after her too much might eventually damn me into lying down a lot of the time, which looked pretty boring.
On the other hand, I was simply dying to get my period, grow breasts, turn into a sexpot and do as much damage as Mama, who had broken every heart in Charleston and had a charm bracelet made out of fraternity pins to prove it. Sheused to tick them off for me one by one. “Now that was Smedes Black, a Phi Delt from UVA, such a darling boy, and this one was Parker Winthrop, a Sigma Chi at W and L, he used to play the ukulele….” I was drunk on the sound of so many alphabetical syllables. My mother had “come out” in Charleston; my sisters had attended St. Catherine’s School and then “come out” in Richmond, since nobody did such a thing in Lewisville, outside Lynchburg, where we lived. I was expected to follow in my sisters’ footsteps.
But then our paths would diverge, as I secretly planned to go up north to college before becoming (to everyone’s total astonishment) a
writer
. First I would write steamy novels about my own hot love life, eventually getting world-famous like Grace Metalious. I would make millions of dollars and give it all away to starving children in foreign lands. I would win the Nobel Prize. Then I would become a vegetarian poet in Greenwich Village. I would live for Art.
I had a big future ahead of me. But so far, nothing doing. No breasts, no period, no sex, no art. Though very blond, I was just any skinny, pale, wispy-haired kid on a bike, quick as a rabbit, fast as a bird, riding invisible all over town, bearing my awful secret.
I KNEW WHO SHE WAS, OF COURSE . E VERYONE KNEW . Her father, Old Man Byrd, had been the county judge for forty years. After retirement, he became a hermit—or asclose to a hermit as it was possible to be in Lewisville, which was chock-full of neighborly curious people naturally bound and determined to look after one another all the time. (“I swear to God,” my father remarked once in exasperation, “if the devil himself moved into this town, I guess you’d take
him
a casserole, too!”) Judge Byrd was a wild-looking, white-haired, ugly old man whose eyebrows grew all the way across his face in the most alarming fashion; he walked bent over, leaning on a walking stick topped by a carved ivory skull, yelling at children. He smelled bad. He did not socialize. He did not go to church, and was rumored to be an atheist. When he died, everyone was shocked to learn that there would be
no funeral
, unheard of in our town. Furthermore, he was to be
cremated
.
I remember the conversation Mama and Daddy had about it at the time.
“Cremated…” Mama mused. “Isn’t that sort of…communist? Don’t they do it in Russia and places like that?”
“Lord, no, honey.” Daddy was laughing. “It’s perfectly common, in this country as well as abroad. For one thing, it’s a lot more economical.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t
southern
,” Mama sniffed. “And I certainly don’t intend to have it done to
me
, are you listening, John? I want my body to remain as intact as possible, and I want to be buried with all my rings on. And a nice suit, or maybe a dress with a little matching jacket. And I want lots of yellow roses, as in life.”
“Yes, Billie.” Daddy hid a smile as he went out the door. He was Old Man Byrd’s lawyer, and so was in charge of the arrangements. I couldn’t believe my own daddy was actually getting to go inside Old Man Byrd’s house, a vine-covered mansion outside town, which everyone called “The Ivy House.” But of course my father
was
the best lawyer in town, so it followed that he’d be the judge’s lawyer, too. And since he was the soul of discretion, it also followed that he’d never mentioned this to us, not even when my cousin Jinx and I got caught trying to peep in Old Man Byrd’s windows on a dare. I still remember what we saw: a gloomy sitting room full of dark, crouching furniture; a fat white cat on a chair;
On the other hand, I was simply dying to get my period, grow breasts, turn into a sexpot and do as much damage as Mama, who had broken every heart in Charleston and had a charm bracelet made out of fraternity pins to prove it. Sheused to tick them off for me one by one. “Now that was Smedes Black, a Phi Delt from UVA, such a darling boy, and this one was Parker Winthrop, a Sigma Chi at W and L, he used to play the ukulele….” I was drunk on the sound of so many alphabetical syllables. My mother had “come out” in Charleston; my sisters had attended St. Catherine’s School and then “come out” in Richmond, since nobody did such a thing in Lewisville, outside Lynchburg, where we lived. I was expected to follow in my sisters’ footsteps.
But then our paths would diverge, as I secretly planned to go up north to college before becoming (to everyone’s total astonishment) a
writer
. First I would write steamy novels about my own hot love life, eventually getting world-famous like Grace Metalious. I would make millions of dollars and give it all away to starving children in foreign lands. I would win the Nobel Prize. Then I would become a vegetarian poet in Greenwich Village. I would live for Art.
I had a big future ahead of me. But so far, nothing doing. No breasts, no period, no sex, no art. Though very blond, I was just any skinny, pale, wispy-haired kid on a bike, quick as a rabbit, fast as a bird, riding invisible all over town, bearing my awful secret.
I KNEW WHO SHE WAS, OF COURSE . E VERYONE KNEW . Her father, Old Man Byrd, had been the county judge for forty years. After retirement, he became a hermit—or asclose to a hermit as it was possible to be in Lewisville, which was chock-full of neighborly curious people naturally bound and determined to look after one another all the time. (“I swear to God,” my father remarked once in exasperation, “if the devil himself moved into this town, I guess you’d take
him
a casserole, too!”) Judge Byrd was a wild-looking, white-haired, ugly old man whose eyebrows grew all the way across his face in the most alarming fashion; he walked bent over, leaning on a walking stick topped by a carved ivory skull, yelling at children. He smelled bad. He did not socialize. He did not go to church, and was rumored to be an atheist. When he died, everyone was shocked to learn that there would be
no funeral
, unheard of in our town. Furthermore, he was to be
cremated
.
I remember the conversation Mama and Daddy had about it at the time.
“Cremated…” Mama mused. “Isn’t that sort of…communist? Don’t they do it in Russia and places like that?”
“Lord, no, honey.” Daddy was laughing. “It’s perfectly common, in this country as well as abroad. For one thing, it’s a lot more economical.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t
southern
,” Mama sniffed. “And I certainly don’t intend to have it done to
me
, are you listening, John? I want my body to remain as intact as possible, and I want to be buried with all my rings on. And a nice suit, or maybe a dress with a little matching jacket. And I want lots of yellow roses, as in life.”
“Yes, Billie.” Daddy hid a smile as he went out the door. He was Old Man Byrd’s lawyer, and so was in charge of the arrangements. I couldn’t believe my own daddy was actually getting to go inside Old Man Byrd’s house, a vine-covered mansion outside town, which everyone called “The Ivy House.” But of course my father
was
the best lawyer in town, so it followed that he’d be the judge’s lawyer, too. And since he was the soul of discretion, it also followed that he’d never mentioned this to us, not even when my cousin Jinx and I got caught trying to peep in Old Man Byrd’s windows on a dare. I still remember what we saw: a gloomy sitting room full of dark, crouching furniture; a fat white cat on a chair;
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