Flavors (9 page)

We erupted into silent giggles again and only settled down when we heard Grandma cough and her bedsprings squeak as she tossed over in her bed.

At the same time, the revving engine of a car came to a jolting, screeching halt in the parking space outside. We tensed. Moments later, the front door clattered open and then a stumbling and a crashing sound.

“Conrad!” Grandma's stern reprimand startled me. Maveen and I listened to the clamor of Grandma and my drunken uncle as she helped him to bed in the other bedroom, dodging sleeping kids littering the floor. Our eyes glistened in the dark as we gazed at each other, picturing the scene in our minds. This happened all too often on Friday and Saturday nights, the drunken entries.

“Poor Conrad,” I whispered. “He's usually so – smart. Why is he doing this? He's got so much potential.”

Maveen sighed. “That means he's – able to do lots of stuff?”

“Yeah.” I figured that was close enough.

“I pray that Gene never drinks.”

“Daddy never has.” And suddenly, I was proud beyond measure that my father was a wise man.

Maveen snickered softly and whispered, “I wonder if the ol' cow jumped the fence with Gene and Joe.”

I gazed at her, not understanding.

“Never mind,” she whispered.

For long moments, as the noise faded, Maveen and I lay there on our backs staring at the ceiling, senses heightened by the crisis. I felt her hand find mine and squeeze gently before releasing it. “You okay?” she whispered.

“Uh huh.”

Presently, quiet settled in and I felt my eyelids droop with heaviness.

“Your head and stomachache better?” Maveen whispered before snuggling down for the last time. The unsettled feeling, accompanied by head and stomach pain, still plagued me, but for a spell here tonight, joy had overcome it all.

“It's still here. My stomach's still pooched out, too. But it don't matter now,” I whispered, turning over and hugging my pillow.

I closed my eyes and smiled. “G'night, Maveen.”

The next morning, the dull belly pain was the first thing I felt upon awakening. When I sat up to swing my legs over the side of the bed, I felt something else. Between my legs.

Wetness. I frowned and pulled up my gown, one of Maveen's, actually.

Red. Soaking my panties.

My pulse began to pound in my head as fear iced through me
.

“Maveen!” I turned and shook her shoulder. “Maveen – wake up.”

Maveen's eyes popped open. Instantly, she sat up, alert to the panic in my voice. “Has somethin' happened?” she asked, then her eyes widened. “Gene? Has something happened to Gene?” Tears already filled her panic-stricken eyes.

“No,” my voice warbled on the word. “Look.” I pulled up the gown again and then I saw that the sheet, too, was crimsonsoaked. I sniffled and a tear splashed over and trickled down my cheek. “What's wrong with me?” I whispered, gazing imploringly at Maveen to make it better.

Maveen looked at me, heart in eyes, then a tender smile tugged at the corners of her generous mouth. “Ah, honey. You're just having your period.”

I blinked at her. “Period?”

“Your mama hadn't told you about it, yet?”

I shook my head. “W-what is it?”

Maveen, bless her heart, began telling me about how this made me a woman. And she said how this would later make me a mama. She reassured me that it was healthy and normal and good.

Then, in an instant, an image came to mind of the playing cards, and the pictures of men and women –

I gulped back the shock of the epiphany.

Maveen got up and went to the beat-up old dresser and struggled to open a stubborn drawer. From it, she took a box and a funny-looking, thin belt with two little metal clips. She explained to me what it was for and showed me how to use it.

“You change these pads every three to four hours. Just depends on how bad you bleed,” she said as she pulled out several for me to use later. “I'll just put ‘em here in this middle drawer
for you to get when you need ‘em,” she said softly. “You know you're always welcome in my room, doncha Sadie?”

“Thanks, Maveen.” I hugged her fiercely.

I couldn't wait to tell Nellie Jane. Somehow, I felt in my bones that this was an earth-shattering turn of events. I told her when we went to slop Frances.

Her response was, “Oh, I've been having the curse since last summer.”

“The curse?” That bewildered me, cause Maveen talked like it was a blessing.

Nellie did something out of character then. She laughed and looked at me like she really cared. Like I was really equal with her. “Just joking, Sadie,” she said warmly. “Only thing bad is the bellyache and maybe some headache, but it's not so bad. Just keeping clean is a bother, but it's all in being a woman.”

Her matter-of-fact approach hoisted me even higher above the unsettled-ness I'd experienced lately. She even explained how Grandma told her that feeling all out of sorts just before her period was normal. And that she should not wash her hair or it would make her cramp more. Maveen overheard and added that she thought that was mostly for cold weather precaution. That getting chilled was the culprit that made the stomach hurt worse.

Even Grandma pulled me aside and asked if I needed anything – like a pad. I told her Maveen had supplied them. Her mouth tightened just a little. but I understood there was a weird connection there with her daughter-in-law. But the bottom line was that when Grandma learned of my coming to womanhood, she seemed to look at me a little differently. At least for three or four days.

I escaped to the meadow, enjoying the quiet solitude as I gazed up into blue infinity.

Nellie Jane had told me that since I wasn't feeling too good, I didn't have to help with dishes. The strawberry flavor turned real, real red-ripe then.

Maybe – just maybe, things would continue to look up.

 

The day offered no warning.

Things had settled back into routine after my womanhood initiation. I didn't feel so different after the menses ceased that week. What I did feel were subtle changes in the dynamics between the Melton females.

I didn't have long to mull over them, however. Fate had other ideas.

Gene had returned to his regular second-shift job, reclaiming his bed space beside Maveen. I was again sleeping on the floor-pallet beside my little brother. The new spiritual connection between Maveen and me galvanized. She began to open up and share her disappointments with me. These divulgences came mostly during our long walks over the farm's meadows and forest.

“Gene won't tell his Ma to treat me better,” she said that day, a bit testily as we spaced ourselves further from the house by exploring the bottoms. “I don't know why she don't like me, but I don't really care anymore.” She tossed her head while flipping a stone with her sandaled foot. I thought she looked prettier than ever when her temper sparked, a rare occurrence. She looked a lot like the tragic young actress, Millie Perkins, in those days, with an elfin shape to her face and features. Thin, too. Almost skinny but looked wonderful in her clothes. She rarely raised her voice, but her soft words let others know she didn't put up with any crap.

Not even from Grandma Melton.

Maveen, though gentle and loving, had a side to her that was as stubborn as my Grandma's. Therein lay the crux.

“I wish she'd treat you better,” I said. “She's just kinda strange sometimes, Maveen. It's not you. She's that way with others, too. Even me, at times.”

Maveen snorted delicately and paused to look at me. “Honey,
it is
me, too. She hates my guts ‘cause I married her boy. She's plain jealous is what's wrong with her.”

“You think?”

“I know.” She started walking again.

“I'm sorry,” I muttered, trailing along, wanting to console her but feeling helpless to do so. Her stance was unbending.

“It's not your fault.”

Nellie Jane, strangely, did not seem to resent my time with Maveen. I sensed that underneath the stoical silence, my aunt really liked Maveen. She demonstrated this in little things she did when Grandma wasn't looking. Like saving Maveen an extra serving of apple cobbler, with fresh cream, her favorite dessert. And sneaking it into her room so it could be eaten in privacy. And several times, when she could manage to finish her chores quickly, Nellie Jane tagged along on our walks, adding warmly to conversations. Most importantly, she did not go tattle when Maveen vented her mother-in-law frustrations. And I knew that Maveen, being Maveen, loved Nellie Jane. She listened to her entirely, with no reservations or preconceived concepts of who this paradoxical person really was.

One day, in an entirely offbeat mode, Nellie Jane referred to Buck Swaney, a bucktoothed, unethical slouch she couldn't stand. “He's ugly as skunk cabbage and if you yawn, he could steal the chew o' tobacco outta your mouth,” she swore solemnly, cracking both of us up at the brief, razor-honed summary.
Then Nellie Jane gifted us with one of her rare, genuine grins of delight. And I knew then she loved Maveen.

Maveen had won over the entire clan. All except Grandma.

In the past week, comic strips began to appear beside my dinner plate without my asking. In turn, I helped with dishes without being told.

But on that Saturday night, the uneasy peace exploded into smithereens.

Grandma had just turned off the lights and our pallets littered the floor when bright lights and a wailing siren shattered the quiet. Like a store shelf of Jack-in-the-boxes, mussed heads popped up in the dark. We sat there, sleep woozy, staring bug-eyed at wild white light streaking around the old door's crease and spilling through the narrow windows. A loud rap on the front door brought us to our bare feet and Grandpa, pulling his overalls on quickly, to the door.

Cautiously, he opened it and peered out, squinting against the blinding lights. “What you want?”

Silhouetted in the headlights of two police cars, an officer said, “Mr. Melton?”

Grandma now hovered tensely behind him, her loose cotton, home-sewn gown billowing around her ankles.

“Yeah?” Grandpa croaked.

“You have a son named Conrad Melton?”

Grandma stepped around him. “What's wrong?” her voice faltered. I heard both wavering courage and dread.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Melton.” The officer's voice was soft, kind. “Your son was in a head-on collision on Highway 290. He was pronounced dead at the scene.”

“Oh, my God,” I felt my knees turn to water as I sank to the floor, my face buried in my hands. I heard the bedroom door squeak open as Gene and Maveen crept in and I felt Maveen's arms slide around me as she dropped beside me on the floor.

But it was that one heart-rending scream from Grandma that I remember most about that night.

Life there would never again be the same.

The next three days passed in a blur. Daddy and Mama came and helped take care of Grandma, Grandpa and the rest of us. The Methodist church and Church of Christ, both in the rural area, took care of feeding the huge clan. Neighbors and kin came and went, some dropping off cakes or Pepsi Colas or fried chicken or cold cut platters from the Beacon Drive-in in Spartanburg.

“He was playing ‘Chicken' with Johnny Mack Mason,” swollen-eyed Nellie Jane explained to me. Her hoarse voice shook and her words quavered.