In Front of God and Everybody

by KD McCrite

“Isabel and Myra Sue are supposed to be snapping beans today,” I said. “Can you picture ole Isabel breaking green beans with her long, red fingernails in the way?”

  “At least she’s doing something. Give her credit for that. You’d do yourself a real service, April Grace, if you was to take a page out of your folks’ book. You’d be a lot happier.”

  “But Grandma—”

  “If anyone in the world has a reason to feel distrustful and pessimistic about folks, it’s your mama.”

  This was news to me. My ears perked up. “Why?”

  She moved her coffee cup around on the table again. I could see she was debating with herself whether or not to give me an answer.

  “Grandma, I’m old enough to know some things.” When she just looked at me, I added, “And I can keep my mouth shut about them.”

  “I’ve never known you to keep your mouth shut at the right time.”

  “Grandma.”

  She studied me a minute.

  “Well, I’ll tell you a little, and if your Mama ever wants you to know more, she’ll tell you herself.”

  Afraid she might change her mind if I moved a fraction, I sat perfectly still. Deep inside my head, I could feel my eardrums twitch.

  “The thing is, your other grandma did not want Lily.”

  Well, I knew that. Sort of. My other grandma is alive, I think. I asked Mama about her once, and she said that her mother hadn’t been ready for her or for motherhood, and for me to please never mention it again. So I didn’t. But I thought about it sometimes.

  Grandma looked out the café window, but I could see she looked at nothing but her thoughts. In a bit, she dragged her gaze back to me.

  “Sandra Moore—your other grandma—was not a nice person, and that’s putting it mildly.”

  “Why?”

  “She just wasn’t, that’s all.”

  “But why? Grandma, you keep fiddling with that cup and spoon, and you’re twitching around in your chair. Is it so shameful you can’t speak of it?”

  She waved a hand. “It ain’t scandalous or anything. And none of it is your mama’s fault, but it does hurt me to remember.”

  “Remember what?”

  “That Lily’s great-aunt Maxie didn’t want her, either.”

  I frowned. Great-Aunt Maxie had raised Mama, but she never said much about her one way or the other.

  “She gave her a place to live, but that’s about all,” Grandma said. “First time I saw your mama was at church during Vacation Bible School. She was the scrawniest, dirtiest, pitifulest little thing you ever saw. Back in those days, the state didn’t step in and take care of kids the way it does now. Mike said the kids at school picked on Lily something awful, and he did his best to stand up for her. ’Course, he wasn’t always there to watch out for her.” She paused a second or two. “I’ll tell you one thing. That little redheaded girl had the most beautiful, shining smile you ever saw.”

  “She still does,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am, she does. And you should’ve seen her eat the snacks during refreshment time at VBS. Of course, the church folks did everything they could for her as time went on, but Maxie didn’t like that. Made her look bad, I guess, and after a while she wouldn’t let Lily come to church anymore. Then, when Lily was about ten or so, her mama came back to town. Said she’d had a change of heart, so she packed her up, and off they went to God knows where. A couple of years later, she brought Lily back, dumped her on the old aunt again, and skedaddled for good.” Grandma stopped talking for a few seconds. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you anything,” she said.

  “No. I’m glad you told me,” I said. “But why won’t Mama ever talk about this? Like you said, it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Well, that’s the thing, honey. Lily Reilly lives by First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. You know that Scripture?”

  “I think so.”

  “It says something like, love is patient and kind, and it doesn’t get easily angered or keep records of wrongdoing. That’s not an exact quote, but you’ve been to Sunday school. You know what I’m talking about. Your mama believes in that Scripture, and she lives her life by it.”

  “She sure does.”

  “The year Sandra Moore brought Lily back to Cedar Ridge was the year Lily and Mike became good friends. And you know how that turned out.” She smiled. “And when the old aunt had a stroke a few months after they got married, you know what your folks did?”

  I shook my head.

  “They took her into that tiny apartment they lived in up in Branson while they went to the college up there. Yes sirree. Took that ole gal right into their home, and your mama dropped out of college to take care of her. She waited on her and treated her like a beloved member of the family, while your daddy got his agricultural degree at the School of the Ozarks. It wasn’t easy on either of ’em, but they did it because Lily thought it was the right thing to do. Mike, he went along with her on it. You know, he has always thought your mama hung the moon.”

  Grandma stopped talking for a bit. I waited for her to finish her story and tried not to fidget. I hoped that old man who’d been seeing a man about a horse for a long time stayed away for a while longer.

  “Mebbe I shouldn’t have told you any of this,” Grandma said at last. “But I wanted you to know that if anyone has a right to feel hard toward anyone, it’s your mama. And she don’t. She loves ’em all, so you just think about that and see if you can’t be more like her and less like some other folks.”

  I sighed.

  “It’s a lot to take in,” I said.

  And it was pretty hard to swallow too. But I’d think about it. I wanted to think about it, but I sure didn’t get much of a chance right then ’cause Mr. Rance came clumping toward the table in his loud, old cowboy boots. He was grinning like a monkey. I sighed again.

  “Wal, now!” He sat down, looked at Grandma’s empty cup, and glanced around until he saw our waitress busing a table across the room. He hollered like he thought he was at a hog-calling contest. “Missy! We need coffee.”

  While everyone turned to look at us again, and while the red-faced waitress hurried to our table, I forced myself to remember what Grandma had just said. I had to admit she was right. I really ought to be more like Mama and Daddy. Look at how nice they treated the St. Jameses, even when Isabel was lazy and rude and never said thank you for a blessed thing. She must never have even heard the word gratitude in her entire life. And whenever Temple and Forest dropped in, Mama and Daddy pretended they didn’t stink at all. Mama always gave Temple a big hug. If Temple brought some of her bark bread or nature cookies, Mama took one and ate it right then and there—even when Temple looked like she hadn’t a bathed in a week or three, and the cookies or bread were made without flour, sugar, eggs, or milk and tasted like dry cardboard.

  Mama and Daddy were happy too.

  I’m gonna start acting like them, I told myself. I’m gonna try to be nice to everyone, no matter what.

  Then I looked at Mr. Rance. I looked at his big red face below that black hat and his big dumb grin and his sticky-out ears with their hearing aids poked down amongst the hairs in his ear holes. I wondered if Mama and Daddy ever felt queasy when they were being nice to certain people.

  Well, I thought, I’ll just have to like him ’cause it’s important to Grandma.

  I’ll tell you one thing, though. I still had all my suspicions about him, and I was gonna watch him real close. But for the time being, I’d try to be nice. I sat up real straight.

  I said, “I’m sorry your wife died last year about Christmastime.”

  A weird look came over his face, like he’d swallowed something he didn’t mean to. He sort of nodded and poured about half the sugar from the dispenser into his coffee. He stirred it so hard and fast it sloshed onto the table and his fingers.

  “How long were you married?” I asked. Not that I cared, but it seemed like a nice question.

  “A while,” he
said.

  “What happened to her?” I asked.

  He took a big gulp of coffee. “She took sick.”

  I didn’t have time to ponder this because Grandma nudged me under the table. She gave me a little frown and shook her head, so I figured this was one of the subjects the old man didn’t want to talk about.

  “You like to read?” I asked him.

  “You mean books?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Good, big, fat books with stories.”

  He shook his big ole head. “Nah. Readin’ is a pure waste of time.”

  Well, I tell you what. I’d never heard such an awful thing come out of the mouth of a grown-up.

  “Are you kiddin’ me?” I hollered. Grandma nudged me under the table again, and I swallowed down my outrage. It took me a minute to think up something new.

  “What about horses?” I asked.

  Sure enough, his face lit up.

  “What about ’em, young’un?”

  “How come you like them so good?” I asked.

  Unfortunately, the subject of horses kept his mouth going through the rest of lunch, during the grocery shopping, and most of the way home. I wanted to jump out of the truck and walk, but I knew Grandma wouldn’t let me. Besides, I’d have to help her get out of the pickup without splatting to the ground. And besides that, I sat between them going home, because I thought it would help me in my quest to be a nicer person and like that old man. So I just sat there in a cloud of sweaty Old Spice and suffered. Of course, I had no idea what was about to happen, or I might have been happy to ride in that truck ’til dark-thirty.

  SEVENTEEN

  Queenie, Queenie,

  You’re a Weenie

  That day, while Mr. Rance drove us home from town, I did my best to close out his voice while the three of us bounced down Rough Creek Road in that red pickup. We were almost home when, without warning, Grandma screamed at the top of her lungs and like to have scared me to death. Mr. Rance slammed the brakes so hard that the truck slid sideways in a cloud of gravel and dust. I clunked my forehead on the dashboard. For a few seconds I saw stars and wondered if I’d see Jesus next.

  “Miz Grace! What’s wrong?” Mr. Rance hollered.

  I was still blinking, trying to clear my head, when Grandma gasped, “Oh! Oh! Did you see?” Grandma said, pointing to the side of the road. “My Queenie, my kitty. How did she get out? Oh, there! There she goes! Here kitty, kitty!” She opened her door, hollering, “Oh, Queenie, come back to your mommy!”

  She fumbled around and unfastened her seat belt, then jumped out of the pickup and stumbled down to the dry bed of Rough Creek.

  Leaving his truck cattywampus on the road, Mr. Rance got out and started yelling, “Come back here, you blasted cat! Here!” He whistled as if he thought Queenie were a Bluetick hound.

  I scooted across the seat and leaped to the ground.

  “She won’t come to you when you’re screaming at her like that,” I said.

  But, of course, he couldn’t hear me over the racket of his own big mouth. Grandma did her best to get up the embankment on the other side of the road, but she couldn’t make it. I ran toward her. Before I got there, she skittered backward on the loose dirt and rocks and fell flat on her backside. Then she started to cry. I’d never seen her do that before.

  “Don’t worry, Grandma.” I patted her head. Beneath my hand, her gray hair was as soft as cotton. “I’ll find Queenie and bring her home. Don’t worry. Don’t cry.”

  She sat in the ditch, her new dress dirty, her stockings torn at the knee, and her shoes all scuffed. She hunched over her legs, breathing hard while tears poured down her cheeks and left tracks in the face powder I didn’t even know she used. Her skin looked all gray and pale. I stared at her a minute, then got up and ran to Mr. Rance, who was crashing around in the brush on the opposite side of the road.

  “Come ’ere, you ill-begotten feline!” he roared.

  I had to grab his arm and jump up and down just to get his attention.

  “I’ll find Queenie,” I shouted at him, “but you need to take Grandma to the house and calm her down. She’s all upset.”

  Mr. Rance stood with his arms hanging loose at his sides and stared at me.

  “How’s ’at?”

  I repeated my instructions. He nodded and went to where Grandma was trying to claw her way up the embankment again.

  “Now, Miz Grace, your little’un will get your pussycat back for you,” Mr. Rance said. “Let’s you and me go get us some sweet tea and cool off. You look tuckered.”

  By the time I got up the other side of the embankment, he was brushing the dirt off Grandma, patting her shoulder, talking a mile a minute, and leading her back to the truck. I took one last look at the two of them, then ran into the woods to find that Queenie, who is the Weenie of the World.

  I was quite a ways into the trees, hoping I’d not step on a copperhead and die a hideous death all swole-up and purple with a black tongue hanging out of my mouth, when I saw that Dumb Cat several feet away, just standing there, looking at me and twitching her tail like I annoyed her.

  As I got closer, she stood real still, and I thought, well, this is gonna be easier than I expected. When I was almost close enough to catch her, she ran off again, diving over a fallen tree and some brush. She got about fifty feet when she stopped and looked back at me.

  “Come here, Queenie,” I said quietly so she’d not run again.

  Just about the time I reached her, she took off. This time she darted halfway up a small tree. She hung there like the dried-out shell of a jar fly, then let go, hit the ground, and started running and bounding over brush again.

  “Come here, stupid!” I screamed at her, which was the wrongest thing to do because she hissed and yeowled and dashed off like the devil was after her. I knew chasing the fool just kept her going, but I didn’t know what else to do. As I ran, every little once in a while, I’d see a fuzzy splotch of white.

  Then she wasn’t there anymore. I called until my throat hurt. I hunted in those trees and bushes, and twice I fell over rocks I didn’t see under the fallen leaves. At one point, a black snake came sliding past me, and I about had a heart attack on the spot.

  Now, I know you’re thinking: why didn’t you just go home, you silly little girl? Well, I’ll tell you. When you see your grandma sitting in a ditch, crying because she lost her cat, you don’t ever want to see her like that again.

  So I searched the woods and fields and called, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” ’til I was dizzy. Finally, I dragged myself back home, so thirsty I was about to croak. All sweaty and dirty and scratched-up from running through woods, I crossed the back porch and went into the kitchen, figuring snooty Isabel would screw up her mouth and nose when she caught a look, but I didn’t care. I grabbed a glass from the cabinet, ran to the sink, and got a long, cool drink of water. Then I turned around. That’s when I saw an empty kitchen. Empty of people, I mean.

  On the table sat a bushel basket about half-full of unbroken beans. The other basket was on the floor beside the door, and it was full. On the cabinet was a big blue enamel pan of broken beans. Mama, Isabel, and Myra Sue were nowhere to be seen. That was weird, let me tell you.

  In summer, except when she goes to church or has to run into town for something, Mama is busy in the kitchen, preserving, canning, pickling, or freezing something. I’ve never known her to go missing. A scared feeling poked me, and I shivered.

  “Mama?”

  She didn’t answer. She wasn’t in the living room or dining room. I was just about to go upstairs when I heard voices coming from behind the closed door of her bedroom.

  I ran down the hall and without pausing to knock, I threw open the door. Isabel jumped, screeching with fright, and so did the dark-haired girl with her. The girl wore a silver, spangly dress and strappy high heels. Her makeup was so thick, she looked like a clown.

  “What are you doing here, you dumb little kid?” she screamed at me. “Did you ever hear
of knocking?”

  I stared at Myra Sue until my eyeballs nearly fell out.

  “Mama is gonna kill you,” I said.

  I flinched as she approached, but instead of smacking the daylight out of me, she reached behind me and slammed the door shut.

  “Hush your big mouth!” she hissed. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Cedar Ridge with Grandma.”

  I was so stunned, I couldn’t speak for a minute.

  Her blond hair was now black. Blacker than black. So black it sucked the light right out of the room. Not only that, but it was big. Big like the girls in high school wear. Her idol, Her Isabel-ness, sat without moving or speaking.

  “Mama is gonna kill you,” I said again. “K-I-L-L-Y-O-U. And where’d you get that dress? It looks like aluminum foil.” I reached out to touch it, but she smacked my hand away.

  “Your sister has chosen to rise above her circumstances and embrace her inner goddess,” Isabel said.

  I looked at Isabel and said, “Inner goddess? You’ve been hanging out with Temple, haven’t you?”

  Isabel curled her thin nose. “That vile creature?”

  “She is not!” I said. “And where’s my mama?”

  Isabel blinked. “My husband broke the tractor, and your father had to go to that ridiculous little town to get a part. If anyone can tear up anything, that foolish Ian can. He’s a master of destruction.” She sniffed. Then, “Lily said she wanted to go with him.” She flipped one hand airily. “And off she went.”

  Mama must have needed a break big-time to take off for no reason in the middle of the day with all those beans in there. “When she gets home and sees those beans aren’t ready to be canned, she’s—”

  “Why are you home?” Myra Sue yelled. When she opened her mouth like that, you could see her new black hair did not go well with her braces. I wonder if Isabel had told her that.

  I finally decided to quit gawking at this nightmare and get on with business. “Queenie got out again. Have you seen her? Has she been over here? Grandma’s fit to be tied.”

  Isabel stiffened. “You mean that vicious dog your family owns?”