The Dry Grass of August
by Anna Jean Mayhew
Excerpt
The Dry Grass of August
In August of 1954, we took our first trip without Daddy, and
Stell got to use the driver's license she'd had such a fit about.
It was just a little card saying she was Estelle Annette Watts,
that she was white, with hazel eyes and brown hair. But her
having a license made that trip different from any others, because
if she hadn't had it, we never would have been stuck in
Sally's Motel Park in Claxton, Georgia, where we went to buy
fruitcakes and had a wreck instead. And Mary would still be
with us.
Stell and I carried the last of the suitcases to the driveway.
The sky was a wide far blue above the willow oaks that line
Queens Road West, with no promise of rain to break the heat.
I put Mary's flowered cloth bag in the trunk and Daddy took
it out. "Always start with the biggest piece." He picked up
Mama's Pullman and grunted. "She packed like she's never
coming back." He hefted it into the trunk. "Okay, girls, what's
next?"
Stell tapped her suitcase with the toe of her size six penny
loafer.
"That's the ticket." Daddy put Stell's bag in the trunk beside
Mama's. He looked at the luggage still sitting by the car
and ran his hand through his hair, which was oily with Brylcreem
and sweat. "Ninety-five, and not even ten o'clock." He
wiped his face with his pocket handkerchief and pushed his
wire-rimmed glasses back in place. His hands were tan from
playing golf, thick and square, with blunt fingers. On his right
pinkie he wore a ring that had been his father's - gold, with a
flat red stone.
The cowbell rang as Mary shut the kitchen door behind
her. She came down the back walk, Davie on her hip. Puddin
stumbled along beside them, struggling with the small suitcase
she'd gotten for Christmas.
Daddy said to Mama, "Don't let Mary ride up front."
"I'd never do such a fool thing," Mama said. "Everybody
use the bathroom one last time."
Stell stepped into the shade of the garage. "I don't need
to."
I ran to the breezeway, touching Mary's arm when I passed
her, letting the screen door slap shut behind me. Daddy's bathroom
smelled like cigarettes and poop. I cranked open the
window and sat on his toilet to pee. In the full-length mirror
on the back of the door, I could see the awful welts on my
thighs. I stood and yanked up my pedal pushers.
Daddy was rearranging the luggage, making one more
square inch of room in the trunk. Stell Ann stood by the car,
shiny in her readiness, from her silky hair to her clear lip gloss
to her pale-pink nails. Polished like I could never be.
A horn honked. Aunt Rita's green Coupe deVille skidded
into our driveway, stopping beside the Packard. She rolled down
her window. "I found the picnic basket."
Mama said, "Great!" She asked Daddy, "Can we make room
for it?"
He groaned, looking into the crammed trunk.
Aunt Rita passed the basket out the window to Mama.
"It's packed with dishes, glasses, utensils. The ones in the paper
bag are for Mary." She lowered her voice. "There's talk of the
Klan in Georgia."
Mama handed the basket to Daddy. "We'll be fine."
"I hope so." Aunt Rita waved as she pulled out of the driveway.
Mama jingled her car keys. "Say good-bye to your father."
Daddy hugged Puddin with one arm and reached for Stell
with the other, but she held herself stiffly away from him. He
brushed my forehead with a kiss."Be good, Junebug.You know
you're Daddy's girl, right?"
His head blocked the morning sun and I couldn't see his
face.
Mary stood in the driveway, holding Davie. Daddy poked
Davie's tummy. "Say bye-bye."
Davie waved.
"Take care of my boy for me," Daddy said to Mary.
"Yes, sir." Mary didn't look at Daddy when she spoke.
We all got in the car, Mama and Stell Ann in front, Davie
between them in his canvas baby seat. Puddin and I were in the
back with Mary, who sat behind the driver's seat, tall and
straight, her dark face already damp with sweat. She patted my
leg to let me know she liked sitting next to me.
Mama's hair was curled and hanging loose, flashing red and
gold. She handed me her sun hat, scarf, and gloves to put on
the ledge in the back window. "Fold my gloves and put them
under my hat, then cover my hat with the scarf." She watched
me in the rearview mirror, making sure I did what she said.
She started the car. "Is everyone ready?"
"Ready, Freddy," I said. Stell sniffed. Slang was beneath her
now that she was sixteen, was in Young Life, and had been
saved.
Daddy leaned in Mama's window to kiss her on the cheek.
"I'll see you at Pawleys, okay?" Mama bent to move her purse
and he kissed her shoulder instead. "Keep it in the road," he
said.
She put the car in reverse. Had she felt his kiss on her
shoulder?
Daddy waved from the garage, looking alone already, and I
remembered what he'd said to Uncle Stamos, his older
brother. "While they're gone, I'm going to play golf every
afternoon and get stinking drunk whenever I want." I wondered
how he'd feel, coming home to a quiet house, nobody
on the phone, no supper in the oven. No one to yell at when
he got mad.
Mama turned onto Queens Road West, into the shady
green tree tunnels formed by the towering oaks. "I hope
there's not much traffic between here and the highway."
On the way out of Charlotte we passed Municipal Pool,
and I saw Richard Daniels poised on the new high dive while
another kid did a cannonball from the low board. Nobody was
a better diver than Richard. Next time I talked to him, I'd ask
him to give me lessons.
When Daddy and Uncle Stamos won the contract to build
those diving boards, they had hunkered for weeks over blueprints
spread on the dining room table. Huge papers that
smelled like ether and had WATTS CONCRETE FABRICATIONS,
INC. in a box on every page, with a caption: CHARLOTTE MUNICIPAL
SWIMMING POOL, and subheadings: DECK. BASE FOR
THREE-METER BOARD. BASE FOR ONE-METER BOARD.
Daddy showed me how to read the drawings. "Always
check the scale. An inch can equal a foot or ten feet." He held
the papers flat to keep them from curling. "If you don't know
the scale, you won't understand the drawings." I learned about
blueprints as I breathed in his smell of tobacco and Old Spice.
He liked teaching me things. When I was in first grade he
gave me a miniature toolbox with painted wooden tools, which
Mama thought was ridiculous. "That kind of thing is for boys,"
she'd said.
"I don't have any," Daddy had told her. "Yet." He patted
her bottom. "And girls need to know the business end of a
hammer."
If Daddy wanted help, I grabbed my toolbox and ran to
him, but he hadn't asked for my help in a long time. Thirteen
was too old for make-believe tools.
Puddin wriggled on the seat next to me. "I want to be in
front when we get to Florida so I can see the ocean first."
"That won't be till tomorrow afternoon," I told her.
She put her head against my shoulder. "I can wait." Then
she sat up again. "Do my braids so I look Dutch." I knotted
her skimpy braids on top of her head, knowing they wouldn't
stay, as fine as her hair was.
"Do I look Dutch?"
"You look like Puddin-tane with her braids tied up." Silky
blonde wisps fell behind her ears.
Davie started to fuss and Mama asked Stell to check his diaper.
He was almost two but wasn't taking to potty training, so
Mama had him in diapers for the trip. Stell lifted him free of
the car seat and asked, "Are you ever going to let me drive?"
"Yes."
"His diaper's okay. Take him for a while, Mary." She helped
Davie climb over the seat. Mary reached for him and he beamed
at her, spreading his arms.
Stell asked Mama, "When?"
"At Taylor's, but not on the highway. Not yet."
"I'm qualified." Stell was pushing her luck. Mama didn't
answer.
We were going first to Pensacola, Florida, to see Mama's
brother Taylor Bentley, who was divorced. His graduation
photo from Annapolis was in our living room in a brass frame,
taken when he was twenty-one, handsome in his white uniform, his hat held under his arm. When he kicked Aunt Lily
out, a judge said their daughter would stay with Uncle Taylor.
I heard Mama on the phone. "Lily Bentley is a slut." My dictionary
cleared up the mystery enough for me to suppose that
Aunt Lily must have been caught in an affair, a word that made
me long for details I was hopeless to know.
In the early afternoon, we ate pimento cheese sandwiches
in the car and stopped at an Esso station west of Columbia. I
dug through the ice in the drink box until my hand was red
before I came up with a Coke, and stood in the sun gulping it
despite Mama saying I could only have one and to make it last.
I looked around for Mary and saw her closing the door of
an outhouse behind the filling station. She took Kleenex from
her pocket and wiped her hands. I went to her. "You going to
get something to drink?"
She shook her head. "Don't know when I'll find another
outhouse."
Stell walked up, tapping her Coke. "Want to play traveling?"
"Okay. Two bits." I guzzled my drink and belched.
"Suave. Do that for the next cute boy you see."
"I'm ready. One, two, three!"
We turned our bottles over. "Charlotte! I win!" I loved beating
Stell at games.
"Atlanta," she said. "You lose."
I called to Mama, who was by the drink box, a Royal
Crown in her hand, "Which is farther away, Charlotte or Atlanta?"
"Atlanta. Why?"
I slapped a quarter on Stell's outstretched palm. She smirked.
An old man popped the cap off a Seven-Up and raised it as
if he were playing traveling, too. He squinted at the bottom of
the bottle, where a bubble of air was trapped in the thick glass,
green and sparkling in the sun. "Ever who blowed this'un had
the hee-cawps," he said in a cracked squeal. When we got in
the car, I told everybody what he'd said and the funny way he
talked. Only Mary laughed.
We took off again, Puddin snuggling under the feather pillows
we'd brought along, curling herself up until just her sandals
showed. She hated air-conditioning. I thought it was because
she was skinny, with not enough meat on her bones to keep
her warm.
I always looked out for Puddin, because before you knew
it, she'd disappear. Once, on a trip to the mountains, we left her
at a filling station and went twenty miles before we missed her.
I'm the only one who noticed how often she hid herself away.
Mama wasn't alarmed. "She's only five. She's only six. She's
only seven."
Wiggles of heat rose from the highway, and the trip was
long and boring, even with Mama pointing out things such as
the Georgia state line and peach trees heavy with fruit. We
played alphabet until I was almost to Z. Mary pointed to a calf
and whispered, "Young cow," for me to use for my Y. Stell said
that wasn't fair, and Mama wouldn't rule, so we quit.
In a town called Toccoa, I saw signs in people's front yards:
SEPARATE BUT EQUAL IS GOOD FOR EVERYONE and SEGREGATION
AIN'T BROKE.DON'T FIX IT.
"Mama, what do those signs mean?"
"It's got to do with that mess in Washington." She glanced
at Mary in the rearview mirror. "Never mind; it won't happen
in Charlotte."
"What won't happen?"
"Hush. I don't want to talk."
Excerpted from The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew. Copyright © 2011 by Anna Jean Mayhew. Excerpted by permission of Kensington. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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