I turned, and there the fellow stood at the parlor entrance, half in, half out. To others he must have seemed simply a grubby twelve-year-old beanpole who had made some attempt to rise to the event by parting and slicking his difficult hair, the comb grooves were still damply intact. But to me he was as unexpected and sinister as a genie released from a bottle. What a dumbhead I’d been to think he wouldn’t show up! Only a dunce wouldn’t have guessed that he would come out of spite: the joy of spoiling for me this awaited day.
However, Odd had not yet seen me: Annabel, her firm, acrobatic fingers somersaulting over the warped piano keys, had diverted him, for he was watching her, lips separated, eyes slitted, as though he had come upon her disrobed and cooling herself in the local river. It was as if he were contemplating some wished-for vision; his already red ears had become pimiento. The entrancing scene so dazed him I was able to squeeze directly past him and run along the hall to the kitchen. “He’s here!”
My friend had completed her work hours earlier; moreover she had two colored women helping out. Nevertheless she had been hiding in the kitchen since our party started, under a pretense of keeping the exiled Queenie company. In truth, she was afraid of mingling with any group, even one composed of relatives, which was why, despite her reliance on the Bible and its Hero, she rarely went to church. Although she loved all children and was at ease with them, she was not acceptable as a child, yet she could not accept herself as a peer of grownups and in a collection of them behaved like an awkward young lady, silent and rather astonished. But the idea of parties exhilarated her; what a pity she couldn’t take part invisibly, for then how festive she would have felt.
I noticed that my friend’s hands were trembling; so were mine. Her usual outfit consisted of calico dresses, tennis shoes and Uncle B.’s discarded sweaters; she had no clothes appropriate to starchy occasions. Today she was lost inside something borrowed from one of her stout sisters, a creepy navy-blue dress its owner had worn to every funeral in the county since time remembered.
“He’s here,” I informed her for the third time. “Odd Henderson.”
“Then why aren’t you with him?” she said admonishingly. “That’s not polite, Buddy. He’s your particular guest. You ought to be out there seeing he meets everybody and has a good time.”
“I can’t. I can’t speak to him.”
Queenie was curled on her lap, having a head rub; my friend stood up, dumping Queenie and disclosing a stretch of navy-blue material sprinkled with dog hair, said “Buddy. You mean you haven’t spoken to that boy!” My rudeness obliterated her timidity; taking me by the hand, she steered me to the parlor.
She need not have fretted over Odd’s welfare. The charms of Annabel Conklin had drawn him to the piano. Indeed, he was scrunched up beside her on the piano seat, sitting there studying her delightful profile, his eyes opaque as the orbs of the stuffed whale I’d seen that summer when a touring honky-tonk passed through town (it was advertised as The Original Moby Dick, and it cost five cents to view the remains—what a bunch of crooks!). As for Annabel, she would flirt with anything that walked or crawled—no, that’s unfair, for it was really a form of generosity, of simply being alive. Still, it gave me a hurt to see her playing cute with that mule skinner.
Hauling me onward, my friend introduced herself to him: “Buddy and I, we’re so happy you could come.” Odd had the manners of a billy goat: he didn’t stand up or offer his hand, hardly looked at her and at me not at all. Daunted but dead game, my friend said: “Maybe Odd will sing us a tune. I know he can; his mother told me so. Annabel, sugar, play something Odd can sing.”
Reading back, I see that I haven’t thoroughly described Odd Henderson’s ears—a major omission, for they were a pair of eye-catchers, like Alfalfa’s in the Our Gang comedy pictures. Now, because of Annabel’s flattering receptivity to my friend’s request, his ears became so beet-bright it made your eyes smart. He mumbled, he shook his head hangdog; but Annabel said: “Do you know ‘I Have Seen the Light’?” He didn’t, but her next suggestion was greeted with a grin of recognition; the biggest fool could tell his modesty was all put on.
Giggling, Annabel struck a rich chord, and Odd, in a voice precociously manly, sang: “When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin’ along.” The Adam’s apple in his tense throat jumped; Annabel’s enthusiasm accelerated; the women’s shrill hen chatter slackened as they became aware of the entertainment. Odd was good, he could sing for sure, and the jealousy charging through me had enough power to electrocute a murderer. Murder was what I had in mind; I could have killed him as easily as swat a mosquito. Easier.
Once more, unnoticed even by my friend, who was absorbed in the musicale, I escaped the parlor and sought The Island. That was the name I had given a place in the house where I went when I felt blue or inexplicably exuberant or just when I wanted to think things over. It was a mammoth closet attached to our only bathroom; the bathroom itself, except for its sanitary fixtures, was like a cozy winter parlor, with a horsehair love seat, scatter rugs, a bureau, a fireplace and framed reproductions of “The Doctor’s Visit,” “September Morn,” “The Swan Pool” and calendars galore.
There were two small stained-glass windows in the closet; lozenge-like patterns of rose, amber and green light filtered through the windows, which looked out on the bathroom proper. Here and there patches of color had faded from the glass or been chipped away; by applying an eye to one of these clearings, it was possible to identify the room’s visitors. After I’d been secluded there awhile, brooding over my enemy’s success, footsteps intruded: Mrs. Mary Taylor Wheelwright, who stopped before a mirror, smacked her face with a powder puff, rouged her antique cheeks and then, perusing the effect, announced: “Very nice, Mary. Even if Mary says so herself.”
It is well known that women outlive men; could it merely be superior vanity that keeps them going? Anyway, Mrs. Wheelwright sweetened my mood, so when, following her departure, a heartily rung dinner bell sounded through the house, I decided to quit my refuge and enjoy the feast, regardless of Odd Henderson.
But just then footsteps echoed again. He appeared, looking less sullen than I’d ever seen him. Strutty. Whistling. Unbuttoning his trousers and letting go with a forceful splash, he whistled along, jaunty as a jaybird in a field of sunflowers. As he was leaving, an open box on the bureau summoned his attention. It was a cigar box in which my friend kept recipes torn out of newspapers and other junk, as well as a cameo brooch her father had long ago given her. Sentimental value aside, her imagination had conferred upon the object a rare costliness; whenever we had cause for serious grievance against her sisters or Uncle B., she would say, “Never mind, Buddy. We’ll sell my cameo and go away. We’ll take the bus to New Orleans.” Though never discussing what we would do once we arrived in New Orleans, or what we would live on after the cameo money ran out, we both relished this fantasy. Perhaps each of us secretly realized the brooch was only a Sears Roebuck novelty; all the same, it seemed to us a talisman of true, though untested, magic: a charm that promised us our freedom if indeed we did decide to pursue our luck in fabled spheres. So my friend never wore it, for it was too much a treasure to risk its loss or damage.
Now I saw Odd’s sacrilegious fingers reach toward it, watched him bounce it in the palm of his hand, drop it back in the box and turn to go. Then return. This time he swiftly retrieved the cameo and sneaked it into his pocket. My boiling first instinct was to rush out of the closet and challenge him; at that moment, I believe I could have pinned Odd to the floor. But—Well, do you recall how, in simpler days, funny-paper artists used to illustrate the birth of an idea by sketching an incandescent light bulb above the brow of Mutt or Jeff or whomever? That’s how it was with me: a sizzling light bulb suddenly radiated my brain. The shock and brilliance of it made me burn and shiver—laugh, too. Odd had handed me an ideal instrument for revenge, one that would make up for all the cockleburs.