Secret Lives
Berthe Amoss
Copyright © 1979 by Berthe Amoss.
All rights reserved.
Reissue Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher.
Please direct inquiries to:
Lizzie Skurnick Books
an imprint of Ig Publishing
392 Clinton Avenue #1S
Brooklyn, NY 11238
ISBN: 978-1-939601-12-4 (ebook)
For Harriet
Contents
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
My mother is sixteen in her portrait. Only four years older than I am now. Her portrait dress is painted so carefully you can see little waves in the white silk, and threads in the scooped-out lace collar. A gold heart hangs from a chain around her neck, and her curls, almost as golden as the heart, are tied back with a velvet ribbon. Her smile makes you wonder if someone she loved was standing to the left of the painter.
In one hand, she is holding a prayer book with a mother-of-pearl cover; the other hand rests on Fifi, her little white dog. Fifi is looking straight out of the portrait, so real and cute I wouldn’t be surprised to see her tail wag. There they sit, the two of them, absolutely perfect forever, on a creamy white sofa, the very one I’m sitting on. Only now, the sofa is covered in scratchy mohair, worn and old like everything else in this house.
It just seems to me that, this being 1937, there ought to be a hint of modern times around here, but Three Twenty Audubon Street and its occupants have been lifted straight out of the Dark Ages and placed in the middle of New Orleans. Not that I’m ungrateful for all of the things Aunt Eveline and Aunt Kate do for me, especially Aunt Eveline, but if it hadn’t been for the tidal wave, I wouldn’t find myself in a practically haunted house being raised by two old ladies dressed in lavender, who think more about dying than living.
Aunt Eveline had closed the shutters at noon to keep the September heat out, but now the sun was low and bright stripes slanted into the gloomy room across my feet to Aunt Kate, fast asleep in her chair. In a little while Aunt Eveline would bring Aunt Kate her coffee, and Sandra Lee would prance in to hear her favorite radio program. I opened my drawing pad. There was just enough time to copy my mother’s portrait dress for Jane Whitmore.
I held my pencil and studied the portrait.
I must have been swapped in the hospital. I don’t look anything like my mother. I wonder if I’m adopted and Aunt Eveline doesn’t want to tell me for fear it will warp my personality. That can’t be it. Aunt Eveline has never even heard of personality.
“Posture is most important, dear,” she says. “Most important. Hold yourself straight!”
If only I could let go! Nature is holding me—my hair, my nose, and my figure—in absolute, perfect straightness. I could double for a telephone pole. That doesn’t bother Aunt Eveline. It’s character that counts with her. “Turn the other cheek, dear,” she says. She means to Sandra Lee, of course.
Unfortunately, Sandra Lee does look like my mother’s portrait, even though she is only my cousin. Same yellow curls and cute turned-up nose, and the beginnings of a real figure. The resemblance stops there. The real Sandra Lee, under all the fakiness, is meaner than sin, and my mother, Aunt Eveline says, was as good as she was beautiful.
I sighed and drew the scooped-out lace collar. I made the skirt wide, with a hoop, and started cutting out. If my mother were here, I might be downtown with her this very minute. Instead of sitting on scratchy mohair making a paper-doll dress, I might be shopping for a dress of my own to wear Friday nights.
“If only you were here,” I whispered to the girl in the portrait.
“Darling Pasie!” Aunt Eveline cried out, so loud I almost stabbed myself with the scissors. She was standing right next to me, looking at the portrait, Aunt Kate’s special cup in her hand. “Oh, Addie,” she said, “if only your darling mother were—”
“Darn!” I interrupted. She’d made me cut a tab off Jane Whitmore’s dress.
“Never say darn if you mean damn, and never say damn if you’re a lady, dear,” Aunt Eveline said, proving how up-to-date she is on bringing up girls in 1937. “I thought you’d outgrown paper dolls.” Aunt Eveline doesn’t like Jane Whitmore’s curves and skimpy underwear.
“I have outgrown paper dolls, but I’m going to be a fashion illustrator someday and I’m practicing.” It was almost the truth. I am going to be an artist but I don’t know what kind, and I have outgrown paper dolls, but Jane Whitmore is more than just a paper doll.
Aunt Eveline sighed heavily and carried the Haviland cup to Aunt Kate, still fast asleep over her rosary. “Tea-time, Katie, dear,” she said cheerfully.
Aunt Eveline stood waiting for Aunt Kate to bob awake, but Aunt Kate’s slightly hairy chin continued to rest on her lavender shoulder.
“Katie, dear, your coffee!” Aunt Kate didn’t budge, and the Haviland cup began to rattle in the saucer.
“Katie, dear?” Aunt Eveline asked anxiously.
“Aunt Kate! Wake up!” I hollered.
Aunt Kate’s eyelids fluttered open, and her fingers moved on along her rosary beads.
“Oh, what a scare!” Aunt Eveline said, one hand on her heart,