Tending to Virginia (21 page)

“Who are you?” she asks now and watches that woman, her hair not even brushed out good, sit up a little and look at her. Finally the weatherman is on and she turns up the sound and watches every move of his little stick. There’s a storm on the TV there, way down past Florida where Lena used to live. The man says that rain is likely to come but it’ll be a few days. No sir, a few more days of dry hot sunshine, that corn stunted and burned, river bank dry and dusty as a bone.

“We got to have some rain,” Curie had told her all those years ago, his big strong arms wrapped around her as he lifted her off the front porch and set her on the ground. “I’m praying for some rain, yes Lord, but if I had the power, I’d get out in that yard and dance a jig, do a rain dance.”

“Do it, Curie,” she told him and looked out over the yard where Lena was trying to pump water from that dried up well and Lena was going to get herself whipped good, there in the center of the yard and stripped down to her underwear. And Emily would’ve liked to be in her underwear but she was almost seven years old, too old for such. “Do a rain dance,” she said again and laughed when Curie took off his old straw hat and lifted his knees up high like he was marching, raised his arms up and said, “Rain, rain, rain.”

“Now, it’s your turn,” he said and winked at her, and she looked behind her through that front door to make sure her mama wasn’t
standing there, and she looked at Lena with her hands stuck up in the mouth of that pump, and she turned slowly at first, staring at the sky and then faster and faster, arms lifted, rain, rain, rain. “Dance yourself a jig, Miss Emily,” Curie said. “Dance us up a storm.”

And it rained. She can’t remember if it was that day or the next, or the next week, but there came a storm that set the windows rattling, and lightning that filled the sky. “We might have to build us a ark,” Curie said. “We all gonna float on down the Saxapaw whichever way it might go.” And her mama came in soaked to the bone and her eyes wild as a trapped dog and her mama ran through the house and knelt there by the bed, shaking her head and looking at the ceiling.

“It’s raining ’cause me and Curie did a dance,” she told her mother later when the thunder had stopped and there was just the steady sound of rain on that tin roof.

“It’s raining because God means to make me tend to the living,” her mother said. “You know better than to dance and carry on, Emily. The Lord’s work is serious.” And she nodded her head yes to her mother’s words while she stood at the window and stared out at that front yard, the dusty dirt that she had swept clean now muddy; she watched Curie hurry down the road, his hands holding his hat on his head while he ran through that cool rain to his own home. “Last time I ask you to dance a jig,” he had whispered to her before leaving, his dark face so warm next to hers.

“It’s me, Gram,” that woman says and Emily has to stare hard at her, think like she might be in school. “It’s me, Gram. It’s Ginny Sue.”

“Well precious,” she whispers. “I knew that was you.”

“Gram? Gram?” Ginny Sue whispers now. “Tell me about Gramps, when you first married him, or when you had mama. Tell me about it.”

“Well, I married him,” she says. “And I had two babies. I had Hannah and then I had David and they both went through all the classes at school. I didn’t get but to six.”

“Were you ever unhappy?” Ginny Sue asks. “Were you ever sorry that you married Gramps?” That Ginny Sue, questions heaped on questions, why is the sky blue and the grass green and why do you like to make hogshead cheese and why did God make Gramps die and how could she have a Uncle David that she never even knew, and why can’t I live in a big house like where Cindy lives and why can’t I be a movie star like Lena and why can’t I stay here with you, Gram, forever? And she has always had to tell that child that she just don’t know all the answers, that she didn’t get but to sixth, and she just doesn’t know anything beyond what is in her heart and that God knows why and when he takes you to your home, it will all come clear to your mind or if it don’t come clear it won’t even matter because you will be able to walk on your legs that can’t move and you will hear words spoken as clear as a bell on a still windless day and that river will never run dry, and the fields will stretch as far out as a body can see, and nobody will be able to hide his ugly face under a sheet and kill those that are good at heart, those that can call up a storm with a little dance. If it don’t come clear, it won’t matter none because you’ll be at home where you belong.

“Gram? Were you ever unhappy?”

“No,” she says. “James never caused me to hurt and I knew I had found the best, found the best this world could offer out to me.”

“Always? You knew that always?”

“Always,” she says and turns down the sound of the TV, the storm pictures gone now, just some man talking. Always, she repeats in her head. That’s the song that Hannah had played on the piano and sang there after her high school graduation after Ben Turner went home. And David gave Hannah the prettiest picture he had painted of the Saxapaw River and had framed. He didn’t like nobody outside of the family knowing he could do that, sing either, but the two of them sat there side by side on that piano bench, singing while she and James sat there on the sofa and listened. “I’ll be loving you always,” Hannah sang and Emily stared down at that fine diploma that James was still holding on his lap. “With a love that’s true, always.”

“James never made me unhappy,” she says and changes the channel, then turns the set off. Perry Mason has got old, too old to walk.

“You are breaking my heart, James,” she had told him and he let go of that leather belt there in his hand and let it slip to the floor, the buckle making a noise like a bucket in a dry well there on the kitchen floor. “David is a grown man now. He’s just graduated high school and he can make his own decisions.”

“I wasn’t going to hit him,” James said and tried to hand her his handkerchief that Mag had bleached out so white. “Why is it that white sounds so clean and colored don’t,” Mag had asked her and they laughed. There was no soul on earth cleaner than Mag Sykes, her face scrubbed shiny clean with soap, her heart pure as heaven. She didn’t take his handkerchief but put her face in her hands.

“I just want to talk some sense into him is all,” James said. “I’m all for him joining the service, but why can’t he do like Ben? Why can’t he join in a way that’ll keep him right here in the country? Why does he want to be such a daredevil? Doesn’t know the first thing about flying.” James tried to pull her hands away from her face but she turned away. “He’s being foolish, Emily. Tell him. Tell him that you think he’s a fool.”

“He wants to learn to fly,” Emily said. “He wants to learn so when he gets out he can go to school and be an engineer.”

“Like Roy Carter,” James said, staring down at that belt. “Roy has filled his head up with all this, with words that nobody else knows, so let Roy send him to school. He’s already had twelve years.”

“Things are different now,” she said and she wanted to hug him, to pull him close but she felt her backbone go stiff as a board. Things are different; those were David’s words. “Why can’t he just accept that I want something else?” David had asked her, his bare arms so tan and muscled. “I don’t want to follow in his footsteps. I don’t want my whole life riding on a crop of tobacco, riding on the wind and weather.”

“What’s different,” James said, “is he’s ashamed of me, ashamed and determined to be anything except like me.” And she rinsed that sink full of bitter tomatoes like there was no tomorrow, like she couldn’t get that shiny red skin clean enough of garden dust. “I think he’s ashamed of both of us.” James turned off the faucet and gripped her wet hands. “He probably wishes you were Lena,” he said. “But he does seem to listen to what you say.” He pressed her
hands harder between his own. “Why won’t you tell him? Why are you afraid to tell him that he’s making a mistake?”

“How do I know?” she screamed, staring at her hands pressed between his, her hands so small next to his. “You are killing me, both of you,” she sobbed, dropped her chin, determined not to look at him until he let her go. “This arguing. You are killing me piece by piece.” He let go of her hands and she stepped back and faced him. “He’s smart, James, smarter than me. You could have done as good as Roy if you had had the chance. Look how much further you’ve come than your own daddy.”

“I only picked up where my daddy left it all,” he said. “I have never felt ashamed of him.”

“He’s not ashamed.”

“I don’t care what he is, Emily. I’ve had it,” he said and left the room while she arranged the tomatoes carefully on the drain board. “I don’t care what he says,” David had said. “It’s my life!” They might as well have roped her legs and taken off in different directions.

“Gram?” Ginny Sue is asking now. “Did you always feel close to Gramps?”

“Oh yes,” she says and turns the set back on. “I always did.”

* * *

“Get Billy! Get Billy!” that old woman screams and it doesn’t matter how many times Lena tells her to shut the hell up, she doesn’t and the nurse teacher calls Lena down for that.

“We don’t fight with children here at school, Lena Pearson,” the third-year teacher had said and sent her to sit in the corner and that was fine, she’d sit in the corner until she dropped dead; she’d sit in a corner until a big old black snake came up from the floor and choked her and then that teacher would have to call Lena’s mama and tell that she had killed Lena.

“Mama is going to be so upset,” Emily said when she stopped by Lena’s chair on her way to recess. “You are not taught fighting at home.”

“Don’t tell,” Lena begged. “I’ll never fight here in the school house again if you won’t tell Mama.” And she knew Emily wouldn’t tell,
and she knew that she’d catch up with that Lily Moore one afternoon after school was let out and whip her good. She did. Whipped Lily Moore good, slapped her face and left a print. “Call my daddy a nigger-lover again,” Lena said, her dress hiked up so she could straddle Lily Moore’s stomach. “I’ll whip you every day for the rest of your life.”

“She wants Billy and not this doll,” Lena tells the nurse teacher. “I can have this baby. I can.”

“We’ll get you one,” nurse teacher says. “I’ll tell your niece that you want a baby of your own.”

“Oh no,” she whispers. “You can’t ever tell I want a baby.” And she lets nurse teacher take her over by the Pepsi-Cola machine and sit down. All she wants is to care for that baby, clean them dirty panties, nice dry panties. She just wants to hold that baby up there to her bosom like she held Pooh and felt that growl there against her chest. You a sweet kitty Pooh kitty, oh poor poor Pooh baby.

“You can’t tell that I can’t have a baby,” she had told Roy and they were in the side yard there in Florida and feeling that ocean breeze, looking at her name there in that worn out Broadway program. Her name on that piece of paper didn’t make her laugh like it used to. “Don’t tell that I can’t have babies.”

“You can’t help it,” Roy said and those frogs were croaking and carrying on like the world was coming to an end. “We could adopt a child.”

“No,” she shook her head. “Then they’d know. They’d know that I can’t.” She fanned herself with the program, her body still young and smooth-looking, and no reason, no reason as to why she’d be all dried up with nothing there where it was supposed to be. “Tessy would love hearing that I can’t have a baby, love the fact that she’s got a yardful of dirty children and I can’t even have one.”

“What about Emily?” he asked. “You can tell her.”

“No, no, I can’t,” she said. “Emily’d think less of me.” She leaned forward with her head on her knees and cried. “It’s like I’m not even a woman.”

“No, no that’s not true,” he said. “You’re more of a woman than any of the others.”

“Don’t tell,” she whispered and waited for him to nod. “Promise me, and don’t you stay here with me if you take in your mind to find yourself a young woman.”

“Lena, baby,” he said and walked over, sat on the end of her lawn chair, reached his hands out to her, hands she had imagined building her a fine crib, a little playhouse that other children would turn green over when they saw it. “I just want you,” he said but she could see behind all of that, see the disappointment there. He was going to leave her; she knew he was going to leave her.

“Don’t touch me there, Roy,” she said and cried. “I just can’t bear to be touched.” She was so afraid that he was going to leave her. Any woman with any sense would want him and she’d have to let him go, let those baby kittens go to good homes ’cause they’ve got so many cats living up there under the house to meow so loud and to drink up all the milk.

“Roy’s gonna leave me,” she tells nurse teacher who is there now, making her pull herself up straight; nurse gives her that doll to hold. “Is this my baby now?”

“For a little while,” nurse teacher says. “You can share it.”

“Can’t share a baby,” she says and laughs, pulls its little face up against her breast. “King Solomon done that to find the mama. He said ‘well sir, we’ll just saw this baby in half and the real mama, she said ‘oh no, let her take him then’ and that’s how they know the real mama. The real mama don’t let no flea stay there in the fur.” Nurse teacher smiles at her now, pretty woman if she was smaller and would buy herself some little red shoes. She names the baby Cord Pearson Carter after her daddy and she rocks him there. He’s a tired little baby, a sweet baby, oh poor little tired baby. “Oh no,” she says, “Let her take him then.” And she points to that old woman down the hall. “She can take him if it’ll keep him from being sawed in half. I’m the real mama.”

* * *

Cindy goes to work early on Monday morning just so she’ll have a little time to herself before Constance Ann and everybody else gets there. Now she’s sorry that she had Constance Ann over to spend the night, sorry that Constance Ann saw her cry, afraid that Constance Ann is going to think she was crying over Charles Snipes and now will ask a million and one questions. The Charles Snipeses of this world are a dime a dozen and so are the Buzz Biggerses and the Randy Skinners.