The last couple days leading up to Valentine’s Day were full of whispers about who’d get a heart-shaped card from one of the boys. Hazel was sure she’d get at least three of them and the other girls looked like they’d about melt into a puddle if she did.
When I’d asked Ray if he’d thought of making a card for a girl, he’d looked at me like I’d lost my ever-loving mind.
“Why would I do a thing like that?” he’d asked.
I was half glad he’d not thought to get a Valentine for any of the other girls, and half sore he hadn’t thought to get one for me. But I wasn’t about to tell him so.
Opal taught me more steps to the dance, teaching me to shuffle and spin on the toes of my shoes. She showed me how to move my arms when I wasn’t holding hands with my partner and what to do if I missed a step. She’d even turned on the radio so we could put the steps with music.
When she told me I was getting it, I’d smile. When she said I was a good dancer, I’d believe her.
All that week the ladies in town went to see if Mr. Wheeler had sugar and flour for them to buy and they took home just enough to bake for the cakewalk. They went without other things on their lists so they could spend five cents for a little sugar and another five cents for flour.
Ray’s mouth watered every time he thought about the chance of winning one of those cakes. He’d decided he wanted one with chocolate frosting and he did not care what kind of cake it was.
As for Opal, she shook her head when she heard they were putting on a cakewalk.
“Can we bake a cake for it?” I asked, helping Opal stretch the fresh-washed fitted sheet over my mattress. “I’ll help. I know how to sift flour and crack eggs.”
“I don’t want any part of it,” she told me. She stood straight and let me finish the work myself.
“Why not?” I tilted my head like I did not understand a word coming out of her mouth.
“Because I know what they mean.” She crossed her arms and pushed her lips together tight, the way she did when she wasn’t happy about something at all. “Back a hundred years ago they were a way for white people to laugh at their slaves.”
She wasn’t mad at me and I knew it. Still, I didn’t say a word for fear the wrong thing would come out of my mouth. Instead I tucked the top sheet in at the foot of the bed the way Mama’d shown me when I was smaller. It never would be smooth as Mama would’ve liked, but Opal never said a cross word to me about it.
“My mother told me back in the days when people held slaves, they’d get their colored folks dressed up nice and tell them to act civilized for once,” she told me. “And then they’d judge who did the act the best and give them a cake.”
“Wasn’t that good?”
“No, baby,” Opal said, her voice soft. “It’s never good to make fun of somebody for being some way they can’t change. Not even if you do give one of them a piece of cake for their troubles.”
The night before the dance Opal put my wet hair up in rollers. I’d been happy to let her do so until she started tugging at my hair, wrapping it round and round so I worried I might not have any left on my head by the time she was done. I didn’t dare complain, though, not if I might have movie star curls after all that suffering.
I couldn’t hardly sleep that night. Partly because I was so excited for the next day. Mostly, though, it was because of those rollers poking at my scalp.
The morning of Valentine’s day I ended up being glad for how curly my hair was. Little ringlets bobbed around my face and I thought I did look like Shirley Temple after all. Opal had even bleached my warmest stockings so they’d be nice and bright to go along with my dress.
When I came down for breakfast, Daddy stood up from his seat and put both hands over his heart, tilting his head and looking at me.
“Oh, Pearlie Lou,” he whispered.
I couldn’t understand how seeing me dressed up like that could get his eyes watery. But the way he smiled warmed me all the way to my toes.
“You look nice,” Ray said.
“Thanks,” I said back.
Opal followed behind me, fussing with a curl on the back of my head. “Don’t spill anything on yourself,” she said. “There’s toast you can have. No jam.”
All through breakfast I caught Ray sneaking peeks at me. I pretended not to see.
Daddy’d offered to drive me to school so my dress would stay nice and my curls wouldn’t get ruined by the wind. Ray’d wanted to walk to school like usual, Bert hopping along by his side. Besides, he’d taken it on himself to be sure that pigeon of Bert’s didn’t perish from the earth due to his owner’s smothering love.
Only reason I could figure the pigeon’d made it so long was on account of Ray. Even then, the bird had flown back to the Litchfield’s place three times. It hurt Bert’s feelings on each occasion.
Daddy turned the truck onto the main street and tipped his head to somebody standing on the corner.
“Might need you to walk home after school,” Daddy said. “I’ll have plenty to do for the dance tonight. You think you’ll be all right?”
“By the way, I did what you asked me to,” he said. “Took your package out to the Fitzpatrick place just yesterday.”
Looking at him out of the corner of my eye, I nodded and told him my thank you.
“It was good of you, darlin’. Real good.”
Having Daddy take one of my good dresses over to Delores’s house was my way of turning a cheek for her saying that nasty word about Opal. Meemaw had always said it pleased the heart of God when one of His children got insulted or hurt and didn’t fight back, but gave them another chance.
If there was something Delores Fitzpatrick needed, it was a chance.
I did hope Delores would wear the dress to school, maybe to the dance even. I thought it would be sad if she didn’t come because she didn’t have something nice to wear. I was glad she’d have at least one.
Hazel stood against the outside of the school, puckering her lips and rubbing them together so the dark red would get everybody’s attention. Her eyes looked me over from curly head to polished shoes, then turned back to the girls around her, all of them fawning over how lucky she was to wear lipstick to school.
Not a one of them dared tell her she had a smudge of red on a front tooth. When Miss De Weese rang the bell, we lined up and walked into the school. The girls took notice of each other’s dresses once we got our coats off and I tried not to be sad that nobody said anything about mine. I hung up my coat and felt of my curls, glad that they hadn’t drooped since I left home.
Just as we were all going to our seats, Delores walked in. Her hair was clean and pulled back into a tight braid, a scrap of cloth tied into a ribbon at the bottom. When she took off her too-thin coat, I saw she was wearing the dress I’d had Daddy take over. The green and yellow flowers looked prettier on her than I’d imagined. It hung looser on her than it ever had on me, but it still looked real nice.
More than a few eyes were on her, and Delores seemed to fold up on herself, not liking the attention just then. I tried making my way over to her, but the other kids walking to their desks blocked me. She saw me coming, but looked away before I could smile at her.
That was when I saw Hazel walk past her.
“Nice dress,” Hazel said, her voice hissing. “Who’d you steal if from?”
I opened my mouth to let loose a string of bad words I knew weren’t fit for the classroom, but never got the chance to say a single one of them. Miss De Weese called us to our seats.
Slipping into my desk, I tried thinking of something to say to Delores, but my whole body was shaking from being angry and nothing right came into my mind.
Ray, though, he leaned across me and caught Delores’s eye.
“You look pretty,” he whispered to her.
I’d never seen anybody blush so deep a red.
The way I imagined it, I’d rush out after Hazel just as soon as Miss De Weese dismissed us for lunch. I’d grab her shoulder and swing her around to face me. Without even giving her a chance to say a word, I’d tell her to leave Delores alone or else.
I wouldn’t hit her, much as I’d like to. And I wouldn’t call her a nasty name even if a whole list of them was right on the tip of my tongue. Still, she’d nod and agree, promising not to say another mean word to Delores as long as she lived.
But I didn’t get to give Hazel so much as a dirty look. As soon as I stepped out of the schoolhouse and into the yard I heard Bert calling after me.
“Pearl,” he said. “Wait up.”
I turned and watched him half trip down the steps toward me, and I wished I could die right then. In his hand was a big old piece of paper cut into a heart shape. He’d taken the time to color red all along the edge of the heart.
Once he got close enough he held out the card for me to take. Then he ran past me before I could even tell him thank you. I watched him go, fast as if the devil himself was after him.
Ray walked up to me and looked over my shoulder at the card. “He’s been workin’ on that all week,” he said.
In the middle of the heart Bert had drawn what I guessed was a cat but looked more like a possum. Whichever it was had a heart in its mouth between jagged teeth. Above the critter were letters written in the best hand I thought Bert could manage.
I read it out loud. “I sent along this little kitty to let you know I think you’re pretty.”
“Well, that’s nice, ain’t it?” Ray said. I could tell he was working real hard at not laughing.
I shrugged.
I didn’t want Ray to see how embarrassed I was.
I got back to school a good half hour early. Opal’d packed a couple things for me to take to Delores. Nothing special. Just a biscuit with a dab of jam on it and a hunk of good cheese. I hoped she was still hungry enough to eat it and walked right to the classroom.
Before I stepped in, I spied her and Miss De Weese sitting on either side of a table near the front of the room. Delores had a nice, round, shiny apple she was taking dainty bites off of and a big sandwich on a napkin right in front of her. Gifts from the teacher, I knew it.
She put the apple down and stood, holding out the skirt of her new dress and turning so Miss De Weese could see it. The teacher put her fingers to her lips and declared it the prettiest dress she’d ever seen.
I stepped away from the door. They didn’t need me snooping on them and I didn’t want Delores to be embarrassed that I’d seen how much she liked that dress or to feel like she had to thank me for giving it to her.
It was enough to know that turning the other cheek did feel good after all.
Seemed every time I looked at the clock for the rest of the afternoon only a minute or two had ticked away. Eternity’s passing was how it felt.
When it was finally time to go, Miss De Weese gave each of us a tiny candy heart as we walked out the door.
“Pearl,” Miss De Weese said, putting the pink candy in the palm of my hand. She leaned close and whispered in my ear, “You’re a good friend.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said.
“Delores told me about the dress.”
I nodded, feeling the wilting curls brush against my face.
“That was kind,” Miss De Weese said.
I dropped the candy into my coat pocket, saving it for a time when my stomach wasn’t so troubled, when I might be able to enjoy it, and I walked out of the classroom door, Ray right behind me. I could tell he was already sucking the sweetness out of his candy heart. I wondered if he’d even bothered to read what it said first.
Delores was last to leave and I heard Miss De Weese ask if she’d be going to the dance that night. We walked out of the schoolhouse before I heard Delores’s answer.
If I could’ve changed the way of things, Delores would have gone back home with Miss De Weese where she stayed with the preacher and his wife. They wouldn’t mind having Delores there. All their kids were grown and moved away to start their own families.
They’d give Delores a whole closet of dresses their daughters had outgrown ages ago but were still real nice and clean. Miss De Weese would let Delores use a brand-new cake of soap, scented with rose, to take a bath with. Then she’d brush out Delores’s hair—one hundred strokes—before giving her a nice supper that had steam rising up off it.
Delores would smile and her eyes would stay bright. She’d have somebody looking after her. Somebody to take care of her.
And Miss De Weese would tell Delores stories of pirates or wizards or fairies until bedtime, when she’d show her a clean bed to sleep in. She’d have a room to herself with soft pillows and maybe even a rag doll to hold through the night.
She’d sleep well there, no ghosts of chickens to haunt her and no hungry stomach to keep her up.
Delores would shut her eyes and have nothing but the sweetest of dreams.
“Bert and me’s gonna go over to the farm,” Ray said.
“Huh?” I asked, just then realizing we were standing right in front of the house on Magnolia Street. “Oh. Yeah.”
“You all right?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You wanna go with us?” he asked. “Mr. Seegert said he’s got a way to make the pigeon stay to home.”
“Nah,” I answered. “Think I might go in and rest a spell.”
Ray shrugged and turned to cross the street to collect Bert.
“Ray?” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Why do you think everybody hates Delores so much?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” he said. “Why does anybody do anything?”
I didn’t have an answer to that question.
“Hey, tell Bert I say thanks for the card,” I said. “Would you?”
“Sure I will.”
He gave me one last look before going across the street.