The Little Friend

Unable to tear his eyes away, Hely watched him as he circled to the back of the car, opened the trunk. One by one he unloaded his purchases in the empty sunlight and set them down on the concrete: a gallon of paint. Plastic buckets. A coil of green garden hose.

Hely got up very quietly and took his cereal bowl to the kitchen and rinsed it out, then went up to his room and shut the door. He lay on the bottom bunk, staring at the slats above and trying not to hyperventilate or pay too much attention to his own heartbeat. Presently he heard footsteps. Outside the door, his father said: “Hely?”

“Sir?” Why is my voice so squeaky?

“I thought I told you to turn off that television when you were finished watching it.”

“Yes sir.”

“I want you to come out and help me water your mother’s garden. I thought it was going to rain this morning but it looks like it’s blown over.”

Hely was afraid to argue. He detested his mother’s flower garden. Ruby, the maid before Essie Lee, would not go anywhere near the dense perennials his mother grew for cutting. “Snakes like flowers,” she always said.

Hely put on his tennis shoes and went outside. The sun was already high and hot. Glare in his eyes, woozy with heat, he stood seven or eight feet back on the crisped yellow grass as he swept the hose over the flower bed, holding it as far away from his body as he could.

“Where’s your bicycle?” said his father, returning from the garage.

“I—” Hely’s heart sank. His bike was right where he’d left it: on the median in front of the frame house.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t come back in this house until it’s in the garage. I’m sick and tired of telling you not to leave it out in the yard.”

————

Something was wrong when Harriet went downstairs. Her mother was dressed in one of the cotton shirt-waist dresses she wore to church, and was whisking around the kitchen. “Here,” she said, presenting Harriet with some cold toast and a glass of milk. Ida—her back to Harriet—was sweeping the floor in front of the stove.

“Are we going somewhere?” said Harriet.

“No, darling …” Though her mother’s voice was cheerful, her mouth was slightly tense and the waxy coral lipstick she wore made her face look white. “I just thought I’d get up and make your breakfast for you this morning, is that all right?”

Harriet glanced over her shoulder, at Ida, who did not turn around. The set of her shoulders was peculiar. Something’s happened to Edie, thought Harriet, stunned, Edie’s in the hospital.… Before she had time for this to sink in, Ida—without looking at Harriet—stooped with the dust-pan and Harriet saw with a shock that she’d been crying.

All the fear of the past twenty-four hours came thundering down upon her, and along with it was a fear that she could not name. Timidly, she asked: “Where’s Edie?”

Harriet’s mother looked puzzled. “At home,” she said. “Why?”

The toast was cold, but Harriet ate it anyway. Her mother sat down at the table with her and watched her, with her elbows on the table and her chin propped in her hands. “Is it good?” she said presently.

“Yes, maam.” Because she did not know what was wrong, or how to act, Harriet concentrated all her attention upon her toast. Then her mother sighed; Harriet glanced up, just in time to see her rise from the table in a rather dispirited manner and drift from the room.

“Ida?” whispered Harriet, as soon as they were alone.

Ida shook her head and said nothing. Her face was expressionless, but big glassy tears swelled at the bottom lid of her eyes. Then, pointedly, she turned away.

Harriet was stricken. She stared at Ida’s back, at the apron straps criss-crossed over her cotton dress. She could hear all sorts of tiny noises, crystal-clear and dangerous: the hum of the refrigerator, a fly buzzing over the kitchen sink.

Ida dumped the dust-pan into the pail beneath the sink, then shut the cabinet. “What for you told on me?” she said, without turning around.

“Tell on you?”

“I’m always good to you.” Ida brushed past her, returned the dust-pan to its home on the floor by the hot-water heater, next to the mop and broom. “Why you want to get me in trouble?”

“Tell on you for what? I didn’t!”

“You sure did. And you know what else?” Harriet quailed at her steady, bloodshot gaze. “Yall got that poor woman fired over at Mr. Claude Hull’s house. Yes you did,” she said, over Harriet’s stutters of astonishment. “Mr. Claude drove over there last night and you should have heard how he talk to that poor woman, like she’s a dog. I heard the whole thing and so did Charley T.”

“I didn’t! I—”

“Listen at you!” Ida hissed. “You ought to be ashamed. Telling Mr. Claude that woman try to set the house on fire. And what you do then, but priss yourself on home and tell your mama that I don’t feed you right.”

“I didn’t tell on her! It was Hely!”

“I aint talking about him. I’m talking about you.”