“How much is due on this mortgage?” I asked him, holding on to her. I could feel her
sweating through her silk dress.
Mr. Allison ran a long finger down the page on the desk. “Two thousand seven hundred
fifty-four dollars is what the Tartts owe.” My mouth opened in sheer awe and he continued in a
whisper, “That needs to be paid right away.” This man . . . he was a coward. He should’ve told
Mrs. Tartt this a year ago. I couldn’t really tell if Mrs. Tartt heard any of this.
“Viktoria, what you need to do is contact your lawyer, ask does he know of any other
holdings in Henry’s name.” Mr. Allison placed his hand on her shoulder in a gesture that, if you
didn’t understand the situation, might look courtly. “If I recollect—Harry Holtzman, yes, that’s
who Henry used.” He nodded, he felt better to tell her this. “Harry Holtzman down in Jackson,
that’s who it is.”
“I want to go home,” Mrs. Tartt said. I could feel her shaking. “Please take me home,
Birdie.”
Slowly, Mrs. Tartt let me guide her to the front door. The telegram to Footely would have
to wait. I didn’t know what it would say anyway. We needed to collect Frances and tell Mr.
Binny, who was waiting at the taxi stand, to drive us home to Rory. Trailing behind us, Jack
Walsh held the heavy door open for us. When I looked back, this time everyone in the bank was
watching us and huge Jack Walsh raised the flat of his hand in a silent goodbye.
Chapter 16
Mr. Binny drove home so slowly I swore I could feel us aging. I was blistering with sweat,
fanning my face with the paper fans Mr. Binny kept in the car. Mrs. Tartt looked shrunken on the
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seat beside me, silent, staring at the back of Mr. Binny’s bald black head. Frances wouldn’t stop
chattering about her new expensive purchases, the white kid gloves, the red bouclé dress, the silk
stockings, and of course some rayon too.
Mrs. Tartt had waited in the car when I’d gone back into Neilson’s. “Please,” Mrs. Tartt
had begged, “let me talk to Rory before we tell Frances.” Frances hadn’t looked thrilled about it
when I’d told her we had to go, but she’d told Hello I’m Nelly she reckoned she was done. “For
today.” When the man behind the desk, his tag read Will Lewis, added it up, it came to a gut-
punching sixty-two dollars and fifty-five cents. Jesus, that was double the money they had left in
the bank. But then Frances said the magic words: “Charge it, would you please, Mr. Lewis?”
“It appears there’s an overdue balance on your account of twenty-two dollars and some
cents? We’d be so obliged if you’d take care of that payment with this one today, ma’am.”
He was not an unkind man, he was just trying to do his job. How many times had I been
on his side of the counter as poor farmers begged me with their eyes for more credit? But
Frances flapped her hand at him and said, “My husband said he’s taking care of all that on
Friday. Charge it, and I’ll carry the bill home to him today.” Miss Ella nodded her approval, and
Mr. Lewis boxed the items up, placing each piece inside careful as a baby in a coffin.
Now, on the drive home all I could think was, what in God’s name was Rory gonna say?
Frances was still prattling as we made the last turn toward home. “That red dress is close to the
same color as Garnett’s but it’s not exact since I would hate for her to think I was copying her or
anything.” I didn’t know how close it was and I didn’t care. Frances’s oblivion was grating but
essential for now. I looked over at Mrs. Tartt to make sure she was still breathing. Her red
lipstick was smeared off to the left a little, like a strong wind had blown it there.
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When Mr. Binny stopped in front of the house, Mrs. Tartt jerked up the chrome handle
and let herself out. She was looking real motivated to get inside first. Mr. Binny carried the
boxes, up to his neck, to the door. “Thank you, Mr. Binny, I’ll take it from here,” I said as he set
the six boxes down inside the door.
Mrs. Tartt was already walking up the hall, calling, “Rory!”
“Let’s get these upstairs,” I said to Frances, but she set a hand on my arm.
“I got you something,” she whispered, smiling, glowing with a secret. “I saw you looking
at that white coat.”
“Oh my God, no, Frances.” She started opening the boxes, looking through them.
“You deserve something nice, Birdie. You never do anything for yourself.”
This was the nicest thing she’d done for me in years, buying me a coat with all the
imaginary money she thought she had, so what could I say but “Thank you”? “Let’s look at it
upstairs.”
“Rory, where are you?” Mrs. Tartt called, turning into his study.
Frances pulled the red wool dress out though, and pressed the fabric against her like a
lover. She walked down the hall like this. “Rory, I want to show you something . . .”
“Give them a minute,” I said, going after her.
Mrs. Tartt was coming back toward us now, dazed, and then walked right past us.
“Is Rory not in his—?” Frances looped and followed her into the front sitting room, still
holding the red dress, where Mrs. Tartt was staring up at the wall over a claw-footed table.
“Where’d the Negro-boys-picking-cotton picture go?” Frances asked.
“Painting, dear,” Mrs. Tartt said.
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“Well, where’s it gone to?” Frances asked. The room felt dimmer, smaller than usual, and
I realized the huge pocket doors that connected it to the bright dining room were closed. Frances
set the dress on a chair and went and pulled the doors apart.
All twelve drawers in the carved sideboard hung open, as well as the delicate curved
glass doors on the china cabinets and the door to the closet.
“What in the world is going on here?” Frances went into the china closet and pulled the
string light. “The Haviland . . . half of it’s broken on the floor—and where’d the silver
candelabras go . . . and the water pitchers?” Her voice dipped as she went deeper into the closet.
“And the gold finger bowls and the gold plates . . .” Silence, and then a yelp. “Jesus, Mrs. Tartt, I
think we done been robbed!”
Mrs. Tartt flinched at the sound of Frances from Footely. Frances rushed out of the closet
and over to the open sideboard under the window. She held up a plum-colored velvet lining.
“Look at this! Somebody’s come in here and stole it all!”
Mrs. Tartt gripped the back of a tall dining room chair. “Where is Rory? Somebody look
for him—”
“Rory!” Frances called, rushing into the hall. “Roree—”
“Find Picador and Polly,” Mrs. Tartt said to me. “See did they see what happened.”
I pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen. “They’re not in here, nobody’s in here,” I
called. “Lemme go look see . . .” I let the door go, but Frances rushed in behind me, the door
flap-flapping. Out on the back porch, we both leaned over the rail to see the Studebaker wasn’t
parked next to the barn.
“Thank God he’s not here! I was so afraid he was hurt,” Frances said and rushed back
inside.
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I pressed my damp palms against my hip bones and held them there a second. It helped
me breathe. When I went back in the kitchen, Mrs. Tartt said, “Pic and Polly must’ve gone home,
their pocketbooks aren’t here.”
Frances, stopping in her tracks by the breakfast table, said, “Mrs. Tartt, do you think your
girls might’ve done this? Stole all the good silver and the painting?”
Mrs. Tartt turned around and frowned so hard her forehead looked like it could crack.
“No. I do not, Frances.”
“Well, who else would do it, then?” Frances asked. She opened a drawer and banged it
shut and opened another as things clanged around inside. “Rory must be at the bank, I’m calling
him.”
“No, Frances,” I said. “Don’t.” I looked at Mrs. Tartt, but her eyes were fastened on a
very red tomato on the windowsill, sitting in its own pink juice.
“I don’t care if he gets cross,” Frances said. “I’m fixing to use that damn telephone--”
“Wait, Frances. Mrs. Tartt,” I said, but she was still very involved with the tomato.
“I am! And then I am calling the sheriff and telling him we’ve been robbed!”
Staring off, touching the pearl necklace she wore with matching earrings, Mrs. Tartt said,
“First—” She shuddered deeply. “We need to see has anything else gone missing.”
The notion paralyzed Frances a moment. Then— “Oh my God.” She rushed out the side
door and I heard her pound up the back staircase.
“Mrs. Tartt,” I said, “we have have to tell her, she needs to know.”
“Not—not yet.” Mrs. Tartt teetered up the stairs after Frances.
A minute later, overhead, I heard Frances cry out, “My whole entire jewelry box is
gone!”
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And then, like notes down a scale, Mrs. Tartt’s “Noo, ooh noo, mine is gone too.”
It felt like lead was tied to my ankles as I climbed the back stairs.
“My sapphires,” Mrs. Tartt called. “All of Henry’s gold watches . . .”
“And my silver boudoir set is gone, and so is my fur stole . . .”
I went and stood in Frances’s doorway. She had all three doors open to her wardrobe.
“That fur was the only nice thing I owned,” she said and went past me toward Mrs.
Tartt’s room. I wandered up the hall, feeling helpless. The linen closet was open with an
intestinal stream of sheets flowing out.
Things were being hollered all over the house. “The Henry Bacon painting!” and “All the
guns in the gun cabinet!” Then Greek statues, fourteen-karat-gold compacts, an actual letter from
Abraham Lincoln. “My mother’s wedding band!” A sickening thought had taken root in my head
and was growing at a fast rate. The huge book of Indian drawings on a stand in the library,
Henry’s crystal decanter set, more fur coats and stoles, diamond hatpins, a collection of platinum
cigarette cases, a tapestry from the Battle of Something or Other, Robert E. Lee’s favorite hat,
walking canes with solid-gold heads, a set of gold teeth pulled from dead Uncle Taft, and many,
many other useless, valuable things.
“Why are you just standing there, Birdie? Look for what else is missing!”
I tried, but how could you look for something that wasn’t there to look for?
A catlike screech came out of Frances. “My engagement ring!” she cried from the top of
the wide stairs. Her shoulders slid down from their frantic, furious height. “I forgot, I took it off
to shop so the prongs wouldn’t pull on the clothes.”
This had gone far enough; she needed to know. “Franny, you need to come downstairs.” I
went up and took her arm—it dangled like a rubber hose—and got her down the stairs and into
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the hall, where Mrs. Tartt was mumbling something to herself outside the parlor. All I heard was
“Oh dear, I hope my . . .” We followed her in. She turned around and looked me square in the
face and said, “My radio set’s gone.” This small offense seemed to top anything else for the
moment. “Fleischmann’s Yeast Hour’s about to come on.”
I managed to get Mrs. Tartt sitting on the pink sofa without actually pushing her down.
Frances was trying to go back in the hall. “I’m calling the bank, I don’t care if I get in trouble!”
The back of my throat felt parched, sore. “Rory’s not at the bank, Franny. He was fired
three weeks ago.”
Frances turned back around and squinted at me. She waved a hand, waving away the
words. “What?”
“Mr. Allison said so,” Mrs. Tartt said from the sofa. She said it like Rory had died.
“But—he was just there yesterday. He would’ve told me something like that, he
would’ve told you.” She looked down at Mrs. Tartt. “Somebody would’ve told us!”
I thought about the handsome banker saying it was the saddest year of his working life.
“Somebody should’ve,” I said.
“Mr. Allison’s about the only one left from Henry’s days . . .” Mrs. Tartt twisted her gold
wedding band around her finger. “Course Mr. Cotton retired after Henry died. So did Robert
Kinley and all the secretaries I was friendly with, Genevieve and Susie. I can’t recall the rest of
their names . . .”
“This doesn’t make a lick of sense. Why in the world would they fire him?” Frances
asked.
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Mrs. Tartt looked up at me like I was the one who’d asked. Lipstick rubbed off, sweat
beaded her forehead and her eyebrows. “Because he lost too many people’s money. That’s what
Mr. Allison said. And he lost ours too.”
Frances stared at her. “What does that mean . . . ours?”
“I’m not sure. To be right honest.” Mrs. Tartt nodded, looking at the empty square over
the fireplace. She seemed to be gaining steam. “But I’m going to find out, oh I sure am . . .”
“We need to find him, we need to call—”
“. . . because I think Rory might’ve done this to us.” Mrs. Tartt stabbed her forefinger
toward the floor. “To get back at me.”
I couldn’t tell if the lost money had registered with Frances, but that last part Frances
heard. “Don’t you dare accuse my husband of this.” Her face went from pale to a splotchy, meaty
red. “Rory would never—and I won’t stand here and let you accuse him of losing people’s
money and—and”—she turned to me—“whatever you said about him being fired, well I don’t
believe a word of it, not from either of you!” She turned around and walked out.
“Frances,” Mrs. Tartt called, but Frances kept going. She was moving fast. I went up the
main stairs after her to Rory’s boyhood room on the right, where she stopped in front of the door
with its brass lock. She looked it up and down and gave it a hard smack. It swung right open.
“Franny . . .” The room and the smell of something rotten shut me up. There were two
twin beds with blue plaid bedspreads, the closest one unmade. Over each headboard was an
illustration of a happy little boy fishing. This was the only thing that made sense. On the other
bed, the bedside tables, a blue stuffed chair, a desk, and the floor sat dirty plates smeared with
crusted gravy, corners of sandwiches, moldy soups, paper bags with greasy stains. Both windows
were open, which I reckon was why we hadn’t smelled it in the hall, but the sills were lined with
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milk-ringed glasses and coffee cups and old juice glasses. On the desk in the far corner was a
foot-tall pile of newspapers and piles of unopened mail and drippy inkpots. I wondered if some
of those were from me or Mama. The doors of the wardrobe stood open. A single striped tie
drooped off a hanger, and in the bottom was a pair of scuffed-up brown shoes.
Frances looked back at me, her face still a splotchy red and white. I put my hand on her
shoulder, wishing I could take away some of her hurt.
“Do you think he’s . . . coming back?” she asked. She sounded like a little girl.
“I don’t know, Franny.”
She walked in a few more steps and pulled the blue plaid cover back on the unmade twin
bed. It was the only thing in the room not littered with wadded-up papers and dirty plates. She
crawled in it and pulled the cover up over her and turned her back to me.
“Please, I want to be alone now, Birdie,” she said. I waited a moment to see if she
changed her mind. When she didn’t, I left like she’d asked.
***
“I heated up some supper, Mrs. Tartt. Can I bring you a plate?” It was many hours later and the
light outside was already starting to fade. She and Frances had both ended up in the dark-paneled
library that looked out on the front yard
“Heavens, I couldn’t eat if I wanted to,” Mrs. Tartt said. It was just this morning’s
biscuits with ham and some butter beans from yesterday. The very ripe tomato from the
windowsill had burst when I’d tried to slice it. I was starving and ate it like a peach, the juice
dripping down my chin, and then I felt guilty for being so ravenous at a time like this.
This afternoon Mrs. Tartt had called the lawyer in Jackson and begged his secretary to
have him call her back right away. He hadn’t yet. Now, she sat watching Frances who was laid
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out drunk on the leather divan. When I’d found her in here a few hours ago, she’d been standing
by the window, watching the road, hugging the bottle of Old Taylor like it was Ella Jane. She
wouldn’t answer me, she just kept sipping with a painful grimace. I’d never seen Frances take
liquor, much less straight from the bottleneck, but this wasn’t the time for fancy crystal. Rory’d
taken most of it anyway. She hadn’t stayed upright for long.
I wanted to check on Picador and Polly at their houses, but I didn’t want to leave these
two. I also thought we should go look for Rory, but where would he have gone? I couldn’t
imagine he’d burgle his own house and then take up residence two miles down the road at a hotel
or boardinghouse. It was even more strange and confounding when you considered the little
things he’d taken or not taken: The photograph of him as a little boy, sitting on his mama’s lap,
his father smiling so proudly behind them, was missing from the hall, but the portrait of him and
Frances in their wedding clothes hadn’t even been skewed. In the kitchen, he’d taken many of
the heavy electric appliances—El Tosto, El Eggo, El Et Cetera-o—but he’d left the electric
carpet sweeper sitting out by the broken china. I could practically hear the clang of the silver
service being dropped into pillowcases. The Studebaker was a broad, roomy motorcar, with a
rack on the back for a trunk.
Frances’s skirt was yanked up to her knees, her white arm flopped off the side. I’d set a
mixing bowl on the floor near the chaise in case she needed to throw up.
“Least somebody’ll get some sleep tonight,” Mrs. Tartt said, from a black leather wing
chair.
“She didn’t exactly have a choice,” I said. “I’ll get her upstairs.”
“No, let her be.” Mrs. Tartt’s light blue shopping silk was accordioned with wrinkles, her
hair was crushed on one side, but somehow she’d applied a fresh coat of red lipstick. My daddy
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had died on a Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning Mama’d made their bed and then promptly
unmade it and got right back in it. The things we did to make ourselves feel like everything was
fine.
I sat at Frances’s feet and saw Mrs. Tartt consider the bottle of Old Taylor on the floor. “I
thought all his talk . . . I thought it was him looking after us,” Mrs. Tartt said. “Don’t run up the
telephone bill, don’t buy anything new.” Her eyes were swollen and pink, her feet bare. I’d never
seen Mrs. Tartt barefooted before. “Mr. Allison—he said Rory’d known for months they were
fixing to fire him, so I have to wonder how long had he been planning to do this? Is that why he
let poor Mr. Jake go and wouldn’t even pay Pic and Polly?” Her voice rose, saying their names.
“So he’d have more left over for himself? They were working here for nothing . . .”
I shook my head, I honestly didn’t know, but I had to give Rory credit: He’d been
thorough. The wooden stand that had held the Indian book stood empty, and there were gaps in
the bookshelves where there’d been rare ones or a statue or bauble that might be worth
something. The books alone had to have taken some forethought.
After a minute, Mrs. Tartt leaned back, and the big leather chair swallowed her up. “I
want to tell you something, Birdie, and it might be shocking to you.”
“That seems unlikely after today, but you go ahead.”
“The other night, when I told you Rory was upset about going to New Orleans . . .” She
looked over at Frances to check she was truly asleep. “It was to go stay in a hospital down
there.”
“What for?” I asked.
“For an illness. Called Homo Sexuality. Rory has it. It’s a disease where men want to be
intimate with other men. Do you know what I’m referring to, Birdie?”
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I nodded but was too stunned to do much more. For what felt like a full minute, I
negotiated what to say. I mean, should I tell her about a boy I knew in high school, that people
spread rumors about? He’d been soft-spoken, worn glasses, and had thin, dark hair. He’d loved
birds and bird-watching. Joseph was his name. He’d once told me starlings sang too high for
human ears to pick up and that most birds hardly even lived for a year. He’d had tears in his eyes
when he told me this fact. I liked him so much for that. The other boys had pummeled him after
school so bad they broke his nose, and his collarbone. Mrs. Tartt was leaning forward, waiting,
but I couldn’t tell her about Joseph and what they’d done to him.
So I said, “My granddaddy had a bull with that predilection.” It was all I could dang think
of.
“What did you do about it?”
I should’ve gone to bed. “We shot him.”
She nodded. “Well, I reckon I knew one growing up, and I tell you people were terrible to
that boy.” She shut her eyes and whispered, “He was such a good dancer.”
Frances kicked, lodging her foot in my stomach. I left it there; this was not the time for
her to be waking up. I reached down and handed Mrs. Tartt the bourbon bottle, figuring she
needed it. She held on to it with her small white hands.
“Oxford, Mississippi, is no place for a young man to act peculiar like that,” she said.
“Henry—he thought Rory was just shy with girls, so he took him to see a woman, someplace
south of Memphis. He thought that’d do the trick. But then Henry . . .” She flashed her eyes up to
the ceiling. “Caught Rory at it . . . again, and it was awful. I mean, just awful. Henry refused to
let his son suffer from the disease another day. So he consulted a doctor, confidentially, and he
learned there was a treatment that’d had some success at a hospital down in New Orleans. Henry
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arranged for Rory to be admitted as soon as he graduated high school. We told folks he’d gone to
tour Europe. Thank heavens the draft was over, or he might’ve been found out.” Mrs. Tartt
uncorked the bourbon and took a long sip. When she was finished, she frowned at the bottle for
that tacky thing she’d just done.
“Rory was terrified. He was supposed to only be at the hospital for a month, Henry
promised him that was all it would be, and Rory agreed to go, but after his first night, he wrote
us begging to leave. And every day after that, he wrote to me pleading for me to change his
father’s mind. He told me about the . . . horrible things they were doing to him, but Henry
wouldn’t hear of it.” She took another long sip to blot out that awful memory, closing her eyes as
she did it
“Did he get better after the month?” I asked.
“No. He did not.” She took a handkerchief that had been tucked up her sleeve and dabbed
her raw lips. “After a month, the doctor told us that Rory needed further treatment, so Henry told
him to go ahead and administer as many treatments as it took.”
She saw my look—they’d lied to their son?
“I had to support Henry’s decision; he was my husband.”
“How many months was Rory there?”
“Five,” she said. She sounded frustrated. “When he finally got home, his clothes plumb
hung off him. He had marks up his arms from all the injections.” She wrung her hands. “He was
so different. He didn’t smile or laugh anymore. He drew back if I tried to touch him. When he
left for Baylor, he wouldn’t look either one of us in the eye. He’s never been able to forgive me
for it.”
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She offered me the bottle, but I waved it away. I thought about how trapped Rory had
looked, but maybe I’d seen shame too. Despite everything that’d happened, I thought, Poor
Rory.
“Does Frances know any of this?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. I don’t know what she thought when Rory wanted to get married so
quick.” She took in a harsh, guilty breath. “Henry changed our will so Rory wouldn’t get a dime
if he didn’t get married before he was twenty-five. No property, no money. Nothing.”
Poor Frances.
***
Three walls away, the telephone rang at hardly six thirty in the morning. I toed open the screen
door, trying not to drop the eggs I’d basketed in my nightgown. Picador and Polly hadn’t come
in yet and if they didn’t show up in the next half hour, I decided I’d walk to Freemantown to see
if they were all right. Yesterday felt like a dream, a bad one, but I should’ve gone and checked
on them anyway.
Feet drummed toward the hall, including mine. Frances scooped up the receiver first.
“Tartt residence,” she said.
“Rory—is it Rory?” Mrs. Tartt asked, rushing down the stairs.
Frances handed her the receiver. “It’s the lawyer, calling long-distance from Jackson.”
Mrs. Tartt sat down at the little telephone table in her long nightgown. She cleared her
throat. “This is Mrs. Henry Tartt.”
I sat on the bottom stair about ten feet away, the warm, heavy nest of eggs cradled in my
skirt. Frances, still in her wrinkled navy shopping dress, sunk down beside me. She’d slept on the
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library chaise last night. As Mrs. Tartt listened, she stared at the wall where the family
photograph used to hang. Please say there’s something left, I prayed, for all our sakes. I took
Frances’s hand. I wasn’t sure if she really understood what was happening. At the other end of
the hall, the kitchen screen door popped and I heard Picador say, “Law, it’s hot this mawning.”
No one moved. After a few minutes, Mrs. Tartt hung up the receiver.
“He said . . . he doesn’t know of anything except the deed to this house,” Mrs. Tartt said
from the telephone table.
“What does that mean?” Frances stood up.
“I don’t really know exactly, though I reckon,” Mrs. Tartt said, putting her hand to her
neck, “we’ll have to do some cutting back.”
Frances wandered back to the library, not looking well, and I went to the kitchen to put
the eggs away. Mrs. Tartt was talking to Picador. I’d forgotten this was Polly’s day off.
“What he did?” Picador set a hand on the edge of the counter. “He took all the—what?”
“What did Rory say yesterday, Picador? Did you see anything strange?”
Picador’s tiny forehead turned into a stack of wrinkles. “Little after ten yesterday
mawning, he come back here from taking y’all shopping and he say for us to go on home, that he
want the house quiet so he could do some work.”
“So the two of you left before . . . he did any of this?” Mrs. Tartt asked. I guess it was just
too soon to admit out loud what her son had done.
“Yessum. You reckon he coming back? Where you think he gone to?”
“I don’t—we don’t know yet,” she said. “Picador.” Mrs. Tartt set a hand to her own
cheek, maybe to comfort herself. “Until things get sorted out with the money, I don’t know what
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I can do . . .” Her voice grew higher, cracking a little. “I’m sorry but I can’t in good conscience
keep you and Polly on.”
Picador’s mouth turned down so harshly it looked like a drawing of a face frowning.
Mrs. Tartt held a silver netted change purse out to Picador that I hadn’t realized she was
holding. “This is all I’ve got in the house, but you take it, and I promise you we’ll pay you what
we owe you and Polly just as soon as we can.” She urged it toward Picador again, and a few
coins clinked inside. Picador’s small shoulders drew back slightly; she had no intention of
touching Mrs. Tartt’s change purse. “Please, Pic, put it in your pocketbook.”
Picador reached up and took it between two fingers and set it on the counter near Mrs.
Tartt. “When you take the medicine, you put you a little sugar in there. That’s what I do fo’
you.”
“It’s—it’s just for a little while until we sort this out, Picador.” Mrs. Tartt shook her head,
her eyes full of tears.
“I come in if you need me, I don’t mind.” Picador looked over at the sink where she’d
stood for twenty-six years. “Law, I done cleaned this kitchen more’n I cleaned my own. Give
Mr. Rory his first bath right in this here sink.”
“You were here when they brought the pole out and we got electric lights in ’22.”
“And Mr. Henry tote in that big ole ugly stovepipe in ’24.”
“You didn’t like it, did you?”
“Still don’t,” Picador said, and Mrs. Tartt smiled.
Picador’s bottom lip trembled, her wrinkled mouth quivering. “Yesterday, Mr. Rory give
me a hug like he used to when he was a boy.”
They both shook their heads, remembering and mourning it all.
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***
“There anything I can do for you, Franny?” I asked. She reached down from the library chaise
and handed me the throw-up bowl. There’d been some activity, though thankfully not much.
Frances pushed herself up and said, “I’m going to bed and I’m not getting out.” Except
for the lovely blue grandfather clock ticking in the hall, the house was unnervingly silent for this
time of day.
I went upstairs and, bracing myself, opened the door to Rory’s disgusting bedroom. As I
stacked dirty plates and ringed glasses, I figured Rory must have some cash on him that maybe
he’d been withdrawing and setting aside. I assumed he planned to sell the valuables he took, but
what in the world did he intend to do when he did? Start a new life? Leave all these unopened
bills and an unpaid mortgage for his mother and wife to deal with? And here I thought I’d be
getting on a train today. That sure wouldn’t be happening. All I’d be bringing home anyway was
the fact that more bad things had happened, and I’d be leaving behind two women who’d never
even made their own dang breakfast before.
It hadn’t escaped me that Meg’s mother hadn’t shown up yesterday. With the way things
were going, I had no idea what I’d say to her if she did. After carrying down an armload of
crusty dishes and a stack of bills, I decided that first things first, I should take inventory of what
they had left in the kitchen. In the icebox were two cooked pork chops, half a chicken, leftover
butter beans and okra from Monday lunch, plus a dozen jars of pickles and relishes and devilish
toppings. They stored some root vegetables in the cellar, flour and cornmeal in the pantry, plus
there was the cow for cream and the chickens for eggs. All those ingredients I knew like friends.
But Frances was an astonishingly terrible cook. She let eggs boil for hours. Her white rice
crunched between the teeth. What in the world were these two supposed to eat? As I sifted
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deeper in the shelves, I found stacks of mysterious little gold tins. Imported Italian anchovies,
cockles, squid in brine, mackerel, petite octopus, jars of German white asparagus, capers, olives
of all sorts—kalamata, manzanilla, Castelvetrano, tiny pickles called cornichons. There were
some cans of regular old beans and some corn but also things labeled truffle shavings and foie
gras, whatever that was? They had the usual spices but also a red powder called paprika,
smoked. I sniffed it. It smelled meaty, zesty. Also four glass tubes of Moroccan saffron, which
must’ve cost a fortune, the threads a delicate blazing orange.
People deal with catastrophe differently. For a little while, I forgot we were all broke and
concentrated on what I could construct for supper out of these exotic ingredients. It turned out to
be a very good chicken potpie, made with saffron and white German asparagus, imported
English peas, and turned carrots. I felt like a genius. When I went upstairs, both their bedroom
doors were shut tight. Neither answered when I knocked. I ended up dining alone, standing and
eating over the kitchen sink.
The night passed and then it was a bright new day. By that afternoon I’d gathered up as
many letters from the Bank of Lafayette County as I could find in the mess in Rory’s room.
There were old letters and new letters, unopened envelopes and puckered pages stained with
coffee, years of account statements and warnings to make a payment. I found two more recent
letters with a word that stopped me cold: foreclosure.
Foreclosure proceedings will commence if payment is not made.
I finished cleaning up Rory’s bedroom, though the rotten odor still lingered. At last I
found a freshly moldy plate of stroganoff from the week before tucked way back under the bed
and a half-eaten can of sardines in the back of a dresser drawer. As Meg would say, you cannot
make this stuff up. After that I had to wonder—was sleeping in here with rotting food actually
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preferable to sleeping with Frances? Or was it some kind of terrible punishment he inflicted on
himself?
It all would’ve been just a hair easier if Rory hadn’t taken the damn radio. Any kind of
noise, besides the ticking grandfather clock, to break the quiet desperation in the house.
Mrs. Tartt came down around lunchtime to ask for “a little toast,” genuinely apologizing
for not “visiting more.” Like I was an unattended-to presidential houseguest and she hadn’t lost a
fortune. Two days after Rory’d left and she was already taking on the wrung-out-rag look of my
mother. She seemed thinner under her long nightgown, her grayish-blond hair flat to her head.
Evidently poor wasn’t very good for the looks.
Around one, the telephone rang. It too had been strangely silent, and suddenly it was like
a screaming shrew. Feet hammered down the stairs. “It’s Pripp,” I said, handing the receiver to
Frances. She froze, eyes like saucers, then frowned and drew in a trembling breath and stuck on a
maniacal smile—a whole dime store novel’s worth of emotions before she even said hello. “Of
course I’m fine!” she said into the receiver. “Everybody’s fine, whydaya ask?”
Frances popped her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry. Tell Garnett it was on account
of—well, I’ve just been so sick. It must’ve been something I ate . . . Yes, I promise I’ll be in next
week.”
I managed to sit her at the kitchen table and serve her a plate of biscuits. She’d finally
stripped off the navy dress from two days ago and wore just the white petticoat that went
underneath.
“We need to talk, Franny. You know I was supposed to go home yesterday, right?”
“Do you think Pripp knew? About Rory? Do you think people are talking about us?” Her
face was yellow with fear.
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“I don’t think so, Franny. Look, it’s been two days. Don’t you think we ought to do
something?”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . call the sheriff?”
“I am not calling the sheriff on my husband.” I had to admit, it was impressive how sure
she sounded. Like maybe there was a protocol in the handbook for something like this.
“We have to do something, Franny. At some point I have to go home.”
Her red, swollen eyes went wide. “You’re leaving me? After everything that’s happened?
I don’t know where my husband is, I don’t even have help, and—and you’re leaving me?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—don’t think about it right now.” The next train wasn’t until next
week anyway.
As I was carrying a tray of cream of mushroom soup up to Mrs. Tartt, I met her coming
down the stairs. Her ear was turned like she was listening to something very far away. She
walked over to the curved Swedish grandfather clock by the front door. It was taller than her,
with long brass chimes and bluebirds painted around the roman numerals, mouths open, chirping.
“My grandmother’s clock stopped ticking,” she said. She sounded confused and a little
put out. Somehow I’d missed the silence. “Polly always wound it. Every Tuesday.” She opened
the little glass door to move the hands; they’d stopped at 4:05. She looked around, her mouth
drawn down deep at the sides. “Heavens, I don’t even know what time it is anymore.”
***
“The house is getting dusty,” Frances said, pouting at the dining table. “See the table down at
that end?” She stared at it, her face full of doom.
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“I will get to it, Frances,” I said, “when I finish the dishes.” It was only Friday, but still
neither of them seemed to know what to do with themselves, though evidently it wasn’t helping
me clean up the kitchen or the rest of the house. It’d only been three days, but my arms already
ached from cooking three meals a day, not to mention tidying the rest of the house, tending to the
animals, and straightening up the mess Rory’d left behind, plus going through the bills—and it
would only get worse. I brought more coffee out to the dining room when I really wanted to stick
a cloth in Frances’s hand and a mop somewhere else, but I told myself she was in mourning.
They both were—Mrs. Tartt had lost a son, Frances a husband, and they’d both lost their dear old
friend money.
“Good morning.” Mrs. Tartt walked in. She was wearing proper clothes for the first time
in days. A pale pink dress, red lipstick, and powdered cheeks, though she still had circles under
her eyes. But she looked more clearheaded, and I hoped this meant we could finally talk about
what to do.
“I thought I’d ask Mr. Binny to ride me to town in a little while. I’m almost out of my
heart pills.” She had a piece of paper and a fountain pen beside her plate. “Let me know if
anybody wants to add anything to the list.”
“Oh, I do,” Frances said, leaning over.
I checked on the ham-and-cheese casserole in the oven, and when I came back and
looked over their shoulders, Frances was adding things to a list in her perfect penmanship.
“Franny,” I said.
“What?” She kept writing.
“Why would you waste money on cream? You have a cow outside.”
“I like the store-bought kind better.”
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“What are those?” I said, pointing to a thing.
“Memphis Ice Slippers. They’re the most wonderful cookies, Mrs. Rich ordered them for
me two weeks ago.”
“Orange marmalade?” I felt bad but, “Mrs. Tartt, is that really a necessity?”
She shrugged. “I just put on there what I thought we needed.”
“What’s Denton’s Furniture?” I asked.
“I want to order a new radio set,” Mrs. Tartt said. “Don’t worry, I’ll charge everything,
and we’ll take care of it when this is all over. We’ve got an account everywhere in town.”
“We do, don’t we?” Frances said sitting up straighter.
I took the list away. “You also have debts all over town and an overdue mortgage, so
please don’t go charging anything else. You might need that credit later on.” I set my hand down
flat on the table. “What we need to do is figure out exactly what you’ve got to live on. Go get
your pocketbooks.”
Mrs. Tartt opened hers in her lap. “All I’ve got is a quarter. I gave Picador the rest. We
still owe them twenty-two dollars, you know. That’s a lot of money for colored folks.”
It was a lot for everyone in the room. “Franny?”
“I don’t use my allowance to pay for house things,” she said. I shut my eyes and stared
her down—somehow managing to do both—until she said, “Fine,” and came back with a little
black coin purse. She counted the contents with a finger. “I have eighty-two cents.”
I fetched an empty Luzianne Tea can, took their money, and dumped it in. “Alright, look:
Mrs. Tartt, you need to go down to that bank and take out everything you’ve got left. Thirty-six
dollars and fourteen cents is what Mr. Allison said. I don’t know how it all works, but I’m afraid
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they might take it from you. I’ll come with you, and we’re gonna ask him some questions about
this mortgage.”
Mrs. Tartt visibly shuddered. “Do I have to go back in there? Maybe they’ll talk to . . .
you?”
“I don’t know if they will, but I’ll ask.” I went and got the big black checkbook off
Rory’s desk in his study and put it in front of Mrs. Tartt. “Write a check and I’ll cash it for you.”
At least I knew that part.
“I don’t believe I know how,” Mrs. Tartt said. “Do you know how to write a check,
Frances?”
Frances shook her head. “Rory said it was unladylike.”
“How convenient of him.” I’d seen Mr. Parkins write enough, so I sat down at the head of
the table with the checkbook and Mrs. Tartt’s fountain pen and wrote out a check to Cash for
thirty-six dollars and fourteen cents. I handed Mrs. Tartt the pen to sign her name on the bottom.
“Why are you being so bossy about everything?” Frances asked. “And who said you
could go touching things in Rory’s study?”
I tore the long check out of the book and spoke gently as I could without screaming. Had
no one taught her anything because she was pretty? “Because eventually I have got to go home,
Franny, and when I do, I need to know you’re being smart.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” Mrs. Tartt said. She glanced at Frances. “Then it’ll just be
us.”
“Please, please don’t go, Birdie,” Frances begged. “We need your help.”
“Don’t worry about it yet. The next train’s not for another week,” I said.
“Maybe Rory’ll be home by then,” Frances said.
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