No one talked while we were waiting for the service to begin, but there were the whispering, shuffling sounds people made in a church. I turned around once to look, but Goody reached over and pinched my knee and told me to sit still, for heavens’ sake. Then the organ started up “Rock of Ages,” which Mama would have hated, but Goody loved. Even the whispering stopped. Then they played “Abide with Me,” and there was the sound of wheels rolling along the wood floor as they brought Mama in. If it wasn’t for Martha Lee giving me her hand to hang on to, I don’t think I could have stayed. I could understand why Uncle Grayson hadn’t come.
After, the ladies at the church set up a table in the social hall and everyone perked up, like suddenly this was a party. The men went outside to drink from the bottles they kept in their cars. The ladies kept telling me to eat. As if I could swallow one bite. As if I’d ever want to eat again. They’d come up and say things like, “At least she didn’t suffer long,” like it was a good thing Mama was gone. Or they’d say, “You’re a big girl, now. You’ll have to be the woman of the house and look after your daddy,” like I was twenty, instead of twelve and needing care myself. “She’s happier there,” Cora Giles said. And I wondered what kind of dumb thing was that to say? “No, she isn’t,” I said. “She liked it here with me and Daddy.” Then Goody was there telling me not to be getting a fresh mouth.
The newspaper man took what Goody wrote and changed it around. Here’s what was in the paper about Mama:
Dinah Mae (Adams) Brock, wife of Luddington Brock and one of Eden’s brightest stars, died at 38. Daughter of the late Dr. Taylor Adams, she was a graduate of Eden High and the Cushman Secretarial School in Lynchburg. Renowned for her striking resemblance to the actress Natalie Wood, she performed in a number of amateur productions. The performance of her lifetime, a struggle with cancer, ended November 29, when she died quietly at home. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her mother, Jessie Adams, of Sarasota, Florida, a daughter, Natasha Brock, of Eden, and a brother, Grayson Adams, of Atlanta, Georgia. Services will be held 11 A.M. Friday, December 1, at the Methodist Church, with burial immediately following. Those wishing to make memorials please consider the Monacan Indians of Tobacco Row.
They printed Mama’s high school photo, too.
Goody and Daddy had a big fight about the donations to the Monacan Indians. “It was what Deanie wanted,” Daddy said, and something about his voice made Goody shut up. I cut the newspaper article out and put it in the cigar box with Mama’s postcards, even thought I thought it was stupid. Especially that part about the performance of a lifetime. I mean, jeez. Every printed line of it was just a tiny reduction of a person who could have been a stranger. It held none of the truth of Mama. I thought they should have let me write it. At least then people would know what she was really like. Shortly after that I began making my own list about Mama, so I’d never forget. Another thing about the notice was I think they should have mentioned Martha Lee. Mama always said she was her sister, even if they weren’t blood kin.
After the funeral Goody started in on Daddy about how I should go back to Florida with her, so I wouldn’t turn cheap and get myself in trouble. I could only imagine what she’d think if she ever heard about what I’d done with Spy. She’d probably fly straight up to Virginia and haul me personally back to her stupid gated community.
Well, I had no plan to be heading off to Florida. Or staying for the rest of my life in Virginia. I was going out to Hollywood. I was going to follow Mama’s dream.
Tallie’s Book
Daisies stand for beauty, roses for love.
If you can dream something, you can do it.
Even if your heart is broken, you can make yourself not cry.
fourteen
The Tyree sisters weren’t in their usual spot on their porch when I went by, and there was no sign of Easter Davis at her place either, no laundry hanging on the line, like the heat had driven even that inside. The dirt road off High Tower was nothing but pure dust. The Raleigh kicked it up, coating me and leaving a little cloud as I passed. It was a good thing I didn’t have asthma. All that dust would have about killed Rula Wade.
I was on my way to Martha Lee’s for another driving lesson, though I was torn about in half between wanting her to be there, so I could have another lesson, and wanting her to be off, so I could help myself to one of those pictures of Mama I’d found in her dresser drawer. Those pictures had been occupying my mind ever since I’d seen them. Daddy and I only had two photographs of Mama, an old grainy one taken before I was even born, and the yearbook one they put in the newspaper with the obituary. Goody had all the others. So they’ll be safe, she’d said when she’d packed them up after Mama’s funeral. When I die they’ll be yours, she’d said. Like she didn’t even consider that maybe I’d want one before then or wouldn’t know how to take care of it if she did give me one. She took everything of Mama’s that had value. She wasn’t having Daddy sell Mama’s stuff for beer money, she said. She’d put a stop to that plan before it got started, she said. When I asked her who’d want to buy Mama’s pictures, she told me not to be fresh-mouthed. When I saw she meant to take everything, I hid the silver syrup pitcher and Mama’s red sweater and scrapbook or she’d have taken them, too. That’s why I’d been thinking about the photos in Martha Lee’s bottom drawer. For sure, she’d have given me one if I asked, but if I did, she’d know I’d been snooping around.
Martha Lee was home when I got there, hauling a hose around the garden. “We could sure use some rain,” she said. It’d been weeks since we’d had even a shower. All traces of her Glamour transformation were gone, and she’d reverted to her usual self. Her hair was shoved up under an old Orioles cap, and she was wearing a pair of denim shorts, displaying legs that revealed every doughnut she’d ever eaten. I hadn’t seen her since Glamour Day, so I told her how, after she’d left, Raylene had fixed it so I could get the makeover, too. I would have told her about Daddy taking the money from the silver pitcher, but that might have led to questions about how I’d managed to get twenty dollars in the first place, so I let it go. Instead, I told her in detail about all the clothes I’d worn for the photos, and how Patty, the photographer, had given me the rhinestone hair clip. If I were talking to my mama, that would have been the time I’d have told her about losing the clip and about Spy. Because I’d told Mama everything, I would have told her what had happened, even about the vodka and kissing, and I would have gotten some advice about what to do next, but Martha Lee wasn’t Mama and she wouldn’t be any help with matters of love or sex. As far as I knew, Martha Lee had zero experience in the man department. Instead, I told her the company was due back that week with the photos.
“This week?” she said.
“Thursday,” I said. Then I told her she was the last person on earth I expected to see at the Kurl for the Glamour Day. She said it was my fault and that all the carrying on I’d done about it had made her want to see for herself, which sounded like a flat-out lie. I knew it had to be something more than that that got her to the Kurl, that got her to let Raylene fix her hair and call her honey, and some stranger pile on makeup, but I could see whatever the real reason, she wasn’t about to tell me. Mama always said people were full of surprises, but I didn’t think she meant someone like Martha Lee. As a rule, I thought most people were predictable. Especially adults.
I helped with the hose. She’d rigged up her own personal irrigation system using empty liter Coke bottles and gallon-sized bleach bottles that she’d half buried neck side down beside the tomatoes. She’d sawed off the bottoms and filled each one with water. “Water the roots,” she said. “That’s what you want to do.” She explained how watering the leaves could cause mildew and leaf rot and was wasteful, too, because so much water evaporated.
After we finished up, we took turns splashing our legs and faces with the hose, then we got ourselves a couple of Cokes, hopped in the pickup, and drove out to the place where she let me practice my driving. It w
as my third lesson and I was shifting smooth as lemon pie, no bucking. I could go up a rise riding the clutch just right, so I didn’t stall, not even on the steep ones. Martha Lee said I was getting to be an old pro. We practiced going in reverse and doing three-point turns, something I’d need to do on the driving exam.
On the way home, she pulled into Shucks Discount and when she said she was taking me shopping, I about fainted. She said it was time I got some clothes that fit. First thing we picked out some bathing suits for me to try on. I selected a turquoise one, another in black, and a hot pink one. All three had built-in bras and high-cut legs, not a bit like the ugly ones we used for swim team. When I came out of the dressing room in the black suit, Martha Lee whistled right out loud. “Jesus, Cookie,” she said. “You’ll be swatting the boys off like flies from molasses.” I was afraid that meant she wouldn’t let me keep the suit, but she didn’t say a word when I put it in the cart. Next I picked out a blue skirt with tiny white flowers on it, the kind I’d imagined myself wearing when I rode in Sky’s Camaro, and two cotton T-shirts with narrow straps. One blue and one white. Martha Lee also threw in some sandals. On the way to the checkout, she picked out a tube of lipstick in frosted pink, but I told her that color didn’t look good on me. You could have laid me flat with a chicken feather when she told me the lipstick was for her. I thought she was teasing, but her face said no. Mama was right, I thought. People are full of surprises.
We swung by her house to get my bike, then she dropped me off at home. I told her I could ride the Raleigh, but she said it was too hot for anyone to be pedaling around. I wanted to hug her or something to thank her for the lesson and the clothes, but Martha Lee wasn’t the hugging kind, so instead I asked her if she wanted to come in. “Thanks, Cookie,” she said, “but I’ve got to be going.” She hadn’t set foot in our house since Mama died. Sundays and Mondays, when the Kurl was closed, I usually did housework, but it was too hot to think of dusting or doing laundry. I put on my new suit and checked myself out in the mirror. Martha Lee was right about the way it made me look. The high cut made my legs seem longer, and the built-in bra made my tits look bigger. Goody’d have a stroke if she saw me. Even the Queen of the Universe would be impressed, though she’d probably think of something mean-spirited to say. I thought about riding out to Elders Pond where everyone hung, but then I decided on the creek. What I was really thinking was that maybe Spy’d be there. A girl could hope. In the black one-piece, I definitely didn’t look like a baby, so maybe he’d remember the kissing part and forget about me puking, just like I was trying to forget about the gun part with him.
The creek was deserted. I swam for a while, not laps or anything that required real effort. Just cooling down. When I’d had enough, I spread out the old blanket near the willow and stretched out, still hoping Spy would show. After a while I noticed the birds weren’t singing. It was too hot for even that. Lying there, in the total silence, I could almost believe I was the only one existing on the planet. Rula would have hated it. She wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. She always was asking me how I could stand spending so much time alone. I didn’t mind. Being alone gave a person time to get their thinking straight. Rula couldn’t go a minute without talking or cranking up the radio. She got a Walkman last Christmas and about kept the battery company in business the way she played it night and day. I guess you could say Rula was my best friend, but I knew we wouldn’t be friends for life, like Mama and Martha Lee. I guess we’d become friends because we were the only ones whose mamas had died and that set us apart, even if she had a step-mama.
The thing about Eden was that anything that made you different meant you had zero chance of being in the popular group. Even before Mama died, I wasn’t exactly winning medals in the popularity department. It wasn’t ’cause we didn’t have money. Half the families in Eden were poor. When I asked Mama, she said what set me apart was that I had imagination. In Mama’s book, imagination was right up there. She said it was their capacity for dreaming that led most people to Hollywood, not any excess of good looks or talent. According to Mama, imagination and luck were the unbeatable combination. She said imagination had power, like electricity. Both were invisible, she said, but they had energy and could make things happen. She said when you think about it, all the mighty forces in the world were imperceptible to the eye. Like love. And hate.
Mama believed it was a lack in the imagination department that led most people to keep their expectations for life too low. As a rule, folks didn’t allow themselves the pleasure of a dream, she said. They settle. “Your daddy’s problem is he doesn’t have aspirations,” she told me once. “He was born without the imagination gene, the gene to dream.” It was the only time I ever heard her say anything bad about my daddy. Then she said that was all right because she had enough dreams for both of them.
“Hey, Tallie.”
I jumped about ten feet. “Jeez, Wiley, you about scared me to death.”
“Didn’t mean to. You sleeping?”
“No,” I said, cross at being startled.
“What were you doing?”
“I was thinking, if it’s any of your beeswax.”
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said.
I hated when people said that. Penny for your thoughts. A person’s thoughts were worth a hell of lot more than one copper cent. “Nothing special,” I said. “Where’s Will?” I hardly ever saw them together anymore. I wondered if they’d had a fight.
“Working.” He sat down on the blanket and started poking at the ground with a stick. “Hot, isn’t it?”
“Well, duh,” I said.
He flushed red. “Well, isn’t it?”
“Yeh,” I said.
“Nice suit,” he said, still working that stick into the ground.
“It’s nothing special,” I said.
“Looks new.”
“It isn’t.” I didn’t know why I lied.
“You look good in it,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“You always look good.” He about buried the stick, he was digging so furiously.
“Martha Lee’s teaching me to drive,” I said. Anything to get off the subject. I used to feel comfortable around Wiley, like he was a brother or something, but lately things had changed.
“You always look good,” he said. “With or without a suit.”
“Wiley, what the hell are you talking about?” He was freaking me out.
“You know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“A couple of weeks ago,” he said. He poked at the ground some more, avoiding my eyes. “I saw you.”
“You saw me? What does that mean?”
“You know.”
“Wiley Bettis, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
He swallowed hard. “Here. At the creek. When you were skinny-dipping.”
“Jesus, Wiley, you were spying on me?”
“I didn’t mean nothing. I came for a swim and you were here and I didn’t want to spook you. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Wiley saw me naked. Jeez, it was like letting your kin see you. My face heated at the thought of the way I’d posed, proud and showing off, thinking it was Spy watching me.
“I didn’t mean nothing by it,” he said again. He looked like he was going to cry.
Just at the moment, a ladybug landed on my knee. Like fireflies, ladybugs were really beetles. I thought about how Mama’d said beetles signify change. It seemed like change flew into your life whether you wanted it or not. It didn’t matter one whit if you were prepared. Change just happened. Nothing you could do to stop it. Wiley was changing from the friend I’d known my whole life into some nervous creature who spied on me and couldn’t look me in the eye. Martha Lee was buying lipstick and changing in some other way I couldn’t figure. Daddy’d changed from a man who was proud of his daughter and took her to his job to a person who didn’t even know she was alive. I was changing, too. I thought of how I’d lied and stolen
and strutted naked. I remembered the bold way I’d acted with Spy, kissing and such. And then I thought how one of the things that had made me bold was that I’d believed he’d seen me the day I’d been skinny-dipping. But it had been Wiley all along. Then I reflected on how it could change your whole life if you acted on something you thought was true and it turned out to be false.
Tallie’s Book
Imagination has power.
Water the roots of tomatoes, not the leaves.
People are full of surprises.
Add mulch to clay soil. Mulch is the secret.
There’s nothing you can do to stop change.
fifteen
Breaking a one hundred-year-old record,” the radio weatherman said. He was all worked up, exactly like Mr. Baldock when he got on the P.A. system to announce that the football team won a game or that the junior class test scores were higher than last year’s. Mr. Baldock spit when he talked, and you could hear his germs splatting all over the mike. When it was your turn to read the absentee list, he watched you like a hawk, like you were going to steal the goddamn P.A. system or something, so you couldn’t wipe the mike. It made you want to puke.
Leaving Eden Page 15