“Well, have a seat.” He motioned to the sofa and I lowered myself into it while he sat on the piano bench. “Desiree!” he called toward the kitchen.
A middle-aged colored woman appeared at the doorway of the kitchen. “Yes, Mr. Gardiner?”
“How about you bring some of that banana pudding out here for me and Mrs.…” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Sorry, I don’t recollect—”
“Forrester.”
“For me and Mrs. Forrester.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
“You look right young to be married,” he said.
Was he flirting with me? Maybe I only thought that because he was extraordinarily handsome. He was very tan and his features were rugged and masculine. His glasses only accentuated his dark eyes.
“I’m not as young as I look.” I smiled in a way that I hoped was polite but not encouraging.
“You been to the Harts’ yet? You met them?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then you know we got some problems there, right?”
I nodded.
Desiree brought a tray into the room, setting it on the coffee table. “How ’bout some tea?” She smiled at me.
“No, thank you,” I said. I had a big thermos of lemonade in my car and had already had a glassful this afternoon. I didn’t want to have to use one of the outhouses.
“Holler if you change your mind,” Desiree said, and walked back to the kitchen. Mr. Gardiner handed me a small ceramic bowl of pudding from the tray and took the other for himself.
“She makes the best banana pudding,” he said, then gave a laugh. “She makes the best everything, truth be told.”
I took a mouthful of the pudding, though I wasn’t the least bit hungry. “Delicious,” I said. I set the bowl down on the table, wondering how to begin this conversation when he began it for me.
“How long you been doing social work?” he asked.
“Not long,” I said, wondering if I looked like a sparkling new penny to him. “Charlotte was orienting me to her cases when she had the accident.” I’d told him about Charlotte’s leg on the phone.
“Hard to step into them shoes, ain’t it?” He ate a spoonful of pudding, then set the bowl on top of the piano.
“Yes,” I said. “But I know she’ll be keeping in close touch with me.” At least I hoped she would be.
“Now, Charlotte,” he said, stretching his back as though he had a crick in it, “she had plans to get the Hart girl, Ivy … you know, taken care of … like her sister, right?”
Wow, I thought. He didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “That’ll be my responsibility now,” I said. “Mrs. Werkman had just started her evaluation so I’ll continue it and that’s one reason I’m here. I’ll need to get your input, as someone who knows her well.” I pulled a notepad out of my briefcase and set it on my lap, ready to jot down any information about Ivy that might help me make my case.
“Well, how about I paint you a picture?” he said.
I hesitated, my pen in my hand above the notepad. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m going to paint you a picture and it ain’t going to be a pretty one,” he said. “You got a good imagination?”
I nodded uncertainly.
“Good. Now here’s the picture.” He held his hands up as though he were creating a frame, his gaze on whatever he saw inside its invisible borders. “Here’s that little house the Harts live in,” he said. “Can you see it?”
I nodded. I could. I could see the unpainted exterior and the lopsided front porch.
“There’s Winona Hart,” he said. “I knowed Miss Winona all my life. She’s the mama of my buddy Percy Hart.” He lowered his arms. “Percy lived in the same house, a true tenants’ house back then, and I lived here in the big house, but we was good friends regardless. Anyways, back to my picture I’m painting for you here.” He raised his arms again. “Winona’s getting up there now,” he said. “She got herself some bad health these days. She used to be able to work the farm with the best of them, but them days are sure over.
“Then we got Mary Ella.” He gave a roll of his eyes but all I could picture as I looked into his invisible frame was Mary Ella standing in the doorway of her house like an angel. “What can I say about Mary Ella you don’t know after a minute of meeting her?” Mr. Gardiner asked. “She’s a real pretty imbecile. Agreed?”
I was stunned by the word. “I … I don’t know her well enough to make that judgment yet.” A voice inside my head snapped at me for letting him use that word unchallenged. Be accepting, all the books said. Nonjudgmental. What if he’d used the word “nigger”? If he called his maid a “nigger,” would I just sit there? I had a feeling that’s what I was supposed to do. Meet your clients where they are, the books said. “Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Oh, for the love of God.” He dropped his invisible picture frame again. “Just spend five minutes talking to that girl. Now, of course you never knew her mother, Violet. Violet was never exactly right in the head, but she went plum crazy after Percy died. She did all sorts of nutty things, but the worst was when she ran into my store one day and cut my wife’s cheek with a knife. That’s when they locked her up.”
“Oh dear,” I said. “How awful.”
“But back to my picture,” he said, arms in the air once again. “Mary Ella got her mama’s looks but she ain’t too smart. Charlotte knew there was nothing worse than a pretty imbecile. They do what nature tells them to do and their looks make every man that lays eyes on them want to help nature out, if you know what I mean.”
I nodded.
He dropped his arms again. “So Charlotte arranged that surgery after Baby William come along. And you know that boy’s right slow. You know that, don’t you?”
I licked my lips. “Mrs. Werkman believes he has some developmental milestone problems.” I sounded like an idiot. Here I’d stayed up all night reading those books and I couldn’t express myself any better than that?
“That’s a kind way of saying he’s a retard, right? He’s retarded?”
“I don’t know the exact nature of his problems yet,” I said.
He gave me an amused-looking smile, and I thought he was seeing right through my stilted language to the quivering mass of jelly inside me. I wanted to ask him if he thought Eli Jordan was the father of Mary Ella’s baby, but if he didn’t already have that thought in his head, I didn’t want to put it there.
“Well, you’ll catch up,” he said. “All I’m saying is, bottom line, Mary Ella and her sister and grandmother—their hands are already too full. The girls lost their daddy and their mama…” He shook his head and turned to pick up the bowl of pudding again, and I was surprised to see his eyes glistening behind his glasses. He ate another spoonful of pudding and I stayed quiet, letting him pull himself together. “Did Mrs. Werkman tell you it was my fault?” he said finally. “About Percy? Their daddy?”
I shook my head.
“It was on my land. My broke-down tractor. It was a terrible thing, what happened to that man. He was using the scoop bucket to clear weeds on a little hillside out by the shelter and he got off the tractor to do some of it by hand. The brake gave out and the tractor started rolling. The bucket pinned him down. Smashed his skull open.”
I winced before I could help myself. “How terrible,” I said.
“The girls, they saw it happen, though they was little. I think only Mary Ella remembers it. I guess Ivy was too young, which is a blessing, don’t you think? Their mama was an ace short of a deck before the accident, but losing Percy sent her round the bend. So in some ways, I cost them both their parents.”
“I think you’re being hard on yourself.” I suddenly liked him and felt sympathy for him.
“It’s the way I feel,” he said. “Can’t change the way you feel about a thing, now can you?” He cleared his throat. “So back to Ivy and that picture I was painting. Add a new baby to
that mess of a picture and watch that whole house of cards come tumbling down. It’d be a shame if that happened. I think the sooner you take care of Ivy, the better off for all of them.”
“It sounds like you’ve been really kind to them. And to the Jordans.”
“Oh, them Jordan boys work their behinds off around here. Even that Avery, he does his part.” He smiled like he felt some affection for the boy. “They go back a long way with my kin. Back to the slave days, to be truthful. That’s a hell of a long time. My great-great-granddaddy gave them their freedom and a house and some land to work and they’re still here. So yeah, I treat my people good. We’ve got history together and that’s important. People today don’t appreciate how important, sometimes.”
“But the Harts … they can’t exactly work as hard for you as the Jordan boys.” It suddenly worried me. He could put them out and I’d have worse problems with them than trying to find clothes that fit.
He shook his head. “I won’t put them out,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. “I told you, they wouldn’t be in the fix they’re in if it wasn’t for me.”
“You know,” I said, “I understand why it would be good for Ivy not to have children right now, but doing something so permanent when we don’t know what the future holds for her—”
“Oh, I can tell you what the future holds.” He started to raise his hands again, and I was afraid he was going to paint me another picture, but he lowered them to his lap. “She’ll have one baby, then another and another, all on goddamned welfare, because that’s the way it happens with girls like her. She’s running wild already, so it’s only a matter of time.”
“How do you know she’s running wild?”
“Trust me on that,” he said. “She’s looking for trouble, that one.”
“I’d like to talk to her today,” I said. “I know she’s probably working for you, so would that be all right? I need to drop something off at the Jordans’ first. Would you mind if—”
“The sooner the better.” He looked at his watch. “You take her for an hour. Spend an hour with that girl and you’ll see all you need to see to know Charlotte’s plans for her are right. I’ll still pay her for the hour. Tell her that so she’ll go with you.”
* * *
I was pleased with myself as I drove around the tobacco field toward the Jordans’ house. My first interview and I thought it went pretty well. Mr. Gardiner had been easy to get information from. Or at least, it had been easy to get his opinions. It would be up to me to figure out what they were worth.
I pulled into the Jordans’ yard, scattering the chickens in every direction, and I got out of my car and opened the trunk. I culled through the bags of clothing until I found the two containing shoes I hoped would fit the Jordan boys. When Charlotte and I had picked them out from a pile of donated clothing, I thought they were all too big for boys, but she assured me they were the right size. I lifted the bags into my arms and crossed the dirt yard to the house. I was swimming in a pool of sweat by the time I reached the stoop, when a big black dog suddenly jumped out of nowhere, barking and snarling and snapping his jaws. I let out a yelp and dropped the bags. One of them split wide open, shoes spilling out all over the dirt.
A young man pushed open the screen door. “Shadow, git!” he shouted, while I stood stock-still, hugging my arms. I was afraid to breathe. Another man came out of the house, jumped off the porch and gave the dog a rough shove with his leg. The dog backed off, but only a step or two, and I could still hear the low growl in his throat.
A third man came out of the house—how many did she have in there? He came down the step to the ground, nodded to me, then slipped a rope around the dog’s neck and tied him to a stake in the ground.
“Who are you?” he asked, as he tightened the knot around the stake.
“My name is Mrs. Forrester,” I said, “I—”
“You the one taking Miz Werkman’s place?” the man who’d shoved the dog aside asked me, and I realized he was not a man at all. None of them were. They were the size of men—Charlotte had been right about the shoes—but now that I wasn’t waiting for the dog to sink his teeth into my legs, I could see the youth in their faces. The boy asking the question wore thick glasses. Avery. I’d be driving him to the itinerant Braille teacher in Ridley once a week.
“Yes,” I said, lowering my arms to my sides. “Are you Avery?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “You be the one to carry me to the teacher?”
“I will,” I said. Avery was fairer than his brothers, a smattering of freckles across his nose. I remembered what Charlotte said about their different fathers.
“You brung us shoes?” One of the other men—boys—crouched and began trying to pile the shoes back into the broken bag.
“Yes, I hope they fit.” I still felt shaky, even with the dog tied safely to the stake. I’d never felt quite so white before, surrounded by three big Negroes. Avery seemed harmless enough, and the one gathering up the shoes was all right, but the third leaned against the porch, muscled arms across his broad chest, his eyes narrowed at me. Even so, the light caught them just right and I saw their amber color. “I believe you’re Eli,” I said.
“You believe right,” he said, not shifting his pose even a bit.
“I’m Devil,” said the boy on the ground. He was sitting down now, trying on the shoes. His pose suggested a kid on Christmas morning. But the muscular arms and broad back, so much like Eli’s, told me he was a young man who worked hard every day.
“Maybe you could all try them on.” I looked at Eli. “Your mother said you’d outgrown yours,” I said, but I couldn’t hold his gaze for long. His was too piercing. It was like he was trying to see inside me, and he wasn’t impressed with what he saw. I wondered if he’d liked Charlotte.
“What’s all the racket?” Lita Jordan appeared behind the screen door and I felt relieved by her presence. “Well, hey, Mrs. Forrest,” she said, pushing the screen open and stepping onto the porch. “Shadow give you a hard time?”
I didn’t correct her about my name. “You don’t have to worry about anyone sneaking into your yard, do you?” I smiled.
“No, ma’am,” she said. “I see you brung some shoes. Eli, you try them on? Yours is the worst.”
“Ain’t got time now, Ma,” he said. “Got to git back over.” He walked past me, heading for the fields. I glanced down at his shoes where they’d been cut to make room for his toes. “Come on,” he said to his brothers.
“Nice to meet you!” I called after them.
Mrs. Jordan came down the stairs to help me gather the shoes, including the old pair Devil had left behind, and I realized only then that he’d taken a pair of the new ones. That heartened me. I’d done one small worthwhile thing today.
“That dog.” She nodded toward Shadow who now lay docile near the stake. “He don’t much like white folks, but he never bit no one. Only person he ever hurt was this white man, come around asking for food. Got knocked over good instead. Felt bad for him, though. Any old white man who thinks we’re that good off here in this shack, he’s in sad shape.”
“I like dogs,” I assured her. “He just came out of nowhere and gave me a start.”
She glanced at me as she dropped another shoe in the bag. “You a fragile child, ain’t you,” she said. She pronounced “fragile” so it almost rhymed with “child.” I felt about five years old.
“Not really.” I tried to smile. How was it that, a few short weeks ago, I’d skin-dived in Hawaii, and here I was still trembling over an encounter with a harmless dog—and if I was being honest—over being surrounded by three young colored men I didn’t know?
“Charlotte set you out on your own already?” she asked as we stood up with our bounty of shoes and my briefcase.
“She broke her leg last week,” I said. “She won’t be back to work for a little while.”
“Oh now, that’s pitiful!” she said. “You tell her I be hoping it heals up fast.”
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sp; “I’ll do that.” I followed her into the house and through the living room to the kitchen, where plates and silverware littered the table.
“Excuse this mess,” she said, setting the bag on the floor. I lowered the one I was carrying to the floor next to it. “The boys just had dinner, and Rodney’s napping before we head back to the barn.” She motioned to one of the chairs. “Set,” she said, and I sat down.
“Must be hard to keep these growing boys fed,” I said.
“Now, that’s the truest thing I heard all day,” she said, moving the dishes to a basin on the counter. “You like some tea?” she asked.
I thought of the outhouses again, but I was dying of thirst. “I’d love some,” I said. Charlotte had told me it was good to show our colored clients that we had no problem drinking from their glasses or eating from their plates.
“Charlotte … Miz Werkman. She a good woman,” Mrs. Jordan said as she handed me the cold glass of tea. “You got some big shoes to fill.”
“I’m quickly figuring that out.”
“She fought to git me that operation,” she said. “Are you a fighter, too?”
“I think so,” I said. I wanted to be, but her words about my fragility were going to bother me all day, if not all week.
“I didn’t make it easy for her,” she said, chuckling.
“How do you mean?”
“She sent me to get that test. That ‘how much do you know’ test with the psychology man? If I knowed I was supposed to come out dumb on that test to get the operation, I would of answered them questions mighty different. You take a test, you think you supposed to do your best, you know?”
“Yes.” I smiled.
“You got to be plumb stupid to get that operation, I reckon. But I got it, and don’t have to worry about having no more babies. It’s a relief. You got children?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, you’ll see. You have two, it’s good. Three, still good, but there’s less food for them and they be harder to keep an eye on. Four, even worse. Five—” She shook her head. “No good for mama and no good for the babies, neither.” She sipped her tea.
The mention of her five children gave me the opening I was hoping for. “Your daughter,” I said. “Sheena?”