The Truth According to Us (37 page)

July 30, 1938

Layla,

Are you trying to get me fired?

Ben

August 1, 1938

Yes!

Out on the porch, Bird flopped down on a wicker chair and hoisted one knee over the armrest. She brought the newspaper close to her face and read, “…Mr. Shank, president of American Everlasting, disputed the statement. ‘I am a patriotic American. I've done more than anyone in this town for the workers, and I'm not going to sit back and let foreigners and Communists tear down what I've built.' ”

Built? Bird frowned. Mr. Shank
built
the mill? That didn't make sense. Maybe one building, but he couldn't have built all of it. Still, she comforted herself, she was reading the newspaper. Not many nine-year-olds read the newspaper. She's a very sophisticated child, she imagined Minerva saying.
A prodigy
, Mae agreed in hushed tones. Fortified by this hypothetical admiration, Bird redoubled her efforts. “Mr. Charlie Timbrook, leader of the prospective”—what did that mean?—“local, took issue—”

With relief, Bird noticed a figure standing outside the screen door. A lady—a thin shadow of a lady—leaned in, shielding her eyes, and spotted Bird. “Afternoon, miss,” she said.

Miss! Bird liked that. She rattled her newspaper ostentatiously. “Good day,” she said.

“Is your aunt Jottie at home?”

“Yes,” said Bird, wishing there were a longer word for yes.

“Will you ask her to step out, please, miss? You can tell her it's Zena here.”

“Okay.” Bird went inside and found Jottie, in the kitchen. “Someone named Zena is on the porch.”

Jottie frowned in puzzlement, wiped her hands on her apron, and moved swiftly down the hall. Bird watched to make sure she was gone, and then she set the newspaper down on the kitchen table, licked her finger, and put it in the sugar bowl.

“Why, Zena!” exclaimed Jottie. “How-you? It's been a long time. Have a seat.” She gestured to a chair, trying to look pleased instead of curious.

Zena tucked a wisp of her no-color hair under her hat and bobbed her head. “No. No thank you, Miss Jottie. I come—”

“
Miss
Jottie?” asked Jottie incredulously. “Zena, don't. We've known each other for thirty years.”

Zena licked her lips. “I guess. If you say so.”

“Come on and sit.” Jottie sat and patted the chair next to hers. “Sit down and tell me what's on your mind.”

Zena sat with the tiniest of creaks on the edge of the chair. “Thank you.”

Jottie saw that her dress was limp with sweat. Surely she hadn't walked all the way from her house, not in this heat; it had to be three miles. “How about I get us some ice-tea, all right?” she said. And as many cookies as I can fit on a plate, she thought, eyeing Zena's thin arms. I wonder if she'd take a sandwich. “I'll be right back, and then we can have us a nice—”

“No! No thank you! I ain't thirsty!” Zena said nervously. “Please”—she held up her hand—“I just got to say something.” She pulled in a breath, preparing to speak, but the breath fractured into a hiccup, and a pair of tears trickled into the hollows of her cheeks. She gave a long sniffle.

Filled with pity, Jottie watched her shuffle in her bosom for a handkerchief. Zena had never had a chance. There was Zena at seven, with
her matchstick legs and her ruffled, too-big dresses. Zena at thirteen, at the American Everlasting picnic, squealing,
I done it, I done it
, as she tossed a horseshoe. Zena at twenty, walking along False River Road, freighted with a big baby in her arms and a sunken, silent husband at her side. “What is it, Zena?” Jottie said gently. “Don't cry. Just tell me.”

“Jerry lost his job,” Zena choked. “Down at the mill.”

Jottie sighed. “I'm sorry to hear that. Real sorry.”

“We sold everything we could and now all the money's gone and we're down pretty low, Jottie, and”—her words rushed out—“I thought maybe you could ask Mr. McKubin. I bet if you asked him he'd give Jerry something; it don't have to be the same job as before, but just something, he'll do it. He'll do anything—”

Jottie's eyes widened. “Wait, Zena. What?”

“You could ask Mr. McKubin,” Zena repeated. “Anything, Jottie. Like you said, we've known each other thirty years, and I wouldn't come if—we just got to have something, Jottie. Please.”

“But Zena.” Jottie swallowed, trying to select an obstacle that Zena could understand. “You know there's a strike on. They can't hire anyone during a strike—”

Zena broke in, “Yeah, that's what I mean! Jerry don't want a union, anyway. He'd be glad to go in and work if they don't wanna. You can tell Mr. McK. that Jerry hates Charlie Timbrook and always has done!”

Jottie licked her lips. “But I can't, Zena,” she explained. “I'm not in a position to ask Mr. McKubin for anything.”

Zena smirked. “Tell me another. I seen you two. Just the other day, there you was, drinking milk shakes. Been a lotta years since I had a milk shake.” She laughed mirthlessly. “People say you're going around. He'd do whatever you wanted.”

“That's not true, Zena!” Jottie said quickly. “None of what you're saying is true. Mr. McKubin and I are—well, I've known him as long as I've known you, I guess, but that's all. We're acquaintances.” She swallowed. “I have no
influence
with him. Jerry should talk to Mr. McKubin himself.”

“You think we ain't tried?” Zena snapped. “He said he can't do nothing. Says it's Shank who decides when to hire.”

“And have you tried asking Mr. Shank?” suggested Jottie helplessly.

Zena snorted. “Pff. He don't talk to no one, and, anyway, from what I hear, he ain't gonna be there much longer. That's what Ceecee Timbrook says.”

“What?”

“You ain't heard?” asked Zena, enjoying her rare authority. “The unionizers said they wouldn't—ah, whaddaya call it?—
negotiate
to anyone except Mr. McK., and now him and the big shots in New Jersey are talking all the time, and everyone says they're gonna get rid of Shank and make Mr. McK. president.”

Jottie stared at her, speechless. Sol, president? Sol, in her father's place? Could it be true? She considered the source. No. Zena had probably misunderstood. Or exaggerated. Or made it up to sound important.

“So could you ask him?”

Jottie returned to the present. “Zena,” she said, “you're mistaken about Mr. McKubin and me. I have no more—”

“Just ask him. Please.”

“Zena, I don't—I can't—”

“You could if you wanted; you just don't want to,” said Zena bitterly. “You got your milk shake.”

“Listen—”

“No, you listen to me, Jottie Romeyn,” snapped Zena. “You think you're so high up you don't have to treat someone like me right, but you'll find out different. You Romeyns always did think you were better than anyone.” She rose and stood over Jottie. “But you ain't.”

Jottie tried again. “It's not that I don't want to help you—”

“I don't need your charity!” Zena spat, her voice rising. “The big Romeyns ain't so almighty high anymore, huh?” Her eyes raked over the shabby porch. “That Felix, he's going to get caught any day now, is what Jerry says.” She yanked the top of her dress straight. “He's a two-bit
bootlegger and a thief. He set that fire at the mill, too, and stole the money. Everyone knows he done it and he killed Vause Hamilton, too.”

Jottie lifted her chin. “Get off my porch now, Zena.”

“You won't be so uppity when he's in jail, will you?” Zena went on gladly. “You'll be needing a job yourself then, uh-huh?” She grinned. “Ask Mr. McK. Maybe he'll pay for what he's getting.”

“Get off my porch now, before I turn the hose on you.”

Zena gulped up some air, her hollow cheeks inflating with spite. “And if those snippy little girls're anything like their mama, you're gonna run yourself ragged pulling them out of every barn in town. Those apples won't fall far from the tree, I bet.”

Jottie rose and went to the screen door. Without a word, she proceeded to the hosepipe that stood against the steps and unfurled the coiled brown hose that lay beneath it. “The good thing about that furniture,” she called over her shoulder to Zena, “is that when it gets dirty, I just hose it down. Like a dog.” She turned the spigot and placed her thumb expertly over the opening, dousing the rhododendrons in a curving arc of water. She turned toward the porch, spraying water in a vast circle as she did so.

“Hey!” Zena cried, taking cover behind the screen door. “Cut it out! You can't turn the hose on me.” She cracked open the door and craned her neck around it.

Jottie lifted one eyebrow. “Can't I?”

“I'm wearing my good
hat
,
”
protested Zena.

“I don't care,” said Jottie.

Water rained merrily into the rhododendrons while Zena gnawed the inside of her mouth, assessing the odds. After a minute, she tossed her head. “I ain't scared of you,” she proclaimed, thrusting the door wide. “I ain't scared of you, Jottie Romeyn.” She took a flouncing step down and stopped. “You turn off that water,” she called.

Jottie threw the hose on the grass and waited, watching, as Zena took another step, and then another, her eyes darting from the hose to its owner and back again.

As Zena arrived at the front walk, twitching her narrow hips, Jottie
held up a hand, stopping her in mid-flounce. “Never come here again,” she said. “Never speak to me or about me or anyone else in my family again. Or you'll be sorry.”

“I'll be sorry? What're you gonna do—arrest me?” sneered Zena. “Last time I looked, you don't run the country.”

“I'll tell everyone I know that you went to bed with Shank and gave him the clap and that's why he fired Jerry. I'll say Jerry's just a few months away from turning idiot—syphilis does that, you know. I'll say that's how come he limps.”

Zena's eyes widened. “But you can't—it ain't true. I ain't—Shank—I don't have no syphilis and you know it. And Jerry's not—it's his foot. He had it since he was a kid—”

“Who are they going to believe?” said Jottie coldly.