The Dry Grass of August(17)

“Thanks.”

Mama was making a speech about how happy she was to be in Pensacola, how nice everybody was, how she didn’t know where Puddin and I’d gone. The chatter started up again as people crowded the dining room, their feet showing under the tablecloth.

I heard Stell say, “Why, thank you, a gift from my boyfriend.” Her gold cross. “Our next-door neighbor.” How she met Carter. “Together we formed Charlotte’s first Young Life group.” Together, ha! She’d had to drag Carter into it.

“Young Life?” a woman asked.

“A club for Christian teens.” Stell’s voice was full of pride.

Mrs. Willingham said to someone, “Paula’s lucky to have her, that’s what I told one of her kids.” Her voice faded into the others as she walked away.

Mary came into the dining room. I recognized her black lace-ups. “Commander Bentley, reckon it’s time for the apple pies?”

“What do you think, Kay?” Uncle Taylor asked.

“They gobbled up your biscuits, Mrs. Luther, and I’m sure your pies will be delicious. Yes, it’s time.”

I couldn’t get over her saying “Mrs. Luther.” I’d never heard anybody call Mary that.

Mrs. Willingham, who was standing by the table, said, “Calling a colored gal by her last name is making a show of being broad-minded. Kay Macy’s a Yankee, you know. Maybe she’d be good for Taylor and Sarah, but maybe not.”

“Thank goodness that’s not your decision,” Mama said.

“Oh, Paula, I didn’t see you. Well, I do have opinions.”

“Perhaps you should keep them to yourself.”

“I’ve never been good at that. Just come right out with what I think.”

Mama’s heels clicked across the foyer into the living room.

Things got quiet. Puddin and I crawled out from under the table.

Mrs. Cooper stood in the kitchen doorway. “There you are. Your mama’s been looking for you.”

Puddin said, “Jubie found me under the table.”

“Cocktail parties aren’t a lot of fun for kids.” She took Puddin’s hand. “Sit on the stool and let me fix your barrettes.” She gave me a hug. “Nobody’s in the kitchen. If you scoot out the back door, you won’t have to help with the dishes.”

As the screen door closed behind me, Mrs. Cooper said to Mama, “Mrs. Luther must be worn out. Why don’t we let her go to bed and I’ll finish up in here.”

“Another half hour won’t kill her,” Mama said. “I brought her along to help.”





CHAPTER 8

In the fall of 1952, Daddy announced that the house he’d built for us on Queens Road West was ready. The day we moved in, Mary got Mama settled in Daddy’s platform rocker in the den. “Too bad,” Mary said, “a new house and a new baby at the same time.”

“A lousy coincidence,” Mama said. She sat by the breezeway door, smoking and drinking coffee from a thermos, telling the movers where to put things. She took the cowbell from her cloth carryall of last-minute stuff—toilet paper, bar soap, the magnets she’d taken from the refrigerator—and gave it to Mary to hang on the kitchen door.

Mary hung the bell, and the familiar jangle echoed through the empty rooms.

“Now it’s home,” Mama said.

The house was so big we didn’t have enough stuff to fill it—five bedrooms, three bathrooms—four floors including a full attic, a basement, and a two-car garage with an efficiency apartment above it. Mama said she’d have a good time shopping for new furniture after the baby was born. Her belly was huge and I thought she’d fall over every time she stood. She wore nothing but tennis shoes or bedroom slippers on her swollen feet.

I commented on being way taller than Mama, so Mary measured me, making a pencil mark on the bathroom doorjamb. “Five foot seven,” she said, “and you not yet twelve. I s’pect you got even more growing to do.” That was fine with me. I liked looking down on Mama and Stell Ann. I wasn’t crazy about having big feet, but Daddy pointed to his own size fourteens and said that came with the territory.

In the new house, I had a room to myself for the first time in my life, with a double bed I felt lost in. The walls were painted in what Mama called mauve rose, with a white quilted spread, floral print curtains, and a matching dust ruffle. Mama sold our beds with the apple headboards to a woman with triplet daughters.

“Aren’t they just the cutest things!” the woman said.

“My husband designed them and his brother cut and painted them,” Mama told her.

“Oh, no,” the woman said, “I mean your daughters. They’re just adorable.”

“Oh.”

“So why are you selling the beds?”

“The oldest’s fourteen.”

“But you might have another girl.” The woman looked at Mama’s stomach.

“I certainly hope not. Check or cash?”

Sometimes I didn’t want to hear what Mama said.





A week after we moved in, Mama began having labor pains while she and Mary were putting shelf paper in the pantry. Mama said the pains didn’t amount to anything, but Mary convinced her to lie down, and they spent the afternoon in Mama’s room. Stell and I could hear the mumble of their voices, their laughter, Mama’s occasional moans.