The Other Old Woman
It was August, the Dog Days, days of ninety-degree temperatures and sweat. It was also the last month without school, the last month of freedom and fun, and Katie knew that the summer was going to be over soon. That made her feel sad. And it made her feel as if she had to hurry to get to know the old woman. There were so many questions she wanted answered, like how did she get her groceries and did she ever take a shower, and where did she get those hats and did she ever go out on her own.
One hot Monday afternoon she decided to go over to the house on her own. Katie and Mandy had promised each other not to tell anyone else about their "party" with the old woman. Katie now decided not to tell Mandy that she was going over on her own. She knew Mandy wouldn't like being left out, but Katie felt that fighting with Mandy was something she didn't much like doing anymore.
She knocked on the same door as she had before - the only difference this time was that she had a gift for the old woman, a sand dollar she'd found at the beach in perfect unbroken condition. When after what seemed a long time the old woman didn't answer the door, she knocked again. She waited. Finally the door opened and there she stood.
She wasn't much taller than Katie and her eyes were that strange violet, the color sometimes of her mother's cigarette smoke. Katie just stood there, tongue-tied. The old woman gave her a strange look, a look Katie didn't understand, then apparently making a decision asked her to come in.
The hallway was filled with the same dim light as before, and the house, even though it was baking outside, was cool - a little stuffy but comfortable. (The house had huge trees around it and was almost always in shade.) She really didn't know what she was doing there and she had this desire to run away. It wasn't from anything the woman said or did - just a feeling, like she was somewhere where she didn't belong.
They walked into the kitchen and the old woman, as before, brought out some cookies and milk. Katie didn't eat any. The old woman didn't eat any. The silence hung over them like a falling tent.
Finally, the old woman spoke. "It's good to see you again. I had fun the other day."
Katie nodded, relieved somebody was saying something. "I did, too. I liked the hats."
"The hats, yes." She traced a circle on the tabletop. "Do you know where I got those hats?"
Katie shook her head. She took a cookie.
"I got those hats at a county fair. When I was your age. Actually, I only got one, the turquoise one. My two sisters got the others. They were expensive for us then - a nickel each." She laughed, low and a little heavy. Only now did Katie see what the old woman was wearing - a black dress with shots of silver and turquoise thread running through it. Her hair was done up in a tight bun, tighter than a cinnamon roll. The sleeves of her dress came loosely down to her elbow and Katie could see how loose the skin was under her arm.
As she talked about the fair, about how much the hat made her feel grown-up and pretty, Katie watched her face (between bites of cookie), a face that was full of wrinkles but didn't look all that old, more like a face that had been worn down. It had grown fat and the bones were hidden, but she tried to see the young girl wearing the hat in the face and believed she saw it.
The story about the fair led to some stories about her family, about her sisters, about the old woman's husband. "I'm just rambling on here, Katie," she said.
Katie didn't mind.
"What grade are you going into?"
"Fourth."
"When I was in fourth grade I was in a one-room schoolhouse. I hated it. Cold in the winter, hot in the summer. And a cranky old schoolmarm who got a lot of pleasure out of hitting people." Elizabeth screwed up her face into a reasonably good mask of a woman who seemed to love to hear children cry and said in a voice that sounded like mice in the wall, "'You children shut up or I will flay you within an inch of your lives.' She really talked like that. Do you know what the word 'flay' means? Neither did we. But she would use words like that." Katie smiled.
From somewhere deep in the house came the sound of a bell, a hand-held bell, the kind that Katie sometimes liked to ring when she was in a gift shop. Elizabeth's face drooped a little. The bell stopped. Then it started again.
She got up from the table. "Come and meet Johanna." Katie got up as well. "Johanna is my sister, Katie. Johanna is not well." Katie listened carefully to the words "not well" and didn't know what they meant. "Johanna was the one with the black feather and white ribbon." Elizabeth started walking out of the kitchen. "We've lived together now for forty years."
In the front room, the room she and Mandy had only glimpsed as they walked to the kitchen, was a chair facing the window that let in the sight of the porch and the street. It was a big wing-backed chair with heavy claw feet and a deep-blue brocade covering. Elizabeth walked around the chair to face it. Only then did Katie notice the small table to the left of the chair with kleenex and two glasses and a small bell on it. "Johanna," Elizabeth said in a soft voice, a voice softer than Katie thought she had, "I have someone to meet you. A young girl. Katie." She motioned for Katie to come around and Katie, for a split second that seemed to last forever, was torn between running out of the house and back to the friends she knew and fought with and walking the four steps around the chair and looking at a woman she didn't know. She took the first step, and then the rest.
