Flavors (12 page)

“What color do you want the frosting?” Maveen asked, pointing to a little box with tiny bottles of assorted colors.

“Can I do any I like?”

“Shoot, yeah,” she grinned. I picked the blue and dribbled several drops into the creamy batch I'd already begun mixing. As I turned the mixer on high and watched, soft yellow and blue turned a lovely shade of pale sea green.

“Ooo, look at it,” I exulted, thrilled beyond words at my wonderful creation. My excitement grew as I spread the concoction over and around the first cake tier.

“It's real, real pretty,” Maveen cooed as she placed the second layer atop the first and I began to ice it. She showed me how to smooth and fill in the creases. By the third layer I was slapping it on like the mad scientist. I even made the frosting curl like ocean waves by flapping the spatula against the sea of aquamarine.

“What's wrong with your hand?” Maveen asked, peering at the reddish rash on my hands that had begun appearing right after we'd gone to the farm. “What is that? Does it hurt?”

“No. It itches sometimes.” I shrugged. “Don't know what it is. Mama's gonna take me to Dr. Wright soon's I get back home for good. He's not ever open when I'm home on the weekend.” Since the rash didn't hurt, I wasn't too conscious of it.

“Look at you,” Maveen crowed as I licked the mixer blades clean and gazed in awe at the tall, festive cake. “You are a cook now,” she gushed and hugged me hugely.

Just then, Nat King Cole belted out Porter's “Just One of Those Things.” “He's Daddy's favorite crooner,” I declared, dancing around as I helped Maveen clear the table and wash up the cake pans, bowls and utensils.

Then we sat down and ate a slice of the cake. “Just a small one,” Maveen insisted as I started to cut hers. “I licked some of the batter and frosting, too,” she reminded me.

“Yeah,” I agreed and cut us two slim pieces. We sat at the red-topped, chrome-wrapped table and ate to Bing Crosby's rendition of “You Do Something To Me
.”

“Mm,” Maveen groaned with pleasure. “This is
good,
Sadie.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, pride swelling. “Wish I was hungrier, though. Licking the bowls and spatula filled me up.” I finished my small portion and put the lid on the cake, proud as punch over my masterpiece.

Later, Mama and Daddy came in and enjoyed a slice, too, bragging like I'd won the Academy Award. I loved it. “I wish Maveen could babysit us all the time,” I said to Mama as we washed and rinsed their desert plates. I did drying duty and put them away.

“We already thought of that,” Mama said. “She's gotta take care of her mama during the day when we need somebody here. She'd really like to, but I think she's too broken up right now over being separated from Gene to handle a full-time job taking care of kids.”

“Yeah.” Oh, but how I'd love to be with Maveen and be home, too.

“Just you wait and see. It won't be long before we figure out a way for you to stay home.” Mama hugged me and kissed the top of my head. When I didn't respond, she said brightly, “Say, why don't you take the rest of the cake to Grandma's. She's just got to see what you've done all on your own. I'll bet they'll all love it.”

I sighed and nodded. “Okay.” Maybe they would. I just hated the thought of leaving home again.

“She baked it all by herself,” Mama gushed to the Melton family at large. It was just past suppertime when we got there. Daddy toted the cake carrier in and placed it on the new chesttype freezer that sat along one kitchen wall. Grandma's decision to buy it on time came after she gleaned three more families' weekly laundry. The salary increase allowed the purchase. Grandma said – in so many words – that it would revolutionize her canning and such. She wouldn't have to worry about foods spoiling.

Today, my colorful cake looked mighty pretty setting there atop it.

Nellie Jane looked impressed enough. Grandma nodded. The noncommittal kind. Empty face. Guarded body language. “It's real good,” Mama added and looked at me with pride. Then she looked at Grandma. “Don't you want to try a piece, Mrs. Melton?”

My grandmother started shaking her head slowly back and forth. “I don't eat anything green,” she said matter-of-factly.

“But it's just food coloring,” Mama said gently. She loved my Grandma like her own mama and usually she could coax her into anything reasonable.

“No,” Grandma insisted. “I'm scared of anything green going in my belly.”

“S'okay,” I muttered to Mama, by now feeling something stirring in my chest, a heavy, slushing, icy sensation that moved all over me. Never mind that Nellie Jane smiled approvingly and that the boys all stood around like football tackles waiting for the whistle.
Grandma didn't want to eat my cake
.

Mama's face emptied and she quickly readied to leave. Her robin's egg blue eyes were all black pupil as she ushered me ahead of her out the screen door.

“Walk me to the car, honey,” she whispered. As we spanned the neatly swept yard to the parking lot, silently passing Grandpa holding court with visiting kin, she put her arm snuggly around me. “Don't mind her, darlin'. She's funny about some things, is all.” But there was little conviction behind her words and I heard,
felt
a touch of something alien to my mother: offense.

Tears pushed so insistently against my throat and behind my eyes that I clenched my teeth together to stem them. It didn't help. The darned things came splashing over and ran down my face like spring water tumbling over a rocky bed.

Behind the car, Mama pulled me into her arms and held me, shielding me from view. With my face pressed into her neck and inhaling her Avon Cotillion fragrance and Ponds face powder, I cried softly, deeply as I'd never done. It wasn't like my dragon-breathing kind of tantrum. It was different. Deep. Consuming. Heavy.

Her round softness welcomed me, gave me temporary haven. Soothed.

When the tears ceased, I drew myself up and said, “I'll be okay, Mama.”

She looked deeply into my eyes, her soul shining through, connecting with mine. “I know,” she said gently. “My little girl's growing up.”

“We'll get you home soon,” she said, smiling softly.

She and Daddy left shortly thereafter. I stood rooted there, my heart following them as the ancient Ford chugged up the long dirt road. I remained there until it disappeared over the crest into the dusky evening and the sound was no more. I heard instead the easy, random talk of kin from the front yard, where the single light bulb now limned them as they burst into laughter during one of Grandpa's yarns.

Head down, plodding silently on bare feet, I leaned into the encroaching darkness that circled the happy stage and rapt
audience that was Grandpa's. Tonight being Sunday, no one shelled peas or broke string beans. But I didn't want to talk with anyone. With Grandpa's tale revving up, no one noticed me as I slipped through the screen door into the empty house. It was dark. And I was glad.

Yet – the silence rang loudly.

The emptiness of the house washed over me. Cried out. I tried to shut it out, but it was too persistent. My chest began to take on the heaviness of cold, wet concrete again. I peered around in the darkness for a place to be and realized that, for the first time ever, I felt a grown-up anger.

I went to the pallet laid in an out-of-the-way corner, already occupied by my little sleeping brother, curled up with my arm thrown protectively over him and soon, fell into a deep, restless slumber.

All week long, I lay around when I wasn't helping with chores. The empty space left by Maveen howled and groaned. Grandma seemed not to miss a lick with her own chores agenda, though I suspected that Gene's distancing and simmering anger was beginning to wear her thin.

I spent much solitude in the meadow on pretty days, thinking about home, where peace and kindness abounded.

I thought of Maveen, at her mama's house so close to ours, and suddenly, I wanted to go home so badly I hurt all inside. My tummy ached again and my head throbbed. The next morning, I saw blood stains on the pallet and in my panties. This time, Grandma saw and wordlessly supplied me with pads, homemade but reliable.

Neediness assailed me. I instinctively cringed from the feeling. I wanted to dive into a hole and pull it in after me to cover
my shame of the ghastly craving. It just wasn't there for me, the validation and succor for which my very pores screamed and wailed.

Even Frances, when I helped slop her, ignored me.

“Why don't Grandma love me?” I asked Nellie Jane that evening as we lolled in the woods, sampling the first of the muscadines and scuppernongs.

“Why do you think that?” She seemed truly confused.

“I don't know,” I spit out the seeds of the still tangy pulp. The purple fruit, so like Concord grapes, was not yet completely ripe. “She just don't act like she does sometimes.”

Nellie Jane didn't say anything else. But the next day, as we took a walk, she said, “I told Ma you didn't think she loved you. And she said, ‘Why does Sadie think that? She ought to know that I love her.'”

The words warmed me a bit, but I wondered at the same time why Grandma herself had not reassured me?

Melancholy stirred inside me like thick sugarcane syrup, the kind Grandpa bought in gallon buckets to feed the fruit of his loins. King's Golden Syrup. We used tin plates in which – atop the wooden stove – to melt scoops of freshly churned butter, covered it with the golden syrup, stirred it together over heat and sopped it with fluffy, hot buttermilk biscuits.

The flavor that day was buttery-caramel. A bittersweet blend of missing home and designing my escape.

A blueprint commenced to form in my brain. On Wednesday, I watched all the adults scatter to their separate chores, older males down to the back bottoms and Grandma to the barn to gather eggs. When Clarence Henry and Doodle-Bug, visiting again, disappeared into the woods to explore, I saw my chance and grabbed Little Joe's hand.

“C'mon,” I whispered to him, tugging his hand.

He gazed up trustingly at me with huge, bottomless blue eyes as he toddled along beside me, trying to keep up with my longer stride. We had to hurry. Grandma wouldn't be at the barn very long. Nellie Jane ironed clothes inside the house, immersed in her favorite radio soap opera, “Our Gal Sunday.”

Little Joe and I moved quickly up the dirt road that converged into the paved highway, just past the corn patch. The high stalks soon shielded us from view of the farm. I knew that once we spanned the hill and passed the Donalds' place at the end of our road, the chance of our being spotted grew slimmer.

It wasn't that far because we drove the distance home every Saturday and then back again each Sunday evening on our return. We passed mostly farms. I was familiar with the turnoffs, the main one leading down into the mill village. The map lodged in my mind, clear as morning dew.

Little Joe compliantly hung onto my hand as we passed the Donalds' small dwelling, where Mr. and Mrs. Donalds rested in the shade of their porch. I rushed past without looking at them and turned up the main road.

Soon, Little Joe and I passed the Berry farm. In the distance, I saw Mr. Berry, straw hat hung low over his forehead, plowing up dead bean stalks. Long stretches of fields moved past as I picked up my stride, forcing Little Joe into an uneven trot. He almost stumbled several times, forcing me to slow down.

We passed more fields and farmhouses and I saw a turnoff bordered by a colored church and a country store. No turn here. I wiped sweat off my forehead.

“You okay, Little Joe?” I asked. He looked weary.