Page 13 of Junie

Chapter Thirteen

The Taylors’ second night at Bellereine is much like the first; they dine on roast meats and strawberry cakes underneath Old Toadface, draining bottle after bottle of wine until Junie loses count. They retire to the parlor, chatting about society nonsense. Mr. McQueen passes out in his chair. Violet plays more sonatas, which Mr. Taylor celebrates like a novice and Miss Taylor studies like a master.

But the subtle differences between the two evenings make Junie’s skin crawl.

It’s the giggle in Violet’s voice when she touches Mr. Taylor’s hand on the salt shaker. It’s the grin on her face the whole evening—the real one, not the forced one she uses to appease her father, but the one that squints her eyes and makes her cheeks blotchy red. Violet with the Taylors is like a reflection in a broken mirror—recognizable yet twisted.

And there is still the issue of Caleb.

He has arrived to wait on Mr. Taylor at dinner but doesn’t speak to Junie. A bruise peeks from his collar, already deepening to a shade of plum that makes Junie’s palms sweat. In her sixteen years, Junie has never seen the McQueens inflict violence on the house staff; the mistress views it as uncouth, while the master is simply too drunk to care enough. She’d listened to the stories about masters like Mr. Taylor, heard the overseer’s whip crack in harvest season, seen the long scars down Muh’s and Granddaddy’s backs from whips and burns in their childhoods. Her body contracts with guilt; if she hadn’t asked for his help, he wouldn’t be hurt now. She didn’t know what beast she’d unleashed.

She has to make this up to him.

At nearly ten o’clock, Miss McQueen announces the end of the evening and the white folks retire. Junie is collecting the discarded champagne glasses when something pinches her arm, and she turns to see Violet.

“Help me get ready for bed?” Violet asks.

“Be right up,” Junie says. She waves Bess over, who adds Junie’s glasses to her tray.

Violet stumbles up the stairs, barely catching herself on the railing. It’s not unusual for Junie to help Violet to bed; she’s used to eating a few cold dinners a week after staying up with her. But with the growing warmth between Violet and the Taylors, spending time alone with Violet sets her pulse pounding.

As Violet pushes the door open, Junie’s eyes drop to the edge of the bed.

The box.

She decides that it’s too risky to grab it with Violet in the room—but she imagines Minnie won’t take kindly to the delay.

Violet tosses herself on the bed in a fit of laughter, her crinolines shaking with the vibrations. Junie raises her eyebrows.

“What’s so funny?” Junie asks.

Violet gasps for air.

“You know, Junebug? I haven’t the faintest idea!”

“How many drinks did you have?”

Violet sits up, gathering her skirt and throwing it over her head.

“Look! I’m a tent!”

“Great day, Violet, you’re wallpapered. You got to get to bed before your mother hears you.”

Violet blows a raspberry in her face.

“I’m fetching your nightdress. Drink that water on your nightstand and start taking out your hairpins.”

“Quit being such a wet blanket,” Violet says before stumbling to her mirror.

Junie grabs Violet’s rose nightgown, one with ruffles on the hem and neck. She’d seen, touched, and cleaned it countless times, but the softness of it still surprises her. The delicate fabric is like a petal compared to the itchy nightdress Junie wears. She peeks at Violet undoing her hair. Taking those pins out is the most work Violet has done all day—meanwhile, Junie’s been up since before sunrise doing not only her job, but working on her sister’s mission. She glances at the books around the room. It was never a question whether Violet would learn to read, while Junie can only read in secret. Even that is a luxury in comparison to what she’s seen of Caleb’s life. She winces remembering the way his body crumpled under Mr. Taylor’s swings.

Junie spots Grimm’s Fairy Tales perched on the lowest shelf and smiles. It’s the book she learned from as a child, and the one she used to teach Minnie. It would be the perfect book to teach Caleb, even if the stories are for children.

But with Violet in the room, there’s no way to take both the book and the box without her noticing.

The girls struggle with Violet’s dinner dress until they manage to get it off and the nightdress on. Violet plops into her vanity chair with a hiccup.

“You’ll stay and braid my hair, won’t you?”

While Violet sits full and drunk, Junie’s hunger threatens to make itself known. She’d only eaten the bits of grits and chicken giblets she could get into her mouth quickly enough before serving breakfast. She brushes Violet’s hair back and starts the French braid at her crown. Violet falls into another giggle fit, messing up the braid. Junie huffs.

“You’re so serious tonight,” Violet says, laughing.

“I’m not being serious.”

“Yes, you are. You’ve been marching around all long-faced, like that ugly painting of my grandfather downstairs,” Violet says, scrunching up her lips into a pout.

“I’m tired, is all,” Junie says, restarting the braid.

“You’re always tired.”

“Some of us work all day,” Junie retorts. She bites her sharp tongue.

“Well, all right, Miss Thorny!”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“No, no, it’s all right. I love you even when you’re as prickly as a pinecone. I do require your opinion, unless you’re fixing to be mean again.”

“Go on, then.”

Violet turns toward her, her lips rolled in to restrain her smile.

“Don’t you think Mr. Taylor is handsome?”

Junie holds back a grimace at the mention of his name.

“It’s not my place to say and you know it,” Junie responds.

“Oh, c’mon!”

“He looks like the sort of person people think handsome.”

“ I think he’s handsome, like a storybook prince. I didn’t expect him to be so handsome.”

“So, you’re fond of Mr. Taylor?” says Junie, narrowing her eyes.

“I suppose so.”

“But, are you Wuthering Heights fond of him?”

“I can’t say. Maybe I could be?” Violet picks her fingernails under the vanity table. She’s nervous. “I mean, he’s tall and handsome. And gentlemanly.”

Mr. Taylor beat Caleb to the ground over a parasol. Violet can hardly watch Junie squash a bug in the yard; how could she see what she saw this morning and want more? How can she see an ounce of goodness in him? Junie has to change the subject.

“Miss Taylor is very elegant,” she says, tightening the braid.

“ Oui, très élégante .” Violet scratches the underside of the vanity. “Speaking of her, I was wonderin’ if you might be able to give her something for me, Junebug?”

It isn’t a question, but an order coated in saccharine politeness, a tactic she’d learned from her mother.

“What is it that I’m to deliver?”

“Well, if you must know, it’s a letter for Mr. Taylor. He suggested we write to one another, but I’m meant to send the letters through Bea so it looks proper. It’s the only way we can truly talk without Mother and Daddy.”

Junie looks down, toward Minnie’s box. She’s sick of orders packaged as questions, demands she doesn’t understand, and work she doesn’t believe in.

“We ought to read something before bed,” Junie says.

“Capital idea! Yes, let’s read something scary, like Frankenstein .”

“I’ll fetch it,” Junie says. Her pulse races. She runs her fingers over the spines until she nears her target. Violet is engrossed in fixing her braid in the mirror. Junie slips her hand down, seizing Grimm’s Fairy Tales, sneaking it into her apron pocket.

“You find it yet?”

“Not quite,” Junie says. Sweat beads on her brow.

“I’ll just come over. I know where—”

“I found it!”

After a few chapters, Violet dozes off from excitement and alcohol. Junie glances at the box’s hiding place. She could take it now, could spend any waking time she has left today figuring out how to open it. She peers out the window into the night. The moon is waxing now, slowly growing slice by slice. Minnie still has time, while Caleb’s face may still bleed from this afternoon.

The box will be safe here. There’s no sense moving it when she doesn’t have the key, anyway.

She checks that Grimm’s Fairy Tales is still safely tucked in her pocket, then leaves Minnie’s box behind.

—

Junie finds caleb leaning on the back of the cookhouse wall, the flicker from his cigarette the only light apart from the kerosene lamp at his feet. The warm night wraps around them like one of Muh’s softest quilts. He’s adjusted himself to the heat, rolling the bottoms of his pants, cuffing his sleeves to bare his forearms, unbuttoning his shirt too low.

Heat rises in her cheeks. The hills of slender muscle on his arms and the valleys between them are thrown into contrast by the half-light of the lamp. The fine hairs on Junie’s neck rise as she smells tobacco and fresh grass. He is handsome—untouchably so, like an object to be studied instead.

What was it that she found so repulsive about him that morning?

“Evening,” she says, moving from the shadows into the light.

“Delilah June. Was wondering when you’d find me,” he says.

“We haven’t spoken all day. Why’d you figure I’d come find you?”

“The old folks are gone to bed. Who else you comin’ to see?”

Oh, right. Arrogant and slick. That’s what.

“You all right? From earlier?” Junie asks.

“Wasn’t nothing worse than a bee sting,” he says, stomping his cigarette. “You come to cast more spells or wrangle me into more of your schemes?”

“I came to fulfill my part of the deal. Ready to read?”

A hint of surprise flicks through his face.

“We can go to the stables. Ain’t nobody there but me, and I don’t think the horses will tell.”

“If something happens and they need a horse, that’s the first place they’ll go. Better to stay outside.”

“I’ll follow you, then,” Caleb says.

Junie looks around. Despite her love of the woods, they now look as twisted and sharp as a bear trap. The vision of a glowing Minnie descending in the night to question her about the abandoned box is enough to drive Junie away.

The cotton fields, then.

“Fetch that lamp,” she says.

They creep through the night by kerosene light, hugging the property’s perimeter until they come to an opening in the field.

“Ain’t this the first place they’ll look?”

“The field hands sleep on the other side of the field, and they won’t say nothing if they see us. The white folks never bother with coming over here, and they’ve fired the overseer. Leave the lamp here,” she says.

“We need to see, don’t we?”

“You always ask this many questions?” Junie says.

“Fine, I’ll follow orders, then, General,” he says. He puts the lamp down, and Junie dips the candle from her pocket into the flame before snuffing out the lantern. She lifts the light to Caleb’s surprised face.

“If the kerosene spills, they’ll know somebody was out here. Safer to use a candle,” she says.

“For a housemaid, you sure sneak around a lot.”

“Only so much silver I can polish,” Junie smirks. “C’mon.”

They creep up the rows until they settle in a spot among the white bulbs. The sky reveals a thousand stars that freckle the blackness from behind wispy clouds. The moon sheds a glow over the field.

Only a real fool could see beauty in a place like this.

“Ain’t we got something to sit on?” Caleb asks, judging the dusty red dirt.

“Afraid of getting your pants dirty, city boy?”

“I prefer not to do washing if I don’t have to,” he says, lowering gingerly to the ground. He peers at the book cover in the candlelight.

“Do you know what it says?” she asks. Caleb runs his fingers on the embossed title as though it could crack like a sliver of ice.

“I know my letters, I picked up that much,” he says. “I just don’t know what they make when you put ’em together.”

“Shouldn’t be too bad, then,” she says, turning to the table of contents. “Hold the candle close so I can see good.”

Caleb inches toward her, grazing her arm, and for a second she freezes.

“Sorry,” he says. Junie squints to pick the story, searching for any reason not to look at him.

“We’ll read this one,” she says, flipping to “Snow White.” “I’ll read first, then you copy me. You ready?”

Caleb nods. She glides through each sentence, then guides Caleb’s pronunciation of each word. They stay like this, reading back and forth, until they make a rhythm; first Junie’s rapid beat and high timbre followed by Caleb’s slow bass. Even with his repetitions and stumbles, she falls into the story, imagining these cotton fields to be a faraway German hamlet surrounded by witches and castles, instead of overseers and plantations.

“Where’d you learn to read like that?” he asks. “Like you already know the words before you read ’em.”

Junie marvels at the candle and moonlight blending into a warm glow on his cheekbones.

“Reading’s just something I do,” she says.

“Yeah, like air’s something to breathe,” Caleb says. He leans back on his outstretched arms to look at the moon. “We all have the gift we ain’t nothing without. And you, Delilah June, you ain’t nothing without your words.”

They’ve barely just met. How could he recognize something her family doesn’t even understand? She pulls her dress over her knees.

“What’s your gift, then, rolling cigarettes and being a nuisance?”

“Yes, but mainly the piano.”

“How’d you learn that?”

“An old master taught me when I was a boy. Said it would be nice to have a bit of music around the house.”

“You had another master before Taylor?”

“Three or four, depending on how you count. You?”

Junie shakes her head. “I ain’t been any further than Lowndesboro. Have you always lived in New Orleans?”

Caleb rubs the back of his neck.

“I was born on a sugar farm on an island somewhere in the Caribbean. Couldn’t tell you what it was called. Anyway, somethin’ or other happened and they sold us all off. I ended up in New Orleans.” He pulls out a cigarette and rolls it between his fingers.

“You can’t smoke out here,” Junie says.

“Don’t worry, Delilah June, I ain’t that foolish. I just like something to do with my hands.”

She eyes his fingers, long and delicate as flower stems. Purple bruises fester above the knuckles. She looks off into the field.

“Anyway,” Caleb says. “I got bought by this old man who kept me round the house, teaching me how to be a houseboy and play the piano. At first, I hated it, but one day I was out on some errand and heard another Negro playin’ something I’d never heard before. The Negro man told me about this composer, and since the master was fond of me, he bought me some sheet music. That changed everything for me—well, as much as it could.”

“What happened to that man?”

“Fell off his horse and died two weeks later. He didn’t have no children or next of kin, so I got bought by the older Mr. Taylor. I worked in his stables until he saw fit to give me to his son. I’ve been with the younger Mr. Taylor ever since.”

Junie peers back at the bruises, a watercolor sprawling from underneath his shirt collar up his neck.

“Has Mr. Taylor always been that way?” she asks. Caleb cracks a dry laugh. He bites his lips and pulls up his collar.

“White folks are the way they want to be, ain’t they? That’s why they’re white folks.”

“What way do you mean?”

“Well, ruthless. Stealing people’s lives from ’em and making ’em work to make ’em money. The old folks back on the island used to say that’s why they were white; they lost all their color when they lost their souls. You gotta be a certain type of soulless to believe you can own somebody the way they do.”

“I don’t believe Violet’s soulless,” Junie says.

“You ain’t got to defend her here. I’m not gonna tell on you.”

“I’m serious.”

“You think an Alabama cotton planter’s daughter got a soul?”

“I ain’t saying all white folks are good. Her momma makes January look warm and her daddy’s a fool, but Violet’s different. She’s been my friend since we were babies and she’s the one who lets me read whenever I want. She cares for me, and I care for her.”

Caleb laughs, tilting his head to the sky.

“You country people are something else.”

“I believe you ought to know somebody before you call ’em soulless, is all.”

“I ain’t against being proven wrong, Delilah June, so don’t go siccing your bees on me,” he says, turning to look at her. “Gosh, you really ain’t like any other housemaids I’ve ever met.”

Junie’s stomach knots. “Why, because I ain’t pretty and light-skinned like all the others?”

Caleb’s face wrinkles in surprise. “No, I didn’t mean that. You just think different, is all. I ain’t never met a maid who can read before. Or who goes off into the woods and sits in the dirt.”

“Well, I only read and work in the house because of Violet,” Junie says. “So, if you think that’s somethin’ maybe you ought not call her soulless.”

“Maybe so,” Caleb says. “Now I told you my sad story, it’s only fair for you to tell me something about you.”

A lump rises in her throat. Where to start? She runs her fingers over the letters of Snow White’s name, remembering.

“I taught my older sister to read this story.”

“Is she the busybody working round the cookhouse?”

“She died last winter.”

Silence.

“Gosh, I’m nosier than I ought to be. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Junie says. She wishes she could evaporate into the night’s darkness.

“I mean,” Caleb starts. “I know what it’s like to—”

“It’s late. We should go,” Junie says. She tucks the book into her apron and marches out of the field, unsure if Caleb is following. What would her sister—not the burning spirit but the living woman, the only one who always knew the good from the bad—think of her sitting in the dark with a boy she hardly knows? Would she understand what Junie is doing, or would she only see the impropriety of it all? Junie curses herself. Why does it still matter what Minnie would think?

“Wait—”

Caleb catches up to lead her with the candlelight.

“You can’t just go off into the night like that,” he says. She ignores him, and he doesn’t press her to speak. They make their way back to the kerosene lamp, before walking to the edge of the quarters.

“You should leave me here,” she says. “If anybody sees us together, they’re going to have questions we can’t answer.”

“This was a real nice thing. I’m sorry I’ve gone and messed it up,” Caleb says.

Junie bites her lip. Part of her wants to say he’s right, that he’s picked a wound she can’t heal. It would be easier to stomp home and leave him in the dark than to spend more nights with a boy who can look through her like still water.

But she owes him.

“Meet me back at the fields tomorrow,” she says, before slipping into the night.