Faith, Hope, and Ivy June (20 page)

That night I asked if she’d been able to reach anyone on her cell phone. She said no, which means she tried. I just hope she wasn’t trying to call home and ask somebody to come pick her up. Wouldn’t blame her if she did.

Ivy June Mosley

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

When Ivy June and Catherine stopped by Ma’s house on the way back from school on Wednesday, Ruth Mosley was clearly upset. Daddy’s truck was gone, but he was there—out on the back stoop smoking a cigarette, strictly against doctor’s orders.

“What’s wrong?” Ivy June asked.

“Russell’s truck broke down over near Cutshin,” her mother said. “The Prathers had to bring him home. And he’d just hired on to help build their extra room.”

“Can’t the pickup be fixed?”

“Transmission and I-don’t-know-what-all,” Mrs. Mosley said, one hand nervously stroking her throat. “First off it has to be towed somewhere a man can fix it, but Mr. Prather himself poked around and says it don’t look good.”

Ivy June didn’t have to be told just how bad this was. Not only was there the cost of repairs to consider, but also the fact that Daddy now had no way to get back and forth to work at Cutshin. He’d been told that the job would probably last two or three weeks, and he couldn’t afford to lose that income. Ma answered the question Ivy June didn’t ask:

“Ed Prather’s going to hire somebody else. Says he’s sorry, but he can’t drive fifty miles each mornin’ to pick Russell up and bring him back. And them with a new baby on the way, they need that extra room bad.”

Solutions swirled around in Ivy June’s head and were just as quickly rejected. Papaw couldn’t drive Daddy to work because he’d have his car at the mine. Jessie couldn’t do it; she’d need her car to get to the factory. Those were steady jobs they had to keep. Daddy only worked part-time at whatever he could find, and when Papaw retired, his pension would have to provide for them all.

Catherine stood by silently, concerned.

“I’m really sorry, and I can see he is too,” Ivy June said, watching her daddy through the window.

Mrs. Mosley let out her breath, and her hand dropped to her side. “Just can’t never get ahead, it seems. Take one step forward and you get two steps back. There goes that new refrigerator I wanted. Don’t look now like I’ll ever get it.”

On the way up the hill to Mammaw’s, Catherine said, “Since your dad’s health isn’t so good and … now this … why wouldn’t you … you know … apply for welfare? I mean, it’s not as though he’s not trying.”

“Papaw wouldn’t stand for it!” Ivy June said emphatically. “He says as long as he’s alive, there won’t be one Mosley on the giveaway. But if it weren’t for Papaw and his paycheck, and the little that Jessie makes, I don’t know what we’d do.”

She wondered why she was telling Catherine this—Catherine, of all people. Catherine, with the gold locket around her neck and the big house back in Lexington. But the weariness in Ma’s voice and the slump of Daddy’s shoulders out on the stoop made the situation too obvious to cover up. She went on: “Papaw still talks about the big sturdy man he saw up in Hazard in the supermart, paying for a cart full of groceries with food stamps. ‘Why, I’d be ashamed,’ he said. He thinks every able-bodied man ought to work.”

“Well … your dad would if he could,” said Catherine.

“I know. Ma says we’re born back here in the hollow, where there aren’t any jobs, and to get to where there’s work, you need a car. But you can’t buy a car if you don’t have the money. And you don’t have the money if you don’t work. People say, ‘Well, why don’t you move to where the jobs are?’ But what house do we move to, and how do we pay for getting there? That’s what Ma wants to know.”

Ivy June was suddenly embarrassed by her outburst, and pressed her lips together to keep from saying more.

“No simple answers, I guess,” said Catherine.

“Not simple at all,” said Ivy June.

Mammaw took the news about the pickup truck grimly. “Well,” she said, “there’s number two.” She silently shook her head, then pointed to the willow basket by the door. “Bring in the dry clothes, will you, girls?”

Out on the porch, as they checked to see which of the hanging clothes were still damp, Catherine asked, “What did she mean by that?”

“She’s wondering what will happen next,” said Ivy June. “Trouble comes in threes, she says, and Grandmommy’s infected foot was number one.”

“So you go around expecting something awful to happen?” Catherine asked, astonished.

“Sooner or later, it does,” said Ivy June.

“Well, sooner or later, good things happen too,” said Catherine. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

“I could count on one hand the number of good things that just might happen out of the blue,” Ivy June said, a slight edge to her voice.

“You got to be in the exchange program, didn’t you?” Catherine said, but when Ivy June didn’t answer, she quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, who was that boy who said hi to you in the cafeteria?”

Ivy June dropped a clothespin into the cloth bag at the end of the porch. “Just somebody,” she said. And then, mimicking Catherine,
“Not
my boyfriend.”

Catherine laughed. “Okay. But does he have a name?”

“Jimmy Harris. And that’s all there is to tell.”

“Except how cute he is.”

“You
said it, not me,” said Ivy June, and grinned.

Ivy June had promised Catherine that they could wash their hair that weekend, but by Thursday morning, Catherine was so upset over her stringy hair that she rummaged through her suitcase for a springy metal headband she wore sometimes. Combing back her hair, she placed the blue headband over the top of her head, the ends coming down behind her ears. It gave her a sleek look and kept her long hair from hanging down the sides of her face.

“This is my trick when I’m having a bad hair day,” she said. And then, sensing Ivy June’s interest in it, she said, “I’ve got an extra. Do you want it?”

She dug around some more for the red band, and Ivy June tried it on. She was pleased with how it looked.

“It’s pretty,” Ivy June said.

She forgot about it after they set off for the bus stop, because as they walked, they asked each other questions to prepare for their history quiz. What were the causes of World War II? Which was the first country to surrender? What was the Marshall Plan? The questions were more difficult for Catherine because her class back at the Academy hadn’t done the world wars yet.

When the girls got on the bus, Ivy June automatically looked around for Shirl and found her sitting in the back row again with the boys. One of them, sitting next to the boy beside her, kept reaching around the fellow’s back and tickling Shirl’s neck, and, not knowing who did it, Shirl was happily swatting at each boy in turn as they all took part in the teasing.

When Shirley saw Ivy June and Catherine, however, she paused. “Well, well, looks like we got twins today,” she said, pointing to her head. “Bet even their underwear matches.” The boys guffawed.

Ivy June stared at her. “Shirl …?” she said.

But Shirley turned away and invited more tickles from the boys.

Ivy June slid quietly onto a seat, and Catherine sat down next to her. Was Shirl jealous? Because of a headband? Forty minutes later, when the bus stopped at the entrance to the school, Catherine moved with the others toward the front of the bus, but Ivy June waited for Shirl so she could walk with her. Shirl, though, was laughing and hanging on to one of the boys as she passed, and pointedly ignored Ivy June.

“Shirl …,” Ivy June called again when she stepped off the bus behind them. But with a toss of her head, Shirl walked through the door with the boys and on down the hall to her locker.

It was warm—so warm that kids were taking off their jackets and eating their lunches outside. The feathery lavender of new growth on the tips of branches was more distinct now, and the white snowdrop flowers on the south side of the building had been replaced by the bright yellow of daffodils. Ivy June looked around for Shirl, but she must have stayed indoors.

Jimmy Harris came over to the bench where Ivy June and Catherine were sitting.

“Got anything in that lunch sack for me?” he asked, grinning, as Ivy June popped a piece of oatmeal cookie in her mouth.

“That all you think about? Your stomach?” Ivy June asked, and handed him her second cookie, which he accepted.

“No. Think about you sometimes,” he said, the smile even wider on his face.

“Yeah, right,” said Ivy June, but she was pleased, and it showed. “This is Catherine Combs, case you haven’t met. Visiting us for two weeks.”

“How you doin’?” said Jimmy, and turned back to Ivy June. “Well, what I wanted to know was, are you going to Earl’s tomorrow? Supposed to be a nice night.”

Ivy June looked at Catherine. “You want to go if Jessie will drive us?”

“Sure!” said Catherine. “I guess so.”

“Well, maybe I’ll see you there if my sister will take us,” Ivy June said.

“Tell her I’ll even get Earl to come out and dance with her if she will,” said Jimmy, and Ivy June laughed.

“Wait till you get a load of Earl,” she said to Catherine.

She looked around again for Shirl, but her friend was definitely avoiding her. Too bad, because Shirl would have been the first one Ivy June told about Jimmy Harris.

When the girls got off the bus that afternoon, Howard was nowhere to be seen. He’d been making himself scarce since the raccoon incident, and as Catherine and Ivy June walked the mile back to Mammaw’s, Ivy June asked, “Want to see my favorite place?”

“What kind of place?”

“Where I go when I want to be by myself.”

“All right,” Catherine agreed. “But you won’t be by yourself.”

“I’ll pretend you’re not there,” Ivy June said with a smile.

They went across the porch and into the kitchen, where Mammaw was making dried-apple pies. A short stack of half-moon pastries sat to one side of her floured board, waiting for the oven. Deftly, she traced circles around a plate on the rolled-out dough, dropped a scoop of dried apples and sugar on one half of each circle, then flopped the other half over and pressed the edges together with her thumb.

“Ummm. Looks good,” said Catherine.

Mammaw smiled. “Figured we needed a little something extra to cheer us up,” she said.

“We’re going up the mountain,” Ivy June told her grandmother.

“Take a couple cookies for your pocket,” Mammaw said. “And there’s some old apples in the box out there—need to be eaten up.”

As they climbed the steep path, grabbing at tree roots, Ivy June said, “This is about my most favorite place in the whole world.”

“Right here?”

“No, on up a way.”

“Can’t imagine many other people trying to find it,” said Catherine, panting a little. “I’m trying not to look behind me.”

“Don’t worry. If you fell, the thornbushes would stop you,” Ivy June said. “We’re almost there.”

They reached the ridge halfway from the top, where the three small saplings grew side by side a few feet from the edge of the cliff, a mossy bed beneath them.

“Here,” said Ivy June, and sank down on the moss. Catherine gratefully joined her.

“I call it the Whistling Place,” Ivy June explained, “because when the wind blows, it makes a whistling sound. You can hear it best when the trees leaf out.”