October Suite Read online

  She needed to stop this nervous storm-watching because the children were watching her, looking—eyes scary bright—at the white blank window. By no means was it her first blizzard, but it was the first storm where she had so many children looking to her to get them home safely.

  A few minutes after eleven, Cora appeared, waving in the window of the door to October’s classroom, signaling for October to come into the hallway.

  “I called Mr. Pemberton,” Cora said, “and he’s going to borrow a truck and come get us around one. We’ll have to sit on top of each other, but he’ll take all four of us home.”

  “Good thing,” October said. “If the wind picks up, we could get lost just walking around the playground. What about the children?”

  “Well, we’ll see,” Cora said. “Most times they’re all picked up by the time we close. If not—well, you know. Nobody leaves until the school is empty. How many do you have left?”

  “At least half of them,” October said. She reminded herself that all the children lived within a few miles of school. All of them could be walked home if necessary. But who wanted to brave a blizzard with a brood? She had worn only overshoes, not boots.

  Within the next half hour, parents—bless their reliable souls—had come to collect all except five or six of the children in October’s third-grade class. Several of the parents who were walking more than one child home brought ropes to tie around waists, extra socks for mittens, and huge swatches of cloth for headgear. And they brought peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to fortify little stomachs for the trek.

  October passed around chunks of peppermint cane to the children who remained. Although she had her doubts, she reassured them: “Everyone will be taken home today. If your parents don’t come, I will personally walk you to your door, so don’t worry.”

  When James Wilson arrived, because his arms were full and the classroom door was closed, he had to kick it. October went immediately to see who and what on earth. And because sensible gear for blizzards can obliterate features on faces, she did not recognize him. The man wore hip boots and a mackinaw, a hunting cap with the flaps down, and a kerchief tied masklike around his face. He hugged a wooden crate with an army blanket covering what looked to be a large pot.

  The minute he said “Hey,” she saw his eyes.

  Before she could ask “What?” he handed over the crate—she took it—and he yanked off his mask.

  White teeth. “Hi,” he said. “I brought chili enough for everybody.”

  She had not laid eyes on him for more than a month. Apparently, his messin-around status had not been news to anyone at the house except her, and October had decided that this was why he had disappeared. Mary Esther and Albertine, even retired Miss Dumas, had each come to see her privately—to recruit her for a Bible-study group, in Mary Esther’s case, and to invite her to the Beau Brummells’ December ball, in Albertine’s case. The first two had found the time to mention in passing that women have to be careful where they are seen and with whom—a warning from Mary Esther, a word to the wise from the experienced Albertine. Miss Dumas, however, got right to the point “I hear you’ve been out with Shorty from around here, daughter,” she said. “Everybody knows he’s married. Don’t let him in your pants.”

  “I didn’t know ...,” October had said, and had gone on trying to explain, but Miss Dumas waved her silent. “I’m just telling you like any mother would tell any daughter,” she said. “Watch out.”

  And over the weeks October had weighed things. Three friends—Cora, James, and she—had gone out to listen to music one night. Nothing had happened. Nobody had done anything wrong.

  “Come in,” she said to James, who was still standing in front of her in the schoolroom door. “Children, say good morning to Mr. Wilson. He’s Irene’s father.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Wilson” rang out. James nodded hello to the class, grinned at his daughter.

  Irene made a self-conscious little wave in bald-faced joy.

  October announced, “Mr. Wilson has brought hot lunch for everyone.” She set the crate on her desk and discovered paper cups and crackers inside.

  James Wilson began shaking and brushing snow everywhere. Unzipping his coat and untying his flaps, he went down the aisle, patted Irene on the head, continued to the back of the room, sat on top of the last desk in the row, and watched.

  October’s first wish was that she had worn her form-fitting sweater dress today. Then that she had tied back her hair. Then that she wouldn’t wish these things. She unpacked the crate and let the children crowd in with their cups for hot chili and crackers. Once all the cups were filled and the children were settled and relishing their lunch, she joined James at the back of the room, sat on a desk right across from him.

  “Mr. Pemberton sent me after you-all,” he said. “Said Cora called.”

  “Oh,” October said. “You mean you’re taking us home?”

  “I was coming anyway,” he said. “To get Irene, I mean. He called and I told him I’d bring you-all, too.”

  “Can we all fit into your truck?” October asked him. He said sure, and as he pointed out the versatility of trucks, she watched his mouth, his hands, the nervous way he scoured his thighs with his hands. Rough hands. Lotion. She looked at her smooth hands.

  He cleared his throat “How about this weather?” he said. “Took a storm to get us talking again.”

  What did he mean “talking”? He was the one who’d disappeared.

  “No hard feelings?” he asked.

  She shook her head, no. They were quiet. She got up nerve enough to say, “If you had just said everything up front ...”

  “You aren’t telling me anything I don’t know,” he said. “I just couldn’t get it out—we never got to the time when I could tell you. God’s truth, I wanted to.”

  “Well, now the air is clear,” October said. She looked at him and a smile spread right out of her face.

  “What I said was true, too,” he said. “Things just weren’t—aren’t—doing nothing between Pearl and me.”

  “Pearl.”

  “Yeah, my wife. I was wrong to press you. What can I say—I went over the line.”

  October nodded, sat on her hands. She remembered her orange and the boiled egg in her desk. Should she go get it share it?

  “Don’t you want some chili?” she asked him.

  “Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I ate before I came.”

  “I think I’ll get my lunch,” she said. “Never can tell what will happen in a storm, and I didn’t eat breakfast.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  She put one foot in front of the other and walked up the aisle to her desk, backside burning where she was sure James’s eyes were glued. Once she saw the crumpled sack lunch, she had second thoughts. And then remembered the nice plate—real china—she had used for Cora’s birthday cake. She unwrapped it in the bottom drawer and assembled her orange, her boiled egg, and her paper napkin. Done. And then she glimpsed her grade book and was doubly pleased.

  Fortified with a topic of conversation, she went back to her perch across from James.

  She began peeling her orange and steered casually. “Irene has done so well this grade period,” she said. “You-all must be so proud. She’s a little crackerjack.”

  “Um-hmm,” James said. “But before we talk about Reenie, just for the record I want to say there wasn’t nothing ’bout to be happening between you and me anyway.” He was grinning, his face full of play, and he shook his head, laughing softly.

  “What’s funny?” October asked. She offered him half her orange. He shook his head, still chuckling.

  “If the truth be told, a man would have to be born with a caul to get next to you,” he said.

  She smiled understanding-like, but she didn’t quite get it. There hadn’t been
any time for him to know this. “I guess I’m just careful,” she said.

  “‘Careful’ wasn’t the half of it,” he said, still full of play. “First time I tried to get a kiss, you almost gave me a black eye. Roped me in so nice.” And he went into a silly falsetto voice:” ‘Nice music, James, sure we can dance,’ and then wham!” He faked a blow to his cheek.

  October laughed “No, I didn’t. You surprised me is all. I wasn’t ready....”

  “Almost gave me a black eye,” James said, laughing.

  “You deserved it then,” October said, laughing.

  “Mean head-tripper,” he said, laughing.

  “Casanova,” she said, laughing.

  He reached over and tore a section of her orange right off, squished it into his mouth, laughing. She tossed a whole section into her mouth, laughing. He took the rest from her hand, ate it whole, juice playing around the comers and across his lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Now she was in the spirit of it. “It was you who changed the drinks to rum at Maurice’s,” she charged, making light.

  “’Scuse me, ma’am, but I didn’t think a woman like you could get loose in her boots,” he said.

  “That’s when I should have called the police,” she said.

  “Not true,” he said. “I wasn’t whippin no game on you. But you didn’t lose no points. There is nothing worse than a woman snoring just when you’re trying to talk serious trash,” he said. Funny.

  She sat smiling to herself, quietly nodding, remembering, knowing that he remembered, too. Glad to be laughing. Glad he had been honest.

  “Guess we’d better load up,” he said, and he picked up his hunting cap off the desk. Stuffed inside it something red.

  “I bought these for Reenie,” he said. A pair of red earmuffs. “Could we talk sometime?” he said. “Me and you?”

  October hunched her shoulders, shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “It might not be a good idea.”

  “Friends, I mean. Just friends. It’ll be on the up-and-up, not on the sly.”

  “I have to give you your records,” she said. “You could come by to get them. That’s talking,” she added. Proud.

  “Those are yours,” he said. “I don’t really want them back. Let’s just say I owe you, so keep the records.”

  She smiled, but she didn’t answer, because she couldn’t think of the right thing to say. Things felt right. Fate had brought them back together in a good way. She didn’t want to risk spoiling or sparking whatever was between them.

  At that wrong moment Cora peered through the window of the classroom door.

  October fairly leaped off the desk and straightened her dress. “Time to get started, I guess,” she said. And louder, “Children, finish up your lunch and line up for the water fountain and the lavatory. Whoever needs a ride will go with Irene’s father in his truck. Miss Olfield will call your parents to let them know.”

  She went to the door. “What’s up?” she asked Cora.

  “What is James Wilson doing here?” Cora asked.

  “Mr. Pemberton sent him,” October said. “He said you called and he was coming anyway to get his daughter. He’s taking everybody.”

  Once October had blurted out the sad facts of James’s life that ugly Sunday morning, Cora had boiled over with her didn’t-I-tell-you-men-are-dogs speech. But then a month later, Ed had come through in the best of all possible ways and Cora had forgiven all men. By then, October had shed her own shame and convinced Cora that James had always been careful not to go too far. He had invited Cora to chaperone them, hadn’t he? He had told the truth, albeit late.

  “Okay,” Cora said, “but how is he going to get all of us into that truck?”

  October didn’t know that, either, but if anyone could, James Wilson could.

  Later, out in the knee-deep snow with needles of sleet stinging their faces, four women and four children stood waiting for James Wilson to explain how they must shrivel up to fit into the cab of a panel truck.

  Over the wind’s whistle, James yelled, “I thought you two ladies”—and he pointed to Albertine and Mary Esther—“could ride back here.” He jumped up onto the bed of the truck, stripped back a large tarpaulin and dumped off mounds of snow. Underneath, October could see he had rigged a huge chest as a seat.

  “You can sit on the tool chest,” James yelled. “And cover like this.”

  He had somehow hooked the tarp to the back of the truck’s cab so that it created a little covered shed where they could ride.

  Albertine shook her head and clutched her coat closed, snow and sleet flying into her mouth. “We’ll freeze to death back here,” she yelled.

  Mary Esther, face scrunched against pelting ice, yelled to Albertine, “Where is Norman? Can’t he come and get us?”

  James yelled, motioning to his daughter, “Reenie, you and the kids get in.” Then, “What are y’all gonna do?” to Albertine and Mary Esther.

  The wind screamed. Cora grabbed October’s arm. “Me and October can ride back here. Let’s just go.”

  It wasn’t what October wanted, but she went along. Albertine and Mary Esther climbed into the cab, each taking a child onto her lap. Irene got behind the wheel with a classmate at her side. No room yet for the driver. James helped Cora and October up onto the bed of his truck, and as he sat them down, he said to October, “Don’t worry, I’ll get you home safe,” like he was taking special care of her. He covered her and Cora over with a blanket, told them that if anything went wrong they were to knock on the window of the cab. And then he pulled the tentlike tarp over them and hooked it. Instantly, October could see herself and Cora at an outpost, transported back to the foreign land of childhood where, at any given moment, everything can be make-believe.

  James climbed into the driver’s side and through the tiny window, October watched him—gentle as ever—take his daughter onto his lap, whisper into the red earmuffs, probably telling her not to worry, he would get her home. And he did.

  After that, she saw him all the time mostly when she was going to school. Blue skies could glare with burning cold, and clouds could deliver payloads of anything frozen, but James Wilson came by and got her to school. Magical slices of time to October, even with Cora ho-humming and complaining that next trip up, Ed should leave her the car. Slices too thin for mischief, too thick to be casual. Minutes between home and school. And since he seldom plied his trade in bad weather, James came to school on Parents’ Day. Flipped through Irene’s tablets. Ate peanuts and mints with the other parents. Watched her. Smiled.

  He volunteered to make another crate-bench for the reading modules. Just a parent helping out. On delivery day, he stayed late and drove October home. He volunteered to go with the class on the next field trip, whenever and wherever it was.

  For a change, Miss Olfield had suggested Armour’s Packing House as a possible field trip. Up until then, the children visited the Nelson Art Gallery and the Manor Bakery each year with little enthusiasm, and October could see why. When she was their age, her aunts had made a tradition of taking her and Vergie to see Chillicothe’s claim to archeological fame: the Mounds. According to her aunts, children needed to develop an appreciation for preserving the buried past. But to an eight-year-old there was nothing exciting about looking at prehistoric burial grounds.

  For field trips that involved places not yet on the Board-approved list, it was customary for the teachers to make a preliminary, checkout jaunt then submit a written proposal to the Board for putting the site on the list. October volunteered to make the Saturday visit and write the proposal, mostly because Cora had reminded her of her newest-teacher status. But October agreed with Miss Olfield that the visit was a good idea. The children would probably be excited to see how bacon got sliced, how lunchmeat was made.

  Cora, too, was goi
ng along with another teacher, Lottie Palmer. After the fiasco of Cora riding through a blizzard on a truck bed, Ed had left her the car. She would drive them.

  Their guide—a man Mr. Pemberton’s age, with Mr. Pemberton’s shuffle—met them at the front door of the plant and assured them that the slaughter would be humane, efficient. Said the cattle were first rested, then watered, inspected, confined, then stunned and sacrificed. The whole process took place in one wing, and if they decided that it would be too much for the children, they could omit that part of the tour. Fine.

  Once inside the plant where hickory smoke took over, the cattle stench that fouled the air throughout the city turned into only the faintest whiff of dung. “Distribution” had men and women in dark blue jumpers on both sides of a wide assembly belt and bins choked with slabs of bacon ready for machine-slicing and moving on a conveyor to be wrapped and packed at a station beyond.

  At “Processing,” streak-o’-lean, gristle, strange-looking “trimmings” were tossed into grinders to be seasoned. Wheelbarrows full of gruel the colorless beige of animal skin stood waiting to be shoveled into a funnel-shaped contraption that resembled a small cement mixer. Their guide showed them the tub of red food-coloring pills. Then, with a thump, pink gruel shot out of one side of the mixer into a long tube of cellophane. The mixer whined, forcing the stuff to the very end of the cellophane; then, whump, whump, whump, it was stapled into loaves of baloney, ready for slicing. Anybody want a sample of sandwich meat? Everybody said no.

  At “Cutting,” headless carcasses hung by the front hooves. Red flesh, trimmed in pink fat and with deep cavities, swayed. Quarter-carcasses lay stacked on tables. This was meat now, so many roasts to be cut, T-bone steaks coming into view, filets, short ribs, chops.

  And then on to “Slaughtering,” a long room with open passageways for entering and leaving. High windows, high ceiling. Men dressed in yellow slickers, yellow thigh boots—firemen, they could be—stationed along the floor, joking, smoking, handling their tools. The guide led the women to a roped-off section to watch.