Getting Mother's Body (3 page)

“Ma could be saying something new this time,” Dill says.

“I doubt it,” I says.

“You never know,” Dill says.

“Sounds like you do know,” I says.

“Yr saying that I opened it,” Dill says. Her left arm goes stiff, with her hand making a fist. She knocked down someone with that fist once. They didn't get up for two days. My sister. But for what I can't remember.

“I'm just running my mouth, Dill, I don't mean to mean nothing,” I says.

She shakes her fist free of whatever made her want to hit me.

“I coulda opened it and read it seeing as how it's partly addressed to me and I can read. But I ain't,” Dill says.

“Course you ain't.”

“I'll bet you on what it says in here,” Dill says.

“I don't got shit to bet with,” I says. It's funny but neither of us laugh.

“Let's bet you'll take up preaching again,” Dill says.

I don't say nothing to that.

We sit there watching Billy turn into a speck as she hurries down the road to Jackson's Formal. Mrs. Jackson sells dresses and together with her husband Israel they run the Funeral Home too. Laz helps out. When people start they lives they ain't nothing more than specks. And when Billy came into our life, coming up the road in Dill's old truck, coming back from LaJunta and the tragedy, she weren't nothing more than a speck on the road, and then a truck, and then Dill in a truck and then Dill in a truck with little Billy. We thought Billy was gonna live with Dill like her and Willa Mae did when Willa Mae was living, but Dill didn't want Billy around no more so Billy's been living with us since she was ten.

“LaJunta, Arizona,” Dill says, reading the postmark. I hold my hand out for the envelope and she hands it to me. A circle with some lines running through it and some marks and a stamp. Below that some marks that say “Miss Billy Beede c/o Dill Smiles, Lincoln, Texas.” But the lines could say “Mr. John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, Warshington, D.C.” for all I know. I never did learn to read. June and Billy read good though. Dill reads pretty good too.

June comes outside. Her crutch tapping the floor like someone's knocking. She looks at Dill's truck, a shiny blue Chevrolet, parked off to the side of the pumps.

“That yr new truck, Dill?” June asks.

“Bought it with pig money,” Dill says.

“We could read this now,” I says, fanning the envelope, “it would spark up the day.”

“We'll wait,” June says. “It's addressed to Billy so it's only right to wait for her.”

“Like Billy gives a crap,” Dill says. “She was glad when her mother passed, said so herself.”

“She didn't mean it,” June says.

“You and Roosevelt don't got no kids and Billy's your niece, that's how come you think that way, but I'm telling you Billy was glad when Willa passed. Billy said ‘good riddance' and clapped her hands. I was there. I heard and seen it all,” Dill says, retelling us the tragedy.

We sit quiet. If I could give June children I would. If June could give me children she would.

“Candy's got the grave to keep up plus she runs that motel,” June says.

“How much money you think Candy's gonna want from us this time?” I ask.

“Do it matter?” Dill says. “You can't send her none nohow.”

“But we always write her back polite,” June says. “And Candy always finds a way to hold on.”

“She don't ask me for money cause she knows I won't send her none and I won't write her back polite neither,” Dill says.

“The bank's gonna take her motel one of these days,” I says. I should know. I had a church, a nice church over in Tryler before me and June comed here. It was the most beautiful church you ever seen. And the bank took it.

“Ma always finds a way to hold on,” Dill says.

“Plus she got Even helping out now,” June says. Even is Candy's daughter. Dill's sister but by a different daddy.

“Ma always finds a way to make do,” Dill says.

“How come she asking us for payment, then?” June asks.

“She's what you call resourceful,” Dill says.

June says “huh” to that.

A car comes up, out-of-towners. White. I give them two dollars worth of gas.

“You got a restroom?” the lady asks.

“No, ma'am, we don't.”

“We shoulda stopped at a Texaco,” the man says. And they go on.

“You all should build a restroom,” Dill says.

June says “huh” to that too. If we could get the money together to build a restroom June would be the one to clean it. It would be Billy's chore but Billy ain't as timely at her chores as June is, even though June only got the one leg.

“Ma asked you all for fifty dollars payment last time,” Dill laughs, “this time she'll probably ask for sixty.”

“Candy can ask all she wants,” June says. “I got a whole dictionary full of words I can say no to her nice with.”

“I know the pain of losing a structure,” I says. When the bank told me they was gonna take my church I went to the bank and got down on my knees.

“I know the pain of losing a structure too,” June says.

We sit there for a while. Not saying nothing. The white out-of-towners leave a cloud of brownish dust in the road.

“It's worth it, keeping on good terms with Candy, even if we can't never send her nothing,” I says.

Dill picks up my thought, “You mean cause of the treasure? You mean cause Willa Mae's buried out there with her pearls and diamonds?”

“No. I was thinking more along the lines of, what with Candy being your mother and you having partly raised Billy some, that makes Candy practically family to us and we should keep on good terms with her,” I says, but I am thinking about the diamonds and whatnot. I can't help it.

“Yr just thinking about the treasure,” Dill says, smirking at me.

I stay quiet.

June adds her two cents. “I'm thinking all that treasure Willa Mae got in her coffin ain't doing no one no good,” she says. She clumps along the porch, reaching the steps and sitting down, laying her crutch by her side. There's a blank space where her leg used to be. I ain't never seen her with two legs. When I met her she had just the one. Folks say I was smart marrying a woman with one leg cause a woman with one leg ain't never gonna run off. But I didn't marry June on account of that. June's a good woman. Today she's salty but most days she's sweet.

“What you think of Billy's Snipes fella?” Dill asks.

“We ain't met him yet,” I says. “She says he stays at Texhoma. We should be going up there for the wedding.”

“We should be going to LaJunta and getting Willa Mae's treasure,” June says.

“Leave my sister in the ground,” I says.

“I ain't saying take her out the ground,” June says yelling. “I'm just saying take her treasury out the ground.” Then her voice goes soft. “Just enough to get me a leg,” she says.

“You got a point there,” I says. I look at Dill, waiting for her say. Getting at least some of my sister's treasure has crossed my mind more than once. Dill would tell us how to get there or we could just look at a map. LaJunta's in Arizona and Candy's motel is called the Pink Flamingo. That wouldn't be no trouble. June suggested the very thing about six years ago and Dill told June that if she went treasure-hunting, she would be going against the wishes of the dead. Dill's the one who heard Willa's dying wish and Dill's the one who put Willa in the ground, so to my mind, if Dill don't give the OK and we was just to go out there and dig, it would be like stealing.

Dill speaks through her teeth. “Yr waiting for me to say go head but I ain't gonna say it,” she says. “Willa Mae was proud of two things. Her pearl necklace and her diamond ring. Getting buried with them two things was her dying wish. I coulda took them, I coulda stole them from her while she was breathing her last breaths, but I weren't about to go against her dying wish. So I put her in the ground and I put her jewelry in the ground with her,” Dill says, saying “jewel” and making it sound like “jurl.” “Willa Mae wanted to be buried with her jewels and that's what she
still
wants,” Dill says.

“How you know what Willa
still
wants?” June says.

“She ain't changing her mind once she's dead,” Dill says.

“She might,” June says. June reads and knows things.

“I know Willa Mae better than you and I heard her dying wish,” Dill says, making a fist and bringing it down slowly on the arm of her chair. That ends that.

“Dill Smiles, you the most honest person I ever met,” I says.

June says “shit” to that and gets up, with more difficulty than usual, to go clumping back inside.

“You the most honest person I know,” I says again and Dill nods her head in thanks. Dill Smiles don't open no mail that ain't addressed to her and Dill Smiles don't flout no dying wishes of the dead. Dill Smiles is the most honest person I know, even if she ain't nothing but a bulldagger.

BILLY BEEDE

Mrs. Jackson stands beside me. She got a tape measure hanging around her neck and one of them red pincushions, stuck full of steel pins and shaped like a tomato, tied to her wrist. We both looking at the dress in the window, the one with the train. It cost a hundred and thirty dollars.

“How much it cost without the train?” I ask her.

“The train's on there for good,” she says.

“What if it weren't?” I says. “How much would it cost if the train weren't on there for good?”

Mrs. Jackson looks at the dress then at me, sizing me with her eyes. Except for my baby-belly I'm on the narrow side. Her eyes hang on my belly and when I catch her staring, she looks through her front show window and up into the sky. It's after five o'clock. When I came up she was standing at the door waiting for me. While I was washing up, Laz had told her I was on my way. I wiped the toes of my shoes fast across the backs of my legs, left then right, to get the dirt off. She let me in then turned the “Open” sign to “Closed.”

“I don't think it'll fit you,” she says softly.

“It'll fit,” I says. “But all I got is sixty-three dollars.”

“Mr. Jackson don't like me spending all my time making these dresses then losing money by selling them cheap,” she says.

“Sixty-three dollars ain't cheap,” I says. I want to tell her how I'd have more money if her husband woulda bought one of Snipes' coffins and how, since her husband keeps turning my future husband away, she owes me a deal. I want to say all this but something in me tells me to stay sweet.

“It's all hand-sewn,” she says. “That's not a machine-sewn dress and it's not some dress from the Sears catalogue. That there's a once-in-a-lifetime dress.”

I see something in her, something I'm not sure of at first. Something my mother might call The Hole. It's like a soft spot and everybody's got one. Mother said she could see The Hole in people and then she'd know how to take them. She could see Holes all the time but I ain't never seen one. Until now. Words shape theirselves in my mouth and I start talking without thinking of what I need to say. It's like The Hole shapes the words for me and I don't got to think or nothing.

“When you got married, what'd yr dress look like?” I ask Mrs. Jackson.

The hard line of her mouth lets go a little.

“It musta been pretty,” I says.

“That dress is an exact copy of my wedding dress,” she says smiling. “I was fifteen. One year younger than you are now.” She looks at the dress then back at me then at the dress again.

“You make your dress yrself too?” I ask.

“My mother made mine for me,” Mrs. Jackson says. And then she goes quiet.

The Hole shapes more words in my mouth, all I gotta do is let them out. “Willa Mae, you know, my uh—”

“Your mother,” Mrs. Jackson says, saying “mother” out loud for me.

“Yes, ma'am, well, she's passed, but she sure woulda loved to see my wedding day, seeing how she was always jilted and never lucky enough to get married herself.”

We stand there quiet, both looking at the dress.

“Let's see what it looks like on you,” Mrs. Jackson says. She hurries to get a stool then stands on it, pulling down the window shade. I take off my clothes while she strips the dummy. By the time she gets the dress off I'm ready. With the shade down it's dark inside her store. She can see my baby-belly but not too good. She holds the dress for me and I put my hand on her shoulder and step into it. A row of seed buttons up the back. High collar and long sleeves, blind-you white satin with lots of lace. Plus the long train with a hand loop to hold it off the floor.
Be small, baby,
I says, talking to my baby without opening my mouth.
Be small, baby, be small.

The dress fits.

“Look at you,” Mrs. Jackson says. Her voice is thick like she is about to cry but I can't tell for sure in the dim light.

I look down at my pink pumps. “I used to wear these when I worked over at Miz Montgomery's,” I say. “I guess they'll do.”

“Pink shoes with your wedding dress will not do,” Mrs. Jackson says.

“I can't afford no nice ones,” I says.

“You wear size 6?” she asks.

“Size 5,” I says.

She goes to the back, walking backwards and turning her head this way and that to get a good look at me. When she's out of sight I do a slow twirl. Snipes didn't say nothing about the rings and he don't know what size I wear but I guess we'll get them when I get up there. I can't expect him to think of everything. He had his new coffins on his mind today, plus that dying old Doctor Wells.

“The baby looks like it's growing pretty good,” she hollers from the back.

“Yes, ma'am,” I says. No one has said nothing about the baby but I guess, since she knows I'm gonna have a husband to go with it, it's OK to mention now.