"I don't care. Just get it all up to speed quickly. I'll be back with Mrs. March soon, or they'll send me back with young Mr. March, and you don't want to disappoint the Marches, especially now with all their personal troubles. You'll be out of here in a
heartbeat," he warned.
"No problem," Lester said. He glared at his daughter, who pulled her shoulders back and headed toward me. Her eyes looked like they could shoot flames in my direction. I fled into the kitchen. My heart was still pounding from what I had seen in the basement, and Mae Betty's glaring at me didn't slow it down.
Great-aunt Frances was seated at the kitchen table. She had cleared away some space for two bowls and two spoons on napkins beside them. She had poured a glass of milk for me and laid two cookies beside it. I saw that the cream for the peaches was already in the bowls.
Mae Betty came in behind me, nudging me out of her way without saying "Excuse me," as she started across the kitchen toward the laundry room. Miss Puss practically leaped under the table to avoid being stepped on.
"Oh." Great-aunt Frances said. "I forgot it's hard to open those jars. You can't do it. and my hands are as soft as cotton candy."
"Don't ask me. I got more than enough to do with the mess you made." Mae Betty tossed back at us and
continued walking toward the laundry room.
Felix and Lester Marshall were walking by, and Gneat-aunt Frances called out to Lester.
"Yes, ma'am?" he said. stopping.
"Would you be so kind as to open that jar of peaches for us, Lester?"
"Glad to," he said, taking it from me. He clutched it in his big hand and almost effortlessly turned the cover. We heard it snap, and Great-aunt Frances clapped.
"Lester is about the strongest man I ever met," she told me.
"Not anymore, Miss Wilkens. I'm not what I was. Bones are creaking so loud, they keep me up nights. I'm about to reach Social Security."
When he smiled. I saw he was missing teeth on both sides of his mouth. He glanced at me with kind eves. He had the sort of face that gave birth to a smile around his eyes that rippled down to the corners of his lips. "Welcome, Missy," he said.
"Her name is Jordan. Jordan March." Greataunt Frances told him.
"A truly holy and wonderful name. You know it was in the river Jordan that Jesus was baptized?"
I nodded.
"Welcome. Jordan." "Thank you," I said.
He handed the jar of peaches back to me and hurried out to join Felix, who was taking him through a survey of the house. We heard them talking in the hallway. It was mostly Felix rattling off this and that for repair and Lester saying. "Yes sir. got it. Yes sir. I'll be on that right away."
"Scoop the peaches into the cream," Great-aunt Frances told me.
As I did so. Mae Betty returned from the laundry room. There was a door that opened to the outside, through which she had gone to dump garbage. She glared at us and shook her head as she walked by toward the hallway. She paused in the doorway.
"I ain't tending to that cat's litter box. That's not part of my job." she declared, and as she walked away, she added, "it's overflowing."
"I always forget," Great-aunt Frances said. "Miss Puss never makes a mess anyway. You take enough?"
"Yes." I said and handed the jar to her so she could scoop out peaches for herself.
I wondered if I should now tell her what I had seen in her basement. Surely, she should know there is a half-naked girl down there and a boy down to his underpants, I thought. but I was afraid of starting trouble so soon after I had come, especially with all this commotion going on. So I didn't say anything.
"You must tell me all about yourself, about living with my sister, about her grand house, about your mother and your father. You must tell me all the things you like to eat, too. I'll have Mae Betty and Lester buy them for us, but don't expect me to be as good a cook as Emma's cook."
"I can make some things, too," I said. "Like scrambled eggs and toast, oatmeal. and--"
"Oatmeal? Ugh. You like it?"
"Nancy makes it with honey and raisins. It's good."