Gail Godwin - Flora

And then the whole project had collapsed in a miserable heap because I had forgotten to include Flora. Flora would still be here on my birthday. She had to be somewhere in the picture, and if she were my father couldn’t be asking Finn to live with us yet. Also who could predict how she might derail things or what unwelcome bit of information she might blurt out at any time? My imaginative powers had made a serious miscalculation in timing and logistics, and I was disgusted with myself.

AT LUNCH, FLORAsaid, “Listen, Helen, what should we do about supper?”

“We’re still eating lunch.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Finn is coming to fix the downspout.”

“So?”

“Well, I haven’t asked him to supper.”

“You haven’t ?” I had just assumed she had, even though there hadn’t been her usual agonizings over which Juliet-dish to prepare. “Why ever not?” (One of Nonie’s pet phrases.)

“Well, I didn’t want him to think we’re running after him.”

“Why on earth would he think that?” I was stalling for time, Nonie-like, until I figured out how to get the upper hand.

“Because… Oh, I don’t know. You think we should ask him?”

“Oh, no. Just let him come and fix our gutters for free, and then say, ‘Oh, thanks, bye now. Hope you’re not hungry or anything.’ “

“Oh, dear.” The tears were mobilizing.

“So he’ll climb on his motorcycle and ride away thinking, I wonder what I did to make them not like me anymore .”

“I’m going to call him right now.”

“Now, that would look like you’re running after him. Besides, the store’s closed on Sunday. Just wait until he comes this afternoon and say we’re having a light supper, nothing fancy, but he’s welcome to stay.”

“But, he’ll be all sweaty and might feel he should wash.” She seemed to have given this previous thought.

“Well, let him wash here. We certainly have enough bathrooms.”

“In that case, what should we have?”

“You’ll think of something. You always do.”

BUT FINN ALREADYhad supper plans. Miss Adelaide, the old lady who was losing her memory and had bruises from head to toe, was back from the hospital and was making him fried chicken and waffles to thank him for taking care of her cat and her garden.

“Oh, chicken and waffles, I can’t compete with that,” said Flora, folding her arms and looking away to hide her mortification.

“Don’t be like that, love. If I had known—”

“No, it’s my fault,” Flora eagerly rushed on. “I didn’t ask earlier because I was afraid you would get sick of seeing us, but then Helen said she wanted you.”

“I did not .”

“Ah,” Finn teased me, “so you didn’t want me.”

“That is not what I meant.” I could have killed Flora for getting me into this trap. Why did she have to proclaim her every self-doubt from the rooftops? Now both of them were anxiously regarding me: the child who might fly off the handle. Well, I would show them. “He is going to get sick of us,” I scolded Flora, “if we won’t let him get on with what he came to do.” Toward Finn I was all business. “Come on,” I said, “I’ll show you where the extension ladder is.”

But once the two of us were in the garage, I relented. He stopped to run a hand lovingly down a rear fender of Nonie’s car. “Nineteen thirty-three Oldsmobile Tudor touring car,” he said like an incantation. “We won’t see its like again.”

“I wish we could drive it,” I said.

“Well, why can’t you?”

“Because Flora never learned to drive and I’m too young to get a license.”

“Are you saying you can drive then?”

“No, but if somebody would teach me I would have a head start.”

“Flora never learned to drive?” he asked just as I was getting ready to add that maybe he would teach me.

“None of her people in Alabama learned. They couldn’t afford a car.”

“That’s no cause a-tall. A lot of folks drive who don’t own automobiles.”

“The school she really wanted rejected her because she couldn’t drive.” Might as well show interest in what interested him, since I had missed out on my chance.

“Ah, was she sorely let down?”

“She cried, but that’s what she always does. She said she wished she had told them she could drive and then had someone teach her before school started.”

“What a shame,” Finn said angrily.

“But she’s real excited about the school that does want her. And some man she met at her interview wrote and said he’d be glad to teach her to drive.”

“I’ll bet he would,” Finn said. “Has anyone been charging the battery?”

“I wasn’t sure how.”

“Turn the key and let the motor run is all it takes.”

“I think the battery is dead,” I said quickly because he was starting to look annoyed with me. “In fact, I’m sure it’s dead.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because a man came and tried, but it wouldn’t start.” I had almost said the man was Mr. Crump, but Finn might check. Let it just be a man.

“That’s a shame,” said Finn.

“My father will see to it when he gets back,” I assured him.

“Well, it’s still a bleeding shame,” said Finn.

I helped him carry the long extension ladder, which he set up at the needy corner of the house with a great deal of shaking and rattling, and then when he had fastened on his tool belt and climbed to the top, Flora and I did our part by lifting up the downspout pipe and holding it steady until he had reattached it to its gutter.

“That should do it, ladies,” he said.

“That’s all?” said Flora, looking woefully up at him. “You mean you’re finished already?”

“With that little task I am. But while we’ve got the ladder up, will I have a look at the other gutters all around the house? I could bail out some of the gunk while I’m about it.”

“Well, I—Helen, what do you think? It’s your house.”

“That would be really nice of you,” I said to Finn on the ladder. “If you’re sure you have the time.”

“Oh, I have. Miss Adelaide doesn’t want me till half past six. What I’ll need, though, is something to put the gunk in.”

“I’ll get a bucket,” cried Flora, already running for the house.

“Are you going to need two people?” I called up to him.

“Come again?”

“Will you need two of us for the bucket part? I’ve got something I need to do in the house.”

“You run on then, darling. Your cousin and I will manage fine.”

“Will you come and say good-bye before you leave?”

“Sure I will. Where will I find you?”

“I’ll be upstairs. It’s easy. You turn left at the top of the stairs and it’s the first room. I’ll be working in there. Will you come when you’ve finished the gutters?”

“I will. But it might be an hour or so. Is that all right?”

“Perfect. I have something I want to show you.”

AT LAST, AT last , I thought, triumphantly racing up the stairs—stairs Finn would be climbing for the first time in “an hour or so”— I am learning how to get people to do as I want . Flora didn’t count. She was too easy, too much like someone my own age. No, not even that. She was easier than wily Annie Rickets; easier than Rachel Huff, whose sullen moods somehow insulated her like a black cloud from the demands of others; easier, even, than tranquil Brian Beale, so congenial to play with but stubbornly set in his ways when it came to what he wanted us to play.

It was almost ready, the Devlin Patrick Finn room: the room that had not been named for Starling Peake because he had let us down, the room my mother had chosen to lie and read in when she was expecting me. The drawers of the old cheval dresser had been emptied and lined with paper (the perfectly good extension cord, the sealed pack of cards, and the two buckeyes placed neatly in the top drawer for Finn); I had cleaned its tilting glass with vinegar and newspaper, the way I had seen Mrs. Jones do it, and I had shined the mirror above the sink, where Finn’s pointy face would look back at him when he shaved. (“We’ll need to get a desk or a table in here,” I heard myself telling him, “but we waited to see which you preferred for your artwork.” “One thing this old pile has plenty of,” my father might add, if he was accompanying us, “is furniture. You’ll trip over it and bust your head if you’re not careful.”)