In Front of God and Everybody (22 page)

“Oo la la,” I said. “Who cares?”

“Mama Grace, you are going to look just beautiful whether you have an evening bag or not,” Mama said.

“But I want everything to be perfect,” said Grandma. “Tonight might be very important.”

Mama, Myra Sue, and I all gawked at her. Isabel tilted Grandma's head and began yanking out the little tiny hairs again.

“What do you mean,
important
?” Mama asked.

“Now, you must hold your head still, Grace,” Isabel said as Grandma yelped and frowned.

Grandma opened one eye and looked at her. “Well, that blamed thing hurts! Are you plucking out ever' last eyebrow I ever grew?”

“She's—” I began, but Isabel interrupted.

“The price of beauty is pain.” She scrunched up her face in concentration and began tweezing again. Grandma scrunched her face in torture and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Well, then, I must be a real find of great beauty,” she declared. “And I sure wish I had me a nice purse.”

“What do you mean,
important
?” Mama asked again. “You said tonight might be important. Are you expecting Mr. Rance to—”

“I'm expecting a nice evening with lots more nice evenings to follow, that's all. So don't go making up notions where none exist.”

“What notions?” I asked. I gave the matter some thought before it hit me. “Boy, oh boy,” I said loudly. “I hope you don't plan to make that old man my new grandpa.”

Mama gave me a look that caused me to say, “Just kidding, Grandma. I hope you have fun.”

Mama held my gaze for a long time before she finally turned away. But I'll tell you right now, if that bigmouthed old man was to become my new grandpa, I might have to change my name and depart for parts unknown.

I turned back to the dishes while the plucking and yelping went on. When I was almost finished, Grandma whooped so loud, I dropped a glass. It shattered on the floor, but I didn't care. I was ready to jump on Isabel's scrawny back if she hurt Grandma one more time.

“I got one!” Grandma announced, nearly standing up. “I got a purse.”

“You do?” we all said together.

“I do. It's a little black beaded thing that I carried to the very first dance me and your grandpa went to.”

I stared at her. “You don't dance.”

“Not lately. But back in the day, when I was young and skinny and full of vinegar, I could cut the rug pretty good. And I kept that black bag. Oh, it's a pretty thing. Wait 'til you girls see it.”

I began to wonder if Grandma was going off her rocker in excitement over her hot date. Just as if she read my mind, she looked at me.

“April Grace, I want you to run over to my house and look in the bottom drawer of that big chester-drawers in my bedroom. That purse is wrapped in tissue paper in a white box. Bring it here so's I can show it to the girls.”

Well, I didn't really want to hang around and watch while Isabel continued to mutilate and renovate my grandma for old man Rance.

Quickly I finished the dishes and dried my hands. Just as I went out the back door, I heard Mama say, “I'm going to make you that grilled cheese sandwich now, Myra Sue.”

And ole Isabel squawked, “Oh my word, Lily! Do you really want to make her
fat
?”

The hayfield had been mown and raked the day before, making it look wide and clean while the fresh hay dried in the sun. The tractor chugged on the north end of the field where Mr. Brett ran the baler. It banged and rattled as it scooped up fresh hay, pressed it in a bale, and deposited it back in the field like a chicken laying an egg. By this evening, huge, golden round bales would dot the field.

The sun was bright and hot above me until I reached the edge of Grandma's yard, where the trees threw out plenty of shade. And what do you think I saw? As if he'd tried to hide and not quite made it, Mr. Rance had parked on the far side of her house where we couldn't see his pickup from our kitchen window.

“What's he doing here?” I wondered aloud.

I walked past the house to the pickup. The cab was empty. On the porch, I peered through the front room window, trying to see if he were in the house, but I couldn't see much through Grandma's sheers. I opened the front door quietly. Once inside, I paused a minute to let my eyes adjust from the bright sun.

The odor of Old Spice hung thick in the air, but the old man was not in sight. I didn't see Queenie's spoiled white self, either, and I sure as the world hoped he hadn't let her out, 'cause I did not want to go on another cat chase in the near future. Or the far future either, for that matter.

Mr. Rance was not in the kitchen or the tiny laundry room right next to it. The bathroom door was open, and it was obvious he wasn't in there. Then I heard him in the bedroom, rustling around.

Until I could see what he was up to, I didn't want him to know I was there. I tiptoed to the open door and stood there facing his back. He was looking under the bed. Then he moved over to the highboy—Grandma's tall chest of drawers—in the corner, and felt around on top of it. He went over to the dresser, opened a drawer, and pawed through it. After a bit, he slammed it shut, opened another, and rummaged around in it for a while.

I hollered loud so he'd he hear me good and clear. “If you're looking for Grandma, she ain't in there. She's over at our house.”

Guess Mr. Rance had his hearing aids turned on this time, because he jumped like he'd been shot. When he turned, his face was as red as his pickup. For a minute he stared at me, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his brain.

“Well, young'un!” he said at last, grinning real big. “Let's see, now . . . it's Johnny, ain't it?”

I folded my arms and glared at him.

“Why are you messing with Grandma's things?”

“Why am I . . . ? Why, I ain't messin' with nothin', no sirree!” He glanced around. “No sirree, I ain't messin' with not one thing.” He started toward me, saying, “Let's you and me go get us a little sweet tea in the kitchen.”

I didn't move.

“Why were you going through those drawers?” I asked.

He stared down at me, and I wondered if he were deciding where to hide my body once he bumped me off. But I wasn't scared, and I wasn't about to be moved.

“You think I was snoopin'?” he asked. “That what you think?”

“Sure looked that way to me.”

“Well, I wadn't. Not a bit of it. I wanted to surprise your granny and buy her some flowers to wear on her dress tonight.”

I just looked at him.

“You know. Here.” He tapped his left chest up by his shoulder. “Some real pretty flowers, but I didn't know what dress she was wearing, or what she'd like. I wanted to find out so's I know what to get her.”

“So you were looking through her
drawers
?”

“Well, no. I mean, I
was
looking through her drawers, but I was looking for her hankies.”

“Her hankies.”

“Shore. Women fold their lacy hankies a certain way and wear their corsages on top of 'em so's their dresses stay clean. Didn't you know that?”

“I never heard such a thing,” I declared. But I couldn't swear women didn't do it. I knew zip about corsages. Or lace hankies. “What kind of flowers?”

He cupped an ear. “How's 'at?”

“What kind of flowers in her corsage?”

“What kind?” he asked.

I nodded. The old goofball was stalling, and I knew it.

“Well, sir, I got her some real pretty ones,” he said, finally.

“I thought you said you came over here to find out what she was wearing so you'd know what to get,” I said.

Sweat was running down that big, red face pretty good.

“That's right, that's right. And now I know, so I better get goin' before the flower shop closes.”

Before I could say another single, solitary word, that old man patted me on the head like an old coonhound, and then he left.

Well, you better believe I was going to tell Grandma and Daddy and Mama about all this business. But first, I wanted to see if I could figure out what Mr. Rance was really looking for, because the way he pilfered and muttered, I was pretty sure he hadn't found it.

I looked through the dresser drawers and found nothing but big white cotton panties, big white bras, big white cotton slips, and cotton and flannel nightgowns—some of which were so old you could see through 'em. I found her stockings and two drawers full of material for dresses. In a drawer with scarves and gloves, she kept lots of handkerchiefs. Some were flowered and some were plain. She had white ones and colored ones. But in all that searching, I found nothing that might inspire an old man to come looking for it. I sure didn't think Mr. Rance had taken any handkerchief with him either.

I turned and looked at that highboy. I wagged in a chair from the kitchen and put it in front of the chest; then I climbed up on it so I could see into the top drawer.

The drawers in that big old piece of furniture were as wide and deep as a treasure chest. The top drawer held a ton of old clothes and nothing else. And so did the next three. Why Grandma kept every dress she'd ever worn in the last fifty years is beyond me, unless it was to finally make that memory quilt she talked about so often.

The next two drawers contained more fabric—the kind she made her dresses out of. But there was nothing else in them, or under them. Not a diamond necklace, or a ruby ring, or a million bucks in twenty-dollar bills. Nothing.

When I got to the bottom drawer, I remembered what I'd been sent to fetch: Grandma's fancy evening purse, wrapped in tissue paper, in a white box, supposedly in this drawer. I found a bunch of old purses with missing clasps or torn handles, or falling-apart linings on the inside. Boy, oh boy, I didn't know my grandma was such a pack rat. Finally, there on the bottom was a flat, white box that had turned kinda yellow from age. When I opened it, a musty odor came up. It kinda smelled like old cologne. I pushed aside the tissue paper and finally saw the beaded black evening bag. I lifted it out of the box.

It was beautiful, just like Grandma said. The tiny black beads caught the light and glittered. That purse sure didn't have a missing clasp or broken handle. It looked brand-new. When I opened the tiny clasp, I could see that the silky lining was soft and shiny and not a bit torn. I figured it would look right pretty with Grandma's new dress and shoes. I figured, too, that once I told her about finding Mr. Rance pilfering in her dresser, she'd never want to go to the Veranda Club with him.

But I'd carry that purse to her anyway, because I'd been sent to get it. I had to prove I was trustworthy, so she'd believe me when I told her about that old man.

By the time I got back home, I heard female voices coming from the kitchen, and you'd never heard such giggling and talking in your life. Who woulda thought Grandma and Isabel and Myra Sue and my mama would all be laughing and chatting together like they were at a party loud enough to wake the dead?

I crossed the back porch and paused with shock when I heard Grandma go, “Wheee!” like she was dancing on the table or something. I rushed into the kitchen.

Well, she wasn't dancing on the table, but she sure gawked at herself in a full-length mirror that Isabel and Myra Sue held for her. It was the mirror that usually hung in Mama and Daddy's bedroom.

I stared at that woman. If I hadn't recognized her yellow print dress and ugly shoes, I'd never have known she was my grandma. Her eyebrows looked like the arch in St. Louis, or maybe the ones at McDonald's. And she had goop on her eyelids and heavy black eyelashes. Her cheeks were rosy, and her lips were red. In other words, she looked awful. She took her eyes off her own self long enough to glance at me.