The day swept its last hour into the cemetery. There, alongside the forgotten churchyard in the washed light at the end of Ebenezer Road, she’d buried her secret.
Just months before, Patsy Butler hadn’t any secrets to keep. Not adult ones anyway, and only the kind an almost sixteen-year-old would primp and parcel: an admirer’s note passed in history class, a young boy’s wanting touch, maybe a stolen kiss sneaked behind the football bleachers, all locked onto a mostly dreamy-lipped grin and safeguarded to chalk-dusted walls.
But now there was a burdening hush-hush in Patsy’s soft green eyes and a quivering in her young hands that belonged to the old.
Patsy crossed the room and opened the bedroom window to let the early June air sift through the curtains. Sinking back down onto her vanity stool, she dipped the eyeliner brush into a teacup of water and swished it back and forth across the black cake powder. For the second time Patsy tried to draw a line onto her eyelids to give herself a perfect cat-eye look.
“Patsy and Danny sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then marriage, and then o’ then, there’s a baby carriage!” Her twin sister’s stupid little tease struck like a cold blade.
“Dammit, Flannery . . . just hush,” Patsy hissed, peering closer at the mirror and inspecting the sweep on her wing-painted lids. Satisfied, Patsy reached for the lipstick.
“Oh, did I spell it wrong? F-O-R-N-I-C-A-T-I—” Flannery sang slowly as she hung over her sister’s shoulder.
Patsy batted her off with a light hand. Ever since their mama said Patsy could go to the junior prom with Danny Henry, Flannery had been pestering Patsy because Flannery didn’t have a beau to take her. But this particular tease cut deeper. Patsy and Danny had been arguing about it recently, it being putting out. Patsy wondered if Flannery had overhead their whispers on the porch. It had to be that, only that.
“What’s eating you?” Flannery asked.
“You. Knock it off, tadpole.” Patsy pressed her lips together to seal the paint, dropping the tube onto the wooden vanity. She glanced into the mirror and cast a warning eye to Flannery.
“Don’t call me that,” Flannery said. “Hey, that’s mine.” She snatched the lipstick and tossed it into the vanity’s drawer, then plopped onto one of the twin beds in their bedroom.
“Someone’s acting like a brat,” Patsy declared.
“That’s because someone is working somebody’s shift down at Chubby Ray’s, scooping tons of ice cream and making a million cherry lime rickeys and serving stacks of chili dogs to her whole junior class while somebody and everybody has a big-to-do prom to go to.”
“Flannery, you’re a doll to do this.” Patsy sighed, leaned back, patted her sister’s shoulder.
“Well, you’ve already missed enough days. I wouldn’t want Chubby to fire you.”
“A living doll,” Patsy said, sort of meaning it this time.
Flannery softened a little. “I guess you’d do it for me.”
“I would,” Patsy said. “But I wish you would’ve thought about letting Hollis take you to the prom. Then ol’ Chubby Ray wouldn’t have made you work my shift.”
“Hollis Henry is a senior, a dumb one who failed first grade—nearly nineteen years old now! And you know Mama ain’t allowing us to date seniors, same as Honey Bee. ’Sides, I never much cared for him—I don’t want to double-date—and I don’t want your date offering up his brother as a pity date for me.”
Their daddy, Beauregard “Honey Bee” Butler, or Honey Bee, as Patsy and all who knew him called him, had a lot of silly rules for his girls, Patsy thought. Rules that were still calling from the grave. It wasn’t fair, she felt. Honey Bee never wanted the twins to be around older boys, yet, he’d let them skip second grade and go straight into third when the teacher advised it. Honey Bee’d enjoyed boasting how doubly-sharp his little girls were.
“But that’s only because Honey Bee told Mama not to let us,” Patsy reminded Flannery. “He’s been dead over two years.” There was a relief in Patsy’s words. Honey Bee was one less worry—one less in the mess of her latest troubles.
“That’s ’cause Honey Bee was right,” Flannery said. “And it doesn’t matter if he’s gone, or how long; he’ll always be right.”
Patsy studied her sister a moment. “Honey Bee wasn’t always right. If he’d listened to Mama, maybe he’d still be here—” she said quietly.
“Patsy Jean Butler, you hush your mouth about our daddy,” Flannery scolded.
Patsy hung her head a little, thinking about the day he’d been found dead on his ferryboat. Pushing the horrid thought aside, she said, “Well, it would’ve been fun tonight with you there.” If Flannery went with Hollis, it would serve Patsy in a two-fold way: keep the older brother away from her and Danny, and let them spend time alone. “He’s the sheriff’s son, so Mama wouldn’t mind . . . Danny said it was Hollis who brought it up first, before he asked you—”
“Too late, and I don’t care,” Flannery snipped. “Sheriff Jack Henry’s son or not, Miss Little wouldn’t have allowed it. Anyways, I heard he didn’t get approval, even when Violet Perry submitted his name.”
All girls’ dates for school dances had to go through their home economics teacher, Miss Little, for preapproval.
“What? Violet put his name in?” Patsy asked, wondering why she hadn’t heard that the pretty Violet Perry had to go back and submit another name to Miss Little, wondering what Hollis was up to now.
“Heard he begged her to do it to test Miss Little, though I bet he secretly wanted to go with her,” Flannery said. “And you know if the pastor’s daughter can’t get Miss Little’s permission for Hollis, ain’t nobody going to get it.”
That was true. Patsy’d thought it would’ve been okay to put Hollis and Flannery together for just one night, knew Hollis didn’t have a sneaky eye trained on Flannery, and then her sister wouldn’t gripe about working her shift. But after hearing even the preacher’s daughter couldn’t earn Hollis Miss Little’s good favor, Patsy knew Hollis would never go to any dance, not even his own senior prom. Not as long as Miss Little was alive and kicking, that is. Patsy’d barely squeaked her date’s name by the old teacher.
*
The seventy-four-year-old spinster took not only the name of your date, but also checked his grades and looked at any infractions the boy might’ve had in the last year. Folks knew she sniffed around better than any hound dog or gumshoe even, going so far as to call on the boy’s neighbors, pastor, or an employer if he had one.
If something was amiss, Miss Little would tell you to find another date; the boy wasn’t good enough, and the troublemaker wouldn’t be allowed to attend. A girl could try to plead the boy’s case, but it was rare Miss Little would change her mind and give permission. Parents too. Especially the parents. Though Miss Little was indeed small and frail in appearance, in these matters she had a might of influence over all the grown-ups, especially since Alfred Harris.
Long ago, Alfred transferred from another county after his school chased him off for doing bad things to animals. The family sent him to live with an aunt in Glass Ferry, but Miss Little found out his sickness had come with him. After that Alfred incident, no one grumbled about Miss Little’s guardian role or her results.
Still, Miss Little tried to be fair, and there was always a chance if the boy’s offense was trivial. The teacher sometimes offered to have him atone for his misdeed by attending her Wednesday and Saturday two-hour Bible study at her house. If the boy made a month’s worth of meetings and seemed truly repentant, Miss Little would finally nod her consent.