Borrowed Children (11 page)

“No, yours is stronger. And your eyes are like amber. The dress isn't right but the color is. Amanda—”

I hate being inspected by someone so pretty. “What?”

“Did you ever have a doll?”

“I had Beverly.”

“And clothes for her.”

“All that Mama had time to make.”

“No matter what you put on her she looked the same, right?”

I nod. I didn't come over here to talk about dolls.

“But people aren't like that. They change. The doll is all on the outside.”

I wait for her to get to the point.

“So the outside has to be perfect. But what people have on the inside changes how they look. Of course, hairstyle helps and makeup—”

“What you're saying is I'm not pretty but I'm nice.”

She laughs.

“You're stubborn, I'll say that. Like Mother and me and Rena.”

“Is that bad?”

“I'd say it's good, the world being what it is. But that's another story. I'm ready. You get your clothes on and let's see what we can see.”

21

I feel so lucky to be going out with Aunt Laura. I don't know where—maybe a play or a concert. You can't even go to a picture show in Goose Rock. Besides, I want to see something on a stage. I want to sit in the dark and see something—

“Amanda!”

“What?”

“This is the streetcar stop.”

“Sorry.”

“You were a million miles away. Homesick, I'll bet.”

I don't say anything.

“You can't tell me you don't miss Duck Roost.”

The Number Eight car rattles up and we get in. We have to sit in front, right behind the driver.

“It's Goose Rock. And no, I don't. I miss Willie sometimes and maybe Helen.”

“And your little place by the hearth?”

“You missed Mama pretty bad when she started courting Daddy.”

“Trust Mother to bring that up.”

“It's all right to miss people.”

“Not for me, Amanda. I've got to
have
them.”

“But Mama's still your sister.”

“She's no more mine than a toy that's rolled out of reach.

Cress is my sister now.”

“Uncle Cress?”

“And brother and father and mother, and babies and Holy Confessor.”

“But Omie and Opie are right here in town.”

“They are not right here. They're all the way over on Poplar.”

“But Aunt Laura—”

“Amanda, this is a silly topic for discussion. Let's put it away. And pay attention now. The next stop is ours.”

We get off on Main Street, but not at a place I've seen before. Aunt Laura herds me across the pavement.

“Do you like sweet potatoes?”

“Pardon?”

“Yams, I mean. And trumpet music and straw hats?”

“Well, sure—”

“Good. That settles it. We're going down Beale Street.”

She looks at me, waiting.

“You don't know what that is?” “No.”

“We'll fix that.”

Most of the people on the busy street are black. Small stores are jumbled together. One building says Manhattan Saloon right on it. Aunt Laura seems completely at home, but I feel funny.

“What do people do here?”

“Why, they buy shirts, Amanda. Shirts and beans and liquor, when they can get it. They go to the bank. See that building over there? That's the first negro bank in Memphis. And more than that, on Saturday night, they make the best music in the world.”

“What kind of music?”

“Oh, not like anything you've ever heard. It's wild and loud. Not a bit like white music.”

I didn't know music came in colors.

“Come on, let's see what's in here,” Aunt Laura says, steering me into the nearest shop. Parrot-colored shirts, straw hats, and shoes spill over in the tiny space.

Aunt Laura slips out of her hard red shoes and into a pair of soft straw ones. She tries hats till she finds one that fits, then plops it on and poses, waiting for someone to admire her. We could be pieces of lint on the floor for all the black people notice. They're talking and laughing and figuring their own purchases.

“How do I look?” Aunt Laura asks.

“Wonderful.”

“You try some, too, Amanda.”

“I wouldn't have anywhere to wear something like that.”

“That's not the point. Just try them for the fun of it.”

I do, but it hurts to see my face hard and worried underneath that happy hat. Aunt Laura looks like she's never worn anything else.

I put the hat back in the big cardboard box.

“Could we go now?”

“Oh, Mandy. You are a case.”

A case? What's that supposed to mean? A case of measles? A case of canned goods?

“Let me at least get you a pair of straw shoes.” She rummages through another box. “Here. Try these.”

They're like walking on a hay bale.

“Do they fit?”

“Yes, but—”

“What?”

“There's nowhere I can wear them.”

“Let them be bedroom slippers. Wear them to the beach.”

“We don't have a beach.”

“You used to. Used to be all ocean up there. That's how you got the sandstone.”

“Mr. Aden told us about that.”

“So you see, you can wear them to the beach. You'll just be a little late.”

I have to laugh at that.

Back on the street Aunt Laura strolls like the queen of the King Cotton parade. Never mind that the straw hat is silly in winter or that people look right through us. I try to stand up straight.

We've been walking for a couple of blocks when Aunt Laura points to a small sign across the street. SULTANNA'S it says, the name circled with a string of Christmas lights.

“Next stop,” Aunt Laura declares.

At first it seems cave-dark in the little restaurant, but as my eyes adjust, I see a bunch of tables, mostly for two or three people, and some stools around a long bar to the back. I know it's a bar because I saw one at the Peabody. There's no one buying drinks. Right now there's a law against it.

Daddy says you might as well make a law against having babies as against buying liquor. I don't see what babies have to do with it.

The unfinished floor makes me think of the Manchester Hardware. There are chipped black tables with fruit jar lids for ashtrays, and a loud sour smell on top of everything. Underneath is a good smell though, like cinnamon toast.

A coffee-colored woman comes over to our table.

“I'll have a fizz,” Aunt Laura tells her. “And a plate of logs, please. Mandy, what would you like—a cherry Coke? a sarsapa-rilla?”

“A sarsaparilla.”

I'm not sure what that is, but it sounds good.

In a minute the kitchen door swings open and the waitress comes out with a tray balanced on her shoulder. That sweet smell comes with her. It's yam slices, deep fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar! They're good as doughnuts. And the sarsaparilla tickles my nose.

Aunt Laura only nibbles at one log, but she drinks her fizz straight down.

“I'll have another,” she calls to the waitress.

“I like it here.”

“Good for you. Your grandmother probably won't like it that I brought you.”

“Has she been here?”

“No. I've tried to bring her. She seems to sing best in her own cage.”

“What?”

“She has her own Memphis, that's all. Are you finished?”

“One more log.”

“Okay. Then let's get going.”

When she stands, Aunt Laura wobbles a little.

“I should have bought straw shoes, too,” she says. “A day in these heels can cripple you.”

There's no one in sight to pay, so Aunt Laura leaves a few curling bills and a mound of change on the table. I'm shocked. Where I come from you count. Even the pennies.

For a minute, as we come out of Sultanna's and into the sunlight, none of this seems real: Beale Street, sarsaparilla, Aunt Laura. It's like something I made up. The real thing is Goose Rock, Daddy figuring in the ledger, Mama saying, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do.”

Aunt Laura breaks the spell.

“One more thing we need to do for you, Amanda. We need to find you some music.” “But I can't stay till tonight.”

“It's a shame, too. But somebody will be playing to fill a hat down in Crawfish Alley.”

Before we go another block, Aunt Laura guides me into a gap between buildings and, sure enough, there sits a man playing a long black horn. It sounds like a bird squealing.

I know birds don't squeal, but if they did they would sound like this. Squealing in tune, mind you. Squealing with joy and pain and fear—maybe about how birds have to fly but this one doesn't want to. How does it know its wings will work? Or what to do when the wind changes? Or how to slow down and hook a branch with its claws?

Aunt Laura says Omie keeps to her cage. Does that mean she'll never hear this music? Mama sure doesn't hear it in Goose Rock. And how can she get out? She's surrounded: mountains, children. She'd have to fly. But the music says that's so hard …

I look at Aunt Laura, her eyes closed, leaning against the dirty wall.

Suddenly the musician stops and looks up at me, his dark eyes squinting.

“Humph,” he says to Aunt Laura. “Looks like your rose done caught her heart on a thorn.”

Aunt Laura stands straight.

“Why, Amanda, whatever is the matter?”

Tears roll down my neck. “It's just the music. It's so …” I can't explain. “It's so big.”

“Yes, indeed, it is that.” Aunt Laura laughs. She opens her purse, takes out another curl of bills, and tosses them in the player's hat. “You're Rena's daughter all right,” she says, resting her hand on my shoulder. “Come on, Amanda. It's time we were getting you home.”

Light is wearing out as we walk to the top of Beale Street.

“Aunt Laura, what happened to Mama's music?”

“I guess it's in the attic somewhere if she didn't take it with

her.”

“I mean her playing. It must have meant a lot to her—”

“Everything.”

“Now she only plays ‘Rock' of Ages' or ‘Turkey in the Straw.'”

“Jim Perritt happened to it.'”

“But Daddy likes her to play.”

“Sure he does—in a cabin a hundred miles from nowhere.”

“We've never lived in a cabin.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, why did she go?”

“Your Daddy, like I said.”

“Why didn't they stay here?”

“Jim Perritt said he had no mind to work timber in land so flat you could mow it down. Mountains are like rivers: they get in your blood.”

“But not in Mama's?”

“No, hers was pure music.”

“Then I don't understand—”

“That makes the two of us.”

“I mean how she can stand not to play now.”

“Probably better than she could stand the sound if she did.”

“But that's terrible!”

“Yes, but look at it this way: Where would you be if music was the center of her life?”

There's nothing to say to that.

“This is my stop. Can you go the rest of the way yourself?”

“Sure. I've got Opie's map.”

She goes down the aisle and calls back from the door.

“I've had hundreds. They don't help. But they give you something to look at when you're lost.”

We both laugh as she swings down onto the street. I watch out the window but in half a minute she's gone.

22

I'm just going to ask Omie is all. I want to know and people don't volunteer telling. There's only today and tomorrow before I go home, and tomorrow I'm going back to Aunt Lauras.

Today is Sunday—still as a dead rabbit. We went to church but it wasn't like Christmas, ate dinner, and now we're sunk into the parlor, Opie asleep with the newspaper in his lap, Omie crocheting. Another popcorn-stitch bedspread. Every time she hooks the thread, I feel caught and twisted. If I'm going to ask, I have to ask now.

“Omie?”

“Yes, child.”

Our words hang between ticks of the grandfather clock.

“Why did Mama give up music for Daddy?”

“Who said she did?”

“Aunt Laura. She said music meant everything to Mama until Daddy took her away.”

“That sounds like Laura.”

“You mean it s not true?”

“I mean Laura only paints with shocking colors.”

“But what about Mama staying up late practicing on cardboard?”

“I guess that's true. Probably it happened once or twice and Laura's made it a history. Laura didn't want to
lose
Rena, you see. They had their own world. And in crashed Jim Perritt.”

“Did Mama want to go on the stage?”

“Rena? Heavens, no. Oh, she might have liked to play in an orchestra—I don't doubt that—but not by herself. And what kind of life is that? That's what I said to her—”

“So you talked her out of it?”

“No, ma'am, I did not.” Omie snaps this out and bites off her thread. Opie stirs under the paper.

I'd better try another approach.

“Why didn't Aunt Laura want Mama to go?”

“Why is the grass green, Mandy? Why is red flannel?”

“I don't know.”

And I don't know what's making her mad.

Omie looks at the circle she's finished, flattens it out on her skirt.

“I've always felt bad about Rena and Laura. It was my fault in a way. Laura was so little when William died and for a while—I don't know, I just couldn't stand a little child in my lap. Couldn't tie her jingle shoes without hearing William say I've got bells on so Mama won't get lost.'

“I guess it takes different women differently. I might have doted on Laura, never let her out of my sight. But instead I pulled back. And Rena was so eager. Like you, Mandy, she was a little mother from the start…”