by Jan Watson
“Have you decided?” The pesky clerk popped up again, ruining Manda’s concentration.
“Almost,” she said.
The bell over the door tinkled. The clerk hurried off.
Manda lingered over a display case of women’s products including Milk Weed Cream, Mennen’s borated talcum, and Madame Rowley’s Face Glove. What a creepy contraption, Manda thought. Madame Rowley’s toilet mask was held in place with a series of elastic bands. The printing on the box stated the face glove, if worn three times a week, was guaranteed by eminent physicians and scientists to remove wrinkles and brown spots on the face without the injurious effects of cosmetics. Manda studied her reflection in a counter mirror. Maybe she should think about it.
There were so many powders and potions, it was hard to decide on one. Her eyes lit on the one thing she really needed, a self-heating hair curler. It would be worth every penny of the one-dollar ticket.
“Could I show you something?” the clerk asked, walking behind the case and sliding the heavy glass door open. “Maybe some Correll’s Goat Milk Soap? I personally use the crème oatmeal toilet bar—guaranteed to lighten the complexion.”
“Might I see the curling iron?” Manda calculated the price of the curler along with her buttons and the pattern. She should have just enough.
“This is nice.” The clerk set the shiny curling rod on top of the case. “You can get it in the silver for just two dollars.”
“I thought the tag said one dollar.”
“Oh, that’s if you buy the nickel finish. I’m sure you’d want the silver.” The woman put a pretty leatherette case with a velvet lining alongside the curling iron. “The case is only one dollar more.”
Three dollars? The silver was nice, though. Manda sighed. Maybe next time. She handed her pattern and packet of buttons to the clerk. “I’ll just take these for now.” Manda patted her upper lip with her index finger as she stared down into the case. “And give me one bar of the oatmeal soap.”
Manda felt light as air when she stepped out the door onto the wooden sidewalk. She’d left Cara’s order for later pickup but she carried hers, swinging the paper bag against her skirts. If no one had been watching, she would have skipped, but the town was bustling with folks doing their weekly shopping.
In front of the barbershop, she saw a couple of ladies she knew from church and stopped to chat, which led to showing off her purchases.
“My,” one of the ladies exclaimed, “I don’t know when I’ve seen a prettier button.”
“What are you looking for today?” Manda asked.
“Just stocking the pantry,” one said. “Nothing near as nice as what you bought.”
“A new broom,” the other said. “Mine’s near worn to a nub.”
“I saw some in the window of the hardware store,” Manda said. “See you all tomorrow?”
“Certainly,” one of the women said. “See you in church.”
The livery station where Dimmert was selling his wares was on the outskirts of town. She walked on. Just across the street in front of the hotel, a crowd was forming. A little boy danced a jig as a familiar voice filled the air—soaring and dipping like a bird on the wing. She paused to listen. “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies,” surely one of her favorites. How often did she and her sisters sing that tender tune of young love and dire warning? In a flash the song carried her right back to her childhood before the death of her mother turned things wrong.
Mommy hadn’t been one to cuddle and spoil her children. She had been a woman of few words and could go days without uttering an unnecessary one. But on hot summer nights after a supper of lard on biscuits or soup beans from the bottom of the pot, Mommy’s fine voice would soften the edges of their hunger. She would start a song, and soon the girls would join in harmonizing and singing parts. They had loved “Barbara Allen” and “Pretty Polly,” “Mary of the Wild Moors” and “The Wayfaring Stranger.”
And “Tender Ladies,” of course. Mommy had sung those words like a promise: “Love is handsome. Love is charming. Love is beauty while it’s new. Love grows old. Love grows colder and fades away like morning dew.”
Mommy had had her reasons to be a little jaded by love’s sweet promise, Manda suspected.
Manda crossed the street. It was the middling man. Manda knew it before the crowd dispersed, pitching change in a felt hat at his feet. She watched as he tucked a fiddle in a black case before pocketing the coins. Her heart trilled. Any moment now he might notice her and say hello. Instead, he slicked back his hair, stuck the wide-brimmed hat on his head, and quick as a wink disappeared around the side of the building.
Manda couldn’t believe it. She’d lost her chance.
Heart speeding up, she brushed past the bench where he had been sitting and glanced down the alleyway between the hotel and the grocery store next door. Two men and a dog with a long, skinny tail stood halfway down the alley, just past an overflowing trash bin. After a moment’s bickering, money and liquor changed hands. White mule, Manda thought, seeing what looked clear as springwater in the quart jar the middling man held. Nobody’d pay money for water. The other man elbowed the middling man, and he looked up the alley, catching her watching. Her heart thumped, beating painfully against her rib cage.
She ducked around the corner and nearly ran across the street. She kept glancing over her shoulder as she hurried along the slatted wooden sidewalk, but nobody followed. Her heart didn’t settle until she neared the livery station, where she could see several men selling wares from the beds of wagons: ax handles and one-eyed hoes and gallon jars of molasses. She’d just spotted Dimmert and started his way when she felt a presence close as a shadow behind her.
“Where you going in such a hurry, good-looking?” the middling man said, stepping around to block her path. “I been watching you watching me.”
Manda didn’t know whether to run or pass out. Maybe run and then pass out. It was his eyes that stopped her from doing either. Lightning seemed to leap from them and send teasing sparks up and down her arms. “I-I um . . .”
“What’s your name, little lady?”
Manda would have gladly told him, but at that moment she didn’t rightly know.
With one finger he traced the line of her jaw. “I bet it’s right pretty. A pretty girl’s bound to have a pretty name.” His breath smelled like liquor, too bright and perilous.
Manda went weak in the knees. She closed her eyes and reached out a hand to steady herself against a lamppost. When she opened them, he was gone.
She was home and eating supper before she realized that somewhere along the way she had taken leave of her shopping. Somehow it no longer seemed important. All that mattered was the kindling heat along the set of her jaw where the middling man had left his mark. Over and over her hand traced what his had mapped. She had never felt so beautiful.
10
Sometimes Lilly didn’t know why she picked Kate Jasper for her best friend. Kate never wanted to do anything but play with Mazy and Molly. Right now she was trying to braid Molly’s wispy hair while Mazy waited her turn. Lilly got more than enough of that every day.
“Don’t you want to go catch crawdads?” Lilly asked.
“No.” Kate sighed. “I’ve told you a thousand times. Besides, they’re vile.”
“They are not. You just think that because they build their houses out of mud.”
“Stands to reason if they live in mud houses, they have to be dirty. We could go down to the creek, though. We could play house on the big, flat rock. I’ll be the mother and you can be the father. Mazy and Molly can be our babies.”
Lilly plopped down on the porch steps with her back to her friend. She rested her elbows on her knees. She wanted to walk along the creek in the worst way. She’d been looking forward to showing Kate the rock wall where she had first seen the beagle, not to mention Tern Still. A couple of times after supper she’d gone to the wall with scraps for the dog, who was always hungry, but she’d not seen Tern again.
“We played house last time. It’s my turn to pick what we do.”
“Pick all you want,” Kate said, “but I’m not touching any disgusting crawdads.”
“Lilly,” her mother called from the kitchen, “could you come here a minute?”
Lilly rolled her eyes, but she got up. “What?” she said when she got inside.
“You’re not treating your guest very nicely,” Mama said, cupping Lilly’s chin in her hand. “I’m very disappointed in you.”
“But, Mama—”
“No buts. You go out there and apologize to Kate.”
Lilly could feel tears damming up behind her eyes. “Why can’t I—?”
Mama’s hand tightened on Lilly’s chin. “Right. This. Minute.”
When Lilly turned, she could see her friend’s round, freckled face pushed up against the screen. “I’m sorry, Kate,” she said before she even opened the door. “We’ll play house if you want.”
“Can we take Molly and Mazy?” Kate asked.
“Sure. They can be the babies and you can be the mother.” Lilly remembered to close the screen door gently. “I’ll be the father off catching crawdads for supper.”
Kate jumped up and down. “Oh, good. Molly can be the baby girl, and Mazy can be the boy.”
Lilly hoisted Molly to her hip.
Kate took Mazy’s hand. “We’ll need a cook pot,” she chattered, “and a fishing pole. What’ll you use for bait?”
“I know just the thing,” Lilly said. “We’ll stop by the corncrib for an ear, and we can get a pot from the shed. This will be fun.”
Kate stuck out her tongue. “Told you.”
Lilly blew a raspberry against Molly’s neck. Molly laughed.
The day had turned out sticky and hot, but it was cool there on the flat rock overhung by the plate-size leaves of a sycamore tree.
Kate settled down, arranging the stash of old kitchenware Lilly kept handy for making mud pies. “Find a piece of shale,” she bossed Lilly, “and mark off the rooms.”
Finding the shale was easy enough, but marking the rooms was another matter. “This rock isn’t big enough for rooms. It’s only big enough for a kitchen.”
Kate stood in the middle of the rock and looked around. “Well, let’s pretend it is. Mark it off exact—we need a kitchen, a parlor, and two bedrooms.”
Lilly scraped a line straight down the middle of the rock with the thin, sharp shale, then dissected the line. There, four rooms. “Nobody has a parlor on Troublesome Creek.”
“My granny does.”
“Your granny doesn’t live on Troublesome.”
“You know what your problem is? You don’t have any mind’s eye.”
“I do too have a mind’s eye.”
“Do not,” Kate replied, pointing to a corner of the kitchen. “Mark a P here. We have to have a pantry.”
Lilly wanted to toss the piece of shale into the creek, but she scribed a big P instead. Despite herself, she always got caught up in Kate’s games.
“Now, husband,” Kate said, “our children are hungry. We must think of dinner.”
“Do our children have names?”
“I think Amelia for Molly and August for Mazy. Those are my favorite names.”
“Do I get a say?” Lilly asked.
“No, silly, you’re the husband.” Kate made like she was tying an apron around her neck. Reaching up, she pulled four leaves from a low-hanging sycamore branch. She put them neatly on the rock as if she set a table. “Children,” she said to August and Amelia, “you need to busy yourself in the other room. Mommy is cooking dinner.”
Lilly stood there for a minute wondering how Kate would keep Molly and Mazy from tearing up the plates, but that wasn’t her problem. She was going fishing. With the heel of one hand, she shelled a few kernels of corn and then went looking for a crawdad hole. She found a fine, two-story mud stack near the creek bank, but she couldn’t bring herself to tear it down. Surely she could find one that the raccoons had already torn the top off of. Raccoons loved crawdads.
Just a few steps away she found what she was looking for. She crouched and looked down the tower. Two beady black eyes stared back at her. Sensing a threat, the crawdad waved his claws and twitched his antennae. Lilly dropped a piece of corn into the hole. If a crawdad could look surprised, this one did. Lilly didn’t know if crawdads actually ate corn, but she knew it piqued their curiosity.
“Manna from heaven.” Lilly stuck another kernel near the top of the hole. Then she sat, positioning herself so she could keep an eye on her sisters, and waited. It took a lot of patience to catch a crawdad. She might not have a good imagination, but she had an abundance of patience. Kate was the baby of her family, so she probably didn’t have any. It took babies to teach you endurance. Sticky, crying, spitting-up, smelly babies. She liked being around them, though.
Aha! Mr. Crawdad’s antennae poked into daylight. Lilly pounced. She pinched him right behind his head and lifted him out. “Oh, you’re a fine one.”
“Look, honey,” she said to her wife. “I caught a fat fish for our supper.”
“Wonderful, husband,” Kate said. “Tear his head off and I’ll cook him.”
“Kate Jasper, I will not tear this crawdad’s head off.”
“Well, I can’t bear to put him in the skillet with those eyes staring at me,” Kate said.
“I know—let’s pretend I take his head off.”
“Good idea. Now wash up for supper. I’ve fixed potatoes your favorite way.”
Lilly went and put the crawdad back down his hole, dropping a few more kernels in his nest to thank him for his trouble. Back at the rock, she made hand-washing motions. Mazy and Molly were napping, curled up on the rock, tucked together like kittens.
“Oh, look, wife,” Lilly said. “Our babies are asleep.”
“I know,” Kate said. “It’s my favorite time of the day.”
“Prithee hand me the pot and I will fetch some water.”
“Speak English, Lilly.”
“Prithee is English. It’s a word I’m learning. It’s old-fashioned, but I like the sound it makes, kind of like a bird’s call. Prithee means—”
Kate cut her off. “Sounds like something my granny would say.”
“Yeah, while sitting in her parlor.”
Kate stirred pretend food in the skillet. She shook the spoon in Lilly’s face. “Stop poking fun at me.”
“I’m hungry,” Lilly said. “We should have brought some real food.”
“Me too,” Kate said. “Eating air doesn’t keep my belly from grumbling.”
“Manda made spice cake this morning. I’ll go get some. You keep a close eye on Molly and Mazy.”
“You mean August and Amelia?”
“Whoever. Just don’t let them fall in the creek.”
Lilly brought back four pieces of cake wrapped in a dish towel and a pint jar of sweet milk. She tickled her sleeping sisters’ cheeks with a blade of grass. “Wake up, sleepyheads. I brought you a treat.”
Kate was nearly finished with her cake when she cried out, “My tooth hurts.”
“Let me see.”
Kate opened her mouth wide for Lilly. “Ow, that makes it worse.”
Lilly picked up the towel and the milk jar. “Let’s all go tell Mama.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mama said when she saw the tears in Kate’s eyes, “I’m sorry you’re hurting. I’ve got something to soothe the pain.”
“I just want to go home.” Kate sobbed.
Mama tapped her foot against the floor. She was studying what to do. “Remy and Manda are both gone, so I can’t take you right now.”
“I can take her,” Lilly said. “I can ride her home on Chessie.”
“Why, of course you can,” Mama said. “Go put a bridle on Chessie while I doctor Kate.”
Lilly’s heart leaped. She often rode Chessie, but she’d never been allowed to take her out of the barnyard. She scooted out the door before Mama could change he
r mind.
When Lilly rode bareback to the porch, Kate was standing there with a red bandanna looped around her chin. It was tied in a knot on top of her head.
Mama hefted Kate up behind. “Lay your cheek against Lilly’s back. That will help to keep the flannel warm.”
Mama handed Lilly a tiny brown bottle. “Put this in your pocket and give it to Mrs. Jasper. Tell her to use the dropper sparingly and to keep a warm flannel on Kate’s cheek. The bandanna will keep it in place.” Mama patted Kate’s knee. “Does it feel better?”
Lilly could feel the nod of Kate’s head against her shoulder. Kate smelled like cloves.
“Be careful, Lilly. Hold tight to the reins and come straight home.”
Lilly kept Chessie going slow, slow, slow. She was afraid Kate would bounce right off onto the forest floor. It was not a far piece to the Jaspers’—just through the woods and around the bend and straight on past the church where Kate’s father preached. Brother Jasper had baptized Lilly and fourteen other people in the river last fall. That was a powerful thing, Lilly thought—washing folks white as snow. She loved knowing she belonged to Jesus now.
She felt a smidgen of shame to be so happy riding Chessie when her friend was feeling poorly, holding on to her for dear life. But she was doing a good deed. It relieved her guilt to think about it that way. Poor Kate. Lilly would never be cross with her again.
Mrs. Jasper was in the garden when they rode up. She dropped her hoe and hurried to Chessie’s side. “Whatever is the matter, baby?” she said to Kate as she lifted her down.
“She has a toothache. Mama sent some soothing medicine. She said be spare with the drops and keep a warm flannel on Kate’s cheek.”
Mrs. Jasper thanked Lilly and asked her to come in, but Lilly had to get back. “I hope you feel better soon, Kate.”
Later that day after her bedtime, Lilly went to the kitchen for a drink. Through the screen door, she could see her mother and Daddy John sitting on the top porch step with their heads together. That gave her such a warm and safe feeling. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to listen when you heard your own name in someone else’s conversation. Mama told Daddy about Lilly taking Kate home.