by C. C. Payne
“I’m going to burn my blue shirt as soon as I get home,” I heard Kali announce to her friends.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Alan West—and his life-of-its-own hair—watching me from across the aisle. Alan moved his hand back and forth, trying to get my attention.
But I ignored him and kept right on counting:…ten-Mississippi, eleven-Mississippi…until the bus screeched to a stop. Then I launched myself out of there like a rocket.
“Lula Bell!” I heard Alan call after me as I hurried toward my house. “Lula Bell! Wait up!”
But I didn’t. I didn’t stop, didn’t wait, didn’t slow down, didn’t even turn around. Just didn’t.
A Party!
By the time we pulled into our driveway after church on Sunday, I was so excited, I could hardly stand it. It was the day of Grandma Bernice’s birthday party—a surprise! Plus, Daddy had pulled in late last night from Alabama, and I hadn’t gotten to see him yet. C’mon! C’mon! I thought. Nobody had been moving fast enough for me that morning, especially not Pastor Dan, who’d just gone on and on, waaay past the time that church was supposed to let out. (If you are a preacher, here’s a little tip for you: stick to the schedule.)
“I think I’ll have a ’mater sandwich for lunch,” Grandma Bernice said, heaving her car door open. (A ’mater sandwich is really a BLT—a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich—but Grandma Bernice considered the tomato—the ’mater—the important part. The other stuff amounted to toppings.)
I was the first one out of the car. Mama got out next. Finally, Grandma’s white head popped up. But then she started moving in the wrong direction, away from our house. Mama and I walked around the car, just as Grandma Bernice bent to pick up a soda can in our next door neighbor’s driveway.
“The dogs got loose again,” Grandma said, straightening. She held her back with one hand and the soda can with the other hand, while her little purse swung back and forth from her wrist. Behind Grandma Bernice, the Lanhams’ trash can lay toppled on its side, torn-up trash bags and yuck scattered all around it.
Mama and I exchanged a look.
“Well?” Grandma said, squinting against the noon sun.
“Go and help her, Lula Bell,” Mama said.
“But that’s not even our trash,” I complained in a voice barely above a whisper. (I didn’t want Grandma Bernice to hear. I knew she’d say that we were always supposed to leave a place nicer than we found it, but I figured whoever made up that rule probably meant to add “unless you’re on your way to a party.”)
Mama turned and gave me a look that read, Keep on complaining and you’ll find yourself taking care of trash for everyone on Cherry Tree Lane.
“Lula Bell! You know you should always leave a place nicer than you found it,” Grandma said, sounding shocked and disappointed all at once. (See? I told you.)
When Grandma Bernice, Mama, and I finished picking up the Lanhams’ garbage and went inside—finally!—everybody in our living room yelled, “SURPRISE!”
Flash! Flash! Flash! went Daddy’s camera.
I smiled at him.
Daddy lowered the camera and smiled back.
He needed a haircut, I noticed, but then Daddy almost always needs a haircut.
When I looked over at Grandma Bernice, her mouth was hanging open, and she had a hand over her heart. Her eyes wandered over each of the faces—friends from her quilting bee, her Sunday school class, our neighborhood, and Mama’s beauty shop. When she spotted her brother, Cleburne, who’d come all the way from Louisville, Kentucky, Grandma’s eyes got watery.
“Clee,” Grandma Bernice said softly, taking a step toward him, “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Great Uncle Cleburne smiled and held on to his walker for dear life as Grandma threw her arms around him and hugged with all her might. “Happy birthday, Bernice,” he said.
Grandma pulled back and took a good, long look at her brother. “Oh Clee, honey, where did your beautiful hair go?” she said sadly.
“What do you mean!” Great Uncle Cleburne said, reaching up to feel of the top of his head with one hand. He looked shocked and mighty upset to find skin there—just skin.
Grandma’s eyes bulged and her cheeks turned pink. “Oh…well now…I…I didn’t mean…,” she stammered, looking around the room for help.
No one said a word.
Slowly, a smile spread across Great Uncle Cleburne’s face. “I’m just joshin’ you,” he said. “I knew it was gone, darlin’.”
I was so relieved, I laughed out loud.
“Bernice, you remember my oldest daughter, Ethel,” Great Uncle Cleburne said, tilting his head toward the lady next to him. “She lives in Texas.” (Ethel looked a lot like Mama, I thought, only she was bigger and her hair wasn’t as pretty.)
Grandma hugged Ethel, too.
Once we’d washed up, we had not only ’mater sandwiches but lobster soup and pecan pie—all Grandma Bernice’s favorites—for lunch. All afternoon and into the evening, the house was crowded with noise and happiness. Great Uncle Cleburne and his daughter, Ethel, who I figured was probably some sort of cousin to me, stayed the longest.
After second helpings of sandwiches, soup, and pie, we cleaned up. Mama transferred food, wrapped it up, and put it away. Cousin Ethel washed dishes, and I dried.
“Uncle Cleburne is such a character,” Mama said, smiling, as she handed Cousin Ethel a china platter.
“You have no idea,” Cousin Ethel said seriously. “Why, just yesterday morning, I was in the car, listening to a talk show on the radio, when I heard the host say, ‘Let’s take some calls. First, we’ll hear from Cleburne in Louisville, Kentucky.’”
“No,” Mama said with wide eyes.
Ethel nodded. “And there he was on the radio, ranting and raving for the entire country to hear!”
Mama laughed. We all did.
“Oh, c’mon, Bernice, pleeease,” Great Uncle Cleburne was begging when I came back downstairs from changing into my pajamas.
Grandma pretended to feel highly put upon, but I could tell that she was secretly pleased. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, all right!” she said as she pushed herself up from her lazy-girl chair.
Grandma waited for me to squeeze in on the couch between Mama and Daddy. Then she sat down at our old upright piano and began playing and singing the hymn “Amazing Grace.” Great Uncle Cleburne joined Grandma Bernice, singing harmony. It truly was amazing.
Then Grandma called out, “Your turn, Lula Bell!”
“No, thank you,” I said, smiling sweetly at Great Uncle Cleburne and Cousin Ethel.
Grandma turned to look at me over her shoulder.
I gave her a look back that read, No. Forget it. I am not kidding around here!
“Oh! I know! How ’bout the song you’ve been working on for the talent show at school?” Grandma said hopefully.
I shook my head.
Grandma faced the piano and played a few bars of “This Little Light of Mine,” holding the last note and turning to ask me again with her eyes.
My bare toes waggled around in the carpet as I shook my head again.
Grandma finally took the pressure off me by playing another song. This time, Great Uncle Cleburne joined in on “I’ll Fly Away.”
I felt grateful but guilty, relieved but disappointed in myself. This resulted in a lot of nervous, overzealous clapping on my part.
“Thank you,” Grandma Bernice said as she got up from the piano.
I kept right on clapping.
Everyone started giving me strange, confused, uncomfortable kinds of looks—except for Uncle Cleburne. I decided I liked him a lot.
“Thank you,” Grandma said again, looking directly at me, as if to say, Enough.
Daddy placed a large hand over both my hands and gently lowered them to my lap.
I looked at him and with my eyes, I tried to say, Thanks! I don’t know what came over me!
Daddy grinned.
“No, thank you,” Great U
ncle Cleburne was saying. “If you only knew how I’d longed to hear you sing again, Bernice.”
Grandma glowed with pride. “You should hear Lula Bell.”
“You should hear Daddy,” I said.
Daddy’s grin widened, showing his dimple. “Another time,” he said. Then he put his arm around me, squeezed, and whispered into my ear, “Thanks, sweetie, but this is Grandma Bernice’s night.”
“Thank you, all of you, for the best birthday I ever had,” Grandma said.
“And it’s not even your birthday yet!” I said, because Grandma Bernice’s actual birthday wasn’t until the next day.
Grandma winked and nodded at me as she sat back down in her lazy-girl chair.
As the grown-ups talked and reminisced, my eyes grew heavy, but I stayed put. I was determined not to miss a thing. The last thing I heard that night before I fell asleep on the couch was Grandma Bernice saying, “Remember when you went to work on the Purnell’s pig farm, Clee?”
Great Uncle Cleburne chuckled. Then, all the warm, comfortable, happy feelings in the room closed around me like an old quilt and carried me off to sleep.
A Bumpy Beginning
I was still on the couch, nestled under one of Grandma Bernice’s oldest and softest quilts, when Mama woke me up on Monday morning.
“We overslept! We’re late! You’ve gotta hurry, Lula Bell!” Mama said.
I just blinked at her and tried to make sense of the words gushing from her lips, like Honey Run Creek after a good storm.
Mama stood and tossed clothes on top of the quilt, on top of me. “Put these on. Hurry! And then I’ll drive you to school.”
My brain was sleepy and slow to add up our problem. Whatever it was, I knew it couldn’t be that serious, seeing as how Mama still had bed-head and was wearing her kimono—if disaster was on the way, Mama surely would’ve brushed her hair and dressed to meet it. Even so, I shook sleep off and did as I was told.
“Now run upstairs and brush your teeth—quietly,” Mama said.
“Can’t I say good-bye to Daddy and Grandma Bernice?”
“No, Lula Bell, let them sleep—they were up awfully late.”
“But I always say good-bye to Grandma Bernice, and Daddy’ll be gone when I get back from school,” I pleaded.
Mama was losing her patience. “We don’t have time. Now go brush your teeth and come straight back.”
I pouted a little but followed her instructions.
Mama was waiting by the garage door, car keys in hand, monster-purse hanging from her shoulder, when I came back downstairs. Although she’d brushed her hair, she still looked a little funny wearing her purse with her red and white kimono and neon blue fuzzy slippers, but I shouldn’t have been surprised; my mama will do just about anything to stay on schedule. (Let her be an example to you, Pastor Dan.)
I dug my shoes out of the shoe basket and put them on my feet, then checked the clock over the stove. “I hope you wrote me a note.”
“What?” Mama said.
I grabbed my backpack. “I’m late. So you can either come into the school and sign me in or send a note—I hope you wrote a note.”
“Oh. Just a second. I’ll write the note.”
“I sure hope you don’t get pulled over by the police or anything,” I said once Mama and I were in the car—because one time, we saw a lady in Nashville being handcuffed by the police in her pajamas!
“Me, too,” Mama said, smiling for the first time that morning as she stepped on the gas with her furry blue foot.
I never really settled into a rhythm at school that day. The running-late-ness stayed with me through language arts, math, lunch, and social studies. Even though I frantically tried to catch up, I was always a step behind everybody else: the last one to find the right page in my textbook, the last one to find a pencil, the last one through the lunch line, and then I couldn’t find my social studies homework, so I had to dig through my backpack, book by book, page by page, to come up with it while my whole class waited. It felt as if the world had shifted while I slept, and I couldn’t regain my balance. Little did I know the world hadn’t shifted. It had ended.
The End of My World
Since I’d missed the bus that morning—and therefore Kali had missed her chance to torment me—I went into possurtle position as soon as I got on the bus that afternoon. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but sometimes it works. Sometimes. But not that day. (That’s probably because Alan West sat down beside me, and his hair doesn’t do possurtle. It’s too busy standing up and saying things like Ta-dah!)
Anyway, that day Kali Keele called out from the back of the bus, “Hey, Lula Bell!” She seemed to be waiting for me to turn around. Which I didn’t.
“Hey!” Kali shouted louder. “Lula Bell, I’m talkin’ to you!”
I pretended not to hear her—again.
Alan turned and looked at me.
I stared straight ahead but wanted to yell at him, No! Don’t look at me! Pretend I’m not here! But I didn’t say a thing—to Alan or Kali.
Even so, Kali kept it up. It was as if I’d turned around and said, “What?” Because the next thing she said was, “I saw you and your grandma picking up trash yesterday—are y’all like the neighborhood janitors now?”
I heard a few snickers. There were two more stops before mine. I thought about getting off at both of them and walking the rest of the way home. But what if the driver noticed me getting off at the wrong stop, got after me in front of everybody, and made me sit back down? No point in embarrassing myself—even more—especially if I couldn’t actually get off the bus. So, I just sat there, waiting and wiggling my toes so hard I’m surprised my shoes didn’t go flying off.
The bus hadn’t even come to a complete stop when I sprang out of my seat and started pushing past Alan—almost ending up in his lap. I thought Alan looked a little surprised, but with that hair, who knows?
As I hovered over him, hanging on to the seat in front of us, Alan whispered, “The biggest mistake one can make with a wolf is to run. Don’t run.”
Of course, as soon as I regained my balance, I threw myself down the aisle, cleared the steps in one mighty leap, and took off running without looking back.
I slammed the front door behind me and leaned against it, trying to catch my breath.
“Lula Bell,” Daddy said in a hoarse voice.
When my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I found Daddy sitting on the couch. He patted the seat beside him.
Something was wrong. Daddy wasn’t supposed to be here, and the house was way too dark. Dread filled me and I hesitated, not wanting to know whatever it was. But just like that morning, I told myself it couldn’t be that bad, and that everything was okay—or soon would be. I lowered my backpack to the floor, meandered over to the couch, and plunked myself down.
Daddy’s eyes were red and swollen. Had he been crying? Is that why all the curtains were closed—because Daddy didn’t want anybody to see him crying? I was pretty sure Daddy didn’t cry. Ever. Must be allergies, I decided.
Daddy took my hand in his and cleared his throat with some effort.
Yep, allergies, I thought.
“Lula Bell,” Daddy said, “Grandma Bernice is…gone.”
I nodded. “Where’d she go?”
“To heaven, honey.”
“Huh?” I said, because I hadn’t been thinking in terms of heaven; I’d been thinking in terms of Al’s Food Valu or Jo-Ann’s Fabrics.
“Grandma Bernice has gone to heaven,” Daddy said.
I shook my head, as if to say, No, no, no, no.
Daddy nodded his, just barely, as if to whisper, Yes, yes, yes, yes.
“That’s not true!” I said, my voice rising in panic. “It couldn’t be! I just saw Grandma Bernice last night! She was fine! She was singing!”
“I know,” Daddy said quietly.
His words didn’t make sense. “Are you saying that Grandma Bernice died?”
Daddy lowered his eyes so that I coul
dn’t see them and nodded again.
“How did she die?” I demanded to know.
“In her sleep, early this morning. I’m so sorry, Lula Bell.”
I shot up off the couch and ran for the stairs.
Upstairs, I hesitated in front of Grandma Bernice’s closed bedroom door, afraid of what I might find on the other side. My heart pounded against my chest. I kept sucking in air, but it never seemed to reach my lungs. I took a deep breath, forced it all the way down, held it, and opened the door.
Grandma’s room was too still, too quiet, and too clean. Her bed had been made in a way that somehow told me she hadn’t made it herself. There was no clutter: no hairbrush lying next to a pile of bobby pins on the dresser, no bootie-slippers on the floor next to the bed, no fabric remnants anywhere. And there was not a speck of dust.
That’s when I knew that Daddy had been telling the truth. The air left my lungs in a whoosh, like a balloon deflating. I took one step forward and crumpled onto Grandma’s bed.
Horrible, sad sounds filled Grandma Bernice’s room—the kind of sounds mother seals make while their babies are being clubbed to death on the ice, right in front of them. I clamped my hands over my ears.
That’s when I realized the sounds were coming from me.
Life Goes On—How Rude!
The next few mornings were the hardest. I’d forget while I was sleeping. Then, when I woke up, I’d remember. And remembering was like hearing the news for the first time, all over again. At first, I’d think—hope—that maybe it was all just a bad dream. When I realized it wasn’t, I’d close my eyes and pray. I’d tell God that I would do anything, anything, if He would just let Grandma Bernice be okay, if He would just give her back. But He didn’t.
On Thursday morning, when I finally opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a black dress, which appeared to be my size, hanging on the back of Grandma Bernice’s bedroom door; it still had tags dangling from the underarm. Below that, on the floor, were shiny, black patent-leather shoes with straps that buckled on the sides. A pair of lacy white socks stuck out from inside one of the shoes. The other shoe held clean underwear. These things were to be my funeral clothes, I knew. I guessed Mama had left them here because I hadn’t slept in my own room in days, and because Grandma Bernice’s funeral was today. I didn’t know how to feel about that, but I did know that I had to be there no matter what.