Read Bold Beauty Online

Authors: Dandi Daley Mackall

Tags: #Retail, #Ages 8 & Up

Bold Beauty (8 page)

BOOK: Bold Beauty
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Even Lizzy didn't say anything. I could count on one hand the times Dad had said “your mother” over the past two years. I knew Dad thought about Mom as much as I did. But neither of us could bring ourselves to talk about her.

Things were changing, getting better. How could I wreck everything by telling Dad about my fall? What if he asked me to quit? We'd be back to fighting.

“What are you doing in that fridge?” Lizzy asked.

“Looking for juice.”

“I already poured yours.”

“Thanks.” I didn't budge. Dad still hadn't seen my black eye. On the bottom shelf, I spotted the plastic bagful of rubber bands. “Um, Dad, why do you keep rubber bands in the fridge?”

“Haven't I explained the physics of that to you?” Dad put down his paper.

Bingo!
I'd hooked him.

“Rubber bands last longer when kept cold,” Dad explained. “It's a question of contraction and elasticity and—”

I closed the fridge and made a break for the table.

“. . . chemical reaction with the particles—Winnie!” Dad shouted. “Your eye!”

“Looks worse than it is, Dad.” I slapped two pancakes on my plate, poured syrup over them, and dug in. Couldn't talk with my mouth full.

“But how . . . ?” Dad leaned in for a better look.

“Yeah!” Lizzy pulled up a chair. “I thought about that all night. I mean, did you fall in the street? Was Catman with you? What are you going to do about your eye when you go to school and—”

While Lizzy rattled on, I kept chewing on my pancake, holding up one finger, the sorry-I-can't-talk-my-mouth's-full sign.

Finally, I swallowed. “Lizzy, great pancakes! What flavor is this?” My sister loves cooking almost as much as Dad loves inventing.

“Bubblegum!” Lizzy exclaimed. “Do you like it? Mix vanilla, cinnamon, and wintergreen, and you get bubblegum flavor!”

Dad coughed and set down his fork. “I was trying to place that taste.”

I felt like I should keep chewing, even though I'd swallowed everything.

Dad glanced at the clock. “When are the Barkers picking up you girls for church?”

“About an hour,” Lizzy answered.

“I think I'll come along.”

“That's so tight, Dad!” Lizzy exclaimed.

I agreed. “That's great!”

In Wyoming the four of us had gone to church every Sunday. No discussion. But Dad hadn't been to church since Mom's funeral. I knew he hadn't stopped believing in God. But Mom had kind of taken the family lead in the God department. And after Mom died, Lizzy was the one who kept us praying before meals.

I hoped Dad liked the Ashland church.

Dad left, and Lizzy scooted closer, chin in hands. “Okay, Winnie. What's up? Why didn't you go riding this morning? You ride every Sunday morning before church—unless it's raining hard or maybe too icy. Are you hurt or what?”

“Can't I sleep in for once?” I forced myself to take another bite of bubblegum pancake. To tell the truth, I didn't know why I hadn't ridden.

Lizzy wouldn't let it go. “But you never—”

“Lizzy, how's that spider of yours doing?” I asked, changing the subject.

Lizzy sat back, arms crossed, and raised her eyebrows at me so I'd know
she
knew I was trying to change the subject. But she couldn't help herself. I was inviting her to talk about her beloved spiders. “He ate his own web, Winnie! The whole thing! I watched. Then he spit it out and designed a whole new web! This one's even better than the last one! You ought to see it.”

I stood up. “Good idea. I'll go look right now.”

I made my escape and stayed outside with the horses until almost time to go.

Dad stepped out of the house as I walked up. He had on the suit he'd worn at Mom's funeral. He must have lost weight because it hung on him. Dad used to wear a different suit every day to his office. But he'd left them along the way, in the
I
states, replacing dress suits with one-piece work suits.

I sat on the front step next to Dad.

“Your mother would have liked this, Winnie.”

Your mother.
Twice in the same morning. I knew what Dad meant. Mom would have liked all of us going to church again.

A fall breeze rustled the leaves, making a shower of brown and gold in the sunlight. We didn't speak but sat there together, listening to morning birds. It felt good. I didn't want anything to spoil it.

“A lot of things have gone right lately, don't you think?” he asked.

I nodded.

Dad put his arm around me. “Except that shiner.”

I tasted bubblegum pancakes that wanted to come up. I wanted to come clean, to tell him about Beauty, how I'd really gotten the bruises.

But I couldn't risk it. Our relationship was like a delicate spiderweb. If I tugged out a thread, I was afraid the whole web would be destroyed and we'd have to start over from scratch.

Mrs. Barker drove up in the Barker bus, a yellow van that looked more like a school bus. Johnny and Luke, Barker's four-year-old and six-year-old brothers, stuck their heads out of windows and yelled for Lizzy to sit by them. Great-granny Barker sat by the open front window, her white hair blown wild around her wrinkled face. If I had a great-granny, I'd want her to be like Granny Barker.

Mr. Barker climbed out of the backseat, where he'd been wedged between Mark, who was seven, and the youngest boy, William, who was two. He met my dad on the lawn. “Good to see you, Jack. Coming with us?”

Mr. Barker's not as tall as my dad, but his neck is about twice as big around. He used to play football at Ashland University, where he now teaches poetry. Mrs. Barker teaches there, too. I was glad they didn't make Dad feel bad for not going to church before now.

“You look pretty full in there. I'll just take the truck.” Dad made a move toward the cattle truck.

“Get in, Jack!” Mrs. Barker shouted. “We'll make room.” She did a double take of me. “Winnie, girl! What happened to your eye?”

“Isn't it awful?” Lizzy exclaimed. “She fell!”

The boys hung out of windows and groaned. “Yuk!” “Gross!”

Lizzy squeezed in back with the boys. Dad and I took the middle seat with Matthew, the second oldest son at nine. He was the only Barker whose face didn't fall into a natural smile. His dog was a bulldog, and it suited him.

“Hey, Matthew!” I buckled in next to him. “How's Bull?”

Matthew frowned. “Mean and dangerous.”

“Is not!” Luke screamed. He's six but small for his age, like his puppy, Chico.

“Is so!” Matthew yelled back.

I was kind of glad to see them argue. The Barkers are the happiest family I've ever been around. It was nice to know they weren't perfect.

Minutes later, Mrs. Barker pulled into the church lot and backed into a narrow parking place.

“Nice, isn't it, Dad?” The church was a lot smaller than ours in Wyoming, but I loved the way the maples hugged the white steeple. I hoped Dad would love it, too.

We walked to the front of the church and filed into the Barker pew, me last.

Pat Haven hollered at us from across the aisle.

Dad waved, but I slouched, hiding my eye with the hymnal.

Organ music started, and Catman strolled down the aisle as if he'd waited for it. He wore white sandals, light blue bell-bottoms, and a high-necked, wide-sleeved shirt that could have come from a Hollywood wardrobe room. He scooted in next to me.

Dad leaned across me. “Nice Nehru shirt, Catman! I used to have one just like it!”

Catman gave Dad the peace sign.

We stood and sang the first hymn. Then Ralph Evans, the substitute pastor, strolled to the front of the church and motioned us to sit. In khakis and tennis shoes, Ralph didn't look much like a pastor. His real job was running the animal shelter. The old pastor had moved on to a bigger church in Akron. Barker said Ralph had agreed to fill in until the church could make up its mind on a new pastor.

I started to explain Ralph to Dad, but I was too late.

“Mornin'!” Ralph shouted. “Anybody here for the first time?”

Note to self: If I'm ever a substitute pastor, don't make first-timers raise their hands!
I felt so uncomfortable for Dad.

Dad raised his hand.

I looked around. One woman, about a hundred years old, raised her hand, too. I thought I'd seen her in church before.

“Well, welcome!” Ralph grinned at Dad. “I'm just filling in as pastor. Some of you may have met me down at the animal shelter. I admit I'm not much of a speaker. But that's all right, I guess. This way if I say anything that makes sense, we can be pretty sure it comes from the good Lord.”

People chuckled. I glanced at Dad but couldn't tell if he was smiling or gritting his teeth.

Ralph prayed with his eyes open. “God, thanks for this pretty day! I couldn't have thought up all these colors if you gave me all eternity to do it!” Then he went on, thanking God for stuff, including “the new people.”

Finally, he got to his sermon. “I like the name
Jesus.
But I also love the name we hear around Christmas—
Immanuel.
It means ‘God with us.' Isn't that a great thing! I know. We're still in September. But Immanuel isn't just for Christmas. He's for every day of the year. After all, it's only when I forget that God's always ‘with us' that I end up in a mess of trouble. But when I remember Jesus is with me, things work out.”

Ralph read the story about the disciples getting caught in a fishing boat during a raging storm. “Can't you just see those big, brave fishermen scared silly? And Jesus sleeping in the back of the boat, calm as you please? I bet those fishermen tried every skill they had until one of 'em remembered Jesus was on board! Immanuel. And that's all it took to get them out of that mess.”

When church ended, I wanted to hurry out to the van before Pat spotted me. No such luck.

“Whoa! Winnie!” Pat blocked the aisle. “Any-who, how's it going?”

Could she have missed my black eye? “Fine. Thanks.”

“Swell!” Pat greeted my dad, then turned back to me. “I can give you a lift to the pet store if you want to answer those horse e-mails now.”

I glanced at Dad. “I probably should catch up on the Pet Help Line.”

“Good idea,” Dad said.

I followed Pat to her car. She swept up her red-and-white checked dress to get in and then flung her straw church hat into the backseat.

We were out of the church lot when she asked, “So, Winnie, how did you get your shiner?”

A setup! Winnie Willis, you should have seen it coming!
I stared out the window, imagining a getaway on Nickers. “I fell.”

“Uh-huh,” Pat mumbled.

I faked a laugh. “Clumsy as an ox—no offense!”

She didn't laugh at my imitation of her “no offense” line. Pat was tougher than Lizzy and Dad put together. “What did you do after I left yesterday?”

“Hung out with Catman.” I willed her to drive faster.

“Didn't jump that hunter, did you?” she asked.

“Beauty's going to make an ace jumper, Pat!” I was doing word gymnastics to keep from out-and-out lying. “And thanks to your help, she's not scared of cars anymore.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

I could have walked faster than Pat drove.

“So everything went fine with Beauty?”

“Sure.” Okay, not fine exactly. It was getting tougher to dance around the truth.

“Anything else you want to tell me, Winnie?”

“Just that I'm sorry about being too chicken to debate abortion.”

When Pat didn't jump in with her “no offense” line, I cleared my throat. “Did you get anybody else yet?”

“Huh-uh.”

Finally we pulled up in front of Pat's Pets, a brick building off Main Street. Pat unlocked the door. When she turned on the lights, dogs barked and birds fluttered against their cages.

BOOK: Bold Beauty
10.73Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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