The Red Rose Box (2 page)

Gramma took the pearls out of the box and put them around my neck. She smiled and said, “You look all growed up, Leah Jean.”

There was a small black jewelry box and I opened it. Inside there was a real watch, not like the ones that get tossed at Mardi Gras by costumed people. It was a watch with a pink band and a white pearly face like the inside of an oyster shell. I saw Gramma's eyes fill up with tears as she helped me wind it, and I went into the kitchen to look at the clock that was sitting high above the stove and set the time. Ruth and I took turns putting it to our ears, listening to it tick, listening to it tock, and we almost forgot about the red rose box. Almost.

 

 

 

T
he watch, earrings, and pearls would have been enough for me but not for Ruth. I knew because she went over to the red rose box, looking inside for more.

“Ruth!” Gramma fussed.

But by then, Ruth had opened the inside top and was staring into the box like there was a big, fat daddy cockroach inside. I went over to the box and Gramma could tell from the upward curl on the ends of my lips that there was no bug inside. I reached into the box and pulled out something that was store-bought and pink with white lace. Gramma took it from my hands and looked at it all over, even the sewn-in tag.

She told Ruth and me, “Thissa hundred percent silk bed jacket, like a robe, like what rich white womens wears b'fore bed at night when it ain't too cold.”

Ruth, still looking in the box, replied, “We ain't kin to no rich white folks.”

I paid Ruth no mind, reached in the box, and pulled out a bottle of purple water. The glued-on paper said it was Lavender, Lavender for the Bath. There was another bottle and this one said, Gardenia, Lotion for the Skin. It seemed like I kept pulling one thing after the other out of the red rose box.

I held up pink satin slippers. Ruth said, “Ooh,” and Gramma was still smiling.

But when I pulled out the red nail paint, red lipstick, and two pair of underpants, both with red polka dots, Gramma's smile left her and she said, “Your mama gonna have a fit.”

There were only two other things in the box, unless it had a secret place. There was a letter with Mama's name on it and a silk scarf that was white with black flowers.

Gramma said, “Silk and satin good to tie round your hair at night so it won't be wild, stickin up all over in the mornin. Learned that from a white woman I used to work for in Baton Rouge after the war.” She tied the scarf around my head and I must have looked like I was ready for Mardi Gras in the bed jacket and slippers, pearls and earrings, when Mama opened the door, our neighbor, Miss Lutherine, behind her.

Mama had both feet over the threshold, Miss Lutherine only one, when one of my earrings fell off. It dropped before I could catch it. Mama looked at me, then Gramma, then Ruth, then at the red rose box, and only one word came from her mouth. “Olivia,” Mama whispered.

Mama walked into the kitchen. Miss Lutherine started smiling, and Ruth and I smiled back. Mama put her bags down and closed the kitchen door. Miss Lutherine laughed and we, Ruth and I, couldn't keep from joining her.

Gramma pushed herself up from the sofa and told me, “Take those things off.” She went into the kitchen and the door swung shut, sending a warm breeze.

I took everything off, like I'd been told, folded the scarf and the bed jacket, placed them in the red rose box along with everything else except Mama's letter, closed the box, and locked it with the key. I went into our room, Ruth behind me like a shadow at noon, and put the key under the birthday card in the drawer where we kept our underclothes. We opened the closet, pulled the light string once, and closed the door so we wouldn't have to listen if Mama started up. We looked at the postcard from Paris that was still taped to the wall and sat down.

I was wondering what Paris was like, when Ruth broke the spell.

“You oughta go get your box b'fore Mama do somethin with it,” Ruth said.

I opened the closet door and tiptoed into the front room where Miss Lutherine was sitting, nosy as always, looking at the box like it was a warm rhubarb pie. I picked it up by the handle, walked back into our room, brought it into the closet, sat down on the floor, and waited. We didn't think we were going to get a whipping, because we didn't ask Olivia to send the red rose box, but we thought that Mama might have heard us giggling. We thought we might be invited out back to pick us a switch from the tree for that, birthday or no birthday.

We sat there for one whole hour. We knew because I had on the real pink watch and Ruth and I both knew how to tell time. It was one o'clock when we opened the closet door and peeked into the front room. Miss Lutherine was gone.

Ruth was sucking her thumb and I pulled it out of her mouth and told her, “Stoppit, cuz your thumb gonna fall off and never grow back. It ain't like no lizard tail.” Ruth put her thumb back in her mouth and smiled.

The kitchen door was wide open and Mama and Gramma were cooking. I could tell because the flavors filled the house the way honeysuckle on the vine fills the air around it. We stood in the doorway and watched Mama open the oven door and put the cake tins inside, one chocolate, one vanilla. Gramma was frying chicken. Potatoes and eggs were boiling on the stove for salad.

A pitcher of lemonade sat in the middle of the table, round lemon slices floating at the top like lifesavers from a boat, and Mama said, “Pour you a glass and drink it cuz y'all didn't have no lunch.” I poured it hastily and spilled a little but Mama didn't get mad. She kept humming and looked over and told me to get a dishrag. That's when I knew that something had changed.

Ruth got up from the table and went into the front room, looking for the letter. She came back into the kitchen, walked up to Gramma, tugged on her yellow skirt again, and told her, “Miss Lutherine took Mama's letter.” Then she tugged on Mama's green-and-white gingham apron string and said, “We was only laughin cuz Miss Lutherine made us.”

Mama pulled the letter from the pocket of her apron and told Ruth, “Stop blamin Miss Lutherine.” Then she put the letter back in her pocket.

Ruth sat down and we looked at each other hard, grinning because our behinds had been spared. I took a sip of lemonade. It was bittersweet.

“What did the letter from Olivia say?” I asked Mama.

“Aunt Olivia, Leah,” she replied.

“What did the letter from Aunt Olivia say?” I asked.

“It was just a short note along with some train tickets,” Mama replied.

Ruth asked, “Train tickets? Can we see them?” Mama took out the note, slipped it into her apron pocket, and then let her have the envelope. Ruth took out the tickets, placed them on the table, and counted aloud, “One, two, three, four.”

Then I counted them again, “One, two, three, four.” I looked at the tickets and remembered what our teacher, Mrs. Redcotton, had told us about the train trip she had taken to Chicago last summer. She called the train a “Jim Crow train” and said that colored had to sit separate from white until they crossed a line. I didn't remember what the line was called but I remembered that she told us that in Chicago there were places where colored could go most anywhere they wanted. She told us that in Chicago there were no white and colored drinking fountains and that colored didn't have to sit in the back of the bus unless they wanted to. She said that in some places white and colored children went to school together. She called it “freedom.” I wondered why.

I looked at the tickets closely. They each said New Orleans to Los Angeles. Mama opened the oven door, pulled out one of the cake tins, stuck a toothpick in the middle to see if the cake was done, closed the oven door, and sat down with me and Ruth at the table. Gramma stood at the counter, crying over chopped onions, whistling to radio music.

Mama poured herself a glass of lemonade and I asked her, “Isn't Los Angeles in California?”

“Yes ... near Hollywood. Your aunt Olivia lives there,” she answered.

“Who's goin?” I had two fingers crossed under the table.

She drank the entire glass of lemonade, taking large gulps, before she looked at the tickets and replied, “You, Ruth, Gramma, and me. Daddy cain't cuz he's workin in Houston, be gone till sometime in July. We gonna havta borrow some travlin bags from Sister Goodnight, down the road. I'll sew y‘all some new things so you don't look like country ragamuffins, even though that's what folks calls you b'hind your backs, mine too.” She kept talking. “Gotta buy a pressin comb and trim your hair. Havta call your daddy, make sure it's all right with him for us to go travlin without him.”

Something told me that we were going to go anyway, no matter what Daddy had to say.

Mama's name was Marguerita Ann Hopper but everyone called her Rita. Today Rita Hopper looked happy. She smiled and her dark brown eyes danced around the room.

 

 

 

M
ama waved a horsefly away from her face and got up to finish my birthday supper. Ruth and I went outside and sat on the porch swing. We pushed it back and forth, back and forth, the rusty gears keeping time like a choir of crickets.

I told Ruth, “Los Angeles is the most prettiest place on earth and I don't think Mama's gonna take my box from me.”

“She might take away the lipstick and the nail paint,” Ruth replied.

We were still talking and swinging, swinging and talking when Elijah drove up again. This time he parked his truck in the dirt, got out, took his dusty derby off, and acted like he was going to stay awhile.

He sang, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you ...”

Gramma came out on the porch and Elijah stopped singing. He was ashamed because he couldn't sing a lick. He went over to Gramma, kissed her on the mouth once, twice, and then Ruth and I were ashamed. Elijah was the only man she'd let come around since her husband, our grandaddy, died, curled up next to her, one Sunday morning just before I was born. She always said that I'd come to take his place, another kind, tender soul.

Elijah and Gramma went inside and I knew that he was in Mama's pots because she ran him out of the kitchen. He came back outside and sat down on the porch step.

That's when I told him, “We's goin to Los Angeles and you gonna have to carry us to New Orleans in your truck.”

He paused, the way folks do before they ask a question they're not sure they should be asking, and said, “What was in the box?”

We were just about to tell him when we saw Miss Lutherine and Sister Goodnight walking up the dusty path to our front door, arm in arm.

Sister Goodnight was yellow, plump, pretty. The postman said her real name was Roberta but everyone called her Sister. She wore store-bought clothes, leather shoes, silk stockings with seams, gloves most days, a straw hat in the summertime. She was from New Orleans, where she used to work with some of the other high tones, Creoles, and pretty brown girls, spending time with sailors who had money to spend. Gramma said that was how Sister Goodnight came to have the finest colored house in Sulphur, Louisiana. Gramma called Sister Goodnight a harlot.

I didn't know what a harlot was but one day after school when no one was around, I had asked my teacher, Mrs. Redcotton. She had looked at me in a funny way and replied, “It's not a nice thing to say about a lady.”

Elijah always said that Sister Goodnight was still a pretty woman whether it was true or not.

Miss Lutherine was blue black with a wide behind. She was too tall with bowed legs that made her look like she rode horses. Her nose was wide, her eyes big, her fingers too long. Elijah said God must have been on his day off the day Miss Lutherine came to be.

Miss Lutherine smiled. The sun found her and her gold tooth gleamed. She said, “Happy birthday, Leah Jean Hopper,” and she and Sister Goodnight kissed me on the cheek. Feather kisses.

Elijah went into the house to get a chair for Sister Goodnight and I heard Gramma ask, “Why you always dotin on that ole dried-up harlot?”

Ruth must have heard too because she asked Miss Lutherine, “Whatsa harlot?”

Miss Lutherine sneezed and the porch shook.

Sister Goodnight wasn't ashamed. She sat down when Elijah brought her the chair and she asked him for a shot of gin. Sister Goodnight knew that Mama didn't keep the devil's brew in her cupboards but she smiled at Elijah and sucked her teeth. Elijah smiled back and went to fetch her a glass of lemonade.

Ruth left the swing and told Sister Goodnight, “You gonna havta let us use your travlin bags cuz we bout to go to Los Angeles, near Hollywood, for the Fourth of July.”