Jazz Girl Chapters 8, 9, and 10
Dec. 23rd, 2024 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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antishurtugal_rebornMy bad, the last chapter was actually Christmas Eve night. Now it's Christmas Day.
They all get to bed late, and Williams wakes up to the smell of coffee, and surely Nanny will soon be fixing up the last of the muskie into croquettes (Grandpa must have caught a nice big muskie, good on him). Williams dreams of what other food will surely be there, like fried turkey, yams, collard greens (hey there's the greens that were missing earlier!), etc. She thinks how the only thing better than all that good food would be the whole family sitting around the table.
Grandpa was waiting in the parlor, his cheeks spread in a grin um okay. Anyway, the thing he was working on in his basement back on Friday was a steam-powered toy train. Williams is delighted by it, and therefore so is Grandpa. She spends most of the day playing with the train.
The next day, Nanny sends Williams down to the basement to get Grandpa moving. He's late for work.
She finds that he passed away in his sleep during the night.
Tears ran silent down my cheeks well at least we've finally got a decent description for crying.
All the neighbors are kind to them about Grandpa's passing, bringing them meals, even the nearby Italian immigrants. Williams is miserable though. She doesn't know how she's going to get along without him, seeing as he was the only one who really knew about and cared for her interests. (If you guess that this source of tension is solved within a chapter, you're wrong! It takes two whole chapters! Hurray Kelly, progress!) And this fear brings back the visions.
The Ghost Dog and other spooks tormented me through the night. Then I'd stumble to the piano in the morning all fuzzy-eyed.
But the fuzziness started to clear up the minute I laid eyes on Max.
Dun dun DUUUUUNN
New Year's Eve, and Nanny announces that some of their relatives have come to town. One of Williams' cousins, Max, just lost his father. Nanny doesn't tell her what happened, though. Mama, however, is not pleased about this.
"They got no business coming here," Mama said. "That Sloane family's bad sorts. When I got the letter about what happened to ol' Max Sloane I think to myself it be just what he deserve."
I'm beginning to think it's not just Williams that Mama doesn't like, but everyone.
Nanny tells her to behave herself.
"The way that woman put on airs I got no need to be civil to her. She be nothing but trash if you ask me."
Nanny wins in the end, though, and goes to the kitchen to start cooking, which Williams guesses is her way of deeling with grief.
When Max and his mama arrived at our door later that afternoon my knees felt like Nanny's mashed potatoes simmering on the stove.
Just like in Vivaldi's Muse, Kelly's protagonist has severe knee issues.
Max was the handsomest boy I'd ever seen.
*groan* Here's your fourth shot. Let's make it five, since this is her fucking cousin we're talking about.
Williams doesn't even try to talk during dinner, because she knows that her stuttering will be even worse with how twitterpated she is. She just about loses her mind when, after dinner, Max asks her if she wants to go outside with him.
Part of the reason was because the thought of being alone with Max made me shivery excited inside...
Let's go ahead and do another shot, for the hell of it.
They go sit on the stoop and are quiet for a long time. Then Williams extends her condolences for Max's father's death.
He looked at me and smiled that sweet handsome smile. The smile that did funny things to my insides. Things I didn't understand.
Seven...
He in turn expresses his condolences for Grandpa's passing, and eventually Williams works up the courage to ask him what exactly happened to his dad.
Max admits that his father owed some men some money. Said men tied him to the railroad tracks.
And just like that, Williams' fascination with trains evaporates, which is a totally logical reaction that I applaud Kelly for.
Trains were supposed to bring people together, not rip families apart.
They talk a little more. Max is fourteen, so he'll be going into high school on Tuesday, while Williams will be starting seventh grade. They agree to meet up after school. Max's family has moved in only a few black from Williams', and he offers to show her where. She readily agrees.
And he held my hand the whole time.
Guys this is as bad as the Folgers incest commercial I swear to God.
The first day at school, the first person Williams sees is none other than Amy. Amy is of course dressed all fancy with matching ribbons in her hair (though her family is supposedly poor, but whatever), and Williams is very self-conscious about her worn hand-me-downs. Amy mocks her for her ill-fitting shoes, but shuts up when the teacher, Miss Milholland, arrives. Miss Milholland expresses condolences about Grandpa, and calls her 'sugar', which Williams likes.
I should stop and note here that racial segregation in schools was still a thing at this time. Maybe this area was so poor that they literally only had one school. I don't know. Do what you want with this information.
During music time, Miss Milholland can't find her little harp to give us the right note to start singing. I'm not exactly sure what Kelly is trying to describe here, a tuning fork maybe? She starts talking about needing something to give a middle C pitch.
Middle C is one of the only notes Williams actually knows the name of, because Mama taught her where it was on the pump organ. She offers to hum the pitch for the class. Miss Milholland is skeptical but allows her to try. Williams nails it; Miss Milholland doesn't believe it so she goes out to wherever the piano is in the school (why aren't there having music class in that room, then?), confirms that Williams did indeed sing the right note, and announces "Mary has perfect pitch!"
None of the other kids have any idea what she's talking about.
At recess, Miss Milholland hums a march to keep all the kids in line as they go down the stairs, but then she turns to Williams and asks if she could play that tune on the piano. Williams says she thinks so, so she goes to try. She nails it, but then starts to improvise, changing the march to a boogie, and the kids, being kids, start dancing and getting out of line. (These kids read to me as being a lot younger than 7th grade, but whatever.)
I'm sensing a parallel between Miss Milholland 'discovering' the truth about Williams' talent and Vivaldi 'discovering' Annina's.
The last kid in line was Amy. She stopped at the piano and smiled at me real sweet. "How'd you learn to play that jazzy music?"
"It comes partly from my visions," I said without thinking.
Her eyebrows got perky. "Visions?"
"Some of my visions are spooks but it's mostly the good visions that help me with my music. I don't know how. They just do."
She kept smiling but her smile started to turn mean. "Well what do you know about that?" she said, then turned to skip down the stairs.
WARNING WARNING IT'S CHIARA 2.0! Let's see if Williams will be as blindly idiotic about the situation as Annina was.
Outside at recess, Amy has told her friends about Williams' visions, and she turns vicious, calling Williams a filthy darky and that she should go back to Georgia with the other slaves. She throws gravel at Williams, and the two of them get in a fight. Okay wow so Williams is not as thick about things as Annina was, that's good to know. The other kids join in, and Williams is overwhelmed by them and their taunts about her visions.
Then the school bell rings and they have to go back inside.
I don't know what came over me but soon as I saw Miss Milholland's smiling face I grabbed a ruler and swatted her with it, screaming. "You white people made slaves out of us!"
Miss Milholland was upset but she didn't scold me. She just looked very worried and hurt as she rubbed the place on her arm where I hit her. "Oh, you poor child. I wonder who's been telling you such things," was all she said.
GEE. I WONDER. COULD IT BE THE GENERATIONS OF HER FAMILY THAT WERE ENSLAVED.
(Forgot to mention, Miss Milholland is white as a polar bear's ass. And she has pretty legs.)
Williams feels terrible for her outburst and goes to hide in the bathroom while she calms down. Miss Millholland finds her in there and asks her what's wrong.
"I been cursed," I said finally, my voice so quiet I hardly could hear myself.
"Cursed? What do you mean?"
Williams tells her about the caul and her mama hating her.
Miss Milholland's hand that had been resting on my shoulder fell to her side. She folded her arms. "The caul? Why that's nothing but a membrane that protects a baby inside its mother. Sometimes the caul's still sticking to a newborn baby. It's perfectly natural. You're not cursed, Mary."
Ready for more exposition?
"In fact," she went on, her eyes and smile bright, "I understand that in medieval times it was believed a baby born with their caul was destined for greatness."
"Medieval times? When was that?" I asked, sniffling and wiping my eyes with my fists.
"Hundreds of years ago, before people knew very much about science of medicine." She paused a minute and looked more serious. "I have a feeling about you, Mary. I do believe you're destined for greatness, and not because of the caul. Your musical ability is outstanding, and I know you're going to do great things with that."
Which she knows from not even one full school day with the girl.
Miss Milholland tells her she has a gift from God, and that she should share it with others. Williams can only think that Miss Milholland is the best person ever, and she feels even more like an idiot for hitting her for no reason.
Still, Williams is miserable at school and can't wait for the day to end, because she wants to go see Max. She runs to his house the moment school is out, but nobody's at home, so she sits on the front step and just feels miserable about things.
Soon enough, Max comes riding up on his bicycle. Like the paragraph in Vivaldi's Muse where Vivaldi is juggling his violin case and his sheet music, we get way too much description about how Max juggles the things he's holding:
He sloped his shoulder and shook it to let the book bah slide off, which he caught with his other hand and hung on the railing post.
And not enough description about actually important things.
He can tell that Williams is upset, and she instantly starts crying, so he gets her in a hug and she tells him about her horrible day at school. He tells her that the white people had no business talking to her like that, and surely Miss Milholland understood that her anger was not directed at her, but at her bullies.
I nodded against his shoulder and my insides got bouncy and tingly. It was a strange but wonderful feeling. Love I guess. If this was love then love sure does peculiar things to your body parts. Good things.
Eight!
Max tells her to keep at her music and nobody will say bad things about her. He admits that he went over to her house the day before to see her and heard her playing piano, and he didn't dare disturb her.
I was too filled up with happiness to speak. Max understood about my music like Grandpa had. Now I was sure the strange feelings in my body parts meant I was in love.
Aaaaand nine. Everybody sing along now. Because that's all I could hear in my head.
Truth be told this was a decent enough chapter, right up until the Max part.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-24 04:51 am (UTC)Whew!
Dude no. Maybe it's because this is the internet but I cannot picture anything but the OTHER kind of cheeks which might be spread.
Great, now I'm picturing tears running down the other kind of cheeks as well and it's all kinds of weird and disturbing. Also Jesus H Christ I know somebody just died but does she have to cry in every goddamn chapter?!
"NVM, over it now"
Not much there to like, really.
Uh, mashed potatoes don't "simmer".
Uh, how old is she at this point?
Has anyone actually been killed in this fashion outside of the movies?
The WHAT?
Who wants to bet Kelly just ignored that fact in order to give her poor wickle heroine more opportunities to get bullied by jealous mean girls?
Toldya so.
Christ this is tone-deaf.
The latter of which is of course something your average 13 (?) year old girl would make note of.
Funny, I used to hide in the bathroom too when I had an autistic outburst at school. Thank goodness these days most schools have "quiet rooms" for upset kids to use.
"Hi, I'm one of those characters who only exists to tell the heroine how great she is."
Oh yeah, because teachers right up into the 90s totally understood that stuff and weren't just trained to automatically punish you for acting out regardless of whether it's being caused by severe emotional distress. In the real world this nice teacher lady would have just thrashed her in front of the class.
...Yeah, if I sound bitter that's not a coincidence.
*throws up, and not because of the shots*
no subject
Date: 2024-12-24 04:30 pm (UTC)Dude no. Maybe it's because this is the internet but I cannot picture anything but the OTHER kind of cheeks which might be spread.
Haha yeah ._.
Also Jesus H Christ I know somebody just died but does she have to cry in every goddamn chapter?!
She does say in an earlier chapter that she's just a weepy kind of person but yeah I agree.
Uh, mashed potatoes don't "simmer".
I guess if you're boiling the potatoes first, they do simmer, but by the time they're mashed...okay I'm done making excuses.
She's 12 in this section of the book.
The WHAT?
Oh, let me introduce you to America's greatest contribution to modern Christmas memes, an actual 2009 TV commercial that even I, a little asexual Dino, had to do a double-take at when I first saw it, and left a strong enough impression that when I saw it nicknamed the 'Folgers Incest Commercial' online years later, I knew exactly what one they were talking about.
Merry Christmas!
Miss Milholland's utter passivity is very jarring and not appropriate to the time period, no. I'd think even the nicest teachers back then would have immediately meted out some sort of punishment to a kid who slaps them with a ruler.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-25 07:35 am (UTC)Oh good point - I'd have put my skates on too!
...the fuck did I just watch?
Even today, assaulting a teacher would get you in very big trouble.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-24 10:19 am (UTC)Well, that's a pity. Grandpa was quite decent.
Oh, lovely. Please think more about what you write, Kelly!
I should stop and note here that racial segregation in schools was still a thing at this time. Maybe this area was so poor that they literally only had one school. I don't know. Do what you want with this information.
I looked it up, and school segregation was forbidden in Pennsylvania since 1881, so Kelly was actually right here!
...Yes, this is really unsubtle.
I'm surprised that Miss Milholland is so cool about this, but not suprised at her praising Williams like this.
I was too filled up with happiness to speak. Max understood about my music like Grandpa had. Now I was sure the strange feelings in my body parts meant I was in love.
Blegh.
Well, until next time!
no subject
Date: 2024-12-24 04:35 pm (UTC)Oh, thanks for all your help going through the Vivaldi's Muse posts! I'll work on getting the links fixed as I can :}
no subject
Date: 2024-12-24 04:37 pm (UTC)Well, looks like my new habit of looking up everything I doubt does pay off!
Oh, that's nice! I'm fixing as much of others' images as I can right now.