The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove by Susan Gregg Gilmore Page B
Authors: Susan Gregg Gilmore
Tags: Fiction, General, Humorous, Popular American Fiction, Fiction - General, Family Life, Domestic Fiction, Family secrets, Nashville (Tenn.), Interracial dating
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awkward around the other. But I knew what Maizelle was saying was right. Samuel needed to find his dream as much as I needed to find mine.
Mother came back a week or so before school started. She seemed timid, almost shy at first. Even I could tell that her improving health sometimes frightened her more than a full bottle of gin. But I think she wanted to be a better wife and mother. She called my father “dear” and brought Adelaide a beautiful new baby doll with soft blond hair and a white satin dress. She even seemed to treat Maizelle and Nathaniel with a bit more kindness and patience, although by five o’clock, when she would have been soaking in a gin and tonic, she tended to grow sharp and bitter.
A couple of her friends came by to welcome her home, although I think they were more curious than concerned. Of course, we never saw Mrs. Hunt again, and not much of our father really. Our mother grew painfully aware of their absences and, after a while, unsure of what to do with her long, quiet days at Grove Hill, started spending more and more time at the club. Sadly, by Easter, she was sick again, and by June she was heading back to Minnesota, not well enough or concerned enough to call her parents and schedule an impromptu summer vacation at the lake for her two young daughters. So Adelaide and I spent another summer at home alone, neatly out of our parents’ sight.
My little sister locked herself in her room and played with her dolls when she should have been playing hopscotch and phoning her friends. The doll my mother had given her last year sat on the floor by her bed; its hair had been cut short and the eyes painted with markers. I hid Baby Stella in the back of my closet for a few days, hoping Adelaide would leave her behind and start playing with real girls her own age, but my little sister pitched such a tearful fit I had to give her the doll back. Maizelle said she was just being Adelaide. She figured that even though my sister was now twelve years old, Adelaide was still a little girl in many ways, too afraid to grow much beyond her make-believe world. And I guess, in a way, Maizelle was right.
I spent more and more time with Cornelia, going to the movies and shopping for clothes. And I spent long afternoons in the kitchen with Maizelle, making pound cakes and canning tomatoes. But mostly I spent my days alone—needlepointing, reading, wading in the creek—trying to convince myself that I’d never really cared for Samuel Stephenson.
Maizelle said Samuel was spending the summer in Atlanta, organizing civil rights demonstrations. I imagined him sitting with his hands folded in his lap at some dime-store lunch counter or standing shoulder to shoulder with Martin Luther King. But Maizelle said those days were over. She was afraid Samuel was taking up another kind of fight, and I could hear her and Nathaniel whispering on the back porch, both sounding nervous and uneasy.
I kept Samuel’s bracelet wrapped inside a silk slip and tucked under some sweaters in my bottom dresser drawer. I never wore it during the day, never wanting to upset Nathaniel. But every night, before going to sleep, I prayed that Samuel would find his dream. And then I’d clasp his gold bracelet around my wrist and live mine while I slept.
AU REVOIR!
MISS HARDING’S SCHOOL TO SEND GROUP ABROAD
FOR SUMMER STUDY
Mrs. Hunt to Accompany Girls
Twenty rising seniors from Miss Harding’s Preparatory School for Girls will be traveling to Paris to further their fine arts education. The United States Ambassador to France, Mr. William H. Monroe III, extended the invitation to study and paint at Parisian museums, most notably, the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. Mr. Franklin’s wife is an alumna of Miss Harding’s Preparatory School and will personally oversee the girls’ studies.
The students will leave Nashville on June 2 and spend three days in New York City before traveling on to Paris. Mrs. George Madison Longfellow Hunt V
Mother came back a week or so before school started. She seemed timid, almost shy at first. Even I could tell that her improving health sometimes frightened her more than a full bottle of gin. But I think she wanted to be a better wife and mother. She called my father “dear” and brought Adelaide a beautiful new baby doll with soft blond hair and a white satin dress. She even seemed to treat Maizelle and Nathaniel with a bit more kindness and patience, although by five o’clock, when she would have been soaking in a gin and tonic, she tended to grow sharp and bitter.
A couple of her friends came by to welcome her home, although I think they were more curious than concerned. Of course, we never saw Mrs. Hunt again, and not much of our father really. Our mother grew painfully aware of their absences and, after a while, unsure of what to do with her long, quiet days at Grove Hill, started spending more and more time at the club. Sadly, by Easter, she was sick again, and by June she was heading back to Minnesota, not well enough or concerned enough to call her parents and schedule an impromptu summer vacation at the lake for her two young daughters. So Adelaide and I spent another summer at home alone, neatly out of our parents’ sight.
My little sister locked herself in her room and played with her dolls when she should have been playing hopscotch and phoning her friends. The doll my mother had given her last year sat on the floor by her bed; its hair had been cut short and the eyes painted with markers. I hid Baby Stella in the back of my closet for a few days, hoping Adelaide would leave her behind and start playing with real girls her own age, but my little sister pitched such a tearful fit I had to give her the doll back. Maizelle said she was just being Adelaide. She figured that even though my sister was now twelve years old, Adelaide was still a little girl in many ways, too afraid to grow much beyond her make-believe world. And I guess, in a way, Maizelle was right.
I spent more and more time with Cornelia, going to the movies and shopping for clothes. And I spent long afternoons in the kitchen with Maizelle, making pound cakes and canning tomatoes. But mostly I spent my days alone—needlepointing, reading, wading in the creek—trying to convince myself that I’d never really cared for Samuel Stephenson.
Maizelle said Samuel was spending the summer in Atlanta, organizing civil rights demonstrations. I imagined him sitting with his hands folded in his lap at some dime-store lunch counter or standing shoulder to shoulder with Martin Luther King. But Maizelle said those days were over. She was afraid Samuel was taking up another kind of fight, and I could hear her and Nathaniel whispering on the back porch, both sounding nervous and uneasy.
I kept Samuel’s bracelet wrapped inside a silk slip and tucked under some sweaters in my bottom dresser drawer. I never wore it during the day, never wanting to upset Nathaniel. But every night, before going to sleep, I prayed that Samuel would find his dream. And then I’d clasp his gold bracelet around my wrist and live mine while I slept.
AU REVOIR!
MISS HARDING’S SCHOOL TO SEND GROUP ABROAD
FOR SUMMER STUDY
Mrs. Hunt to Accompany Girls
Twenty rising seniors from Miss Harding’s Preparatory School for Girls will be traveling to Paris to further their fine arts education. The United States Ambassador to France, Mr. William H. Monroe III, extended the invitation to study and paint at Parisian museums, most notably, the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. Mr. Franklin’s wife is an alumna of Miss Harding’s Preparatory School and will personally oversee the girls’ studies.
The students will leave Nashville on June 2 and spend three days in New York City before traveling on to Paris. Mrs. George Madison Longfellow Hunt V
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