Prologue #2
they don’t leave hungry,” Miss Annamae carried on, taking my attention again.
Not easy to do in my house where Momma spent her money on
smokes and booze and not so much on food for her kid.
I was looking forward to the day when I could get a job and
I could have money and I could use it for whatever I wanted. I wasn’t going to
use it on smokes and booze, for certain. I wasn’t going to use it on fancy
dresses or shoes or handbags either.
I was going to keep my house like a good Southern woman
would. My yard would be perfect. My house would be tidy. And there’d always be
sweet tea and food in the fridge.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said to Miss Annamae.
I felt her fingers curl on my shoulder and I was looking at
her but I still felt sure as certain that her gaze grew sharper on me.
“A good Southern girl pays attention in school.” She lifted
her other hand to her temple then reached out and touched the middle of my
forehead before she dropped it. “Ain’t no call for a
Southern woman to rub your nose in the fact she’s smarter than you. But make no
mistake, she’s gonna be smarter than you.”
I nodded.
She shifted closer and it felt like her eyes were burning
into me.
“You find that time when you get yourself a boy, child, he
holds the door for you. You enter a room before him. He closes you safe in his
car. If you’re at a restaurant, he gives you the seat with the best view. He
stands when you stand. He offers you his hand when it’s needed. And if you’ve
got a touch with a drill and a hankerin’ to use it,
then you use it, girl. But if you don’t and you got hooks you need put up in
your bathroom, he best be gettin’ on that for you and
doin’ it without any backtalk or delay.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I whispered, the wonders of such a boy as I’d
never known making my insides feel funny.
“As for you, Miss Daisy, you take care of yourself,” she
continued. “Don’t you leave the house without your hair set, your face done,
and your earrings in.” She patted my shoulder but then gripped again tight.
“You get older, you’ll find your style. And don’t you let anyone tell you what
that is. You’re a good girl in a way I know you’ll always be a good girl. Be
proud of that. Good posture. Chin up. Show your pride, sugar. Be who you are
however that evolves and don’t let anyone cut you down.”
Gosh, but it felt nice her saying I was a good girl.
It was harder to think of not letting anyone cut me down.
That was always happening. I’d decided just to get used to it.
She let my shoulder go to put her hand in the pocket of the
pretty, flowered dress.
She pulled out a small, dark-blue box with a white bow.
I took in a hard, quick breath.
“And last, Miss Daisy, a good Southern woman always has her
pearls,” she said softly.
I looked from the box to Miss Annamae, but she was blurry
seeing as I had tears in my eyes.
“Miss Annamae.” My voice was croaky.
She lifted the box to me.
“Daisy, a gift is offered, you take it, you express your
gratitude and later, you write a thank you note,” she instructed.
I nodded, taking the box.
I pulled the bow but held it in my fist as I flipped open
the top.
Inside, on a delicate gold chain, the prettiest, daintiest
thing I’d ever seen, hung add-a-pearls. Their creamy gleam made me feel
dazzled. The one in the middle was the biggest, getting a little bit smaller as
they went down each side.
“One for every year of your life, child,” Miss Annamae told
me and I counted them.
She was right.
There were thirteen.
And I was thirteen.
That day.
It was my birthday.
“Now, to keep that set the way it should be, you come to me
when you’re fifteen and I’ll add the next two pearls, balance it out,” she
shared.
My gaze drifted up to hers. “Miss Annamae,” I repeated, my
voice still sounding all choked.
And suddenly, with a swiftness I’d never seen her move, she
was leaned into my face.
“You hide that from your momma. You hear Miss Annamae?”
I nodded, doing it fast.
I heard her.
Oh yes, I did.
“You wear those when the time’s right. They’re yours, Daisy.
So you wear them when the time is right.” She drew in a breath so big, I saw
her draw it, before her voice got softer but no less strong. “They’re yours,
child. However you need them when the time comes, they’re yours.”
I didn’t understand what she meant by that but she was being
so serious I felt it best to nod, and again do it fast.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
The fierce went out of her face and she cocked her head to
the side. Her soft, white hair swept back in the bun filtering with the
sunlight coming in her window like she was an angel, she smiled as she lifted a
hand and brushed my bangs sideways on my forehead.
“Every girl needs pretty things, every girl needs a little
bit of sparkle however she can get it, but every Southern girl needs
her pearls,” she whispered back.
“Daisy!” Momma yelled from somewhere in the house.
I jumped.
Miss Annamae closed her eyes. Her wrinkles shifted again
with her frown before she opened them, looked at me and said, talking quietly,
“I’m sure your momma’s got good in her, girl, but just to say, a Southern woman
does not yell.”
I nodded again.
She nodded back. “Go find your momma, child.”
I stepped away, took another step, and started to turn.
But I stopped and turned back.
“Miss Annamae?”
“I’m right here, Daisy.”
What did I say?
No.
How did I say all I wanted to say?
The words got caught, twisting, filling my throat.
“Daisy! Where are you?” Momma shouted.
“I know,” Miss Annamae said, and from the look on her face I
saw by some miracle she did know exactly what I needed to say without
me having to say it. “Now go to your momma, child.”
I nodded yet again, the feeling in my throat making wet pop
out in my eyes.
I swallowed, took in a big breath, dashed my hand on my eyes
and shoved the box into the pocket of my jeans.
Then I turned and walked slowly out of the dining room.
Like a lady.
“I suppose you’ll be wantin’ some
cake and ice cream or somethin’,” Momma muttered when
we were in her car on the way back home from Miss Annamae’s house.
“No, Momma. It’s okay.”
“Now she’s bein’ that
passive-aggressive bullshit,” Momma kept muttering, now to herself, sort of. It
was also to me.
I closed my mouth.
Momma didn’t stop at the store.
In the end, I made myself bologna sandwiches for my birthday
dinner while Momma got ready to go out to DuLane’s
Roadhouse.
But after she was gone, I ate my sandwiches sitting in front
of the TV and I did it wearing pearls.
And three days later, Momma lost her job with Miss Annamae
seeing as she went to work (late) and found Miss Annamae had passed quietly in
the night while she was sleeping.
I walked away from Quick Swap with the cash in my
pocket.
I went right to the bus station.
I bought a ticket and sat outside on the bench, my two
suitcases on the sidewalk by my boots.
The bus came.
The driver tossed my beat-up, second-hand suitcases under
the bus and I climbed in.
There weren’t a lot of folks there, which was good. I didn’t
feel in a friendly mood and Miss Annamae had taught me that a lady can make a
stranger a friend in no time flat…and she should.
I picked a seat at the back by the window.
I rested my head against it and stared out, unseeing.
I heard the bus start up and felt it pull away from the
curb.
When it did, I also felt the wet drip from my eye, rolling
down my cheek. Then some more from the other eye.
I let myself have that. Just for a spell. Doing it, lifting
my hand and touching my fingers to my neck where the pearls I’d worn every day
for the last two years no longer were.
They were at Quick Swap.
The time had come when I needed them.
I knew Miss Annamae wouldn’t mind. I understood her now. I
understood a lot of things. Most of it I wished I didn’t.
They were gone, all I had of her. She gave them to me on my
thirteenth birthday and I’d pawned them on my nineteenth.
I’d miss them.
But not as much as I missed her.
When it was time to be done crying, I made myself be done. I
opened my purse with its cracked fake leather and fished out my hankie (because
Southern women carried hankies). I also pulled out my compact. I dabbed my eyes
and carefully, swaying with the bus’s movements in order not to make a mess of
it (but I’d been doing it now for some time and I was good at it), I fixed my
makeup.
I returned everything to my purse, kept it tucked in my lap,
and looked down the long bus out the front window.
We were headed west.
It was going to be a long journey.
I rested my head back on the seat and closed my eyes.
Passing the time as the bus rolled over the miles, I built
castles.