Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Sunday morning, Miss Wellwood read the daily meditation at breakfast and led them in prayer, asking God to protect Governor Claude Kirk Jr., President Nixon, and the United States of America as it fought the spread of communism in Southeast Asia and at home. Hagar was in a worse mood than usual and burned the bottom of the egg-and-wheat-germ casserole, but it didn’t matter. Without salt, it was all just a bunch of chewing.
Fern sat in the Cong. Around her, girls cut pictures of living room sets out of catalogs, sewed layettes, and listened to the Big Ape, while Briony and Ginger monogrammed hankies, Jasmine talked about the sun entering Gemini, Tansy came up with a list of suspects who had stolen her DS (two packs of salted peanuts), and Fern thought about the sounds Myrtle made when they took her away.
She hadn’t washed her hair that morning and swore she’d never use the upstairs bathroom again. But by two o’clock that afternoon, after three trips downstairs to the powder room on swollen legs, she’d forgotten her vow.
Finally, the clock dragged itself around to dinner. On Sundays dinner was served at five thirty p.m. instead of six, and that night it was bran biscuit pie with chipped beef. A plate and a glass of milk sat at everyone’s place except Fern’s. The only thing on her place mat was a glass of thick brown sludge.
“Miss Wellwood?” she asked. “What’s this?”
“Dr. Vincent said you need iron,” Miss Wellwood told her, accepting a tray from Hagar. “That is your health supplement.”
Everyone stared at the glass. Condensation beaded its sides. The top was foamy.
“But what is it?” Fern asked.
“Calves’ liver blended with milk,” Miss Wellwood said, tucking into her cold chicken salad.
Daisy gagged. Girls averted their eyes. Fern stared at the liver shake’s purple tint. For a moment, she saw scraps of tissue clinging to Myrtle’s legs.
“Doctor’s orders,” Miss Wellwood said.
The other girls began to eat, doing their best not to look at Fern’s glass. As silverware scraped plates, Miss Wellwood lectured them on John 20, the biblical injunction to make their beds.
“The graveclothes were folded in the tomb,” she said. “If our risen Savior can take the time to fold His graveclothes before bringing salvation to all mankind, then we can do no less each morning. Our homemaking is a form of praise.”
Fern made herself grasp the condensation-slick glass. She raised it to her lips. The rich iron stink of liver filled her nose, and her stomach crowded into her throat. She tried not to breathe. She tried to make her wrist tip it down her throat. She couldn’t do it. She could take the pills, she could march to the bathroom, she could give blood, but she could not drink this. She set it back down.
By the time the meal ended her glass was still full.
“You will remain at the table until you finish your supplement,” Miss Wellwood said. “I’ll take coffee in my office, Ginger.”
Everyone rose and left the room; the echoes of their feet tromping down the hall and up the stairs died and Fern sat staring at the milkshake. She wished she’d drunk it earlier because now it was room temperature and she could smell it from here, raw, bloody, and warm.
The swinging door flapped back and forth as Laurel and Iris cleared the table. Finally, it stopped swinging and Fern sat alone at the table, bare except for the straw place mat in front of her, the liver shake smelling worse by the second. She couldn’t do it. She’d throw up if she drank it. She wanted to obey Miss Wellwood, she wanted to get this over with, but it wasn’t physically possible.
Someone came in the hall door and Fern looked up, expecting to see Miss Wellwood. Instead, Rose stood there. Fern looked at the corner of her place mat. She couldn’t handle Rose right now.
Rose came around the table and stood, looking down at Fern over her stomach. Fern realized that Rose must have figured out about her bippies. She might as well get this over with.
“What?” she asked.
Rose reached down, took the liver shake, threw her head back, and chugged. Her throat worked as she sucked the chunky, congealed shake into her stomach. Finally, she smacked the empty glass on the place mat and belched. Warm liver-y breath washed over Fern. A thick brown mustache coated Rose’s upper lip. She wiped it off with the heel of her hand and flashed Fern the peace sign.
“Solidarity,” she said, and left the dining room.
Fern felt all the tension drain from her body. She picked up her glass, took it into the kitchen, and put it in the sink.
“No, ma’am,” Hagar barked. “You’re going to wash that nasty thing.”
Fern washed the glass, then went upstairs to the Cong to see if she could cadge some DS. She was starving. Instead, she walked into a heavy scene.
“We’re in Weirdsville!” Flora wailed from one side of the room. “That’s where we are.”
The vibes were unsettled. Girls hovered by the curtains and the door. The stuffy room stank of pine oil because whoever had last mopped the Cong used too much Pine-Sol, but no one was opening the windows. They couldn’t open the windows. Miss Wellwood was still there.
“She’s never stayed after seven thirty!” Daisy said.
“It’s crazy is what it is!” Tansy said.
Iris walked in circles, her face sweaty.
“I mean, is it going to be like this forever?” she asked. “Is she moving in?”
“Why is Miss Wellwood still here?” Fern asked Iris as she passed.
“I don’t know!” Iris said, eyes wild. “This is the ultimate drag!”
Eight o’clock came. Eight thirty.
“She’s still down there,” Ginger hissed from the hall.
Other girls joined Ginger at the banister, leaning over, eyeing the closed office door. Girls pretended to watch TV. They pretended to listen to the radio. They kept checking to see if the light was still on in Miss Wellwood’s office. It was.
Finally, a little after nine, strange headlights swept the front of the Home, and they all waddled to the balcony doors like a herd of pregnant ducks. They were in the middle of nowhere. Cars never stopped there after dark.
A green Lincoln Continental pulled up to the porch, engine chuffing. It cut off and in the silence a tall woman got out and took a suitcase from the trunk. A girl got out of the passenger seat and walked up on the front porch. In the dark, all they could tell was that she was pregnant.
Everyone went waddling to the banister just in time for Miss Wellwood to come out of her office and go to the front door. They heard it open and Miss Wellwood talking to the woman, and the woman answering in a low voice, getting louder as they came up the hall and into view.
The girl wore a pink empire dress like Jackie Kennedy and white gloves. If she’d had a long drive, it didn’t show. Her mother was tall and wore a light-green-and-white-checked dress with a high collar and a green pillbox hat. Both of them were colored.
“…your flexibility,” the woman was saying. “This is a trying time for our family.”
“Why don’t you step into my office and one of our girls will show your daughter around?” Miss Wellwood said, and looked up the stairs at the wall of faces staring down.
The colored girl and her mother looked at each other. Fern couldn’t tell what they were thinking, but the girl looked glum. Then Briony started down the stairs like Miss Pregnant Teenage America.
“I’d be happy to, Miss Wellwood,” she said.
Miss Wellwood ushered the girl’s mother into her office and closed the door. Briony led the new girl toward the classroom, talking about the chicken incubators. They knew they couldn’t thunder after her like a herd of pregnant cows, so ultimately they followed their rule: when in doubt, go to the Cong and speculate.
“I’d be scared to send my daughter to Florida if I were colored,” Jasmine said. “If they swim on the wrong beach down here they get drowned.”
“No wonder she brought her at night,” Laurel said. “No one can see them arrive.”
Everyone reached for their bippies, then remembered that Miss Wellwood was still in the house, so they picked at their nails instead.
“Do you think that’s why they sent her here?” Tansy asked. “I mean, if I was colored and I wanted to hide my daughter I’d send her to Florida.”
Briony raised her voice as she came in the door so everyone knew to stop talking about the new girl.
“This is the Congregation Room,” Briony projected. “Where the girls like to gather for games or to relax and watch television.”
Everyone turned at the same time. The new girl froze in the doorway, confronted by eleven staring white faces. Briony made a grand gesture to the room like she was a tour guide.
“And these are the girls,” she said, then explained, “She hasn’t been assigned a name by Miss Wellwood yet.”
The new girl flashed a small, tight smile and mumbled hello. Flora popped up and stuck out her hand.
“Hiya, I’m Flora,” she said. “This is Daisy.”
“What kind of dog do you have?” Daisy asked.
“Knock it off,” Clem said.
“Hello,” the new girl said, shaking Flora’s hand.
Her voice was even and low.
“What’s your sign?” Jasmine asked.
“I don’t know,” the new girl said. “We don’t do that in my house.”
Tansy stepped forward. She stood stiffly and spoke formally like she was giving a speech.
“A lot of people around here,” she said, “not in this room, but in St. Augustine, think coloreds ruined the city’s four hundredth birthday, but I don’t think that’s true. I think the regular people who live here did that on their own. So you’re welcome here as far as I’m concerned.”
“Okay,” the new girl said.
Suddenly, she looked like she remembered something important. Everyone got interested. Her forehead wrinkled like she was thinking hard. Everyone leaned forward. One white-gloved hand flew to her mouth and her eyes swept the room in a panic, then she was waddling for the screen doors to the balcony.
She yanked them open, leaned over the rail, and one foot flew up behind her as they all heard her give a very unladylike “UULLLLP!”
A cup of liquid splattered on the porch below. Then her shoulders heaved and she did it again. She coughed for a bit, getting her breath back, and finally turned around.
“Pine-Sol,” she said, panting. “It—”
She broke off and whirled back around and threw up over the balcony again. Briony had her hand over her mouth, eyes sparkling. Flora and Daisy looked like they were about to bust up laughing. The new girl turned around again, leaning unsteadily against the balcony rail.
“Zinnia,” Miss Wellwood said from the doorway. Apparently, she’d already named this girl Zinnia. “Would you join me downstairs? Your mother would like to say goodbye.”
Zinnia pushed herself off the railing and walked across the room to Miss Wellwood.
“Excuse me,” Laurel called from the other side of the room. “Miss Wellwood? Where’s she going to sleep?”
“That’s none of your concern,” Miss Wellwood replied.
She put one hand on the new girl’s shoulder and steered her toward the door.
“But there aren’t any free rooms,” Briony said. “Ginger is tripled up with Iris and me, and Tansy is tripled up with Flora and Daisy.”
Miss Wellwood turned back to the room.
“If you must know, I had Miriam make up the attic bedroom,” she said. “Zinnia will sleep there.”
Fern didn’t even know there was an attic bedroom, then she remembered seeing a steep flight of stairs sliced into the wall at the front of the house, next to the office where Nurse Kent stayed overnight. Miss Wellwood turned to leave the Cong again.
“You can’t do that,” Rose said.
Miss Wellwood turned slowly and fixed her eyes on Rose.
“It is not your place to tell me what I can and cannot do in my own Home,” she said.
Rose didn’t care.
“You know how hot it gets up there during the day,” she said. “Who do you think she is? Anne Frank? You’re going to hide her in the attic?”
“The windows let in a breeze,” Miss Wellwood said. “And the shutters will remain open during the day. She’ll be quite comfortable.”
“You can’t stick the one black girl in the attic,” Rose said. “That’s segregation. None of us are free until we’re all free.”
Rose raised her fist in the Black Power salute at Zinnia, and Zinnia looked like she’d prefer to be in the attic room right that minute. Maybe an attic room in another state.
“If you feel so strongly about it, Rose,” Miss Wellwood said, “perhaps you would like to take the attic room.”
“Righteous,” Rose said. “When sisters are united, that’s when the Struggle begins.”
“How nice.” Miss Wellwood smiled and turned to Zinnia. “Shall we say our goodbyes to your mother?”
They started for the door, but Laurel spoke up again.
“But you still haven’t told us where Zinnia’s going to sleep,” she said.
Before Miss Wellwood could say anything, Rose butted in.
“She’ll sleep in my bed,” she said. “Fern and Holly aren’t prejudiced.”
“I’m not prejudiced!” Laurel protested.
“Fern,” Miss Wellwood said, and Fern hated that everyone was looking at her again. “Zinnia will share your and Holly’s room. While she gets settled, the two of you will mop the porch.”
Fern and Holly lugged two buckets of water to the front porch and sluiced off the new girl’s—Zinnia’s—throw-up. It was a muggy night and when Zinnia’s mother came outside Fern was acutely aware that she’d sweated through her dress and she and Holly both smelled like dockworkers. The woman walked past them like they didn’t exist.
By the time they got back to their room, Rose had already moved out and Zinnia was unpacking. Holly sat on her bed and watched Zinnia take out her carefully folded clothes. They were new. This girl wasn’t going to be wearing hand-me-downs from the communal closet. She hung her dresses in the wardrobe. Fern could tell she didn’t like that all they had were wire hangers.
“Do they have a piano here?” Zinnia asked. “I’m supposed to practice.”
“There’s a harpsichord or something in the music room,” Fern said. “But I’ve never seen anyone play it. Have you, Holly?”
Holly shook her head vigorously. Zinnia’s shoulders drooped.
“I don’t want to fall behind,” she said.
Her mother’s car was nicer than any car Fern’s dad had ever owned, and Zinnia’s clothes looked like they all came from a big department store. Fern wished Rose was still here instead of this rich stranger. She’d just started getting used to Rose.
Zinnia stopped suddenly in front of the wardrobe and stared inside, a gold-and-brown plaid dress in one hand. Fern figured she’d seen how ugly Fern’s donated maternity dresses looked next to her expensive new ones. Then Zinnia dropped the dress and before it even hit the floor she was on her knees, hugging their metal garbage can, retching into it, back hunched. She finally stopped, panting, holding her face over the can. Her breathing returned to normal and she slumped against the side of her bed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stripping off her white gloves and wiping her mouth. The starch had gone out of her. “I can’t help it. If someone would show me where the bathroom is I’ll rinse that out. I’ll probably do it again a few more times tonight.”
Up close, Fern noticed that Zinnia’s eyes were bloodshot and swollen.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Zinnia closed her eyes and licked her lips. Her tongue looked dry.
“We’ve been driving since five a.m. because Mother says it’s not safe for us to stop down here,” she said. “She gave me sleeping pills so I wouldn’t be sick. I’ve been asleep since sunrise. This still feels like a dream.”
She looked at different parts of the room, like she was trying to make it feel more real.
“I’ve got bad news,” Fern said. “This is no dream, this is real, this is happening.”
Zinnia focused on her, as if she recognized the quote.
“You know what?” she said. “ Rosemary’s Baby is the only book about being pregnant I’ve ever read. I sure hope this isn’t going to be like that.”
Something clicked into place inside Fern’s chest. This was the first girl she’d met who knew that Rosemary’s Baby had been a book before it was a movie. She felt like she’d been traveling abroad and bumped into someone who spoke the same language.
“You know what?” she said to Zinnia. “It’s probably going to be worse.”