Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction (46 page)

We were alone in the house, an added indulgence. While Thomas had been down in the kitchen, I had tiptoed naked down the hall to the bath room to wash and slip on my white nightgown. I had brought a damp cloth back to the bed to attempt to wash away the sheet’s red bulls-eye, humming a gospel tune I’d heard Lizzie hum many times. I thought for a moment of the words,
Are you washed, in the blood, in the soul-cleansing blood of the lamb?
And giggled again like a school girl, absolutely light as a feather with giddy.

I wasn’t sure whether to run about the house in my nightgown or stay in bed all day. Either approach would be exciting and fresh. Since Thomas had over-speculated my shyness on such a morning-after and thus eliminated my need to leave the vicinity, I threw aside the newspaper and opted for the bed covers.

God help me, I felt as young and pretty as a blossoming flower. I suppose one could think my bloom had been picked, but given that it was singled out by Thomas, I would happily sit in his vase as settled as those flowers on the mantle.

Thomas interpreted my inertia as a sign. He discarded his papers and rolled over onto his side. Kissing my shoulder, he grinned up at me under those bushy eyebrows as a young boy might from under a cap. His hand slipped under my nightgown and I flinched at first, but his crafted touch convinced me with tingles that I could take him
in for yet another session in the art of lovemaking. I accepted what he taught with an openness I’d never experienced before and how wonderful to know I could do so without hesitancy.

Finally the mysterious key of love had opened my passage. Why Thomas, and not Billy or Jere I did not know. What I did know was that this felt so right that I clutched his back in a high rise of tingling sensations I couldn’t control. He smiled down at me as he advanced his movements with a pleasurable smile that said to me, you are why I am here in this room, you and no other.

Thomas and I shared our own secrets in this shrouded bed chamber. I no longer stood outside looking in to another time. We made our own memories with I as his bride. His body became an experience in exploration, touching the blond hair of his thighs and learning the burning in his eyes when he reached for me. How his muscles tightened when we connected and how daring my kisses became. We sustained on our four-poster island with only an appetite for each other. Like Cinderella who arose in the castle of her prince, we lived happily ever after for three glorious days.

Then we hit the road running. Literally and figuratively. Reality forced its way through our door via the doorbell when long-awaited lawn signs and flyers were delivered on our third morning. Thus began a concentrated election campaign. We barnstormed our town of Annan with many of the same strategies I had learned in suffrage. Door-to-door we walked, arm-in-arm, asking for support, flyers changing hands listing his campaign promises, shaking folks’ hands until our own hands ached. Permission was granted by scores of homeowners to post our lawn signs painted in bold blue letters,
Thomas Pickering for mayor: He’s on the right road.

Volunteers sprang up, Pearl and David among them, and our back parlor once again rang with incessant telephone calls and a collage of paper and people. We arranged for a last-minute media blitz through the newspaper and asked for a live debate. We knew our
opponent, George Groves, would have a stronghold over airwaves as owner of the radio station, and some financial backing from the businessmen of the community thanks be to such owners as Mr. Jones of the textile mill who had a vendetta against Thomas for supporting the women’s union. On the other hand, and for this reason, we energized pledges from the women’s groups. As the husband of a suffragist, Thomas could prove his sincerity in addressing women’s concerns by introducing me wherever we went. We pushed the fact that, thanks to women like me, all women could get out there and vote and who best would ensure their voices were heard, with a good woman behind him? There should be no wasted votes out there, Thomas said over and over. To our pleasant surprise, the local chapter of the League of Women Voters agreed to sponsor an open-air debate in City Hall Park and scheduled this for the day before the election.

George declined. Not surprising that George preferred the radio - his appearance as fat and pompous would not hold a candle to Thomas. Thomas rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. “Now’s our chance to give the press a good story. They’re just itching for one and they can’t very well go out and make up their own. Let’s make his refusal as colorful and controversial as we can.”

The next day’s headlines gave Thomas what he wanted.
George Can’t Do It!
, read the bold letters on the front page. S
ome people question his ability to stand up to the big boys, when he refuses to stand up to his opponent in the race for mayor, Mr. Thomas Pickering. Mr. Pickering stated, “I believe I’m on the right road and my road leads to everywhere. Mr. Groves leads to no where and I wish to prove that.”

Knowing we struck a nerve, at six on the nose that evening, a group of us gathered in our back parlor around our new radio – the one I remembered from his apartment – and fixed our eyes on its dials, knobs and tubes, and listened to George change his tune.

“I’ll tell you where Mr. Pickering’s road leads,” could be heard George’s tenor tone from the cabinet’s gold fabric panel. “It leads to the jazz joints where he’s been seen consuming prohibited alcohol, and it leads to his home where he harbors women who’ve left their
heart-stricken husbands. All led by his live-in girlfriend, only recently made decent by marrying her. I’m not afraid to stand up to such an immoral man. I accept the challenge of a debate with my opponent, Mr. Pickering. George
can
do it and will!”

We’d won a battle in this war, but hadn’t come away without injury. George was going for blood and seemed more interested in ridiculing Thomas than upholding himself. Technically what he said had some tarnished, twisted truth. I squeezed my hands together, wishing his neck was in between.

“The challenge is on, my dear,” Thomas said as he stood and turned the dial of the radio to off. He looked down at me with a hesitant smile. “He’s giving us a hint of what is to be.”

“We can fight back, Thomas. Eleven or twelve years ago, he wasn’t on such high moral ground. Eunice, remember? He kicked her out of their home and brought in your ex-secretary, supposedly as his housekeeper. They married as soon as his divorce from Eunice was finalized. You must bring this up in tomorrow’s debate!”

Thomas bit his lip in thought. “I don’t necessarily agree with negative campaigning, dear, you know that. At any rate, public scrutiny can be brutal. Are you up for it?”

I stood and faced him, my hands on his chest, public affection for the group to witness, it didn’t matter. “I was raised a suffragist,” I said, lifting my chin to him. “I’ll march beside you all the way.”

Now you know some of my deep dark secrets, Mama.

Like I said, you first opened that bed chamber. Will you reveal all your own, during your year of awakening?

L
ife is a fragile balance between past and future. How do you like that saying? I made it up! The past taps me on one shoulder saying,
Remember me?
And the future taps me on the other saying,
Forget about her – it’s me you’ve got to worry about.
And here I sit in the middle, not moving to the front seat, or the backseat. Georgia crippled me as much as it did little Jesi. I hadn’t realized that until now. I pretend that everything is wonderful when the truth is, I tap dance over my damn nightmares as if tapping them down will keep them buried. They only immerge over and over to say,
Look at me! Look at me!
Like an unwanted child in a grotesque costume.

Mama says the Lighthouse has always been her haven. For me, it’s a hide-out. Jesi and I came here in the middle of the night like run-away slaves and I’ve stayed hidden ever since. Hiding behind them telling me I’m needed here. Hiding behind them telling me Jesi’s theirs. Hiding behind the fact that I gave up both of us far too easily.

Will this journey down Memory Lane help me understand why? Mama is a clever one – there has to be a damn good reason for all this writing. Silly me thought she’s doing this project for me. Instead … all these years I thought I had been living at the Petticoat Junction and now, in sneaking into her wardrobe and reading her chapters, I find Peyton Place! You could have knocked me over with my feather ticking! My own mother
and
grandmother - this Jere fellow must have been one hunk!

Makes me damn curious as to why Grandmama Ruby said on her last page that she’s heading to a greater judgment. Also makes me
think that where my story is going may be easier to tell. You know how it is: it’s a lot easier to throw shit into a muddy river than into a clear blue mountain spring.

Everyone is writing, even little Jesi. She looks pale and her limp seems more pronounced when she entered the dining room. But she only coils tighter if I prod and there’s no revealing pages from her in the wardrobe. I want to yell Papa’s expression,
Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining
. I mean really, what’s this crap about planning to stay at a girlfriend’s house for a long weekend? I want to yell,
What girlfriend
?

Best to leave her alone, let her write. Hopefully she writes about why she sneaks out in the middle of the night. Doesn’t she think I notice?

1943

My feeble attempt at a Savannah birth control clinic is dropped like a hot sweet potato. I don’t return Ellen’s calls; she gives me a headache. And funding from eugenics? You’ve got to be kidding! I like Clary too much to stab her in the back with such a cut-throat, cut-ovaries organization. And when I tell Clary why Ellen is calling, Clary hangs up the phone on Ellen before she can finish asking for me. Clary looks so self-righteous and says, “That lady couldn’t hit her ass with both hands!” I laugh til I cry.

So I kick it out of the way and I jitterbug on to the dance floor. There are some great boogey-woogey sounds with a beat I just can’t sit on. It’s a shame William can’t fast-dance but never-mind; there are plenty of soldiers who can.

These fellows are here for the same reason I am: to forget why else we’re here in this part of the country. “You’re on furlough; I’m a Virgo,” I say as a pick-up line. Why not beat them to the punch? Although I’ve heard some good ones at that
Bottoms Up
dance club or at its neighboring
Hug and Slug
.

Like
Love me tonight; my ship sails in the morning,
or
Do it for your country
, or
You know who else would look good in that dress? Me!”
or the
one I laughed hardest at,
Uncle Sam wants you; meet Uncle Sam
!” We shake hands and I meet Samson for the first time. Beautiful sea-blue eyes (all sailors have this color after three months on open water, he jokes at my compliment), a sweet smile that easily breaks into a grin and makes his two front teeth that slightly overlap look adorable, like all guys should have crooked teeth. He could move his stuck-out ears up and down in line with his eyebrows after one of his jokes that remind me of a puppet on a string, like the recent Walt Disney flick,
Pinocchio
.