Chapter Forty-Three

On the security of Tyler Tea contracts, and offers of more work, I quit my job at Bernie’s Burgers right before Mama came up for Christmas, and they gave me a huge farewell party. They even put my picture up in the restaurant. There I was, smiling from my eight-by-ten, right there on a wall between Anthony Quinn and Kitty Carlyle.

But everyone in creation thought I was the cat’s whiskers when Larry got my ass on the Johnny Carson show. Every time I opened my mouth Mr. Carson raised his eyes and the audience went wild, laughing like I’d said the silliest thing in the world. I thought I had answered the man’s questions in all seriousness.

“People always laugh at Southern girls with sex appeal and a touch of innocence,” Larry told me. “The funniest people never know they’re funny.”

“I guess,” I said, still trying to figure out my success.

Larry bent down and kissed the top of my head. “So don’t worry about it and don’t change,” he said.

Mama, of course, had the whole town of Hixson up watching me on the Johnny Carson show, and she told me that the town was probably going to rename the elementary school in my honor: Grace Henrietta Place Elementary School. I just thought that was the nicest thing.

I was so beside myself with excitement that I marked the days off on the calendar, anxiously waiting on Mama’s arrival. I got myself a little tree and set it right in front of the window. I made sure I had it all lit up when Mama came prancing through my door—and prance she did. Then she hooped and hollered over my “sunny little studio” and told me I was living like a real New Yorker.

“You are right by Lincoln Center, honey. You could not have found yourself a better place to live. Why, Central Park is right here at your doorstep.”

“I got gifts for Daddy and Tommy under the tree, Mama. I even got Granddaddy a pair of slippers,” I told her as I made a face and Mama laughed. Then I showed her all my pretty wrapping paper, which I had proudly acquired at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“You are living in a Victorian brownstone, baby, you know that?”

I shook my head. “I sure did not, Mama.”

“Why, honey, when did you get yourself a dog?” Mama asked as she sat down and scooped little Starfish up in her arms. Starfish, of course, raised her lips and started yelping. Mama put her down quickly.

“She’s good company,” I said, not wanting to lie but Lord knows, I couldn’t tell Mama the truth.

“Didn’t that horrible woman you used to work for have a little Chihuahua, too?”

I nodded. I was hoping she wouldn’t have remembered that.

“Yes, I believe she did, Mama. She still have that dog?”

Mama looked at me and did something funny with her lips.

“Now, you know I don’t have any idea what that woman has or does not have. She is a traitor.”

“I don’t care anymore, Mama.”

“That’s not the point, baby.”

“Is she all right?” I asked, still afraid of the answer.

“Who, honey?”

“Miss Betty Ann?”

“Far as I know.”

“Lenny Bean still living with her?”

Mama looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. “The gossip has died down some. I don’t see Lenny in Paradise, so I don’t know the boy’s comings and goings. I haven’t seen Lenny Bean in weeks. That old coot father of his is still bothering me, though.”

I laughed and heaved a sigh of relief. If Betty Ann Houseman had been murdered, Mama certainly would have known about it.

“The old man brings me flowers from his garden.” Mama winked. “Funny how he always happens by after your daddy has left for the garage.”

“Granddaddy doesn’t scare him off with all his holy rolling?”

Mama threw back her head and laughed like a hyena with a tickle. “He told me, in the utmost secrecy, of course, that he could have that unfortunate bible beater out of my hair forever, if I so desired.”

Why, my eyes got as round as Ping-Pong balls. “What did he mean by that, I wonder?” I asked, knowing full well what the murdering old fool meant. As much as I hated Granddaddy I didn’t want Mama finding his sorry ass at the bottom of Miles Canyon Creek.

“Well, I don’t know darlin’, but I told Mr. Bean that I didn’t want to see any unfortunate happenstance befalling my husband’s father—to which he uttered, ‘Then perhaps we should merely cut out his tongue, dear lady.’”

I laughed so much and threw myself down beside Mama. Poor Starfish got all upset with me for I had disturbed the little ball she had rolled herself into.

“Sure is good to see you, Mama,” I said and hugged her, disturbing poor Starfish all over again.

 

Mama was beside herself being back in New York after so many years. She didn’t even watch TV the whole ten days she spent with me. She ran me all over the streets of New York, pointing out all the things I never noticed till my mama showed me.

“Look, look, sug, how the sun sets over the Hudson River like a ball of fire.”

“It’s a real pretty sunset, Mama. I never could find the Hudson River before you came.”

“Notice the way the lights glisten against the skyline.” She’d sigh as we rode through Central Park in a taxicab. “What magic there is in this city; what greatness surrounds it.”

“Greatness of spirit, Mama?”

“Creative greatness, honey, made by man. Her buildings are monuments to achievement…like a church is a monument to God, or to man’s desire for God. The buildings of Manhattan are windows of pride, sure enough.”

“Sure are lots of buildings here.”

“That’s what New York City is, honey, many heartbeats, many visions.”

Mama was so filled with enthusiasm, pointing out mansions and art deco buildings on Central Park West, and the way Riverside Drive curves up toward the George Washington Bridge. Mama whispered, “Used to be farmland up here.”

I couldn’t get over that. One thing I couldn’t ever imagine was a pitchfork leaning up against a barn in this city.

“Why, before you came up here, Mama, I never knew about all those hidden alleys and cobblestone streets you showed me downtown.”

Mama laughed. “Yes, daughter, tucked away from the wheels of tour buses are little museums and off-off Broadway and street music that will haunt you forever; hot corn beef sandwiches, artists who sell their brilliance for a song, and beggars who ask for nothing more than your respect and a dime from your pocket. Behold behind a beggars eyes an injured heart, daughter…and be kind.”

“Where are we going today?” I’d ask, fascinated by Mama’s ease with Manhattan.

Mama winked. “Today we are going to some of the oldest, little colonial houses in Greenwich Village. I’m going to show you speakeasies from the nineteen twenties.”

Everywhere we went, Mama pointed out parks making right angles in the middle of the city, and narrow twisting sidewalks and spooky cemeteries in the middle of it all.

“Take notice of the trees, Grace.”

“A tree is a tree, Mama. Now, we have plenty of those in Hixson.”

Mama laughed. “Honey, trees in New York City are nonchalant as bibles in a church. They are there when you need to feel that God is with you, and they are indifferent accoutrements when God is the last thing on your mind.” Mama put her arm through mine. “Daughter,” she said, “find a tree when you need to pray. Find a rooftop when what you need is inspiration. Look out over this place, with its prideful buildings, its myriad of preoccupied masses, its rivers and its trees…this heartbeat of a city, and let it speak your name. That will get your blood flowing. Why, this city even gets your mind working wonders and your spirit sprouting wings. Sure is the truth, isn’t it, sug?”

 

Mama went nuts for Dorothea Brown and the feeling was mutual. Those two women stayed up drinking bourbon together till all hours. I supposed, at first, it was ’cause Miss Dorothea was Mama’s age, but then Dorothea told us she was almost sixty years old. Mama and I were just beside ourselves hearing that, but I guess that still put her up in Mama’s league, who admitted to being forty-five even though Daddy always laughed when Mama told her age to anyone.

Miss Dorothea insisted on cooking for me and Mama on Christmas Day so we took her out on Christmas Eve. We went to the Algonquin Hotel for drinks, and I swear, every eye was on us. Mama looked like a queen. I noticed she wasn’t even drinking that much. Her eyes were so bright and blue and her lemon-drop color hair fell so beautifully to her shoulders, flipping up, just at the ends. Her nails were perfect, of course, ’cause we’d treated ourselves to a day at the beauty parlor, and we’d gone shopping in Bloomingdale’s soon after Mama’s arrival. She was sitting in the lobby of the Algonquin like royalty, in one of her new dresses that made her look like she should be signing autographs. Yep, there she was, sitting pretty and sipping her bourbon, showing off those fine good looks of hers.

I’d bought Dorothea a wide-brimmed new violet hat, and she was wearing it proudly for all to see. She had dolled herself up for the holidays, even though she always looked like she was going somewhere special. Her buttons were opened just enough to reveal her cleavage, and a body any twenty-year-old woman would have envied. I was so happy to be sitting there with my mama and Miss Dorothea.

Mama and I learned a lot about Miss Dorothea that evening. We found out her family had disowned her for carrying on with a white man and having his baby.

“They said I brought shame on the family.”

“Just for carrying on with a white man?” I asked.

Dorothea smiled at me. “That white man you refer to, Grace, was actually the love of my life. I never found a man that could fill his shoes again, white or black.”

“What happened to him?” Mama asked.

I heard Dorothea sigh before she spoke. “He died young, a heart attack that surprised us all. He was only twenty-four. Our baby was only a year old.”

“So you have a child.” Mama didn’t ask it like a question. I think she knew she was going to hear something painful for Miss Dorothea.

Dorothea nodded. “I was forced into relinquishing my legal rights to my daughter. They were a powerful white family, and they hated me.”

“What happened to your daughter?” I asked.

“Robert’s parents raised her. They told my child that her mother had been killed in an unfortunate accident. I have heard that they never told my daughter she was black while she was growing up. I’m sure my child was reared to believe she was of Mediterranean decent on her mother’s side, thus explaining away her dark complexion.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Dorothea,” I said and reached for her hand.

She smiled back, showing a mouth full of perfect white teeth. “Don’t fret, Lady Grace. I know how sensitive you can be. I let the past go. It’s unhealthy to hold onto anger or regret. Won’t do a damn bit of good to wish you’d done something differently. As long as there’s life, there will always be the opportunity to err on the side of good judgment, or not to.”

Mama laughed and I saw the look between them, something I couldn’t yet be a part of ’cause I didn’t have their years or their misfortunes, but I saw it and smiled sadly.

Mama lifted up her glass. “Here’s to bastards,” she said. “May there surely be a God to point them on the road to hell.”

Dorothea touched the tip of her glass with Mama’s while I sat that one out.

I wondered how many times Miss Dorothea had spent alone cooking her Christmas ham and serving herself sauvignon blanc. She said she put a Christmas tree up every year and toasted her unfortunate family for having to live with each other and agree with each other, for taking stupidity to their pillows every damn night and hatred to their graves.

 

“I’ve never seen so many people living alone as I see in New York City,” I told Mama.

“Honey, that’s why people come to Manhattan, to lose themselves to anonymity and nonconformity.”

“It sounds so isolating,” I said.

“Quite the contrary. You’d be a lot more isolated in an Alaskan igloo, darlin’, than in the middle of Times Square.”

“Sure, there are people in Times Square.”

“That’s right. Being isolated in New York City hurts less than anywhere else in the world. That’s because there are so many other lonely souls in this city. So isolation becomes a natural state of being that you can share with the rest of the population. So you see, it all comes out in the wash. It’s not so bad when you’re not the only one feeling isolated.”

Of course, I didn’t quite understand what she was saying, but I smiled anyway. One thing about my mama’s words—whatever I didn’t understand in one moment would eventually hit me as hard as a hangover and I’d have to say to myself, “Oh yeah, that’s what Mama meant.”

Mama told me that Scarlet Paradise had moved out of the park and in with Ginny Jo, who had gotten a job at the Lucky Boy Luncheonette. Then Mr. and Mrs. Paradise disowned her for being a lesbian, and that drove Scarlet right back into Tommy’s arms.

“You mean she left Ginny Jo?” I asked. I felt so badly and knew Ginny Jo must be about to let loose on that woman.

Mama nodded. “Now she’s back in Tommy’s goddamn bed.”

“What? You mean Tommy took her back?”

“Well, not at first,” Mama told me. “But where was she going to go? We couldn’t just throw her out.”

“She couldn’t go back home?” I asked.

“Her parents don’t want a thing to do with her. They say she’s a wicked sinner, a deviant.” Mama sighed. “I don’t want that girl in our family, sug.”

“He’s not going to marry her, is he?”

Mama shrugged her shoulders. “They are staying in that tiny, little room together,” she told me. “I can only imagine what they’re doing. Now, I insisted she stay in your room, but the minute I go to bed she sneaks on in with him. I know my son is not going to sleep beside a woman and pretend she’s not there. I pray every night that he doesn’t get her pregnant. She’s so strange, she makes granddaddy look like Pat Boone.”

“What do you mean strange, Mama?”

“She’s going around with your granddaddy, preaching with him, kneeling for hours in our kitchen praying and reading the bible. The old man has even started washing his hair. I think he’s sweet on her.”

“Tommy wouldn’t stand for that.”

“Tommy doesn’t have any say with that crazy girl. I just hope she goes back to your friend, Ginny Jo, and stays put.”

I was just beside myself and hoped Ginny Jo wouldn’t ever take her back, but I didn’t mention that to Mama. I knew my brother was a jackass, but I didn’t think he was dumb enough to marry a girl who’d go around preaching with Granddaddy. I thought it was time to write a nice long letter to Ginny Jo for moral support. I’d tell her, for sure, to keep her eyes peeled. My God, there had to be another lesbian in the entire state of Tennessee for poor Ginny Jo.