4

Delia throws sausage into the cast-iron skillet. Grease rains over the stove. She has on an old pair of painter’s coveralls, a T-shirt, and black high-top sneakers that make her look more like one of the pickers than our housekeeper. Actually, they’re her husband Gus’s coveralls. Ever since he got himself killed in a hit-and-run a few years back, Delia has taken to wearing his clothes.

I asked her about that once. She said it wasn’t any of my business what she wore or why she wore it. End of conversation.

Delia nods her good morning.

Overhead the ceiling fan makes scraping sounds as it whirls. It’s not even ten o’clock and Delia already has three fans going in the kitchen. That’s how I always know, without bothering to turn on the radio, that we’re in for a scorcher.

I slide into the chair across the table from my dad. He’s got his face in some dusty old account ledger. Bills are stacked beside his plate like piles of those skinny French pancakes. In between scribbling numbers into a column, he takes a bite of grits dripping with egg yolk. He chews. He studies an invoice. He writes in the ledger. He forks another mouthful of eggs and grits. He chews some more. My dad has been known to take up to two hours to eat breakfast. I know this from Delia. I’ve never actually stuck around long enough to find out if it’s true.

“Morning, Dad,” I say.

He looks up from the ledger and grins at me. He’s got dimples so deep you could lose the whole tip of your finger in them. “Mornin’, sugar.”

This is about the extent of our conversation each morning. We usually don’t have much to say to each other.

Dad stretches his arms out in front of him and cracks his knuckles a few times. His hands are wide, with long, bony fingers and knuckles the size of large marbles.

Delia comes up behind me and scrapes sausage, bacon, and two eggs over easy onto my plate. I plunge my fork into my eggs just as somebody knocks at the back door. My dad doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy adding up figures.

Delia swings open the screen door and Travis Waite steps into the kitchen. He takes off his sweat-stained cap and gives Dad and me a crooked smile, exposing brown tobacco-stained teeth. I stare down at my eggs. The runny yolk has started to congeal.

Travis tells my dad he needs to see him outside.

I keep my head down. I shove my food around the plate with my fork, putting everything in order. Sausage at eight o’clock. Bacon at twelve. Eggs at four. I reach for a hot biscuit, butter it, and watch the butter melt. It runs over the side and oozes into the palm of my hand. I lick it off.

The screen door bangs once, then twice. When I look up, Delia and I are alone. We stare across the room at each other. We both know Travis wouldn’t interrupt my dad’s breakfast unless there was trouble.

I slide my chair back. Before I’m even on my feet, Delia says, “You just keep that backside of yours right where it is.”

“You want to know what’s going on as much as I do.”

“Travis Waite didn’t come here asking to talk to you, did he?”

“Something’s going on.”

Delia pours the grease from the skillet into an empty coffee can. I watch her hands. The skillet is heavy, but the pan doesn’t even wobble as she chips away at the crusted bottom with the spatula. “If it’s something you need to know, your daddy’ll tell you.” She stabs the spatula in my direction. A few drops of grease splatter on the linoleum. “Your breakfast’s gettin’ cold.”

Delia and I have been having these battles of wills since the day I learned my first word: beans. Delia leaned right into my face, lifted the green mush from the baby-food jar, and pointed to it. “They’re peas, baby girl. Not beans.”

“Beans,” I said. “Beansbeansbeans.” I went right on saying that word until Delia held up a roll of adhesive tape and threatened to seal my mouth shut, temporarily putting an end to my defiance.

My own recollection of this momentous event, which happened when I was barely a toddler, is nonexistent. My dad is the one who likes telling the story. He’s got a whole stock of stories about our wars—Delia’s and mine. But he’s never taken sides in them.

Delia is eyeing me, trying to size up what my next move is going to be. I brush a few biscuit crumbs from my Bermuda shorts and pick up my fork. It’s not worth the effort, arguing over something I can wheedle out of my dad when he gets back.

Only, he doesn’t come back.

I go upstairs to read my latest issue of Seventeen. When I come back down an hour later, Delia is dumping the food from my dad’s plate into the trash.

I’ve got an appointment to get my hair cut at noon. Then I’m supposed to meet my friend Rayanne Beecham at the movie theater. My dad hasn’t given me my allowance yet. And it is a two-mile walk to town. I have been hoping he will give me a ride. It’s not like I can’t walk that distance. I do it all the time. But it is already eighty-five degrees outside and the air is so humid it makes my lungs feel spongy.

I run back upstairs and check my wallet. Three dollars. My haircut is going to cost a dollar fifty, plus the tip. The matinee costs fifty cents. I do the math in my head. If I don’t get popcorn, I can stop by Whelan’s Drive-In after the movie for a Coke and maybe a hot dog or hamburger. My only problem at the moment is finding a ride. I decide I’ve still got time.

I file my nails and try out my new nail polish. The exact same shade of shell-pink pearl that the model on the cover of Seventeen is wearing.

When it’s almost noon, I stand at the top of the stairs and listen. Silence. “Dad?” I shout. “You down there?” Nothing. “Delia?” Delia doesn’t answer either.

I have no idea where she’s got to. But if I don’t get moving, I’ll miss my hair appointment. There is nothing left to do but grab my purse and start walking.

By the time I get to Luellen’s beauty shop I am twenty minutes late and feeling like one big drop of water. My blouse sticks to my back and sweat dribbles down the sides of my face. My hair is a hopeless helmet of frizz.

Luellen is snipping away at Erdine Tucker’s hair while Erdine sips an RC Cola. Erdine is a senior. She gives me a floppy wave when I come through the door.

Luellen has a waiting area set up in one corner of her beauty shop. I take a seat and flip through HairDo magazine. That gets old real quick. You can spend just so long staring at photos of models who all look like they belong in a Breck shampoo ad.

Some girl I’ve never seen before is busy sudsing up Marilee Redfern’s hair in the sink across the room. Mrs. Redfern is Judge Redfern’s wife and head of the school board.

The girl has her own hair pulled back in a ponytail. She’s not much more than a little slip of a thing.

The front of her uniform has large splotches of water on it. Luellen makes everybody who works for her wear uniforms—light blue with white Peter Pan collars and white aprons. They look like waitress uniforms.

Luellen’s face is shiny with perspiration. Little strands of red-brown curls stick to her cheeks. She brushes them away with the back of her hand. “Phew, it’s hotter than a griddle in Hades out there today. You want another RC, Erdine, honey?”

Erdine shakes her head. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“How about you, Dove?” Luellen calls over to me.

I shake my head. “No thanks. You sure could do with an air conditioner, Luellen,” I tell her. “Folks don’t want to spend money getting their hair done on a day like this. Their do’ll flop before they even make it through your front door.” I don’t bother to mention that my legs are stuck to the turquoise plastic seat cover.

Luellen nods. “Well, now, you got a point, Dove. It’s just them things is so darn expensive. My electric bill would go through the roof.”

“A ceiling fan might be nice,” Erdine offers. She points toward Luellen’s ceiling and takes a long swallow of her RC.

I am watching Erdine in the mirror when I catch a glimpse of Luellen’s hair washer staring at me. When I turn around to look at her, she goes back to rinsing the last of the soap out of Mrs. Redfern’s hair. Even after all that shampooing, I can still smell the lotion from her permanent wave all the way across the room.

The girl wraps Mrs. Redfern’s hair in a pink towel and sends her over to Luellen. Then she leans over the sink and rinses away the soap bubbles. Spidery wisps of pale hair escape from her ponytail and fall across her cheeks. She has skinny arms covered with light freckles. I can’t help but wonder where she’s from. We don’t get many folks moving into Benevolence.

The girl picks up a towel to dry her hands. She gives me a shy smile. I notice a dark gap where’s she’s missing a tooth on the upper right side of her mouth. She reaches for the broom and sweeps up hair that has formed a little nest around one of the empty chairs.

Erdine admires her haircut in the mirror while Luellen unties the cloth that has been covering Erdine’s clothes and dumps the hair on the floor.

I’m getting worried. If Mrs. Redfern is next in line, I’ll never make it to the movie theater in time. Usually Luellen has at least two people working with her on Saturdays, not counting the hair-washing person.

Just when I am thinking I might have to cancel my appointment, here comes Nona Parker from the back room. She brushes powdered sugar from around her bright red lipstick mouth, smearing a little red to one side. Her uniform is stretched so tight across her chest, the buttons look about ready to pop off.

Nona is okay with perms and setting hair, but her hair-cutting skills are sorely lacking. I do not want her to come anywhere near me with a pair of scissors. Silently I say a prayer that Nona will set Mrs. Redfern’s hair, leaving Luellen to cut mine.

Apparently the Lord is on vacation and doesn’t get my message because Nona is suddenly looming over me. She practically pulls me to my feet and steers me toward one of the chairs, the whole time talking a blue streak about how long it’s been since they last saw me, and oh my, wasn’t my hair having a frizzy fit today. Nona stands close to six feet tall in her stocking feet and weighs at least seventy-five pounds more than I do. She is not someone you want to offend, especially when she is packing a pair of scissors.

I plop into the chair and stare over at Luellen, trying to get her attention. I send her desperate eye signals: Save me, Luellen, and I promise I will always come to your shop to get my hair cut no matter where I’m living, even if I have to travel halfway around the world to get here.

Erdine gets out of her chair and brushes off her capri pants, even though there isn’t a single strand of hair on them. We both look into the mirror at the same time. Then she leans over and whispers, “Her folks are . . .” Erdine stops talking and blinks a few times, like her batteries have died or something.

“Are what?”

“Well, you know . . . migrants.” What Erdine doesn’t say, I hear in the way she says migrants. What she means is “white trash.”

At first I think she’s talking about Nona. But this can’t be, because Nona has grown up in this town. She graduated from our high school five or six years ago. Her father owns the Gulf station at the far end of Main Street.

Erdine picks up on my confusion. “I’m talking about the girl—what’s her name?—Rosemary something.” She tilts her head toward where the new girl is now washing plastic perm curlers in the sink and stacking them in a pile on a towel.

Nona pins her fists to her hips and practically snorts at Erdine. “Aren’t you about done here?” she says.

Erdine straightens up and pulls her shoulders back. She turns to Luellen, who’s busy winding rollers into Mrs. Redfern’s hair. “I’ll just leave my money up front by the register,” she says. Without waiting to see what Luellen has to say about that, she marches to the front door, plunking down a dollar and some change on her way out.

I glance at my watch. I’ve got less than fifteen minutes to get to the movie theater.