Bitter in the Mouth

by Monique Truong

  I headed over to a large walk-in closet, more of a small dressing room, and found inside exactly what I was hoping to find: a trove of exquisitely tailored dresses that were understated and modern and architectural and completely out of place in their present surroundings. Kelly, nonplussed by Baby Harper’s postmortem confession, asked if I knew who his seamstress was. Kelly admired the tiny, even stitches and the touches of embroidery—mostly simple geometric shapes that resembled Mackintosh roses, which had been too small and subtle for me to see in the photographs. We agreed that we both had seen the rose design before but we couldn’t remember where. Kelly tried on all the dresses, and I told her that she looked like a very chic museum curator, because she did. (I left out the part about how museum curators by definition had to find a new profession once their dress size exceeded a four, there being something about the art world that demanded, at least in their women, the nonexistence of body fat.)

  It took another couple of days for us to locate where we first had seen the stylized roses that were embroidered on Baby Harper’s dresses, usually just one or two right at the hem. We were over at Clay and Gregory’s for dinner, and we spotted the same design at each corner of their tablecloth. Clay said that the table linens had been sewn by his uncle Cecil. Kelly and I looked at each other and knew that the funeral director had a postmortem secret or two of his own. Cecil Tobias Brandon, a.k.a. Mister T, was a discerning designer and sewer of plus-size women’s clothing who had found his muse right here in the greater Boiling Springs–Shelby area.

  As Gregory served us slices of end-of-the-season peach pie, I proposed that the Home of Eternal Rest should again provide its clients with a bereavement photographer. Clay agreed wholeheartedly but said that it had been a difficult position to fill. He had placed an ad in the Shelby Star but had gotten calls mostly from wedding photographers who wanted to make a bit of extra money. These photographers didn’t seem to understand that the sensibility required was entirely different, Clay said.

  I showed him the photographs that Kelly had taken at Baby Harper’s memorial. She had shot both in color and in black-and-white film, which explained the two cameras around her neck that day. In these images, there was the person being photographed, and in their eyes there was an evocation of whom they were mourning. The only word that I could find to describe Kelly’s photographs was “elegiac.” Clay said that that was precisely right, and no other word was needed. Kelly got the job.

  It was the third week of September, and our dinner tonight was to celebrate the last official day of summer. There was always something about those long hot days that encouraged us, whispered in our ears, to become someone new.

  After Kelly and I said good night to Clay and Gregory, we decided that we didn’t want to go home. The night was temperate and full of stars. She had a full tank of gas. I had twenty dollars in my wallet. We felt like we could go someplace and be somewhere. We decided that we would go to Shelby and sit on one of the benches in the courthouse square. We wanted to see the courthouse glow in the dark. We wanted to hear the leaves of the water oak trees rustle. We hoped that we wouldn’t get arrested for loitering. We were pretty sure we weren’t drunk.

  Kelly parked the car on Main Street, and we walked out onto a movie set. The streets around the courthouse, which long ago had been turned into a museum, were empty. The cupola, domes, and columns struck fear into no one now except visiting schoolchildren, who were less fearful and more bored by what they found inside. The other three streets that made up the courthouse square, Lafayette, Washington, and Warren, were named for Revolutionary War heroes. The statue in front of the former courthouse, however, was erected in honor of the “Confederate Heroes of Cleveland County.” The young man with the rifle in his hand looked out now at a red and gold sign for a Thai restaurant across the street, which, like the other restaurants and shops lining the streets of Shelby, was closed for the night. Kelly and I sat on a bench near the base of the statue, and we stared up at his tight britches, his rifle, and his hat. We were both thinking of another young man from these parts, whom we hadn’t spoken of or written about in years.

  Thanks to Kelly’s recent letters, I was caught up on the news and the whereabouts of many of the members of the BSHS class of ’86 and assorted others. Some of them had gone to Gardner-Webb with Kelly, some had attended other in-state schools or found work nearby, and the rest had disappeared into the vastness of the United States and reinvented themselves. What Kelly shared with me had offered little by way of surprises. “Homecoming Queen Sally Campbell lives in Shelby and is married to a doctor,” Kelly wrote. “They have twins, and she is pregnant with her third. One of the three Kens is now an assistant principal at BSHS. Another of the Kens died in the Persian Gulf War.” Chris Johnson, the third of the Kens, was one of the ones who had slipped away. Kelly had no information about him so I offered to fill in his biography for her. I sent this to Kelly:

  “Chris Johnson, former BSHS student body president, attended Duke University, where he became the president of his fraternity. He majored in pre-law but during his junior year enrolled, on a dare, in an Introduction to Women’s Studies course. He then switched his major, wrote a thesis entitled ‘The Myth of the Southern Belle: A Construction and Reconstruction of Gender Differences and Accompanying Privileges,’ graduated with honors, and will become the first openly gay professor to receive tenure at a small but prestigious liberal arts college in Georgia.”

  Kelly wrote back and demanded more. “What about the other Chris Johnson?” she asked. “He was in the class of ’85, but surely Ms. Hammerick, the newly appointed Class Secretary, knows of his fate too,” Kelly joked.

  I sent her this:

  “After graduation, Chris Johnson, a.k.a. the black Chris Johnson, arrived in Philadelphia with three hundred dollars in his pocket and his cousin’s address. He found his cousin living in an apartment with one window and two folding chairs. For the privilege of sharing it, Chris would have to hand over his three hundred dollars. ‘For the whole year?’ Chris asked. ‘No, for the month,’ his cousin answered. Chris used his money to buy a bus ticket across country instead. He ended up in Bellevue, Washington, where he was hired in the mailroom of a company that made personal computers. A year later, the company went public and soon thereafter every one of their employees, including Chris, became millionaires.”

  Kelly wrote back that she was glad to know that stoner Chris was rich and most likely experiencing periods of happiness. She wanted to know about the other two stoners, the girl and the guy who dressed and looked like each other.

  I sent her this:

  “Susan Taylor put herself through night school and became a registered nurse. Tommy Miller joined the army and was given an honorable discharge. He is now an insurance executive. The high school sweethearts, who have both recently quit smoking, are now married and living in a two-bedroom condominium in Richmond, Virginia.”

  In letter #1,313, Kelly asked me if that was true. “That one didn’t seem like a joke,” she wrote.

  “I have no idea what has happened to Susan and Tommy,” I wrote back. “I just wanted for them a comfortable life unmarked by chronic unemployment, unwanted pregnancy, domestic violence, prolonged drug use, or the indignity of having to pump gas or clean house for a former homecoming queen.”

  “Sally wasn’t as bad as all that,” Kelly wrote. “You just never got to know her, Linda.”

  I let that topic drop. Kelly was right and wrong. I never knew Sally or the three Kens. Kelly, likewise, never knew Chris, Susan, or Tommy. BSHS was like a one-room schoolhouse. How we managed to avoid one another was an example of the highly choreographed dance that still kept us apart, a mystery to one another.

  Of course, I knew it was significant that Kelly hadn’t included Wade in her BSHS Who’s Who. I waited patiently, reading about people whom I hadn’t thought about since graduation and would never think about again. I waited, with less and less patience, making up the lives of those about whom Ke
lly had no information to keep myself amused and to pass the time. I waited till Kelly’s silence finally confirmed what we had long known.

  On a park bench in the first hours of the first day of fall, Kelly reached for my hand. We are going to get arrested for sure, I thought. Open displays of same-gender, transracial affection was certainly a misdemeanor of some kind. Kelly laughed, quick and sharp, when I said this to her. She took out of her purse a photograph and placed it on my lap. She also took from her purse a tiny flashlight, which she shone on the image: Luke, thirteen years old, tall and lanky, with a mop of disheveled hair, blond like his father’s was when he had spent his days in the sun.

  “He’s such a beautifulcherrycoughsyrup boy, Kellycannedpeaches,” I said, touching the photograph lightly with my fingertips.

  “I told youcannedgreenbeans he looks just like his father,” Kelly said, smiling.

  “Has Wadeorangesherbet met him?”

  “Nograpejelly, I haven’t been in touchcannedvegetablesoup with Wadeorangesherbet since he graduated from college.”

  “Reallypopcorn?” I asked.

  “Reallypopcorn.” Kelly replied.

  “Where did Wadeorangesherbet graduate from?”

  “I thought youcannedgreenbeans knewpeanutbutter. He went to UNC at Chapel Hilldriedapricot for a year. Then he transferred to Cooperambrosiasalad Union in Newpeanutbutter York City. Youcannedgreenbeans knowgrapejelly, it’s freeChipsAhoy!cookie tuition thereapplejuice and all, so his father couldn’t stopcannedcorn him. I’d nograpejelly ideaSwisscheese Wadeorangesherbet was interestedsloppyJoe in art. Did youcannedgreenbeans—”

  “Yes,” I said, interrupting her.

  If this were a movie, then this would be the moment with the sounds of crickets chirping.

  “I’m sorryglazeddoughnut, Lindamint,” Kelly said.

  “ForTriscuit whatgrahamcracker?” I asked. What I meant was for which thing was she most sorry. Sleeping with Wade or for not telling me about it until now.

  More crickets. Cue leaves rubbing themselves against the starlit dome of the sky.

  “I didn’t tellbrownsugar youcannedgreenbeans,” Kelly continued, “because I neverbubblegum told Wadeorangesherbet. He knewpeanutbutter that I was pregnant. I just neverbubblegum told him that he was the father.”

  “Why the fucklimesherbet not?” I asked.

  “Because—I’m sorryglazeddoughnut about this too—he didn’t meanraisin that much to me. We were together only once. Youcannedgreenbeans knowgrapejelly, whatgrahamcracker I meanraisin?”

  “Nograpejelly.”

  Crickets, leaves, the wings of bats disturbing the air above our heads as they flew from water oak tree to water oak tree.

  “I think it’s timecottagecheese to goboiledcarrots,” I said.

  “Nograpejelly,” Kelly replied.

  “Whatgrahamcracker?”

  “I said nograpejelly. We’re goboiledcarrotsing to sit herehardboiledegg until youcannedgreenbeans forTriscuitgive me, Lindamint.”

  “Well, youcannedgreenbeans better make yourself comfortable then.”

  Crickets, leaves, bat wings, and the sounds of our breaths going in and out of our bodies.

  “Did youcannedgreenbeans knowgrapejelly about Wadeorangesherbet and me?” I asked finally.

  “Yes,” Kelly replied.

  We sat on the park bench until the stars faded, until the birds began their songs, until cars began making their way slowly up and down the streets, their drivers still drowsy, rubbing sleep from their eyes. Kelly fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. I sat there, my eyes on the statue of the soldier, my ears full of the steady breathing of my best friend. I knew that she wasn’t the cause for what I was feeling. Wade, the orange sherbet boy, had traveled to the city of our dreams. He had left this place and its people behind. So had I, I thought. The truth was that I believed that it was this place and its people who had kept the orange sherbet boy and me apart. That if Wade and I had grown up elsewhere, we would have become high school sweethearts, gone to the prom together, broken up during our first year away at different colleges, found each other again after graduation, and moved in together, living happily for at least some time. The truth was that the locus of our failure lay elsewhere. Our geography was only partially to blame.

  ALL FAMILIES WERE AN INVENTION. SOME FAMILIES WERE MACHINES. Some were gardens, full of topiaries or overgrown with milkweeds. Others were Trojan horses or other inspired works of art. Sinister or a thing of beauty, we often couldn’t tell because we were too close to them to see. We created them with our bodies or with our will. We had children because they could be had. Biological or adopted, they were helpless and had little to say in how they would fit into the larger body. All children learned to adapt and thrive, or they died. Their first lessons of survival were learned within the home. Some children never grew up. Some hid within their own skin. Some shone like the sun or glowed cool like the moon. We added to our selves—we built our machines, tended to our gardens, created our objets d’art—because we desired, above all things, to outlive our bodies. We knew that when we died, our families—if no one else—would remember our faces and repeat our names. In that way, we lived on. But we failed to acknowledge our selfish desires. We spouted grandiose assessments of what we had done. We gave you life, we said to our children. We saved your life, we said to the children of other people whom we took into our homes. Both statements were true. Both statements were the beginning of the story and not the story itself.

  On the last night of summer, DWH had stayed home to host a dinner party of her own. She had her women over and they had me on their minds. I had been in Boiling Springs for almost two months by now, and DWH and I still hadn’t gotten to the heart of the matter. Together, the women would come up with a plan.

  On my first day of law school, a professor, all white hair and dark bow tie and pinstripes, had stood at the lectern of an arena-like classroom and declared that the Law was a spiderweb. He meant that there was no easy and obvious starting point. Everything about the Law was interconnected, interdependent, interwoven. I had thought of the professor’s words every morning as DWH and I had inched closer to the center of our web with a question and then retreated again to its edge with a response.

  I had asked DWH what it was like for her when Thomas passed away. Her response was an example of our progress and non-progress. She began by reminding me that they had been married for almost twenty-five years. She missed waking up to the sounds of him getting dressed in the morning. She missed the smell of his shaving cream in the bathroom. She missed the half a piece of toast that he left uneaten every morning. She missed the sound of his car door purposefully opening and closing, the bookends to her day. She missed seeing him at the head of the dinner table. She missed the easy chair with his newspapers neatly arranged at its feet. She missed hearing him snoring beside her in the middle of the night. DWH paused, took a deep breath, and confessed that after a couple of months of feeling this way she realized that it wasn’t the same as missing him. I sat at the kitchen table, coffee cup in hand, on my plate a grapefruit half, emptied of its pulp, and I was speechless. DWH had become her mother’s daughter. DWH had inherited the mantle of family truth teller. To claim that I wasn’t unnerved by it would be a lie.

  DWH and the women decided that if it was too difficult for her to begin at the beginning then she should begin at the end. The elegant symmetry of their reasoning took them by surprise. They celebrated by helping themselves to seconds of the homemade desserts that they had brought to the potluck dinner. They looked up to DWH, but none of them were foolish enough to allow her to cook for them. They feasted on spoonfuls of banana pudding, made with a meringue topping because it was for a party, after all. They sliced another wedge of lemon icebox pie, a summertime favorite because who wanted to turn on the oven at this time of the year? They were grateful, though, that Beth Anne had made the effort to bake, as her red velvet cake melted in their mouths and disappeared in the instant after DWH had
thoughtfully set aside a slice for me to have for breakfast.

  When Kelly dropped me off at the blue and gray ranch house, the sun had already risen. DWH was already in the kitchen with coffee brewed and waiting. The wedge of cake, sheathed in its tight plastic wrap, beckoned. I sat down and gave thanks for women like Beth Anne, who practiced the endangered art of baking (one day “baked from scratch” may sound as archaic and faraway as “alchemy”). I ate the cream cheese frosting first, and then as I tucked into the garnet sponge of the cake, DWH asked me whether Baby Harper had sent me the photographs. I concentrated on the moist crumb of the cake. I thought about how its flavors—butter, cocoa, and vanilla—had no relationship to its flamboyant color. Red was a decoy, a red herring, and with each bite there was a disconnect between expectation and reality. That was the main source of the cake’s charm.

  “Lindamint, did youcannedgreenbeans hearhardboiledegg me?” DWH asked.

  I nodded my head.

  “I’d asked Babyhoney Harpercelery to send them to youcannedgreenbeans,” she continued.

  My heart was in my ears. Its beats were almost drowning out DWH’s voice.

  “ThomasorangeNehi lovedNestea her. I knowgrapejelly he did. That’s why youcannedgreenbeans came to be with us,” DWH began.

  The story of my life, according to DeAnne Whatley Hammerick, began in the fall of 1955, thirteen years before I was born. Young Thomas, twenty-three years old, was in his third and last year of Columbia Law when he met a young woman named Mai-Dao. She was twenty years old and a senior at Barnard. She was a rare bird in his eyes. Young Thomas told her that he was from the South. She told him that she was from the South too. He, unlike many Americans at the time, knew that her country had been partitioned into North and South just the year before. Well, I would have never known; you don’t have even a trace of a southern accent, he replied in his leisurely drawl. Then, he fell in love right there on the steps of Low Memorial Library, while the corridor of trees, which led from the street into the wide plaza before them, turned colors. He fell in love, even though Mai-Dao had told him that she was engaged to a young man back home. The school year ended, and she returned to her hometown and young Thomas to his. Before she left New York City, she gave him the photographs of their time together. What she couldn’t say to him was that she couldn’t keep the photographs. These things, if kept, were always found. They traded their mailing addresses, and he, like a teenage girl, promised to write. He did. He wrote to her many times after he returned home to Charlotte, once after he moved to Shelby, and one more time in 1960, on the day that he moved into the blue and gray ranch house in Boiling Springs with his new bride. Mai-Dao, like a teenage boy, didn’t reply.