Me & Emma (18 page)

“Can’t you see she’s tired?” Momma answers back. I turn my head slightly to look at my baby sister, who just got stuck up for by Momma for the first time I can think of. But then the sounds move farther away, words bumping down the stairs angrily. A few make it to our ears and when they do I know we won’t be leaving our airless room. The heat’s trapped itself in here so we’re lying on top of the sheets with our arms and legs spread as wide as they can get without overlapping

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My nose is stopped up, even though it’s far from the time of year when that usually happens. My mouth is open and I soon realize I am pantng like a dog.

“Emma? You awake?” I barely whisper, in case she isn’t. “Yeah,” she whispers back.

“What do you reckon we’ll be doing about school? It’s weird how Momma didn’t say where we’d be going.”

I’m picking at my nails again. Bad habit. I don’t need Momma to tell me that. I chew on my nails, but then they get so short there’s nothing left for my teeth to work on so I go to the skin around the nails. Whenever Momma’s around you can bet you’ll hear “stop it” now and again. If I don’t pull my hand away from my mouth right then, Momma yanks it so when I hear her, I stop right away. Even Emma’s had enough. Lying on the sheet that’s now sweaty, she hisses at me to stop, so I do. For a second.

“I don’t want to go to a new school, anyway,” she says. “Fine with me if we just stay here.”

“Yeah, I s’pose,” I say. But I don’t really agree with her. Like I said, I was hoping to be the popular one at my new school. Plus, who’ve we going to play with out here in the boonies like we are?

Then, just like that, we fall back to sleep. Hot sleep where you turn over and you’re cool for a second and then you realize you’re just baking on the other side. No position’s comfortable for very long. It’s the kind of sleep that’s just filling time until daylight.

“Hey there,” says the woman carrying something square with a dish towel draped over. “Orla Mae, stop that scuffling—you’re kick8

ME & EMMA

ing holes into my legs with all them rocks flying, I swear to Sunday,” she says to the girl who’s walking a few steps behind her.

“Your momma home?” she calls out to me and Emma.

“Yes, ma’am,” we say at the same time, and Emma pushes past me to go get her, spitting the word “jinx” out on the way. I run after her. I want to see for myself what Momma thinks of the friendly lady and her daughter.

“Be right back,” I say to the two of them, standing at the foot of the front stairs, trying not to look like they’d love to come on in.

“Momma!” Emma’s calling out through the house. “We got company!”

Momma comes out from a back door I don’t remember noticing yesterday. She’s wiping her hands on her apron and pushing the pieces of hair that’ve fallen in her face back behind her ears. “All right, all right,” she’s saying to us. “Here I come. Now, go on upstairs and make yourselves presentable.”

Richard cut boards the size of stairs and nailed them on top of the broken ones so it’s easy to get to the second floor now.

“Hurry,” Emma’s saying to me, pulling one leg out of the ripped pants she’s still wearing from yesterday and reaching over into a pile of our clothes that’re all mixed up in a heap at the foot of the bed. “Come on.”

“Don’t! That’s mine.” I grab her hand just in time—she’s trying

to make off with my yellow button-up shirt. “I’m wearing it.” “Fine. ]eez-um.”

We race back down the stairs to get a good look at this Orla Mae who kicks stones when she walks. They’re out on the front porch with Momma.

“It’s just down a ways, no more’n a mile and a speck…” the lady’s

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saying. Now Momma’s holding the square dishcloth-covered pan. “Take him maybe ten minutes on foot ev’ry day.”

“Come on in, why don’t you,” Momma says when we open the screen door frame. I can tell from the tone in her voice she doesn’t want them to take her up on it.

“Oh, no,” the lady says. “We’re on our way. Orla Mae here was dying to see who kindly moved in. We see your truck and car drive through town yesterday and ev’ryone’s wanting to put out the dog for you.”

She looks down at us and shoves her daughter in our direction. “This here’s Orla Mac.”

“Idi,” I say. Emma raises her hand like a wave. She gets shy with new people sometimes.

The way Orla Mae looks us up and down makes me realize not everyone wears their pants until they’re sugar-soft and high up above their ankles. She makes me feel funny about the fact that my toes are peeking out from the tips of my shoes.

“Want to see our stream?” I ask Orla Mae. She nods and follows

us down the stairs and over to the trail by the side of the house.

“Well, I guess you best come in then, looks like they’ve taken a shine

right off,” Momma’s saying to Orla Mae’s mama.

“t-low old are you?” Emma asks her while we jump our way on

the cushiony ground to the Diamond River.

“Seven,” Orla Mae says.

“What’s your family name?” I ask her.

“Bickett.”

“You go to school?”

“Of course I go to school,” she says. “I go to Donford. That’s where everybody from round here goes. How old are you?”

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“I’m eight, my sister Emma’s six,” I say.

“I’ve got a baby sister,” Orla Mae says. “And four older brothers. They work up at the lumberyard where my mama says your daddy’s gonna work. I ain’t never to see them, though. Theys much older. My sister’s two, though. Ain’t no fun to be around, just cries all the time. I helped her be born.”

“First off, he ain’t our daddy, he’s our stepfather, our daddy’s dead, and second of all, what do you mean you helped her be born?” Emma says all in one breath.

“I’s at the foot of the bed with the lady who came to help Mama. I pull her out.”

“Did not,” I say.

“Did, too.” From the way she says it, I almost believe her.

“Here’s our stream,” Emma says loudly, sweeping her arm toward the water.

“What do you mean it’s your stream ?” she says. When she talks her upper lip curls up like she’s sniffing dog doo.

“It’s the Diamond River,” she says right back to Orla Mae, not noticing Orla Mae crossing her arms against her chest like she’s waiting for Emma to stop talking so she can prove us wrong. “It’s on our property so it’s ours and no one’s going to tell us different.”

“My daddy says your daddy’s gonna work the smoke shift,” Orla Mae says.

“Stepdaddy,” Emma corrects her again.

“Your stepdaddy’s gonna work the smoke shift,” she says, minding Emma.

“What’s the smoke shift?”

“It’s the worst one,” she says. “They got to be careful not to let the

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sawdust catch fire overnight. Your stepdaddy’s got to keep stirring the pile and stirring the pile so’s it don’t catch on fire.”

“Stirring sawdust?” I say. This doesn’t sound right, either. “Yeah,” she says. “You gonna be working the boxes?” “Huh?”

“For turpentine,” she says in the way you do when someone’s stupid. “You’ll be working the boxes, I betcha. I work ‘em. Summertime’s when the flow’s the best but the smell’s the worst. I wear a cloth that’s made from one of daddy’s old shirts. It’s tied around my mouth so I don’t cough to’n much.”

“Orla Mae Bickett! Orla Mae!” her mama calls through the trees. “We got to get a move on, girl. Come on now.”

“Bye,” she says, and she flies away like a bee after honey. “Turpentine,” I say to Emma.

Emma squinches her shoulders up and jumps down from the rock she’s been sitting on above the Diamond River.

“How’re we gonna know what to do?” I ask her, but really I’m not waiting for an answer since I know she doesn’t have a one.

We take our time coming out from the stream, so when we get to the house the Bicketts have already gone and Momma’s nowhere to be seen.

“Let’s go up behind the house that way,” Emma says, pointing.

I can tell we’ve been gone awhile ‘cause my belly’s growling at me to put something in it.

“Let’s go back. I’m hungry,” I say.

“Oh, all right,” Emma says. And once again it takes us a much shorter time to get back to the house than it did to get away from it.

“Momma?” I call out while we’re fitting through the door off the kitchen.

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“What?” she hollers back at us.

“We’re hungry,” Emma says.

The kitchen is much smaller than our old kitchen and it isn’t near as bright on account of the window facing the tall trees. In a box on the floor there’s some bread and a jar of honey so I figure we can start there and see how far that gets us. Trouble is, I cain’t find any silverware to use to get the honey onto the bread slices, so we’re going to have to do our best without them. I hope Momma doesn’t come in—she calls us savages when we use knives and forks so no telling what she’d think if she saw us ripping the bread into sections, rolling it between our palms into little balls and then dipping the balls straight into the jar. A long string of golden honey stretches from the jar to my mouth. It’s all over my chin and half of the dirty counter. Emma laughs and copies me and then it becomes a game—whose string stretches farthest from the jar without breaking. I take a step back and the honey stays attached. One… more.., step…

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Momma’s voice makes me jump clear out of my skin and the fine thread is broken, falling gently onto the counter, where it melts into the puddle that’s already formed.

“Huh?” I say with my mouth full. I turn around but Emma’s run for cover. Where I don’t know.

“Don’t you ‘huh’ me,” Momma says. And she swats my rear end to make her point. Trouble is I wasn’t ready for the spanking so I tumble into the counter and knock the honey jar clear over onto the floor, where it rolls a few feet, spilling gold honey, before I can get back upright and get my wits about me.

“After all the cleaning I’ve done I’ve got to follow up after you like

a n maid ?” Momma s voice is louder than I’ve heard it in a while.

l LI ZA B ETtf F LOC K

“I’m sorry, Momma,” I say, choking on the last of the honey ball still lodged at the top of my throat, waiting for a good gulp to slide the rest of the way down. “I’ll—”

“I’m sorry, Momma,” she gets her voice up high, “I’m sorry, Momma.” And she wallops me good again, in case I hadn’t picked up the point the first time around. Only this time I really wasn’t prepared so my head bounces against the counter on its way down, which makes it a little harder not to cry. But I don’t. Cry. That’d be the kiss ofcleath with Momma.

“Get up,” she yells at me. “Get up!”

I do as she says.

“Now get your sorry ass out to the front and get that mop. You’re going to clean this floor till it looks new, that’s what you’re gonna do.”

I make for the door but I stumble again on account of the fact that I’m clumsy that way and it’s hard to get my balance after hitting the floor so fast. I swallow the blood from my lip and that helps the honey ball go down.

“I hate you, you little savage,” she yells after me. “You hear me? I hate you. [ hate the way you look, [ hate the way you walk, I hate

everything about you ” I don’t hear the rest ‘cause I’m trying to

hurry with the mop.

I know Momma doesn’t mean this. She’s just mad and when Momma gets mad she has trouble with her mouth—it won’t stop moving, is what the trouble is. That’s why Emma takes off if we’re caught in the act of doing something Momma won’t like. Emma acts all tough and grown-up but when Momma says that hate stuff to her I can tell it kills her inside. Emma’s really not grown up enough to know Momma doesn’t mean it.

The mop’s just where Momma says, tilted up against the front 164

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porch railing, with the wet side up so it can dry. But when I carry it back into the house the pole part bumps the wall and makes a racket that I know will set Momma offagain so I stop and lower it a bit and tiptoe the rest of the way into the kitchen to set about cleaning up the honey.

Momma’s gone but I hear her footsteps over my head so she’s probably back at work in the upstairs bedrooms, scrubbing down walls and floors. Emma peeks in through the kitchen door.

“The coast is clear,” I whisper to her. She’s careful when she opens the screen door, closing it carefully behind her.

Without saying anything more to each other, we clean up together. Emma picks up the jar and tilts whatever’s left of the honey back in and I push the mop around over the spill. When you dip a mop into a bucket of water you have to do it slowly so you can stop pushing it down when the water rises up to the edge of the bucket. I forget about that the first time and water sloshes out across the floor before I can help myself. It’s okay, though, since the floor’s still gluey with honey so the water helps in the cleanup.

“You think you can just come in and fix yo’self anything your little heart desires.” Momma’s voice makes me jump all over again. “A little honey on toast, please,” she says in a higher tone, making fun of me and Emma. “Oh, thank you, don’t mind if I do.” She’s leaning up against the door to the kitchen, smoking a cigarette, watching us clean. I’m careful not to look her in the eye. I don’t want her to think I’m sassing her.

She starts pacing. Back and forth on the part of the kitchen floor that’s clean already, her bare feet slapping against the wetness. “You think you can just come and go, pretty as you please.” Back. “Not a care in the wind.” And forth. “No troubles a’tall.”

ELIZABETH FLOCK

Emma’s head’s down, too, concentrating on the counter, even

though that didn’t need as much concentration.

“Get out!” Momma shouts.

This time I do look in her direction, but not into her eyes. I want to make sure she’s talking to us, which, come to think of it, she must

be since Richard’s nowhere to be seen.

“Momma?”

“I said, get out.” She’s stopped pacing. “You deaf? Get out of here right now! I don’t even want to look at you! Get out!”