Getting Near to Baby (7 page)

He and Little Sister picked a bouquet of these tiny bright pink flowers that grow no higher than new-mown grass and presented it to her while she was pretending to read her magazines. It was Isaac's idea. I thought Aunt Patty appeared to be on the verge of changing her mind about the Fingers. Anyway, I didn't mind that Aunt Patty was sitting nearby. It was better than having her hover behind the front door.

“I don't want you spending all your time with that girl,” Aunt Patty said after they'd gone home for midday dinner. Said it out of nowhere, it seemed to me. I thought things were going so well. What had Liz done wrong? As if in answer to my unasked question, Aunt Patty added, “She's too mature for you.”

“I like her.”

“You're not old enough to decide what you like.”

“I am, too. I know what I like and I know who I like, too. If Mom was here ...” But there was no reason for Mom to be here. If we were at home—that was it—if we were at home, Mom would like Liz just fine. Even if she didn't, she wouldn't tell me I wasn't old enough to know who I liked.

“We ought to call your momma today, don't you think?” Aunt Patty asked, her voice getting higher the way it did when she was upset. Little Sister immediately went to her and put a hand on Aunt Patty's arm. “Yes, let's call,” Aunt Patty said. I could see she was relieved to have the subject of Liz dropped.

Aunt Patty dialed. Little Sister and I both reached for the phone.

“I'll tell her who's calling,” Aunt Patty said. “Then you can talk to her. Sis? It's Patty.... They're fine. They're standing right here.... No, they don't miss you. They have their little friends to play with.”

Little Sister's arm shot out to take the phone. So did mine. But Aunt Patty waved us down.

“Hob's fine, too. How are you doing? Are you working again?” Aunt Patty asked. “Are you keeping right hours?

... Uh-huh.... Well, that sounds good.... Uh-huh.... Oh, sure, they're right here, like I said.”

Little Sister reached up and snatched the receiver away from Aunt Patty. She held it as if she would have something to say, but then she just listened. Hard.

I took the phone and said, “Mom?” I sat down on the floor, pulling Little Sister with me, and held it so we could both hear. Aunt Patty stood next to us, looking down.

“Willa Jo, it's good to hear your voice,” Mom said, sounding far away. Little Sister pulled the receiver up close and breathed into it.

“Little Sister is listening to you,” I said loudly so that Mom would be sure to know “I'll talk to you after.”

And for two or three minutes, Little Sister sat with her ear pressed tight to the phone, her little face all aglow with hearing Mom's voice. I pried it away from her for a minute and managed to listen along with her. Mom was singing her a funny little song, but not in her usual funny little way. I hadn't heard Mom sing since Baby died. Maybe because this was so, her voice sounded rough and weak, like it didn't get enough use. It was kind of sad. I let Little Sister have the phone to herself again.

After another minute or so, she passed the receiver to me. “I'm here,” I said.

“Is Little Sister all right?” Mom asked.

“She's fine,” I said, because it was true. “But she misses you.” Saying so made my throat feel like something was stuck there.

“I'm glad you have friends there, Willa Jo,” Mom said in a breathy little voice I hardly recognized. “I miss you all—I miss you both, something fierce.”

“When can we come home?”

I guess I shouldn't have come right out with it like that. I heard Mom draw in a quick breath and I saw the stricken look on Aunt Patty's face. She finally turned away from us and went to stand by the kitchen sink.

I guess Aunt Patty hoped I would tell Mom about all the new clothes, and how Aunt Patty toasted frozen waffles for our breakfast and how she and Uncle Hob were planning to take us to the drive-in movie on Friday night. Maybe even Mom hoped I would tell her those things.

But I wanted to go home more than anything. More than I wanted Mom to be proud of me, more than I wanted not to hurt Aunt Patty's feelings, more than I wanted to play jacks with Liz. And Little Sister wanted to go home too. I didn't need to hear her say so to know it.

“Aren't you happy there, Willa Jo?” Mom said.

I knew she wanted me to say yes. But I couldn't say anything. My tongue was stuck right to the roof of my mouth.

“Are you and Aunt Patty getting along?”

I could have said, “Aunt Patty thinks because she bosses you and Uncle Hob around, she can boss us around too.” I could have said, “It isn't Aunt Patty at all. I just want to come home where we can sit on the steps and sing funny sad songs. Where we can fall asleep to the rise and fall of each other's breath.”

“Just remember,” Mom said, as if she were feeling her way along, “two peas in a pod can rub each other wrong.”

“Who are the two peas?” I said.

“Why, you and Aunt Patty, of course,” Mom said with a shaky laugh. “I guess it's because you're both big sisters, you like to be the boss. Neither one of you likes to be the one being bossed.”

“I don't think that's it,” I said.

Mom said, “Aunt Patty will never get over it if she thinks you girls don't like it there.” I had a feeling she was telling me something else. Asking me for something.

By now, the suspense had become too much for Little Sister and she got up on her knees so she could lean in and listen alongside me. I turned the receiver away from my ear a little to share it. “Little Sister is here with me,” I said.

“Well, tell me what you've been doing with yourselves,” Mom said with the bright and uncertain voice of someone making a fresh start.

So I told her about Liz and about the hole they'd dug, roomy as a coal miner's shaft, and about Liz's mom being so friendly and sweet, and about the june bug Isaac gave to Little Sister. “She's been running with it all morning,” I said. “It's better than a dog on a leash.”

“She must be going to run it to death,” Mom said.

“Oh, they don't last long anyway.” I didn't really know how long an old june bug goes on. But I worried that if that june bug died, Little Sister would get to thinking about Baby. “Are you painting?” I said quickly.

“Mm-hmm. I packed up some samples and drove them on up to Asheville,” Mom said. “I got some extra work.”

Mom was always looking for more work. But my chest went cold at hearing of the new job. It suddenly seemed to me that Mom was finding things were easier for her if we stayed with Aunt Patty.

“We must be running up a bill,” Mom said suddenly. “Put your aunt Patty back on and let me thank her for all she's done for us. You take good care of Little Sister, hear?”

“I hear.”

After the phone call, Little Sister and I hardly had the energy to move. When we did, it was to avoid listening to Aunt Patty rattle on about the weather in a too-cheerful voice while sad music played on the radio. We moved to the front patio. I couldn't help thinking how different Little Sister and I would feel if Mom had told us we were going home in a day or two.

Aunt Patty opened the front door and looked out at us. “Yes, ma'am?” I said.

“Nothing,” Aunt Patty said. “Just listening for signs of life.” She went back inside and sat down near the door. I could hear her flipping the pages in one of her decorating magazines. I don't know what she expected to hear besides breathing.

“Did you and Liz have a falling out?” Aunt Patty asked once, through the doorway—hopefully, I thought.

“Nope.”

“Where do you think she is, then?”

“Helping her mom, I guess,” I said listlessly. But then I said, “She's real helpful because her mom's expecting another baby, you know. Twins, maybe.”

The thought of even more Fingers was too much for Aunt Patty. She shut the front door, saying something about turning on the air.

W
e'd been at Aunt Patty's for about two weeks when we sat down to supper and Aunt Patty told us she had a surprise for us. “Mrs. Wainwright. is bringing her daughter, Cynthia, over to play tomorrow afternoon.”

No one said anything to this. Not me. Not Uncle Hob. Little Sister looked at me.

“This is good news,” Aunt Patty said, like she had expected to see us jumping up and down for joy. “I didn't know you were all that friendly with Lucy Wainwright,” Uncle Hob said.

“I'm friendly with everyone,” Aunt Patty said firmly. “Just because we aren't bosom buddies doesn't mean we aren't friendly.”

“No, of course not,” Uncle Hob said.

“I don't know what I have to do to see some smiling faces around here,” Aunt Patty said unhappily.

Only Uncle Hob smiled.

 

The next day, Little Sister and I were standing at the picture window when Mrs. Wainwright and Cynthia drove up. They got out of their car looking like they were going to church. Cynthia was not wearing camp shorts and leather sandals.

“I don't think she came to play,” I said over my shoulder to Aunt Patty.

“Of course she did,” Aunt Patty said, her voice getting high-pitched because she was rushing around the room, giving the toss pillows a last plump and brushing imaginary crumbs off Uncle Hob's chair.

The doorbell rang.

“They've come to the front door,” I said.

“Well, of course they've come to the front door,” Aunt Patty said, like it happened all the time. She gave her wide-legged shorts a little snap.

Mrs. Wainwright wore a pale green dress, the kind that has buttons all the way down the front. I noticed this because my mom loved those dresses. I couldn't see her going across the road to Milly's for iced tea in one of those dresses. I wondered suddenly if she had worn one to Asheville.

“What a pretty place you have here,” Mrs. Wainwright said to Aunt Patty, without so much as a look around.

“Why, thank you,” Aunt Patty said. “I'm glad to hear you think so. It's humble, but it's comfortable.” There was an awkward moment when Aunt Patty expected Mrs. Wainwright to say something more, or hoped she would, I don't know. But Mrs. Wainwright didn't and Aunt Patty picked up the ball.

“You look so pretty in that dress, Cynthia. Doesn't she look pretty, Willa Jo? Have you ever seen such a dress?” Cynthia was wearing the kind of dress Mom once told me she and Aunt Patty wore when they were girls, a dress with a gathered skirt and a belt that tied in a bow at the back. They called those dresses their Sunday best. They didn't play in them. “Why don't you girls come on out to the kitchen for some refreshments?” she said, never giving me a chance to answer.

Which was just as well, considering. I was caught up in looking at Cynthia's blond ringlets, all of them growing out of a side part and held in place with barrettes. They were actually sort of horrible when I thought of how long she must have had to sit on the kitchen chair letting her mother work the hair around her finger to get them to curl just so. I wondered if I was going to end up feeling sorry for Cynthia.

We all followed her out to the kitchen, all except for Mrs. Wainwright, who veered off into the dining room. There is a little window with a sliding door in the wall between the kitchen and the dining room that usually stands open. Mrs. Wainwright looked at us through that window.

Aunt Patty put a plate of cookies on the kitchen table, allowing us two cookies apiece, just like always. She poured glasses of chocolate milk, all the time saying how much fun we were going to have.

Little Sister and I were glad to see store-bought chocolate milk. We'd been asking for it the whole time we were at Aunt Patty's and this was the first we'd seen of it. We don't get it at home either, but I figured if Aunt Patty was in the mood to spoil us, we might as well tell her what we like.

Aunt Patty talked a blue streak as she poured iced tea and cut carrot cake with orange-flavored icing that she'd brought home from the bakery. “Loaded with sugar, I know,” she apologized in Mrs. Wainwright's direction. “I'll give us small pieces,” she said as she cut healthy-looking wedges and put them on green plates that looked like lettuce leaves.

She invited Mrs. Wainwright to sit out on the screened porch where she said it would be cool. It would not be as cool as the dining room, where the air-conditioning was for some reason stronger than anywhere else in the house. But Aunt Patty had new porch furniture she was wanting to show off and she would sit out there even if they melted.

“Come on, Lucy,” she said, like she was talking to a real sweet dog. “Make yourself right at home.” Mrs. Wainwright stood a moment, like she wished she could insist on sitting in the dining room.

Meanwhile, Little Sister and I sat at the table with Cynthia, all of us looking well mannered and none too eager to start in on the cookies and milk.

So Mrs. Wainwright came around into the kitchen looking at Cynthia in that way that all mothers have, so that Cynthia would know she was to be good. Then she went out to sit on the porch. Aunt Patty was busy putting things on a tray to be carried out to the porch. The first second—and I mean the very first second—that neither Mrs. Wainwright nor Aunt Patty was looking at us, Cynthia reached over and took four cookies.

Little Sister's eyes opened wide. There were only six cookies on the plate to begin with.

“Aunt Patty,” I said, although I wasn't going to tattle on Cynthia. It was the surprise of it, the words just slipped out of my mouth. But when Aunt Patty turned around, Cynthia had already hidden the cookies in the folds of her skirt.