Billie Standish Was Here (11 page)

Miss Lydia called out to the saleslady, “Ida, you've got a tape measure, don't you? Do me a favor and bring it over here.” I looked at her. The picture of serenity. Back to Mama. Steam about to come out her ears.

All farm kids know if you whistle at a rabbit running across the yard he'll stop short and freeze, not even blink, thinking that makes him invisible. I must have rabbit instincts. I was rooted to the spot.

Ida Greene brought the cloth tape and Miss Lydia hoisted herself up with a grunt. She beckoned and I baby-stepped over, every muscle tense. “Arms up,” she said and showed me by holding her own straight out to the sides.

She was standing right in front of me good as a shield. I flinched when the tape snaked across my chest.

“Thirty-two-and-a-half,” she announced. “ 'Bout what I figured.” She tossed the tape in Ida's direction and said, “Be a big help, would you, and bring us a youth bra, please. Size thirty-two, I'm gonna say
A
.”

“Now just hold on a minute!” Mama yelped. That made it Ida's turn to freeze. “She doesn't need a bra! She's only eleven years old!”

Miss Lydia blinked like a cat in a pool of sunshine. “Well, now, Miriam, I don't know as how the need for a bra is measured in years.”

“But—” Mama turned bright red. “I didn't wear a bra till I was fourteen!”

“ 'Course not,” Miss Lydia agreed. “You're built like your mama. I believe Billie Marie here favors her Grandma Standish more.”

Well. Mama didn't have an answer for that. I took the opportunity to scoot back into the fitting room. I squirmed out of the plaid skirt and put on one Mama had chosen. Then I wiggled out of the sleeves of the poorboy and stood waiting, arms pinned to my sides.

Presently, a hand came around the curtain offering up a small box. I spent what felt like the next thirty minutes with my arms twisted behind me trying to fasten something unfamiliar that I couldn't see.

“Billie Marie?” Miss Lydia's voice was liquid.

“Huh?”

“Fasten the hook at your waist, in front, then turn the whole thing around and slip your arms through the straps.”

Oh. This I accomplished in seconds. Then I slipped back into the sleeves of the sweater and pulled it down around my waist as I stepped out to the mirror. I saw myself at the same time the three women did. Mama and I both gasped.

There are two pictures in my baby album that look like they were taken about four years apart, but the only real difference was one day and a haircut.

The bra and a longer skirt had added about as much age as that haircut.

I wasn't a girl with some extra pudge pushing out her nipples anymore. I had a bustline. Without the camouflage of a loose T-shirt, I had a waist. Because of that narrow waistline, you could see I had hips.

I looked like a woman. Mama, with her narrow hips and nothing much up top, looked like a skinny teenage boy gaping at my reflection in the mirror.

The rest of the day passed in a haze. I vaguely remember trying on outfits and accepting Mama's verdicts. We stopped by Lingerie and she picked up two more bras before we cashed out. By then Mama was convinced it was what she had meant to do all along.

In my mind's eye I kept seeing us standing side by side in the mirror. The same height. Equally astonished.

O
  n the way home I was only half listening to Miss Lydia thank Mama a hundred more different ways for hauling her to town until I heard the rhythm of her words change to a halting collection of fits and starts.

“—oh, but I hate to . . . I shouldn't even ask. You've already done so much . . .” she was saying. “I can't . . . expect you . . .” She had my attention then.

Mama was practically shining. “Well, whatever it is, Lydia, you can ask.”

“Oh, I hate to,” Miss Lydia said. “But I don't know what else to do. I have a bit of bank business in the city that needs tendin' to . . . but, no. I'm not gonna ask you, because I know you're just gettin' back into the fields and you're way behind for the year.”

“Mmmm,” Mama said. “It
would
be pretty hard for me to get away for a whole day just now.”

I thought,
Especially since you've never driven in the City and can't even ride with Daddy without hanging onto the door handle for dear life.
But I kept quiet and waited to see what Miss Lydia was up to.

“I know it would, Miriam,” Miss Lydia agreed, “and I can't tell you how much I've appreciated you taking me to town these past two Saturdays.”

“Well, now, it was—” Mama started.

“—and I want you to know I'm not going to take advantage of your good nature any more after today.”

“Oh, but I don't—” Mama tried.

“No, ma'am, I know you'd sacrifice, it's just like you.” I smiled behind my hand in the backseat. Miss Lydia went on, “but Virginia Simpson stopped by the other day—you know she's expecting her first—” She waited for Mama to nod. “—and she was asking if she could do some cleanin' or sewin' or somethin' for me to make a little money, and I told her I'd be glad to pay her gas money and then some to haul me to town when I need to go.”

Mama sputtered just a little. “But, Lydia, I never—”

“
No
, ma'am.” Miss Lydia set her jaw. “You'd let me walk all over you, I know you would, it's just the kind of neighbor you are, good as gold, but I'm not a-gonna do it.”

Mama's eyes sparkled in the rearview mirror.

“No, sir,” Miss Lydia went on. “Now, Virginia doesn't feel up to makin' that long a trip, but I'm not even gonna ask you about the city, 'cause I know it'd be a hardship and you'd probably do it anyway. I wouldn't mind takin' the train,” she said, “but I hate the thought of being up there alone if anything happened. . . .”

I got a glimmer.

“Well,” Mama said, “I don't see why Billie can't go with you. Surely the two of you can't cause too much mischief.” She took her eyes off the road to flash Miss Lydia a smile.

In that flash, it all made sense. The crafty old bird hadn't thought for a second Mama would take her to Kansas City. But she'd managed to make it Mama's idea to take me.

“Sure! I'll go!” I piped up.

Mama chuckled. “I'll just bet. Lydia, when were you thinking of going?”

Miss Lydia pondered a while. “Well, I might like to go up next Saturday,” she said. “But I don't know if these old bones would take the trip twice in one day, so I'd prob'ly have to stay over and come back Sunday.”

I was thinking,
Go to the bank on Saturday?
But Mama nodded and said, “Well, I'll have to clear it with James. But since I'm the one who suggested it—and I'll say right now, Billie, you can't go unless you promise to go to Mass Sunday morning—I don't imagine he'll have any objections.”

I was so happy I wanted to scream. I had never been away from both my parents a night in my life and the three of us had taken only one trip when I was so little I could barely remember it. Whatever credit Mama wanted to take, let her. I was going on a trip. With my friend.

I could barely stay inside my skin all day Sunday but forced myself to stay home after dinner and act as normal as possible. I didn't trust Mama not to take the trip away if she knew how much I wanted it.

I watched the clock until noon on Monday, then tore across the street like my britches were on fire. I even forgot to stop by the post office until Miss Lydia reminded me later.

She met me with a big shiny smile. “Well, well, my fellow traveler!” she said. I almost bowled her over hugging her.

Then we got down to business. “What would you like to see and do?” she asked. It seemed like such a regular thing to say to a kid when she did it. If somebody had asked my opinion at home, I'd have thought I'd stumbled into the wrong house on my way home from school.

“I don't care.”

Her eyebrows shot up.

“I mean, I don't know! Anything's fine with me!”

She studied my face and saw that I meant it. “Alrighty, then. Let me think on it and see what I can come up with.”

We didn't talk about the trip again until Friday. It was that sacred to me. But it was all I thought about. I guess she knew.

Friday, as I was heading out, one hand on the door, I asked, “What should I bring?” Like it had just occurred to me.

“Mmmm. Well, church clothes, for sure. I promised your mama.”

I nodded.

“I don't know. Some of your nice new school clothes for traveling, I guess.”

That made sense. It was all I had besides shorts and scrub clothes.

“Jammies and toothbrush.” She chuckled. “I got a head start on you there.” She pushed her upper plate out toward me with her tongue and slid it back into place. It took me a second to laugh. For somebody who'd had a whole lot of time to become predictable, she had a lot of surprises left.

Then she remembered something. “Billie Marie, come with me a minute, would you?” She was already headed for the stairs. I followed her up, but I hung back enough to let her take her time.

She paused on the landing to catch her breath, then opened the door to what she called “the guest room.” She hadn't had any guests during my lifetime, but I suppose that's what you call a spare bedroom. I didn't know anybody else who had one.

It was the room we had used to store most of the boxes of knickknacks, so I knew it well. The roses on the wallpaper were faded to a soft pink. The bedroom set was much older and more fragile-looking than the heavy modern oak in Miss Lydia's room. A rouge-pink down comforter looked like it had floated onto the bed and it rested beneath a crocheted lace throw that had probably started out white. There was a rag rug on the floor I'd lay money had been braided downstairs in this very house. A seated vanity reflected a framed cross-stitch sampler in all three panes of the mirror. The room was old-fashioned and a little shabby, but I wished it was mine every time I was in it.

Miss Lydia opened a door to the smell of woolens and leather stored too long without a good airing. She pointed back toward a corner.

“There are three suitcases back there, child, but I can't crawl back in that short space anymore. Would you drag them out for me, please?”

I had to do the breaststroke through clothes hanging on a rod, but then I saw what she meant. The closet was open and sloped all the way out to the roofline. It made something like a closet behind the main closet. It would have made a wonderful playhouse for a kid.

The suitcases were the only things in there besides boxes sealed up with duct tape. I dragged them out, one by one.

“Hmmm.” Miss Lydia studied them, hand on her chin. They were a matched set in buttery brown leather. Three sizes. “That small one is more of a cosmetics case, isn't big enough for anything to wear.” She nudged the medium one with her toe. “That be big enough for the wardrobe you're planning to bring?”

“Oh, you don't need to—.” Then I stopped. I hadn't once considered what I would put my belongings in. If we owned any suitcases Mama hadn't offered them up yet.

“Be easier to keep track of two if they match. Tell your folks that if they put up a fuss.”

I just nodded and wondered if I would ever be as smart as she was.

I put the small case back where it had been and carried the other two into the hallway. Miss Lydia was stopped in front of the closed door to Curtis's room. She looked about ten years older.

I had never noticed how hunched she was getting in the back and it made me wonder if grief might play a part in bending an old woman over like that.

“I've just not been able to bring myself . . . I s'pose one of these days I'll have to . . .” She shook her head.

“I'll help you,” I said.

“No, child!” She had never been that sharp with me. “You shouldn't have to. . . .”

I knew what she wasn't saying. I told her, “You shouldn't have to, either.”

She nodded. “Lemme think on it.” She took the railing and started her slow descent. “No hurry, I suppose.”

I carried the two suitcases down to the kitchen. When she started soaping up the dishrag, I got an idea.

I said, “No, Miss Lydia, don't. We got some saddle soap at home. I use it on my ball glove. Let me clean these up right, and I'll bring yours back before I go to bed tonight.” She smiled and waved a hand absentmindedly. I could see that part of her was still upstairs on the landing.

When Mama got home she complained that the kitchen smelled like a locker room, but I think she was mainly peeved that I hadn't cooked supper. I should have known once her feeling of power over granting me the trip had faded she was going to start feeling left out. I should have had my defenses up. While we were making cold cuts into sandwiches she said, “I wondered what you were going to put your things in.”