In Her Day Read online

  “Adele, this paper is going to do it for you. I just know it.”

  “You mean get me up and over?”

  “I just know it will. I don’t know much about your field but this paper on Olmec vestiges in Mayan art reads like a Dorothy Sayers mystery. It’s exciting. What have you read in art history lately that’s exciting?”

  “Yeah, well, that’s it. They’re such damned stuffed shirts. I’m hesitant to turn this in.”

  “Oh, come on, take the chance. What the hell. If they don’t like it we’ll start searching out hospitable universities that will appreciate you. Any school that’s too dumb to see the value of this paper, both content and style, doesn’t deserve to have you.”

  “Are you for hire?” Adele poked her ribs. “Speaking of hire, we’d better get our asses out on the street and find a cab or we’ll never make it to Lynn Feingarten’s party and you know she’s got this thing for you.”

  “She can keep her thing to herself.”

  “What? I thought you fancied her ever so slightly.”

  “Oh, we had dinner a few times but honest to god, Dell, if Lynn were a man she’d be a regimental-tie queen, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I know what you mean. But darlin’, half of New York City is busy being oh-so-refined.”

  “I can’t bear it. Remember what Chanel said, ‘Luxury is not the absence of poverty but the absence of vulgarity.’ ”

  “Ha, Feingarten does glitter with all that jewelry. You ought to tell her.”

  “Tell her nothing. I say let’s throw her in the Hudson. Every fish within five miles will come after all that shiny stuff.”

  “Honey, you are getting downright venomous. What’d she do to you?”

  “Two things. First she made a pass that was so crude it defies description. I can’t stand that lady-butch crap. Second, and worse, far the worse, she said I had a Southern accent and I’d be far more attractive if I lost it. The nerve of that overdressed tart.”

  “There is a delicate bouquet of magnolia in your speech.”

  “Adele, I slaved like a cotton-picker to get rid of that when I was at school.”

  “Yes, well, it’s coming out now. Besides, Scarlett, my folks were the cotton pickers, remember?”

  “Like hell they were. Your grandfather probably sold them all snake-oil to get rid of the aches and pains. That’s how your family got so disgustingly rich.” Carole howled.

  Adele giggled. “Now don’t you be telling anyone such horrible lies about me. My Granddaddy made a fortune selling Black folks creme to lighten their skin.”

  At this outrageousness Carole screamed, “Adele, ninety per cent of the terrible things they say about you are untrue but ten per cent is worse than anyone can imagine!”

  “That’s right. Don’t you forget it.”

  “Your grandfather didn’t do that, really, did he?”

  “Of course not but it’s such a good lie. You want to know how we got the money, cross my heart?”

  “Seeing as we’ve known each other for around six years now, I’d love to know.”

  “Didn’t your mother tell you talking about money is trash?”

  “Yeah but that’s because we didn’t have any to talk about and neither did anyone else so why embarrass all your friends.”

  Adele relished this. “Now see, I was told the exact same thing for opposite reasons. Anyway, Grandfather did start the business rolling and it’s stayed in the family ever since. As a chemist at the turn of the century he developed a line of beauty aides for colored people as he still calls us and it’s boomed ever since. Dad went into law, has Grandfather’s account and a lot of other fat accounts as well as real estate. My father is a shrewd man. He can smell money in a clover blossom.”

  “God knows there are many ways to make a buck and I haven’t discovered one. Must be what I inherited from all those generations of poverty.” Carole laughed.

  “Oh, you’re doing pretty good for a single woman.”

  “I know but academic types rarely get rich.”

  “But we have time—time to think, travel, read, write. That’s a greater luxury to me than money which incidentally I could have had. I know Granddad would give me that business. Of all the grandchildren he loves me the best because he says I’m the smartest. Shows you what he knows,” she grinned.

  “I don’t know, Dell. It would be a challenge, don’t you think?”

  “Sure it would but not for me. Anyway, when everyone dies at age a hundred and ten I’ll get my share then I’ll fund a dig, so help me, I will. Think of that, my own Mayan city!”

  “Hope you’re not too old to enjoy it by the time you get the loot.”

  “Listen, Hanratty, I intend to be a mean old woman and live forever.”

  The phone rang and Carole slowly got to her feet. “I’ll bet it’s Lynn F. insisting in her best Tallulah voice that we get over there. Think of some little white lie.”

  “I will not. You make up your own lies. Oh let’s go. I’m in the mood for a party.”

  Carole picked up the phone. “Carole, Carole this is Mother.”

  “Mother?”

  “Honey, I have bad news.” Her voice was quite deliberate; she pronounced each word evenly as if it were a keystone, as if any word that got lost in emotion would make the whole weight of the sentence fall apart and crush her. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, yes, I can hear you. The connection is clear. Mother, what’s wrong?”

  “Margaret was in a three-way accident down by the Capitol.”

  Carole began to shake. Adele came over to her and stood helplessly not knowing what to do. Carole looked up at her.

  “Mother, where is she? How is she?”

  “Honey, she’s gone. Burned. She was hit from behind and the gas tank blew. There’s nothing left.” Still the voice stayed firm if weak.

  “Mom, I’ll catch the next train out. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

  “Yes, come home, honey. You come on home.” On the word home she cried, quietly. “Now I have to hang up. Do you have anyone with you? I don’t want you alone until you leave.”

  “I have a friend here, Adele.”

  “That’s a nice name. I don’t believe I ever met her.” Anything attached to ordinary exchange seemed to comfort the older woman.

  “No, Mother, you haven’t met her. Now you hang up. Is Luke there to take care of you?”

  “Luke’s right here next to me, honey. You come home.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mom. Goodbye.”

  “I can’t say that.” She cried harder now and hung up the phone.

  “Carole, what in the world is wrong?”

  “My sister, Margaret, was killed in a car accident.” Carole’s lip trembled. When Adele put her arms around her she couldn’t see for crying. Adele guided her over to the sofa. She didn’t try to say anything. Words were useless. Carole cried for three-quarters of an hour. She couldn’t stop herself. It got so bad she got the dry heaves and a splitting headache. Slowly she stopped crying. Finally she spoke, “We were more like twins than sisters.”

  “You told me about her many times … I am so sorry, baby, I’m just so sorry.”

  “Adele, you’re awful good.” Carole hugged her again and cried some more. They rocked back and forth until she quieted herself. “I’ve got to go pack.”

  “You tell me what you want and I’ll pack.”

  “No, I have to do something, anything.”

  “I’ll call the train station then.”

  A train left late that night for Washington, D C., where Carole would have to lay over for hours before catching another train to Richmond. Adele, ignoring Carole’s protests, rode with her to D. C. and waited through the night to put her on her connection to Richmond. They nibbled donuts and talked of life and death and how they never believed it could hap pen to them. Carole couldn’t sleep and Adele wouldn’t so the hours, like a magic circle, closed around them and strengthened the bond of friendship already
between them. As Carole boarded the train, finally, she turned to Adele and said, “You’re my sister now,” and before Adele could answer she ran up the steps and into the train.

  Richmond, like an ageing empress, surviving her emperor, glowed on the Virginia landscape. Other Southern cities surpassed her. They were bigger, livelier, lovelier, but children of the South still paid homage to the Capital of the Confederacy. A grandmother who had seen siege, death, and defeat, she dispensed her wisdom to anyone with eyes. Generations later the scars intertwined with new roads, new buildings, but Richmond’s wounds were never completely vealed. The South was and remains a battered nation. Richmond will always rest next to the deepest of those wounds. As Carole walked the platform toward her waiting brother, Luke, Richmond filled her, opened her own very personal wound. It was as though she had never left this place and yet it was different. Luke walked down to her, kissed her, picked up her bags, and drove her home in his pride and joy, a 1955 Chevy, only three years old.

  The usual funeral extravaganza made Carole all the more determined to die on a remote island where no human could embarrass her into the afterlife. Smothered as the casket was with gladiolas, Carole swore she could smell burned flesh. Such nearness to death in its tactile form terrified her. Margaret, sparkling, so pretty, so full of the devil, reduced to unrecognizable, stinking meat.

  Mother bore the whole social consequences of death with dignity. Carole stood by her, wondering at the woman’s patience. You can only hear tidings of consolation repeated so many times before you’re ready to snatch the damned black veils off their shining hats and stuff them in their mouths. Luke stayed mute for the proceedings. Overwhelmed by emotion he took a typical male retreat and drank alarming quantities of whiskey. He was of no use whatsoever to Mother. She bore him as well as her sadness. Carole stayed on a week, looking after her mother and finally smashing all of Luke’s damned bottles of booze on the side of his 1955 Chevy. Half in the bag Luke heard the tinkling of glass and roared out of the house.

  “What in the goddamned hell do you think you’re doing, Carole Lee?”

  “Are you so snookered you can’t see?”

  “I’ll go buy more,” her older brother flared.

  And I’ll smash every damn one I find.”

  “I ought to wipe that smile off your face.”

  “Go ahead, asswipe. You can beat me up but brother I am going to hurt you bad while you do it.”

  Luke shifted, his arms dropped to his sides. He was eight years older than his sister. Margaret had been three years older than Carole. A World War II veteran, Luke was an American contradiction: he worshipped violence but he feared death. Margaret’s death upset him more than the organized brutality of his infantry days in the European theater. That was war and bad as it was Luke had a place for it. But Margaret, a sister he loved, a sister he helped raise—the death of that adored person was beyond him. He had no place for such pain and no one warned him such a pain existed.

  “Did you scratch my car, you little shit?”

  “Come and see for yourself, turd.”

  At the sound of the word turd Luke had to laugh. Both his sisters stood up to him but Carole dipped more frequently into the English language for insults. At least this feigned hostility was better than the pain—for a while, anyway.

  “You watch your mouth, Dr. Smartass. Women aren’t supposed to talk like that. Shows what comes of going up there with those damn Yankees.”

  “I swore long before I became an immigrant.”

  “H-m-m, you’re lucky this car ain’t scratched.”

  “How about letting me drive it? I’ll take you for a little ride, hero.”

  With a shift of the gears they rambled down the streets and Carole turned toward the rich side of town where she loved to ride along and look at how the other half lived.

  “Luke, you must stop drinking. I’ve got to go back tomorrow and return to work. Mother needs you sober. You hear me?”

  Luke grunted.

  “You got a mouth, use it.”

  “I hear you for christ’s sake. I hear you. I don’t need you telling me I’m an asswipe. I already know it.”

  “Lukie, look at that house. My gawd, a small battalion could live in there. Can you imagine living like that?”

  “Ah, shit, Carole, that ain’t nothing. You should see them castles in Europe. Now that’s the way to live.”

  “While you were knocking the Nazis to hell maybe you should have liberated one little castle for yourself and the family.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, what’s this little microphone here by the steering wheel.”

  “Pick it up and say something evil in it and find out.”

  “You’re nuts. Is this another one of your jokes?”

  “No, now come on. Say something—wait until we pass this old toad on the corner up there.”

  As they approached the white-haired gentleman, Carole, at her brother’s urging, spoke one of their favorite childhood insults: “Fartblossom.”

  To her amazement and acute discomfort the offending word blared for all the world to hear and heaven, too. The old man’s jaw fell like the gangplank of an amphibious landing craft.

  “Luke!” Carole hit the gas and sped from the scene of her crime.

  “Here give it to me.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. I know what you’ll do. Luke, gimme that back. Gimme that.”

  “Giving you nothing.”

  Always clever with tools, Luke had engineered loudspeakers next to his horns. To his eternal delight he could wreck anyone’s composure.

  “Watch me buzz this fucking Cadillac up here. Hey, you. Hey, you in that piece of expensive shit. Move over. Yes, you in the blue Cadillac, this is Richmond’s new police aerial control unit talking to you. You’re violating code number 84A. Pull over, an officer is on his way to greet you. Don’t try to run away. We have your license plate number.”

  The driver of the automobile pulled over and stuck his head out the window looking for this new, low flying craft. As the little Chevy rolled down the road he still sat there waiting for the police. Luke bellowed, slapping his muscular thigh. “Dumb, dumb. God, people are so dumb if you wrapped up shit in red cellophane they’d buy it. Lookit that rich bastard he’s still sitting there.” His face shone red with victory and laughter.

  “Luke, you beat all. Now gimme that back.”

  “I’m not giving it to you. I’m gonna have me some fun.”

  “Give it to me. I promise to play.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Honest, Luke. See that middle-aged lady walking up there in the feathered hat?”

  “Yes, I see her. I ain’t blind.”

  “You say you’re the voice of God and talk low like the preacher. I’ll go slow. Then when you’re done sanctifying her, give me the microphone.”

  Luke got so excited as they approached their target, his voice hit his shoes. “Sister. Sister, this is the voice of the Lord calling to thee. Do thee read me, sister?”

  Carole winced on the word read. “This isn’t a bombing mission.”

  Luke took the hint. “Sister, do thee hear the voice of the Lord, thy God, the Lord of Hosts, the Father of the Lamb?”

  The woman’s pink hat bobbed up and down with recognition. As they still had not drawn even with her they couldn’t observe the look of wonder on her round face.

  “Sister of the pink hat I have shown myself to thee to tell thee, thee—yes, thee, thee—good woman, must save this godless country. Turn thy brethren from the worship of Mammon, turn thy brethren towards the path of righteousness. Consider thy past life as blackness, as Jonah swallowed by the whale of greed, selfishness, and spitefulness. Now come forth, good woman, come forth and spread my message to all America.”

  Coasting past the struck woman they noticed a look of utter shock. Luke started to giggle but he had the good sense to put his hand over the microphone.

  “Sister, if thee will do my will
fall on thy knees and praise my glory.”

  She sank down like a shot doe, threw her hands over her head and ripped off a quavering, “Praise be the Lord.”

  Carole snatched the microphone from Luke’s paw and put the frosting on the cake. “Sister, this is the angel Carole speaking to thee now. Obey the message of the Lord, thy God. Save this nation from sin and destruction. I am leaving thee now, sister, to struggle with the Prince of Darkness and his servants. Sing along with me as my voice fades. No, no, down on thy knees, sister, don’t get up yet. As my voice fades, remember thou hast been touched by the Lord.” Carole, in a surprisingly spiritual voice, sang “Nearer My God to Thee” and as they turned the corner, there she was down on her knees, hands clasped to her ample bosom, singing the hymn, sweat running over her forehead.

  Hysterical with glee, sister and brother drove back home barely in control of the car or themselves. As they pulled in front of the run-down but clean house, Carole punched her brother in the arm, “Jesus, that was fun!”

  “I bet that woman starts a tent show right on that very spot.” Luke doubled over and said before he realized it, “Shit, I wish Margie could have seen that.”

  “Oh, hell, she’d of passed herself off as Virgin Mary.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Luke turned to Carole with tears in his eyes. She put her arms around him and kissed him gently on the cheek.

  The next day as Luke saw her off he vowed, “No more boozing, Sis. I’ll take care of the old girl. You come on home more often. I mean it.” He was as good as his word.

  On the long ride back to New York she thought of her brother and the price men paid for being men. She thought of Luke’s gentleness and sense of humor. He looked like a grizzly bear and used his fearsome image to ward off others from seeing what rested within him, an incredible sweetness. Of all three of us, Luke is most like Mom, she thought. Margaret tiptoed into her thoughts. Margaret, the dark-eyed, the imaginative, the shining imp as bright as a dragonfly—we Americans want happy endings and death denies us a happy ending. I’ve rejected death all my life but you, Margaret, true to yourself as in life, made me see how silly I am. It will come to me too just as it came to you, my adorable, big sister. Carole leaned against the window and saw the reds and yellows of the fall. The East Coast bedecked itself before wearing the subtle clothing of wintertime. Reeling from the impact of the color, Carole thought against her will for she no longer wanted to think, “She’ll never see this. Why? Why? I don’t understand it. I can’t understand it. Why should Margaret die? Why should any of us die? What a cruel joke. Well, I’ll live double. I’ll live for Margaret and me. I’ll live for every young and bright and laughing person cut down before her time. If there’s a secret of the dead come back to me and tell me, Margaret. If there’s a secret of life, oh tell me. Knowing or not knowing, I shall live, I will live, I must live. Life is the principle of the universe. Life!”