A Life of Bright Ideas (35 page)

Freeda redoing Ma’s floor was a matter I’d forced myself not to think about, because every time it was mentioned, it felt like someone was taking a seam ripper to my stomach. I didn’t want to go, but Winnalee was eager to go
anywhere
, and called a yes into the dining room for us both.

“I’ll get my keys,” Freeda said. Freeda didn’t say anything about me not going to Mardi Gras when Boohoo brought it up again, but I feared if I gave her eye contact, she might. Just as I feared that she might try to get Dad and I to actually say something to each other when we got to his place.

“He’s probably sleeping,” I said when we pulled in.

Freeda gave the horn three long bleats. “Not anymore,” she said.

Winnalee ran ahead, Freeda close behind her. I lagged behind. I didn’t want to go into that house—I hadn’t even gone to dust Ma’s bells since Freeda had started hanging out over there. I didn’t want to see Dad, either.

“Hurry, Button!” Winnalee called from the kitchen when I got inside. “This is so cool!”

But I didn’t budge.
Couldn’t
budge. Because there, inside the door, was a cardboard box stuffed with Ma’s old magazines, ready for the burning barrel. There was a wad of coffee grounds sitting on top, and some scrap window trim was wedged in the side.

I reached down and picked up the short stack of magazines sitting on top, shaking out the grounds. I shuffled through
them, stopping when I came across a
Redbook
issue I remembered. It was sitting on the coffee table the summer the Malones lived in Dauber. I remembered Ma paging through it one evening, while I was spread out on the floor, coloring in my ballerina book and imagining what fun things Winnalee might find for us to do the next day.

I ran my fingers over the very caption Ma read aloud:
The Delightful World of Caroline Kennedy. First-hand report on the First Family’s biggest little problem
. Ma chuckled softly to herself after she read it, which confused me. So when she went to add more ice to her tea, I got up and tiptoed to the ottoman where she’d set it. I wedged my hand on the page she was reading, then closed the magazine so I could see the cover. The picture was of the president of the United States, JFK, holding his daughter up in the air, one hand steadying her at the belly. Caroline was laughing and clutching her dad’s hand. I studied the picture carefully, trying to understand the president’s pride, and trying to understand why that girl made my ma smile. Everybody went on and on about her like she was Winnalee-pretty, even though she was as ordinary looking as me (only with a nicer hairdo). I could hear Ma banging the metal ice cube tray against the sink, so I didn’t have time to read through all those words to find out why Ma thought it was cute that Caroline was a problem, when she didn’t like girls who weren’t well behaved.

I’d heard the freezer door close, and set the magazine down just the way she’d left it. I scooted back to flop before my coloring book, and with my yellow crayon, I colored Caroline-length wavy hair over the dancing lady’s slicked-back bun.

“What’s she doing in there?” I heard Freeda ask.

“Probably dusting Jewel’s bells,” Winnalee said. “She always does that, since Uncle Reece doesn’t. Jewel loved those bells.” I heard Freeda mumble something, then call out my name. She called out to Dad, too.

I rotated the magazines with shaky fingers and the last one on the stack was
Good Housekeeping
. And another cover photo of the Kennedys. The article was on a book written about the president. I searched for the date to see if it was printed before or after his death, and I pressed my fingers over my mouth when I found it: August 1966. The month and year Ma died.

I wanted to keep those magazines, just as Ma had, but when I heard Dad shuffling down the hallway, I quickly dropped them in the box like a thief who’d been caught red-handed. Dad had jeans on, but no belt or shirt. “Freeda, when the hell do you think I’m supposed to sleep?” he called in a voice I hadn’t heard in years, and had forgotten. Light. Teasing. Warm, even. He startled when he saw me.

Freeda poked her nose out of the kitchen doorway. “You can go back to bed in a minute,” she said. “I just wanted to show the girls our handiwork.” Behind Freeda I could see a portion of the kitchen wall. Not the floor, but the wall. It was covered in wallpaper with big bright, surreal flowers in orange and yellow, with exaggerated stems and leaves. Ma hated wallpaper. And she hated the color orange.
What had they done?

I shot out the door and ran across the highway. I didn’t look back when I heard Winnalee call to me from the front steps. I just kept running, the air swirling my bare legs. Freeda had no business tampering. It was
Ma’s
place.
Ma’s
things. The things she saved, made, wanted. Even
I
didn’t dare move them.

I was about a quarter mile down Peters Road and damp from tears and sweat when Freeda’s car came barreling up alongside of me. “Button.” Winnalee hung out of the passenger window as the car slowed to a crawl. “Button, what happened? Why’d you leave like that?”

“Get in, Button,” Freeda said.

I didn’t answer either of them. I just sobbed like a stupid baby and kept walking.

“Button, stop, will you?”

But I didn’t.

I could hear Winnalee and Freeda hissing at each other, then the soft squeak of breaks.

Freeda left the car idling, the door hanging open. “Button, you stop right now,” she ordered.

“Or what? You going to throw me down and sit on me?” I snapped, without breaking my stride.

“Maybe. If I have to!”

Freeda ran to catch up to me and grabbed my arm. I yanked out of her grasp and wrapped my arms around me like a sweater, pressing against my itchy skin. I kept walking.

“Button, what is it?” she asked, her sandals chomping at the gravel. “Everything was fine. What in the hell was that about?”

I couldn’t ignore those words, even though I wanted to.

I stopped. “You’re changing everything! Ma’s house, the way we raise Boohoo. My clothes. Why are you doing this?”

“Because it
needs
changing, Button.”

“But you’re getting rid of my ma. The magazines … the floor … the paint. You’re getting rid of her! Don’t you see that?”

Freeda sighed, then wrapped her fingers around my upper arms. She put her face close to mine. “Honey,
I’m
not the one who got rid of your mom. God did. Or life did—whoever, whatever it is that decides these things. It wasn’t me. I loved your Ma. She was my best friend, like Winnalee is yours. You think
I’d
choose to get rid of her? You
really
think that?”

I wanted Freeda to stop talking to me in such a compassionate tone.

“Button, these are only her things. They aren’t her. She’s gone. And that house is so filled with memories of her that your dad can’t wade out of the past. But life is for the living, honey, and he’s been living like he’s dying for too long. I hope
you and your dad remember Jewel forever. She was special enough that you should. And I hope you’ll give Boohoo some memories of her, too. But there’s a big difference between holding on to your memories, and holding on to the past. Am I making any sense? Probably not, because frankly, I don’t know how in the hell to say what I mean.

“I’m not just talking about the family not going to Mardi Gras anymore, or your dad letting the house go to hell. I’m talking about what’s at the core of this. The thing I can’t put my finger on, but know it’s there.

“I saw you and your dad together the night he came over for spaghetti. There’s something as spiky and solid as a barbed-wire fence sitting between you two. He won’t talk about it. I doubt you will. And I’m not sure Aunt Verdella knows. But whatever it is, it’s so sharp that it’s keeping both your hearts bleeding. And you may not like it, your dad might not like it, but I’m going to do my best to snap it. For Jewel, for all of you. I’m gonna do it so you can be a family again. So you can all get on with your lives. My friend would have wanted it that way. Do you understand?

“Do you?” she asked again when I didn’t answer.

I nodded, my hair tangling in front of my face. Freeda smoothed the strands from my cheeks and her eyes were glossy as wet grass. “Honey, I know this is painful, but it has to be done. Let go, Button, and let me do this. For all of you.” Winnalee was beside us then, and she wrapped her arms around our waists, and they led me to the car.

“By the way,” Freeda said, when she was behind the wheel again. “Just so you know, … your ma hated those bells. She told me so. That sister of hers, Stella, brought her one back from Las Vegas—probably something she got for free—and Jewel made a big deal out of it to be nice. Aunt Verdella was there and thought Jewel was serious. So she gave her one for
her birthday. Before long, everybody was giving them to her for gifts and eventually she had that whole shitload of them.”

“She did not hate them,” I protested. “She dusted them practically every day, until I was old enough to do it.”

“Yeah,” Freeda said. “But only because she hated dust worse than she hated those damn bells.”

I suppose Freeda was trying to make amends when she came over the next morning, Boohoo in tow, and told Winnalee and me to be ready in half an hour. I was pressing a seam on one of Cindy’s bridesmaids’ gowns, but Freeda’s eyes warned me that no excuse would do. She squatted down where Evalee was lying peacefully in her playpen and said, “Auntie Verdella is going to watch you.”

“And me, Uncle Boohoo. I’m gonna watch you, too.” He was about to lean over and pat her, but even at a distance I could smell Knucklehead on him and told him to wash first.

“Where we going?” Winnalee asked, but Freeda told her, “Never mind.”

An hour later, Freeda slid her car up in front of the Cut ’n
Curl. “Come on,” she said, as she waved to Aunt Verdella’s beautician, Claire, who was standing in the window. “Button, you’re gettin’ a cut and a color. My treat. Then you’re putting on that cute skirt you made, and we’re sending soldier boy a Polaroid of you.” Freeda got out of the car and headed for the door.

“Cool!” Winnalee said, as she nudged me with her hip to get out.

“
Not
cool, Winnalee,” I whisper-hissed. “You saw Aunt Verdella’s hair. It was Pepto-Bismol pink!”

Winnalee pushed my back until we got inside. Three older ladies were sitting against the wall under dryers, and two were in chairs getting trims, their white, dry curls floating to the floor like paint chips. The whole place stunk like perming solution and hair spray. I leaned down to Winnalee. “There’s only old ladies here. What does
that
tell you?” My hands instinctively lifted to clutch my hair.

As it turned out, Aunt Verdella had helped convince Claire to let Freeda borrow her workstation over her lunch hour, since her next appointment wasn’t until three (three guesses why!). “I wasn’t about to color your hair with that boxed shit, or cut it with sewing shears,” Freeda explained as she wrapped me in a plastic cape.

“I don’t want my hair cut,” I said, fear making me brave enough to say it.

“Well, too bad for your ass,” Freeda said. “Because that’s what you’re gettin’.”

Winnalee started giggling behind me. “She just means a trim, Button.” She turned to Freeda. “You did just mean a trim, didn’t you?”

“Nope, I’m gonna cut it to its last inch, thin it, then give you those little knots you used to love.” Freeda shook with laughter. “Sit down, kid. Your ends look like a goddamn rat
was chewin’ on them. I’m just trimming it, that’s all. Then I’m going to frost it. Well, not really frost it—I hate that skunk look—I’m going to use the same technique, but do nice, subtle, golden strands to brighten it up.”

As Freeda worked, Winnalee stood beside my chair, lifting one bottle after another from the counter and spraying or dabbing whatever was in them down her curly strands. The beautician working alongside us frowned over the perfumy cloud, then started coughing. “Crissakes, Winnalee. Will you stop? You look like someone shellacked you already.”

Freeda patted Winnalee’s butt to move her out of the way the first time, but by the third time she had to move her, she snapped, “Winnalee, move your ass!” loud enough that even the old ladies under the dryers frowned.

Freeda stopped and dug in her purse. She pulled out some bills and handed them to Winnalee. “Here. Go buy yourself something pretty.” Winnalee gave Freeda’s cheek a peck, and off she went.

Freeda spun my chair sideways after she washed the gunk out of my hair and before she trimmed and dried me, so the end result would be a surprise. And when she finally spun me back to face the mirror, I was staring at somebody else, not me. Somebody who belonged on the cover of
Seventeen
magazine. The beauticians fawned over my new look, saying the touch of blond added warmth to my skin, and made my eyes “pop.”

“You like it?” Freeda asked hopefully. I nodded dumbly, as I ran my hands down hair so satiny that it didn’t even feel like my own.

“You just wait until I’m done with her,” Freeda told the skinny beautician Winnalee had almost asphyxiated in that cloud of hair products. “She’s got a great little skirt, full and
bouncy, that’s gonna give her some hips. With her good chest and tiny waist, she’s gonna be drooling material.”

The beautician’s hands went instinctively to her own hips, hidden underneath a smock. “A fuller skirt will help?” she asked. And before you knew it, Freeda was working her magic, telling the whole salon how the “art of distraction” works, and how each of them could bring the eye to their best qualities, and downplay the parts that were “less blessed,” or “overly blessed.”

Winnalee walked in just as I stood up. She took one look at me and said, “Holy shit!”

Freeda made Winnalee sit down and trimmed the bottom of her hair, as she explained to the ladies what body parts of her own she accentuated, and which parts she was disguising—I was glad she didn’t feel inclined to
show
them.