One day when Baylor was in third grade, his mother dropped him off downtown to have lunch with Uncle Pete. Baylor liked riding alone in the car with his mother because he could just stare out the window and take the world in. He loved looking at early spring whizzing past the car. The pussy willows were out, and the dogwoods were in bloom. And the maple trees were brilliant red on the tips of their branches. Uncle Pete was his mama’s brother, and he was a lawyer just like his mother’s daddy had been. Having lunch with Uncle Pete made Baylor feel like a grown-up, and he admired the way all the other lawyers and businessmen greeted his uncle. Being a lawyer was something neat. And Uncle Pete really talked to him, not at him. His uncle had taken him for lunch at Demo’s Grill, and they were walking back to the office with the tall bookshelves that smelled like the world. They walked up Third Street, Baylor whistling one of his made-up tunes and Uncle Pete smoking a cigarette. It was one of the first warm, clear days of spring. When they passed the windows of Delta Antiques, Uncle Pete stopped in to chat with Bebe Hanaway.
Bebe Hanaway was a tall lady with straight bangs who attended every estate sale in Central Louisiana. Sometimes Bebe even crossed over to Mississippi. Bebe would travel anywhere for southern antiques. She had installed an antique hotline in her home with a red light, and no one could touch it but her. People called her from all over the state: “I heard from a little bird that the Andy Dubois place cannot make its payments. They’re sure to have an estate sale any day now. Keep your eyes out.” Bebe was a Southern sleuth of antiques, and she took her work very seriously.
As they stood in Bebe’s shop, under the brass ceiling fan and in front of a huge pre–Civil War oak armoire, Baylor caught sight of an enormous brown and beige globe on a heavy bronze stand. He walked over to the globe. It stood about three inches shorter than he was, and it measured about three times as big around. He looked at China and Africa and the seven seas, which were a faded blue like the tile in his grandmother Buggy’s bathroom. Baylor ran his hand over the smooth round surface of the globe and pretended he was captain of a small fast ship that traveled regularly and confidently wherever it wanted to go. He pictured the globe in his bedroom next to his bed. He pictured waking up next to the globe. He wanted to hug the globe because it reminded him of the big round world outside Pecan Grove, the plantation his Daddy had inherited from his grandfather. Baylor whistled some unnamed tune that sounded to him like an almost scary pirate song. Someday he would go to all these places he saw on the globe.
“Pete, I think Baylor is in a state of total enchantment with my 1813 globe.”
Bebe crossed over to Baylor and put her arm around him. She smelled like Chanel No. 19 and Ammon’s Heat Powder, and he stood still under her arm.
“Mrs. Hanaway, how much does that globe cost?” Baylor was trying not to seem too excited.
Bebe Hanaway looked down at him. He hated that look. He knew it meant she was going to talk to him in that kind of flirting voice that some ladies used with little boys like him. “Baylor, sweetheart, that antique orb is worth a lot more, but I’d part with it for one hundred and fifty dollars. Only to the right person, of course. Do I have an interested party?”
She was playing with him. She didn’t take him seriously because he was so short. He hated her for a moment, and in his hate he gave the globe a spin. He instantly loathed himself for taking his anger out on the object that he now coveted more than anything in the world.
They left the antique store and went back to Uncle Pete’s office, where Baylor had a Coke and drew pictures for a while. He thought about the globe the entire afternoon. He sat on the floor in Uncle Pete’s office and drew pictures of it on legal pads. Later Vivi picked Baylor up from Uncle Pete’s office in her Thunderbird. For once in his lifetime, he had his mother to himself. Baylor rode up front with Vivi, turning the rearview mirror as she instructed so she could reapply her Rich Girl Red lipstick. How his mother drove and put on lipstick was a source of eternal amazement to Baylor. He wondered how it would be written up in the Thornton Daily Monitor when she finally did crash that car. Vivi always said she ought to bring a lawsuit against the lipstick makers because she was always having to reapply it in the car. Baylor pictured handling the lawsuit himself, with a little help from Uncle Pete. He would make thousands of dollars for his Mama, and he would only keep enough to buy the globe and live happily ever after in its light. All the way home, while Vivi told him all about her latest shopping exploits, Baylor smiled.
But Baylor was not one to rush into things. He waited until a week or so had passed. Then one day he walked back into his Daddy’s room, crossed over to the wooden valet stand where his Daddy hung his pants, and emptied the pockets. He picked up his Daddy’s soft leather wallet that Vivi had bought at Rapps in New Orleans, and he pulled out two hundred-dollar bills. Then he walked out of the room, refused supper that night, and went to sleep early.
The next morning Baylor waited until Big Shep left for the fields and Vivi was heading out the driveway to her Bourrée game. He combed his hair again and walked as fast as he could down the long driveway that led up to their house. He reached the blacktop road, turned right, and kept on walking. After a few minutes he saw the Texaco station. He ducked into the pay phone booth in front of the station, trying to stay clear of George Grundy, the black man who ran the place. He used one of the dimes his Mama always made him carry, in case of emergency, and he called himself a taxi.
Five minutes later, he was dropped off at Bebe Hanaway’s Delta Antiques Shop. Bebe’s door was propped open, and she was inside trying to make a sale to Rosemary McDonald and her mother, Mrs. Boyce. Baylor hung around outside in the warm sun until those ladies finally got out of there. He didn’t want to answer questions right now. Finally the two ladies left, and then he could go in.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hanaway.” Baylor was always polite, and this was not a time to make an exception. “How are you today?
Bebe looked around for his Uncle Pete or Vivi before she asked, “Honey, where is your Mama?”
“Oh, she’s playing Bourrée with the Ya-Yas.”
“I see. Your Mama does love her Bourrée. Well, what can I do for you today?”
“I have come for the globe I looked at last week with my Uncle Pete.”
“Come to look at it again?”
“No ma’am,” Baylor replied. “I’ve come to buy it and take it home with me.”
“Baylor, honey, that globe costs over one hundred dollars.”
“Yes ma’am, I know that. I brought the money.”
“You brought the money. Oh, well, that is different.” Bebe thought to herself, what a strange crew the Walkers were. Vivi going off to New York to be an actress, coming back and marrying a blue-blooded farm boy like Shep, then having those four kids in about three years. After that, Vivi had cut all her hair off and dressed in men’s shirts and zoomed around town in that little sports car that wouldn’t even hold her husband and all her four kids at once. Now Vivi and Shep had given their youngest over a hundred dollars to come buy himself a globe. None of my business, she told herself. Besides, I’ve been trying to get rid of that thing ever since I found it down in Plaquemines Parish at the old Evans place.
Baylor stood next to the globe, staring at the North Pole. He thought he had memorized all its features, but he had forgotten how wonderfully it sat on the bronze axis, how it seemed to hang there like a picture in a coloring book. It was even better than he remembered. He was delighted that it was still here waiting for him.
“Let me just write it up, Baylor.” Bebe went over behind the big old desk where she had her cash register. “Uh, will that be cash or check?” She felt kind of funny writing up a bill for that much money and giving it to a little boy who was barely tall enough to reach the top of her desk. But Bebe was a businesswoman. “Tell you what, Baylor, because you are so special, I will give you a break, and we’ll call it a hundred twenty-five even.”
Bebe wrote up the sale on her Delta Antiques
invoice form, which she handed to Baylor. “All right, Mr. Baylor, that’ll be one hundred and twenty-five big ones.”
Baylor stared at the invoice for a solid minute. On it was a drawing of a woman pulling a wagon full of columns like they’d just been looted from an antebellum home. Then he reached down into the pocket of his seersucker Bermuda shorts and pulled out the two hundred dollars, carefully folded as smoothly as they were in his Daddy’s wallet. He handed them to Bebe, who accepted them with a smile. She opened a small antique cash box and handed Baylor his change.
“I hope you will be very happy with your antique globe of the world, Baylor.”
“Oh, I will, Mrs. Hanaway, I know I will.”
Baylor stood next to his globe for a moment before he realized that he could not pick it up. It was much too big. He had not thought of this before. He looked at the globe for a while, then went back over to Bebe’s desk. “May I use your telephone please, Mrs. Bebe?” He felt a little more familiar with her now that the transaction was done, now that he was a real customer. He called himself a cab for the second time that morning. When the cab arrived, Baylor asked the cabdriver to help him with the globe. Then Baylor, the cabdriver, and the globe rode out to Pecan Grove, where Baylor had the cabdriver help him put the globe in the playhouse, which sat on the slope down to the bayou. Then he asked the cabdriver to wait while he went into the house and pulled a dollar out of the recipe drawer, where Vivi always kept a small stash.
Baylor spent the rest of the afternoon in the playhouse with the globe. He imagined going to Nepal and then to Norway and then down to Argentina. He would own a very large house in Argentina. His house would have a study in it, with a fireplace, bookshelves, and a brandy snifter. There would be a Persian rug, and a dog that sat at his feet while he read. He would speak every language and be kind and generous to all people. No one would want for anything as long as Baylor was around. He’d never smoke and only sip little sweet after-dinner drinks. He would be very wise and laugh a deep laugh, and lean his head back whenever someone delighted him, like they did in the movies.
Bebe waited until early evening to call Vivi and ask how they liked the globe. Vivi had not seen Baylor all afternoon; he was still in the playhouse. Vivi took a long, deep breath and told Bebe she’d have to call her back, because she had something cooking on the stove. Then Vivi sat down and made herself a gin and tonic. She drank it down quickly. Then she made herself another and crossed the yard to the playhouse.
Vivi opened the door and stood there for a minute, watching Baylor play. He moved his fingers across the globe, occasionally whispering and gesturing with his right hand. Vivi was furious with him, but in that moment before she spoke, she thought: At least he does know quality and beauty when he sees it. He loves beautiful things. Like I do. Then she cleared her throat. “Baylor.”
He jumped and gasped. He had been so involved in his new life that he had not heard her come in.
“Where have you been all afternoon, Baylor? And where did you get that globe?” Vivi said.
“I got it at the antique store.”
“Uh-huh, so I heard.”
“I didn’t steal it!” Baylor said, responding more to the stern tone of her voice than to anything she actually said.
“You paid for it, then?”
“Yes ma’am,” Baylor whispered, and he stood and wrapped both his arms around the globe. “Mama, don’t make me take it back. Please.”
“Where did you get the money?” Vivi said, louder this time.
Baylor tried not to cry. He stood with his arms wrapped around the globe and sobbed with his face against his chubby little blondhaired arms as Vivi’s angry words spilled over him: “How could you? What were you thinking, Baylor? Have you lost your mind?! Oh, you just wait till your Daddy gets home!”
Then Vivi paused, took out a cigarette from her engraved sterling silver cigarette case. She lit the cigarette, took a long drag, and said, “Really. What possessed you to do it? Why did you steal that money to buy a damned globe?”
Baylor let go of the globe. He looked up at his mother. “Because I need it.”
“I am not even going to spank you,” Vivi said. She had yelled herself out. In fact, she was too angry to finish her drink, and it was still there in her hand, or she would have taken a swat at Baylor herself. No need to waste a good bourbon and branch, she told herself. Let Shep handle it. “I am going to let you explain it to your Daddy,” she told Baylor. “You tell him how you think it’s okay to take money from him. I want to hear you tell him how it was not the same as ‘stealing’ to do that.”
“Don’t make me take the globe back, Mama. Don’t let Daddy make me take it back.”
Damn it, Vivi thought. He is not listening to anything I say. He just keeps yammering on about that damned globe. It occurred to Vivi to wonder if Baylor was right in the head. Well, he sure wouldn’t be the first in this family, she said to herself.
“Why, Baylor? What is wrong with you?” Vivi groaned as she sat on one of the children’s chairs, her knees splayed out as she perched her bottom on the little square wooden seat.
In his desperation, Baylor did something he never imagined he would do. He told her about his house in Greece, and how he wanted to go all over the world. He told her about riding a camel across the African desert, and climbing the Himalayas. He didn’t tell her everything—not the dog or the smoking jacket he’d have—but just some things. The biggest and best things. “I have to know where I’ll go when I grow up, Mama. I need to know where I’m going after I leave here,” he told her, straight from the heart. Vivi sat on the tiny chair and sipped from her drink.
When he finished, she didn’t say anything for a while. Then she sighed. “Let’s go back to the house and give Miss Bebe a call. See if she can make us a little deal.” Vivi stood and stretched her back, holding the empty glass in one hand. She held out her other hand, and Baylor took it. “Oh, baby. It’s so hard to give up dreams. Isn’t it?”
Things did not go as Baylor would have hoped. But they didn’t go as badly as he’d feared either. After a brief conversation with Bebe on the phone, Vivi hustled Baylor and the globe into her car and zoomed downtown. As they turned onto Third Street, Baylor saw that all the other shops and offices were dark. There was a light in the antique store, and when Vivi knocked on the door, Miss Bebe appeared and unlocked the front door.
For the next twenty minutes or so, Miss Bebe and Vivi impressed each other with their Southern-lady charm. Vivi smiled and kept saying: “Dahlin, I’m just so sorry for this terrible misunderstanding.” Miss Bebe smiled graciously back and said it was no problem, not at all. She opened her cash register and handed Vivi one hundred and twenty-five dollars. Then she took Baylor’s hand and explained to him about something she called “layaway.” Baylor didn’t really find it very interesting, but he did cry a little when Miss Bebe took the globe back. Miss Bebe assured him that the globe still belonged to him. She even hand-lettered a big SOLD sign, attached it to the globe, then put the globe in the back of the store.
After that, Vivi gave Miss Bebe a couple of twenty-dollar bills. Miss Bebe brought out another form with the same drawing at the top, a woman pulling a wagon full of columns. This form had lots of small print on it, and Miss Bebe showed Baylor where to sign at the bottom. Then Vivi signed it, too.
They left the shop and drove home. Baylor listened as Vivi explained again about the layaway—they would make payments on the globe, a little at a time. He could take the globe home later, after all the payments were finished.
“Sometimes, Dahlin, we have to wait and put our dreams on hold for a while. We don’t get to have them right away. We make little payments on them, and we wait. Later, it is even better than if you got it all at once!”
Baylor said nothing. He knew things could have turned out worse, a lot worse. He knew that Mama and Miss Bebe helped him get out of trouble. But he felt like all the air had been sucked out of him.
“Do you understan
d what I’m saying, Dahlin?” Vivi said, turning to him, her eyes barely on the road.
“No ma’am. Not really.”
As they pulled in the driveway to Pecan Grove, it was dark.
Vivi sighed. “Oh, Dahlin Angel-Boy, I’m not sure I understand either. But trust me, Greece will still be there when your time comes. Brazil too. Some unexplored country will be waiting for you. Even if you stay right here in Thornton.”
Baylor stared at his mother as she bit her top lip, as she cried without sound. He put out his hand and laid it on top of hers. Together they sat that way in the long driveway on Pecan Grove Plantation in Thornton, Louisiana, on the edge of the bayou, on the edge of the world.
He tried to whistle for his mother. But no sounds came out. Just little puffs of air.
Vivi opened the car door on the driver’s side. “Come on, Buddy, let’s look at the stars!”
Baylor climbed out of the car and took his mother’s hand. Together they walked out in front of the house, into the cotton fields. The ground had been tilled and cleaned up, but it was still too early to plant. The March night was clear, no moon, and the stars were luminous above the flat Louisiana farmland.
“Look!” Vivi said, and pointed upward. “There’s the Big Dipper. And I think that must be Venus. They say planets don’t shine that bright. Don’t believe them.”
Baylor looked up into the starry night. His mother’s hand was warm over his.
“Look up there again, Buddy,” she said. “See all those stars? See them? A man named Edgar Cayce says we’re made of stars. Every single one of us is made of stars. What do you make of that?”
Baylor was silent while he thought about it, really thought about it. “You mean those stars are in our bodies?”
“Parts of them are, yessir,” Vivi said, standing.
Ya-Yas in Bloom: A Novel Page 13