by KD McCrite
“I thought all you hill people howdied at the door to be let in,” Ian said, stifling a belch behind his hand.
“Well, Temple and Forest came here from Boston,” I told him, “and anyways, they know they’re always welcome to come right on in. But us hillbillies always knock or ring the doorbell. What do you West Coasters do?”
Ian gave me a look that said he was trying to figure out if I were all innocent or if I were just a smart-alecky kid. I figured if he were too silly to know the difference, I wouldn’t educate him.
“We knock or ring the doorbell, of course.”
“You fool, Ian,” his little woman snapped. “Can’t you see that child is baiting you?”
Daddy and Mama probably would’ve thought I was being rude—if they’d heard me. But Daddy was getting a chair for Forest to sit in, and Mama was getting another couple of plates from the china cabinet, so this enlightening conversation totally passed by them. On the other hand, Grandma fixed a real hard look on me.
“You got a lot of your great-grandma in you, Miss April,” she said.
I knew my great-grandma had been a sassy flapper girl, so I grinned real big. “Thanks!” I said. But the way Grandma shook her head, I knew that it had been no compliment in her eyes.
In the meantime, Forest settled down on Daddy’s end of the table, and Temple pulled a chair up beside me. Myra Sue shrank away and shuddered.
“I brought the poison ivy salve for you, Tootsie Roll.” Temple held up a pint Mason jar with greenish-brown goop in it, then set it on the table for us all to see. She had used a crinkledy piece of old aluminum foil for a lid. The stuff inside sort of looked like something Daisy or Queenie might have yoirked up, so I tried not to look at it again while I ate.
“Help yourself to the food, Temple,” Mama said, handing her the plate and silverware. She didn’t seem to notice that our neighbor hadn’t bothered to wash her hands, and she smelled pretty ripe. I’m not sure which was worse, Isabel’s cigarette smoke or Temple’s armpits, but someone should have called the Environmental Protection Agency. Next to me, Myra Sue hacked pretty loud.
“How about some cobbler and ice cream?” Grandma asked.
She knew as well as I did that the Freebirds wouldn’t eat it because they ate only raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts. At least good ole Temple and Forest weren’t rude about it. They took the plates.
“I’ll just have a little of that yummy salad after Forest gets finished serving himself. Don’t take it all, honey,” she joked. “Oh, Lily! Do you have any pine nuts or radish sprouts?”
“’Fraid not,” Mama said. “We got some ranch dressing, though.”
“This is fine just as it is.” Temple heaped her plate, and giving Isabel a big smile, she said, “I understand you’re our next-door neighbor.”
Isabel looked as if she’d just swallowed rat poison while sitting on a rusty nail.
“You’ll have to come over to our place real soon,” Temple continued. She glanced at the foot resting on its throne. “When you’re recovered, I mean. Meantime, I’ll just pop over to your place, and we can get acquainted over a cup of red clover tea.”
Isabel made more funny little whimpering sounds down in her throat.
“Yeah, Isabel St. James,” I said. “You and Temple both like salad, and neither one of you will eat sugar or fat, so I bet you have a ton of other stuff in common.”
Isabel’s whimpering got louder as Temple put down her fork and rested her grubby hand on Isabel’s scrawny, pale one.
“Diet is so important for our health, isn’t it?” Temple said. “You should eat lots of raw spinach.”
“Excuse me?” Isabel choked out, staring at Temple’s hand.
“To build up the iron in your blood, of course. Plus, it would get rid of that pallor.” She squeezed Isabel’s fingers.
“Excuse me?”
Ole Isabel’s eyes couldn’t have got any buggier. She finally yanked her hand away and began scrubbing at it with her napkin.
“What are you talking about?” Isabel asked.
Temple was chewing a mouthful of lettuce and tomatoes, but she stopped to gaze at Isabel. She put down her fork again and reached out. Isabel reared back.
“Oh goodness,” Temple said, leaving her hand stretched out in midair. “It’s just that you’re so thin and fair-skinned, and your plate looks as though you’ve barely eaten anything . . . Oh dear.” Temple dropped both hands to her lap and looked at all of us as if she were about to bust out bawling. “I’ve really made an awful gaffe, haven’t I?” She pinned a really pitiful look on Isabel. “I am so sorry.”
Isabel, true to her rude self, looked back with her long, pointy nose wrinkled up.
Words just sorta sailed right out from between my lips without me even thinking about them.
“If you’d get out in the sunshine, maybe folks wouldn’t think you’re sick,” I said.
“April Grace!” said Mama, Daddy, and Grandma, as if they’d been practicing all day.
Isabel’s mouth flew open like she was a baby buzzard waiting for a fresh piece of roadkill. She didn’t get a chance to tell me off, though, because old man Rance yelled, “If she’d put on about twenty-five pounds, she wouldn’t look like death on a cracker.”
Isabel’s face got redder and redder, and her mouth snapped open and shut. Finally she choked out, “I am leaving! Ian!”
My mama, ever the peacemaker, just like the good Lord wants us to be, said, “Now, everyone be fair. Remember poor Isabel is hurt. Anyone would look pale. Myra Sue, run and fetch Miss Isabel some more ice water.”
Myra Sue almost killed herself in her rush to fill the woman’s glass. I knew Mama and Daddy and probably Grandma were glaring at me, but I was real intent on drinking my own water and couldn’t look at them.
“Well,” Isabel finally spluttered, “thank you for understanding, Lucy.”
“It’s Lily.” Mama smiled at her. “Now, I have some nice apples in the kitchen. Would you like one?”
Isabel wagged her head no and looked at Ian, who was grinning down at his cobbler with its mound of ice cream dribbling down the sides to mix with the warm, sweet cinnamon. She shook another cigarette from the pack and frowned at her mister while she tapped it on the table.
“Oink, oink,” Isabel muttered as she planted the cigarette between her lips and lit it.
Temple again stopped chewing, this time to sneeze and cough. Her eyes turned red and weepy.
“Please,” she gasped. “Tobacco smoke makes me ill. Would you please put out your cigarette?”
Isabel held on to what she’d just inhaled and looked coolly at Temple. Then she blew it out, long and slow, as if she wanted to prolong poor Temple’s agony. She took another deep drag before stubbing the cigarette out on her plate right next to the first butt. She looked at Ian, who ate his dessert like he thought a nuclear holocaust would start in thirty minutes.
“Would you stop poisoning yourself, and let’s get out of this place?” Isabel asked him.
The look he gave her would have iced over Rough Creek in August, if it’d had any water in it. She glowered at him before she turned away and leaned toward Myra Sue.
“My dear, please,” Isabel asked. “Are you positive there is no liquor in this house?”
“Nope,” I replied cheerfully. “Grandma would have a fit if we even had rum cake on the farm.”
“Ian, will you hurry up?” Isabel snapped.
“Our grandmother is nothing but an ignorant hillbilly,” Myra Sue declared in a whisper that no one but me and Isabel heard. “I wish anyone but her was my grandmother.”
Well, let me tell you, it felt right good when my foot smacked into the lower half of my sister’s leg. Myra Sue screamed bloody murder and grabbed for me, but I was quicker, and I was mad.
“Take it back!” I grabbed a big fistful of her blond curls in one hand and part of her nose and cheek and lips in the other. Somehow she got ahold of my neck and hair and yanked almost as hard as I did.
“Stop it, you little—”
“Take it back!”
I yelled and yanked while she screamed and pulled. We both started kicking and I’m not sure what else, but somehow we tumbled to the floor, our chairs lying sideways. Some dishes crashed, and above all that racket came Isabel’s voice hollering that someone better do something.
The next thing I knew, both of us flailed and kicked nothing but air ’cause Mr. Rance had hold of Myra Sue, and Daddy had hold of me.
“Take it back, you frog wart,” I screamed at my sister.
Daddy turned me around to face him. “Stop it right now! You, too, Myra. Right now!”
Little by little, we both quit trying to kill each other from twenty feet apart. But we didn’t stop glaring and snarling like tomcats.
“Go to your room, Myra Sue,” Daddy told her.
Mr. Rance let go of her real slow, like he was afraid she’d murder us all once she had her freedom.
“But, Daddy, April Grace—”
“Go! Now.”
Myra Sue looked at the St. Jameses.
“Sorry, truly devastated!” she squealed out to them. Then she fled from the room. She thundered up the stairs so loud and heavy that the cobwebs down in the cellar probably fell off and the spiders all had heart attacks.
Daddy kept hold of me, even after Myra Sue stormed out. He gave me a teeny little shake I hardly felt and said, “Apologize, Miss April.” Well, it took me a minute to speak without my voice shaking, I tell you. And it wasn’t the easiest thing telling those people I was sorry, but I managed it, all prim and proper and not like a crying nanny goat the way my sister did.
I looked at the St. Jameses and said, “I apologize for my rude behavior to guests in our house.” I reckon that took care of it ’cause Daddy finally let me go.
“Now, you. Go,” he said.
I was still so mad, I shook all over. Everyone else at the table was real quiet and looking at me, except Isabel. She sat real straight and stiff and made funny little mewly noises, like a cat.
Somehow, in all that ruckus, me or my rotten ole sister had managed to knock the bowl of gravy off the table and onto Isabel. She sat there whimpering with big globs of gravy trailing down her scrawny chest and out of sight. Next to her, Temple began to wipe the mess off Isabel’s designer blouse.
I photographed that whole picture in my head, then went upstairs.
TWELVE
An Invitation
to Die For
Well, as you probably have guessed by now, me and Myra Sue got punished. Of course, as soon as everyone went home, we had to clean up the mess we’d made.
“You should tan the seats of their britches,” Grandma advised.
But, thank the Lord, Daddy and Mama do not believe in spanking. What they came up with, however, was far worse. In fact, I believe I’d rather have had my britches tanned every day for a week. We had to write a letter telling why we loved each other. Oh, brother. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you, but we managed to do it.
For instance, I said I loved how Myra Sue didn’t snore in her room at night and keep me awake. She said she loved that I did a good job when I washed the dishes.
Mama read my letter while Daddy read my sister’s. Then they exchanged them. When they finished, they looked at us as if we were both alien children. Mama sighed. Daddy groaned.
“I guess these will do,” Mama said after a while, and Daddy added, “But we never want to see a fight like that again, in front of company or in private.”
We understood. But I’ll tell you one thing right now: if ole Myra Sue ever again says anything bad about my grandma, I’ll snatch her bald-headed, in front of company or not.
A few days later, Daddy came in from the field for lunch at noon just like always. Instead of going back to work after he ate, though, he showered while Mama freshened up and changed her clothes. Then they loaded a couple of baskets with tomatoes, corn, onions, beans, and other stuff picked from our garden that very morning, along with a baked chicken, a big salad, and fresh bread, which I thought Mama was fixing for our supper.
“What are you doing?” I asked, sniffing all those flavorsome odors and following Mama and Daddy outside as they toted away the baskets of food. “Where are you taking our food?”
“We’re going over to the St. Jameses’ to see what we can do to help them settle in,” Daddy told me as he hoisted his basket into the back of the pickup. He put Mama’s basket right next to it while she went back to the house. Half a minute later she came out with a gallon jug of iced tea. The ice clinked invitingly against the sides. He opened the passenger door for her, then went around the cab to the driver’s side and got in.
Before he started the engine, he gave me a look. “Mama wants you girls to pull the weeds from her flowerbeds in front of the house. We’ll be back after a while.”
I watched them drive away and thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have to go along.
Back in the house, I delivered Mama’s order, and Myra— who was brushing and fluffing her hair in front of the bathroom mirror—blinked her eyes about a zillion times.
“I am not getting my hands in that dirt.” She strolled into the living room and flipped on the television.
“If Mama finds out you didn’t do it, she’ll probably make you do the whole thing by yourself the next time. Maybe the whole garden.”
Myra Sue drew in her lips and scrunched up her nose. “I have to do everything around here! I hate this farm.”
I walked away. “Poor you,” I said over my shoulder as I went.
“Hush. My stories are on.” She turned up the volume, and I heard a deep voice intone the familiar words: “Like sands through the hourglass . . .” Ho-hum.
I went outside. Now, to tell you the truth, I’d rather be sitting under a tree or on the porch, reading Jane Eyre, but I had my orders. Jane and Mr. Rochester would just have to wait. I think I liked that story even better than Oliver Twist, which I really, really liked.
I’d only knelt by the marigolds—all alone—for about thirty seconds when Mama and Daddy drove back up the driveway.
“April Grace,” Mama called. “You come with us.”
Well, now, I have to tell you, I’d rather dig in the dirt until I reached burning hot magma than go to the St. Jameses’, but I had no choice. I got to my feet real slow, trying to think of an excuse to stay home, but Mama said, “Go wash your face, hands, and arms, and put on some clean clothes. Be quick about it.”
You better believe I was as quick as a snail riding shotgun on a turtle, while Myra Sue sprawled on the floor in front of the television, watching her stories. I looked at her dopey face resting against her hands and thought about just letting her get caught, but sometimes you have to be the bigger person.
“Mama and Daddy came back,” I said. “They’re outside in the truck, waiting for me.”
“Liar.” She didn’t even take her eyes off that show.
So be it. She had her chance.
“Slow as Christmas, Miss April,” Mama said when I got into the pickup cab.
“Sorry. My poison ivy slows me down.”
Temple’s poison ivy goop had dried my rash right up, just like she said it would, so Mama just looked at me as if she could read my mind and saw I was trying to pull a fast one.
“Sorry, Mama,” I said.
Daddy said, “Why isn’t your sister weeding the flower beds?”
“She will after Days is over.”
Instead of slamming on his brakes and marching into the house to drag that girl out by the scruff of the neck the way she deserved, he said, “Well, she better get on the weeds before we get back, or her Days will be numbered.”
Mama laughed. “That’s funny, Mike,” she said, smiling at him. Then she rested her head on his shoulder for a second or two.
“I’ll weed the flowers,” I offered. “Myra Sue can go with you guys.”
“There’s that little matter of an apology that you forgot to deliver in all
the excitement the other day,” Mama said. “From the first time you met the St. Jameses, when you were less than polite. Remember?”
“But you forgot to remind me!” Again she just looked at me. I pulled down the corners of my mouth, knowing I was defeated. I brooded about it all the way to our destination. Boy, oh boy, this whole thing seemed unfair. I mean, that whole business was almost a week ago. Isabel St. James probably already forgot about it, but trust Mama to do the Right Thing.
“What about ole Myra Sue?” I demanded.
“What about her?” Mama said.
“She started the whole fight the other night. Why don’t she have to go apologize for that?”
“If you recall, you both apologized as you were leaving the room. You were sorry, April Grace, and so was Myra Sue,” Mama said.
Oh, brother! As if. The only thing Myra Sue was sorry for was being a knothead in front of her idol, but far be it from me to correct Mama.
“Anyway, this isn’t about that,” Mama continued. “This is about that first day, when they got into town, and you were not very kind to our new neighbors.”
I stared out the window as we drove down that old road. Boy, oh boy. I sighed deeply, but I don’t think anyone cared.
When we got to their house, I saw what needed to be weeded: the St. Jameses’s rotten old driveway, that’s what. Everything there was growing like weeds, hardy, har, har. But when we got to the house, you could have knocked me over with a dry Q-tip. There was Ian, wearing a pair of blue shorts and a fancy, pale yellow polo shirt, and he was pushing a red lawn mower. His face was so scarlet, the pale blue of his eyes seemed glassy. Through his thin blond hair, his scalp looked ready to catch fire.
“He’s going to have a heat stroke,” Mama said in alarm.
“Maybe we should have brought water,” Daddy said. “Now that I think about it, I’m not sure the pump in that old well even works.”
“Where’s ole Isabel?” I asked.
“Call her Mrs. St. James, or Isabel,” Mama corrected. She glanced around. “She’s there. Standing in the doorway.”