Flora Page 3

  I ran to Flora and flung my arms around her.

  “My goodness!” she exclaimed, surprised. “You seem glad to see me.”

  “Let’s go straight home,” I hissed into her neck.

  “Well, of course,” she said. “Where else would we go?”

  “Just don’t accept any invitation, okay?”

  “Okay,” she repeated, giving my shoulders an encouraging little shake before stepping over to greet Mrs. Huff and Rachel. The dreaded invitation was offered, and I was impressed at how maturely Flora got out of it.

  “No, I’m not at all exhausted,” she said. “I brought Mrs. Anstruther’s letters to keep me company during the trip. They always inspire me. I read them over, and it was like hearing her voice tell me what to do next. Helen’s grandmother and I corresponded for six years, you know. You’ve taken such good care of Helen, Mrs. Huff. Just look how brown these girls are! But now I want to get her right home and settle us into our summer routine.”

  However, Flora’s arrival that day was to mark the high point of my faith in her.

  IV.

  My one solace during the week at the Huffs’ had been planning the historical tour of the house I would give Flora the day she arrived. I had played it back and forth in my head, room by room, hearing my own narrating voice. First thing, we’d head straight up to settle her in her room. Flora had slept in this room on her two previous visits to this house, first when she stayed on after my mother’s funeral and then back in March, when she came up for Nonie’s funeral. She had already been told we called this upstairs front room, which opened out on the west porch, the Willow Fanning room, after a Recoverer who had stayed in it a year and a half while convalescing from a nervous breakdown. But there were other layers to reveal, the sort you wouldn’t tell a regular guest, not even a cousin visiting for family funerals. I had planned to drop a few hints about my father’s attachment to Willow Fanning when he was sixteen, maybe even going so far as to foreshadow their ill-fated elopement. My father shouldn’t mind, he was “an old guy” now, as he kept saying, and if he did mind, well, too bad. It was he who had chosen to make Flora an intimate of our family for the summer. I would tell just enough to make her feel she was being inducted into a private family story, and if she proved a worthy listener I would dole out more details. I might also allude to other noteworthy Recoverers on Flora’s first day. The point was to draw her into the ways of Old One Thousand and make her my ally in keeping things going the way they had always been. And what better start than Flora’s having just reread Nonie’s letters on the train!

  But Flora completely derailed my plans by making us stop first in the kitchen, where she proceeded to unpack her luggage. Out of an old carpetbag, whose threadbare state had embarrassed me when Lorena Huff was lifting it into the back of her station wagon, came a sack of flour, filled mason jars, and an entire ham. And then from her suitcase Flora parted a meager layer of personal garments and lifted out a sack of cornmeal, which she held in one arm like a baby while she plucked out tea bags, a tin cake box, and some wax paper parcels of what looked like dead grass. With a sigh of fulfillment she deposited these items on the counter.

  “You didn’t need to bring tea bags,” I said. “And we already have flour and cornmeal.”

  “Well, I wasn’t sure. And I never go anywhere anymore without my self-rising flour. In a pinch, you can make biscuits with it and mayonnaise. I baked them for my teacher-training group last winter and they came out perfect every time. And this cornmeal is stone-ground at a mill near where we live. Now, Helen, you’ll have to show me where everything goes.”

  “What are those dried-up old things in the wax paper?”

  “These are Juliet’s famous herbs. For spaghetti sauce and to enhance our everyday dishes.”

  “Juliet who?”

  “Juliet Parker. Don’t you know her name? She raised your mother and me.”

  “You mean that old Negro who lived with you?”

  “There’s a lot more to Juliet than that. And she’s not old. Now this apple-cured ham is from your uncle Sam. He picked it out especially for you.”

  “Uncle Sam owns the meat market and has been separated from his wife for ages and ages,” I said.

  Flora needed to know that I was familiar with the names that mattered in my mother’s past.

  “Well, he’s the part owner with his friend Ben Timms. Ben and your uncle Sam and my daddy worked in the iron mines together when they were young. Uncle Sam is getting remarried. I mean he and Aunt Garnet are going to get remarried. They were never divorced, but they want to renew their vows and make a fresh beginning. Isn’t that sweet?”

  I stared at Flora, still wearing her little hat with the demure veil, so proudly unloading all this foreign food and all these people with their complications into our house.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked. Something in my face must have sapped the confidence she had brought with her on the train. Already I was learning how effectively she could be managed by a simple look of disdain.

  “I was just thinking where all this stuff should go,” I said.

  “Juliet and I wanted to be sure I brought enough to give you wholesome meals over the weekend. We’ll order whatever else we need from the grocery store on Monday.”

  “Why do we have to order? We can go and get whatever we need in Nonie’s car.”

  “Oh dear, I thought your father would have explained. I don’t drive.”

  “Do you mean you can’t, or what?”

  “I never learned. None of us did. We didn’t have a car, so there was no need.”

  “But how are we going to get anywhere?”

  “Your father has set up an account for us at the store. They make lots of deliveries because of the gas rationing. All we have to do is make a list and call up. We don’t even have to pay when they bring it. It’s all been arranged by your father, isn’t that nice?”

  “But how will we get to church?”

  “I thought maybe we could go down that shortcut your grandfather built for his patients, so they could walk to the village. Your father said you’d show me.”

  “That’s impossible! That shortcut is completely grown over, it’s dangerous!”

  What had my father been thinking? In its heyday the steep path down through the woods to the bottom of the road had dispensed with a mile’s worth of Sunset Drive’s hairpin curves. My grandfather had had the stepping-stones brought in from a quarry at his own expense; the residents on lower loops of the road, who would also profit from the shortcut, had granted him rights-of-way for his project. But that was almost thirty years ago, when my sixteen-year-old father and Willow Fanning had used it for their getaway. Surely he was not still remembering the path as it was then. Many of the stones were now upended or missing and the pine railings rotted out. Where had I been when my father was dispensing his obsolete information to Flora?

  After we got the Alabama foodstuffs put away (Flora was thrilled to discover some empty cocktail olive jars in the pantry, just the right size for “Juliet’s famous herbs”), we climbed the stairs and went down the hall to her room at the front of the house. I had lost all enthusiasm for my tour. It occurred to me now that it would be wiser to keep our family stories separate from Flora’s. I lolled in the doorway of the Willow Fanning room and let Flora prattle on as she hung up her few garments and deposited the rest of her things in the freshly papered drawers that Mrs. Jones, who cleaned on Tuesdays, had prepared. Next to her underwear, Flora slid in some hand-sewn satin envelopes.

  “What’s in there, handkerchiefs?” I asked.

  “Sanitary napkins. You know what those are, don’t you?”

  “Good grief, yes,” I said, offended. “My grandmother told me about all that stuff years ago.”

  Presently I saw Nonie’s pile of letters go in the top drawer and determined to have a secret look at them as soon as an opportunity arose.

  “Are those all the clothes you brought for the whole summer?�
��

  “Oh, no, honey, Juliet is mailing me the rest. We decided it was more important for you to have the right meals for the weekend.”

  When the phone rang in the hallway, I was sure it was my father calling from Oak Ridge to see how we were getting on. Adopting Nonie’s ironic deadpan, I would be able to tell him about all the food in the luggage without Flora knowing we were making fun of her. But it was Lorena Huff.

  “Helen! Guess what Rachel just found under your bed in her room. Your new blue Keds!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Not at all, sweetie. Don’t you know when you leave something behind, it means you want to come back? I’ll bring them over. Do you need them today?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m helping Flora get settled in.”

  A pause. “Everything’s going okay, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am, we’re doing just fine.”

  “In that case”—a shade more formal—“I’ll drop them off tomorrow.”

  “We might not be home. Tomorrow’s church.”

  “Well, look, Helen.” Now there was a chilliness, a touch of hurt. “I’ll drop them by when I’m over that way next. No need for anyone to be home. I’ll just leave them inside the screen door, okay?”

  “Okay.” Then, realizing I had forgotten to say the proper things when she and Rachel had brought us home, I burbled out my thanks for the week at their house. “Everything was just wonderful, Mrs. Huff. Thank you for having me.”

  “You’re welcome, Helen.” She sounded tired. “If you need us, you know where we are.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Please give my best to your father next time you talk to him.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I will.”

  V.

  When I returned to Flora, she had changed out of her traveling outfit into some wrinkled pedal pushers and a sleeveless blouse that showed where her tan stopped just above the elbows. “You know what, Helen?” she said, wriggling her bare feet into scuffed brown loafers with pennies in them. “After I give you a light lunch, why don’t you show me that shortcut of your grandfather’s anyway? Maybe it’s not completely out of the question. When was the last time anyone used it?”

  “I have no idea. I’m not supposed to mess around down there by myself. But we can walk down and look at it now if you want. I’m really not hungry. Just remember I said it’s dangerous.”

  As we tottered down our horrible driveway, she acted pleased each time I grabbed for her hand, but I did this to keep my balance. (“Everyone still on board?” Lorena Huff had cried as her new Oldsmobile bucked a nasty rut today.) I had grown used to hearing Nonie complain about the ruts (“Goddamn sinkholes,” my father called them), but I was in the car at those times. After several of Flora’s apologetic little yips when she stumbled, I did a pretty fair imitation of Nonie’s voice reassuring her that we were going to get this road seen to as soon as the war was over.

  At last we reached the paved road. Then you had to walk down Sunset Drive until you reached the big curve, which doubled back on itself and was so dangerous that the town had put up hairpin curve signs in both directions and a streetlight, which unfortunately got shot out at least once a month by ruffians. They came from the other side of town to shoot out this streetlight, Nonie said. When I asked her why they didn’t shoot out the streetlights on their own side of town, she said wryly, “They already have, darling.”

  Just before that curve, in the woods sloping off to the right, began the shortcut that my grandfather had made to take his Recoverers down to the next paved loop of Sunset Drive, and then down a continuation of the path through more woods to the final loop, which opened onto the street of neighborhood shops if you turned south, and toward our church if you turned north.

  “This is it?” asked Flora, when we reached the shortcut. “But I don’t see any path at all.”

  “I told you, it’s grown over.”

  “How odd. Your father made it sound—”

  “Well we’re here now,” I said irritably, “so we might as well look for where it used to be.” I plunged ahead into the overgrowth, exulting in every clawing bramble and slapping branch that came my way, a yipping Flora following close behind. Something ripped at my arm, but I crashed on, hoping it would bleed. At last I found a few of my grandfather’s descending steps, which ended abruptly at a crater deep as an open grave, bristling with roots and wild vegetation. The crater looked perfectly terrifying, and I was elated.

  “Well, there’s our shortcut to church,” I said.

  “Oh dear,” said Flora, coming up beside me. She was breathing hard, and I could smell her underarm perspiration. “My church shoes certainly wouldn’t make it down that. But, I mean, when did your father last use this path?”

  I was on the verge of relenting about Willow Fanning when Flora wailed, “Oh, no! Your arm is bleeding!” First she tried to doctor it with a leaf and some of her spit, and then she went into what I would come to recognize as a typical Flora flagellation. It was all her fault, she should never have suggested this outing, what a fool she was—“and on the very first day of my taking care of you!”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “It’s just a little blood. It’s good we saw it up close. I needed to see it, too, instead of just driving past it. My father was probably thinking of how it was a while ago.” Though it was gratifying to hear my voice reassuring her, I was feeling less reassured myself. Beyond my resentment at the idea of her “taking care” of me rose an unsettling thought: what if there were ways I was going to have to take care of Flora?

  As we walked back to the house she asked what kinds of things I had done while staying with the Huffs.

  “Oh, they had all their activities. Rachel had her tennis and her riding and her piano lessons and Mrs. Huff had her sunbathing and her magazines and her spiked lemonade.” Nonie or my father would have picked up on my sarcasm at once and joined the game, but Flora went earnestly on.

  “But what did you do, Helen?”

  “Oh, I swam with Rachel and things, but mostly I just thought about being back home.”

  We walked uphill some more. I could feel her working up to her next question. “And, what things were you wanting to do back home?”

  While I was at the Huffs’, the life of our house was going on without me. I needed to be there to register it. I felt the longer I wasn’t there, the more of myself I would lose.

  Of course I didn’t say this. While I was still concocting a normal-sounding reply that would satisfy her, Flora jumped in with “Helen, I know everything has changed for you since your grandmother passed away, but it would help if I knew what in particular you like to do.”

  She had interrupted my concocting process. I couldn’t come up with a single thing to say I liked to do.

  When we got back to the house, Flora observed almost regretfully that it was still too early to start supper. “What did you usually do on Saturday afternoons, Helen?”

  Well, if Nonie hadn’t “passed away” she would be taking her nap on her three pillows about now and I would be upstairs on the Recoverers’ west porch, reading a book or gazing at the non-view of hectic branches. But now, for the whole summer, Flora’s room opened onto this porch and so it was off-limits to me.

  “Sometimes I just read in my room.” It was time to squash this dogged inquisition. “I know what,” I said, calling on Nonie’s voice again. “Why don’t we each go to our own room and replenish ourselves?”

  Flora seemed tempted. “Would you like anything first? A glass of milk or a sandwich?”

  “No, thank you. We ate at the Huffs’ before we went to the train station.”

  “Well, you have only to ask, Helen. That’s what I’m here for. And don’t worry about church tomorrow. We’ll go in a taxi. I’ve got the money for that.”

  The angle of light in my room was different from when I was usually in it. Nonie often remarked that every one of us needed to get away from ot
her people and replenish our personal reserves. I felt my room’s resentment at my untimely entrance. To disrupt its personal replenishment as little as possible, I crept quietly onto my bed with the library book I had taken to the Huffs’ and never opened.

  This author produced a continuing string of novels, all featuring a girl and a house and a mystery. There was always a historical angle as well. The librarian had told Nonie and me they were “like Nancy Drews for the more sophisticated reader.”

  This novel opened in a place where it had rained heavily all day, but now at the sunset hour the clouds parted and a breath of spring air wafted through the window of a muddy little sedan car just entering the town. The driver was a girl of sixteen, and her alert Irish setter sat beside her. Piled into the rear of the car was a mound of baggage.

  A girl in her own car arriving at her destination with her alert and faithful dog, her luggage, and her plan—this author’s girls always had plans, usually involving historical or family research and requiring dangerous snooping. It was the kind of story I craved, but something nagged at my peripheries. Outside the window beside my bed the sun was highlighting an unsightly row of weeds that had sprung up against the closed doors of the garage. Inside the garage was Nonie’s car. To keep the battery charged, my father had alternated driving it with driving his own, but what would happen now? Not only had he been shockingly out of date about the shortcut we were to take to church but he had gone off without making arrangements to keep Nonie’s battery alive.

  FLORA, I WOULD learn, went into a kind of trance when she prepared our meals. She would never come right out and tell me to hush, but if I talked she would simply hum or nod, remaining inside her bubble of chopping or stirring or turning meat in the pan. Could she not do two things at once, or did she need to tune out all distractions to remember how she’d been taught to cook?