Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes (2 page)

I set my tea on the counter, careful not to let the sweat-covered glass slip through my fingers.

“Violet, do you remember me ever having visions of anything
bad
?”

Violet scrunched her nose. “Bad? You mean like the time you told Miss Fannie her husband was sleeping with her best friend?”

“Well….”

“Or the time you told Bud Fenton his business partner was cheating on the books?”

“No.…”

“Or….” Her eyes widened in terror, “when you told Momma that Ima Jean was going to win first place in the pie contest at the Fenton County Fair?” Violet shook her head at the memory. Then she nodded, raising her eyebrows. “
That
was a bad one.”

I shuddered. Up until that year, Momma had always won the pie contest at the Fenton County Fair. She never forgave me for it. “No,” I hesitated and sipped my tea. “Worse.”

Violet appeared stumped as she tried to reason what could be worse than taking away Momma’s blue ribbon. She waited.

I cleared my throat. “Um, today I saw a vision about me.” I paused, letting the full weight of it settle in the room.

“You? But that’s impossible. You’ve never seen yourself in a vision before.” Violet cocked her head. “
Have
you?”

I pursed my lips and shook my head. “No, I’m sure I saw someone else’s vision. It just happened to be about me.”

Violet grabbed a cookie and took a nibble. “Who was it? What did you see?”

For some reason, I didn't think I should tell her. The seriousness of the vision, and the fact I knew the name of the man who killed me scared the bejiggers out me. To speak it would make it real. To remain silent left it in the realm of the nebulous otherworld. I shrugged. “Just a customer at the DMV. Nothing special.”

I worried Violet would push harder, but mentioning the DMV jogged her memory. “That reminds me. What are you doin’ here eatin’ my cookies when you’re supposed to be at work?”

I shrugged again then grabbed another cookie. “Dunno, it was a slow day.”

Violet squinted her disbelief. “On a Friday? At the end of the month?”

Henryetta was a small town, and word was bound to get out about Freaky Rose fainting at the DMV. Violet would be upset if she heard it from someone else. “Well, I don’t know what happened. I was sittin’ there at my desk, tryin’ to work and suddenly I just fainted and whacked my head on the counter.”

Violet leaned forward and examined my forehead. “Oh, I see it. Do you want some ice for that?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Why did you faint? You’ve never fainted before.”

“No, but I was really cold.”

“Do people faint from cold? I can see hot….” Violet bit her lip and looked out her kitchen window as she considered it.

“I dunno, Violet. I just fainted.” I regretted the harshness of my words. “I’m sorry, Vi. I’m tired.”

Violet’s eyes got as big as the hubcaps on her husband Mike’s four-wheel drive pickup truck. “You don’t think you’re pregnant, do you?”

Her question shocked me more than seeing my own lifeless body in my vision. “Good heavens, no. NO!” To be pregnant meant I had to… with a man. Fire flooded my face and I placed my glass against my cheek. “How could you ask such a thing, Violet Mae Beauregard?”

“Well…” Violet said slowly and searched for the right words.

“Do you think so little of me? How could I be pregnant? You know I’ve never…ever…”

Violet plastered an indignant look on her face and lifted her chin in defiance. “Well, maybe you should. Have you ever considered that, Rose? It's the twenty-first century, for heaven’s sake. People have sex.”

I shrank away from her in horror. “How can you say such a thing? Momma would have a conniption.”

“And maybe that’s why you should, Rose. Momma needs a few conniptions. You need to stand up to her. You’re fritterin’ your life away. You’re gonna regret it one day, mark my words.”

We sat in silence while I digested Violet’s pronouncement. There was no denying I’d thought everything Violet just said, but they were just thoughts. Ugly and hideous thoughts. I couldn’t
act
on them.

“Momma needs me, Violet. You know that. I’m all she’s got left.”

“And why is that, Rose?”

I stared at her like she’d asked me to explain how to assemble a nuclear bomb.

“I’ll tell you why. She’s an abusive old woman who’s run everyone else away. Why, even poor Daddy had to die to escape from her.”

“Violet Mae!”

Violet squirmed in her seat and leaned closer, lowering her voice. “You know it’s true, Rose. Everyone says so. The question is why do you put up with it? You’re a grown woman.”

I would have loved to stand up to Momma. I couldn’t do a blessed thing right in that woman’s eyes, but somehow, every time I tried, I froze up like the power lines in a raging ice storm. I looked down at my glass of tea, running my finger around the rim. “It’s not that easy.”

“Well, of course it won’t be
easy
. You’ve let her ramrod you for twenty-four years. But Rose, it’s time. You can’t let her control you for the rest of your life.”

I sighed, a deep and heavy sigh. If only sighs could carry all my troubles away. But after a big exhale, they were still there, as large as ever. “I know. But not today, okay? Can I just hang out with you and the babies for a while? I can’t go home and deal with her right now.”

Violet reached over and gave my shoulder a big squeeze. “Of course! Ashley will be so happy to see you and you won't believe little Mikey. He’s almost walking.” Violet beamed with pride.

I envied Violet. Always the pretty one, she was blessed with blonde hair and blue eyes while I inherited boring brown hair and murky hazel eyes. Violet had experienced so much more of life even though she was only two years older. She married her high school sweetheart right after graduation and started having babies several years later. She and Mike, her husband, seemed happy. I couldn't help but wonder if that was because Violet had very little to do with Momma.

A little later, four-year-old Ashley woke up from her nap. We played tea party until thirteen-month-old Mikey got up and showed me his tottery walk. I glanced up at the clock and realized it was after five.

“Oh, I have to go,” I said.

“Do you have to, Aunt Rose?” Ashley asked, her big blue eyes begging in an earnest plea. She looked so much like a younger Violet that my breath caught in my throat.

“I’m sorry Ashley, but I do. Grandma needs me.”

Violet made an ugly face, but to her credit, she didn't say a word. I gave her a big hug after I picked up my purse. “Tell Mike I said hey.”

I left her house and cute little neighborhood, working my way past the DMV and to the older part of town where Momma and I lived. Traffic wasn’t bad in our town of eleven thousand, but a little after five o’clock on a Friday and a holiday weekend to boot, I had to stop at the lights longer than usual.

When I pulled onto our street of older bungalows, I knew I was late. The rustle of curtains in the front window as I parked in the gravel driveway confirmed it. Momma had been watching for me.

The over-grown landscape encroached on the broken concrete sidewalk. I had to sidestep the bushes to walk to the side of the house. Daddy had taken great pride in his house and would be upset to see the state of things. He’d always kept the hedges neatly trimmed, the yard meticulously cut, and a multitude of flowers blooming along the edge of the walk. Daddy had loved his flowers. I often wondered if that was how Violet and I had gotten our names. Momma would never say. I did the best I could with the yard, but it was a big lot and Momma refused to hire anyone to help maintain it. I was lucky to get the lawn mowed and tend to my rose garden in the back.

I walked in the side door and set my purse on the kitchen table. The sounds of the television filtered in from the living room. I knew Momma would be watching the national news on the Shreveport channels we used to get with our giant antenna outside. Now the news came through a little black box that sat on top of the TV. Momma resisted the box and pronounced it a government attempt to spy on us, but the alternative meant no television since Momma refused to get cable. Momma declared cable full of pornography, though what I’d seen at Violet and Mike’s house looked perfectly respectable. Even if I could have convinced her otherwise, she would never have stood for
paying
to watch television.

“Hello, Momma. Did you have a good day?”

I heard her harrumph. “I most certainly did not. Ya left the air conditionin’ on. It cooled off so I had to go through the entire house and open all them winders.”

“I’m sorry, Momma. They said it might rain so I worried you would have to close the windows if I left them open.”

“I ain’t made of money, Rose Anne.”

“Yes, Momma.” I let the detail that I paid the electric bill slide right on by.

I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the meatloaf I’d made in the morning before work. I would’ve asked Momma to put it in the oven so it would be ready when I came home, but she claimed she couldn’t bend over anymore. She was only sixty-two years old, but you couldn’t tell by the way she behaved. Our eighty-two year old neighbor, Mildred, often acted younger than Momma did.

“Why’re you so late?” she called from the other room.

I ignored the
so late
comment. I was only ten minutes later than usual. “It’s the Friday before Memorial Day, Momma. Everybody’s trying to get out of town and head to the lake. The intersections downtown were plum crazy.”

There was a moment of silence as I pulled a bag of potatoes from the cupboard.

“I heard about your faintin’ spell.”

I sighed and grabbed the peeler from the drawer. It didn't surprise me she’d heard already. Gossip in Henryetta spread faster than a smallpox plague in an internment camp.

“I heard ya had a fit right there at your desk, thrashin’ and foamin’ at the mouth and flingin’ your arms everywhere. I must say it didn't surprise me one bit, what with your demon and all.”

“That’s not what happened, Momma. I just got a bit dizzy after lunch is all. I lost my balance and hit my head on my desk.”

“Hmm…that’s not what I heard from Mildred.”

“Momma, Mildred wasn’t even there. I promise you, it was nothin’.”

“Hmm…”

Her voice faded into the national news anchor’s monologue. Momma loved the nightly news. Nothing made her happier than watching carnage and pestilence sweeping through the world so she could mutter, “I told you so” to the television. Momma said the world was the devil’s playground and the people in it weren’t nothing but the devil’s Barbie dolls, dressed up in floozy clothes and lettin’ loose in fancy cars, God bless their souls. The fact that a good portion of the world lived in poverty remained lost on her.

I finished peeling the potatoes and started them boiling on the stove. Cleaning the scraps out of the sink, I peered out the little window. A soft breeze fluttered the gauzy curtain while I studied my next-door neighbor pulling a lawn mower out of the dilapidated, rusted shed behind his house.

He wasn’t from around here which made him an outsider, kind of like me. I’d never talked to him. I was too shy to approach a man, especially an attractive man close to my own age. He had moved into the old Williams house a couple of months earlier. The neighbors suspected he was single since they never saw a woman come and go. Trust me, if a woman had shown up, it would have been caught by the eyes of the Busybody Club. The elderly women of the Neighborhood Watch loved to snoop under the guise of being vigilant.

My neighbor wore a t-shirt and jeans. He leaned over to check the gas in the mower, giving me a perfect view of his posterior. A blush rushed to my face when I realized I’d been staring at it. I turned away and wiped stray potato peels from the kitchen counter with a dishrag as I heard the mower start.

“That infernal Yankee is interruptin’ my news!” Momma shouted from the other room. While the mower could be easily heard with all the windows open, it wasn’t even close to drowning out the news anchor’s voice.

“Momma, he is
not
a Yankee.” In Henryetta, being a Yankee was a serious offense, the term synonymous with liars, thieves, and murderers. And not necessarily in that order.

“Mildred said she heard he was from Missoura.
That
right there makes him a Yankee. Besides, it don’t matter where’s he’s from, he ain’t from around
here
.”

There lay the actual problem. He wasn’t from around here, which meant no one knew anything about his family. In this neck of the woods, the deeper the roots of your family tree, the higher your social esteem. My neighbor was a sapling transplanted into a prehistoric forest. It amazed me that he lasted this long.

“People move around nowadays, Momma.”

She harrumphed again. “Not in Henryetta they don’t.”

The sound of the television rose, competing with the buzz of the mower. I tried my best to ignore both while I finished making dinner. My mind wandered to my vision earlier. Violet and her children had been a great distraction but with the company of just myself, my thoughts presented themselves like unwelcome houseguests. I’d never seen something really bad before, and the fact that it was about me scared the stuffing out of me. But I also realized my visions didn’t always come true. I’d never met Daniel Crocker before today. Why on earth would he want to murder
me
? People ignored me, mocked me, and even gossiped about me, but murder me?

The best thing I could do was just forget about it.

Chapter Two