Billie Standish Was Here (4 page)

M
  iss Lydia and I finished cleaning her knickknacks and storing them upstairs. It could have been done in three afternoons, but it took nine because she stopped to tell me the story behind each porcelain figure and engraved souvenir. Mr. Jenkins had worked for the railroad and traveled most of the time up until he retired and Miss Lydia had traveled with him a lot back in the early days of their marriage. It seemed like a lot, anyway, to somebody who had only been to Kansas City three times.

They'd been to Denver and New York City and took a steamboat one time all the way down the Mississippi from St. Paul, Minnesota to New Orleans. She had a story about every place they'd been and described a lot of food I don't think I would have tried, but it did sound interesting.

She asked if I had read
Tom Sawyer
yet and I told her
it hadn't been in any of the classroom libraries I'd encountered so far. “Oh, my,” she told me. “You're in for a treat.” She went on to say that Mr. Jenkins had been a big fan of Mark Twain. I was pretty sure I had heard of him before.

“I would say for Mr. Jenkins the high spot of that whole steamboat ride was the stop in Hannibal,” Miss Lydia told me. “The house Mark Twain grew up in is a museum now, you see, and for Mr. Jenkins it was like stepping inside the pages of his favorite book. There was the tree outside the bedroom window that Mr. Twain and Tom Sawyer both used when they snuck out of the house. There was Becky Thatcher's house, just down the street a piece. We even went into Injun Joe's cave. It was wet and cold and it gave me the shivers but good.”

I didn't know if she was talking about real people or made-up characters or both, but it made me want to get my hands on that book.

She told me how they got to New Orleans just in time for Mardi Gras, a celebration that kicks off Lent and sounds like a cross between Cinderella's ball and a Halloween party for grown-ups. She showed me a little mask covered in peacock feathers that was so old the elastic crumbled when she tried to put it on. So she held it up to her face and told me, “Every day for a week there were parades and costumes and banquet tables loaded with
oysters and crawfish and shrimp and, oh my, it makes my mouth water just to remember. Every night there was another ball with dancing and champagne and even more food. We were completely tuckered out, Mr. Jenkins and I, coming back on the train, but it made for a lifetime of memories. It did that.”

She told me about sleeping in a Pullman car on a Santa Fe Railroad train and how the wheels on the track clickety-clacked in a rhythm and the coach swayed so that it was like being rocked to sleep. The way she described it was almost poetic. I'd never heard such beautiful words coming from someone unless they were reading from a book.

I asked why they stopped traveling and she didn't answer, but such a dark cloud came over her face I changed the subject.

I found out you can learn a lot about history from an old person if you listen. And Miss Lydia could sweep you up into a story so that you could almost see and smell and taste the things she described. It was a lot more interesting than any schooling I'd had.

I told her that and asked if she'd ever thought about teaching. She looked tired all of a sudden and said that her father hadn't believed in educating girls, that he considered it begging the devil for trouble.

I said, “Yeah, I asked Daddy one time what he
thought my chances were for getting into college and he said ‘slim and none.' I thought at first he meant I wasn't smart enough, but then he told me he wasn't gonna throw hard-earned money into the wind when he knew good and well I'd be married and changing diapers before I was twenty.”

Miss Lydia sat with her head down, quiet for so long I thought she had dropped off to sleep. My Grandma Wharton did that, her last few years. Talking along, she'd ask you a question and, before you could finish your answer, she'd be snoring.

But Miss Lydia raised her head and looked me in the eye. “I expect you know I think your daddy has more sense than most of what passes for men in this town.” I nodded and she went on without blinking. “Well, that's not necessarily sayin' much.”

I needed to chew on that a while and Miss Lydia used the time to study her hands in her lap. Then she let out a big breath and said, “Billie Marie, you got rules to follow while you're living under your parents' roof and that's good and that's important. But the fact of the matter is, you're not gonna always live under your folks' roof and nobody in this world has got a right to tell you what you are or aren't gonna do with your life. And the only person who can figure out what you're capable of is you.”

Well. That was a lot bigger picture of my life than I'd ever seen.
I closed my eyes to look at it and she went on.

“I'm not sayin' you got to decide right this second what you want to be when you grow up. I'm just sayin' you don't have to give up the right to make that decision to your daddy or anybody else.”

I nodded. I couldn't think of anything to say, then or for most of the afternoon. We could work together by then without talking, though, and the air wasn't thick like when Mama was mad. I had so much in my head I couldn't have formed a whole sentence that made sense anyway. That night in my room I went another round with the hand mirror, wondering just who that was looking back.

The next day the sun was shining, and Miss Lydia was nearly as giddy about it as I was. It had been wet and gray for so long we'd gotten used to it and almost forgotten what pretty weather was like. I spent the morning trying to make sense of the spindly plants sticking up out of the mud in our garden and at lunch Miss Lydia and I sat on the cistern outside her back door with our plates in our laps and our glasses of tea beside us.

When she had finished, she leaned back on her elbows and squinted at the sky. “This is the kind of day I'd order for St. Swithin's, wouldn't you?” she said.

“Who?” I thought us Catholics pretty much had the market cornered as far as saints go, but that was one I'd never heard of.

Miss Lydia closed her eyes and recited, “St. Swithin's Day, if it does rain, full forty days it will remain. St. Swithin's Day, if it be fair, for forty days t'will rain no more.” She looked at me. “You never heard that?”

I shook my head. “But when is it, Miss Lydia? And what will we do if it does rain that day?” I was looking out over a sea of mud in her garden and the story of Noah was still fresh in my memory.

She chuckled and put her hand on top of my head. I could feel the warmth in my hair as it pressed against my scalp. “Well, now, it's straight-up middle of July, but don't go getting superstitious on me. It doesn't mean a thing, any more than Friday the thirteenth. Anything bad ever happen to you just because the thirteenth of a month fell on a Friday?”

I said, “Nooo.” But I was thinking that didn't mean nothing ever would. Laughing at superstitions was the same as inviting bad luck in my book.

After lunch we agreed we couldn't bear to be cooped up inside, so we worked in her flower garden that afternoon pulling weeds and spent blossoms. Her brogans kept getting sucked into the mud and she finally slogged over to the back step and took off her shoes and stockings. I'd never seen an old person go barefoot before.

She caught me humming and asked what the tune was. It was just an old jump-rope rhyme, but she insisted
I say it out for her. She liked it so much she made me say it again. The third time through she chimed in.

It was downright funny—her chanting, “Cinderella, dressed in yellow, went upstairs to kiss her fella.” She was so serious, like it was really important to get it right. Then she asked if I knew any more. Boy, did I.

She was a fast learner. Like she'd said when she talked about the levee breaking—she had a better memory than most. And she just loved “A my name is Alice.” We went back and forth taking turns with the letters and, without talking about it, started competing to see who could come up with the strangest stuff.

Several times we had to take a giggle break before we could get more words out, like after her “P my name is Pocahontas and I'm gonna marry a Potentate. We're gonna live in Pooterville and sell Pumpkin hammers.” We both very nearly had to change our pants.

Saying out jump-rope rhymes like that, laughing so hard, both of us barefoot—it was just me and my friend that day. All the years between us melted in that bright sunshine.

Our days had turned into a routine. I'd sleep late, do the supper dishes from the night before, then clean house like a whirlwind with the time I had left. A few minutes before noon I'd walk up to the post office and be grunted at by Lewis McEntire, drop our mail off at home and take Miss Lydia hers.

There could have been a tunnel between the post office, Miss Lydia's house, and ours for all else that existed those weeks. Never a movement, any sign of life, never a sound except when Curtis drove by or my folks came home at night. I didn't hear them leave in the morning and they were a couple of dirty zombies when they dragged in. Sometimes I was already asleep and didn't hear them then. I'd count the dirty plates in the sink the next morning to convince myself they'd been there at all.

Miss Lydia would always have a big meal ready and while we ate we'd talk like we hadn't seen each other in months. After the dishes were done, I never knew what was in store.

One day she taught me how to make piecrust and biscuits. When the flour finally settled we both looked like ghosts.

Another day she asked if I knew how to crochet, and I shook my head. “Your mama can, can't she?” she asked. I got the impression Mama was going to lose a lot of points in Miss Lydia's book if I said no.

I answered, “Yeah, she can. But I'm left-handed and she had to give up the one time she tried to show me. She said it was hopeless.” I shrugged.

Miss Lydia stared off into the distance so long I started wondering where she'd gone. Finally she nodded like she'd been listening to somebody. She tilted her head toward a big
upholstered footstool and said, “Bring that over here.” It was a minute before I was sure she was talking to me.

“Put it right there.” She motioned in front of her chair. When I had moved the big beast she leaned forward and patted it, meaning I should sit, while she reached her other hand into the needlework bag on the floor to her side.

She handed me a ball of yarn and a crochet hook and got one of each for herself, then said, “Just pretend I'm in the mirror and do everything I do.”

I didn't start out with very high hopes, but in an hour's time I learned how to make a chain and come back across it in single-crochet stitches. I thought she was pretty smart and told her so.

She bah-humbugged me. “No hill's too big for a climber,” she said, but you could tell she was pleased.

No matter what else we did, we worked on crocheting a little bit every afternoon after that. On days I helped her, she gave me a dollar when I left. I'd saved up about twelve dollars in three weeks' time. Whether it was a work day or not, I took her garbage out last thing. I figured I could at least ease her aggravation with Curtis that small way.

Then I'd make supper and eat in front of the TV, and reheat everything when Mama and Daddy came in after dark. Once in a while I thought about waiting to eat with
them, but it seemed like they were too tired even to talk to one another—and it wasn't like they complained for lack of my company.

I wondered how it was going with the levees, but didn't think I should bring it up in case they'd managed to forget for a few minutes. After talking to Miss Lydia all afternoon I didn't mind being quiet anyway.

One rainy day, Miss Lydia brought out some old picture albums and went through them naming everyone. She had been the youngest of four, the only girl, and had grown up in Sedalia. All news to me.

Sedalia was home to the state fair and I'd only been there once, so it seemed like a big deal to me. That was funny to her for some reason. I asked about her brothers and her voice caught when she told me, “They're gone. All of 'em. Joe went last, eight years ago. The year before I lost Mr. Jenkins.”

I had been beating myself up because I just barely remembered Mr. Jenkins going between the car and house a few times. But if he had died when I was four, I was probably in the clear. I asked what he was like, then wondered if I should have. Speaking up still felt strange.

Miss Lydia turned the page and tapped a picture. It was an old-fashioned brown-tone photo of a bride and groom, the same kind I'd seen in other old albums. The
man is always sitting and the woman stands next to him, her hand on his shoulder and maybe a broom up her behind, stiff as she looks. The clothes in this one looked fancy and expensive.

I stared at the woman's face and pretty soon Miss Lydia showed up in there. It was definitely her eyes and eyebrows, her nose—the only thing different was no wrinkles or smile. These days she looked like she was smiling even when she wasn't—that was how her face had settled into old age.

She had been really pretty and, when I glanced back up at the real thing beside me on the horsehair sofa, I realized she still was. You just don't think about an old person being pretty, but there it was.

I studied Mr. Jenkins but couldn't tell much except his eyes looked honest and he grew a whopper of a mustache. I looked back to Miss Lydia and waited.

“Avery,” she said. There was so much just in the way she said his name. The connection between her eyes and the picture on the page seemed as real as something I could touch. Then it faded like smoke as she came back to the present day.

“He was a good man,” she said. I told her I could tell and her smile got bigger. “If you ever decide to get married, I hope it's because you've found a man as fine as my Avery.”

If?
If
I decided to get married? The only women I
knew who had never married were either butt ugly or leaning heavily toward crazy. Staying single hadn't exactly been a choice.