Icy Sparks (26 page)

F
or weeks, I refused to discuss with my grandparents what had happened with Peavy Lawson. How could I tell them that Peavy and I had been kissing? How could I tell them that we had lain on the ground, side by side, and that I had let him touch my dress where my breast was? I couldn't. I just couldn't; so I didn't tell them anything. Whenever either asked about him, I'd shrug and say, “We broke up.”

I walked around the house with a perpetual scowl on my face, with my shoulders humped over as though I were a shriveled-up old spinster. At meals, I had no appetite. Mouthfuls of food got caught in my throat. I couldn't swallow and lost weight. But none of this bothered me because I knew that the next phase—an even worse one—would soon come.

Eventually, the emptiness in my life would beg to be filled; and, unable to control myself, I would begin to eat. In fact, just like Miss Emily, I'd live to eat. If Matanni cooked an apple pie, I'd eat all of it—each slice with a double scoop of vanilla ice cream. Patanni would get a worried look in his eyes. Like scavenging dogs, on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, Patanni and I, our eyes darting back and forth, would slyly compete for food. Meanwhile, I'd grow larger and larger. Patanni would have to buy me a bigger bed. Matanni would sew me huge revival-tent dresses. When Patanni got a haircut, he'd hear the men at the barbershop say, “No God-fearing man will marry Icy Sparks. If she took to hugging him, he'd be squashed.” Whenever I'd pass, people on the streets of Ginseng would hold their hands to their mouths and snicker. This scenario would be my future. I only had to look as far as Miss Emily Tanner to see it unfolding before my eyes. Yes, she had been right all along.

Upstairs in my lonely bed, the bitterness of Miss Emily's life, forever living without another's touch, overwhelmed me. And because in Miss Emily's moon face I saw my own—the empty landscape of limbless, faceless people—my heart tore away from the rest of my body, and, like the uprooted stump of a tree, it floated inside me, disconnected from my soul. Lonely, desolate, my heart pumped only for itself and let me be. “Oh, Lord!” I cried, staring at the vacant ceiling. “God help me!” And closing my eyes, tenderly and ever so slowly, I began to stroke my face.

“T
here ain't no reason to celebrate my birthday,” I pouted, sitting on Matanni's new oval-shaped braided rug, the corners of my mouth pulled down like someone suffering the aftermath of a stroke. “Even Maizy forgot about it this year,” I whined, “and she never does.”

Miss Emily frowned back. “There is no reason to celebrate my birthday,” she corrected me.

“Whichever way you say it,” I said, “it means the same.”

Patanni tipped forward in his frayed easy chair and shot me a look.

Grinning, Matanni turned and nodded at Miss Emily, who was sitting beside her on the sofa.

Miss Emily nodded back, positioned her square hands on either side of her body, and, huffing, tried to hoist herself up. “Icy Gal,” she began, falling back onto the sofa, the cushions whooshing with her weight. “Give me your hand!”

I crooked my head to one side. “Why?” I asked.

“Shush!” Miss Emily pressed her fat index finger against her lips. “Your hand, please!”

Cautiously, I thrust out my arm, slowly turned over my hand, and exposed the pink flesh of my palm. Looking around, I noticed that all three of them were leaning forward expectantly. Smiles as wide as watermelon slices cut into their faces. “What are you-all up to?” I asked.

Dramatically, Miss Emily slipped a piece of paper between Matanni's fingers. “Just this!” she said.

“Just this!” my grandmother repeated; and, reaching over, she flamboyantly placed the slip of paper in my palm.

I stared at the cream-colored paper, no bigger than a three-by-five index card, the top of which read, “Crockett County Telephone Cooperative,” typed in bold print. Then, in a neat, cursive hand below it was the message: “Dear New Customer, we will be installing your telephone during the week of June 7–12. Thank you for your order!”

“A telephone?” I asked, anxiously glancing at Patanni.

“Just for you,” he said grandly.

“'Cause you're a modern gal,” Miss Emily said.

“A regular teenager,” Matanni added.

In that instant, my arm began to quiver; and, like a maple leaf in the breeze, the piece of paper trembled in my palm. A regular teenager, I thought. “A regular teenager!” I said aloud. “A regular teenager!” I sneered, watching my hand shake, seeing the paper shimmy back and forth.

“Icy!” Patanni said, alarmed.

“Icy Gal!” Miss Emily said.

“What's wrong?” Matanni asked, rising.

“Are you blind?” I asked as the slip of paper quaked spasmodically. “Can't any of you see?” My hand lurched upward, and the paper fell to the floor below. “Don't you understand?” I cried, restraining my arm with the other. “Who…who…in this great, big, wide world…is ever going to call me?”

T
he minute I heard the car door slam, I thought, Lord, please don't let it be Miss Emily! I was in no mood for another one of her lectures, especially the one about ingratitude, but when I looked out the parlor window, it was Mr. Wooten I saw, crunching over gravel, heading toward our house. “Geez!” I moaned, seeing the usual armload of books. I cranked on a smile, pushed myself up off the sofa, and dawdled over to the door.

“Well, ain't you a sight for sore eyes!” he said with a toothy grin. “With every birthday, you get a little bigger.”

“Yessir,” I mumbled, moving to one side, letting him saunter in.

“Where can I put these?” he asked.

“Just drop them on the couch,” I replied. “I'll tote 'em to my bedroom later.”

“Whew!” he said, as the books fell from his arm, thudding against each other when they plopped upon the sofa. “Mostly, these are math books. Miss Emily says you're having some trouble with geometry.”

“According to her, I'm always having some trouble with something,” I said, sighing, lowering myself into Patanni's easy chair.

“Where are your grandparents?” he asked, looking around, sitting on the sofa beside the books.

With my index finger, I flicked a strand of hair out of my eyes. “In town—shopping,” I said. “I didn't want to go.”

“Well, now.” He leaned forward, cupping his hands over his knees. “How does it feel being fourteen?”

“Same as thirteen,” I quipped. “Ain't no difference as far as I can tell.”

Mr. Wooten turned sideways and began to finger through the books. “I bought you this,” he said, slipping one out, proudly holding it up so that I could see the title. “It's for your birthday.”

“
The Dollmaker
,” I read aloud, “by Harriette Arnow.”

“She's from the mountains of Kentucky. A real Kentucky author,” he explained.

“Thank you,” I said, none too convincingly. “I'll enjoy reading it if I ever get through those math books.” I pointed to the landslide on the sofa.

“What did Maizy send you this time?” he asked me. “I always liked that young woman.”

“Not a thing,” I snapped. “Not even a card. I reckon she's too busy tending to her husband and going to college.”

“People do get busy,” he said, his voice serious. “She's always remembered you before. Why are you so hard on her now?”

Annoyed, I crossed my ankles and ignored him.

“How about that telephone!” He opened up his mouth as though surprised.

I glared back at him. “It's ringing off the hook,” I sassed. “My calendar's so filled up I don't have time to do another thing.”

Mr. Wooten coughed into his hand. His nose had started to run, and the rims of his eyes were turning pink. “It's the pollen,” he apologized, pulling a handerchief out of his trousers pocket, blowing hard. “You got neighbors, Icy,” he said, wearily blowing again. “You don't have to be so alone.”

Angrily, I lunged forward, my weight lodged in the balls of my feet. “And who are they?” I demanded.

“Let's see,” he said, rubbing his temple. “The McRoys are nearby, and the Lutes are down the road. Then there's Clitus Stewart. And right over the ridge,” he added, smiling, “the Tillman girl.”

“Some neighbors!” I shot back. “First of all, don't even mention Joel McRoy's name around me! Second, that Clitus Stewart is nigh nothin', and Mamie Tillman…well, she's…” My voice shook. “Queer.” I felt my hands trembling. “If you knew these people, you wouldn't be telling me to visit them. No, sir! You'd be telling me to run in the opposite direction.”

Mr. Wooten started to laugh. A scratchy laugh that itched from his throat. “I didn't know your neighbors were such a sorry lot,” he said.

“Not worth a hill of beans. Not worth two cents. Not worth a hoot.”

“Well, I'll be,” he said, looking right at me, narrowing his eyes. “All this makes me wonder what you think of me.”

Clamping my lips together, I lounged back in my chair. If he was fishing for a compliment, I wasn't about to give him one. “Would you like something cold to drink?” I finally asked, my mouth tired from the strain of pressing my lips together.

“A refreshing cup of springwater would be nice,” said Mr. Wooten politely. “That is, if it's not too much trouble.”

“Ain't no trouble at all,” I said, rising. “The spring's right behind the house.”

“Wouldn't that put you a tad closer to the Tillman place?” he teased, his eyes sparkling. “You be careful, now, or you might just run into those bothersome neighbors of yours.”

M
y grandfather was yelling—“Goddammit! Goddamn thieving fox!”—as I strolled up the dirt driveway. Veering to the left, I ran toward the barn. In the distance, through the dusk, I could see his large, bulky form, his left arm raised high above his head, a dead chicken grasped in his hand. “Goddamn fox!” he screamed, swinging the chicken back and forth. “Goddamn fox!”

Waving my arms, I raced toward him. “Patanni!” I yelled. “What's wrong?”

Looking up, he caught sight of me. Then he lowered his head and dropped his arm. The chicken slipped from his fingers and plopped in a haze of dust on the ground. “Icy,” he said, wilting in front of me, “I didn't mean for you to hear that.”

I walked over and picked up the mangled, plump red hen who never failed to lay an egg every day. “Poor Zelda,” I said.

“Some thieving fox,” he said wearily. “Zelda, Henrietta, and Bonnie.”

“Not Bonnie!” I shook my head. “She was so pretty.”

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I had to lock the rest of them up,” he said. “They was carrying on so. Buster was stark-raving mad.”

“I'm sorry, Patanni.” I heard Buster still squawking loudly. “I know how much you loved them.”

“The varmint carried off Bonnie and Henrietta, that stupid, scrawny hen, but left Zelda all over the place.” He looked around the yard. “He didn't even have the courtesy to eat her—and her being the plumpest and the juiciest. He left the best one here. Left Zelda right here in the yard. Almost like that fox was laughing. Being spiteful. Saying, ‘Wake up, old man. I can come back any ole time and gobble me down a fat one.'”

Scanning the ground, I spotted only a scattering of thin-lined strokes. “Where's the tracks?” I asked.

“I can't find nary a one,” Patanni said. “Odd, ain't it?”

“You sure you didn't stomp through them?” I asked. “I mean, you was upset.”

Patanni shook his head. “Nope!” He was vehement. “I watched myself and looked where I was stepping. I tell you, there weren't no tracks.”

“That's 'cause…” I hesitated and breathed in. “That's 'cause…” I stopped again.

“Speak up, child!” Patanni said, narrowing his eyes. “Tell me what's on your mind.”

I walked over to the zigzag lines. “Look at these here marks.” Squatting down, I ran my index finger through the dirt. “Looks like someone took a twig and made them.”

My grandfather joined me. Bending over, he said, “Why, I declare, I hadn't noticed!”

“Maybe this varmint walks upright,” I said. “Maybe what we got us is a two-legged varmint.”

“Yes, buddy!” Patanni said. “He cut himself a brushy twig, swished through his footprints, and left poor ole Zelda behind.”

“To throw you off,” I said.

“Don't you know, he did!” Patanni stood up. “But who?”

“A neighbor?” I ventured.

“Oh, no!” Patanni said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“'Cause no neighbor of mine would do something like that,” he said.