Between, Georgia Page 11

  “She’s not listening,” said Bernese, and Fisher immediately looked up.

  “Yes, I am,” she said, and with the acrobat mind of a five-year-old, she continued to sign the life story of the daughter doll into Mama’s hands while saying to us, “Do they still have Jews?”

  “Who are ‘they’?” said Bernese, her eyebrows lowering.

  Fisher shrugged. She put the baby in Mama’s hands, and Mama felt her way to the third-floor nursery and set him down in his crib. She was slumped in a folding chair that Bernese had dragged out of the storage room, and her hands did not move over the house with their usual surety; she was on painkillers for her scraped shoulder and bruised side. She was lucky she hadn’t broken a hip when she fell. The pill damped her down and muted her colors. She was usually such a presence that I could get a palpable feel for her mood whenever we were in the same room.

  Today she looked older and smaller than herself. Or perhaps it was just that she was sitting alone; I almost never saw Mama without Genny. But Genny was still in the hospital. Mama and I had stayed with her until we had to pick up Fisher. Genny had dozed off and on, and when we’d left, she was solidly asleep.

  Fisher was rearranging the second floor now, making a music room where the daughter doll could practice her tiny violin. She said, “Like in Bible times, they had dinosaurs, but they don’t have dinosaurs anymore. Do they still have Jews?”

  “Methodists,” said Bernese darkly. “You see the sort of crap she brings home when she goes over to Tia’s church?”

  I said, “Of course there are still Jewish people. You know Mr.

  Isaac, your grandma’s lawyer? He’s Jewish. But dinosaurs weren’t really around in Bible times, Fisher. They were a long time before that.”

  “If you believe in evolution,” Bernese said. “Which we don’t.”

  She placed the last animal, a duck with extravagant yellow curls peeping out from under her mobcap, and then turned back to me and said, “You think I should pay off Ona Crabtree, don’t you?

  Holy crows, Nonny, whose side are you on?”

  “This is hardly choosing a side. I’m telling you what Ona said because I’m scared, Bernese.” I gave her my hand, and she came down off the ladder.

  “Horse poop. You think I should pay, and that’s taking her side.” Bernese glowered.

  “I think paying her would make things safer for our side,” I said.

  “You go back and tell her—”

  “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

  Bernese picked up the empty crate and carried it to the back of the store. A door there opened onto a storage room and her office. The office was a neat cube with a desk and two tall filing cabinets stuffed with receipts and tax forms and customer files and orders. The files were arranged by category, subcategory, and sub-subcategory, some alphabetical, some chronological, and some in mystical Bernese order, depending on the file type. To anyone other than a Frett, it probably looked like chaos, and indeed, except for Bernese herself, only Isaac Davids could reliably pull a file without needing three hours, a Sherpa, and a fistful of Prozac. In the far corner, stairs led up to a two-bedroom fur-nished apartment. Bernese called the upstairs her rental property, though she had never actually rented it out.

  I followed her to the doorway. “Going back and forth between the two of you like this—she thinks I’m on your side, and you think I’m on hers. The two of you will end up madder at me than you are mad at each other.”

  “Not possible, unless you drop to all fours and personally chew Genny’s other arm off,” said Bernese. She opened the door and hurled the empty box back there for Lou to break down later.

  “You tell Ona if she doesn’t get those dogs gone, I’ll show them the way to hell myself.” She bulled her way past me, heading back toward the counter.

  “I wish I was a Jew,” said Fisher mournfully.

  “No, you do not,” Bernese snapped, not breaking stride.

  I bit back a laugh. Fisher hated to be laughed at. She was already angry with me, and I knew if I so much as smiled, she would shut me out all day. I followed Bernese to the front of the store. “Can’t you write the stupid check?” I said. “What happened to Genny and Mama—I’m as upset as you are, but at least I can understand that it was an accident.”

  “I do, too, want to be a Jew,” Fisher called after us.

  “No, Fisher, you want to be a Baptist. And you are. So get happy,” Bernese said. She looked at me. “Why is it my job to smooth down Ona Crabtree’s ruffled butt plumage when she’s the one caused all this?” She bent down behind the counter and began organizing the shelves, realigning the already tidy rows of paper bags.

  Fisher waggled the father doll back and forth and said in a deep, officious voice, “The Jews are God’s chosen people!”

  Bernese glared at Fisher over the counter, her cheeks reddening slightly and her breath coming faster. “Well, the Jews are going to hell. You want to go to hell?”

  “Bernese!” I said. “That’s a hair shy of child abuse. Not even.”

  Fisher stopped signing with Mama and stared up at Bernese with solemn eyes. “Mr. Isaac is going to hell?”

  “No, of course not,” said Bernese.

  “Right. God only sends people to hell if you don’t personally approve of them,” I said, pitching my voice down low for Bernese’s ears alone. “What’s gotten into you?”

  Bernese shot me a venomous look and said to Fisher, “No one really knows who is going to hell but God, Fisher. But if you were Jewish, you couldn’t have Christmas. And you couldn’t go to church with us on Sunday. Wouldn’t that be sad? You’d still want to go to vacation Bible school, but you couldn’t.”

  Mama tapped at Fisher’s hands, and Fisher turned away from us, resolutely setting her blocky shoulders. She signed, Grandma won’t let me be a Jew, into my mother’s left hand.

  My mother considered this and then felt along the second floor until she found the daughter doll. She picked her up and put her into Fisher’s hands and then signed, This girl is Jewish.

  She’s a real little girl. Her name’s Anne Frank.

  Does she play the violin? Fisher asked, and then my mother im-mersed her in the story. In minutes the two of them were busy helping Anne and her family set up house in the attic. In Fisher’s version, Anne Frank went into hiding with several fathers, her violin, and a baby. The mother doll was pressed into service as a Nazi.

  The bell on the door tinkled, and a young couple came in.

  Tourists. They had that rumpled look you get only from hours in a car wearing clothes that came out of a suitcase. The man was carrying a toddler with pale, angelic curls, maybe three years old.

  Bernese looked up and smiled, baring all her huge, square teeth at them.

  “Babies!” the little girl said, pointing at the doll display.

  “Yes,” said her mother, wilting under the onslaught of staring doll eyes. “That’s a lot of babies.”

  The father was holding a guidebook, Southern Car Tours. That was the most mainstream guidebook the Dollhouse and Butterfly Museum appeared in, and it did a shamefully poor job of preparing people for the realities of next door.

  “The sign on the door said we get museum tickets here?” the father said.

  “That’s right,” said Bernese. “Five dollars for adults, and your little friend there looks to me to be free. She’s under four?”

  While Bernese was ringing him up and exchanging pleasantries, I tried to get the mother’s attention, but she was engrossed in watching Fisher sign into Mama’s hands. I watched for a moment, too. Apparently, Anne Frank had joined the Powerpuff Girls and was headed downstairs to beat the crap out of some Nazis.

  I gave a discreet cough, and the mother looked up. I tilted my head toward her daughter and then gave my head a shake, trying to indicate that the museum might not be the best place to take a toddler. She misunderstood me and turned away from Mama and Fisher, blushing a faint pink. She said, “I wasn’t trying
to be rude. I’ve never seen that, what they’re doing.”

  Bernese stepped in before I could get my mouth open. “Now, if you folks follow me, I will let you in next door, and then you can wander as long as you’d like.”

  “Good luck,” I called as they followed Bernese out, helpless ducklings who’d accidentally imprinted on a carnivore.

  Bernese shot me a dirty look and said, “After you tour the museum, be sure and come back and shop. We have all kinds of—”

  Then the door closed, and I couldn’t hear any more.

  “Why are they taking a little kid next door? Are they stupid?”

  Fisher asked me without looking up from her game.

  “They don’t know any better.”

  A moment later, Bernese bustled back in, her mouth curving into a wide, smug smile. “Early in the season for tourists,” she said.

  “But I’ve been getting quite a few this week. Not even a weekend!”

  “You left them alone?” I asked.

  “Lou’s over there, cleaning the frass out of the terrariums. He’s got an eye on them.”

  “While you’re in a good mood,” I said, “with this Ona thing—

  could you think about bending?”

  She snorted. “Bending over, you mean. Don’t hold your breath. And I am dead serious about her getting those dogs gone.

  You tell her.”

  I threw my hands in the air.

  The bell went off again, and Bernese whirled, unleashing the big dog-in-the-litter-box grin she kept at the ready for tourists and customers, but it was only Henry this time, poking his head in.

  “Coffee?” he said to me, raising his eyebrows.

  “God, yes,” I answered. “Give me a sec.”

  He let the door close. I went and knelt down on the floor by Mama, drawing my heart on her shoulder to get her attention, and told her I was going over to the bookstore. She wanted to stay and play with Fisher, so I told her I would bring her some supper back from the diner. It had been a long day, and I didn’t want her wearing herself out cooking.

  Before I could stand up, Fisher gripped my forearm. She leaned in to me from the other side and whispered into my ear,

  “When I grow up to be a Jew, I’ll let you come to my Jewish church. Even if I’m not allowed to come to yours.”

  Her breath stirred the tendrils of hair at my nape. It was warm and smelled of SweeTarts. Mama must have been slipping her candies. I looked at her, as serious as she was.

  “I know you would,” I whispered back, and she lunged at me, banging her bullet-hard head into my teeth, then tilting to stuff her face down into the corner where my neck met my shoulder.

  She clutched me, a fisted bundle of muscle in my arms, and then relaxed, suddenly pliant. I squeezed her tight, my teeth buzzing from the blow.

  She let go of me abruptly. I didn’t let her go until she wormed backwards out of my arms. As I released her, she gave me a bracing pat, as if bucking me up, before returning to Mama and her dolls.

  I stood up, rubbing my mouth. On my way out the door, I said, “I’m getting Mama’s supper while I’m out. Want me to bring y’all something?”

  Bernese, back behind the counter, said, “If you’re going to the diner, get us two meatloaf specials, extra gravy.”

  “Fisher won’t eat that,” I said.

  “It’s for me and Lou. Fisher’s eating from that book.”

  I said softly, “You need to quit with that. Fisher’s still a baby, and her body is working hard to grow. What would happen to all your caterpillars if you stopped feeding them?”

  Bernese answered back almost as quietly, “Don’t get in my way on this, Nonny, especially not in front of her.”

  “Something’s not right with you, Bernese. You’re not yourself with her right now. What’s changed?”

  Bernese didn’t answer me, just glanced at Fisher. “Bat ears,” she said.

  I looked over at Fisher. Her head was bent down over her dolls, but her spine was straight and stiff and her body was held mo-tionless. She was listening intently, even while her hands moved dolls about and signed with Mama.

  “I’ll take it up with you later,” I said to Bernese, and left.

  CHAPTER 9

  STEAMED MILK OR demitasse?” Henry asked, grinning over his shoulder at me. He’d made himself a double shot of espresso. It was sitting on the counter, so thick and black it was practically a solid; Henry was a purist.

  “Double shot, please. With lots of steamed milk. If you have any sugar, put that in. And if you have any opium, a heaping spoonful of that, too.” Henry’s register was at the front, by the door, and the rest of the counter had been converted into a coffee bar. I was slumped on one of the stools, my head cradled in my hands.

  “I have vanilla opium,” said Henry, holding up a bottle of fla-vored syrup.

  “Sold,” I said, and he upended the bottle over the largest-size paper cup he had.

  “Keep it coming,” I said.

  “That bad?”

  “Mama’s going to be fine, and the doctor said Genny will be fine, too. She’s drugged to the hilt. Bernese, however, is going to give me an aneurysm.” I shook my head.

  “It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said Henry.

  “Ona’s ready to go on a tear.”

  He handed me my latte, and I took a long, searing gulp.

  “Bernese, too. And it isn’t only this mess with the Crabtrees.

  My whole family is out of sorts. Bernese is like an upset hamster mama. She’s going to chew off Fisher’s head. That’s if she doesn’t starve the kid to death first. Something is bad wrong there all of a sudden, and I can’t put my finger on it. She’s making Fisher moody. Moodier. And Mama’s lathered because Bernese sold another one of her original heads,” I said.

  “Why does she keep doing that?”

  “Because she’s Bernese. Last night at the hospital, Mama asked me to pick out the head for her,” I said. “She doesn’t feel up to it, and she says she doesn’t even want to know what one I pick. I think she’s too distraught over Genny to think about it, but as sure as God made little green apples, that will bite me in the ass later. I’ll pick the wrong head. Whatever one I pick, it’ll be the exact one she can least stand to lose, because she can’t stand to lose any of them.

  “Meanwhile, Ona Crabtree is demanding that Bernese pay for the Bitch’s funeral, and worse, she’s making me come to her house and eat roast this weekend, and I hope to the Lord God Almighty you can get yourself invited to that dinner, too, or I will probably stroke out, and my divorce is Friday afternoon, assuming I can even go, and how is that for a giant dump of horror in your lap.” I was surprised to find that I was near tears.

  Henry regarded me solemnly and then said, “I don’t think I’ve put nearly enough opium in.”

  “Not by half.” I gulped down more of the coffee drink and then looked up at him from under my lashes. I tried to give him my best wheedling smile in spite of the tears. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to talk to Ona for me? Try and get her to see reason.”

  Henry shook his head. “Am I wearing a name tag that says

  ‘Hello, my name is Sisyphus’? I am going to stay out of the middle of this. And you should, too.”

  “Except I was born there,” I said morosely. “The middle is my damn birthright.” I polished off my drink and stood up to throw away my empty cup. We looked at each other across the counter, eye to eye, exactly the same height.

  He said, “Unfortunately, I have very little influence in this matter. I was seen consorting with the enemy at the hospital.” I watched him turning his demitasse cup around and around, his movements measured and precise. He had square hands with long, blunt-tipped fingers, and he kept his nails cut very close.

  His hands were a little too large for his wiry frame. At last he said,

  “Come on. I’m having a slow day, so I’ll help you pick out the head. It’s about all I can do.”

  He left
the demitasse cup on the counter. On the door, he had one of those reversible signs with a paper clock on it. He flipped it around so that the “closed” side was showing, and set the hands of the clock to show when he would return.

  We walked back down the cobblestones, past Bernese’s store to the museum, waving at Bernese through the window as we passed. I could see the top of Mama’s head over by the play table.

  The young couple was just coming out of the museum. The little girl’s flower-bud mouth was trembling, and her eyes were rimmed in pink. The mother was pale, and the father glanced at me and then quickly away, his mouth drawn and angry. He put his arm around his wife, herding her sideways to give Henry and me a wide berth as they walked toward the parking lot.

  “I tried to warn them,” I said, shaking my head.

  Henry laughed. He had a great laugh, throaty and low. He’d gotten it from his mama, along with the faint edges of his Cajun slur. “Got your key?”

  I nodded, and we went up the stairs. A sign on the front door said WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE AND BUTTERFLY MUSEUM. It listed the hours and instructed visitors to buy tickets at the Dollhouse Store next door. I unlocked it and we went inside, locking up behind us.

  A staircase led up to a landing overlooking the entryway. It was roped off, and the upstairs entry was bolted from the inside when Mama and Genny weren’t there working. “We need to go around to the back stairs,” I said.

  On one side of the staircase, a sign that said BUTTERFLIES

  pointed patrons to a doorway on the left. On the other side, a DOLLS sign pointed right.

  “Let’s play tourist,” said Henry. “Pick a path.”

  “Dolls,” I said immediately.

  “Then I’ll go butterflies. Meet you at the back.” He headed left. The downstairs rooms were built in a big circle, connected by wide arching doorways. Along Henry’s path were all of Bernese’s terrariums, filled with caterpillars and cocoons, and above each hung a plaque with information about the species and pinned adult specimens that Bernese had chloroformed and mounted herself. There were no live adults. When butterflies emerged, Bernese released them into the gardens on the square.