Little Sacrifices (27 page)

‘Lottie. Put them back. It’s not right.’

‘What’s wrong with you? Why should you care, anyway?’ She rested on one leg with her hand on her hip.

‘Because it’s my friend’s house, that’s why.’ I told her what the R stood for and suggested we make tracks for home. My stomach was in the neighborhood of my knees, as if Jim stood in front of me, asking what I was doing in his house. Lottie dropped her booty and followed me to the front door. As I took one last look at the house, a policeman shouted from the sidewalk.

I don’t know what possessed me to try to get away. Lottie and I knocked foreheads trying to reverse our progress. ‘Come on, through the back!’ As luck would have it the back door was bolted into firmer wood than the front. ‘Is there another way?’ We didn’t have time to find out. A red–faced cop stood gasping in our path.

‘All right, girls, hold it right there... this is private property.’ He grasped the doorjamb. ‘You’re not allowed to be in here.’

Lottie sprang a leak first. I was only just more watertight.

‘I’m–’

‘We’re sorry–’

‘sorry officer. We–’

‘We didn’t–’

‘were just looking around.’

‘mean any harm, honest.’

The officer scowled at me while he caught his breath. ‘What’s your name, young lady?’

‘May Powell, sir.’ A tear dribbled onto my lip.

‘And you?’

‘Lottie Assaro. I’m just visiting.’

‘Are you? Where from?’

‘Massachusetts, Williamstown.’

‘I see. Tell me. In Massachusetts, Williamstown, is it okay to go round breaking into people’s houses?’

‘No, sir!’

‘Well then. Where do you live, May Powell?’

‘Uh, on Henry Street. Actually, we should go. It’s almost dinnertime.’

‘You’ll get back there, don’t you worry. Was it you that broke the front door?’ I nodded. ‘That’s breaking and entering on top of vandalism. Do your parents know where you are?’ His words poked another hole for the tears to leak out.

‘No, sir. Can’t you just arrest us, sir, without telling them?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Seems the three of us could use a little talk with your parents, don’t you think?’

My lip started to bounce. ‘Please let us go! We won’t ever, ever do it again, I swear on my life, we won’t. You’ll never lay eyes us again, I promise!’

The policeman’s heart was made of stone. ‘Who wants to ride in front?’ He started for the front door. We followed meekly behind him, sniffling.

The drive home was made quicker by my anticipation of the welcome we were going to get. As we pulled up front, I glimpsed Ma’s silhouette in the window. We weren’t even out of the car before she was on the porch, her look suspicious. The policeman said, ‘All right, out you go. Time to face the music.’

Reluctantly, we began the long walk to the porch.

‘May? What on earth is going on?’

‘Ma, we were–’

A voice boomed from the street. And I thought he was right behind me. ‘Good evening, Missus Powell. I thought, what with it being so close to dinnertime, the gals could use a ride home. Lottie, enjoy your stay. And girls, remember to be good!’

Ma shouted her thanks to the policeman, who waved as he pulled away. ‘Well, wasn’t that nice of him?’ She said. It sure was. Lottie and I ran upstairs, where we swore to God and anyone else who cared to listen that we’d never again go someplace we weren’t meant to be. It was worth the scare, though, to see Mirabelle’s old house.

Chapter 38

Savannah High School was kind enough to arrange our class picnic on Lottie’s last weekend in town. We’d enjoyed a splendid week together, sticking to our promise to keep out of the old houses. The disenchantment I felt on our first day only lasted until I told her about my pregnancy and its resolution. Then all the weeks between us dissolved in shared tears, and I knew we’d remain strong friends. The distance had only managed to skim the cream of daily contact from our friendship. The milk, the real reason for buying the bottle, was still there. And, as if to cement our bond, Lottie let me in on a secret of her own. ‘I’m in love,’ she declared. They were pinned, not literally, but in the nineteen forties sense of the word. He was an older man, by a year, and they’d been ‘doing it’ for almost six months. I appreciated her trust in me, though not for the obvious reasons. I felt better knowing I wasn’t the only fast girl among my friends. Fie’s prudence often made for an uncomfortable reference point.

Duncan drove us to Tybee Island with Jim and Fie. Tybee wasn’t such an island that you’d notice – after all a train ran to it until the nineteen thirties – but technically it was surrounded by water and therefore met Mister Webster’s definition. The day sweltered at barely ten in the morning. When Duncan, in a fit of misplaced hilarity, threatened to join us, I assured him that his presence was neither required nor welcome. There’d be plenty of chaperones to keep the boys and girls out of the sand dunes.

The beach was crowned by a marvelous pavilion, built in the early part of the century as the Central of Georgia Railway’s Dancing and Bathing Pavilion, and later named the Tybrisa Pavilion after the company that bought it. Adults drank and danced away many a night in the forties to the melodies of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Cab Callaway, and many hangovers were nursed through the day in the rocking chairs set invitingly along the porch.

On the sand, the breeze was strong and hot. It was remarkably bright, like walking in snow on a sunny day. I eventually spotted Minty and waved. She beckoned me, us, over. When Fie dragged her feet, I bullied her, and Jim too when he hemmed and hawed. I didn’t blame them for being reluctant, though, to be fair, the girls generally ignored what they viewed as my unfortunate choice in friends. They’d only mentioned it once, not long after we started palling around. ‘It’s not that we don’t like her, exactly.’

‘No, not at all. It’s just–’

‘Just that, well, we think you can do better in choosing your friends,’ one of them had said. It didn’t matter which one. They spoke with one voice. What, I inquired, did they mean by better?

‘Well, prettier for one thing.’ I conceded that Fie was on the plain side, but I wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants either.

‘She thinks she knows everything, always raising her hand with an answer for the teacher. She makes the rest of us look stupid.’ Granted, she was a teacher’s pet. If I had half her brains I’d be an insufferable know–it–all, just for the sake of it. I kept these defenses to myself, muttering something feeble and changing the subject. I felt like a louse for not sticking up for Fie, but I sorely wanted to stay on the sunny side of the girls’ dispositions.

When we arrived at the group, I caught Charlene puckering her face, but it was too late to turn back. She welcomed Lottie when I introduced her around, and eventually made room for Jim and Fie to sit on the blankets as well. For girls yearning to be socialites, hospitality trumped cruelty almost every time. I threw myself down and tipped my face to the sun. I heard the teachers behind us stocking ice buckets with sodas and setting up the barbeques. A charred assortment of livestock was in the cards for lunchtime. It took only a few minutes for Jim and Fie to make their excuses, and their escape to join the teachers. With my eyes closed, all sound tumbled into the distance. Every few minutes, kids stopped to pay homage to the girls, who gracefully accepted their due.

Tybee was lovely. Sea oats rustled behind us and the wind kicked up a bit of surf. The boys were already in the water, hollering and splashing in their bid to get our attention. They succeeded. We watched them until they threw their waterlogged bodies on the beach in glistening, suntanned clumps.

‘Hi, girls, got room for us?’ Clay beamed. He was like a bad penny. He and his friend threw their blankets on the other side of Minty. I glanced toward the ice buckets, where Jim and Fie fished for sodas. Disdain polluted Jim’s features. When he nodded something to Fie, she put her hand on his arm.

Clay smirked when Jim handed Lottie and me cold, sweating bottles, and sat down again. ‘Hey Rumer, didn’t you get any for us?’

Jim got to his feet. ‘What do you want?’ He looked more than happy for the excuse to leave again.

Clay nudged his friend and winked. ‘Coke’ll be just fine.’

Jim’s expression slowly settled into one of bored dismissal. He brushed invisible lint from his shorts and settled back down. ‘Well, you’re in luck. They have Coke over there.’ He took a swallow from his glistening bottle, smacked his lips and smiled at Clay. I choked on my drink. Jim had bided his time for years to stand up to Clay. He looked like it was worth the wait. Clay didn’t speak to him again.

I hated that he sat feet away from me. Far from the lovesick torment of the early days, all I felt was revulsion. It was as much at him as at what I’d done, how I’d let him manipulate me, and the consequences. I didn’t regret the termination, or mourn the baby–that–never–was. I only regretted that my parents had found out, and that it changed how they felt about me. And I regretted getting Dora Lee involved. She could have lost her job. She could have gone to jail, just for helping me. Actually, that was a lot of regret to live with. I’d made a right royal mess of things. I was lucky to have gotten off as lightly as I had. It was probably too much to hope for that Clay would move away, or get swallowed up in the sand.

I lazed in the sunshine until I was too sweaty to stand myself. When I suggested a swim, Minty made no move to get up. ‘Aren’t you boiling?’ I asked her. Perspiration ran down my scalp.

She turned her fresh–as–a–daisy face to me. ‘No, not really. But you all go ahead.’

‘But you must be hot. It’s a hundred degrees out here!’

‘I don’t let myself sweat.’ She gave a shrug. ‘It’s mind over matter. If you think about being cool, then you stay cool.’ Ceecee and Charlene nodded in tandem.

Those of us with less obedient glands ran for the shore, where I dipped my toe into salt water for the first time. In Williamstown, I was geographically unsuited to the ocean, which was hours away at the other end of the state. We cooled off in murky ponds and lakes instead. In Savannah, the sea was mine for the taking, though Duncan told us on the ride over that the same courtesy wasn’t extended to Georgia’s Negroes. The ocean was as Jim Crow as the restaurants and railroad cars. Black beachgoers risked a fifty dollar fine just for setting foot in it. Duncan mentioned three girls who challenged the system a couple years earlier, not far from where the Spanish landed in Jenkins’ War. They didn’t get any farther than the Spanish had.

Lottie and I bobbed along with our feet on the sand, deciding how we liked the experience, while Fie and Jim struck off for a point in the distance. Lottie watched them swim.

‘She has a real thing for him doesn’t she?’

I dashed the water out of my stinging eyes. ‘Fie? For Jim?’ They were swimming like they planned to be in Africa by dinnertime.

‘Well of course. It’s obvious. She hangs on every word he says.’

‘For Jim?’

She shrugged. ‘That’s what she told me.’ She dove underwater with a kick, surfacing nearer the shore. I managed a passable doggy–paddle until I caught up with her.

‘What do you mean, she told you?’

‘Told me. You know. Words came out of her mouth in my direction... Actually I asked.’

‘Why didn’t she tell me?’

‘She doesn’t want you to laugh at her. You wouldn’t, though, would you?’

‘Of course not!’ Probably not. Fie and Jim. Jim and Fie. I let the idea settle down in my mind. I suppose it made sense. They were similar in many ways, and clearly got along famously. I searched my heart for any jealousy that my two best friends in Savannah had a connection that excluded me. Nope, not a whiff of jealousy. Only a curiosity, which wouldn’t be satisfied until I got the full story.

When the smell of grilling meat tempted us from our watery amusements, we tucked into lunch, dripping salt water from pruned fingers. My teeth chattered despite the sun. Pots of potato salad and plates of barbeque churned us into a ravenous horde. Everyone except Clay settled back into their usual places on the blankets. He sat very close to Lottie.

‘Lottie, you said your name was, right?’ At least he’d had the good manners to ignore us all morning. His words stank of bourbon. He was still handsome as ever. What a pity he was such a jerk. She stopped chewing and nodded. ‘Well, Lottie, my friends and I were wondering something. Are all the dolls up North stacked like you?’ He raised his voice. ‘I mean, first May, now you. What do they feed you all up there? To make you grow like that? And in your case would you say you live up to your, ah, attributes?’ The boys laughed.

She raised half a smile. Clay deserved whatever was coming next. She wasn’t one hundred percent Sicilian stock for nothing. ‘First May, and now me?’ She sneered, staring at him until he giggled and pitched a nervous look backwards at his friends. ‘Well, Clay, I don’t know about that. After the treatment you gave May, it doesn’t sound like much of a proposition to me.’

Charlene’s ears were drawn to my friend’s enigmatic comment. ‘What do you mean by that, Lottie?’

‘Maybe Clay would like to explain?’ Lottie crooned. I’d have given my left arm to stamp such unease on his expression. ‘No, Clay? Shall I explain to everyone what I meant?’

His blush showed through his sunburn. ‘I don’t know what May told you, but she’s lying.’

Lottie leaned in real close. I only heard because I was right next to them. ‘How do you know that, if you don’t know what she told me?’

‘Whatever she said, she’s lying. That’s all I’m saying.’ His voice was a couple octaves higher than usual.

‘What’s the matter, Clay?’ One of his friends asked. ‘Your voice has gone all squeaky. Was that water too cold for you or something?’ Jeers drowned out Lottie’s next words, limiting them to our unhappy little circle.

‘She’s not the liar, Clay, and you know that,’ she said quietly, prompting his retreat to other side of the blankets. We doubled up laughing, joining the others. At last, the idea of Clay only had the power to make me laugh.