Chapter 17 #3
“Oh. No.” My already warm face turned hot. Did he think I was asking him on some sort of a date? “I’ll meet you there, thank you.” I took the envelope of money from the counter and I left there in a hurry.
Finally, I walked northwest about a quarter mile, along Jackson Avenue toward the colored part of Oxford, Freedmen Town, where I’d heard there were more stores. Figuring the Tartts had debts all over the square, I thought I might try a grocery store over here.
Freedmen Town began around Seventh Street by Burns Methodist Episcopal Church, and, sure enough, there was a lively business district tucked in here.
The road turned to packed gravel and a mule cart plodded down the center of it, though several automobiles were parked alongside it.
Though the heat was oppressive, folks were out and about, standing around under the blue-striped awning of what looked like a general store.
When I peered through the window, I saw it mostly carried bolts of cloth and sewing notions, so I kept walking.
Houses lined the road, a few spread out, as well as a set of narrow, identically built wooden ones.
Shotgun, we called them in the Delta, since you could shoot a bullet in the front door and out the back without hitting anything.
Some were painted white, some used to be painted white, and in between were vegetable gardens and clotheslines.
Farther down, I passed a pressing shop, a tidy office called Boles Business Services, a hardware store.
Up ahead I could see and hear a blacksmith clanging his hammer, shoeing a horse.
It had a little store attached called Bird’s, where it looked like you could buy cold drinks and bread and vegetables, or else listen to a man outside strum a guitar and blow a cane whistle, not for money, just for anyone who wanted to be entertained.
For now, that was a woman leaning in the doorway and one tiny boy watching the whistler make music like he was making magic.
I saw, though, that the woman’s eyes followed me like a finger pressed to a map.
And it occurred to me that a white stranger coming around Freedmen Town might not exactly be seen as good news.
Before I made anybody else uncomfortable, I went into a bigger grocery store across the road. Behind the counter, a heavy-set lady in an apron stood up. “Can I help you, ma’am?”
“Please. I just need a few things.” I set my list on the counter. She looked at the door I’d come through like maybe I was lost. “I just—I live about a mile from here,” I said. When she still seemed wary, I blurted out, “I know Picador and Polly.” Like I needed some sort of password.
At this, she raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I know Picador. She one a my favorite individuals in the whole town.”
I nodded and said, “Me too.”
While I waited on her to measure things out, two young women in flowery dresses and white hats came in and chose a cold bottle drink from a barrel of ice.
They leaned against the far end of the counter and passed it between them, taking sips, and I could feel them whispering—what’s that white lady doing in here?
I had never felt so conspicuous before. And noted to myself that there were no signs that said colored entrance or whites only in this neighborhood.
There was zero awareness of the absence of those things either, except coming from me.
Picador and Polly didn’t have to fool with any of that nonsense here, while ten minutes away white folks liked to worry themselves sick that colored folk might use the wrong door or speak out of turn.
Meanwhile, I soon found out, things were better priced here.
I felt foolish for not shopping in this store sooner.
I bought the same brand of coffee, baking powder, Luzianne tea, as well as lard and lemons for forty-one cents, which, to my figuring was about a nickel cheaper than on the square.
My hands and ankles were swollen from heat by the time I got home, and I was covered in Lamar Boulevard from the top of my droopy straw hat to the soles of my old shoes. I just wanted to take a bath, but before I could, I needed to check on Charlie.
Down the hall, something low and steady was beating like a bass drum before a battle.
I went into the kitchen—empty—and set the grocery bag down.
The door to the maid’s room was open but the lights were off.
The same dark drum kept beating, and I crossed the hall and looked in the parlor.
There Mrs. Tartt lay on the flamingo-colored sofa in a thin housedress, a washcloth draped over her eyes.
“Mrs. Tartt, are you alright? Did something happen?” In the far corner, the big phonograph nobody played anymore was open with a record turning.
The drums had switched to a rising wave of violins. She still hadn’t moved.
“Mrs. Tartt, I’m sorry to wake you up, but—”
Mrs. Tartt stirred and pulled the washcloth off.
She pushed up on her elbows. Her face was swollen and damp, but then her blue eyes sharpened.
“I had one of my bad headaches again, but I believe I’m feeling a little better now.
” The record ended, so I set the phonograph needle aside.
“I tell you, this heat gets me every year,” she said.
A tall glass of ice chips sat on the table, chopped from the block in the icebox—no small feat.
She sat up and looked out the open window. “Your friend’s right interesting.”
Oh Lord. “What did she tell you?”
“She speaks a little French—did you know that?”
“I didn’t.”
“We had a nice chat and she chopped some ice to help my headache.” I looked out and the dust-and-leaf-covered back porch was clean now; even the white posts were shiny and still wet.
The dead fronds had been stripped off the ferns on the wicker stands so they were only green and soft now.
Inside the arc of crape myrtles was an oval of mowed green grass.
I spotted Charlie lining the push mower up next to the black barn, primly adjusting it, the way Meg liked to set everything perfect.
“It’s funny, I forgot about that old phonograph player,” Mrs. Tartt said, standing up, steadying herself on the arm of the sofa. “I didn’t miss my radio so much with a record on.” She followed me out onto the back porch, and we sat down on the clean black rocking chairs.
Charlie was walking back toward us now, wiping her face with an apron wrapped around the awful yellow dress.
“It looks so much better out here, Charlie, thank you,” Mrs. Tartt called to her.
I motioned for Charlie to sit in a rocking chair with us. She glanced at it but sat on the middle porch stair, I reckon trying not to overstep.
“It’s pretty out here, like a room of its own,” Charlie said shyly, and it was.
The tall wall of privet hedges lined the left side of the yard, the arbor in the middle surrounded by pink roses.
Along the back, the crape myrtle trees dappled the grass with shade.
On the right side was the long black barn, shiny with heat.
“Henry loved this backyard,” Mrs. Tartt said.
“We used to host all sorts of big parties out here. Ours were the most beautiful parties of the year, everybody said so, because it felt like a ballroom outside. We’d set the dance floor up right out there in the grass and hang decorations and lights up in the trees, and dance under the stars all night long. ”
“It sounds magical,” Charlie said.
“I can show you a picture of it later if you’re interested,” Mrs. Tartt said.
“I’d like to see that,” Charlie said.
I made a quick introduction of Charlie to Frances, which was nothing but a tight smile from my sister, but I put off talking to Charlie about anything momentous for now. I had too much to deal with of my own.
The next morning, Frances did my hair for me, trying to get it to curl, spraying, twisting it to sort of appear like a curl with a clip in it. I’d told her I was going to talk to a man about our “predicament.” And I’d also told her that he might’ve thought I’d asked him on a date.
She shook her head. As if I’d ever do such an interesting thing. “Who is he?”
“Jack Walsh? The big fellow that works at the bank.”
“Rory’s bank? You’re not gonna tell him what Rory—” I shook my head; I wouldn’t.
She wouldn’t let me leave until she’d put lipstick on me and powdered my nose.
“Franny, while I’m gone, could you please be nice to Charlie?”
“I’m always nice,” Frances said. Ha.
The night before, I’d hesitated to seat Charlie at Mrs. Tartt’s table for supper.
I wasn’t being highbrow, I was trying to be delicate, since thus far Mrs. Tartt knew Charlie only as the yard help and Frances kept referring to her as “the hobo.” That stained yellow dress wasn’t helping, or the shoes with the blood on them, but when I’d asked Charlie to join us, she’d politely declined.
She did offer to set the table for us, though, which I accepted and went back to boiling water for rice.
The gas on the oven kept going out. Outside, on the side of the house, the gasometer tank needle was nearly horizontal, like it was taking a long nap, but if I prayed real hard (and flipped the stove knob a few times), it would start again.
One more thing to worry about. When I’d gotten the water boiling, I’d told Frances if she wanted iced tea tonight, that ice wasn’t chopping itself.