“Soletta Taylor!” a skinny, red-haired girl scolded. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“She came in on the train without a mama or a daddy, didn’t she? It was all the talk at the five-and-dime.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t be listening to ‘all the talk.’ Besides, that doesn’t mean she’s an orphan.” The girl twisted one of her red braids and looked at me. “Does it?”
My face was hot and probably red, but I squared my shoulders. “My mother’s gone to that sweet by and by.” I said it loud enough for everybody to hear, since they were all ear cocked anyway. Some gave kind of sympathetic looks for my loss. I didn’t figure it was a lie, since who knew for certain what the sweet by and by was? Most folks seemed to think it meant she had died and gone to a better place. But in my book it just meant she had decided that being a wife and mother wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and when I was two, she joined a dance troupe in New Orleans. But since I had no memory of my mother, it was hard to miss her.
“But,” I continued, answering their next question before they could ask it, “I got a daddy.” I’d often been asked about my mother, but until now, I’d never had to explain the whereabouts of Gideon. It wasn’t fair, him putting me in this predicament. “He’s working a railroad job back in Iowa. He says it’s not fit living for a girl my age, so I’m here for the summer.” I didn’t say that the railroad had been fit living for me pretty near my whole life and I didn’t see why this summer was any different. “But he’s coming back for me the end of the summer.” For some reason my words rang a little hollow. I wasn’t sure if it was the look Hattie Mae and Shady had exchanged the day before or the look of pity on some of those kids’ faces just then. Maybe they knew of someone else who got left for good, but Gideon was coming back for me and I’d have a few choice words for him when he arrived.
“See, Lettie? I told you she’s not an orphan,” said the red-haired girl. I figured Lettie must be short for Soletta.
“They’re cousins,” said a freckle-faced boy in overalls, as if that explained everything. “Your daddy ever seen anyone get flattened by a train?”
“Now what kind of question is that?” It was Lettie who said it. “Come on, Ruthanne, you jumped on me for asking a dumb question. What about Billy’s?”
“It ain’t a dumb question,” Billy said. “My granddad used to work at the depot and he tells a story about how a fella got hit by a train in Kansas City and, dead as he was, he stayed on that engine car all the way to the Manifest depot. Nobody wanted to peel him off and since he had a round-trip ticket, they left him there all the way back to Kansas City.”
“I heard a story like that,” Lettie said, “only it was about a boy who rode a three-legged horse all the way to Springfield and—”
“Would you two hush up with your stories and let the poor girl tell her own?” Ruthanne scolded.
All eyes were back on me. “I don’t suppose I have any story to tell. But my name’s Abilene.”
“That ain’t a name. That’s a place,” said Billy. “You from the one in Kansas or Texas?”
“Neither.”
“It doesn’t matter where she’s from,” said a girl with fancy curls that looked like they were done in a beauty parlor. She raised her eyebrows and looked down her nose at me. “The fact is she’s living in a saloon and a stone’s throw from that spooky Miss Sadie’s Divining Parlor. My mother says that place is nothing but a den of iniquity.”
The only places I’d seen within a stone’s throw from Shady’s place were the cemetery and that broken-down shack of a house with PERDITION written on the gate. Truth was I didn’t know what a divining parlor or a den of iniquity was but you can bet I planned to find out.
“Shut up, Charlotte, and give the girl a chance to talk,” Ruthanne said again. “Well, where are you from? Where’s your home?”
That question always came up real quick. It was a universal. And I was ready for it. “All over. My daddy says it’s not down in any map. True places never are.”
Another voice, an older voice, spoke from the back of the room. “I see your father is well versed in the works of Herman Melville.”
Suddenly, chairs scooted back and the whole class stood. “Good morning, Sister Redempta.”
“Moby Dick, to be precise. Good morning, class. I see you’ve had ample time to meet your new classmate and welcome her with tales of dead bodies and dens of iniquity.” She raised an eyebrow to the class.
I gathered it was a woman, since they called her Sister, but since she was covered in black with only her face peeking out of what looked like a little white box, it was hard telling.
Gideon says a rose is a rose. But when it comes down to it, there’s some more rosy and some more thorny. I didn’t know yet if she was rose or thorn, but one thing I knew for sure. She wasn’t any universal.
She was a towering figure, gliding solemnly to the front of the room. Her posture was straight and formal; the only movement about her was the swaying of a long strand of wooden beads wrapped around her waist and extending down to her knees. I caught the scent of lye soap as she walked past. Strong as it was, she must be a believer in cleanliness being next to godliness and she wasn’t taking any chances.
It did occur to me to find it strange for a Baptist minister to send me to a Catholic school. Sometimes religious folks draw pretty deep lines in the sand. But having seen Shady’s place, which was also part church, saloon, and workshop, I could tell his lines were a bit fuzzy.
Sister Redempta placed a stack of papers on her desk. “I’m sure you are eagerly awaiting your final report cards.” There was a good amount of moaning and shuffling. “Rest assured you have all received marks that are fair and representative of your work throughout the past year.” She picked up the first paper in the stack. “Billy Clayton.”
Billy walked to the front. “Sister.” He nodded, accepting the paper. As he shuffled back, those freckles got lost in the red rising in his cheeks.
“Charlotte Hamilton.”
Miss Beauty Parlor pranced to the front of the room. “Thank you, Sister.” She smiled at everyone on her way back, but hearing the yelp she let out afterward, I thought she’d sat on a tack. Her hand shot up. “Sister Redempta, I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. There is a B marked beside catechism.”
“I am aware of that, Charlotte. I graded your final exam, and among other things, I do not believe that wearing black to a funeral or giving last year’s feather bonnet to your sister can be classified as corporal works of mercy. Mae Hughes,” she continued. “Ruthanne McIntyre … Noah Rousseau … Soletta Taylor.”
It was almost worth having to go to school just to see everybody itching and squirming. After looking at her report card, Lettie Taylor slouched in her seat and whispered to Ruthanne, “Charlotte better air out her black dress for a funeral, because my mama’s gonna kill me.”
I was sitting pretty as each name was called, knowing mine would not be among them.
“Abilene Tucker.”
I must have been smiling for a while, because all of a sudden my mouth hurt from changing positions so fast.
“You are Abilene Tucker.” Sister Redempta said it as if I’d been wondering about that for some time. “I understand that you have just arrived, and unfortunately, that leaves me with no basis on which to give you a grade for this term.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. Ain’t it a shame? I thought.
“Therefore, you will have a special assignment to complete during the summer.”
“Assignment? Summer?” A rose is a rose, but she was sprouting thorns, all right.
“I am pleased that your ears are in such able condition. Let us put your mind to the test as well. It seems everyone is fond of a good story, dead bodies on trains notwithstanding. Therefore, your assignment will be to write a story of your own. You may select the topic and it will be graded for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and creativity. It will be due September first.”