A Life of Bright Ideas (13 page)

“No. It’s just that Winnalee hasn’t seen him since … well, 1961,” I said.

Aunt Verdella’s face wrinkled with worry. “I should make up some beef stew today and bring it over. He likes beef stew.”

Winnalee’s eyes moistened. “I felt bad for him. And that house makes me sad without Aunt Jewel in it.”

Her words were like a mirror held up to my own heart, and I puckered my lips together so I wouldn’t cry.

“But Uncle Reece was the same in some ways,” Winnalee added. “He said a dog must have chewed away half of my skirt.” She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

“Oh, I think girls look cute in those short skirts,” Aunt Verdella said. “I’m always telling Button she should wear them. She’d be a lot cooler in the summertime.”

Winnalee looked at my damp face, then at my bell-bottoms, and frowned.

“At least I never had to get sent home from school to change, like Penny did. She was always getting sent in to have the assistant principal measure her skirts.”

“They measured skirts at your school?” Winnalee said.
“Huh?”

“Yeah. They’d have random checks in gym class,” I explained. “We had to kneel on the floor and the phys ed teacher would hold up a yardstick. If anyone’s skirt measured any more than two inches above their knees, they got sent home to change and got zeros for the day. They’d haul girls out of the hall and send them to the office to get measured in between, too, if they could tell they were too short.”

Winnalee shook her head. “See? That’s what’s wrong with this whole damn country—always pushing to make us conformists to somebody else’s ideals. I would have told them where to stick their yardsticks.”

She sighed, then looked up wistfully. “Aunt Verdella? Do you think Uncle Reece will find somebody else someday? You know, like Uncle Rudy found you after his first wife died. I
don’t get into that marriage shit, and I sure don’t mean any disrespect for Aunt Jewel, but I feel bad thinking of Uncle Reece living the rest of his life over there all alone.”

I looked up, shocked that Winnalee would say such a thing. Aunt Verdella’s chair groaned as she shifted her weight. She gave me a quick, nervous glance, and bit at her lip.

Winnalee didn’t wait for a reply. “Maybe I can find someone for him,” she said. “I’ll keep my eyes open at work.”

“Work? You found a job?” Aunt Verdella piped, obviously eager to change the subject.

“Yep. The night before last. At that new bar out on Highway 8. The Purple Haze. Marty’s old place.”

“Oh, where Freeda used to work!”

“Yeah,” Winnalee said. “But when Marty had it, it was nothing but a boring bar and dance hall where old people and families with kids went for a fish fry on Fridays, or to hear a country ’n western band some Saturdays. But now it’s gonna be cool. They’re gonna have live music every weekend—rock bands!—and black lights and fluorescent paint. Brody Bishop tipped us off, and I wanted to apply before the owner ran any help-wanted ads, so after we got home from town, we ran out there. The place isn’t opened yet because he’s doing some rewiring and stuff, but it’s gonna be a fun place to work. He hired me to do the artwork on the walls, too. The owner seems real nice.”

I squirmed in my chair. The owner, who introduced himself as “Reefer,” didn’t seem nice to me. He was older than Dad, judging by the white twined through the thinning hair that hung down his back in skinny strings, and he didn’t smile once while we were there. He didn’t ask Winnalee if she had any experience serving drinks or waiting tables, either. He just swirled the wrench he was holding in circles, cueing her to spin around.

The Purple Haze was divided into two sections, with the horseshoe-shaped bar in the smaller of the two, with an opened doorway and large cutaway window where drinks and plates were put for the waitresses who worked the back room. Dad and his friend Owen played guitars at Marty’s years ago, and I got to go along with Ma for a couple hours. Ma and I didn’t dance, but there was a lady with dark hair dancing, and Ma said, “If she was a redhead, she could pass for Freeda.” The woman didn’t look like Freeda, so I assumed it was how she danced.

Winnalee had wandered into the back, and I followed her. She called to Reefer, her girlish voice echoing in the empty space. “You need black lights and fluorescent psychedelic shit on the walls. Not posters—too ordinary—painted images. Hendrix’s head, Joplin’s, peace signs, flowers. Maybe some optical illusions. Shit like that. I could paint them for you. I’m an artist, you know.”

“That right,” Reefer said, drifting over to the doorway and leaning against the frame.

“Yep.” She pointed to the small window alongside the wall facing the parking lot. “I painted my van out there.” Reefer glanced. “I’d do it cheap, too. Two hundred bucks for the whole job.”

“Shit,” Reefer said. “My boy can paint the walls for nothing.”

“But can he paint the pictures? I’ll do the artwork for one-fifty.”

“You serious? What do you think, I’m made of money?”

“No. But you might be if you make this place the most kick-ass joint in the county—which is what I’m trying to help you do. One hundred and fifty bucks. That’s my bottom price.”

“One hundred.”

“It’s a deal. Now how about—”

I had to pee ever since we left the A&W, so it seemed like a good time to exit: Dickering made me bite myself.

Coming back, I stopped in my tracks. Winnalee was
da, da, da-ing
a sped-up verse of “Proud Mary,” her arms lifted above her head, moving as if she was pounding drums, her hips gyrating. “Yep,” she said when she stopped. “Just as I thought. You need to resurface this dance floor. How can people dance on a floor as rippled as a potato chip? It’s gooey, too. Old varnish, or just plain dirt. I don’t know which.”

“I suppose you refinish wood floors, too,” Reefer said.

“Nah. Just sayin’.”

Reefer shrugged, then headed back to the horseshoe bar, Winnalee following. “My friend here can cut loose on the dance floor, too. I’ve seen her do it.” She didn’t mention that I was only nine years old at the time.

“So I got the painting job, and when the place opens, I’m gonna wait tables. I’m starting on the artwork this morning,” Winnalee said proudly. “Anyway, like I said, I’m going to keep my eye out at work for a woman for Uncle Reece.”

“Well, from what I’ve heard,” Aunt Verdella said, “the crowd there is gonna be pretty young and wild. And, well, I don’t know if the women there would really be Reece’s type.”

Winnalee laughed. “He liked them young and wild things once.”

Aunt Verdella’s lips quivered, then her face folded in worry. “Winnalee, there’s a lot of men in places like that who will try to take advantage of a pretty, innocent thing like you. You be careful out there, okay?”

As we headed toward home so Winnalee could get out to the bar, Uncle Rudy and Tommy were standing next to his empty
cattle truck. The mailman pulled up to my box and Boohoo made a dash for it. “I’ll get it!” I yelled as the mailman pulled away. But Boohoo opened the box anyway, then started waving a single letter in the air. “Evy’s got a boyfriend! Evy’s got a boyfriend!” I chased him around the yard, my face as red as the flag on the box, or so Tommy pointed out afterward.

The next morning I woke with a start, my guts clenching, my breath freezing in my chest. I shot up, bracing myself on my elbows, straining for what had wrenched me from my sleep. I glanced to make sure Winnalee was in bed (she wasn’t when I partially woke up and glanced at the clock at 3
A.M.
). I was relieved to find her asleep, her long loops and baggy T-shirt spun around her like a cocoon. Her arm dangling over the edge of the bed spotted in fluorescent, primary paint like a psychedelic leopard.

I slipped downstairs and squinted out the front door. Thunderheads were stacking in the southeast, and heavy air squeezed against my skin. There wasn’t a sound; even the birds seemed hushed in fear. I closed the screen before a fat bee
could swagger in, and took a jagged breath. I had never liked summer storms, but after Ma was killed by one, my unease over them turned into outright terror when lightning exploded in the sky.

Boohoo was across the road playing near the ditch. He waved and I waved back, forcing a carefree smile. I heard him yell to Aunt Verdella or Uncle Rudy, then he headed over. “Stop and look!” I yelled, because my nerves over his—anyone’s—safety always frayed when a storm was brewing.

“Boohoo, you have to watch for cars,” I scolded, when he reached me.

“I listened for them,” he said. I pulled him to me and gave him his morning hug. God, how I hated it when I sounded critical and owly like Ma did when I was his age.

“You must have been planting the garden this morning,” I said, forcing a cheerfulness I didn’t feel as I brushed the dirt patches off his knees.

“No, we did that yesterday. I was just diggin’. Guess what, Evy?” He grabbed my hand and tugged me to the corner of the porch. He pointed to the field where Tommy’s cows stood chewing their cuds. “That one right there, the littler one? The one with the black star on his face? Tommy said I can call him what I want and it can kinda be like he’s mine. I named him Licker, because that’s what he did to my arm when we put him in the
paster
, ’cause he likes me. Is that a good name? Licker?”

On another morning, I would have laughed like I always did when Boohoo warmed my heart with his ways. But the storm brewing inside me, because of the storm brewing outside, had me too tense to laugh. “It sure is,” I said, as I tipped my head back to see how fast the clouds were moving. “But you stay out of the field unless Uncle Rudy is with you, you hear?”

“I know that,” he said. “Uncle Rudy told me.”

“And don’t try peeing on the fence, either. There’s current running through that fence now, and you can get zapped that way.”

“I know that, too. Tommy told me.”

I headed back to the door, Boohoo chattering behind me. Then I stopped. “Was that thunder?” Boohoo listened for a split second, then shrugged. I went inside and he followed me into the kitchen.

“Guess what, Evy? That party you guys are gonna have for that lady with the fat belly because she’s got a baby in it? On that day, Uncle Rudy and me and Tommy and Brody, and his dad, and maybe my dad, too, we’re goin’ fishing. Uncle Rudy said we can’t be around you ladies ’cause you’ll just be harping at us not to mess things and not to pick at the food.”

“Sounds fun, Boohoo.”

“Yep. It’s gonna be. We’re going up to the Willow Flowage. Tommy and Mr. Bishop are bringing their boats. Dad said there’s northerns up there as big as me.”

“Dad told you that?” I asked hopefully.

“No, he told somebody else. But I heard him. He said he caught one forty-two inches up there, and that’s how much I am. Evy? Is it time for
Captain Kangaroo
?”

I glanced up at the clock. “Almost,” I said, wishing I had a TV so Boohoo could watch it by me. Outside, thunder groaned like a monster disrupted from his sleep, and I struggled to hold down my fear as I always did around Boohoo—anyone, for that matter. “You wait here until I get dressed, then I’ll walk back with you. I want to talk to Aunt Verdella about the baby shower. I’ll hurry.”

But Boohoo was already heading for the door. “Captain might drop Ping-Pong balls on Bun’s head. That’s the best part.” And out the door he went, the screen door cracking behind him.

I hurried to the door and stood on the porch. Dark-bellied
clouds hung behind Aunt Verdella’s house as Boohoo ran, his arms and legs pumping. Lightning snapped from one cloud to another, followed by the groans of distant thunder. Mr. White had said that lightning from a cloud ten miles away could strike a person. I scrutinized the dark clouds, wondering how far away they might be, as I held my breath and waited for the bolt I was sure would stab down to skewer my brother to the ground.
Run, Boohoo, run!
I shouted in my mind.

I didn’t start breathing again until Aunt Verdella opened the front door and pulled him safely inside.
It’s okay. It’s okay
, I told myself.
Aunt Verdella is as vigilant about storms now as I am. She won’t let him play outside when it’s lightning, or run water, or touch anything electrical
. I repeated these things in my head a few times, while my teeth tore tender skin from my cheek.

I went inside and shut the door, leaning against it and closing my eyes. Reminding myself to breathe. But the second that breath came, fear snatched it away again, because a stranger was standing in my living room, watching me.

His dark hair was hippie-long and hung in dirty clumps. His shirt was hanging open, his chest tangled with black corkscrew curls. He moved like a dazed ghost. “Fuckkkkk,” he muttered, as he rubbed his stomach and looked around, obviously trying to figure out where he was.

I yelped, my hand reaching for the doorknob. With a storm outside, and an intruder inside, I felt trapped.

He squinted at me. “Whoa, you look a whole lot different in the light of day,” he said, his voice hoarse, the whites of his eyes salmon pink. He looked down at his bare feet and wriggled toes that were long and buckled, then wagged his head as he searched for something on the floor. He muttered an “Oh,” then shuffled back into the spare bedroom.

Winnalee! She’d slept with him downstairs, then came upstairs after they did it!

The guy trundled back wearing a pair of huarache sandals,
his cracked heels hanging over the flattened backs. I slid away from the door so he could get out, and flinched when he turned and held up his hand, but he was only giving me the peace sign.

I locked the door the second he left, and peered out the window. I didn’t see any vehicles but ours in the drive, so unless he parked on the road out of the range of my vision, he had a long, wet walk ahead of him.

The stink of smoke and booze—God knew what else—hovered in the air where he’d stood. I darted into the downstairs bedroom and cringed at a pale stain on the sheets, wondering if it came from the guy. I rolled the whole thing—Winnalee’s discarded panties included—and tucked the soiled bedding under my arm.