The Book of Bright Ideas

by Sandra Kring

  14

  When we went back downstairs, Winnalee was bouncing one minute, then sound asleep on the floor, flopped across the sleeping bag, the next. I lay down beside her, my back to Ma and Freeda, who were sitting on the mattress, their backs resting against the couch, where Aunt Verdella sat, her legs stretched out to her side. I closed my eyes and stayed real still, like I was already asleep, but I wasn’t.

  “Aw,” Aunt Verdella said. “Look at those two. All tuckered out from their fun. Sleeping like a couple of angels.”

  I could hear the clink of glass against glass. “Oh, Freeda, I don’t know if I should have any more vodka,” Ma said. “My head’s still spinning!”

  “Oh well. You only live once,” Freeda said. “Besides, this is a pajama party!”

  “Booze at a pajama party?” Ma snorted, as the booze glugglugged into her glass.

  “It always was at the pajama parties I went to!” Freeda said.

  “This sure is fun,” Aunt Verdella said. “I always wanted to have friends to do a slumber party with. I never really had close girlfriends though. Well, I had friends who’d talk to me at school—when they were having troubles at home, or with their boyfriends, things like that—but I never had friends who were my friends back, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s because girls are bitches,” Freeda said.

  “Oh, Freeda!” Aunt Verdella said. “You say the darnedest things!”

  “It’s true! That’s why all my friends at school were boys. Even before I started letting them feel me up.” She giggled. “Seriously, though—well, I guess I was serious when I said that—but anyway, boys just made better friends. They were never jealous of your big boobs, and they didn’t run and tell every goddamn person in the can whatever you just told them in private. Hell, from what I saw, I didn’t even want any female friends.”

  Freeda gulped from her glass and burped. “What were you like back in school, Jewel? No, wait. Let me guess. I bet you were the type that I couldn’t figure out for nothing. One of those girls with her nose in a book all the time. The secretary of the glee club, and shit like that. You were, weren’t you?”

  Ma laughed. “Hardly! I was a tomboy when I was Button’s age. I just didn’t care about those girlie things, you know? I’d grown out of being a tomboy by the time I was in high school, but…well, I don’t know. I just didn’t fit in, I guess. I did my work and pretty much stuck to myself. Most girls just ignored me. Most boys too.”

  “I would have liked it that way,” Freeda said. “Well, except for the being ignored by the boys part.” She laughed a bit. “Instead, everybody knew my business. Usually before I knew it myself. Okay, I guess I deserved most of that gossip. I was pretty wild.”

  Ma giggled. “Gee, we wouldn’t have guessed that, Freeda.” Then they all laughed.

  “But still, the bitches didn’t have to keep flapping their gums about me.”

  “You surprise me, Freeda,” Ma said. “On one hand, you say you don’t care what people think about you, but on the other hand, it sure does seem to bother you when people gossip about you.” Ma’s words sounded all slurry and lazy.

  I could hear Freeda smack her lips after she took another sip of her drink. “Hey, it’s not the gossip. People can say any goddamn thing about me they want, if it’s the truth. It’s people accusing me of things that aren’t true that pisses me off. Hell, like I don’t give them enough true things to talk about as it is.” Aunt Verdella giggled.

  I listened and waited, wondering if they were gonna start talking about that piggyback-riding stuff so I’d know if Winnalee had told me the truth.

  Freeda left the room, her foot stomps going past my head.

  “God,” Ma said after Freeda had left the room. “If Reece and Rudy could see us tonight, they’d die!” And they both giggled, but in a nervous sort of way.

  “I knew I had another one around here somewhere,” Freeda said when she got back to the living room.

  “Good Lord, Freeda,” Aunt Verdella said, as the gluggluggy noises happened again. “You’re gonna have me and Jewel downright sick if you give us any more.”

  Freeda just laughed and said, “So?”

  “Oh, as much fun as I’m having, I miss my Rudy,” Aunt Verdella said with a sigh. “Did you know, Freeda, that I was thirty-nine years old when Rudy asked me to marry him? Old enough that I was sure I’d never hear anybody pop that question. Course, come to think of it, I guess nobody ever did!” She laughed, and Freeda asked her what she meant.

  “Well, it just dawned on me that I never even let him get the whole question out. The poor man, he was fumbling around so much, I felt sorry for him. Finally, I just said, ‘Rudy Peters, are you asking me to marry you?’ and he nodded. I about crushed him, I was so thrilled. Oh, I loved him from the minute I met him.”

  “Where did you meet him, anyway?” Ma asked. “I don’t think I ever heard.”

  “At the hardware store here in town. I’d just moved here, after my ma passed away. I came through town, just like you did, Freeda, and thought here was as good of a place to live as any. He’d come into the store to buy this and that. Pretty soon, I was bringing him a piece of cake, or some cookies I’d baked. Finally one day, he said he had to pay me back for filling him up, and he asked me to go over to the diner with him on my lunch break. I think I loved him from the first time I met him. He was kind and gentle, just like my daddy.”

  Ma burped, and they all giggled.

  “Course, I didn’t fool myself into thinking he loved me. I knew he was just a lonely widower. But I figured that I could put enough love into the marriage for both of us. I don’t think he’s unhappy, though. I feed him well. Both his belly and…well, you know, that other kind of hunger.”

  “I knew it!” Freeda shouted. “I knew the minute I saw you, Verdella Peters, that you were a floozy at heart!”

  Verdella ha-ha-ed so loud that Winnalee stirred, but she didn’t wake up. “Well, I guess you could say that about me, though, Lord knows, I’d never talk about it. I don’t want to put disgusting pictures in folks’ minds. Two old, fat folks doing all that bumping and grinding and jiggling. Good Lord!” I heard someone’s drink spray out of their mouth, and all three of them laughed till I thought they’d never stop.

  When they got done laughing, it was Ma’s turn to talk, I guess. “I don’t think Reece loved me when he married me,” she said slowly. And the way she said it made my insides feel like an empty mailbox.

  “Nonsense, Jewel. He did so! I remember how he’d spend a good hour in that bathroom before your dates, slicking his hair, trying on one shirt then another!”

  “I don’t know about that. I think he married me because I was the first girl his mother approved of. Verdella, you know the kinds of girls Reece ran with. I think he married me just to make Mae proud of him.”

  “Well, honey,” Freeda said. “You’re on your way to becoming the kind of girl Reece used to run with!”

  “Freeda!” Ma said.

  “What the hell, Jewel. We’re just three women talking here. We all know about heavy breathing and horny men and all that good stuff. Why can’t we speak our minds?”

  Aunt Verdella giggled. “Oh my,” she said. “Freeda, you’re gonna corrupt us yet!”

  Freeda laughed. “Hey, you two could use a little corrupting. Well, maybe not ‘Frisky Fran’ here, but Jewel sure as hell could.

  “Hey, that reminds me!” she said. “Know what I just heard? That Washington approved a pill that will keep you from gettin’ pregnant. Holy shit, will I cut loose then! No more of those damn rubbers. Can you imagine? Shit, I’ll be poppin’ those pills like candy!”

  “Oh my!” Aunt Verdella said.

  “I poked a hole in our condoms to get Evelyn,” Ma said all of a sudden. The room went quiet. “He didn’t want kids right away. For all I know, maybe he didn’t want them at all.”

  “Well, you’re not the first one to resort to that trick,” Freeda said. And Aunt Verdella added, “Yo
u must have wanted a baby bad, honey. I can understand that part.”

  Ma’s voice was so thick with sad now that it was hard to understand her. “Or maybe I just wanted to keep my husband home.”

  “Ah shit, you guys,” Freeda said. “Don’t go gettin’ all melancholy on me now. I hate it when drunks get gloomy.”

  “Jewel?” Aunt Verdella said. “Maybe that was a bit dishonest, but it just tells me how much you love that man. And, oh, just look at what came out of it. Our precious little Button.” I heard a couple soft pats of skin against skin.

  I waited for Ma to agree with Aunt Verdella. I waited and I hoped. But all she said when she talked again was, “It didn’t work, anyway. I can’t help but think that if I’d given him a son, though, things would be different. Instead, I gave him another of what he already didn’t want. Another one of me.”

  My ears were working like a sponge, sopping up Ma’s words and wringing them out behind my eyes.

  “Jewel Peters!” Aunt Verdella said. “There’s nothing wrong with you. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with Button! Reece loves you both. I know that’s true, down to my bones. I’d stake my life on it! He just doesn’t know how to show it, honey. I think he feels awkward showin’ affection. Just like you do. He never got any affection the first ten years of his life. I think it just don’t feel natural for him to give it, you know? But if you give it to him, like I do, like Winnalee does, why, that man practically rolls over like a dog who’s getting his belly scratched.”

  “Bet he shows affection in the bedroom, though!” Freeda laughed, like she’d just said something funny.

  “Is it still love if when he’s done he rolls over and doesn’t touch me again till next Friday night? And is it called affection if it comes and goes in five minutes and doesn’t start with a kiss or end with a hug?” Ma asked, and she sounded both mad and sad.

  “Apparently so, if you’re a man!” Freeda said, then laughed again.

  “I just wish he’d put some effort into it, you know? It’s kind of hard to get…well, you know, excited, when it all happens while I’m still wondering if I shut off the living-room lights and it’s over before I can even answer my own question.” Ma gasped then. “I can’t believe I just said that. I must be stone-drunk!”

  “Jesus, Jewel. Just tell him what you expect out of him. I’m not married to the guys I get it on with—hell, most times I don’t even know their last names—but still, you can damn bet that I let them know exactly what they’ve got to do to please me. And if I don’t get it, they don’t get a second try either!”

  “She’s right,” came Aunt Verdella’s slurred words.

  “Oh my God, Freeda. I couldn’t say that stuff to Reece!”

  Freeda laughed. “Why in the hell not? You bare your ass to him, but you can’t bare your mind? Tell him what you want. Tell him what ya like and don’t like, then you pick up the pace, shakin’ and movin’ what you got, and let me clue ya. He’ll be so damn grateful that you’ll have to shove him away from you to get any sleep at all.”

  “I…I couldn’t.”

  “Yeah, well, I bet you didn’t think you could run half-naked in the yard either, but you did!”

  “Gee, thanks for reminding me that I have two things to be ashamed of in the morning. What did you pour in my glass, anyway, Freeda? Truth serum? Oh, am I going to hate myself tomorrow!”

  “Yeah, well, it works like an amnesia pill on me, so you don’t have to worry about one damn thing you said. And as for Verdella, well, I guess it works like a knockout pill on her. Look at her. She’s sound asleep.”

  “I heard that,” Aunt Verdella mumbled. Freeda and Ma laughed.

  Aunt Verdella didn’t stay awake though. Right after she said that, she started making those snoring-that-sounds-more-like-snorting noises. “Good God,” Freeda said. “She’s snoring like a goat. Reach up and give her a nudge so she’ll roll over, will ya?”

  They talked in whispers after Aunt Verdella fell asleep, and I couldn’t hear a thing they were saying. I dozed off, I suppose, then woke up when Winnalee’s leg kicked into mine. After that, their voices sounded far away, like they were coming from dreamland. “You know when I said that stuff about girlfriends?” Freeda said. “About how I didn’t give a shit if I had any when I was in school? I lied. The truth is, I always wanted a best girlfriend, even if I wouldn’t have admitted it, even to myself. You know, someone to talk to about the things that mattered. My guy friends were great, but it’s not like I could talk to them about everything. I guess I just didn’t trust women though. Not after my ma. Hell, come to think of it, I didn’t trust men either, but then, I had no reason to. I guess it’s been the same for you, huh, Jewel?”

  “Yeah, that’s about it. I suppose I expected every girl I met to be as critical of me as my mom and sisters were. They just didn’t like me, so I guess that I assumed no one else would like me either. And I’m afraid that in trying to teach Evelyn how to be better than me, I’m only teaching her that she’s not good enough either.” I don’t know if I dreamed it or not, but I thought I heard tears in Ma’s voice.

  “Maybe, Jewel. Just maybe your ma and your sisters were being critical of you for the same reasons. Because they didn’t like who they were, and they didn’t want you to be inadequate like them.” Ma mumbled that she doubted it, but Freeda kept on talking. “I make a lot of mistakes with Winnalee, I know, but I don’t know how to make her mind without making her think that I don’t love her just the way she is. I always told myself that I was doing okay as long as she knew that I loved her. Now I’m not so sure that’s enough. Hell, I look at her sometimes and I think of how undisciplined she is, how rebellious sometimes, and I think, Christ, I hope she don’t end up a mess like me.”

  That’s all I remember them saying, so I guess I must have fallen asleep. The next morning, while Ma was complaining about her stomach and Aunt Verdella was complaining about her head, me and Winnalee went up to her room and we wrote in our book, Bright Idea #92: If you have a pajama party, don’t drink too much booze or you won’t feel good in the morning. And if you have a makeup party at your pajama party, wash your face before you go to bed, even if you danced naked in the rain, or you’re gonna look like sick raccoons when you wake up. After Winnalee wrote that, I took the book from her and added, And don’t just go saying anything when a kid is around, because even if their eyes are closed, their big ears might not be.

  15

  After that pajama party, I started watching Ma more, and wondering who she was besides just my ma.

  The day after our party, she was all squirrelly, like she half-expected the police to come and arrest her for showing her understuff, or Daddy to find out and have a hissy fit. She cleaned all day like she couldn’t clean fast enough, or good enough, like she was trying to be extra good to make up for being extra bad. After a few days, though, she was like Uncle Rudy’s cows when they got let out of the barn in the spring after a long winter of having their heads stuck in those metal stanchion things; when they got all happy and hopped around the field, running and kicking and making moos that I think meant, “I’m free! I’m free!” in cow-talk.

  Ma started doing things she wouldn’t have done before too. And doing them like a newborn calf who was trying to find her legs. Like one evening when she called me into the sewing room (which was really supposed to be the guest bedroom, except that it never had guests) and asked me if I wanted to see her new dress.

  I stood just inside the door, sniffing, because I liked the metally smell that hung in the air when the sewing machine was turned on. “I’m making this dress here, with a few modifications,” she said, picking up the Spiegel catalog and pointing to a fancy blue and white dress. She read the description of the dress out loud to me: “Sheer nylon ruffles ’n lace beneath a boned petal bodice and filmy nylon net stole. Taffeta cummerbund, rayon taffeta lining, nylon net crinoline.” She set the catalog down on the little table to the side of her. “It’s last year’s catalog, but when
we were looking at styles Freeda said it was the perfect style for me, if I cinch the waist a bit more. She says it will give me an hourglass figure. Of course, I have no idea where I’ll wear it.”

  Ma looked up. “You can come in, Evelyn,” she said, so I stepped inside the room. “I’ve got the skirt done. It’s on the bed.”

  I glanced over at the bed, where a wide skirt of ruffles and lace was spread out like a fancy fan. It was black! Ma flicked the little handle, and the part of her machine that looked like a tiny robot’s foot let go of the top part of her dress. She pulled it out and swung her knees out from under the sewing machine so she could swivel and show me the half-made top held up against her. It was black too! “What do you think?” she asked.

  “It’s the color of sexy!” The minute those words came out, I clamped my hands over my mouth.

  Ma looked at me, her eyes stretching wide, and she said, “Evelyn Mae Peters!” She looked down quickly then, the corner of her mouth lifting up a bit like it was smiling, but I told myself that that couldn’t be right, because Ma didn’t smile about “sexy.”

  Just then Daddy’s truck sounded in the driveway, and Ma got up. “Your poor dad,” she said. “They had a breakdown at the mill, and he’s been there since eleven o’clock last night. Come help me get his dinner, Evelyn. He’s probably starving.”

  Daddy looked all crumbled, and his eyes were red. His face was picky-looking with stubby black whiskers. “Grab the bread out of the bread box, will you, Evelyn?”

  Daddy fell into his chair and sighed. He lit a cigarette but left it in the ashtray, as though he was too tired to pick it up. He stuck out his arm and turned it this way and that and rubbed the side of his neck. “Damn, I’m beat,” he said.

  Ma hurried to fix his plate while I grabbed the butter dish that was still sitting on the table, even though I wasn’t told to. The dish was almost empty, so I grabbed a new stick from the refrigerator, while Ma flicked on the oven and spooned a mound of chicken, rice, and peas onto a glass pie plate, tucking it into the oven. Then she poured Daddy a glass of tomato juice and set it down before him. “Your dinner will be heated in no time,” she said.