Moonpie and Ivy

by Barbara O'Connor

  “Well?” Pearl watched him, sitting there on the damp dirt floor, his eyes looking everywhere but at her. “Well?” Pearl yelled.

  “They was your granddaddy’s,” Moon said.

  “How do you know?”

  “He showed ’em to me.”

  Pearl stared at Moonpie. “Showed ’em to you?”

  Moon nodded.

  Pearl sat down, resting the bag of coins in her lap. Now, this was a revelation. It had never occurred to her that Moonpie had ever met her granddaddy. “You met my granddaddy?” she said.

  Moon nodded again.

  “When?”

  “I was real little.”

  “How little?”

  “I don’t know. Six or seven, maybe. I don’t hardly remember.”

  “What’d he look like?”

  Moon looked up at the ceiling. “Well, I don’t remember much. Had a big ole beard. I remember that.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Pearl grabbed Moon’s arm and squeezed. “You got to remember,” she said. “I need to know.”

  “He had rotten teeth,” Moon said.

  Pearl pushed Moon’s arm away from her and sat back against the side of the shed. A big ole beard and rotten teeth. Besides Ivy, this was her only link to family and all Moon remembered was a big ole beard and rotten teeth.

  “I think he was nice,” Moon said real soft.

  Pearl looked at him. “Really?” she said.

  Moon nodded. “He showed me this treasure, didn’t he?”

  “What’s it doing out here?”

  “’Cause of fire.”

  “Fire?”

  “Yeah.” Moon looked at the bag of coins in Pearl’s lap, then leaned forward to look out the shed door. “Ivy said he was afraid his house was going to burn down. He always said never keep your treasures in the house in case of fire.”

  Pearl snapped her fingers. “The bride of Satan,” she said. “The makeup and all. That’s how come he thought the house was going to burn. ’Cause of Mama’s makeup. ’Cause of the lightning.”

  Moon squeezed his eyebrows together and looked at Pearl.

  “Oh, never mind,” she said. “Here, put this back.” She dropped the bag of coins in Moonpie’s lap.

  “Does Ivy know this is here?” she asked.

  “Sure she does,” Moon said. “She comes out here every once in a while to make sure it’s still here.” Moon looked toward the door again. “You can’t tell nobody I showed you, okay? I’m the only one besides Ivy knows this is here.”

  “Okay.”

  Pearl watched Moon put the bag back in the tackle box, the tackle box in the hole, and the board over the hole.

  Imagine that. Her very own granddaddy, big ole beard, rotten teeth, and all, sitting in this very same shed showing little Moonpie that bag of silver dollars. What had she been doing at that very moment, she wondered. Maybe riding on a Greyhound bus. Maybe waking up on a dirty couch in a room full of strangers. Maybe watching Ruby dance on the hood of a car.

  It was hard to say. Could have been any of those things.

  12

  Pearl smelled bacon. She stared up at that crack that looked like mountains on the ceiling, then sat up and looked at herself in the dusty mirror over the dresser. Her hair was stringy and tangled, her bangs hanging in clumps over her eyes. Her face was sunburned and her eyes kind of puffy. She hated the way she looked.

  “You are one beautiful girl,” Ruby always said. “Just like me,” she’d add. “You and me, Pearl and Ruby, two gems of the world.”

  When the phone rang, Pearl saw her face tighten up. Felt that familiar knot in her stomach. She hated herself for having that feeling every time the phone rang, every time a car came down the road or the front door opened.

  She smoothed her hair with her hand and went down the hall to the kitchen. Ivy was hanging up the phone.

  “There you are,” she said. “I was wondering when you were going to get up.”

  Pearl yawned and sat at the table.

  “Fried or scrambled?” Ivy said.

  “Scrambled.”

  “I sure am glad to have a day off, I can tell you that.” Ivy cracked two eggs into a bowl and beat them with a fork. “John Dee’s coming over to fix that dern washing machine.” The frying pan sizzled when she poured the eggs in. “What you doing today?”

  Pearl shrugged.

  “Maybe we should go shopping,” Ivy said. “Them sneakers of yours are ready for the trash heap.”

  “I ain’t got any money,” Pearl said, watching Ivy scrape the eggs onto a plate.

  Ivy chuckled. “I got money.”

  “Seems like if Mama was gonna dump me off on you she would’ve thought about leaving some money.” Pearl twirled the salt shaker around. It tipped over, sending a trail of salt across the table. “But I reckon she needed to save her money for herself. You know, in case she wanted a new dress or some jewelry or something. Or nail polish. You know how much she likes nail polish. I bet she even liked nail polish when she was little, didn’t she?” Pearl wiped at her eyes and chewed the inside of her cheek, trying like everything to keep from crying. “Besides,” she added, “why would she want to go and give up her money for me?”

  Pearl squeezed her fingernails into the palms of her hands. Why had she gone and started talking like this, she wondered. She hadn’t meant to. All she’d meant to do was eat scrambled eggs.

  Ivy set a plate of steaming eggs in front of Pearl and sat down. Pearl picked up the fork, but couldn’t seem to make herself start eating.

  Ivy leaned toward Pearl. “This ain’t your fault, Pearl,” she said.

  “Mamas don’t leave their kid behind unless that kid ain’t worth keeping,” Pearl said.

  “Who told you that?”

  “No one.”

  “Then how do you know that?”

  Pearl threw her fork onto the table with a clang. “Any idiot knows that.” She dropped both hands in her lap and slumped back in her seat. “She tells me lies all the time.”

  “What kind of lies?”

  “Like me and her are two gems of the world. I ain’t no gem and she don’t think so neither or she wouldn’t’ve left me.” Pearl saw tears drop onto her lap before she realized she was crying. She felt Ivy’s hand rubbing her back.

  “I think Ruby’s just confused,” Ivy said.

  “Confused about what?”

  “Well, I ain’t sure exactly. Just confused.”

  Pearl pushed a piece of limp bacon from one side of her plate to the other. “Well, I’m confused, too,” she said.

  “I’m sure you are, my little Pearl,” Ivy said. “I’m sure you are.”

  One of the cats rubbed against Pearl’s legs and she pushed it away. “Maybe I could work at the diner,” she said.

  “Work at the diner?” Ivy sat back down across from Pearl.

  “So I could earn some money. Then I can pay you.”

  “Pay me for what?”

  “For living here. You know, for my food and all. And for sneakers. Stuff like that.”

  Ivy reached across the table and took both of Pearl’s hands in hers. “Sugar, you can’t live with me forever.”

  Well, stab my heart, Pearl thought when she heard those words. Just stab my heart right through. She jerked her hands away and looked at Ivy to make sure she wasn’t joking. The serious look on Ivy’s face told Pearl she wasn’t. “Then where am I going to live?” she said. Her voice came out all trembly.

  “With Ruby, honey. She’s your mama. We’ve got to find her and make her come back.”

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “Well, I’m hoping the police will find her,” Ivy said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, ’cause the police might be looking for her.”

  “Why might the police be looking for her?” Pearl felt scared. Maybe Ruby had gone and robbed a bank or something.

  “’Cause I filed a report,�
� Ivy said. “You know, a missing-person report. That’s what you have to do when a person is missing. So they can find ’em. The police, that is. So the police can find the missing person.” Ivy’s neck was getting those red splotches. She scratched it, leaving white fingernail marks.

  “When did you do that?” Pearl asked.

  “Do what?”

  “File a report,” Pearl snapped.

  “A while back.” Ivy pushed the plate toward Pearl. “Your eggs are getting cold.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you did that?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I just, you know … I guess I should have, but I … Pearl, honey, school’s gonna be starting soon. We got to figure out what to do.”

  “So what happens?” Pearl said. “The police tell her to get on back and get her daughter or else she’ll go to jail? So she comes running back here ’cause she don’t want to go to jail? They probably ain’t got very good nail polish in jail.”

  Pearl could see Ivy’s mouth twitching and she just dared her to laugh, but she didn’t.

  “I’m sorry, Pearl,” Ivy said. “I should’ve told you. I was wrong not to tell you.”

  Pearl stood up so fast she knocked the chair over with a crash that sent the cat scurrying out of the kitchen. “Besides,” she said, “you filed the wrong kind of report. You should’ve filed a crazy-person report. Them police ain’t looking for a missing person, they’re looking for a crazy person.” Pearl paced around the kitchen table. Ivy watched her, clutching her hands together so hard her knuckles turned white.

  “She ain’t a gem of the world,” Pearl went on. “She’s a crazy person.”

  Ivy nodded. “You might be right.”

  “She tried to make me steal a ham one time. ‘Put that ham in your backpack, Pearlie May,’ she said. ‘No, I won’t,’ I said. She kept on and on and I kept saying no and then I laid on the floor and cried. I still remember that cold floor with sticky stuff on it. So she walked right out of that store and got in the car and I ran out after her and she locked the door and wouldn’t let me in. I beat on the window and she rolled it down just a tiny little crack and said, ‘Go away, little girl. You ain’t mine.’ And I said, ‘Yes I am,’ and she said, ‘I can’t see you. You’re invisible,’ and I been invisible ever since.” Pearl sank into a chair and put her head on the table and cried.

  Ivy didn’t say anything for a while. Just smoothed Pearl’s hair over and over. Then she said, “You ain’t invisible to me, Pearl. I can see you just fine—and you look like an angel to me.”

  Pearl lifted her head and looked at her reflection in the toaster. She might be invisible to her mama, but there she was in the toaster, real as anything. An angel? Not hardly. She still had the same ratty hair, same sunburned face. Why couldn’t she change, she wondered. Turn into somebody else. Somebody who really was a gem of the world.

  That night she took out the shoebox and dumped her postcards onto the bed. She searched through the pile, finally finding the one she wanted. A kudzu-covered barn in Travelers Rest, South Carolina.

  Dear Mama,

  Ivy asked me to stay here and

  be her daughter and I said yes.

  Goodbye.

  Love,

  Pearl

  13

  Pearl sat on the back porch steps and looked out at the old peach orchard. It had been nearly four weeks since Ruby had gone off the deep end. Pearl was still trying to stop her feelings from getting yanked around.

  Mama, come back.

  Mama, don’t come back.

  Mama, come back.

  Mama, don’t come back.

  How could a person want something and not want something at the very same time?

  July had turned into August, but the air was still thick and damp with heat. Pearl held her hair off her forehead and flapped her hand in front of her face, trying to stir up a breeze.

  She should have gone to the diner with Moonpie and Ivy. At least there was air-conditioning. She walked out to the garden. Tomato plants sprawled in tangled clumps on the ground. A green tomato had been half eaten by a rabbit. Pearl tossed it into the bushes. She looked up toward Moonpie’s house.

  Pearl had a thought in her head that wouldn’t go away. The thought had been whirling around all night and all day and driving Pearl crazy. The thought was about Mama Nell. About how Mama Nell knew her mama back a long time ago and Mama Nell was liable to up and die any minute now. Pearl figured if she didn’t get herself on up there and talk to Mama Nell, she might find herself wishing she had. She picked a ripe tomato and headed up the hill.

  When she caught sight of Moonpie’s house, Pearl stopped and listened. Silence. When she got to the porch, she stopped again. Skeeter was lying by the screen door. He lifted his head and looked at Pearl, then let his head fall back to the floor with a groan.

  “Mama Nell?” Pearl called out.

  Nothing.

  Pearl climbed the porch steps and knocked on the rickety screen door.

  “Mama Nell? It’s me, Pearl.”

  Still nothing.

  Okay, Pearl thought, if Mama Nell’s dead, I’m getting out of here.

  She knocked again.

  Mama Nell’s gravelly voice came through the screen.

  “Who’s that?”

  “It’s me, Pearl.”

  “What for?”

  “Uh, I … well, I …” Pearl looked down at the tomato in her hand. “I brought you a tomato.”

  “Gives me heartburn,” Mama Nell said. “It ain’t a beefsteak anyways, is it?”

  “No, it’s a tomato.”

  Mama Nell cackled. “You don’t know much about nothing, do you?”

  Pearl squinted through the screen door. “Can I come in?”

  “What for?”

  “’Cause I want to,” Pearl said.

  Mama Nell cackled again, then coughed a rattly cough.

  Pearl opened the door and stepped inside. She wrinkled her nose at the smell. Cabbage or something.

  Mama Nell sat in her ratty old chair with a cat in her lap. Wads of tissue littered the floor at her feet. Those swollen, purple feet. She wore a thin, dirty nightgown over an undershirt, the kind of undershirt that old men wear.

  “Moonpie might like this tomato,” Pearl said. She felt silly. Maybe coming up here wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  “He might.” Mama Nell held out a shaky hand. Pearl gave her the tomato. Then she decided not to beat around the bush.

  “What was my mama like when she was a little girl?” she said.

  Mama Nell’s eyes wrinkled up in a smile but her mouth stayed set—turned down and grumpy-looking.

  “Who’s your mama?” Mama Nell said.

  Pearl’s stomach squeezed up tight. Maybe Mama Nell had gone senile. Maybe she didn’t remember much.

  “Ruby,” Pearl said. “Ruby Patterson.”

  Mama Nell chuckled, causing the cat on her lap to look up with an irritated look. “Just testing you,” she said.

  Shoot, thought Pearl. This old woman’s crazy. Pearl figured she might as well leave, but she didn’t. She sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

  “Ruby Patterson was full of the devil, I can tell you that,” Mama Nell said.

  “What besides that?” Pearl said.

  “Used to smoke cigarettes with Moon’s mama under that porch out there.” Mama Nell nodded toward the front porch. “Went around soreheaded all the time, just daring somebody to knock the chip off her shoulder.”

  “What else?”

  Mama Nell coughed so long and hard that Pearl stood up, wondering if she should do something. The cat jumped down and scurried into the kitchen.

  When Mama Nell finally stopped coughing, she wiped her mouth with a tissue and tossed it onto the floor. “That little thing didn’t want nothing in this world ’cept for her daddy to notice her like he did Ivy,” she said.

  Pearl sat back down on the bed. Well now, she thought, here was something to chew on.

  “Just went
about it all wrong was the problem,” Mama Nell said. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her nightgown. Pearl looked away quickly. She sure didn’t want to see what was up under there.

  “How’d she do that?” Pearl asked. “Go about it the wrong way, I mean?”

  “Caused trouble every dern minute of the day, that’s how. Made her daddy notice her, all right.” Mama Nell shook her head and stared out the front door. “Law, you could hear that man hollerin’.”

  “Really?”

  Mama Nell chuckled. “Course, you could hear Ruby hollerin’ right back. She liked to drove that old coot crazy the way she stood up to him. Not like Ivy, I can tell you that. Ivy, she always done things right by the book, that girl did.”

  A fly buzzed around Mama Nell’s face. Pearl watched it land on a tuft of the old woman’s thin white hair.

  “Ole Ruby Patterson,” Mama Nell went on, “stirring things up like a tornado.”

  “What’d she look like?”

  “Look like?”

  Pearl nodded.

  “Looked like you,” Mama Nell said. “Spittin’ image.”

  “You ever see her cry?”

  Mama Nell squinted at Pearl. “Cry?”

  Pearl felt like saying, “Is there an echo in here?” the way her mama would have, but she kept quiet.

  “Yeah, I seen her cry,” Mama Nell said. “That make you happy? Her crying?”

  Pearl looked down at the floor.

  “What you looking all hangdog for?” Mama Nell said. “Nothing wrong with being happy.”

  “I ain’t happy,” Pearl said.

  “You sure ain’t. You’re as soreheaded as that Ruby.”

  Pearl stared at Mama Nell. Why was this old woman getting on her case like this?

  “I ain’t soreheaded,” Pearl said.

  “Ain’t you?”

  “No.” Pearl held her chin up and looked that old woman square in the eye. “Besides, if I was, I’d have a right to be.”

  “Ha!” Mama Nell flapped a bony, bruised-up hand at Pearl.

  Pearl felt her face heat up with anger. “Just ’cause I look like her on the outside don’t mean I’m like her on the inside,” she said so loud Skeeter lifted his head again out on the porch.