"She was witty, powerful smart, and she was strong. Yes, that woman was strong. When something had to be done in bad times, Celeste was the one to carry the load. And her eyebrow used to go up like the curtain at the Capitol Theater." Cora tried to make her eyebrow shoot up.
"I hope I grow up to be like Celeste."
"I do, too, but people are like snowflakes. No two alike. You be you. That would please Celeste and that would please me."
Nickel got up to look for the sun. "Not here yet."
"When the good Lord made time, he made plenty of it. The sun hasn't failed yet. Hold your horses." Cora poured herself more tea.
"Did Aunt Wheezie give you some fried marbles?"
"Um-hum. She made me a bracelet. Very pretty."
"Don't you think Aunt Wheezie and Mom are different? They don't seem like sisters to me."
"Those two are like two kids on a seesaw. They bicker and carry on. One keeps the other up in the air, but I tell you, if either one ever jumped off the seesaw the other would crash to the ground. People show love in their own ways."
"Oh." Nickel didn't quite understand.
"And as for you. You go as far as you can in this life, but don't you forget where you came from. You hear your old granny?"
"I hear you." Nickel leapt back on the blanket.
"We're all dumb beasts on Noah's ark," Cora mumbled to herself.
"Getting rosy."
"Won't be long now."
Nickel was silent for a long time. When she spoke, it was with great concentration. "Where do people go when they die? Where is Aunt Mary now?"
"I don't know. You only die once and I ain't accomplished that as yet."
"Don't ever die, Gran." Nickel was intense.
"When the trumpet sounds I got to go. You, too."
"No, Gran, don't leave me. Promise you won't leave me." Nickel hugged her.
Cora wrapped her strong arms around the wiry child. "I won't leave you—not if you keep me in your heart. You see, then I will live as long as you live."
"I will. Forever and always." "There it is!" Cora clapped her hands. "Ohh." Nickel stared, transfixed by the blood-red arch that had just peeped over the horizon.
"Hello, sun. It's me again," Cora called out, waving.
December 24, 1958
For weeks Ramelle lay in the hospital, dying of lung cancer. She wanted to get it over with. A spike through her lungs pinned her to the bed. Fierce pain would not let her go. She lay there, observing fluttering nurses tiptoe around her. She saw the faces of Juts, Louise, Fannie and Spotty every day, but she could barely speak. Sometimes she thought she saw Curtis, too, but then she remembered he had died four months before of a heart attack. He seemed so real. She saw Nickel, child eyes enormous with fear and wonder at death. The light from those faces, were they friendly beacons to the beyond?
Today the pain intensified. A beating overhead startled her. The glistening wings of a giant bird undulated. A silver eagle's talon smashed through the ceiling and reached for her.
Ramelle raised her hand to welcome the intruder. The monster ripped into her, then vanished. The spike through her lungs was gone. Perhaps he had seized the pain, she thought.
The room became hazy. Ramelle began to float. She saw herself young, golden hair crowning her head, as she wore it in 1907. Surrounded by beautiful hills, six soft breasts of earth, she climbed the seventh hill. Each hill was smothered in a solid color of tulips. One hill ran red, another yellow, yet another purple. The tulips were singing. Their transparent veins surged rhythmically with opalescent blood.
Her hill, the seventh, dazzled her clear eyes by having all the colors mixed together. What secrets they sang to her, a universal throbbing. Spring breezes filled her and made her feel light. As she drew near the crest of the hill, a cascade of butterflies released their tiny feet from the tulips and swirled around her head. The music pulsated louder, fanned by the butterfly wings.
Ramelle was panting from her climb.
"Ramelle! Beautiful, beautiful friend," a voice called to her.
On top of the hill, arms outstretched, black hair lustrous, stood Celeste. All the energy of the world danced in her smile.
Ramelle's rib cage shattered. Her joy was so great that her heart exploded out of her body. She dashed for Celeste's embrace. Smooth arms encircled her waist and she buried her face in Celeste's elegant neck.
"Darling, oh, darling, I love you for eternity," Ramelle sobbed.
"We have eternity," Celeste whispered in a voice deep as Jupiter, and kissed her amid the tulips and butterflies.
November 24, 1961
"Where is she? Do you see her yet?" Julia wiggled in her seat, a blanket wrapped around her legs.
"No, honey, I don't see anything yet." Chessy put his arm around Julia. After all these years she was still the most beautiful woman in the world as far as he was concerned.
"Well, I wish she'd hurry up. This darn half-time band is giving me a headache," Louise bitched.
The Runnymede Grays swooped and spun in the middle of the football field. Each year at homecoming, the South Runnymede High Grays played the North Runnymede High Blues. In Nickel's senior year she enjoyed the honor of being voted homecoming queen by her classmates. Both Juts and Louise were as puffed up as if they were the queen themselves. Louise saw fit to tell everyone around her, and everyone knew everyone anyway, "That's my niece, Nicole Louise Smith. She's homecoming queen, you know."
This would be followed by a firm statement from Julia: "Well, I'm her mother."
"But I traveled all the way to Pittsburgh to get that poor dear out of Saint Rose of Lima's orphanage."
"I raised her," Julia hotly butted in.
Chessy and Pearlie attempted to concentrate on the band competition before them. The women were always uncontrollable anyway.
Down on the field behind the goal posts, obscured by the Blue band forming up, Nickel and her attendants fussed. She was to sit on the back of a convertible, arms full of long-stemmed roses, and wave a gloved hand. She felt like a flaming asshole, but you couldn't very well be prom queen in combat boots. The attendants were to follow in another convertible. A squabble ensued and the girls all demanded to ride together. Nickel's reason to the head of the cheerleaders, Sylvia Yelton, in charge of this extravaganza, was that if she had to sling her tits in the cold, she wanted her friends around her for warmth. Miss Yelton, not the slightest bit of a prude, thought this so funny she gave Nickel her own way. The two runners-up, Elaine Spaulding and Sydney Rachel Goldstein, arranged their flowing skirts on the back seat. The student body was holding its breath. Something had to happen with those three girls in the same car.
Elaine Spaulding puffed a forbidden cigarette. "When we drive by I want to announce to our parents and friends that I've been offered the lead in a movie."
Sydney, plumping up her teased hair, said, "What?"
"The Pubic Hair That Wouldn't Die," Elaine cracked.
"Do you eat with that mouth?" Nickel punched Elaine.
"Don't get her started, Nickel. You know violence goes to her head." Sydney tried to maintain a minimum of dignity. She stayed cool because she knew exactly what they were going to do to make this homecoming unforgettable.
"Is your mother up in the stands?" Elaine asked.
"Mother, Aunt Wheezie, Dad, Uncle Pearlie, and I think Orrie's up there with Noe and Ev and Lionel are squashed in there someplace. The only one who couldn't make it was Cora. She and Fannie say they're getting too old for crowds."
"Fannie Jump Creighton is two years older than God," Sydney said.
"Yaweh, Sydney—you're Jewish," Spaulding provoked her.
"Wasp," Sydney rasped. "Elaine, do you know what minks hope to buy?"
"What?"
"A floor-length Wasp." Sydney smiled.
"I told you that joke yesterday." Nickel stuck a finger in the rat's nest Sydney Rachel had built up for herself.
"My hair! Watch it, Smith." She rearranged each strand lo
vingly.
"Why don't the Blues blow it out of their ass? I'm sick of sitting here in the cold." Nickel shivered.
Miss Yelton walked by the car. "All right, girls. We're ready to roll. Now I know you've planned something. It's all over the school. I'm driving this car. You do anything while I'm behind the wheel and so help me, you won't graduate."
"Yes, Miss Yelton." Three sweet voices chimed in unison.
"Better watch it when you turn the ignition key. You know what happened to Napoleon Rife last week." Sydney said.
"Why? Is someone planning to blow me to kingdom come?" Sylvia switched on the motor.
"Hey, where's David?" Elaine remembered. "He's supposed to come out of the locker room to wish you well." She laid heavy on the "well."
Miss Yelton felt a slight heart palpitation. What in God's name were these three rascals going to do?
"Maybe the team is still winning one for the Gipper back there." Sydney suppressed a sneeze.
"David's doing pretty good for a halfback. We can always give him all back." Elaine tossed that one off.
"Boo." Nickel held her nose. "Did you ever think about leaving home?"
"No, I always thought I could provoke my parents to leave."
Sydney grew deadly. "All right, you all. Here we go. Smile."
Sylvia Yelton coaxed the chrome hog out from behind the goal post. First they drove by the North Runnymede side of the stands. Polite cheers. As soon as they hit their home side, wild cheers, confetti, pandemonium ensued.
"There, there, that's my Nickel!" Julia stood up.
"My niece! My niece!" Louise tried to outshout her.
"There's Debby Brown of the Thin Thighs. Over there with Arnold Reisman. I'm going to cut up a biology frog and put it in her purse," Elaine hissed.
"Arnie's worth that much trouble, huh?" Nickel called out to her between grand and gracious waves, evening gloves up to her boobies.
"She's on my reserve shit list," Sydney growled.
"Why? What'd she do to you?" Elaine asked.
"Clipped my term paper and put her name on it. Yesterday, I swear."
"Minus two points for Debby Thin Thighs." Elaine started to wave, then remembered that was Nickel's prerogative.
As they pulled behind the far goal post, Miss Yelton breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing had happened. A puzzled silence filled the stands. A lot of kids thought the three must have chickened out Julia and Louise basked in their competitive glory.
David Bitters loped out with the rest of the Grays. He came close to the car and handed something to Nickel. This was not lost on Miss Yelton, but she figured her job was done. She prudently disappeared.
As soon as she was out of hearing range, Sydney grabbed Nickel's hand. "Let me see." A Volkswagen key twirled from Nickel's forefinger.
"Hey, you remember Georgette DePalmo with the spray-starch hairdo?" Nickel innocently inquired. "Lasagna legs?" Elaine asked. "She died last night from scalp infection," Nickel continued.
Georgette, however, was alive and well in the stands, although you had to sit three rows behind her before you could see the game.
"What are they doing out there?" Sydney, less easily distracted, peered out from under the scoreboard.
"Still a tie. But the third quarter should be almost over. Ready?" Elaine put on her glasses to read the scoreboard at the far end of the field since they couldn't see the one they were under. "Ready!"
Three young ladies whipped behind the locker room where the football players parked their cars and crammed themselves into David's Volkswagen. Dresses slammed in the door. Ruffles of white, blue and peach stuck out.
"O.K. Know your part?" Sydney quizzed them. "Yeah. I get to sit in the back and blow a trumpet." Elaine fished for the trumpet David had stuck there.
"Here we go." Sydney's heart was beating a mile a minute.
"You guys, we're gonna get a week's suspension for this." Nickel inhaled.
"It'll be worth it," Sydney said. The little bug grumbled and sputtered. Sydney drove out from behind the goal post. Right in the middle of a pass play by the Blues, Goldstein hit the accelerator. Out onto the field of play roared the three homecoming honeys. The North Runnymede receiver could not believe his eyes. The football slowly arching toward him, a perfect spiral, bonked the poor guy right on the head. The fans were screaming on both sides of the field. South Runnys knew, at last, their queen and her court had not let them down. Coach Maltby lost his scrotum. The North Runny coach, Maxie Sasadu, lost his self-control.
Nickel bolted out of the tin can, scooped up the still live football and dashed back into the car. This time half of her dress hung out the door. Sydney gunned the motor while Elaine blew her trumpet out the window. "Charge!"
The girls ran straight down the middle of the field, under the goal post, and scored a touchdown. The scoreboard registered the feat. Now Maxie Sasadu was collaring Maltby.
The kids kept going. They knew not to stick around at the scene of their crime.
"She's adopted. She's no blood relation. She's not really my niece. Never saw her before in my life," Louise ranted.
"Shut up, Louise," Julia admonished her.
"I told you never to adopt that kid. French blood. Does it every time."
"Shut up, Louise."
"Wild. Those foreigners are wild. Passed down in the bloodstream."
"Louise!" Julia yanked her down on the bleacher. "Calm yourself."
The two sisters rattled and haggled the whole way home. Louise had recently purchased a wall-to-wall carpet, of which she was inordinately proud. As the adults walked into the living room, Louise was still hitting her one note.
"Julia, we are disgraced."
"Maizie runs all around town in a cowboy outfit. Leave Nickel alone."
"Alone! Why, they could have killed somebody."
"Sydney Goldstein is a good driver."
"That's what comes of hanging around Jews. I bet that little smarty planned the whole thing."
"The only difference between us and Jews," Juts informed her sister, "is they have more arms on their candlesticks."
"Did you know about this?"
"No."
"It's bad enough she's a bastard. Then you influence her. She's as bad as you were when you were young."
"You, of course, were a saint."
"You said it, I didn't." Louise hopped up and down.
"Louise, put some coffee up." Pearlie tried to distract her.
"No."
"Well, you come into the kitchen with me and help me do it." He winked to Chessy.
"Men are so helpless." Louise put her hands on her hips, but she did go into the kitchen.
A loud "Julia" ricocheted into the kitchen. Chessy possessed good lungs.
Louise raced back in the living room to find her sister adjusting her skirt. Julia latched onto Chessy's wrist and pulled him to his feet. She made haste for the door.
"What's that puddle on my wall-to-wall carpet?" Louise blasted.
"Piss on your rug." Julia zoomed out the door.
August 15, 1962
Roses climbed over the trellises. A warm sun moved westward. Cora pulled up her rocker on the porch and surveyed the world from Bumblebee Hill. She placed a bowl in her lap and began shelling peas. Her old gray tabby snoozed in the shade on the porch.
In a week Nickel would be off to college. Cora was thrilled. Here she couldn't even read and her granddaughter was going to become an architect. Celeste had left a provision in her will for the Nickel she never saw. If the child could get accepted at Vassar, all expenses would be paid. Nickel's grades were fine. She got in and Vassar made arrangements with Yale so she could take architecture courses over there. Such mutual arrangements between women's and men's colleges were rare, but they were being done.
Cora rocked and threw the pea pods into a wicker basket. Once Nickel learned her trade she could fix up the old house. Cora imagined improvements, additions. Houses are almost as much fun to raise as children.
> The black-eyed Susans in the old tub wavered gently in the breeze. The valley below sparkled in the sunlight. She was an old woman. On a day like today Cora could forget the mirror. She felt seventeen again. Summer rejuvenated her. Seeing the fruits of the earth restored her faith in her labor and her neighbor's labor. Hearing the animals and birds deepened her faith in the Good Lord on High, as she called That Person to herself. Life was magic.
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