Thank you so much.
I forgot to remind you to stay after the reading
and meet Vivian Gornick and Mary Elsie Robertson.
Mary Elsie Robertson's novels are
After Freud, which was the winner of the 1980 AWP novel
award.
The Clearing, Family Life, Speak, Angel and most recently
What I Have to Tell You.
She also has two collections of short fiction,
Jordan's Stormy Banks and Other Stories and Vision.
One of her two novels for children, Jemima Lee,
was the winner of a favorite title for awards, the Babbling
Bookworm award.
Her second novel for children is Tarantula and Red Chigger.
I'm very happy to welcome Mary Elsie Robertson.
[APPLAUSE]
I'm going to read a chapter from What I Have to Tell You.
I'm not reading the first chapter,
which means I have to explain just a little bit.
The narrator of the novel is a woman called Jessie Farquarson
and she comes of an old and rich Virginia family.
And when this chapter takes place
she has just married a person that she's
known all her life practically.
A boy who comes from the country,
he's a backwoods boy called Dwayne.
She is just bringing Dwayne home in this chapter.
I should probably tell you too that Jordan
is Jessie's twin brother.
"Mama was waiting for me in front of the drugstore when
the bus pulled into Sweet Gum on that Thursday afternoon in May.
She slid out of the truck and stood looking up
at the windows on the bus trying to see me
behind the tinted glass.
When I climbed down the steps, her smile stretched.
Jess, she called out waving.
Anyone could tell she was being welcoming
but I'd already seen it.
Mama braced for disappointment.
If I'd thought getting married might bring
about some changes in me, one look into mama's face
told me the same old story.
There I stood the same drab Jessie.
My skirt drooping where the hem had come out looking down
at mama with eyes magnified behind my glasses, my hair
stringing.
More than once mama had said to me, too exasperated
to keep her mouth shut, I wonder if you do it
on purpose, Jessie.
So beaten down looking just to make me feel bad.
I knew she always had some hope when she saw me again
after an absence that I might have somehow transformed myself
while I was away.
And she would see the stranger coming
toward her, a trim and assured stranger with hair
making sweet tendrils around her face.
I knew about mama's hopes because I'd
seen the flicker of disappointment pass
over her face so many times.
When she hugged me, she had to reach up
to pat me between the shoulder blades
though mama was far from being a short woman.
I stood loaded down with the books.
My winter coat, a bag holding the things,
lettuce, half full bottles of ketchup and mayonnaise,
and nearly complete loaf of bread
I hadn't had the heart to throw out
when I emptied my apartment.
Mama, I said nudging her with my shoulder, which was the best I
could do with my hands full.
She had let her hair grow since I'd seen her at spring break
and it had reached her shoulders.
The fullness softened her face and made
her look even younger than I remembered
and I was struck all over again by her beauty.
That always took me by surprise just as my plainness did her.
A little breeze pushed her hair against my neck.
And as I leaned over, I thought bitterly,
oh fairness plays no part in life.
It doesn't even enter in.
Why hello Dwayne, mama said across my shoulder.
Where did you come from?
Do you need a ride?
Dwayne stood there swallowing.
And I saw he hadn't realized how it would be appearing
in front of mama like that.
His eyes showed too much white like a horse's that's
about to bolt. Dwayne's with me I said quickly.
But naturally the significance of this remark
didn't mean a thing to mama who was hurrying along
to oversee the unloading of the suitcases so nothing of mine
would be scuffed along the curb.
I caught Dwayne's eye in a meaningful way urging
him to say something, but I could
tell by the grim set of his mouth he had gone tongue tied.
And I knew I might as well expect a cat
to take charge as hope for anything out of Dwayne.
It was up to me to tell mama, I saw that clearly
as I put my books in bags in the back of the truck.
But I couldn't seem to decide how to start the sentence that
would break the news.
I saw too late.
I had done it all wrong from the beginning.
I should have gotten off the bus with my arm
around Dwayne's shoulder and should
have said before I stepped down from the last step mama,
I'm married to Dwayne, I've got our marriage certificate
right here in my book bag and there's not
a thing you can do about it.
So what do you think of that?
Now, I had waited until all three of us
were crowded into the cab of the truck
with me next to mama and Dwayne hanging
one elbow out the window.
It wasn't turning out the way I thought it would at all
but there was nothing for it.
I shut my eyes and said very fast Dwayne
and I were married on Tuesday, mama,
at a Justice of the Peace in Washington DC.
And then I opened my eyes quickly
to see mama's hands still on the steering wheel and one
of mine hanging onto the dash.
A doomed feeling came over me.
I looked over at mama's face expecting to cheer myself up
by seeing her shock and horror, waiting for her to say,
oh no, Jessie you can't do this-- think of letting you.
Dwayne Hawkins married, never.
But instead she stared straight ahead without saying a word.
I grew lightheaded and thought maybe I'd
only imagine telling mama that Dwayne and I were married
and it was all still left to do.
Dwayne, mama said, I'm going to let you out
at your daddy's Sunoco station.
I'm afraid I can't take the time to drive you home.
She might just as well have said, lunge lazy boy for me,
would you?
He needs the exercise for all she gave away.
And there I had been all prepared
for her to place her hand over her heart and say why, Jessie?
Why are you doing this to me?
A question I had waited it seemed to me all my life
to answer.
As for Dwayne, I could see I would get no help out of him.
I remember now a fact I had conveniently
set aside when I married him that he had always
been in awe of mama.
On those afternoons he had come to our house
to play basket with Jordan, he had
stood in the kitchen door afraid to set a foot inside
until mama called out, why come on in, Dwayne,
don't stand there with the screen
open letting the flies in.
I thought it was hopeless to expect Dwayne to say,
Jessie's with me now and you can reach us at Best Western
if you want to see us.
All he did was whisper in the direction of my ear, Jessie.
Mama pulled up to the curb in front of the Sunoco station
and waited for Dwayne to get out, keeping her foot harder
on the gas than she needed so the gear shift shuttered
back and forth between us like something having a fit.
I'll telephone you later, Dwayne, I said coldly.
I could see the anguished look he was giving me
but Dwayne and his hurt feelings were not
uppermost in my mind just then.
Finally Dwayne opened the door of the cab and got one leg out
but then he stuck there half in and half out.
I knew he was wondering what he should do.
Turn back and kiss me establishing his claim,
pull me along with him into the street.
But it was indecision that was his undoing.
The little hesitation that threw everything off until it
was too late for any kind of brave gesture.
The best he could do was let his hand on my leg
before he climbed the rest of the way out the door
and took his duffel bag from the back of the truck.
Don't stand there in the street with your mouth open,
Dwayne I told him out the window.
I'll talk to you later.
I could tell by the dazed look in his eyes
it had been a very different story
he had been telling himself as the bus drew near Sweet Gum.
He could probably see himself being hugged, welcomed
into the family.
He could probably just hear mama saying, why Dwayne
how nice you've married Jessie, a fine boy like you.
Did you say you'd like a set of keys to Clearwater?
Why, here you are son.
And instead there he was abandoned to the exhaust fumes
as we sped away.
I almost felt sorry for him.
Mama, I said as we left Dwayne behind still standing
in the middle of the road, did you
hear me tell you what I told you just now?
There's nothing the matter with my hearing I know of,
mama said.
And after that her mouth shut tight her eyes fast
on the road.
I was so full of bitter disappointment
I could have kicked a hole through the cab door.
Of all the things I'd imagine mama doing or saying
when she heard my news this was not one of them.
It wasn't until she pulled a truck up
to the side door of the house and brought it to a halt
that she turned in her seat to fix me
with those steely blue eyes of hers.
I want you to know Jessie, she said,
that just because you married Dwayne
Hawkins in some kind of huff you don't
have to stay married to him.
Is that what you think it, in a huff?
Just what kind of huff do you think
it could be that would make me do something like that?
You tell me, mama said holding my eyes with hers.
You tell me.
Too many words pressed on me at once.
You always favored Jordan.
You never loved me as much as you do him.
You're in cahoots over every single thing, the two of you
with your heads together so I couldn't choose.
No reason, I said.
No reason.
So you're in love with Dwayne, mama said.
Is that what I'm to believe?
I studied the walnut trees outside the side window
of the truck.
Well, mama said, softly hitting the steering wheel
with the palm of her-- leaning forward
trying to get a look full into my face.
But I made sure she didn't.
Just tell me what it is you hold against me so, she said.
And I steel my heart against the sadness in her voice.
Why, mama?
I said.
Whatever makes you think I hold anything against you.
Can I even get married without you taking the blame for it?
What gets your goat is I took you by surprise.
Can't you just admit it.
I took you by surprise.
Mama sighed a gentle melancholy sigh
that could have been aimed at an audience of hundreds.
Sweetheart, she said reaching out her hand to me,
oh sweetheart.
But I was already out the truck grabbing two suitcases
from the back before I opened the door
and walked fast through the kitchen
where Sophie watched me pass through hands on hips.
Hey, Sophie, I said as I went past.
The suitcases bumped on the stairs all the way to the top
but I got them into my room and locked the door behind me.
The door locking was only a gesture however.
I knew mama would never come storming up the stairs
behind me pounding on the door.
It was something she would never do.
I laid down on the bed with my hands under my head and waited.
I knew what I was listening for and late in the afternoon I
heard it, the sound of Jordan's little BMW
as he turned off the highway and into the long driveway that
led to Clearwater where it stood on its hill.
I knew the sound of Jordan's car just as well
as I knew his footsteps, would recognize either if I were dead
and buried.
I unlocked my door and tiptoed to the stair landing
in time to hear mama say, Jordan,
you broke-- you broke the speed limit all the way here.
But to my disappointment I couldn't hear anything
more than the hush hush hush of their voices
as they moved into the sitting room walking with their arms
I was sure around each other's waist,
straight to the big wing chairs beside the fireplace
where they would sit with their heads nearly touching,
leaning forward as people do who have secrets to share.
Mama and Jordan, Jordan and mama.
Even the way their eyebrows grew was exactly the same.
Accord passing between them like fire traveling down--
I could hear the rise and fall of their voices, two people
singing the same notes.
If it had been different, I might have run down the stairs
and flung myself into the middle of the rug
with my hands clasped in front of my heart
while I cried I didn't mean it.
I didn't mean to marry Dwayne.
All I wanted was to make you suffer.
But the side of the two of them leaning together
so conspiratorially would bring me up short,
would stop the outcry in my throat
as the one left outside the magic circle, the one
pounding on the door, begging to be let in.
I would rather die than see the pity in their eyes.
And I knew in that moment pride would
hold me to Dwayne as tightly as a tick holding
to the neck of a dog nothing would shake me loose.
I saw it all with cold clarity how
I would squander my education as Mama would put it.
As though all those hours of reading Greek and Latin
were so much scratch thrown out to the chickens.
A bitter smile curl my lips when I thought of this
and I went silently back to my room
and closed the door making a sound,
leaving mama and Jordan to talk behind my back.
Of course the Greek and Latin had been for my pleasure
though they didn't know this.
I knew how down below mama was pouring out two scotches,
gently slipping the ice into the glasses
without bothering to look down, her eyes never wavering
from Jordan's face.
I'd barely shut the door of my room
behind me when I heard Jordan climbing up
the stairs two at a time.
Jessie, he said rattling the doorknob.
That old white porcelain knob with a fine little cracks
in it.
Let me in, Jess.
He sounded demanding but I caught the note of anxiety
in his voice.
I knew as well as if I'd heard the conversation, mama saying,
oh you go try talking sense to her, Jordan.
You've always been so close, you two.
She won't listen to anything I tell her.
But Jordan knew very well I hadn't said one word to him
for a month, not since the party at the Kappa Sig house
when Jordan had said that horrible thing.
He knew I held something against him, knew things had changed
but still there he was pretending
nothing had happened.
We don't have anything to talk about, Jordan,
I told him coldly through the door, my heart hammering wildly
but my voice calm.
I knew just the way Jordan was standing
leaning toward the door, listening,
running his fingers through his hair the wrong way
so it stood up in ragged peaks.
When he was little and got upset he
would bite on the fleshy part of his thumb
until tears came into his eyes, never
being able to hide what he was feeling as well as I could.
Jessie, he said, I don't have anything against Dwayne
I always liked him fine.
I think maybe I understand your doing what you've done.
Really, you understand my marrying Dwayne?
Well, that's amazing, Jordan.
What's amazing about it, Jordan said sounding peeved.
There he was doing his best and for all he
could tell I was making fun of his efforts.
Did you know Dwayne moves his lips when he reads?
Did you know that?
Even when he reads a comic book he moves his lips
and anything besides a comic book is beyond him.
I mean, Jessie, what's the matter with you anyway.
Why are you acting so strange?
If you're mad about something what is it?
Let me in there so we can talk some sense.
You think this isn't sense?
You just told me it's fine with you
if I marry somebody who moves his lips when he reads,
that tells me plenty.
It came over me again powerfully all
I'd felt of humiliation and misery standing
behind the column in the Kappa Sig
house listening to what Jordan had never meant me to hear.
The door knob on its long loose stem rattled furiously.
What do you want me to say, Jordan said angrily.
Tell you marrying Dwayne Hawkins was the stupidest
thing you've ever done in a long line of stupid things?
All right, it's stupid.
Is that enough or do you want to hear me say it again?
Stupid.
Oh don't stop there, I said in a cold calm voice.
Go on.
Tell all the rest.
What rest?
Jordan said wearily instantly on the alert.
What are you talking about?
Betrayal, I wanted to cry out.
I heard you betray me while behind that column,
you mealy mouth bastard.
I heard it all, even that laugh of yours I'd know anywhere.
But my heart shriveled inside me and I couldn't speak.
All those years when I thought Jordan and I had
a special understanding had been nothing but a lie.
I didn't know the first thing about Jordan.
The doorknob on its long stem turned back and forth
and then it stopped.
On the other side of the door Jordan
was silent so long I thought maybe
he had slipped off his shoes and slid away in his stocking feet.
But then he spoke, his lips right against the door crack.
JJ, he said so softly I might almost have imagined it.
JJ, it was Jordan's old name for me,
the one from the time he had seemed
like a part of my own body, another arm or leg.
That name from the beginning when we'd slept with our heads
on the same pillow and had waked every morning
looking into the other's face.
The one name that could strike me to the heart.
How dare he say that name to me after what he had done?
If you don't leave me alone Jordan, I will kill you,
I said.
I'll take one of daddy's pistols and shoot you
through the heart.
Very well, he said.
Stew in your own juice then.
I could hear his footsteps walking away, leaving me alone.
It took all my willpower to stop myself
from running after him to cry out,
I didn't mean any of it, Jordan.
But instead I waited where I was until I could hear him
at the bottom of the stairs and knew
he wasn't going to turn back.
Then I grabbed the pillow off my bed,
the one grandmother Carter had made for Jordan
and me when we were born, yanked open
the top drawer of my dresser, took out my fingernail scissors
and started clipping away at those fine little embroidery
stitches.
The stitches joining our names together,
Jordan and Jessie in a heart of love
intertwined with rosebuds that was meant to link the two of us
forever.
By nightfall, the pillowcase was nothing
but a rag pierced with hundreds of tiny needle holes
and all around me on the floor were the red and blue and green
threads.
A small gaudy bird might have had its feathers plucked
at my feet.
The next morning I came to a halt
in the doorway of the kitchen where mama and Jordan
were facing each other across the table drinking coffee.
When they saw me they set their cups back down in the saucers
and pushed them aside out of the line of fire.
Clearly they expected a fight.
But all I said was I have to have the car today.
The keys are in the glove compartment, mama said.
But can't you eat breakfast first?
You haven't even seen Jordan and now he
has to go back to Richmond.
I'd refused to come downstairs the night before for supper
so mama had left it on a tray outside my door.
I was certain they were relieved getting
to have a quiet evening together without me giving them
both black looks from my side of the table.
I've got important things to do today, I said.
I can't waste time just sitting around.
I didn't look back but I knew mama and Jordan would
be at the table not moving a muscle
until they heard the engine of the car start.
And then they would jump up help themselves to biscuits hot
from the oven, refill their coffee cups
and settle down to talk in peace about me
until Jordan had to leave.
I drove straight out to Dwayne's house
six miles into the country over a road oily with shale
where the bushes and scrub oak threaten the little space cars
and trucks could call their own.
I'd practice my driving on those back roads when I was 16
and I knew them well.
This one was lined with overgrown fields and houses
with roofs curving down like the backbones of old cows.
The house where Dwayne's family lived was as rundown as any.
Those boards had never seen paint.
In the yard, two gutted trucks without wheels
had come to permanent rest at the side of the porch which
sheltered a washing machine, a tractor wheel, and two wash
kettles filled with dirt where dead petunias and marigolds
bowed their heads.
Three bony hands came out from under the house
to bark while I sat in the middle of the road
blowing the car horn.
Heads appeared in the windows and disappeared again.
Waves of consternation reached me
where I sat beside the mailbox.
But I kept my face straight ahead
until somebody ran over the hard pack ground
and there was Dwayne opening the car.
You know what?
He said slamming it behind him.
When I came in yesterday saying I was married to you,
they thought I was making it up.
You ought to have heard the carry on when you drove up.
There's a carry on at my house too I said.
Dwayne opened the car window and the wind
rushed through, flattening down his hair.
Hey, Dwayne I said, patting his knee to cheer him up.
We were in cahoots now and I was glad to see him.
I thought you were going to call me last night,
he said sounding hurt.
You said you would.
No chance I told him.
Though to tell the truth, Dwayne had hardly entered my thoughts
from the time he had gotten out of the truck at his father's
Sunoco station.
Other things had taken my attention.
Jordan came over from Richmond and he and mama had their heads
together about us.
That's what they're doing this minute sitting
at the kitchen table talking us up one side and down the other.
Dwayne looked pleased.
Is that where we're heading for then, your house?
Are you crazy, I said.
We've got to find us a place to live,
that's what we have to do today.
I thought we'd stay at your house,
Dwayne said looking disappointed.
I don't know where you got that idea I told him.
You sure didn't get it from me.
Your house is so big he said and just your mama rattling around
in it.
There was a wistful note in his voice
I thought I'd better curb right away.
You wouldn't last five minutes in that house, Dwayne,
I told him cruelly.
Why not?
He wanted to know.
Your mom always seemed to like me fine.
Well, why shouldn't she I said when all you did
was come over to our house and throw basketballs around
in the afternoons, a far cry from marrying into the family.
I didn't tell them that half the time, mama couldn't remember
his given name and referred to him
as that red headed Hawkins boy.
But listen, Dwayne said, all I get
working for daddy is $120 a week, that's not
much to find a place on, is it?
We're just going to be poor then, I told him.
Good was what I added to myself but didn't say.
I could see the way I'd trail through town wearing
some old shapeless dress with cheeks
sunken, a sack over my back for putting the aluminum
cans in I'd find in trash barrels
out at the fairgrounds where people sometimes took picnics
if they didn't have anything better to do.
You know who that is, people would say pointing me out
as I made my slow way, old basketball sneakers of Dwayne's
flapping on my feet like flippers.
Would you believe that's Sarah E. Farquarson's girl,
the one who owns Clearwater?
You sure your mama wouldn't give you any money if you ask her,
Dwayne said.
As a matter of fact, I had some money left over
from the college fund I'd lived on frugally all those years
but I wasn't about to let Dwayne know I had a penny.
Listen Dwayne, I said.
You better get this through your head right now.
Mama was furious when she found out
I had married you so you'd better
forget about any help coming out of that quarter.
A cheap place to live is what we're looking
for, a very cheap place.
By nightfall we'd found one on the top floor
of a suitably decrepit house on the side of a hill
leading down to black.
The lower half was lived in by Esau Flanagan,
whose shoes were held together with baling wire
and who had snuff juice dribbling down his chin.
The house smelled of vinegar and mice
and when I turned on the hot water tap a thin trickle of--
a thin trickle the color of horse piss came out.
I told old man Flanagan we'd take the place.
Comes furnished, he said aggressively.
Not many places this price comes furnished.
Beds, sofa, table, everything a body needs.
Fine, I told him.
We'll take it.
Even got you some skillets and things of that nature.
My wife she was the one to think of that.
Looks great, I told him.
Rent due first day of the month he
said warningly, not on the second or the third
but the first right on the nail.
We could give you a month's rent right now
I said giving Dwayne a sharp look.
So he came too like somebody who had just been taking a nap
and took his checkbook out of his back pocket.
Even when he wrote out the check and handed it
over the old man's expression didn't change.
I don't own electric or no phone and what
you do with your trash is your lookout, he said.
When the old man finally went back down the stairs bringing
both feet together on each step the way two-year-olds do,
Dwayne shut the door behind him.
You really think this place is OK?
He said doubtfully.
Sure, I said.
Why not?
Looks to me like stuff's been coming off the ceiling,
Dwayne said.
You don't think it's kind of run down?
Oh a little paint will do wonders I told him merrily.
Dwayne cheered up enough to go and look out the window.
Hey look Jessie, he said.
You can see all the way down to that big new development,
the one across Black Creek Suncrest hills.
I heard the longing in his voice and saw
in a flash what he wanted so much,
the sprawling ranch house with carpet thick enough
to sink to his ankles in.
A giant screen television in the bedroom, a Winnebago
the size of a small house in the driveway.
If he had all of that he had never get over the wonder of it
and would be forever showing kin folks of his
through the place like it was the sacred holy.
This here's the micro he'd say with all in his voice
and see that matching deep freeze and refrigerator
busy making ice any time you want it.
This is just a start, isn't it Dwayne said looking hopeful.
He put his arm around me and intertwined his fingers
with mine the way he liked to do.
Everybody has to start somewhere.
I told him yes, everybody did.
So we'll just have to work our way up
to something better won't we, Jessie, he said sounding happy.
I didn't tell him no.
[APPLAUSE]