"What is?"
"Being with a boy like Chad. You put bait on a hook and get him to nibble. If you want, you pull him all the way. If you don't, you tease him to death or until he begs and promises so much, you throw up, give in or leave him dangling. Sometimes it's more fun to leave them dangling. Boys need to be taught a lesson, otherwise they treat you like you're their property and I ain't being any boy's property."
"Property? I don't know what you mean." I said.
"Yeah, you will. You got the body started. You might as well start on the rest of it, learning about it and boys especially. And you're lucky, girl. 'cause you got me to be your new... what you call it, minder? Just don't put rat poison in my water,' she added, laughing, and ran the rest of the way to the house. I hurried after her. As soon as we entered. Mae Betty, gave her work to do.
Despite what Great-aunt Frances said Grandmother Emma had told her concerning the work servants were supposed to do and how we were to treat them. I didn't like standing around and watching other people clean up for me while I did nothing. Ian hated Nancy coming into his room and once locked her out, but that was for other reasons. He liked his privacy and hated snoops. I really liked helping. Besides. I thought. Grandmother Emma wouldn't have told me Great-aunt Frances needed me if she hadn't expected I would help with some things,
Mae Betty had Alanis finish washing and vacuuming the floors downstairs and finish
straightening up the rooms while she went upstairs to straighten up the bedrooms and collect the dirty dishes and glasses. With her father working on the plumbing and window curtains, bulbs and other things Felix had assigned him, the house was undergoing what Greataunt Frances called "a face-lift."
"I know it's what Emma wants, and we'd better do what Emma wants," she sang.
She fluttered about from room to room doing little things herself, but spending most of her time planning what she had called our Gone With the Wind dinner. I had heard about Gone With the Wind, but I had never seen it. She went down to the basement and came up with an armful of dresses that smelled strange. She told me they had been kept in mothballs, but not to worry because we would wear enough perfume to drown out the odor.
While she went upstairs to sort it all. I helped Alanis clean up the kitchen and then the dining room. I found dirty cups and glasses everywhere and imagined that some had been left for weeks, if not months. Whatever had been in them had caked over and was hard and crusted.
"There are rats here," Alanis insisted. "So don't depend on that lazy cat to keep them away. I seen them traveling over the pipes in the basement, and now you know why. She as much as invites them in, my mother says. Lucky you come here to live, otherwise this place would get so bad, it would be condemned by the health department. How come your grandmother let it be like this if she's such a wealthy, high-and-mighty woman. huh?"
"I don't think she knew about it," I said.
"Well, why not? Don't she have all sorts of people working for her, checking up on things? How come she waited until now to send that chauffeur around, huh?"
"I don't know," I said, but what she asked made me wonder again. Grandmother Emma had too much pride to have anyone see this. I thought. What was stranger than her pride, strong enough to keep her from caring?
"You know what I
think? I think your greataunt is an embarrassment for her so she
embarrassment to her and couldn't care less what happened out here. My granddaddy was never worried too much about it. I can tell you that. Matter of fact, this is the first time I can remember anyone came here to look things over,"
"How long have you been living here?"
"Two years, and some. We came after my daddy took off with Marlene Lilly, a strip dancer who worked in the club he supposedly owned with two other men. Turned out they didn't own nothing and we had nothing, so we moved in with my granddaddy. My mother's bartender over at a club called the Canary. She says no man's worth trusting. She says its like putting your money in quicksand. She says she'll never get married again."
"I'm sorry your father left you." I said.
"Yeah, me too. but I'm through crying about it." she told me. However, when I looked at her, she looked like tears had come into her eyes.
She knelt down and started pulling things out from under the sofa in the living room. A box of crackers had been kicked underneath and there were pieces of bread and a quarter of a rotten apple.
"Damn, she got ants," she said, "I'd better get the vacuum cleaner," she told me. "The gobs of dust under there would choke a horse. Like I said, lucky you came. Maybe your grandmother knew what she was doing. Maybe this was her way to save her sister."
Maybe. I thought, although I still had no firm idea why she would have waited this long.
Something told me it wouldn't be too long before I found out.
I stood off to the side and watched Alanis do the vacuuming. No matter what she did, she didn't take off her hat.
"I hate doing this in our place," she muttered. She saw me just standing there and asked me if I wanted to do it. "You said you wanted to help your great-aunt."
"I guess so." I said, so she handed the vacuum cleaner to me and I started. Nancy never let me do it back at the mansion. Although Alanis hated it. I thought it was fun. Soon after I had started. however. I heard her mother screaming from the doorway. Alanis had sprawled on the sofa and was reading Great-aunt Frances's soap opera magazines while I continued vacuuming. I shut it off quickly.
"Whatcha making that little girl do that? You want them all after us?"
"Look at her. She's not such a little girl and she wanted to do it," Alanis whined.