by KD McCrite
Her face got red, and she leaned forward.
“We are not religious fanatics!”
“Neither are we.”
“You people pray over every meal.”
This time I actually did roll my eyes in a goodly imitation of Myra Sue.
“So? We don’t stand on street corners screaming at people about hellfire and brimstone. We thank God for all the good things He has done and all the blessings He has given us.”
She sniffed.
“When Ian and I went into town the other day, a foolish little man in a plaid suit had the nerve to invite us to a revival meeting.”
“So what? Did he put a gun to your head and force you to attend?”
“Of course not! But just the fact that he approached us—”
“Good grief,” I said. “He didn’t mean anything. He was just extending an invitation.”
Isabel sniffed again and batted her eyes a few times. Then she said, “Your parents have that . . . that hideous prayer framed and hanging in their room.”
Mama and Daddy told my sister and me that their bedroom was their private sanctuary, so usually I went in there only with permission. But I’d been in it enough to know what she was talking about.
“You mean the Prayer of Saint Francis? Is that the hideous prayer of which you speak?” I figured if there was ever a good time for proper elocution and correct grammar, this was it. “Have you ever read that prayer, Isabel St. James?”
“No!” she said. “I saw the word prayer and didn’t read further.”
Boy, oh boy.
“That just proves my point,” I said. “You are narrow-minded!” Her mouth flew open. “I’ll have you know I’m a registered Democrat.”
“Who cares and so what? I strongly recommend you read that prayer sometime instead of making judgments about it. And I’ll tell you something else, if my mama and daddy are religious fanatics, then I reckon it’s not such a bad thing to be! After all, look at how you and Ian have been treated.”
We stared at each other for a long time. Then I said, “You want me to tell you some more things about yourself, or have you had enough?”
I fully expected her just to reach out and smack me a good one, but instead she took in a deep breath and said, rather slowly, “No. No, I’m willing to hear more. If I’m doomed to live here, then I should at least try to find a way to connect with you.”
I was glad to hear it. She was showing a little sense.
“You think you’re sick all the time,” I said.
She blinked at me a few times. “Well, I have a delicate constitution.”
“Yeah. That may be, but nobody likes to hear about it three times a day and six times on Sunday. Hearing about your toe fungus or possible diphtheria makes me tired. Look how you carried on about that splinter. It was all bloody and gross, but it’s not a life-threatening emergency. You wanted to call in the paramedics, for crying out loud.”
Her back was very stiff, but she said, “I see. What else?”
“You don’t do anything around here.”
“I beg to differ!” She started ticking things off on the fingers of her good hand. “I have chopped tomatoes, I’ve broken beans, I’ve shucked corn—” she shuddered “—and there were worms! I peeled peaches, and the fuzz on the skins could have given me a dreadful rash that might have . . .” She trailed off, probably remembering what I’d just said. “I . . . I turned the steaks over on the grill the other day. And . . .” Here she paused to think. “Oh yes. I have never folded so much laundry in my life!”
“So? You could do a lot more. And you have insulted my mother so many times I can’t count them all.”
Her mouth flew open.
“When? When did I ever insult your mother?”
“Oh brother!” I yelled. “Are you kidding? You called her Lucy about a million times until she finally snapped and asked you very politely to call her Lily—which is her name! You refuse to eat her cooking, and she has to drive all the way to Ava, and sometimes Blue Reed, to get food just for you.”
She stared at me. “Well, I . . . she does?” This was almost a whisper.
“Yes.”
For the first time, she actually looked dismayed. “Well . . . well . . . I never asked her to do that.”
“No, but she’s nice, and she does things for people.”
“But she’s so busy all the time. And that’s a long way to go for just one person. Why, she’s never said a thing to me about it. Are you sure?”
“Positive. She went to Blue Reed one night last week to get mangoes because you set up a fuss for them, and she didn’t get home until after ten. She’d been up since five that morning. Then you complained that they just didn’t taste like the ones back home, so most of them spoiled because they weren’t good enough for you.”
She pressed the fingers of her injured hand to her mouth. “Oh my.”
Well, I was all wound up and couldn’t stop. “And here’s something else: Our dog Daisy isn’t vicious, this house isn’t dreadful, we don’t have rural diseases, fresh country air doesn’t make you sick, and Forest and Temple are nice people, not ‘vile creatures.’ Furthermore, you’ve been treated like royalty in this house when the only royal thing you’ve done is act like a royal pain in the neck!”
Isabel stared at me in a way I’ve never seen before.
“Oh my,” she said again.
Then she looked past me and gazed at nothing for a long time. After a while, she spoke again in a strangled voice, “Does everyone in your family feel this way?”
I took a deep breath and pushed it out. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, they’d sure never let on even if they did.”
“No. No, I suppose they wouldn’t, would they? Your parents are wonderful people. They’ve done more for Ian and me than any of our friends back home ever did.”
“And Myra Sue worships the ground you walk on.”
A slow, soft smile came to Isabel’s lips. “She’s a dear girl.”
I snorted. “Well, that’s debatable. But let’s not argue.”
I thought about telling her I thought Ian had turned out to be a nice guy after all, and she ought to stop being so crabby and snotty to him, but then I decided maybe the two of them ought to work out their own relationship.
“And I think your grandmother is an absolute hoot,”
Isabel said.
“You do?”
Finally she met my eyes. “Don’t you?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Grandma is a case. Sometimes I nearly pass out from laughing at the funny things she says and does.”
“I used to think she was a dreadful hillbilly, but actually, once you get to know her, she’s so clever and wise.”
“I know!”
Anyone who loved my grandma couldn’t be a complete knotheaded jerk. I began to get a warm, fuzzy feeling for Isabel St. James, so I dismissed that hillbilly remark. After all, since she and Ian lived there now, they qualified as hillbillies, like it or not, deny it or not.
“So you have more to say?” Isabel asked after a minute. “Go ahead. I’m braced for it.”
“Just this. Treat my folks with a little more consideration, especially Mama. There was a time when she was treated real bad, and I just . . .” I stopped right there, remembering that Mama likes to keep some things to herself. “Just be nicer to them, okay?”
Isabel sniffed a little and blinked a little and twitched a little more.
Then she said, “Thank you again for your honesty. I shall be more mindful of how I present myself from here on out.” She cocked her head slightly to one side. “You know, my dear, you and I are a lot alike.”
I gawked at her. “That’s one of craziest things you’ve ever said, Isabel St. James.”
“Think about it for a minute.”
So I did. I went back over how I had acted and the things I’d said and done since I first met the St. Jameses. I had judged them before I met them, just from the car they drove. And hardly
ever tried to see past the things they said and did as a reason to understand them.
I remembered what Grandma had told me that day in the Koffee Kup, how no one was perfect, and I knew then just how right she was. Isabel wasn’t perfect . . . and neither was I. That was a hard pill to swallow, I tell you, but once I swallowed it, I had to admit it aloud. I think Jesus would’ve liked that.
Gulping in a deep breath, I said, “Isabel St. James, you are absolutely—”
The telephone rang in the house. I excused myself very politely to go answer it.
“April Grace?” the voice on the other end of the telephone said. “This is Miss Delaine from the library.”
My heart jumped.
“Hi! Do you have some information about Mrs. Rance after all?”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “It came in the afternoon mail. But I’m afraid it’s not what you were looking for. You might need to choose another subject for your composition, April Grace.”
“Why?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“You want to write about women who’ve died in Texas, right? Mrs. Emmaline Rance is not dead.”
TWENTY-SIX
Joining Forces
What did Miss Delaine just say?
“She’s not dead?” I yelped. “Of course she’s dead! She died about Christmastime last year.”
Miss Delaine cleared her throat in a way that told me I had overreacted and she did not appreciate it.
“I have a letter right here from Eunice Magruder, the head librarian of the Beauhide County Library. Do you want me to read it to you?”
My mind sputtered like the engine of Mr. Brett’s old lawnmower. Words jerked out of my mouth, making no sense.
“Why . . . why . . . if you . . . of course . . . sure.”
She cleared her throat again and said, “All right. Mrs. Magruder’s letter reads: ‘What an unusual request! Please pass on the following information to your patron. Mrs. Emmaline Rance is not dead. She is, and has been, very much an active part of our little community. In fact, Emmaline Ellison Rance is the secretary of our library board. Until last year, she owned one of the largest ranches in Beauhide County. Perhaps your patron heard of Mrs. Rance’s troubles and assumed she had succumbed to the devastation brought about by the scheming and reckless man she married just two years ago.’”
I squawked and slid down the wall, flat to the floor on my backside.
“Who’d she marry?” I yelled into the phone. “Does it say who she married? Is his name Jeffrey Rance? What’d he do to that woman?”
“April Grace, honey,” Miss Delaine said after a brief silence. “Why are so you agitated? If you’re worried about finding another subject for your composition before school starts, I’ll be glad to help you. You don’t have to write about deceased people in Texas, do you? There are plenty of interesting women who’ve lived and died right here in Arkansas. In fact—”
“Does the letter say who Emmaline Rance married?”
“You needn’t shout. I’ll read you the rest of the letter: ‘Mrs. Rance was hospitalized last winter for stress-induced heart failure after she learned J. W. Rance, her husband, had sold a huge part of their estate to a Japanese developer. By the time she recovered, the man had left Beauhide County and, we hope, the state of Texas altogether. She’s filed divorce, of course, but doesn’t know where J. W. Rance is, so the papers have yet to be served. Please feel free to pass this information along and assure your patron that Mrs. Rance is now fully recovered and busy as ever, although she is now without the ranch and fortune that had been in her family for many generations.’”
I just sat there on the floor, limp as a rag doll and just as speechless.
“Are you still on the line?” Miss Delaine asked. “April Grace, are you there?”
I finally took in air, then swallowed hard.
“I’m here,” I said weakly. “Miss Delaine, will you keep that letter for me until I can get to the library and pick it up?”
“Of course. But, honey, I—”
“Thank you.” I let the phone drop out of my hand.
For a little while I stayed on the floor, trying to come up with a way to get to Cedar Ridge. Mama and Daddy were gone; Ian was at his place, mowing his weedy yard; today was Mr. Brett’s day off, so he’d be at an auction somewhere—his favorite thing to do. Grandma had gone off with That Man. Someone had always driven Isabel anywhere she wanted to go, so she probably could not drive. I felt pretty hopeless right about then.
But just about the time I heard funny noises coming from the uncradled telephone receiver on the floor, I decided that if any air remained in my bicycle tires, I’d pedal my way to town. Rough Creek Road discouraged bike riding unless you hankered after a chiropractic adjustment at the end of your trip. Jouncing over that road’s rocks and ruts would rattle my brains loose, probably, and if I got flattened by a milk truck on the way to town, Mama and Daddy would kill me. But I had to get that letter. No one would believe me without it. I scrambled to my feet, hung up the telephone, and headed outside into the afternoon sunlight.
“Where are you going?” Isabel said as I rushed down the porch steps.
“I gotta get to town.” I hurried toward the shed without pausing.
“How?”
“I’m gonna ride my bike.”
“What?!” A few seconds later I unfastened the rusty latch on the shed door, and Isabel was right beside me. Boy, I didn’t know she could move that fast.
“You can’t ride your bicycle all the way to town,” she said. “It’s dangerous.”
“I have to.”
I pulled open the shed door, and a field rat rushed out into the daylight. Isabel saw it, screeched, and jumped aside, but she didn’t hightail it back to the house like you’d expect her to do. Instead, she eyeballed the thing until it disappeared into the pasture where it belonged.
“I will not let you put yourself in danger, April Grace!”
My bicycle hadn’t been out of the shed in two years. To get to it, I moved a small wooden stool, an old bucket with a hole in the bottom, a broken broom, and an empty gas can. I wheeled the old red bike outside and took a look at it. Both tires were flatter than a flitter. Plus, it was covered in dirt.
Isabel looked at it with her nose curled up and her mouth in a wad. “Well, I’m glad to see you cannot use that nasty thing. Now tell me what’s so urgent that you suddenly must go to town.”
“I’ll just have to walk.” I took off down the driveway. “But there’s no time to waste talking. If you want to walk along, I’ll tell you what’s up.”
Off I went with Isabel teetering along beside me on her high heels. That woman did not own one pair of anything as practical as sneakers. Looking at her long, skinny feet, I wondered if they even made sneakers that would fit. But this was not the time to make snide remarks in my head about Isabel.
“You like my grandma, don’t you, Isabel St. James?”
“Yes, yes, I do!” she said.
“Well, that old goof she’s fixing to marry is a rotten old goat.”
“What? What?” she said. We were stepping along at a pretty good clip. She was panting like Daisy on a hot day and clutched my arm with her good hand for support. “What makes you say that, child?”
So I told her every nasty little detail that I could remember about Mr. Rance, including the parts about apple trees and the little flap on the VCR. By the time I got to the letter from Texas, we had reached the place in the road where Grandma had bailed out of the truck to look for Queenie that time.
Isabel stopped dead. Her clutching fingers were hard as iron and hurt my arm like crazy.
“Let go of me, Isabel St. James! I have to save my grandma.”
“Not without me, you aren’t!” she declared. “And we aren’t walking all the way to Cedar Whatever. I’ll drive us to town.” She whirled around and marched back the way we’d come. She kept twisting and tripping over rocks and holes in the road.
“Oh, I’ve had enoug
h of this!” She yanked off those silly high heels and kept on going barefoot. I knew that rough rocky road on the soles of her citified feet must have been painful, but she must’ve gritted her teeth because she didn’t slow down.
“I didn’t know you drove!” I hollered, then ran to catch up with her.
“I do in an emergency. And this is an emergency.”
“But where are you getting a car?”
“We’ll walk to our place and get the pickup.”
Well, let me tell you, it was hot as blazes outside—it usually is in August around here. We both worked up a good sweat in a real short time. I didn’t even know Isabel could sweat.
At one point Isabel asked, “You never liked the old man, did you?”
“Nope. But, of course, no one listened to me when I said he was snoopy and bossy.” I gave her a look. “As many times as he’s had supper at our house, did you never notice that?”
She blinked a few times. “Actually, I did, but I just assumed he was like everyone else around here.”
I bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know . . .” She slid a look at me.
“No, I do not know. Not everybody around here is like that, and besides, he’s not from here. It’s snooty remarks like that, Isabel St. James, which make people dislike you. And I’m starting to like you, so don’t mess it up.”
She drew in her lips and blinked some more. Then, to my utter and complete astonishment, she smiled.
“I’m starting to like you, too, now that I see you are a perceptive, caring child and not always a smart-mouthed little brat. We have totally misunderstood each other, April Grace.”
“That’s true. But I’m not the brat of the family. And if you’ll stop acting all superior and looking down on everyone here . . .”
“That has never been my intention,” she said.
Hmm. It sure seemed that way, but maybe I’d been wrong.
She added, “If you’ll stop coming up with pointed little barbs to hurt me . . .”
“The truth hurts.”
She grimaced, and I continued, “But we’re trying to turn over a new leaf, aren’t we? So what the hey. All right, I’ll try not to be such a smart-mouth, and you just gotta stop saying things like, ‘Back in California, we always had this, or did that.’ And, ‘You people here are so dumb or ignorant or whatever.’ You’re not in California anymore, so you might as well learn to love it here ’cause that’s where you are.”