by Ann McMan
It was a tough concept to grasp and she never really understood it.
Not until she met Roma Jean.
Roma Jean was a perfect mix of all colors. And her contradictions proved how opposites could coexist in perfect harmony. It made no sense, and it made all kinds of sense. And it didn’t take Charlie very long to figure out that adding a hefty dose of Roma Jean to the darkness of her own life was resulting in a fantastic explosion of light.
That meant she could afford to be patient while Roma Jean figured things out.
She just wished she could figure out what to wear . . .
In the end, she decided to go with jeans and a lavender polo shirt. The jeans were comfortable, and the shirt was pretty enough to pass as halfway girlie.
She took a last, wistful glance at her revolver before locking it up in the gun safe between the front seats of her car. It was unlikely she’d be needing it on a picnic.
She smiled. Not unless Roma Jean made more of those awful deviled eggs.
The last time she made them, she experimented with beet juice and red wine vinegar and they ended up looking like appetizers from a party at Freddy Krueger’s house.
Roma Jean had said they could take their picnic lunch up to the Highlands state park near Mouth of Wilson. There were wild ponies up there—and caverns with a spring-fed underground lake that was big enough to swim in. The destination was a popular one for campers, folks hiking the Appalachian Trail and ham radio operators. And there were plenty of picnic shelters, too—although Charlie was hopeful she could tempt Roma Jean to consider a site in a less trafficked area.
They had things to discuss.
She parked her cruiser behind Roma Jean’s Caprice and tried to avoid checking her hair in the rearview mirror before getting out. It looked like both of Roma Jean’s parents were at home. Edna’s Impala was pulled up beneath the carport next to Curtis’s Silverado pickup.
The Freemantles only bought Chevys.
Charlie knew better than to go to the front door. Nobody in the county did that. If you did, it was clear that you were either up to no good or were selling something nobody wanted.
Roma Jean yanked the kitchen door open before Charlie was halfway through her first knock. She guessed that meant Roma Jean had been standing there watching her walk up. She looked fantastic. Her long red hair was loose today and she’d already changed out of her church clothes.
“Hey, Charlie.” She stood back and held the door open so Charlie could join her inside. “Mama is just packing our food.”
Edna was standing at the kitchen counter loading Ziploc bags and hard plastic containers into a soft-sided freezer bag with a giant “Food City” emblem on its side. She made what felt to Charlie like nervous eye contact before directing her attention back to the bag. She didn’t say anything.
Charlie took the plunge.
“Hey, Ms. Freemantle. It’s nice to see you.”
Edna did look at her then. She even smiled. Well, she smiled a little bit.
“Hey, Charlie. I think you girls picked a good day for a picnic.” She looked out the kitchen window. “It’s already getting hot.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Charlie racked her brain trying to come up with other small talk. “I guess we just have to hope it doesn’t pop a storm later on.”
“It’s not supposed to.” The voice came from the doorway and it belonged to Roma Jean’s father. “But you two oughta plan on being back early, just the same.”
“Yes, sir.” Charlie nodded at him. “We sure will.”
Roma Jean rolled her eyes. “I already told you that I’m not going to evening church. You all can go on without me.” She looked at Charlie. “They always have those nighttime services early in the summer. I don’t get it. It’s not a nighttime anything if it’s still daytime.”
“They just do that so folks can have more time off in the evenings,” Edna clarified.
“More time off from God?” Roma Jean asked. “How do they think that makes sense?”
“It’s just a kindness, Roma Jean.” Curtis walked over to the counter and took a peek inside the cooler.
“Well it seems to me if they really wanted to be kind, they’d just quit having them period.” Roma Jean faced Charlie. “People drive like lunatics getting outta there so they can make it home in time to watch 24.”
“Now, Roma Jean, you know those services only run that late when they’re in revival.” Edna finished packing the bag.
“I don’t know how they can call anything that happens there ‘revival’ when most of those people are on life support.”
Charlie fought to stifle a laugh.
“It’s true,” Roma Jean insisted.
Charlie looked at Curtis. “I promise to have her home before it gets dark,” she said.
“Well . . .” He didn’t finish his statement.
Edna handed the cooler to Charlie. “You girls be careful driving.”
“They’re takin’ that police cruiser, honey,” Curtis said. He looked Charlie in the eye. “I expect they’ll be safe enough.”
Curtis’s meaning was impossible to miss. Charlie gave him a meek nod and followed Roma Jean, who was already halfway out the door.
Once they were in the car and had backed out of the driveway, Roma Jean shifted on the seat to face Charlie.
“That went a lot better than I thought.”
“It did?”
“Oh, yeah.” Roma Jean nodded vigorously. “When I told mama this morning that we were going on a picnic, she didn’t say anything for almost ten minutes. And believe me, that’s like a lifetime of silence from her.”
“What happened then?” Charlie was trying hard to remain calm. She was almost afraid to hear what Roma Jean would say next.
“She just started pulling things out of the refrigerator for us to eat. The market had a big sale on pasta salad this week—but it was that kind with the tricolor bowties, and most people around here don’t trust anything but regular macaroni. So, we had tons of it left over. And she gave us the rest of that boiled ham that Daddy was slicing for Cougar’s when he cut his hand. There wasn’t any blood on it, or anything, but he figured nobody would want to buy it once the word got out.”
“That was it?” Charlie was surprised. “She didn’t ask you anything else?”
Roma Jean shook her head. “I figure that means either she doesn’t want to know, or she already knows and doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“You didn’t say anything else to her? I mean, about . . . well. About us?”
Roma Jean smiled at her. It made Charlie’s insides go soft. She had to concentrate on keeping the car between the painted lines.
“I told her you were picking me up at home because it was time for them to meet you.”
Charlie knew she was going to blush. And she knew the more she tried not to, the redder she would get. It was strange to feel so happy and so embarrassed about it all at the same time. But if Roma Jean had said that to her mother, it must mean that she believed it herself.
Yes. They had things to discuss.
She stole a glance at Roma Jean, who was still giving her that million-dollar smile.
“Did you really mean that?” she asked.
Roma Jean reached across the console and laid a hand on Charlie’s thigh. In all the time they’d spent alone together, she’d never done something so . . . forward. But Charlie saw her do it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Of course,” Roma Jean replied. “What do you think I meant?”
◊ ◊ ◊
Henry didn’t usually have piano lessons on Sunday, but today was different. His daddy was on a trip to someplace in Kentucky, so he was spending the afternoon at Gramma C.’s until Syd came and picked him up at suppertime. He’d stay with them out at the farm until Tuesday, when his daddy got back. Henry didn’t mind a bit. Now that it was staying light longer, he could be outside later after supper. Every night, Syd would let him walk down to the pond with Pete and fe
ed the fish. And when she knew for sure he was coming to stay, she would save leftover pieces of melon rinds in a big bucket with other stuff like carrot tops and old lettuce. Henry’s cow, Before, loved all of that—especially the pieces of melon. Maddie said that was because they were special treats and probably tasted like candy to her. When Before would see him coming across the yard swinging his red pail, she’d leave her clumps of grass and hurry over to the fence to wait for him. She’d cram herself up against the rails and moo like crazy until he got there and started shoving the big hunks of leftovers between the boards.
Syd told him to always be careful not to get his fingers too close to Before’s mouth, but Henry knew she’d never bite him. Not unless it was an accident. They were friends, and friends never hurt each other on purpose.
At least that’s what Buddy told him.
Henry missed his animals a lot. His daddy said they weren’t allowed to keep any in their apartment—not even goldfish. It helped a little bit when he could stay up late and watch shows on Animal Planet with Buddy—even though Buddy didn’t stay with any one program very long.
Not unless it was Shark Week.
Buddy seemed to like those programs a little bit more. Henry even asked Miss Freemantle if she could find some good storybooks about sharks that he could check out. He would ask Buddy to read them to him. He thought that maybe Buddy would even read these books forwards first—even though stories about sharks probably wouldn’t change very much if he did read them backwards.
He asked Dorothy if she thought that was true and she said it probably was. She supposed it was because sharks were the oldest things alive. She said anything that could survive that long probably swam ruts in the ocean that were so deep, there wasn’t anything new left to learn about.
That wasn’t true about The Incredible Journey. Something new happened on nearly every page of that story. Sometimes, Henry would stay awake late into the night worrying about how the animals were going to get out of trouble—or wondering if they ever would make their way back to their family. One time, he fell asleep holding the book and had a dream that he and Dorothy were the ones lost in a strange place. They were alone in a big field full of yellow flowers that covered everything. They were running. He didn’t know why they were running or if somebody was chasing them. But it didn’t matter. They both kept running as hard as they could. There was a noise behind them. The closer it got, the more it reminded him of something. He woke up before he could figure out what it was. That was when he heard Buddy’s scooter running beneath his open bedroom window.
He hoped that maybe Dorothy could finish reading the book to him today. She was here at Gramma C.’s house, too. She stayed with him nearly every day now that school was out. When Gramma C. came over to pick him up, she asked Dorothy if she’d like to come along and get another piano lesson. Dorothy had to think about that for a while, but Gramma C. said she’d be sure to get her back to Troutdale in time to meet her daddy when he came to fetch her.
Dorothy was inside having her lesson now. Henry could hear her playing the same pieces of music that he was supposed to be learning. But even though this was only her second lesson, her playing already sounded better than his. He didn’t mind. Not if it meant Gramma C. had somebody who liked practicing a whole lot more than he did.
He kept hearing a single note coming from someplace outside the house. It played over and over, but only when Dorothy made the same sound inside. It didn’t sound like a piano and he was pretty sure it wasn’t any kind of bird. He stood still and listened to it until he could figure out where it was coming from. Then he followed the sound around the house to the sunny side, where an old fence divided Gramma C.’s yard from a pasture that nobody used anymore.
It was Buddy. He was working in this part of the yard planting flowers. There were big flat crates of them stacked all over the place. He was digging, but he kept stopping and blowing into this strange little whistle whenever Dorothy played that same note.
“Hi, Buddy. What is that noise you keep making?”
“Three, five, seven,” he said. Then he blew the whistle again. “Three, five, seven. C major.”
“You’re making a C major sound?” Henry asked. “Like the one on the piano?”
“Three, five, seven. C major,” Buddy repeated.
“That’s a funny whistle. Does it only play one note?”
“C major makes other notes right.”
Buddy blew the whistle again. This time, the music stopped.
“Where’d you get it?” Henry asked. He pulled over an empty flower crate and sat down on it.
“Quiet lady gave me C major,” Buddy explained. “It makes other notes right.”
“Gramma C. gave it to you?”
Buddy nodded. “C major makes other notes right.”
“Are you going to plant all of these flowers here?” Henry could see that Buddy had dug a whole bunch of holes in an unusual pattern. It reminded him of the fun shapes he and Maddie drew on sheets of paper with an old pen-toy of hers called a Spirograph. Henry thought the designs they made all looked like spider webs or honeycombs. But they used special tools to make the perfect shapes. Buddy was making this one in a big patch of dirt with only a blue pointed shovel.
There was something else, too. Buddy had all the flowers set up by colors in the same order. Each crate was the same. Two yellows, two greens, three blues, five purples, eight reds, twelve oranges. Henry counted them all again to be sure.
He pointed at the rows of flowers arranged in all the crates. “Why are the yellow ones first?”
“Goldenrod,” Buddy said.
Henry was confused. Goldenrod was Buddy’s name for Dorothy.
“What does she have to do with the flowers?” Henry asked.
“Goldenrod is magic for Bluebird. One, three, seven, five.” He dug another hole. “Golden magic makes other things right.”
Henry looked at the winding spiral of holes Buddy made in the dirt. It was hard to imagine how all the flowers would look when they got planted and grew bigger. He guessed they’d all blend together and make the pattern that held them together hard to see. But Buddy would always know it was there.
Now Henry knew it, too.
◊ ◊ ◊
“What on God’s green earth is that disgusting smell?”
Michael and Nadine were busy at the stove. Michael didn’t need to turn around to know who’d just entered the kitchen at the café.
“Hello, David.”
“Lord have mercy.” David walked over and peered into the skillet. “What are you two killing over here?”
Nadine tried to slap David with a dishtowel, but he danced out of her way.
“Don’t you come into this kitchen and talk smack about my food, boy.”
“Seriously.” David pinched his nose closed. “What are you two cooking? It smells like a Bulgarian ghetto back here.”
“A Bulgarian ghetto?” Michael glared at him over the tops of his glasses. “And you’d know this because?”
David waved a hand. “It was on one of those Anthony Bourdain adventures.”
“That man couldn’t cook his way out of a Bojangles drive-through.” Nadine rapped her spatula against the side of a big Dutch oven full of simmering collards and cabbage. “Taste that and see if it needs more red pepper flakes.”
Michael complied. “Nope. I think it’s perfect.”
“Perfect?” David looked back and forth between them. “Perfect for what? Are you gonna spread it around the perimeter of this joint to keep the mayor and his goons away from your shrubs?” He inched closer to them and took another cautious sniff. “It might just work.”
Michael and Nadine exchanged glances.
“I hate to say it, Nadine . . . but he might be on to something, there.”
“Oh, really?” She waved her spatula in the general vicinity of the dining room. “And I suppose if one of those brain surgeons out front sat down in front of a typewriter for long enough, he’d ha
mmer out War and Peace, too?”
“Yeah.” David lowered his voice. “By the way—who are those guys? I thought it was a mortician’s convention when I walked through there.”
Nadine rolled her eyes. “They’re the Elders from the Conference.”
“Conference?” he asked. “There’s a mortician’s conference going on? How come Harold didn’t know about it?”
“Harold?” She seemed confused.
“He means Harold Nicks.” Michael added more salt to the collard and cabbage mixture. “He does all the hair for Buford’s Mortuary.”
“Yeah. And if you ask me, he’s hasn’t been doing his best work lately. There’s been a noticeable dip in loft on the last few hair helmets he’s created out there.” David perched on the edge of the prep table. “I barely recognized Hazel Maldonado. That woman never left the house unless her hair was halfway to glory. Who knows? Maybe old Manuel just didn’t want to spring for the extra-long casket it’d take to accommodate all that backcombing. They say those bigger ones go for about 500 bucks a foot. If you ask me, it’s more that Harold’s been forced to cut corners on product to save money. Gerald Watson has just about run them out of business with all that remediation stuff. Not that I’m against protecting the environment—but it’s not like Harold was dumping activator down the storm drains.”
Nadine glared at him. “Boy, do you ever pay attention to the mess that comes outta your mouth? I said they were Elders from the Conference—not undertakers.”
“She means the Methodist Conference,” Michael explained. “They’re meeting out at Bone Gap.”
“Bone Gap?” David was confused. “Why would they come all the way over here to eat?”