The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove (9 page)

Cornelia cooed when she saw it. She said our love was Shakespearean, a love to last for all time, a love greater than Samuel and I could ever comprehend. I reminded her that she had told me the very same thing about Tommy Blanton. Cornelia ignored me and rolled her eyes again and continued with her talk of Romeo and Juliet. But when Nathaniel came to get me at the end of the day and saw a tiny flash of light bouncing off my wrist, I understood that my cousin was right—just like the love between a Montague and a Capulet, ours was dangerous and forbidden.

Nathaniel asked me to collect my things and meet him at the car. Even though his voice was calm and steady, his eyes were suddenly dark and fearless. And for once, I felt nervous standing next to him. He left me by the pool and marched toward the chicken coop. I wanted to warn Samuel, but I just stood there, not knowing what to do. Cornelia rushed to my side and tried to convince me that Nathaniel knew nothing about us. Something else must be bothering him, she said. “You know how emotional
they
can be.”

“Cornelia! I cannot believe you said that—you of all people.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. Come on. Don’t get mad at me. I’m not the enemy here.”

“I’m not so sure about that, Cornelia. Damn it, if you hadn’t called me in the first place, none of this would be happening right now. Some things are just better left alone.” I grabbed my towel and swimsuit, nudging my cousin out of the way, and headed out the back gate. I was almost to the car when the sound of my uncle’s voice, urgent and plaintive, drew my attention back to the side of the house.

“Nathaniel, I promise you, nothing inappropriate has gone on here. I’ve been here every minute of every day.”

“I’m not calling you a liar, Mr. Grove. You’re a very good man. Samuel’s just got other obligations to tend to. If you need help with that coop, I’ll come by after leaving your brother’s and finish what my son started.”

“Nathaniel, please hear me out.”

“That’s not necessary, Mr. Grove. You’re a real good man, a fair man, but I sure would appreciate it if you would have my son’s wages for the week ready by the time I come back to get him.” Nathaniel tipped his hat toward my uncle and then threw Samuel a stare that left even me feeling scared and uncomfortable. I ran to the Cadillac just ahead of Nathaniel. We both stepped into the car without looking at each other and rode back to Grove Hill in silence.

The air grew instantly thick and stale, and even I knew that a thunderstorm was heading our way. I hid in my room for two whole days, just trying to catch my breath. Nobody attempted to coax me out, not Maizelle, not even Adelaide. When I finally left my room and wandered downstairs, I found Maizelle sitting on the front porch stringing another bowl of green beans, moving her hands in a predictable and soothing rhythm. She never sat on the front porch unless Mother was out of town. I guess she knew Mother wouldn’t like it, and I guess that’s why she did it. But I was glad she was there, and I sat down next to her, looking for some kind of unspoken comfort.

“Where you been, child?” Maizelle asked.

“I think you know where I’ve been,” I snipped, sounding more like a wise-mouthed teenager than a girl with a broken heart.

“That’s not what I asked. Where you been?” she said again. Her words seemed to float through the air, filling the empty space between us.

I felt safe next to Maizelle, and without even realizing it, I started pleading my innocence. “Maizelle, I didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Samuel. We just talked, that’s all. I didn’t do anything wrong,” I cried, all the emotion of the past two days suddenly spilling out of my mouth.

“I know. You were just talking.”

“Mostly. I promise. He understands me better than anybody I’ve ever known. We talk about everything. He loves me for being me, for being Bezellia, not Bezellia Grove.”

“Loves you.” Maizelle repeated my words exactly as I had said them, and then she put the bean she was holding in her hands back in the bowl and handed me a pile of my own. She nodded at my lap, instructing me to help with the evening’s last chore.

“Bezellia, someday you and me may live in a world where a girl like yourself and a boy like Samuel can be together and
just talk
. But we ain’t there, sweetie. You know that.”

“But—” I tried to interrupt, but Maizelle just smiled and again nodded at the beans, reminding me to pick one up and pull its green, thready string.

“You know, when I was a little girl, even smaller than you, I used to follow my mama for miles every day as she walked from one house to another doing laundry for the white people in town. I’d sit there and watch her rub their pretty clothes over an old metal washboard till her knuckles bled. That lye soap just made ’em burn something awful. She’d sit there waving her hands in the air crying ‘Oh, sweet Jesus. Oh, sweet Jesus.’ And after all her work was done, she’d walk home with no more than a dime or two in her pocket.” Maizelle snapped another bean and continued with her story:

“One day a woman told my mama that her work wasn’t good enough, that there were still stains on her husband’s shirts. There weren’t any stains on those shirts, Bezellia. I’d seen ’em with my own eyes. That woman threw those clean clothes in the dirt, told my mama she wasn’t going to pay her for sloppy work.

“My mama got so mad. I’d never seen her get mad like that. She pushed that woman down in the dirt and rubbed her face in the mud. Oh Lord. That woman’s husband came flying out of his house and beat my mama unconscious, right there in front of me.

“Now here comes Samuel, so young and handsome, and he believes he can change the world. And we all need him to try, baby—for me, for my mother … even for you.”

Tears were collecting in the corners of my eyes. I desperately tried to soak them up with the edge of my cotton blouse before they spilled down my cheeks. Maizelle handed me a fresh white handkerchief that she pulled from somewhere deep inside her sleeve.

“Listen, honey, I thank Jesus every day that we haven’t seen the kind of violence here in Nashville like they done down in Birmingham. Still, there’s just too much hate floating in the air. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel it even way back here behind all these big, old trees?”

Yes. I felt it. I did. Sometimes my lungs were so full of it I wondered if I would choke on it. My chest would tighten and ache with it. But by Cornelia’s swimming pool, with Samuel sitting next to me, the air had felt so pure and so clear.

“Bezellia, people like Samuel believe they can make this world a better place just by peacefully standing their ground. Not me. After seeing my mama lying there in the dirt, bleeding so bad I thought she might die, I knew I could never just stand there and watch, never again,” Maizelle said, and then she picked up another bean.

“Throwing rocks became my specialty,” she announced, her tone a little lighter and more relaxed. “That’s right, a strong right arm can teach a mighty powerful lesson in my opinion. Now don’t you ever repeat that, or old Maizelle might just wind up in jail—again.” She said it so matter-of-factly that I almost started laughing. But her face was again stern and serious, and I knew she wasn’t kidding, leaving me to wonder what all about Maizelle I didn’t know. “You don’t need to be giving that boy any ideas that could get him into trouble. You understand what I’m telling you?”

“I’m not giving him any ideas, Maizelle,” I stammered, trying to convince myself as much as her.

“Sweetie, just being with you is giving him ideas. Worse than that, it might give other people ideas too, people who might think Samuel needs to be taught a lesson for simply sitting by the swimming pool with a girl like you.”

“He’s just my friend, I swear,” I insisted, my voice now flooded with tears. Maizelle shuffled her glider right next to mine. She put her round, thick arm around my shoulder and pulled me a little closer.

“Sweetie, Nathaniel’s not mad at you. He’s just afraid for his son. Surely you can understand that. And you know, if I had my way, it wouldn’t be like this. Of course, if I had my way, I wouldn’t be living in some other woman’s basement.” Maizelle smiled and snapped another bean.

“‘Red and yellow, black and white, they’re all precious in his sight.’ That’s my way of thinking,” she said, her voice now sounding full and upbeat. “Funny how some churchgoing folks I know see things a little differently. They sing the song, but I’m not sure they’re really listening to the words. And I’m not sure we’re ever gonna be able to change that. All I do know for sure is that this old arm of mine is getting tired.” She laughed right out loud. Then she stroked my hair and held me a little closer, a little tighter.

“Honey, it’s a sad thing when a child ain’t loved right. But you will be. It won’t always be like this. So hard, I mean. You’re turning into a beautiful young woman, Miss Bezellia. And I know that heart of yours is aching to be loved. And I also know that you and me ought to be down on our knees thanking the good Lord that your mama wasn’t here.” We both started laughing, realizing that, for once, my mother’s special condition had indeed been a blessing. I relaxed against Maizelle’s arm and picked up another bean.

Nathaniel and I never talked about that day by the swimming pool. In fact, there were a lot of things Nathaniel and I never talked about anymore. And sometimes I wondered which was worse—never seeing Samuel again or seeing Nathaniel every day, each of us feeling guarded and awkward around the other. But I knew what Maizelle was saying was right. Samuel needed to find his dream as much as I needed to find mine.

Mother came back a week or so before school started. She seemed timid, almost shy at first. Even I could tell that her improving health sometimes frightened her more than a full bottle of gin. But I think she wanted to be a better wife and mother. She called my father “dear” and brought Adelaide a beautiful new baby doll with soft blond hair and a white satin dress. She even seemed to treat Maizelle and Nathaniel with a bit more kindness and patience, although by five o’clock, when she would have been soaking in a gin and tonic, she tended to grow sharp and bitter.

A couple of her friends came by to welcome her home, although I think they were more curious than concerned. Of course, we never saw Mrs. Hunt again, and not much of our father really. Our mother grew painfully aware of their absences and, after a while, unsure of what to do with her long, quiet days at Grove Hill, started spending more and more time at the club. Sadly, by Easter, she was
sick
again, and by June she was heading back to Minnesota, not well enough or concerned enough to call her parents and schedule an impromptu summer vacation at the lake for her two young daughters. So Adelaide and I spent another summer at home alone, neatly out of our parents’ sight.

My little sister locked herself in her room and played with her dolls when she should have been playing hopscotch and phoning her friends. The doll my mother had given her last year sat on the floor by her bed; its hair had been cut short and the eyes painted with markers. I hid Baby Stella in the back of my closet for a few days, hoping Adelaide would leave her behind and start playing with
real
girls her own age, but my little sister pitched such a tearful fit I had to give her the doll back. Maizelle said she was just being Adelaide. She figured that even though my sister was now twelve years old, Adelaide was still a little girl in many ways, too afraid to grow much beyond her make-believe world. And I guess, in a way, Maizelle was right.

I spent more and more time with Cornelia, going to the movies and shopping for clothes. And I spent long afternoons in the kitchen with Maizelle, making pound cakes and canning tomatoes. But mostly I spent my days alone—needlepointing, reading, wading in the creek—trying to convince myself that I’d never really cared for Samuel Stephenson.

Maizelle said Samuel was spending the summer in Atlanta, organizing civil rights demonstrations. I imagined him sitting with his hands folded in his lap at some dime-store lunch counter or standing shoulder to shoulder with Martin Luther King. But Maizelle said those days were over. She was afraid Samuel was taking up another kind of fight, and I could hear her and Nathaniel whispering on the back porch, both sounding nervous and uneasy.

I kept Samuel’s bracelet wrapped inside a silk slip and tucked under some sweaters in my bottom dresser drawer. I never wore it during the day, never wanting to upset Nathaniel. But every night, before going to sleep, I prayed that Samuel would find his dream. And then I’d clasp his gold bracelet around my wrist and live mine while I slept.