It All Comes Down to This: Chapters 11–16

The very next day, my sister, in big sunglasses and a long white gauzy skirt, took a stack of her magazines and a glass of lemonade outside to the patio lounge.

There was no clever repartee while he worked. He was businesslike that way. But I knew she was just waiting for some continuance of the declaration he'd made on the front porch the day before.

So while she waited, she read her magazines in his vicinity, being very obvious, even to me.

I waved at him, and then felt kind of emboldened. I got up and went over to the ladder.

“You’re trying to toy with him. Make him like you and then sashay on your merry way.”

Lily was flushed and near tears.

“I'm not you,” Lily said, sounding as if she was about to make herself hysterical—on purpose.

He looked kind of embarrassed, and as he passed her on his way to get his tarp to put away in his car, he did a strange thing.

Lily loved driving the car, though she usually tried to get it on Sundays, when he spent all day sprawled on the sofa watching sports and messing up the newspaper.

We were the only colored people around. Some might have been confused about Lily, but with my tinge of color and crinkly hair, there'd be no question about me.

I saw that Mrs. Baker had a tight little cap of auburn curls, as if she'd just taken the rollers out and hadn’t yet combed her hair.

My father had commandeered his car as soon as we got back as if he had somewhere important to go, and my mother was off to her gallery.

"The House of Mirth,” he said. “Sad ending, but let me not give it away. I’ll say no more.”

Her eyes met mine in the mirror, and her whole face assumed a kind of slyness: squinted eyes, pursed lips.

So first, there was this happy, peaceful lull: me studying my lines, since I was going to be Olivia by being better than everyone else; Lily pretending she was not seeing Mrs. Baylor's son; my mother pretending that her life was perfect and she had everything figured out; days going by without one cutting remark from Mrs. Baylor about my lack of friends, and specifically colored friends.

She repeated her command, but this time with a space between each carefully articulated word...

I stood there conjuring up new worries.

Our father glanced at it without much interest and then proceeded to douse his pancakes with maple syrup.

My mother had been sifting through the mail and placing envelopes on the table next to her after she glanced at them.

She glanced at my father and there was something in that brief look that unnerved me. I felt a storm brewing.

“It’s gotta be a mistake," he said, as if his pronouncement alone should make us all get on board with his lie.

“You’ve said that three times now, and each time you’ve told a barefaced lie.”

That seemed to calm her, I noticed. Though her face was still wild and red and her chignon was not quite holding.

Sitting there in her satin robe with her hair uncoiling, she looked like a woman in excruciating pain.

She got up and walked out of the room, her robe billowing behind her as if she could open the front door and float away, never to be seen again.

She didn’t have to stop at the makeup counter and get powder mixed. She didn't even wear face powder. Nor did she have to slip her hand into samples of hosiery to choose just the right color.

I put it back, realizing it had lost some of its luster.

I looked at the program we’d gotten at the door and was dismayed to see Jilly scheduled to precede me—and she was playing “Für Elise,’’ as well.

She even glanced over her shoulder to give me a little haughty smirk.

I liked the way she seemed to softly rake the keys at times and at other times made her fingers dance on them.

Mrs. Virgil had been showing me how to do a crescendo to bring the B flat out.

I watched a grainy report and wished I'd gotten home early enough for General Hospital. Even though I couldn't understand the appeal of Nurse Jessie Brewer when she always acted so unhappy, talked in a deep monotone, and hardly ever smiled.

It wasn’t anything mean or curt or critical.

My father died and we were soon destitute because there was no will and he had left a lot of debt.

She was tiny and so pale, you could see the blue veins in her temples. A frail little baby.