Fireflies in December (23 page)

“Don’t you kid about that. I’m serious!”

“If I jumped out this here window, I’d land on the kitchen roof. Most I’d do is twist an ankle.” I wiped my runny nose with the back of my hand. “Good grief, Gemma Teague, you do beat all.”

“You’ve been all nerves and jitters lately, and now you’re all upset like this. Can’t see as how I shouldn’t think you might be up to somethin’ bad.”

“Life ain’t so bad I’d kill myself.”

Gemma pushed the door until it opened about six inches. I could have kept her out, but I let her open it, figuring I’d put her mind at ease. I thought she was being crazy, but even in my state, I didn’t want her fretting about me dying.

“You ain’t got nothin’ in here you can hurt yourself with, do you?” she asked, stepping into the room, going straight over to the medicine chest.

“Don’t think I can kill myself with Daddy’s stomach pills,” I told her. “They’re nearly just candy peppermints, anyhow.”

She ignored me and continued to turn bottles around for inspection.

“Ain’t likely I can kill myself with bandages, hair oil, or perfumed powder neither,” I said with a sigh. I held the door open widely for her. “Can you leave me be now?”

“I heard of someone that done choked on powder before.” Gemma held the bottle up and shook it to determine how much was left.

“Oh, you did not,” I said with a smirk. “Ain’t nobody ever choked on powder.”

“Did too! Old Mr. Donley broke old Mrs. Donley’s bottle of rose powder, and he inhaled so much of it he died the next day. It coated his lungs.”

“Old Mr. Donley was close to a hundred years old. He died of a heart attack.”

“Wouldn’t have had a heart attack if he didn’t breathe in that powder.”

I thought her story was ridiculous, and I was finding her intrusion particularly irritating now. “Just shut on up and get outta here.”

We glared at each other, mostly because neither of us liked being bossed around, and here we were doing just that to each other.

“I’m takin’ the powder with me,” Gemma said adamantly.

I have no idea why I didn’t want her to. I certainly had no plans to smother myself with it. But the very idea that she was so certain I might try got me angry. “No, you ain’t, neither,” I said, grabbing the bottle.

She never let go, and we both had our hands on the powder, tugging away.

“You ain’t keepin’ it, I’m tellin’ you,” Gemma growled.

“Let go!”

“No! You let go. I was here first.”

“Jessie, just let go, and I’ll leave you be.”

“No!”

We pulled and argued for another thirty seconds, and for the life of me I have no idea how Momma and Daddy didn’t tear into us for making such a ruckus. But we stood there fussing, tripping toward each other and then away from each other with each tug on the bottle. That is until I gave it one last good tug that pulled Gemma forward quickly enough to cause powder to fly out of the pinhead-size holes in the bottle, sending a white cloud through the bathroom with a great poof.

We both started to cough, and I waved my hand through the air, my eyes shut to keep the powder out. Gemma dropped the powder bottle into the sink and started shrieking, pushing me desperately. We both stumbled out into the hall, covered in white.

“Quit pushin’ me,” I yelled when I regained my stability. “You tryin’ to kill me yourself?”

“We had to get outta there,” she argued. “I ain’t gonna let us die like old Mr. Donley.”

I shook my head and coughed one more time. “This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done,” I said, brushing white from my dungarees.

Gemma didn’t say a thing. She just cleared her throat about five times and then let her tongue hang out like Duke when he was hot.

“What’re you doin’?” I asked.

“I can’t breathe right,” she gasped.

“Don’t be stupid!”

“I can’t!”

“Well, I’m breathin’ just fine.”

Gemma staggered about the hallway like the sky was falling, clutching her chest.

Her wild actions made me nervous, and I grabbed one of her arms to stop her. “Calm down. You’re scarin’ me.”

“Should be scared,” she managed to grunt. She backed up against the wall and slid down to the floor, gasping for air.

Her expression made me forget about how put out I was with her, and I started screaming for Momma.

Within seconds, both Momma and Daddy flew up the stairs with loud footsteps, Luke on their heels, all bandaged and patched.

“What’s goin’ on?” Daddy looked strangely at my powder-covered face before spotting Gemma on the floor. He squatted in front of her. “What’s wrong with Gemma?”

“She can’t breathe,” I cried. “She’s chokin’!”

“On what?” Momma asked.

“On perfume powder.”

“Perfume powder?” all three of them asked at once.

Daddy had Gemma’s face cupped between his hands, and he turned to look at me. “How do you mean she’s chokin’ on perfume powder? She try eatin’ it?”

“No, we were fightin’ over the bottle, and I yanked it, and Gemma went flyin’, and then powder just went everywhere, and she inhaled it like old Mr. Donley, and now she’s suffo-catin’ ’cause it’s coated her lungs,” I said in one long breath, ending my explanation on a high, screeching note.

“You didn’t swallow any powder, Gemma?” Daddy asked.

“No,” I answered for her. “But she sucked it up into her lungs.”

“Sadie, get the girl a glass of water,” Daddy said, dropping onto one knee. “Gemma, take a good breath in, girl, and calm down.”

“She can’t,” I said. “She’s dyin’, just like old Mr. Donley.”

Luke put his arm around my shoulder. “She’ll be fine. Don’t you worry none.”

Momma came back and managed to get Gemma to put her tongue back in her mouth long enough to take a sip of water.

“Old Mr. Donley,” Momma said as Gemma drank, “died because he was ninety-eight years old, girls. It had nothin’ to do with suckin’ in powder.”

At the time, it seemed to me that the water had healing properties to it, because after that one sip, Gemma’s eyes crawled back into the sockets where they belonged.

“He didn’t die from powder?” I asked, my voice calmer with the relief of seeing Gemma’s face relax.

Daddy scratched his head and took a deep breath. “I done lived thirty-nine years, and I ain’t yet heard of a man who up and died from breathin’ in powder.”

“Only thing you were sufferin’ from,” Momma told Gemma, “was worryin’. You’re just fine.”

We were all quiet for the next thirty seconds as we watched Gemma take a few more gulps of water and start to figure out how to breathe like normal again.

I broke the silence when I realized I’d been in a panic over nothing. “You mean I was all scared and bothered over you for nothin’?” I yelled at Gemma.

“Now, Jessie, hold on up there,” Luke said.

“But she had me afraid she was gonna die just ’cause of some stupid story.”

“She ain’t done it on purpose.”

“Gemma, I done told you that was nothin’ but a tall tale. You done got me whipped up over nothin’. Ain’t I got enough troubles?” I held my hands out in front of me and said, “And look at me! I’m covered in powder ’cause you wouldn’t leave me alone.” I smacked my dungarees and watched the cloud of white form around my legs.

Gemma took one look at me in that cloud of dust and burst out laughing.

I stared at her. “What’re you laughin’ at, Gemma Teague?”

She didn’t have enough breath in her to respond, and it wasn’t much time before Momma, Daddy, and Luke found themselves joining in.

I was livid. “Y’all think it’s so funny I got myself lathered up and worried about everythin’? I got too many worries for any girl these days, and the only thing you can do is laugh at me?”

But no one seemed to care much about my nerves, and I stood there in that hallway with my arms crossed, listening to them laugh at my distress.

Finally Gemma stood and came over to me, taking my hands in hers. “Sorry.”

When she spoke, a little leftover powder blew off from her lips, and I regarded her frosted face. “You look like one of Momma’s powdered cakes with that stuff on your face.”

“Bad?” she asked.

“You’re ’bout white enough to be a Lassiter.” I put my arm around her and said with as much of a laugh as I could muster, “You fit in just fine now.”

Chapter 20

From the day Daddy found out about Walt’s threats, I had been shadowed every minute, and not because it was thought I would kill myself with perfume powder. Daddy made up a schedule of sorts that would make it possible for me to be accompanied wherever I went. The schedule hung on the kitchen wall and said such things as:

Gemma on normal days:

11 a.m. to 2 p.m. School days: 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Luke: Tuesdays, Thursdays:

6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Walk to school on school days.

Momma and Daddy had their own times on the list too. It was a ridiculous list, and it flapped in the breeze that came through the window that morning, taunting me all through breakfast. On that first day of school, September weather had come on the heels of the rains, leaving the air crisp and breezy with ominous clouds that brought a somber atmosphere.

As his scheduled duty, Luke was to walk me to school since it was on his way to the tobacco factory, and Daddy had insisted on driving Gemma because he didn’t feel she was much safer alone than I was. I reveled a bit in knowing I wasn’t the only one being followed around, although she had it much easier than I did.

Gemma and I had both been worried that morning, but neither of us wanted to say anything. We were quiet from the time we stretched and got out of bed to the time she said good-bye through the truck window. I sadly watched her go, wishing life were fairer and we could go to school at the same place. We could have used each other as allies that day. But then I figured that if life were fairer, my summer would have been easy, Gemma’s momma and daddy would still be with us, and Luke Talley would be madly in love with me by now.

Life simply was not fair.

When Luke walked around the corner whistling, I just nodded a hello and shuffled down the porch steps, calling to Momma that I was leaving. I grimaced when I saw the dark red cast of the bruises around Luke’s eyes and along his cheekbones, but I didn’t bring it up. Knowing Luke, he wouldn’t want to discuss it anymore.

We had gone about a half mile when Luke said, “You sure are quiet this morning.”

“Ain’t got much to say, I suppose.”

“Scared about school?”

I whipped my head around. “I ain’t scared of nothin’!”

He whistled through his teeth. “Don’t go gettin’ antsy on me, now. I was just makin’ conversation.”

I looked at the path ahead of us and kicked a pebble that skipped four times before splashing into a rain-filled hole.

Another quarter of a mile passed before he spoke again. “You be okay at that school?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’ve gone there every year without any trouble.”

“Ain’t the same now, and you know it.”

It irritated me that he was bringing up a sore subject, but I fought down the inclination to be harsh. Instead I shrugged and said, “Ain’t much to be done about it. Things will be like whatever they’ll be like, and I’ll just have to deal with it.”

It was Luke’s turn to kick a pebble, but his rocketed about four feet off the ground and sailed ahead into the bushes at the side of the road. “Ain’t right a girl’s got troubles like this,” he said, his voice laced with frustration. “It just ain’t right!”

I smiled at the angry creases I saw on his face. The very fact that Luke Talley was upset for me put an extra spring in my step, and though we said little else on the rest of our journey, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

When the school came into sight, I slowed my pace, but we still reached it far too quickly. Most of the kids were already there, talking noisily in groups scattered across the weed-ridden schoolyard. The boys were separated into four groups, the girls into six, and there wasn’t one to which I felt I belonged.

I took one deep breath and steadied myself. “Guess I best get goin’.”

Luke took me by the shoulders, and though I was tall for my age, he slumped so he could look me square in the eye. “You have any trouble, you get to the teacher and let her know, you hear?”

“You askin’ me to tell tales?” I asked with a snip in my voice. “Ain’t nobody here that tells tales don’t get picked on. Ain’t I got enough troubles already?”

“You already got troubles; that’s right. That’s why I’m tellin’ you to get to your teacher if anybody gives you trouble.”

I didn’t see me doing any such thing, but I smiled at him to make him feel better.

He took my smile as an agreement and stood up straight. “Now,” he said, tucking my arm into his, “let’s get you on inside.”

I hadn’t expected him to walk me any farther, and when he started leading me past the groups of girls, I knew he was trying to help me out by being seen with me. There wasn’t a faster way to get respect from the girls than to be seen on the arm of a good-looking older boy, and he knew it.

I didn’t know if his plan would work, all things considered, but I didn’t try to stop him. The way I saw it, even if his plan fell dead flat, it was worth it all the while. As we walked by, heads turned, those of both boys and girls, their interest likely being in more than my alliance with Luke.

I’d always been the tomboy amid the real girls, so I had never attracted much attention from anyone of any sex. I just fell somewhere in the middle of things. But now I was learning what it was like to be the center of attention among my peers. I was quickly becoming sure that I didn’t like it.

The bell rang as I mounted the steps to the school, and I turned to look at Luke. “Well,” I said, my voice catching in a sort of hiccup. I cleared my throat and continued, “Guess I gotta go in.”

“You remember what I said now.” He tucked a stray bit of hair behind my ear and grinned. “You’ll be fine. I feel it in my bones.”

His sweet touch had thrilled me enough that I believed in his optimistic prediction for the first five minutes of being in that musty school, but it only took until I found my seat and got my pencil out to have the trouble start.

“You can’t sit there,” I heard Matt Cokely say. I thought he was talking to me, and I looked up, ready to challenge him. But I quickly found that he was talking to Cy Fuller’s daughter, Missy, who had sat at a desk beside me.

“What for?” she asked.

“You gonna sit next to a nigger lover?”

Even though my heart was racing, I glared at Matt, not saying a word.

Being a little backward, Missy didn’t seem to fully understand the boy. More to the point, she probably had no idea why he was talking to her at all, because with his good looks and popularity, he wasn’t the type of boy who would normally talk to a homely girl like her. That was the beauty of this prejudice, I was quickly discovering. It spanned a wide range of social classes.

For my part, all I kept thinking was how Missy had sat down next to the girl who may very well have killed her daddy, and I cringed when she turned to study my face. I knew she was mulling over Matt’s words, but I imagined she was picturing me with a rifle in my hand, her daddy’s blood spilling out on my front lawn. The searing guilt stung like a hornet, and it was all I could do to keep from telling her how sorry I was. Only she didn’t know what I was sorry for.

Missy shot me an uncertain look before she moved herself and her things to another seat. I smiled at her awkwardly so she wouldn’t think I was mad at her. After all, if I’d killed her daddy, she had every right to keep as far away from me as possible.

Matt simply stared at me a moment more, his head wobbling in a way that I assumed was meant to show me how clever he thought he was. Then he took a seat two rows in front of me.

I had chosen a seat at the back of the class in hopes of attracting less attention, and not one seat was taken on either side of me. Most of the children seemed to have very definite opinions about me, but the ones who didn’t followed along with the rest in ignorance.

My teachers weren’t much better. Except for Mrs. Polk, my English teacher, each one of them treated me as though I were nonexistent. Whenever I heard a teacher say, “You there,” I knew they were referring to me, the “nigger lover” in the back row.

Their rejection of me worked in favor of my education, though. In those first few days, I focused more on my schoolwork than I ever had. When I had my nose in a schoolbook, the rest of the class, their snickers and gibes, all faded into the background.

Each day I spent the dinner break under a willow tree behind the school, while the other children crowded around in groups in the schoolyard. I took one of Miss Cleta’s novels to school with me and spent the half hour reading fantastical stories while I ate.

On Friday, I had gone through the looking glass with Alice and was paying no attention to what went on around me when a familiar voice interrupted my serenity.

“I can think of better things for a girl like you to be doin’ than readin’ stories.”

I snapped my book shut as though I were writing in my diary and wanted to keep it from prying eyes, then looked up. Walt Blevins was leaning against a tree about fifteen feet away, his thumbs resting in the belt loops of his pants.

“I can teach you better’n books, little girl,” he said with a grin. “Anytime you want to learn, you just come to me.”

I packed my things and stood to leave, but Walt blocked my way in an instant.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, my emotions frayed.

He laughed. “Now, you’re old enough to know about that. And anything you don’t know, I can teach.”

I stepped to the right, but he followed, so I stepped back to my left. He blocked my way each time. We were like two clumsy, unwilling dance partners.

“Stop!” I cried desperately after two tries to elude him. “I just want you to stop! What did we ever do to you?”

“What’d you do? Girl, it’s people like you who threaten me and every law-abidin’ citizen in this country.”

“Why? There ain’t nothin’ we’ve done that goes against the law. We ain’t hurt no one.”

Walt leaned in and lowered his voice. “From what I hear, you hurt someone enough that he ain’t breathin’ no more. And this—” he pulled his shirt aside to reveal the bullet wound I’d gifted him with—“this ain’t no beauty mark. As I remember it, it hurt more’n a little.”

“You deserved that. You know what I’m talkin’ about. I’m sayin’ we ain’t hurt no one by havin’ Gemma with us.”

“Well then, that’s your opinion, ain’t it? That’s all. Thing is, it’s you and your kind that make niggers out to be the same as white folks, and that ain’t good for no one.”

“Why not? You give me one good reason.”

Walt shook his head slowly, grinning like I was the stupidest thing he’d ever seen. “Girl, they don’t belong in civilized society. Ain’t you figured that out yet? We white men got to protect what’s ours. We made this country, and we ain’t like to let them take what’s rightfully ours.”

“The color of someone’s skin don’t make ’em any less a person,” I argued. “God made us all for a reason.”

“But He ain’t made us all the same, pretty girl.” He took my book and tipped my chin up with it. “Don’t take nothin’ but one look at you to prove that.”

I snatched the book from his grimy hands. “Let me by. I have to get back to school.”

“Don’t rush off now . . .”

Walt reached for me, and my skin prickled with terror. My entire body tensed in dreaded anticipation and my mind reeled, searching for a solution to my problem. I was so preoccupied by my circumstances that the sudden clang of the school bell made me jump, but it was the very thing that saved me.

“They’ll be expectin’ me inside,” I told him with a broken voice. “You want them comin’ out to look for me?”

He backed up and made a motion ushering me by. “Don’t let me stop you, princess. I ain’t never gotten in the way of good ol’ book learnin’.”

I rushed to get past him, but he stuck a foot out to stop me momentarily.

“You do me one favor and get a message to your daddy for me,” Walt whispered in my ear. “You tell him he best not go pushin’ his ideas on other people if he wants his family to keep out of trouble. And you tell that Luke Talley to keep his dirty hands out of my business.”

I ignored his words and sidestepped his booted foot.

But he caught me by the arm and stuck his face into my hair. “You have fun bakin’ them pies last night? Blackberry, I hear they was.”

My whole body froze, prickles racing up my spine.

“That’s right. I get good information. You think you’s alone out at that farm?” he asked. “No ma’am. There’s eyes on you. It just ain’t the eyes you’d expect, is all.”

I wrenched away from him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his face.

Walt smirked at my terror. “Done got you scared now, ain’t I? Well, you can’t be too careful these days. You best take my warnin’.”

I managed to get my feet to move, and with one last bit of fight, I avoided his grasping hands and ran.

“You just remember,” he called as I fled into the school, “I got eyes and ears everywhere. I know what you’re up to day and night.”