Tomato Girl (15 page)

Mary cracked the door, a little at first, then a bit wider, and we both stepped inside. Mary first, then me.

Mama was sound asleep, her arm curled around her head. Her eyelids looked pink and swollen, which told me she'd been crying.

“Let's not wake her,” I said, trying not to cry myself.

We left the tray by her bed and tiptoed away.

Mary and I went across the hall to get Jellybean. He'd tipped over his box and sat on the middle of the bed. I scooped him up in my hands and nuzzled his soft head.

“So these are her things?” Mary asked as she walked around my room looking at Tess's clothes and belongings. Mary opened the lid to the small suitcase where Tess kept all her Avon and other cosmetics. She pulled the lid from one of the small white sample tubes and traced her lips in a deep plum color. “My mother still can't believe that the tomato girl is living with you,” Mary said, rubbing her lips together the way women do. Without a tissue to blot the excess, the dark color smeared outside the lines of her lips.

“Yes? What did she say?” I knew Mrs. Roberts would have an opinion.

“My mother said she didn't want to pry or make your Daddy mad, but she said opening your home to that girl will bring more trouble than you ever dreamed. She said the whole Reed family has bred nothing but drunks and whores.”

“Let's go,” I said and headed for the door with Jellybean cupped in my hands. I didn't want to talk about Tess and her drunk father.

I
N THE KITCHEN
, Mary and I cut ourselves thick slices of cake and poured glasses of cold milk. Mary took the tray to the crab apple tree. I carried Jellybean.

Settled in the grass, Mary fed Jellybean yellow crumbs from her cake. “I wish I could hold my mother's finches,” Mary said, “but they are so fast they get away, and so small that if you squeeze them too hard, all their bones will break.”

The mention of tiny bones breaking made me feel sick. I tried to get my mind off the dead baby and onto something else. It felt good just to sit cross-legged in the tall grass. So much had happened in the past few days, happy times seemed far away.
I missed being in school, passing notes to Mary Roberts, or listening to Miss Wilder read. But I missed times after school most of all, going to the store to help Daddy, or visiting Mary Roberts's house.

I suggested we play a game, but then we couldn't decide which one. Mary wanted to play catalogs, but with all the trouble over Tess and Mama's dead baby, picking husbands and babies didn't seem like so much fun now.

“I'm tired of catalogs,” I said, brushing the cake crumbs from my lap. “What about checkers?”

Mary stroked Jellybean's head. “Nah, checkers are boring.”

“We could play store. I could bring out some Jell-O boxes and cans. You can be the grocer.”

“You left your Monopoly game at my house, remember? We can't play store without money.”

Mary Roberts thinks of everything.

“Well, let's just walk around until we get an idea.”

Mary agreed. She carried Jellybean while I ran our plates and glasses back the kitchen. I almost went upstairs to check on Mama, but didn't want to risk waking her.

I hurried back outside to find Mary walking toward my father's shed, where he and Tess stood watering tomato plants on Mr. Morgan's truck bed. I ran to catch up.

“You girls want to help us set out these tomatoes in the garden?” Daddy asked, smoothing his hair back with his hands. His nails were black with dirt.

Tess hardly noticed us as she traced her fingers along each green leaf, checking the pale undersides for aphids. She pinched off yellow leaves and tossed them to the ground.

Normally, I loved working in the garden. Knowing seeds would take root and send up tiny green tendrils was the closest thing to magic I knew. But I didn't want to help plant a garden for Tess.

Lined up on the back of Mr. Morgan's truck, the potted plants
covered two thirds of the bed. This would take up most of our small garden. I didn't understand why Tess needed so many or why they had to be planted at all. She didn't live with us and had her own home. “Why do you need to set the plants in the garden if Tess is only going to be here until Mama is well?”

Daddy picked up a plant in each hand. “This is Tess's home for as long as she wants to stay. Besides, we have no idea how long your mother may need help. While Tess is living here, I want her to have a garden.”

“Well, I don't want to help,” I said.

“Me neither,” Mary agreed.

Daddy frowned and shrugged his shoulders. “Suit yourselves.”

M
ARY AND
I
CLIMBED
into my tree house and sat on the braided rug my mother had given me to cover the rough wood floor. We played Go Fish while Jellybean napped. My hands began to fill with cards, and I knew I'd soon lose the game.

Mary peeked through the pink curtains. “Looks like your Daddy's planning to keep that tomato girl around for a long time.”

After losing, I dealt us both a new hand. “I don't know, Mary. I've seen Daddy kiss her.” I felt ashamed to tell the secret, but needed someone to give me advice. “What if that means he loves her?”

“Well, don't worry.” Mary picked up her cards. “He can't leave your mother with a baby on the way.”

I couldn't bring myself to tell Mary how the baby had been born dead. She was my best friend and knew many secrets, but I just couldn't tell Mary we had a dead baby in the freezer. I couldn't tell anyone.

“Besides,” Mary added, “once your daddy sees that girl have a seizure, foaming at the mouth like a mad dog, he's not going to want her.”

A little reassured, I picked up my cards and waited for Mary
to arrange hers the way she wanted. While she spread her cards into a fan, I looked out my tree house window into the yard. I saw Daddy grab his hoe. He walked to the garden and drew long furrows in the ground, then plowed through Mama's blue pansies as if they weren't there.

B
LACK CROWS PICKED
at bits of blue flowers. Their oily feathers shone as they tossed around Mama's pansies in search of food.

“I think you should go now,” I said to Mary Roberts.

She leaned across my lap to look through the window. She gasped before dropping her handful of cards. They swirled in a current of wind and fell to the ground like small kites. Startled, the crows cawed, flapped their wings, then continued to chew on Mama's plowed flowers.

I'm not a superstitious girl. My ears don't burn when somebody talks about me. I've never been afraid to walk under ladders and don't fret over broken mirrors. The only superstitions I ever believed were ones about luck: rabbits' feet, four-leaf clover, found pennies, and first stars. But as more black crows gathered, a strange feeling came over me. The dark feathers, the eyes that looked like stones: these were bad signs.

A few crows waited in the trees while others flocked on the ground to peck at the flowers. Three times they cawed to each other, then grew still. My skin prickled at their silence.

T
ESS DIDN'T WANT
me to move into Mama's room. She threw herself on my bed and stretched out on her stomach. “Why don't you like me?” she asked, her lower lip poked out as if she could make me feel sorry for her.

I folded my nightgown and shoved it inside a grocery bag. “It isn't that, Tess. It's just … well, I need to go.”

“If you liked me, you'd stay.”

“I just want to be with Mama.”

“It's because of the pansies, isn't it? Your daddy already explained they were going to die anyway. Mites had gotten into them. We had to spray my tomato plants just to plant them in the same bed. Besides, your mama needs rest. She won't be able to tend to a garden this spring.”

“I could have watered Mama's pansies for her. And there are sprays to kill mites. Daddy sells them at the store.”

“Your daddy just didn't think of that, Ellie. He's had a lot on his mind.” Tess frowned again.

I wanted to come back with something clever, but couldn't think of anything, so I kept packing. Only so many things fit inside a paper bag, so I chose the most important, knowing I could always come back tomorrow. Down the hall is not far to travel.

Tess could pout and brood on her own. “I want to be with my mother. It's where I belong.”

“Well, I don't want to sleep in here by myself. There's too many strange noises. Tree branches tapping on the window and Jellybean scratching the floor of his box. Just the other night, a mouse was chewing on the lamp cord. I heard his little teeth hit each other.”

She was making up excuses. The tree limbs barely reached the window; we didn't have any mice; and Jellybean never woke in the dark. Still, I didn't want to argue. “Well, Jellybean will be with me, so you won't hear him. Daddy can set a mousetrap and trim back the tree limbs. Just ask him. He'll do anything you want.” I tried not to say the word you louder than the other
words, but couldn't help myself. None of this would have happened if Tess hadn't come to our home. Daddy would be caring for Mama, sleeping in the room with her. Her pansies would be blooming in the garden. Maybe, just maybe, the baby would not have died.

“You don't understand.” Reaching over the edge of the bed, Tess grabbed the paper sack from my hand and turned it upside down.

My clothes, shoes, and toothbrush fell to the floor.

“Tess!” My hands went to my hips and I stood there like a mother scolding her child.

“Don't be mad at me, Ellie,” she begged, tilting her head to one side and wrinkling her forehead. “I don't like to be alone in the dark. Don't you ever feel afraid when you open your eyes and see nothing but black? Afraid to reach out because you don't know what's there? Don't leave me, Ellie.”

Kneeling on the floor, I picked up my belongings and crammed them back inside the paper sack.

My feelings were as jumbled as a shoebox full of crayons. I hated Tess for the way she treated Mama, taking over the kitchen and garden, moving Daddy into the sewing room, sending the ghost dress to the hospital. I hated her cucumber sandwiches, her pouty red lips, and the way she drew my father's eyes like a magnet.

And yet, Tess wasn't all bad. She'd been like a big sister, playing Avon Lady and dress-up. She'd given me kissing lessons and my first Kotex. She could be mean, but with the epilepsy, no mother, and a dirty father who did awful things to her, maybe she didn't know better.

Still, my mother needed me. More and more, Tess had my father, leaving only me to care for Mama.

If not for Tess, maybe Mama wouldn't have gone back into her sad world or sent the baby to the freezer. Even if Daddy couldn't have saved the baby, he would have been here when it died. He'd
have known what to say to Mama. He would have buried the baby in the ground where dead things belonged.

“Well?” Tess waited for an answer.

My eyes stung, but hard blinks kept me from crying. Yes, I knew what it was like to be scared. I felt scared all the time. My whole life I'd been afraid of Mama's dark places taking her for good, scared that those same places might live inside me. Now I feared that Tess would take away my father, and my mother might grow so sad I wouldn't know how to make her smile again.

But I didn't owe Tess an answer. She'd taken too much. I wouldn't give her anything else. Sometimes you have to hold onto what you have, even if the only thing left is fear.

I grabbed Jellybean, dragged my sack down the hall, and moved into Mama's room.

“H
AVE YOU SEEN
the baby, Ellie?” Mama asked. She lay in the bed and stared at the ceiling.

I tucked my bag inside one of Daddy's empty dresser drawers. The unfinished wood smelled of his aftershave. I inhaled deeply, as if I could breathe Daddy back into this room. “No, Mama. I've spent the day playing with Mary and Jellybean.”

The saucer by the bed told me she'd hardly eaten any of the cake. “Mama, you have to eat something. Didn't you like the cake? Mrs. Roberts made it for you, a get well present.”

She touched the blue pansies on the tray, her fingers stroking the skirt-shaped petals. “I'm worried about the baby, Ellie. So cold, it's so cold in the freezer. And the basement gets completely dark; there's only that slit for a window. Babies are always afraid of the dark.”

“It's not too dark. Daddy put a new lightbulb in the freezer about a week ago.”

Seeming satisfied, she settled back against her pillow and looked at me. Her brow furrowed, which meant something troubled her. “He's got to have a name, Ellie. I haven't been able to think of
one. It's like my head's thick with clouds,” she said, scrubbing her temples with her fists.

Climbing on the bed, I placed my hands over hers. “Easy, Mama. Your head will feel better if you rub like this.”

Her hands slowed under mine.

“There, that's better. You'll think of a good name later, Mama. Try not to worry about that right now.” I offered her some cake. “You have to eat to keep up your strength.” I said it steady and firm, just like she used to tell me to eat my chicken soup when I had a cold.

She opened her mouth and took a bite of buttery cake. Mama didn't bother to take the fork in her hand or to wipe the yellow crumbs from her lips, but let me feed her the way a mother feeds a baby. This is how her mind works, wrapping itself so tight around a thought or idea she cannot remember simple things like feeding herself.

After finishing the cake, Mama wanted to know about Daddy and Tess. Her eyes darted around the room as if she expected to see Tess standing in a corner, eavesdropping. “She doesn't come around me, did you notice?”

I placed the empty saucer on the bedside table and walked into the bathroom to get a wet cloth to clean her mouth. The clothes hamper with the bloody gown and panties reminded me I'd need to move them before Tess did the laundry. Maybe I'd sneak them to the basement or to the trash can beside Daddy's toolshed. Washing them myself would be too risky.