Orphea Proud (14 page)

“I like his paintings. Anyway, he’s my cousin.”

“Don’t go foolin’ around.”

“With Ray? He’s a kid.”

“So are you, missie.”

I stood taller. “I’m sixteen.”

“And little Ray is mighty cute. I saw you with him through the window. Ray was near naked.”

“He gets hot,” I explained. “I’m not going to tell him how to dress when he paints. Besides, I’m not remotely interested in dating my fourteen-year-old cousin. Another thing—I’m not pregnant. Ray told me that’s what you think.”

“Still waters run deep. Why are you here? It ain’t because of your math.”

“I’m here because my aunts want me here.” It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it’s something I’d come to believe.

“Sorry to get your back up. I worry ’bout Ray. He needs protecting.”

It was about two weeks later. I finished my chores for the day, scouring out the oven in the kitchen and setting the mousetraps. I grabbed the last of the root beer out of the refrigerator case. When I closed the
door to the case, Aunt Cleo’s head popped up. She was over by the cash register, snoozing as usual, wrapped up in her quilt. “Can I help you?”

“It wasn’t a customer, Cleo,” Aunt Minnie said. “Just Orphea running across the road as usual.”

“When is the soda delivery coming?” I asked. “We’re out of root beer.”

Aunt Minnie grunted. “Spring. He’ll drink ginger ale, I reckon. Next time take him one of them.”

The day was overcast but not as cold. I’d been on Proud Road for six weeks. The daylight was lasting longer. Ray and I had fallen into a routine. Every day after chores, I went over. He painted. I sat. The whole idea of writing had gone down the tubes. This particular day when I got there, something unusual occurred. The door to the cellar was padlocked. Whenever Ray locked his root cellar it was always from the inside.

I knocked. “Hey, Ray! It’s me! Are you in there?”

He stepped out from behind a tree. He wasn’t wearing his coat. He did, however, have on his shirt and jeans.

“Good morning. Going for a gallop? Didn’t see you out here earlier.”

There was a glint in his eye. “I was up all night.”

“Painting horses?”

“Not exactly.”

He unlocked the padlock on the cellar door with an old iron key. “Didn’t want to take a chance on you getting here before I woke up.”

“What’s going on?”

He propped open the door with a loose rock. The cellar walls were washed with light. To my right, I saw the usual horses. But directly to my left I saw something that hadn’t been there before. A life-size girl with pale gray eyes, taking up a whole wall! I drew in a breath. Lissa!

“How did you do that, Ray?”

He had gotten her just right!

“You showed me her picture, remember? But then she kind of painted herself.”

“She looks so alive.”

“Glad you like it.”

He’d managed to capture the light in her eyes, her moon-shaped face, her long arms and thick black braid … she was wearing an orange blouse.

“Orange was one of her favorite colors. How did you know?”

“I didn’t. Color just goes good with her hair.”

I felt a stab in my chest. “I miss her, Ray.”

“That’s what you keep saying. Ask her to come for a visit. She can stay with us, if your aunts ain’t got the room. She can sleep in my bed.”

“Thanks, that’s sweet. But there’s a reason she can’t visit. She died.”

He hung his head. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“It’s a secret. Don’t tell my aunts, okay? And don’t tell Lola.”

“If that’s what suits you.”

I sat down in front of the portrait. I couldn’t stop looking at her, even though it hurt.

Ray scooted for the door. “I’m going to my house. I ain’t brushed my teeth.”

“Want to know another secret, Ray?& I loved her.”

“Same way I loved Saint?”

“Sort of …”

The tears I’d saved up since I came to Proud Road began to trickle out.

That night I tossed and turned in the little bed in the loft. Seeing Lissa in the root cellar looking so alive made me remember how happy she made me; and that made me remember that she was gone. I got up and tiptoed downstairs. Aunt Cleo and Aunt Minnie were sound asleep in their room, both of them snoring. The only light came from the glowing embers in the potbellied stove and the half-moon out the window.

I felt my way to Nadine’s room and sat stiffly on the side of her bed. The room smelled like musty lavender. Was that the way she had smelled? I tried to remember. She had smelled like … herself. But what was that? I began to cry again. The memory of her fragrance had disappeared. I peered at the walls covered with pictures of Nadine as a child. Since I’d shied away from coming into her room, I hadn’t yet gotten a good look
at them. And now it was too dark to see. But I could feel her all around me.…

She had lived in this place before I existed. She’d gone away and had me. Then she’d left the world. And me.

Not long
after that, I started writing. My brain was wormy with words; I couldn’t get them down fast enough. Ray was on to a new mural as well, so things were even hotter down in the root cellar. He whitewashed one of the walls and the ceiling and started all over with more Saint variations—that’s how I came to think of them. The portrait of Lissa he left; she was just in the middle of a rodeo was all. Sometimes Ray would ask me what I was writing. It was hard to say. I seemed to be blatting out my whole life onto the page. I wrote about Nadine and Daddy, Rupert and Ruby; mainly about losing Lissa, though. Most of the poetry
was about that. After a while, I had quite a few poems. I had no idea that someday I’d share all that stuff I was writing with all of you. I began thinking a lot about Icky and Marilyn. I hadn’t been in touch with them since the day they told me about leaving for Queens. So I tried their cell number. Icky picked right up.

“Hey, kiddo! Where did you disappear to? We called you before we left, but your brother said you were visiting relatives. Wouldn’t give us your number.”

“I’m with my aunts down in Virginia. Sorry I didn’t call you myself. I was in the dumps for a while.”

“No more fertility pills, I hope?”

I chuckled. “Nothing like that.”

“So, written any poems?”

“I haven’t forgotten that I owe you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“How’s it going in Queens?”

“We got a place to stay and the whole bit. Renovating an old warehouse for the club. Going to call it Club Nirvana.”

“Cool. Well, I just wanted you to know that I have written a few poems, not twenty, but getting there.”

“Coming up this summer?”

“I don’t know.”

“Got to read your poems at the open mike.”

“I’m not sure they’re good enough, Icky. And … I don’t know if I feel like going anywhere.”

“I hear you. Lissa’s death will take time to get over, I expect.”

“I could mail you the twenty poems when I’m done.”

“No hurry.”

“I’m writing some other stuff, too.”

“Such as?”

“The story of some of the things I’ve been through … the story of Lissa and me. I’m not sure I want to read that at an open mike, though.”

“Listen, kid, you do whatever you like. But if you want a gig this summer …”

“A gig? A real gig?”

“You heard me. If you’re not up for it, you can just come and help me with the lights. Marilyn and I think you’re great, kiddo.”

“I think you’re great, too, Icky. Here’s my aunts’ telephone number and address in case you want to reach me.”

After that call, I wrote even faster. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. I could never talk about what happened with Lissa and me in public! I thought I’d just send them my poetry. Or someday when I wrote about something else, I might accept that gig at Club Nirvana.