The Book of Bright Ideas

by Sandra Kring

  Aunt Verdella didn’t hear this because she was busy on the phone with Harry. “Yeah, I’ll have at least two tables. Long ones. And don’t be tricky and try to put me way on that back lot, like you did once last year. So far back that the old people can’t get to me.”

  I got more and more itchy as we colored and Aunt Verdella yammered, because Ma kept glancing at the clock, the gouge between her eyebrows sinking deeper and deeper with each glance.

  When Aunt Verdella got off the phone, she plunked down at the kitchen table. “Well, I’ve got four afghans crocheted, twenty pairs of baby booties, and the squares cut out for two more quilts. I’m gonna sell some old junk too. A few lanterns we haven’t used in years, some extra canning jars. Things like that, you know. I’ve got four crates of things ready. Then all I have to do right beforehand is bake. Those old codgers sure do like my sweets. I’m gonna get that color television set yet!”

  When me and Winnalee finished our pictures, she took the sky-blue crayon and drew big, pointy wings on both of our dancing ladies. Then she tore out her page in one rip. “What are you doing?” I ask, scared.

  “I’m taking my picture home.”

  I looked up at Ma, who was watching me out of the corner of her eye, and I didn’t know what to do. I was glad when Aunt Verdella stood up then and said she had better get back home and get some work done.

  “Can Button come to my house and play?” Winnalee asked.

  Ma didn’t look at her when she answered. “No, Button is staying home. Her aunt is coming by early this evening, and we’ve things to do before then.”

  “Stella’s coming?” Aunt Verdella asked. Ma looked sorry that she let that slip.

  “Well, just for a quick visit, and I’m not sure what time. She’s coming through on her way to Minneapolis to visit a friend.”

  “Please, can she come over?” Winnalee asked. “Pretty please?” And then she did something that made my mouth drop open like I’d gone dumb. She grabbed Ma’s arm and gave it a couple tugs, then she started swinging them like they were jump ropes. “Please, pretty please with a cherry on top? She got her cleaning done, didn’t she?” She tipped her head back and bumped herself right against Ma. “Let her come. Please?”

  Ma yanked her arms back to her sides and said, “Evelyn will be staying home today.”

  Winnalee’s bottom lip poked out and she crossed her arms across her chest. “Whyyyyyy?” she asked.

  “Button will be over on Monday, honey,” Aunt Verdella said. “You can help me make bread when we get back, okay?” I looked down at my hands, which were busy twisting each other. Aunt Verdella baked bread on Saturdays, but sometimes (when Uncle Rudy gobbled it up before the next Saturday) she’d bake during the week, and I’d help her. I liked helping her bake bread. I liked the way the dough was soft against my hands and the way it smelled when it came out of the oven. Only today I couldn’t help.

  “Oh, if she’ll be here for supper, I could drop off a loaf of fresh bread to go with your meal,” Aunt Verdella said. Ma told her that that wouldn’t be necessary.

  “For all I know,” Ma added, “she won’t even stop.”

  Aunt Verdella rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about that sister of yours, Jewel. You’re her little sister by only three years. The only sister she’s got that lives within five hundred miles of her. And you get over to see her twice a year, like clockwork, even though you rarely leave Dauber. She tramps all over the country, it seems, yet it’s almost a cold day in hell before she’ll stop here. Even when she does drop in, she only stays a few minutes. I just don’t understand that. If I had a sister, you can bet we’d be as close as peas in a pod.”

  “She comes when she can,” Ma said.

  “Well, I hope she comes this time. By the looks of things, you’ve been getting ready for her visit all day long.” Aunt Verdella patted Winnalee’s back. “Well, sweetie. Let’s get goin’ and let these two get back to work.”

  “No fair!” Winnalee said, as they were heading out the door without me.

  After they left, Ma called me to her and told me to bring my coloring book. “It’s obvious that that child doesn’t know how to behave like a little lady. You start acting like that, Evelyn Mae, and you won’t play with her anymore. You understand me?” I said I did. She snatched my coloring book out of my hands and said it was too bad that I let Winnalee ruin my new book. Then she tossed it in the trash can under the sink. Even though only two pages got ruined, and even if it was my most favorite coloring book I ever got.

  I didn’t think I was gonna see Winnalee again until Monday, but I ended up seeing her that very afternoon, because a phone call came in with a message for Freeda Malone. Ma got all huffy as she took the message. “Well, yes, Marty, I’ll give her your message, but I don’t see why she gave you our number. She’s just renting Mae’s place. I don’t even know the woman.” Marty was the fat guy who owned Marty’s Place. It was a real barn once, but after most of his cows died of something god-awful that made them diarrhea to death, he sold the cows he had left and ripped the whole insides of the barn out and built a dance hall inside instead. He served up food too. Fish and hamburgers, and things like that. Ma said she wouldn’t even eat a soda cracker that was served in a barn, even if it was wrapped tight in cellophane, but Daddy and Uncle Rudy and Aunt Verdella ate there some Friday nights, because they said Marty fried the best fish in town.

  “As if I don’t have anything better to do with my time than running over there,” Ma said after she hung up the phone. She looked around the house, which was so clean you could eat off of the floor without using a plate and not pick up even one germ, and at the mixing bowl and strawberries thawing on the counter, and sighed.

  Even though I was nine years old, Ma thought I was too young to stay home alone when she was gone, so she told me to get in the car.

  When we got to the Malones’, nobody answered the door even though their rusty truck was sitting in the driveway. Ma hollered through the screen, while I looked across the yard for Winnalee. A yell finally came. “It’s open!”

  I gulped hard and my legs got stiff when Freeda Malone walked out of the kitchen, her hair up in a towel, and naked but for her panties and a man’s old work shirt. Her shirt was hanging wide open on one side, so that one of her bumps was showing all the way. The pinker part was puckered like the skin of a plucked chicken, and seeing that made me glad my Barbie didn’t have nipple parts.

  Ma stared like she’d never seen a boobie on a grown lady before either, and her cheeks got blotchy.

  Freeda pulled her blouse back over her bump and closed it with one button and a laugh. “I was pulling weeds in the flower bed out front. Crissakes, it’s early June and already it’s hotter than the blazes. I had to take a bath to cool down. Good thing we’re all girls here.”

  Ma looked down and held her hands together, like she was trying to still them. “I’d be more careful if I were you, Freeda. Reece and Rudy, and that young farmhand, are always coming and going here.”

  I listened closely for sounds of Winnalee upstairs, but I didn’t hear any.

  Ma looked above Freeda’s head. “Marty Wilson called our place with a message for you. He said you have the job and that you should come in tonight around six-thirty, ready to work.”

  Freeda laughed. “No rest for the wicked, I guess.”

  Ma turned to go, and I followed, but we didn’t get to the door before it opened. “Jewel!” Aunt Verdella said, like she couldn’t believe she was seeing Ma standing in the Malones’ living room. Aunt Verdella had a jar of strawberry jam in one hand and a loaf of still-warm bread in the other. The bread was wrapped in a white dish towel so I couldn’t see it, but I could smell it.

  Winnalee said hi to me, then lifted Aunt Verdella’s elbow and slipped herself under it, cuddling her face to Aunt Verdella’s fattest ball. I looked down, feeling a little sad, because it was Winnalee hugging Aunt Verdella’s fat part, not me.

  “Jewel came by to tell me Marty called
,” Freeda explained. “I start work tonight.”

  “Oh, honey,” Aunt Verdella said. “That’s terrific! Why, let’s celebrate with some warm jelly bread. You still have any of that yummy iced tea left you made yesterday?” Freeda told her she did.

  Ma gave me a look, then scooted closer to the door. Aunt Verdella stopped her. “Oh, you can’t go now, Jewel! Sit down with us and relax a minute.” Aunt Verdella handed Winnalee the jam jar, then grabbed Ma’s arm and tugged her toward the kitchen.

  “Verdella, I have work to do before Stella gets here.”

  “Nonsense, Jewel. I saw your place, and it couldn’t be more ready. And anyway, it’s early. You don’t have to stay long. Just long enough for a bite to eat and a little girl-talk.”

  Once we were in the kitchen, Aunt Verdella grabbed the breadboard hanging on the wall and set it on the counter. She put the bread on top of it and pulled the towel from it. She patted the bread a couple of times. “Maybe I should let this cool down just a bit more before I cut it,” she said. “Sit down, Jewel. Sit down! And, Button, where’s Auntie’s hug?” I went to her and she wrapped her arms around me and kissed the top of my head with warm, breathy lips.

  Freeda wore a grin as she watched Ma sip her iced tea, though I didn’t know what was supposed to be funny.

  While Aunt Verdella jabbered and Freeda grinned, Winnalee examined the bread that was cooling on the breadboard. “Why can’t we have it now?” she whined.

  “In a bit, honey,” Aunt Verdella said. “If we cut it while it’s too hot, it will flatten like a pancake.” Aunt Verdella ha-haed a bit, then turned to Freeda. “Stella is Jewel’s sister. I’ve met her a few times over the years, and I don’t want to say nothing bad about her, but she sure is critical of Jewel here. I just don’t understand it. Jewel is just a peach. She keeps the cleanest house you’ll ever see, and she can sew like a dream. Well, I know Stella is good at all those things too, but Jewel has nothin’ to be ashamed of in the house department. Course, you’d never know that, listenin’ to Stella.” Aunt Verdella stopped, then made one of those faces that people make when they just told a secret.

  “That’s why I don’t give a damn for relatives,” Freeda said. “They’re always ragging on you for something or other. Always quick to tell you you’re not doing things the right way—which is their way, of course.”

  Ma drank her tea fast, then stood up right while Aunt Verdella was talking. “Thank you for the iced tea,” she said politely to Freeda, “but we do have to be going. Evelyn?”

  “Oh, Jewel, you can’t go yet. You’re always in such a hurry. Sit down with us girls and relax a little.”

  Everybody was so busy fussing about us staying longer that nobody but me noticed that Winnalee had grabbed a giant knife from the block of wood the knives were poked in and that she was sawing on the bread. They noticed, though, when Winnalee let out a big scream.

  Winnalee held up her chubby hand. Blood was running down from a gash sliced across the inside of her hand. Blood was splattering on the half-flattened bread and dripping to the floor.

  “Owie! Owie! Owie!” she screamed, as she grabbed her cut hand at the wrist with her good hand and hopped around the kitchen.

  “Stand still so I can see it!” Freeda yelled, as she hopped in circles to get in front of Winnalee. “Stand still, for crissakes, so I can look at it!” she yelled again.

  “Bring her over here!” Aunt Verdella yelled from the sink, where she already had cold water running. They were all yelling so loud that I had to put my hands over my ears.

  “Oh dear, I think she’s going to need stitches,” Aunt Verdella said as she held Winnalee’s hand under the faucet, while Freeda held Winnalee still. “It looks pretty deep. Jewel, come look at this!”

  Ma went over to take a peek, while I scooted back to stand against the wall.

  “I’m not going to no doctor!” Winnalee screamed. “I’m not!”

  “Yes, I’d say she’ll need stitches,” Ma said.

  “I want my ma!” Winnalee cried, as Aunt Verdella tried to wrap her hand in a white dishcloth Freeda got from the drawer. “Mama! Mama!”

  Aunt Verdella looked at me over the top of Winnalee’s head. “Go get her ma,” she said.

  “Upstairs, in her room,” Freeda yelled to me, then she yelled at Winnalee for not minding and not leaving the bread alone in the first place.

  I ran up the stairs and there her ma was, sitting right on the window seat, where she always was when Winnalee wasn’t lugging her around.

  I had never touched Winnalee’s ma before, and I didn’t want to touch her now. But downstairs, Aunt Verdella was yelling at me to hurry because Winnalee was still screaming for her ma. I picked up the jar, and I hurried downstairs, holding it out so it wouldn’t touch anything but my hands.

  When I got back to the kitchen, I held out the jar and Aunt Verdella took it. There were tears in her eyes. “Here, honey. Here’s your ma.” Maybe Winnalee’s eyes were too teary to see through them right, because she pushed the jar away and kept right on crying for her ma, even though her ma was right there.

  “We’ll take my car,” Aunt Verdella shouted, as we all made our way across the living room.

  “Oh Jesus!” Freeda said, stopping so quick that Aunt Verdella ran into her. “I ain’t even dressed!” Freeda ran into her bedroom to change, while we waited and Winnalee screamed.

  As we were all hurrying across the porch to leave—Winnalee, Freeda, and Aunt Verdella for the doctor’s office, and Ma and me for home to clean some more—Uncle Rudy appeared at the bottom of the steps. “My, my,” he said. “I heard the commotion all the way from the oat field.” He looked at Winnalee, who was being dragged out the door by Freeda. “She cut herself with the bread knife!” Aunt Verdella explained. “It looks deep, Rudy. Jewel said it’ll need stitches.”

  “I’m not going!” Winnalee yelled. Her face was all blotched with fear, and tears were springing out of her eyes and dripping down her cheeks.

  Uncle Rudy always had a quiet voice, but when he talked now it was even more quiet than usual. So quiet that everybody had to hush to hear what he was saying. “It’s okay, little one. You just close your eyes, and let Uncle Rudy have a peek, okay?” Winnalee was gasping and hiccupping as Uncle Rudy crouched down and took her arm gently. I looked away as he pulled the bloody towel away from her hand.

  “Why, no wonder you’re scared, these women carrying on like you’re dying. But it’s just a little cut. The doctor will have you fixed up in no time.”

  “No, no!” Winnalee pleaded. “I don’t want to go to no doctor. He’ll sew on me!”

  “Aw, that’s nothing. Lookie here.” Uncle Rudy stretched out the neckline of his work shirt and pointed to the wrinkly indent that circled his neck like a necklace. “You think your cut there is bad, then take a look at this one. A few years back, I cut my head clear off. I had to pick it up and carry it under my arm like a cabbage, all the way to Dr. Williams’s office.” Winnalee giggled some while she sniffled. “Doc Williams stitched my whole head back on in just a few minutes, so it won’t take him any time at all to stitch up a tiny cut like yours.” He cranked his head from side to side. “See? Good as new.”

  “I’ll get my purse!” Aunt Verdella said, as she bounced across the lawn toward her house.

  Winnalee grinned a little, then the worried look crept back into her face. “Is it gonna hurt?” Fresh tears squeezed out of her eyes, which were already flag–red, white, and blue.

  “I’m not gonna lie and say it won’t,” Uncle Rudy said. “But it’s not gonna hurt any worse than it’s hurting right now,” he told her. “And if I’m lying about that, you can kick me right in the shin when you get back. Now, how about if Uncle Rudy carries you to the car?”

  “Your back, Rudy!” Aunt Verdella yelled as she hurried across the lawn, her big purse banging against her belly, her white sweater flapping from her shoulders.

  Uncle Rudy crouched down and scooped Winnalee up. “If she brea
ks my back in two, then the good doc will just have to sew me back together, ain’t that right, Winnalee?” Winnalee giggled, her giggles sounding like little, quick chirps.

  As Ma and I got into her car, I watched Uncle Rudy in their driveway, putting Winnalee into the Bel Air.

  The driveways sat across from each other, and Ma pulled out first. Probably because she was in a hurry to get the food cooked before Aunt Stella came. I turned around in my seat and got on my knees. Aunt Verdella was pulling her car out slowly, while Uncle Rudy made waving signs with his hand. Once she got the car out, he waved good-bye. I waved bye to him too, but he was busy watching the Bel Air head in the opposite direction for the nearest dirt road that would take them to town, because Aunt Verdella wouldn’t drive on the highway, so he didn’t wave back at us.

  “Turn around and sit down, Evelyn,” Ma said then, so I did, and the whole time I sat there, I worried that driving to town on those back roads might take so long that Winnalee would bleed to death, just like Aunt Betty did. “Maybe this will teach that child a lesson about listening to what she’s told,” Ma said.

  As we crossed the highway, then slipped into our driveway, I looked down at my hands. The skin on the backs of them were white, the skin on the inside, pinky. There wasn’t a scratch or scrape on them. And for a little bit, I was sorry about that.

  7

  There were two reasons I hated having big ears. One, they looked ugly. And two, they sometimes heard things I didn’t want to hear.

  I opened my eyes in the night, not sure at first what had woken me, but then I heard Ma and Daddy arguing in their bedroom.