The Narrows by Ann Petry

Author:Ann Petry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

13

ABBIE CRUNCH WAS OSTENSIBLY ADJUSTING her best winter hat, looking in the sitting room mirror as she settled it on her head at what she thought was the most becoming angle; actually, she was admiring the shine of the black coq feathers that adorned the hat, blueblack feathers that were astonishingly effective against her white hair. Sealskin cape, sealskin muff, plain black wool coat, white gloves. It added up to an extremely smart winter outfit, if she did say so herself. If she hadn’t been looking in the mirror, she wouldn’t have seen J.C. enter the room. He came in through the door, sideways, walking on tiptoe, which was unnecessary because he was wearing sneakers and she wouldn’t have heard him come in.

He stood in back of her, touched the sealskin cape, tentatively, gently, and then stroked it.

“Is dat fur, Missus Crunch?” he asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Fur,” he repeated. “Her’s got one, too.”

“J.C., take your thumb out of your mouth. Where will you get a new one when you’ve got that one all chewed up?” To her surprise, he actually took his thumb out of his mouth.

Is that fur! she thought. It’s Alaskan sealskin. Cape made from the Governor’s wife’s old sealskin coat. The Governor’s wife had given it to her in the fall of the year the Major died, saying, “Mrs. Crunch, I brought this to you because I thought you might be able to get collars and cuffs out of it.”

When Abbie took it to Quagliamatti, the tailor who used to be on Franklin Avenue, and explained that she wanted a cape and a muff made out of it, he held the coat up, turned it around and around, muttering, “Rump sprung. Rump sprung. Have to cut around it.” He was such an expert and so inexpensive that she did not reprove him for his unnecessary vulgarity for fear that he might refuse to work on the coat. He had turned out this rippling cape and the fat round muff. By treating them with care, having them stored, and worked over every year, they would last as long as she did. She turned slightly so that she could see the way the cape flared in the back, and thought, as she always did, that the cape would have done credit to a Fifth Avenue furrier.

J.C. said, “You goin’ out?”

“That’s right.” She was going to Deacon Lord’s funeral.

“Kin I go wid you?”

“No.”

“What’m I goin’ do?”

“You’re going right back upstairs to your own part of the house and talk to your mother or play with your brothers.”

“Mamie’s out. Them bastids Kelly and Shapiro is in the movies, ’n they wouldn’t let me go. What’m I goin’ to do? They told me to stay down here.”

“Good heavens!” she said. He was standing close to her, looking at her, his thumb in his mouth, his round hard head on one side, something speculative in his black eyes. I knew it was a mistake to let that woman stay in my house. I’ve changed. I knew I would.

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