Running Around (and Such) (3 page)

The drive turned up a small slope, and the house was on the right behind a large oak tree. The house itself was brick, with a smaller mismatched brick addition that someone had tacked on as an afterthought. A wide porch ran along the small brick addition, with three or four steps going up to it.

The thing that shocked Lizzie most was the length of the grass in the yard. It looked like a hayfield, but there was no way you could have cut it, there was so much junk in the yard. The porch was filled with old stoves, chairs, boxes, barrels, chicken crates—just about anything you could imagine.

There were a few outbuildings, with broken weeds left over from the summer alongside them, hanging their heads like tired, sleepy sentries.

Despair washed over Lizzie, enveloping her in a thick cloud. Emma’s face was white, and Mandy whispered, “Wow!”

“Here we are!” Dat sang out.

“Melvin,” Mam said weakly.

“Now, Annie, I told you it looks bad. It’s just their junk, that’s all. By the time we get everything cleaned up and painted, this can be a lovely home. I tried to tell you,” he pleaded.

“But … but … Melvin, nothing could prepare me for
this
!” Mam gasped.

“Mam, now …” Emma said quietly.

Mam’s mouth was pressed into a thin, hard line, and Dat’s gaze never left her face as she climbed down from her seat in the van. It was heartbreaking to see how much he wanted Mam to like this farm. But it was so hopeless-looking that Lizzie pitied Mam with all her heart.

Mam stood uncertainly beside the van, her fingers working the straight pin in the front of her dress. She looked as if she could burst into tears any minute but was trying hard to put on a brave front. Dat talked to a small man in at the house for a while before motioning them all to come up on the porch.

The first thing that struck Lizzie was the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It looked so stark and so ugly it reminded her of a prison. The interior of the house looked no better than the porch or the yard with dishes, clothes, boxes, shoes, and toys strewn everywhere.

The living room was an unbelievable mess. Once, when Dat had started the harness shop and things were slow, Mam had spent as much time helping him as she had working in the house. Emma had done her best to keep things clean, but sometimes things got away from her. But things at their house had never been as dirty and disheveled as this. The only thing Lizzie could really see was the television set in the corner. The sofas were sagging with pillows and afghans and two cats, a gray one and a yellow one that was so big he reminded Lizzie of a bobcat. Books teetered on the wide arm of an old brown sofa, with tablets and pencils scattered beside them. Lizzie guessed it must be someone’s homework.

Two long, narrow windows looked out over the fields to the south. The walls were papered, or had been at one time. The paper was peeling off in layers but was still intact on some of the walls. Curtains sagged at the windows, which were so dirty Lizzie could barely see the fields beyond.

Lizzie glanced at Mam to see if there was a spark of interest in her eyes. She was talking with the heavyset woman, who still had not introduced herself. Lizzie couldn’t tell how Mam felt, so she soon forgot about watching her as they finished their tour of the house.

When they had seen all the rooms, Lizzie and Mandy headed outside and toward the road, looking for bright sun and fresh air. They spotted Dat and Edwin, the small man, coming out of the cow stable. Dat looked happy, talking animatedly and pointing to the distant slopes. The two men walked along the fields to survey the property lines. Mandy and Lizzie turned back toward Mam in the house, hoping that they would soon leave.

Mam was talking to Edwin’s wife, trying to keep the twins out of mischief and looking very tired and impatient.

“Where’s Dat?” she asked as the girls entered.

Mam sighed when the girls told her he was walking along the property line with Edwin.

“Should we tell him you’re ready to go?” Lizzie asked helpfully.

“No.”

The girls sat on the porch, mostly because they didn’t know what else to do. They both felt awkward because Mam was so impatient and Dat wouldn’t be back for a while, Lizzie knew. So they sat side by side on the steps, their chins in their hands, looking out over the muddy pasture that went down to the creek.

Mandy sighed. So did Lizzie. They said nothing for a very long time.

“Mam said we’re allowed to wear sweaters here.”

“So?”

“Which would be better? Living in a nice house with our cousins and friends in Jefferson County, or living in this … this … ugly place and wearing sweaters?”

“I don’t know. Be quiet. That’s dumb.”

“You’re grouchy now.”

“Well, you don’t have to say things like that.”

They sat in silence as the birds twittered high in the old oak tree.

“We have to slap water on our hair and roll it if we live here,” Lizzie offered.

“I’m not going to.”

“You have to.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You’ll learn.”

“From who?”

“Mam.”

Lizzie felt mixed up. A part of her wanted to live here, to try new and strange things, but another part of her clung to Jefferson County. She felt as if everything secure was being taken away from her, and there was nothing to do but let it go.

A
FEW WEEKS LATER
, Dat sold their house and the pallet business to Uncle Eli. Dat couldn’t wait to move to Cameron County. He loved change, and this was a brand new challenge, probably one of the greatest ones he ever faced.

Mam did her best to hide her misgivings. She spent lots of time at the sewing machine, making dresses and bib aprons, so different from what they wore now, for the girls. Emma giggled as Lizzie tried to put one on but got stuck. She held the strange apron in front of her, trying to figure out how she could ever get it over her shoulders.

“Here,” Mam said, throwing it over Lizzie’s head and settling it around her neck.

“Now, stick your arms through here,” she instructed.

Lizzie held her arms up, and suddenly the whole apron slid into place. She reached back to tie the strings as she hurried into the bedroom, excited to see herself in the dresser mirror.

“Lizzie’s hardly fat at all anymore,” Emma whispered to Mam.

Lizzie heard her and smiled as she turned this way and that, swiveling her head to see the back, and adjusting the front, smoothing it down over her stomach. Lizzie hated dieting. Every morning she would get up and vow silently to herself that today was the day she would start her diet.

Mam had even bought diet soda for her to drink, mostly to be encouraging without being rude. But the diet soda wasn’t very tasty all by itself. The only way Lizzie could really appreciate her diet soda was with a big, thick sandwich made of ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and lots of mayonnaise. And a handful of potato chips, too.

Maybe Cameron County wasn’t so bad after all, if the new aprons made her look slimmer. She studied herself in the mirror and sighed. Emma had dark hair and green eyes, with a round cherubic face which made her look a lot like Mam. Lizzie didn’t resemble Mam and Emma at all, so she guessed she must look like Dat’s side of the family. Her hair was straight and mousy brown, and her eyes were gray.

Since she had slimmed down some after becoming a teenager, her nostrils didn’t seem quite as long and slanted anymore. She supposed that when you lost weight, the size of your nostrils diminished as well, which was a very interesting thing. She never read that in a magazine though, or heard of anyone else discovering this fact, but that’s how it was for her.

And now, of all the nightmarish fears of Lizzie’s 15 years, she was getting blemishes on her forehead. Ugly red pimples that popped if you squeezed them. When the pimples had first appeared, Mam was concerned, peering closely at Lizzie’s forehead through her glasses, clucking worriedly as she did so.

“You shouldn’t squeeze them,” she would say.

Eventually Mam bought her a tube of Clearasil lotion the same color as her skin, and that helped the pimples dry up quickly. It was the single best thing anyone ever invented, Lizzie always thought, because it certainly did make a difference and it was almost like makeup.

Emma and Mandy hardly ever had one pimple, and if they did, it soon disappeared. But they were always careful of Lizzie’s feelings, because they knew that Lizzie’s skin troubles really weren’t fair.

“Do you like it?” Mam asked from the doorway.

Lizzie smiled and glanced one more time into the mirror at her new apron. Now all Lizzie really needed to feel attractive was a nice pair of shoes with heels on them. She was not allowed to wear heels till she turned 16, but that was the one single goal of her life—to wear high-heeled shoes. She often told Emma she wanted some that would make a clacking noise when she walked. Emma said that was
gros-feelich
, or vain, and if that’s why she wanted high-heeled shoes, she had better forget about it.

“I love the apron,” she said. “It feels so comfortable.”

“This style will be ideal for milking cows and carrying hay bales,” Mam said.

That was closer to genuine happiness than Mam had come in a long time, Lizzie thought. She knew Mam was trying very hard to accept the move. Lizzie found that it made the future much less frightening if Mam at least tried to be a good sport about moving to the tumbledown old farm.

She turned to smile at Mam as she wriggled out of the apron, handing it back to her. “Now, when are you going to teach us how to roll our hair?” she asked since Mam was almost happy.

Mam narrowed her eyes, looking at Lizzie’s profusion of loose waves. “Go wet your hair. The whole top of your head,” she said.

“Sopping wet?” Lizzie asked.

“Well, wet.”

Lizzie giggled and ran into the bathroom. It wasn’t the wet hair that made her laugh as much as the fact that Mam was finally warming up a little bit. Kind of like an ice cube just beginning to melt. But she
was
melting, which made Lizzie’s heart feel light.

She pulled the pins out of her covering and laid it on the counter. She took down her bob, or hair bun, running her fingers through her waves as they tumbled down her back. Her hair was getting to be so long and thick she could hardly make a decent bob on the back of her head. She used 10 straight hairpins and still she could hardly keep her hair up till the end of the day.

Quickly she held her hands under the water faucet, ducked her head, and patted the water onto it. The water felt cold as she wet her hair twice before going out to Mam.

“I need a fine-toothed comb,” Mam said.

Lizzie returned to the bathroom, found a comb, and came back to sit on a chair. Mam combed through her wet hair, then stopped, and taking both hands, pulled back dreadfully hard.

“Ouch!” Lizzie winced.

Mam laughed, stepped back, and said, “You had better get used to this.”

“But it hurts! Look at me. I have tears in my eyes.”

“Alright. I’ll be careful.” Mam started rolling in the wet hair along the side of Lizzie’s brow, smoothing it back with her hand as she rolled. She completed the other side before stepping back to see the finished result. Before she had a chance to say anything, Emma and Mandy started laughing hysterically.

“Li-i-i-zzie! You look so—!” Emma tried to say, but she was laughing too hard.

“Homely!” Mandy sputtered between giggles.

Lizzie got up and hurried to the bathroom to look in the mirror. She did look so ugly! Her forehead was twice as wide as it should be, making her eyes appear way too low on her face.

“I look … I look like a drowned rat!” she wailed.

Mam was hanging onto the back of the kitchen chair, she was laughing so hard. Emma and Mandy were sitting on the couch, their heads thrown back as they laughed with Mam.

Mam took a deep breath to answer but was overtaken with a fit of coughing. She leaned over the kitchen table, her hand covering her mouth as spasms racked her body. She clutched the table for several minutes until she could breathe normally again. Finally, she lifted her apron to retrieve the handkerchief in her dress pocket, gasped, and shook her head.

“My goodness, what a cough,” she said.

“Mam, you should see a doctor,” Emma said, gazing worriedly at her mother.

“I know, Emma,” Mam said. “I’ll see if the cough gets better this week. If it doesn’t, I promise I’ll go.”

Lizzie shivered. She hoped Mam wouldn’t wait too long.