The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett - 42

M ornings the floor feels cooler under my feet. Every night, I hear the slave dogs howling, running and chasing a poor thing, cracking bones outside my window. They are getting hungrier to store up for winter.

According to Willy May, the cousins have all gone back to school. If you had asked me just a couple weeks ago, I would have said nothing could get between me and that school. But what it comes down to is, I am too scared to go now. Lucille says if I leave this house, she will flat out not be here when I return. And then who will be your parental guardian? Not me, sister. I will be driven right straight back to where I came from.

When Willy May asks why I am not in school, I try and look very sad and say I am just not ready yet. I need a little more time to be upset about Tom dying. From what I hear Mrs. Heidelberg is still too weak in bed to worry about me not getting a education.

All I hope is Lucille will get tired of my company and send me to school in a couple weeks.

Me and Lucille, we have our good days and bad. I guess you could say we have worked out a routine.

Mornings are all right because she sleeps in late. If she does not wake up in the night and start drinking again, I try and sleep late too. By around noon, she is already sipping her first martini. Usually wearing whatever outfit she dressed up in the night before.

I do a good job keeping the house up to standards. All we need is Willy May reporting that we live like a couple of slobs. I run the sucking machine over the blue rug and run our clothes in the electric clothes washer, then I hang them to dry on the line. For meals, I have learned to boil Lucille’s coffee for breakfast and pour it for her like the help. I heat up the food without burning the house down. Around five is when she says she could eat a little lunch, which is just her taking a few bites of ham salad, ambrosia salad, gelatin salad. If you could make a martini salad, she would eat it. Supper is generally just me and a casserole.

Also, I have learned how to light a cigarette in my own mouth . Lucille taught me because she does not like a sulfur taste from the match. Ask me, she ought to accustom herself to the smell of sulfur for later. That is just my opinion.

Sometimes I sneak a cigarette of my own when she is not looking. Yep, Little Meg here has learned to smoke. Wouldn’t Ava be impressed—but that is not all. I can also mix up a batch of extra-dry gin martinis Lucille says rival Harry’s at the Ritz. The trick with the martini is to stir the gin and vermouth together two times in the ice, then strain it quick before it waters down. At this rate she will have me driving that car for her soon. Look at that eleven-year-old behind the wheel!

I tried a taste of one of her drinks, figuring they must be good considering how many she drinks a night. But it was awful! Like fire shooting down my gullet. It made me want to throw up my guts.

With Tom gone, Lucille talks to me now like we are a pair of old gossipy ladies at something called “the country club.” She likes me to be in her room with her while she tries on clothes, long gowns and short sparkly dresses, a fox fur stole. The fox mouth bites into the tail and I hate it, reminds me of those wild animals getting chased out there. She admires herself in the mirror, side to side, asking does she look fat. Sometimes I cock my head like I am trying to decide. When she has squirmed long enough, I say, You look about the same to me. A naked, starved-to-death chicken is what the lady looks like, in just a matter of weeks. The day drinking has definitely put some age on her.

She tells me all the details about her and the Heidelbergs. I got stories for days.

She has the gall to blame me for losing the baby? Says I drank the baby to death. So what if I had a few drinks while I was pregnant? Everybody does it.

While she talks, she will be creaming that red lipstick on, around and around. Coloring all outside her lines. When she gets drunk, she gets sloppy with that cigarette in her hand too. She burned me with it, though it was a accident. It was strange how it felt cold before it felt hot. I batted it off my arm before she cooked me alive. It left a blister that festered good.

Oopsie , she said when she saw what she had done.

I told Willy May I must’ve burned it heating up a casserole. I do what I can to hide the situation here. I am starting to wonder how long this can go on, though.

Soon as I can afford it , I am buying myself a white mink coat and a first-class ticket to Pennsylvania Station. When I get to New York City, I intend to take up residence at the St. Regis Hotel. If you’re a good little girl, maybe I’ll take you with me.

Oh she likes to dangle the carrot. She knows it makes my blood turn cold.

What happens if you don’t take me with you? I always ask.

She smiles slow and says, I’m just teasing. Course I’ll take you with me, sugar.

We play this game sometimes.

And I got some Spanish news for you too , she says. She has always got Spanish news for me. Before I married Tom, I had a line of men asking to marry me.

Sometimes I miss Tom so much it makes my throat hurt. I try to think of things to bring up so we can stroll down memory lane. But they are all memories of me and Tom without her.

Remember when Tom took me to the lake …

Remember how Tom used to laugh, like a bottle shook up not spilling any noise …

Remember how his daddy called him turkey when he was a boy …

Why did you choose Tom? I ask one evening.

I don’t know , she says, teetering in her high-heeled shoes. All she can think to come up with is, It was the twenties.

Later on this same particular evening, Lucille turns to me and says she is hungry . I sure don’t hear her say that word often so I go down to fix her a plate, thanking the Lord she might eat something. Maybe we can both get some damn sleep tonight.

Wouldn’t you know it, it is fried chicken night. I got some Spanish news for you: If a chicken drumstick is thrown at you hard enough, it will leave a mark .

With all that’s happened, that chicken leg burns me up most.

One night she dresses us both up. She puts me in a long red sequin number with real live ostrich feathers dyed red to match. Then she sits me at her little dressing table and does my hair. Lord, I am a sucker for somebody fooling with my hair. She puts all the makeup on me, the powder, the rouge, the black stuff on the eyelids, only a little crooked since she hasn’t had that much to drink. She draws me eyes that make me look like the queen of Sheba. Only a little bit crooked.

When she is done, I stare at my made-up self. The red lips, the dark lashes. And I see that I look a lot like her . Like that other mama. It gives me a lonesome feeling in my throat, remembering her at her dressing table. It went spray, spin, pin, spray, spin, pin and I wonder where she is … and what she looks like now.… To make it stop, I sit up and all I can see is Lucille has tried to dress me up to look like herself. That jerks me up quick.

That evening, miracles do happen and Lucille falls to sleep early. She is even in her own bed this time. Not her floor or downstairs on the living room sofa. I turn off her light and shut her door, hallelujah, I still got the energy to take a bath. I get the goo washed off my face, check the kitchen for evidence, and I am in bed before ten and read The Call of the Wild all the way to the end. It is nights like this that I think, maybe living with Lucille is not so bad. Long as I can keep tabs on how much she has drunk and where she will land nightly, this might could work. If I could just get to school and have her promise to be here when I get home, the two of us can be sort of like a family.

Just when I think I have got a handle on things, a smell wakes me up.

I run down to see that fool is in Tom’s office in the middle of the night and fell asleep smoking a damn cigarette, reading Tom’s book! I run in with a bucket of water and dump it on her and the sofa to put the fire out. She’s so drunk, she doesn’t even damn wake up right away! I shake her good! If I had not caught it in time, we would both be ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I put a hand on my hip and let her have it. She will not even remember this tomorrow. One night! I holler. Is that too much to ask, Lucille? One damn night of some peace and quiet!

And I just damn cleaned in here too.

Lucille stands up, her nightgown dripping wet, and what does that woman have the nerve to say? You know, once you get past the godawful opening, Tom’s book really isn’t that bad.

And then she oh so casual saunters back up to her room. I am so galled, I don’t know what to think, except she is a monster. And coming from me, that is damn saying something!

I don’t even want to be on the same floor of the house with her, I am so furious mad. I curl up on the green sofa in the living room and I sleep there for the rest of the night. At sunrise, I gather up the pages of Tom’s book she did not use for a damn campfire and stack them back on his desk. The best I can do is turn the wet, charred cushions over on the sofa. But the smell of smoke has worked its way all over the house.

If she had just took the time to read his book all the way through Tom might still be alive. But as I go around opening all the windows around the house to let out the smell, a sad voice in my head says, No, Meg . If not this, something else would have pulled Tom to the bottom of that lake eventually.

I think what scares me most is I didn’t even think Lucille was all that drunk when she went to bed. But she was drunk enough to light a sofa on fire and near herself and not even wake up.

I decide it is time I got organized about this. What I need is a way to keep track of this.

I bring my school supplies down to Tom’s office and set it all up on his desk. I sit in his squeaky chair and take my new compass and draw a big black circle on a page. Next I make a line to cut the circle in half, then quarters, and so forth, and I crayon each of the sections in a different distinct color. Then I pull the wood arrow off the color wheel that came with the box of crayons, and I fix it to my own chart. It does not spin as good, but it will have to do. And wallah , what we have here is the Munsell Crayola drunkenness color wheel by Margot Lefleur.

Let us begin at the top of the chart and move clockways:

After all that, I hardly even get to use the color chart.

A few days later, I hear something outside. I go still, I swear, I could feel it in the air when I woke up this morning. I look out my window to confirm what I already know. I run into Lucille’s room without knocking, and tell her, Get up, Lucille, it is the reasonable damn hour!

Lucille can barely move. But then she opens her eyes and sits up, blinking. She looks like hell in a handbasket. I hear the knocking on the front door, even though I know she will let her own self in soon.

I roll Lucille out of bed and get her bathrobe on her. I beg her. Get some proper clothes on and make yourself presentable, alright? You got to convince these people you can look after me, please, Lucille? If she is not still drunk, she sure smells it. She nods and goes in the bathroom to brush her teeth.

Like I suspected, Tom’s mama is already standing inside the house. Oh how I dreaded seeing this poor woman. She looks sick. Breathing through her mouth like it is hard to get the air in. Her sagging face has lost the weight. The way Willy May is holding her up by the arm, if you saw her on the street, you would think, That woman’s son just died. Think it just like that.

She is shaking her head at the house without her son. Then she lays eyes on me. Come over here, Meg.

She knows Tom died because of me. She knows I am a liar. But it is too late and I got to take my licking like I deserve, so I go to her. I am surprised when she opens her arms to me. I give her a hug, and she pats me on my back like she would a regular granddaughter.

I’m so sorry , I tell her. I am so sorry, Mrs. Heidelberg.

This isn’t your fault, child. You’re not to blame. I got to cry when I hear that. My body shakes against hers. I know it is my fault, but it is like gold to hear her say it. And then I feel her straighten and some of her strength come back and I know Lucille has come downstairs.

Meg, I need you to give me and Lucille a moment to speak in private , she says. Way her black eyes are lit, she looks like she could set Lucille on fire, just hand her the matches.

Lucille looks sort of scared herself. Which is something considering she is probably the scariest thing within five miles from here. She says, Isabelle, what brings you by today? in her poor, pitiful widow voice.

I am not even out of the room when Mrs. Heidelberg says, Shame on you, Lucille. I didn’t think you could stoop any lower, but once again you’ve surprised me.

I go sit on the middle stair where they cannot see me but I can hear good. Lucille says, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Like she ought to be offended herself.

Mrs. Heidelberg says, If I’d had the means to stand, I would’ve come over sooner. Now, I want to know what’s going on here, Lucille.

Nothing’s going on here! Lucille cries. I’m grieving with my poor daughter.

I told you at the service that child needs to go stay with her cousins. And what did you say? You insisted on keeping her here, pleading that she needed her mother, and now I find out you are running this house like some sort of a drunken circus! Liquor bottles stuffed in closets and under the bed! And then I learn you almost burned the house down with the poor child in it!

Lord. And all the while I thought I was doing a good job, hiding those bottles. Willy May must’ve come in yesterday without my knowing and smelled the smoke.

That’s not one bit true , Lucille says, probably wide-eyed to look innocent. I work very hard taking care of Tom’s house.

I hear Willy May say, Humph.

That girl hasn’t even been to school, Lucille. What kind of mother do you think you are?

Lucille starts moaning and carrying on then. I’ll send her to school tomorrow. She said she wasn’t ready yet, she said she needed time—

There’s no point in her starting school in Byhalia now. I want you packed up and out of this house, Lucille. That poor girl has suffered enough. The last thing she needs is a drunk for a mother.

What does that mean, packed up and out? I scoot my behind down two stairs and bend my neck to see—

Leave and go where? Lucille says. I don’t have a cent! There’s not even any gas left in that car out there!

I can’t move, waiting to hear what is to become of me. Am I supposed to go with this crazy lady? Or is the answer much, much worse?

Mrs. Heidelberg opens the pocketbook on her arm and smacks a piece of paper on the little table by the stairs. That is a check, Lucille. You will leave Meg here for me to deal with. You are no longer kin to me.

You—you can’t expect me to give up my own daughter! Little Meg is all I have left!

Mrs. Heidelberg reaches into her purse and pulls out a stack of green bills. She smacks them on top of the check.

I see Lucille look over at it. Besides liquor alcohol and a classic six on the park, money is Lucille’s favorite thing in life. Then she looks up at me on the stairs. I hold my breath. She is dead-eyed. And like that, she looks away. I’ll need a few days to get everything packed , Lucille says. I , she said, not we . What’re you going to do with her?

I will make arrangements for her to go back to Oxford. She is bound to be better off there than she was with you.

That night, I hear the slave dogs outside, snapping and screaming and whining. Chasing a thing through the yard trying to tire it out. It lasts longer than usual. When they have finally got it surrounded, I can hear the animal shrieking. It is awful to listen to. And then all goes quiet and I know what’s happened.

If I wasn’t so scared of the dogs, I would just run from here.

I decide to let myself do the thing I am not supposed to do. What I promised Ava and myself I would not do. I close my eyes and think about her.

I see her in our little kitchen. Wearing the yellow dress cut on the bias. She is playing her radio, humming a song we liked to dance to on the old rug. It is any old day, just a regular day with nothing particular going on. I sit her down on the settee with me so I can study her face awhile. Her nose that flares when she laughs, her sharp brown eyes, her dark hair that falls in curls around her chin. I study her the way I should have back then so I could see her better now.

And maybe I will let myself say it, just this one time, soft so Ava will not hear it. So Lucille won’t hear it. I curl in a ball and say it soft as a poem. Just this once, so only I can hear it: I want my mommy.