Hello and Good-Bye

by EUDORA WELTY

THIS morning, when I saw in the paper that I some Beauties had gathered in my town in a contest for a Queen — the prize a trip — and had their logical picture on page three, something made me look along the line for a little soft face I saw once, but if it was there I couldn’t find it. Not strange — this was several years ago, and the little soft country face belonged to a girl who was a Queen already the day I was taking her picture.

“Are you ready?” I remember asking. I was down on my stomach in the clover on the Capitol grounds, sighting up, and the Queen looked down scared and called me “Ma’am.” I wouldn’t have asked most Beauty Queens that, chances are.

The Hostess was the other Beauty, and she wouldn’t have been caught dead asked that. “This other photographer, in Washington, D.C.,” she said from her more advanced pose at the Queen’s side, “when he was just before taking it, he would say ‘Give.’”

“All right, give,” I said. This was Jackson, Mississippi, and taking publicity pictures was a new part-time job I had.

I remember how, at the word, the Queen swallowed and first drew her hands behind her back and then brought them together in front. Black satin is what she wore. Slowly her purse, which she held pressed to her under her arm, where it trembled like a bride’s bouquet, slid down her side and sank out of the picture.

“Never mind,” I wanted to say. But they were posing with hats, purses, suitcases, and everything, in front of the State Capitol, saying Good-bye, Jackson! Hello, New York! The purse was retrieved, and they posed again, smiling into the sun.

It was a hot summer afternoon. When she held a pose, the Queen would gradually roll her eyes right up, like Little Eva dying. After the click, I heard Mr. Whoever-it-was on the side lines give a sound in his cheek, so somebody, at least, thought we had got it at the right minute. He was from the Sponsors — a middle-aged VFW taking time off after lunch.

“I bet the cannon’s where we’re headed next.” The Hostess had the dreamiest voice, but she did every bit of the volunteering for us all.

We started on again across the Capitol grounds — the Hostess, a buoyant girl, dressed pour le sport in a pink pleated skirt, in front; the Queen trying to keep up; the gentleman next, carrying along the suitcases, which were bona fide; and the photographer at the tail end, counting up the film. We looked like a chase that wasn’t very serious.

Once the Hostess stopped in her tracks, and we all stopped behind her one after the other. “Of course the magnolias aren’t blooming!” she said in deepened tones, sounding like Tallulah Bankhead. Then on again.

The Hostess, sure enough, went straight down a terrace and up a little mound, to the cannon; she flung herself upon it and held there tilted, gay seemingly by contact, a smile lighting her up on the dot. The Queen had a harder time, her skirt not being pleated, but we got a picture and were off again, same procession. “Did you get the flag in? That should have been showing right behind my hat,” the Hostess yelled back at me over her shoulder. Her hat never showed either, behind so much hair.

Once I made a suggestion; there was some old ship’s figurehead in the bushes, a chesty figure, Columbia or some such patriotic lady, coming with upraised arms out of a big starry shield. Plenty of times I had climbed on that as a child, and it had been recently shined up by a WPA project. The girls stared at Columbia. The only thing to do was to take hands under the lady’s blessing, and the Hostess, rightly, bore it with short patience. The lady in the figurehead looked ready to brain them both, and made a third party.

“The front steps of the Capitol is a mighty sure thing,” said the Hostess. We trailed over there. That was the best place, except for so many little boys coming home from school just then and making monkey faces at us. We took several poses.

“Wait till these are released,” the Hostess said. “I’d like to see the American Legion’s face then.”

“Why?” I asked her. Our conversation through the view-finder was like one over the telephone.

“The American Legion is going to be so sick. They thought they were going to get me to be in their old parade again, in Chicago, but they were too late. Too late!”

“Put your weight on one foot, honey,” I said softly to the Queen. When the Queen listened to the Hostess, she sank back on both heels.

“Nobody can just wait till the last minute and expect to get a girl involved in a trip!” cried the Hostess, with a little ripple somewhere.

“Are you ready?”

2

THE Queen’s head fell just as I made the exposure, but she didn’t know it, and I hadn’t the heart to tell her. She was so tired, and so hot in silk “ traveling” clothes in August. The Hostess, though, could have endured even black satin, little Spartan that she was. When they smiled they looked alike, two little young, brown-haired 4-H Club girls, looking forward to the Mississippi State Fair. The Queen had so patently won her first Beauty Contest for this — her friends had told her she could win it — and had stepped incredulous out of New Hebron or Monticello or Carthage, or somewhere, with the cheers of some consolidated schoolhouse behind her; but she just hadn’t known she was this pretty, that it would cause so much to happen. It affected her like grief, homesickness.

The Hostess began to wave at me, gracefully. She was probably a Delta child.

“How do you like waving pictures? Waving right at them. I like them because they’re sort of soft. You know — soft.” She stood on the top step and waved softly at me and then softly at the Sponsor, whoso name was something like Mr. Murray.

“Say, that’s O.K.,” said Mr. Murray.

“All right, wave.”

“Of course I could be coming down the steps and waving. You too.” The Hostess turned to the Queen and jabbed her arm. She seemed to feel that she must arouse the Queen whenever she wanted to speak to her. “Right beside me, waving.”

“Whatever you say,” said the Queen. Her short upper lip trembled. She was probably three years younger than the Hostess. She shifted her purse to her other arm, then put it back. Again I wanted to take it away from her, but it was obviously her proudest new purchase for the trip, and could not be set down. It was patent leather, about the size of a toy drum, and reflected the light like steel.

“Would you like to let Mr. Murray hold your purse while I take the waving one?” I asked.

She cried out. “Oh, no’m, I’ll just hold onto it.” She was about to tell me it had that great big long ticket in it, but she just held her breath.

“All right, put your weight on one foot,” I said, climbing onto a buttress. The whole building was as hot as a boiled egg in the shell.

“ Wait! Let’s decide what we’re going to be looking at,” said the Hostess. She inspected the city. “Look at the Robert E. Lee Hotel.”

“Where is it?” asked the Queen nervously, still with her weight on both sturdy legs.

“I forget you’ve never been to Jackson,” sighed the Hostess. If she had heard of it, she would have said, “One forgets.” “Right yonder to the right. To the right — not the Baptist Church. Now don’t take your eyes off it, and don’t bat ‘em, either.”

“I was through once but we didn’t stop, ‘ said the Queen, staring unflinchingly at the Robert E. Lee.

“Give?” asked the Hostess, pursing her lips.

“Sure,” I said.

“Give,” said the Hostess, nudging the Queen, who lifted her arm and smiled over at the hotel, although tears from the sun in her eyes streamed down her cheeks. She tottered a little, and I thought the Hostess knew it by some sense, although she was standing in front.

“Well, that’s that,” said Mr. Murray. “Isn’t it?” He was rod in the face, and most of the afternoon he had kept: shaking his coat sleeve, as if something inside tickled his arm.

“We haven’t got one by the Soldiers’ Monument,” I said, pointing, and we started off. To my surprise, the Hostess waited and put her arm around my waist and gave me her full smile — it expressed confidence — all the way there. Then I saw Mr. Murray had paired off with the Queen. Just in front of us, the Sponsor was helping hold the handle of the Queen’s purse, with it swinging between them, and the Queen’s eyes riveted upon it.

“Have you either one ever been to New York?” I asked, to break a dead silence.

“No’m,” said the Queen over her shoulder.

“Never any farther than Washington, I haven’t,” the Hostess was saying meditatively. “ Been everywhere but. Just never got around to old New York, till now.”

“I never been anywhere but to the Coast,” said the Queen flatly, with another backward glance. The Mississippi Gulf Coast, she meant.

“Oh, this time last year,” laughed the Hostess. “Just this time last year. Fixing to go to California. Will I ever forget it! I was Miss Know-Your-Native-State-Better: white satin shorts. Now I look like an old maid.” She stuck up the toe of her shoe and made a face of disgust. “I hope you all release pictures of me with clothes on to the out-of-state papers. It’s her is the one in the bathing suit this time.”

She gave a long vindictive look into the back of Mr. Murray, but he did not turn around. He and the Queen reached the monument, and she drew in her purse, like a flshline, and got it back to herself.

“Well, the American Legion is going to die, anyway,” said the Hostess, and dashing at the monument sprang into place. She pinched the Queen. “Wake up! — You all beat their time,” she explained to Mr. Murray. “The VFW beat the American Legion’s time.”

“Well, fine,” said Mr. Murray.

3

THE Hostess ran her eye up the monument with an almost possessive air. It was of oversized wounded soldiers being aided by towering women, and around it ran words: Our Wives — Our Mothers

— Our Daughters — Our Sisters. “The American Legion got me here one time, they sure did. That was before I put on this weight. I put on nine pounds.”

The Hostess posed the Queen through her own system of jabs; with the side of her hand she flicked the Queen behind her knee to make her bend the right leg. Then she relaxed and posed herself, left, hand on hip and eyes directed upon the Jackson Infirmary.

“How’s my East?” she asked, giving herself a little flicker, like a bathing bird. “It’s looking righi at the sun.”

“Just give,” I said.

“I still like the one on the cannon,” declared the Hostess, speaking the instant the exposure was over. “I think that had something.”

“On the cannon we got to sit down,” agreed the Queen.

“Oh, I don’t mean so much legs, but just sort of the idea,” said the Hostess. “The cannon —” Again she made her gesture to denote the abstract.

“Oh, I’m so hungry!” gasped the Queen, and looked right at me.

I just stood there. “ We both are,” the other child said, turning to me too, but she had the sanctimonious manner of a devotee that reminded me somehow of middle-aged or old women at funerals. “Hungry, and exhausted, and tired. — I bet our eyes aren’t any more shining!”

“I haven’t had a thing to eat all day,” gasped the Queen. A tear flew like a bullet out of her eye. “I couldn’t eat.”

“She’s excited,” said the Hostess.

“Let’s stop and get some food,” I said.

“Sure, sure,” said Mr. Murray, shaking his sleeve.

“We really ought to have one with him telling us good-bye and wishing us luck in New York City,” said the Hostess severely, running a wet finger over each eyebrow. “I mean after all, he wore his coat, and he’s here, and he’ll be gone in the morning. Giving us the trip. Shaking hands, just shaking hands and smiling, not waving. Our Sponsor.’

“Can you wait for one more?” I asked the Queen.

She said, “Yes’m.”

Mr. Murray said calmly, “You want my hat on or off?” He looked stiffly at everybody, and lifted his hat and set it back on his head, then lifted it again. He seemed a nice man, but had thought all along he might have to do this. “Is this to suit you?” he said directly to the Queen, as if she were the fitting one to decide.

“Oh, yes, sir, it’s all right with me, either way,” she said.

“Maybe it ought to be off, but I think it looks better on,” said the Hostess. “More — you know. She spread her hand on the air, and Mr. Murray glanced sharply at it. Then he carefully adjusted the brim at a slight tilt, loosened his shoulders a minute, and swung his arm in the wilted white sleeve, shaking hands a few times with the air.

“We’re certainly going to write you a letter from New York,” said the Hostess to Mr. Murray, tête-à-tête without warning, smiling softly at him while I worried with my camera.

“Yeah, tell me all about it,” said Mr. Murray, loosening his arm.

“ You mean that long a letter?” She widened her eves.

“ Sure, yeah,” he laughed.

“We’ll leave out the things we think you all won’t care to hear about,” she said. Then with an abrupt little frown she turned on the Queen and shoved her into place beside her and a little to the back.

“Watch where you throw your weight,” she said, pinching her. “Wake up. Now. Let’s look just beyond Mr. Murray.”

“Which hand you want me to wave?” asked the Queen.

“You don’t wave,” said the Hostess with patience. “You’re through waving. This is just a quiet good-bye, with Mr. Murray and the suitcases, and you’re looking just a little past him.”

“One of you take his hand now,” I said. “Watch out for the suitcase, Mr. Murray, don’t step back. Closer, everybody, or I’ll never get it all in.”

“Do you mean ‘Contact’?” smiled the Hostess.

“Contact,” I said. “And thanks. That’s all.”

”I can’t wait, can you?” said the Hostess, whirling.

“It won’t be very long now,” the Queen responded, sitting down all at once in a stone urn planted with petunias, at the corner of the monument — just her size.

“When I was Miss Winter Resort, I waved from a palm tree — maybe you saw it.” The Hostess circled the Queen, waving, and then stopped and looked down on her. The Queen seemed Lo sink a little deeper, her round legs spilled out in a childish way.

“No, I don’t believe,” she said, with a blank look in her eyes.

“I was right high up,” the Hostess said. “Of course there was another girl with me in the tree, to wave toward the other side. We wore white bathing suits. This time I have to be — you know. Discreet. A chaperone, ha-ha.”

The Queen gave something between a smile and a yawn. “My mamma wouldn’t have let me come if she’d thought there wasn’t a real chaperone,” she said gently, and went on in a voice of collapse, “My papa said I’d get lost sure in New York and they’d have to hunt me.”

“Listen, we’re going to have us a good time,” said the Hostess, just as softly. “And I mean good. Little Amy’s careful, but she’s going to have fun, hear?” She was bending over the Queen, and directing at her a very serious look.

“Oh, I know it,” protested the Queen from the urn. Tears suddenly gathered motion on her cheek and she gazed past the Hostess and at the skyline of Jackson, with dilated eyes.

The Hostess gripped her wrist and pulled her up and then down out of the urn.

“We’re going to have us a good time before we get old and die,” said the Hostess between her teeth.

The little soft-faced Queen accorded that the least response it might ever have gotten anywhere. She said, “Well.”She knew it was not enough, and swallowed, and nodded her head one time, and the Hostess let go her wrist with a slowness that held us all hypnotized.

Then Mr. Murray made the clicking sound in his cheek, and wo all went off together and had a sandwich in the Robert E. Lee Hotel.