The Dry Grass of August(8)

Daddy jerked away from her.

I sank to the floor. Bleach stung my legs. I pressed my hot face to the cold concrete.

Mama came down the stairs. “William.”

“Paula, leave this to me.” Daddy sounded tired.

“She’s had enough.”

Mary was going to say something, but Mama shook her head. Mary got the uniform and headed for her bathroom under the stairs. Mama said, “Leave us. You can change later.” Mary hung up the uniform and climbed the stairs.

Mama bent over me. “You did a truly awful thing, Jubie, but you’ve paid for it.” She touched a cut on my right calf. “I’ll get you some cream. Ye gods, William, what did you hit her with?”

But Daddy was gone. Mama tried to put her arms around me. I pushed her away, sobbing and hiccupping. “If Stell—if she read my diary, he wouldn’t beat her.”

“Stell would never do what you did.” Daddy’s heavy steps pounded over our heads. He stomped around their bedroom above us, opening and closing bureau drawers. Then his footsteps went off toward the kitchen, and the cowbell jangled as he slammed the back door.

Mama stood. “He’s gone to the club.” She straightened her back. “Just think how Stell felt when she heard what you’d done.”

Standing over me, Mama looked as tall as Daddy. She had never beaten me, never even spanked me, and she never would, not as long as Daddy was around to do her dirty work.

“There’s a basket of diapers by the dryer. Dampen one and wipe your legs. Come up to my bathroom and I’ll give you something to take the sting out. Is your white skirt clean?”

“Huh?”

“Your white circle skirt. If it’s dirty, we need to wash it, then you can iron it for church tomorrow. You can wear your loafers and crew socks, so your legs—”

“Socks and loafers to church?”

“Or you can stay home. Maybe that would be best.” She sniffed. “Why does it stink of bleach?” She spotted the overturned jug of Clorox. “I suppose that happened in the tussle.”

I nodded.

Mama went up to the kitchen and said, “Mary, there’s a mess on the basement floor.”

I pulled myself up the stairs, one hand over the other on the rail.

Mary was standing at the bar when I walked into the kitchen, tears on her face. She opened her arms wide and pulled me to her. I sobbed against her shoulder and she whispered into my ear, “That was a mean, wrong thing for your father to do.” She held me tight, rubbing my back. “You’re a good girl, Jubie. Sometime you do a bad thing, but you’re a good girl. You remember that.”

Mama called from the hallway, “Hurry up, June.”

“Your mama got something to help.” We both looked down at my legs. The red stripes and cuts were swelling into angry welts.

In her bathroom, Mama gave me ajar of cream to put on the cuts. She turned to leave.

“Would you do the back of my legs?”

She dabbed half a dozen places, then handed the jar to me. “You can get the rest. It’s greasy. Put a towel under you when you sit.” She looked at my underpants. “Why are you all wet?”

I had peed myself. “I think it’s Clorox.”

“Take off your panties before it burns you.” She closed her bedroom door behind her.

After I put the cream on my legs, I climbed the stairs with a towel wrapped around my hips. When I passed Stell’s room, I saw her lying on her bed, her head in her arms. Puddin was sitting beside her, patting Stell, her back to the door.

I screamed at them, “Look at me!”

Puddin turned. Stell raised her head. “Get out,” she said, her voice hoarse.

I dropped the towel. “Look what Daddy did.”

Stell stared.

“I gave Puddin half the money Carter paid me to read your diary. She took it, fifty cents, then she told anyway.”

Stell pushed Puddin away. “You took money not to tell?”

Puddin nodded. Stell shoved her. Puddin fell on the floor, sobbing, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Stell turned her back to me. “Get out, both of you. Leave me alone.”

I sat on the edge of my dressing stool, careful so the cream wouldn’t stain the flowered print seat. The first time Daddy spanked me, I was seven. I’d spilled a bottle of ink on a stack of Mama’s clean white sheets. He never laid a finger on Stell or Puddin, only me.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My cheeks were splotched, my eyes swollen. But the beating didn’t show on my face. There was a tube of Revlon lipstick on the dresser. Stell had thrown it out because it was too bright, what she called floozy lipstick. I twisted the tube until the slanted top stuck out a half inch, then applied it, going outside the lip line. I read the label on the bottom and mouthed the words at the mirror, my lips full and pouty like Marilyn’s, Fire and Ice.





CHAPTER 3

Mama stood in the courtyard of the Sleep Inn Motel, smoking and looking at her watch while Stell held Davie, and I helped Mary pack the car. Then we lit out like somebody was on our tail, Mama half awake and so nervous you’d think we were going to be arrested for spotting a mattress that was already stained. We were even more crowded in the car because Mary hadn’t been able to fit the picnic basket back into the trunk. Mama said for me just to hold it, that we’d need it when we ate breakfast on the road. I sat behind Stell, the basket on my lap, the wicker scratching my legs through my jeans.