Tomorrow River

Chapter Four

Her house on Monroe Street is not large nor is it small. Just perfect, is how I’d describe it. It’s made of wood and it’s only one story high, which is good because we wouldn’t want Blind Beezy falling down a flight of stairs. She’s got a nice porch and lots of trees. Handmade birdhouses, courtesy of Mr. Cole, are hanging from almost every branch. Beezy adores birds because, “They can go anywhere and do anything no matter what color they is.” Of course, she can’t see her feathered friends, but she knows their songs and the one she especially likes is the call of the purple martin, which sounds like a gurgling brook. I also think Beezy likes birds so much because it is their God-given right to poop on people’s heads no matter what color their skin is and nobody can punish them for doing so. If I had been born a Negro instead of a white, I’d hold resentment towards some folks around here who treat the colored like they are-as my grandfather likes to say-“the shit end of the stick.” I used to, but I don’t believe in them being inferior to us anymore because it doesn’t make sense. I know some first-class Negroes. I also know some second-rate white people. (Two of the latter being members of my family.)

Beezy gets reports on how we’re doing from our caretaker, Mr. Cole. They’re sweet on each other. Sometimes he brings Woody and me over here after he’s put Lilyfield to bed. After we’re sure Papa’s fallen asleep, the three of us skulk off in the cover of darkness. Beezy makes us chicken pot pie prison-style. It’s got a lot of crust, which is our favorite part. After we thank her for her hospitality by doing the dishes, we stretch out on this porch and by the light of the moon listen to the soulful sounds of Billie Holiday or the toe-tapping Duke Ellington on her Victrola with her and Mr. Cole. Knowing how Papa doesn’t spend much celestial time with me anymore, Mr. Cole has been kind enough to talk with me on some of those nights about how the astronauts are planning to land on the moon next month. He looks up to the sky and says, “I expect they’ll do just fine, don’t you, Shenny?” I always say back, “I do,” but I don’t mean it. Mr. Cole doesn’t understand what a long shot it is to fly safely around meteors and asteroids and Lord only knows what else. Even if they manage to steer clear of all those dangers, what’re their chances of landing safe? No, I do not hold out much hope for those moon men.

Woody and I also come to Beezy’s because that’s what Mama told us to do a bunch of times. “If anything should happen to me, peas, you can count on Beezy or your grandmother to watch over you until things get sorted out.” Woody and I told her, “Sure,” but what I was thinking at the time was, how foolish can a person be? With the way Papa keeps tabs on her every minute of every day, what could possibly happen to her? (Nowadays I think my mother might have been blessed with the gift of second sight.)

Woody, E. J., and I have dashed through the backyards of the colored neighborhood to avoid prying eyes. We are playing the same game we always do. Beezy told us if ever we could sneak up on her, she’d give us all quarters. We’ve tried for years. The three of us are creeping alongside her tall hedge, not more than ten feet from her porch, right next to her birdbath. I’m not that nuts about this game and neither is Woody because we know what it’s like to get snuck up on, but we do it for E. J. With the way he’s grinning I know he’s already thinking how he’s going to spend that quarter. Beezy sings out, “Are those chick-a-dees settin’ to shower themselves or is it those fine-looking Carmody twins and that hard-workin’ Tittle boy?”

We have never once gotten past that birdbath. The old girl is sort of uncanny.

E. J.’s muttering something in frustration because he could really use twenty-five cents, but I’m yelling, “Wait up.”

I can see Woody taking the porch steps two at a time and landing not so lightly in Beezy’s familiar lap. My sister is so jazzed up. Beezy is special to her and me because she helped Mama take care of us when we were itty-bitty. Woody’s the one that gave her the pet name-Beezy. Her real name is Elizabeth, but my sister had a hard time pronouncing that when she was a little kid, so she started calling her Beezy, and then so did everybody else.

There was also a time that Beezy got paid to clean my grandfather’s house at Heritage Farm, but she got fired from that job because my grampa is Simon Legree mean. After that, she married no-account Carl Bell, but then she killed him and had to go to the Big House. Being curious of nature the way I am, I asked her once what it feels like to murder somebody. “I don’t rightly know, hon. I don’t feel like a murderess,” she answered with a good-natured shrug. “More like a laundress ridding the world of a soul that was stained beyond repair.”

It was my own father that sent her to Red Onion State Prison. Even though most all the coloreds and some of the whites in town, including my mother, believed that Beezy should be set free. She testified in court, “Carl beat me about the head ’til I went blind and then he began choking me with chicken wire.” She opened her blouse collar so the jury could see the still-red welts around her neck. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I was only attemptin’ to defend myself.” (Beezy plunged that skinning knife into Carl’s neck and he bled to death right on the spot because, according to Mr. Cole who told me this story, “The skinner nicked his juggler’s vein.”)

After six days of deliberation, the jury didn’t let Beezy off scot-free, but they did take pity. She didn’t get convicted of first-degree murder, but manslaughter, which is exactly what it sounds like. This is one of the reasons I think Beezy is not so fond of Papa. I can understand her holding that against him, but I don’t think she’s seeing the big picture. Of course, he could’ve been more lenient when he sentenced her to five years with time off for good behavior, but like always-Judge Walter T. Carmody was right. Because when she wasn’t busy washing and wringing the prison’s sheets, Beezy got taught by one of the lady guards how to knit and purl and that’s how she makes her living now. Folks travel to Lexington from all over Rockbridge County and beyond to buy her sweaters and scarves and caps. Maybe they just come to have something that they can brag to their friends was made by a murderess. I don’t know.

I charge up the steps of the house in hot pursuit, shouting, “Get off her right this minute, Woody. Can’t you see that you’re crushin’ Miss Beezy?” She pops up looking alarmed so even though she pretends she can’t sometimes, my sister can hear me just fine all the time. “Come see what I brought.” I open up my lunch box. Besides leftover breakfast for E. J., I packed her drawing supplies. If I don’t keep her busy, she’ll end up creating more trouble and we don’t have time for that this morning. We’re on a deadline. “Why don’t you get comfy right over here?”

Following directions for a change, Woody spreads out her crayons and pencils, smooths out her sketching paper, and gets arty at Beezy’s feet. E. J. is edging towards the screen door. His tiny nose is busy picking up the scent of something yummy just like mine is.

White peonies are lining Beezy’s fence in all their glory and filling the backyard with their heady scent. And my mind with memories of Mama. They are her favorites. She had them in her wedding bouquet because they are a good omen for a happy marriage.

Shortly before she disappeared, she’d been acting mopey, so I cut her a bunch off one of these bushes and ran all the way home. I found her looking out the kitchen window. “Look what I brought you,” I said, bursting in on her.

She startled, and said sort of sad, “Thank you, Shen.”

When she reached up to the cupboard to get the crystal vase, her long-sleeved blouse fell back. I pointed at her arms and asked, “How’d you get those marks?”

Mama rushed to cover them up and said, “I… I got my arm caught in the linen chest.”

“You should be more careful,” I said, not surprised. My mother is a very accident-prone person. Always has got a black-and-blue mark either fading or blooming.

Once she got those flowers just the way she wanted them, she turned to me and told me thank you again, but her eyes didn’t look so grateful.

I asked with hurt feelings, “Don’t you like them?”

Mama hesitated for a moment, then cupped my warm face in her hands that were cool from the sink water and whispered, “‘I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.’”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

Kissing the confusion off my face, she replied, “What Edna St. Vincent Millay means in this poem is… if you keep something all for yourself… while I love that you’re thinking of me, it’s important to let flowers grow. People, too. Do you understand?”

I told her, “I do,” but I really didn’t.

Beezy hears E. J. making his snorting noise and says, “Sure ’nuff, there’s fritters in the warmer, but my ankles tell me there’s also grass that needs shortenin’.” That’s the deal they’ve made. Apple fritters for mowing. “I expect you’ll wanna do something about that sooner rather than later.”

E. J. knows better than just about anybody that it’s not smart to bite the hand that feeds him, so he says, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll get over here first thing tomorra to give it a trim,” and makes a beeline into the house.

After I sit down next to her, Beezy says, “Good thing you showed up today. I was preparin’ to pay you a visit this evenin’.”

“We tried to get away yesterday, but Louise is working us to the bone. Gramma will be here soon for Founders Weekend. You know how she can get if everything isn’t white glove clean.”

Beezy runs a lace hankie across her neck scar and says, “Indeed I do.”

“That still doesn’t give Lou the right to be such a pain in the patootie. I swear, that girl could start an argument in an empty house,” I say, already knowing that Beezy won’t agree with me. She feels violin-playing sorry for Louise. Whenever I complain about how our housekeeper bosses us about and what an all-around drip she is, Beezy tells me to, “Go easy on her, Shenny. She reminds me of myself at that age.”

“Will Ruth Love be comin’ to the festivities?” Beezy asks. “I know she wasn’t feeling up to it last year.”

Woody, who has been coloring like a demon, jerks her head up at the sound of our grandmother’s name. “I think so,” I say, hoping my sister can’t hear me.

Beezy asks, “Ruth Love been stayin’ on track?”

“Mostly.” I wish she wouldn’t go down this road. I know she and Gramma used to be on friendly terms so she always asks after her, but Woody’s been having a bumpy time of it with our gramma, who if there ever was a race for the best Southern belle in this county would win by a mile. She does beautiful needlework. Can make a pot roast that just falls off the bone and mashed potatoes without one lump. And her pies? They win every prize at the county fair. She’ll also play card games with Woody and me, not poker though, since she is also real holy and gambling is against the Bible. All in all, we couldn’t ask for a more lovely grandmother.

Most of the time.

Occasionally, Gramma has what we’re supposed to call “episodes,” but I always tell Woody to stay clear if I think Gramma’s winding up to “pitch a conniption fit.” Some conniptions are a lot worse than others. She took a hatchet to the grand piano in her parlor a few years back because the Lord told her she was getting too much enjoyment out of playing ragtime music. Grampa Gus told folks that his wife had a heart problem, not a head problem, and that’s why she had to stay in her bedroom with the curtains drawn for a month. Then he sent her off to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and the Feebleminded over in Lynchburg to get better and thank goodness, she did-after the doctors told her to quit being so religious and gave her some electrical treatments.

“What do you mean mostly?” Beezy asks suspiciously. She knows things about Gramma Ruth Love that outsiders don’t because Mama told her. Even though she wasn’t supposed to. We’re not to tell anybody what goes on in the Carmody family. “Ruth Love hasn’t gone haywire, has she?”

“No, no. Why would you think that?” I pshaw. “She’s just been puttin’ on way too much Ben-Gay and it’s been bothering Woody’s sensitive nose, that’s all.”

That Ben-Gay part is true, but what I don’t tell easily upset Beezy is that on her last visit, our grandmother made us play Holy Communion with her all afternoon. That also bugged Woody, but can you blame her? A person can only stand eating Wonder Bread that’s been crushed into religious wafers for so long without getting bloated.

“Got any new wiggle-waggle?” I ask, trying to draw Beezy off the Gramma topic and back to the business at hand. Her eyes may not work, but her ears are like sponges soaking up the juicy gossip getting spread by the women that strut past her place on their way downtown. She’s got to have heard something. Mama’s disappearance is still big news.

“Lemme see, lemme see,” Beezy says, letting what she’s working on slip to her little lap. “Well, just about everybody’s talking ’bout how Mary Jane Upton showed up at the grocery yesterday wearin’ a bathing suit and calling herself Rita Hayworth.”

Mrs. Upton is always going around town underdressed asking after her tomcat of a husband who works nights at the Old Blue Hotel. You’d think everybody would be used to her by now. “Ya got anything new?”

Beezy considers, then says, “I heard that Abigail Hawkins been elected president of the Ladies Auxiliary.”

“Big deal.”

“I also heard she’s been showin’ up at your place on a regular basis. Any truth to that?”

A taste something like an iron handrail comes into my mouth. “She’s been bringing up corn bread and rhubarb pie and… I swear, that woman is tryin’ to give Betty Crocker a bad name.”

Beezy tsks… tsks. “It’s not a fondness for cookin’ that’s bringing Miss Abby up to Lilyfield and I expect you know that, Shen.”

I protest, “Whatta ya mean?” like I have no idea what she’s referring to, even though I have my suspicions. I heard Father Tommy tell Papa after church, “A year’s time is considered long enough to grieve, Walter. The twins need a mother.”

For God’s sakes, where’s his faith? His hope? I can’t believe that priest is forgetting the same way that some of the single ladies in town are that Mama is not gone forever, only temporarily so. Abigail Hawkins is the worst of them, but I’ve kept a list of every one of those women who bat their eyes at Papa after Mass. Woe to them is all I got to say on that subject. (I’m planning on getting Miss Delia who lives at the boardinghouse to put a hex on all of them. You should see what she did to Charity Thomas who got on my bad side. Miss D gave her a hump. A big one. Think camel.)

“Yes, indeedy,” Beezy says, rocking back. “Sounds to me like Miss Hawkins is busy settin’ a web for your father.”

E. J. comes bursting back onto the porch with a fritter in each hand and chewing another. He’s coated them in mayonnaise. I think you could get him to do just about anything for a jar of Hellmann’s. He swallows and says, “Miss Abby settin’ a web, yup. Sounds that way to me, too.”

“It does not,” I say, elbowing him in the ribs. “You’re just angling for more fritters.”

“Singin’ in the Rain is showing again up at Hull’s,” Beezy says, picking up her yarn and hinting on how she’d like to spend this Thursday evening. She loves old-time movie night just like Mama. Especially if they’re showing a musical one. Woody and me would wear our baby doll pajamas to Hull’s Drive-In on sweltering summer nights. Mama would turn up the speaker and her and Beezy would sing along and we’d drink Coca-Cola right out of the bottle and eat Cracker Jack under the stars and that was all so… well, heavenly. We’re missing those good old times up at Hull’s so I try to make up for that on the Thursdays when Papa is nowhere to be found. I chauffeur us up to the drive-in in Beezy’s old brown Pontiac that I can handle if we go slow.

“I had to sneak into the Belmont Theater when that picture show first come out,” she says. “People of my color weren’t-”

“Beezy Bell! Please don’t make me drag it out of you. I’m running out of time,” I say, impatient. I hold our mother’s watch up to her ear. It’s inscribed on the back with the word Speranza, which means “hope” in the Italian language. Mama got this watch from our friend Sam Moody. It’s my most prized possession. Not only does it make me feel with every tick that I’m getting closer to finding her, it’s also an excellent reminder that Woody and I got a fast friend in Sam, who is Beezy’s illegitimate, by the way. “Have you got something helpful or not? If the answer is not, then we’re gonna run over to the drugstore and talk to Vera.”

“Sugar, it’s been so long,” Beezy says, disheartened. “Your mother-”

“‘Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.’” Sam used to say that to my mama all the time. “William Shakespeare wrote that. It means-time’s a-wastin’, so you better hurry up and do something before something else real bad happens.” Beezy doesn’t want my heart to get broken if I can’t find Mama. That’s why she’s holding back. “If I hadn’t waited so long to go lookin’ for her in the first place, maybe she’d be home right now,” I say, softer. “You understand?”

Clearly not wanting to, she sighs out, “Yesterday afternoon Dorothea Dineen was tellin’ Harriet Godwin that she heard Evie applied for a library position before she disappeared.”

It’s true Mama was at her happiest when surrounded by books, but well-to-do married women have their gardens and the pampering of their husbands and children to fill their days. They do not have jobs. I mean, Mama could’ve gotten a position at the library if that was allowed. She went to Sweet Briar College to study singing with hopes of appearing on Broadway someday, but then she fell in love with the great poets of the past and the masters of art so she switched over to learn about them until she fell in love with Papa. They got married short of her receiving her sheepskin.

I ask Beezy, “Ya sure you heard that right? A library position?” Papa wouldn’t let us go over there anymore after Mama vanished, so I started phoning on Tuesday afternoons, which was our usual checking-out-books time. I knew it was stupid, but I kept hoping that one of those times somebody would come onto the line, saying, “Miz Carmody? Why, sure she’s here.” Moments later, I’d hear Mama’s breathy “Hello?” and when I asked her where she’s been all this time, she’d say, “Oh, dear. I’ve lost track of the time. Your father’s not home from the courthouse yet, is he?” I finally had to give up the calling. That hog of a librarian, Jeanine Anderson, squealed to Papa and that’s why all that’s left of the downstairs phone is its roots.

E. J. stuffs the last bit of fritter into his mouth and asks, “What’s that you’re workin’ on, Miz Bell?”

“It’s something new I’m tryin’ out. It’s a muffler.” She holds up the piece of chartreuse and puce knitting. It’s anything but muffled. Since she can’t see what yarns she’s combining together, her stuff is louder in color than a marching band. “Ya like it, Shenny?” she asks, waving it my way.

“Love it,” I say, getting more and more riled by the second. We don’t have time for a regular visit like this, but trying to get Beezy to hurry through polite talk is like pushing a mule up a hill.

“Speakin’ of work,” she says, back busy with hers. “Little Walter thinkin’ of gettin’ himself back to the courtroom any time soon?” That’s what she calls Papa. Little Walter. So what if he’s got to sit on a phone book to see over his judge’s bench, she doesn’t have to say so, does she?

“I’m sure after Mama returns, His Honor will be rarin’ to get back to his gavel,” I answer, because it seems too disloyal to tell her that I can’t picture his erratic self in a courtroom any time soon. Who cares when he gets back to work anyway? It’s not like we need the money. We’re the richest family in town and my grandfather owns half the county.

Beezy hears me yawn and asks, “Not gettin’ your eight straight?”

“Not even six. Woody spends most of the night…” I glance down at my sister.

Her coloring arm is back and forthing with the only crayon she’s uses anymore-funeral black. It really bothers me that she won’t write words. If she can’t talk-fine. But she’s got the paper, she’s got the crayons, would it kill her to jot down one of these times Hey Shen, I love you?

“Have ya been takin’ her to visit the doc?” Beezy asks, sensing my upset the way she can.

“A course I have.”

Papa gave me permission to take Woody to Doc Keller’s office above Milligan’s Hardware every Sunday evening after the sidewalks get rolled up. Mostly all he does is ask lots of questions about what we think might’ve happened to Mama. I stonewall him, because what business is it of his anyway? “Can’t you just fix her?” I ask every time, hoping he’ll change his answer.

“I could. If there was something physically wrong,” he tells me when he’s done examining my sister’s throat. “Her vocal cords are in fine working order. She’s got hysterical muteness.”

Chester Keller may be Papa’s fraternity brother and oldest friend, but I think he’s gone over the hill and isn’t ever coming back. What’s so funny about my sister losing her voice?

Beezy’s forehead gets as furrowed as her knitting. “This lookin’ for Evelyn… it’s… it’s a lot to take on all by yourself, Shenny.”

I almost cry out, What am I supposed to do exactly? Papa’s threatening to send Woody away because she won’t talk… We need to get Mama back more than ever. Beezy may be privy to a lot of what goes on around town, but she doesn’t know half of what’s happening up at Lilyfield. She knows that Papa is keeping us close, but has no idea how close. If I did clue her in to the root cellar and the interrogation sessions and all the other stuff, there’s not one thing she could do to help so there’s no sense in getting her worked up. That could be dangerous for her.

“Please don’t fret,” I say. “I’m not takin’ this on all by myself. There’s somebody else I’ve got in mind to lend a helping hand.”

Beezy knows exactly who I’m talking about and her lips are saying, “Mmm… hmm,” but she doesn’t mean it. If I could spend a minute more reassuring her, I would, but my sister has gone into a prey stance, rigid as a hound. If she had a tail, it’d be pointing.

“No… no…” I reach out for Woody, but she slips right through my fingers.

“What’s happenin’, Shen?” Beezy asks, always alert.

“It’s all right. It’s fine.” I pat her knee, which feels exactly like a glass doorknob.

“Woody’s just run off again. I’ll take care of it.” From the edge of the porch, I holler, “Get back here!” She not only ignores me, my sister doesn’t even bother to look both ways as she tears across the street to what she’s honed in on-the cemetery. “Don’t ya wanna finish your picture of… ah?”

I look down at what she’s been coloring on, already knowing that it’s going to be something morbid. Like a woman getting beat by a horned Satan or a hairy beast with foamy madness dripping off its stalactite teeth. Sure enough, today’s drawing reminds me a lot of our dog, Mars. Only it’s real bloody and gutsy. I should tell Woody that dog is never coming back. I really should.

“Quit catchin’ flies with your mouth and do something!” I shout at E. J. He’s lazing against the railing, watching with jaw-dropping adoration as my sister zigzags through the headstones to the side of Bootie Young, who is up to his belly button in a fresh grave. The reason E. J. is not rushing after her is that he knows what Woody has got herself all worked up about and it’s not Bootie Young.

Making my point, she doesn’t even seem to notice that handsome hunk as she begins pacing. Up and down… down and up… flapping her arms the length of the grave. Flapping is the second most irritating thing she does next to eye blinking, which always makes me think she’s trying to send me an SOS in Morse code and I don’t know Morse code. I better get over there quick before she does something wholly unpredictable.

“She’s not hurtin’ anybody,” E. J. says, clamping on to my arm as I rush past him. “Leave her be, Shen.”

I rip out of his grasp. “Get off me!” I’m surprised by how mad I am, and by the look on his face, E. J. is, too. “Quit telling me what to do and if you ever touch me again you… you… minin’ sludge… I’ll… I’ll-”

“Shenandoah Wilson Carmody!” Beezy admonishes. “Apologize to Ed James right this minute.”

“But he… he-”

“Shenny,” Beezy demands with a stomp of her little foot.

“Yes, ma’am.” I back off and say to E. J. in my most ladylike voice, “Pardon me ever so much,” so Beezy will forgive me, but she can’t see me lifting my fingers up to his cheeks and pinching him hard as I want.

Stupid kid. He’s acting like Woody and him have already tied the knot.