Suncatchers (21 page)

“No, there's no chance of that, Jewel says. That's one reason I'm calling. She says we'll have us some sandwiches for supper a little later on. We was wondering if you could come over and join us. Think you can make it across the driveway without getting picked up and carried off like little Dorothy and Toto? Maybe we better throw a rope out to you!” She broke off to laugh huskily, then stopped abruptly. “My, that wind's making a racket. I'll be, if it
doesn't
sound like a cyclone. Or a tornado—I always get them two mixed up. Maybe they're the same thing. Anyway, I lived through one of them a long time ago when I was still in Arkansas, and it's something I'll sure never forget.” Perry heard Jewel's voice in the background. Then Eldeen spoke again. “So will you come over in about an hour? Jewel says to tell you it's only baloney sandwiches, but we'd be honored to have your company. Won't this here be some birthday party to remember? We'll eat our baloney sandwiches by candlelight!” She sounded as excited as a child.

It was darker than usual when Perry left the house an hour later. The neighborhood looked unfamiliar, surreal, as if he were looking at it through a trick lens that distorted shapes and angles. The snow was still falling heavily, and the ground looked pearly blue in the twilight. The power was still off, but Perry had located the few half-burned candles left over from the night he had arrived in Derby and had laid them all out, along with some matches, on the kitchen table. He carried a small flashlight in his coat pocket, and in his right hand he held a broom. It was a brand-new one that he had bought at Wal-Mart the day before. It wasn't the most elegant gift, but it was practical. Besides, he felt he should give Jewel something after all those gifts the others had brought to church Sunday night, and he knew she needed a broom.

As he came down the steps by the kitchen door, he saw the man across the street pull into his driveway in his green pickup. The two children he had seen earlier opened the front door and leaned out, shouting and waving eagerly as their father opened the door of his pickup. The boy lunged forward and met his father in the yard. The woman appeared at the door now, shouting and gesturing, putting her hand to her mouth as the boy lost his footing and fell into the snow. The man shifted his Thermos to the other hand and reached down to pull the boy up. The whole scene—the house, the family, the snow eddying wildly—reminded Perry suddenly of the music globe. He half expected to see the little boy float up into the sky. But he didn't. His father had him by the hand now, and together they were quickly sucked into the dark house. Perry felt an ache from deep inside. That's where a boy belonged—in a house with a dad.

A weak beam of light wobbled at the Blanchards' side door. Perry looked up to see Eldeen holding a hurricane lamp and motioning to him. The candles on the table inside flamed cheerily.

“Come on!” Eldeen called, pushing the door open a crack. “Watch your step! I got the way lighted for you!”

Part Two

Firelight

And who shall stand when he appearth?
For he is like a refiner's fire.

Malachi 3:2

14

Charred Remains

“This is just the prettiest drive up along here,” Eldeen said, pointing to the mountains ahead. “Look at them different shades of green all dotted together that way. It gives the hills a sort of tweedy look.” She fanned herself with a folded newspaper.

They rode in silence for a few minutes. Perry switched the air conditioner to high and adjusted the vent to aim more cool air toward Eldeen. Maybe South Carolina had limited experience with winter, but it sure knew how to do summer, he thought. At least they were headed north, though. Maybe the mountains of North Carolina would provide some relief. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Jewel. She was gazing out the window, her blue eyes half-closed against the sun. Her hair was pulled up away from her neck in a short ponytail, but a few stray curls had worked themselves loose around her face. It looked pretty in a girlish sort of way, and if he didn't know Jewel better, he might think she had stood in front of a mirror for a long time arranging the effect.

“This sure is some picture, don't you think?” Eldeen said. Perry thought at first she meant the view of the mountains, but then he saw that she was digging a large postcard out of her purse. She held it out for him to see. It showed a few hikers along a mountain trail. A waterfall tumbled over the rocks behind them, and sunlight fell in shafts through the trees. In the corner of the picture were stamped the words “Wilderness Gospel Camp, King's Peak, North Carolina.”

“I can't believe how much I've missed Joe Leonard,” Eldeen said, turning the postcard over to the other side. “Seems like he's been gone a month instead of just a week. My, but they keep 'em busy there. Just listen to this:

“‘Our cabin won the raft race and the tug-of-war, too. Tomorrow is the soccer play-off game. If we could win that, we might get Cabin of the Week. Mr. Brent Geyer has been the speaker for all the services. He's been the best ever. Talent Night is tonight, and I'm singing in a quartet. We're doing a funny song called “Dirty Dan's Dungarees.” My counselor's name is Andy. I've been down the Serpent Slide a hundred times at least, but don't worry, I am still in one piece. Last night was the Giant Ice Cream Sundae Trough. It was twenty-five feet long. I think I ate a ton. See you on Saturday, Joe Leonard.'”

“Now, didn't he write a good letter?” Eldeen said. “I told him he better not just write us one of these little old cards that says, ‘Hi, everything's just fine, bye.' Told him what we wanted was details, details, and he sure did come up with them, didn't he? Yes, sir, he really packed that card full—but you can still read his writing just fine. He's got a real nice hand, don't you think?” She studied the message a while longer, laughing softly, then handed it back to Jewel. “Here, you want to see it again, Jewel?”

The Church of the Open Door had sent its members to Wilderness Gospel Camp for over twenty years, Perry had been told. Brother Hawthorne had frequently praised the camp from the pulpit, several adults had given testimonies in church after attending a Couples Retreat in May, and two fifth graders had been saved during Junior Camp two weeks before. Joe Leonard had ridden up with the Pucketts six days ago for Senior Week. He had been saving his money for a year, Eldeen had told Perry, to be able to attend.

Since it seemed to play such a significant role in the lives of the church members, Perry had decided he would include something about the camp in his book, and he had readily accepted Jewel's invitation to go along to bring Joe Leonard home, even offering to drive his own car since the air conditioner in the station wagon hadn't worked for years.

The road was full of sharp turns. Perry hoped neither Jewel nor Eldeen was prone to car sickness. He saw Jewel bend forward and knew she must be holding on to the back of his seat to brace herself.

Eldeen opened her purse again and began rummaging. Finally she extracted a tiny spray can, popped off the lid, and aimed the nozzle inside her mouth. She gave two brisk squirts, then smacked her lips. “Breath-o-peppermint,” she explained. “I'd offer you some, but I'm afraid I'd spread my germs.” She snapped the lid back on. “My, this road's not for the fainthearted, is it?” she gasped, as a convertible whizzed past them going the other way. “That mister better just watch it if he wants to get home alive.” She jabbed the air with the Breath-o-peppermint can for emphasis. “If he only knew how dangerous it is to drive that way, he'd slow down. Why, he could kill hisself faster than a snakebite and drag a lot of other folks to their deaths right along with him! Fast driving is something that just doesn't make a lick of sense.” She sighed and dropped the breath spray inside her purse. “But then neither does a lot of other things folks make a habit of doing.”

Eldeen unfolded the newspaper in her lap and started turning pages. “Oh, that Janice Boone, if she isn't a card. She gives the funniest answers! Listen to this one.” For the next several minutes Eldeen read the advice column aloud—letters from a beleaguered housewife whose husband never rinsed out the bathtub, a mother whose grown children never wrote thank-you notes for gifts, and a college student whose roommate's pet toad drove him crazy. “She just thinks up the cutest answers, doesn't she?” Eldeen said. “Listen here: ‘Dear Toad Hater, Speak up! Get the frog out of your throat and have a talk with your roommate. Don't let such a little thing stick in your craw. Hop to it before you croak!'” Eldeen threw her head back and laughed so hard that she snorted. Wiping her eyes, she said, “How she comes up with them answers beats me!” Perry noticed that Jewel was smiling as she looked out the side window.

From the advice column Eldeen went on to a column called “Ask Dr. O'Nealy” and read aloud several questions and answers concerning psoriasis, premature balding, and goiters.

They continued to climb higher. Coming around a hard curve, they passed a small picnic clearing set against a backdrop of kudzu. With a sudden flutter of iridescent wings, a flock of starlings rose en masse from the stone tables and dissipated into the trees like the trail of a dark meteor. All except one. He stood on one of the stone tables, one foot raised, his small eyes staring toward the road. Maybe he was the patriarch of the flock, Perry thought. Maybe he scorned the timidity of the others, self-assured as he was from his long experience in the poaching of picnic leavings. Or maybe he was the slow one of the family. Maybe he was standing there now, wondering “Now where did everybody go? They were right here a minute ago.”

“Oh, we disturbed their lunch,” observed Eldeen. “Speaking of which, I hope they serve that chicken noodle dish for supper after the service like they did last year.” She suddenly put both hands over her ears. “There, it happened again—my ears popped! That was the best tasting casserole! Remember, Jewel, it had them little green peas in it, and they served them big biscuits with strawberry jelly?”

Jewel nodded. “I remember, Mama. You and Joe Leonard couldn't get enough of those biscuits.”

Eldeen went back to her newspaper, reading aloud an article about a recent carjacking near Greenwood. “That was some smart gal to outfox that man that way by running her car into that plate glass window and setting off the burglar alarm,” she said. “I've done decided what
I'm
gonna do if anybody ever tries carjacking me. I read somewhere that if you start acting real crazy, like you're having some kind of a mental fit, that it'll scare the crook to pieces and just sort of paralyze his thinking. So
that's
my plan.” Perry nodded as she looked to him for approval. It occurred to him that anybody who tried to carjack Eldeen had no idea what he was in for. She needn't go to all that trouble of acting crazy. Just being her normal self would incapacitate the carjacker's thought processes.

Jewel spoke up. “I don't think you need to worry about being carjacked, Mama, since you don't drive anymore.”

“Well, now, that's true,” Eldeen said thoughtfully, almost sadly, as if her hopes had been dashed. “But then I could be a passenger in a car that got waylaid. I think I read one story where it happened that way. The man got in the backseat and aimed a gun at the two ladies in the front and told them to drive him to—I think it was Myrtle Beach where that happened. They did it, too, and he took all their money and made a clean getaway, and there they was, stuck in Myrtle Beach, miles from home with a empty gas tank. Looks like to me with two of them, they could of thought of something to do.”

They passed a sign that read
Wilderness Gospel Camp 6 miles.
Perry checked his watch. The closing service for Senior Week started at three o'clock, so they should make it in plenty of time. He remembered his week of camp with Uncle Louis's church group when he was a teenager. Were the campers here in North Carolina as bouncy and happy as the ones in Wisconsin? he wondered. Were the counselors as pushy? He sincerely hoped they didn't circulate among the visiting adults and prod them to go to the prayer room at the end of the service.

Eldeen read several of the comics aloud, then some sale ads, and then she arrived at the obituaries. “Oh, Jewel, looka here, that woman Mayfield Spalding told us about at church must of died. The one over in Filbert, whose car was hit by a ice cream truck on Highway 25. I believe this is her—Sally Willis Farmington. I remember because when Mayfield mentioned that woman's name, I right away thought of my aunt Sally that used to live on a farm when I was a girl in Arkansas. I can remember names that way, by making pictures out of them. Now isn't that a shame? I believe Mayfield said she had a husband in a wheelchair. Wonder what'll happen to that poor soul now that his wife's dead. I need to pray for him. But praise the Lord, Mayfield said
she
was saved and ready to meet Jesus. It says right here, ‘Mrs. Farmington was a longtime member of Community Baptist Church in Filbert, where she faithfully served as president of the Ladies Lending Love Society and taught the Joyful Juniors Sunday school class.' Oh, just think what it must be like to be singing praises in glory right now! But we sure need to pray for her husband left all alone now, poor soul.”

Eldeen folded her hands on top of the paper and sat silently for a few minutes. Perry knew what she was doing without even looking over at her. Presently she opened her eyes and read aloud an obituary poem in memory of a man named Bart Gosnell, whose picture showed him to be a strapping man in his forties but whose dates revealed that he had died two years ago at the ripe age of ninety-two. The first stanza of the poem explained the picture, though.

“‘We think of you like you were in your prime,

Handsome and strong and always on time.