Creola's Moonbeam (7 page)

Did you make a note of that, Creola? A cartwheel! I know you were watching
.

I again lamented the fact that I’d not been named for my elegant Aunt Mary Pearle Butlar Armstrong.

Drat
, did I really say, “Bye-bye?”

I inhaled the fresh ocean air and, settling back into my beach chair, took a sip of my un-iced, all-but-boiling diet drink. At least, no bee had fallen into the can. I’d swallowed one once, at the beach. I was very thirsty, too much so to go upstairs for ice. The bee-less drink suited me fine.

Moonbeam, why on earth did you give Beatrice your old name? Even worse, why didn’t you tell her you were an author?

Were? I thought. Curious. My work in past tense? I pulled my hat down over eyes to hide from my own negative thoughts.
Go away, Crellie. I’m resting
.

The sun sparkled through the holes in my straw hat. I closed first one eye then the other, playing a game of illusion that my hat was moving back and forth. At an angle through the tiny holes, I could see the sun, a passing cloud, a flock of birds. It was intriguing, what simple pleasures a person could experience when away from the phone, the computer, and the demands of busy days.

As if on cue, my cell phone rang. “Oh, hello, Beau. What’s going on?”

He was busy at work, everything was fine at home, and by the way, he did have some news. Not good.

“Oh, no! Are you sure you have to cancel? I was sooooo looking forward to your being down here.”

After hearing my disappointment, Beau promised he’d come the following weekend.

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“That sounds threatening,” growled my husband. “Tell you what, for good measure, I’ll tack on Monday as a bonus.”

“It’s a deal, and you don’t have to cross your heart. Oh, Beau, guess what?” I didn’t expect any guesses from him. I knew my husband wasn’t much for playing guessing games, especially when calling from his office. “The woman of your dreams actually turned her first cartwheel!”

“Uh, that’s nice. There goes my other line. I gotta go.” It’s not unusual for Beau to skirt over such an announcement.

“I said a
cartwheel
, Beau Newberry.” I stood up as if he could see me. “I learned how to turn a cartwheel!”

“Didn’t know that was a big priority of yours.”

My husband was the poster person for the typical man. I could forgive him for that. I’d learned to be accepting of his obvious flaws, and he of mine. Besides, since my hysterectomy a few years earlier, I had not been nearly as sweet-natured. Beau had made admirable adjustments. It had been at least three years since he’d pushed my buttons by asking, “What’s wrong with you, sweetheart? Do you need your hormones?”

Saying goodbye, I eased myself back into the chair and continued to watch the world go by through the holes in my straw hat. The sounds of the gentle, rolling waves carried me back in time.

Another of my short stories refused to evaporate into the ether.

by Honey Newberry

It was 1952, and our family was vacationing at the beach. Mother and Daddy, Mary Pearle and I held hands and ran, squealing, into the Gulf. We played for hours before wolfing down a picnic lunch of bologna and cheese sandwiches, soggy potato chips, lemonade, and homemade peanut butter cookies. Food always tastes better near water.

The only negative thing about our annual two-week trips to the beach was that Creola could never go along with us. Year after year, she insisted that she couldn’t be away from her own family for so long. That wasn’t altogether true, but I wouldn’t understand why for some time.

Creola would tell wonderful stories — scary ones — as well as stories that made her Moonbeam and Priceless Pearlie laugh so hard we’d roll backwards and often right off our seats. More than once, as a child, I have to change my clothes because I wet my pants laughing.

Creola didn’t mind washing my pants, so she said. She’d declare that the wetting of my things was her responsibility in the first place. “I made you laugh too hard, child!”

Even so, she expected me to assist her in the task. I especially liked when Creola lifted me up to hang things on the outdoor clothes line. I would take the wooden clothespins from my teeth and carefully secure them on either end of each piece of laundry.

Once the sheets and towels and all the clothes were hung securely on the line, Creola, Mary Pearle, and I would run through the billowing material. I’d pretend to be aboard a ship just off the coast of some far, exotic island. I was the vessel’s captain, with Crellie and Priceless Pearlie as my crew. The best part was when we danced about among the “sails.”

Mother vehemently disapproved of our nanny’s telling us ghost stories, some of which were tinged with the voodoo tales of her native New Orleans. Creola regularly promised Mother that she’d stick to lighter subject matter, and I think she honestly meant to. “I surely don’t want to frighten my darlin’ girls, Missus. You know how I love these babies.”

When we pleaded and pleaded, our softhearted nanny would often give in once our mother went out for a day of bridge. We had to promise Creola we’d have no bad dreams. For good balance, at the end of a particularly terrifying tale Creola would tell us a
funny
story. We sisters not only needed one to counteract our fright, but also as something that we could share at the dinner table to the appreciative audience of Mother and Daddy.

“Miss Moonbeam, Priceless Pearlie,” moaned a dramatic Creola one rainy afternoon. Her hands extended, her eyes dilated to solid black with the full whites showing. “That evil ghost is coming up our basement steps all the way from the back of our loud, loud fire-breathing furnace. He gonna eat us up alive!”

“Oh, Creola,” we yipped in unison, then snuggled as close as we could to her on the living room couch. “Hold us tight!”

“Now, darling children, you know how your sweet mother — may The Angel of Good Luck bless her bridge game — feels about our ghosts. I dare not scare my baby girls on this dark, most stormy day.”

“Crellie, I’m not scared, not one bit. I’m almost seven, you know!”

“And I’m already nine,” puffed up Mary Pearle, “so you know I can take it!”

Creola took a deep, heavy breath. “Listen, do you sweet little ladies hear something?”

“No, s-s-surely not, Creola.” I stammered.

“Yes, I do!” said my sister.

She tapped her foot. “That ghost is walking closer to us, babies!”
          

“
Oh, Crellie
!” We screamed as we dove under a pair of throw pillows and just missed cracking open our heads on one another.

“Lord have mercy, my babies, are you hurt?” She cradled us. “Your mother is right. It’s best that your old Creola not say one word more!”

“Oh, Crellie, please keep telling us!”

“Pleeeeaassse!”

Sighing, she gave in. “Well, get yourselves ready, because he’s coming closer, and closer, and closer,
stomp, stomp
, and closer,
stomp
.”

I wanted to squeeze myself under a seat cushion. Yet, shaking as I was, I knew full well this was the most fun in the whole world.

“Closer and closer,
stomp, stomp.
”

“Crellie.” I couldn’t let out a breath.

Mary Pearle squealed and put another throw pillow over her head.

Creola grabbed us and shouted to the ceiling, “Gotcha!”

Mary Pearle screamed like a banshee. I jumped off the couch and screamed, too, as I ran in circles around our living room. Creola picked me up and, collapsing back on the couch, we laughed and laughed. Had it been a sunny day, even Creola’s clothes would have been on the line drying when Mother got home from bridge.

That night, over Creola’s fried chicken, the story we shared with Mother and Daddy was about Creola’s ninety-year old father and his new hat.

As usual, I insisted on telling it.

“Mother and Daddy, it goes like this. A dirty old hobo came by the Moons’ house. He was asking for a handout. So Creola’s mother gave the man a brand new hat, one with a bright, red feather. The trouble was that the hat belonged to Creola’s father. Worse, he’d only had it for a week! Later that evening, Creola’s father was sitting out on the front porch whittling on his wood pipe. Here came that old hobo man strutting down the middle of the street. He stopped and tipped his hat at Mr. Moon, proud as you please.

“Creola’s father looked up. He kind of squinted and said, ‘Say, feller, where’d you get that fine hat?’”

Mary Pearle started to giggle, and I could hardly get out the words, but I kept on with my telling.

“The hobo said, ‘Don’t rightly know what to say, Mister. Reckon as you should ask your missus about my hat.’

“The man just took off running. Creola’s father tossed down his whittling and stomped back inside the house.”

I took a gulp of milk.

“Best slow down, sweetheart,” urged Daddy. “We’ve got all evening to hear your story.”

“Yes sir, I know.” I wiped my mouth with my napkin and kept going. “Creola says her father is scared to death of her mother because, because —” I was so tickled I could hardly say what came next —“because Mrs. Moon is two times bigger than Mr. Moon!” I was hysterical. “And so ...” I stood up in the seat of my chair for dramatic effect.

“Be careful, Little Harriette!” Mother warned.

“Yes, ma’am. Where was I? Oh, yes. Creola’s father took a long look at the frown on his big ol’ wife’s face, and he never once said another word about that hat!”

Mother smiled and patted Daddy’s hand. “You see, darling, Creola has paid attention to us. She’s no longer filling our daughters’ heads full of those dreadful ghost stories.”

With that, Mary Pearle and I slid under the table, laughing.

Mother lifted the tablecloth. “Girls?”

Daddy, who didn’t worry nearly as much about Creola’s ghost stories, changed the subject. “Dear, where did you put my favorite sweater? I can’t find that old thing anywhere.”

Mother, likely more open-minded than she appeared to be, replied primly, “Well, sweetheart, perhaps you should look for that nasty, moth-eaten thing on the back of Creola’s hobo.”

 
I counted the years since Mary Pearle and I lost our parents. Was it four, or five years? No, it was coming up on six. There were days when it felt still longer. Mother cared for Daddy with such dedication that she was worn to a frazzle by the time he passed away. She joined her beloved less than three months later.

At Mother’s funeral, Creola engulfed me in her arms as if I were still a child.

“Miss Moonbeam! My heart is all but cracked in two.”

I hugged her tightly. “Oh, Crellie, I’m glad you’re here.” She looked so different, so much older. How long had it been? Even though we talked on the phone from time to time and always during the holidays, it had been at least a year since I’d seen Creola in person. How could life have become too busy for me to visit this dear woman?

Even so, Creola judged me not. And on that mournful day, she comforted her Moonbeam as if I was no longer a grown woman, a wife or a mother. Because of Creola, I could briefly return to being a distressed little girl who was being reassured by someone who loved her dearly.

“Mrs. Butlar was such a fine, fine lady. Lord above, how proud she was of you! I’ll miss her and miss your father every day the good Lord gives me to live. Even though I retired many years ago, your Mother still checked on me every week until she got so sick herself.”