In Search of Mockingbird

by Loretta Ellsworth

  But I didn’t agree with him. I always missed her even though I never knew her.

  A muffled voice interrupts my thoughts as the bus driver speaks into the loudspeaker. “We’ll be stopping in Clear Lake, Iowa, for approximately twenty-five minutes. You may depart the bus, but be back on board no later than ten thirty.”

  Panic rises inside me and I pull out the schedule.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper to my jumpy stomach, “that stop is listed here.” I hug my overstuffed backpack to calm the flutters.

  A blouse pokes out through the top, and I wonder if I should have packed more than just two outfits. I also brought a pack of cards, colored pencils, and my science textbook. I intend to keep up with my homework, except for algebra, which is a lost cause, and Spanish, because I can’t trill my r’s, so I figure what’s the use?

  I turn off the overhead light and stare out the window into the darkness, watching the headlights of the passing cars. The quiet voices of the other passengers have grown louder since the driver’s announcement, and I can see from the tops of their heads that several people are shifting restlessly.

  The bus pulls into a Burger King parking lot off the interstate in Clear Lake. I look at my watch. It’s just after ten. I pull on my winter jacket and get off the bus, my backpack hanging off one shoulder. Even though I’m not really hungry I order French fries and a Coke. I’m too keyed up to think about getting any sleep.

  It takes me two minutes to finish the fries. The Coke is for later. I’m the first one back on the bus. I sit in the same spot, an inconspicuous seat right in the middle. It seems to be working. Other than the woman in the seat across the aisle, no one has even made eye contact with me.

  I pull out the bus schedule and go over it again, silently repeating the names of our stops: The Boondocks, Iowa, and Sikeston, Missouri. There are two transfers in my trip, one in Kansas City, and one in Montgomery, Alabama, that will take me to Monroeville.

  I open my journal. My birthday officially starts in two hours. Drawing a picture of a birthday cake with sixteen candles on top, I scribble “Happy 16th Birthday, Erin!”

  Two new passengers enter the bus. There are plenty of empty seats; the place is barely half full. My jacket is strung out on the seat next to me in an antisocial attempt to guard my privacy.

  A man wearing a painter’s cap sits down near the front. A pack of cigarettes hangs out of his coat pocket. They’re on the verge of falling, but he doesn’t notice.

  A woman with golden-brown skin, thick makeup, and curly blond hair draped down past her shoulders picks up my jacket off the seat next to me. I look back at the empty spots behind me, but the woman doesn’t take the hint.

  “Is it okay if I sit here?” she asks in a nasal voice.

  I give her an unenthusiastic nod, stick the jacket behind my back, and return to my journal.

  The woman removes her coat and sits down, placing a macramé purse on her lap. She looks at me and flashes a friendly smile. “I’m going to Kansas City. How far you going?”

  “Alabama,” I say in my most mature-sounding voice. I avoid her eyes as my stomach tightens and I imagine the fries coming up.

  “That’s a long way for a young girl like you. Do you have relatives there?”

  The woman is wearing a low-cut V-neck sweater that ends above skintight black leather pants. Several necklaces dangle down the front of her top. The lines in her neck and the creases in her blue eye shadow remind me of Dad’s Aunt Esther, who is sixty years old and still buys Mary Kay cosmetics by the carload.

  My hands are perspiring. I’m not good at lying. But she’s looking at me expectantly and I have to say something.

  “I’m visiting relatives. My grandmother,” I add as calmly as I can.

  “How sweet. Traveling all that way to visit your grandmother. She’s lucky to have a granddaughter like you.” The woman buys the story, and I relax a bit. She smiles again, revealing one tooth stained red with lipstick.

  “In what part of Alabama does your grandmother live?”

  “Monroeville.” I lie again, although this time it seems easier.

  “I should introduce myself, since we’re going to be seatmates for the next five hours. I’m Sedushia Manly.”

  I have a sudden urge to giggle, but I clear my throat instead.

  “That’s an unusual name. How do you spell it?”

  “S-E-D-U-S-H-I-A. It’s not really my given name. It’s my stage name. I picked up the last part of the name from a town just north of Mason City where I’m a regular. It has a ring, don’t you think?”

  “Uh, sure. Are you an actress?”

  “Actually, I’m an exotic dancer.”

  I’m not sure what an exotic dancer is, but I have an idea. I desperately want to ask Sedushia if she is a stripper, but instead I bite down on my lip and think of a less direct question.

  “Do exotic dancers wear lots of beautiful costumes?” Her white beaded necklace with plastic orange and lemon slices clashes against two other gaudy necklaces. Silver looped earrings sag from her ears.

  “I’ve got four outfits that I made myself. My favorite is a black lacy two-piece with shiny beads on the fringe. I don’t know if you’d call them beautiful, but they’re all original.” She pulls up on her sweater, as if she’s suddenly aware of its low cut.

  The driver stands and does a mental count to see if everyone is on board. Sedushia waves at him and looks at my journal. “Are you doing homework? I was thinking of taking an art class at the community college. I’ve always liked to doodle, but it’s hard when you travel as much as I do.”

  “I’m keeping a journal of my trip.” One thing I know about lying: the more truth you weave into your lies, the better off you are.

  “A journal. What a great idea. Maybe you’ll be a writer when you grow up.”

  I nod. “I hope so.” I read somewhere that if you want to be a writer you have to notice everything. I’ve already written about the gray plaid seat next to me, the one Sedushia is sitting on, that has a light stain in the center, like dried ice cream.

  “I used to have a diary, when I was young,” Sedushia says. “I remember spending hours writing in it. Don’t know where it’s gone to now. You be sure and hold on to yours.”

  “I will.” I wonder what a woman named Sedushia who’s an exotic dancer would have written in a diary when she was my age. I remember my promise not to talk to strangers unless absolutely necessary. But I’m intrigued and that makes it necessary. Besides, I’m still too wound up to sleep.

  My head jerks back as the bus pulls out of the parking lot and heads south onto the interstate, carrying me farther away from my home.

  I open my backpack and take out the pack of cards.

  “Want to play rummy?”

  Chapter Four

  South of Clear Lake, Iowa March 13, 1986, 11:00 p.m.

  “My name’s Erin,” I offer as I deal the cards.

  “That’s a pretty name. You look like an Erin. My son, he was definitely a Claude.” Sedushia lays down a spade and I pick it up.

  “That’s a good name.” I want to say something nice even if it isn’t true. Claude seems almost as bad a name as Sedushia. She lays down another spade and I pick that one up as well.

  “Well, he’s named after his father and it fits him. His dad and I divorced when he was two years old, and he’s lived most of the time with his dad, so I guess it’s not surprising he’s so much like him. My job took me all over Iowa and Missouri. Since I never learned to drive, I take the bus. It’s a comfy ride, but it would be hard with a child. I’ve played every small town in both states more times than I can count, and a kid needs a stable home.”

  Sedushia opens her purse and takes out a folded piece of paper, slightly faded. She carefully unfolds it. There’s a crayon drawing of a woman with yellow hair down to her waist wearing big black heels. Above the woman are words scribbled in messy red crayon: I MISS YOU MOMMY.

  “He drew that for me when he was just six
.” She smiles at the picture.

  “You must miss him, since you travel so much.” I lay down a run of spades.

  Sedushia shows me her cards and I add up the points. She’d tried to save queens because she thought they were pretty.

  “You win,” she says with a sigh.

  “Oh, my son is all grown up now and works as a car salesman in Kansas City. I did miss him when I traveled, but I tried to see him regularly and spent as much time as I could with him. Course, kids don’t understand those things when they’re young.” She closes her eyes and looks down a second, as though remembering something painful, then recovers with a fake smile. “I nicknamed him Boomer because he was such a big thing for his age. Some of his friends still call him that.”

  “I don’t have a nickname. But if I did, I’d want it to be Scout,” I add on a whim.

  “Scout’s an interesting name. Why would you want that?”

  I point to Mockingbird, which is next to me. “It’s the main character in this story.”

  “I never read it, but I did see the movie years ago. Of course, I had a thing back then for Gregory Peck.” Sedushia frowns. “The author’s dead now, isn’t she?”

  “No. She’s just very private.”

  Two thin, penciled eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “I guess when you don’t hear about someone for many years you assume they’re dead.”

  “Well, this is the only book of hers that was ever published.”

  She shakes her head. “Too bad. Someone with so much talent should have kept writing. I have an idea. From now on, I’ll call you Scout. How about that?”

  “Okay.” An alias. I like the idea.

  “Well, Scout, if you get tired of my yapping and you want to sleep, just tell me to shut up. I know it’s getting late.”

  “Oh, I’m not tired.” I feel like I could stay awake all night, and I haven’t even finished my Coke yet. The other passengers are quiet, their bodies twisted in contorted positions as they try to get some sleep. It’s cold on the bus, and most of them snuggle underneath their coats, which they’re using as blankets. One man is sleeping with a book laid open across his chest, his glasses tilted forward on his nose to the point of almost falling off.

  “Are you traveling to Kansas City to visit your son?” I ask Sedushia.

  “No, this is work related.” Her voice sounds strained. “I have a gig at the Frisco nightclub for six weeks, so I’ll be really busy.”

  She frowns and picks up the cards, shuffling them around in her hands. Somehow, I feel as if I’ve just insulted her without saying a word, or maybe it’s because I don’t say anything that she feels offended.

  “Maybe you can call Boomer while you’re there,” I suggest.

  She stares at the cards in her hand. “I don’t know.”

  Sedushia flinches and her eyes mist up. She shakes her head. “Let’s quit talking about me. I’m boring. I want to hear about you.” She puts the deck of cards in one hand. “Have you always wanted to be a writer?”

  “Forever. Well, since eighth grade.” I want to shift the conversation back to her. Our voices drift throughout the bus, where only the engine noise breaks the quiet of the night. At the moment, everyone seems to be sleeping. A few people wear headphones, but their eyes are closed, so you can’t tell if they’re sleeping or listening to music.

  “Did you always want to be an exotic dancer?” I ask Sedushia.

  “Not exactly. First I wanted to be Ginger Rogers and then I wanted to be Grace Kelly. Of course, when you’re sixteen you have a lot of dreams and you have no idea how difficult life will be.” She pauses, as if she’s just realized what she said. Her hand covers her mouth and she looks at me with wide eyes. Then she brings her hand to the side of her face as if that’s what she’d meant to do the whole time.

  “But I reckon I just wasn’t the Ginger Rogers or Grace Kelly type. You, on the other hand, you’ll make it as a writer. I can tell. Some people have that assured look about them. A look that says, ‘No matter what I set out to do, I’m sure to do it,’ as if it’s just a matter of fact.”

  I shake my head.

  “Not really,” I tell her. “My nickname on the tenthgrade basketball team is Benchwarmer Garven. I’m only on the team because of my brothers. I tried to quit, but Dad wouldn’t let me. It doesn’t matter to him that I’m only five feet four inches tall and definitely the worst player on the team. I think it’s a desperate attempt on his part to find some hereditary link between us that just isn’t there.” I stop, surprised by all that just came out of my mouth.

  Sedushia stares, her mouth half open. She recovers with a small laugh and looks at the cards in her hand as if she hadn’t noticed them before. She deals the cards onto the notebook laid out between us.

  “That’s because you take after your mother.” Sedushia nods as though she’s an authority on the subject. “I know because Boomer took after his dad and that’s why he’s so stubborn. He definitely didn’t get it from my side of the family.”

  She winks at me and I smile and pick up my cards.

  “I guess you can tell I’m a rambler,” she says. “I get started on something and I ramble on and on until somebody tells me to be quiet. And they eventually do. Except for the polite ones like you.”

  “I like talking to you,” I say simply.

  Sedushia looks at me above the cards spread out in her hand. “That’s about the sweetest thing anybody’s ever said to me.”

  The woman across the aisle taps Sedushia on the shoulder. “Would you mind lowering your voice? My daughter’s trying to sleep.”

  Sedushia looks across the aisle at the girl curled up on the reclining seat, a small blanket covering her midsection. Her face is half buried in her teddy bear and the scrunched-up part of her face that we can see appears oblivious to the sounds around her.

  “What a sweetheart. How old is she?”

  “Nine,” the woman replies through tight lips as she adjusts the blanket on her daughter.

  “Sorry,” Sedushia whispers. She points at me. “She couldn’t sleep so I’m keeping her company. We’ll try to be quieter.”

  Sedushia turns back to me and rolls her eyes. “Whose turn is it?” she asks in a louder than normal voice.

  “It’s your turn,” I say softly. I don’t know if you can get kicked off the bus for talking too loudly, but I don’t want any problems. I still have a long way to go.

  The bus just left the parking lot in Ames, Iowa. We made a quick stop at The Boondocks, which consisted of a couple of gas stations, a motel, and a diner off the interstate out in the middle of nowhere. Semis lined the parking lot of the diner. Sedushia said it had great food and was always busy, even in the middle of the night. She’d been stuck there once for about twenty-four hours during a winter storm.

  It’s after midnight and the next stop is Des Moines, scheduled for one a.m.

  “When we get to Des Moines, let’s get off the bus,” Sedushia suggests. “I need to stretch my legs.”

  I nod. We have a twenty-five-minute layover, and I’m not used to sitting for such a long time.

  A rush of excitement mixes with the soda and speeds down to my already nervous stomach. Sedushia is cool, not at all like Susan. Susan acts more like a friend around me than a mom. Her favorite line is “Go for it,” which is what she says whenever her team serves at volleyball. It bugs the heck out of me.

  I think about my family, sound asleep. I decide to call Dad in the morning before he becomes too worried.

  “Once he hears my voice and knows that I’m okay, he’ll let me go,” I write in my journal between games of rummy.

  Then I receive a sign. My pen runs out of ink.

  Chapter Five

  Ankeny, Iowa March 14, 1986, 12:30 a.m.

  I don’t really know what to expect when I find

  Harper Lee.

  Maybe I just want to tell her how much her book

  means to me,

  and how much it meant to my mom.

&nb
sp; I want to tell her that I wish she’d write another

  book,

  maybe a sequel to Mockingbird,

  so I can see what happened to Scout when she grew

  up.

  Did she turn out all right?

  Will I turn out all right?

  The bus hums along through the darkness; the drone of the engine fills my head. Sedushia has nodded off, the deck of cards still in her hand.

  I take out a stack of papers from my backpack, stories I’ve written that I want to show Harper Lee. Then I read a story from my mother’s diary, about a city girl at camp for the first time. She has great descriptions, from the spiderwebs on the windowsills to the stale camp food and the girl’s fear of jumping off the dock. I read it again. It’s really good. Better than my stories. Mom also has beautiful handwriting. Angular strokes and loops, neatly spaced, as if she took her time on every letter.

  “Why did Dad wait so long to show me Mom’s diary?” I whisper to the frosty windowpane. My question thaws a small circle of frost and swells up like a balloon.

  The driver is listening to a radio talk show. Fragments of words float back, but they’re soft and unrecognizable. The bus is quiet except for the occasional passenger strolling back to make a bathroom visit.

  I lean my head against the cold window as thoughts overwhelm me.

  What am I doing here? I’m not the impulsive type.

  Common sense is catching up with me. I’ve read that Harper Lee values her privacy and doesn’t give interviews. What if she shuts the door in my face? What makes me think she’ll even talk to me? And most important, if I don’t go home, what will I do?

  My first thought is to get to Monroeville and then figure it all out. I think of my nightstand at home, full of magazines about writing. I follow their advice most of the time. But sometimes they scare me. “You have to take risks,” they say. “You have to find your deepest desires and fears and put them on paper.”

  I pull on the arms of my sweater, worried that I’m starting to sweat, and then I obsess about how much of a supply of antiperspirant I have left.