Clover (4 page)

“There is no way I'm going to the fish camp to eat,” I said. “For all I know they might catch them fish in the creek. Mr. Saye Willie Adams said he wouldn't eat no fish at the fish camp if he was on his dying bed and the fish would save him.” I turned to Sara Kate, “And you wouldn't either if you knew what the boys in Round Hill do in the creek water.”

When Gaten tried to excuse what I'd said to Sara Kate, and make me apologize for making up that awful thing, I didn't back down. I said, “All I know is what they say, and that's exactly what they say. Besides, Gaten,” I added, “we have supper anyhow. I heated up the stew we had last night, and Everleen sent over a fresh pot of rice.”

I knew Gaten was still plenty mad at me over this creek thing. But then I was a little mad at him, too. To this day I can't see how Gaten could think that his bringing a woman I'd never laid eyes on in my life could possibly be a surprise for me. Especially a woman that might become my stepmother. Even if I got a purple bike, I didn't want a stepmother. Even if I had to have one, I sure wouldn't pick one like Sara Kate.

Looks like anybody who knows the story about Cinderella should know that nobody in the world would want a stepmother unless they were all the way crazy.

For days on end Gaten had been walking around in a daze. He looked like he was about to die or something. Jim Ed said he'd been bitten by the love bug. In my head I think he was still mad about that creek water thing. And just maybe he knew I slipped and read that letter Sara Kate wrote him. I hate like everything I read that letter. That's the first time I'd ever read Gaten's mail in my life. But it was too late then. I couldn't unread what I'd read. Even if Gaten knew I read the thing, he surely couldn't think that I could begin to understand that letter.

My dearest Gaten,

Now that I'm faced with this dreadful thought of losing you, I'm not sure what direction my life will take. I only know that it seems necessary to convey to you how deeply I care about you. I know, as you do, that happiness cannot be built upon the pain of others. And yet, your sensitivity to this only serves to add to my reasons for loving you.

My faith is in your wisdom and my trust in your decision.

Always,

Sara Kate

I can't see why Sara Kate couldn't just say straight out what she's trying to tell my daddy. But whatever it is, I guess he must have made some sense out of it. He's mighty disturbed over something.

Everybody knew something was bad wrong with Gaten when he wouldn't eat. At Sunday's dinner Gaten didn't eat chicken or rib one. Wouldn't even eat a spoonful of Everleen's banana pudding. I could have eaten the whole thing by myself. She puts Cool Whip on top instead of that egg white stuff. They said Gaten was in L.O.V.E.

I wish I hadn't read his old letter. If I hadn't, then I wouldn't have known he'd lost her.

It was a black night outside, and Gaten was staring out the window. His eyes searched through the darkness. I wondered if he thought his Sara Kate might just come through the darkness back to him.

Everyone at the family gathering was solid blown away when Gaten strolled up with Miss Sara Kate. Everybody, that is, except Gideon. He didn't even look up. He just kept right on eating away on a long slice of watermelon and spitting out seeds.

At least we all knew why it took Gaten so long to get back with the salt for the ice cream churn. He had been all the way to the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In a way I didn't mind too much that Sara Kate was there. Maybe Gaten would get his mind settled down and his appetite back.

The relatives of our family were all gathered at our house. They've done that every year for as long as I can remember.

All the old folks pulled chairs under a shade tree. They made their way around with shaking unsteady steps, like
they were picking their way barefoot through broken glass. They settled their bodies, thin from age, down among walkers and walking sticks, their voices as weak as their eyes tucked into wrinkled faces that pulled together like a gathered skirt. In the summer's heat they gathered together like sparrows warming themselves in the winter sun. Old age sure makes up its own gathering.

Deep down in my heart I knew before that day was over Sara Kate was going to be sick, sick. I could tell from the look on her face when she saw that boiling grease in that big black iron washpot. She had never seen fish cooked like that in her life. Still, whenever someone brought her a piece she ate it. Just like she ate Aunt Ruby Helen's peach walnut cake, then turned right around and ate a big hunk of store-bought Sunbeam Spanish Bar. The cake tastes all right if you can get past that awful gooey white icing that's as thick as the cake. And that's not counting the biscuits. Every time my great uncle stabs one with a fork for him, he stabs one for Sara Kate and puts it on her plate.

It seems at least the yellow jackets like the Sunbeam cake icing. I tell Sara Kate to be careful of the yellow jackets. If they sting her it might make her swell up like Uncle Jim Ed does when he gets stung. He's allergic to bees.

Poor old Sara Kate didn't even turn down the ham Gideon cooked, even after everybody tried to warn her it came from a boar. But then, the woman doesn't even know what
mountain oysters are. I knew. I'd known for a long time. But I sure knew better than to tell her. You see, it's a right nasty thing to repeat.

Gaten sure needed to stay by her side. Annie Ruth, another umpteen cousin, piled macaroni and cheese on Sara Kate's plate. Annie Ruth looked plain country. Her hair was in tight separate curls all over her head. She won't comb her hair, she explained, because she is trying to save her beauty shop hairdo until Sunday. “I'm getting so worried about my mind here of late,” she complained. “I get ready to use it, and Lord it's plumb left me. Sometimes I can't find it for days.”

Gaten could have helped Sara Kate out on Aunt Maude's potato salad. Everyone knows she is as clean as a whistle even if she can't half see. But who wants to crunch through eggshells and spit out pieces of onion skin? But then, Gaten was eating it, too. I guess he hated to see everybody turning her potato salad down. Gaten is tenderhearted.

Sara Kate's eyes shifted from Annie Ruth's hair to yet another cousin. Her eyes were glued on the little girl's head. Her mama had her hair all corn-rowed up in the tiniest rows I'd ever seen. Rows going backwards, forwards, and all across the head. Like a cornfield planted by a drunk driving the tractor. I imagined Sara Kate was trying to count all the rows. If she wasn't, she had to be studying the
haircuts. Some of the cousins, including Daniel, had razor parts cut so crazy across their heads it looked like a lightning bolt was zigzagging across.

To top all that off, our cousin California came in with even more corn-rows on her head. Her corn-rows were set in like a patchwork quilt. California is off in the head. So are her parents. They are constantly on the move all the time, moving toward and away from each other, like the checkers move about a checkerboard. Moves that form a retarded dance.

My little cousin with the corn-rows stands beside California, her eyes and head cast downward, her fat arms folded across her wide fat body.

Maybe I don't like their corn-rows because I know I can never wear them. Aunt Everleen said she'd rather be struck by a bolt of lightning than to corn-row my hair. I won't sit still long enough. Perhaps, in a way, I might be a little bit jealous.

California heads straight to a banana pudding. You better not mess around with her, though. Once Daniel was mocking the way she held her mouth open with spit drooling down. And he told her if she kept it that way they would send her back to the asylum in Columbia, South Carolina. Yes, California has been in the asylum.

Well, anyway, California got so mad she tried to ram Daniel's head into a rusty tin gallon can. I don't know what
they did to her down there, but it seems like she came back worse off than she was.

Daniel knew it was wrong to mock her in the first place. Grandpa told us that long ago in Bible times the Lord sent down two bears to kill up a bunch of kids because they mocked one of his prophets.

California is taking a liking to Sara Kate. She seems drawn to her hair and keeps touching it. I know one thing, she better not let my daddy's sister from Maryland catch her combing Sara Kate's hair. Up there, Ruby Helen claims they made the people in some town change a picture of a little black girl combing a white woman's hair while they watched a polo game.

I can't name all that food on the tables. Gaten pushes Miss Eula Mae's wheelchair out of the sun into a shady spot. I go over and fan away the old nasty blow-fly buzzing around her food. When she finishes I see a dollar bill she has for me, in fingers bent over like a curved fork. Gaten is watching so I don't take it. But when he looks away that dollar is in my hands like a flash.

There was one thing I could tell right off. There was hardly a woman there who could stand Sara Kate. From a corner at the top of the stairs I can see in the dining room, but they can't see me. A cousin draws on a cigarette and slowly releases the smoke through her nose.

Ruby Helen laughs long, and hard. “I haven't seen anybody do that since old man Dan Rivers died.”

“Girl, you remember some old-timey stuff.”

“Remember how he used to roll his cigarettes and wet 'em with so much spit they split open?”

Their voices were drowned out by their loud laughter. I couldn't imagine Sara Kate laughing like that. All I'd heard her do that day was giggle.

Everleen comes in with a pot of soup. “I'm starting to bring in stuff,” she said. “Somebody go scrape out that ice cream in the churn and put it in the freezer. Poor old Gaten will want some later. He loves homemade cream. Bless his heart, he was too shamed to eat from the dasher like he always used to. His fancy lady friend sure cramps his style.”

“Seems like your brother-in-law is going to bring home a lady,” someone says.

“Gaten won't marry again.”

“You don't have to marry a lady to bring her home.”

Everleen pulls her mouth into a tight ugly spout. “Gaten Hill does.”

The cousin is dipping a homemade white potato roll into the soup. Smacking and licking her thick red lips. Everleen's jaw tightens. “Get a bowl, girl. Stop eating nasty in my soup.”

They are talking about Sara Kate again.

“Can't you just die from all that beige and taupe she's wearing?”

“Girl, them some Gloria Vanderbilt's pants.”

“Aw shucks now, go on, girl.”

“Wonder what's wrong with her?”

“I don't know, but there is something that's caused her to be rejected by her own men.”

“I say she's an epileptic,” Ruby Helen puts in. The cousin puts a small slice of egg custard pie in her mouth, all at once. “How in the Lord's world did you come up with that affliction, Ruby Helen?”

“I can't stand it when someone talks with a mouth full of food.”

The cousin swallowed hard. “So tell me, how do you know?”

“It's the way her eyes get that blank stare. You can be talking to her, but she's not there.”

“She could be in a deep study about something.”

“Well, something's wrong with her. Why else would she take up with a black dude?”

In spite of how hard they try to put down my daddy's new woman friend, trying to make her have some kind of sickness is bad. Next they will say she is retarded.

I really think it's her background that has upset them, and made them so jealous and hopping mad. You can look at the woman and see she is certainly not poor trash. Uncle
Jim Ed told me she is an only child and would never starve if she didn't hit a lick at work for the rest of her life. Not that it makes him like her any better. He hasn't made up his mind that she is the right woman for his baby brother.

He can't find fault with the way she seems to care about Gaten. Nobody can. Not over the way she looks at him. Her eyes follow his every move. She wears her feelings for him right on her face. I sure can see why she likes him. My daddy is pretty cool-looking. He is not light-skinned, but he's not dark-skinned, either. Since he cut off his mustache you can see his mouth and nose better. He's got a great mouth, especially when he smiles. And I don't care if he is a man, his nose is plain pretty. It's good Sara Kate is too old to grow anymore. Right now she and Gaten are the same height. And that's not real tall. My aunt says my daddy could stand to put on a few pounds.

I like the way they are together. They are not all over each other, hugging and kissing like some courting people. Every now and again she touches him when he is near, her hand lightly touching his, or an elbow resting on his knee.

Someone brings the cousin's little baby inside. “Well,” the cousin says, dabbing spit on the tips of her fingers and wiping dried milk from around her baby's mouth, “this Sara Kate must have what Gaten likes.”

“Oh, gross, Mary Kathyrn,” Ruby Helen moaned. “I do hope you never let Gaten's high-class Miss Sara Kate see
you do that. She'll think all black women wash their kids faces with spit.”

“Sh-sh,” someone whispered, “here comes Merlee Kenyon. Poor little thing. She is sure taking it hard since she and Gaten broke up. I don't know why she didn't leave when Gaten drove up with his new lady friend.”

Ruby Helen eyed Merlee's tight white pants, red, red blouse and high-heeled red sandals. “Girl, you are looking bad, bad.”

Miss Kenyon did look good that day, and she's got a bad shape. The prettiest shape I ever saw.

My aunt let Merlee know right off that she could not stand Sara Kate. Merlee and my aunt always were close friends.

I couldn't help thinking that it was halfway my aunt's fault that Gaten ended up with Sara Kate in the first place.

Not long after my daddy broke off with Miss Kenyon, he said he needed to get away for a while. So he had my aunt Everleen get me all fixed up and we took off to Maryland for a long weekend.