Lula Bell on Geekdom, Freakdom, & the Challenges of Bad Hair

by C. C. Payne

  The tiny, delicate roses were tied together with a string attached to a shiny red ribbon, and not the usual kind. The rectangular ribbon had gold lettering that read “Second Place Science Fair.” I’d forgotten all about the science fair at school. That seemed like ages ago. I stood there, trying to figure how long it had really been. Only days, I realized.

  “Uncle Cleburne…some more sweet tea?” I heard Mama say in the next room.

  I took the red ribbon off the roses and put them in a jar of water.

  When Mama came back, I thought about telling her that Alan and I had won second place at the school science fair. But what difference did it make? None. It didn’t make me feel any better, so it probably wouldn’t make Mama feel any better either. I dropped the ribbon into the junk drawer and closed it.

  When I turned, Mama handed me a plate. “You have to eat, Lula Bell,” she said, raising her eyebrows at me. Then she grabbed the big pitcher of sweet tea and was gone again.

  By her eyebrows and the tone of her voice, I knew Mama meant business. I chose one of the few casseroles I thought I recognized (chicken, I hoped) and spooned some onto my plate. Have you ever noticed how all casseroles look the same from a distance? They all look brown and toasty and yummy, without a hint of the grossness lurking beneath the crust. (If you cook, here’s a little tip for you: good food doesn’t have to be disguised.)

  Sitting on the stairs with my plate in my lap, watching the pitiful little party in our living room, I couldn’t help remembering Grandma Bernice’s birthday party. All the same people had been there, plus Grandma Bernice. I remembered how she’d wanted me to sing, how hopeful she’d looked when she’d asked about my song for the school talent show and how I’d disappointed her. For the second time. On her last day on earth.

  Just then Mrs. Purdy—who is the snazziest dresser I know—walked past. Her leopard-print high heels caught my eye, and I was instantly back in the hallway at school, Grandma Bernice waving at me like mad, in her leopard-trimmed sweat suit. No! No! No! my mind screamed. Get out of here! It’s too much! And it was. It was like looking at the worst, ugliest photo of myself, a picture I wanted to tear into a million tiny pieces, burn, and bury. Only it was too late. Someone else had already seen the picture, and that someone had been Grandma Bernice. It had hurt her. I had hurt her. And now Grandma would never know how sorry I was. Tears burned behind my eyes, so I closed them.

  Mama cleared her throat. When I opened my eyes, she was standing right in front of me, holding a stack of dirty dishes.

  I wanted to confess to her. I wanted tell her how I wished I’d never, ever hurt or disappointed Grandma Bernice. But most of all…

  “I just wish I hadn’t fallen asleep,” I blurted out.

  “Lula Bell, honey,” Mama said ever so softly, “Grandma Bernice didn’t die because you fell asleep.”

  I thought about this and knew that it was true. But still, I couldn’t help wishing that things had gone differently somehow.

  “Now please eat something,” Mama said. “Please.”

  I picked up my fork and used it to push casserole lumps around on my plate.

  “Thank you,” Mama said as she started moving again.

  I must’ve been concentrating really hard on rearranging my lumps so that they’d look like I’d eaten, because when I glanced up, I was startled to find Great Uncle Cleburne—and his walker—standing right in front of me. Great Uncle Cleburne’s watery blue eyes were soft and understanding, just like Grandma Bernice’s had been.

  “Aw, I know how you feel, hon’,” Great Uncle Cleburne said. “Really, I do, but you gotta eat—you gotta take care of yourself.”

  I just blinked at him.

  “If Bernice were here right now, she’d go out of her way to care for you, wouldn’t she?”

  I thought about this and nodded.

  “Taking care of you was important to Bernice, so the best thing you can do for her right now is take care of yourself.”

  “You look a lot like her,” I said. “You have the same eyes.”

  Great Uncle Cleburne smiled. “Thank you, darlin’. That helps.”

  I was confused, and I guess it showed.

  Uncle Cleburne explained, “It helps to know I’ve got a little piece of my baby sister with me all the time—somethin’ I can see in the mirror, on my very own face, any old time I want.”

  I nodded my understanding.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get some more sweet tea. Your mama makes the best sweet tea I ever tasted!”

  “The trick is not to be afraid of the sugar. You just gotta dump it in there—while the tea’s still good and hot,” I said.

  “I knew it!” Great Uncle Cleburne said to himself as he started off sloooowly. “I knew Ethel was bein’ stingy with the sugar!”

  I took a bite of chicken—just chicken—and forced myself to swallow. Grandma Bernice, I hope you’re watching, I thought. I’m trying. I’m trying to take care of myself. For you.

  We put Great Uncle Cleburne on the fold-out sofa bed downstairs for the night.

  “Have you taken your medication?” Cousin Ethel asked him.

  “I’ve taken it,” Great Uncle Cleburne said.

  “Lula Bell, get him some water,” Mama said to me, and then to Great Uncle Cleburne, “just in case you get thirsty.”

  Cousin Ethel knelt and tucked the sheets and blankets in way too tight, under the mattress. “We can’t have you falling outta bed,” she said.

  Great Uncle Cleburne held onto the sheets with both hands and stared at the ceiling without blinking.

  “Um, can you move your feet?” I asked, because Cousin Ethel was pulling and tucking everything so tight that Great Uncle Cleburne’s toes were pointing like a ballerina’s under the covers.

  Great Uncle Cleburne didn’t bother to answer me.

  “Now then.” Cousin Ethel stood. “You sure you don’t need to use the bathroom, Daddy?”

  All of a sudden, Great Uncle Cleburne started waving his arms and saying, “Shoo! Shoo! Shoo, flies, shoo!”

  I was pretty sure that we were the flies he was referring to. I could kind of see his point, the way everybody was buzzing around him.

  We all said our goodnights and headed for the stairs. Mama led the way; Cousin Ethel and Daddy followed, while I brought up the rear.

  On the landing, I noticed that Grandma Bernice’s grandfather clock had stopped. It stood as still and as silent as a statue. At first, I thought that even that old clock had enough sense to stop and mourn Grandma Bernice. But then I remembered that Grandma had been the only one to wind it. So of course it stopped. I left it that way.

  Upstairs, Cousin Ethel disappeared into Grandma Bernice’s bedroom and closed the door. Mama smoothed my hair, kissed my forehead, and headed for her bedroom.

  But Daddy hung back in the hallway. “You okay?” he asked me.

  I nodded.

  “Want me to tuck you in?”

  I shook my head.

  “I promise I’ll do it just like Cousin Ethel,” Daddy whispered, teasing me.

  I smiled and shook my head again.

  “All right then. See you in the mornin’,” Daddy said.

  “See you in the mornin’,” I echoed, my hand on my bedroom doorknob.

  Daddy continued to watch me without moving. I think he was waiting for me to change my mind.

  I slipped into my bedroom and shut the door quietly behind me. I hadn’t been in here in days, I suddenly realized. When I learned that Grandma Bernice was gone, I’d gone straight to her room and stayed there. I hadn’t bathed, hadn’t changed clothes, hadn’t even brushed my hair or teeth, not until this morning.

  For a minute, I just stood there in the dark, breathing deeply. Then, I reached over and flipped on the light.

  What I saw caused me to sink to my knees. For the last time, Grandma Bernice had left my room nicer than she’d found it. For the last time, she’d straightened my bed and folded my covers back neatly. For the l
ast time, she’d left one of her raspberry chocolates on my pillow. Tears streaked down my cheeks.

  I had nothing left in me, no more tears, nothing, by the time I got up off the floor. My eyeballs felt tired and achy. My body felt heavy, and it took all my strength just to make it to the bed. Gently, I picked up the pink-foiled chocolate and placed it on my nightstand. Then, still wearing my funeral dress and lacy socks, I pulled back the rosebud quilt that Grandma Bernice had made for me and climbed into bed.

  It Has to Get Better—Right?

  I thought it would get better after the funeral—mostly because I didn’t see how things could get any worse. But I was wrong. It was much worse.

  After the funeral, everybody went back to their normal lives—which seemed unfair, considering the fact that I couldn’t go back to my normal life (normal life = life with Grandma Bernice). Even Daddy had to go back to work.

  “But what if I need you, Daddy? I don’t even know where you are half the time,” I pleaded.

  “I’ll call to check on y’all every night, like always,” Daddy said. “Tomorrow we’ll be in Oklahoma City, and after that, we move on to Wichita, Kansas—you can always check the Boots and Whistles website to see where I am.”

  Check the website? Like any other stranger? “Um…I’m your daughter,” I informed him, teary-eyed.

  “Guess that makes you pretty lucky, hunh?” Daddy said, grinning.

  “No, it makes you lucky,” I teased back, but my heart wasn’t in it.

  There was nothing more anybody could do, I guess. Soon, the doorbell and phone stopped ringing, and Mama and I were left alone. Mostly, I stayed in bed. But that morning, when I woke up, I realized there was someone beside me.

  The person beside me sniffed. I knew that sniff; it was Mama’s.

  I turned over to face her.

  “She was right,” Mama said, crying softly into my other pillow.

  “Huh?”

  “I should’ve made her lobster soup. I should’ve made it for her every night,” Mama cried.

  “But you did make her lobster soup, Mama.”

  She sniffed again and nodded.

  “Grandma got everything she wanted,” I said, trying my best to comfort Mama. “She got lobster soup; she got a birthday party; she got to see her brother, Cleburne…” I hesitated, not sure whether I should go on.

  Mama nodded again, but she didn’t seem very comforted.

  I thought maybe I should share my secret: “Grandma Bernice even died the way she wanted. She—”

  “I don’t wanna talk about that,” Mama interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut.

  I closed my mouth and waited.

  When Mama’s eyes fluttered open, she said, “Grandma’s in a better place now. That’s what we need to focus on.”

  That’s when I realized I’d been wrong. All this time, I thought I’d been crying for Grandma Bernice, but suddenly I realized I hadn’t been crying for her at all. After all, Grandma had gotten everything she wanted, and everyone said that she was in a better place, that she was happy. So, why cry for her when she wouldn’t have cried for herself? I didn’t. I cried for me. I cried because I’d never see Grandma again for the rest of my life—and already, I missed her. So, the way I figured, I was only feeling sorry for myself.

  This made me feel a little better, because there’s a strict limit to how long you’re allowed to feel sorry for yourself in our house. People who exceed this limit—or complain—are punished with extra chores. “Feeling sorry for yourself never accomplishes anything,” Mama always says, “while hard work always brings accomplishment.”

  My biggest and best accomplishment these days was getting out of bed. Sometimes, I wandered into Grandma Bernice’s bedroom, like I did late that morning. I studied the framed photos on her night-stand and tried to guess what Grandma had seen in them. There was one of Mama laughing with her head thrown back, a picture of me sleeping with my head on Daddy’s chest when I was two or three years old, a picture of Grandma Bernice and Papa Roy on their wedding day—they looked so young and beautiful and happy. I put the pictures back exactly the way they had been.

  I ran my hands over the lavender quilt on Grandma’s bed as if I were touching Grandma’s hands rather than just the tiny stitches her hands had once made.

  I picked up Grandma’s old, beat-up Bible and remembered her teaching me about Bible cracking. Bible cracking is something you do when you need help. It’s when you pick up the Bible and let it fall open, so it can speak to you in the first scripture you lay eyes on. Grandma’s Bible fell open to Hebrews, and the first scripture I laid eyes on was highlighted in yellow. It read, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for.”

  I’d had faith, hadn’t I? Hadn’t I hoped and prayed that Grandma Bernice would be okay, that God would give her back, that He would fix all this somehow? But He didn’t, did He?

  When I looked up, I saw the wreath of dried flowers from Grandma’s garden: hydrangeas, which had once been a vibrant purplish-blue but were so faded I could barely make out the color. Dead, dead, dead, I thought. And then I cried some more—for myself.

  I was holding Grandma Bernice’s slippers when Mama came upstairs and said, “Lula Bell, come down and have some breakfast.”

  I hugged the slippers to me protectively and said, “No, thank you.”

  Later, when Mama came upstairs again, I was looking at Grandma’s glasses, trying to picture the exact way her face twisted and bunched when she had wanted to move her glasses up without using her hands. I could picture it mostly but not exactly. I would’ve given anything I had to see her do it again.

  “Lula Bell, honey,” Mama said, “won’t you eat just a little somethin’ for lunch?”

  “Maybe later,” I said. (I figured “maybe later” sounded better than the truth, which was that I had no desire to ever swallow another bite of food—and even less desire to swallow the food we had, which was still mostly casseroles.)

  I must’ve fallen asleep in Grandma Bernice’s room, because the next thing I knew there was a hand on my shoulder. I heard Mama murmur, “Lula Bell…Lula…”

  I opened my eyes. Grandma’s lace curtains were twilight blue, the color of evening. As quickly as the time of day came to me, so did the memory: Grandma Bernice was gone.

  Mama didn’t say whatever she’d come to say. Instead, she cuddled up next to me on Grandma Bernice’s bed, and we cried together. This time, I cried some for Mama, too, because, after all, Grandma Bernice was my mama’s mama. I suddenly realized that both my mama’s mama and daddy were dead, and that Mama was practically an orphan now. An orphan! How awful! After that, I did all my crying for Mama.

  “I’m so sorry,” I managed in between sobs.

  “I know. I am, too,” Mama said.

  After a little while, Mama let out a deep sigh and got up, wearing a determined look on her face. This is almost never good news for me. “It’d do you good to get out of the house,” Mama said.

  “No, thanks. Maybe later,” I said, as if she’d asked me about eating again.

  “But Lula Bell, this is your last lesson, your last chance to practice before the talent show auditions,” Mama reminded me. “And Mrs. West is expecting you.”

  I knew then that it was Thursday, because Mrs. West gives me piano and voice lessons on Thursdays. Thursday. Without Grandma Bernice. I didn’t want to go anywhere, especially not on a Thursday, and especially not to the Wests’ house.

  “You know how important the talent show was to Grandma,” Mama added.

  I nodded to indicate that I knew the talent show was important to Grandma, not that I was willing to get up and leave the house, but Mama must’ve misunderstood.

  “Good,” she said. “Get cleaned up and come downstairs for a bite of supper before you leave. It’ll help you to get out—you’ll see.”

  For a few miserable minutes, I just lay there, feeling lonelier than I ever had before. Mama just doesn’t know, I thought. She doesn’t know what she’s asking
me to do or how hard it is. She just doesn’t know. Even if I’d wanted to—which I didn’t—I wasn’t sure I could do what Mama was asking.

  The show Must Go On

  When I arrived at the Wests’ house, Mrs. West ushered me to the baby grand piano, where she already had my sheet music in place.

  The show must go on, I thought sadly, because Mrs. West had been saying that as long as I’d known her: “Oh, you have a cold? Well, I’m sorry to hear it, but the show must go on!” “Oh, your arm has broken off? Well, I’m so sorry, but thank heaven you have another one, because the show must go on!”

  Okay, okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. I’d had allergies, not a cold, and neither of my arms has ever broken off—it was just a sprain. And Mrs. West hadn’t been cranky or mean on either occasion—she’s never really mean. She always listens and gives me sympathy—right before she says, “The show must go on!” She would know, I guess. Mrs. West used to be a singer—she even performed at the Grand Ole Opry before Alan was born. Her dad had been a famous musician, too—a piano player.

  I sat down on the bench and stared at the musical notes on the paper in front of me. Mrs. West perched on the end of the piano bench, waiting. Obediently, I played the first few bars of “Under the Boardwalk” and then stopped abruptly.

  “That’s all right,” Mrs. West said kindly. “Just start again.”

  I wrung my hands.

  After a time, Mrs. West turned and looked at me.

  “I can’t do it,” I told her.

  “Okaaaay,” Mrs. West said slowly, in a way that seemed to ask why.

  I didn’t know what to say. So I just sat there, trying to sort it all out in my head.

  Music had always been a way of celebrating at our house. The second we had something to celebrate, big or small, Grandma Bernice took to the piano. Piano playing and singing marked happy times—birthdays, holidays, even snow days. On snowy, winter nights when we learned that school had been canceled the next day, Grandma Bernice would sit down at the piano and bang out “Midnight Hour” while I danced around the living room for joy. To me, “Midnight Hour” would always mean “stay up late, snow day tomorrow,” while “Here Comes the Sun” would always mean “first day of spring.” “Summertime” would always mean…well, “summertime.”