by Jana Zinser
Maggie swayed her skinny hips and waved her hands in the air. “Dancing to Leon Wilson.”
Ivy’s eyes widened. “Did he fall in, too?”
Otis chuckled.
“No, he’s a famous singer,” Maggie said, laughing.
“Oh,” Ivy said as Nick danced around the trash heap and exaggeratedly fell down. Ivy and Maggie laughed even harder.
The pickup started behind them. Uncle Tommy called, “Ivy, get down here. Don’t touch anything. It’s time to go. That means you too, Nick.”
“Okay!” Ivy yelled over her shoulder.
Reuben threw the Frisbee in the air and Buckshot chased after it at full speed. The dog knocked over a broken chair as he jumped for the flying disk and caught it in his teeth. Nothing stood in Buckshot’s way when he was after a Frisbee.
Reuben walked backward with his hands in the air, gesturing. “Did you see that, Ivy? I got perfect aim or what?”
Ivy gave Reuben a thumbs-up and turned back to Maggie and Otis. “I guess we’d better go. I’ll see you later.”
Otis took off his cap and ran his hand along the top of his hair, patting his tight waves into place before putting his cap back on. “Nice to see you kids.”
Ivy maneuvered down the trash heap. Then she remembered the bird and turned back. “Mr. Norton, that goldfinch landed on your shoulder for a little while, didn’t it?”
“Yes, child.”
Ivy clapped her hands. “I knew it. That means good luck, you know.”
“Good. I need it.” He put his arm around his daughter. Ivy looked longingly at his fatherly gesture before she and Nick hurried back towards the truck and the empty trash barrels. It was a goldfinch. She knew it.
As they ran past her parents’ wreck, Ivy kissed her fingers and touched the crumpled car that had made her an orphan. She patted her shorts pocket, remembering the piece of burned envelope she had taken from the glove box. She would look at it as soon as she was alone.
On the way back, Uncle Tommy parked in front of the Coffey Shop for his usual mid-morning coffee with his buddies. Ivy and Nick jumped out of the truck and followed Uncle Tommy and Reuben into The Coffey Shop which sat across from the county courthouse in the town square. The restaurant had a Formica counter which accommodated eight red vinyl swivel stools by the grill. Booths lined the walls and a few tables filled the rest of the small restaurant. The warped wooden floor stuck to their shoes as if they walked on sticky flypaper. Charlie Carter, the deputy sheriff, was waiting for them at Uncle Tommy’s regular corner booth.
Kitty Decker, a waitress who looked like Olive Oil, brought over carbonated lime drinks called Green Rivers for Ivy and Nick, and a pot of coffee for the men. Her light-blue waitress uniform hung slack on her thin body. The wooden ceiling fans hummed as they pushed around the hot summer air. After a minute, the screen door to the restaurant opened and Conrad Thrasher strutted in.
Charlie waved to him. “Well, if it isn’t the dadburn dishonorable mayor. Hey, come on over here. You’re just in time for some coffee.”
Reuben slid over in the booth and Conrad joined them. Ivy shrunk down in the corner next to Nick, staring at the man the town respected. Conrad’s piercing blue eyes stared at Ivy until she looked down at her drink. She stirred her Green River with a straw and pretended she didn’t notice him glaring at the silver heart necklace hanging on her neck.
Uncle Tommy sipped his black coffee and turned to the waitress. “Hey, Kitty, what’s Howard making in his workshop these days?”
The men bellowed with laughter.
The previous year, Kitty’s husband, Howard, a short man with a huge beer gut, had lost his job at the meat packing plant after coming to work drunk and peeing in the meat rinsing trough, contaminating several hundred pounds of beef. The incident was the last in a series of fiascoes brought on by Howard’s heavy drinking. He was fired and barred from being within a hundred feet of the plant.
Since then, the whole town talked about how Howard started drinking after breakfast. He chugged beer in a sleeveless white T-shirt and boxer shorts and hid from his hardworking wife in his garage-turned-workshop.
He spent most of his days building a strange camper for the back of his pickup truck, using boards salvaged from the dump and discarded nails scrounged from construction sites. Crooked nails stuck out of the sides, but it somehow held together. Uncle Tommy and his friends often laughed about how Howard envisioned the camper’s potential after finishing off a six pack of beer. The hodgepodge camper made sense when he was drunk.
Inside the camper he built sturdy benches along both sides and below the cab window and bolted them to the truck bed. The rest of the rattletrap camper could blow off with just a whisper of a wind, but the benches weren’t going anywhere. He somehow attached the huge ugly camper top to the old truck, leaving the cab window open into the camper.
Every night, Kitty came home from her ten-hour shift at the Coffey Shop and checked on her husband to make sure he hadn’t passed out on the cold concrete floor of the workshop while working on, as she called it, “The Monstrosity.” The truck-camper’s name stuck.
At the Coffey Shop, Kitty set the coffeepot on the empty table next to Uncle Tommy. “He’s still working on the Monstrosity. But he’s slowed down some since he got a job.”
Kitty adjusted the bobby pins in her straight brown hair.
Conrad smiled. “I hired him to drive the fogger.”
Uncle Tommy tapped his black cowboy boots on the floor. “Better stay off the roads then.”
Charlie Carter scratched the silver streak in his dark hair. “You’re letting Howard operate the fogger?”
They all looked at the mayor, who had hired a drunk to drive the fogger tractor. Conrad shrugged.
“What can I say? The stuff stinks. Nobody else would do it and Howard needed beer money.” He laughed. “Everybody needs a job. I got you the deputy sheriff’s job, didn’t I?”
The swoosh of air brakes and the screech of a big engine outside interrupted their conversation.
The Greyhound bus came through town six times a day on its way to Des Moines and Kansas City. Three northbound buses and three southbound buses all stopped outside the Coffey Shop, one of many Iowa small-town stops.
Ivy slurped the last of her Green River. Then she and Nick followed the men out the door to watch the bus unload. Kitty Decker put her hands in her apron pockets as she watched them leave. “That bus has seen some folks come and go.”
Ivy dashed out the door behind Nick just in time to see a pretty young woman step off the bus wearing tight black stirrup pants and a white sleeveless blouse knotted at the waist. Judy Marshal, twenty-seven, swept aside a loose curl and tucked it back into her short, teased hairdo. Bracelets tumbled down her arm to her elbow, tinkling like a back-porch wind chime on a whispery summer night’s breeze.
Black diesel exhaust filled the air as the bus driver pulled four suitcases and several huge taped-up boxes from the luggage compartment in the belly of the Greyhound bus.
Reuben tugged at the straps of his overalls. “Must be that new beautician everyone’s been talking about.”
“Looks like she’s not alone,” Uncle Tommy said.
Sheriff Carter’s eyes squinted as if examining the details of a crime scene. He raised his chin. “She’s got a little crumb-snatcher.”
Ivy stared up at the huge bus parked on the brick-tiled Main Street. She shaded her eyes with her hand, squinting into the bright sun. Jesse Marshal, a boy about Ivy’s age, paused at the top of the bus steps. He stretched his arms and looked around.
“I’m here. But I won’t be here long. I’m out of this place the first chance I get.”
Nick frowned. “What’s his problem? He doesn’t even know Coffey. Hey, Ivy, let’s get our bikes and ride out to the park.”
But Ivy could no longer hear Nick. She was mesmerized by the arrival of the confident boy who would not be staying long and his beautiful mother with the musical bracelets.
Ivy soon found out that Judy Marshal had moved to Coffey to open Judy’s Beauty Shop in the empty spot on the town square. She had escaped to Coffey for a fresh start after her husband disappeared in the middle of the night to get a pack of cigarettes and never returned.
On the day of the beauty shop’s grand opening, Grandma Violet took Ivy with her to get their hair done. When they walked into the salon on Main Street, Conrad Thrasher was in the chair getting his hair cut. They sat down to wait in the chairs off to the side, out of Conrad’s view, as Judy finished up.
Conrad grinned his fake, flirty smile. “So, I’m the banker in town. It’s always good to know a banker. Let me take you to the Coffey Shop after you close tonight. Got the best tenderloin sandwiches around here. I promise.”
Grandma caught Judy’s eye and gently shook her head.
“Well, that sounds like a kind offer, but I’ve already got plans,” Judy replied as she glanced Grandma’s way.
Conrad turned and glared when he saw Judy looking at Violet.
“Best not to listen to old gossip in town.”
“Not to worry. I only listen to myself.” Judy swept the hairs off his neck, and took the cape off his shoulders. “There you go.”
Conrad put some money on the counter of her station, glared at Violet again, and sulked out of the salon.
After Judy had finished trimming Ivy’s hair, Grandma sat in the chair. “Ivy, help Miss Judy and sweep up the hair on the floor.”
As Ivy swept, she could hear Grandma whispering to Judy about Conrad and the tragedy that had befallen his devoted, young wife in the pond behind his house.
From then on, Ivy often stopped by Judy’s salon on weekends or after school to sweep up the hair clippings and fold towels. She liked spending a few hours with the glamorous and unconventional hairdresser, who was so unlike Coffey and so different from Grandma. She also liked to spend time with Jesse, Judy’s son, who was often at the shop. Jesse said Ivy looked like a fairytale princess, the kind the woodland animals would help. From the first moment she saw him at the top of the bus steps, Ivy knew she would follow him out of Coffey.
When Judy hugged her, Ivy smelled her perfume and wondered what her own mother had smelled like. Judy put her to work and soon the new shop was buzzing.
Sometimes between clients, Judy grabbed Ivy’s hands and they danced around the beauty shop. The light clacking of Judy’s high heels on the black-and-white checkerboard tile floor and the tinkle of her wrist bangles and dangling earrings echoed across the salon. The pocket of Judy’s pale pink smock held a pack of Wrigley’s Doublemint gum, and her mouth snapped as she chewed.
Ivy loved to watch Judy apply a fresh coat of lipstick, toss her head back and laugh, or touch Ivy’s cheek. This was what it must be like to have a mother. A great lonesome wind blew through her. She longed for her own mother, the beautiful woman who liked to have her own way, who she only knew from Grandma’s sketchy descriptions and the wrinkled photo beside her bed. But Ivy felt connected to her mother from her own inner knowledge like a path long overgrown with weeds, yet its direction still unmistakable. She knew her life would have been so different if her mother had lived.
Chapter 8
THE DEVIL’S PICTURES
The August heat grew more intense. Dusk arrived muggy and stale. The birds splashed in Grandma’s backyard birdbath, trying to stay cool. Inside Grandma’s house, electric fans blew the hot air around. Uncle Walter avoided the trapped humid air in the house by sitting on Grandma’s back porch where there was a slight breeze. “Let’s set up the card table out here tonight. It’ll give us more room since Tommy’s family is coming over.”
Ivy helped him prop up the old folding table and even-up the wobbly leg with a squashed Dixie cup. The last time the entire family played cards together, just a few weeks ago, it had ended in angry accusations and huffy exits. Every gathering of the Taylors threatened to start another intense family quarrel.
Uncle Tommy and his family lived a few blocks away from 4120, so they bustled down the path through the yard to the back porch as twilight’s curtain closed.
“Okay, everybody, prepare to lose.” Uncle Tommy pulled up a folding chair and set it at the head of the table.
Uncle Tommy’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Angela, plopped down on a folding chair and crossed her tan legs. She adjusted the wide headband holding back her long brown hair. “How long is this going to take?”
“Won’t take long for me to beat you all. Russell, are you playing tonight?” Uncle Walter addressed Uncle Tommy’s thirteen-year-old son, a gangly, inwardly driven, tormented boy.
“No, it makes my brain all squiggly to see the cards out of order,” Russell said. He stood next to the game table, unable to be too far away from the disorderly cards. He vigorously patted his curly hair. The freckles sprinkled across his nose gave the impression that he was an All-American boy, but inside him, commanding compulsions controlled his young life.
Russell’s fixations intrigued Ivy, but Uncle Tommy despised Russell’s ritual checking habits. Uncle Tommy said Russell’s lack of control was a sign of weakness and disrespect. Aunt Hattie found Russell’s fussing irritating and bad mannered. Grandma never seemed to notice Russell’s fidgeting.
Ivy handed Uncle Walter the deck of cards. “What are we playing tonight?”
“Let’s play ‘Oh, Hell,’” Uncle Tommy suggested.
“That’s where you’ll all end up,” said Aunt Hattie.
“Oh, hell, let’s just get this family fun over with,” Uncle Tommy said.
“You go on and play this one without me. I’m going to get some drinks. It’s not right to sweat without Dr. Peppers,” Grandma said. She went back inside to get the pop from the cool basement canning room.
The rest of the Taylors crowded around the card table on the back porch. A lawn mower droned down the block. Aunt Hattie plopped herself in a folding chair on the edge of the porch as far away from the card game as she could get. “Well, I’m not playing. It’s sinful.” She crossed her arms. “Cards are just fifty-two invitations for the devil to visit.”
Uncle Walter nudged Ivy with his elbow. “I told you, she’s a fruitcake.”
“I heard that, Walter.” Aunt Hattie tried to stand up. “You’re not getting anything of mine when the Rapture comes. God will not forgive your part in this family’s treachery.”
As she struggled to stand up, her foot slipped and her chair folded. She lost her balance and toppled off the back porch. Uncle Tommy laughed at his wife, overturned like a turtle with her chubby legs wiggling in the air. He folded his hands in prayer. “Oh, holy cow.”
Grandma came out on the porch with bottles of Dr. Pepper and stared at Aunt Hattie upside down in the bushes. “What in tarnation? Somebody help her.”
Nobody moved.
“Ivy, go,” Grandma said.
Ivy ran over and held out her hand. Aunt Hattie narrowed her eyes and slapped away Ivy’s outstretched hand. Her pursed lips barely moved as she whispered. “I don’t need your help. I curse the day your mother stepped foot in this town.”
“You hush up, Hattie,” said Grandma. “Ivy’s just trying to help you.”
Ivy cocked her head to the side. She looked at her aunt, still tangled in the bushes. “What’d my mother do?”
Spit glommed in the corners of Aunt Hattie’s mouth. “She brought evil into Coffey, and it’s never been the same.”
“That’s enough,” Grandma said to Hattie as she gestured for Ivy to sit down.
Ivy felt a chill roll down her back. She walked back across the porch and sat down at the card table. What was taking the Holy Rapture so long?
“Don’t listen to her,” Uncle Walter muttered. He made a circling motion with his finger at the side of his head. “She’s the Mad Hattie. Loop-dee-loo.”
Ivy tried to hide her smile. Uncle Walter shuffled the cards and dealt seven to each person. Grandma passed out the drinks before sitting down in her rocker to watch the card game.<
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Uncle Tommy looked at his cards. “Ivy, tell Walter that collecting cookie jars in the shape of vegetables won’t get him a pass out of the Clarinda nut house.”
Ivy lifted her hair from the back of her sweaty neck and tucked it behind her ears. She turned to Uncle Walter to relay the message. “He thinks you’re crazy, and he doesn’t like your cookie jars.”
Uncle Walter wiggled his finger up and down his lips. “So, what? That doesn’t hurt my feelings. Anyway, I’m not speaking to him. It wasn’t his pastrami sandwich.”
He flipped over the top card of the deck. Spades were trump. He checked his cards.
Ivy looked at Uncle Tommy. “It wasn’t your sandwich.” She picked up her cards. “And he’s not speaking to you anyway.”
Uncle Tommy’s blue eyes flashed and he covered his ears with both hands. “Tell the mailman I haven’t heard anything he’s said since 1959.”
The silence of the great sandwich war had grown louder over the years.
“Tell him I’m a letter carrier. He may not know that, working in the sewer and all,” Uncle Walter said, referring to Uncle Tommy’s job at the town sewage plant. “Can you smell the stink, Ivy?”
Aunt Hattie struggled back onto the porch and righted her chair. She sneered at the two men, her stubby nose high in the air. “And Cain smote his brother Abel down and was cast out of Eden.”
“Oh, go pray in the bushes or something, Hattie, but leave us alone. I’m about to blow the stamps off of Letter Boy here,” Uncle Tommy said, putting down the king of spades.
Aunt Hattie yelled from her corner protest. “Cards are just the devil’s pictures.”
“This is boring,” Angela said.
Russell reached over and straightened the deck.
Uncle Walter glanced at his cards and winked at Ivy. “Looks like Hattie’s right. The Devil got him.” He laid down the ace of spades and took the trick. “I guess Tommy’s going to miss the Rapture this time.”
Uncle Tommy’s face turned red. He stood up, scraping the chair’s legs against the floorboards. He pointed at Uncle Walter. “He always cheats. He’s just a big turd.”