Lorrie Moore - 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories

“I’m going to say something, too,” Janice said.

Arnetta considered this. “Sure,” she said. “Of course. Whatever you want.”

Janice pointed her finger like a gun at Octavia and rehearsed the line she’d thought up, “‘We’re gonna teach you a lesson .’ That’s what I’m going to say.” She narrowed her eyes like a TV mobster. “‘We’re gonna teach you little girls a lesson!’”

With the back of her hand, Octavia brushed Janice’s finger away. “You couldn’t teach me to shit in a toilet.”

“But,” I said, “what if they say, ‘We didn’t say that. We didn’t call anyone a N-I-G-G-E-R’?”

“Snot,” Arnetta sighed. “Don’t think. Just fight. If you even know how.”

Everyone laughed while Daphne stood there. Arnetta gently laid her hand on Daphne’s shoulder. “Daphne. You don’t have to fight. We’re doing this for you.”

Daphne walked to the counter, took a clean paper towel, and carefully unfolded it like a map. With this, she began to pick up the trash all around. Everyone watched.

“C’mon,” Arnetta said to everyone. “Let’s beat it.” We all ambled toward the restroom doorway, where the sunshine made one large white rectangle of light. We were immediately blinded and shielded our eyes with our hands, our forearms.

“Daphne?” Arnetta asked. “Are you coming?”

We all looked back at the girl, who was bending, the thin of her back hunched like a maid caught in stage limelight. Stray strands of her hair were lit nearly transparent, thin fiber-optic threads. She did not nod yes to the question, nor did she shake her head no. She abided, bent. Then she began again, picking up leaves, wads of paper, the cotton fluff innards from a torn stuffed toy. She did it so methodically, so exquisitely, so humbly, she must have been trained. I thought of those dresses she wore, faded and old, yet so pressed and clean; I then saw the poverty in them, I then could imagine her mother, cleaning the houses of others, returning home, weary.

“I guess she’s not coming.”

We left her, heading back to our cabin, over pine needles and leaves, taking the path full of shade.

“What about our secret meeting?” Elise asked.

Arnetta enunciated in a way that defied contradiction: “We just had it.”

Just as we caught sight of our cabin, Arnetta violently swerved away from Octavia. “You farted,” she said.

Octavia began to sashay, as if on a catwalk, then proclaimed, in a Hollywood-starlet voice, “My farts smell like perfume.”

It was nearing our bedtime, but in the lengthening days of spring, the sun had not yet set.

“Hey, your mama’s coming,” Arnetta said to Octavia when she saw Mrs. Hedy walk toward the cabin, sniffling. When Octavia’s mother wasn’t giving bored, parochial orders, she sniffled continuously, mourning an imminent divorce from her husband. She might begin a sentence, “I don’t know what Robert will do when Octavia and I are gone. Who’ll buy him cigarettes?” and Octavia would hotly whisper “Mama” in a way that meant: Please don’t talk about our problems in front of everyone. Please shut up.

But when Mrs. Hedy began talking about her husband, thinking about her husband, seeing clouds shaped like the head of her husband, she couldn’t be quiet, and no one could ever dislodge her from the comfort of her own woe. Only one thing could perk her up — Brownie songs. If the rest of the girls were quiet, and Mrs. Hedy was in her dopey sorrowful mood, she would say, “Y’all know I like those songs, girls. Why don’t you sing one?” Everyone would groan except me and Daphne. I, for one, liked some of the songs.

“C’mon, everybody,” Octavia said drearily. “She likes ‘The Brownie Song’ best.”

We sang, loud enough to reach Mrs. Hedy:

I’ve something in my pocket;

It belongs across my face.

And I keep it very close at hand in a most convenient place.

I’m sure you couldn’t guess it

If you guessed a long, long while.

So I’ll take it out and put it on—

It’s a great big Brownie Smile!

“The Brownie Song” was supposed to be sung as though we were elves in a workshop, singing as we merrily cobbled shoes, but everyone except me hated the song and sang it like a maudlin record, played at the most sluggish of rpms.

“That was good,” Mrs. Hedy said, closing the cabin door behind her. “Wasn’t that nice, Linda?”

“Praise God,” Mrs. Margolin answered without raising her head from the chore of counting out Popsicle sticks for the next day’s session of crafts.

“Sing another one,” Mrs. Hedy said, with a sort of joyful aggression, like a drunk I’d once seen who’d refused to leave a Korean grocery.

“God, Mama, get over it,” Octavia whispered in a voice meant only for Arnetta, but Mrs. Hedy heard it and started to leave the cabin.

“Don’t go,” Arnetta said. She ran after Mrs. Hedy and held her by the arm. “We haven’t finished singing.” She nudged us with a single look. “Let’s sing ‘The Friends Song.’ For Mrs. Hedy.”

Although I liked some of the songs, I hated this one:

Make new friends

But keep the o-old,

One is silver

And the other gold.

If most of the girls in my troop could be any type of metal, they’d be bunched-up wads of tinfoil maybe, or rusty iron nails you had to get tetanus shots for.

“No, no, no,” Mrs. Margolin said before anyone could start in on “The Friends Song.” “An uplifting song. Something to lift her up and take her mind off all these earthly burdens.”

Arnetta and Octavia rolled their eyes. Everyone knew what song Mrs. Margolin was talking about, and no one, no one, wanted to sing it.

“Please, no,” a voice called out. “Not ‘The Doughnut Song.’”

“Please not ‘The Doughnut Song,’” Octavia pleaded.

“I’ll brush my teeth twice if I don’t have to sing ‘The Doughnut—’”

“Sing!” Mrs. Margolin demanded.

We sang:

Life without Jesus is like a do-ough-nut!

Like a do-ooough-nut!

Like a do-ooough-nut!

Life without Jesus is like a do-ough-nut!

There’s a hole in the middle of my soul!

There were other verses, involving other pastries, but we stopped after the first one and cast glances toward Mrs. Margolin to see if we could gain a reprieve. Mrs. Margolin’s eyes fluttered blissfully, half-asleep.

“Awww,” Mrs. Hedy said, as though giant Mrs. Margolin were a cute baby. “Mrs. Margolin’s had a long day.”

“Yes indeed,” Mrs. Margolin answered. “If you don’t mind, I might just go to the lodge where the beds are. I haven’t been the same since the operation.”

I had not heard of this operation, or when it had occurred, since Mrs. Margolin had never missed the once-a-week Brownie meetings, but I could see from Daphne’s face that she was concerned, and I could see that the other girls had decided that Mrs. Margolin’s operation must have happened long ago in some remote time unconnected to our own. Nevertheless, they put on sad faces. We had all been taught that adulthood was full of sorrow and pain, taxes and bills, dreaded work and dealings with whites, sickness, and death.

“Go right ahead, Linda,” Mrs. Hedy said. “I’ll watch the girls.” Mrs. Hedy seemed to forget about divorce for a moment; she looked at us with dewy eyes, as if we were mysterious, furry creatures. Meanwhile, Mrs. Margolin walked through the maze of sleeping bags until she found her own. She gathered a neat stack of clothes and pajamas slowly, as though doing so were almost painful. She took her toothbrush, her toothpaste, her pillow. “All right!” Mrs. Margolin said, addressing us all from the threshold of the cabin. “Be in bed by nine.” She said it with a twinkle in her voice, as though she were letting us know she was allowing us to be naughty and stay up till nine-fifteen.