door, letting in the night air and the hum of crickets. Perry stepped in.

  “Mama’s getting ready to have her baby,” he said. “You gotta come now, Aunt Lil.”

  “Sure, baby.” Mama looked over at Prez. “You and Perry run down and get Granny.” Granny was the midwife. She delivered everybody’s baby.

  “Can I come, Mama?”