The Red Rose Box (3 page)

Sister Goodnight replied, “You little lyin skunk.”

I spoke up. “Ruth ain't no lyin skunk. I am proud to say that we's goin to Los Angeles to see our aunt Olivia.”

Sister Goodnight took a sip of lemonade, looked into the setting sun, and said, “Olivia used to dance half naked at the Cotton Club.”

Miss Lutherine sneezed again.

I looked straight into Sister Goodnight's hazel eyes and said, “Least she wasn't no harlot.”

Silence came over us like the smell of chitlins cooking.

Ruth waited for about ten minutes and quietly asked her if we could still use her traveling bags and Sister Goodnight, after letting my words roll off her back, said yes.

We ate supper quietly, the way hungry people do.

“You sure know how to clean a chicken bone, Leah Jean,” Miss Lutherine said.

I whispered, “I was hungry cuz I didn't have no lunch,” and excused myself from the table. Ruth excused herself and we waited near the open kitchen window while they talked. The hot, heavy, humid air covered us.

“I wish Daddy was here,” I whispered to Ruth.

“Me too,” Ruth replied.

I knew that if Daddy were here, everyone around that table would be laughing and smiling while he told his tall tales. Daddy would have on a wide grin and talk about how one day he was going to have a big house and a fine car. Mama would shake her head and call him a dreamer. Gramma would tell her to let a man have his dreams because sometimes that was all a colored man had that he could call his own. Daddy's eyes would start to water and Elijah would ask him to tell another tall tale. Daddy would pick up his pipe, light it, and take a few puffs. Then he would tell us about the time he caught a rattlesnake and had it for his supper. I missed my daddy, tall and brown.

The table was cleared and Mama put my cake on the table. Ten candles lit the darkened room. Before I blew them out, I made a wish. I wished that I wouldn't spend all of my life in Sulphur. Then I thought and made the same wish for Ruth. I wanted to send Mama a postcard from Paris once, maybe twice. I suppose I was like Daddy, a dreamer. My breath caught all ten candles and they lost their little flames.

Mama cut the cake and I ate two pieces. Ruth ate three because she had a sweet tooth. Miss Lutherine and Sister Goodnight found their way home and we were sent to bed. We kissed Elijah and Gramma, hugged Mama, went into our room, and closed the door.

While we were getting undressed, I told Ruth, “I'm gonna be a teacher, like Mrs. Redcotton.”

Ruth rolled her eyes and replied, “You's just like Daddy, Leah ... silly. Get the key to the red rose box and put on the hundred percent silk bed jacket.”

“No,” I told her. “I'm savin it for Hollywood.” I kept talking. “One day I'm gonna send you a postcard from Paris, France.”

Ruth said, “I'm gonna be in Paris, France, with you,” and we laughed until our sounds made their way under the door and Mama told us to stop all that noise and turn off the light. I checked under the birthday card to make sure the key was still there, turned off the light, and climbed into the top of the bed. Ruth slept at the bottom and she started wiggling as usual, kicking me with her feet.

I told her, “If you don't stop, I'm gonna throw you off the train and you ain't never gonna see Los Angeles.” Then she stopped or fell asleep. I can't be sure which.

 

 

 

E
arly the next morning, Elijah drove Mama to Lake Charles to buy a few things for the trip and Gramma sat down in our kitchen. She sipped ice water and the sun lit half her face.

I was braiding Ruth's hair into seven braids instead of two.

Gramma told me, “Take all them braids out. Y'all ain't no pickaninnies.”

“Mrs. Redcotton says that ain't is not a real word,” I said.

“I'm sure Mrs. Redcotton knows what she's talkin bout,” she replied.

Ruth asked her, “What's a pickaninny?”

“Gals with more than three nappy braids on their head. More than three nappy braids, that's a pickaninny.”

I told her, “Emma Snow got good hair. Her hair don't even need no pressin comb. She still got five or six braids, sometimes seven or eight.”

Gramma crossed her legs, took another sip of water, and said, “Still a pickaninny.”

“Oh,” I replied.

Ruth turned and the comb fell from my hand. She looked into Gramma's eyes and asked, “Why Mama been so mad at her?”

Gramma put down her glass. “Mad at who?”

“Olivia. Mama been so mad and the letter didn't say nuthin but ‘I am very sorry.' ”

Gramma stirred the water with her finger. Pieces of ice bumped one another, small icebergs in a small ocean. “What y'all doin readin your mama's mail?”

“We was curious,” I replied.

Ruth added, “And nosy, too nosy not to. It was peekin outta her apron pocket.”

Gramma stood, walked over to the window, pulled the curtains closed like she was trying to keep her words inside, and said, “Bout a man, a winkin man, a smooth man with a smooth voice and a smooth walk like a snake. Rita was lookin after his half-blind mama and I suppose she started longin for him, but when he met Olivia ... one look was all they needed. Him and Olivia went north on the train, never looked back. Two sisters in love with the same smooth man. Not a bad man, just a ladies' man. Kinda man don't b‘long to no one for too long. Got Olivia to New York, took her to Paris, where he left her. Olivia and Rita ain't spoke since. Rita been bitter. Spose she never forgot the smooth man. Boon was his name, part Creole, part not. Some men make a life outta stealin hearts.... Olivia said she dun her a favor. Said she wasn't gonna say she was sorry for doin someone a favor. Spose I could understand that. Twelve years ... took Olivia twelve years to say those words Rita been waitin on. ‘I'm sorry.' Twelve years is a long time.” She pulled back the curtains and the room filled with light.

Ruth and I didn't say anything.

We went outside and got the washtub and washboard, filled the tub with water and borax, and washed Miss Lilly's clothes like we always did on Saturdays. We rinsed the clothes, hung them to dry, and smiled at each other.

We knew that no man like Boon would ever come between us.

Time blew by and dried the clothes. The day was lazy, hot, sticky summertime and the willows moved with the wind.

“Why cain't Miss Lilly do her own work?” Ruth asked as she walked through the maze of hanging clothes.

“Cuz she got enuf money to pay someone else to do it,” I replied.

“I thought it was cuz she's afraid the white might wash off,” Ruth said with the devil's grin.

I said, “White don't wash off, black neither.”

Ruth laughed.

We had just finished folding the clothes that had been warmed by the sun when Mama and Elijah returned, their arms full. We followed them inside. Mama had bought more dress-making material than I had ever seen in our house and ten new pair of underpants, five for Ruth, five for me.

Mama said, “Throw away all them raggity drawers.” She told us we would have to wash our underpants every evening and gave us each a bar of Ivory soap.

Then she gave us each a pair of brand-new black patent leather shoes. She said she bought them big so our feet would have room to grow and stuffed cotton in the toes so they wouldn't slip off our feet. We put them under our bed so we could look at them morning and evening, just to make certain we weren't dreaming.

Then Mama reminded us, “Miss Lilly gonna be spectin her clothes b‘fore sundown. Y'all run along.”

We replied, one after the other, like two talking birds, “Yes ma‘am ... Yes ma'am,” and made our way barefoot over the dirt path that always helped us find Miss Lilly's back door.

Every morning, from Monday to Friday, Mama worked for Miss Lilly. She ironed her clothes, waxed her furniture, shined her silver, and made her supper.

“How old Miss Lilly is?” Ruth asked, letting her side of the clothes basket nearly touch the ground.

“Old as dirt, Gramma says.”

“Why she gotta big house and no childrens?”

“I dunno,” I told her. “God gives childrens to some, not to others. God knows why, we don't.”

I looked up at the darkening sky. A star fell into the dusky blue and staked its claim.

We walked up Miss Lilly's seven steps quietly, like ghosts, and put the clothes basket down. I knocked three times and waited. Miss Lilly opened the door. Her thin gray hair was held in place by a black hair net. She was wearing a blue-and-white checked dress, gold earrings, pink lipstick, and all of her real teeth. She counted the sheets and pillowcases and said, “Now, let me see where I put my change purse.” She left the door wide open and we peered into her kitchen. It was as clean as Miss Lutherine's chitlins and I looked at the cookie jar, wondering what was in it. Miss Lilly limped toward us with her butter-colored change purse in hand. She picked up one dime with her wrinkled white hand, then another, and placed them in the palms of our waiting hands.

We said, “Thank you, Miss Lilly,” being careful to look at her feet and not her face, and made our way down the same seven steps.

We walked down the gritty path and came to Miss Lilly's peach tree. The peaches were ripe, ready to be eaten, some ready to fall to the ground, and so Ruth relieved the tree of a little of its burden by picking the largest, juiciest one she could find.

I said, “It ain't right, takin without askin.”

“Nuthin but a peach, Leah. She ain't likely to miss one peach. Not like she gonna come outside and count em every evenin b'fore she goes to sleep. For all she knows a fox coulda got it, carried it off after it fell to the ground.” She bit into the peach and it spilled its juices everywhere.

The full moon glowed above and we saw Nathan and Micah Shine walking ahead of us. They went to school with us and lived down the road from Miss Lilly in a house that looked like it was going to fall down whenever a strong wind blew.

I called, “Nathan! ... Micah!”

They turned and stopped walking. We ran to where they stood, the dimes making sweat in the palms of our hands.

“Wolf gonna get you both, chew you up and spit you out,” Micah Shine teased us. He was twelve, and the half Indian from his mama had crawled into him. Daddy swore Indians had eyes everywhere and I thought Micah Shine was handsome as he looked through me. Nathan tugged on Ruth's braids and we walked with them.

We saw a truck coming and got off the path to let it pass. It got close, closer, two headlights blinding us. Then the headlights went off. The truck slowed. I thought it was Elijah until I saw the two white faces.