Pearl felt the sun on the back of her neck. She lay down in the dirt and put her cheek on the warm cement, keeping her hand in the handprint. Then she went ahead and let the crying come. She cried so loud she bet that big happy family up there at Moonpie’s house could probably hear her, but she didn’t care.
When she was all cried out, Pearl got up and wiped her face on her sleeve. She went back to the tomato garden and picked a bright red tomato. She brought the tomato back over to the clothesline and dropped it—splat—right on Ruby’s handprint.
10
“I feel terrible leaving you alone every day,” Ivy said, untying her apron and reaching for the keys on a hook by the door. “You sure you don’t want to come into town with me?”
Pearl shook her head while she scraped coffee-cake crumbs onto her fork with her finger.
“Maybe you and Moon can go for a bike ride,” Ivy said. She stooped down and examined her reflection in the toaster, trying to tuck her frizzled hair behind her ears.
“You ought to wear makeup,” Pearl said.
Ivy chuckled.
“No, I mean it,” Pearl said, cutting herself another piece of coffee cake.
“You sound just like Ruby,” Ivy said. “She was all the time trying to get me to use some kind of lipstick or eye shadow or something of hers.” She shook her head, sending her curls back into her face.
“I got my own makeup kit,” Pearl said.
“Well, I can’t say that I approve of that.” Ivy jiggled the keys in her hand. “You know, when we was little, me and Ruby went to a church that didn’t allow girls to wear makeup.”
Pearl stopped eating and looked at Ivy “Really?”
“That’s right.” Ivy pointed a key at Pearl. “Your granddaddy used to have a conniption fit when Ruby came prancing in here all gussied up with lipstick and all.”
“He did?”
“Hoooowheee. You never heard such carrying on in your life.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, he’d be calling her the devil and all. Saying how she was the bride of Satan and we was all going to pay for her sins. He was all the time saying our house would be struck by lightning and burn to the ground, taking her and her sins with it and me and him, too.”
“What’d Mama do?”
Ivy snorted and flapped her hand. “Shoot, she’d just laugh and run back there and put on more makeup. That’s the way she was. Whatever you didn’t want her to do, why, she’d do it ten times more and make sure you knew it.”
“Did her daddy hate her?” Pearl said.
Ivy’s mouth dropped open slightly. She sat across from Pearl, still clutching the keys. “No, of course not.”
“Why not?”
Ivy gazed out the window. “That man never hated nobody in his life. Scared more than a few people, I reckon, but sure never hated nobody.”
“She hate him?”
Ivy looked at Pearl. “Well now, I couldn’t say. Sure acted like it sometimes.” She pushed her hair behind her ears again and fiddled with the keys in her hand. “She ever talk about him at all?”
“Nope.”
Ivy’s eyes narrowed slightly. “When he died I didn’t even know where she was. I called around a few places, but then I give up. I cut the obituary out of the paper and sent it to where I thought she might be, but I never heard nothing. Maybe she got it and maybe she didn’t. I don’t know.” Ivy got up and took the coffee cake to the counter. “You know whether or not she ever got it?” she said, her back to Pearl. “Four years ago. July.”
“She never said nothing about it if she did,” Pearl said. She watched the back of Ivy’s head. Her curls were jiggling, and Pearl figured she was either mad or crying. Seemed like the mention of Ruby usually caused one or the other with Ivy.
“Lord, look at the time,” Ivy said, grabbing the keys off the table and heading out the door. “Genevieve’s gonna kill me if I ain’t there for the lunch shift.” She pushed the screen open and looked back at Pearl. “You gonna be all right?”
Pearl nodded and Ivy disappeared, letting the screen door slam behind her.
Pearl walked up the road toward Moonpie’s, thinking about Ruby and that church and her granddaddy saying those things about the devil. Just before the road curved, she heard music coming from Moonpie’s house. A radio. When she got closer, she could tell it was some kind of country music. That twangy, hillbilly kind with banjos and fiddles.
When the house came into view, Pearl saw someone sitting out on the rickety porch. An old woman in a bathrobe. Pearl stopped. The old woman waved.
“Hey,” the woman called out.
Pearl didn’t move.
“Hey,” the old woman called again.
“Is Moonpie here?” Pearl called out to her, not moving any closer.
“He is,” the woman said. “I’m his Mama Nell. I know who you are.”
Pearl moved slowly toward the house.
“You’re Pearl,” Mama Nell said. “Come here so I can see your face.” She reached a shaky hand toward Pearl. Her bony arm stuck out from the sleeve of her bathrobe.
Pearl walked up to the porch and stopped, feeling suddenly shy. She looked at her feet and felt herself blush.
“Look here,” Mama Nell said in a croaky voice. “Let me see your face.”
Pearl looked up. Mama Nell squinted at her, then grinned a toothless grin. “You’re Ruby’s girl, all right.” Then she laughed a cackling kind of laugh.
“You knew her?” Pearl said.
“Sure I knew her. I been here all my life. Knew her. Knew your granddaddy. Even knew your grandmama.”
“You did?”
“Sure I did.”
Pearl moved closer. Mama Nell sat in a dirty, upholstered chair. Stuffing poked out of holes in the arms. Banjo music twanged out of the radio beside the chair. Mama Nell leaned over and turned it down. She sat back and wheezed, holding her bathrobe closed tight at her throat like she was cold out there in the hot sun. Her hands were bruised and covered with brown spots. Her face was creased and leathery.
“I thought you was sick,” Pearl said.
Mama Nell laughed. Pearl stared at her mouth, all shriveled up where teeth should be.
“I look sick?” Mama Nell said.
“Kind of.”
Mama Nell laughed again, slapping her knee. Then she coughed a rattling cough and wiped her eyes with a balled-up tissue.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that was Ruby Patterson just said that.” Mama Nell wiped at her mouth with the same balled-up tissue. “Sit down. Moonpie’s fixing my lunch.”
Pearl sat on the edge of the porch. Mama Nell was barefoot. Her feet were purple and swollen, her toenails thick and yellow. Pearl had never seen an old person’s feet before.
Just then a dog came out from under the porch. The boniest, ugliest, mangiest dog Pearl had ever seen. It limped up onto the porch, teetering slightly with every step.
“There’s my Skeeter,” Mama Nell said, rubbing the dog under his chin.
The dog flopped down and put his head on Mama Nell’s ugly feet. His face was gray. One eyelid drooped closed. Flies landed on him, but he didn’t move a whisker.
“Is that dog old?” Pearl asked.
Mama Nell laughed that cackly laugh again. “Nope. Not Skeeter. Not me, neither.” She grinned at Pearl, and Pearl felt silly, like a little kid.
Moonpie came out of the house, carrying a rusty metal tray.
“Hey,” he said to Pearl. “I didn’t know you was here.” He put the tray in front of Mama Nell, resting it across the arms of the dirty chair.
Mama Nell inspected the tray in front of her through narrowed eyes. A steaming bowl of something, bacon on a paper plate, and a can of beer. She lifted the beer in a toast toward Pearl. “To Ruby,” she said, then took a long drink, her throat bobbing up and down in her skinny neck as she swallowed.
She sniffed the bowl on the tray and smiled. “Oatmeal and brown sugar,” she said. “You ever have that
?”
“No, ma’am.”
She poked a spoon toward Pearl. “Ought to,” she said.
Moon sat on the edge of the porch beside Pearl. His tissue-paper eyelids were red and swollen. He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand.
Mama Nell made slurpy noises as she ate the oatmeal. Pearl tried not to look at those ugly feet there on the porch beside her. She didn’t know how that dog could stand having his head on top of those yellow toenails.
“Here you go, Skeeter boy” Mama Nell tossed a piece of bacon onto the porch beside the dog. Pearl and Moon watched Skeeter sniff and lick the bacon, then swallow it whole in one gulp. He dropped his head back onto Mama Nell’s feet, as if eating that bacon had taken every ounce of energy he had.
“One of them social workers called this morning,” Moon said to Pearl.
“How come?”
“Wants to come up here and talk to Mama Nell.”
“About what?”
“About me, I think.”
“What about you?” Pearl asked.
“Aw, for criminy’s sake,” Mama Nell said in a loud, croaky voice. “Why you getting all broke up over them folks, Moon?”
Moon hung his head so low Pearl thought he was going to topple over into the yard. Tears dropped onto his freckled knees.
Mama Nell coughed another rattly cough, then took a swig of beer.
“You got to trust me on this, Moonpie,” she said, putting a bony hand on Moon’s back.
“What if they send me away?” Moon said in a tiny little-boy voice.
“Send you away?” Mama Nell hollered so loud even old Skeeter lifted his head. “Where you think they gonna send you?”
“Maybe to my mama.”
Mama Nell grabbed Moon’s shoulder and gave it a shake. “You listen to me, boy Ain’t nobody sending you nowhere. I been here for you every day of your life, ain’t I?”
Moon’s head was still hanging low and his shoulders were shaking. He closed his eyes. Pearl could see the little blue veins through his tissue-paper eyelids. He wiped at his nose and eyes with his T-shirt. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“Well then, what makes you think I’m gonna let anybody send you anywhere?” Mama Nell cocked her head and waited.
“’Cause you’re so sick,” Moon said. The silence that followed nearly swallowed them up. Pearl fidgeted a little, scared to look at Mama Nell. She watched the flies buzzing around Skeeter.
Mama Nell rubbed her hand around on Moon’s back and said, “I ain’t never gonna be too sick to take care of my Moonpie.”
Moon lifted his head and looked up at Mama Nell with a look of pure love. He put his head on her knee and let her stroke his cantaloupe hair with her brown-spotted hand. Pearl watched the two of them, her head all whirling around with mixed-up thoughts. Like how come Moonpie got to have so many people loving him? What could she do to make somebody love her? And if she wanted to love somebody back, who should it be? Mama? Was she supposed to love a person just because that person happened to be her mama? Did a person just get handed love, like a prize on a silver tray, or did a person have to earn it?
Then, right in the middle of all those whirling thoughts, Mama Nell said, “Somebody go get me another beer.”
That night Pearl sat with her back propped against the pillows and looked down at the postcard in her lap. Fort Sumter. Charleston, South Carolina. She had taken this one to school last year when her class was studying the Civil War. She had stood in front of the room and showed the postcard and told the class that she had been to Fort Sumter. But she hadn’t. Never even been close.
She had thought maybe those kids would think that was nice, going to Fort Sumter and all. And maybe they would think she was nice, too. Maybe one of them would call her up sometime and invite her over. But nobody ever did.
Pearl chewed on the end of her pen, thinking. Then she wrote:
Dear Mama,
Moonpie is worried about social
workers sending him away and
Mama Nell is supposed to be sick
but she looks okay to me except
for her feet. I was thinking maybe
I should get me a dog so I could
have something deserving of my
love. What do you think?
Love,
Pearl
11
“Ruby killed a chicken one time,” Ivy said. “Threw a brick just as hard as she could.”
Pearl and Ivy sat on the porch steps watching the chickens strut around the yard.
“How come?” Pearl said.
Ivy shrugged. “Just felt like it, I guess.” She scraped at a spot of dried-up food on the uniform she wore to work. “Daddy smacked her legs with a flyswatter and she didn’t even cry.”
Ivy held her hand over her eyes and squinted up the road. “There he is.” She stood up and smoothed the back of her skirt. “Now remember,” she said, “I’ll be a tad late. John Dee and I are going to run them errands for Mama Nell. You be sure and tell Moonpie we’re getting them prescriptions filled, okay?”
“Okay.”
Pearl watched John Dee’s van bouncing down the road toward them. He honked the horn and waved as he pulled into the gravel driveway.
Ivy grinned and waved back. “Don’t forget about that fried chicken in the refrigerator,” she said, pushing Pearl’s hair out of her eyes. “There’s coleslaw in there, too, okay?”
“Okay.”
“See you later, then.” Ivy started down the steps, then turned back and put her warm hands on Pearl’s cheeks. She didn’t say anything. Just smiled.
Pearl felt good and smiled back. She loved that about Ivy, how she didn’t have to talk to let you know something.
“Okay, I really got to go,” Ivy said, hurrying out to the driveway.
When Ivy opened the door of the van, John Dee leaned over and called out, “Hey, Pearl.”
Pearl flapped her hand in his direction. She watched the rusty van drive away, Ivy’s voice drifting out the window.
Pearl spit her chewing gum out into the dusty yard and watched the chickens scramble over to peck at it. She tried to imagine herself killing a chicken. She picked up an invisible brick and heaved it, sending chickens squawking and flapping in every direction.
“What you doing?” Moon called from the road.
Pearl jumped. Dern, why does he have to be so sneaky, she thought.
Moon dropped his bike on the side of the road and joined Pearl in the yard.
“What do you want to do?” he said.
“Let’s go back to that graveyard.”
Moon shook his head and said, “Naw.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t want to.”
“Let’s go talk to Mama Nell,” Pearl said.
“About what?”
“I don’t know. Just stuff.”
Moon shook his head again. “She’s sleeping.”
“Then I’m going in and watch TV.” Pearl turned and started up the front steps.
“I know where there’s buried treasure,” Moon said.
Pearl stopped. She narrowed her eyes and studied Moonpie. “Where?”
Moon hung his head. “Never mind,” he said.
“Never mind!” Pearl threw her hands up. “What do you mean ‘Never mind’? What are you? Just a big liar or something?”
Moon frowned at Pearl. “I ain’t a liar.”
“Then where’s this so-called buried treasure?”
“It’s a secret,” Moon said.
“Then why’d you tell me about it?” Pearl watched Moon shuffling around in the dirt like a nervous hen. “You ain’t supposed to tell somebody you know a secret if you ain’t gonna tell the secret.” Pearl put her hands on her hips. Didn’t he know the rules of life?
Moon turned and headed toward the road. When he reached for his bike, Pearl raced after him. “Wait,” she said. “I didn’t mean that. I know you ain’t lying. I believe you. Show me the treasure. I won’t tell nobod
y.”
Moon eyed her through his greasy hair. “You swear?”
Pearl crossed her heart with her finger and held her palm up. “I swear.”
Moon dropped his bike. “Okay.”
Pearl followed him to the shed in the backyard.
“It’s in there.” Moon pointed.
“Well, show me,” Pearl snapped.
Moon’s eyes darted around the yard. He turned and looked behind him, toward the house, then up the road. Just when Pearl was beginning to think she was going to have to give him a shove or something, he pushed the creaky shed door open and stepped inside. Pearl went in after him, squinting into the darkness. He pushed aside damp, dusty cardboard boxes, rusty garden tools, and paint cans, then stooped to brush dirt off a board half-buried in the dirt floor. When he lifted the board, Pearl craned her neck to see.
“What’s under there?” she whispered, peering over Moonpie’s shoulder at the hole in the floor.
Moon grunted as he pulled up a metal tackle box. He brushed the dirt off and opened it.
“It’s too dark in here,” Pearl said. “Bring it outside.”
“No way,” Moon said. “Just look quick and then I’m putting it back.” He reached into the tackle box and pulled out a mildewed canvas bag. “Here, look quick.”
Pearl opened the bag and peered inside. “Wow.”
She reached into the bag and scooped up a handful of coins.
“Silver dollars,” Moon said.
“How many?”
“Ninety-seven.”
“Shoot, that ain’t so much,” Pearl said. “You think that’s treasure?”
“They’re real old. Ivy said nearly every one of them is most likely worth a lot more than a dollar.”
“Really?”
Moon nodded. “Let’s put ’em back,” he said, reaching for the bag.
Pearl yanked it away, holding it against her side with both arms. “Wait a minute. You got to tell me more than that.”
“Like what?”
“Like where’d these come from and why are they here.”
Moon licked his finger and wiped dirt off his knees.
Moonpie and Ivy Page 5