Page 32 of The Witching Hours

When school was in session, during senior year, Jeanette lived in the campus rent house for the sake of convenience, but kept a close eye on renovations and stayed at the house every chance she could. Tristan had pouted when she’d insisted they live at Richard House after their wedding. He’d been set on designing a new house for the two of them. New life. New house. But Jeanette grew a special mint in the soil right next to the Richard House front porch and served it to him with a Sunday morning chicory. Afterward, he suddenly realized what a privilege it would be to live at Richard House.

In time Jeanette became the darling of the New Orleans Historic Society because of her extraordinary fundraising ability and her tireless devotion to preserving old buildings, cultural sites, and cemeteries. She used a portion of her inheritance to renovate and landscape the Lady of the Lake Garden and Cemetery, which on completion became one of Louisiana’sjewels. It was walled off so that pedestrian access was available by paid admission through a security gate.

No sign of the bikers was ever found.

CRAWDAD CREEK

“Your grandmama was one of ‘em. Yes, indeed. She was a spitfire Campbell. Could’ve brought a plague like in the Bible if she’d had a mind to.”

I remember my grandmother saying that. At the time I’d wondered why somebody might be of a mind to bring down a plague, but I kept that to myself.

I’m old now. Can’t believe how fast it happened. Nobody tells you that’s the ugliest part, the surprise of getting old. None of us expects it. My steps are slow, my knees hurt when it rains, and I have plenty of gripes about what’s become of the world. The regional dialect and ways of my childhood were left behind long ago, but the memories are clear.

They say when you get old you remember your childhood with the vividness of current reality. Seems so. Some things I love to remember. Some things I’d like to forget.

I’m writing this down because I want to leave some evidence that I passed this way. I wouldn’t care for it to fall into just any old hands, but I learned a long time ago that it’s easier to believe everything’s part of a plan than to work up a lather questioning how things work.

“Am I one of ‘em?” I asked Auntie Nan, wincing at the skinned knee I’d just earned when my bike tilted toward a knotty upcropping on the rutty creek path. A path had been worn down by kids like me heading through the tall grass over to Crawdad Creek. I’d done it a hundred times before, but a heavy rain had uncovered a big oak root that hadn’t been there before.

I hadn’t seen it. And I didn’t blame it on my bike. It was a good sturdy Schwinn that my dad had got from Mr. Crowley when his daughter didn’t want it anymore. Mr. Crowley lived across the street and was nice, not like his daughter. She was three years older than me and too stuck up to even look my way.

I remember Daddy gave Mr. Crowley a twenty-dollar bill. It was an awful lot of money, and it felt strange to see that much spent on me.

If I’d been picking out a new bike, I probably wouldn’t have picked electric blue. But that’s what fate gave me, and it was kind of like an arranged marriage. I came to love it. Unlike fancy 10 speeds that always have something or other broke down, it was dependable. Always ready for the next after school adventure. Still, my electric blue girl’s bike was no match for immovable obstacles like big oak toes.

The worst of it wasn’t the shock of the spill, or the sting in my knee, or the ugly look of split skin mixed with dirt and blood, or the tear in my shirt. The worst of it was the way R.W. laughed. Bent over at the waist, holding his ribs. He’d had to throw his own bike down so he could give a hundred percent effort to laughing at me. Of course I didn’t cry. Crying in front of R.W. would be unthinkable given his poor view of my gender.

My dog, Missy, was tenderhearted. She whined ‘cause she knew I’d hurt myself. Missy wasn’t the kind of dog that growls or barks. But I could tell she gave R.W. a really mean look.

Missy had been a pound pup. One Sunday morning after church my daddy said we were going to the pound to get me a dog. It might’ve been the best surprise of my whole life. Even better than getting a bike.

All the little puppies were so cute. They were jumping up and making a ruckus, asking to go home with me. I would’ve taken them all if I could. But Missy was just sitting by herself inthe back corner. She didn’t move or make a sound, but she was asking in her own way, with big brown eyes set in the sweetest brindle-colored mutt face. And I heard her.

My daddy gave the people at the pound two dollars and asked me why I picked that one. When I told him, he just said, “Hmm.”

Back to R.W. The tricky thing about knowing him was that he liked teasing to the point where you couldn’t tell where teasing stopped and meanness began. I don’t have a good excuse for why I put up with it. I guess I thought some company was better than none when nobody else could play. I also thought maybe he was mean because people teased him about his red hair and freckles. I didn’t think it was ugly, like some kids said. It was different, but interesting. Not the same as everybody else.

He teased me about being a worthless girl and he teased me because my name was Brenda Lee Fraser. When my mama named me Brenda Lee, she didn’t know somebody was gonna come along with the same name and get famous for singing better than a person should.

I knew R.W. because, in the fifth grade, Mrs. Grayson put me next to him in a two-person desk. Unlike a lot of the boys, he didn’t object to sitting next to a girl. Matter of fact, I think he liked it. He was always going on about how women weren’t good for anything, and how this could be easily proved by looking at history books. All the generals, and presidents, and inventors, and preachers were men he said. Whenever he thought of more proof he’d lean over and whisper it. The flow of citations demonstrating the inferiority of women was endless. “And baseball players. And painters. And God and Jesus and even the Holy Ghost.” At that time in my young, vulnerable, impressionable life, I had no answer for what seemed like mountains of evidence that the female sex wasn’t good for much of anything besides having babies, and cooking, and cleaning.

It made me feel bad. R.W. could tell it made me feel bad. And I think he liked that.

That was the year we first learned about the Declaration of Independence. Mrs. Grayson had Billy Ben Gill read the first of it. I remember the satisfied look R.W. gave me when Billy Ben said, “Allmenare created equal.” R.W. sniggered so loud that everybody in class turned and looked at us.

I could feel myself blushing. I could also feel my hands tightening around my big old Geography textbook. If I beaned R.W. with it, he wouldn’t be laughing for a while because I was really strong. I knew this because I could beat the boys in wrestling, and that time they all ganged up on Tommy Van I took up for him because nobody else would. Tommy Van’s head had been shaved ‘cause he had ringworms. The mean boys pulled Tommy’s skullcap off and made him cry. So, I fought those stinkers. I kicked and bit and scratched and punched until I got Tommy’s cap back.

I felt myself calm some, thinking about how good it would feel to give that boy a headache he wouldn’t forget. Course I didn’t do it. I knew from experience that I was the one who’d end up in the principal’s office and she was even meaner than R.W.

Unfortunately, I was cursed with a soft heart and selective memory. By the time school let out, I’d forgiven him for embarrassing me and acting like it was some kind of sin to be a girl.

When he showed up outside my house and asked about heading down to Crawdad Creek, I said, “Okay,” like nothing had happened.

School had only been in session for a week, but the weather was still hot, and we just weren’t ready to give up bare feet or freedom. Heck. There were still scant wildflowers hereand there, and that’s a sure sign that school has no business starting up.

I told Nan I was going.

She said, “Don’t let the screen door slam.” She always said that. Every time. But every time I’d always already let go of it by the time she said it. There was just something about the screen door that caused a memory lapse. It slammed behind me, but I was already running for the carport to get my bike.

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