Tender Graces (29 page)

I didn’t say anything; my insides were too fluffy. I grinned like a monkey, waved, turned around, and ran outside. My feet had wings like that mythology guy we studied in school. I jumped on my bike and pedaled off as fast as I could, letting the hot wind blow on my face. I smelled like pancakes, and Rebekha’s face cream, and Micah’s gift.

I tore off towards the library, day-dreaming I’d become a librarian where I’d be surrounded by books and quiet all the livelong day. Or, maybe I’d work in a hospital, wearing a white coat over my suit and those comfortable shoes Rebekha wore. I turned the corner by the library and saw Daddy’s car parked in front. I hid behind a clump of azalea bushes and watched him.

He stood beside his car with a woman in a very short yellow, pink, and white dress, little chain belt, and white boots. Her streaky light-brown hair had enough hairspray to hold an army of hair do’s. She laughed at something he said, her hand pushing at him, and then she patted that stupid helmet of hair. Daddy raised his hands up in the air as if describing the size of something. He threw back his head and laughed when she said something back. She stared at his throat, putting her hand to her own.

I jumped on my bike, hurried and rode away. It was my birthday. I wasn’t going to let Daddy and some floozy-woozy in a silly dress ruin it. I had twenty-five dollars burning a big fat hole in my shorts pocket. Mee Maw sent me twenty, and Mrs. Portier sent me five along with a letter about her new life. Mrs. Portier was happy go lucky, married to a veterinarian and moved to Georgia. She was pregnant with twins and had a real nice house to boot. I was glad for Mrs. Portier, who I’d have to remember became Mrs. Engleson. She didn’t need her old husband any old day. Amy Campinelle said Mr. Portier did her a favor by diddly-dooing with Mrs. McGrander.

Last I heard of Mrs. McGrander-Baconbits, she was married to some gamillion-year-old man. I’d seen them riding around town in a fancy car. Mrs. Bacogrits had done something weird to her eyes, her hair was a frizzled mess—Rebekha said it was a Phyllis Diller Do—and she carried a look like she just ate five-hundred-year-old dog poop. Amy Campinelle told Rebekha she was an example of vanity and surgery gone all wrong. Sometimes things just worked out right for some people and it worked out right for Mrs. Portier turned Engleson, and maybe not for Mrs. Baconbits.

I didn’t have a birthday card from Momma. She hardly called and sent letters or cards even less. Daddy didn’t try to stop us from writing or talking to her anymore, but Momma wasn’t home much. The phone would ring and ring all hollow and empty in my ear. The last phone call I had from her was three months before. She carried on about how Harold was gone. I heard Aunt Ruby in the background saying, “Who needs the asshole?” Micah and Andy wouldn’t talk to her or even about her. Only I still tried with Momma. She didn’t have anybody else, except that Aunt Ruby.

Wayne rode towards me, pulled my mind off Momma. He stopped in front of me, legs to either side of his bike. I did the same. He wore dark-framed glasses and his golden brown hair was always falling in his milk-chocolate flavored eyes. He smoothed it back and it just fell right back. I hadn’t seen him since school let out.

“Hey, Virginia Kate.”

“Hey, Wayne.”

“Where you off to?”

“To the store.” I didn’t want to tell him I was going to buy candy. I wanted to seem skinny and starving. “I’m twelve today.” I flipped my hair, but it was in a plait, so it didn’t do me any good.

He looked where my new bra was under my shirt and then looked away quick. “Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks.” I wondered what he saw when he looked at me there.

“How’s Micah?”

“Fine. He’s off . . . somewhere. How come you aren’t friends anymore?”

“Maybe I like his sister better.”

This was my birthday and I was tired of yapping with Wayne. “Well, bye now.”

“Oh, okay. See ya.” But he didn’t move as he watched me get back on my bike. “You look older than twelve, Virginia Kate.”

I pedaled off. Looking back, I noticed how his calves were strong and grown up as he rode away in the other direction.

At the Seven Eleven, I leaned my bike against the wall. It had a banana seat, the old red bike with the streamers given away to some other girl. Inside, I bought an
Archie
comic book, a
Little Lotta
,
Richie Rich
, a pack of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum, and two Zero bars—one for me and one for Jade.

I tore off to Jade’s house. While riding, I let my mind fly around from one thing to the next. If my mind went to Daddy and the floozy, I jerked it back over to something happy. The crepe myrtles were blooming all over the place. I smelled flowers, and the fishy smell from the lake. People jogged around, even though it was hot enough to melt a ton of Zeros in one-half a second. Jade and I would have to lick all the white chocolaty stuff off the paper, but that was fun, too.

Sometimes I felt my mountain calling to me, but I had to push it way deep inside, so far inside that it was lost and away. That’s just what I did as I pedaled faster and faster and faster, away from all my thoughts.

At Jade’s house, I hollered up to her window. “Hurry up and come out!”

She ran out to her bike in her shorts and a midriff top, her long skinny legs and arms looking like a boiled crawfish from her vacation at the beach. I stared at her. She’d cut her hair short as a boy’s and it was turned almost white. She rode out to me. “Hey, Vee.” She was the only one besides Micah that ever called me Vee.

“Hey. You’re sunburned, and all your hair’s gone.” I gawked at her some more.

“Yeah. My mom had a fit about the hair, but I did it anyway.”

“You did it yourself?”

“Uh huh. I took the scissors and went whackety whack. Mom drug me to her hairdresser to fix it.” She touched her hair and then pulled on it. “It feels cool and I like it. It’s sort of like Twiggy, don’t you think? But, anyway I’m glad I did it.”

“I think you look good with it like that.” I grinned at her to show it was all okay that she looked so different.

She looked at my legs. “How come I can’t be like you? Stupid white legs of mine just get red.”

I shrugged. “It’s in the molecules.”

“Stupid molecules.”

I thought her molecules looked better than mine any day. “I got you a Zero.”

“Grooooooovy.”  She said as we pedaled off, “There’s a girl in my class who looks like
The Flying Nun
.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Everybody calls her
The Shying Nun
because she won’t talk to anyone, “Jade said. “The real nuns don’t like
The Flying Nun
and tell us to be quiet.”

“Weird.” I didn’t understand Catholics, but they had some interesting rules.

We rode until time for lunch at Soot and Marco’s. When we went in, Soot said, “Hey! Whatchoo doing?” They’d bought the diner and fixed it where it wasn’t dirty anymore, but still smelled like fried foods and beer. Soot’s hair was shorter and it swung around her shoulders like a movie star. She hugged me, gave me a kiss on the cheek. Her lips were cool and her arms were strong. She hugged and kissed Jade, then said, “Love the hair, Miss Jade.” Her eyebrows cocked up, “Put vinegar on your burn. That’ll take the heat right out.”

“Okay, Soot,” Jade said.

“It’s my twelfth birthday today.” I grinned up a storm.

“Well, you two setchore selves down then.” Soot handed us menus.

I said, “Soot, I want a hamburger po-boy, fried potatoes, and a Cola-coke.”

“And I want a cheeseburger, onion rings, and a coke.” Jadesta looked at me. “Would you quit saying Cola-coke, and orange-coke, and stuff?” But she was laughing, since I was the Queen of Birthday Land and everything I said went.

Soot said, “I’ve never made a hamburger po-boy, but why not? It’s on the house, for your birthday.”

“No, I have money.” I pulled Mee Maw’s birthday money from my pocket, laying it on the table for everyone to admire.

“Free ice cream then, how’s about that?”

Jade and I nodded our heads, grinning like downright fools.

Marco walked over, stood behind Soot, and she leaned back into him. “Look at this here, a rich woman fixin’ to spee-und her money at our place.”

“Go fry stuff, big galoot,” Soot said.

After we ate, Soot served my ice cream with a candle in it. Everyone in the diner had ice cream, and they all sang Happy Birthday to Me. I was about to bust wide open with joy. I left her a whole two-dollar tip, putting it under my plate as I’d seen Daddy do, then Jade and I headed off on our bikes, our stomachs sticking out with all the food. We rode around the campus, went to the library (and I was sure glad I didn’t see Daddy and the Mini Dress Helmet Hair), went to the lake and fed the ducks old bread Soot gave us, watched boys throw the football at the field.

When the clock on campus boinged five times, we hightailed it to my house. When I put my comic books and gum in my room, Jade said, “It still looks like cotton candy in here.”

I nodded, rolling my eyes.

Rebekha had decorated the dining room in blue, white, and yellow—no pink to be found. The food was spread on top of a blue and white checkered tablecloth. There were fried shrimp, fried oysters, and more fried potatoes. The Campinelles brought jambalaya, and Miss Darla brought potato salad with extra onions. On the sideboard was a dark chocolate cake, and written in blue icing was Happy Birthday Virginia Kate.

Colored balloons were tied to the chair at the front of the table, where Rebekha pointed. “This is the Birthday Girl’s chair of honor.”

My face was warm, but Miss Priss sure sat in the chair. Everyone else sat down and we began filling our plates. The girls told Jade her haircut was fetching. The boys looked at her and shrugged, they didn’t care—except Andy—some boys were funny about hair and some weren’t.

“You cut off’n your hair. Why?” Andy asked.

Jade ignored him and talked with Miss Darla about dance. Jade had jazz, ballet, and tap posters all over her room. Her parents were always leaving stuff about piano and violin class on her dresser. Jade’s father told her, “Become a lawyer like me, or get married and volunteer like your mommy. Forget all this silly dance stuff. You’ll never be taken seriously.” Jade put on her sweet eyes and kept her feet right in first position.

I kept catching her giving the googly eye to Micah, even though just last week, Jade and I’d made a solemn swear pact that our brothers didn’t count as boys since they were brothers. Micah didn’t even seem to notice her, except when he said, “Your Wonder Bread skin looks like it’s got Tabasco spread on it.”

I felt bad for Jade; she wilted right up like a crushed magnolia bloom, a Catholic one.

Andy elbowed Micah, and said to Jade, “I’m going to be an astronaut and go to the moon. The moon looks real white.”

“Me, to the moon. Me, too.” Bobby was ready to blast off right from his seat.

“Uh huh.” Jade turned to Miss Darla again. “Did you have lots of boyfriends, Miss Darla? Or maybe you have lots now?”

“I had the cutest boys when I was a young girl. Lining up at my doorstep, they were. I remember one, named Jimmy Dodd. He was so handsome.” Miss Darla sighed, then said, “That boy sure could kiss.”

Jade said, “I can’t wait to kiss.”

I looked over at Andy to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. I said, “Well, I can sure wait.”

Miss Darla said, “You won’t be thinking that forever, Virginia Kate.”

“Let’s hope she’ll be thinking that way for a long time.” Daddy had the bourbon bottle and a glass bucket of ice setting on the table so the grown-ups could help themselves. Only Daddy helped himself.

Rebekha cut her shrimp with a fork. “What ever happened to Jimmy Dodd, Miss Darla? Could you look him up? Maybe he’s been searching for you all these years.”

“I can’t, because he’s gone from this earth.” She fiddled with her necklace. “He’s in a spirits’ place. You don’t think black holes and space are full of nothing but darkness and rock, do you? Or astronauts flying in silly machines? No. The spirits that were once us dance on stars, or the moon, and watch over those they love. They soak up all the light they can, then, when they’re ready, and when their loved ones are ready,  they head into the empty black and bring their light to dark places.” She stared out the window like she was looking at that place. “Anyway, once I’m on the moon soaking up my light, and if I’m allowed to see him, I’ll ask him to forgive me for hurting him like I did.”

Mister Husband cleared his throat, said, “The only love I’ll ever have is my Amy. She’s the best thing that ever did happen to me.” He turned red over his already pinked-up cheeks. “I was a mess before she came around.” Amy Campinelle leaned over and kissed Mister Husband on the cheek. He said to her, “We should’ve had kids, Amy. Think how good-looking they’d be.” Amy Campinelle fed him a shrimp, and then he fed her one.

“How lovely,” Miss Darla said.

Micah said in my ear, “How gross.” He stuffed fifty-two shrimp and eight hundred fried potatoes in his mouth, and when some of it fell out onto his plate, he put it back in and chewed like a cow with its cud.

I couldn’t help but snicker at the look on Jade’s face.

Andy burped out loud a couple of times, even after Rebekha asked him to please stop. He said, “I’m sorry, they just keep popping out before I can stop them.”

Bobby was already whining for cake, hitting his food with his fists.

The whole room was loud with noise and happy feelings.

I sent mind messages to Daddy,
Eat and smile, Daddy, come on, you can do it
.

Rebekha watched Daddy, too. She reached over and touched his arm and he winked at her.

After we finished eating, Rebekha cleared the dishes, and then put the cake in front of me with twelve blue candles and a white one to grow on. For the second time, I heard Happy Birthday, made a wish and blew out the candles.

I wished for Daddy to put the bourbon down the sink himself, forever and ever. I wished for Momma to call me, even though I was mad at her. In the middle of my wishes, Daddy put ice in his glass, and poured in the booze. I didn’t expect the phone to ring either.