Hidden Hearts (26 page)

“What do you want for Christmas, Pops?”

His face softened. He loved getting gifts from me and Will. “I hadn’t thought about it. I’m sure whatever you come up with will be fine.”

He winked at me and returned to his paper. When I glanced at Mama, her face hidden behind her coffee cup, she winked too.

****

Pops hung around the house on Christmas Eve fixing the things he’d neglected with Will as his assistant. I realized I’d never get a chance to see Kiah. I moped about my room, drawing and listening to a jazz album Mac had given me. I loved jazz and bopped to the beat while I colored my latest drawing of a tree frog.

Over the wail of Charlie Parker’s horn I didn’t hear the ladder clunk against the side of the house.

“What in the hell are you doing listening to that nigger music?”

I fell out of my chair and landed next to the bed. Pops’ face sat in the window, his upper body edging through. He wore an awful sneer as he reached over to my record player and slapped the needle. A high-pitched scratch warbled through the speaker, and I felt sick. How could I ever tell Mac?

I quickly retrieved the record and put it back in the sleeve carefully. 

“Give it to me,” he said.

I held it to my chest. “It’s not mine.”

He motioned for it, and I knew better than to argue. He charged down the ladder and pounded on Mac’s door. When Mac appeared, he thrust the album at him and poked him in the chest. He was at least a head taller, but Mac had a good fifty pounds on him. He kept poking and pointing while Mac stood there silently. Finally Pops made a little sweeping motion with his hand, as if he was excusing him, and Mac went back in the cabin and closed the door. He stood on their porch for a long while, his head hung and his hands on his hips. I saw motion from the corner of my eye and Mama leaving the sun porch and returning to the kitchen.

I stayed in my room the rest of the day. I kept looking at Kiah’s cabin longingly, hoping she missed me as much as I missed her. We’d had so many wonderful plans for Christmas and now they were ruined. At dinner no one said anything, and by nightfall Mama was out on the sun porch, smoking her cigarette and drinking vodka. I gazed at her through my window wondering if she was as disappointed as I was. I knew Kiah wouldn’t dare visit with Pops around, so all I could do was stare toward the point where the sky touched all of the little roofs that were popping up beyond the row of trees that separated our property from the subdivision. It was hard to believe that over a year had gone by since Mr. Rubenstein had appeared.

I heard a creak and saw Kiah’s front door open. Mac stepped out holding his pipe and tobacco. He leaned against the porch post and his face glowed as he struck the match and started to puff. Then he was a black man in the dark night. I could tell from the way he stood that he was facing Mama, watching her. She was illuminated by the soft bulb of the floor lamp that we kept on the porch, and she seemed to be staring at him too. I glanced back and forth but neither held up a friendly hand or called across the yard. They had a conversation without words, and I suddenly realized it was private and I was an intruder.

****

It may have been my imagination but when the four of us walked into Faith Lutheran Church, everyone turned and whispered. It had been months since Pops and Will had joined us and while Mama always had an excuse for their absence—Pops was working extra hours or Will was sick—people just nodded in kindness. She squeezed my arm as if she knew how painful this was, but Pops didn’t blink an eye. Will looked mighty uncomfortable and kept tugging at his tie, and I noticed when Pops motioned him into a pew next to another family, the father quickly changed places with his teenage daughter. Will Battle was now a boy with a bad reputation. Everyone knew that.

While the pastor talked about why Christmas was the greatest day of the year, I decided I couldn’t disagree more. Mama had run out on Christmas Eve to get Pops presents from all of us—a hammer, a set of wrenches and a new tie, which I knew he hated and he knew
she
hated it too. He’d gotten me a sketchbook, Will a Zippo lighter so he’d look cool when he smoked and Mama a bottle of his favorite perfume. We’d gone through the motions, each thanking one another politely. The whole charade lasted about fifteen minutes before we gave up and went to our own corners of the house.

When the service finally ended we followed the procession
outside. Groups of men clustered together, and Pops sidled up next
to his drinking buddy Hughie Larch. Mama flashed a Hollywood smile and joined the sewing circle ladies. She commented on Agnes’s Christmas dress, which gained her invitation into the group. She was smooth. There was no doubt about it.

I sat on a retaining wall that bordered the back of the church property, admiring the way she could make the best of any situation. They talked like they were the best of friends, but on the wall, where I couldn’t hear the constant flatteries and little comments, I saw the truth. Whenever she spoke, they all gritted their teeth, especially Mary Rose, Billy’s mama. They gave her the respectful attention deserved of a speaker and then their heads turned away quickly once she’d finished a paragraph.

I was plotting a way to see Kiah that night after Pops had finished a few scotches, when hands gripped my shoulders and pulled me backward into a shallow ditch. I looked up at Billy Smith—and Will. When I tried to stand up, Billy pushed me down. My shoulder hit a concrete pipe jutting out from the ditch, and I yelped in pain.

“Will tells me you’re a nigger lover,” he said.

I wouldn’t answer so he dropped dirt clods on me. I knew if I tried to get up, he’d just shove me down again, so I laid there and took it. I could see Will’s face, but he wouldn’t look at me. He was watching Billy, his hands jammed in his pockets. When Billy ran out of clods, he grabbed a long stick and pressed it against my chest.

“No boy is ever gonna want you, Vivi. You’re too ugly to look at.”

“Is that what your boyfriend tells you?” I asked with a grin.

“You bitch,” he snarled and smacked my face with the stick.

I felt blood running down my cheek behind my ear.

“No, Billy,” Will said firmly.

He pulled the stick away and tossed it back in the ditch. Infuriated, Billy gave him a hard shove, but he didn’t pick up the stick again. I guessed there would always be a part of him that was afraid of Will. Instead he hacked a loogie in my face before he stepped away.

“C’mon, Will,” he said, heading out of the ditch. “Let’s go steal some plum wine in honor of the holiday.”

Will didn’t move. Billy stopped walking when he realized Will wasn’t following. “Let’s go, Battle!
Quit
bein’ a pussy!” he shouted before heading for the street.

Will helped me up and handed me his handkerchief.

“Why?” I asked.

It was a question I’d been dying to ask him for months. Where had my brother gone? Why wasn’t he ever there anymore? Why didn’t he love me and Mama? Why had he dropped out of school and become friends with a boy he’d hated?

The look on his face was the old Will, the one who cared. “Everybody’s talkin’, Vivi. You and Mama, you gotta keep ’em out of the house. Stay away from ’em.”

“Who’s talking?” I demanded to know.

“Everybody,” he said again before he ran to catch up to Billy.

I wiped my face and held the handkerchief over my bloody cheek. The front of my dress was covered in dirt, and I couldn’t imagine how bad the back looked. My head was throbbing and there was blood on my scalp from hitting the drain pipe.

When I climbed over the retaining wall, Mama was still standing there talking to the ladies, but her smile dropped at the sight of me.

“Vivian, what happened?”

I looked into her eyes, hoping she could read my mind like I’d come to read hers. “I fell,” I said.

My answer sent a titter of chuckles and disapproval through the group, but she saw that I was holding Will’s handkerchief in my hand.

“Vivian Lucille Battle, I cannot believe you! How can you be so careless on Christmas Day?” She took my arm far less forcefully than she’d ever done. “Excuse us, ladies. My daughter needs to learn some manners.”

They all waved goodbye recognizing that she had her hands full with such a delinquent as me. When we got out of earshot she whispered, “What happened? Where’s Will?”

“He’s gone. Billy Smith pushed me down, and Will left with him.”

She stopped walking and stared at me. “Will didn’t—?”

I shook my head and she sighed. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that he’d just stood there and let Billy abuse me. She checked me over and determined my injuries could all be handled with some iodine and bandages. We got into the car and waited for Pops while he jawed with his friends.

He acted like he had all the time in the world. I imagined he hadn’t seen some of them in a long while, and when he glanced toward the car I guessed he was bragging about having a wife and a mistress.

“Is he home for good?”

“I don’t know,” she said. I heard her voice catch, and I knew she wanted him gone as much as I did.

“Will says we need to stay away from them. He says everybody’s talking.”

She didn’t ask me to explain and she didn’t ask any questions. She pulled out her compact and checked her face. She looked perfect as usual, but it didn’t stop her from powdering her nose.

He said his goodbyes and shook each man’s hand as if he wouldn’t see them again for a while. I guessed he didn’t go to church with Shirley West. 

As he started toward us she said, “I don’t much care what everybody else gossips about and neither should you, Vivi. It’s just talk. It can’t do any harm. And as for Will, well, I don’t think he’ll ever get over what your father did.”

What Pops did?
If Will was mad at him, why was he taking it out on us? It didn’t make sense. All the way home I thought about
Will’s
message. I knew he still cared even if he was a loser, and I worried he knew something we didn’t. Pops drove home without a word to either of us, not even commenting on the state of my dress when we got out of the car.

We spent all afternoon preparing the dinner while he sat in the living room reading or listening to the radio. At one point he went to the icebox and grabbed some beers, and I stiffened in his presence. When I looked at Mama, she’d stopped peeling potatoes until the door shut and he shuffled away. Even though he was in another room it was as if he was next to us, nearly on top of us.

I imagined Kiah and Mac wouldn’t have much of a celebration at all. I could tell Mama was equally depressed as we dressed the turkey, mashed the potatoes and cleaned the green beans. I doubted Will would return to partake in the feast, not wanting to step in front of Pops if he was drunk.

“Maybe we could take some of the leftovers to Mac and Kiah,” I suggested quietly.

She nodded, and I guessed she’d already thought of that.

Dinner was served at precisely five o’clock without Will. Pops didn’t ask where he was, and it occurred to me that his appearance on Christmas Eve was a command performance. While we were clueless as to his lawlessness and new friends, Pops was probably informed. Maybe Will was living with him and Shirley West.

I passed the bowls between them so neither had to speak directly to the other. Once our plates were full we ate in silence with only the clank of silverware to keep us company. I’d grown accustomed to the laughter and conversation with Mac and Kiah and the loneliness around the table made me miss them even more.

Mama finished her third vodka and stood to refill her glass.

“You’ve had enough,” Pops said sternly.

It was the first time he’d ever commented on her drinking and it surprised her as much as it surprised me. His face was dark and unforgiving and she glared at him. It was a test of wills.

She reached for the bottle.

“Lois, put it away.” He might as well have added
or else
at the end of the sentence.

They stared until she finally put the bottle in the cupboard. He returned to his dinner, but she stayed at the counter fingering her empty glass, unwilling to join us again. 

The phone rang and I jumped to get it, grateful for something to do and hoping it was Miss Noyce. She always talked to me as if I had something important to tell her.

“Hello?
Battle residence.”