Mare's War (4 page)

Monday, Miss Ida’s daughter, Beatrice, is home from her ladies’ college, talking about she’s going to Daytona Beach to join the U.S.
Army
. Now, this is a
women’s
army, she tells Miss Ida. She’s gonna be working with
women
to free up a man for the fight. It’s her duty, she says. Well, sir, Miss Ida sure pitched a fit, said no daughter of hers was going to join no women’s army like she ain’t got no breeding.

“You know what kind of women they have there, Bébé,” Miss Ida says, twisting up her face like she gone crazy. She still calls Miss Beatrice by her baby name.

Miss Bébé says it don’t matter what kind of girls they got there, but Miss Ida shouted her down, talking about, “No child of mine!” Sent her from the table, too, like she was no more grown than a child. Miss Bébé blubbed worse than Feen, up there crying about how Miss Ida don’t never let her
do anything. She told me I should go, though, and she could go with me. Said all you gotta be is one hundred pounds or over, free of responsibilities, and twenty years old. Even Miss Bébé knows I am not hardly no twenty, but she says Mama wouldn’t have to do nothing but sign and I could still go. Miss Bébé says she just knows
my
mama wouldn’t hold me back from doing my “duty.”

I ask her if colored girls going, and Miss Bébé said yeah, yeah, colored girls are going.

Huh. I’ll just
bet
they got colored girls there. Got to have someone wash up and cook and fetch and carry for the women’s army, same as for the men’s.

Feen got put in charge of the Sunday school Christmas play. She’s been working every day after school, making robes for the Virgin Mary and sitting up working the treadle on the sewing machine all evening till I get home. Mama’s been getting on her about how she’s strainin’ her eyes inside sewing all the time and she better get up and feed the chickens and not get too prideful about sewing for her play. Feen feed the chickens, all right, but she do it so early they haven’t gone to roost, now. She do it real quick and get back inside, like she scared of the dark. Feen stay in the house right next to Mama, but she don’t go to bed now till she see me home. She don’t say nothing, but since Toby been back, she’s been crying every night.

She sits in the front room with all the lamps lit. Feen thinks Toby won’t do nothin’ in the front room with the lamps on. She’s smart, Feen is. Thing is, Toby ain’t dumb.

That’s all right. Marey Lee Boylen ain’t dumb, neither. This so-called uncle Toby keep messing with us, he’s gonna find out a thing or two about just how dumb it is to think he can walk in here and take what he wants.

He’s back, but now I’m ready for him.

“You didn’t tell your mother?” I blurt the question before I stop to think about it. Mare’s story has made the hairs on my arms prickle.

“Sometimes folks don’t want to hear things,” she says shortly. “You can talk till you’re blue in the face, but if you’re not talking to the right person, it won’t do you any good.”

I think about this for a while, chewing the inside of my lip. If Dad died, no way would Mom not want to hear if some guy was bothering us. No way would any adult I told not believe me and help me. I look out the window and change the subject.

“You started working for Miss Ida when you were fifteen? Full-time? How come?”

Mare makes a face and pushes up her sunglasses. “Lot of girls my age had to work,” she says. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Great Depression? Mama needed an extra pair of hands to make ends meet. We needed every cent we had to pay the mortgage, and with the farm and all, we were better
off than most. Folks did what they could those days to keep food on the table—”

“You couldn’t have been
that
poor,” Tali interrupts. “Dad always says we don’t have any money, but we always do. It’s just he doesn’t want to buy me a car.”

Mare glowers. “A girl your age ought to have had two jobs by now. What makes you think your daddy’s got to buy you a car anyway? Why don’t you get a job and buy it yourself?”

“I would,” Tali says coolly, “but I can’t work since I’m spending my summer with you. And anyway, I’m getting good grades, so I can qualify for scholarships. Mom and Dad promised they’d help with either college or a car, and I
need
a car.”

Mare clicks her tongue in disgust. “You ‘need’ a car. You don’t know what need is, Miss Tali.”

My sister mutters something under her breath and looks out the window. I know what Mare thinks of us. I guess I never considered it, but I do have my own computer and my own room. Not only did Mare have to share a room with her sister, but when they were really little, they shared a bed.

Maybe Tali and I
are
spoiled.

Mare looks over at me. “And do
you
need a car?”

I bite my lip. I know the answer she wants me to give. “I don’t have a license,” I say finally.

“And you don’t need one, either,” Mare says with a kind of grim satisfaction. “You girls are too young to be riding around in anyone’s cars. I know what kids get up to in the backseat.”

“Mare!” Tali winces.
“Eew.”

“I don’t even have a boyfriend,” I protest.

Mare just shakes her head and continues poking along up the highway.

It’s quiet for the next few miles, then Mare props her arm against the door and rubs her head like she has a headache brewing. A little pleat forms between her brows. “Octavia, get me another piece of gum, will you?” she asks.

I dig into the menthol-scented depths of her purse. I push aside her hoard of red and white mints, her bottle of mouth spray, her plastic-wrapped pack of cigarettes, and her reading glasses until I find what I am looking for. I take a piece of gum for myself as well and tilt the package in Tali’s direction, but she waves it away.

Mare and I chew in silence for a while, me thinking and Mare creeping up the highway behind a truck belching exhaust and filled with cows. I can’t keep my mind off of Mare’s story. What she told us about Toby bothers me—a lot. I would have hated to work for somebody like Miss Ida, every day, just to have money for a farm mortgage and food, stuff that wasn’t for me. I can’t imagine Tali trying to protect me from somebody all by herself—or that she’d even try, knowing how she hates me these days. I don’t know how Mare could do it.

Tali sighs loudly and slides down in the backseat. She isn’t used to going so long without being able to shut out the sound of other people’s conversations. She faked like she wasn’t listening to Mare’s story, but I know she was; she just
thinks she’s too cool to show it. Now she’s flopping around in the seat like a hooked fish.

“Mare. If you told me where exactly we were going, I could just drive there. Do you want me to drive?” Tali asks suddenly.

“What?” Mare sounds far away.

“Tali,” I hiss, twisting around in my seat. Her rudeness embarrasses me.

Ever since she started talking about the old days, Mare’s been slowing down. First she just changed lanes so people could pass her, but now she’s driving so slowly we’re getting passed by trucks. Eighteen-wheelers. We’re the slowest car in the slow lane.

At first, I thought it was because she and Tali were messing with the radio and she’d slowed down to argue over music—Mare thinks anything that isn’t Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, Muddy Waters, or Fats Waller is playing fast and loose with the airwaves. But even after they settled on listening to one of Tali’s music choices to two of Mare’s, her driving still didn’t speed up. The thing is, I think talking about the olden days bothers Mare. You’d think Tali would catch a clue.

“I said, do you want me to drive?” Tali glares back at me. “It’s been four hours, Mare. Dad said I should do half the driving, so I think I should drive now. We can switch off later or something.”

On I-5, the only thing in the slow lane other than us is huge RVs and trucks full of cows. It reeks, and there’s hay
and dust flying around everywhere. Right now I feel like I can walk faster than Mare is driving. I
would
walk, too, if it didn’t stink so bad, but Mare driving slow while she’s thinking is better than Mare driving fast any day. At least I think so.

“Why would I want you to drive?” Mare asks thoughtfully, as if she’s just come back from someplace far away.

“Because …” Tali exhales an explosive breath and shakes her head. “Just … because.”

Mare laughs, a guttural, machine-gun chuckle that makes me nervous. “Going too slow for you, Miss Lady?”

“Well, yeah,” Tali erupts, and throws up her hands. “I’m sorry, Mare, but
old people
are passing and waving at me. I mean, do we
have
to be the slowest people on the whole freeway? At this rate, we’re going to be in this car for days—”

“You’re not going that slow,” I interrupt, trying to soften the blow. “Tali’s supposed to drive if you’re tired, but if you’re not tired …”

“I tell you what, Miss Thing, why don’t you let me get from behind this truck, and I’ll pick up the pace. Can’t let any ‘old people’ get ahead of you now, can we.” The car’s engine whines as my grandmother’s foot pushes toward the floor. “I told your daddy I’d listen to you girls about my driving, and I will. I surely will.”

“Mare—” I begin.

Suddenly we’re around the truck and diving into the next lane. Without signaling, Mare crosses two more lanes of traffic and cuts off a pickup truck. Tali yelps.

What’s
she
whimpering for?
I’m
in the front seat, watching cars scatter and the man in the pickup gesture with his middle finger. I push up my sunglasses and slide down in my seat. My crazy grandmother is going to get us killed.

“Next stop, you ride shotgun, Tal.”

“No way!”

Mare laughs, that machine-gun cackle again, and I grab on to the edge of my seat.

My grandmother took on a grown man twice her size to protect her sister. I have a feeling she could do it still, even today, if she had to. I watch as Mare expertly weaves in and out of traffic, feeling my stomach churn each time she changes lanes. She catches my eye and winks.

“Watch and learn, Octavia.” She grins. “Watch and learn.”

When Samuel drop me off, the moon is low, but I can smell that nasty pipe Toby always be smoking and know he’s out of doors. It is too cold to take much time in the little house out back, so I wonder what he’s doing. My hand is on the door when I hear steps on the hard ground.

“That you, Marey Lee?” His voice is slurred.

“What do you want?”

“I’m waiting for my little girl to get home.”

I say nothing and push open the door.

His laughter follows me in, and I know something in my bones. Toby’s bad tonight, worse than I’ve seen him. Feen looks up when I walk in. “Get in the room quick,” I tell her, picking up the lamp. I can hear Mama snoring from her bed. She sleep hard when she’s been at her whiskey, but if Toby come and bother me, I’m gonna make a noise to wake the dead.

“Marey Le-e, why you runnin’ from me?”

I can feel dread clawing up my spine. I close the door to
our room and push my sister onto the bed. “Feen. Get under, and don’t come out till I say so.”

Feen opens her mouth, and I know she wants to say something about, maybe, spiders or some such. But she shuts her mouth and obeys, for a change. She wraps herself up in a blanket and gets down on her knees.

Thump
. Toby in the house. Josephine panics, and I can hear her trying to breathe quiet.

“Marey, what you gonna do? Call Mama. Call Mama!”

“Feen, you know we better not wake up Mama ’less somebody dying. I got something for ‘Uncle’ Toby if he come in here. Get under that bed.”

“Marey Le-e! Josephine. Come give your uncle a kiss.”

Feen slithers under her bed fast as she can. Good. I get down on my knees and take the hatchet out from under mine. I am surprised to see that my hands are shaking. I don’t know why. I am ready.

Toby been bumping me, touching me, cutting his eyes at Mama when he thinks she don’t see. He been talking filth to Josephine, and she been snifflin’ and jumpy ever since he came. Feen try to talk to Mama, but Mama don’t wanna hear nothing about nothing, seems like. Mama tell me to “watch yourself,” and now I got to watch out for Feen, too.