The Book of Bright Ideas (23 page)

21

We'd spent so much time looking for Winnalee's gift that Uncle Rudy was at my house having supper with Ma and Daddy by the time Aunt Verdella and I pulled in the drive.

“Well, if it isn't our angels of mercy,” Uncle Rudy said when we came through the door. “How'd it go, Verdie?”

Uncle Rudy's smile faded when he saw Aunt Verdella up close.

Ma stood up. “I'll get a couple of plates. You two hungry?”

We said we were.

“Come on, Button. Sit down.” Ma pulled out the chair I always sat on. She plunked a fried chicken leg on my plate and tapped a spoonful of mashed potatoes beside it. “Coffee, Verdella?” She put some corn on my plate too and buttered me a baking-powder biscuit.

“I'll get it. I've been sitting so long it will do me good to fluff my butt.”

“How'd things go?” Daddy asked, his mouth full of chicken. “You get your mission accomplished?”

“No. Why, I guess I should have looked before I leapt. Turns out there's already a stone in the cemetery for Hannah Malone!” Aunt Verdella laughed, but it didn't sound like her usual ha-ha. “I imagine her sister or brother bought it for her. Anyway, I've decided not to say a thing to Winnalee or even to Freeda about this. Freeda would probably feel bad, thinking about how I traveled so far for nothing. It was silly of me in the first place to run off without checking. Oh well, me and Button had a nice little vacation anyway, didn't we, Button? We made it, and we didn't get lost even once, and, best of all, nothing bad happened!” Verdella's eyes got sparkly when she said this, and I thought that maybe this meant she just figured out that she did earn her redemption.

Everybody went back to their eating and talking about what a nice drive it is to Minnesota. Then their minds went down other roads and other places. Now and then, though, I saw Uncle Rudy glance over at Aunt Verdella, like he was trying to figure out what she wasn't saying.

“Oh dear. Look at the time, Rudy! It's quarter after six already. Freeda's gotta get to work, and we've got to get back to look after Winnalee.” She got up and grabbed her purse. “I'm sorry for not helping with the dishes, Jewel.” Ma told her it was okay.

Aunt Verdella leaned over to give me a quick kiss and hug good-bye, then stopped and unpuckered her lips. “Jewel, I know Button just got home, but do you think I could bring her with me for just a minute so we can give Winnalee the gifts we brought back for her? The poor little thing was so sad about being left behind that I told her we'd bring her back something special. I don't want to give them to her without Button there, and, well, you know how Winnalee is about waiting.” Aunt Verdella sounded like her old self when she laughed this time.

Ma looked a little disappointed. “Well, I suppose.”

So off we went. Me and Aunt Verdella in her Bel Air, and Uncle Rudy in his pickup. And sure enough, Winnalee was waiting on their steps when we pulled in the drive, her fake ma sitting right alongside her. Her face was propped on her hands, her loopy hair spilled over her like a waterfall. When she saw Aunt Verdella's car, her whole body smiled, and she leapt off of the steps and ran toward us, bouncing until we got out of the car. She wrapped her arms around my neck and squeezed till it hurt. Then she wrapped her arms around Aunt Verdella's fat part and squeezed that tight too.

Of course, she begged for her special surprise right away. “Just wait, honey. Let Uncle Rudy bring my bag in so I can fetch it out of there.”

Aunt Verdella gave her the little things first, and Winnalee liked them all, then Aunt Verdella made a drumroll sound with her tongue as she pulled the last, and best, surprise from the bag. I expected Winnalee to start squealing when she opened the box and saw that pretty fairy laying on a bed of cotton, but she didn't. Instead, she just stared and stared, then looked up at us, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Winnalee?” Aunt Verdella asked.

That's when Winnalee went nuts, laughing while she was crying and hugging us so hard I thought she might snap us in half. “I love it, I love it, I love it! I never in my whole life saw a fairy necklace! It's the bestest present I ever got!”

“Stand still, honey,” Aunt Verdella told her, as Winnalee did little hops in a circle while I tried to hold up her hair so Aunt Verdella could slip the clasp through the little ring part.

After we got it on her, Winnalee went to the bathroom mirror so she could see how it looked on her. “Come see, Button!” she called, even though I didn't need a mirror to see how it looked.

When we came back to the kitchen, Aunt Verdella said that she had to bring me back home. Winnalee sighed and groaned at the same time. “She just got here!”

“I know, honey. But she's been gone two days and her ma and daddy miss her. She'll be back in the morning, bright and early.”

“Okay. I'll ride with because I want to show Aunt Jewel my necklace.” It was the first time Winnalee ever called my ma “Aunt Jewel,” so it took me a bit by surprise and made me smile. I knew by the way Aunt Verdella smiled at me that it made her happy too.

“Did you get any bright ideas while you were gone?” Winnalee asked while Aunt Verdella dug around the junk on the counter for her car keys, which she'd practically just set down.

“A couple of them,” I said.

“Well, sometimes it takes time before you can tell if they're any good or not. That's how bright ideas are.”

“Oh, here they are!” Aunt Verdella shouted. She picked up her keys and jiggled them. “Let's go!

“Winnalee, honey, I can't see good when you stand up like that to see in the rearview mirror. Why don't you reach in my purse and grab my compact and look at your necklace with that. Okay?” Winnalee got out the compact and tilted it up and down until she got the right angle. Then all the way to my house she chattered, saying things like, “Ain't it pretty?” and “Doesn't she look real?” I made myself smile, but inside I was feeling some sad along with that happy. It was a nice necklace, for sure, but a necklace was just a thing. Not a person. I wanted so bad to just blurt out to her, “You know that lady, your ma? The one you still love a lot? She's not dead! She's in Hopested, still alive!” I could tell too, by the soft-sad look in Aunt Verdella's eyes when she had reached out to take the urn so Winnalee could climb into the car, that Aunt Verdella was wanting to say the same thing. But we couldn't, of course, because it wasn't our place.

When we got inside, Ma was wiping off the counter and the supper dishes were dripping in the dish rack. “Winnalee wanted to show Aunt Jewel her special gift,” Aunt Verdella said to Ma.

“Is that right?” Ma smiled as Winnalee ran up to her and clasped her hands behind her back, moving like a washing-machine agitator. “Notice anything different, Aunt Jewel?”

Ma's eyeballs slipped down, then up, then down and up again. Finally, they found the spot on Winnalee's neck where the little fairy shone. “Oh, isn't that lovely!”

Winnalee patted it. “It's a fairy, Aunt Jewel! A real fairy! Ain't she pretty? You ever see a fairy necklace before? I never did.” Ma told her she hadn't either.

“Aunt Verdella said she was gonna bring me back something special, and she sure was telling the truth. I can't think of one thing they could have brought me back that would be more special than this necklace. Not one thing!” Me and Aunt Verdella looked at each other for two blinks, and then everywhere else but at Winnalee. “I can't wait to show it to Freeda, but she's gone to work, so I'll have to wait.”

“Button, why don't you go unpack now,” Ma said. “Be sure and put your dirty clothes in the hamper, please.”

Winnalee followed me into my room. She reached for our book when I opened my suitcase. She opened it and read the bright ideas I'd put there, her head tilting, her eyes skinnying. “You have a pencil?” she asked. I handed her one, and she wrote:
Bright Idea #99: If your best friend goes away and you miss her, you don't need to cry and carry on forever, because she'll be back. And who knows? When she comes back, she might even bring you something so special that your heart almost bursts.

22

It's funny how quickly we forget the things we don't want to remember. The day after we got back from Hopested, me and Winnalee took our lunch out to the picnic table and the urn was sitting right on the table across from Winnalee, where I wanted to put my plate. I didn't think nothing of grabbing that urn and moving it over under the tree. Winnalee looked at me cradling the urn in my arms as I moved it, and she smiled. I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that I wasn't afraid of dead people anymore. But the truth of the matter was, I wasn't afraid of ashtrays.

A couple days later, though, after Aunt Verdella got her ha-has back, and after I'd seen Winnalee talking to the urn as if her ma was really buried in it, I found myself afraid to touch it all over again. And by the very next Saturday, I believed the big, fat lie Freeda had told Winnalee, as though I had never learned the truth at all.

 

It was Saturday—almost one week after we visited Hopested—breezy and muggy, and my guts told me it was probably going to storm. Ma and Aunt Verdella and I strolled over to Freeda's and were standing in the driveway, not sure if we should go in or not (even if we were invited to lunch), since there was a strange truck in the driveway. “I thought I heard two vehicles last night, about the time Freeda would have gotten home from work,” Aunt Verdella said. “And it's been parked here since I woke up this morning.”

Ma looked at Aunt Verdella and said, “Ah, Verdella. I know you were hoping that she'd get serious about Mike, but I didn't think that would happen.”

Aunt Verdella looked down at the chocolate cream pie she was carrying for our dessert and sighed. “Mike's such a nice guy. And ready to settle down too.”

“But Freeda's not, Verdella.”

“Hey, you guys!” Winnalee called, her head appearing outside the screen door. “Freeda said, what the hell are you guys doing standing out there, and to come in.” So in we went.

Winnalee hopped alongside of me and chattered all the way to the kitchen. “Oh, good. You wore your ballerina suit, just like I told you to!” she said.

“Hi, girls,” Freeda said. She was standing at the table chopping onions into a bowl of tuna. Her penny hair was hanging loose and snarly, and she wasn't wearing anything that I could see but for a man's T-shirt that hung almost to her knees. The guy sitting at the table, smoking and drinking coffee, had a red scrape on one cheek and he wasn't wearing a shirt, so I figured it was his shirt Freeda wore.

“You know Jesse?” Freeda asked. “Probably not. He's on road construction, out on 47. No matter, he was just leaving anyway.” The man cocked his eyes toward Freeda. “I was?” he asked.

“You got it, buddy.”

With all of us staring at him, waiting for him to leave, I suppose he didn't have much choice but to lift his tired butt off the chair. He grabbed his cigarettes and matches from the table and stretched. “I'll get my shirt later,” he said.

“Hold it,” Freeda said. “You'd better take it now.” She grabbed the hem and went to lift it up, but Ma cleared her throat and Freeda stopped, going into the bathroom instead and coming out in her robe. She tossed the shirt at him and he left.

“Oh, honey,” Aunt Verdella said. “I thought you liked Mike.”

“I like Mike just fine,” Freeda said. “Or rather, I did, until he started spouting his mouth off about settling down.”

“Yeah,” Winnalee said. “Mike showed up here late last night too. And he punched that Jesse guy right in the face. Good thing that guy was too drunk to feel it, or it would have really hurt. I was scared that Mike had a shotgun in his truck, but Freeda said he didn't.” Ma gave Winnalee a pat on the shoulder.

While we ate our lunch, Ma asked Aunt Verdella if I could spend the night with her, because Daddy and her were going out. Aunt Verdella said I could, and Winnalee clapped. Then Aunt Verdella went right back to worrying about Freeda not liking Mike Thompson anymore, and Freeda said, “I guess I'm just quicker to give away my body than to give away my heart.” That's when Ma told me and Winnalee to go outside and play.

 

The skies were covered with ugly gray clouds heavy with rain by the time we reached our magic tree to play parade. We had to fiddle till we got our feet settled in the flat spot without stepping on each other, then started waving and smiling at the crowd, who thought we were stunning beauties too. We tossed candy, but only to the kids we thought looked nice. When Ma and Aunt Verdella came across the yard—Ma to leave, and Aunt Verdella to get busy in her house—Winnalee called to them, and they waved back at us like spectators at a real parade.

We played beauty queens until the breeze dried our teeth, then Winnalee decided we should play fairies instead. “We look like fairies in our costumes, don't we? I think we do.” I wasn't sure how to play fairies, and I don't think Winnalee knew either, because all she did was flap her arms now and then, like they were wings, while she talked. “Guess what?” she said. “Uncle Rudy said that next weekend the corn and oats are gonna be ready to come in. He's gonna be busy all Saturday, then on Sunday Aunt Verdella is gonna have a big cookout to celebrate the end of the growing season, and the Smithys are gonna come, and the Thompson twins—well, maybe not them now—and a whole lot of other people. I figured that will be the best time in the world to go back to the beck. With so much going on, I don't think anyone would notice us slipping off. Only we'll go through the woods this time, because it's bound to be quicker, and we'll go right before dark.”

Winnalee climbed down from the tree and dug our adventure bag out from the hole. She looked up at the tree. “Hey, I know what we could do now! Let's draw pictures of fairies and cut them out to hang from the branches! We could use Aunt Verdella's glue and glitter on their wings and fill up the whole tree!”

The first sprinkles of rain tapped the leaves above us. “But they'll get all wet and ruined. Daddy said this morning that it's supposed to rain heavy for a couple days.”

“Uh-uh! Not if we iron waxed paper over them before we cut them out. The iron melts the crayon and the waxed paper sticks to it. We did it at school once. I think they'd hold up in the rain, don't you?”

I looked up at our magic tree, at the branches where leaves fluttered, and I could almost see those fairies hanging there. “Okay!” I said.

“I'll run home and get the crayons. And paper to draw on too. You go ask Aunt Verdella for waxed paper.”

“Okay.”

I'd barely reached the porch when the clouds opened up and started dumping so much rain that it moved like heavy curtains waving in the wind as it fell.

“Where's Winnalee?” Aunt Verdella asked when I got inside.

“She ran home to get something. She'll be right back.”

Aunt Verdella glanced out the window. “It's rainin' cats and dogs out there. Button, go shut the front door for Auntie, will you? Rain always wants to come in and give my rug a bath.”

I suppose it was the front door being closed that kept us from hearing Winnalee cry out when she jumped off her porch and rammed a nail up her bare foot. A stray nail left from Daddy's repairs on the front steps, we figured later.

Winnalee didn't yank it out. She hopped back to the house, screaming for Freeda the whole way. Freeda, whose stomach wasn't a bit braver than Winnalee's when it came to yucky things, tossed her in the car in a flutter of mesh and drove her into town to see the doctor. Me and Aunt Verdella didn't know where they'd gone. At first we just thought that Winnalee was waiting for the rain to let up a bit before she ran back, but then, when Aunt Verdella peered out the front door and saw that the red truck wasn't in their driveway, we both got a little worried. “Freeda's gotta go in to work at four o'clock, because there's a wedding reception at Marty's today, so you'd think she wouldn't have run off anyplace first,” Aunt Verdella said, as she dried her hands and headed toward the bathroom.

I plucked a cookie off of a plate on the counter and sat down at the table. Even with the rain making noise as it dripped down off of the eaves above the window, I could hear the sound of someone pulling into the drive. “Somebody's in the driveway!” I shouted to Aunt Verdella.

“Is it your uncle Rudy?” Aunt Verdella called from the bathroom.

I spread my hands on the edge of the counter, then jumped up, bracing myself, my feet dangling. I looked out the window and into the driveway, hoping it was the Malones. It wasn't. “Nope. It's some lady in a white car.” I strained, trying to see the face underneath the smudge of light brown hair, but with rain running down the car windows, I couldn't.

I lifted my knees up on the counter on account of my arms were getting shaky from holding me up. I watched the car door open and an umbrella poof open, hiding the lady's head. But that umbrella, though big, was nowhere near big enough to hide that enormous body.

I ran to the bathroom door, which was open just enough for me to see Aunt Verdella sitting on the toilet, her undies strapped around her white knees. “Aunt Verdella, there's a big, big fat lady here!”

“Oh dear, I hope it's not a Jehovah's Witness!” Aunt Verdella said.

“I don't think so. I didn't see her carrying any little magazines.”

“Okay. Answer the door, Button. Auntie will be right out.”

I opened the front door and waited as the fat lady struggled to get up the porch steps. She was huffing and puffing and had to pause at each step to catch her breath. Trails of rain were falling from points of the umbrella, wetting the parts of her that were too wide to fit under the umbrella—which was most of her.

I moved back a-ways from the screen door. I could hear the toilet flush and the bathroom sink running. “Hurry, Aunt Verdella,” I yelled in my head, as I bit the inside of my cheek.

“Hello there, honey,” the fat lady said, her voice all wheezy-sounding. “Is this the home of Verdella Peters?”

I was glad Aunt Verdella came then, so I didn't have to say anything.

Aunt Verdella scooted in front of me. “I'm Verdella Peters.” Aunt Verdella looked at the lady's hands, and I knew why. Like Aunt Verdella said, she wasn't good with salespeople and always ended up buying something she didn't need and couldn't afford.

The fat lady stepped onto the porch and closed her umbrella, shaking it before closing it. She was still panting.

“Ma'am, my name is Hannah Malone.”

Aunt Verdella's breath sucked in, and my ears started buzzing, like ears do when you get really scared.

“May I come in?” Hannah Malone asked.

Aunt Verdella opened the door. “Oh dear. Um, yes, please.” There was no ha-ha in her voice now.

Aunt Verdella had to stand back to open the door wide enough for the fat lady to get in. I'd never in my whole life seen anybody walk like that lady: rocking to one side as she lifted one foot, then setting it down hard and rocking to the other side to lift the other, her whole body twisting with each step. Her eyes, nose, and mouth looked like little balls of Trix cereal dropped on a white pillow; two blue balls for eyes, and one red one for a mouth. She was wearing a cross on her neck, with Jesus nailed to it. You couldn't see His head with that crown of thorns on it, though, because it was buried in a crease of neck fat, but I knew it was Him because I could see His nailed feet sticking out.

“I understand you were in Hopested looking to buy a plot and gravestone for me, so of course I have questions,” Mrs. Malone said.

“Oh dear.” I heard Aunt Verdella mutter under her breath as she led Hannah to the kitchen table. Being polite, as she always was, she asked Hannah Malone if she'd like coffee. Then she set a plate with two pieces of coffee cake and a few cookies onto the table.

“A couple days ago, Mrs. Hamilton came to see me. She went back and forth, of course, wondering whether to say anything to me or not about your visit. But then she thought about how I've suffered with worry ever since Freeda took Winnalee, and she came to me and told me everything. My brother's going to be fit to be tied that I didn't wait for him to get home—he's a trucker and gone for the next two weeks—but I just couldn't wait another day to find out how my baby is.”

Aunt Verdella's hand had the jitters as she patted the side of the percolator to see if it was still warm. It must not have been, because she lit the burner. She got two cups down from the cupboard shelf and brought them to the table. “Grab the creamer for Auntie, will you, Button?” Her voice sounded like it was stretched so tight that it could snap.

I got the creamer from the refrigerator—the cute little creamer in the shape of a cow that we bought for Aunt Verdella's birthday one year—and set it on the table. Aunt Verdella scooted a short stack of little plates across the table. She moved even quicker than she usually did when she was upset. The forks rattled in her hand as she brought them to the table.