Getting Near to Baby

by Audrey Couloumbis

  We all followed her out to the kitchen, all except for Mrs. Wainwright, who veered off into the dining room. There is a little window with a sliding door in the wall between the kitchen and the dining room that usually stands open. Mrs. Wainwright looked at us through that window.

  Aunt Patty put a plate of cookies on the kitchen table, allowing us two cookies apiece, just like always. She poured glasses of chocolate milk, all the time saying how much fun we were going to have.

  Little Sister and I were glad to see store-bought chocolate milk. We’d been asking for it the whole time we were at Aunt Patty’s and this was the first we’d seen of it. We don’t get it at home either, but I figured if Aunt Patty was in the mood to spoil us, we might as well tell her what we like.

  Aunt Patty talked a blue streak as she poured iced tea and cut carrot cake with orange-flavored icing that she’d brought home from the bakery. “Loaded with sugar, I know,” she apologized in Mrs. Wainwright’s direction. “I’ll give us small pieces,” she said as she cut healthy-looking wedges and put them on green plates that looked like lettuce leaves.

  She invited Mrs. Wainwright to sit out on the screened porch where she said it would be cool. It would not be as cool as the dining room, where the air-conditioning was for some reason stronger than anywhere else in the house. But Aunt Patty had new porch furniture she was wanting to show off and she would sit out there even if they melted.

  “Come on, Lucy,” she said, like she was talking to a real sweet dog. “Make yourself right at home.” Mrs. Wainwright stood a moment, like she wished she could insist on sitting in the dining room.

  Meanwhile, Little Sister and I sat at the table with Cynthia, all of us looking well mannered and none too eager to start in on the cookies and milk.

  So Mrs. Wainwright came around into the kitchen looking at Cynthia in that way that all mothers have, so that Cynthia would know she was to be good. Then she went out to sit on the porch. Aunt Patty was busy putting things on a tray to be carried out to the porch. The first second—and I mean the very first second—that neither Mrs. Wainwright nor Aunt Patty was looking at us, Cynthia reached over and took four cookies.

  Little Sister’s eyes opened wide. There were only six cookies on the plate to begin with.

  “Aunt Patty,” I said, although I wasn’t going to tattle on Cynthia. It was the surprise of it, the words just slipped out of my mouth. But when Aunt Patty turned around, Cynthia had already hidden the cookies in the folds of her skirt.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “You girls be sure to have fun,” she said in that singsongy voice she could have, as she lifted the tray. Her shoulders were hunched up to her ears with the effort to keep the forks from sliding around on the plates or the sprigs of mint from toppling off the edge of the iced tea glasses.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said in a voice that hinted that things were not quite right with us. Mom would have known. But Aunt Patty was already talking ahead of herself, throwing her voice out to the shaded porch where Mrs. Wainwright was sitting in a throne-like wicker chair and looking like the queen of England. A big old Mack truck could have rumbled through the kitchen and Aunt Patty wouldn’t have noticed.

  Cynthia stuck her tongue out at me and snatched another cookie off the plate. Little Sister was on to her now, though, and she grabbed the other one, quick as a snake. We sat there staring at Cynthia across the table as Aunt Patty put down the tray and came back to slide the patio door shut to keep the air-conditioning in. Cynthia stared back.

  Little Sister broke her cookie in half and slid the one half across the table to me. “You keep it, Little Sister,” I said.

  “I’ll give you half of one of these cookies if you show me your room,” Cynthia said.

  “We don’t need half of any cookie,” I said, offended to the bottoms of my ugly brown sandals. “I can get cookies anytime I want because I live here.”

  “No, you don’t,” Cynthia said. “You’re only here out of the kindness of your aunt Patty’s heart.”

  I had nothing to say to this.

  “She could send you and your dumb sister over to the county home if she gets tired of you. That’s where they put orphans.”

  “We aren’t orphans and my sister isn’t dumb.”

  “That’s what it is if you can’t speak. My mom said.”

  “Little Sister can talk. She just don’t care to.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because the company is none too good, that’s why.” I was yelling. I might have been yelling for a while, I don’t know. But I finally realized Aunt Patty and Mrs. Wainwright were staring at us through the sheet glass of the patio door.

  “Willa Jo,” Aunt Patty called. “I think you ought to say you’re sorry. Cynthia is our guest.”

  I looked at Aunt Patty. Mom had something she said when she put her foot down and wouldn’t do something. She said, “Over my dead body.” I was tempted to say it then. But I didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” I said with my lips, and with Aunt Patty looking on. I did not say it out loud. And I wasn’t sorry.

  Cynthia’s mother made some little chirping sound, that’s how it sounded to me. My blood was beating in my ears so I couldn’t understand the words any better than that. Little Sister got up and took my hand and pulled so I’d know she wanted me to get up. I did. Cynthia got up too, all the time holding those cookies hidden in the folds of her skirt. She followed us outside.

  “You girls are okay,” Cynthia said as we stood outside the kitchen door in the cool of the garage. “Why don’t you show me your toys?”

  “We didn’t bring any toys,” I said. Little Sister and I walked out into the sun. Cynthia followed us.

  “Then what are we supposed to do?” she said. When I didn’t bother to answer she said, “I’m your guest, you’ll have to come up with something to entertain me.”

  The thing of it was, she was right. We would never hear the end of it if we weren’t nice to her. We could be old grandmommas with children racing around our knees and Aunt Patty would be there, leaning on her cane and with the frizzy ends of her gray hair bristling as she said, “I still remember how unkind you were to that little Wainwright girl; don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

  “We play tag,” I said. The words fell reluctantly from my tongue.

  “It’s too hot for that,” she said. “I’ll muss my dress.”

  After a moment, Little Sister pulled a small red ball out of one of the pockets of her shorts.

  “I guess we could play jacks,” I said, staring off across the street and wondering what had happened to Liz that day. “But you’ll have to sit on the ground.”

  Cynthia flounced over to one of Aunt Patty’s lawn chairs and pulled off a cushion. She dropped it on the ground and settled herself on it, spreading her skirt in a ladylike way. She ate one of the cookies while she waited.

  “Go get the jacks, Little Sister,” I said.

  I stood away from Cynthia so she should know I wasn’t warming up to her. Meanwhile, she devoured all of those cookies, flicking the crumbs off herself by shaking her skirt now and again.

  “We might be friends, if you’re real nice to me,” Cynthia said.

  I didn’t answer. I might have to be nice to her, but I didn’t have to be her friend.

  “My mom is the president of the Ladies’ Social League,” she said. “Your aunt Patty isn’t even a member yet.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to be,” I said. “Oh, she does,” Cynthia said with a little toss of her curls. “But she won’t get in unless my mom likes her.”

  Little Sister came out with the jacks then, dropped cross-legged onto the patio and shook the jacks for the first throw. Little Sister was happy to be playing jacks.

  “Is she smart enough to know the rules?” Cynthia asked as the jacks landed between them.

  “Dumb means somebody doesn’t speak,” I said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re stupid.”

  “You told me she could talk, but
she doesn’t. That sounds pretty stupid to me.”

  “Pick up the jacks, Little Sister,” I said, snatching at the ones that had fallen closest to me.

  “Mom,” Cynthia said, opening up her mouth and letting it come out like a wail. “I’m not having a very good time.”

  Mrs. Wainwright looked like she knew Cynthia had not been especially nice. But when Aunt Patty closed the front door behind Cynthia and her mother, she looked like that door was closed forever.

  11

  Aunt Patty’s Great Idea

  The next day, Liz came over like always.

  “Where were you yesterday?” I said.

  “I saw you already had company,” Liz said with a little half smile.

  “I wouldn’t call her good company.”

  “Neither would I,” Liz said with a laugh and gave me a friendly push.

  We looked out to where Little Sister had gone to meet Isaac at the edge of the yard. They strolled toward us, sharing Isaac’s Twinkie. It seemed like a fine day was about to roll itself out before us.

  “Why, Liz Fingers,” Aunt Patty said, coming outside.

  Liz and I looked up at Aunt Patty, who sounded less like she was greeting someone than finding a bug under a rock. But Liz said, “Good morning,” as nice as you please.

  “I thought you would be giving your momma a hand with the little one.”

  “They’re napping. Isaac and I thought we’d keep company with Willa Jo and Little Sister.”

  “They have plenty of friends,” Aunt Patty said. Lied. My face went hot. “We had a lovely visit with Mrs. Wainwright and her daughter, Cynthia, yesterday.”

  “That was real kind of you,” Liz said. “Nobody in town will play with that snake Cynthia.”

  Aunt Patty managed a crooked little smile before she went back inside. Guessing that she was hovering somewhere inside the door, Liz and I only looked at each other and rolled our eyes.

  Isaac pulled at Little Sister’s arm. “Want to fight Charlie?”

  “Who’s Charlie?” I asked, wanting to keep Little Sister out of fights.

  “The enemy,” Isaac said, and made his arm into a gun. “Ak-ak-ak-ak-ak,” he cried, spraying imaginary bullets around the yard. Little Sister looked thrilled.

  Liz and I settled into watching Isaac and Little Sister play together. He told her he was in the jungle and that she was in the jungle too. Together they crawled around the shrubs at the side of the patio while Isaac rat-a-tatted a few Charlies. Little Sister did her part by holding her ears at the sound of gunfire. After a while they stopped shooting and sat quietly in the shade of a bush with long pink sweet-smelling flowers and talked.

  The manner in which Isaac talked with Little Sister interested me. He never asked her a question, not even the kind that could be answered with a shake of her head. He simply told her things. For instance, he told her about a TV show he enjoyed and told her she liked it too. Little Sister didn’t appear to mind going along with whatever Isaac told her.

  After a time of sitting in the heat and letting the sun bring out freckles on my back, I realized they weren’t talking any longer. I looked over to see they had moved out into the sun. They squatted on their heels at opposite sides of the cardboard from a Twinkies package.

  They were counting the ants that swarmed over the crumb coating left from the Twinkie. Both of them were busily flicking their fingers at each other, Little Sister so sure of herself, Isaac just learning. He would sign a number to her and wait to see the agreement on her face. I was struck by the beauty of the napes of their necks as they bent over the ants. As sweet a curve as you could ever want to see. It made me miss Baby something fierce.

  I swallowed noisily, thinking I might be about to cry again. I didn’t want to. Liz saved me; she reached over and pinched me right below that tiny round bone in my knee and grinned. I pinched her back, right above the knuckle of her pinkie finger. She pinched my cheek and I pulled her ear, and before I knew it, we were rolling around together in the grass, shrieking with laughter.

  Little Sister and Isaac fell upon us, eager to tickle and pinch and roll around. We finally lay in the grass, breathing hard as we looked up into the blue of the sky. That always makes me dizzy. It’s a funny thing how I don’t much notice gravity when I walk around. It is only when I lie flat in the grass that I have any sense of the earth spinning around and around, carrying me with it. It is only when I am flat to the earth that I feel the looseness of the grip in which we are held. Any one of us, at any moment, might be floating free.

  A couple of days later at supper, Aunt Patty had another surprise for us. “The Baptist church has a Bible school day camp. They have two places open. You and Little Sister can attend.”

  Even Uncle Hob looked surprised. “I don’t think it’s such a good idea, what with Little Sister having decided not to talk,” he said.

  “Oh, she’ll get over that,” Aunt Patty said with a wave of her hand. “Maybe she’ll get over it faster if she has so many children to talk to.”

  Uncle Hob didn’t have an argument for that.

  As evening came on and the air cooled, Little Sister decided to exercise her june bug. It was a wonder it had lasted three days. I sat there with my chin cupped in my hands, watching her run up and down and back and forth.

  The light faded, and Little Sister turned the june bug over to Uncle Hob to be set free. At least that was what we figured she wanted. She showed us how her fingers were too clumsy to loosen the string.

  Uncle Hob had a tiny pair of scissors in his pocketknife and he clipped the string off easy as you please without ever injuring the bug. Then he and Little Sister took it out on the porch and set it free. It flew right into the bowl of the porch light fixture and banged around on the sides. We all sat staring at the fixture till our eyes burned.

  “That is one happy june bug,” Uncle Hob said, blinking like a flashbulb had gone off in his face. We were all blinking.

  “It’s caught in there,” Aunt Patty said.

  “Heck, no,” Uncle Hob said. “If we turn off the porch light, he’ll be gone inside five minutes and probably banging around somebody else’s light fixture.”

  “When we turn out the lights in our room at night,” I said, wishing Uncle Hob would turn off the light, “we can hear june bugs banging around till we fall asleep.” I didn’t want to come out there the next morning and see the shadow of that june bug lying with its feet pointed up.

  “You hear them banging on the walls of your room,” he said. “They can get out of the light fixture, but they don’t necessarily find their way out the door. This fellow, he’s already outside.”

  Sure enough, the next morning that june bug was gone.

  12

  A Day at Bible School

  Aunt Patty stayed “to see us off to a good start” that first morning. Most of the kids, boys and girls, seemed to know one another. Little Sister and I stood off to one side, sort of looking them over. Running and playing the way they were, no one looked unfriendly. They just looked like they didn’t have any reason to want to get to know us.

  “Go on,” Aunt Patty called to us from the car. “Get right on in there.”

  I walked Little Sister over to the other side of the yard where, if nothing else, we wouldn’t be able to hear Aunt Patty tell us how to be. But then this young woman stood outside all the movement and blew on a shrill whistle, blew loud enough to bend herself halfway over.

  The boys who weren’t already there made a dash for the ball field across the street. Aunt Patty beamed as the girls all joined hands to form a circle and sang “What a Friend I Have in Jesus.” By the time the song was finished, Aunt Patty had driven off with a cheery wave that no one returned—we were holding hands.

  Our teacher, whose name was Miss Pettibone, told us right off the bat that this was her first turn at being Bible school teacher, and that she would be the Bible school teacher for six whole days. She told us she was going to be our favorite. Miss Pettibone was pretty and
had a voice like an angel, so I guess we all believed her.

  Her assistant, Mrs. Weeds, took some of the girls off to make flowers out of pieces of egg cartons. Some of the others ran for jump ropes and Hula Hoops. The oldest girls gathered around, waiting for Miss Pettibone. But Miss Pettibone asked Little Sister and me to wait up so she could give us name tags to stick on our shirts.

  Things started to go wrong right away.

  Miss Pettibone didn’t like that Little Sister would not tell her own name. “I’ll talk for her,” I said.

  “That won’t do,” Miss Pettibone said. “You’ll be in the Sunbeam Group and she’ll be in, well, how old are you? Six?”

  “She’s nearly eight,” I said. “She’s small for her age.”

  “You’ll be in the Lambs,” Miss Pettibone said to Little Sister. “Do you understand? We can’t be running to your sister every time you want to tell us something.”

  Little Sister looked at Miss Pettibone as polite as you please, but she didn’t open her mouth. Miss Pettibone narrowed her eyes.

  “Has she ever talked?” Miss Pettibone wanted to know.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then she does talk.”

  “Not lately,” I said. I could see this was going to turn into a big misunderstanding.

  “She doesn’t feel like talking, is what it is,” I explained as nicely as I could, considering many of the girls were quiet and looking at me and Little Sister like we were butterflies stuck to boards with pins. “It’s nothing against anybody here.”

  “We can’t be running to you every two minutes to find out what she wants.”

  “She won’t want anything.”

  So Miss Pettibone stuck Little Sister’s name tag on and we began. Every time I looked over at Little Sister, she seemed to be having a fine enough time. The Lambs were the ones making flowers. They played touch tag not long after. Then they sat down to hear Mrs. Weeds read a story. I guess nobody needed Little Sister to talk as much as Miss Pettibone thought.