The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Chapter 10 LULA STIRS UP TROUBLE (BUT DOESN’T MEAN TO)

IT TOOK MY FRIEND Lula Gates a long time to live down the ignominy of getting sick in public at the piano recital. For weeks she talked of nothing else. I grew tired of it and told her it could have been worse, that Maestro Frédéric Chopin had once done the same thing at a command performance for the king and queen of Prussia.

“Really?” said Lula, brightening at once.

No. I made that up. But it did make her feel better, and as a consequence she shut up about it.

I guess Lula was beautiful, although I wasn’t aware of it at the time. She had a long blond braid of honey and silver threaded together that hung all the way down her back and swayed with a life of its own when she played a vigorous piece on the piano. Her eyes were an odd, pale color somewhere between blue and green, their hue depending on the color of her hair ribbon. There was one strange thing about her that I found fascinating: She always had a delicate mist of perspiration across the bridge of her nose, winter or summer. It was barely enough to moisten a fingertip, but when you wiped it away, it immediately reappeared. This sounds unattractive, but it was entertaining rather than off-putting. As a small child, I would stand there and dab it away and watch it return for as long as she would let me. There seemed to be no explanation for it.

You would think that having Lula as a friend would be a great relief to me after all my brothers, and generally this was so, but sometimes she could be a bit sappy. She wouldn’t collect specimens with me at the dam (snakes). She wouldn’t walk with me to the old Confederate Training Ground (blisters and snakes). She wouldn’t go swimming in the river (undressing and snakes). But we shared a desk at school, and we always had. This is how our friendship had started and why in part, I guess, it persevered. Plus, I believe that her mother might have promoted the friendship. She might have thought it a social plum for Lula to have a friend in the Tate family. And did her mother also harbor hopes that Lula might one day snag one of the Tate boys as a husband? It’s possible. I’m guessing we had more money than other families in the county. Lula’s own family seemed comfortable enough. Her father owned the stables, and they could afford piano lessons, and they had a maid but no cook. She had only the one brother, feeble-minded Toddy. Toddy didn’t go to school but instead spent his days in a corner of his room, clutching the ragged remnant of an old quilt and rocking himself without ceasing. He was peaceful unless you took his scrap of quilt away, and then he became distressed and produced horrible, loud mooing noises until he got it back. His family found it more trouble than it was worth to take it away from him for washing, so as a consequence it smelled disgusting. Apart from this, the Gateses’ house seemed quiet compared with mine.

Lula won prizes for her needlework, whereas mine was straggly and pitiful. I couldn’t understand her powers of concentration when she rolled a French knot or toiled over a tatted collar in Sewing class at school.

“It’s the same as learning a piano piece, Callie,” she would say, “and you can do that fine. All you have to do is practice it over and over until you get it right.”

I pondered this and decided she was right. So why did I find the music so different from the needlework? When you played the piano, the notes vanished a second later in the air and you were left with nothing. Still, the music brought joy even as the notes evaporated, and playing a rag exhilarated everyone to the point of jumping around the parlor. What did the embroidery bring? Something decorative and permanent and occasionally useful, yes, but I found it dull and quiet work, suitable for a rainy day with only the monotonous ticking of the parlor clock for company. Mouse work.

I did convince Lula to play some Sousa arrangements for four hands with me, and we made a good go of it, pounding out twice as much music in a veritable torrent of strict-tempo chords, which was highly gratifying.

ONE AFTERNOON, my thirteen-year-old brother Lamar sidled up to me on the porch as I sat tallying Lepidoptera.

“Callie. . . .”

“What?”

“Do you think Lula likes me?”

“Sure, Lamar.”

“No, what I mean is, do you think she . . . likes me?”

This was a surprise. Lamar had never shown any interest in girls before. “Why are you asking me?” I said. “Why don’t you ask her?”

He looked aghast. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well . . . I don’t know,” he said lamely.

“Then I don’t know what to tell you.” I had a flash of inspiration. “Why don’t you talk to Harry about it?”

He looked relieved. “Yes,” he said, “that’s a good idea. But you won’t tell Lula, will you?”

“No.”

“And you won’t tell any of the others, will you?”

“No.”

“Okay. Thanks, Callie.”

I didn’t think too much about the conversation until a few days later, when Sam Houston, the fourteen-year-old, crept up to me in the hallway and spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Callie, say, I need to talk to you. Do you think Lula Gates likes me?”

“What?” I said.

He flinched. “Don’t jump like that. I only wondered if maybe she likes me, that’s all.”

“Golly, Sam.”

“What?” he said.

I was in a minor panic. “I think maybe you should ask her yourself.”

He looked appalled. “I can’t do that.”

I said, “You better talk to Harry. He knows all about those things.” Who said inspiration doesn’t strike twice?

“You’re right, Callie. I’ll talk to him about it. You won’t say anything to Lula, will you?”

“No. I never would.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Double-Injun-blood-brothers-swear-to-die promise?”

“Double Injun.”

“It doesn’t count unless you say the whole thing,” he said.

“Saaaam.”

“Okay, okay, okay. But say it, huh?”

“Double Injun blood brothers swear to die,” I said. “Now leave me alone.”

“Shoot, you sure are getting to be an old grouch,” he said, and walked off, no doubt in search of Harry. I rubbed my temples where a headache was setting up camp.

A couple of days later, I was reading by myself in a quiet corner when my ten-year-old brother, Travis, wandered up with an odd expression on his face. I eyed him and snapped, “What do you want?”

He looked hurt. “I want to ask you something.”

“You aren’t going to ask me if Lula Gates likes you, are you, Travis?”

He gasped, and his face crumbled in panic. “What?” he cried. “No, no, I was only going to ask you if she likes cats, that’s all.”

“I have no idea if she likes cats, or you, or anybody else. I’m sick of this. Go and get advice from Harry.” I collected my books and stumped off muttering, “There’s an awful lot of this going around.”

“Sick of what? What are you talking about? What’s going around?” he called after me.

I ignored him, fairly certain that there were no hordes of boys across town pestering their sister about whether Callie Vee liked them or not. And what did it matter, anyway? Did I care? I did not. No. Did not.

Harry came to my room an hour later, laughing. “You have got to stop sending them to me. I can’t get a moment’s peace. Give them the benefit of your own wise counsel.”

“I don’t know what to tell them. It’s only old Lula. What’s come over them?”

“It’s an epidemic of crushes. They’re getting to that age.”

“Well, they can just quit it.”

“There’s no quitting at this point,” he said. “It’s going to get worse. Out of curiosity, does she like any of them?”

“Um, not that I can tell, especially. Should I ask her?”

“If you feel like occupying the middle ground at the Third Battle of Manassas. If I were you, I’d keep well out of it.”

I decided he was right and said, “Yes, Harry, that’s the thing to do. I’ll pretend to know nothing.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” he said, and he ducked out the door.

“Funny!” I would have thrown something at him, but the nearest item to hand was my precious Notebook, which I’d never fling about.

The next school day, I met up with Lula at the main road as usual, and we walked the last quarter mile to school together, chatting about nothing in particular. I happened to glance back, and there were my three brothers behind us on the road, strung out at regular intervals, their eyes fixed on her. Oh, dear. Things were worse than I thought. This sudden change in them unnerved me. Weren’t they too young for this? Couldn’t I have a normal family like other girls? Why did it have to happen to all of them at once?

At recess that day, all three of them managed to find an excuse to stand close to the invisible line that, by unspoken agreement, divided the girls’ side of the yard from the boys’. They leaned against the trees in the schoolyard, looking like aimless loiterers, except for their eyes, which they fastened on Lula with studied nonchalance, and then cut sideways at each other like assassins.

Lula and I played hopscotch. Her silvery braid flashed in the sunlight like a living thing. Her petticoats flared as high as her knees, producing a strangled gasp from Lamar. I glared at him. A month before, she could have walked through the yard in her chemise and he wouldn’t have noticed. Now this. Tough times lay ahead.

“Lula,” I said, pitching my pebble.

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“No, what, Callie?”

“Um. Do you . . .” I had made a hope-to-die promise I wouldn’t tell. And while I myself did not know of anyone who had died after breaking one, it wasn’t worth the risk.

“Do I what?” she said.

I thought fast. “D’you think we should ask Dovie if she wants to play?”

“I thought you didn’t like Dovie.”

“Well,” I said as I hopped, “I never said I didn’t like Dovie. . . .”

“Yes, you did, Callie. You said so last week. You said exactly those words.”

“It’s Christian that we invite her, don’t you think?”

Lula looked at me curiously. “If you want to.”

I didn’t want to—I couldn’t stand Dovie—but I walked over to her. I was about to ask her to join us when Miss Harbottle rang the bell. Dovie gave me a funny look. I seemed to be getting lots of funny looks. I didn’t deserve a one of them.

We trooped back inside, girls in one queue, boys in the other. I began to dread the walk home after school and tried to think up an excuse to walk by myself. Miss Harbottle homed in on my distracted state and called on me an inordinate number of times with questions on Texas history, which I could not answer, much to the class’s amusement.

“Calpurnia Tate, are we interrupting you?” she said.

“Interrupting me, ma’am? I’m not doing anything.”

“Exactly. Where is your mind today?”

“I must have left it at home, Miss Harbottle,” I said. The class tittered.

“Precisely,” she said. “And don’t you get pert with me, Calpurnia. Go to the corner. One hour. Any more comments and it’ll be the switch for you.”

I stood in the Corner of Shame with my face to the wall for a full hour and contemplated my brothers’ situation but came up with no answers. Then came lunch.

We took our pails outside and scattered under the trees. Lamar and Sam Houston sat with their respective friends. I felt sorry for Travis, the youngest and most tender of the bunch, who ate alone and cast piteous, moony looks at Lula.

Lula noticed him and said, “What’s wrong with Travis? Is he ill?”

“I think he has spring fever,” I said.

“But it’s not spring,” she said and gave me another funny look. “Shouldn’t we ask him to eat with us? He looks lonely.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Lula.”

“Why not? You sure are being odd, Callie Vee.”

Me? Odd? I thought, If you only knew the half of it. “Don’t worry, Lula, he’s fine. I think you should leave him alone.”

But it was too late. She walked up to Travis, whose eyes got bigger and whose face got redder and redder as she came toward him. Lamar and Sam Houston, on the other hand, turned all pinched and squinty.

She bent down and spoke to him. I couldn’t hear her words, but he leaped to his feet and followed her back to our spot. Lamar and Sam Houston looked like they were about to go into spasms. Travis sat down, and I thought he might pop with happiness.

“Hi, Callie. Lula asked me to sit with you.”

“I know, Travis.”

“This is a good place to eat lunch, don’t you think? You picked a real good place. Lula, do you want half of my sandwich? Viola made us roast beef today, and it’s real good. I’ll share it with you, if you like. And I have pie. Lula, do you want to share my pie? Or I can give you the whole piece, if you want. It’s peach, I think. Wait, let me look. Yep, it’s peach all right.”

“Thank you, Travis,” she said, graciously, “but I have enough lunch of my own.”

“Say, Lula,” he said, “do you like cats? Mouser, she’s our old barn cat, she had kittens, and I get to look after them all by myself. Mother said so. I named them all by myself, too. Do you want to hear their names?”

I sighed. Do you think it’s any fun listening to a ten-year-old pitching woo?

“And then there’s Jesse James, and then there’s Billy the Kid, and then there’s Doc Holliday, and then there’s . . .” He droned on, giving the names of all eight. Lula actually looked interested.

“The one I like best is Jesse James,” he finished. “He’s got stripes all over him except for his toes, which have some white places on them. He looks like he’s wearing spats,” he giggled. “He’s real friendly. He lets me carry him around in my overalls. Say, Lula, would you like to see my kittens sometime?”

“That would be nice, Travis. I like cats. We used to have a cat, but my mother wouldn’t let it come inside the house. It disappeared, and it never came back.”

I could almost hear the gears meshing in my brother’s head. “Say, Lula,” he said, slowly, “maybe you could have one of my kittens. If you wanted.”

“Gosh, Travis, really?” Her whole face lit up. “That would be so nice.” Travis looked stunned by her radiant smile. “Of course,” she said, “I’d have to ask my mother first. Maybe I could come after school tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he gulped.

Egad, my ten-year-old brother had made a date. Then I looked over and saw my older brothers shooting daggers at him.

Uh-oh.

The afternoon dragged by. I was as tense as a cat in a room full of rockers. When school let out, Lula and I met up outside as usual, and there stood Travis, his face a beacon of hope. A few paces behind him, Lamar and Sam Houston hung about looking shifty.

“Hi, Lula,” said Travis. “Hi, Callie. Can I walk with you?”

I grunted noncommittally, which Travis chose to interpret as assent; he fell in beside us, and he and Lula chattered on about the kittens. Lamar and Sam Houston followed twenty yards behind, nudging and plotting.

“You’re being real quiet, Callie,” said Lula.

“Mmm? Oh, I’m thinking about my book report.” And how I was going to prevent two of my brothers from killing a third. I would have to seek advice from Harry, although my estimation of him as a counselor in affairs of the heart had received a substantial drubbing at the hands of the wretched Miss Minerva Goodacre. I wanted to run on ahead, leaving Lula and Travis to their inane conversation, but I feared he would be fallen upon by thugs along the road.

“So what’s your book report on, Callie?” said Lula.

“Ah. My book report. Yes. Well, I haven’t decided yet. Maybe Kidnapped. Maybe Treasure Island. What are you going to write about?”

“The Last Rose of Summer, I think. Or Love’s Old Sweet Song.” I had noticed that Lula’s taste in literature had been tending away from the good old ripping yarns and toward the sticky romantic stuff. Travis looked impatient to get back in the discussion, but he’d run out of conversational coin.

He thought hard and then said, “What are those books about, Lula?”—a pretty good gambit on his part. So I feigned interest in flowery descriptions of thwarted romance and complicated sacrifice all the way back to the main road, where Lula turned off to her house while Travis strenuously waved goodbye. We walked on, and he nattered away for a while. One small cloud floated on his otherwise sunny horizon. Thoughtfully, he said, “You don’t think I’d have to give her Jesse James, do you, Callie? I like him best of all. Maybe I should have told her she could pick any of them except him. Maybe I should have said that.”

“Don’t worry, Travis. Lula wouldn’t take him.”

“Are you sure, Callie? How can you be sure?”

“She wouldn’t do that. She’s not like that.”

He nagged at me for reassurance for a good five minutes, with me turning every few yards to glower at Lamar and Sam Houston to make them keep their distance.

“How come they wouldn’t walk with us today?” said Travis as we headed up our drive. A pang shot through me. He didn’t understand that his own brothers—older, bigger, stronger, smarter—were rivals for Lula’s affection. He was as damp and wobbly and susceptible to damage as a newly hatched chick. How could I possibly protect him from heartbreak?

LAMAR SAT stony-faced at dinner that night, and Sam Houston didn’t speak a word. I kept waiting for one of them to pounce on Travis in some way. Travis bubbled over with his news of walking Lula home, which amused Father and alarmed Mother, who no doubt thought he was too young for such matters. Granddaddy was distracted, as usual. Normally he was not much interested in the dinner conversation. I think he would have preferred dining alone in the library, and while I think Mother might have preferred it too, that just wasn’t done. We ate en famille, as she called it, and everyone (except Granddaddy) had to make some polite contribution to the general conversation, even if it was no more than a brief description of one’s day.

“Callie,” Mother said, “what did you learn in school today?”

“Not much,” I said.

Lamar perked up and said, “Callie got sent to the corner today.”

What a pill. Mother put down her fork and looked at me.

“Is this true?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Miss Harbottle sent you to the corner?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“For what?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” I said.

“How can that be?” said Mother, with steel in her voice.

“She wasn’t paying attention in class,” said Lamar. He was fast turning into my least-favorite brother.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” I said. “I was . . . I was thinking about my book report, and I didn’t hear her, that’s all.”

“I don’t ever want to hear of you standing in the corner again, Calpurnia. The boys, I can understand at times. But you. Your behavior is a blot on the family name.”

“Well,” I huffed, “that’s no fair.”

There was stunned silence. Whoops. Everybody looked up, even Granddaddy. Then he threw back his head and let loose a laugh, which shocked the room even more. All heads snapped in his direction. It was a surprisingly vigorous bellow, not an old man’s wheeze at all. I almost expected the chandelier to start tinkling. I nearly giggled in response.

He said, “She has a point there, Margaret. Pass the gravy, please. Ha!” And with that, he punctured the tension in the room and deflected any punishment I might have called down upon myself. Harry winked at me. Lamar stuck out his tongue at me, but of course the disciplinarians at the table missed it.

After dinner, I asked Travis to show me his kittens again, and we walked to the far stall in the barn, where a weary Mouser kept watch over her furry family in the nest she’d burrowed in the straw. The kittens tumbled over her, batting at each other.

“See, Callie, don’t you think Jesse James is the best one? He purrs real loud. You can hear him from way far away.” He lifted the kitten from the straw and tucked it into the bib of his overalls, where it looked at home and produced a rumbling bass purr remarkable for something its size. “You’re sure Lula won’t take him?”

“No, Travis, I told you. She’s not like that.”

“She is awful nice, isn’t she?”

“Travis,” I sighed. “Listen, Travis, you know that Lamar and Sam Houston are sweet on her, too?”

“They are?”

“Yes. I wanted to tell you.”

“I’ll bet lots of fellas are sweet on her.”

This stopped me. I sat down in the straw and stroked Mouser, who looked like she could stand a little attention. “Travis,” I said, “aren’t you sweet on her?”

“I guess so.”

“Then how come you’re not upset?”

“About what?” he said, tickling Jesse James under the chin.

“About Sam Houston and Lamar.”

“Why should I be upset?” He looked at the kittens. “Which one is the next best, do you think, after Jesse James? I think it might be Bat Masterson, don’t you?”

“Which one is that?” I said.

“The orange one. His eyes are the same color as Lula’s. Kind of green and kind of blue. See?” He handed me a protesting Bat Masterson, and I could see that his—or maybe her—eyes were in fact the same color as Lula’s. “Maybe she’ll pick him.”

“Travis,” I said, “you don’t like Lula because she has eyes like your cat, right?”

“No, Callie, course not, don’t be silly.”

“Okay,” I said. “So what about Sam Houston? What about Lamar?”

He looked at me, puzzled, and I realized that he had no clue what I was talking about. But he would grow and change and understand soon enough. “Never mind,” I said. “Your cats sure are cute.”

The next morning I walked to school with Travis, letting my other brothers set off ahead of us. Lula met us at the bridge. She wore a white pinafore and a dark green hair ribbon that made her eyes look exactly the same color as Bat Masterson’s. She seemed pleased to see Travis. They talked all the rest of the way about cats, dogs, horses, school, Halloween, Christmas, and so on. You wouldn’t think a twelve-year-old girl would have much to say to a ten-year-old boy, but you’d be wrong. To my relief, the others left Travis alone all day.

But the walk home was another story. Travis again latched on to Lula, and so did Lamar. I wanted to run on ahead, but danger hung in the air.

“Hi, Lula,” said Lamar, spying an opportunity. “Can I carry your books home for you?”

Both Lula and Travis flushed. “Thank you, Lamar,” she said, and handed him her book strap. There was an awkward silence as we walked on. Then Lamar said, “So, Lula, how come you walk home with a baby like Travis? Why don’t you walk home with a real man like me?” He made a muscle with his arm. “Look, Lula, tough as whang.”

Oh, Lamar. You shouldn’t have. The look on Travis’s face, and Lula’s.

Travis cried, “I’m not a baby,” in a high unsteady voice, which of course made him sound exactly like one.

“I’m not a baby,” Lamar mimicked him.

“Quit it, Lamar,” I said. “You don’t have to be so mean.”

“What a baby, has to have his sister stand up for him. Titty-baby.”

This was too much to bear in front of Lula. Travis, the most placid of my brothers, dropped his books, rushed at Lamar, and shoved him with all his might. Lamar staggered and dropped Lula’s books and his lunch pail but managed to keep to his feet. I could see that Lamar was startled by this display but not in the least hurt. He yelled, “Baby!”

Travis teetered on the verge of tears. He wheeled and raced for home as fast as he could, sending up puffs of dust in the road. “Baby! Coward!” called Lamar. But I knew it wasn’t cowardice that sent Travis flying down the road. He didn’t want to shame himself and cry in front of Lula. Like a baby.

The three of us stood in the road in an awkward silence. I picked up Travis’s books. Lula cleared her throat and said, “I’ve got to go home. Bye.” She scrambled for her own books and had them gathered up before Lamar could reach them, and then she took off, her long braid flopping as she ran.

“Hey, Lula!” Lamar called after her. “Hey, Lula!” But she gave no sign she’d heard him and kept on running.

“Lamar,” I said, “sometimes you are such an amazing pill.”

“What are you talking about? He attacked me. He punched me. He hurt me.”

“He did not. I’m gonna tell Mother on you.”

“You snitch,” he said.

“You pill,” I said.

“Tattletale,” he said.

“Meanie.”

“I don’t want to walk with you.”

“Fine. I don’t want to walk with you.”

“I’m going ahead.”

“No, I’m going ahead.”

“Well, go right ahead then!”

And, in a lather of irritation, we were both home before we knew it.

Our family took a dim view of snitching and tattling. Why, I don’t know. I walked through the front door, weighing the cost of telling versus not telling, when I was saved from making a decision by Mother calling me into the parlor.

“Calpurnia. Come in here and tell me what’s wrong with Travis.”

“Um, maybe you better ask Lamar,” I said, as he tried to slink past me in the hallway.

“Lamar, come in here and explain,” she said. Travis was sitting on the carpet at her feet, hugging his knees, his face flushed and swollen. He threw a furious look at Lamar.

“What happened at school today?” she said. She nodded at Travis. “He won’t tell me anything.”

Lamar looked surprised. He hadn’t expected that.

“Lamar?” said Mother. He looked away and wouldn’t answer.

“Calpurnia? What happened?” I looked at Travis for guidance, but his face was blank. “Calpurnia, I’m not asking you to tell me, I’m ordering you to tell me. Right this minute.”

So I told, hoping that both brothers would understand that I was under orders and had no choice. Mother listened in silence to my whole story, starting with Lula. To my surprise, she looked more sad than angry. She doled out a light punishment of extra chores, and that, we hoped, was the end of that.

But boys being boys, and Lula being a beauty, it was not.

The next several days were a cauldron of anxiety for me, and for Travis too, no doubt. Lula came to pick a kitten at a time she and I had arranged together, making sure that none of my brothers was around. To my relief, she chose Belle Starr.

I was constantly on guard against Lamar and Sam Houston on the trips to and from school, and it started to wear on me. I got to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore, and after dinner one night, I called them together out on the porch and said, “Look, you can’t keep herding me and Lula about like sheep. I’m tired out. You’ve got to leave us alone. You’ve got to leave each other alone. If you don’t agree not to fight, I’ll make sure that she never speaks to any of you ever again. As long as you all live.”

I wasn’t sure how I could manage that, but I was the resident Lula expert, their beloved’s best friend, and I spoke with such conviction that they believed me.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said. “Each of you can walk with us one day a week. Travis, you get Monday, Lamar gets Wednesday, and Sam Houston gets Friday. That’s that.”

“What about Tuesday and Thursday? Who gets those?” said Sam Houston.

“Nobody does. You leave us alone. I’m not kidding. Any questions?”

To my great satisfaction there were none.