Right as rain, p.2
Right as Rain, page 2
Icey nodded, dipping her head to show a big silver barrette holding up her black curls. “Tee Wee,” she said. “Look like we gonna be neighbors a spell.”
Tee Wee turned her back and opened the screen door. “Look like that,” she said, pulling the door open and stepping over all the children who had been leaning against it. “Ernestine, Crow, you girls come for these young’ns,” she called to her daughters. Let this Icey know she had help in her house; let her know she didn’t raise no trash. And she grinned, hurrying back to the kitchen. Let her smell my chicken pie and greens cookin and see them four pies on my windowsill when she look out hers.
ICEY DIDN’T NOTICE the pies because she was too busy inspecting her wonderful new home. After Luther followed Tee Wee into their house, Icey had led her children inside the adjacent, identical one, where they would now be living. Four rooms—more than she’d ever had before—a roof that looked like it wouldn’t leak, and most wondrous of all, electricity! Every bare bulb hanging from the ceiling in each room came magically alive with a small orange glow when she flipped the little lever on the wall.
Looking to her left, she saw the small kitchen, which had a wood-burning stove, a washstand, and even some shelves to put dishes on. The other door from the front room led to a back bedroom, and from there she could see into another small bedroom. No windows, but there was one in the kitchen and one in the front room, and only two panes were broken. “Thank You, Lord Jesus,” Icey said, lifting her head to the wooden ceiling. Preacher Smith had said the Lord would provide and He had.
The house was furnished with only a few sticks of furniture: a couch with broken springs and stuffing protruding out both cushions, a small wooden table in the kitchen, two straight ladder-backed chairs, and one mattress on the floor. Icey kicked off the shoes she’d stuffed paper in to make them fit and threw herself down on the couch. She sagged to the floor. “Okay, young’ns,” she called to the children who were wandering through the house like scattered ants. “Bring all them boxes in; we home.”
WHEN TEE WEE turned out the lights at nine, she noticed Icey’s house was aglow with pumpkin light. Hidden in the darkness of her own window, she stood looking through Icey’s kitchen into the front room. Two naked children were sprawled out on the floor on sheets and blankets, and what Tee Wee declared to herself were “nothin but rags.” Craning her head sideways, she could see Icey sitting on the couch, still wearing the lace dress and shriveled blue aster; she held something in her hand that looked like a book. Raising the window, Tee Wee stuck her head out into the cool night air. It was a book, and the woman’s head was down like she was reading it. Tee Wee felt enormously jealous. Her secret dream was to learn to read and write. Her Ernestine could read, Crow, Rufus, and Paul, too, but Tee Wee herself could barely make out her name. “I said this woman was trouble, and here it is sittin right there next door to me.” She slammed the window down and made her way in the darkness to her bed, where Luther lay sleeping with his mouth wide open. Crawling in beside her man, Tee Wee curled her big body around his bony form. Readin ain’t everythin, she told herself. Let her sleep with that book; I got a man.
Icey and Tee Wee came out of their houses the next morning at the same moment and stood planted on their porches staring over at each other like gladiators about to enter an arena. This Monday morning was an overcast, gray fall day, and the obscured sun gave off little warmth. Tee Wee pulled her sweater arms down over her square hands. She knew it would be hot in just a few hours, but for now the wool felt comforting to her. Icey, she saw out of the corner of her eye, had no sweater, but she looked perfectly warm in her sleeveless print housedress. Tee Wee yawned and stretched, stalling for time to decide how to handle this situation she’d have every morning now that Trouble had moved in. Well, she decided finally, weren’t no help for it. They’d be going to the same place at the same time every day. “Mornin, Icey,” she called across the few feet between them.
Icey nodded. “Look like a beautiful day.”
Tee Wee took another look up at the gray sky. “Might rain, though,” she said.
“Might at that,” Icey said, sauntering down the three wooden steps to wait for Tee Wee. “I hopes not. Children will get wet walkin to school.” She wanted Tee Wee to know that all of her children went to school.
Tee Wee was smiling as she came down her three steps. “Yes, mine’s got a umbrella, though.” With three broken ribs, she wasn’t going to mention.
“Oh,” Icey said. “Well, maybe it won’t rain anyway.”
“Maybe not,” Tee Wee said, walking on toward the Parsons’, “but I believes I just felt a drop on my head.”
Icey caught up with her. “I didn’t feel nothin. You sure a bird ain’t found you?”
Tee Wee walked faster. These morning walks to work were gonna be nothing but misery from now on. “I knows the difference between droppins and water,” she said.
Icey smiled. She thought to herself that these walks with Tee Wee might turn out to be the best part of her day.
AT THE PARSONS’ HOUSE the two women gave each other wide berth. Tee Wee hardly ever left the kitchen, and although Icey’s cleaning chores included that area, Tee Wee made it clear that she trusted no one to clean her domain. Icey, who was allowed to take her noonday meal at her employer’s, never complimented Tee Wee on her fried chicken, blueberry cobbler, tea cakes, or even her chicken pie, which all the Parsons declared to be the best in Mississippi, and so the two continued as they had the first morning, sparring with words. They wore dresses normally reserved for Sunday meeting; they waved starred schoolwork their children brought home in each other’s faces; they mentioned nearly every possession they had acquired of any worth at all. When Icey set her iron wash pot on her front porch, Tee Wee produced her own with red plastic flowers peeking out of it. On Wednesday Tee Wee set a china milk pitcher on her kitchen windowsill, and by Thursday Icey had placed a china sugar bowl on hers. And every evening when Tee Wee pushed a protesting Luther out onto her front porch, Icey would respond by going inside and opening her Bible, which she read aloud in a voice that sounded like the preacher’s when he was ordering devils out of the hearts of his congregation.
Icey’s and Tee Wee’s children were, however, fast friends by the weekend. They shared the few homemade toys they possessed between them: corn husk and clothespin dolls, slingshots, balls made of twine, pine straw and chinaberry jewelry, and whittled wooden swords and guns. At Sunday meeting the children sat together while Icey and Tee Wee chose separate pews. Icey wore her white lace again, and Tee Wee had sewn a bit of red ribbon on the sleeves of her navy blue Sunday dress. If Icey noticed the addition, she showed no sign. Thus, Icey’s first week in her tenant house ended as it had begun: Icey went to bed with her Bible, Tee Wee with her man. And both warriors, already battle-weary, dreamed of victories in skirmishes yet to come.
Icey’s second week as Tee Wee’s neighbor brought only more stalemates, and on Thursday Icey grudgingly complimented Tee Wee on her lemon meringue pie. At first Tee Wee thought Icey was only baiting her again and watched her face carefully before answering. When she saw genuine pleasure in Icey’s eyes after forking another bite into her mouth, Tee Wee straightened her back, lifted her head, and said, “It’s in how long you beat the whites makes meringue right. I beats four minutes longer than most.”
“Well, it sure taste good.”
They were sitting on the back steps of the Parsons’ house resting between the noontime and evening meals. Icey continued to look at Tee Wee without the ice in her eyes Tee Wee thought she was named for. “Well,” Tee Wee said, scraping her plate with her fork, trying to think of something nice to say back. “You done a good job on that old mirror in the hall. Seem like the woman Parsons had before you just smeared it up every time she touched it.”
“I use newspaper and vinegar. That do the job right on mirrors. Windows, too.”
“Parsons is pretty picky bout their help.” Then, in the habit she’d fallen into, she couldn’t resist adding, “I guess you ain’t used to workin for such fine folk.”
Icey stood up and held out her saucer and fork to Tee Wee. “I don’t reckon the Parsons is any more picky than them Manchesters I work for in Summit. They used to entertain the governor of this here whole state, and he came to visit one day and said, ‘Icey, you does keep things nice round here.’ That what he said.”
Tee Wee stood up, ignoring the saucer and fork Icey was holding out. She couldn’t think of anybody who’d visited the Parsons worth mentioning. Silently, she turned and entered her kitchen. A governor, she thought to herself. Imagine that.
Icey, following her in, set her dish on the table. “Well, that pie was good, Tee. I best get back to dustin the furniture. See you later.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you whether I wants to or not,” Tee Wee mumbled, slinging the saucer into the sink with such force it shattered into tiny pieces.
THE NEXT DAY on their walk to work Tee Wee brought up the subject she’d been burning to know about ever since she’d met Icey. “What happened to your man?”
Icey looked down at the brown grass, which wore a slight dusting of early white frost. “Run off. Same’s the two before him.”
Tee Wee glanced over and, seeing Icey’s chin drooping over her chest, felt a stirring of sympathy in her own. “Well, before Luther, I had three men. First one, by the name of Frank, I married when I weren’t but fourteen, had Ernestine, who’s eighteen now, then next two years I had my boys, Rufus and Paul. They moved to town. Work at the Co-op. Back then we lived on the Dyson Place and Frank was plumb crazy. The things that man done.” Tee Wee shook her head. “Anyways, I run him off and then along comes David Jefferson, who is Crow’s daddy. We moved to Magnolia and then he got in trouble with the law and left. Crow ain’t got over him leavin yet. Next one was Curtis, a good man. Then we come to this house. Birthed my twins, Lester and Masie. Curtis was older than me, wore hisself out I reckon. Died in bed one night. Bad heart.”
“How’d you feel? Bout that last one I mean?”
“Sad. And mad, too.”
“Was he good-lookin?”
Tee Wee laughed. “I reckon. All the gals at meetin wanted him to get called to Jesus just so they could look at him on Sundays.”
“My last was right good lookin, too. He was tall and big, and had hands wide as a plate. Good hands, but he weren’t no good. Ran with anythin, stole, lied, played dice, and got so lickered up on weekends, he’d get in a fight and end up in jail.” Icey slowed her pace, turned toward Tee Wee. “Still I miss him anyhow. Miss havin somebody to laugh with.”
“I knows, girl. Waited a year before Luther come along. He’s a good man. Ain’t been with me that long, but so far as I can tell, this here one is gonna stay.” Tee Wee looked back at her house anxiously. She shouldn’t have said that. Say it and it won’t be so. Everybody knew that.
Icey looked back, too. “I got to get a man to stay. I can’t do enough work to pay rent on the place by myself. My sixteen-year-old Eli is plannin on movin out so’s he can work in town, but when he does he ain’t gonna make enough to help me. Jonas ain’t but twelve and got to get schooled, and Glory, well, she just cost money.”
Tee Wee patted Icey’s shoulder. “I’ll keep my ears open. One’ll come. Men. They always do.”
Icey smiled. “Yep, they’s like rain. Just when you thinks your beans is gonna dry up, along comes a thunderstorm and drowns em.”
Tee Wee slapped her thighs. “Girl, you right about that. We gets drowned all right.”
Both women entered the Parsons’ back door, laughing together for the first time, and when Mrs. Parsons said she wanted beans for dinner, their earsplitting laughter rang out over the entire house.
Chapter 2
RUTHIE STOOD IN THE CENTER HALL, HER EAR TO THE door of her parents’ bedroom. They were discussing whether or not to keep Icey on their place. Her father’s voice sounded bored with the topic.
“Do what you want, Euylis. If she keeps breaking things, not doing what you ask, fire her. Tee Wee’s girl Ernestine isn’t going anywhere. She’s too ugly to find a man.”
“But, James, three children, no man,” her mother said. “Where’s she going to go?”
“Well, then keep her.”
Ruthie tiptoed down the hall. She didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping again. Her mother had told her over and over that it was impolite to listen to other people’s conversations, but no one ever told her anything nearly as interesting as what she overheard.
On the front porch she stretched out on the swing. She was hot and bored and mad at Browder for running off with Crow. Ruthie had hoped to listen in on Troy Greer’s and Dimple Butler’s conversation, but the phone had rung only once all afternoon even though there were eight people on their party line. Ruthie wished she could drive. She’d go into Zebulon and get ice cream at the Dairy Freeze, then go to the Saturday double feature, stop at Woolworth’s later and buy her doll Josie something nice like a new plastic feeding set or a bonnet. But no one wanted to go to town today. “Too close to Christmas,” her mother had said. “Everybody and his brother will be shopping over in Zebulon.”
When the telephone rang, Ruthie jumped out of the swing. Two short, one long. It was Dimple’s number. She raced to the phone and counted to ten before lifting the receiver. “What was I doing? Nothing much,” she heard Dimple say.
“I think somebody picked up,” Troy said.
Dimple laughed. “Of course, somebody always wants the line when I’m on it.”
Ruthie held her hand over the mouthpiece, afraid her breathing would be heard. Troy’s voice was soft. “So, you got a date for the hayride Saturday?”
Ruthie imagined Dimple smiling, twirling her hair, as she said, “Sort of.”
“What’s that mean?”
“John Welbourne asked me, but I haven’t said yes or no. Are you asking me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Wellll, there’s poor John Welbourne to think about.”
Troy’s voice sounded deeper when he said, “Think about me, not him.”
The line clicked. “It’s Rose Coker. I need to make a call. You still on the line?”
Dimple gave out a long sigh into the phone. “Getting off. Okay, Troy, pick me up at seven.”
Ruthie replaced the receiver, squeezed her hands together over her heart, and skipped down the hall. She’d said yes. Ruthie thought Troy was the best-looking boy in the Enterprise community and Dimple, who was a senior at Zebulon High, was glamorous enough to be a movie star. John Welbourne wasn’t nearly handsome enough to date Dimple. Although Ruthie was only ten, she knew there was something special about Dimple that men were drawn to. She didn’t understand what it was, but she was very sure she wanted to have it, too.
Leaving the house, Ruthie set out to find Browder and Crow. Maybe if she asked very nicely, they would play a game of chase with her. She began her search in the barn. Next she looked in the car house, the feedlot, and the pine grove. At the pond, as she stood looking across the waving cattails, it occurred to her that Browder and Crow might be at Tee Wee’s house. Crow often had to baby-sit for her mother, and sometimes Browder would help her chase the children around the Weathersbys’ yard.
As she walked toward the tenant houses, she spotted Tee Wee and Icey sitting on the steps in front of Icey’s house. From the serious expressions both of them wore, Ruthie guessed that they were discussing something important. Softly sliding her feet across the grass, she crept around to the side of the house where she could eavesdrop unseen.
“This one’ll be my last. I gettin too old to go droppin anymore,” she heard Tee Wee say.
“How you gonna be sure of that, girl?” Icey asked.
“Ole Auntie Seline live over in Osyka gives you stuff to drink to stop it. She’s part Indian. She know all about plants and herbs and animal insides that fixes the miseries of humans.”
“Sound like Devil doins to me,” Icey said in a scared voice. “I don’t hold with nothin to do with Satan.”
Ruthie craned her head around the side of the house. Icey was snapping late string beans into the big white enamel dishpan balanced on her lap. “It ain’t voodoo. Just doctorin,” Tee Wee said.
“So when is your young’n due?”
“July. Hope it ain’t gonna be hot.”
Icey nodded. “Had my boys, Eli and Jonas, in August. I bout died in the heat.”
“I had worse,” Tee Wee said. “Three in July, one in August, and two in September. August ain’t nothin to September.”
Icey, pulling the string from her bean and snapping it vigorously into small bits, said in a louder voice. “Huh, nine years ago, I had one born in February that froze solid comin out. My girl, Glory, it were, and I had to hold her over boilin water for a spell to thaw her out. You don’t know what that’s like.”
Ruthie stood up. More birthing stories. She’d overheard enough about ripping and shredding wombs to fill four five-year diaries. If women weren’t talking about bearing children, they were telling about the amounts of liquids they excreted monthly onto the cloths they wore between their legs. She’d overheard her mother and her aunt Ola whispering about red female juice and raging blood falls pooling around their feet, and Ruthie had decided she wouldn’t grow up to have any of that. She’d wished on a first star and a four-leaf clover that she’d be spared that part of being a woman, and she believed that something would happen to change her present destiny.
“I know you there,” Tee Wee said. “Come round here, Miz Ruthie. What you wantin?”
Ruthie shuffled around the corner of the house. “Hey, Tee. Hey, Icey.” She tried not to stare at Tee Wee’s stomach, and after a quick glance at her midsection, she climbed up the steps to the porch. “Have y’all seen Browder? Or Crow?”
“I ain’t seen em,” Tee Wee said. “Crow was suppose to watch the twins, but they inside sleepin, and she run off somewheres.”
“Well, I’ve already looked for them at the henhouse, the car house, the barn. They’ve just disappeared.”
