Chapter 9 #2
There they were, those slick little lies again.
I licked my lips and aimed my answer at Frances.
“Heavens, Mother and Grandmother would probably be tickled to death to have y’all at the Calhoun Plantation.
” Frances was fixated on pouring the cream that Picador’d finally brought her into her coffee.
It was practically white. I gave her an extra second to think about Rory getting a peek at our grand lifestyle, then I said, “But I’m afraid this is just not a good time.
Mother hasn’t been feeling well lately.”
“Are you sure?” Rory said. “I thought it sounded like a good idea—”
“Supper in town’s just fine,” Frances said. She took a sip of her cream with coffee.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Tartt came in wearing a long, pale blue housecoat. “Good morning. Morning, son,” she said and touched the top of his shoulder.
“Mother,” Rory said and refolded his napkin on his lap.
Smoothing her housecoat under her bottom, she sat on Rory’s right. Right on cue, Picador came in and set a plate with two shot-glass-sized biscuits in front of Mrs. Tartt and a plate of pancakes in front of Rory. She served Frances her single piece of toast last.
“How do you always know what I want, Pic?” Rory said and grinned at her. He seemed more affectionate with her than he was with his own mother.
“Won’t you eat something, Birdie?” Mrs. Tartt said.
“She made herself eggs,” Picador said and went back in the kitchen.
“You like to cook?” Mrs. Tartt said, smoothing butter on a biscuit. “I used to cook all the time when I first got married. Frances doesn’t like to.”
“I like to cook,” Frances said.
I patted her arm and said, “We know, but please don’t.” I’d pay for that later. Frances said nothing, but Mrs. Tartt smiled. Least somebody here thought I was funny.
“Before Henry’d opened the bank, he liked to cook too. Course the next year Rory was born and we hired Picador.” She looked at Rory, waiting for him to look back at her. He didn’t. “Last time I went in the bank I hardly saw a soul left from Henry’s days,” she said.
“When did you go to the bank, Mama?” Rory asked. He was looking at her now, his fork in the air.
“Oh it’s been a month, you remember, I came in for my dividend. That reminds me, when you get to the office, I want you to telephone Jackson and check on the Fraser painting. That restorer’s had it for months.” Rory nodded and went back to eating his pancakes.
“What all do you do at the bank?” I asked him. I’d never even been inside a bank before. Daddy’d called bankers crooks.
“He’s a vice president,” Frances said.
“I handle investments mostly, speculation, futures,” Rory said.
“We’re in all the big American exchanges, a few overseas too.
” He sounded confident, which I took as a good sign since I was here to ask for money.
I also took it to mean he was still making some, even in these “unpredictable” times.
“We write mortgages and loans, too, though of course no one’s loaning much of anything these days. ”
“That,” I said, “is a shame.”
“How is the market doing, son?” Mrs. Tartt asked. “I saw in the paper this week it was up a little.”
“Down yesterday,” Rory said. “There’s no point worrying about it.”
He stood up from the table, and Frances touched his hand. “Don’t forget it’s my day at the Orphan and you said you’d drive me since Pripp can’t.”
We’d discussed this last night, when I’d asked Frances if she could change her “day” and spend it with me. She’d looked offended and said, “But it’s my day.”
“And I was thinking Birdie could ride along with us and you could let her out at the square to look around, and maybe she could come in and see the bank too—”
“I’m sorry, I forgot. I can’t drive you this morning.” Rory dug down in his pants pocket and set a quarter and three dimes on the table. He took back one of the dimes. “I have to be in early. See can Mr. Binny come pick you up.”
“What if … we all had lunch together, then?” Frances said. “I could get a ride to the bank around noon and meet you both there, Garnett won’t mind—”
“I can’t leave work, Frances. I’ve got meetings one after the other. My secretary’ll bring me something for lunch.” He bumped his lips on her cheek. “I’ll try not to be too late. See you tonight.”
When Mrs. Tartt had left the table too and it was just us, Frances said, “Birdie.”
“I’m sorry, but you cook like you’re trying to poison somebody—”
“Thanks, for what you said about the trip home. I promise I’ll bring Rory home one day, I just need a little more time.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure your ancestors will understand.”
I followed her to the telephone in the hall, but before she picked it up, she eyed me up.
“Garnett’s been looking for somebody to work on the books.
And you’re pretty good at that.” As she informed me of this breaking news, she tapped her foot, thinking.
“I’ll ask if you can come in with me tomorrow and help out in the office. ” It wasn’t a question.
She picked up the telephone and asked the operator to ring Mr. Binny to come get her, I gathered so she wouldn’t have to pay for the call. Then she started up the stairs. “Get ready to go in twenty minutes. And don’t wear that dress.”
I owned two pairs of shoes. They were on a strict schedule.
My W. B. Coon black button-up boots from 1925 were worn on Sundays and special occasions, and my comfortable brown-and-white oxfords I wore all the other days, including today.
To make up for it, I put on blue dress number three, the nicest one, with imitation pearl buttons, and clipped my brown hair back the way Frances had done it last night, though it still lay lank against my face.
Frances came into my yellow room. She had on an “industrious yet fashionable” volunteer look today: olive-colored dress with lots of square pockets and a red kerchief tied around her long neck.
She looked my outfit over but said nothing, which I found right rude—I hadn’t seen her in a year and she could at least take the time to criticize me a minute.
“You’re still wearing that old hat?” I should’ve known she couldn’t resist. It was my short-brimmed straw hat with the red silk flower I’d ordered in the mail for three dollars and fifty cents.
“It’s not but two years old.” It was my one nice thing.
She took a deep breath, swallowing whatever else she wanted to say. You’d’ve thought she was trying to swallow a cotton boll.
A few minutes later, Mr. Binny tooted his horn and held open the back door of his little taxicab for us.
He was a short, heavyset man in a wide-cut black suit, with near black skin and a gray horseshoe of hair.
His demeanor was grumpy. Maybe because, Frances had told me, he used to “take up” with Picador after her husband died the year before last, but their romance had since soured, and Mrs. Tartt had to ask her not to scowl at him through the window.
In the back seat, Mr. Binny folded a green footstool down like a church hassock for our feet to rest on and drove us toward town. Though it was warm, Frances insisted on keeping the windows up so we wouldn’t get dusty.
“All this land used to belong to the Tartts,” she said, “but like I said, Rory sold it off a few years ago.”
“I hope it was before prices went to nothing,” I said. Frances shrugged; didn’t know, didn’t care. “What’s that house?” I asked. It was a little closer to the road and big as the Tartts’, but their yard looked even more overgrown. Signs were pasted onto its white pillars.
“That’s the Percy house, old friends of the Tartts’. They lost all their money in the crash, but don’t bring it up around Mrs. Tartt or you’ll have to hear her talk about it for hours.”
For the rest of the ride, I thought of the dreaded conversation about why I’d come to visit. Another minute and we pulled up to the square.
I hadn’t really seen the square properly when I’d arrived the day before.
“Y’all have a lot of stores to choose from,” I said, getting out of the taxi.
Twenty, thirty, probably fifty businesses were pushed together around the square.
A paved road inside it circled an impressive white courthouse.
It was several stories tall, with a four-sided clock tower perched atop the roof so you’d know what time it was no matter what side you stood on.
In the grass around it, wagons stood full of watermelons and cantaloupes and vegetables, their mules tied up to hitching posts.
Through the open car door, Frances handed me fifteen cents.
“Here, buy yourself a drink and a little something.” I found this smug though I was probably being sensitive.
I wasn’t dreading asking her for money because I was afraid she’d be upset; I was afraid of how happy she’d probably look about it. “But bring me the change,” she added.