The Book of Bright Ideas (17 page)

Tommy turned back to face us and stepped back. He lifted the bag out of Winnalee's reach again. “A compass, you say. Dummies! You wouldn't need a compass if you took the road.”

“What road?” Winnalee asked, her fists stopping. “You said the beck was due west, through the woods.”

“It is. But you can get there by road too.”

I knew by one glance at Winnalee's narrowed eyes that she was plotting how to get Tommy to tell us the directions by road. “You lie! There aren't no roads to take to get there.”

“What, you think that nut ball cut through the woods on foot every time he had to go to town? I just told you how to get there through the woods because, obviously, if you go by road you're gonna get caught runnin' off before you even get ten feet down the road.”

“I don't believe you. Liar!” Winnalee said.

“I ain't lying. You just head down Peters Road here till you come to Marsh Road. Then ya hang a left. It's down the first road you come to on the left. The road with the dead-end sign.”

“I'm gonna go tell Aunt Verdella if you don't give us our bag and get out of here,” I said.

I didn't have to take more than one step before Tommy threw the bag at Winnalee's feet. “Here's your dumb bag,” he said. “And don't think I don't know what it's for either. It's stuff you're takin' along when you sneak off to look for stupid fairies. Well, hope you got some holy water in that bag too to protect you from evil ghosts, because you kiddies are gonna need it.” He grinned then, his ugly lips pulling back, the weed bobbing from between his pointy teeth. He turned while shaking his head. “You girls are so stupid,” he said as he picked up the water jug and started walking away.

“Oh, yeah?” Winnalee yelled after him. “At least we knew what a beck is. And at least we aren't mean. We don't go around trying to scare people, and we don't go around spilling people's mas!” She stuck her purple tongue out at Tommy.

Winnalee put the Kool-Aid package between her teeth, then hoisted herself up onto the branch, our adventure bag swinging from her shoulder, and scooted herself back up onto the flat part. “Come on up, Button.”

I climbed back up our tree and looked out at the hay field, where Tommy was heading. Uncle Rudy was riding the tractor, swiping long patches of hay down, making it keel over to lie flat against the ground. It would stay lying down until Uncle Rudy fluffed it up and made what I used to call “windows” until Uncle Rudy told me they were called “windrows.”

I liked the different shades of green that the hay made and the way it was sprinkled with other colors here and there. Especially at the edges, where the clover and a few daisies dotted the green waves with pink and purple and white flowers. When I was real little, Uncle Rudy had taken me out there and showed me what some of those grasses were. I thought it was fun grabbing the thread-skinny stalks of timothy and racing my hand to the top where the clump of seeds were, then tugging quick so that the little hard seeds pulled off in my hand.

“You listening to me, Button?”

I looked at Winnalee. “Yeah,” I said, even though I wasn't.

“I don't like the fact that Tommy saw our adventure bag,” Winnalee said. “He could rat on us.” She dipped her finger back in the Kool-Aid package and sucked on it, while she looked off at nothing, with skinnied eyes. “I think we'd better go see the fairies just as soon as we can, because if Tommy opens his big yap, then Aunt Verdella'll keep her eyes on us even more than she already does. Besides, if we don't do it, the next thing we know, summer will be over, and the fairies with it. I think they fly to find a warmer place when fall comes, just like the birds do, don't you? They aren't dressed very warm.”

Sometimes, when Winnalee talked like that, it was like the notion that fairies really
do
exist seemed stupid, and for a little bit I'd have to struggle to get back to believing in them all over again.

Winnalee held out the Kool-Aid package and I took another dip. “I think we need to just pick a date and sneak off then, no matter what is happening. We'll just say we're going outside to play, then we'll take off,” Winnalee said. “Today's Friday, so let's just plan on going Monday, or Tuesday.”

“Winnalee, we can't go then!”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because Tuesday is the Fourth of July.
Marty Graw!
”

“It's the Fourth of July on Tuesday? And what's a Marty Graw?”

“It's what Aunt Verdella calls our Fourth of July celebration, even though Ma says it's not a Marty Graw at all.”

“You got fireworks?”

“Yeah, and that's not all we got! We got a carnival too, and two parades!”

“Do we get to go to Marty Graw?” she asked.

“Course we do! Ma and Aunt Verdella were talking about it just this morning. We always spend the day in town on Marty Graw, and we have a picnic at the park. That's what they were talking about. What food to bring. After the fireworks, there's a dance at the park too, but we never get to stay for that.”

“Okay,” she said. “Then we'll go see the fairies on Monday! Then we'll have two magical days in a row!”

“We can't go on Monday, Winnalee. Because if we get caught, I'm gonna be in a heap of trouble, and Ma probably wouldn't let me go to Marty Graw then.”

“Okay, the day after Marty Graw, then,” she said doggedly.

“Button?” Aunt Verdella's voice boomed out of the window. “Your ma should be here to pick you up any minute. You girls come in and clean up now, okay?”

“Okay,” I yelled back. We leapt down from the tree, and Winnalee got on her knees to put our bag back into the hollow of the tree.

“I don't know if it's a good idea, leaving our bag in the tree. Tommy might come back and steal it.”

“Nah,” Winnalee said. “I don't think he even saw the hole. And even if he did, it's not like he'd have a reason to go digging in there. You can't see the bag when we shove it far back. Anyway, Tommy's too dumb to figure out that we'd leave it here.”

As we headed toward the house, Winnalee told me what she was going to write, soon as she got home:
Bright Idea #93: If you and your best friend have an adventure bag, and some dumb boy tries to steal it, or dig in it, or make fun of you for having it, just punch him in the back.

16

It seemed that every day since Freeda and Ma became friends, Ma became a little bit more happy. Every work morning she'd wake up and put on the makeup Freeda helped her pick out, then she'd take out the rollers that she'd slept on, and she'd make the top of her head all poufy by holding up a clump of hair and running her comb backward in it to make snarls. Then she'd comb the top layer over that knot so you couldn't see the snarls, just like Freeda showed her how to do. Ma made herself prettier dresses now too. Dresses that weren't all saggy, and she'd make them out of material the colors of summer, instead of what Freeda called drab colors. Ma laughed more now too, and she didn't get such a worried look on her face when Daddy asked her where something was. A couple times, I even heard her tell him he'd just have to wait till she got done doing what she was doing before she helped him look. And she didn't spend time on the phone with Bernice like she used to either, griping about Aunt Verdella or complaining about this or that. In fact, I don't think her and Bernice were even friends anymore, because one day I heard Ma tell Freeda, “Carol, the hygienist, said that Bernice told her that I'm fixing up like a floozy because Reece is having a fling with the tramp who moved into his mother's place. She used those words too! She also said that I must be nuts, thinking that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and that I can get even, fixing up like a tramp myself.” They laughed something silly over that. “Carol was upset, because she thinks I look gorgeous. She said Bernice is probably just jealous of you and me because we look so good.” Then Ma had told Freeda how Daddy stopped alongside the road on his way home from work and picked her some tiger lilies, because he knew how much she liked them and we didn't have any growing in our yard.

“Wow!” Freeda had said. “Didn't I tell you things would perk up once you got brave enough to tell Reece to slow his ass down? Literally.” Then they roared some more, though Ma's laugh was more like those embarrassed giggles.

When they were done laughing though, Ma got serious and said, “Sometimes I'm gloriously happy because I feel freer, but other times I can still hear those old voices in my head, telling me that I'm not good enough or that I'm not
being
good enough. It's hard, you know? Going against all those things you heard growing up.”

And Freeda told her, “Tell me about it. Some of my old messages I got licked. But others, they're still running my life. I say, though, that when those voices come, just tell them to shut the hell up and carry on.”

 

The morning of my second favorite holiday, I woke up early. Ma didn't have to work during Marty Graw, because nobody wanted to get their mouth hurt on that day.

“Good morning, Button,” Ma called from the kitchen, her words sounding more like she was singing them than saying them.

After I brushed my teeth, I leaned over toward the mirror and turned my head to one side, then the other. My ears definitely looked smaller, so I tried to figure out if I was growing into them, as Aunt Verdella said I was, or if it was just the fluffy hair behind my ears, filling in the gap between them and my head, that made my ears not look so pokey-outy. I tugged at the frizz right above my ear, to see if my hair had grown while I slept. The tip reached down to the bottom of my ear when I pulled on it, so I thought maybe it had. A little anyways.

“Button? What's taking you so long? I need your help in here,” Ma called.

“Coming!” I yelled back.

When I got to the kitchen, Ma was slicing peeled eggs over the top of a bowl of potato salad and sprinkling it with that orange spice I hated. She was wearing a new red top and white pedal pushers. Her hair and face were fixed up real nice. “You'll have to have cold cereal this morning, Evelyn. Then, after you eat, I want you to pack the plastic forks and paper cups, napkins, and, oh, get out the checkered tablecloth we use for picnics.”

I was so excited, I didn't even want to eat my Trix cereal, because I loved the Marty Graw the same as I loved Christmas. I loved the parade down Main Street, with the Dauber marching band banging drums and tooting horns, and the floats made out of Kleenex flowers, where girls in long dresses were propped, waving and smiling, and trying to be the prettiest so they could be the Marty Graw queen. Some of the men driving the floats, and the clowns walking beside them, threw candy. Afterward, there was a carnival down by the river, where you could go on rides and eat cotton candy or ice cream cones till your stomach hurt. And best of all was the fireworks. We'd sit on blankets down by the river—the carnival rides blinking with lights and pumping music behind us—and we'd watch the decorated floats drift down the water, the fireworks booming above them, the sparks whistling as they fell, dying out just before they landed on the floats. After fireworks, a band always played in the gazebo, but we never stayed for that.

“Oh, look at the time,” Ma said. “And you're still not dressed yet. Never mind the packing, I'll do that. You just finish eating, then get dressed. I'll do the rest.”

I scooped the last of the soggy cereal into my mouth, rinsed my bowl in the sink, then ran to my room. Even getting dressed that day was fun, because Aunt Verdella had made me and Winnalee matching outfits. Little blouses striped with red and white, and short navy blue skirts, with what she called “bloomers” underneath. After I put mine on, I ran to look in the mirror that hung behind the door in Ma's sewing room. My skirt looked just like an ice skater's skirt, so I leaned over and lifted my arms out like an airplane, then stretched one leg out behind me.

“Look at how cute you look,” Ma said when I got back to the kitchen. I grinned, because I think she really meant it. She came to me and lifted the hem of the skirt to yank off a dangling thread. She examined the stitches along the hem part, which were a bit zigzagged, and she grinned at Aunt Verdella's sewing, but her grin wasn't mean. Then she went to the skinny closet where she kept the ironing board and broom and other tall stuff, and she pulled a bag off of the shelf on top. She handed it to me. “Verdella showed me your outfits, so…well, here.” The bag didn't weigh more than a feather. I peeked inside. “I know the ones you girls have are falling apart. Besides, they wouldn't match your festive colors.”

I took out one of the navy blue headbands, dabbing at the one red flower off to the side, hoping it wouldn't fall off right away, like the flowers on our other headbands had, leaving a row of dried glue dots that looked like the swollen spots on a baby's gums. I don't know why I got a lump in my throat when I saw those headbands, but I did. I swallowed hard so I wouldn't start making those noises in my throat. “Thank you, Ma. They're real pretty. And they match our outfits real good too.”

Ma tapped her fingertips together a few times and smiled. “Okay. I'd better get finished packing here. Your dad's taking a bath, and everyone will be here any minute.”

I went outside and sat on the steps to wait, my big ears listening for the rumble of Aunt Verdella's car down Peters Road. My hands kept reaching up to my headband, and my eyes kept looking down at my little pleated skirt.

When I heard a car, I leapt off of the steps, sure that it was the Bel Air. But it wasn't. It was a white car coming from the direction of town. I expected it to drive right by our house, but instead it pulled into our driveway.

I stood up and cupped my hand over the top of my eyes to block the sun so I could see who it was. The car had to stop before I figured it out, though. And then, before they could even get out of the car, I raced into the house and straight to the kitchen. “Ma! Ma! Aunt Stella and her girls are here!”

“What?” Ma was at the table, putting a Tupperware bowl into one of the orange coolers. “Stella? She never said she was stopping by.”

“Hello!” came Aunt Stella's voice. I could see Daddy stepping out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around him like a white skirt. He looked at Ma, cussed, then hurried off to their bedroom.

“In the kitchen,” Ma called.

I folded my hands behind me and backed up against the fridge when Aunt Stella and her tall girls filled the room. “Stella, what are you doing here?” Ma asked. Stella didn't answer right away. She was too busy gawking at Ma. So were Judy and Cindy.

“Jewel!” Aunt Stella said. “What on earth have you done to yourself?”

For a second, Ma turned back into her old self. Her shoulders drooped down, and her chin tucked down. She took a quick breath and blew it out before she looked up. She dabbed at her bubble hair, then her hand slid down over her round plastic earring and smoothed over the front of her new blouse. She smiled, her pearly lips a bit shaky.

“Your hair! And makeup? Good heavens, Jewel!”

In the worst way, I wanted Aunt Stella to stop right there and say to Ma, “I had no idea you were this pretty, Jewel. I'm sorry about every single, rotten thing I ever said to you.” I wanted her to say those things so bad that I held my breath as I hoped.

“She looks terrific, doesn't she?” We all looked as Daddy came into the kitchen, his wet hair wearing little trails where his comb had been. I couldn't hardly believe my ears, because for as long as I could remember, I'd never heard my daddy say that my ma looked anything, much less terrific. “This cooler ready?” he asked, picking up the lid. Ma stood up taller and lifted her chin. “It's ready,” she said. Her smile was as bright as the smile of a Marty Graw queen.

“Well, I, um…” Aunt Stella didn't seem to know quite what to say, so I guess she decided to say nothing and to just keep staring instead.

Ma repeated her question. “I didn't know you were stopping in, Stella. Where you headed?”

“Well, we're on our way back home. We were in Minneapolis for a few days at my dear friend's house. We were planning on staying there until tomorrow, but Ralph sprained his ankle bad yesterday while hiking with the church youth group. He's completely laid up, so I figured we should hurry home. The girls were getting hungry and had to use a restroom, so I told them we'd swing by this way.” She turned to Judy and Cindy and smiled, then turned back to Ma. “The girls are funny about public restrooms, just as I am. I knew you'd want to see them anyway, since you haven't seen them in such a long time.”

Ma looked at my cousins, same as I did. Judy wore a cloth headband holding back long hair that flipped up at her shoulders. Her chin was sprinkled with red pimples, and there were some gouges on her cheeks where other pimples had been. Those didn't show in her pictures.

The younger one, Cindy, wore her hair in a ponytail. Her front teeth stuck out some and stayed jabbed against her bottom lip when she wasn't smiling. Maybe Aunt Stella saw us staring at Cindy's teeth—I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing she did—because she gave Cindy a frown, and Cindy pulled her top lip over her teeth, tucking them inside her mouth the best she could.

Daddy closed the lid on the food cooler and said he'd take it to the car. Ice cubes clanked as he hoisted it off of the table. For a minute, nobody said anything.

Ma cleared her throat. “Well, Stella, I'm afraid you've come at an inopportune time. We're about to leave for town for the Fourth of July festivities.”

Aunt Stella, who had her car keys in her hand and was working the clasp on her purse—to drop them inside, no doubt—stopped. “Oh,” she said. “If you're not working, you're usually home, doing something or other, so I figured you'd be here on a holiday.”

“We celebrate the Fourth every year, Stella.”

“Yes, well…” Aunt Stella fidgeted a bit. “I suppose, then…”

While Ma put clear wrapping over a lemon cake, Aunt Stella yammered a bit, telling how they'd gone to a play in St. Paul, and how Judy thought she'd like to get into drama. Her words moved like birds walk, in quick, little jerky spurts. Ma glanced up at Aunt Stella now and then as she filled a grocery bag with napkins and plastic silverware, and said, “Oh,” or, “That's nice,” a few times, but she didn't sound like she was listening.

I didn't feel like there was anything more to see in my cousins, so I walked around them and went outside to wait for Aunt Verdella, Uncle Rudy, and the Malones.

I didn't even have time to sit down before I spotted a splotch of turquoise through the cloud of dust coming down Peters Road. Even before they crossed the highway, I could see Winnalee's hand waving out the window.

“Don't open that door before we stop all the way, honey. Good heavens!” I heard Aunt Verdella shout as Uncle Rudy slowed the car to a stop.

In seconds, the air was filled with the sound of slamming doors and ha-ha-ing. I liked the way everybody sounded so happy.

“Oh, look at Button!” Aunt Verdella squealed. She came at me with her arms stretched out, her purse rocking from one arm. “Doesn't she look cute?”