A Life of Bright Ideas (31 page)

“Cupcake’s a poopy heel. A poopy puppy with a poopy heel.”

Freeda scrambled to her feet and lunged. Boohoo dropped to his knees and scampered under the table. She grabbed him at the ankles and tugged him out. Then she did what she’d been threatening to do since she came: She sat on him.

“Ow! Ow!” Boohoo screamed. “You’re hurting me!”

Aunt Verdella appeared in the doorway, a mixing spoon in her hand. She flashed me a wavering, lopsided smile.

I could tell that Freeda wasn’t putting all of her weight on Boohoo, and hoped Aunt Verdella realized this, too. Still, I was fretting for Boohoo, just as Aunt Verdella was.

“Freeda, maybe we should just send him up to his room,” she suggested.

Freeda shook her head. “Send him upstairs where there’s six hundred toys to play with?
That’s
punishment? Nope. I’m not budging until this kid cries uncle.”

“Uncle Rudy! Uncle Rudy!” Boohoo called, while Winnalee continued to cuss and gasp over the mess
she
had on her hands. Literally.

“Not
that
uncle,” Freeda said, without even cracking a smile. She reminded him that Uncle Rudy was haying at the Smithys—a sensitive issue with Boohoo since he wasn’t allowed to go along. “Say you’re sorry, and that you’ll listen from now on, or I’m not getting up. And trust me, after all the backbreaking work I’ve been doing over at your dad’s the last
few days, and with little sleep last night, I could easily sit here all day. Maybe even into tomorrow.”

I spotted the mailman pull up to my mailbox, and suddenly I was as eager as Boohoo to have Freeda get off of him, because it didn’t feel right to leave in the midst of the drama.

“Boohoo,” Aunt Verdella said. “If you mind, I’ll let you help frost the cake that’s baking.”

“He can’t just say it, Verdella. He’s got to mean it.”

Boohoo was crying now.

“Get off of me! Evyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, help!”

“Just say you’ll mind,” I told him, my eyes on Freeda, who wasn’t showing even a drop of pity.

“He’s gotta mean it,” Freeda repeated.

“Okay, okay!” Boohoo shouted.

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

“What else?”

“You’re breaking my back!”

“What else?”

“I’ll behave!”

Freeda got up, and offered him her hand. Boohoo knocked it away, and as soon as he was on his feet, he backed up a good six feet and stuck out his chin. “Ha-ha. I was fibbin’!” he said, his fists punching at his sides. “I’m not sorry at all! I was just being behaving to get you off of me.”

Freeda propped her hands on her hips and stared at the screen door Boohoo had just slammed. She shook her head. “Verdella, you have
got
to stop babying that boy like you do. Button, you too. You guys are turning him into a little brat. And for what? Because you feel sorry for him?
Why?
” I glanced outside where Boohoo was digging his towel out from under the picnic table. I closed the front door so he wouldn’t hear.

Pity flooded Aunt Verdella’s face. “He lost his mama, Freeda. When he was just a baby.”

“That’s right,” Freeda said. “When he was just a baby. But he’s not lacking for a mother’s love.
You’re
his mom, Verdella. And between you, and Rudy, and Button, that kid’s not lacking for anything—well, except for knowing his father. And knowing who his birth mother was.”

Freeda picked up the dirty diaper and paused alongside Aunt Verdella. “And that goes for Reece, too. Your pity for him is only hurting him, too. And it’s hurting his kids.”

Aunt Verdella’s arms moved over her belly, one hand to hold the other wrist, the spoon limp in her hand. “Reece has had it hard,” she almost whispered.

“Yeah, and that’s a bummer. But life kicks everybody in the ass, sooner or later, Verdella. Come on, you’ve seen enough of life to know that eventually,
everybody
gets smacked with something so awful that they have every reason to want to roll over and play dead. But it’s time for Reece to get back on his feet and start living again. And if you love him, you’ll help him do that by knocking off this coddling shit.”

“But—”

“No,” Freeda said. “No buts.

“
I’m
all for the no
butts
thing, right about now,” Winnalee said.

Freeda pointed the rolled diaper at Winnalee. “Stop being a smart-ass. I’m trying to make a serious point here.”

“You just swore at your kid,” Winnalee said.

“You’re a big kid, you can take it. Now shut up.”

Freeda turned her attention back to Aunt Verdella. “Take the baby booties off of Reece. He’s a man, and he needs to start walking like one.”

Freeda went to dispose of the diaper, but Aunt Verdella just stood there, teary-eyed and shaky. I wanted to go to her,
to comfort her, but I was afraid if I did, Freeda would jump all over me.

“I did it!” Winnalee said, holding up Evalee, her fresh diaper hanging haphazardly low on her hips, but on all the same.

Freeda came back into the room, patted Evalee’s droopy bottom, and said, “Way to go, Mamalee.” She looked over at Aunt Verdella and went to hug her. She said something I couldn’t hear, and Aunt Verdella nodded. “I know you’re right … it’s just hard, you know?”

“I know. But it’s necessary.”

I slipped out the front door. Eager for nothing more than to find a letter from Jesse. Something that could lift my spirits up above the problems that still hovered.

But no letter came. Again.

Midweek, the sun woke me early. I rolled over and sighed at the thought of yet another day of weather so hot and humid that your clothes clung to you, and everything you touched felt damp.

I’d been spending my days mainly alone, because Winnalee was afraid of caring for Evalee without Freeda and Aunt Verdella’s guidance, and stayed with them throughout the day, coming home only once Evalee was asleep for the night. Then she’d set her alarm—Freeda insisted she be there when Evalee woke—and shuffled across the road at six o’clock each morning. Tommy wasn’t even popping in, now that he was haying, and Boohoo was too fascinated with Evalee to break away and come over.

With so much alone time, though, I did get a lot of sewing done on Cindy’s dress. It was fun watching a one-of-a-kind dress take form, and doubly fun to show Winnalee my progress each evening. When I finished the first sleeve, Winnalee ran it up her bare arm and made swimming motions to watch the layered angel sleeves flutter. “Oh my God, this is so cool! It’s the sleeve I saw in my head, and now here it is, on my arm!”

“Winnalee,” I told her, “every piece of clothing you put on started first as a thought in someone’s head.”

She blinked, then said, “I guess so, but this is the first piece of clothes to come from
my
head.”

After about a week of working alone, loneliness started to set in. I pulled out scraps of satin and tried to formulate roses while I waited for the mail. My first flower looked like a squashed baby’s ear, and my second, like an overgrown kohlrabi. I was on my third try—better, still not good—watching Freeda hang clothes, and Boohoo dig in his sandbox, through the window. Finally I gave up and went across the road.

“Evy, can you tie this?” Boohoo asked, holding out Monkey, who’d lost his yarn leash. He scratched his mosquito bites as he waited. “I think Knucklehead’s gotta stay in the lean-to now, even when it’s this hot. I’d put another diaper on him, but I’m afraid Freeda’d sit on me again. That Freeda probably only weighs as much as Wilma, but she’s still heavy. Why’d you let her sit on me like that, anyway?”

“Forget about it, already,” I said. “Yell when the mailman comes, okay?”

I went inside, where Evalee was squirming in Aunt Verdella’s arms and Winnalee was heating her bottle in a tiny pan of water. “Geez, all this kid does is eat and pee and poop and spit up,” she huffed.

Freeda was coming up the stairs, carrying yet another load of wet laundry. She glanced at Aunt Verdella. “Why in the hell isn’t Reece doing his own laundry?”

Winnalee tipped the bottle upside down and dribbled milk on her wrist. Her lips twisted to the side. “Is this too hot?” she asked, holding the bottle out and waiting for Aunt Verdella to turn over her wrist. “It’s just right, honey,” Aunt Verdella told her. But Winnalee wanted a third opinion. “Button?”

Freeda rolled her eyes. “Crissakes, Winnalee. I told you. If it doesn’t feel hot, and it doesn’t feel cold, then it’s just right.” Freeda dropped the basket. She glanced at Aunt Verdella. “If you even try ironing his shit today in this heat, I’m gonna throw a hissy fit.”

“I think the heat’s gettin’ to everybody,” Aunt Verdella whispered to me.

I heard the muted sounds of a car and glanced at the clock. “Evyyyyyyy!” Boohoo shouted.

When I got outside, Boohoo scooted in front of me to get to the mailbox first. He lifted the telltale red, white, and blue airmail envelope and waved it above his head. I held out my hand, not liking the devilish look on his face. “Hand it over, Boohoo.” But he ran off, snaking across our yard and then the road, ignoring my pleas, and my threats. I chased him into the house, and into the kitchen where Freeda and Aunt Verdella were going to pause for a cup of coffee, and Winnalee was feeding Evalee. “Evy’s got a boyfriend! Evy’s got a boyfriend!”

Aunt Verdella turned. “Boohoo, you give Button that letter or
I’m
gonna sit on you!”

“That would
really
hurt. You’re two hundred pounds.”

“One hundred ninety-two,” Aunt Verdella said proudly.

I probably would have had to chase Boohoo through the whole house if he hadn’t noticed Uncle Rudy’s truck pulling into the drive. “Hey, what’s he doin’ home?” he asked, letting Jesse’s letter sail to the floor as he headed for the door.

Aunt Verdella leaned over the sink. “Rudy?”

I scooped up Jesse’s letter and held it against me.

Uncle Rudy didn’t come in, but told Aunt Verdella through the window that he came home to grab a blade for Tommy’s hacksaw, but he wasn’t finding one. “I’m gonna have to run into town,” he said. “I’ll let the little squirt ride with me.”

“Boohoo,” Aunt Verdella called. “You come in and wash up first.”

I could hear Uncle Rudy’s truck door creaking open. “We’re just goin’ to the hardware store, Verdie. Not to a beauty contest.”

“And A&W. We’re goin’ there, too, right, Uncle Rudy?” I heard Boohoo cheer, so I guessed that meant yes.

I wanted to read Jesse’s letter in private, and was about to slip into the bathroom to do just that, when Freeda did.

“That a letter from that Dayne boy?” Aunt Verdella asked, turning away from the window as the truck pulled out. I nodded and tried to look casual, even though my insides were jumping with hope that Jesse would say something to let me know he still thought I was special.

I moved over by the stove and unfolded the letter.

The paper shook in my hand. I looked up, blinking, thinking I might cry.

“What is it, Button?” Aunt Verdella asked. I wanted to show the letter to Winnalee so I could ask her if my eyes were tricking me, or if he’d really told me that he
loved
me. But I didn’t want Aunt Verdella feeling slighted.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Well, Jesse must have said something good to have you glowing like that.”

“I think I slept with a Jesse here in Dauber, but doubt it would be the same one,” Freeda yelled from the bathroom. “So somebody tell me who in the hell Button’s Jesse is.”

Aunt Verdella started telling her about his family, where they lived, how Jesse and I had been close since he moved here. “He’s cute, too. Even with his hair butchered,” Winnalee said. “He writes to her about once a week, and she writes to him every day now.” Evalee’s bottle made a few squeaks and Winnalee pulled it from her and put Evalee up to her shoulder to burp her.

“They were friends through the last three years of high school,” Aunt Verdella told Freeda.

“Friends?”
Freeda said, coming out of the bathroom with a teasing glimmer in her eyes. As she headed to her chair, she stopped Winnalee’s hand. “You’re not banging a drum. Softer.” Winnalee sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Friends?”
Freeda asked again.

I wanted to brush the whole thing off, but I was smiling like an idiot. Now that Jesse had used the word
love
, I could finally admit—at least to myself—that I’d always been in love with him.

Freeda’s eyes squinted. “You mean you’ve been carrying this torch for a
friend
all this time?”

I wished I didn’t blush so easily. I edged closer to the door, ready to say I had to get home and back to work.

“Sit your butt down. We were talking,” Freeda told me, as she reached over the table to whack Aunt Verdella’s hand, because she was reaching for one of the leftover bunny pancakes still on the table.

“Oh, ick,” Winnalee said, as a geyser of spit-up landed on her chest. She got up to lay Evalee down and to change her shirt.

Freeda stood up. “It’s too damn hot for coffee. I’m having ice water. Who wants some? And Button, you’re going to tell me all about this guy.”

Winnalee pointed the box fan on the dining room table toward the kitchen and came back in as Freeda was bringing our glasses to the table. She lifted her hair off her back, bouncing it. “Damn, it’s hot. And it’s not even ten o’clock yet.” She reached down and gave her cutoffs another roll, bringing them up to her crotch. “I don’t know how you can stand it in pants,” she said to me.