"That was yesterday."
"No it wasn't. This morning I told you."
"Well, hours ago, then, but who invited her into my privacy? Who did that?"
"Guess. You, that's who. Want your scalp massaged?"
"Not now. What is your name, child?"
Mavis whispered it from the dark she stood in.
"Step closer. I can't see anything unless it's right up on me. Like living in an eggshell."
"Disregard her," Connie told Mavis. "She sees everything in the universe." Drawing a chair bedside, she sat down, took the woman's hand and one by one stroked back the cuticles on each crooked finger. Mavis moved closer, into the circle of light, resting her hand on the metal foot of the bed.
"Are you all right now? Is your automobile working?"
"Yes, m'am. It's fine. Thank you."
"Where are your children?"
Mavis could not speak.
"There used to be a lot of children here. This was a school once. A beautiful school. For girls. Indian girls."
Mavis looked at Connie, but when she returned her glance, Mavis quickly lowered her eyes.
The woman in the bed laughed lightly. "It's hard, isn't it," she said, "looking in those eyes. When I brought her here they were green as grass."
"And yours was blue," said Connie.
"Still are."
"So you say."
"What color, then?"
"Same as me-old-lady wash-out color."
"Hand me a mirror, child."
"Give her nothing."
"I'm still in charge here."
"Sure. Sure."
All three watched the brown fingers gentling the white ones. The woman in the bed sighed. "Look at me. Can't sit up by myself and arrogant to the end. God must be laughing His head off."
"God don't laugh and He don't play."
"Yes, well, you know all about Him, I'm sure. Next time you see Him, tell Him to let the girls in. They bunch around the door, but they don't come in. I don't mind in the daytime, but they worry my sleep at night. You're feeding them properly? They're always so hungry. There's plenty, isn't there? Not those frycake things they like but good hot food the winters are so bad we need coal a sin to burn trees on the prairie yesterday the snow sifted in under the door quaesumus, da propitius pacem in diebus nostris Sister Roberta is peeling the onions et a peccato simus semper liberi can't you ab omni perturbatione securi…"
Connie folded Mother's hands on the sheet and stood, signaling Mavis to follow her. She closed the door and they stepped into the hall.
"I thought she was your mother. I mean the way you talked, I thought she was your own mother." They were descending the wide central stairs.
"She is my mother. Your mother too. Whose mother you?" Mavis did not answer, partly because she couldn't speak of it but also because she was trying to remember where, in a house with no electricity, the light in Mother's room came from. After the roast chicken supper, Connie showed Mavis to a large bedroom. From the four cots in it, she chose the one closest to the window, where she knelt looking out. Two milky moons, instead of the one hanging there, would have been just like Connie's eyes. Beneath them a swept world. Unjudgmental. Tidy. Ample. Forever. California, which way?
Maryland, which way?
Merle? Pearl?
The lion cub that ate her up that night had blue eyes instead of brown, and he did not have to hold her down this time. When he circled her shoulders with his left paw, she willingly let her head fall back, clearing the way to her throat. Nor did she fight herself out of the dream. The bite was juicy, but she slept through that as well as other things until the singing woke her.
Mavis Albright left the Convent off and on, but she always returned, so she was there in 1976.
On that July morning she had been aware for months of the sourness between the Convent and the town and she might have anticipated the truckload of men prowling the mist. But she was thinking of other things: tattooed sailors and children bathing in emerald water. And exhausted by the pleasures of the night before, she let herself drift in and out of sleep. An hour later, shooing pullets out of the schoolroom, she smelled cigar smoke and the merest trace of Aqua Velva.
GRACE
Either the pavement was burning or she had sapphires hidden in her shoes. K.D., who had never seen a woman mince or switch like that, believed it was the walk that caused all the trouble. Neither he nor his friends lounging at the Oven saw her step off the bus, but when it pulled away there she was-across the street from them in pants so tight, heels so high, earrings so large they forgot to laugh at her hair. She crossed Central Avenue toward them, taking tiny steps on towering block heels not seen since 1949.
She walked fast, as though tripping through red coals or else in pain from something stuck in the toes of her shoes. Something valuable, K. D. thought, otherwise she would have removed it. He carried the equipment box through the dining room. Narrow panels of lace spilled from a basket on the side table. Aunt Soane worked thread like a prisoner: daily, methodically, for free, producing more lace than could ever be practical. Out back the garden skirting to the left was weed-free and nicely tilled. K. D. turned right toward the shed and entered. The collies were thrilled to see him. He had to straddle Good to keep her down. Her ears were soft in his fingers and he was steady with the camphor-soaked cotton. The ticks came away like coffee grounds. He put his palm under her jaw; she licked his chin.
Ben, the other collie, head on paws, looked on. Life at Steward Morgan's ranch loaded the dogs with mess. They needed a few days in Ruby under K. D.'s care twice a year. He took the bristle brush from the box. Dug deep in Good's hair, brushing it smooth and singing, softly in a Motown falsetto, the song he'd made up for her when she was a puppy. "Hey good dog; stay good dog; old good dog; my good dog. Everybody needs a good good good dog. Everybody needs a good a good a good good dog."
Good stretched her pleasure.
Just those concerned would be at the meeting tonight. Everybody, that is, except the one who started it all. His uncles Deek and Steward, Reverend Misner, Arnette's father and brother. They would discuss the slapping but not the pregnancy and certainly not the girl with sapphires hidden in her shoes.
Suppose she hadn't been there. Suppose her navel had not peeked over the waist of her jeans or her breasts had just hushed, hushed for a few seconds till they could figure out how to act-what attitude to strike. In public, without girls hanging around, they would have known. As a group they would have assumed the right tone immediately. But Arnette was there, whining, and so was Billie Delia. K. D. and Arnette had separated themselves from the others. To talk. They stood near the dwarf oaks behind the picnic benches and tables for a conversation worse than he ever thought talking could be. What Arnette said was, "Well, what are you going to do about it?" What she meant was: I'm going to Langston in September and I don't want to be pregnant or to abort or get married or feel bad by myself or face my family. He said, "Well, what are you going to do about it?" thinking: You cornered me at more socials than I can remember and when I finally agreed I didn't have to take your drawers down you beat me to it so this ain't my problem.
They had just begun to veil threats and unveil mutual dislike when the bus pulled away. All heads, all, turned. First because they had never seen a bus in the town-Ruby was not a stop on the way to someplace else. Second to see why it stopped at all. The vision that appeared when the bus drove away, standing on the road shoulder between the schoolhouse and Holy Redeemer, riveted the attention of everybody lounging at the Oven. She didn't have on any lipstick but from one hundred and fifty feet, you could see her eyes. The silence that descended seemed permanent until Arnette broke it. "If that's the kind of tramp you want, hop to it, nigger."