“I beaned Dot,” I say too quickly and too loudly the minute we sit down to supper.
Dr. and Mrs. Nesbitt look at me like I’ve just lit a cigar.
I stare at my lap, wave a fly off my sweet potatoes. “W-w-with an egg.” All eyes, even Marie’s, are pairs of question marks. “I’ve never hit anybody before… ever. I just…” I grip my napkin.
Mrs. Nesbitt gives me a long look I can’t read the meaning of. Dr. Nesbitt pushes away from the table, walks to the screen door, and stares off into the cornfields. He rises slightly on his toes, makes a fist. He looks mad. Marie trots over beside Mrs. Nesbitt, who covers her mouth with her napkin.
“Back here? Did it happen in the yard?” Dr. Nesbitt asks abruptly, stepping onto the back porch.
“Yes, sir.”
He motions for me to come out. “Where was Dot?”
I point to the clothesline pole. “I brought in the laundry,” I say feebly. “She left without reporting her count.”
“And where were you?” he asks. I point again. He shields his eyes from the setting sun and paces the distance between the chicken fence and the clothesline. Then he marches past me back into the house.
We sit at the table. Mrs. Nesbitt waves her fan against the drippy heat. We’ve still not eaten a bite. Marie acts as confused as I am. She pokes at her dish of scraps and looks up, as if asking, Is it okay to eat now?
Dr. Nesbitt flicks his mother a look, then stabs a pickled okra.
I put down my fork.
Dr. and Mrs. Nesbitt eat quietly. Nobody comments on the sweet potatoes that I’ve made for the first time. No one asks about dessert. No one asks why I did it.
“Dot was right, Avery,” Mrs. Nesbitt says after a long, awful silence.
My face burns. My hands tingle. I stand, ready to flee the room. “Ma’am?” My voice shakes. “How could you say that?
“I am crippled and I do, or at least I did, talk to Morris and pace the porch. When Morris addresses me,” she says matter-of-factly, “it’s impolite, even for a snob, not to answer. I just so happened to have finished conversing with ‘the dead’ this morning in time to hear every word of Dot’s assessment of us through my bedroom window.”
I catch my breath. Dr. Nesbitt mops his forehead with his handkerchief. He looks up at me, his face dead serious. “Did Miss Deets insult you in every way a fellow human being possibly could?”
“Yes.”
“Did she attack things precious to you?”
Mrs. Nesbitt chimes in. “Of course she did, Avery.”
“So essentially, Iris, she hit you first.”
I look down at the perfect part in Dr. Nesbitt’s hair.
“It seems Miss Deets felt all too qualified to assess you,” he says. “What do you think of her?”
I shuffle my feet. “She’s half rat.”
Dr. Nesbitt nods and stands to face me. “An egg’s trajectory is wobbly at best. Hitting your target at twenty-five paces requires skill.” He holds me in his strong gaze, tips his water glass. “Well done.”
Trouble.
I shoot straight up in bed, my head filled with Dot and the egg and how she acted so strange, as though she was used to getting hit.
I grab my pillow, thinking…
Did Dot lure me right into a trap, make me do something to get fired? Or did she tell Cecil about it, get him all stirred up, put me on his bad side—as if there were a good one. Someday, somehow, he’ll pay me back. Maybe that’s why she stopped, didn’t wipe her hair… so she could say, “See what Iris did? She started it.”
I shiver, imagining how shifty they all are, how Cecil treated his own wife. I know they would turn on anybody—the Nesbitts, me, even each other.
An egg and a good aim won’t be enough for Cecil Deets.
July 12, 1926
Dear Iris,
Would you believe our store is less than a month away from the grand opening on August 10th? Could you possibly come for it? I imagine you’ve made yourself indispensable to the Nesbitts. Could they spare you a few days?
How is the elderly woman in your care? I so admire you for going about your day-to-day without the modern conveniences. Kansas City has such a climate of refinement and urban sophistication. Wouldn’t you leap at the opportunity to live here?
Our wedding plans, besides deciding on the date, have taken a backseat to getting Baldwin’s Bootery (yes, we did decide) running. Our marriage will be October 10th—your 16th birthday! What a grand way to celebrate both occasions.
Let us know if you need anything at all, dear. Sounds like you made a good choice with Wellsford, but do please give Kansas City a fighting chance.
Love,
Celeste
P. S. Our store windows have garnered lots of attention. You know your father—he needs to be first, fastest, and farthest in whatever he does. Why, sometimes even I have trouble keeping up!
Wellsford. A choice? She thinks I picked Wellsford? What a “refined” way my father has of twisting the truth.
Well, no, Celeste, I do not want to come to the grand opening. Nor do I want to live with you two in the Paris of the Plains. And, most unfortunately, I accidentally left my suede footwear on the train, which makes a sophisticated leap into Kansas City absolutely impossible!