A Garden of Earthly Delights (15 page)

Island Grove, Florida.
It was a hot afternoon in late summer, Clara was alone minding Nancy's baby. Thinking how, goddamn, if it'd been some other time, and a thousand miles to the north, she'd be with
her friend Rosalie. Even picking oranges together, warding off flies, she'd like better than this.

A knock at the door! Kind of hesitant, soft. Nobody knocked, ever. Just called your name or barged right in.

In this Island Grove they were living in an actual building long and low and flat-roofed. Fifteen units in each building and concrete floors that could be hosed down; each unit had two rooms and two windows, one in front and one in back, and the buildings were sided in beige asphalt that was rough like sandpaper, and there were roofs that leaked only in heavy rain. At the far end of the camp the outhouses had concrete floors, too. Clara had never seen anything like it.

Except there was a harsh chemical smell here. Like lye Carleton said, made him cough and wheeze. Clara had gotten used to the smells of the other camps, that were mostly garbage and outhouse smells; but this was worse, not a natural smell but one to burn your nostrils and mouth and make your eyes water. When they'd first moved in they'd been amazed at the way the garbage and trash were hauled off to be burned in a big dump pile at the edge of the camp, and at how women could wash laundry for free in a big roofed place like a barn; there were showers, and sometimes hot water. And soap you squirted onto yourself out of a big jar. Even Carleton was impressed, there was an actual doctor and a nurse from the county who came to examine the workers, it was “mandated” that everybody be examined including blood tests but some refused, or just didn't show up; including Carleton who said he didn't want any damn doctor poking at him and taking his blood and next thing you know they're telling you you have blood-cancer or TB and have to be quarantined; but for sure Carleton wanted his kids examined, and of his kids Clara especially.
Pa, why?
Clara asked, and Carleton said
Because I say so.
In fact, Clara had liked being examined. Strangers touching her, caring about her. It made her feel happy. The nice youngish doctor said, “ ‘Clara Walpole'—your teeth! Don't you ever brush your teeth?” He was shaking his head, but smiling. Out of a big box of toothbrushes Clara was given one, with a red handle; she was proud of having it but didn't use it much, the bristles either tickled her sensitive gums, or made them bleed.

And there was a grocery store they could go to with special tickets so you didn't need actual money. And, with the strong smell, there weren't so many insects, though always a few palmetto bugs for as Carleton said, This is the fuckin Sunshine State. The burning smell stayed with them, though, even out in the orange groves amid the sweet pungent smell of oranges.

That day, Nancy wasn't picking but sorting oranges in the big sorting shed at the edge of the camp, and Carleton had gotten lucky with a county crew doing emergency roadwork on some highway. They'd been living here for five weeks now and Clara had decorated some of the walls, cut pictures out of magazines and flower shapes out of oilcloth and tacked them up to make the place pretty. You could always find something to make a place prettier than it was, like covering up places where people'd squashed bugs on the walls.

When Clara heard the knocking she was nervous thinking it was maybe these older guys, seventeen, eighteen, who'd been hanging around and bothering her, who knew that Carleton was away. She wasn't sure she wanted to see them, Nancy warned her what guys were after, still she put the baby down in his crib and glanced at herself in Nancy's mirror, propped up on the windowsill.

“Y'all come in”—Clara saw it wasn't the boys, and it was nobody she knew: two ladies outside, standing awkwardly on planks that had been placed in the muddy walks.

“Hello!” The ladies' voices were bright and hopeful and you could see they were nervous. Town ladies, wearing hats and boxy shapeless knit suits—the one an ugly bone-color, the other a puke-pale green—that must have been expensive because there was no other reason to wear such clothes. Their faces were soft and powdered and their mouths had been reddened with lipstick that gave them a frantic look in these surroundings where no women or girls wore makeup during the day, and only on rare occasions at night. One of the ladies wore tortoiseshell glasses like a teacher, so Clara looked at her.

“I'm Mrs. Foster,” she said, “and my friend here is Mrs. Wylie, we're from the First Methodist Church over in Florence. We came out for a little visit—”

“Y'all want to come inside?” Clara said again, because she knew this was the polite thing to ask; but the ladies seemed nervous of stepping up the cinder blocks and into the building, like there might be something inside they would not wish to see. “Nobody's home right now but me and this baby I'm minding.”

The lady who'd called herself Mrs. Foster was saying how they'd been made welcome here by the orange grove owner who was a Christian and a good citizen and how they'd seen Clara's flag hanging out—“Brought us here right away.” Clara had mostly forgotten about the flag, it was just one of her decorations, hanging out the window on a two-foot pole. Nancy liked it fine and Carleton said it “added class” (maybe Pa was joking, twisting his mouth in that way of his) to their quarters. This flag was so small, and now so faded and limp, it wasn't much like flags Clara saw sometimes at the tops of tall buildings or flagpoles; those were usually whipping in the wind with a proud look. Clara's flag was just a rectangular piece of red-and-white-striped cloth hanging down. Still you could see it was an American flag. And seeing it through the church ladies' eyes, Clara was proud it was there.

“Yes, it shows such a … an interest—”

“Brought us here right away,” Mrs. Foster said in an earnest, happy voice. “There is nothing so important as—loving your country.”

Clara was glowing with pleasure. “I'm real glad you like it,” she said, hoping the ladies would take the burden of talk from her. Smiling so hard! It was like that strange excited feeling she'd had pushed up against the man in the car driving her and Rosalie into town in New Jersey—that she had to hook onto the other person, she had to make him like her, had to make these smiling ladies like her, and fast. But she couldn't think of much to say to them, who were looking at her with that mixed look you get from mother-types—like they can see things to improve in you. Clara felt a stab of shame, her hair was likely snarled, and her clothes were likely not too clean. And she was barefoot.

The ladies were clean of course. And they wore stockings and dress-up shoes. And white gloves.

Gloves! Clara smiled happily to think that she had been singled
out by ladies wearing white gloves. She hoped everybody in the units was watching her, who was home. For these were women who lived in real houses and went to church and had all the money they wished to spend, and nobody ever yelled at them, or cuffed them.

Such a cordial voice inquiring of Clara, “What is your name, dear?”

Clara saw some kids gathering to watch a short distance away. Goddamn if those brats ruined this.

“My name is Clara Walpole.” Like at school, Clara spoke clearly.

“And where did you say your family is, dear?”

“Oh, they're—out. My stepma is down at the sorting shed, and my pa is—away somewhere.” Clara began to speak more rapidly, out of a fear of running out of words. “Like I said, I'm minding the baby. Roosevelt is picking oranges I guess, and Rodwell is—” Clara pointed toward the kids hanging out across the way, one of whom was her brother, and when the women shaded their eyes to look around, the kids waved with exaggerated enthusiasm and made animal noises. So mortified! Clara shook her fist. “Damn you, shut up!” It occurred to her immediately that she shouldn't have yelled, she surely shouldn't have shaken her fist—she saw how the ladies exchanged startled glances. “They don't mean nothin,” she said weakly.

Next door the old man wandered out and, Jesus!—Clara saw his pants were unbuttoned, she hoped to hell he wouldn't piss right in front of them but the ladies were trying not to look. The one with the tortoiseshell glasses adjusted them, and peered at Clara with her hopeful smile, and said maybe yes they could step inside, just for a minute.

So Clara held the screen door open for Mrs. Foster and Mrs. Wylie, who brushed past her seeming to be holding their breaths, into the “unit,” and Clara saw with dismay how messy the kitchen was, dishes soaking in the sink, damp towels and clothes hanging on the backs of chairs, Nancy's flypaper twist hanging down from the light fixture above the table covered in flies and moths. Some of these were dead, and some were still living. “We only just moved in,” Clara said, as if the flypaper twist wasn't their fault. She was
noting a discrepancy between the ladies' pink-lipstick mouths that were smiling, and their eyes that looked frightened and quivery. “Here is Esther Jean,” Clara said proudly, picking up the baby, such a hot little bundle in her arms she had to smile, “ain't she cute?”

“She isn't—is?—no, she isn't—”

“—isn't her baby, Catherine. Really!”

The ladies were murmuring together. Clara laughed at what they were saying. “She's my stepma's. I ain't married—I don't have any baby.” The ladies appeared embarrassed.

“Dear, the purpose of our little visit is to inquire whether … anyone in your family would like to accept an invitation to visit our church.” Mrs. Foster spoke in a rush of words, twining her white-gloved fingers around one another. “We of the First Methodist Church of Florence wish to extend to you a warm welcome from the Reverend Bargman and we hope—we hope that you will accept.”

An invitation.
Clara smiled at the word, it had a sound she liked. “Oh, I'm real interested in church!” she said. “I just never been, much.”

“Your family isn't aligned with any particular church, then? But you are Christian, yes?”

“Oh, yes. Christian. But not—not particular about it.”

Clara shook her head solemnly.
All eyes
she'd gone in that moment, as certain of her girlfriends teased her when guys hung around her and tugged at her hair sometimes; Clara wasn't conscious of behaving any differently, only just her gaze seemed to soften and melt and she lifted her face like a flower to whoever was talking to her. It always seemed to have some effect, as now the ladies smiled at her startled and pleased.

“We are having a prayer meeting tonight, in fact,” Mrs. Foster said quickly. “At seven. A lovely child like yourself, you would be so very welcome. And of course your—stepmother, you said? And your father, and—anyone else. All of you are welcome.”

They all smiled at one another, as if a difficult hurdle had been overcome. The ladies examined the walls decorated with pictures of snowcapped mountains and southern plantation houses and careful cutouts of yellow oilcloth in the shapes of flowers; Clara was
wishing she'd taped up a picture of Jesus Christ, like some people did, because the ladies would be happy to see it and like her better.

Clara walked with Mrs. Foster and Mrs. Wylie back to their car, that was parked at the front of the camp. She was deeply ashamed of the units they were passing, where laundry was hanging out, and all kinds of junk lay in the lane; little kids everywhere, fat little dark-skinned boys with no pants, and their peckers bobbing.
Just like animals
Clara knew the ladies were thinking. Clara kept up a bright stream of chatter in the way of Nancy when she'd been drinking and trying to deflect Carleton out of a bad mood.

Almost they'd made it to the ladies' car, where a beefy boy of about twenty was sitting behind the wheel listening to a loud radio, when some kids from the camp came running by, splashing mud and shouting what sounded like
cocksucker! fucker!
and laughing like hyenas. Mrs. Foster gave a little shriek, and Mrs. Wylie clutched at her purse as if fearful it would be snatched from her. Clara saw to her mortification that that damn asshole Rodwell was running with the gang, they'd done it to embarrass her.

“Never mind them,” Clara said hotly. “They're just animals.”

At the ladies' car it was decided that Clara should wait at this spot after supper, and she would be picked up and driven to the church. The boy behind the wheel, who'd had to turn the radio down at Mrs. Foster's murmured request, was staring at Clara without as much as a smile.

They drove off. Clara waved goodbye. “Don't forget me!” she called after.

There wasn't any supper that night except what Clara put together for herself. Luckily Nancy came back to get Esther Jean, to take her to a friend's place (where they'd be drinking real late, Clara knew) so Clara could wash her hair in the sink, and comb it out to dry, and put her favorite little blue barrettes in it. She wore a blue dress, too; a castoff somebody had given her. And flat black shoes called “ballerina” shoes and were only a little scuffed. “I'm going to church tonight in town. A special invitation.” She spoke to herself in a friendly way like somebody bearing good news.

By six-thirty Clara was out on the road waiting. Seeing cars she
knew didn't belong to Mrs. Foster, she scrambled through a ditch to hide behind some bushes. At about five minutes to seven the stocky boy arrived, in a swirl of dust. He stared at her. “You all that's coming?”

Clara said apologetically she guessed so. Her father and stepmother couldn't come.

“O.K., Blondie. Jump in.”

He was smoking a cigar as he drove and it smelled bad. Clara tried to make herself like it, as if it were the sign of church, of a new world. She kept glancing at him nervously and when he looked at her she smiled. He said nothing. Clara thought he drove sort of fast.

“Is it hard to drive a car?” she said.

He shifted the cigar around in his mouth and took a while to answer. “Depends on how smart you are.”

“How old do you need to be?”

“You ain't old enough.”

He said no more. Clara was staring out at the houses they passed, at people who had nothing else to do but sit on their front porches and watch traffic go by. She felt something ache in her that was mixed up with the heavy sweet smell of lilacs from the big bushes by everyone's front porch.