“I’ll be right out, Mother. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what got into me,” Betsey oozed, not fooling Jane at all. “I want to meet the company. I’m coming right now.”
Jane watched in amazement as her daughter maneuvered herself along the limbs of the tree to the edge of the terrace and through the window. In a flash Betsey presented herself.
“Hello, my name is Elizabeth Brown. How are you?”
Jane was proud of her daughter again. Bernice thought she’d made a friend.
“Betsey, I told you, Miss Calhoun.”
“Oh, M’am, the chirrens can call me Bernice.”
“I told Bernice that you would help her with the children and the running of the house. Show her to her room on the third floor and tell her about the neighborhood and the children’s chores.”
Betsey took Bernice by the hand. Charlie reluctantly picked up her paper bags filled with God only knew what and up they traipsed through the back stairway to the top of the house. It was against Jane’s principles to put a Negro in the basement. It was against the children’s principles to accept somebody who was going to tell on them all the time. Betsey had some very special plans for Miss Calhoun.
“I hope you’ll be very happy with us, Bernice. The girls are very smart and Allard never causes any trouble and Charlie is practically a grown-up awready.”
“Why, thank-ya, ’Liz’beth.”
“Uh, Betsey is just fine, Bernice, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, I say to ya again, thank-ya, Miss Betsey.”
Betsey gave the secret sign of a fist behind her back with two fingers outstretched to indicate it was time for a children’s meeting in the basement. Who did this Bernice think she was, giving away secrets like that? Why, Jane didn’t even know about the tree reaching over the porch until Bernice came. Betsey was going to see to it that Bernice paid. Boy, would she pay. The line, led by Charlie dribbling the basketball down the stairs, headed straight for the bowels of the house.
Bernice didn’t know it, as she examined the tilted curved ceilings of her new quarters. Jane didn’t know it, as she curled up next to Greer behind the locked door of their room above the lilacs. Only the children in the darkest smallest corner of the basement knew what Bernice had coming her way. Vida in the kitchen over chicken fricassee could only think of her Frank and how much he liked the meat to fall off the bone over the rice and onions. And there was nothing any one of the grown-ups could have done had they known what was up in the basement.
The basement was a secret of its own. There were rooms that led to other rooms and back round to the first room. There were closets that went way back against the walls of the house until it smelled like the earth was coming right on in. There were rooms to have seances and see cats have kittens. Corners to whisper make-believe apologies and dreams. There was the smell of many folks having lived in the dark for many years, and there was the children’s favorite meeting place that no one bigger than them had ever seen. In the far left-hand corner of the longest closet with the lowest ceilings and plywood walls painted green long before Christ was born, the Brown children had their pow-wow.
“How’s she gonna do something with us?” Betsey was riled, and her little temper was cavorting in the shadows with her small horde of followers. “She can’t even talk. Imagine callin me ’Lizabeth. Why, that aint even a name, ’Lizabeth!”
“And she tol’ on you too, Betsey,” Sharon chimed in.
“Mama didn’t know nothing bout that tree,” Margot added.
“Not now, Allard. Now we’ve got to figure out a way to get this woman out of our house.”
“Not only can’t she talk, she can’t hardly walk,” Charlie quipped with the basketball twirling on his finger, then behind his back.
“So how’s she gonna do something with us?” Allard decried.
“She’s not. Just wait till morning.” And Betsey dismissed the crowd.
Betsey was not a vindictive child. She was a child of special places and times of her own. She tried not to hurt anybody or anything, but Bernice’d given the whole family access to her privacy. Now when they went looking for her, they’d all know to go to her beloved tree. Search its branches for the dreamer and make noises that would disrupt Betsey’s current reveries. No, Betsey wasn’t being evil, to her mind she was protecting herself. God only knew what else that Bernice would uncover and deliver over to Jane and Greer. Heaven forbid she ever found that long closet in the basement! That’s where everybody practiced writing nasty words like “pussy” and “dick,” though only Charlie admitted to knowing where all these things were. Margot just liked to write them in big red letters with nail polish she’d borrowed from her mother’s collection of toiletries. Allard just liked making the letters, and then asking what the word was.
Meanwhile, in the upper reaches of the house, Bernice was hanging her limited wardrobe in the armoire next to a single bed just bout big enough to accommodate her rotund brown body. Yes, she thought, looking at the red dress with the lace on one sleeve, St. Louis was gointa be just fine. She’d have every Friday and Saturday night off, to meet some nice hardworking fella, maybe one of them from down her way, not too citified. Bernice looked out her window down on the garden, thinking how lucky she’d been to run into the Brown family. That poor Mrs. Brown, so frail, with all these chirren, and Mrs. Murray with her nose all up in the air on accounta a body didn’t have good hair. She’d win them over. That’s what she’d do.
In the morning the children tumbled down the stairs into a fine chaos. First, Betsey told Allard it was alright to rub the goldfish together. Then Sharon and Margot decided to swing on the curtain rod separating the living room from the parlor. Charlie decided he’d practice throwing his basketball around the chandelier. Of course, Jane and Greer were relaxing for a change, relieved to have Bernice handling everything. Even Vida had gone out to see to her dahlias in the back. So it was just Bernice and the Brown children.
“Look Bernice, somebody peed in the bed.” Margot came running through the kitchen with a dank sheet wrapped round her head.
“Bernice, you wanta see me make fires? We could use these matches right under here.” Allard crawled through Bernice’s legs to the cupboard where the fireplace matches were kept. He really liked those. They were so long and the fire was very tiny at first, till you threw it somewhere. Then whamo. Big flame.
Yet Bernice was undaunted. She was gointa stay in St. Louis, no matter what.
“Bring that nappy head on round heah. No, don’t carry no comb, bring me a brush. A comb aint gointa go threw all that mess.”
Bernice’d made a breakfast of grits and eggs that no one ate, claimin the grits were stiff and the eggs too hard.
“Allard, didn’t you say you wanted to climb out the window. The one in my room is open. Sharon, there’s some money in Bernice’s sweater pocket, if you want to buy some Snickers today.”
All this was going on while Bernice was trying to make some sense of the mass of braids on the girls’ heads. Bernice shouted, “Put them goldfish down. I want my money in my pocket right now.” It didn’t sit right with her. This Betsey was supposed to be her friend, and here she was undermining everything.
“Bernice, the fish are dying.”
“Well, put em back in the water, fool.”
“I’ma tell Mama you callt me a fool.”
“That’s right Allard, you tell Mama.”
“Betsey, bring that head over heah, I tol’ you.”
“Bernice, I’m hungry.”
“Well. Eat your breakfast.”
“I don’t want breakfast, I want some chicken.”
“That’s for dinner.”
“I want some chicken now!”
“Well awright, then. Charlie, get that basketball out this house.”
“Oh, Bernice, I spilled all the chicken grease.”
Bernice stood up with an Arkansas fire in her eyes screaming, “You better eat them grits cause that’s all you gonna get!
Put them goldfish down! I tell ya whoever took my money bettah pray for they soul! I aint going nowhere and y’all best mind, cause I’m in St. Louis to stay.”
“How you gonna do something with us?”
“You can’t even talk.”
“I say bring that nappy head on over heah!”
The ruckus sent Jane flying down the stairs to find the blinds at a 45-degree angle in the front room. The curtains in the parlor all over. Six crystals from her chandelier on the floor. Chicken grease on the kitchen floor. A table full of grits and eggs. Not one combed head. Allard with matches in both pockets. Betsey quietly gazing out the window at Vida working with her dahlias. Plus, no one had brought up the morning’s coffee. Now this was just too much. No coffee and the house in a shambles. It was better with her mother tending to the children, even though it was hard on her heart. The likes of this never happened.
“And, Miss Calhoun, just what do you call yourself doing this morning?”
“Well, M’am, I fixed the chirren they breakfast. Then I put the chicken on for dinner. Then I was bout to start doing heads, but Betsey told them they could climb through windows and steal my money, take them fish out the water. Oh Mrs. Brown, they been a mess today.”
“Bernice, don’t you wanta see me make fires?” Allard grinned. Jane grabbed the matches from his hands and all his pockets, slapped his backside good. She turned to Miss Calhoun with Sharon between her legs wrapped up in the wet sheet smelling of urine.
“Miss Calhoun, I just don’t think this is going to work out.”
At that moment Vida was about to come into the kitchen through the back door. Betsey ran to her aid: “Oh, Grandma, be careful. Bernice left chicken grease all on the floor. You hold on to me or you might slip and fall.”
Vida cut her eyes first at Jane, then at Bernice. “Well, I should have known that a body with no upbringing couldn’t very well bring up these chirren of mine. Thank you, Betsey, you are always so helpful.”
The children ran gleefully to school shouting: “How’s she gonna do something with us. She can’t even talk. She can’t even walk. How’s she gonna do something with us.”
Bernice sat glumly on her small bed. She felt sucha big fool. Mrs. Brown had let her go in one day, she hadn’t even had one Friday night off to wear her red dress. She couldn’t hardly begin to pack her things. She heard the folks in Arkansas laughing at her. Big ol’ flat-faced Bernice gointa to St. Louis. Hahahaha.
Jane made her own coffee, sat at the kitchen table with the children’s breakfasts surrounding her and played a game of solitaire. There was no way in the world she could go to work today. Thank God for Betsey. There was one child with a head on her shoulders. Jane tried to think of what might have happened if Betsey hadn’t been there to mind the children.
4
Betsey could hardly wait to tell Veejay and Charlotte Ann what had happened at her house. She wanted to brag that she herself had run old Bernice out the house. When she saw Charlotte Ann talking through the fence to Seymour Bournes, who was from the high school and a friend of Eugene Boyd, she rushed up. Charlotte Ann’s eyes were sparkling and her hips were wiggling totally out of control.
“Charlotte Ann, how are you doing? Hi, Seymour,” Betsey blurted, full of herself and inquisitive bout the relationship tween Seymour and Charlotte Ann, who’d always said she was ascared of boys, but apparently not this one. Seymour was a tallish boy with curly black hair and large ears that flew from the sides of his head like propellers. They would have looked like ordinary ears had his face been any fuller, but Seymour’s face was thin, like a taffy pulled way far out. Seymour had seen Betsey before, but didn’t actually know her. Her cousin Charlie played ball real good, but it was Eugene who’d pointed her out to him. Eugene liked her. As a matter of fact, Eugene had taken to being friends with Charlie just so he’d have a reason to visit, but Betsey and Charlotte Ann knew nothing of this. All Charlotte Ann knew was Betsey was beside herself about something that would have to wait till Seymour went cross the street to class.
Betsey saw Veejay coming through the schoolyard with her books up under her left arm, as always chewing gum to make sounds like a popping snare drum. Realizing that Charlotte Ann and Seymour were no longer aware of her, Betsey ran toward Veejay yelling, “Hey, Veejay, guess what?”
“What ya mean, ‘guess what’? Can’t you say hello or good day or something?” Veejay retorted tween smacks of cherry gum.
“Well, Good Day, then, Miz Veejay, M’am.” The two girls laughed and kept on tittering M’ams and Good Mornings till Betsey told Veejay bout Bernice and how bad they’d all been and how Bernice had gotten her walking papers and the house was theirs again. Betsey’d opened her lunch bag awready, chewing on a bright apple, waiting for Veejay to cry out with a “Go on, girl” or “I bet that was a lot of fun,” but Veejay was just looking mad and hurt all at once.
“Whatsa matter, Veejay? She’s gone now. That’s what counts, isn’t it? She told on us. She would have ruined everything.”
“Betsey, you know what my mama does for a living?”
“No.”
“Well, she takes care of nasty white chirren who act up like y’all acted up this morning. She don’t do it cause she likes it neither. She does it so I could have clothes and food and a place to live. That’s all that Bernice woman was trying to do, and you so stupid you don’t even know if she’s got somewhere to live or if she’s got chirren of her own in Arkansas. Y’all act like white people, always trying to make things hard on the colored. Lying on em and making a mess of things. Thinking it’s so funny. I don’t even know if I want to be your friend. That could have been my mama lost her job on accounta you and your ol’ tree. You shouldn’ta been up no tree no how, big as you are. You don’t have no sense at all.”
Veejay turned to go anywhere away from Betsey. She’d known that Betsey was from over there where the rich colored lived, but she liked her anyway. Till now, that is. Now Betsey was the same as anybody who made fun of her mother for doing daywork and looking after white children while her own waited anxiously at the door for her to come home. It was one thing to take mess from white folks, cause that was to be expected, but to have the colored—or the “Negro,” as Betsey would say—do it too, was hurting to Veejay, who just kept mumbling, “That coulda been my mama and you don’t care.”
“Veejay, I didn’t mean any harm.” Betsey rushed alongside Veejay, who wouldn’t look at her. “Really, I didn’t think, that’s all. I’ll tell my mother that it was all my fault. I will, Veejay, I promise. Just please stay my friend.” Betsey tugged Veejay’s arm, wanting her to stop so they could talk before Mrs. Mitchell quieted the class for morning announcements about Assembly, band practice, girls’ volleyball, and the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord’s Prayer.
Veejay stopped. “Take your hands off me. Betsey Brown, you a selfish somebody. I don’t want you to call my name. And don’t you tell nobody that I’m your friend, or that I ever was, ya hear me.”
Veejay stalked off to class, leaving Betsey on the stairwell with a half-eaten apple and a lot on her mind.
It was true that Veejay wore the same plaid skirt and white blouse every other day, but Betsey thought that was cause Veejay wanted it that way. Veejay’d never invited her or Charlotte Ann to visit her at home, either. And it was always Veejay who had words from her mama on what white folks were really like.
A heavy red glow came over Betsey’s body. Shame. She was ashamed of herself and her sisters and Charlie and Allard. Veejay was right. Bernice just talked funny was all. Betsey’d passed over the paper bags fulla worn-out clothes, the two shoes of that woven cotton, fraying by the toes, and the calluses on the palms of the woman’s hands. Betsey Brown had been so busy seeing to herself and the skies, she’d let a woman who coulda been Veejay’s mama look a fool and lose her job.
Betsey threw the apple in the trash and peeked round her carefully. She was gonna run home fast as she could, to see if she could catch her mot
her and tell her the truth. Maybe there was time to stop Bernice from leaving. Why, Betsey didn’t know if Bernice had a girl her own age or not. Betsey didn’t know if Bernice had anyplace to go, or anyone to go to. Betsey had to get home and apologize to Bernice.
It was awfully hard to sneak out of Clark School once you were in it. Hall patrols and Mr. Wichiten wandered arbitrarily hither and yon, but Betsey made a good run for it, down the south corridor to the door that opened toward the high school. Sometimes that door was locked or chained to keep out vagrants or bad elements, which really meant gangs, but today the door was open and out Betsey went, praying she’d catch her mother or Bernice to say “I’m sorry, please stay.”
But all the running in the world and all the praying in the world couldn’t catch up with the misery Bernice Calhoun knew that morning. Bernice was stepping up into the Hodiamont streetcar when Betsey spied her grandma on the front porch chattering with the wind bout what a blessing it was that trashy country gal was gone. How it was goin’ to take days to put the house back in order. Betsey backed down from the porch before her grandma could lay eyes on her. Running round the back she saw her mother on her hands and knees cleaning the chicken grease off the floor. Mr. Jeff was in the parlor hanging the curtains back up.
“Betsey, what are you doing home?” Jane asked over her shoulder. Her hands were sudsy and sweat rimmed her brow, but she didn’t seem to be in a bad mood like Betsey’d expected.
“I came home to help clean up, Mama, and I wanted to tell you something, too.”
“Don’t worry, darling, I know you did your best this morning. I’m just going to have to screen these ladies more carefully from now on. Really, Betsey, I don’t believe the house has ever been quite this much a mess. All because I didn’t check the references, I guess. Can’t be too careful nowadays.”