Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

she sat back in her chair andstarted giggling, we all fell apart laughing. Izzy laughed so hard, she began hiccuping and that made us laugh even more.

Sheba kept the joke going all night. By the time dessert was being served, everyone was talking like Jenny Johnson of Newport, Rhode Island, using words no one in the household used, like trousers and de rigueur and on the contrary, my dear.

 

When Dr. Cone pulled up the station wagon in front of my house, I thought I might weep. I wanted to stay with everyone, puton that water-soft nightgown, and sleep in Izzy’s plush bed. I wanted to wake up in that house, where I felt like I existedas a real person with thoughts and feelings and abilities.

Mrs. Cone leaned over the seat and gave me a kiss goodbye on the cheek. Then Jimmy leaned over Izzy and kissed the top ofmy head. Sheba kissed my cheeks and Izzy climbed onto my lap and kissed me all over my face. “Mary Jane, I’m going to missyou SO MUCH!”

“I’ll be back before breakfast on Monday!” I said cheerfully. But I wanted to kiss Izzy all over her face and say the samething to her.

Sheba got out and stood by the open door. “See you Monday, doll.”

“Can I have my bra?” I whispered. I’d have to put it on before I entered the house.

“Yes!” She dug into her purse and handed it to me.

“I left your nightgown on top of the washing machine, but I never started a load because we were so busy with the books andeverything.”

“No, you have to keep it! Take it home with you. It’s yours now!” Sheba leaned in and held me for a second before kissingme again on the cheek.

I watched the car drive away, then I walked to the darkness at the side of the house, out of reach of the porch light. My hands shook as I lowered the straps of the dress and put on my bra. It took a few seconds to get the hooks latched in the back. Once they were fastened, I pulled up the straps of the dress and then walked inside.

8

On Saturday, I helped my mother in the garden. She talked about the neighbors: who she’d seen, who was away at the EasternShore or Rehoboth Beach, and who had played in her tennis foursome. This reporting was interrupted periodically by instructionson how to properly deadhead flowers and pull weeds. I listened to all of it, the stories and the directives, but my mind wason the Cones, Jimmy, and Sheba. I felt like the outline of a fourteen-year-old girl pulling weeds and nodding at her mother.

At four o’clock my mother and I changed into dresses. We were due at the Elkridge Club at four thirty. She was meeting friendson the porch for tea and lemonade before our six o’clock dinner reservation with my dad, who had been at the club all dayplaying golf.

As we were about to walk out the door, my mother looked me up and down. “Mary Jane, is there something you can do with yourhair?”

I pushed my hair behind my ears. “Should I put on a headband?”

“Headband, ponytail, braids. Just don’t walk around as if you’re a child with no mother looking after you.”

I ran upstairs, went into my bathroom, and opened the drawer that held my brush, comb, and hair bands. I put on a blue floralheadband that matched my light blue dress, and examined myself in the mirror. With my hair pushed back like that, my foreheadlooked broader, and my dark eyebrows stood out. Just then, I could see that maybe someone might notice me someday: my smoothskin, my wide mouth, my orangey eyes.

“Mary Jane!” my mother called from downstairs. “Do not dillydally!”

 

My mother and I were silent in the car on the way to Elkridge. Just as we pulled into the lot, she asked, “Have you figuredout which club the Cones belong to?”

“Well, Mrs. Cone isn’t Jewish. And Dr. Cone is Jewish, but he’s really a—” I stopped myself before I said Buddhist. My mother might think a Buddhist was worse than a Jew.

“Really a what?”

“Well, he prays but he doesn’t seem so Jewish. And she’s Presbyterian, like us.”

“How do you like that! I wonder how their families deal with that.”

“I’m not sure. Their parents both live in other towns. No one’s around to help.”

“Maybe they don’t want to because it’s a mixed marriage.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I didn’t want to betray Mrs. Cone’s trust and tell my mother that Mrs. Cone’s parents didn’t talk to her specifically because Dr. Cone was Jewish.

“So what is Izzy? Presbyterian or Jewish?”

“I guess she’s both.”

“Does Mrs. Cone take her to church?”

“Mrs. Cone is sick, remember?” The lies came out so smoothly now, I barely thought about them.

“Before. Did she take her to church before?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Right now no one is going to church.”

“Hmm. You’d think with her sick, now would be the time to go to church.”

“I guess.”

“We’ll pray for her tomorrow.”

Lately all my prayers had been for Jimmy to get better and for me to not be a sex addict. “Okay. That would be nice. I’lltell her on Monday.”

While my mother and her friends drank iced tea and lemonade on the porch, I stared out at the vast green lawn and watched the men play golf. I’d been coming to the club my entire life and had never seen it the way I did that day. What in the past had seemed normal suddenly felt abnormally hushed, quiet, and contained. It was like we were in a play that went on forever and ever without any dramatic tension. The waiters and waitresses, bartenders and busboys at Elkridge were Black men and women. I’d seen and known many of them since I’d first started walking. But it wasn’t until this day with my mother that I could see myself, my mother, and her friends the way the employees might. What did they think of