Beholding Bee (12 page)

50

Ralph’s Market is a small grocery on Main Street between the post office and Sam’s Drugs. Across the street is Roberta’s Dress Shoppe and beside that is a Woolworth’s. Paper signs hang from all the grocery windows:
VICKS VAPORUB 59 CENTS, CAMPBELL’S TOMATO SOUP 25 CENTS/3 CANS, COFFEE 85 CENTS/2 LBS, IVORY SOAP 35 CENTS/2 BARS, AND EGGS 64 CENTS A DOZEN
.

The street bustles with folks. I cover my face with my hair. There’s a new hole in the bottom of my work boots and the stones on the side of the road cut at my feet.

Mrs. Potter hands me a black leather envelope held together with a thick rubber band. It is worn through in some places and is very heavy with bills. “Make sure you count the money exactly. Don’t let them take it from you before you count everything twice. Or three times would be even better.” She raises an eyebrow to make sure I am listening.

I look up at her quickly. “Aren’t you coming in?”

Mrs. Potter shakes her head. “I’ll stay out here with Peabody. Lie down,” she tells him, and he stands there wagging his stumpy tail. She pulls a tea biscuit from her pocket and holds it up. He flops down. “Get more biscuits,” she tells me.

Three teenage boys in white T-shirts walk out of the store and light their cigarettes. I pull my hair tight. I’ve never been in a store without Pauline.

The boys in the white T-shirts lean against the side of
the building. One blows little smoke rings in the air. All three are watching me.

“But why can’t you come in?” I glance back at Mrs. Potter and Peabody. Mrs. Potter waves me on. “They don’t let dogs in markets, Bee.”

I hold my hair tight as a bedsheet. I count my steps—fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.
Don’t look at them, don’t look at them, don’t look at them
. When I have counted twenty-two steps, I am past the boys and I grab the door and hurry inside.

There are plump oranges on the shelf and peaches so ripe I know they will melt in my mouth as soon as they meet my tongue. I load some of each into my cart, along with three fat lemons for my face. There are emerald-colored green beans and romaine lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers and green peppers and Swiss chard. I take a bunch of each. I pass the turnips, zucchini, and collard greens because when you are in charge of the grocery shopping, you get to buy what you like.

Sometimes Bobby would pull the truck over at a diner because French toast made Pauline’s eyes glisten, and we ordered big stacks with strawberries on top, so I pick up all the ingredients: bread, milk, eggs, butter, cinnamon, and strawberries. Since I have no ration stamps and folks at the Ration Board would ask too many questions about why I don’t have a mama or a papa, I take honey, but not sugar. I get new tea for Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Potter, a bag of dog food for Peabody, and new tea biscuits.

Pauline taught me to make tomato sandwiches, and I like those very much. You need ripe tomatoes and thick heavy bread and also some mayonnaise and some mustard.
And you need salt. I go back three aisles for salt because if Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Swift have any, it is sure to be hard as brick.

And that’s the aisle where all the makings for a cake are staring me in the face. So, I do what any girl who loves cake would do: I pick up flour and a little bottle of vanilla, and while I am there I pick up a
Rumford Sugarless Recipes
pamphlet and flip through it: special cake, honey cake, cupcakes with sugarless frosting, apple corn muffins, banana cake, honey spice cake.

I put the pamphlet into my cart and go back for corn syrup because all the cakes use that instead of sugar. I pick up a chicken and a few other supper things and some rice, since I like rice very much. Then I wheel my cart to the cash register.

I used to have Pauline to help me do this, but now I have to put the groceries on the counter myself. This is not easy when you are trying to keep your hair pulled tight. Pick up the flour, put it on the counter, reach for the eggs. Pick up the vanilla, put it on the counter, reach for the milk.

Two ladies are behind me now, with full carts. I feel them getting frustrated with how slow I am going. I know they are rolling their eyes. The boys in the T-shirts walk back into the store. That’s when I reach for the eggs and drop them.

“Oh, heavens,” says the lady behind me, and I start cleaning up a dozen broken eggs with my hands, my hair no longer covering my diamond, my eyes full. I do not look at the boys.

When I get the broken eggs back in the carton and up on the counter, the cashier looks at my face like it is a painting on a wall to be looked at. I keep blinking my eyes to
clear my tears as I reach in the envelope for a pile of money and hand it to her, without counting.

I try to be brave but as soon as I get outside, Mrs. Potter pulls me close. Her shawl smells very old with my nose crushed against it.

“Don’t give heed to those who stare, Bee,” she says, lifting my chin and looking in my eyes. “Be proud of who you are.”

The tears really start tumbling then, and Peabody jumps so he can sniff at the shopping bags, and Mrs. Potter turns us toward home. I wipe my eyes with my shirt and carry the groceries. Peabody skips at my feet and Mrs. Potter shuffles behind, muttering to herself.

I do wonder about all the folks we pass on the sidewalk who are in such a hurry they cannot give extra room to an old lady who limps so.

51

Cordelia is squealing and grunting and making quite a racket when we get home, so Peabody and I head right out to see what’s wrong.

I pick Peabody up and walk through the gate. Cordelia’s food bucket is still full of tea biscuits. We go inside her shed, where she is flopped on the straw.

“What’s the matter?” I whisper, kneeling beside her and rubbing her neck and scratching her back like she likes awful well.

She drops her head on her front legs. I look at Peabody. He has taken to sniffing her all over.

“Stop that,” I tell him.

The shed smells like sweet straw. Pauline was wrong. Pigs don’t smell bad at all if you give them a clean place to live. Cordelia knows enough to do her business outside away from her bed and her food bucket. Pigs are smart that way.

“Why aren’t you eating? Do you miss LaVerne, Big Ben, and Vivian?” I whisper. “And Bobby?”

Cordelia closes her eyes from all my scratching. “Me too. I miss Bobby very much. And Pauline.”

I scratch Cordelia along the back. “I don’t know why Pauline couldn’t see how beautiful you are.” Peabody flops down beside Cordelia and licks the side of her face and then along her split ear. I like the way her light-colored lashes
blink up at me. Pigs are really beautiful if you give them half a chance. Pauline was wrong about a lot of things.

I sit back on my heels. There’s nothing like a little pig to help you forget how bad you are feeling about things.

I notice while Peabody is lying there that he is looking a little thin through the belly from eating nothing but biscuits.

“Come on,” I say, standing up, “let’s go get something for you and Cordelia to eat. I think you’re both hungry.”

When we get inside, Mrs. Potter is waving a plate at Mrs. Swift’s skirt. Tiny flames are flickering at the hem and each time Mrs. Potter swings the plate, the sparks jump.

I scream and pick up a heavy kitchen towel and throw it on top of the flames and then scoop up the water pitcher from the table and fling water all over her skirt.

“Oh my, oh my, oh my,” Mrs. Swift says as Mrs. Potter helps her over to a chair, her skirt still smoking.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Mrs. Potter tells her. “It seems I’ve forgotten some things.”

I stand there unbelieving. I bend down and lift Mrs. Swift’s smoking skirt. Under all her petticoats, she wears woolen stockings so long and thick that I can’t see a bit of skin.

“Don’t worry, Bee. I’m not burned. All this wool protected me. I’ll just go change my skirt.” She stands and totters a bit and needs Mrs. Potter to help her up the stairs.

I am left in the kitchen with just Peabody, wondering about the two of them and about how good they really are at taking care of a girl, her pig, and her dog.

52

After that I take over all the cooking. Otherwise I will starve.

Each day I read one of the old cookbooks I find in the back of the big wooden cupboard by the table and then make something.

I mash potatoes to go with the plump chicken and the next day I try chicken hash. Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Potter aren’t much interested in cooking or eating. While I am in the kitchen, Mrs. Swift usually hurries into the library to work.

We hear her sputtering and cursing quite a bit. Mrs. Potter tells me that Mrs. Swift is very angry about some of the things that were written about her, so she is trying to straighten things out by writing her autobiography.

“Oh?” I am interested immediately.

“She’s got to, Bee. You can’t trust those biographers to get it right. Good heavens, they have been writing all these years that when she spoke out against slavery and for women’s rights one hundred years ago, the crowd threw apples at her. They threw their Bibles!”

I think maybe she is kidding. Mrs. Swift is old, but she can’t be that old. I look to see if Mrs. Potter is fibbing, but she has already gone back to teaching Peabody to balance a biscuit on his nose. He is not very good at this trick; he keeps eating the biscuit.

“Beatrice, come in here!”

I wipe my hands on the kitchen towel and go in and see what Mrs. Swift wants.

There are so many books piled high on her desk that I have to walk around to see her. She runs a magnifying glass over the sentences in a thick black book. “I did know what this means, but I don’t anymore. Look it up for me, Bee.”

“Look up what?”

“
Equivocation
. In that dictionary over there.” She points to a book that is so big it sits on a stand in the corner of the room.

Mrs. Potter drops onto the sofa. Peabody jumps on her lap.

“ ‘She has a particular talent for equivocation.’ Darned if I remember what that means. Do you?” She looks up at Mrs. Potter, who shakes her head.

“My memory isn’t what it used to be,” says Mrs. Potter, scratching Peabody behind the ears.

“Well, what’s taking so long, Beatrice?”

The truth is, I have never used a dictionary. I squint, pretending I am having trouble seeing all the words.

“Just go to the Es and then go to Eq. I would do it myself but the letters are so small in that book. Why they do that is beyond me.”

I flip the pages until all the words begin with
E
and then I look for
Eq
.

“Here, use this.” Mrs. Swift hands me the magnifying glass. Now I have no excuse.

“E-q-u-i-v-o-c-a-t-i-o-n,” she says.

It takes me quite a bit of time, but I finally find the word.
“I have it!” I say, and Peabody jumps up, because he can hear the excitement in my voice.

“Well, what does it mean?” asks Mrs. Swift, pushing her spectacles up on her nose.

“The act of being intentionally vague, ambiguous, or evasive, especially with the intent to deceive.”

“Oh my,” says Mrs. Potter. “That is not very kind.”

“Blasted fool!” Mrs. Swift shoves the book onto the floor. “See why I need to rewrite all this? I don’t have an evasive bone in my body. And I don’t waffle, either. When something needs to be said, I say it. When something needs to be done, I do it. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Potter?”

Mrs. Potter chuckles. “Yes, Abigail. Ever since you were a girl you have spoken your mind.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to hide and do nothing. Slavery was wrong, I said so. Women’s rights needed to be fought for, and I did. If you hide, you become no one in particular. Who wants to be nobody at all?”

She looks over at me. “Isn’t that right, Beatrice?”

53

Mrs. Potter teaches Peabody to beg (which he puts up with) and play hide-and-seek with a biscuit. One thing about Peabody, he knows when somebody is hiding something.

When he gets tired of biscuits, Mrs. Potter goes over and looks at the wall by the stove. Then she limps down to the basement and comes back up with a big ax.

“I know it was right here,” she says, looking at the wall. Then she swings and whacks at the wall, sending wall dust all up and over my pot of mashed potatoes.

“What are you doing? You’re getting it all over everything.” I hurry and cover the pot.

Mrs. Potter takes another swing. She might limp, but her arms are strong. Plaster crumbles and wall dust billows into the room. I cover all the pots and put everything in the icebox as old plaster crumbles to the floor. There is dust everywhere. I have to wipe it off the cookbook.

“What does it matter if there was a fireplace there? We have a
STOVE NOW
.”

Mrs. Potter whacks again, sending an enormous cloud of white powder across my nose. Peabody runs out of the room. We are still coughing when Mrs. Swift comes in from the library asking what all the racket is about. “Could you wait and do that later?”

“No, I cannot. I know the fireplace is back here.”

“This is ridiculous,” I say, looking at the hole in the wall.
Mrs. Potter huffs and puffs. She swings again and then goes over to sit down.

“Water, please,” she croaks.

I get her a glass from the pitcher and put it in front of her. She gulps it quickly and asks for more.

“Go look!” Mrs. Potter points to the small hole she made in the wall.

I go over and look. It is very dark inside the wall, but I can make out the outline of blackened brick.

She grins. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that fireplace.” She gulps more water. There is a sparkle in her eye.

When we finally get the plaster cleaned up and sit down to supper, they play at their food, rolling it around and around their plates with their forks.

“Don’t you like it?” My cheeks are filled with mashed potatoes.

“It’s delicious, Bee,” says Mrs. Potter.

“Quite good,” says Mrs. Swift, rolling her carrots into her potatoes.

“Well, why aren’t you eating?”

They look at each other and then away. I look at Peabody. He has finished everything on his plate except for the carrots and is waiting for more. I spoon more chicken onto his plate and set it on the floor.