Finding Esme

by Suzanne Crowley

  “Oh, that,” I said, embarrassed. The lip gloss. “It’s Cherry Smash.” I bit my lip.

  “And you got something all over your eyes.” He was looking at me funny.

  “Well, you’ve shaved,” I said. What a joke. He didn’t even have peach fuzz yet.

  “Granger got me a razor, too,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

  Finch sat back down and picked up his whittling stick. I leaned on the porch rail, holding on to one of the paint-peeled columns. I looked down at his book. Robinson Crusoe. Finch loved books that took him on a journey, anywhere away from Hollis. Miss Ferriday sometimes ordered books from other libraries just for him.

  He pulled a box of candy cigarettes out of his back pocket and offered them to me. I took two and shoved them in my mouth, feeling a little guilty knowing that they were probably bought with Granger’s moonshining money.

  I wanted to tell him about all my new secrets like Louella Goodbones, and what his brother Granger was up to in the woods, and that tingly-numbly feeling in my toes each time something wondrous happened, but I couldn’t. It was all there on the tip of my tongue. But the words couldn’t leave my lips.

  After getting sundaes at Sonic, I took Bo down by the hardware store. While he ate his sundae, I slipped into the phone booth and put a quarter in the slot. I dialed the jail. After two rings, someone picked up.

  “Sheriff’s office. Sheriff Bennett,” a faraway-sounding male voice said distractedly.

  “Is Harlan McCauley in your jail there?” I whispered into the phone, like they do on TV in spy shows. I looked over my shoulder. Streams of chocolate were running down Bo’s face as he hopped along the sidewalk, spinning his red spoon in his sundae.

  “Harlan?” The sheriff laughed. “No, that scoundrel’s not here. Painted up the jail to pay for half his bail. Did a great job. Then hightailed it out of here several weeks ago.”

  “Who paid the other half?” I asked. “Sir.” I wondered if Bee had come through after all.

  “Some old feller passing through—he looked like Rumpelstiltskin. They seemed to know each other. Some lady called just as they were heading out, told me to tell Harlan she didn’t have the money because she’d just buried his father.” I pressed the phone tight up against my ear.

  “You still there?” he asked.

  “What did he say?” I sounded like I was squealing. “Harlan,” I added, trying to disguise my voice again. He knew. He knew Paps had died and he hadn’t come home.

  “Didn’t say anything, just waved that jolly wave of his and out they went.” I hung up and grabbed Bo’s hand. He could be anywhere, I told myself. Anywhere.

  We spotted Bee around the corner outside Sweetmaw’s talking to Rose Galloway, who was just leaving. Her hair was blown out and shiny. She flipped it over her shoulder when she saw me.

  Bo ran up behind Bee and tried to crawl through her legs. She pulled him to his feet, frowning at me as she wiped his chocolaty face.

  “So what do you need, Rose Galloway?” Bee asked, shoving her handkerchief back in the pocket of her jeans. My toes started to tingle and I already knew without a doubt what she wanted and where it was. Rose had a rare bird, a scarlet-chested parakeet her daddy’d bought her in Dallas. The parakeet was named Popsicle and she always trotted it out on Bring Your Pet to School day. It was now sitting on Vera Godly’s fence, Vera’s cat Panther ready to pounce on it.

  It’s the seen and unseen, Esme, and all that’s in-between. And you have to use your gift when it comes to you. But I thought about all those mean names they’d been calling me all these years. Thumby, and Butthole Mouth, and Saucer Eyes.

  “Popsicle’s missing. Mama left the cage door open when she fed her this morning.”

  Bee frowned. She didn’t know all about how the kids at school treated me, but I think she guessed some of it, and she knew Rose Galloway was the worst. A worm is the only animal that can’t fall down, Bee had once said about Rose when I’d begged for a new pair of Jordache jeans like the ones Rose wore. “You’re supposed to be picking peaches,” she said to me now. Her chin jutted out slightly, her spectacles sliding down her nose.

  “I finished early,” I said, turning away from her.

  “I don’t have time to go looking for a bird, Rose Galloway,” Bee told Rose. What’d got in her crock?

  I thought about that poor bird about to be crunched by Vera Godly’s cat. “It’s sitting on Vera Godly’s fence,” I said. “You’d better hurry, before it flies away or gets eaten.”

  Bee swung around to me. I turned my head so she couldn’t see my nostrils flaring. “I saw it on my way over here, couldn’t miss it,” I lied as Rose started to run toward Vera’s. “I’m going to the library, if that’s okay.”

  “You swear you got those peaches picked?” Bee asked.

  “Of course. They’re in the barn.”

  “How many bushels?”

  “Five half-bushel baskets.”

  “Well, all right then. You hurry on home afterward. We need to start the honey. I have orders already from a shop over in Paradise. And as soon as you’re home, you’re wiping all that dadgum gunk off your face.”

  The Hollis Public Library was a block off the town square, nestled behind a fringe of cottonwood trees. I found Miss Ferriday at her desk typing a letter. When old Mrs. Tivey died a few years back, Miss Ferriday showed up for the job all the way from Austin and set everyone’s tongues a wagging as to why a pretty girl like her wasn’t married yet.

  “Esme McCauley,” she said, surprised to see me. “What are you doing here, honey?” I wasn’t known for my literary pursuits. I really wasn’t known for anything at all.

  “I was wondering . . . ,” I began, my eyes flitting around, my nostrils flaring. But Miss Ferriday didn’t even blink. I think she was used to people asking for books in a round-about way. “Do you have any books on . . . well . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Big bones?” I finally blurted out.

  Vera Godly and Lottie Broadway came through the front door then, arm in arm, and went toward the magazines. I could tell June Rain had done their hair; Vera’s chignon looked like it was from Paris or something, and Lottie’s permanent was just right.

  “What do you mean by big bones?” Miss Ferriday asked.

  “Like a big animal, old, ancient, giant, buried deep,” I whispered. “Maybe a dinosaur, but I don’t know.”

  “Oh, I see, you mean animal skeletons or fossils?” Miss Ferriday’s eyes got big.

  “You can’t tell anyone, though,” I pleaded. “Please.”

  She smiled. “Librarians don’t tell,” she said. “Ever.” That was probably true. She probably knew more about people in Hollis than Bee did.

  “Are there even dinosaurs in Texas?” I asked her. I felt stupid for asking, but I didn’t know.

  “I’ll look, honey,” she said, and soon she was back and handing me a neat stack of books. One was called Dinosaurs of America. Another Reptiles of North America, Ancient Monsters. She’d slipped Jane Eyre into the middle of the pile. She handed me a grocery bag to put them in.

  “We don’t have anything on Texas dinosaurs specifically. But there might be something in those books. And maybe there’ll be something on microfiche. The librarian at the Paradise Library, Mrs. Greenly, can look for us as well. I’ll call her today and ask . . . and Esme?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s our secret,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  Suddenly Mady Whitshaw and Dovie Cade appeared next to me. Mady’s mama Mabel had some crippling disease, had for years been hanging on by God’s good graces, according to Bee. She’d recently turned for the worse and could hardly get out of bed. The medicine she needed to ease her pain was too expensive for their family to afford anymore.

  “What secret?” Mady asked.

  I grabbed the bag of books to my chest, suddenly embarrassed. Miss Ferriday saved me. “Esme is joining our summer reading program.”

  I stood there, my teeth c
linched together. I looked up at Dovie and she smiled at me.

  “My mother, out of the blue,” Dovie paused, looking at me, “found Grandma’s wedding ring. She is over the moon. She’s going to sell it when it’s time for me to go off to college.”

  I’d found the ring for Dee Dee all right, but I didn’t know if I was ready to be Dovie’s friend again. Mady pulled her away, then Dovie smiled at me over her shoulder as they went out the door.

  I found a quiet corner in the reference section. I opened Dinosaurs of America and started flipping through the pages. I came to one drawing of a dinosaur with a long neck, its mouth open showing a row of sharp teeth. Allosaurus. I hoped Louella Goodbones looked like this—ancient, yet elegant and fierce—oh, how I hoped so. I got an excited, warm feeling as I turned through the pages, one by one, looking into those ancient eyes.

  I ran straight up to Solace Hill. Bee looked out from the peach trees where she was picking, but I didn’t care. I lay down under the tractor, the earth cooling me, like I was floating in sweet river water.

  I looked at the quilt covering Louella. Paps had been so close to the bone when he’d passed away. What was it, Paps? What were you looking for? Bump joined me, scrambling over my arm and on down to a muddy rut made by the tractor wheels. He sat atop something that had a hard smooth edge and was not meant to be here.

  I rolled over to it, and Bump hopped off. I ran my finger down its length. Hard, like wood. Was it part of Louella? My stomach dropped as I dug more dirt away, more and more till I was able to pull it out. It was a small embossed wooden box. With a bee carved on top.

  I carefully opened it. There was a small gold coin. A gold coin. I sensed a shadow over the tractor and a deep gloom passed through me. The gold coin suddenly burned in my palm. Don’t touch! I quickly put it back and covered the box with dirt again.

  Where was the other coin? The one Paps had found? Or was this it? Bee, so good at finding things, was even better at hiding them.

  I crawled out from the tractor and knelt down next to Louella Goodbones, running my fingers up and down her exposed skull.

  Bee called for me from the orchard just then, startling me so I fell over and rolled a little down the hill. I just kept going and going, somersaulting like Finch and I’d done as little kids. I dusted myself off at the bottom and ran the rest of the way.

  I woke up with a start. It was still pitch-black. Something was stirring, a creak, a hush, a stilled footstep, the telltale sounds that mean someone else is awake. Bo had gotten into my bed sometime in the night, like he often did. I peeled away his arm, and put his hand, clutching a plastic soldier, across his chest. Then I tiptoed out of the room, making my own unintended squeaks.

  It was June Rain. She was sitting at her window. I stood in the doorway and she glanced back at me, her tear-streaked face dusted silver in the moonlight.

  “I had an uncle who came to visit us once. Tall as a timber tree, with a long beard down to his belly button, like a wooly mammoth,” she whispered. “One night he passed out in the yard and a bird built a nest in his beard. Can you believe that? Everywhere he went the bird went, too, sitting on those eggs. We named him Uncle Hen. And one day the eggs hatched.”

  “What happened to them?” I asked, mesmerized that she was telling me something about her family, even though it sounded made up like a fairy tale.

  “They flew away,” she said. “And the next day Uncle Hen left.” She turned her head back to the window.

  I wanted to tell her Harlan wasn’t coming home. Bee would’ve seen it and told us if he was, I believed that with all my heart.

  I stored Uncle Hen with the other clues—the ticket stub, the locket, the bubblegum dot snake bite scar, and all those secret postcards from Harlan. As I fell back to sleep, I pictured Uncle Hen under the revival tent, holding the hand of a little black-haired girl, as birds danced above.

  Chapter 8

  I helped Bee make breakfast— buttermilk biscuits with gravy and we were going to have Bo’s favorite, one-eyed Milly’s, an egg on a piece of toast and fried up in a skillet. June Rain was still asleep. I’d peeked into her room and she was buried completely under the covers like a prairie dog hiding from a storm.

  Bee had sent Bo to collect eggs from the chickens, but I could see him in the peach trees hopping around with a stick between his legs, Old Jack running behind.

  “Bee,” I said. So much was on my mind, swirling around like one big tornado, and I didn’t know if I could hold it all in.

  “What is it, Esme?” she asked as she turned the oven on, then gave it a horse kick. “Spit it out, honey.”

  “Why haven’t I ever called June Rain Mama and Harlan Daddy?” I asked. I surprised myself that I asked her this, when there was so much more ready to spill out. Bee says sometimes the heart winnows things down to their simplest. She stopped stirring the creamed gravy. I glanced out the window and saw Bo throwing peaches at Old Jack, who was trying to catch them. Bo didn’t call June Rain Mama either, and Harlan was never around long enough to be called anything, I suppose.

  “You came out like you were already grown-up, Esme McCauley, even though you were half as big as a minute. I looked into those green eyes of yours and it was like you’d already seen the whole world but were still looking for something. You never were like a baby, so serious you were. Maybe that’s why I always treated you the way I did. You seemed to expect it.”

  “What was it like the day I was born?” I asked. No one ever talked about it, not really.

  Bee resumed stirring in a slow, steady rhythm, like she was picking her words. “Well, it was like any day,” she said, and I frowned.

  She peered over her glasses at me and added, “Any day a baby is born is a beautiful day.” But I knew she didn’t mean it. There was a hollowness in her voice. A honeycomb hollow.

  I thought about when Bo was born, Harlan leaving, Bee slapping him. And June Rain having the biggest smile I’d ever seen. This baby was good, this baby was whole, finished.

  “Yours was a difficult birth. June Rain was in labor for thirty-six hours. We were all worried. Especially Homer. June Rain howled like a wolf for hours on end. And you were just so early, so early. They’d never seen a baby that early in Paradise.”

  “Then what happened?”

  She looked at me but didn’t answer.

  “Well, where was Harlan?” I asked. I knew there was more to the story, some sadness tucked in.

  Bee looked serious now. “He was outside smoking cigarettes. He was there, though.” She turned back to the stove and I wondered if her own nostrils were flaring. Or if Harlan really had been there. We worked for a while in silence. Somewhere in the distance Sugar Pie neighed.

  “But why don’t I call her Mama?” I asked again after a few minutes. I couldn’t help myself. I’d never been a pot stirrer, but now I was and it felt right digging it all up. Bee often says some skeletons are better off staying buried. Little did she know.

  “I guess you thought June Rain was such a beautiful name, so why not use it?” Bee said.

  I started plopping the biscuit dough out on a baking sheet. Bee was sugaring everything up, not quite telling me the truth. I knew it and she knew it.

  “June Rain. No one has a name like that round here. Where’d she get such a name?” Plop. Plop. “Where’d she come from?”

  “You know. Harlan brought her home from the revival tent.”

  “Yes, but before that,” I said. Plop. “You know I mean before that.”

  “Don’t know,” Bee said flatly. “Don’t suppose we’ll ever know. Let it go, Esme.”

  “But what if she goes back to wherever she came from?” I asked.

  “Is that what you’re afraid of, Esme?”

  I didn’t answer, feeling a sting in my eyes.

  “She’s not going anywhere.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked. I thought about how many times I’d looked under June Rain’s bed, praying that suitcase hadn’t moved, watching her
every minute, watching her as she sat so still I thought she’d turn to stone.

  “She doesn’t have anywhere to go.”

  A tear ran down my face, knowing that the delicate thread that kept her here was only because she had nowhere else to go, and not because of us.

  Later that afternoon a big shiny Cadillac sped up the drive, a cloud of dust around it. It was coming with bad news, I could feel it. Old Jack felt it, too. He ran around the house barking, then started pawing at the kitchen door. Bee had just come back from taking June Rain to Just Teasin’. She glanced out the door, her mouth pinching into a frown. The car disappeared from view as it pulled around the side of the house.

  There was a knock on the front door. We never used the front door. Bo came bursting into the family room. “It’s Mr. Galloway from the bank!” he said. “Look what he brought me!” He was clutching a little metal coin box in the shape of a cash register with “Hollis Grand National Bank” printed on it. Rose Galloway’s father, the bigwig banker of Hollis, stood in the doorway.

  “You take Bo outside, Esme,” said Bee. “Out the kitchen door. And bring Old Jack with you. I’ll take care of this.”

  I pushed Old Jack and Bo out the kitchen door and told Bo he’d better go pick up all the peaches he’d been throwing around earlier before Bee saw the mess. Then I crawled under the house. I wrapped my arms around my legs, rested my chin on my knees, and I listened. First there was just footsteps. Then the hollow echo of voices. The words came down to me like falling cinders—hushed, and murky, and sizzling.

  At first I could only hear snippets, things like “mortgage,” and “payment,” and “soon,” words that mimicked that torn-up letter. Each time Mr. Galloway said something, Bee’s voice got a little louder, like someone was turning up the volume on the TV, while Mr. Galloway’s got softer and softer. Then more words floated down, “letter” and “Homer” and “bad times.”

  “You have no right to come to my home! Get out!” That was loud and clear.

  And then Mr. Galloway was saying, “You have two months, Mrs. McCauley. Two months. Nothing is going to change between now and then. It’s best you start accepting that.” I knew no amount of peach picking or jars of honey was going to fix this.