“All right,” Barbara says. “I’ll think of something.”
“You should. You will. As for this last line, what would you think about changing This is the way birds stitch the sky closed at sunset with This is how? Save a word.” She picks up a spoon by the bowl and begins to jab it up and down. “Long poems can provoke deep feelings, but a short one must stab and stab and be done! Pound, Williams, Walcott! You agree?”
“Yes,” Barbara says. She would probably have agreed to anything at this moment—it’s just so weird—but this she actually does agree with. She doesn’t know Walcott but will look for him or her later.
“All right.” Emily puts the spoon down and resumes her seat. “I will speak to Livvie and tell her you have talent. She may say yes, because talent—especially young talent—always engages her. If she says no, it will be because she is now too infirm to take on a mentee. Will you give me your telephone number and email address? I’ll pass them on to her, and I’ll send her a copy of this poem, if you don’t mind. Make that little change—just scratch it in, please, and don’t bother with the bad line for now. I’ll take a picture of it with my phone. Does that sound like a plan?”
“Sure, yes.” Barbara scratches out the way and adds how.
“If you don’t hear back from her in a week or two, I may be in touch. If, that is, you might consider me as… an interested party.”
She doesn’t use the word mentor, but Barbara is sure from the pause that’s what she means, and on the basis of a single poem!
“That’s wonderful! Thank you so much!”
“Would you like a cookie for the ride home?”
“Oh, I walked,” Barbara says. “I walk a lot. It’s good exercise, especially on nice days like this, and it gives me time to think. Sometimes I drive to school, I got my driver’s license last year, but not so much. If I’m late, I ride my bike.”
“If you’re walking, I insist you take two.”
Emily gets Barbara the cookies. Barbara lifts her mug and takes the final sip as Emily turns around. “Thank you, Professor… Emily. The tea was very good.”
“Glad you enjoyed it,” Emily says, with that same thin smile. Barbara thinks there’s something knowing about it. “Thank you for sharing your work.”
Barbara leaves with her red coat unbuttoned, her red scarf hanging loose instead of wrapped, her knitted red beret cocked rakishly on her head, facemask forgotten in her pocket.
Pretty, Emily thinks. Pretty little pickaninny.
Although that word (and others) comes naturally to mind, if spoken aloud it would surely sully her reputation for the rest of her life in these Puritanical times. Yet she understands and forgives herself, as she forgave herself for certain unkind thoughts about the late Ellen Craslow. Emily Dingman Harris’s formative years occurred in an era when the only black people you saw in the movies or on TV were the servants, where certain candies and jump-rope rhymes contained the n-word, where her own mother was the proud owner of an Agatha Christie first edition with a title so racist that the book was later retitled Ten Little Indians and still later as And Then There Were None.
It’s my upbringing, that’s all. I am not to blame.
And that little girl is talented. Indecently talented for one so young. Not to mention a blackie.
2
When Roddy comes back from his errand, Emily says, “Do you want to see something amusing?”
“I live for amusement, dear one,” he says.
“It’s science and nutrition you live for, but I think this will amuse you. Come with me.”
They go into Emily’s study nook. It was here that she read Barbara’s poem, but that wasn’t all she did. Em goes to CAMS, keyboards the password, and selects the one hidden behind a panel above the refrigerator. It gives a view of the whole kitchen at a slight downward angle. Emily fast-forwards to the point where Emily leaves the room with Barbara’s poem in her hand. Then she pushes play.
“She waits until she hears me close the study door. Watch.”
Barbara gets up, takes a quick look around to make sure she’s alone, then pours her tea down the drain. Before going back to the table and resuming her seat, she takes a macaroon from the cookie jar.
Roddy laughs. “That is amusing.”
“But not surprising. I filled my tea ball from the top of the cannister, where it’s fresh. The English Breakfast at the bottom has been there for I don’t know how long. Seven years? Ten? That’s the stuff I used for her, and it must have been stronger than hell. You should have seen her face when she took the first sip! Ha-ha-ha, wonderful! Now wait. You’ll like this, too.”
She fast-forwards again. She and the girl discuss the poem at double speed, then Em goes to the cookie jar. The girl raises her cup… holds it in front of her mouth…
“There!” Em says. “You see what she did?”
“Waited for you to turn so you could see her finishing what you’d think was the whole cup. Clever girl.”
“Sneaky girl,” Em says admiringly.
“But why give her the old tea?”
She gives him her I don’t suffer dullards look, but this one is softened by love. “Curiosity, my dear, simple curiosity. You are curious about your various experiments in biology as applies to nutrition and aging; I’m curious about human nature. This is a resourceful girl, bright and pretty. And…” She taps his deeply lined brow. “She has a good brain. A talented brain.”
“You’re not suggesting putting her on the list, are you?”
“I’d have to find out a good deal of background before considering such a thing. Which is what this was made for.” She pats the computer. “But probably not. Still… in a pinch…”
She lets it dangle.
July 24, 2021
1
Both parking lots of the Kanonsionni Campground, the one for cars and the one for campers and RVs, are full, pandemic be damned. The campground itself looks jammed. Holly drives a quarter of a mile further up Old Route 17 and parks on the shoulder. She calls Lakeisha Stone, who says she’ll be waiting on the shady side of the campground store. Holly says she’s up the road a little way, give her five or ten minutes.
“I’m sorry about the parking,” Lakeisha says. “I think half the cars in the lot are ours. We’ve got a gang this year. Most of us work at the college, or went there.”
“I don’t mind,” Holly says. “I can use the walk.” This is true. She can’t seem to get the smell of her mother’s potpourri out of her nose… or maybe it’s her mind she can’t get it out of. She hopes the fresh air will flush it away. And maybe it will flush away nasty emotions she doesn’t want to admit to.
She keeps thinking about the first months after Bill died. What remained of her trust fund went into Finders Keepers over her mother’s howls of protest. She remembers praying for clients. She remembers shuffling bills like a blackjack player on speed, paying what had to be paid, putting off what could be put off even when the bills came with FINAL NOTICE stamped on them in red. Meanwhile, her mother bought jewelry.