I had backed the car into the driveway and was pulling down the garage door when Linda Gibson hollered from her upstairs window, “Hey, June! When’d y’all get home?” I jumped in the car, pretending I hadn’t heard her.
At the corner I turned toward town. Traffic was getting heavy as men came home from work, and I felt nervous driving among so many cars. I turned onto Princeton and pulled into the crowded lot at Freedom Park. A breeze came through the open windows. Boy Scouts and their dads were playing ball in the diamond next to the parking lot, yelling and raising dust.
I stretched out on the front seat to decide what I should do, but all I could think about was Mary in her coffin, in the ground, cold, still—forever. I closed my eyes and tried to talk to her, not praying, just speaking out loud. “Hey, Mary, I went to your funeral, and it was fine.You would have—” I stopped, thinking that she already knew everything, just like when she was alive.
CHAPTER 27
I woke to the sound of laughter. The pole lamps in the picnic areas made the park an island of light in the gathering dusk. People sat in the grass around the lake. A man cooking on a grill beside a nearby station wagon handed a hot dog to a boy. A woman filled tumblers from a thermos. I smelled hamburgers cooking and my mouth watered. I locked the car and walked the five blocks home.
The house was quiet. I wanted to turn on the lights or the attic fan, anything to help me feel I wasn’t so alone. I got Daddy’s water bottle from the fridge and gulped from it, water dribbling down the front of my T-shirt. The dim light from the fridge danced on the bulletin board where we’d left a handmade card saying, “Good-bye, Daddy. We’ll miss you. See you at Pawleys!” It had been only a week and a half since I’d taken down the swim meet schedule and pushed the thumbtacks into Daddy’s card. All of us had written something personal, even Davie—Mama dipping his hand into green poster paint, pressing it to the card. A piece of paper had been added with a brass thumbtack that was pushed into the palm of Davie’s handprint. On the paper was writing that I couldn’t read in the dim light, except for the signature, “Mary.” I pulled at the note. The tack popped out, hit the floor with a ping.
A car door slammed. I stuffed the note in my pocket. The den door rattled, keys jingled, and Daddy called out, “We’ll bring it in later.” I backed into the front hallway and opened the basement door, holding my breath, trying to make myself weightless as I tiptoed down the stairs, feeling my way. The basement was musty in spite of everything Mary had done to get rid of the mildew. I fumbled until I found the door into the tiny bathroom under the stairs, used only by Mary and the yard man. There was no lid to the toilet and I sat on the seat, trembling, my arms around my waist holding tight to stop the shaking. Footsteps clumped from the den through the dining room, until they were right over me.
“She’s been here.” Daddy.
“How do you know?” Uncle Stamos.
“This place was a mess when I left.”
“I thought Mary’s daughter was coming in.”
“That didn’t work out.”
“You’re almost out of bourbon,” Uncle Stamos said.
I could hear them clearly. What had Mary heard from down here?
“Do you know how hard it is to get car keys made at Pawleys Island?”
“Why’d you have to do that?”
“Couldn’t find mine. If Jubie took them, I’ll kill her.”
I believed him.
“Where could she be?” Uncle Stamos asked.
“Off on a joy ride. She’ll wreck the Packard. Again.”
“Stealing her mother’s car . . . that just isn’t like June.”
I loved Uncle Stamos for taking up for me.
“Paula lets the girls get away with too much. Jubie needs a firm hand.” A chair scraped the floor. “You gotta crack the whip. Same with the boys in the shop.”
Uncle Stamos said, “It’s got to be better with David Lacey as foreman. He’s a good man.”
“To make niggers behave, put a nigger in charge.” The tone of Daddy’s voice made me shiver. “He’s big enough and mean enough. He’ll hold them.” Ice rattled in a glass. “The problem’s not just in the shop.”
“You mean the Supreme Court thing?”
“Before you know it, they’ll be in our schools.”
Uncle Stamos said, “It might not be as bad as you think.”
“It’ll be worse. But the W.B.A. will delay it, at least in Charlotte.”
“I wish you weren’t involved in that.”
“I wish you were. It’s important. There are ramifications—”
Someone knocked at the kitchen door.The cowbell clanged.
“Hello, Linda.” Daddy’s voice boomed good cheer.
“Hey, Bill.Where’s the rest of the family? Jubie acted—”
“You saw Jubie?”
“She drove off in the Packard about four thirty. How’d the fender get smashed?”
“An accident in Georgia. Did she say where she was going?”
“She acted like she didn’t hear me.”
I sat on the toilet. What would Mary do? I could almost hear her say, “Jubie girl, you in trouble. Get yourself to a better place.” I stood and took a few steps away from the toilet, back into the basement, bumping against Daddy’s wine rack. The bottles rattled. I froze.
The floorboards groaned above me. “I’m going to the bathroom.” Uncle Stamos’ footsteps faded toward the den. Daddy said something. Mrs. Gibson laughed.
I groped through the basement, climbed on stacked boxes of canning jars, and shoved open the window on the side of the house. When I pushed off to scoot onto the windowsill, the boxes tumbled, making a terrible racket. My shirt caught on the sill, and the latch scratched my belly as I slid into the yard. My feet tangled in the boxwoods and I got dirt in my mouth, but I was stumbling forward before I stood all the way up, gasping until the back of my throat was hot and dry, headed for the safety of Maggie’s house.
At her front walk I stopped, pressing my hand to the scrape on my belly. The living room door was open onto the screen porch and I heard music, a phone ringing, Mrs. Harold calling, “Tommy? Telephone.” I opened the screen door. Their cocker spaniel was asleep on the flowered sofa in a pool of yellow light. There was a basket of yarn beside Mrs. Harold’s rocker, a newspaper in Mr. Harold’s green easy chair, his pipe in a wooden holder nearby. The room was cramped with mismatched furniture. Mama would say it was tacky. I was never so glad to be anywhere in my life.
“Maggie?” I called out.
“Margaret?” Mr. Harold’s voice came from the back of the house. “Someone’s at the door for you.”
“Jubes!” Maggie ran through the living room and threw her arms around me. Her white blonde hair smelled of Prell and felt wonderfully cool to my hot cheeks. “When’d you get home? Cripes, what’s going on? Mother!” She yelled over her shoulder and Mrs. Harold hurried into the living room.
“Jubie!” She brushed wisps of gray hair from her flushed face. “Your mum’s very worried about you.”
“Oh.” I collapsed into Mr. Harold’s easy chair.
“What’s happened to you?” Mrs. Harold stared at my torn shirt.
“I crawled out the basement window.”
“Margaret, get a fresh blouse for Jubie.” Mrs. Harold spoke sharply to Maggie, who stood there, her mouth gaping. “Run!”
Maggie flew down the hall.
Mrs. Harold sat on the sofa next to the easy chair, pushing the dog over. She was so fat her arms were dimpled at the elbows. Her chest was flat from when she had cancer. She fished a handkerchief from her empty bodice and dabbed at the scratch on my stomach. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on? We really should call your mum.”
“Where is she?”
“At your auntie’s.”
Maggie ran into the living room with her Ship’n Shore blouse, the one I’d helped her pick out.
“That’s a girl,” said Mrs. Harold. “Jubie, go into the dining room and change. A
re you hungry?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s something I can fix.” She headed down the hall. I went into the dim dining room and pulled my torn shirt over my head.
Mrs. Harold came back as I was buttoning the blouse. She handed me a plate filled with pot roast, corn on the cob, pineapple rings. “It’s cold, but it’s good.” She made room for the plate on the table next to Mr. Harold’s chair. Maggie came from the kitchen with a glass of milk, a napkin, utensils. I dug into the food.
Maggie sat near me on the sofa. “I thought y’all were on a trip to the beach.”
“Mary got killed,” I said, chewing corn.
“Dear Lord,” said Mrs. Harold. “Who’s Mary?”
“You mean your girl?” Maggie asked.
I nodded, putting down the cob, wiping my fingers. Maggie reached for my hand, her freckled skin pale against my deep tan.
“How did it happen?” asked Mrs. Harold.
“She was kidnapped by some men in Georgia while we were staying there. They beat her to death, and they . . . I took Mama’s car and came home for the funeral.”
Mrs. Harold said,“You drove home from the beach by yourself?”
“Yes.”The phone rang.
“What a remarkable thing to do.” I wanted to hug her.
Mr. Harold called out. “Jubie, it’s your mum.”
I walked into the hallway and sat on the stool tucked into the phone nook. “Hey, Mama.”
“Are you all right?”
She didn’t sound angry. I was so surprised I couldn’t speak.
“Jubie?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I was so worried about you.”
“You were?”
“I didn’t know you could drive on the highway.”
“I just learned.”
Silence, then Mama said, “Your father’s upset.”
The scratch on my belly stung beneath Maggie’s blouse. “I know.”
Her voice went sharp. “Have you seen him?”
“I was home, hiding in the basement. He and Uncle Stamos got there, so I left.”
“You’ve really done it this time, Jubie.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Music played in the background.
“It might be best if you don’t see Daddy just yet.”
I twisted the phone cord around my finger. “How’d you know where I was?”
“Just a guess.You went to the funeral?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I wish I’d gone with you.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do. I’m not saying what you did was right, but I’m glad somebody from our family was there. How was it?”
“Sad. Good. I saw Link and Young Mary. And Leesum.”
“Who?”
“The boy from Pensacola.”
“Oh, yes.” Her lighter clinked, she inhaled, exhaled. “Don’t worry about your father.”
“Okay.”
“Where’s the Packard? Bill says it’s not at home.”
“At Freedom Park, in the lot off Princeton.”
“I have the spare keys. We’ll get it.” She paused. “You can stay with Maggie tonight. Or here at Stamos and Rita’s.”
“I’m sure it’ll be okay with Mrs. Harold if I stay here. I need clothes.”
“I’ll bring some early tomorrow. Everything’s going to be all right, Jubie. I promise.”
I sagged against the wall of the narrow hallway, so tired I thought I might fall asleep before I found a bed.
In the morning, Mrs. Harold said if I’d give her my dirty clothes, she’d put them in with a load of wash she was going to run. In the kitchen, the washing machine chugged as Mrs. Harold came down the hall to where I sat with Maggie on the living room sofa, wearing Maggie’s bathrobe, which was too small but adequate, like Mary’s had been for Leesum. Mrs. Harold handed me a wrinkled scrap of paper. “This was in the pocket of your jeans, Jubie. I read it. I’m sorry.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I smoothed out the paper on my knee.
I aint coming back. I am telling what you did. Mary
Mrs. Harold sat down in the easy chair. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
When Mama got to Maggie’s house, she put her arms around me and held me for a long time, then stood back and smoothed my hair from my forehead. “I still can’t believe you drove all the way home.”
Mrs. Harold offered tea, and Mama said she would love some.We sat on the sofa together while Maggie went with her mother to the kitchen.
“Here.” I shoved the note at Mama. “From Mary. It was on the bulletin board.”
Mama read it. “This isn’t from Mary.”
“She signed it.”
“This is not her handwriting. It must be from Young Mary.” Mama stared at the note.
CHAPTER 28
Mama and I were fixing lunch when I heard the garage door going up and down. Mama put her hand on my shoulder. “Open the can of tuna for me.”
Daddy came into the kitchen. He set a beer on the table with a sharp clack. “What have you got to say for yourself?”
Mama said, “June did what we should have done.”
Daddy’s eyes went to slits. “She stole your goddamn car!”
Mama turned back to the counter. “I’ve had enough of your temper.” She began chopping onions.
Daddy stared at me across the bar.
Mama said, “Jubie, get the sweet pickle relish from the fridge.”
Daddy left the kitchen. Their bedroom door slammed shut.
Mama tried to find a new maid. She talked with her friends, put ads in The Charlotte Observer and The Charlotte News:
DOMESTIC NEEDED to clean, iron, cook. South Charlotte, No. 3 bus, 8 AM to 6 PM, weekdays. Occasional Saturdays. Lunch provided. Must be healthy. $25 a week. Call Mrs.Watts at 3-5652.
Daddy thought it was excessive to run the ad in both papers, claiming that coloreds only read the News. Mama said most of her friends preferred the Observer, and they were the likely source for finding a new maid.
Mama had objections to all the maids who answered the ads. One had a lot of experience and several references, but she wanted thirty dollars a week and Mama said that was highway robbery. “Besides, she sounds uppity.”
She posted a notice on the bulletin board at Watts Concrete Fabrications, hoping one of the men there would have a wife or daughter who needed a job. Nothing came of that, and Mama thought it was because we had a bad name in the colored community after Mary’s death.
Clothes began to pile up on the den sofa, where Mama took them to fold while she watched TV or listened to her programs. The mound of clothes often outlasted the programs and she just left them there. She stopped ironing the sheets and pillowcases, and we had to change our own beds.
One day I found her sitting at the dining room table, crying, holding her damask tablecloth. There was a brown iron-shaped mark in the middle. “I’ve ruined it,” Mama said. “I was on the phone. . . .” Her tears spotted the fabric, and the smell of scorched linen hung in the air. I wanted to comfort her but couldn’t think how. She blew her nose on the ruined damask. “There’s just so much to do.”
The next morning, Mama got Stell and me to help her move the kitchen table and chairs into the dining room. She put on faded denim Bermudas and tennis shoes, tied a bandana around her hair, and spent the day on her hands and knees with a scrub brush and pails of soapy water, scraping the yellow wax buildup off the linoleum. At supper she showed us her ruined manicure. “I wore rubber gloves, for all the good they did. I’m going to have a nervous breakdown if I don’t find help.”
A colored woman named Virginia, who was Susan Feaster’s maid, helped us for a week while Mrs. Feaster was out of town. After Virginia had been with us a couple of days, Mama said to her, “I don’t know what Susie pays you, but I can offer you twenty-eight dollars a week, with lunches.”
Virginia turned her down, saying she’d been with
Mrs. Feaster for eleven years. Mrs. Feaster was one of Mama’s oldest friends, and I wondered if she ever found out about Mama going behind her back.
Mama told Aunt Rita, “I’m just looking for a good Negro, like Mary.”
“You’ll find someone. There are lots of strong girls who’d make fine domestics.” Aunt Rita sliced a ham she and Mama were splitting.
“I’ve got high standards.” Mama took a roll of freezer paper from the pantry. “Mary was smart, a hard worker. I trusted her completely. And the way some of these girls talk makes my skin crawl.”
“Mary had decent grammar.”
“And she didn’t infect the kids with ‘ain’t’ and ‘fin uh go’ and—”
“Fin uh go?”
“Fixing to go, as in ‘Ah’m fin uh go de stoh.’ ”
“I’d swear you were colored.”
Daddy didn’t understand why Mama was having such a hard time finding a new maid, so she told him he could look for somebody. He didn’t nag her anymore.
I didn’t avoid him, but we had little to say to each other when the family sat down to supper or in the den to watch TV. I was uneasy around him and I wished things could get back to the way they’d been before Mary’s death. When Daddy walked into a room, I was careful, the way I used to be on the fishing pier at Shumont, where the weathered gray planks looked solid enough until a rotting board gave beneath my feet.
Without Mary, the heart of our home was broken, and hiring a new maid wasn’t going to mend it.
CHAPTER 29
Carter called to tell us about the accident. I remembered seeing Richard Daniels on the high dive as we passed Municipal Pool on our way out of town when we left for Pensacola. I imagined him diving, tucking and flipping, the board pulling out of the base, Richard rising from the water, the board falling, Richard’s head cracking open like a watermelon.
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