“But it ain't my turn!” Marny stamped her foot and glared at me.
“Hush up and do them dishes like I told you,” Mama said, lighting a cigarette and blowing a stream of smoke up to the ceiling.
“She ain't never even here, Mama,” Marny whined. “The only thing she does here is sleep. Why don't she just go on and move in with that old geezer and his retard helper or son or whatever the hell he is.”
Mama did what I wanted to do. Slapped her silly. I figured I'd just sit back and enjoy the show. But then Mama whirled around and grabbed my shoulder with her bird-claw fingers and give me a shake. “What you grinning at? You get yourself in there and finish that laundry.”
I didn't give Marny the satisfaction of looking her way as
I walked back to the washing machine. I put the wet T-shirts and jeans and underwear in the laundry basket and went out back to the clothesline.
I was nearly done when I heard my name.
“Jennalee!”
I looked up.
“Look at me, Jennalee!”
What do you think was coming toward me but Rupert Goody on a bicycle.
“Jennalee!” he called again. He stared at the ground with his eyebrows squeezed together, holding on to that bicycle so hard the veins were about to pop right out of his hands. Every now and then, the front wheel would start to wobbling and Rupert's smile would drop into a look of sheer panic.
He kept pedaling till he run right into the wet clothes and fell over into the dirt. He jumped up and brushed hisself off. “Did you see me on the bicycle, Jennalee?”
My smile came natural. I didn't even know it was coming till it came. When I felt myself smiling and saw my hand reach up to give Rupert a high five, I couldn't help but think about how quick things can change. Just last week, I'd've probably said, “Of course I seen you. You dern near run me over, you idiot!” But now here I was in my yard, picking up Rupert's bike and saying, “That was some real good bike riding, Rupert. I couldn't hardly believe my eyes.”
“Uncle Beau's waitin' on the lumber man and then we can go,” Rupert said.
Uncle Beau had decided that what we needed to do was
go ruby mining. “Ain't no reason to sit around whining like a bunch of crybabies,” he had said. “A day over in Cherokee'll be just what the doctor ordered.”
“But we ought to be here in case they do something we don't like,” I protested. “What if they don't leave room for the produce stand or forget which side the dairy case is gonna go on?”
But Uncle Beau wouldn't listen. He wanted to go to Cherokee. Maybe it was breaking his heart as much as it was mine to see that pile of ashes that used to be the store. We'd poked around afterwards and found a few pitiful remnants of our lives before the fire. The blackened counter stool. A half-melted cashbox. The soda-machine key on a charred beam. But most everything else was a pile of ruin, except the porch, standing there all alone with the bargain table and the rocking chairs and the glider.
Uncle Beau had set up a cot back in Rupert's shed. Jake had wandered around the parking lot for a few days, then settled on a spot in the corner of the porch. Rupert's mangy cat run off for a while. Rupert stayed up half the night, calling, “Here, kitty, kitty,” and leaving sardines out by the woods, till it finally came back.
The insurance company was going to pay for a new store. Me and Uncle Beau had made a solemn vow and promise never to tell Rupert that them men from the fire department said it was the hot plate caused the fire.
“I ain't eating another pinto bean as long as I live,” Uncle Beau had said.
“Me neither,” I said.
Now the construction guys were coming to start Uncle Beau's new store and my biggest worry was that they weren't gonna make it just the way it was before. But Uncle Beau said, “Don't worry, Gravel Gertie.”
So off we went to Cherokee, me, Uncle Beau, Rupert, and Jake. I read the signs out loud and Rupert repeated everything.
“Rocky Creek Family Campground. Pets welcome.”
“Rocky Creek Family Campground. Pets welcome.”
“Smoky Joe's Gift Shop. Two miles ahead.”
“Smoky Joe's Gift Shop. Two miles ahead.”
“Oops! You missed it! Smoky Joe's Gift Shop
1/2
mile back.”
“Oops! You missed it! Smoky Joe's Gift Shop
1/2
mile back.”
When we got to Cherokee, we went straight to Thelma's. Me and Rupert got the Big Chief Special. Uncle Beau got grits and ham biscuits. When it came time to pay, Uncle Beau patted his pockets.
“Damn, I left my money out in the truck. Jennalee, run out there and look in the glove box.”
I took a piece of bacon with me for Jake. I found Uncle Beau's money rolled up in a rubber band in the glove box. Beside it was Rupert's wallet. The bear-and-Indian-chief wallet.
Put that back, Jennalee, I told myself when I picked it up. That ain't yours, I said to myself when I opened it up. Stuff fell out onto the floor of the truck. I looked back at the
diner, then picked up the things that had fallen. Rupert's things. A picture of a dog torn out of a magazine. A score card from Starland Miniature Golf. The Lord's Prayer printed in gold on a paper napkin. The last thing I picked up was a piece of paper so creased and worn it felt like cloth. I reckon that paper must've been folded and unfolded about a million times. I opened it carefully. And then my stomach dropped right down to my feet with a thud when I read that paper.
North Carolina State Board of Health. Certificate of Birth. Name at Birth: Rupert Beauregarde Goody. I skipped over the stuff about the hospital and the doctor and went on down to the part that said Mother's Maiden Name: Hattie Belle Baker. And then Father's Name: Beauregarde Samuel Goody.
My hands were shaking so bad I couldn't hardly fold that paper back up.
I didn't say nothing on the way to the ruby mine. When we got there, I got my bucket and scooped and sieved and thought.
“I'll be right back,” I told Rupert. I hopped up on the back of the pickup next to Uncle Beau.
“Rupert's got a birth certificate,” I whispered to Uncle Beau.
He rubbed Jake behind the ears and nodded. “I know.”
I stared at him. “What you mean, you know?”
“I mean I know. I seen it.”
“Where?”
“He showed it to me.”
“When?”
“First day he come to Claytonville.”
Well, now, I didn't know what to think about that. I stared down at my sneakers, thinking things over for a minute. A wave of mad come over me.
“You mean all this time you known how I was thinking that was a cockamamy story about him being your son and you had proof right there on a piece of paper but you didn't tell me?” I said.
Uncle Beau kept scratching Jake. He opened his mouth to say something but I butted in.
“How come?” I felt the tears coming and tried to blink them away.
Uncle Beau put his hand on my knee. “Cause you needed more than a little ole piece of paper, Jennalee.” He squeezed my knee. “That piece of paper wouldn't've made you like Rupert any better. You had a wall built up too high, Gravel Gertie. Couldn't no piece of paper knock it down.”
I let Uncle Beau's words sink in and settle down and I knew he was right. I should've said, “You're right, Uncle Beau,” but I didn't. But I knew Uncle Beau didn't care about words. I put my hand on top of his and then Rupert called out, “I got one!”
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All the way home Rupert kept sorting through his rubies. Counting them. Putting them in piles by size and color.
“What you gonna do with all them rubies?” I said.
Rupert, he didn't pause for one tiny little second. Looked me right in the eye and said, “Make me a crown and call myself Queen of the World.”
Uncle Beau laughed so hard he had to pull the truck over to the side of the road. Rupert started poking me in the ribs, and the next thing you know, I'm laughing, too. The kind of laugh like I'd been needing for a long time.
“That sure cleans out the pipes, don't it?” Uncle Beau said, wiping his eyes and pulling back onto the highway. Me and Rupert nodded and we all settled into gazing at the sights along the way, feeling better about things and glad to be going home with our clean pipes.
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The day the new store opened, I reckon nearly everyone in Claytonville came by. Even mean ole Marny came with John Elliott. Me and Rupert taped balloons up everywhere. Roy Mattson brought some of them triangle flags from his used-car lot and me and Vernon hung them up out in the parking lot. Somebody put up a “Grand Opening” sign like the ones they have in the big stores like Winn-Dixie.
We gave everybody a raffle ticket for a free turkey and Uncle Beau put dried beans in a fish bowl and gave a clock radio to the closest guess. (Nine hundred and thirty-five. I counted.)
We tried our best to make the new store feel right. Uncle Beau got a couch from the Salvation Army and Vernon and his friends brought it in and put it in the same spot as the
old one. We put in a bench and a stool and even a calendar from Dixie Hardware and a lucky horseshoe over the door, just like before.
It was nice and clean and smelled good, but we all knew it was going to be a while before it felt like home. Uncle Beau said it just needed some life and that didn't come from a paint can, that come from living.
After folks went on home, me and Uncle Beau and Rupert set up the card table out on the porch. I think we took some comfort in being out there where things were old and used and familiar.
We played crazy eights till it was too dark to see. Then I sat on the steps with Rupert and listened to the squeak, squeak of the glider as Uncle Beau pushed it back and forth.
Before long, the squeaks stopped and Uncle Beau's chin dropped down on his chest and he started snoring that whistling kind of snore of his.
“What time is it, Jake?” Rupert said.
Thump-thump went that tail.
“Quittin' time,” I said.
I stood up and looked at Uncle Beau, his cheeks puffing out with every snore, his whomper-jawed hands laying limp in his lap. Then I stretched and yawned and said, “Button the door, Rupert.”