Apron Strings (12 page)

“Calm down. I just want your help with Ginny.”

He tried to take both my hands in his, but I snatched them away and gave him a stern look. “My help? How’d you know where I’d be?” I crossed my arms and tucked my hands up under them.

“Your mother told me this was the way you walked home everyday, and about what time. I’ve been hoping to catch up with you for almost a month.”

“Me?” I asked. “You been tryin’ to catch up with me?” I looked at him like he was some kinda crazy, which I thought he was.

Mista Joe smiled. He musta understood what my look meant, because he said, “You think I’m crazy, right? Well, probably I am!” He laughed that real easy laugh the way he does. But I was still suspicious.

“Wha’ kinda help you want from me?” I asked, checkin’ over his shoulder for an escape route just in case he really
was
crazy.

“Would you like to go out and have a beer with me?” he said.

He was crazy all right. Crazy like a fox. I seen what he was lookin’ for. “Uh…no, I cain’t do that cuz I already got me a man.” I looked at ‘im steady so he’d understand he weren’t gettin’ nothin’ from me. “Besides, I don’t hold stock wit’ that kinda foolishness.”

“No, I’m not asking you out on a date, Ethel,” he said and cleared his throat. “I just need your help. That’s it. I swear.”

“And where we goin’ ta be havin’ dis beer?”

“Well, if we were back in New York, we could go to a bar, but here…I guess I didn’t think it through. We could go to my room. It’s not far.” He sounded so innocent, like a little boy. Then he threw his hands up, like he had a gun pointed at him. He crossed his heart. “I swear, Ethel, on my mother’s grave, I only want to talk with you.” He laughed that easy laugh. “I promise.”

I could sure imagine what Mama would say, but I followed Mista Joe to his boardin’ house and started up the steps. That beer sounded right good. And besides, he didn’t look like he was going to try nothin’.

“I’m sorry yo’ Mama died,” I said. “You didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout it at Thanksgivin’…musta happened pretty recent?”

“My mother’s not dead. Why would you think…oh, on my mother’s grave…that’s just an expression.”

I stopped on the landin’ and looked at ‘im hard. “Mista Joe,” I said, “you can just tell me right chere what you got in mind ‘cause I ain’t goin’ another step wit’ a man who say his Mama dead when she ain’t.”

“Ethel, I’m sorry. It’s an expression we use up north. Come on. I promise all of this is on the up and up.” He held his door open for me. I went in, but I didn’t take my coat off. He went back and forth across the room fetching two glasses and then the beer, and back again for the opener. “It’s just that I’m at my wit’s end with Ginny, and you know her ways…”

He handed me a glass and poured the beer. “And please stop calling me ‘Mister Joe.’ It’s uncomfortable for me.”

Humph
, I thought,
uncomfortable for him
.

“Now looky, Mista Joe,” I said. “I’m gonna call you what I’m ‘spose’ to call you, if’n you like it or not. Imma have one beer, listenin’ to what ya got to say, an’ then I’m goin’ straight home.”

“Here’s the thing, Ethel,” he said. “I’m crazy about Ginny and she won’t give me the time of day. She acts like she’s in a whole other world when I’m around. What do you think I could do to make her see how much…,” he hesitated. I noticed red creepin’ up around his ears. He had his head bent down, pickin’ at his thumb. “How much I love her,” he whispered. He looked surprised, like it mighta been the first time he’d said it out loud. Then all excited like, he axed, “Should I push or let things be? Do you think I should send her flowers? Candy? I feel like I’m only going to get one shot at winning her over, and I don’t want to miss it. Ethel, what do you think? You know her.” He looked at me like he thought I could just hand him the key to Miz Ginny’s heart.

“Lord, Mista Joe, I ain’t got no idea. I’s sorry as I can be.” I moved my untouched beer toward him, thinkin’ I ain’t earned it. I stood up to go. I sho couldn’ stand lookin’ at the disappointment in his face no longer than I had ta.

“Don’t go,” he said. “At least not until you finish your beer.” He pushed it back toward me. I hesitated then sat back down. “I don’t think I really expected you to have an answer. I’m sorry, Ethel. I…she has me turned so upside down. I don’t know what I’m thinking.” He ran his fingers through his hair, stood up, and then sat down again. “I feel like a damn fool. Truth be told, Ethel, I think I just wanted to talk with somebody who loves Ginny as much as I do.” He settled back in his chair and took a pull on his beer. He didn’t say anything more. We sat there a few more minutes, but I couldn’t think of nothing to help him. I drained my glass and left.

As I walked home, I thought about Miz Ginny kissing Cy in the barn. Was that love? I wondered if Mista Joe had to work so hard to get Miz Ginny’s attention, would or even could that be love. Mista Joe was a nice man, but what did nice have to do with love? I was pretty sure Early loved me, but did I love him? Was love the thing that makes you go all weak in the knees? Makes it so you can’t think straight so you do stupid things like Cy did, or was it slow and steady? Damned if I could tell.

Love or not, about a year and half later, Mista Joe asked Miz Bess and Mista Gordon for Miz Ginny’s hand. They was engaged to be married and was lookin’ for someone to work for them. The weddin’ was to be in November in Miz Bess’s parlor.

Chapter 8

Sallee

A
s colorful and exotic as a trip downtown with Ethel was, a day usually turned into grim shades of gray when we were with my mother. Buying new school clothes always necessitated that we had to be dressed up, mind our manners, stay neat and tidy, be quiet, and generally have no fun. The thrill of pretty dresses and new shoes hardly matched the agony of shopping for them. And as divine as chocolate milk was, it didn’t make up for being reminded a hundred times to sit up straight and “don’t slurp.” My mother didn’t like to take us because, as she told Ethel, “They just won’t mind me. I don’t know why you would want to take them.”

She herded us from the brand new five-story Miller and Rhoades to Waddell’s shoe store, snapping at us like a collie dog after sheep when they get out of line. We couldn’t even think about moving out of her sight; and forget about making any choice in what to buy.

“Mama, I hate these brown shoes. I won’t wear them.” I tried hard not to cry, but was failing miserably. “Please, can I have these?” I held up a pair of loafers like Stuart wore. “Please?”

“No!” she snapped while the salesman was in the back of the store looking for the right size for a pair of the shoes she had picked out for Gordy. “Your feet are still growing and you need lace up shoes. Stop whining and put the shoes on. Now.” Her tone suggested that if I didn’t do what she said I ran a high risk of being permanently mortified.

Gordy groaned when the salesman returned with the shoes in his size.

We were just there to try things on to see if they fit. If they fit, we had to get a bigger size. Helen cried, I whined, and Gordy insisted on going to the bathroom even though my mother said under no circumstances were we allowed to use a public toilet.

“But I gotta go,” he insisted until she had no choice but to let him. We lurked around the men’s room waiting for Gordy for ten minutes. When he finally came out, my mother grabbed him by the ear and hissed that he had better not have touched anything, and did he wash his hands? I was thinking,
How do you wash your hands and not touch anything?
I was about to ask the question when I thought better of it.

The idea of taking us to town was so loathsome to her that once she even said to Ethel, “Leave them with me. There is no reason for you to drag them along with you.” On the other side of the door, we listened silently, but fervently prayed for Ethel to find a reason to take us with her.

Ethel answered, “No ma’am, I promised to take ‘em to the movies.”

Scuttling to get out of earshot in order to give full voice to our joy at the too-unreal-to-be-true delight almost put the trip itself in jeopardy. In our attempt to get outside as fast as possible, Helen was smashed against the doorjamb. She had a tendency to be a crybaby.

“I know it hurts, but please don’t cry,” Gordy pleaded. “We won’t be able to go if you do. Please don’t cry.”

“Come on, it doesn’t hurt that much,” I said. “You’re not even bleeding.”

Helen’s lips began to quiver. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her outside. “Well, if you’re gonna cry, at least do it where nobody can hear.” Tears began rolling down her cheeks.

Gordy turned on me. “Would you shut up? Look, now she’s cryin’ and we won’t get to go. It’s all your fault.”

“My fault? You were the big dummy that ran into her.” I pushed him. He pushed back.

Ethel came to the door and bellowed, “Gor-don, Sal-lee, Hell-eeen.” Helen wiped her face with her sleeve. We appeared from around the corner as if nothing had happened.

“Ya’ll git ready now. We gotta catch the bus. Hurry.” She didn’t have to say that twice. We were gone and back before she could round up her things. As the kitchen door closed behind us, we heard the bus coming up the road. Ethel was just too big to run. Try as she might, she couldn’t propel herself and Helen to the bus stop in time. The bus pulled away, leaving us in a cloud of oily blue-black fumes. Gordy and I were apoplectic. Neither of us was able to stem the bitter tears that welled up.

As we dragged our forlorn selves back to the house, my mother appeared at the front steps, sizing up the situation in a glance. “I’ll take you,” she said. Gordy and I looked at each other in stunned surprise. Our mother had come to the rescue.

Elated, we raced to the car. The three of us sat in our usual spots way in the back and giggled as we watched Ethel climb into the front seat with our mother. We didn’t see Ethel in cars often. She was so short, she could barely see out of the windshield. With our spirits high, we whispered about how little Ethel looked in the car and how big she seemed when she wasn’t in it. We got to the movie theater early. The fact that the theater was brand new—a modern, sleek building we’d yet to step foot in—only added to our excitement. My mother dropped us off out front. Ethel walked us around to the alley, looking for a side door, and realized there wasn’t one. We came around the front. Our mother had yet to pull out in traffic. She called, “You buy the tickets there,” pointing in the direction of the ticket counter. The smell of popcorn wafted out onto the sidewalk as we stood next to Ethel. We peered into the gleaming lobby through its glass front, taking in all the brightly colored movie posters.

Ethel shrugged, went to the ticket counter, and asked where the colored entrance was. “No coloreds allowed,” the ticket agent replied.

My jaw dropped. “Does that mean we can’t see the movie?” I asked. We looked at each other as if the ticket man were speaking a foreign language.

“You kids can, but she can’t.” The man gestured with his thumb at Ethel.

My mother got out of the car and came over to the window.

“Excuse me. Is there some misunderstanding? My children and maid came to see the four o’clock movie. I don’t suppose you know who I am?” she asked in her commanding tone. “My husband is—”

“Lady, your husband could be the president of the United States for all I care. You can buy tickets for the kids. No coloreds. Do you want tickets? If ya don’t, then move along.” Obviously, the man had never seen my mother mad.

We stood on the sidewalk in front of the ticket counter in silence. Ethel was resigned; she stood aside with no comment, shaking her head and staring down at the sidewalk.

“What’s he mean coloreds can’t…?” I whined. Gordy came over and pushed me.

“Shut up,” he hissed, and for added emphasis, glared “shut up” with his eyes.

I was dumbstruck that the man hadn’t let my mother have what she wanted, especially when she used the tone she had used. That was even more amazing than being turned away from the movies, but none of it made any sense to me. Ethel was the first to turn toward the car. “Well, I guess we ain’t gonna be seein’ no picture show today.” She kept her eyes on the sidewalk as if it were the most interesting thing she had seen all day.

“Oh yes you are,” said my mother, fixing her eyes on the ticket agent. “In spite of this man’s ignorance.” She turned and started walking quickly. “Get in the car.”

My mother drove us downtown to the Paramount movie theater. We pulled up to the colored entrance on the side of the building. My mother waited while Ethel bought our tickets. We knew this meant we got to sit upstairs in the balcony. Once she had the tickets, Ethel opened the car door and we scurried inside the theater. She put us in our seats and went back downstairs to buy us treats. Neither Gordy nor I could resist just one spit over the balcony. We had seen some little boys doing it the last time Ethel brought us here. Ethel had said they were bad boys and if she had anything to do with them, they wouldn’t be able to sit for a week. When we came back from the railing and sat in our seats, Helen said, “I’m gonna tell.”

“If you do, I’ll pinch you,” I swore.