“Oh, really?” Augusta narrowed her eyes. Her nostrils flared as if she had smelled something dreadful. “Colored children, you mean.”
“Oh, yes. Black as the ace of spades, some of them. It was a real revelation for me to get acquainted with such different cultures. I stayed for a couple of years in one of their homes, with the family. I adored it.”
“Well, you won’t find much opportunity for that kind of thing here,” Augusta said. A faint dew of perspiration started on her upper lip. Peyton would have said sweat, but Aunt Augusta had told her that ladies never sweated, only perspired, and that as seldom as possible.
“My mama used to say a lady misted,” Augusta had giggled once. Peyton, who knew something of her aunt’s provenance in the mill village, had snickered and told the Losers Club that afternoon about misting. They had laughed about it for days.
“Oh, really?” Nora said, widening her eyes until they shone cat green in her stippled face. “I’ve already seen quite a few black people around here. Surely their children go to school?”
“Not our school,” Aunt Augusta said. “They have their own school, and it’s a good one. Frazier is on their school board, just as he is on ours.”
“Strange,” muttered Nora, looking ingenuously up at Aunt Augusta. “I thought Brown versus Board of Education must be fairly familiar around the South. Hasn’t the news gotten to Lytton yet?”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” Augusta snapped. “That rule is all about choice. None of our colored people have chosen to come to Lytton Grammar and High Schools. And why should they? Their own school is just fine.”
“Maybe I’ll apply there, then.” Nora smiled. “You asked about my skills, Cousin Augusta? I am a truly superior fuck. Maybe the best lay east of the Rockies. Lots of people say so. Although it doesn’t look like there’s much market for that in Lytton. Oh, well. We shall see.”
Peyton stared, her mouth open, and Chloe snorted. Aunt Augusta got up from her chair, wheeled on her sensible Naturalizer heel, and sailed in palpitating silence out of the room. Peyton heard the front door slam and the little whatnot shelf near it rattle. She could not speak and only continued to stare.
Nora reached over and ruffled her hair.
“I’m really not all that good,” she said. “At least I don’t think I am. I don’t consider it a skill, more a pleasure. But when I saw your aunt I thought, Now there’s a lady with very little to occupy her time, and I think maybe this will do it for a good while to come. Now”—and she looked at Clothilde—“how long do we have before Cousin Frazier gets home? I need to bathe and change, and I thought Peyton and I might work on that hair a little.”
“He be home in about an hour,” Chloe said, and Peyton saw with astonishment that she was trying to hide a smile.
“Good. Peyton?”
But it had been too much; Peyton could not process it. She wanted to go back to her room and lie on her bed and think this afternoon into her grid. Her cousin’s words were disturbing to her, almost shocking, and yet the rout of her aunt had been such a perfect thing….
“I don’t think so, thank you,” she said primly.
“Later, then,” Nora said, and she went back up the stairs. Peyton watched her until she was out of sight. She wondered if growing up meant knowing how to walk like that. Somehow she did not think her cousin knew; she just did it.
“Well, I hope she puts on a brassiere, at least,” she muttered to Chloe.
“She get herself all fixed up, don’t you worry,” Chloe said, and the smile that had been twitching at her mouth widened into a real one. “She ain’t dumb.”
“You like her, don’t you?”
“Don’t know her yet. But she kind of like a fresh little breeze in here.”
“Are you going to tell Daddy what she said?”
“Lord, no. Your aunt gon’ do that before he out of his car.”
“He’s going to be mad,” Peyton said. She did not know if the thought gave her pleasure or discomfort.
“I wonder,” Chloe said, and she turned back to the slick-shining ironing board. Peyton slumped out of the kitchen to her room and threw herself on the bed to think about it, and instead slid so deeply into sleep that when her father came to waken her for supper she did not, for a moment, know where she was.
They ate that evening in the dining room off the other side of the kitchen, and Nora had indeed dressed for the occasion. Her hair was up in a burnished French twist, and she wore a pink oxford-cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled up, which gave her face the glow of rose on copper, and a pink plaid madras skirt that wrapped around and tied. Peyton had seen the same outfit over and over, both at school and in the dreaded Tween Shop at Rich’s, but somehow it was different on Nora. It looked casual and throwaway, instead of self-consciously pretty, and the cardigan around her shoulders looked as if she were merely chilly. Nora looked, Peyton thought, like money, though she could not have said how. According to Aunt Augusta, Nora did not have a pot to piss in.
She liked her cousin better in the much-maligned shorts and T-shirt, she realized. This woman—for in the candlelight she looked like the woman she must be—had no connection with her.
Candlelight. The big dining room, the table set with heavy old silver and the crystal glasses that Peyton could remember being brought out of the cabinet only at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The good china that had been her mother’s. Flowers, even: a bouquet of early snowdrops that she knew came from the rock garden in the side yard stood between the candles and smelled of spring evenings. Peyton hated all of it. Her father had bidden it for this unknown cousin, when he had never bidden it for her, not even on her birthdays. She sat in the middle of the table with her Cousin Nora on one end and her father on the other and would not look up.
When Clothilde came in with plates of pot roast and mashed potatoes, her father said, “This was a good idea, Chloe. I’d forgotten how nice this room is with the candles and all. We ought to do this more often.”
So it had been Chloe’s idea, then. It made no difference to Peyton. She was not going to forgive her cousin this prodigal’s feast. If it had not been for her, they would be eating pot roast comfortably in the breakfast room, listening to the news on the old white plastic radio that had stood on the sideboard for as long as Peyton could remember.
“I’ve never forgotten this room,” Nora said, her eyes liquid in the candlelight. “We had dinner here once, with all the candles and the china and silver and everything. I remember thinking that this had to be the safest and most beautiful room in the world.”
“It’s a handsome room,” her father agreed. “Lila Lee had it done not long after we moved here. I don’t guess anything’s changed since then.”
“We never use it,” Peyton said into her mashed potatoes.
She was still in disfavor with her father, she knew. He had been formally polite with her all evening and did not often look at her. There would be an accounting for her actions of the night before, though she had some hope that with Nora there, it might wait until the following morning. Some of the edge would have worn off it by then.
Nora ate with the feral delicacy of a big cat. Her father smiled to see it. Chloe, passing biscuits, smiled, too.
“I can’t tell you what a perfect dinner this is,” Nora said. “I’ve gotten so accustomed to getting my own meals that I’d forgotten what a pleasure good food and a beautiful table could be.”
“What do you usually eat?” Peyton said, forgetting to sulk for a moment. She had absolutely no experience of an unmarried white woman cooking for herself. It seemed to her as exotic as Zanzibar.
“Pizza,” Nora said, smiling at her. “Hamburgers. Kentucky Freid Chicken. Anything portable. I’ve been on the road for a while. I just eat things that I can take with me in the car.”
“Oh,” Peyton said. She slid a look at her father under her lashes. He did not seem to disapprove. There was a slight knitting of concern between his straight brows, though.
/> “Why don’t you just stay home and eat?” Peyton said, and then realized she had been rude. Her father gave her the remote, level look that meant further displeasure.
“Well, I’m not really sure where that is right now,” Nora said, cupping her chin in her hand and reaching out to touch the white bells of the snowdrops. They trembled like new snow.
“You must have a home. Everybody lives somewhere,” Peyton pushed it. Her father’s eyebrows rose.
“I’ve lived a lot of places,” her cousin said. Her face was serene in the flickering light. She was, Peyton knew, going to refuse to be baited. “I’ve lived all over Florida, and once in Cuba for a while, and California. I lived last in Key West. Before that I was in Miami. I realized I was getting sort of old for that kind of thing, and so I thought I ought to look around and see if I could find a nest in the East somewhere. I’d really like to settle for a while.”
“Nora taught colored children,” Peyton said, looking sidewise to see how her father would take it. In the Deep South of her time change had not even swept a wing over the small towns, and the federal government be damned.
“A good thing to do,” Frazier McKenzie said. “There are never enough qualified teachers for the children who need them most. I’ve often wondered what’s going to happen to us if we don’t educate all our children.”
Peyton goggled, her mouth full of apple cobbler. She had had no idea that her father thought about things like that. They never talked of it.
“I thought I might find some kind of minority teaching job around Atlanta,” Nora said. “What with Dr. King and all, it’s the real epicenter of the Movement. It’s what I do best, what I love. And I’m told I’d like the city.”
Her father looked at her cousin thoughtfully.
“When was it that your mother died?” he said.
“A long time ago,” she said. “About twelve years. But I hadn’t lived with her for a while. You know she was sick? She drank an awful lot, and it got so that she couldn’t take care of me or herself. One of my father’s sisters put her in an institution, and I lived with her family for a year or two. Then I got a scholarship and went to Rollins, and I’ve essentially been on my own ever since. Don’t worry about me, Cousin Frazier. I’m absolutely accustomed to taking care of myself. I’ll find a place in Atlanta. I’m looking forward to it.”
“It would be nice to have you that close to us,” her father said. “I know Lila Lee would want Peyton to know her cousin.”
“I’m sure,” Nora said, looking down.
When Chloe had taken away the last of the dishes, her father said to Nora, “I’m accustomed to watching a little TV after dinner. It’s nothing exciting, but you’re welcome to join me. Peyton’s going to be doing her homework. Or, if you have something else planned…”
“I’d love to,” Nora said. “I don’t think I’ve watched a television set in a month that wasn’t in a motel room.”
“I don’t have any homework,” Peyton said, giving it one more try. “I did it in study hall.”
“I think you probably do,” her father said, and he rose from his chair. He held Nora’s chair as she stood up. Peyton got up from hers and went through the kitchen and the breakfast room to her room. She was suddenly and powerfully tired, but she did not sleep. Her father would be in, she knew. There was no escaping it.
She heard the television set go on, and then, a little later, incredibly, unimaginably, she heard her father laughing. Nora’s rich laughter followed.
I hate her, Peyton thought clearly and roundly.
When her father came in at last, she was awake and staring into the shadowy corner of her room, where a shelf held some of her old toys. He sat down on the edge of her bed, and except for the creak of the springs, there was no sound for a while.
“Peyton, look at me,” he said finally, and she did. His face looked cold, carved from granite, in the low lamplight.
“Last night was not acceptable,” he said. “I’ve gone to bat for you with your aunt more times than you can possibly know, but after this I’ve got to admit she’s probably right. You’ve got to have some supervision.”
“No,” Peyton whispered.
“Yes. Nothing like last night can happen again, and I can’t seem to prevent it. So here are your options. One, you can go to boarding school. Augusta has looked into it and is sure she can find a good one for you nearby. Two, I can put you entirely in Augusta’s hands. You’d live here, of course, but she would decide what was best for you and see that you did it. Don’t make any mistake about that: I will give her my full blessing.”
Peyton felt tears of enormity and betrayal well into her eyes. She could not speak.
“Three,” her father said, “your Cousin Nora can stay with us for a while and oversee things. I’ve asked her if she would consider it, and she’s said she’ll think about it.”
“No….”
“You have three choices, Peyton. You’d better make one soon.”
“Nora would mean a lot more work for Chloe,” she whispered miserably.
“Not necessarily. Nora would help out, I’m sure.”
“It’ll cost you a lot extra.”
“She’ll be finding a job around here. She’s adamant about that.”
“You’ll have to talk to her all the time. You don’t like to do that….”
“She’s pleasant to talk to. And I’m sure she’ll have her own life and her own friends before long. Besides, I work most nights.”
Peyton was silent. It was no contest. Boarding school was unimaginable, Aunt Augusta too terrible to contemplate. I wonder why it is, thought Peyton, that when you have choices, none of them is ever anything you want.
Her father got up and walked to her door and then stopped and looked back.
“Incidentally, I like your hair that way,” he said. “I can see more than a little of your mother in you.”
Peyton turned off her bedside lamp. She burrowed under her covers, feeling warmth that came from somewhere inside her as well as out.
For the first time in a long time, she did not show herself her movies.
6
Peyton got up early the next morning, whether to avoid Nora and her father or to encounter them she could not have said. She listened from the bathroom for the sounds of conversation in the breakfast room but heard nothing except the morning news on the radio. She put her head around the door and saw the table set for one and Clothilde stirring oatmeal in the kitchen, a bad sign. She never offered it to Frazier McKenzie, only to Peyton when she ate alone. Chloe was of the opinion that a gluey mass of hot oatmeal was God’s own benison to the morning. Peyton hated it.
She shuffled into the kitchen, patting her hair. The French twist had definitely seen better days: wisps and clumps of it had escaped the pins and were rebelling around Peyton’s head and neck. She had not combed it since Nora fixed it for her and was halfway hoping her cousin would offer to refresh it. Peyton had no idea how to make a French twist.
“Where is everybody?” she said grumpily to Chloe, who emerged from the kitchen bearing the poisonous chalice of oatmeal. “I hate that stuff, Chloe; you know I do. You wouldn’t dare serve it if Daddy was here.”
“It ain’t your daddy needs fattening up,” Chloe said, banging down the dish in front of Peyton. “Well, lessee—your daddy’s gone to a breakfast meeting of the school board up at the café, and Nora took off early this morning. Say she want to get a look at the town before it has a chance to get a look at her.”
“Did she take the Thunderbird?”
“She sho’ did. You could hear that little old car peeling off a mile away. She got the top down and the radio going full blast, and she singing along with it and smoking a cigarette. Town gon’ get a look at her, all right.”
“They’ll kick her out of here,” Peyton said with obscure satisfaction, not realizing that she hoped this would not happen until after Nora fixed her hair.
“I’spect Nora could kick back right good,�
�� Chloe said. “I hate to be the one who tries to run her off.”
“Somebody will.”
“Yo’ Aunt Augusta ain’t able to do it. Who else in this town as bad as that? Look to me like Nora won that round, all right.”
Peyton grinned unwillingly. “Aunt Augusta sure did sail out of here, didn’t she?”
“Like a ringtailed baboon,” Chloe said.
“You think she’s already told Daddy what Nora said?”
“Oh, I reckon it’s got back to him one way or another. Miss Augusta loaded for bear when she leave out of here.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“Not much of anything, I don’t reckon. Nora too smart to talk like that around your daddy, and he gon’ be right tickled when he hear she run off Miss Augusta. He ain’t gon’ let you know it, though, so you better just lay low about it.”
“Do you know when she’s coming back?” Peyton asked. She did not particularly want to see her marauding cousin, but on the other hand, Nora was almost bound to provide her with fresh fodder for the Losers Club.
“She say she be back late this afternoon. She gon’ take a nap before dinner. We gon’ eat a little early. She going into Atlanta to see a movie later on.”
“What movie? Is Daddy going with her? Am I going?”
“I think she mean to go by herself.”
“All the way up there at night?”
“Nora almost thirty years old,” Chloe said. “She been takin’ care of herself for a lot of years. She done drive that car from one end of this country to the other. I’ spect she be OK at a movie in Atlanta.”
“Huh,” Peyton grumped, but in her mind she could see it: the savage little pink car slicing through the dark fields over to the interstate; Nora with the red hair flaming out behind her, singing, a red peregrine riding the wind toward the smear of light that was the city. Something in her heart squeezed.
It was a strange day in school. Everybody looked at her, but they all looked obliquely, as if she held some sort of power that might smite them to stone if they looked full upon her face. At first Peyton thought it was the miserable hybrid hair, but as the morning wore on she heard none of the secret, sniggling laughter that the hair would have engendered. She was puzzled, but it was a heady feeling, too. Peyton had never felt eyes on her back for any reason other than ridicule.
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