Chapter 30
All day, we worked to flatten out the dance floor.
It was supposed to be a twenty-by-twenty-five-foot wooden platform that sat a few inches above the grass, mounted on metal footings with metal rails and brackets.
There were no assembly instructions to be found, but it’d come from Sears, Roebuck back when Woodrow Wilson was still president.
Instead of guessing where the assortment of screws and bolts fit, I measured and dug twelve holes—four for the corners with one on the center of each side and four to support the middle—and did it my way.
Flossy “helped.” She sat on the back porch steps with a plank of dance floor across her lap, supposedly sanding down the splinters so I could repaint the boards black. “Lotta trouble just for a front. A sign saying Bibles for Sale works real dandy, ya know.”
The sun seemed to be screaming down at us.
Sweat was running down my face, my back, it was hard to breathe.
The realization of what I’d committed to here kept swallowing me and spitting me out.
Had I lost my mind? What if Jack drove out here—what if Frances and Mrs. Tartt came home early?
I’d heard nothing from them except that they’d arrived in Jackson safely, but how stupid I was to fear them when what I ought to be worried about was the blooming sheriff coming out.
I’d almost had it with the heat and I’d banged my thumb twice with the sweaty, slippery hammer. I told Flossy, “Well I’m running a legitimate business out here. Just so you know. So at least one of us doesn’t get sent to a dang penitentiary.”
“Nuh-uh. We go, you go. It’s called ‘accessory to the crime,’” Flossy said. “I wouldn’t get too shook up about it, doll, it’s just a little vacation time in the jailhouse.”
“Why would you ever choose to do this for a living, Flossy?”
Flossy pushed her lips out, thinking it over while she ran the sandpaper left and right over the board across her lap.
“Sometimes you choose it, sometimes it chooses you.” She blew off the dust and scowled at her now chipped pink fingernails, then went back to sanding.
“My uncle Roy’s the one got me started in this biz.
He was raising me and my sis after our parents died.
One morning he says over breakfast, ‘One a youse stays in school, one a youse goes to work for McPolly, so decide now, who’s it gonna be?
’ I couldn’t let my little sister go work there, she was too young. ”
“How old was she?” I asked, pressing my aching lower back.
“Eleven.”
“How old were you?” I asked.
“Twelve.”
I shivered. Jesus.
At twelve I’d been running through cotton fields and nursing sick animals while Frances stared at herself in the mirror.
Meg was almost that age, which Charlie must’ve been thinking too because, with a sick look, she turned her gaze over to the crape myrtle tree where she’d laid her forehead a few days ago.
I knew Meg never completely left Charlie’s mind but these reminders were like needles in her spine.
“What’re ya gonna do, cry about it, at my age?” Flossy said and went back to sanding the board.
We worked all the next morning and by the afternoon, we finished setting up the dance floor.
Charlie and Flossy had the tall ladder out and were stringing the gold lantern lights up in the trees while I worked on my hands and knees, wiping sawdust off the boards so I could repaint them.
From deep inside the hollow house, I heard the telephone ringing.
I sat up to listen, as I had several times today.
But this time it was two shorts and a long.
I got up and jogged inside to answer it.
“Long distance calling,” Silva said and patched the call through.
“Is this the residence of Birdie Calhoun?” It was an older woman speaking. Her voice was stern, almost deep. I braced my body, fearing we were in trouble already.
“Yes, ma’am, this is Birdie Calhoun.”
“This is Mrs. Isabelle Heidelberg, in Byhalia, returning your call. My son Tom and his wife adopted Meg.”
“Yes—you’re calling about Meg, yes.” I cleared my throat.
“I’m with the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum.
I was calling to check in about Meg—and I have some other questions to ask …
if you wouldn’t mind. How is she doing?” I cleared my throat again.
This lying felt like putting on too-small shoes, the words awkward and painful.
“Meg is—I must say, she’s doing fine. In fact, she’s one mighty lucky little girl. Cottonwood Plantation’s bound to be quite a step up for her.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Miss Calhoun, you must bear with me because I’m not sure I understand,” Mrs. Heidelberg continued.
“I was under the impression that my son and his wife were adopting a baby from an agency in Memphis. The Tennessee Children’s Home Society, run by Mrs. Georgia Tann.
When I got your message saying you were from Oxford …
I was quite confused. Does your organization have anything to do with the Georgia Tann agency in Memphis? ”
“Um … no,” I said. “Meg came from the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum. In Oxford.”
“This is all just …” She sounded exasperated. “I don’t imagine your county orphanage screens their children as Georgia Tann does, do you?”
“Screens them?” I thought about the long list of children the orphanage did not accept—what should I tell her, they didn’t take lepers?
“Are you selective at all? Or is this just the kind of place where a person can pick up any old urchin for free?”
“Well? You have to pay five dollars to adopt a girl and show proof you have twenty-five dollars to your name—”
She groaned. “I can’t believe this, more lies …” Through the receiver, I could hear papers ruffling.
I was confused myself about what was going on here, but I was starting to get a picture. I felt like I needed to stick up for Meg somehow. “But there is a process you have to go through,” I said. “And an inspector and a very strict chairlady—and rules. Many, many rules.”
“What can you tell me about Meg, Miss Calhoun? Because we don’t know this girl from Adam. Who are her people? Where did she even come from?”
“She came from very intelligent, respectable … educated parents … who happened to fall on hard times like so many these days.”
She waited. “That’s all you can tell me about her?”
That was all I was willing to tell her. “As I’m sure you already know, Meg is very smart. And she’s been raised well, with good manners. Meg’s a good girl.”
I could hear her breathing into the receiver, mulling this over.
“She is bright, that I know. My son Tom has certainly grown fond of her. But Miss Calhoun, a girl Meg’s age was not what I had in mind, we’d agreed on an infant who’d been screened for her pedigree from a proper, respectable agency.
Meg is a good girl, but I don’t think she belongs in this family.
To be honest, I think I better recommend my son return her. ”
My words stuck in my throat. “I—no—Mrs. Heidelberg, please. Before you … make that decision, you should know, the orphanage is not a good place. The girls … they get punished, and they don’t get enough to eat … and if they don’t get adopted, they get sent off to work—it’s not their fault—”
“Which is exactly why I sent them to the Georgia Tann agency to get an infant, Miss Calhoun!” Her voice had turned shrill again. “Not a malnourished eleven-year-old urchin we don’t even have a history on. All I know about Meg is that the girl knows a cake fork from a fruit fork!”
In the background I could hear her tapping something on a table, a ring or a fountain pen, like she was ready to end this telephone call, maybe go dress somebody else down.
I was about to say how Meg deserved a future, when out of the blue, she said, “This orphanage you work for, is it by chance run by a Mrs. Garnett Pittman? Who I keep reading about in the newspaper?”
My mouth turned dry. But how could I lie about something so factual? “I—yes—but I’m in charge of the welfare inquiry for Meg. You don’t need to speak to Mrs. Pittman about this.”
“Mrs. Pittman’s not someone I know personally, but I do know her husband, Dr. Welty Pittman. He came out to the house to see to my grandson not long ago. Perhaps he can help straighten this out.”
This was not better. “Please, don’t trouble the doctor with this. If you’ll just give me a little time I’m sure I can provide you with some background on Meg—”
“I don’t think this should wait. The longer we keep the girl, the more difficult it will be to return her. This needs to be addressed right away. Thank you for your time, Miss Calhoun. Goodbye.” She hung up.
I stood with my mouth open, holding the receiver. Here I thought I’d done something good, to prevent something terrible, and instead I’d pulled the damn fire alarm.
For the rest of the afternoon, I painted the dance floor. Thank God Charlie was still up on the ladder stringing lights while I faced straight down into hell or she might see the look of horror on my face. It didn’t take me long to grasp what had happened.
Best I could tell, Meg’s parents had lied to Mrs. Heidelberg and instead of getting a baby with a “pedigree,” they’d chosen a county urchin instead. Why they’d done that I do not know. Nor did I know what would happen if Mrs. Heidelberg brought Welty into it.
Crawling around on my hands and knees in the hot September sun, I tried to think through the best and worst scenarios.
Mrs. Heidelberg had said she “knew” Dr. Pittman—but if she called him up, what could Welty possibly tell her about Meg’s people?
Most certainly not that he was Meg’s father.
More likely, that Meg had been abandoned because her mother was in the nuthouse, and Mrs. Heidelberg would return this five-dollar urchin right into Garnett’s hands.
And then Meg would disappear into that work program like she’d fallen down a well …