The Orange Blossom Special

by Betsy Carter

  Slightly overweight, with a snaggle-tooth and crooked smile, Crystal would never be the beauty her mother was; she knew that. It left a space in who she was that she filled by being the class cut-up, the one who always sassed the teacher and made people laugh with her smart mouth.

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT DINNER at the Landy’s was always fried chicken, canned green beans, and potatoes. It was Crystal’s favorite meal. The housekeeper, Ella, spooned a mound of the thick and buttery mashed potatoes onto her plate. Victoria narrowed her eyes and watched as Crystal reached for a warm Pillsbury dinner roll.

  Charlie caught the edge of his mother’s glance and tried to divert the conversation. “Auburn’s playing Alabama this weekend,” he started. Ella stood behind Victoria’s chair, waiting to serve her. “Just a ti-eensy bit please,” she said to Ella. “I’m watching my figure.” She pronounced “figure” like “vigor.” Nobody spoke. Victoria stepped into the silence and reported what the landscaper had suggested that day. “Eric says Saw Palmetto and Bear Grass over by the cabana would look lovely, because they’re—you know—indigenous, they give it a very natural look.” As she waved her hand to show where in the backyard the new plantings would go, she observed with pleasure her Strawberry Crème nails, sharp as stilettos. “Crystal honey, it’s not too soon for you to start thinking about weekly manicures,” she said. “You can’t go around with peasant hands for the rest of your life. And sweet thing, don’t you think one roll is plenty?”

  Charlie raised his eyebrows. It always struck him funny how his mother’s conversation traveled like a switchback. He also wondered if she would ever get over the fact that Crystal was thick-boned and hadn’t inherited her tiny waist. Charlie worried about things like that, even though Crystal couldn’t care less.

  At seventeen, he was short and thickset and weighed down with an unyielding sense of what was just and what wasn’t. He thought that because he was a boy, or because of his likeness to his father, that his mother rarely directed her critical comments toward him. In truth, Victoria always felt Charlie saw through her. He would look at her funny when she talked about the landscaper or used fancy words like indigenous, as if he knew she was pretending to be somebody she wasn’t. Unlike her, he was not comfortable with the visible wealth of his family. Even as a child, he rarely invited other kids over. He was the one who demanded that Ella join them at the dinner table and that she share their Easter and Christmas. When he was seven, the family went on a picnic to the Ichetucknee River. As they sat eating their egg and cheese sandwiches, two black children circled their blanket, screaming and laughing as the big one chased the little one. Victoria became uneasy and whispered to Maynard, “You’d think they’d have their own place to go.” Charlie had looked at her as though she had just given him a scolding. “Mama,” he said, “God just wants them to have a good time. He doesn’t care where they do it.”

  The remark became part of family lore, and left Victoria feeling that Charlie was special in a way that the rest of them weren’t. Normally she didn’t give things like that much thought, but just in case this was so, she treated him with consideration. Crystal was different: life rolled off her like sweat. Victoria didn’t have to watch herself around her.

  “Mmm, love these rolls,” said Crystal in a taunting voice, reaching for another. “So listen to this. There’s this sort of new girl in my class. And, well, there’s this guy we call Eddie Fingers. They’ve got some secret code going on between them. They do this signaling thing with their hands, shooting numbers back and forth, like they know what they’re talking about. It drives me crazy.”

  For the first time since they sat down, Maynard seemed interested. “Who’s Eddie Fingers?” he asked.

  “Oh, you know.” Crystal sounded impatient. “This kid in my class who has an extra finger on his left hand.”

  “Is that why you call him Eddie Fingers?”

  “No, Dad. We call him Eddie Fingers because his hair’s so short. Of course that’s why we call him Eddie Fingers!”

  “What does the extra finger look like?” Maynard asked.

  “It kind of looks like a baby’s pinky, real skinny, with an eensy weensy fingernail.”

  “Crystal, that is disgusting.” Victoria put her fork down. “Why on earth would you concern yourself with a boy and his deformity, and some pathetic new girl starved for friendship? Could we please talk about something a little less gruesome? When do the cheerleading tryouts begin?”

  Maynard ignored her. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

  Crystal shook her head. “It started a couple of months ago, the first day she walked into class, like they’d known each other forever.”

  “Do you know anything about her?” Charlie asked.

  “Only that she wears the worst clothes,” said Crystal. “I think her father’s dead or something. She lives alone with her mother in The Glades subdivision.”

  “What about him?” said Charlie. “Eddie what’s his name?”

  “Eddie Fingers!” said Crystal, sounding annoyed. “Is that so hard to remember? He walks with a slight limp. He doesn’t have a whole lot of friends and he always seems to be out of breath.”

  Maynard and Charlie exchanged glances, like they were both puzzling over the same thing.

  “So this new girl and Eddie have things about them that are apparent to everyone, yet they probably wished they could keep secret?” said Maynard.

  “That is not an enviable position to be in,” said Victoria, sounding genuinely sympathetic.

  “Outsiders,” said Charlie. “They’re both outsiders, and they must have recognized it in each other right away.”

  Ella, whose brother Reggie had one leg that was eight inches shorter than the other, collected stories about people with physical abnormalities. “You ought to invite that boy to dinner someday,” she said.

  “Eddie Fingers? Here?” said Victoria. “That’ll never happen.”

  “Well, the girl then,” said Ella. “Sounds like she could use a nice home-cooked meal.”

  THREE

  Only a fool assumes that everything will be okay tomorrow,” Tessie said to Dinah one night. “But tonight, I am willing to be a fool.” That day, she had gone for an interview at a printing plant where there was an opening for a receptionist. She drove for a half hour out of Gainesville, and was sure she had the address wrong because when she got there, all she saw was a windowless stucco building the color of apricots, with a flat tar-paper roof. But no, there was the sign, the black letters outlined in red: 44 Butler Highway, LITHOGRAPHICS.

  Tessie put one hand to her chest as she told Dinah the details. “It has this wonderful smell, like new wood and fresh paint. And the presses sound like that song, you know . . .” Tessie stretched out both arms, as if yawning, and began to sing: “Shoo doo bee shoo bee doo, shoo doo bee shoo bee doo. . . It had that rhythm,” she said, still swaying her head to the beat of “In the Still of the Night.” “I tell you, Dinah, it was amazing. And the bosses—a father and son—they seem real nice. It pays eighty-six dollars a week. Can you imagine?”

  The early evening light slipped through the jalousie windows, painting stripes on the living-room wall. They’d lived in the house for three months and the furniture that felt so heavy in Carbondale—the dining-room table with its lion’s paw feet and the couch with arms that twisted like snails—took on a fairy tale lightness in this place. Tessie’s cheeks flushed with excitement.

  “That sounds great, Mom,” said Dinah. “I really hope it works out.”

  “Well, you know what your father used to say about counting chickens before they’re hatched. Still . . .” Tessie smiled a dreamy smile. “And what about my teenage girl? How was your day?”

  “Well I kind of have some news too,” said Dinah. “Remember that girl in my class, you know, Crystal, the popular one I told you about? She invited me over after school on Friday.”

  “The one whose father owns the liquor store?” Tessie had met him several times.
“He seems like a nice man.”

  “Yeah, that’s her. We’ve become sort of friendly. She’s very funny.”

  IT HAD BECOME a regular thing, Crystal and Dinah, waiting for each other after homeroom. They began to have their private jokes, making up nicknames for the other kids. Jessie Rudd, the fat girl with the tiny mink-colored eyes that were too close together became Diesel Weasel. Henry Tobin, the pale boy with the pudding face, became the Slab. They’d sit together in the cafeteria during lunch and invent pretend menus. “The nausea soup of the day is coconut beef,” Crystal would say. “And the nausea meat of the day is antelope brain,” Dinah would add. “And for our grand nausea dessert, we have cockroach cookies.” By this time, their heads would be touching their trays, they’d be so bent over with laughter.

  They could barely make it through Mr. Reilly’s Civics class without having a giggling fit over how he would ask questions, then answer them himself.

  “You know why America is the greatest country in the world?” he would shout. “I’ll tell you why. Americans have ‘can do’ values. How else could we have built this vast country? With blood and sweat, that’s how.” Crystal and Dinah would look at each other and roll their eyes. They spent hours trying to devise ways to touch his flattop. Dinah guessed that he could stand on his head and not a hair would bend. “That’s because his hair is made of wood,” said Crystal.

  AFTER DINAH WENT to bed that night, Tessie lay on her own bed playing back the day’s events to Jerry—the possible new job, her concern about Dinah visiting that rich girl. What if she invites her here? Will she be ashamed about how little we have? Whenever Tessie posed a question to Jerry, the answer would come back to her in some way. Two weeks ago, when she’d seen the ad in the Gainesville Sun about Lithographics, she wrote on a scrap of paper: Will I be in over my head if I get the job at the printing plant?

  She folded it up and put it in a little cedar box she took to calling her Jerry Box. Three days later, the answer appeared to her clear as the rising sun, when a teacher at Dinah’s school told her, “Your daughter is so young to have to bear the burden of sorrow that she does. But she has a gift for words. She should read everything she can get her hands on.” And now here was Tessie, hoping to get a job in a place that printed words. If that wasn’t a sign, what was?

  Her thoughts ran to the new rattan chair, with its palm-leaf-print fabric, and the matching ottoman, and how perfect they looked in the Florida Room. “We are building a life without you,” she said, staring at the little box. The truth of it made her sad, and a little exhilarated.

  Dinah lay in the adjoining room and listened to her mother talking. “He’s dead,” she wanted to scream. “You are talking to yourself.” She worried that her mother was crazy. If she’s crazy, what does that make me? she wondered, having just decoded that day’s exchange with Eddie Fingers. She imagined how Crystal would laugh if she told her that she and her mother were a two-nervous-breakdown family. But then again, maybe it wasn’t that funny. I don’t want to come off as a drag, she thought.

  When Dinah came home from school on Thursday, the house felt too quiet. She noticed her blocks, the alphabet ones that she’d kept from childhood, spilled across the dining-room table. At first she thought they were randomly and inexplicably tossed there, but when she looked again she realized that they spelled out four words: WE ARE HOME NOW. Her mom got the job. Just then, Tessie ran out of the kitchen. She threw her arms around Dinah, thinking to herself that this was the moment that their new life was starting. “I’m so happy for you, Mom,” said Dinah, her head filled with Pappagallos, transistor radios, and other things that they could now afford. That night, Dinah dreamed that she and Crystal Landy were walking through the corridor at school holding hands. Crystal’s grip was firm and reassuring.

  Friday morning, Dinah woke up an hour early. Her first thought was, If I start now, can I make this day move faster? She wore her new blouse, cotton with a madras print, and wondered if Crystal would notice that it wasn’t the real thing. Her new black flats with the clip-on bows had already rubbed blisters on her heels. But this was not the day to go back to the white bucks, that was for sure. She pulled her reckless hair back into a ponytail and put on some blush lipstick that tasted like wax but made her lips pink and shiny.

  With her hair off her face like that, Tessie noticed Dinah’s jawline—Jerry’s jawline—jutting like a plane taking off, full of determination. Dinah had her father’s childlike brown eyes; they were round with curiosity and possibilities. Her face, like his, was long and thin like a knife sheath, but unlike Dinah’s, his hair was thick and black and straight and hung like a satin cap around his head. Tessie used to run her fingers across his full pink lips and say, “Whoever created you, used too much paint.” Today, Tessie thought, Dinah’s face looked that rich and filled with life. She’ll be a beautiful woman, she thought, though she was sure Jerry already knew that.

  In homeroom, Dinah exchanged her usual numerical greeting with Eddie. She flashed nine fingers: “Do you think it will work out this afternoon?” He came back at her with eleven. She knew right away it was one of her dad’s silly rhymes:

  Crystal Landy seems quite dandy,

  In the end, your best friend.

  Dinah nearly laughed out loud.

  Crystal waited for her by the back door after the bell rang. “So you still want to come over?” she asked, as though it might have slipped Dinah’s mind.

  “Well, yeah,” said Dinah trying hard not to sound like it was the only thing she’d thought about all week.

  A GIANT REPLICA of a sea wall, pitted and rough with barnacles, surrounded Cypress Woods. It was only three miles across town from where Dinah lived, but in those three miles, the houses became larger, the backyards more spacious, and the addresses changed from numbers to storybook names like Cedarcrest Heights and Seaward Road.

  “Here we are,” said Crystal, pointing to a modern L-shaped house that snaked around the corner and took up half a block. A black woman with eyes the color of antique wood opened the door. She gave off a faint whiff of Borax.

  “Hey Ella, this is my friend Dinah from school.”

  “Nice to meet you,” she said. “Y’all come in the kitchen now. I’ve fixed you a snack.”

  A nest of french fries, each with perfect brown edges, and two glasses of cherry Coca-Cola were waiting on the kitchen counter. Crystal hoisted herself up onto the stool, Dinah next to her. The two ate in silence, never looking up from their plates. When they finished, they went to Crystal’s room, where they listened to the new Johnny Mathis album.

  “This is the best make-out music,” said Crystal.

  “Don’t you think ‘Chances Are’ is the most romantic song ever?”

  “Not better than ‘Unchained Melody.’ So how many boys have you made out with?”

  “Really . . . not any,” said Dinah. “You?”

  “Maybe one,” said Crystal.

  “Maybe? You mean you don’t know?”

  “Well, we kissed and stuff and he stuck his tongue in my mouth, but it didn’t go on very long.”

  “That counts,” said Dinah. She took off her shoes and sank her feet into a pink carpet as lush as overgrown grass. Nothing in this house was like anything she had ever seen—the speckled gold-and-black Terrazo tiles on the porch floor, the maid, the french fries. Even Johnny Mathis sounded bolder on Crystal’s pink hi-fi.

  “How come your family moved to Gainesville?” asked Crystal.

  “My mom picked it out of a book one day,” said Dinah. “So we didn’t have to stay in Carbondale.”

  “What was wrong with Carbondale?”

  “Everything. After my dad died, it got bad.” It had been so long since Dinah confided in a friend, she forgot to be careful. “I never left my room. My mom started having out-loud conversations with my dad; still does. She started drinking. We moved here to start over, you know, to try and get away from all that.”

  “Did it work?”

  �
��Well, I seem to have left my room,” she laughed. “And my mom just got a job at Lithographics. She’s going to make eighty-six dollars a week. She’s trying real hard.”

  Why was she telling Crystal all this? It was like the french fries. After one, she couldn’t stop.

  Crystal reached behind her head with both hands and pulled her black hair on top of her head. “God, you’re lucky your mother works. Mine’s around all day. She makes schedules about the stupidest things. In the morning, she wakes me and my brother up and says, ‘Okay, kids, what’s on the schedule today?’ She’s been asking us that since before we even knew what the word ‘schedule’ meant. Her idea of a schedule is to shop all day, and then spend the next day exchanging everything she bought.”

  They started with mom stories, and somehow the conversation wended its way to world affairs.

  “Do you think there are a lot of Communists in Gainesville?” Dinah asked earnestly.

  Crystal let her hair fall around her face. “Charlie says that if he and Khrushchev could have a conversation, he knows that he could fix the situation and make the two countries friends.”

  “Neat,” said Dinah, thinking he must be one strange kid to want to talk to Khrushchev.

  “So here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” said Crystal. “What’s the deal with you and Eddie and the fingers?”

  Dinah had wondered when this would come up and had debated with herself whether or not she would tell the truth. She took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “When I walked into class that first day and Eddie started doing all that stuff with his fingers, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Later I thought that maybe it was my dad, and that maybe he was sending me messages through him.” Dinah suddenly felt embarrassed. “God, you must think I’m such a moron.”

  Crystal stared at her for a few seconds without answering. “No, I don’t. You could be right. I mean, don’t you think Eddie could be from another planet?”