Close to Famous (20 page)

I grabbed one. This was good, too.

“My mother's lemon icebox cookies. You take as many as you want.”

I grabbed two more. “The garden's looking nice,” I told her.

“It's getting there.” She studied my face. “You don't seem like yourself, if you don't mind me saying.”

“I've got lots I'm thinking about.” Mama. Sonny. My whole life, actually.

“This is a good place to come and lay your burdens down.”

I looked at the boarded-up windows and the locked door and the cracked steps and the big pothole in the little parking lot. It seemed to me this place had its own burdens and couldn't take any more.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said.

I sat up straighter. I hoped she couldn't read my mind.

“You're thinking what's the use? Why does that Perseverance Wilson keep holding on to this crumbling building? Why doesn't she just give up and let it go? She can't change anything.”

I wasn't thinking that at this moment, but it had occurred to me at other times.

She leaned back smiling. “Oh, I've heard it all before. Let it go, woman. There isn't any money—your pastor up and quit. This church is dead. People have moved on and tacos are moving in.” She looked at the boarded-up door. “But all I see when I look at this old place is the door wide open, fresh paint everywhere, and people singing.”

I looked at the church again. I sure couldn't see that.

“I know it's a mess, Foster, but I've got faith.”

I looked at her sitting there in her big hat with her blue skirt flowing out over the steps.

“And when I think of Helping Hands, I picture curtains on every window, those rickety steps repaired, and food in the refrigerator.”

“I think that's wonderful,” I told her. “I'd like to be able to look at a messed-up thing and see something different.”

“My daddy was a church janitor all his life, and every day he had something big to clean up. He didn't focus on the mess, he'd just picture in his mind how fine it was going to look when he was through.”

“I do that with cooking, kind of. I see all the ingredients out there and picture what it's going to look like.”

She slapped her knee. “I like that!”

But when it came to thinking about the mess of my education, I couldn't get a picture in my mind about how it would look if I could clean it up. I had no idea where to start.

“Let me tell you a secret, Foster. When you've got a big problem, just start somewhere. Do one little thing to make it better. Then do another little thing, and another.”

“Is that why you keep tending the garden?”

“That's right. Bit by bit, I'm doing something. I'm going to be planting tulip bulbs and daffodils in the fall to get ready for spring.”

I tried to picture this church open and surrounded by flowers, but I couldn't quite do it. I smiled at her. “I think Perseverance is the perfect name for you.”

She laughed. “It's my middle name. I hated it when I was young, but over the years, it's just moved to the front of my life.”

I took a deep breath. “My middle name's Akilah. It means ‘intelligent one who reasons.' ”

“You grab hold of that,” Perseverance told me. “That name's a gift your parents gave you.”

I looked down. “I don't feel like I deserve it.”

“That's okay, honey,” she said. “You don't have to right now. But bit by bit, start cleaning up whatever's in your way.” She stood up and grabbed her hoe. “I've got work to do.”

I smiled. “Yes ma'am, you sure do.”

“TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES,” I announced to Angry Wayne. “Two dozen.”

He was out front cleaning off two round tables and chairs. He'd never had outdoor seating. “Think you can bring three dozen?” he asked me.

“I don't know.”

“Because I had a woman who'd driven over from Harrington to buy some of your cupcakes, and we were sold out.”

That was nice to hear. “I don't think I could deliver three dozen myself, sir. I'd need help.”

He nodded and looked at the dirty front window. “You think I should get curtains?”

I was having trouble picturing that. Jim Bob the tarantula crawled under the round tables. This seemed like a good time to head to Miss Charleena's.

I laid out the Elvis book on Miss Charleena's counter and read the first sentence and half of the next one about how Elvis's mother was buried at Graceland, which made me wonder where Lester's daddy was buried. I wondered if it was out by the tomato patch where Lester spent so much time. The tomatoes were ripe now.

“I'd say you've had a serious breakthrough, Foster McFee.”

I pushed her pretty blue paper toward her and said, “Write down for me what you just said.”

Miss Charleena did.
I' d say you've had a serious breakthrough, Foster McFee.

“Put the date on it,” I told her.

“You want me to sign it?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She put a squiggle line under her name. I bet this was worth some money, but I'd never sell it, not ever.

Miss Charleena was wearing a pretty white shirt with lace around the neck. It looked like the top of my white dress I wore for the sixth-grade moving up ceremony. That dress got ruined with one of the worst words in the English language—LIMITED.

Why was I thinking about that? I'd just had an official signed and dated breakthrough.

“What's the matter, Foster?”

“Nothing.”

I looked at the blue paper she'd signed. I tried to read what she'd written and got all messed up. The words were a jumble to me.

“Foster, what's wrong?”

“I've got to go,” I told her.

“No.” She put her hands on my shoulders and sat me down. “Not this time. You tell me what just happened.”

“Your shirt reminded me of something I used to have.”

“What was that?”

“A white dress.”

Miss Charleena touched the lace around her neck.

“It was an important dress. And it got ruined. I don't mean I spilled on it; it got ruined in another way. In sixth grade.”

“Do you still have it?”

“My mama kept it. She said it was historic.”

“Does it still fit?”

“I guess so.”

“Bring it over,” she said.

“You mean here?”

“I mean here.”

I got the box with the white dress out of the storage bin under the couch, and put the box on the table as Lester's daddy's stupid, dead fish looked on. After that awful moving-up ceremony, Mama told me how proud she was and how pretty I looked. She had the dress dry-cleaned, put it in the box, and covered it with pink paper. Opening this box was like upsetting a hornet's nest. All the bad feelings swarmed around.

LIMITED

limited

I thought of speed limit signs. I always went slower in school, like I was crawling.

I took the pink paper off and lifted the dress up. For a minute I remembered when Mama and I had found it at the Second Chance Store. Mama held it up, grinning.

I didn't see what was so great. It looked old-fashioned to me, but Mama sees things others can't see, like Perseverance Wilson.

“I'll cut you a pretty new neckline, put some lace going up to your neck, give this a tuck around your waist. You'll be a real heartbreaker.”

What she didn't know was my heart was the one that would be breaking.

She sewed up a storm and made that dress into something so special. I never told her about how I felt wearing it. I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

“I haven't seen that dress for the longest time.” It was Mama. She walked over and held it up. “I remember you coming down the aisle in this.”

She flopped in the lean-back chair and kicked her shoes off. “I'm not leaving this chair,” she said. Her phone started ringing.

Mama groaned. “Get it, Baby.”

I fished it out of her purse. “Hello,” I said. “This is Foster speaking.”

“Well, now, my Foster child, I sure miss seeing you.”

I felt the hair crawl on my neck.

“How do you like living in West Virginia, girl? Guess what? I've got a cousin near Culpepper.”

I turned to Mama, but she was sleeping.

“My cousin, he plays guitar. I'm coming up to see him, and, of course, I'll be paying a special visit to you and that mama of yours.”

“We're not in Culpepper anymore,” I said. I hoped my voice didn't sound as scared as I felt. “We moved yesterday.”

Mama sat straight up.

“Your mama didn't tell me that!”

“She got a new job,” I lied. “A real good new job.”

“Doing what?”

“Singing.”

“Who is it, Baby?”

Lies were pouring out of me. “And she's got a new boyfriend, too, who's just like my daddy.”

“I don't like what you're telling me, girl!”

I pressed the red button. No more Huck. I stood there shaking.

Mama walked toward me. “What are you doing?”

“I'm protecting us.” The phone started ringing. Mama headed for it. “Don't answer it, Mama!”

“I'm not.” She turned the phone off.

“I want to know what happened to your arm,” I told her.

“Foster, I've had a long day at work.”

“I want to know what's going on!”

Mama stood there holding the phone. The light through the little round window shone around her hair. She looked soft and gentle like an angel.

“All right. I'll tell you.”