I got a frantic call from Jungle Larry’s Safari, hoping I would help them with an ailing snake.
“But I don’t do snakes,” I reminded Larry, a nice-enough man who had retired, along with some weather-beaten animals, from a traveling circus. “Try the vet in Everglades City.”
I didn’t have anything against snakes but they were outside my area of expertise. And besides, I figured I’d never have the option of getting married again—assuming I’d want to—if I became known as the Snake Lady. Turtle Lady was bad enough.
The next meeting of our reading group was the following day. I hoped the evening would go more smoothly than the last time. I saw right away—and was relieved—that everyone seemed to feel the same way. The Feminine Mystique had caused enough trouble.
Miss Lansbury was even prepared for a diversion: she suggested we read aloud from Little Women, and we quickly got into it, passing the book around the circle. For some reason this was strangely soothing, like drinking tea with honey when you’ve got a nasty cold.
Of course every one of us, except Robbie-Lee, had read Little Women several times. The story was all new to Robbie-Lee, which was kind of interesting to watch, almost like reading the book again for the first time. He even cried when he realized sweet little Beth was going to die. This in turn made the rest of us cry, but it was a healthy kind of weeping—a tonic of sorts.
Miss Lansbury pointed out that critics sometimes pooh-poohed Little Women by calling the book a “domestic drama.” Jackie harrumphed. “Of course it was a domestic drama, that’s all women were allowed to do—stay home! The men go away to war, they go to college. I hated it—still do—when Laurence goes off to college, leaving poor Jo behind.”
Jackie, it seemed, was still grappling with The Feminine Mystique.
“But what’s fascinating—is it not?—is that a great deal actually goes on within the March household.” This was Miss Lansbury. “It is the relationships that matter. It’s an ingenious depiction of a sophisticated social sphere—the world of women.”
This was loftier than we were in the mood for. “Oh, let’s just keep reading the book,” said Mrs. Bailey White. “Forget all that other stuff.”
In the car on the way home, Plain Jane made an interesting point. “With all the times I read Little Women when I was growing up,” she said, “would you believe I never really noticed—until tonight—that the father in the story isn’t present because he’s a chaplain in the Union Army? I just thought of him as having ‘gone off to war.’ It’s a wonder they allowed us to read that book south of the Mason-Dixon line.”
“Maybe that’s because the father is a chaplain. He’s not actually gone off to kill anyone. Maybe that made it all right.” This from Jackie.
“And he’s not a main character,” Priscilla added. “I mean, as a character he is mostly absent.”
“I think it’s because the book is about a family and you become attached to them as people,” I suggested. “You don’t think of them as Northerners, even though it’s very clear they live up north. They could be anywhere. It could be set in the South, with the father serving as a chaplain in the Confederate Army.”
This left everyone thinking to themselves. “We should talk more about this at our next meeting.” This from Mrs. Bailey White. But no sooner had she spoken than we noticed something odd—a strange smell in the night air like burning leaves. The odor got stronger and Jackie panicked, thinking the Buick’s engine might’ve caught fire. She shut off the motor, right then and there, and asked Robbie-Lee to look under the hood.
“No engine fire,” he reported a moment later, “but something is definitely burning ahead.” He sounded anxious, which had the effect of unsettling the rest of us.
“Well, it can’t be a swamp fire,” Mrs. Bailey White said. “No way. Not with all this rain lately.”
“Oh my God,” Priscilla said, her voice trembling, “maybe one of the houses is on fire.”
“Well then, let’s go as fast as we can and see if we can help,” Jackie said. Her voice was almost unrecognizable—about a whole octave higher than usual. She hit the gas before anyone could think of what to say.
The sky grew brighter as we continued. “I think we should turn around,” Robbie-Lee said. “Or stop here and I’ll go ahead on foot and see what I can do to help.”
“There is nowhere to turn around, except at the church,” Jackie replied. The church would be coming up on our left, just past the one sharp bend in the road. The houses were beyond it, perhaps a half mile. I remember asking Priscilla why the church wasn’t built closer and she had smiled. “The church was built first,” she explained. “This was right after slavery days. Once they decided to live here, they picked the best piece of land for the church. They cleared the land there and slept on the ground. It wasn’t till later they built the houses, one by one.”
Just as I was remembering these words, we rounded the bend, and Jackie hit the brakes so hard, I smacked my forehead on the seat in front of me.
Standing straight in front of us were five men in white robes, torches in their hands.
Had they been waiting for us? Or had they seen car headlights headed their way and planned to stop anyone who happened by? Then I saw the rest of them. There were another eight, maybe ten, in the clearing next to the church.
It was the church that was on fire. Even during the few seconds that had just gone by, we could see the blaze was growing worse. Flames burst through a section of the roof. An arc of fire leaped from the roof to an old-time revival tent set up beside the church, on the lawn. The tent didn’t burn, it exploded, tearing itself loose from the ropes that had secured it to the ground.
The most peculiar thing was that the men in robes and hoods—the five that were standing dead ahead in the road—did not turn to look at the progress of the fire. The flames were wild as a hurricane and (to me, at least) surprisingly loud. And yet these men, these strange inhuman creatures, had no reaction, which made them seem even scarier, if that was possible.
Eight or nine seconds passed. I realized that Priscilla was whimpering or maybe praying. Someone else—Mrs. Bailey White—was saying, “Oh. Oh. Oh.”
I heard my own voice saying, “Priscilla, get down.” I pushed her to the floorboard and took off my coat, covering her with it. I knew this probably wouldn’t fool anyone, but it was the best I could do. Mrs. Bailey White followed suit, unbuttoning her cloth coat and laying it on top of mine.
“Priscilla, lay as flat as you can,” Mrs. Bailey White said.
Not a peep came from the front seat until suddenly Robbie-Lee said, “Back up.” Jackie made no attempt to put the car in reverse, and he repeated, “Back up. Back up! Now!”
Plain Jane started yelling, “Turn around, Jackie, turn around!”
But there was no way to turn around. The road was barely one car length wide.
“Don’t turn around! Back up!” This was Robbie-Lee.
“Oh, shut up!” screamed Jackie. “Don’t tell me what to do.” And then she did something that shocked us all. She didn’t back up. She didn’t try to turn around.
She stomped on the accelerator.
The big Buick growled and the wheels dug into the soil, spewing sand and whipping the car from side to side until the tires took hold. We were all screaming, even Priscilla, I think, from underneath the coats. I got a glimpse at Jackie and knew we were all goners. Her eyes were bugging out in a way I didn’t think possible. She was screaming loudest of all, gripping that wheel—and aiming right for the Klan guys like a kamikaze pilot. At first they didn’t move, then scattered like yard birds when they realized the driver of the car wasn’t fooling.
Jackie yanked the wheel to the left and headed for the other Klansmen. She clipped one man and hit a second one hard enough that he bounced across the hood of the car. His watch—or something—hit the windshield, leaving a large scratch or mark. Jackie just kept going. We drove behind the church and came around the other side, past where the revival tent had stood until a few minutes earlier. Bouncing so hard in our seats that we couldn’t speak, we assumed Jackie had gone completely mad, and there was nothing left to do but try to hang onto each other or a piece of the car interior. As we lurched back onto the road, now heading back to Naples, I heard a sound I’d been expecting—a shotgun blast—but it was aimed wildly and didn’t come close.
Jackie continued to make a beeline toward Naples. After a while, though, she slowed down, finally coming to a stop.
“What the hell are you doing now?” said Robbie-Lee.
“You drive,” she said in a faraway voice. “I can’t . . .”
Robbie-Lee climbed over Plain Jane and Jackie and squeezed himself behind the wheel.
Priscilla had dug herself out from the coats and was gripping the seat back in front of us. “Where are we going?” she asked. “What are we going to do?”
“We have to go somewhere and think,” Plain Jane said.
“My house,” said Mrs. Bailey White. “No one goes there. You can pull the car around back.”
This option was so obviously the right one that no one suggested anything else. Robbie-Lee drove fast—almost recklessly—and glanced in the rearview mirror every few seconds. But no one followed. Not yet, I thought.
When we reached Mrs. Bailey White’s meandering driveway and made our way toward the house, I could almost breathe normally again. Mrs. Bailey White directed Robbie-Lee to drive toward two mimosa trees, which seemed to make no sense at all until we were up so close, we could see a narrow path—not much wider than the Buick—that would take us around back. When he turned the headlights off, the night sky was so dark, I thought it might swallow us whole.
All we had to do was follow Mrs. Bailey White about twenty feet to the back door. Robbie-Lee had to carry Priscilla. Then he went back for Jackie. I couldn’t tell which one was in worse shape. We settled them into large, heavy chairs that faced each other by a fireplace. Robbie-Lee commenced to building a small fire, while Plain Jane and I tried to make Priscilla and Jackie comfortable. Once the fire got going, we realized that both of them were suffering from some sort of shock but were slowly coming around. Mrs. Bailey White pulled down the shades and closed the hurricane shutters.
“If anyone sees a little light from the fireplace or smells the smoke, don’t worry, that will seem normal to them,” she said.
“Nice firewood,” Robbie-Lee said. “Where do you get it?”
“Chop it myself,” Mrs. Bailey White said proudly.
“Don’t you have electric in this house? What about heat?”
“ ’Course I got electric, and I also got a furnace and an oil tank.” Mrs. Bailey White seemed a little miffed. “I just like to do things the old-fashioned way.”
Despite the gravity of our situation, Robbie-Lee could not resist studying the room with a professional eye. “Love the wallpaper. Is it vintage?”
“I guess you could say that.” Mrs. Bailey White almost laughed.
“And those ceramic jars there on the mantel,” he added. “That’s quite a nice collection. Are they cookie jars? I notice they don’t match exactly, but that’s what makes them special.”
“They’re not cookie jars, they’re urns,” she said. “The one on the far left is Grandma. The one next to that is Aunt Fern. This one over here”—she pointed to a third one—“that’s my late husband. And next to him are the dogs. I put them all together.”
I give Robbie-Lee a lot of credit. His eyebrows reached toward heaven but otherwise he didn’t move a single muscle. I’m sure I recoiled, but I was not, thankfully, in Mrs. Bailey White’s line of vision. Even Jackie and Priscilla, who had barely been opening their eyes, turned to stare at the mantel. That’s when I knew they were both going to be all right.
“You mean . . . they . . . these people . . . your family . . . were cremated?” Robbie-Lee had finally found his voice. Most of us were good Baptists or Methodists and expected to be buried six feet in the ground. I had never even heard of anyone in Collier County being cremated and, apparently, neither had Robbie-Lee.
He tried changing the subject. “So, how old is the house? Nice wainscoting, by the way.”
“Could we stop the chitchat, please?” demanded Plain Jane, seated next to me on a leather sofa the size of a hippopotamus. “I think we have more important things to discuss. Mrs. Bailey White, please, come sit here so you can hear everything that is said.” Mrs. Bailey White obeyed, and Plain Jane continued. “Could someone please explain to me what happened tonight? And what we are going to do now?”
No one answered, which seemed to irk Plain Jane even more. “Jackie,” she demanded, “please explain.” And then came the words as acidic as year-old cider vinegar: “You could have gotten us killed.”
Jackie tried to answer. “I was trying to . . . get us out of there,” she said finally.
“Why the hell didn’t you back up or turn around?” Plain Jane was shouting now.
“Well, I did turn around.”
“Okay, you two, stop your fussing.” This from me. “Let’s be grateful we are all here, alive. Especially . . .” I didn’t have to say the name. I meant Priscilla, who would have been their prime target, though who knows what they would have done to the rest of us.
Robbie-Lee crouched by the fire, snapping a few small sticks in his hands and flinging them into the flames. Instead of looking at each other, the way we did in our circle at the library, we stared mindlessly at the humble fire. How odd, I thought, that we looked at this fire as a source of comfort. An hour or so before, a fire meant something else altogether.
“I don’t know if this will be helpful,” I heard myself saying, “but Mama used to say that when you don’t know what to do, do nothing. She meant you can try too hard to solve a problem. If you give it a little time, the answer might just come to you, plain as day.”
No one objected. I was hoping Plain Jane would calm down and Jackie and Priscilla would recover a bit more. We needed all of our brains working together to figure this one out. I assumed we probably had two choices, neither of ’em good. We could lie and deny we were ever there. Or we could go to the police—the sooner, the better—and tell them what happened, although this was risky since the Klan and the police were known to be friendly and rumored to be in cahoots with each other.
Priscilla had curled up in a little ball, her shoes kicked off and her feet tucked under her. In some ways, Jackie was in worse shape—limp and defeated.
But Plain Jane was not through with Jackie. “You know, I grew up in the South, and one thing you don’t do is tangle with the Klan.” She hurled the words in Jackie’s direction.
Jackie didn’t react at first, but then she surprised us. In a low, weary voice, she said to no one in particular, “I was in a bad fire once. A long time ago.”
“Really?” asked Robbie-Lee, when she didn’t say more. “What happened?”
Jackie sighed. “As I said, this was a long time ago.” She paused, and then: “It was terrible. Completely terrible.”
Now we had to know. “Where was this fire?” This from Priscilla in a tiny voice. Until now, she’d been silent.
Jackie looked at Priscilla, then at each of us, one by one. “During the war. At a nightclub. In Boston. I wasn’t supposed to be there. My parents thought I was at a friend’s house.”
Just when we thought she might not say anything more, she added, “It was a famous fire. You may have heard of it. The Cocoanut Grove fire.”
“Oh my God,” said Plain Jane. “Yes, I heard of it.”
“Me too,” said Mrs. Bailey White. “I read about it.”
The younger ones among us—Robbie-Lee, Priscilla, and me—were only vaguely aware of the story. When Jackie seemed unable to continue, Plain Jane said to us quietly, “Mostly young people were killed.”
“Four hundred and ninety-two people, to be exact,” Jackie said. “There were only supposed to be five hundred in the club, but there were about a thousand. The doors were locked from the outside so no one could sneak in without paying. To this day, I don’t know how I got out. I think maybe someone carried me.”
“But when we saw there was a fire tonight, up ahead of us, you drove toward it.” This was Priscilla.
“Don’t think I didn’t want to run away,” Jackie said, “but all I could think of was your grandma being trapped in her house.”
Priscilla and Jackie locked eyes. “Thank you,” Priscilla mouthed the words.
“So when you actually saw the fire—the church—is that why you reacted the way you did?” This was Mrs. Bailey White. “You panicked?”
“No,” Jackie said. “Of course I was shocked when I saw the flames. I hadn’t seen a building burn like that since . . .” Her voice trailed off. “But there was something else too. When I was a little girl, we were visiting my aunt and uncle on Long Island. And we ran into the Klan.”
“On Long Island?” several of us cried out. Jackie waited for us to settle down before continuing. “Yes, on Long Island. I’m not sure where, someplace near the eastern end. My father was driving; my mother was sitting next to him. I was in the backseat, mostly asleep. And we came around a bend in the road—just like tonight—and there they were, these men. In their robes. Holding torches. They had blocked the road; there was nothing we could do. My father drove forward and had to face them.”
“But they let you go, of course,” Plain Jane said quickly. “You’re white.”
“Well, yes, but we had a very bad moment. They asked for our names and where we were from, and one of the men said to the other, as if it was a dirty word, ‘Catholics.’ And he spat on the ground.”
“You’re a Catholic?” said Robbie-Lee, clearly surprised.
“I was raised a Catholic,” Jackie replied. “But I became a Unitarian when I married Ted.”
“What’s a Unitarian?” asked Robbie-Lee.
“It’s church, without God,” Plain Jane said.
“Don’t be silly,” Jackie snapped, and almost laughed. “Unitarians are a type of Protestant. They’re just a little less structured than, say, the Methodists or the Baptists.”
“Excuse me—could we get back to the story on Long Island?” This was me, feeling impatient and being more rude than I had ever been in my life. But I wanted to understand.
“Yes, yes,” said Jackie. “They taunted my father and mother because we were Catholics. I think they hoped we would deny it, but my father would never have done that, not in front of me, anyway. He said, ‘Yes, we are Catholic.’ And I remember wondering what would happen next, because clearly, to these men in their white robes and torches, being Catholic was not a good thing.”
“What happened then?” Plain Jane asked the question the rest of us were afraid to ask.
“Another car came up behind us. This diverted their attention away from us. I remember looking out the back window of our car. They made those other people get out of their car. They were Negroes. And although we were Catholic, which they hated, they hated Negroes more. I only remember the man—the driver. There were others in the car but I looked away when they were getting out. I think there were women—several women. And maybe another man. But at that point, the men with the torches yelled at my father that we should go. They yelled something nasty I didn’t understand, but it was clear we should leave. And my father, he drove away as fast as he could.”
“What happened to the people—the Negro people?” Priscilla asked.
“Well, I don’t know,” Jackie said, her voice rising. “I was a child. I never found out. I’m not sure it’s possible to find out. I asked my father when I was a teenager. I had become a little . . . rebellious. I asked him one night and he got angry. He said, ‘Don’t ever mention that again.’ I was so upset, I called my friend Ginny and walked to her house to sleep over. But we snuck out. To the Cocoanut Grove.”
Plain Jane groaned and Robbie-Lee shook his head. Priscilla shut her eyes tightly.
“I need a cigarette,” Jackie said. “Right away. Where’s my darn purse?”
“I brought everything in from the car; it’s around here somewhere.” Robbie-Lee seemed happy to have something to do. He found Jackie’s purse and handed it to her. She rifled through it until she found her cigs and lighter.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Bailey White, I should have asked you first if I could smoke,” Jackie said. She was definitely starting to sound like her old self again.
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Bailey White. “My husband used to smoke Camels.” At the mention of her husband, the rest of us glanced at the mantel. “I may as well tell you,” she added, “I didn’t actually kill him.”
“Huh?” This from Robbie-Lee.
“Well, I’ve been waiting a long time to tell the truth of what happened, and now seems as good a time as any,” she said. “Does anyone want to hear it?”
“By all means,” said Plain Jane. I, for one, was not so sure.
“But you went to prison,” Robbie-Lee said. “You were found guilty.”
“Aw, that doesn’t mean a doggone thing,” she replied dismissively. “I was guilty, but not of killing him. I was guilty of being unfaithful.” With a touch of anger in her voice, she added, “I suppose y’all find that hard to believe. Hard to believe I was ever young. Or beautiful. Or unhappily married, so I had an affair.”
“Wow,” said Jackie between puffs.
“I was married young, against my wishes. My daddy said I had no choice—I had to marry the son of his business partner. Nobody knew I was in love already, and if they had, they’d have skinned me alive, because my boyfriend was, well, he was not a white man.”
“Well, then, what was he?” This was Jackie.
“He was . . . colored.”
Priscilla leaned forward to look at Mrs. Bailey White closely, as if to convince herself that those words really had come from the older lady’s mouth.
“I knew him all my life. His name was Benjamin. One day when I thought my husband had gone into town, Benjamin and I were dancing. That’s all we were doing—dancing. But my husband came home early and I didn’t hear him on account of the Victrola. I’m sure you can guess his reaction.” Mrs. Bailey White sighed before continuing. “It happened very fast. My husband pulled out a gun and shot me. He got me right here.” She rubbed her upper arm. “Benjamin charged at him and they wrestled for the gun. I heard the gun go off and I thought Benjamin was shot. Then I realized it was my husband. Benjamin had accidentally shot him right through the heart.”
“Lordy, Lordy,” I said under my breath.
“Benjamin made a bandage out of a towel and tied it tight to stop the bleeding from my arm. I told him to leave—to get going. He looked sad, but he knew I was right. He’d be hanged without a trial. At least I would have a chance.
“We said our good-byes and he promised he’d come back for me when the time was right, when things were all smoothed over. But I was convicted. I was sent to jail. And I never heard from Benjamin. I told myself he would have written or visited if he could. Sometimes I even lied to myself that he was waiting for me somewhere, maybe up north.”
“You never heard anything?” Plain Jane asked gently. “Not even through his family or friends?”
“I heard a rumor he went to Chicago or maybe Detroit. Not much to go on. After all these years, I doubt he’s even alive. Or if he is, he probably has a family.”
“I don’t understand why you were convicted,” Jackie said. “Didn’t you claim self-defense? And what about your arm? You had a gunshot wound to your arm! Couldn’t you have just claimed there’d been an intruder?”
“I was afraid to mention there’d been anyone else here. I just said that Wilford—that was my husband’s name—he came home and was yelling at me for no good reason. We had a fight and he shot me. I took the gun from him and shot him square in the chest. That was my story.”
“And the jury didn’t accept that?” Jackie said. “Why not? With a good lawyer you should have been convicted of manslaughter, not murder.”
Mrs. Bailey White stared at Jackie. “You forget,” she said, “this was a long time ago. A man could do whatever he wanted to his wife. And remember—women weren’t allowed to serve on a jury. The jury was all men—needless to say, all white—and some of them had been friends of Wilford’s! I think they set out to make an example of me. They couldn’t let a wife get away with something like this. So it wasn’t fair, no. But that’s what happened. I’m just lucky I didn’t hang. I would have, except my sentence was commuted to life in prison. I’m not even sure why. Then, last year, the parole board said I could go home. Said I’d been a model prisoner.
“You know, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I think I actually hoped, maybe even expected, that Benjamin would be waiting for me. Not outside the prison, of course, but here at home. It was in the papers when they let me out. And somehow I just hoped he would know. That someone would tell him or send him the clipping.
“So now you know my story. And I’m lucky—lucky to have a home to come back to. This was my childhood home. I was born in this house. My father gave it to Wilford and me as a wedding gift. And this is where Wilford died, and now he’s up there on the mantel. If the house had been in Wilford’s name, they would have taken it from me when I went to jail. But Daddy never got around to changing the deed to my name and Wilford’s. Daddy passed while I was in prison, and I inherited the house.
“It’s the only good thing that’s happened to me.” She blew her nose into her handkerchief. “Well, at least now you know I’m no murderer. Yes, I know the things people say about me—all kinds of things. That I ambushed my husband with a shotgun. That I poisoned his oatmeal. But it’s not true.”
“You should write your life story,” Plain Jane said suddenly. “I mean the true story.”
“Oh Lord, the world ain’t ready for that yet,” she replied with a laugh.
“You gals are tough as a buzzard’s talons,” Robbie-Lee said. “You and Jackie—I can’t believe what y’all have been through.” He fell silent and then added, “You know, I have something I could say—about myself, I mean. Something I never told anyone.” Our heads swiveled in his direction. Now what? I thought. He seemed to be gathering his courage, inspired by Jackie and Mrs. Bailey White but still afraid to speak up.
“I don’t quite know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it,” he said finally. “You all may find this hard to believe, but I . . . I . . . I am . . . I am a—” He choked on the words. He tried again. “I am a—” But he couldn’t go on.
We waited while he coughed and fidgeted. “This is very hard for me,” he said. “But the truth is I am a h-h-h-h—” he stuttered. He tried again. The best he could do was, “I am a home.”
“You’re a what?” asked Mrs. Bailey White.
“I’m a homo—” he said, louder now but still unable to finish the word. This was agonizing to watch. Taking one more deep breath, he blurted out, “I am a homosexual.”
This was the most amazing nonnews the rest of us had ever heard. Jackie closed her eyes, and I swear she was trying not to smile. “Well, of course you are, Robbie-Lee,” she said sweetly. “We already knew that.”
“Oh my God!” he howled. “You mean it’s obvious?”
“Well, probably not to everyone,” said Plain Jane.
“Aw, what the heck, what difference does it make, anyway?” This was Mrs. Bailey White. “I mean, you are who you are.”
“But I didn’t think anyone knew.” The man loved to help ladies with their home decorating projects, ordering chintz from Sears by the yard. He didn’t hunt or fish, swear, go to football games, drink beer, or chew tobacco. Not only that, he belonged to the Collier County Women’s Literary Society. Just who did he think he was fooling?
Only himself, apparently. He began to cry.
“Oh, please don’t cry, Robbie-Lee.” This from Priscilla. “We are all God’s children.”
Suddenly he stopped weeping, a thought having entered his mind. “Wait a second! Y’all knew all this time—and you still love me? I mean, you let me be part of your group?”
“Of course we love you, Robbie-Lee,” Jackie said. And Robbie-Lee started crying all over again. We waited until he was all cried out. After a decent interval, Jackie piped up, “Well, I have some news I’d like to share. Would anyone like to hear it? It’s good news. About Priscilla.”
Priscilla looked up, baffled.
“Oh dear, where is it?” Jackie said to herself. She rummaged through the pockets of her skirt until she found a small envelope that had been carefully folded in half. It was now curved, having molded itself to the shape of Jackie’s hip these last few hours. “Thank God I didn’t lose it,” she said under her breath. For the first time since we entered the house, she stood up from her chair. Leaning across the fancy coffee table, she handed it with a flourish to Priscilla.
“What is it?” Priscilla looked totally confused.
“Just read it,” Jackie said.
“It’s from Bethune-Cookman College,” Priscilla said, her eyes wide. She carefully removed the letter from the envelope. The letter was addressed to Jackie. “ ‘Dear Mrs. Hart,’” Priscilla read in a voice that was barely audible.
“Louder,” said Mrs. Bailey White.
“‘Dear Mrs. Hart,’” Priscilla began again, only a tad louder but turning slightly so Mrs. Bailey White was more likely to hear. “ ‘Thank you for sending the application on behalf of Miss Priscilla Harmon. We are delighted that you brought her to our attention. We believe she is a worthy candidate for admission to Bethune-Cookman College. She has been accepted into the Class of 1967. Based on the essays she wrote, and that you were kind enough to send to us, the English Department has decided to offer her a full scholarship.’”
Robbie-Lee and Plain Jane gasped. Jackie was smiling but looking anxiously at Priscilla, who let the letter fall to her lap. While she was reading aloud, I noticed her voice had gotten softer and softer.
“What did she say? What is happening?” Mrs. Bailey White had missed the gist of the letter entirely.
Plain Jane turned to Mrs. Bailey White and declared, “Priscilla is going to college!”
Priscilla began to shake visibly, sobbing.
“The letter came yesterday,” said Jackie. “I was going to give it to you tonight when we dropped you off at your grandmother’s. I thought you might want to show it to her first.” Jackie’s voice trailed off.
Priscilla covered her face with her hands. She made what seemed like an effort to pull herself together, sitting up straight and wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“Thank you,” Priscilla said to Jackie. She seemed to be gulping for air as she added, “I can’t believe you did this for me.”
“She didn’t know?” Robbie-Lee asked Jackie. “I mean, you didn’t even discuss this with her?”
“I urged her to apply but she kept putting it off,” Jackie said. “So I called Bethune-Cookman and told them about her, how she loved to read, how she dreamed about college, and they sent me an application.”
Robbie-Lee shook his head in admiration. “That’s what I like about you, Jackie. Some people say they’re going to do something, but you actually do it.”
But Jackie looked worried. “Priscilla, maybe I should have handled this differently. Are you all right?”
“Well,” Priscilla began, “it’s just that I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would ever go to college.”
“But you talked about it all the time!” Jackie said. “It was your goal!”
“Not really,” Priscilla said.
“Not really?” Jackie sounded alarmed now.
“It’s hard to explain,” Priscilla said a little defensively.
Plain Jane piped up. “This is a lot to take in. It’s perfectly understandable. Especially after the day we’ve all had.”
Priscilla looked uncomfortable. “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s that I never truly believed I would get to go.” She looked just on the verge of crying again.
“Well, you don’t have to go.” This from Plain Jane. Jackie shot her a look. This was not going as planned.
“There’s something else,” Priscilla said, dropping her face back into her hands. Then she started wailing as loud as Robbie-Lee had, minutes before.
“What? What is it?” Jackie asked, speaking for all of us.
Priscilla looked up, and this time she let her gaze linger on Jackie’s face.
I wanted to comfort or reassure Priscilla, but since I didn’t understand why she was upset, I had no idea what to say. I tried out several phrases in my head and rejected them all. It was Mrs. Bailey White who knew what to do. She left the room and returned with a shawl—mohair, or perhaps angora, in a pale yellow plaid. I don’t usually get excited over such things, but even I said something like, “Oh, that’s lovely.” Mrs. Bailey White’s arthritic hands, gnarly as an old wisteria vine, slowly draped the shawl around Priscilla’s neck and shoulders. Priscilla closed her eyes. She either fell asleep or pretended to. Either way, it was clear we’d hear no more about the topic. Not that night and maybe not ever.