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Article Excerpt
BETTYE HOLT STANDS IN HER formal dining room watching a squirrel swing back and forth as it pilfers birdseed from the feeder in her neighbors' yard. Although her yard abounds with cardinals, thrush, and in the spring, hummingbirds, her feeders, left from the previous owners, are empty. In fact, her garden, once lush with perennials and day lilies when she moved in three years prior has grown wild from inattention. A lawn care service keeps her grass free of creeping Charlie and dandelions, but she roots for the inevitable victory of the weeds so she can fill the beds with rocks and create a Zen garden.
Her landscaping stands in contrast to the house. Bettye thinks that a nice garden suggests you have plenty of leisure time--and idleness is not a trait she wants to advertise. A messy house on the other hand is tasteless. As such, her Queen Anne, listed as the "jewel of Claret Circle," has been lovingly restored and elegantly furnished with the help of Randolph Beard's decorator.
She lets the curtain fall and returns to the problem standing next to her china cabinet. Holts believe deeply in the gospel, saving cooking grease, and "haints." So despite her excuse of education, her downright refusal to respect her grandmother's constant communication with great Uncle Lester, Bettye can't deny that all signs affirm the beribboned little girl jumping double-dutch amidst ropes twirled by invisible hands is probably not among the living.
"Call me Mary Beth," the girl says, and stops jumping.
As she approaches, Bettye backs into her thermal curtains. They are supportive and warm, and she wishes she could hide in the deep folds.
"Will you take my hand?" Mary Beth says.
Bettye panics. Does she want to find out if the girl is solid? What if her fingers grasp only air? She looks at the scrupulously braided hair. It reminds her of how her mother would carefully part her hair, then oil the scalp before tightly plaiting four even-spaced braids until the back of her head resembled a grid. But unlike Mary Beth, Bettye never wore ribbons.
Yesterday was the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. And although it was both a holiday and a Monday, Bettye was having her hair done at Flossie's Beauty Shop when she ran into her childhood friend Pauline Scott. Lesa had just sat her under the dryer after a particularly luxurious shampoo--Lesa had healing as well as growing hands.
"Ten minutes, OK?" she said, setting the timer.
Flossie's was one of few places that still drew her to the South Side. She looked forward to her weekly appointment not only for the respite but for the flavor of urban life she missed in the suburbs. It was worth the traffic to catch up on community gossip, which, since her mother had passed and she started attending the local Methodist church instead of the A.M.E. she went to as a girl, was hard to come by. Unlike the other stylists who overscheduled, Lesa, a thirty-something single mom, was always professional and punctual. She knew when to engage in small talk and when her clients wanted to read or sit in silence. Bettye had been going to her for almost eight years. She thought of herself as Lesa's mentor and frequently offered advice on college (Lesa went part-time to Chicago State) or her love life: Bettye tactfully suggested she postpone her wedding to her fiance, an "entrepreneur," who was delinquent on child support. In short, Flossie's was a safe space, a haven, where she was just one of many heads that needed styling.
As the election neared, however, the other clients began to take notice of her. While the dryer whirred snippets of their conversations drifted over: "Her mama was my first grade teacher ...," "Running against Pittard, you know," and "Republican."
"Bettye."
She opened her eyes. Was she done already? But Lesa was up front talking to the receptionist. She looked around. There was a woman sitting under the dryer directly opposite, reading a magazine.
"Do I know you?" Bettye asked.
The woman didn't lower the magazine and her hair was a mass of plastic,
blue curling rods.
"It's Pauline."
"Pauline?"
"Polly Scott."
Bettye pushed up the hood of the dryer. Polly Scott had been her best friend. They played together every summer she visited her Aunt Celeste in Birmingham. Polly was the fastest girl in her middle school--on her feet that is. She could climb trees and shoot as well as any of Bettye's many boy cousins. She was also the smartest in her grade level. When the NAACP needed volunteers to integrate the local high school, Polly was at the top of a very short list. On Polly's first day of school, one of her classmates threw...
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