Chasing Lilacs (27 page)

Now we found our secret spot, overgrown but with a gap we could still squeeze into. Sunshine had melted the Christmas snow,
leaving the needled ground underfoot spongy with the smell of moist earth. With the tools we’d brought—a red-handled serving
spoon and a meat fork—we dug a hole and put in the cocoa tin. Finally, we covered the spot with dead leaves and cedar fans
and slipped out. We headed for Tuwana’s.

Going past the row of garages for Tuwana’s block, we saw her dad hauling out boxes, old rags, broken toys, and the like.

“Whatcha doin’, Daddy?” Tuwana kept her voice light.

“Your mother’s been after me to clean out the garage. First nice day we’ve had in a month of Sundays, so here I am.” He laughed
in that big throaty way he had and disappeared into the blackness of the garage. The Edsel was nowhere in sight, so we knew
Tuwana’s mother had taken the girls to their piano lessons. We cleaned up at Tuwana’s kitchen sink.

“Phase two,” I said as we picked the cedar needles off our coats. “Slim’s house to do some investigating.”

For the eleventeenth time, I had to convince Tuwana we were doing the right thing. She drove me crazy the way she could see
crystal clear how to handle someone else’s situations but froze in terror when it came to her own.

“Mother will kill me if she finds out I went into Slim Wallace’s house.”

“Stop saying that. She won’t find out. Now come on.”

Slim opened the door on the first knock and let us in.

“And to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” he asked. “Want to teach Tuwana how to play backgammon?”

“No, we were just out in the neighborhood and thought we’d drop in,” I said.

“I just made a fresh pot o’ coffee. Better not offer you any though. You know what they say: It’ll turn your feet black if
you’re not old enough to drink it.”

Tuwana, who had been standing on one foot then the other, like she might wet her pants or something, giggled. “That’s what
Mother says to Tommie Sue when she begs to have a sip of Daddy’s coffee.”

“Is that a fact? How about some Ovaltine?”

Tuwana stood in the front room, scanning it like a ghost might pop out any minute. I followed Slim into the kitchen and opened
the cabinet for the cups. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tuwana
move over to the table where the backgammon board and Slim’s Bible sat in their usual places. She picked up the Bible, silently
fanning through the pages. Praying for deliverance, no doubt.

Slim reached in his pocket for a handkerchief when a rattly cough interrupted him from fixing the Ovaltine.

“You still got the crud, Slim?”

“Can’t seem to shake it. Doc Pinkerton’s got me on penicillin shots. Says I’m on the verge of pneumonia. Olivia’s been after
me constant to take care o’ myself.”

Tuwana’s head was bent over something in Slim’s Bible, her eyebrows puckered.

“How is Olivia?” I asked, anxious to get around to the real reason for our visit.

“Fine as frog hair.”

Whack!
Tuwana slammed the Bible shut, threw it on the table, and hollered she had to go. She ran out the front door, slamming the
screen behind her.

“Wonder what scared her off?” Slim asked.

“Tuwana gets nervous. I’d better go check on her.”

She had already run half a block before I got out the door. As I called for her to stop, a boom filled the air.
Oh my gosh, the plant’s exploding!
I looked toward the towering smokestacks to see what had happened. Nothing looked any different. I thought of the underground
maze of natural gas threading its way all over creation. Another boom sounded, so near I jumped. Smoke billowed above the
garages.

An incinerator. Near the Johnsons’. Running as fast as I could to catch up with Tuwana, we both arrived at her house at the
same time.

“Fire! My clothes are on fire!” Mr. Johnson’s bloodcurdling screams filled the air.

Tuwana screeched as loud as or louder than Mr. Johnson. “Daddy! What should I do? Help! Somebody, help! Daddy, please don’t
die!” She ran toward him and then jumped back from the heat of Mr. Johnson being on fire.

I looked around, trying to think what to do.
Stop! Drop! Roll!
The fire drill words rang in my head, but Tuwana’s dad had already dropped and rolled on the ground, moaning and drawing
his arms and legs up to his body. People scurried up from all directions. Mr. Nash threw an army blanket over Mr. Johnson,
stopping the smoke but not his howls.

Tuwana knelt by her dad, sobbing, saying she was sorry. For what, I didn’t know. I tried to put my arm around her as some
men bundled Mr. Johnson into a car and roared off. She pushed me away. A stink filled the air. Not like normal trash burning,
but something much worse. Like singed chicken feathers, but I knew it was charred flesh. Bile came up in my mouth, and I spit
on the grass.

The next thing I knew Tuwana’s mother pulled up in the Edsel. “What happened? Why is everyone here?”

Tuwana stood frozen, staring at her mother. When someone repeated what had happened, Mrs. Johnson fainted, and Tuwana ran
to her, sobbing and shaking. “Daddy’s going to die. I just know it. He caught fire….”

Ernie and Lola Greenwood pulled Tuwana away from Mrs. Johnson, whose eyes fluttered open. Mrs. Greenwood helped her up, then
piled Mrs. Johnson and the girls into the Edsel and got behind the wheel. Mr. Greenwood followed in his Pontiac.

The incinerator didn’t send off any more explosions, but we all stayed back just in case. Daddy came up behind me just then,
and I blurted out the awful news. He put his arm around me and led me off. I cried all the way home, babbling about Mr. Johnson
cleaning out the garage and how something he threw in the incinerator must have exploded and caught him on fire. “You always
told Mama and me to stand back and be careful with aerosol cans. Do you think that’s what did it?”

Daddy kept his arm around me. “We can’t rightly know. We’ll just pray he makes it. Don’t do no good putting any blame.”

I wanted to blame something though. For Mr. Johnson. For Mama. But what? Goldie’s words about not questioning the Almighty
popped into my head, but still I couldn’t help thinking,
Why? Why Mama? Why Mr. Johnson?

Aunt Vadine fixed lunch, and we ate in silence. Around five o’clock the prayer chain called to say Mr. Johnson had severe
burns on his face and upper body and had been taken by ambulance to Amarillo. His chances of recovery looked good, but he
would be in the hospital for several weeks. Maybe months.

Poor Tuwana. Her mother would be crushed. Now she would hate Graham Camp more than ever.

I couldn’t get my mind off Tuwana even when I went to visit Goldie. Later, taking Scarlett for a walk, I tried to think. Tuwana
ran from Slim’s house like she’d been shot. What had she seen in Slim’s Bible? Did she read something about Slim’s wife? What
if she hadn’t died in the wreck like Slim said? No. Slim wouldn’t lie. Maybe Slim was drinking when the wreck happened and
that’s why he couldn’t get over it. It didn’t sound like Slim, but people change after a big shock, so maybe he quit drinking.
What was in Slim’s Bible? A clipping of some kind? What? The only one who knew was Tuwana, and she was at the hospital with
her dad.

It probably wasn’t anything in the Bible at all. Maybe Tuwana had stashed an Aqua Net can in the garage and suddenly remembered
her dad throwing stuff in the incinerator. How awful for
Tuwana if that’s what caused the explosion. Was that why she screamed she was sorry? For causing her daddy to catch fire?

As soon as she got back from Amarillo I would ask her about it. Or maybe I’d go over to Slim’s and look in the Bible myself.
The rotten thing was—we still hadn’t found out anything about Mrs. Gray.

February 13, 1959

Dear Diary,

My thirteenth birthday, can you believe it? I’m a teenager!

Not only that. The minute Daddy got off his graveyard shift, he surprised me with my gift. Not a surprise, really, since Aunt
Vadine had planted the idea in Daddy’s head on what to give me. Still, an Olympia portable typewriter just for me. Not a used
one from the school either, but a brand-new one with its own carrying case. I have to wait until Daddy wakes up to try it
out. So now I’m stuck studying the instruction manual and learning where to place my hands on the keys. Just think: in no
time words, paragraphs, and whole pages will flow from my fingers. Now I really wish Aunt Vadine hadn’t gotten me kicked off
the school newspaper.

Speaking of which, you know who keeps coming in my room like she’s dying to say something. I think she’s discovered the pearls
are missing. Should I say something? I think not. Ha. Ha.

SJT

When Daddy woke up, I went straight to work. I rolled a new sheet of paper into the typewriter and plunked a thank-you note
to
Daddy and another one to Aunt Vadine.
Tap-tap-plunk.
The sound made my heart race.

I folded the notes and put them beside Daddy and Aunt Vadine’s plates when I set the supper table.

Aunt Vadine came into the kitchen looking for the aspirin. “All that racket’s given me a headache. Guess you’ll have to make
your own birthday supper, Samantha.”

When Daddy came in from outside, we had sauerkraut and weenies, and I washed the dishes. It reminded me of when Mama was gone
to the hospital. Just Daddy and me.

He had the backgammon board set up by the time I finished the dishes, and we played for three hours straight. I kept trying
to bring up Mrs. Gray, but I could never get the right words in my head, and then it would be my turn to throw the dice. Bringing
up the part about Aunt Vadine slapping me didn’t seem right either, since it was my birthday and all, and it was
her
idea to get me the typewriter. Daddy took a thirty-minute nap and went off for his graveyard shift. I wanted to kick myself
for not saying something.

Tuwana would barely speak to me when she got home from Amarillo. She didn’t even look at me when I asked about her dad. “He’s
got second- and third-degree burns on his neck, face, ears, and hands. Now beat it. I don’t want to talk about it.”

I tried again the next day.

She put her hands over her face and cried. “Leave me alone! Can’t you see I’m dealing with all I can?” I patted her on the
arm and told her I would listen anytime. She knocked my hand off her arm and walked away. It was like after Mama died, when
I didn’t want anyone touching me. That dirty feeling of people’s hands on me trying to make me feel better but making me sick
instead. I
left her alone, hoping someday she would tell me what happened in Slim’s front room.

Every weekend, Tuwana went to Amarillo to see her dad, so I spent as much time as Aunt Vadine would let me practicing on my
new typewriter. Thirty minutes. That was her limit, and even then she gave me a sour-lemon look every time I got it out. She
kept an eye on the clock and yelled, “That’s it. Time’s up.” Even if I was in the middle of a sentence, I stopped and put
everything away. While I typed I let my imagination run free. What would it be like if Aunt Vadine went home to Midland? What
if I interviewed the man with no legs I’d once seen begging on the sidewalk in Amarillo? What kind of story would he have?
What if Daddy decided to get married again and it
wasn’t
Aunt Vadine?

The more I wrote, the more I wanted to be back on the school newspaper and close to Mrs. Gray. I thought about bribing Aunt
Vadine by telling her I’d give back the pearls if she would tell Mr. Howard to put me back on the paper, but then I got mad
all over again at her taking them from me in the first place and kissing Daddy the way she did. She gave me fiery-eyed looks
that straightened the hair on the back of my neck. Then she went back to her latest crochet project—baby booties. Every Wednesday
on double Green Stamp day she drove to Mandeville and bought our groceries and a new supply of crochet thread. Now she had
a dozen baby booties lined up on top of the dresser. Sorta creepy, you know?

Actually, I was sick of myself. Was this how Mama felt? Always hoping things would take a turn for the better? I looked up
depression
in the dictionary.
A neurotic disorder marked by sadness, inactivity, lack of concentration. Dejection. Hopelessness. Sometimes suicidal tendencies.
It sounded like Mr. Webster had taken a look at Mama when he made up the definition. But I wasn’t like Mama, was I?

No. I had my New Year’s resolution. I gritted my teeth. I
would face my problems. But why couldn’t I get up the nerve to tell Daddy why I wasn’t on the school paper anymore? Or shake
Tuwana and make her tell me what was in Slim’s Bible? I even tiptoed around Aunt Vadine like a spooked bunny rabbit.

Cly picked up on my moodiness right off when he came by one Saturday and wanted to go for a walk.

“You aren’t yourself, Sam. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Why would you think that?”

“Hey, don’t bite my head off. Everything’s cool, you know.”

“Sorry, I’m just sick of Aunt Vadine and all that.”

“You’ve been moping around for more than a month. At least your aunt hasn’t threatened to send you to an orphanage. My old
man did that once.” He kicked a rock like he meant to send it into orbit.

“How awful. But it does sound like something Aunt Vadine might pull. Then she could have Daddy to herself.”

“Well, why don’t you do something about it?”

“Like what?”

“Beats me. You should do something though. Get out of this funk you’re stuck in. Why don’t you ask Slim? He’s tight with your
dad. Maybe he can give you some pointers. Look how he helped me patch things up with Norm.”

“Norm is not Aunt Vadine. But there is something I’ve been wanting to ask him. You want to go over there?” Maybe with Cly
backing me up I could find out if Mrs. Gray ever dated anyone.
Is that what older people call it?
And given half a chance, I would look in Slim’s Bible.

We found Slim on his porch, banging the dust off his work gloves against his knee.

“Hey, kids, look at that sun, will ya? The almanac said April would start out sunny. Why it’s plumb near eighty-five degrees
today. Perfect day for getting the garden ready.”