Last week I found something in my Grandmas bedroom. I ended up in big trouble for snooping, but I got a good story out of it so it was worth having to scrub the bathroom. She says I should know better now that I'm eleven.
Grandma lives in Detroit. Mama can't convince her to move in with us, where it's safer, whatever that means. But when I was six, a bunch of people got mad at something and nearly burned the whole town down! You'd think they'd be more civilized in the 1960's, but Daddy said they'd been pushed too far, and I'm not sure what that means either. All I remember was hearing helicopters all night long and then we moved. Grandma says all troubles pass and that she's not moving anywhere as long as theres breath in her body.
I was bored that day so there I was in Grandma's bedroom. The window was open and music was coming from Mrs. Martin's house next door. It was from her son's bedroom. Grandma says he has heartburn or something because his girlfriend moved to Ohio. He plays it over and over and sings along with it every time. He has a good voice, but if I hear "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" one more time I'll scream. Besides, Mama says "ain't isn't a real word", so how did it end up on a record in the store? The houses are so close together that you can hear everybody's business when the windows are open.
Anyway, we were visiting Grandma Mama says that nothing much had changed in her house since "before the war." Granddaddy died in that bedroom so I think maybe she didn't redecorate just in case he comes back as a ghost, she want's him to know where he is.
I never thought of her bedroom as interesting, but when you're bored in the middle of summer vacation you'd be surprised at how ordinary stuff becomes interesting. I felt kind of creepy being in there all alone. Mama wouldn't like it if she found me poking around. But Mama was buying groceries at Food Fair and Grandma was watching "As The World Turns" then "Guiding Light" so I knew I had at least fifteen minutes to myself.
Don't get me wrong, I don't usually go snooping through a person's bedroom, except my friend Linda's but we're like blood sisters. We even poked our fingers and mixed a drop of our blood together on a piece of toilet paper to prove it. I won't do that again! But Grandma's room seems more like a church so I was really careful. I opened the closet but didn't see much but her dresses and shoes in shoe boxes. Grandma keeps her them like that so they always look brand new, even twenty years later when she finally gives them to the Purple Heart.
So, I closed the door and went to her dresser. There are four big drawers in her dresser. I slid open the big top drawer but it was just clothes. The next one had some sweaters and her special lace table cloth and so on, but the bottom one was what got me into big trouble. She had some books in there that must have been her from a hundred years ago when she was in school. Next to them was a box that was very pretty with the word Eaton's on it. I was hoping for candy, but when I opened it I found the prettiest writing paper I've ever seen. It was pale green with little roses on it and very fancy and crinkly paper. I wondered who Grandma wrote letters to since everybody she knows lives in Detroit and she could just visit or talk to them on the phone. Under that was a cigar box and I wondered if Graddady ever smoked cigars. I opened it and smelled like what must be from the cigars. Peeyew! Inside was a photo, red paper Valentine card and a button. The Valentine was really pretty and looked home made and had roses drawn on it. The button was heavy and gold, or at least it looked like gold, with a bird on it.
It took me a second, but I realized the photo was of a really young Grandma. I could tell it was her by her smile and her hairdo, which never changes by the way. A man was standing next to her and he looked kind of sad. I know it wasn't Grandaddy because he was really tall and skinny.The man in the photo wasn't much taller than Grandma.
That's when Mama came back and I know I should have hightailed it downstairs faster. But I didn't. I turned the picture over and read "Sully and Mavis" written in pencil. That was my Grandma's name all right, even though I can't recall hardly anyone calling her Mavis except maybe the lady who comes to do her hair. It's either Mama B, Grandma or Mrs. Burnette because she's old.
I heard Mama coming up the stairs so put the picture and the paper heart back into the box and closed the drawer. I still had the gold button in my hand and slipped it into my dress pocket just as she came into the room.
"Just what do you think you're doing in Grandma's room, girl?!" She said in her 'you're-in-for-it-now' voice.
All I could think of to say was, "Nothing."
"Well stop doing nothing and come down and help me peel potatoes for dinner! You know better!"
A couple of days later Mama was down in Grandma's basement washing clothes and I heard her swear. Mama never swears so when she said, "Damnation!" I knew it was serious. Next she yelled my name and came stomping up the stairs like a storm trooper on TV. She popped into the kitchen saying, "Just what was this doing in your pocket young Lady?" She uses the word "Just" a lot when she wants to make a point. Then she went on and on about how it got caught in the washer ringer and pulled a hole in my dress and she kept fussing about it until Grandma came from the livingroom to find out what all the noise was about.
Mama gave the button to her and told her how I'd ruined my dress with it, which by the way didn't seem fair since Mama put it through the wringer and all. Mama paid no attention to it but Grandma looked at it like it was the Hope Diamond or something. Then she looked at me and I knew the 'jig was up' as they say in the movies. I don't know what a jig is, but it was way up.
Mama clompped back downstairs still muttering about my dress and Grandma went up to her room. I climbed the stairs and saw Grandma sitting on the edge of her bed. This was something she never did because she said that if you sit on the edge of a bed it would make your mattress sag. She put her hanky in her pocket and looked at me and smiled. That was a relief.
But then she asked me, "Baby? Did you take this button from my dresser?"
I could never lie to Grandma so just nodded.
Then she asked me, "Do you want hear a story about it?"
I nodded again.
And she patted the bed and I sat beside her as she said, "Well you're a big girl now and I guess you'll understand it. At least part of it."
Just then boy next door started playing the Michael Jackson's song how he can never say good-bye. At least it wasn't that Sunshine song again and I like Michael Jackson.
Grandma handed me the button and told me that a long time ago, when she was the same age as the boy next door, she had a friend named Sully. She told me that he was really funny and used to take her places like the Fisher Theater downtown and how they'd look at the displays in the Hudson's department at Christmas time. She said she met him in when they were in fourth grade and they'd take the DSR Bus all over town.
I asked her if he was her 'boyfriend' and she kind of laughed and looked real sad at the same time. I didn't know what to make of it but she said that she did love him a lot, maybe more than anyone, even Granddaddy. But she said he wasn't the boyfriend type, whatever that means.
Grandma said that Sully wanted to be an artist and then she took the cigar box from the bottom drawer and gave me the paper heart. She said that he gave it to her with a box of candy the day before he went away with the Army. She said they she was so happy that she kissed him when he gave her the Valentine and the candy. She said it was the first time she'd ever kissed a boy on the lips before and it must have scared him or something because he sort of pushed her away and she fell right off her front porch! That's how she got the button that she said was on his Army uniform. She grabbed him to keep from falling and pulled the button clean off. She said she fell into a pile of snow so nothing was hurt but her dignity. That part made me laugh. I cant imagine Grandma laying on her back in the snow with candy all over the place.
She said she loved Sully with all her heart and thought he loved her too, but it didn't turn out that way. She said she realizes now that he probably never did get married and I don't know how she'd know that because she said she never did see him again after that Valentine's night.
I'm writing this all down so maybe one day I'll know what that kind of love is about, when I'm old, like sixteen or something.