It's Not Like I Knew Her (5 page)

Aunt Pearl uttered a mournful sound, followed by words Jodie couldn't make out. She gulped air and clung fiercely to the tree. The officer was wrong. He'd made a big mistake. Taylor was a common name. He had the wrong Jewel Taylor.

“Oh, no ma'am. For some reason, your sister was riding with a load of band types.” He paused as if making space for Jewel's deliverance. “The men were drunk as river cooters. Likely never knew what hit them.” A faint smile played at the corners of his mouth and he lifted a quick hand, rubbing it away.

He may have intended sparing her aunt the birds of a feather, but it was too late. Still, Jodie believed he was wrong. Drunk or sober, Randy was a good driver. He'd never killed as much as a raccoon or even an armadillo. Maybe he wasn't much of a picker, stole stuff, and drank too much, but when Jewel came back for her, she'd need Randy as her friend. If Aunt Pearl's God would only make the policeman a liar, she'd promise to give up stealing, even against road hunger.

Aunt Pearl stumbled back against the door frame, and the officer reached to steady her, speaking quietly. “We found a note in your sister's purse, naming you her next of kin. Took some time to track you down. Ma'am, the chief sent me to find out what you want done.” He studied the porch boards between his worn boots.

“Oh, no ma'am. You're not gonna want to see her.”

The door opened wider and the officer disappeared inside. Jodie's eyes burned like fire ant bites as she scampered down the rope ladder. Her feet touching shaky ground, she ran, a guiding hand scraping the length of the neatly trimmed holly hedge. She entered the house through the kitchen door and collapsed onto the floor, out of sight of her aunt and the officer. She peered around the door frame and saw the officer handing her aunt a sheet of paper.

“In that case, ma'am, I'll need you to sign here on this line.”

Aunt Pearl signed the paper and the officer folded it into neat quarters, placed it in his shirt pocket, buttoned the flap, and patted his pocket.

“I'm truly sorry, ma'am. Untimely, the way it was. There must've been a time when your sister was real pretty. It's a shame when the pretty ones die young.”

“Oh my, yes, Jewel was the pretty one. Always had the boys she wanted.” She giggled in a strange way that didn't seem right somehow, but her tone held no malice.

They rose from their chairs. The sound of her rustling skirt, the cracking of her arthritic knees joints, and her slow footsteps as she ushered the officer to the door roared in Jodie's ears like the sound of the diesel engines she once invited. She leaned back against the wall and clutched her stomach.

Aunt Pearl came into the kitchen where Jodie had continued to hide. She put on a pot of coffee and took a seat at the kitchen table, her wet face cradled in her palms.

Jodie stood.

“Oh God, Jodie, you heard?” Her face was drawn, white as a bleached bed sheet, and her eyes stretched in something akin to panic.

“It's not true, you know. Law's not the final word.”

“Your mama was such a sweet child. But from the time she was your age, she sought the hard-eyed boys who only knew how to live on the edge of destruction.”

Jodie needed no reminder of the kind of men Jewel had brought home, but she didn't believe her mama had been fated to die among a truckload of hogs.

“When're we going to get her? Bring her here?”

“Jodie, your mama's gone.”

“You don't know that. I want to see the woman he claimed is Jewel. He never one time mentioned me. She'd have put my name next to yours.” Her voice had weakened with each denial, her last squeezed from her heart.

“No, child, it's too late. I signed over her remains to the county. I don't have the money for a cemetery plot.” She handed Jodie the brown package the officer had delivered and turned away, her thin body racked by spasms.

Jodie stared at the package, traced its edges with her wet fingertip, and dared to tear away the blood-smeared wrapper. It held Jewel's Bessie Smith record, broken into two perfectly matched halves. Jodie sat, cradling the broken remains to her heaving chest. She'd known all along her mama wouldn't last without her to care for her. Still Jewel would have laughed at the irony in dying on the road, and in death she would have despised charity. Jodie wanted to blame her aunt for Jewel's final shame, but she knew better. She knelt next to her.

Her aunt embraced her for the first time since she arrived and whispered, “God knows I tried, but I couldn't save your mama.” She released Jodie and said, “I can't promise that you'll end better.”

Her voice had grown resolute, and Jodie understood that whatever she believed Jewel needed saving from, Aunt Pearl attributed the same to her.

Long after her aunt had gone to bed, Jodie sat alone in the kitchen listening to late-night radio. She wanted to hear her mama's voice. Have her say that she had a good girl back in Dothan, and that her next song went out to her. For the first time ever, Jodie prayed hard, although she didn't believe God answered prayers for those like her and Jewel. If the officer was right and her mama was dead, it was up to her to mark her passing.

J
odie rose in pre-dawn darkness, dressed in clean jeans and shirt, and brushed the night tangles from her hair. She slipped out the front door and stooped at the edge of the woods to pick a handful of wildflowers.

The faintest light of day appeared as a jagged scar, and Jodie imagined the row's narrow clay road, snowy-white cotton blooms sparkling like fireflies of an evening. In that moment, like all the times before, her mama stepped from the bus and smiled at her.
Hey, sugar, Mama's home.

Jodie released the wildflower petals, and Jewel Taylor's sarcastic laughter rose to gather them. She was at last to sing the blues.

A
unt Pearl's months of diligent letter writing to north Florida county sheriffs, inquiring as to the whereabouts of Red Dozier, finally paid off in the form of a phone call. Over supper, she offered, “Mr. Dozier has agreed to come for a visit. And he sounded real nice on the phone.”

Jodie shrugged.

Aunt Pearl fidgeted with her spoon, her brow gathered. “Soon, I believe. Though he didn't say exactly.”

Red had his certain charm with women, but if her aunt had bothered to ask, she could have told her he was plenty good at showing up, but even better at disappearing. It was all right with her if Aunt Pearl meant to squeeze money out of Red. She fretted often enough that her weekly pay of thirteen dollars as a telephone operator wasn't enough to cover their expenses.

T
hree months later, Aunt Pearl returned from the mailbox, a one-page letter clutched in her hand. She stopped beneath the oak and called up to Jodie.

“Letter says he'll be here Saturday.” When Jodie didn't answer, her aunt continued on into the house, pulling the door closed between them.

Living with Aunt Pearl was as boring as Lawrence Welk's accordion solos, but she'd grown to welcome its predictability. For that reason, Jodie had gritted her teeth against boredom, done her chores without bitching, and kept her mouth shut. She gave up baseball for basketball, a game she could play alone, shooting baskets at a clay court whenever she could avoid the older boys.

However, she'd continued to steal comics, and had become even bolder, stuffing pulp detective novels into the waist of her jeans whenever the half-blind storekeeper was distracted. Aunt Pearl couldn't know Jodie projected herself into the fictional heroics, imagining the pleasure of winning the favors of beautiful girls. About the same time she began touching herself in ways that caused her breath to come rapidly and her body to convulse in strange pleasure. These feelings, while thrilling, left her confused, even ashamed in those moments when her aunt insisted she must grow up differently. She took differently to mean she wasn't to take up what Aunt Pearl hinted were Jewel's “whorish habits.” Yet nothing she said was enough to cause her to stop what she was doing.

A
unt Pearl got up from the supper table, scraped her untouched food into the bucket for her neighbor's backyard chickens, and turned back to Jodie.

“My goodness, child. Aren't you one bit happy? Don't you want to see your daddy?”

“He's never claimed as much. And just because Jewel accused him doesn't make him guilty. He wasn't the only big, curly haired man she … she screwed.”

“Sweet Jesus, Jodie Taylor. Hush your shameful mouth.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as if she feared eavesdroppers. “You must not vilify your poor dead mama that way.”

“That's not what I did.” She'd never run Jewel down, but the truth about Red was anybody's guess. How many times had her mama laughed and teased, “Tom, Dick, or Harry,” to efforts at pinning her down. She'd gone along with her mama, though not knowing felt nothing like a joke. It was only after Red stopped coming that Jewel had branded him guilty. Then, it was clear Aunt Pearl wasn't interested in knowing the truth.

“Lord, child, your mama bragged that you're his spitting image. All that fuzzy hair, and those big hands and feet. She claimed nobody with eyes to see would think otherwise.”

“Does that include his wife, you think?” Jodie leaped to her feet, the chair slamming hard onto the floor, and Aunt Pearl screamed for her to sit back down.

Jodie stood on the opposite side of the bedroom door, inches from the sound of Aunt Pearl's pleading, “I swear it's only a visit. I don't mean for you to be hurt.”

Jodie kept still. How was putting her off on a man who refused to admit to being her father not supposed to hurt?

T
he day Red was to show, Jodie climbed the oak and sat silently while Aunt Pearl called up to her, insisting she come inside and get ready for his visit.

Jodie Taylor had no intention of prettying herself for the likes of Red Dozier. Hadn't it taken him three months to show up? It was clear he had no burning desire to take her off Aunt Pearl's hands.

It was afternoon before the big Dodge pulled into the yard. Red stood next to the car, raked a slow hand through his curly red hair, and settled his hat back onto his head. Jodie compared the curl of his hair to her own and stuffed her shaggy bangs beneath her baseball cap, pulling the bill lower.

Red stepped onto the path and approached like a man marching to the hangman's scaffold. He knocked, removed his hat, and squared his wide shoulders.

Aunt Pearl opened the door, and he leaned toward her, an ass-kissing smile warming his way.

“Afternoon, ma'am. You must be Miss Pearl. I'm Red Dozier. It's a pleasure.”

Then—damned if he didn't have the smoothness of a Bible salesman—he even made a show of scraping his big shoes clean before entering the house. Jodie slid down the tree rope and hurried to the kitchen door. Inside, she crouched near the cupboard, out of sight and where she had a clear view of the parlor.

Red sat upright and attentive. Aunt Pearl perched on the edge of the sofa across from him, her back ramrod straight. She poured tea from her best pitcher and he nodded politely, taking the sweating glass into his big hand. She poured a second glass for herself, and when she'd touched it to her lips, he drank deeply, declaring the tea to be the best he'd ever drunk.

Jodie placed a hand over her mouth, smothering a snicker as her aunt tried to excuse her absence. He nodded, but anyone who knew her knew she wasn't attending Saturday afternoon Bible drills. Aunt Pearl tearfully recounted the details of the deputy sheriff's visit, omitting the fact that Jewel had died in the company of drunken men she'd earlier condemned as wild and horny. Surely she didn't think Red was fooled. He only needed to look in the mirror.

“I pray God's forgiveness that my poor sister was buried at county expense.” She shed a few more tears.

Red's shoulders rounded. “I'm truly sorry. If I'd known .…” His last words trailed off, and Jodie wanted to know if he was lying about sparing Jewel the indignity.

“She left nothing behind, except for that poor child. She's twelve now. Advanced for her age, and I might add quite cunning. Even a bit peculiar, I fear.”

Red's head tilted slightly, and Jodie wondered if he'd heard something in peculiar. Was it the warning Jewel had meant? Had Aunt Pearl known all along what she did when she was alone? Did that mean Red now knew? She drew her legs in tighter, folding her body into itself, an attempt at making herself smaller.

Aunt Pearl laughed nervously. “How silly of me. Of course you'd know the child's age.” She glanced down at her hands folded in her lap. Red shifted and his Adam's apple danced in his throat.

“Please tell your fine Christian wife I tried putting her in Sunday school. But she kicked up such a fuss. I'm sorry to say, I gave up.”

“Ma'am, I do appreciate the fine job you're doing. But about me taking her off your hands .…” He paused, and the air went out of Aunt Pearl in a deep sigh. “I'll need to talk more with my wife. Maybe come again before the next school term.”

Jodie bristled at his bald-faced lie. Since when did he talk with his wife where she or Jewel were concerned?

“Mr. Dozier, please understand that I never meant for her stay to be anything but temporary. If she's to ever make a proper young lady, she'll need a firmer hand than mine.”

“Yes'm, I understand. But, there's the balance of the school term to consider.” He tapped his hat against his knee and glanced toward the door. He'd had his say, but her aunt wasn't ready to give up.

“Sir, that's not exactly the problem it might have once been.” She bit her tongue. “But, yes, you're right. School's end would be a better plan.”

Jodie exhaled, relieved that her current school suspension hadn't become part of their bargaining. Red didn't need to know she'd pulled her knife on Tommy Lee. If she had it to do over, she'd do the same. No boy was ever again going to pin her and feel her up.