Tiny Dancer (10 page)

When Dorot
hea walked out of the house proudly carrying her doberge cake, the women set to ooh-ing and ahh-ing.

Rosetta said to
me, “Dorothea can make doberge as good as a New Orleans’ chef.” She explained how the cake was pieced together, sealing the multiple narrow layers with cooked chocolate custard.

The
taste was rich like wedding petit fours, except the tall six-layer butter cake was so much bigger, thus the need for cutting the pieces into slender helpings.

Reverend Theo stood out in the back yard explaining a new raised garden he was putting in. He was having a truckload of manure and good black soil delivered for the project.
Two of the children walked Reverend Theo up the stairs onto the porch. He took his place in the wide cushioned wicker rocker no one dared claim for it was an unspoken fact that it was strictly the minister’s chair.

He reached across the white bamboo table and
jerked the chain on the lamp. Better for seeing those seated around him. The visiting grew quiet except for Charlotte who squealed, “Story Chair!”

I could not describe the next minute any differently for
it was as if ghostly hands lifted me off the back porch step and drew me into the big blue chair. My hands rested on the arms, wood so aged I wondered at how it carried the faint smell of the swamp from so far away. A chanting sound startled me, but it was only the aunts singing low, their bodies swaying in a kind of trance. I looked at Dorothea who shook her head and whispered, “You don’t have to do this, Flannery.” Matter of fact, she said, “Please don’t.”

I
didn’t know what I might say first, but then I did not have to say anything. A cry so deep rose up it seemed to well from out of the earth, up through the soles of my feet, and out of my throat. I let out a cry I could not contain even when I saw Vesta’s bedroom light come on through the strands of the hanging cherry tree branches and the lilting crepe myrtle. I wept and the women gathered around me placing their hands on my shoulders and even the top of my head. They wailed with me until Reverend Theo nodded at the musicians who set to playing a mournful song. The women joined in a song about a heart that needed to be set free.

“I did it,” I said. “I killed my sister.”

I
cried until Dorothea came up out of her seat and threw her arms around me. “I happen to know better,” she said. It was when Dorothea’s soft brown ear was right at my mouth I whispered, “It’s my fault my sister died. I moved to the back seat.”

“That wasn’t at your hand,” said Dorothea
closing her eyes like a seer, as if she could close her eyes and summon the scene of the accident, not knowing any more about it than what the papers said. “It wasn’t your time,” she said. “Don’t you believe you have the power of life and death. It isn’t yours to give and take.”

And just like Moses drawing back the Egyptian waters, the tears dried up. I sat back
nearly gasping when the burden lifted, like a cloud of steam escaping into the ether. The women must have known for they started up a new chorus. “I got rid of my heavy load, heavy load. I got rid of my heavy load.”

                                                                                             * * * * *

The argument between Daddy and Vesta late Sunday night started some time after I had settled under my cotton sheets, long after the Miller’s guests had stored away all of the folding chairs and kissed Dorothea good night.

I
opened full wide my curtains to fall asleep with the light from the moon guarding the mystery I had just gotten from the circle of women and Theo’s Story Chair. I reached out my hand imagining I was touching the moon, willing Siobhan to reach out and touch it from her side the same as the women had reached out and touched me tonight. I could feel them all with me there, lying in my bed surrounded by a dozen mothers. I felt Siobhan so close that I imagined Siobhan heard me whisper, “I love you,” and believed she heard it. “I’m sorry I didn’t say that often enough to you while you were here,” I said.

But as Reverend Theo had pointed out to me one night, there are not enough minutes to say all we should say while on earth. Saying them to the dead is the heart’s way of bringing our own soul to rest.

But the noise of human angst trickled down the hall from my parents’ room. I sat up and stuck my head out of my room even though I could not exactly perceive what was being said between Vesta and Daddy.

The next morning Daddy sat hunched over his coffee
although he did not so much as mutter a good morning when I walked into the kitchen. I poured cereal and milk and sat beside him. I topped off his coffee and then creamed and sugared my own.

Vesta came in but did not exchange words with Daddy. She peeled an orange and poured her coffee.
Then she left for the living room not saying a word to either of us.

“I didn’t mean to get you two fighting again,”
I said assuming their feud was over my accident with Vesta’s jam.

He kept gazing into the cereal bowl as if he stared down into the bowels of the ocean waiting for land to appear. I suddenly
lost the taste for cereal, so I got up and raked mine into the garbage can.

I did not know how to describe the look on his face. Finally, I realized
—Daddy had the look of a man coming home from the war. I only had the one image as told to me years ago by Daddy, of him getting on the train in Columbus, Georgia and taking a seat next to a pretty woman named Alice. He was on furlough headed to Atlanta for his R&R. I long imagined how he must have looked to my mother, handsome, yet battle-worn. Maybe Mama liked that about him. He needed her then. This was the same face in front of me this morning.

“I’m sorry if you heard us last night
,” he said.

Vesta
padded in unobtrusively but only filled her coffee cup, stopping in the doorway to push the hair out of her eyes before retiring again to the living room to eat alone.

I said quietly to him, “Tell me what’s going on.”

Finally Daddy confided in me. “The bank lay-offs have Vesta scared. Two guards got pink slips this week. It seems we’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“You’ve worked for them eight years. They won’t let you go,”
I said.

“It’s trying times, daughter. Allegiance belongs to
whoever might best preserve the company nest egg. Trust me, I’ll not be saved by my loyalty.” Daddy looked so small in that moment, smaller than the day Mama walked out. He buried his face in his hands and said, “I think Vesta’s lost her faith.”

Daddy had never been big on religion. As a matter of fact Vesta was the only reason he started going to church in the first place. Somehow his religion got all wound up in hers so when she came unraveled, h
is was left threadbare.

I wanted to say how sorry I was, something I had said often the past few weeks. I was weary of apologizing though since it seemed I had apologized for things not even listed under religion’s top ten worst iniquities. Whatever tears I had not cried out the night before in the Story Chair came tumbling out, although a much weaker offering.

Daddy got a call late Sunday night from his supervisor. He was not getting a pink slip, but the shoestring crew his boss had managed to salvage for the sake of company insurance rules meant that hours were being cut back. The bank executives demoted Daddy to the rank of a part-time guard. It was not the same as getting fired. He said it was worse though.

Claudia and I borrowed outfits from her closet so that, in her words, we would not look like the hired help at Vesta’s party.  We teased up our new hairdos and put on stockings and bright pumps, the whole nine yards.

“You girls look like you’re right off the cover of
Vogue
,” said Myrna Halcott, the president of the ladies’ bridge club. She took a canapé off the platter I prepared in the kitchen. “Enjoy it while you’re young.”

I dragged our old
Philco radio outdoors using an extension cord. Dusty Springfield’s pop-vocal trio played too loudly causing Vesta to turn down the volume.

Within the hour our patio filled up with society ladies
, each contributing fancy little platters of treats or a dessert.

Myrna had a fit over my ginger cake. “Where did you get this, I want to know?” she asked Vesta.

“Flannery baked it,” said Vesta. “She’s quite the little whiz in the kitchen now.”

“I haven’t had ginger cake this good since old Josie was alive and cooking for us.” She picked up one of the nutty cookie bars. “Chocolate Indians? I haven’t had one of these in years either. Flannery, now you must tell me where you learned to cook like this. I won’t stop until I know,” said Myrna. “One of Vesta’s domestics
teach you?”

Of course, I could not say that Rosetta taught me because then Vesta would want to know who was Rosetta. Nor could I say that Vesta could not afford domestics. I said, “Old family recipe,” and turned away to go back into the kitchen.

“We need more serving spoons,” said Claudia, yelling after me.

“Where is your hired help, by the way?” asked Myrna.

“I’m training new hired help and I didn’t want them messing up the party. Besides, these girls are party whizzes, aren’t you?” said Vesta to Claudia and me.

“I’ll get the
spoons,” I ignored Vesta and answered Claudia. “You fix yourself some punch and something to eat. There’s plenty, that’s for sure.” I had never known Vesta to put on a spread like this. It had to be draining our bank account. Daddy had taken on more hours with Stan Harkey. He dragged out this morning looking like he had not slept well.

I dug through the kitchen drawer looking for more serving spoons. Instead I pulled out an envelope full of receipts. Vesta had spent more than I had imagined. But there attached to the receipts was a bank withdrawal slip. I turned it over, examining it. She had withdrawn
the money from my college fund. How she even knew I had one, I couldn’t fathom. My mother in spite of her flaws had started the fund when I was a baby. She worked weekends at a department store tucking away the nest egg for me. It was the last thing she told me the morning she left. “I don’t want you ending up stuck in the hands of some man who can’t take care of you. You go to college,” she told me. I was four, so all I did was nod. She left in tears. It must have been one of those memories that bobbed up unexpectedly. But I knew all along I had some college money put away. Daddy knew too. He had to have told Vesta. I imagined her wheedling it out of him, getting him to sign the withdrawal slip.

I folded up the slip and tucked it into my bra while stuffing the
envelope angrily back into the drawer. I returned to the party gripping the serving spoons like I was holding knives.

The party was such a success that Vesta was standing out on the lawn soaking in the adulation of her friends. Claudia continued walking through the throng of women asking if they
would like a sweet but she kept eyeing me. Finally she took me aside. “What’s wrong with you? You look sucker punched or some such.”

“Nothing,” was all I said.

Vesta finally excused herself from her circle of admirers and walked toward me. “Flannery, this is the best party our club’s ever had,” she said. “You’re quite the little cook. I owe it all to you.”

“I guess you do,” I said without looking at her.

Then a roar that started out like a distant humming came fully into our hearing, the full throttle thunder of a big truck engine barreling backward down our easement.

“Did your daddy order in some dirt?” asked Claudia coming alongside me.

“Not that I know about. Surely not today either,” I said. Not if he knew what was good for him.

The ladies murmured among themselves, some looking in Vesta’s direction. She whipped around and marched toward the cab of the truck. I followed slowly behind her hoping she would keep a lid on her temper. “Claudia,” I called back to her. “You serve up some more punch to the ladies, all right? And add rum,” I told her.

Right away she called out to the guests expertly, drawing their attention back to the refreshments.

“Vesta,” I whispered. “Let me handle it. You go back to your friends,” I said.

Either she did not hear me or chose to ignore me. “Listen here, you, you driver,” she said, lifting her slender manicured hand in the air, flicking her fingers at him in a kind of shooing motion. “What you think you’re doing?”

The driver reached across the seat and rolled down the window. He came across his passenger side and extended his wrist, tapping his cigar glibly on the lawn. He pulled out a work order. “I got a delivery, lady, and I aim to make it.”

“You’re at the wrong address,” she told him right off, still shooing him off the property.

He rattled off the address. Vesta did not recognize it but I did. “You are at the wrong place,” I told him.
I was about to give him directions when he clambered out of the truck. “This hear easement is for public use. The trees hang too low at yonder drive.”

I knew right off, he meant Theo Miller’s drive. This load was his.

“This easement is blocked,” said Vesta, “and for good reason.”

“I’m unblocking it then,” he said, making a
bee-line for the pile of saw horses.

“This is my property and I’m ordering you off. You so much as touch that blockade I’m calling the police.
”,

“Who will join me in the removal of this here pile of sawhorses, lady. You can’t block an easement like this.”

Vesta stormed out in front of him ignoring my pleas to return to the party and forget this cretin. The driver laughed at this tiny blonde woman blocking his way. “Listen, beehive, move your fanny or I’ll move it for you.”

“Sir, just get back in your truck and take your load where it belongs. We don’t want any trouble,” I said, wishing Theo would show up and back me up. I knew he did not order this load delivered through the easement.

The driver eyed me up and down, smiling. “Aren’t you a lovely little thing? Okay, honey, for you, anything.” He climbed back into his truck, pretty as you please.

I turned
back, relieved. I thought Vesta would follow me. Instead she followed him to his truck. Before he got his window rolled up, she said, “About time, you moron.”

He fired up the truck rolling quickly forward. Then he turned, glaring at Vesta. He popped his truck into gear, aiming it around the shed. He barreled backward again. But when Vesta ran behind him waving her arms frantically, he veered left barely missing her. His truck was aimed straight for the party guests on the patio. He slammed on the brakes, stopping short of the patio. Then the mad
delivery man flipped the unload switch and up went his truck bed. The one-ton load poured out under the big cherry tree and onto the patio. Ladies scattered all over our lawn, running and holding their noses. It was apparent the soil mixture was part chicken litter. It was fresh too.

By the time I reached the patio the women were having fits. Myrna was incensed, red in the face, her neck veins visible. Vesta was partly screaming and pa
rtly crying. “You stupid redneck,” she yelled. But the truck bed was already coming down. The bed gate hung down flapping and squeaking, so dirt continued trailing out as the tires rolled away. The truck lumbered across our lawn and out through the easement where it disappeared down the road.

The row of sunflowers at the edge of our lawn set to weaving frontward and backward. Then out came Reverend Theo and six of his relatives, holding shovels and pushing wheelbarrows. “What’s going on?” he asked me.

“They delivered your manure to the wrong place, I guess,” I said.

“Vesta, your hired hands best get busy with those shovels,” said Myrna.

Some of the ladies snickered while a few still held their hands over their mouths, gagging.

Theo stared soberly at Myrna but did not respond.

“You heard them, boy, said Vesta,” glaring at Theo. “Get to shoveling.”

Maybe it was because I was mad at Vesta for taking my college money or maybe it was something else. I said to her, “Now, Vesta, you know these
men aren’t your domestics.” Then I said to Myrna, “We don’t have any hired help, actually.”

“Then who are these coloreds, Vesta?” asked Myrna.

“Friends,” I said, stepping back into line in between Theo and Calvin. “Neighbors, actually.”

“Your neighbors?” said one of the ladies, laughing.

Myrna marched over to the patio table where she sat. Her chair was half covered in manure. She picked soil off her pocketbook and held it out at arms’ length.

“Myrna, I have no idea who these
nigra people are. I don’t know them from Adam. Flannery, you tell her the truth,” said Vesta.

I hooked one arm into Theo’s arm on one side and Calvin’s arm on the other side.

It was then that Daddy walked slowly around the house where he stood staring at the spectacle. He wore a blue coverall emblazoned with Stan Harkey’s big embroidered face. He hefted a big toolbox in one hand and held out his bank guard’s uniform in the other. He had picked it up at the dry cleaners.

“I guess now you’re going to tell me this delivery man is your husband,” Myrna said to Vesta.
“The bank officer?”

“Hi, Daddy,” I waved cheerily.

He waved back but said, “What on earth are you doing, Vesta?”

Myrna walked around the mountain of manure and dirt, calling out to her friends. Like baby geese, the women fell in behind her. Pretty soon
they were all gone.

Vesta yelled at me, “I demand you tell me what’s going on.” 

“I apologize,” said Reverend Theo. “Mrs. Curry, your daughter had nothing to do with this. Frankly, neither did I. We’ve been waiting out in front of my house for the delivery. But we’ll get this load of manure off your property quick as we can.” He whistled and the Miller boys set to work shoveling and hauling wheelbarrows full of the black compost off our patio and around the sunflower garden. Of course, they did have to pull down Vesta’s barricade to move the dirt on through to the other side.

“That was your plan wasn’t it?’ Vesta asked, accusing Theo of plotting against her. “I’ll get you for this, don’t you forget it.”

“Vesta, it was a misunderstanding,” I said. But she had yet to put on her listening ears.

Claudia who was fighting back a smile brought Vesta a cup of punch to calm her nerves.

She and I walked Vesta back inside. It took the Millers until sunset to move their mountain back onto their side of the easement.

                                                                      * * * * *

Vesta left several messages with Myrna Halcott’s maid Sophie but she never called her back. She retired early for the night, still not willing to look at me.

So much food w
as left over from the party, I set it all out for dinner. Daddy joined me and we toasted punch in Mason jars. “Here, try a chocolate Indian,” I said. “I hear I make the best anywhere.” I excused myself upstairs.

I gave Vesta a hot water bottle to ease her down for the night but she threw it at me. “You did this to me.”

“I can’t help you,” I said, “not with you accusing me of what you caused yourself.”

“Me? You’re in denial. There you were making friends with the enemy behind my back.”

“You should have never thrown a party you can’t afford.”

“Not your business, young lady, and watch your tongue.”

“I know what you did. You spent my college money. Do I even have any left?”

“That was an investment in your future. I was working out a job for your daddy, a real career.”

“He likes being a bank guard.”

“Lot of good that d
oes him.”

“Vesta, you didn’t ask me.”

“Girls don’t need college if they marry the right man. Don’t you realize what you’ve done? How you expect to ever marry into the right family with your associations?”

“I don’t need
your help with associations, Vesta.”

“I was planning a party for you. It was a surprise, to introduce you to all right young men.
You know what they’ll be calling us now at the bridge club? We’re the nigra lovers.”

“Stop it!”

“You’re turning out like your mother, that’s what. Here I’ve poured myself into you and for nothing. Get out. I can’t stand to look at you.”

I was nearly out the door when I
said, “I wouldn’t marry any of those boys if it meant I turned out like any of you.”