“How?”
“Pretend you don’t know what she means. Or wants. Or even what she likes,” Liz said. “You look after her so well she doesn’t have to talk.”
“I never thought of that,” I said.
“I ought to mind my own business,” Liz said, but not like she meant it.
“No, it’s all right,” I said. And it was. “I know you mean well.”
“You do the way your momma decided you should. Don’t listen to me. I’m too mean to my brothers by half, I know.”
I hadn’t noticed any meanness in Liz. She said what was on her mind, that was all. She had a point about the way I watched after Little Sister. But I wasn’t sure I could do what she said to Little Sister.
Another truck rumbled in overhead, sending down a shower of dust. The flashlight died out altogether. It was dark in there, but not so dark as it had seemed when we first came in. “Getting on to supper time,” Liz said. As if those words were the noon whistle, the boys put down their tools. Two of them hefted a bucket they’d filled as they trooped out. Little Sister marched right behind them.
Mrs. Fingers stepped out on her porch as we were heading back to Aunt Patty’s. She was taller than Liz by some and just as slender, if you didn’t count the swelling of her belly. “Hi, there,” she called as she stretched and rubbed her back.
“This here is Willa Jo, Momma,” Liz said. “And this is Little Sister.”
“Well, isn’t it nice to have some company,” she said with a welcoming smile.
“This is my little sister,” Liz said with a grin as she patted Mrs. Fingers’ belly.
Mrs. Fingers laughed and said, “Now we don’t know that yet, Liz.” But she held Liz’s hand flat to her belly like she liked to have it there. I ached to feel my mom’s hand on mine, clinging on to me. “Would you all like something to eat? Cookies?”
“We’re headed home to supper,” I said. “But thank you anyway.”
“You come on back anytime, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Fingers let go of Liz’s hand and rubbed her back again, which made me look at her hands instead of into her eyes. I didn’t realize I was being rude till she said, “I must look a sight.”
“Oh, no, ma’am,” I said. “You look a fine sight.”
“Aren’t you the sweet one,” she said. But I wasn’t. It had been some time since my mom had looked like that, but I remembered it as a happy time and my heart wrapped itself around the picture of Mrs. Fingers with that baby belly. I hated to leave. But I knew Aunt Patty would be waiting.
She met us on the road as we came out of the Fingers’ driveway. “My lands, you girls look like you’ve been through a dust storm.”
I looked at Little Sister and decided Aunt Patty was right. A fine layer of red dust rested on the shoulders of her shirt and her hair. I reached up and felt grit on the top of my head.
“Where have you been for the last two hours,” Aunt Patty scolded. “I was worried to death. I even called the sheriff.”
“We met Liz Finger on our way from town,” I said.
“I might have known.”
“We took a shortcut through the woods.”
“A two-hour shortcut?”
“We talked some,” I admitted.
“That was just thoughtless, Willa Jo. Don’t you think I worry?” Then Aunt Patty lowered her voice to add, “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from those children?”
“They don’t seem so bad.”
“They’re let to run wild,” Aunt Patty said.
9
Two Peas in a Pod
Liz came by the day after she showed us the excavation. Her little brother Robby trotted at her side, holding up his diaper. I’d seen her coming and beat it out to the driveway before she could get to the front door. I’d no sooner got out there than the front door opened. For the first time ever, maybe. But Aunt Patty didn’t come out. She just stood behind the screen door.
Liz had stopped to pin Robby’s diaper so it wouldn’t slip. “Want to go for a walk?” she asked.
“How about we sit on the front steps,” I said, because I knew Aunt Patty would have cats if I asked to go anywhere with Liz. We played jacks and let Little Sister keep an eye on Liz’s brother. It was fine, if I didn’t mind that Aunt Patty sort of hovered in the shadows inside the front door all afternoon. That is, it was fine till Liz’s other brothers came home and wanted to play on Aunt Patty’s lawn too. In all fairness, I could see why Aunt Patty thought there were so many of them. They moved fast, and three of them covered as much territory as any six boys.
“It’s time you and Little Sister came on in and took your baths, Willa Jo,” Aunt Patty said. “I guess all you kids ought to go on home now,” she added, talking to Liz.
I felt my face go all hot, but Liz was real nice about it. She thanked Aunt Patty for her kindness in letting her brothers come to play with Little Sister. Then she rounded up her brothers and herded them toward home.
Aunt Patty didn’t say another word about getting ready for bed. But I drew enough bathwater that it sloshed over the sides when Little Sister and I got in. I didn’t even care. My face felt like it was wearing a mask of Aunt Patty. My mouth and my eyebrows had drawn themselves into thin straight lines that I didn’t have to look into the mirror to see. We sat there till the water was cold enough to make us break out in goose bumps. Aunt Patty never said word one, not about the goose bumps and not about water on the floor. She was wearing thin straight lines too.
The next morning was a little better. Aunt Patty came out to sit on the front patio the way she never did, really, and set herself up to stay. She brought her cigarettes and matches and an ashtray and a whole armful of magazines.
Isaac brought Little Sister a present of a big june bug he’d trapped the night before. Thin red-and-white-striped string, the kind that came on boxes from the bakery, had been tied to its thorny leg like a rope around a dog’s neck. The june bug could still fly, and did, it just couldn’t fly away. Little Sister, and then Isaac, ran behind that june bug as it whizzed back and forth across the yard.
Liz and I looked through the magazines Aunt Patty brought out and decided who was cute and who just thought he was. Liz said all the models in the pictures are tall, like her family. She said she thought she might try getting work like that when she was older because she’d like being in rooms filled with tall people. Liz said her aunt was already talking about finding somebody to take Liz’s pictures.
After a while, Aunt Patty gave us all watery lemonade instead of the Coca-Cola I knew Liz was hoping for. Aunt Patty wouldn’t let Little Sister and me have Coca-Cola. She brought out a plate of cookies, two apiece. She was none too comfortable with sweet stuff.
“I don’t want your momma to say I ruined your appetite for lunch,” she said. Liz and her brothers didn’t need for her to hint. They each took one cookie and I could not make them take another. But they did enjoy the lemonade. They drank till the pitcher was dry. Oddly, Aunt Patty didn’t mind at all. She grinned when Isaac didn’t put his glass back on the tray, but handed her his empty glass and said, “Thank you, ma’am.”
He and Little Sister picked a bouquet of these tiny bright pink flowers that grow no higher than new-mown grass and presented it to her while she was pretending to read her magazines. It was Isaac’s idea. I thought Aunt Patty appeared to be on the verge of changing her mind about the Fingers. Anyway, I didn’t mind that Aunt Patty was sitting nearby. It was better than having her hover behind the front door.
“I don’t want you spending all your time with that girl,” Aunt Patty said after they’d gone home for midday dinner. Said it out of nowhere, it seemed to me. I thought things were going so well. What had Liz done wrong? As if in answer to my unasked question, Aunt Patty added, “She’s too mature for you.”
“I like her.”
“You’re not old enough to decide what you like.”
“I am, too. I know what I like and I know who I
like, too. If Mom was here ...” But there was no reason for Mom to be here. If we were at home—that was it—if we were at home, Mom would like Liz just fine. Even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t tell me I wasn’t old enough to know who I liked.
“We ought to call your momma today, don’t you think?” Aunt Patty asked, her voice getting higher the way it did when she was upset. Little Sister immediately went to her and put a hand on Aunt Patty’s arm. “Yes, let’s call,” Aunt Patty said. I could see she was relieved to have the subject of Liz dropped.
Aunt Patty dialed. Little Sister and I both reached for the phone.
“I’ll tell her who’s calling,” Aunt Patty said. “Then you can talk to her. Sis? It’s Patty.... They’re fine. They’re standing right here.... No, they don’t miss you. They have their little friends to play with.”
Little Sister’s arm shot out to take the phone. So did mine. But Aunt Patty waved us down.
“Hob’s fine, too. How are you doing? Are you working again?” Aunt Patty asked. “Are you keeping right hours?
... Uh-huh.... Well, that sounds good.... Uh-huh.... Oh, sure, they’re right here, like I said.”
Little Sister reached up and snatched the receiver away from Aunt Patty. She held it as if she would have something to say, but then she just listened. Hard.
I took the phone and said, “Mom?” I sat down on the floor, pulling Little Sister with me, and held it so we could both hear. Aunt Patty stood next to us, looking down.
“Willa Jo, it’s good to hear your voice,” Mom said, sounding far away. Little Sister pulled the receiver up close and breathed into it.
“Little Sister is listening to you,” I said loudly so that Mom would be sure to know “I’ll talk to you after.”
And for two or three minutes, Little Sister sat with her ear pressed tight to the phone, her little face all aglow with hearing Mom’s voice. I pried it away from her for a minute and managed to listen along with her. Mom was singing her a funny little song, but not in her usual funny little way. I hadn’t heard Mom sing since Baby died. Maybe because this was so, her voice sounded rough and weak, like it didn’t get enough use. It was kind of sad. I let Little Sister have the phone to herself again.
After another minute or so, she passed the receiver to me. “I’m here,” I said.
“Is Little Sister all right?” Mom asked.
“She’s fine,” I said, because it was true. “But she misses you.” Saying so made my throat feel like something was stuck there.
“I’m glad you have friends there, Willa Jo,” Mom said in a breathy little voice I hardly recognized. “I miss you all—I miss you both, something fierce.”
“When can we come home?”
I guess I shouldn’t have come right out with it like that. I heard Mom draw in a quick breath and I saw the stricken look on Aunt Patty’s face. She finally turned away from us and went to stand by the kitchen sink.
I guess Aunt Patty hoped I would tell Mom about all the new clothes, and how Aunt Patty toasted frozen waffles for our breakfast and how she and Uncle Hob were planning to take us to the drive-in movie on Friday night. Maybe even Mom hoped I would tell her those things.
But I wanted to go home more than anything. More than I wanted Mom to be proud of me, more than I wanted not to hurt Aunt Patty’s feelings, more than I wanted to play jacks with Liz. And Little Sister wanted to go home too. I didn’t need to hear her say so to know it.
“Aren’t you happy there, Willa Jo?” Mom said.
I knew she wanted me to say yes. But I couldn’t say anything. My tongue was stuck right to the roof of my mouth.
“Are you and Aunt Patty getting along?”
I could have said, “Aunt Patty thinks because she bosses you and Uncle Hob around, she can boss us around too.” I could have said, “It isn’t Aunt Patty at all. I just want to come home where we can sit on the steps and sing funny sad songs. Where we can fall asleep to the rise and fall of each other’s breath.”
“Just remember,” Mom said, as if she were feeling her way along, “two peas in a pod can rub each other wrong.”
“Who are the two peas?” I said.
“Why, you and Aunt Patty, of course,” Mom said with a shaky laugh. “I guess it’s because you’re both big sisters, you like to be the boss. Neither one of you likes to be the one being bossed.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said.
Mom said, “Aunt Patty will never get over it if she thinks you girls don’t like it there.” I had a feeling she was telling me something else. Asking me for something.
By now, the suspense had become too much for Little Sister and she got up on her knees so she could lean in and listen alongside me. I turned the receiver away from my ear a little to share it. “Little Sister is here with me,” I said.
“Well, tell me what you’ve been doing with yourselves,” Mom said with the bright and uncertain voice of someone making a fresh start.
So I told her about Liz and about the hole they’d dug, roomy as a coal miner’s shaft, and about Liz’s mom being so friendly and sweet, and about the june bug Isaac gave to Little Sister. “She’s been running with it all morning,” I said. “It’s better than a dog on a leash.”
“She must be going to run it to death,” Mom said.
“Oh, they don’t last long anyway.” I didn’t really know how long an old june bug goes on. But I worried that if that june bug died, Little Sister would get to thinking about Baby. “Are you painting?” I said quickly.
“Mm-hmm. I packed up some samples and drove them on up to Asheville,” Mom said. “I got some extra work.”
Mom was always looking for more work. But my chest went cold at hearing of the new job. It suddenly seemed to me that Mom was finding things were easier for her if we stayed with Aunt Patty.
“We must be running up a bill,” Mom said suddenly. “Put your aunt Patty back on and let me thank her for all she’s done for us. You take good care of Little Sister, hear?”
“I hear.”
After the phone call, Little Sister and I hardly had the energy to move. When we did, it was to avoid listening to Aunt Patty rattle on about the weather in a too-cheerful voice while sad music played on the radio. We moved to the front patio. I couldn’t help thinking how different Little Sister and I would feel if Mom had told us we were going home in a day or two.
Aunt Patty opened the front door and looked out at us. “Yes, ma’am?” I said.
“Nothing,” Aunt Patty said. “Just listening for signs of life.” She went back inside and sat down near the door. I could hear her flipping the pages in one of her decorating magazines. I don’t know what she expected to hear besides breathing.
“Did you and Liz have a falling out?” Aunt Patty asked once, through the doorway—hopefully, I thought.
“Nope.”
“Where do you think she is, then?”
“Helping her mom, I guess,” I said listlessly. But then I said, “She’s real helpful because her mom’s expecting another baby, you know. Twins, maybe.”
The thought of even more Fingers was too much for Aunt Patty. She shut the front door, saying something about turning on the air.
10
Mrs. Wainwright’s Daughter
We’d been at Aunt Patty’s for about two weeks when we sat down to supper and Aunt Patty told us she had a surprise for us. “Mrs. Wainwright. is bringing her daughter, Cynthia, over to play tomorrow afternoon.”
No one said anything to this. Not me. Not Uncle Hob. Little Sister looked at me.
“This is good news,” Aunt Patty said, like she had expected to see us jumping up and down for joy. “I didn’t know you were all that friendly with Lucy Wainwright,” Uncle Hob said.
“I’m friendly with everyone,” Aunt Patty said firmly. “Just because we aren’t bosom buddies doesn’t mean we aren’t friendly.”
“No, of course not,” Uncle Hob said.
“I don’t know what I have to do to see some smiling f
aces around here,” Aunt Patty said unhappily.
Only Uncle Hob smiled.
The next day, Little Sister and I were standing at the picture window when Mrs. Wainwright and Cynthia drove up. They got out of their car looking like they were going to church. Cynthia was not wearing camp shorts and leather sandals.
“I don’t think she came to play,” I said over my shoulder to Aunt Patty.
“Of course she did,” Aunt Patty said, her voice getting high-pitched because she was rushing around the room, giving the toss pillows a last plump and brushing imaginary crumbs off Uncle Hob’s chair.
The doorbell rang.
“They’ve come to the front door,” I said.
“Well, of course they’ve come to the front door,” Aunt Patty said, like it happened all the time. She gave her wide-legged shorts a little snap.
Mrs. Wainwright wore a pale green dress, the kind that has buttons all the way down the front. I noticed this because my mom loved those dresses. I couldn’t see her going across the road to Milly’s for iced tea in one of those dresses. I wondered suddenly if she had worn one to Asheville.
“What a pretty place you have here,” Mrs. Wainwright said to Aunt Patty, without so much as a look around.
“Why, thank you,” Aunt Patty said. “I’m glad to hear you think so. It’s humble, but it’s comfortable.” There was an awkward moment when Aunt Patty expected Mrs. Wainwright to say something more, or hoped she would, I don’t know. But Mrs. Wainwright didn’t and Aunt Patty picked up the ball.
“You look so pretty in that dress, Cynthia. Doesn’t she look pretty, Willa Jo? Have you ever seen such a dress?” Cynthia was wearing the kind of dress Mom once told me she and Aunt Patty wore when they were girls, a dress with a gathered skirt and a belt that tied in a bow at the back. They called those dresses their Sunday best. They didn’t play in them. “Why don’t you girls come on out to the kitchen for some refreshments?” she said, never giving me a chance to answer.
Which was just as well, considering. I was caught up in looking at Cynthia’s blond ringlets, all of them growing out of a side part and held in place with barrettes. They were actually sort of horrible when I thought of how long she must have had to sit on the kitchen chair letting her mother work the hair around her finger to get them to curl just so. I wondered if I was going to end up feeling sorry for Cynthia.
Getting Near to Baby Page 5