Tiny Dancer

by Patricia Hickman

  But as Reverend Theo had pointed out to me one night, there are not enough minutes to say all we should say while on earth. Saying them to the dead is the heart’s way of bringing our own soul to rest.

  But the noise of human angst trickled down the hall from my parents’ room. I sat up and stuck my head out of my room even though I could not exactly perceive what was being said between Vesta and Daddy.

  The next morning Daddy sat hunched over his coffee although he did not so much as mutter a good morning when I walked into the kitchen. I poured cereal and milk and sat beside him. I topped off his coffee and then creamed and sugared my own.

  Vesta came in but did not exchange words with Daddy. She peeled an orange and poured her coffee. Then she left for the living room not saying a word to either of us.

  “I didn’t mean to get you two fighting again,” I said assuming their feud was over my accident with Vesta’s jam.

  He kept gazing into the cereal bowl as if he stared down into the bowels of the ocean waiting for land to appear. I suddenly lost the taste for cereal, so I got up and raked mine into the garbage can.

  I did not know how to describe the look on his face. Finally, I realized—Daddy had the look of a man coming home from the war. I only had the one image as told to me years ago by Daddy, of him getting on the train in Columbus, Georgia and taking a seat next to a pretty woman named Alice. He was on furlough headed to Atlanta for his R&R. I long imagined how he must have looked to my mother, handsome, yet battle-worn. Maybe Mama liked that about him. He needed her then. This was the same face in front of me this morning.

  “I’m sorry if you heard us last night,” he said.

  Vesta padded in unobtrusively but only filled her coffee cup, stopping in the doorway to push the hair out of her eyes before retiring again to the living room to eat alone.

  I said quietly to him, “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Finally Daddy confided in me. “The bank lay-offs have Vesta scared. Two guards got pink slips this week. It seems we’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “You’ve worked for them eight years. They won’t let you go,” I said.

  “It’s trying times, daughter. Allegiance belongs to whoever might best preserve the company nest egg. Trust me, I’ll not be saved by my loyalty.” Daddy looked so small in that moment, smaller than the day Mama walked out. He buried his face in his hands and said, “I think Vesta’s lost her faith.”

  Daddy had never been big on religion. As a matter of fact Vesta was the only reason he started going to church in the first place. Somehow his religion got all wound up in hers so when she came unraveled, his was left threadbare.

  I wanted to say how sorry I was, something I had said often the past few weeks. I was weary of apologizing though since it seemed I had apologized for things not even listed under religion’s top ten worst iniquities. Whatever tears I had not cried out the night before in the Story Chair came tumbling out, although a much weaker offering.

  Daddy got a call late Sunday night from his supervisor. He was not getting a pink slip, but the shoestring crew his boss had managed to salvage for the sake of company insurance rules meant that hours were being cut back. The bank executives demoted Daddy to the rank of a part-time guard. It was not the same as getting fired. He said it was worse though.

  Chapter Five

  Claudia and I borrowed outfits from her closet so that, in her words, we would not look like the hired help at Vesta’s party. We teased up our new hairdos and put on stockings and bright pumps, the whole nine yards.

  “You girls look like you’re right off the cover of Vogue,” said Myrna Halcott, the president of the ladies’ bridge club. She took a canapé off the platter I prepared in the kitchen. “Enjoy it while you’re young.”

  I dragged our old Philco radio outdoors using an extension cord. Dusty Springfield’s pop-vocal trio played too loudly causing Vesta to turn down the volume.

  Within the hour our patio filled up with society ladies, each contributing fancy little platters of treats or a dessert.

  Myrna had a fit over my ginger cake. “Where did you get this, I want to know?” she asked Vesta.

  “Flannery baked it,” said Vesta. “She’s quite the little whiz in the kitchen now.”

  “I haven’t had ginger cake this good since old Josie was alive and cooking for us.” She picked up one of the nutty cookie bars. “Chocolate Indians? I haven’t had one of these in years either. Flannery, now you must tell me where you learned to cook like this. I won’t stop until I know,” said Myrna. “One of Vesta’s domestics teach you?”

  Of course, I could not say that Rosetta taught me because then Vesta would want to know who was Rosetta. Nor could I say that Vesta could not afford domestics. I said, “Old family recipe,” and turned away to go back into the kitchen.

  “We need more serving spoons,” said Claudia, yelling after me.

  “Where is your hired help, by the way?” asked Myrna.

  “I’m training new hired help and I didn’t want them messing up the party. Besides, these girls are party whizzes, aren’t you?” said Vesta to Claudia and me.

  “I’ll get the spoons,” I ignored Vesta and answered Claudia. “You fix yourself some punch and something to eat. There’s plenty, that’s for sure.” I had never known Vesta to put on a spread like this. It had to be draining our bank account. Daddy had taken on more hours with Stan Harkey. He dragged out this morning looking like he had not slept well.

  I dug through the kitchen drawer looking for more serving spoons. Instead I pulled out an envelope full of receipts. Vesta had spent more than I had imagined. But there attached to the receipts was a bank withdrawal slip. I turned it over, examining it. She had withdrawn the money from my college fund. How she even knew I had one, I couldn’t fathom. My mother in spite of her flaws had started the fund when I was a baby. She worked weekends at a department store tucking away the nest egg for me. It was the last thing she told me the morning she left. “I don’t want you ending up stuck in the hands of some man who can’t take care of you. You go to college,” she told me. I was four, so all I did was nod. She left in tears. It must have been one of those memories that bobbed up unexpectedly. But I knew all along I had some college money put away. Daddy knew too. He had to have told Vesta. I imagined her wheedling it out of him, getting him to sign the withdrawal slip.

  I folded up the slip and tucked it into my bra while stuffing the envelope angrily back into the drawer. I returned to the party gripping the serving spoons like I was holding knives.

  The party was such a success that Vesta was standing out on the lawn soaking in the adulation of her friends. Claudia continued walking through the throng of women asking if they would like a sweet but she kept eyeing me. Finally she took me aside. “What’s wrong with you? You look sucker punched or some such.”

  “Nothing,” was all I said.

  Vesta finally excused herself from her circle of admirers and walked toward me. “Flannery, this is the best party our club’s ever had,” she said. “You’re quite the little cook. I owe it all to you.”

  “I guess you do,” I said without looking at her.

  Then a roar that started out like a distant humming came fully into our hearing, the full throttle thunder of a big truck engine barreling backward down our easement.

  “Did your daddy order in some dirt?” asked Claudia coming alongside me.

  “Not that I know about. Surely not today either,” I said. Not if he knew what was good for him.

  The ladies murmured among themselves, some looking in Vesta’s direction. She whipped around and marched toward the cab of the truck. I followed slowly behind her hoping she would keep a lid on her temper. “Claudia,” I called back to her. “You serve up some more punch to the ladies, all right? And add rum,” I told her.

  Right away she called out to the guests expertly, drawing their attention back to the refreshments.

  “Vesta,” I whispered. “Let me handle
it. You go back to your friends,” I said.

  Either she did not hear me or chose to ignore me. “Listen here, you, you driver,” she said, lifting her slender manicured hand in the air, flicking her fingers at him in a kind of shooing motion. “What you think you’re doing?”

  The driver reached across the seat and rolled down the window. He came across his passenger side and extended his wrist, tapping his cigar glibly on the lawn. He pulled out a work order. “I got a delivery, lady, and I aim to make it.”

  “You’re at the wrong address,” she told him right off, still shooing him off the property.

  He rattled off the address. Vesta did not recognize it but I did. “You are at the wrong place,” I told him. I was about to give him directions when he clambered out of the truck. “This hear easement is for public use. The trees hang too low at yonder drive.”

  I knew right off, he meant Theo Miller’s drive. This load was his.

  “This easement is blocked,” said Vesta, “and for good reason.”

  “I’m unblocking it then,” he said, making a bee-line for the pile of saw horses.

  “This is my property and I’m ordering you off. You so much as touch that blockade I’m calling the police.”,

  “Who will join me in the removal of this here pile of sawhorses, lady. You can’t block an easement like this.”

  Vesta stormed out in front of him ignoring my pleas to return to the party and forget this cretin. The driver laughed at this tiny blonde woman blocking his way. “Listen, beehive, move your fanny or I’ll move it for you.”

  “Sir, just get back in your truck and take your load where it belongs. We don’t want any trouble,” I said, wishing Theo would show up and back me up. I knew he did not order this load delivered through the easement.

  The driver eyed me up and down, smiling. “Aren’t you a lovely little thing? Okay, honey, for you, anything.” He climbed back into his truck, pretty as you please.

  I turned back, relieved. I thought Vesta would follow me. Instead she followed him to his truck. Before he got his window rolled up, she said, “About time, you moron.”

  He fired up the truck rolling quickly forward. Then he turned, glaring at Vesta. He popped his truck into gear, aiming it around the shed. He barreled backward again. But when Vesta ran behind him waving her arms frantically, he veered left barely missing her. His truck was aimed straight for the party guests on the patio. He slammed on the brakes, stopping short of the patio. Then the mad delivery man flipped the unload switch and up went his truck bed. The one-ton load poured out under the big cherry tree and onto the patio. Ladies scattered all over our lawn, running and holding their noses. It was apparent the soil mixture was part chicken litter. It was fresh too.

  By the time I reached the patio the women were having fits. Myrna was incensed, red in the face, her neck veins visible. Vesta was partly screaming and partly crying. “You stupid redneck,” she yelled. But the truck bed was already coming down. The bed gate hung down flapping and squeaking, so dirt continued trailing out as the tires rolled away. The truck lumbered across our lawn and out through the easement where it disappeared down the road.

  The row of sunflowers at the edge of our lawn set to weaving frontward and backward. Then out came Reverend Theo and six of his relatives, holding shovels and pushing wheelbarrows. “What’s going on?” he asked me.

  “They delivered your manure to the wrong place, I guess,” I said.

  “Vesta, your hired hands best get busy with those shovels,” said Myrna.

  Some of the ladies snickered while a few still held their hands over their mouths, gagging.

  Theo stared soberly at Myrna but did not respond.

  “You heard them, boy, said Vesta,” glaring at Theo. “Get to shoveling.”

  Maybe it was because I was mad at Vesta for taking my college money or maybe it was something else. I said to her, “Now, Vesta, you know these men aren’t your domestics.” Then I said to Myrna, “We don’t have any hired help, actually.”

  “Then who are these coloreds, Vesta?” asked Myrna.

  “Friends,” I said, stepping back into line in between Theo and Calvin. “Neighbors, actually.”

  “Your neighbors?” said one of the ladies, laughing.

  Myrna marched over to the patio table where she sat. Her chair was half covered in manure. She picked soil off her pocketbook and held it out at arms’ length.

  “Myrna, I have no idea who these nigra people are. I don’t know them from Adam. Flannery, you tell her the truth,” said Vesta.

  I hooked one arm into Theo’s arm on one side and Calvin’s arm on the other side.

  It was then that Daddy walked slowly around the house where he stood staring at the spectacle. He wore a blue coverall emblazoned with Stan Harkey’s big embroidered face. He hefted a big toolbox in one hand and held out his bank guard’s uniform in the other. He had picked it up at the dry cleaners.

  “I guess now you’re going to tell me this delivery man is your husband,” Myrna said to Vesta. “The bank officer?”

  “Hi, Daddy,” I waved cheerily.

  He waved back but said, “What on earth are you doing, Vesta?”

  Myrna walked around the mountain of manure and dirt, calling out to her friends. Like baby geese, the women fell in behind her. Pretty soon they were all gone.

  Vesta yelled at me, “I demand you tell me what’s going on.”

  “I apologize,” said Reverend Theo. “Mrs. Curry, your daughter had nothing to do with this. Frankly, neither did I. We’ve been waiting out in front of my house for the delivery. But we’ll get this load of manure off your property quick as we can.” He whistled and the Miller boys set to work shoveling and hauling wheelbarrows full of the black compost off our patio and around the sunflower garden. Of course, they did have to pull down Vesta’s barricade to move the dirt on through to the other side.

  “That was your plan wasn’t it?’ Vesta asked, accusing Theo of plotting against her. “I’ll get you for this, don’t you forget it.”

  “Vesta, it was a misunderstanding,” I said. But she had yet to put on her listening ears.

  Claudia who was fighting back a smile brought Vesta a cup of punch to calm her nerves.

  She and I walked Vesta back inside. It took the Millers until sunset to move their mountain back onto their side of the easement.

  * * * * *

  Vesta left several messages with Myrna Halcott’s maid Sophie but she never called her back. She retired early for the night, still not willing to look at me.

  So much food was left over from the party, I set it all out for dinner. Daddy joined me and we toasted punch in Mason jars. “Here, try a chocolate Indian,” I said. “I hear I make the best anywhere.” I excused myself upstairs.

  I gave Vesta a hot water bottle to ease her down for the night but she threw it at me. “You did this to me.”

  “I can’t help you,” I said, “not with you accusing me of what you caused yourself.”

  “Me? You’re in denial. There you were making friends with the enemy behind my back.”

  “You should have never thrown a party you can’t afford.”

  “Not your business, young lady, and watch your tongue.”

  “I know what you did. You spent my college money. Do I even have any left?”

  “That was an investment in your future. I was working out a job for your daddy, a real career.”

  “He likes being a bank guard.”

  “Lot of good that does him.”

  “Vesta, you didn’t ask me.”

  “Girls don’t need college if they marry the right man. Don’t you realize what you’ve done? How you expect to ever marry into the right family with your associations?”

  “I don’t need your help with associations, Vesta.”

  “I was planning a party for you. It was a surprise, to introduce you to all right young men. You know what they’ll be calling us now at the bridge club? We’re the nigra lovers.”

>   “Stop it!”

  “You’re turning out like your mother, that’s what. Here I’ve poured myself into you and for nothing. Get out. I can’t stand to look at you.”

  I was nearly out the door when I said, “I wouldn’t marry any of those boys if it meant I turned out like any of you.”

  She turned her back to me..

  I stopped in the doorway, but said nothing.

  “Your little fund is gone anyway,” she said, still not looking at me. “How you think we paid down to build this house?”

  I couldn’t stand sight of her in that instant but felt she was not worth my words any more. I closed her door and holed up the rest of the night in my room. I opened my window wide and lay across my bed.

  The sun was setting and the sound of the banjo was rising from beyond the sunflowers. How so much joy could come out of such a detested bunch of people was beyond my understanding. Somehow the Millers had learned to live above the hatred. How I wished I knew their secret.

  * * * * *

  Daddy lost more hours as a bank guard, demoted to a short evening shift. He had no choice but to accept a full time delivery job with Stan Harkey.

  Harkey was best known for his loud TV commercials. No matter how low Vesta turned down the TV, Honest Stan could be heard shouting all the way to the refrigerator. COME ON IN WHERE THE AIR CONDITIONING IS FREE AND THE DEALS ARE JUST AS COOL!

  After Daddy’s first full day, I asked him how his day went. He said, “The only thing lower is crossing a union line.” He sounded lower than the first time the bank had docked his hours. He dragged himself to the couch murmuring about how painful it was to repossess a TV from a family. “The customer followed me out to the van telling me how her husband had been laid off. Told me I took away the only enjoyment she had found in their time of need, her soap operas.”

  I could not stand picturing Daddy bowing and scraping to a man like Stanley Harkey part time, let alone every day and double shifts. It pained me worse to imagine him taking away a family’s TV while they stood by helpless to stop him. It wasn’t in him to be a repo man. Daddy had once tested on the high end for MENSA and had twice the IQ of a man like Stanley. I once overheard my mother tell a friend over beers Daddy had been accepted into an Ivy League school but his parents said it was too far away and out of the question. Granny Curry later said Mama had it all wrong, it wasn’t no ivy league, but it was a big university. But, she said, while he continued seeing Alice off and on, he was trying to decide whether or not to move away and accept the scholarship. Mama joined his family in begging him to stay. Then Mama turned up with child. That would be me. Of course Daddy did the honorable thing.