“I think you’re a fucking sick individual.”
“It’s ironic.” There’s another clink-clonk. Jeremy picks up his phone, smiles and sets it down. “But the main thing is that it puts Jefferson in more danger. Now the audience knows that the British are these actual evil bastards, so… you know, everybody will be on the edge of their seats. Maybe we can even have a chase scene.”
“Oh, come on!”
“But it also makes Jefferson look better. The way it really happened, he seems like a total coward. Quitting being governor and everything. And Martin seems way braver than him.”
“Maybe he was.”
“But Jefferson’s our protagonist. Who’s going to want to see a movie about a slave-owning, slave-fucking hypocrite who’s also a total coward? We’ve got to give the audience something to hang on to here. We’ve got to give them someone they can love.”
“But he wrote the Declaration of Independence.”
“So the fuck what!”
“He invented the swivel chair!” Max laughs as he swivels his own chair, first left, then right.
“Is that true?”
“Absolutely! You can look it up on Wikipedia.”
Jeremy laughs.
“Let me finish this fucking thing.” Max picks up the script.
Jeremy picks up his phone. “Clare’s mother’s hassling her again. Maybe I better just go call her.” He’s hitting keys on his phone as he walks out of the room.
~ ~ ~
… When Thenia was seven, she took care of Critta, Peter and me. And when Critta turned seven, it was her turn to take care of her younger siblings, while Thenia went on to learn sewing and how to clean house. But by the time I was seven — the age at which all children begin to work at Monticello — there were no younger children for me to care for, so I was given a job in the nursery, which was where Negro children who did not have sisters old enough to care for them were watched while their mothers worked, mostly in the field.
The nursery was a large cabin divided into two rooms, the smaller of which contained two or three cots and was for the babies. The larger room, furnished with a table and a pair of benches, was where the older children could play or sleep on the floor. The nursery was run by a pair of old women, whose infirmity had made them unsuited for labor, and there was always at least one wet nurse there to feed the babies. I was one of three girls whose primary duties were to wash the babies’ clouts and to entertain the older children.
I was happy with this work. While I had no great fondness for washing the clouts, it did mean that I got to spend an hour by myself at the stream running behind the nursery. I very much liked being with children, however, and they liked me, I think. I would tell them stories, sing them songs, and sometimes I even took them on expeditions into the woods — the very things I would have done had I been on my own. But, in fact, it was the children themselves whom I most enjoyed. They had their moods, of course, and the boys in particular had a fondness for teasing me, but I always fell in love with at least one of the children in my care, and I disliked almost none of them. I took my work seriously, thought of myself as a little mother and looked forward to the day when I might actually be a mother. I was meant to continue at the nursery until I was ten, at which point I, too, would be taught to sew, or to cook, or any of the other female labors. But my life took a different course one hot August day when I was nine.
I was leading three small boys past the great house on my way to a cow pond, where I hoped we could all cool off, when I thought I heard a woman calling out. I looked around, and under the shade of an enormous copper beech, lying on a couch that had been carried out of the parlor, I saw Mrs. Jefferson waving. “Sally!” she called. “Could you come here please? I’d like to have a word with you.”
Mrs. Jefferson had been ill ever since her baby died, more than a year previously. That baby had been named Lucy, and three months ago she had had another baby, also named Lucy, and had grown even sicker. She hardly walked anymore, and a couch had been brought out under the tree for her because Mr. Jefferson believed that the fresh air would do her good.
I had been with Mrs. Jefferson many times, but never on my own, and so the notion that she wanted a private conversation with me filled me with apprehension — especially as my mother had told me that as Mrs. Jefferson’s illness had grown worse, she had become increasingly irritable and vindictive. As I crossed the lawn, the boys trailing along behind me, I tried to think of what I could possibly have done wrong and what I might say to my mother if Mrs. Jefferson were angry with me.
But, in fact, she only smiled as I approached — though it was one of those smiles that seem to have been born out of pain. She was in her mid-thirties but she looked almost twice her age. Her skin was the color of trout flesh, and there were purple hollows under her eyes. Despite the heat she had a woolen shawl drawn up around her neck.
I told the boys to sit down on one of the tree’s enormous, serpentine roots and that if they were very good, I would teach them how to catch pollywogs at the pond. When at last I stood in front of Mrs. Jefferson, she reached up and caressed my cheek with her cool hand. “You’re such a pretty girl!” she said. “You have such lovely, kind eyes.”
The intensity of her gaze disconcerted me. I lowered my head and couldn’t bring myself to speak.
She had been lying diagonally on the couch, her slipper-shod feet not quite touching the ground, but now she sat up properly and patted the empty space beside her. “Sit down. I have something to say to you.”
When I didn’t move, she smiled and said, “You don’t have to worry. I promise not to bite!”
When I still didn’t move, she asked if anything was the matter, and I nodded at the boys, who had found an anthill and were looking for a twig to stick into it.
“Oh, don’t worry about them.” She laughed. “They’ll be fine. And this won’t take a minute.”
She stroked the silk upholstery with her pale hand, then patted it.
I turned and sat down, but only at the very edge of the cushion. I folded my hands in my lap.
“I’ve been watching you,” Mrs. Jefferson said. “And I see that you are very good with children. You never threaten to thrash them, you never even raise your voice, and yet the children do exactly what you say. It is because they want to please you.”
“Thank you.” I swallowed to suppress a smile of pride.
Mrs. Jefferson smiled and took my hand. She had grown so thin that I could feel every one of her bones, even in her palm. She looked at me for a long moment, with her soft, faintly pained smile. I wanted to pull my hand away.
“You know that I have a very small baby,” she said.
I nodded.
“Ever since she was born, it has been difficult for me to devote as much attention as I should to her sister, my dear little Polly.” Mrs. Jefferson let go of my hand and pulled up her shawl, which had begun to slip from her shoulders. Then she took my hand again and gave it a squeeze. “And so I have an offer to make to you. I am wondering if you would like to be little Polly’s companion. She is not even five years old, and I am afraid she spends too much time alone.”
When I didn’t respond, she continued, “Do you know what a companion is?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I want you to spend the day with her and do whatever it is that she would like to do. If she would like to play a game with you, play a game. If she would like to go for a ride, you should accompany her in the carriage. And, of course, I would like you to tidy up her room and look after her clothing, as your mother does for me.” She gave my hand another squeeze. “So is that something you think you could do?”
I knew that what I was being asked to do was only what I was already doing at the nursery, but for some reason it filled me with dread. I hardly knew Polly and didn’t understand why she should be lonely when she had another sister — Patsy — who was almost exactly my age.
There was, however, only one answer I could give, and so I gave it.
“I’m very happy,” Mrs. Jefferson said, although she looked anything but happy. “I think that you will be the perfect companion for little Poll. I am sure that one day you will be as dear to her as your mother is to me.”
I thanked Mrs. Jefferson again, collected my boys and continued my journey to the cow pond, wondering if there was some way my mother could talk Mrs. Jefferson out of using me in this fashion.
Poor Mrs. Jefferson. She was never anything but kind to me. Even when she could no longer speak, she would still cast me lingering glances and smiles.
In less than a month, she was dead….