In Front of God and Everybody (5 page)

“Surely he didn't just leave you here!” said Mama.

Isabel blinked about a hundred times in five seconds.

“I should say he did! He forced me to get up at the crack of dawn this morning, practically yanking me out of bed in that Starshine Motel in town. He refused—
refused,
mind you—to let me stay there for the day, even when I begged. Not that I harbor affection for dinky, low-class hostels, of course, but I certainly did not want to come back out to this backwoods shack again. Ian literally hauled me to this toxic dump. And then he had the unmitigated gall to ask which room we should start cleaning first.” She shuddered. “Well, I told him what I thought of him, this hovel, and his bright idea to drag us out into the back of nowhere, where no one in their right mind would ever want to live.”

By this time, she seemed to have forgotten about bawling her head off and was ready to knock her husband into the middle of next week.

I'll tell you one thing: Isabel St. James was no prize to look at the day before, when she had her makeup on. But after she'd been bellowing like a newborn calf for half the morning, it hurt my eyes to look at her. She'd do the rest of us a world of good if she'd wear a bag over her head.

I sat down on the bottom step, and before I opened my book, I looked out over the weedy yard. Two gigantic oak trees shaded the house. The lawn would look real pretty if someone would cut the grass and plant some flowers. A nice, gentle breeze blew against my face as I stared up at the trees, at the long-armed limbs stretching out and reaching up like they were so glad to be alive. The green, green leaves against the blue of the sky made my heart tremble. I bet those trees had been there a hundred years.

“Look at the oak trees, Isabel St. James,” I said. “They ought to make you feel better.”

Isabel's expression said I was something stinky on the bottom of her long, narrow shoe. Then, without saying a word to me, she turned to my mother.

“That miserable cur bought this dump without ever having seen it. Can you believe it? After we . . . well, after we . . . after we had to sell our house . . . then he . . . and the only place we could afford was here in this wilderness. Then he had the nerve to say, ‘Maybe it's for the best, lambkins. Maybe we can find our dream.' And then this morning, he abandoned me.”

“Abandoned?” Mama asked, startled. “Surely not!”

“Well, he went somewhere without saying a word and left me completely alone in this wilderness!”

She squalled into her Kleenex and waterlogged about three more before taking a deep breath. “If he longs for nature, what's wrong with the San Fernando Valley, I'd like to know?!” she said, looking at Mama as if she blamed her for everything wrong in her life. “And you people here are so out of touch with the world. How can you stand being a hillbilly?”

I stared at her, amazed by her nastiness when Mama had been so nice. And let me tell you something right now: I couldn't just sit there and be quiet.

When I jumped to my feet, I guess Mama realized I was all wound up because she gave me a look, but by then I was so mad I didn't care. I refused to listen to that ole Isabel St. James one more second. But I never got a chance to say a word because right then, that slick, black Cadillac came skulking down the weedy driveway like an egg-suckin' dog.

“There!” Mama said in a cheerful voice. “Isn't that your husband? See? He didn't plan to leave you here for long!”

Isabel's tears dried instantly. She narrowed her eyes, pinched in her lips, and threw down all those soggy tissues.

“He's going to wish he had,” she announced as she stood. “Because I am going to tear out his black heart with my bare hands.”

Well, this I had to see.

As I watched Isabel in her high heels and fancy designer pants go charging through the weeds toward her husband, I got to thinking, and here's what I thought: what would happen when the St. Jameses met their next-door neighbors, the Freebirds? They are about as opposite as Ecuador and Iceland. To tell you the truth, I'd dearly love to be there when they finally got a load of one another.

Now, to fully appreciate this situation, you have to know about the Freebirds. For one thing, “Freebird” is not their real name. Their actual last name is Durwood. And her real name is not Temple; it's Estelle. And his real name is not Forest; it's DeWayne. She says she is the temple of her inner goddess, and he says he inhabits the souls of trees. So, okay. They are hippies—
old hippies
—and if you know anything, you know what that means.

Anyway, there went ole Isabel stomping toward Ian, and she was screaming at him before he even got out of the car. She called him names that I won't repeat, and he just stood there while his pink face turned the color of a ripe tomato, and his blue eyes looked like hot marbles. I figured she and her husband were probably about Daddy's and Mama's age, but it's hard to tell someone's age once they get old. Anyway, she sure wasn't acting like a grown-up.

Isabel waved her arms while she yelled, and at one point she stomped her foot. Then she fell down like a rock in a pond. But this time all her screaming and cussing was from pain.

By the time Mama and I reached her, she was holding on to her foot like she was afraid someone planned to run off with it. Ian looked down at her as if she were an obnoxious skunk cabbage in his rose garden.

“My goodness, what happened?” Mama said, kneeling on the ground.

Isabel was screeching so loud and long, she wouldn't have heard a freight train coming, even if she'd been tied to the tracks. I saw what had happened, though.

“She stomped so hard throwing her hissy fit that she broke her shoe,” I announced.

I figured all that hollering was more for the sake of her broken high heel than her injured foot, so I picked up the thin spike and held it out to her.

She yanked it from me and hurled it at Ian's head, calling him a you-know-what and a you-know-who. Ian roared like a mad bull, threw the heel back at her, and missed by a mile because he threw like a girl. He marched off toward the house, saying as he went, “I came home with good news, and you won't even let me talk.”

“There is no good news,” she bellowed after him. “There is no good news in this hideous armpit of the world!”

He turned. His face was nearly as purple as plums on Grandma's tree.

“Well, you can just—”

One time I saw a rerun of the old
Andy Griffith Show
, when Gomer Pyle got mad at Barney Fife and told him, “You just go up an alley and holler fish!”

Well, that was not what Ian St. James said to his wife, let me tell you.

I looked at her, real interested in what new cuss words I might hear, but Mama spoiled it.

“Mr. and Mrs. St. James! My daughter is only eleven.”

Isabel blinked and squooshed up her mouth. “Well, I did not invite either of you here.”

She started to stand, then squealed bloody murder and grabbed her leg.

Mama stayed just as sweet and nice as always, though in my opinion I thought she should have smacked Isabel a good one. Instead, she patted one of Isabel's skinny shoulders.

“Here, hon,” she said. “You just sit still and let me look at your foot.”

“I think I've shattered my entire foot and leg.” Isabel's voice quivered like Jell-O in a windstorm.

“Oh, I hope not,” Mama told her.

I knew good and well Mama didn't think for one minute that Isabel had seriously hurt herself, even though her skinny ankle was starting to swell some. She touched Isabel's long, bony toes with her fingertips, but Mama jerked back when Isabel screamed again.

“I'm sorry,” Mama said. “I didn't mean to hurt you.”

“It's quite all right,” Isabel bravely answered, blinking rapidly. “Please, tell me how bad it is. Will I be able to walk again, do you think?”

“Of course. Now let me feel for any broken—”

Isabel shrieked at the mere words.

Mama did not touch her. “Can you at least wiggle your toes?” she said.

With her lips thinned to where you couldn't even see them, Isabel wiggled all her little piggies with their bright red nail polish.

“How about your ankle?”

The woman sucked in air and cursed, but she moved it a little bit.

“Your knee?”

She flexed and bent it.

“I'm a dancer, you know,” Isabel said. “Ballet, of course, not clodhopping.”

Mama cleared her throat. “Mrs. St. James, is it all right if I call you Isabel?” The woman sort of nodded. “Isabel, I'm pretty sure you'll be dancing again soon. I believe you've only sprained your ankle.”

Isabel narrowed her eyes.

“I'm in agony. Sheer torture. Something is broken, or I wouldn't feel this wrenching pain.”

“If you broke something,” I told her, “you wouldn't be able to move it, and you just moved everything.”

She glared at me. Boy, what a d-r-i-p, drip.

“You should get your husband to drive you to the clinic in town,” Mama said, “just to be sure everything is all right.”

“When pigs take flight,” Isabel said calmly, as if she weren't in agony, sheer torture.

“April Grace, run and get Mr. St. James. Tell him his wife needs medical attention.”

Isabel sniffled loudly. “He'll only want to shoot me, like a wounded racehorse. I know Ian. He does not care about anyone except himself.”

If that wasn't the pot calling the kettle black. Boy, oh boy.

“Go on, honey,” Mama said to me.

So Mama stayed with Isabel while I went after her mister. I didn't know who I felt the most sorriest for, me or Mama. I found Ian inside that awful house, kicking a stained, stinky old mattress that must have been on the floor since before Noah sailed the Ark. He was still cussing up a blue streak. When he saw me, he snarled like a mean dog.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“My mama said to tell you that you should take your wife to see a doctor.”

“If my wife wants to see a doctor, she can drive herself.”

Well, I held no especial affection for either of them, as you know, but I'm not heartless.

“She hurt her foot pretty good, and I don't think she can drive,” I said.

He glared at me a minute longer. “Is she really hurt, or is she just being dramatic?” he asked. “She's the queen of drama.”

“Well, she's being pretty dramatic,” I agreed, “but her ankle has done swelled up the size of a turnip.” This was an Extreme Exaggeration, but I did not want to argue with him.

I watched as this bit of news sunk in. The glare and nastiness slid right off his face. He rushed from the house like Sir George out to slay a dragon. Imagine Isabel St. James as a damsel in distress. If a dragon met up with her, she'd scare it so bad, it would run for cover with its tail between its legs.

“Poor darling,” Ian was saying when I reached them. “Is it unbearable, lambkins?”

“Horribly so, dearest,” Isabel said. “It's unbelievable how much pain I'm suffering.”

Oh, brother.

The year I turned six, I broke my wrist when I used a shovel as a sled on the north slope behind the barn, and even then, I didn't carry on as bad as Isabel.

Watching those two coo and twinkle at each other was almost worse than listening to them scream and swear. I figured they weren't going to hurl shoes at each other for a while.

With Mama's help, Ian got his wife into the backseat of their car amidst her crying and hollering, “Help me, I'm in agony,” about thirty times.

After they closed the car door and Ian jumped into the driver's seat, Mama gave him directions to the clinic. Then she did something I really hated.

She said, “It's a small clinic, so you'll probably have a long wait and won't feel up to cooking. Come to our house for supper tonight.”

“I'll be in the hospital for at least a week,” I heard Isabel wail. “I'm sure of it.”

“Well, if they decide to send you back home today, come by and eat with us. We usually have supper at about 5:30.”

“Yes, yes,” Ian said impatiently.

Without a “thank you” or an “excuse me” or a “see ya later,” Ian rolled up his automatic window and blasted backward out of his driveway. It's impossible to squeal tires on the dirt of Rough Creek Road, but his engine whined, and gravel flew like rice at a shotgun wedding. He drove off in a dust cloud so thick I nearly coughed up my lungs.

“He'll tear up their nice car, driving like that on this road,” Mama said.

“He's afraid 'lambkins' is going to die in the backseat.”

Mama wiped the dust off her clothes. “Just between you and me, I believe they both think she's dying,” she said.

We looked at each other, and I busted out laughing. Mama smiled real big and patted my head.

After they were gone, peace settled around us like the dust off Rough Creek Road. It was so quiet that for a few moments, Mama and I just stood there and listened as leaves rustled against one another and hundreds of birds whistled and sang. I reckon you couldn't actually call it
quiet
, but it sure was better than listening to the St. Jameses, or the noise of cars, and people talking, and radios and televisions blaring like you hear when you go to Cedar Ridge. Which is just a little town, by the way. I can't imagine the racket in an actual city, and I prayed to God I'd never have to find out because I love it in the country so much, right here on Rough Creek Road. The Ozarks is a fine place to live, I think.