Glory Be (12 page)

B
y the time we made it down to our house, Robbie was walking pretty good. We turned up the sidewalk, and right off Emma saw his bloody elbow and the scrapes on his cheek.

“Lord, child, what on earth happened?”

Jesslyn helped Robbie up the porch steps. “J.T. beat him up.”

Emma held the front door open. “Come in the kitchen, let me look at you.”

“Just got the wind knocked out of me,” Robbie said, taking slow, deep breaths, then settling into a seat. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”

But Robbie wasn’t fine, and Emma knew it.

Jesslyn and I exchanged glances. I was trying
to decide whether to tell Emma about J.T.’s knife.

“Robbie wouldn’t let us call the police,” I said. “So we came here.”

Emma opened the first-aid kit. She dabbed orange medicine all over Robbie’s elbow and blew on it.

Robbie flinched. He looked from Emma to Jesslyn and back again. “Nobody can know about this.” He stood up like he was going somewhere.

Jesslyn put her hand on Robbie’s arm to sit him back down. Her voice was full of pride. “Back in North Carolina, Robbie got in trouble for doing the right thing,” she told Emma. “J.T. found out about it, about him eating at a lunch counter with a Negro friend.” Jesslyn looked hard at me when she said that.

Emma leaned close to Robbie. She gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze.

Once Emma had taped a bandage on his elbow and cleaned up his face some, Robbie was in even more of a hurry to leave. “I gotta get going,” he said. “My car’s over behind the church.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Jesslyn said. “You” — Jesslyn gave me a look that meant me helping Robbie was done with — “stay here.”

Robbie eased himself up, real slow. He winked at
me. “Thanks, Glory, for getting rid of J.T.” He followed Jesslyn out the front door.

My sister hadn’t told him who had given away his secret. Knowing this all started with me telling Frankie, it made me sick inside.

“That’s a big mess of trouble, that poor boy,” Emma said, shaking her head.

I handed Emma the picnic basket. We folded the plaid blanket, hand to hand. I tried to think of what all to tell her. I started slowly. “J.T. and his friends didn’t like what Robbie did back in North Carolina.” By the way her eyes rested on me, Emma could tell I knew more.

“Might make you feel better to talk.” She packed away our leftover brownies in the bread box, wiped off the kitchen table. Then she sat down and patted the chair. “Right here, Glory honey.”

I spoke quietly, carefully. “Jesslyn’s real mad,” I said. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anything about Robbie, but I couldn’t keep it to myself. I told Frankie. Then Frankie blabbed to J.T. that Robbie got sent to jail.” I leaned back in the chair and looked at Emma. “I’m scared.”

“Those boys were wrong.” Emma dropped her hands into her lap like the weight of the whole evening had
just settled there. “They never should have done that. Beating up a boy who stands up for what’s right. Just a heap more of the trouble that’s all over the place this summer.”

I told Emma how Frankie made me think the pool was open, and how he blamed Laura for something she never did. Now that I was talking, telling Emma the truth, the words spilled out fast. “The pool’s closed for all summer long. I thought everything would go back to the way it was. But even if that pool opens, it’ll never be the same in Hanging Moss.” I stopped to get my breath and leaned into Emma’s shoulder. “What’s the matter with everybody, Emma?”

“Most folks just scared of losing something precious to them.”

“You mean the pool?” I asked her. “The pool’s precious to me.”

“No, something harder to describe. Something they need to hold on to, even when they might just need a step back. Other folks, they know the best time to let go.”

Emma hugged me tight, rocked me. “Almost forgot, baby.” She reached into her apron pocket. “Got you a birthday present.”

She handed me a wrapped box. Inside was the tiniest little book. “It’s like our Nancy Drews!” I said. “It really opens and closes.”

“For your new charm bracelet.” She helped me snap it on.

In a minute, Daddy came in the front door. I ran to him. “Daddy, something bad happened.”

“What is it, Glory? Are you and Jesslyn all right?”

“Robbie got beat up by J.T. and his friends.” I looked at Emma. “They were mad because Robbie took up for some colored people back in North Carolina.” Then I blurted, “J.T. had a knife.”

“Where’s Robbie now — where’s Jesslyn?” Daddy moved toward the phone. “I’m calling the police.”

“No, Daddy, please. Robbie didn’t want his aunt — or anybody — to know about the fight. He and Jesslyn walked over to get his car.”

Daddy’s arms reached around me.

“It was all my fault,” I whispered into his white shirt. “I got Robbie in trouble. I told his secret.” As a minister my daddy knew a lot about keeping secrets. He didn’t ask me one more question, just kept hugging me.

When Emma left to go home for the evening, Daddy held the door open and we followed her onto the cracked
sidewalk. “Enjoy your Sunday blessings, Emma. We’ll see you on Monday.”

“No, sir. I’m coming in special, after church tomorrow, to make Glory’s birthday dinner.”

We waved good-bye to Emma. Then Daddy stopped for a minute and looked at me like he was just remembering what day it was. “Happy birthday, honey!” We walked back up the porch steps to sit together on our swing and watch the end of the fireworks. He and I looked off beyond the library, to where the night sky lit up with color, and bright flashes exploded above the treetops.

Daddy welcomed me into another one of his hugs. “Glory be,” he said softly.

He carried his Bible and papers to his study and left me sitting, thinking about the whole day.

When Robbie’s gold station wagon stopped in front of our house, the headlights went down. Jesslyn saw me as soon as she stepped up on the porch. “Why are you out here in the dark? Go inside.”

I put my feet down to stop the swing. I stood up and reached in my shorts pocket. “I’m sorry about tonight, Robbie.” I handed him the
Love Me Tender
key chain. “You can have it back. I don’t deserve your present. It
was my fault J.T. beat you up. I blabbed your secret to Frankie.”

Robbie wouldn’t take the key chain. “Jesslyn already told me. But I don’t care about J.T. I don’t need that kind of trouble. After all that’s happened, I’m leaving. To live with my mother again.”

“What about football — and Jesslyn?”

“Robbie called his mama tonight. She’s coming tomorrow, early.” Jesslyn’s voice was so soft I wondered if I’d heard her right. She leaned her head on Robbie’s arm. She was crying, even more than before. “Who wants to stay where people are so horrible to you?” she was asking into the warm night. Jesslyn kept on talking, speaking to what seemed like only herself. “Robbie has promised to come visit me,” she said.

But I couldn’t see Robbie Fox spending another minute in Hanging Moss.

I
sat on the top stair, touching my new charm bracelet, thinking about how to make Jesslyn happy again. I looked down the upstairs hall toward the sewing room. That’s it! The sewing room! I snatched up all the clothes Jesslyn had piled on the daybed. I ran to our old bedroom, dropped her favorite blue sweater on the way, but I kept going. I went back for her basket filled with makeup and hair rollers. I stuck her fancy tasseled boots in the big closet in our old room. My Nancy Drew books and china animals were lined up in perfect order where they’d been ever since I could remember. I carried them to the sewing room. My room now.

Next, I grabbed my Buster Brown shoe box. What
did I need with that silly stuff — Cracker Jack prizes, a rusty skate key, my Jacob’s ladder string?

I dropped every last piece of my old junk, one by one, in the wastebasket. When I got to the dried and crumbly grass from Elvis’s house, I put it back, next to the two shells I couldn’t bear to part with. Then I came to the faded pool notice, the lie Frankie had written about the pool. I wanted to rip it to pieces, but I folded it into a hard triangle and put it in the box as a memory of my twelfth birthday in Hanging Moss.

I didn’t want to forget everything.

I waited by the window, holding my breath till I heard Robbie’s car drive off and Jesslyn starting up the stairs. When she stormed into the bedroom and flung her blue sweater onto the bed, I jumped a mile.

Her voice was low, but she was sure mad. “Who did this? Who destroyed my new room?” Jesslyn looked around and saw her hairbrushes and boots and mascara, all in our old room.

“Emma’s sewing room is plenty big for me,” I told her. “You’re the oldest. You get the biggest room.”

Jesslyn stared at the two beds, all the windows, the closet that my entire new room could almost fit into,
like she couldn’t believe it belonged to her now. “You’re giving
me
this room?”

“All yours,” I told her.

Jesslyn got so still I thought maybe she was mad. “Robbie made me promise to forgive you for telling Frankie his secret.”

“I’m sorry he’s leaving, Jesslyn,” I said. We were both real quiet. “Wanna play cards?” I asked.

“You mean Junk Poker?”

“I dumped my junk out, same as you. Didn’t think you’d ever want to play again. I’m putting new things in my shoe box, to save forever.” I held up my box and started to untie the purple ribbon. “Wanna play Junk Poker with our new stuff?” Jesslyn could tell by me not being able to look at her that deep down I hoped she’d say no. I didn’t want to bet my new treasures.

“We’ll play Double Solitaire,” she said. I put down my shoe box.

Jesslyn laid out her cards on the bumpy bedspread.

I turned over a queen and looked for a place to play it. “The pool’s not opening again, is it?”

Jesslyn smoothed out the bedspread, then added a nine of hearts to her cards. “Things won’t ever be like they were before, Glory.”

I flipped over three more cards but nothing was working on my side. “Miss Bloom says in a few years, everybody’ll be wondering what the fuss was all about. I hope she’s right,” I said.

Jesslyn put down her last card and beat me, but this time she didn’t brag. “Sleep in here tonight.” She moved a pile of clothes from the extra bed. “In my room, with me,” she said. “We’ll clean up tomorrow. Your new room looks like a tornado went through.”

T
he next afternoon, Jesslyn was upstairs listening to Elvis and mooning over Robbie. Daddy was resting after church. Emma was in the kitchen fixing my birthday dinner and wearing the prettiest blue dress ever.

“The table’s set,” she said. “Everything’s ready for your special day — well, one day late.” She laughed at the face I made over that. “And the cake! Icing’s there for you and Jesslyn to put on together. Chocolate, your favorite.” She held up a big yellow bowl.

“Thank you, Emma.” I peeled back the waxed paper and stuck my finger in the bowl. She swatted at me, but she smiled, too. “Did you hear? Robbie’s gone,” I said. “And Frankie might as well be.” I licked icing off my
finger. “That awful Old Lady Simpson, she didn’t speak to me or Jesslyn at church today.”

“Don’t you be worrying about folks like Mrs. Simpson — don’t give her the satisfaction. The world doesn’t change by magic, baby. But we’ll get there.” She took off her apron and reached for her fancy hat.

“Wait, Emma!” I pulled her back close to me at the table. “You didn’t tell me about Mr. Robert Kennedy. Did he come to your church today?”

“He sure did, Glory honey. The church was filled to overflowing. Everybody was there. It was like nothing I’ve ever known before.” She settled back in her chair. She held up her hand, the one with the slim gold ring that never left her finger and she’d promised to give me when I grew up. “Hold my hand, baby,” she said. “You’re touching the hand that touched Mr. Bobby Kennedy.”

“Now
I’ve
come close to somebody as famous as a president.” I threaded my fingers through Emma’s. “Somebody important. That’s one good thing about this summer.”

“You know, Glory,” she said. “By making your friend Laura glad to be here, you’re somebody important, too.” She held my hand right up against hers. “Don’t
you worry. We’ve got powerful praying hands, don’t we?” She winked, then hugged me tight. She smelled like cake with chocolate icing. Like the pine soap she’d scrubbed the saucepans with. I buried my face in her blue dress and took in all her goodness.

I thought for a minute. “Emma, I figured out what’s got people like Mrs. Simpson and Frankie’s daddy so riled up. It’s not just the new people in town. It’s things changing so fast that’s scaring them. When people get scared, they make up lies. They keep secrets. And they act mean.”

“You’ve learned a lot, baby.”

“When this summer started, I never thought I’d know a real secret.”

“Real secrets mean more than hiding that card game from your daddy. Real secrets can be hurtful. Make people do bad things.” Then she hugged me again. “No matter what, you know Emma loves you,” she whispered into my hair. “See you tomorrow, Glory.”

Then I remembered. “Emma, Miss Bloom said to invite you to the library tomorrow.”

Emma drew her breath in real quick and took a step back. “What for?”

“The thank-you party for everybody who helped out
at the July Fourth parade,” I said. “You made a whole lot of food for the picnic. You get invited.”

Emma nodded her head. “Well, I just might do that, Gloriana June Hemphill. I might just come to a party at the library.”

“You can bring anybody you want,” I said. “Miss Bloom said to tell you that, too.”

She patted her hat on and headed toward the front door. “I bet you had something to do with this fine invitation.” When Emma said that, I felt like I’d grown a whole foot taller since turning twelve yesterday.

I looked right at her and sent a smile as big as Mississippi. “Don’t forget, Emma. I’ll see you tomorrow.”