Francie

by Karen English

  “Hey,” she said when she reached me. It was a front tooth, but I wasn’t going to ask her about it and embarrass her. “You lookin’ for your train?”

  “Yea …” I squinted up at her in her man’s cap. “They don’t know you’re a girl yet?”

  “I guess they do—but they don’t pay no attention to me.” She sunk down beside me.

  I sat up straight and stared at her. “Weren’t you going to California?”

  “I didn’t make it. I just come back from New Orleans.”

  “Why’d you come back?”

  “Just wanted to.”

  I wondered what was the real reason.

  “I was workin’, too, in a big house there. I earned me some money.”

  “Alberta, don’t you have family?” I had to ask her this, though I feared it would make her feel funny.

  “I have family.” Her eyes hardened. “I just didn’t get along with my stepdaddy. He was mean—especially when he drank.”

  As casually as possible, I asked, “Have you seen a colored boy around here looking to get down to New Orleans?”

  “The one they’re after?” she answered, surprising me. She looked at me sharply. “Why?”

  “I know him. And—I want to know if he’s okay.”

  She waited so long I didn’t think I was going to get an answer. “I ain’t seen him,” she finally said.

  We sat quietly for a while. Someone down there had picked up a harmonica and music reached up to us. Alberta tapped her booted foot.

  “I might go back down to New Orleans. It’s nice.”

  “Ain’t you ever going to settle down?”

  “Yea. When I get good and ready.” She stood up and brushed off the back of her trousers. “I gotta go,” she said, then started back down the hill.

  I watched her, thinking how easily she left people. No goodbye. Just like Jesse. He never did say goodbye, he always just left.

  “Here, take this out to the back porch and sweep it good,” Burnette said to me. It was Saturday. We were back at Miss Rivers’ for heavy cleaning, and Burnette was being particularly bossy. I felt her watching me as I started for the door. “Wait a minute.”

  I looked back at her, waiting.

  “I hear you ain’t going up to Chicago after all—least not anytime soon …” A smile played on her lips. I went out the door without speaking and started my sweeping. Miss Rivers was visiting with her sister. They sat at a little table under her big live oak, having tea and cake. What was it like to wake up every morning and have only pleasantness to fill your day? To have not a speck of work to think of? To have money enough to hire people to take care of all that you didn’t want no part of? I might as well have wondered what it was like living on Mars.

  After sweeping, I went in, so Burnette could tell me what my next task would be. Mama had sent me to Miss Rivers’ in her stead, saying she had things to do. Strange behavior for Mama. What could she have to do? Auntie was feeling better, Baby Janie was fine. I thought about her being born between the two lights, and almost slipped into ignorance and superstition before I could catch myself.

  “Come on in here, Miss Ann,” Burnette said, motioning to me from her comfortable seat at the table. She was sipping iced tea. She tinkled the ice cubes in her tall glass while she thought. “You need to get started on the parlor windows.” She nodded at the supplies lined up on the counter. “You need to take your time and don’t leave streaks.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why’d your mama send you, anyway? Miss Rivers wanted your mama, not you.”

  “She said me coming was okay.”

  “But what’s your mama got to do that so important that she couldn’t come herself?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or you don’t want to say.” She took a sip of tea and cocked her head to the side. “Your mama better be careful to keep people like Miss Rivers happy. Looks like she’s gonna be dependin’ on her for employment for a little while longer.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, gathering the bucket and vinegar and newspapers. The sooner I got those windows done and got out of there, the better.

  I took my time going home. I felt no rush. Why should I? What was there? I looked through the heat shimmering just above the road ahead of me. My throat closed and tears came to my eyes. Nothing ever went right for long. Just like Jesse. I remembered the sad sight of his back moving away from me as he made his way toward our shed. He’d stopped then to readjust his load and for a moment I’d considered calling out just to prolong the sight of him. You never knew if you’d never lay eyes on a person again.

  When I last saw Daddy—last summer—and he kissed me goodbye and said “See you soon,” I believed I’d see him soon. Not that a whole year would go by. He might as well have stayed at the pulp mill. He might as well have never promised to go up there to Chicago and pave the way for our new life.

  I heard my name called then. I was coming up to Miss Mabel’s. She sat back in the shadow of her porch, almost hidden. I wanted to keep going, but home training made me turn into her yard. I put my hands behind my back.

  “Hey, Miss Mabel. How are you this evening?”

  “Mmmm,” she started, thinking. And I knew she was going to list her ailments. “I’ve done better, but I don’t like to complain.” Her chair scraped. “Come on up here and visit awhile.”

  “I gotta get home and start supper.”

  There was a moment of dead silence in which I sensed her caginess.

  “I hear you all ain’t going up there to Chicago. I hope you don’t mind me telling you—I never did think you were going anywhere. Men always telling their family they gonna go on ahead to get things situated, and they don’t ever do nothin’ but keep ’em hangin’ around the mailbox looking for train tickets that ain’t never gonna come.” She licked her lips and nodded. “I seen it happen over and over.”

  All the time she was talking, I felt my heart hardening into stone and an awful pain starting in my head. Before I could stop myself, harsh words poured out of my mouth.

  “You just the meanest ol’ woman I ever knew—saying those awful things to me. I believe you love other folks’ misery. I believe it makes you happy. What kind of God-fearing woman are you to be so happy about our disappointment …”

  “Why, you hateful, hateful child,” she called out to me as I walked toward our house. The words were hitting my back, but I didn’t really feel anything. My legs felt heavy as lead. I didn’t even know I was crying until the tears were tickling my chin. Not even when Daddy didn’t show did I feel this bitterly disappointed.

  I couldn’t go in the house when I reached it. It was empty and sad. Prez had yet to come home from the Early farm and Mama had said she’d be gone all day. Maybe she was over at Auntie’s by now. I sat on the top porch step and stared at our mailbox with its flag down. No mail. No nothing.

  In the last light, I saw Mama coming up the road. She had on her town hat—which she wouldn’t have worn to Auntie’s—and a big box under her arm.

  “Evenin’, Francie,” she said, climbing the steps and going past me into the house.

  I barely got out an “Evenin’, Mama.” Something was up.

  I followed close on her heels. She took off her hat and hung it on its hook, then looked around. “You ain’t started supper.”

  “I was just getting to it.”

  “Prez ain’t back yet?”

  “He’s been hanging out at Auntie’s after he gets done at the Earlys’.”

  Mama sighed. She went over to our bed and slipped the big box under it. Before I could ask her what was in it, she said, “How was it at Miss Rivers’?”

  “Burnette was happy to lord it over me. I think she even gave me some of her chores, since you weren’t there to know what was her work and what was yours. I did the parlor windows, swept and washed the whole veranda. Waxed the parlor floor and the entire staircase and—”

  “What’s done is done,” Mama said. “You weren
’t there to wax no floors, but I’ll straighten that out with Miss Rivers before we move.”

  Move. What was Mama talking about? Move. She smoothed her skirt and went over to the basin to wash her face and hands.

  “First thing Monday,” she said, patting her face dry, “you’re going to go down to Green’s—you and Prez—and you’re going to bring back as many boxes as you can carry. We got some packin’ to do. We giving everything we’re not taking to Chicago to Auntie.”

  Mama’s Got Plans

  I had not heard her right. I stared at her, waiting for further explanation. How could we just up and move before Daddy had arranged for us to come?

  “But, Mama …”

  “Don’t ask me no questions—I’m not gonna be answering any.” She got busy then, starting our supper. I kept quiet, happy Mama had the energy to get supper and relieve me.

  “What you think she’s gonna do, Francie?” Prez asked me. We were sitting on the porch, watching Juniper lap furiously at his bowl of water. He’d just gulped down a moth and it must have been hot like pepper. I laughed, then Prez joined in. Juniper looked so pitiful.

  “She’s not saying. And when Mama says she’s not saying … she’s not saying.”

  “How can we move up there when Daddy ain’t sent for us?”

  “She’s got something in mind. I know it.”

  We were coming back with our boxes. I got Vell to give us all that we could carry. We could hardly see for what was stacked in our arms.

  “Where you going with them boxes?” It was Miss Mabel. Was there a nosier woman on earth?

  “We movin’!” Prez shouted out before I could jab him in the side.

  “Movin’!” Miss Mabel got up off her chair then and came to the edge of the porch. She held on to her post and watched us, her mouth hanging open.

  “Shut up,” I hissed at Prez.

  “We movin’ to Chicago, anyhow!” Prez shouted.

  “That’s it. I’m telling on you. I’m telling Mama you telling the whole world our business.”

  He didn’t care. He was revved up. I might as well have said nothing.

  We stacked the boxes on our porch, then I looked down toward Auntie’s house. “Stay out here,” I ordered Prez. “And watch for Mama.” I wanted to see what was in that box under the bed.

  I pulled it out and stared down at it for a few seconds. I lifted off the top and saw something soft and blue peeking out from the tissue paper it was wrapped in. I peeled back one corner of the paper. Rhinestone buttons glittered in a row down a bodice front. The skirt was folded underneath. It was a new dress for Mama. I’d never known her to buy one.

  Mama came home after dark. I was surprised to see her in her work dress. She hadn’t said anything about working.

  Still wearing her hat, she walked over to the table and placed a shiny fifty-cent piece in the middle of it. “That’s yours, Francie.”

  “For what?”

  “That extra work you did at Miss Rivers’. I collected what was owed.”

  I slipped it in my pocket. I wasn’t going to buy any Scooter Pies with it, either. I was saving it for Chicago. No telling what I’d want to buy up there.

  “Now come here, you two. I got something to show you.”

  She led us over to the bed and reached down and pulled out her box. She set it on the bed, carefully lifted off the lid, and pushed back the paper. “It’s the dress I intend to wear up to Chicago. The one your daddy’s gonna see me in first off.” She held it up to her chin and smiled happily. I’d never seen her smile like that before. Prez and I looked at each other.

  “It’s real pretty, Mama,” Prez said first.

  “It’s real pretty,” I agreed.

  She went over to the wardrobe and opened the curtain. She fished around on the bottom of it and pulled out two more boxes. One she handed to Prez—then one to me. I almost stopped breathing. Prez dropped to his knees and ripped off the top. “New pants and shirt!” he cried. “Can I try ’em on?”

  “Not till you have a bath.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed to open my box. My heart pounded, my eyes welled up. I felt such happiness and fear all mixed up. We were going … but how? I pulled a yellow eyelet dress out. It was so beautiful. My favorite color.

  “You like it?” Mama asked.

  I could only nod.

  “Good. We’re leaving on Saturday.”

  “How, Mama?”

  “By train.”

  “Daddy sent the tickets?”

  “No. I went and bought them myself—with money I been settin’ aside.” She pulled herself up straighter. “Now don’t ask me any more. Just do as I tell you.”

  Everything was a whirl thereafter. Prez was down to Perry’s night and day; they suddenly were joined at the hip, realizing they would soon be parted. And Mama was down there, too, helping Auntie get ready for her move up to Benson.

  Mama had sent a telegram to Daddy to tell him we were coming and he just better get ready for us. And he better meet our train. Pulling in Sunday morning.

  Lots of stuff we were giving to Auntie, who was going to have a larger household up in Benson. The furniture was staying because it wasn’t ours. It all belonged to the white family we rented from. But that didn’t matter none. When we got to Chicago and finally moved into our own house, we’d be buying all new.

  Moving Day

  We’d been in a rush all morning, scared we were going to miss the local for sure—and our connection in Birmingham. I’d never seen Mama in such a state. She paced. She stammered out instructions. “Prez, you need to get Juniper over to Auntie’s before Uncle June gets here. Francie, don’t take them rags out of your hair until the last minute. Prez, don’t walk so hard—you gonna make Daddy’s cake fall.”

  She’d fried a chicken for the trip, then worried that the grease smell had gotten into her hair. She’d yelled at me for having my nose stuck in my book of poetry by Langston Hughes, even though there wasn’t really anything that she had for me to do. We’d done it all. She’d made up her face twice, but the sweat was still pouring off in little streams down her powdered cheeks. Finally, she decided to just scrub her face, dab on a little lipstick, and let it be.

  In the excitement of the past few days, Mama had been eating like a bird and had lost weight from her nerves. Now, at last, she sunk down at the kitchen table and sipped coffee, her eyes glassy with tears.

  I went over to her and hugged her. “It’s gonna be okay, Mama.” The few suitcases and parcels we were taking were out on the porch, waiting on Uncle June. Mr. Griffin, our landlord, had already come by to look at the house and determine that we weren’t leaving it any worse for wear and we weren’t hauling off any of the few sticks of furniture that had come with the house. He had stomped off grim and in a bad mood. He hated to lose a tenant who’d always had that rent money in his hand on the first of every month, rain or shine.

  Mama got up to pace some more. “Uncle June’s gonna make us late for our train for sure if he don’t get here soon,” she said, staring out the window, then turning her worried face back to me. I felt calm, though I could hardly imagine not spending any more of my life within these walls. I felt guilty that I wasn’t sadder than I was.

  Prez, in his excitement about Chicago, was only sad about leaving Perry and Juniper. He’d finally gone to take poor Juniper down to Auntie’s, and then he’d be coming back with Uncle June.

  I got up and moved to our bed to sit on it for the last time. My throat got tight and my eyes welled. While I sat on the bare mattress, I dropped my face in my hands and cried.

  We were leaving everything. And what were we going to do? What if we couldn’t get used to such a big place? What if Chicago coloreds laughed at us? We wouldn’t talk like them or dress like them.

  And Daddy had already told me I’d be going to school with white children. Sitting right next to them in the classroom—learning what they were learning. I couldn’t imagine such a thing.

  I ran my
hand over the mattress. My last time sitting on this bed … my last time.

  A loud horn sounded. “Uncle June’s here!” Mama called out from the porch, where she’d gone to check on our belongings. “Hurry, Francie—we gotta get going. Help me get our things out to the car.”

  Mama was bending over the bulging bags and cases on the porch and rearranging stuff. The cake and fried chicken and potato salad and pickled peaches and jars of lemonade were boxed and tied with string. I’d left out the War and Peace Clarissa gave me. I planned to start it on the train. I should have said goodbye to her. And to Serena and Miss Lafayette, too. I was as bad as Jesse and Alberta—just moving on like I was. Just pointing all my attention on what was ahead and almost forgetting about who and what I was leaving behind. Even the jars still in the woods. We’d be long gone by the time anyone found them.

  I had on my new yellow dress. I’d pulled the rags out of my hair, and greasy curls that I wasn’t to comb out until just before we reached the station covered my head. Prez and Perry leaned their heads out of the car. Auntie, with Janie on her lap, scooted close to Uncle June to make room for Mama. Prez jumped out and shouted, “Come on and get in, slowpoke.”

  Uncle June, in clean overalls and a big-brimmed hat, got out and opened the trunk for our belongings. “Hey, Miss Priss.” He smiled down at me. “You ready to leave Noble?”

  “I think so,” I said, my voice sounding uncertain to my own ears.

  “We sure gonna miss you,” he said.

  I smiled and got into the car, pushing Prez on the shoulder so he would give me more room. The car started up with a noise that was like a loud horse’s snort. We moved out over the bumpy road. I looked out the window at the fields beginning to race by. The woods whizzed goodbye.

  “We going on a train!” Prez said, punching Perry in the shoulder softly. The grownups in the front seat laughed. I looked out the back window then to say goodbye to the house on Three Notch Road, secretly.