Leaving Eden

by Anne Leclaire

  I understand a lot more about the power of dreams, now, but until that day I didn’t know that you could make a living by selling them. I didn’t understand that people would spend a lot of money, money they didn’t have and had no way of getting, spending it to buy something that wasn’t real in any sense except in their heads. I hadn’t yet discovered that people yearned to taste possibilities, to see what it would be like if only they had the chance to live another life, to look like a star.

  At lunch the men sent me over to the diner to pick up sandwiches. Extra bacon on the BLTs, and double sugars with the coffee, they told me, like I was their personal slave. I was supposed to be sweeping up from two cuts and folding a load of towels and I expected Raylene to tell them to go get their own sandwiches, that I worked for her, but she didn’t say anything.

  Just after three, Martha Lee came in. She was wearing her stained nurse’s uniform, and her hair looked like it hadn’t seen a comb in a week. I caught one of the men winking at the other, but I didn’t think she noticed. She wasn’t looking at much. She didn’t even want to see all the shots, though I was dying. “Just give me the nine by twelve and throw the rest away,” she told them straight out. The one who’d winked lost his smile. I could see they weren’t used to dealing with someone like Martha Lee. The second man put on this real phony voice and said surely a handsome woman like herself would want to see them all. No, she said, she just wanted the one, like she’d told them. This made the first man get pushy. I could have told him to save his breath, that he was taking the wrong tack, but I was on Martha Lee’s side. Somehow her not taking all the pictures, or even wanting a look at them, was making up for Miss Tilly and Willa Jenkins and all the other women who’d been signing up for the installment plans all day. Martha Lee asked him was he deaf, what part of this wasn’t he hearing, she wanted the one 9 x 12, that was the deal, and if they wanted a suggestion what to do with the others, she’d be happy to give it to them. The first man’s face got all flushed. He muttered something too ugly to repeat and pulled the 9 x 12 out of the white envelope. Then he made a big show of ripping up all the others. Without another word, he thrust the photo at Martha Lee, like it was suddenly contaminated. She grabbed it and beat it out of the Kurl, not caring one bit that the men were mad.

  After she left, things settled down and the men got back their smiles. Sue Beth came in and Bitty Weatherspoon and Aubrey Boles, and every one of them took the whole package. Ashley Wheeler was the only one who paid cash. Finally, finally, it was my turn.

  First thing, I didn’t even recognize myself. In the cowgirl outfit, I was pure Wynonna Judd. You wouldn’t even know it was me. I swear I looked twenty. “Oh, Tallie,” Raylene said, and gave me a little hug. I was filled with so many feelings, I couldn’t speak. I was stunned to see this vision of myself, this transformation, and I was deeply regretting Mama wasn’t there to see, too. She’d be so happy. Then I remembered what Preacher Tillett had told me about how now Mama was watching over me and could see everything, how she was my guardian angel. I was thinking that if it was true and Mama really could witness everything, she must have been mostly disappointed lately what with me drinking beer and Frenching with Spy and stealing from her very best friend on the planet. But, I was hoping that maybe somehow she’d understand all that. For sure if she was looking down at that photo, I know she’d be happy. “See, sugar,” I could hear her say, “listen to your mama. Didn’t I tell you you were beautiful?”

  One of the men was explaining about the installment plan, like I hadn’t heard it so many times, I could have recited it to him. All day long I’d been thinking about it and I’d been knowing no installment plan was possible for me. I didn’t even bother asking for a miracle. Ninety-nine goddamn dollars was as far away as the moon, and if they agreed to let me spread it out over two hundred months it wouldn’t help one bit. But looking at these glossy pictures of me, facts didn’t matter. I didn’t want the one 9 x 12. I wanted them all, and I swear I’d have promised just about anything to get them. I wanted to paper the walls of our house so that no matter where I looked my eyes would rest on this creature staring back at me, this glorious creature who was saying, yes, you’re beautiful, yes, you can be a star. I wanted to divide up the wallet-sized sheet and send one to Goody in Florida and another to Uncle Grayson in Atlanta and one to Elizabeth Talmadge, just to show her who was the true Queen of the Universe. I wanted to tack one of the bigger ones up on the school bulletin board where they posted clippings about the football team. I wanted to put one up at the Eden Post Office next to the poster of the newest commemorative issue. I wanted to blow them up and plaster them on the billboards on the way into town. On the way out of town. I wanted to own them. I wanted to eat them.

  Most of all, I wanted to paste them on the bathroom mirror so that when I brushed my teeth and washed my face, a different me would look back, a face that could belong to a movie star or a country singer, a woman who could wear flowers in her hair, a woman a boy like Spy Reynolds could love. I wanted to see this vision instead of the face I was used to, a face that had a lot more of my daddy in it than my mama.

  When I could trust my voice, I told them thank you very much, but I’d just be taking the one.

  The second man started in on how maybe I should call my mama and have her come and take a look ’cause for sure if she saw them she’d want to have them all. That’s when Raylene came over and told them my mama’d passed four years back.

  I could have killed her for telling these two men with their greasy, slicked-back hair something so private that was none of their goddamn beeswax. They got that fake, sad look people put on when they heard about Mama. Then one of them wrapped the 9 x 12 in tissue and gave it to me, calling me honey and acting like he was doing me the world’s greatest favor. I took it with me to the back room and got busy refilling bottles of shampoo and conditioner. I folded towels and then started on the ladies’ room, scouring the toilet and refilling the paper towel box and taking the Ajax to the stubborn rust spot in the sink. I planned on keeping busy back there until the men packed up and got out. Then I heard Raylene calling me and when I came out she was standing there with the men and one was holding a Glamour Day envelope.

  “Here you go, little lady,” he said. “You just take these with our compliments.”

  They were waiting for me to thank them and act like they were deserving of some big prize for being so generous, which I had no intention of doing. I was going to tell them no, thanks. I planned on telling them that just ’cause I didn’t have a mama didn’t mean I had to take charity. I was going to copy Martha Lee and tell them I had a suggestion for what they could do with the goddamn photos. I took a second to get the words straight and when they came out what I actually said was, “Thanks.” Then I grabbed the envelope right out of his hand before he could change his mind.

  Wanting is a powerful thing. You’d be surprised at what it could make a person do.

  Tallie’s Book

  Wanting is a powerful thing.

  seventeen

  After I left the Kurl, I rode directly over to Martha Lee’s. I figured I’d show her the shots of me and she’d make a big fuss, like Raylene had, but when I got there, Martha Lee wasn’t home, a huge disappointment. I’d been looking forward to showing the pictures to someone. I sat on the steps and opened the Glamour Day envelope, carefully unwrapping the photos from the tissue. The one good part of being alone was that I could take my time looking without anyone saying I’d gotten too big for my britches. Each one was perfect: the one of me in the blue sequined tube, long gloves, and blue dangling earrings, my mouth curved just a little, like I knew a secret; the Wynonna cowgirl one, all sass and attitude; the one of me dressed in the square pearl earrings and the low-cut velvet, where I was displaying some cleavage and grinning like a bad girl. But the best by far was the shot of me in the black satin halter. No jewelry, just the rhinestone hair clip. Patty was right about my shoulders, and I was glad she’d insisted on that t
op. I wasn’t gazing directly at the camera, but off a little, like I was half dreaming and half looking at something no one else could see. But what made it the best was the way the light reflected in my eyes, like they held little suns. Mama would say it was a picture that glowed. That was the one I’d be using in L.A. Sure as sunrise, that was the photo that would make me a star.

  After a while, I wrapped the photos back in the tissue and slipped them into the envelope. I wondered if Martha Lee was ever coming back. I fished the key out from its usual spot and let myself in. I helped myself to a beer and did a little straightening up. The envelope of money was still on the kitchen shelf. Curiosity killed cats, according to Goody, but I couldn’t help counting it, just to see how much was there. Well, believe it or not, there was more than a thousand dollars. I mean, hadn’t Martha Lee ever heard of banks? I knew Martha Lee’s daddy was rich, but I hadn’t pictured Martha Lee as actually having money. Believe it, if I had that kind of cash lying around, I’d sure be driving something better than a rusty old pickup and living like white trash in a place no better than a trailer. So would most people, I guess. But Martha Lee was different from most, and that wasn’t fresh news. I replaced the envelope exactly where I’d found it and went back outside. To keep myself occupied, I checked the garden. The grass all around was yellow as straw, but in spite of the heat and continued lack of rain, nothing in the garden had wilted. The irrigation bottles were nearly empty, so I unrolled the hose and got to work filling them. I helped myself to the bush beans, snapping the ends off, eating them right off the vine. The cherry tomatoes were ready for picking, too, so I had some of those, popping them in my mouth like candy till I had my fill.

  By six-thirty, when Martha Lee still hadn’t arrived, I went back inside. I headed straight for Martha Lee’s room and opened the bottom drawer. The pictures of Mama were still there. Only weeks had passed since I’d seen them, but this time looking at them was different, like I was looking at someone I used to know a long time ago, someone who’d moved away. You wouldn’t think it was possible, but in spite of thinking of her every day and hearing her voice speaking clear in my head, in spite of my lists and my rule book, I was losing Mama. Without a picture to hold, I feared she’d disappear entirely.

  Half listening for the sound of Martha Lee’s truck, I went through them all, slowly this time. There was no way photos could capture the truth of Mama, they could only suggest the liveliness of her. I looked at the ones where she was with Daddy and Grayson and Martha Lee, and the ones of her in school, always in the front row near the framed board with the class and year spelled out in block letters. The ones where she was older could have been photos taken out of her Hollywood scrapbook. That’s how pretty she was.

  There was sound outside then, and I froze, straining to catch the rattle of the pickup, but everything fell quiet. Still, it made me nervous and I began to put everything back. I’d nearly shut the drawer when I saw another envelope, shoved toward the rear. I knew, even before I looked, that it was about Mama. There were two photos inside. The one on top was of Mama in the front seat of a fire-red convertible, sitting close to a blond boy I’d never seen in my life. Mama was smiling out at the camera and looking like she was queen of the homecoming parade. There was a dog in the backseat, which surprised me. Mama was afraid of dogs, even Old Straw, who was completely harmless and so old he didn’t even chase squirrels. Because of the dog, I thought maybe it wasn’t Mama at all, maybe it was a picture from her scrapbook, one of the real Natalie Wood, but when I turned it over, there was Mama’s round handwriting, as familiar as my own. Gordie and Me, it said in blue ink. April, 1965. I did the math quick and determined Mama’d been fifteen. Almost the same age as me. I stared at Mama and the man named Gordie. Now that I had a name for him, he seemed real. He was real good-looking, a look-alike for this movie star named Tab Hunter who was another actor in Mama’s scrapbook. He and Mama looked just right together, though it made me feel disloyal to my daddy to be thinking that. I’d never heard Mama or Goody or Martha Lee ever mention anyone named Gordie. For sure he didn’t live in Eden. It was weird to think of Mama having another life, a life before she married my daddy. Before me. I wondered where she’d met this Gordie guy and if it was when she was in school in Lynchburg and doing some theater there, but the date on the back didn’t match up. I wondered what had happened to him and why she’d never mentioned him. Had she ever kissed him, like I’d kissed Spy? I wondered if she’d had that first shock at the hardness of him and if she’d felt that melting, aching feeling of wanting deep inside. I wished the picture could come alive like a TV show, so I could hear what they were saying, so I could hear what music was playing on the radio. For sure, there’d be music playing in that car. You couldn’t think of Mama without putting her together with music. For the first time I really understood that Mama had a whole history before I was born, and there were whole parts of my mama that I didn’t know at all.

  The second photo was of Mama, too. She was standing in front of a tree, and as impossible as it was to believe, she was with a girl who could have been her twin, like somehow the photographer’d made one of those trick double images. Except not really double, ’cause each person was dressed in different clothes. And one wore a bracelet on her left wrist. I looked on the back. Natalie and me. September ’65, it said in blue ink. I’d have sworn on the Bible, Mama had never met the real Natalie. Never. If she had, for sure, I’d have known. Mama couldn’t have kept something like that quiet if you’d paid her a million dollars and promised her the sun. If this picture was real, it would have been hanging on our living room wall instead of being stuck in a drawer in Martha Lee’s bureau. I stared at it a long time, trying to understand, but nothing about it made sense.

  The last thing in the envelope was a postcard. It was a picture of the big Hollywood sign, just like the one Mama’d sent me, except it was addressed to Martha Lee. I found her, she’d written on the back. That’s all. I found her. Found who? For a minute I thought she must have meant Natalie. Who else? Of course that was impossible. That summer Mama left Daddy and me and headed off to Hollywood, Natalie’d already been dead for seven years. My head was dizzy from trying to make sense of it. I almost missed one other thing in the envelope. A slip of paper holding a name and an address and phone number. I stared at the name. Sasha. Sasha Upton; 344 Mississippi St., Los Angeles. I put everything back in the envelope and when I left Martha Lee’s I took it along with me.

  The last thing I expected was to uncover a mystery about Mama, but one had been placed right before my eyes. I wondered if Uncle Grayson knew about what Mama’d been doing the year she was fifteen, and if she’d really met Natalie Wood. And if she had, why she wouldn’t have told me. The mystery was so big, it took my mind right off all the things that were happening in Eden. That’s how I pretty much forgot about Spy until Saturday, the day of Mr. Reynolds’s funeral.

  The funeral was this really big deal, so I was glad I’d worn my new skirt and the blue cotton top, even if I had been saving it for a more festive occasion. The church was full up, and Mr. Wesler was running around telling people to move over and make room so other people could sit down. When he’d packed us in so tight you couldn’t breathe, when I swear you couldn’t slip a blade of sour grass between us, he ordered some men to set up folding chairs in the back. They formed a little assembly line, passing the chairs from one to another, snapping them open with efficient clicks. Even so, people had to stand. I figured every store in Eden must have closed up, like it was a national holiday instead of a funeral. It was three hundred degrees in the shade, and the overhead fans were going top speed. Between the heat and the overpowering smell of lilies and roses, you had to concentrate not to faint. Everybody was fanning away with this program that had been printed up, like it was a regular Sunday service except the program was all about Mr. Reynolds, even had his picture inside.

  Just as the church bell was sounding one o’clock, there was a stir at the door and this group of
strangers came in. They headed for the front pews that had been tied off with black ribbons, so I knew they were Reynolds kin from Lynchburg. An old lady led the way, making her way down the aisle with the aid of one of those ugly aluminum walker things, taking so long, it made you just itch to pick her up and carry her. Someone should have arranged for a wheelchair or something. It took her about three hours to get to the front. The rest of them shuffled along behind her like her own personal little parade. One of the men looked so much like Mr. Reynolds, he could have been a twin, right down to the black suit and hat. After they got themselves seated, there was a pause and people made those little impatient waiting noises with their feet, then Mrs. Reynolds came in. She had never been a big woman—Sarah took after her in that way—but now she looked plain tiny, all shrunk up like cotton washed in hot water by mistake. Spy was holding her arm. He was dressed in a suit, and you could see the white skin on his neck where he’d had a recent haircut. As they made their way to the front, Mrs. Reynolds stopped to touch people’s hands and thank them for coming, but Spy looked straight ahead, his eyes blank, like overnight he’d lost his sight.

  When the family was finally seated, six men rolled in this huge casket, big enough to be a bank vault and looking like solid brass. It made my chest hurt to look at it and I was glad my daddy hadn’t come. I knew he’d be thinking about Mama, too. Then, from outside somewhere, came this wailing sound that raised the hair straight up on your arm and made your heart about break, like an invisible hand had reached right through your skin and grabbed hold and squeezed. Everyone turned as the rear doors swung open and a man came in playing a real bagpipe. It gave out the most sorrowful sound I’d ever heard, worse than a woman crying. The hand was clenching hard around my heart, so I found the dark place inside and held on to that and held on to that until things settled down. Behind me I heard Aubrey Boles’s mama say, “Just like them to be different.” Then the piper walked to the front, taking his time, head held proud, shoulders straight, little plaid skirt swaying with each step. When he was done, he stood for a moment until the last echo faded away, then he left through the side door, the one usually reserved for the preacher. Things were quiet for a minute, then up in the choir loft, Mrs. Duval started up, singing “Amazing Grace” in her screechy voice, erasing the ache the bagpipe man made, and the funeral got under way.