Glory Be

by Augusta Scattergood

  “Civil rights people here got a heap of things need doing besides that pool. Important things, like helping us figure out how to vote, teaching children to read,” Emma said. “It’s good you and Laura are friends. I suspect she’s lonely sitting at the library, what with her mama gone over to the new clinic.”

  “Frankie’s mad about me being friends with Laura. His daddy says for him not to play with me.” I looked right at Emma and took a deep breath. “And now the pool’s closed,” I said. “And you’ve got Yankees visiting. Lots of stuff is happening here, Emma.”

  Emma took my hand and held it up next to hers.

  “Praying hands,” I whispered.

  “Praying hands. We got a lot to pray over, baby.” She pushed herself up from the table, finished wrapping up the fudge to take home.

  I went to the porch to think. Fireflies blinked on and off in the front yard, and the crickets chirped so loud it was hard to get my thoughts straight. Maybe I could just write another letter to that newspaper. Say how mean it was for a policeman to accuse any old boy out just riding on the highway of causing trouble. My daddy wouldn’t need to know who wrote it. None of his church people would ever find out. A whole lot of those letters didn’t have names signed to them. I could be Anonymous like they were.

  When I peered down the sidewalk, Emma was waiting for her friend Mr. Miles’s Liberty taxicab that picked her up some nights. I looked again, and finally, here came Jesslyn holding her sandals in one hand, fanning herself with a magazine with the other.

  “Jesslyn’s home!” I started down to meet her. “Did you have fun in Memphis with Mary Louise?” I yelled.

  Emma mumbled something about Jesslyn not having the brains the good Lord gave a flea. Then she juggled the tinfoil-wrapped fudge and her giant pocketbook and eased herself into the backseat of the taxi. Lucky for Jesslyn, they drove off before Emma had a chance to ask anything about the so-called trip to Memphis.

  Pretty soon, our daddy crossed the street and stood on the front porch. When we followed him inside, he carefully lined up his sermon and his Bible on the front hall table. “You and Mary Louise get what you needed?” he asked. “The fire baton and all?”

  “We had fun, but I didn’t buy anything ’cept some new magazines.” She held up her movie magazine, which I knew she’d had all summer. “I’m tired, Daddy. Think I’ll go upstairs to bed.” Jesslyn gave me a keep your mouth shut look, and so I did. She walked in the kitchen, poured some iced tea, and took her glass upstairs. She pulled the hall phone into the bathroom and shut the door tight, with the extra-long cord squished underneath the door.

  I sat on my bed, real quiet so I could hear her.

  Jesslyn was whispering. “We took a drive to Elvis’s house in Tupelo — and got stopped by the police on the way home.”

  It had to be Mary Louise on the phone. I lay down on my bed and opened The Witch Tree Symbol. When Jesslyn stopped talking, I marked my place with a bookmark made out of a magnolia leaf I’d pressed in Bible School. Jesslyn waltzed into our room wearing pink pajamas and a goony, dreamy look. “Wanna play cards?” she asked.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  “Sure. Junk Poker?” I grabbed for my box.

  “Not that silly game,” Jesslyn said. “Besides, Daddy doesn’t like us betting on card games.”

  I didn’t mention how he wouldn’t like a lot of stuff she’d been up to lately.

  “So what’s in your shoe box you keep tied up under your bed if it’s not junk for poker?”

  “Nothing.”

  Since I’d looked inside that box, I knew what was in there. Soon she’d add the picture of her and Robbie at Elvis’s house and the scrap of green-flowered wallpaper.

  “Let’s play Gin Rummy,” Jesslyn said.

  I shuffled and dealt us each ten cards, then turned the next one over. “I wish we played together more, like we did last summer.”

  “Last summer was a long time ago, Glory.” Jesslyn picked up a card.

  I was quiet for a minute, thinking of what to say next. “I had fun in Tupelo with you and Robbie. Except for the last part. That was scary.”

  “Remember, you can’t tell Daddy,” Jesslyn said. “You can’t tell where we went. You can’t tell about the policeman. And you especially can’t tell anybody anything you heard Robbie say.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing.”

  I picked up the king of hearts and slapped it on the stack.

  Jesslyn turned over her last card and shook her head. “I won. Again. You’re not that great at cards, you know.”

  “Well, maybe if somebody played with me more,” I started to say, but Jesslyn wasn’t listening.

  “Cut the light off.”

  I made the room dark, pulled back my bedspread, and crawled under the covers. The air conditioner was so loud I could barely hear Jesslyn’s voice across the room.

  “Glory, remember,” she whispered, half asleep. “It’s a secret.”

  In the dark, over my own pink pajamas, I crossed my heart. Then just to be sure, before falling asleep, I crossed my heart again.

  The next day, on Sunday morning, Jesslyn and I stared out the window at little rivers of rain turning our backyard home plate into a wading pool. “We should head over to the church soon,” Jesslyn said, as if I didn’t know. “We can’t be late.”

  In addition to saving souls over at First Fellowship, Daddy’s job was turning on lights and ceiling fans. Shutting windows tight against the rain or opening them wide to let the Good Lord’s sunshine in. Our job was to get ourselves to Junior Choir practice ten minutes before Mrs. Simpson played the first hymn. Days like this I wished my daddy was a veterinarian or a taxicab driver — anything but a preacher.

  I shut my eyes, wishing I could pull Emma’s quilt off the bed in Mama’s sewing room, cover up on the sofa next to the window, and read Nancy Drew to my heart’s content.

  “You think the rain will stop by the time we get to church?” I asked. Before Jesslyn could answer, somebody started bamming hard on the front door.

  “Glory, let me in! Hurry!”

  Frankie’s hair was plastered down from the rain. His glasses were fogged over. He was dripping puddles of water.

  “Hold your horses, Frankie.” I stepped back from the door. “What are you doing here?”

  He held up what was left of a soggy sheet of paper. “This was in our mailbox. For my daddy from the Pool Committee. The pool’s opening! Anybody can come.”

  Jesslyn led Frankie into the kitchen. When she smoothed the notice out on the table, it started to rip. The ink was blurred. But there it was, in black and white: Pool Opening for July Fourth.

  “You reckon this means I can have my birthday there? And you and Laura and everybody can come? I won’t believe it till I see the sign with my very own eyes,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “Have you looked outside?” Jesslyn asked. “Nobody goes to a swimming pool, open or closed, in this weather.”

  I didn’t care. I wanted to be sure that Pool Closed sign was down.

  “Frankie, get the umbrella, the big green one in the hall closet.” I gave him the hairy eyeball. He’d better follow me quick.

  “We’re supposed to be at church before eleven. Daddy’ll kill us if we show up drenching wet and late,” Jesslyn said.

  “Well, if you want to worry about being late to church the first time in our entire lives, head on upstairs and get your Sunday clothes on, Miss Priss,” I told her, opening the umbrella. “Me and Frankie are going to the pool.”

  It didn’t take long before Jesslyn was kicking off her shoes and grabbing another umbrella. I was smiling big as all get-out.

  Purple clouds filled up the sky as she and I hiked up our shorts and waded barefoot through the warm muddy water.

  “You should have kept your shoes on.” Frankie stepped around a wide brown puddle. “This stuff is full of germs. All the dead bugs and dog doo in the street. My science book says rainwater’s polluted. Not much different from
the baby pool down at Fireman’s Park, if you ask me.”

  Not that we’d sloshed around barefooted in the Pee Pool with the babies lately.

  “Don’t be such a sissy. It’s just mud and rainwater,” Jesslyn said. “You need to get your nose out of those science books, Frankie.” Once she’d changed her mind about being late for church, she was tromping through the water up ahead of us like this was the most fun she’d had since joining the pep squad.

  When we got to the Community Pool, the three of us stood in front of the fence and stared. Sure enough, that Closed sign was covered up by a big piece of cardboard tacked on the fence. The rain had faded the paint, making it look like my kindergarten art projects, but I could read the words, plain as day.

  POOL OPENING SOON!

  HANGING MOSS PICNIC HERE

  ALL WELCOME

  I stared at that sign so long I thought my eyes might burn it clean in two. “What happened to make your daddy and them change their mind?” I asked Frankie.

  “Maybe whatever was broken got fixed.” His voice cracked and he looked away from the sign.

  “Maybe something good’ll come of this stupid summer and I’ll get to have my pool party.” I kicked water at Frankie just to see him jump.

  Then, for the fun of it, Jesslyn and I started singing at the top of our lungs. We opened our mouths and let the raindrops in and the songs out. We started with “Glory Glory Hallelujah” and ended with “When the Saints Go Marching In,” letting mud squish between our toes just like when we were little, playing in the backyard.

  Frankie looked at us like we were crazy.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked him. “Aren’t you happy we can swim now?” For once Frankie didn’t have a single thing to say, not even a quote out of his stupid encyclopedias about how many inches of rainfall Mississippi got every summer. But Jesslyn and I kept on squishing and stomping, staring at that sign. We stopped singing when Frankie pointed over Jesslyn’s shoulder.

  “Hey, who’s that? Driving that station wagon so slow?” Frankie crinkled up his nose and stared across the street.

  Jesslyn and I turned at the same time, and of course we knew exactly who it was sitting in his station wagon with his arm hanging out the window in the rain.

  “What y’all doing out here? I thought preachers’ kids weren’t supposed to sing on Sunday except in church.” Robbie flashed that Elvis smile at Jesslyn, and right then and there, she stopped stomping in puddles.

  “You’re just jealous that we’re having so much fun. We’re celebrating,” I told him. “See that sign? The pool’s gonna open again.”

  Robbie looked at the fence gate. I saw his lips moving and another big smile start on his face when he got to the part of the sign that said All Welcome.

  “I dare you to get out of the car,” I told him. “Nothing stopping you from singing with us.” Nothing but the fact that he was sixteen years old and probably thought playing in rain puddles was something you gave up way before you got a driver’s license. So when Robbie Fox swung open his door, kicked his pointy leather shoes back inside the car, and stepped out, I was bowled over.

  “Here’s a good song for Sunday morning.” In a voice Elvis wouldn’t have minded one bit, Robbie belted out, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer!” Robbie grabbed Jesslyn’s hand, and we all laughed our fool heads off, marching through those rivers of water.

  All except for Frankie.

  When Jesslyn and Robbie ran off laughing and splashing together, Frankie stayed on the sidewalk staring into the mud. “My brother doesn’t like him,” he said, frowning across the street at Robbie. “He’s trying to take J.T.’s place on the football team. Don’t know why he had to move to Hanging Moss.”

  “Robbie was the star of his team in North Carolina,” I said.

  “The star, huh?” Frankie rubbed his arm. J.T. had popped him so hard it left a new black bruise. “So how come he didn’t stay there?”

  Maybe it was because Frankie looked so pitiful standing there with his socks squished down and his shoes soaking wet, with his hair slicked back and raindrops starting up on his glasses again. Or maybe it was because I was so happy the pool was opening and everything was going back to normal. But before I knew it, my words spilled out like the rain falling out of the sky.

  “It’s a secret why he’s here. Don’t tell a single soul.” I looked over my shoulder at Jesslyn and her boyfriend jumping in puddles and splashing each other. “Promise?”

  Frankie nodded his head. But I was in such a hurry to blab I didn’t wait for him to pinky swear, which surely would have sealed the secret between us.

  “Back in North Carolina, Robbie got thrown in jail. Even if it was for doing the right thing for a colored friend of his, his mama got mad and sent him here to his aunt’s ’cause she was embarrassed. He even got his picture in the paper eating with his friend at a lunch counter that was only for white people.” I nudged closer to Frankie.

  When he glanced across at Robbie, I saw a look I’d never in my whole entire life seen on Frankie’s face. It was a look of pure hatefulness. “Your sister’s boyfriend has colored friends? He was in jail?”

  I realized then what I’d done by telling. My heart about jumped into the mud puddle I was standing in. I should have kept my mouth shut.

  “Forget it, Frankie. Pretend like I didn’t say anything. It was just something I heard.” I willed myself to stop telling anything more about Robbie’s secret.

  “You mean he’s like one of those Freedom Worker people?” Frankie asked. “People messing up our town?”

  “No. He’s not messing up anything. Just here visiting his aunt.” I grabbed Frankie’s hand to make him look away. “If Jesslyn finds out I told you, she’ll never speak to me again. She’s just starting to be my friend again. Don’t go telling Robbie’s secret!”

  Frankie didn’t cross his heart or promise not to tell.

  “I gotta go” was all he said. Then he took off down the street, and all I could think about was how could somebody who cares so much about the moon, the stars, and lightning bugs have a face that mean and hateful.

  Jesslyn and Robbie were singing so loud they didn’t notice me biting my lip to keep from crying. While their song went down to twenty-three bottles of beer on the wall, the knot in my stomach got bigger.

  “Time for me to get outta here,” Robbie said when he finished the last verse. “See you tomorrow, Jesslyn.” I heard him humming all the way back to his car.

  Jesslyn and I ran down Oak Street past the library, me holding my breath, praying Frankie could keep a secret. Before I knew it, we were next to the back-door choir entrance to Daddy’s church. Soaking wet and barefooted. We stopped skipping and turned beet red.

  Mrs. Simpson stood in front of the Junior Choir. They were decked out in white robes like a band of angels lined up to march into church. Waiting to lead the procession was our daddy, Brother Joe, with his preacher voice going. In a serious, stern tone, he said, “Gloriana and Jesslyn, get on home and change. You still have time to get to the choir loft before I begin my sermon.”

  We put our heads down and slugged home in the drizzle, not talking till we were at our own back door.

  “Daddy’s mad,” Jesslyn said as we turned the hose on to wash off our feet. “I hope he never finds out about Tupelo. You didn’t tell, did you, Glory?”

  I crossed my fingers behind my back, which meant my lie didn’t count half as bad.

  “I didn’t tell about Tupelo. I kept our secret.”

  But, well, I’d only kept half the secret.

  The rain stopped. Sun was pushing through the clouds.

  We hurried inside to put on our church dresses and slick down our wet hair.

  Right about the time Jesslyn and I slipped into the upstairs choir loft together, Mrs. Simpson banged out the first notes of “The Saints of God.” I looked toward the end of my hard wooden pew. No Frankie. Was he cutting church this morning?


  Then Brother Joe raised up in his pulpit and beamed toward the congregation, but I got the idea our daddy wasn’t exactly feeling patient and brave and true in his heart toward me and Jesslyn. “Let’s bow our heads,” he said, and everything got quiet.

  Thinking about the pool opening, hearing the soft piano music playing, and seeing the sun shining through the church windows should have filled me up with happiness. But before Daddy could say his first Amen, I squeezed my eyes shut.

  Please, God, keep Robbie’s secret safe with Frankie.

  Since the Lord’s Day was Emma’s day off, most Sundays right after the service, we’d eat with a church family. Today I hoped we’d get an invitation so Daddy would forget about me and Jesslyn sloshing in the mud. When the last hymn ended and we hung our choir robes in the closet, Mrs. Simpson started toward us. I wanted to run as fast as I could from her and that rotten-egg smile. I’d rather listen to Daddy fussing at me all afternoon than sit one single minute with Mrs. Simpson.

  “Beautiful service this morning, Brother Joe. I thought our choirs sang awfully pretty, didn’t you, girls?” She adjusted the hat and veil that mostly covered up her green-tinted hair. She smiled at our daddy. “Would you like to come for noon dinner? Unless someone else has spoken for you.”

  The next thing I knew, Lordy help us, Jesslyn and me were in Mrs. Simpson’s dining room, sitting in straight-backed chairs, pushing pot roast around on fancy china plates. This was not the kind of house where anybody leaves the newspaper scattered on the floor or an iced tea glass sweating on the sideboard.

  Mrs. Simpson looked down from the head of her big table like not just the Queen of the Community Pool directing her swimming Esthers, but the Queen of Hanging Moss running our town. “Brother Joe,” she said. “Did Gloriana tell you she paid us a visit down at the paper?”

  Just a sliver of sunlight came through Mrs. Simpson’s heavy curtains and the giant chandelier over the table was turned down low, as if keeping it dark inside would make it cooler. I was sweating.