Color the Sidewalk for Me (22 page)
“Yeah, but I don't know that much about it.”
Her mouth hung open. “You don't know much about Saturday Night Fever? It's only the biggest movie anywhere. And the Bee Gees? And disco?”
I raised my hands, palms up.
“Well, come on!” she cried happily. “I'll teach you how to do the Latin Hustle!”
Dancing. I managed a smile. Wouldn't Mama have a fit.
W
illiam, I need the use a your car fer a spell, if you don't mind,” Granddad announced as he rose from the supper table.
William, My hands were in soapsuds, scrubbing Mama's black roasting pan while she put food away. Our tacit agreement of silence wafted between us like winter air seeping underneath a weather-beaten door. Scraping mashed potatoes into a plastic container, Mama stopped with the bowl in midair when she heard Granddad's request. I kept my head down, scouring, blowing strands of hair away from the sides of my mouth. But my ears were pricked.
“Where ya goin', Granddad?” Kevy asked.
“Just need to run an errand, that's all. Won't be gone long.”
“Can I go?”
“Nope.” Granddad was pushing in his chair. “Got to take care a this on my own, Master Kevin.”
I figured I knew where he was goingâto the store for the packaging he needed to mail his medals.
“Daddy,” Mama said, “you know you shouldn't be drivin'.”
He headed out of the kitchen, muttering that he knew nothing of the sort.
“William,” Mama hissed. “Do somethin'.”
Daddy shrugged. “Like what?”
“Go with him!” She set down the bowl of mashed potatoes with a bang. “What if he has one of his heart spells on the way?”
“He can't be goin' far, Estelle. He'll be all right.”
“Oh, William, you're no help at all.”
My mouth moved before I thought. “Maybe he'll let me go.”
I could feel Mama's glare at my back. I scrubbed the pan harder, smugly satisfied over her ambivalence at my suggestion. Sending me off with a secretive Granddad would only strengthen our bond against her. But at least I'd keep an eye on him.
“Well, you can ask.” Her voice was grudging.
But Granddad eased off in Daddy's car on his own, headed toward town. When I turned from our living room window, Mama gave me a look. Daddy settled into his chair with a book while Kevy banged out the back door to play on the swing. I escaped to my room.
At Granddad's request I walked him to the post office the next day, after the worst heat had passed. The medals on his bookcase had disappeared, and a large manila envelope, painstakingly packaged with protective stuffing and addressed to Lawrence Tremaine at the
Lexington Herald,
was now clutched in his hand.
“Did you remember to fill out the form that reporter sent you?” I asked, holding his arm as he negotiated the porch steps.
“Don't you worry none,” he chuckled. “I done this up right.” He'd spent some time on the phone before lunch, while Mama and Kevy were out. “I need some privacy now, missy,” he'd said as he picked up the receiver. I'd managed to look indignant. Eavesdropping on Mama was one thing but I wouldn't do that to Granddad.
“You must be excited,” I remarked after we'd walked a block and a half down Main. About five blocks ahead the post office flagpole thrust into the hazy blue sky. Granddad was walking slower already. Fortunately, we weren't going all the way to Tull's. There was a bench under the shade of a maple tree outside the post office where he could rest awhile before we started back.
“Yep.”
I was not looking forward to seeing Mrs. B. Loose-mouthed old hen. Sure enough, the minute Granddad and I stepped into the building, she started clucking. “Well, look who's here,” she said ever so sweetly, patting her red-haired bun. “Good to see you, Thomas. Celia. Out helpin' your granddad, are you?”
I smiled tightly. I could well imagine what she was thinking, looking at me. She and Mama had probably yakked a blue streak since Wednesday night.
“Afternoon, Eva,” Granddad replied, leaning tiredly against the counter. “Your hands treatin' you fair today?”
She held out freckled fingers. “They're okay today, thank you. Still, I used to think I'd be workin' for ages after Frank retires, but now I'm not so sure.” Mr. B. had been made manager of the lumber mill immediately following the strike that occurred when I was six years old. “Oh, well.” She sighed. “So whatcha got for me, Thomas?”
Granddad placed his envelope on the counter. “I'm sendin' this here package to Governor Julian Carroll hisself,” he declared, “by way of a reporter in Lexington. But before I do, I need to know you'll take good care of it.”
“Well, of course I will.”
Granddad's eyes narrowed. “Ya ain't in on no funny stuff with Jake Lewellyn at my expense, are ya?”
“I don't know what you mean.”
“I mean, you're not fixin' to take this after I done mailed it and give it to him?”
She inhaled slowly, drawing to her full height and spreading a hand across her chest. “Certainly not, Thomas Bradley,” she retorted huffily. “This is the U.S. mail. It's my job to send it and receive it, not tamper with it!”
Granddad's mouth twitched. I turned away, pretending to gaze out the window so she wouldn't see my amusement.
“Well then, see that it gits there.” The envelope scraped softly over the counter.
I contained my giggles until Granddad and I were parked on the bench outside Mrs. B.'s little kingdom. “You sure gave her a hard time.” “Yep.” Granddad braced himself against the back slats of the green bench, his legs spraddled, hands on his thighs. He looked highly pleased with himself. He hadn't really been concerned about Mrs. B.'s working in cahoots with Mr. Lewellyn. He'd just given her a little grief on my account, and I could have hugged him for it.
“I've never liked her,” I commented.
Granddad gazed across the street. “She's a fine woman, missy, just talkative, that's all. She has to watch her words sometimes; I have to watch my pride. We all got our own weaknesses. But Eva, she's had to face a lot a things. When her son, Henry, was alive, that boy was her life. He was only two years older'n your mama, you know. And a fine young man. Fine indeed. His dyin' broke our hearts.”
Vainly I sought a response, struck by the unexpected sorrow flickering across Granddad's features. His eyes remained focused afar, and the specter of something ancient and forlorn brushed my shoulders. I shook it away. “I know November's a long time to wait to see your medals again,” I ventured softly, “but it'll be worth it, with the whole family goin' to watch. I hope.”
He knew what I meant. Grinning suddenly, he jutted out his chin. “It sure will.”
“Well, Celia,” Granddad said when we were two blocks from home, “tomorrow's Saturday. You'll be goin' to the river, I expect.”
His feigned casualness didn't fool me for a minute. He's been waiting our entire outing to say this, I thought as a rock fell into my stomach. Danny was not a subject I wanted to discuss. “Why, Granddad? Danny doesn't want to see me.”
“You don't know that.”
“He stood me up twice.”
“That don't mean he don't want to see you. It just means he's afraid.”
“Afraid of what? That I'll scream at him and push him like he did me?”
“No, missy. Afraid a bein' his real self. You see, I know. When I was Danny's age, I was head over heels in love.”
We had reached a corner, and I took his arm to help him step down. “With Grandmama, you mean.”
“Nope. This was but a slip of a girl, only fourteen years old.” He laughed lightly. “I knew I didn't dare touch her, she was so young. Her daddy'd be after me with a shotgun, sure's you're livin'. About all I could do was pine away. Then, afore I got the nerve to tell her how things was, I found myself eighteen and signin' up for the army, yammerin' to everybody about how I was finally goin' to see the world. That was the first time I served in the military, way before World War II. Anyway, by the time I got back four years later, she'd done married and gone.”
The thought of Danny with anyone else turned my insides to ice. “But you got married to Grandmama eventually.”
“Yep. And I loved Adele somethin' fierce, once I got over that little girl. But I was lucky. Love like that don't always come knockin' twice.” He patted my hand. “What I'm tryin' to tell you is, you need to go back and give it one more chance.”
My throat tightened at the thought of waiting futilely for Danny, hope drifting away with the river's current. “I just can't go through that again, Granddad.”
We were at the corner of Minton and Main, an overhanging willow tree dancing shadows across his eyes. “You givin' up already?” he asked gently. “I thought Danny Cander was worth fightin' for.”
I scuffed my shoe against a crack in the cement. “He is.”
“Then go at it like the angel Michael, missy.”
“I can't. I'm too tired of it all.”
Granddad grunted in acknowledgment. “I remember thinkin' that many a time on the battlefield. When my heart was like a ball a lead, aching for the dead all around me, thinking I was goin' to lose an arm or a leg any minute. Those times I just wanted to give up and let 'em kill me.
“And then I'd git up and fight.”
T
he heavens still decried no sign of rain as Kevy and I walked down Main Street. Lawns were turning brown and folks moved like slugs in the heat. When I passed Tull's, I tried not to think of Danny but failed miserably. His actions that day should have convinced me we could not surmount our differences. Crossing the tracks, veering into the field, I told myself I was merely taking Kevy fishing, that Danny wouldn't be there and I didn't care. When school started, I'd float right by him, trailing in my wake a half dozen boys who wanted me. I'd flirt with Bobby, make eyes at Randy or Lyle, maybe even sneak off to Albertsville in Mary Lee's car to meet boys.
I just about had myself convinced, too, when I glimpsed a figure perched on the highest boulder on the riverbank.
I've sometimes thought that life's essence is a series of pictures emblazoned on the walls of my mind, each capturing the passion of a certain time. My mother's face after I colored the sidewalk for her. Baby Kevy's first smile. Granddad's animated expression as he perched in his chair at Tull's, Jake Lewellyn's bulldog jowls reddened and Hank Jenkins' mouth in a wide guffaw. My brother's panic-stricken eyes as he bobbed helplessly in the swift current. And now Danny, seated on the rock in one-quarter profile, elbows resting on bent knees, fingers idly linked, the curve of his spine trailing down his green shirt. He was looking across the water, his figure cut out and pasted against the cloudless sky.
Kevy called a joyous greeting and Danny's head jerked around. I felt my mouth open to form some witty remark as we approached. “Hi,” I said.
His smile was tentative as he jumped down. “Hi back.”
My heart scudded as he playfully traded punches with Kevy. “Hey, fisherman of Bradleyville, mind if your sister and I git under some shade while you set to work?”
“Okay,” Kevy replied, disappointed, “but will you talk to me later, too?”
Danny promised he would.
We walked upriver in awkward silence. He's come to say he won't be seeing me anymore, I thought. By the time we reached our oak canopy, I had steeled myself, and I boldly sat facing him when he sank cross-legged into the soft grass. Our knees were an inch apart, my hands a mere movement from his. I wasn't about to make it easy by sitting beside him where he wouldn't have to look at me.
He focused for a while on his own lap. The silence was uncomfortable but I refused to break it. “I'm sorry,” he said quietly. “I'm real sorry for the way I done you.”