Tiny Dancer (13 page)

I screamed again and swung a shovel at the top sawhorse. It rocked and swayed, one leg shuffling loose. I smacked it again, growling
like an animal, willing it down. The shovel handle turned red from my hands. I took another whack and the entire ridiculous structure tilted forward and then rocked backward and forward. Unstable, it rocked toward me. I gasped, attempting to dart out of the way. I tripped and fell backward and that was when I saw the top sawhorse floating against the backdrop of storm and wind. Reverend Theo stood holding it up in the rain, like a giant bird with wings as wide as the Blue Ridge Mountains. He lifted the remaining sawhorses like they were pick-up sticks and dropped each one on its side. All fifteen of them.

Then he hefted
me up like I was a bag of marbles. My head fell against his shoulder, and my arms went around his neck.

“Easy, Little Sister
,” he said.

His
shirtsleeve was stained red from my hands. We were both soaked through.

“Why do things have to be like this?” I said, wailing. The rain was blinding me. “All I ever wanted was to be in a real family.”
I went limp against him, sobbing.

He let me cry, walking
us through the rain, down past the swaying sunflowers. It was hard to hear anything he said in a storm, but I did hear him say one thing. “I love you, Little Sister. You are family. You’re our family.”

                                                                        * * * * *

I had gotten stuck at the Millers to my great relief during the downpour. When I slipped back, all dried out, having sat wrapped in a blanket while Dorothea squeeze-d
ried and then ironed my pajamas, rain was still dripping from the house eaves. I brought in the empty trashcan by the back stoop as if I had taken out the trash. I was surprised to find Vesta tending the one houseplant, even using my rainwater. Reverend Theo had taught me how to save rain in a barrel under the eaves of our house.

Three potted plants gasped for life on the porch patio table
not two weeks prior. She had thrown out one potted plant at a time into the big garbage can behind the shed. I had counted over two hundred of them the day the plants first lined our front porch and covered every table surface in the house. But Vesta consulted a local nursery and determined she would not let the only remaining plant die. She was apparently serious about it. 

I
picked off the yellowing leaves. “You’re over watering,” I said as good-naturedly as I could muster. I didn’t let on I had overheard her and Daddy’s split-up fight.

“
Why do you know so much about plants and such?” asked Vesta skeptically. She looked at my eyes a good long time. I couldn’t tell if she was inspecting my red-rimmed eyes or if my good long cry had left circles. I changed the subject. I commented about how sorry I was that Daddy had already left for work before I could tell him good-bye. I could see his empty key peg through the glass of the back door.

Vesta composed herself well for a woman about to lose her husband.
“I couldn’t believe you got up before me. I’m usually the first to rise.”

I
saw her eyeballing the sunflower stem still clasped in my hands. “This one fell down in the storm,” I said. That part was at least true. “I didn’t want to see it go to waste.”

“I’ll put it in water,” she said, taking it from me. Before I could stop her, she said, “Goodness sakes, Flannery! What did you do to your hands?”

My mind was blank. I clasped my fingers to hide my wounds, but too late.

“
You can’t go reaching through other people’s gardens. What’d you do, get into a briar patch? I’ll get you some medicine for your hands but that’s what you get. Stealing’s still stealing, even if it did fall off the plant.” She continued lecturing. “Besides, I don’t want you taking anything from those Millers.”

I
was relieved she hadn’t seen me coming from Theo’s house. But hearing her lecture me about stealing was like listening to the pot call the kettle burned. “I was trying to stay dry. I hid out in the shed until the rain passed. I set to cleaning things up and picked up splinters. You’re right about me though. I’m a flower thief.”

She
followed me inside putting down her watering can and picking up Daddy’s hat he had left on her still-open ironing board. The rain outside and the house closed up made the place smell musty. She was not at all in the mean spirits I had expected. Then she fully surprised me, saying faintly, “I have been meaning to ask you.” She paused. Then she said off-handedly, “To ask if you’ve thought of dancing again.” But something in her tone was empty of the zeal of her years as a young stage mother. Then she turned and said in a flood of confession, “I do want to see you get back into dancing, but that’s not what’s on my mind. I feel as if I should say this morning you might have overheard your daddy and me in a squabble.”

“Vesta,” I
interrupted, not sure if she was ready to hear what I was about to say. “Daddy’s happiness is more important to me than even my own.” I talked as fast as the words came out of me, all the while hearing Dorothea cautioning me about interfering between adults. “I want to see you and Daddy work out your differences. I’ll grow up and move on. But Daddy changed completely when he met you.” The words fit together as if I had rehearsed the whole speech.

“In what way
?” She seemed interested. I had often hoped to be responsible for a glimmer of hope in Vesta’s eyes. “He’s finally happy,” I said. “Vesta, I don’t want you to think that I want you two at odds. Being in love and all, it’s hard work.”

She
looked pleasantly surprised. Her brow did not gather in a scowl at least.

Before
I said something to ruin the moment, I left the kitchen for the sanctuary of my room while Theo’s storm moved out of town.

Chapter S
even

Hedda had been a church board member’s wife before Theo retired as a minister. Moreover, while
Hedda was known for her charitable works like giving clothes to unfortunate kids, I noticed something in Dorothea’s tone she could not quite place. The Williamsons’ owned a dry cleaning business right on the outskirts of Taylortown. They earned the loyalty of as many white customers as they had black. Hedda had plenty of money, Dorothea said, to host her daughter’s party in a hall. But Hedda loved Dorothea’s touch on making a party a sensation. “I hosted her first daughter’s bridal shower so now I’m stuck on her radar.”

“You must have done a good job,”
I said, knowing full well Dorothea’s reputation. “How many daughters does she have?”

Dorothea laughed. “Just two and two sons, one in college. You’ve met him. James Royce.”

I remembered. “Oh, Jimmy Roy!” He had conspired with Calvin to put the baseball cap on Jackie the Pig. “His Daddy has money?”

“Sent him to Friendship College up in Rock Hill.”

“Yes, heard of it.” Vesta had called it a school for the coloreds’ children.

Dorothea was still talking
about Hedda’s insistence she host her daughter’s shower. “If I would’ve known back then I was starting something I could not stop, I would’ve sabotaged it.”

I
finished up arranging the
petit fours
platter. Then I dressed in the guest room where I slipped into a blue sundress and white sandals. I combed out my hair and dabbed on a little make-up before the young women and their mothers started arriving. But at the same time, men were arriving too, they said, to hide out on the back porch with Reverend Theo. I got to work, organizing the visitors, inviting the women into the front living room while I escorted the men around the house where Reverend Theo cheerily invited them onto the porch.

After I
joined the women in the parlor, I led them in some bridal games that Claudia and I had picked up at the bridal showers of some of our friends’ older sisters. Soon, the ladies were laughing, competing fiercely to win the prizes.

Hedda, it seemed, was quite pleased. She wore an ivory hat that nearly covered her face, but how the women all buzzed around her, fawning over her matching ivory colored ensemble and pearls!

Seneca might have been overlooked as a shadow in her mother’s consuming presence had I not worked fast to bring all of the attention back on Seneca without stepping on Hedda Williamson’s toes.

Dorothea met me
in the kitchen while she was refilling the platters. “I’ve never seen someone manage Hedda like you. You have a way with her where I have to hold my tongue around that woman.”

When the gi
fts were stowed in the bride-to-be’s car, I salvaged the wrapping paper and ribbons for a souvenir to be made by one of the bridesmaids. I curiously noticed the women changing out of their pumps.

Dorothea walked the Williamsons’ out to their car and waved good-bye as Hedda and her daughters drove away. Jimmy Roy gazed out his mama’s back window like a dog taken to the pound.

Then the ladies still lingering behind pulled out extra chairs and joined the men out back. Reverend Theo was grilling chicken wings, so two of the men helped serve them up.

I
said to Dorothea who had slipped out of her espadrilles and into a pair of soft slippers, “I guess everyone expects a party here when the sun goes down, Saturday or not.”

“You got that right,”
she said, but now relaxed and less buttoned-down.

“Hedda puts a spell on e
veryone, doesn’t she?” I could not help but notice the change in Dorothea now.

T
he Miller’s endless hospitality mystified me. Most people would have ushered the whole company out to their cars, but here Dorothea hummed in and out of the kitchen getting her second wind.

Even more surprising was when Reverend Theo took the Story Chair for his own use before
the close of evening. I sat forward not ever having witnessed him take a turn. I passed on an invitation from Aunt Rosetta to sit out under the trees with the other aunts. Instead I took a seat two chairs from the Story Chair.

He told a story of a storm that he and Dorothea endured many years ago. It seemed everyone knew the story but urged him to tell it again. The children had never grown so quiet and somber.

“My wife and children and I once lived along the Outer Banks where I took my first pulpit in a little coastal village called Calabash. Now as you all know, here in Bitterwood Park which isn’t far from the Outer Banks, we’ve lived near hurricanes but not lived smack in the middle of the path of one. But that year we were hit with a hurricane to beat them all. I remember trees leaning completely vertical to the ground when Hazel hit, lawn chairs flying through the air as if they were attached to a trapeze.”

Every eye was glued to Reverend Theo and also Dorothea who was filling up empty tea glasses and nodding in agreement with Theo’s story.

“I don’t know if you’ve been in a hurricane, but it’s like dropping down into a dark, howling cave. The sky turns black as hell for twenty-four hours, the howling so loud you can’t hear one another talk. The windows rattle like a beast is trying to break in. All of our friends had lived through big storms too. Maybe that was our mistake, thinking we had enough facts gathered to endure them. We boarded up windows, stocked the pantry.”

Dorothea sat
down finally, sober and quiet.

“Next year, we didn’t just get one but three in a row and they were furiously mean storms. Some of our friends decided t
o stay even when it was announced a third storm was plowing toward us. Some had small pets they did not want to leave behind. Busses did not allow pets on board. As pastor of the church, I felt that my family and I should stay since so many of our church members were staying in town.”

“But we didn’t,” said Dorothea. “Hazel was just too fresh a memory.
And a third one? Uh-uh, I was getting my children out of the path.”

“We had our own transportation,” said Theo. “And, as m
y dearest says, given our hurricane memory, we just couldn’t wait around to see what happened. When they told us we’d best evacuate, I took my wife and children and left with as much as we could pack. As difficult as it was to drive out of town in an evacuation, we managed to take refuge in an old abandoned bar.”

Dorothea lifted her eyeglasses and wiped her eyes. “Don’t you be telling people we was in a bar, Theo Miller.
”

“When we returned a week later, Connie had torn through the coast like she had taken a big axe and swung at everything in sight. She erased ou
r entire neighborhood. Our parsonage was gone. The church downstairs was flooded nearly to the balcony. But worse than that, there were people we loved that we never saw again.” He sat looking at the floor while the women passed a tissue down to him. “It was like a big mean invisible hand came to town and wiped our friends off the face of the earth.”

The
women’s expressions showed they were intently absorbed in his story. I said, “Reverend Theo, is that why you have so many people over for your dinners?”

“You are such a smart young woman,” he said, and then
told his guests, “Little Sister is always out ahead of things. I was so helpless, so useless. No matter what we did for those who survived those three sister storms, it was never enough. When I moved my family back home to the Sandhills to accept the post here as pastor, Dorothea said that we would be the hosts of the neighborhood, being certain that no matter what happened to folks during the week, they could come to our house and leave better than they came. I told her we would do exactly that.”

“But the sunflower garden, is that supposed to remind people the sun will shine again?” I asked.

Theo paused a good long time before answering. “Not exactly, but it’s a good sentiment. The sunflower turns its face to the sun. It keeps an ever-present vigil. It symbolizes longevity and faithfulness. Anton chose it for that reason. My sunflowers are what will bring Anton home from the war. We made a pact. I plant sunflowers every year until he comes back to us.”

The party drew to a close. The guests helped
Dorothea clean up from the dinner and the bridal shower.

I
finally understood Theo and Dorothea Miller, though. They were still trying to save the people they had lost in Calabash. I guess they were trying to save me too.

.

                                                                  * * * * *

The night air warm, and the sky starry, I decided to walk home the way of Battalion, the road that ran down through the middle of the Miller’s acreage. Best I come up the front of our yard. The moon cast a glow on their lake. I could smell the algae all the way across the field due to an easterly wind. A heron dipped down for a go at an unsuspecting toad. I was humming the tune to the last song played, walking barefoot and swinging my sandals by the straps.

A shadow cro
ssed the road ahead, tall and moving side-to-side. I called out lighthearted, “Who’s there?” figuring one of the Miller’s nephews was out catching lightning bugs. When no one replied, I thought better of walking the dark road at so late an hour. The utility company had never put in streetlights down Battalion for they only did that down the whites-only streets. No sooner had I turned around than I saw another tall man walking up behind me. “Who are you?” I asked, not so friendly this time.

He did not answer. I looked back and found the other man walking toward me too,
but moving swiftly, the two of them hemming me in.  The only two directions left to run were either hiking across the field toward Miller Lake or climbing one of the other neighbor’s tall fences.

I bolted for the Millers. The thug lunged for me. I dropped first one sandal and then the other, scrambling out of his reach.

He yelled out, “Get her, Wade!”

I whirled around to face each of them. “Wade and Clay Billings?”

They were both laughing, out of breath. Clay was chewing tobacco and it ran down his chin.

Clay Billings might have been one of the stupidest boys in the county were it not for
his younger brother Wade assuming that distinction. Clay walked favoring his right leg, but he limped toward me without hint of backing off. “Looky, Wade, Miss Lily White’s got some dirt on her face.” He tried to touch me, but I dodged his filthy hand. “Keep hanging out with the lowlifes and you’ll start looking just like them,” he said to me, his voice edgy.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I said to both of them
, acting as if I wasn’t afraid. “This is Miller land and you’re trespassing.”

“Trespassers, are we?
Clay, whatever was we thinking?”

Clay stepped too close for comfort.

“I’m leaving,” I said, turning around.

But that was when Wade blocked me. He stood over me and smelled of whisky.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me close. “You’ve hung out with the blacks too long, girl. You forget what it’s like to have a good white boy?”

I lifted my bare
foot and buried my heel in the top of Wade’s tennis shoe. He yelled and jerked me backward, mad and acting like he would hit me.

“Where I go’s none of your business
, you dumb redneck!” I said, swinging at him. Wade tried to smack the side of my face, but I dodged his fist. I tried to hit back but Clay grabbed my only free arm. I felt one of their filthy hands go across my mouth as they dragged me into the dark field toward Miller’s Lake. They plopped me down in the damp grass. The instant my mouth was freed up, I screamed for help. But Wade clamped his hand across my mouth.  Wade tried to climb on top of me, but I lifted my knee and made serious impact. How I regretted not going home through the garden. Wade groaned and fell over. Clay crouched low and held my arms down.

“You boys
not understand when a girl’s not interested?”

Wade jumped to his feet? “Who’s there?”

Ratonda stood three feet from where I lay struggling, her weapon cocked, a rifle barrel pointed square at Clay Billings’ head. She cocked her firearm and started counting, “One, two,” and she paused, saying, “by the time I get to five, you two best be on your way or I’m giving you both a new gender. You’d look funny as girls too.”

“She don’t mean it,” sai
d Wade. “Give me that gun, nigra, before your hurt yourself.” He took one step toward her.

Ratonda blew a hole in the ground next to his left foot. “Next time, I’ll take off a toe. I can do it one at a time, or your whole foot at once. Your choice, though.”

“She means it,” I said. “And I’ll collect your toes just for the jewelry.” I pushed sweaty Clay off me.

He
stumbled to his feet, standing behind Wade.