Seven
Old Gin and I sail up Peachtree Street in Seamus Sullivan’s ten-row streetcar, the plodding rhythm of the mule out of sync with the trotting of my heart. Most of the commuters, both black and white, cluster around the coal heater Sully keeps in front. I suggested we sit up front today, though Old Gin refused. It is understood that the warmer rows are reserved for the weakest passengers, which Old Gin insists is not him.
While he exchanges pleasantries with a nanny, Mrs. Washington, I pick at my fraying sleeves and poke my finger through a hole in the seam. I wish I had thought to try on my old maid’s uniform last night, when I could’ve made adjustments.
“Lucy’s having a ‘first day,’ too—at Spelman Seminary. She’s a lucky girl,” Mrs. Washington says to Old Gin in her slow, lilting voice. All her freckles brighten on her face, which is charmingly set off by a bright yellow bonnet.
A twinge of longing stirs my soul. Only a few years old, Spelman has already established a reputation as a fine school for colored girls. Old Gin has schooled me in mathematics, Chinese, and philosophy since I was five. English and history were more challenging for him, but the Bells’ misprint newspapers and conversations stepped in there. When I was twelve, he tried to enroll me at the Girls’ High School, but we were told I would have to attend the colored school. Old Gin said I shouldn’t take a colored child’s seat, given how few seats they had.
He glances at me sitting tight as a new shoe beside him. “I believe Luck rides a workhorse named Joy.”
“Luck rides a workhorse named Joy,” Mrs. Washington repeats, and she throws back her head. “Ha! That’s a good one. She does work hard, and she does enjoy it.”
One of the colored children rings the bell up front with a ka-klank! ka-klank! The kids are always vying for that privilege. The streetcar stops.
“Votes for women!” chants a group from behind us. Heads turn.
A pair of safety bicycles float by, leading a trail of white women wearing sashes of marigold fabric. The women range in age, their faces tight with determination as they chant. A few push baby buggies, and one bangs on a drum to mark the beats.
The matron in front of us mutters to her daughters, “Ain’t they got nothing better to do than act like men?”
One of her daughters tugs at her honey-blond braids. “Can we get one of those safeties, Mama? They look like such fun.”
Unlike the high-wheeled variety, the chain-driven safeties feature even tires and brakes, so you don’t have to jump off to stop. That means women could ride them.
The matron snorts. “Only girls with loose morals ride those. Don’t ever let me catch you on one.”
Sully transports us past a trim colonial, which looks downright shabby compared to the Greek-looking temple one block up. Peachtree Street is Atlanta’s top branch, a stretch so dense with millionaires, you can probably throw a rock and hit three on the way down. A few years back, they carved a special ward out of two neighboring pie slices to separate this wealthy corridor from the rest of northern Atlanta. Not all parts of the pie taste the same.
Ka-klank! ka-klank! The streetcar reaches our stop, a block short of the Payne Estate, and Sully brakes the mule. “Off with you, on with you!” he barks.
Old Gin casually sweeps a foot underneath an empty bench. The man drives through life with one eye on the road and the other on the lookout for fallen coins. Then he offers me his arm, which feels birdlike under his worn coat. Though we stand the same height, today I feel taller than him. The points of his shoulders seem especially sharp, and even his rib cage projects more than usual under his shirt. He is becoming a bag of bones.
As we walk, my gray skirt swings an inch too high over my boots, and my sleeves slowly strangle my armpits. If I need to beat a hasty retreat, it will not be by swinging on trees.
The sight of the crab apple trees that stud the front lawn of the Payne Estate stirs a strange brew of emotions inside me. Looking back, my days working in the stables were mostly carefree, except when Caroline came around, and even then, not all the memories were sour. We played together on occasion—she was the mama, and I, the naughty babe; she captained the ship, while I manned the oars and, too often, walked the plank. But as we grew older, her bossiness crystallized into something sharper, and her pranks would rattle me for days.
My life improved when I was twelve and Caroline was sent to the finishing school in Boston. Mrs. Payne decided I was getting too old to swab stables and put me to work as a housemaid. The winds of change blew a year later when Caroline’s brother, Merritt, returned home from Exeter Academy. Abruptly, I was dismissed.
A paved driveway marked with electric lampposts, fancier than the ones on Whitehall Street, leads to the front door. We take a second carriage track to a back courtyard, which houses a white gazebo with red shingles to match the rest of the house. Inside the gazebo, a safety bicycle leans against a post. It looks new, with its pneumatic tires, a polished metal frame, and a red leather seat. Sure, it’s a looker, but a pretty horse does not a fair ride make.
My heels drag as I follow Old Gin to the scullery door. He raps on the wood, and not two shakes later, the housekeeper and head of staff, Etta Rae, is grinning her triangle smile at me and clapping me on the back with her wiry arms. The only signs of her age are a few liver spots on her sable skin and the graying of her hair at the temples. “You’re growing like a rumor, aren’t you?”
“It’s good to see you, Etta Rae.”
She hauls me past the onion-scented scullery and into the kitchen, never one to waste movements. Old Gin doffs his hat and follows. He rarely enters the kitchen, and never the rest of the house.
“Watch the shells. Noemi broke her nutcracker and she’s had to use a hammer. Makes an awful mess.”
The kitchen hasn’t changed much. Copper pans and pots hang in neat rows on the wall between a sink on one side and an iron range, where Noemi is stirring oatmeal, on the other. “Good morning, Noemi.”
She knocks her spoon against the pot rim. The speckled blue enamel finish contrasts sharply with the cast-iron pots meant for the servants. “Morning, yourself,” she speaks in a drawl pleasing to the ear, dropping r’s and g’s along the way. Those letters don’t have much business here in the South for colored and white alike, as worthless as the pecan shells strewn on the floor. A smile animates her handsome features—pointy cheekbones, tawny skin, and bushy eyebrows that hail from her Portuguese ancestry. Smelling like soap, she kisses me on the cheek. “I’m glad to see you, but”—her voice drops—“you sure you want to wrestle a porcupine?” A mischievous coil of springy black hair peeks out from beneath the ruffle of her mobcap, and she pokes it back in place.
“Gin, you’ve been skipping too many meals!” Etta Rae knocks Old Gin with her elbow.
Old Gin puts up a hand. “Old men don’t need much—”