A Life of Bright Ideas (37 page)

Tommy hurried to introduce Craig, who was acting even
shyer than usual. I was waiting for Freeda to say something obnoxious to him, too, but she didn’t.

“I left a message with Ada, asking Tommy to do a little favor for me,” Aunt Verdella explained to Winnalee and me, her chest puffed with pride.

“Sorry I’m so late, Mrs. Peters,” Tommy said. “Craig and I went fishing after we got done with the baler. Ma told me you called when I got back, and we headed right over to Hank’s.”

“Well I’m just glad you came. And, that you brought help. I was thinking you and Rudy could carry it in, but I worry about his back.”

“Bring what in?” Winnalee asked.

“You’ll see.”

Winnalee and I waited on the porch with Freeda, while Tommy and Craig went to the back of Tommy’s truck. “Jesus, I can’t believe that Tommy Smithy. Wasn’t he scrawny, and goofy lookin’ as a squirrel when he was a kid?”

“Enough about Tommy,” Winnalee whispered. “What about Craig? Isn’t he a hunk? Did you see him looking at me?”

“Yeah, he’s a cute one,” Freeda said. “But sorry if I didn’t notice him looking at you. I guess I was too busy watching Tommy with this one.”

“Oh, don’t expect Button to have noticed. Her radar is broken.”

“Well, then I’ll spell it out for you, Button,” Freeda said. “Looks like that soldier boy of yours has some competition.” I wished Jesse had heard her comment. He still hadn’t written, even though he
had
to have gotten my picture by now.

Tommy backed his truck up to the porch door, and there was a big square box covered in tarp. “Be careful boys … don’t drop it.”

“Holy crap, Button. You see that? It’s a TV set!” Winnalee
shouted. “Wow, we can watch
Dark Shadows
and
American Bandstand
and everything, right here at home!”

“I paid Hank for it and told him I’d pick it up one way or another.”

Winnalee and I wrapped Aunt Verdella with hugs as she followed the boys up the steps, telling them to be careful not to nick the cabinet because it was in good shape. “It’s an older set, so the color might not be as good as it should be, but Hank said it works real good.”

Tommy and Craig stood holding the giant console. “Where do you want it?” Tommy asked.

Winnalee and I looked around the living room and the guys waited as we women dickered over which corner it would look best in, then we stopped them before the legs touched the floor, because we changed our minds. Winnalee’s the one who started saying, “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee,” each time we changed our mind, and sent them to a different spot.

“There,” we finally agreed. “We can see it good from the couch and the chair,” Winnalee said. “And from the kitchen,” I added.

Only the reception wasn’t great in that corner, so they had to move it back to the first place we’d tried.

I couldn’t resist teasing Tommy by saying, “Wait, on second thought …”

Tommy cut me off. “Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn. It’s stayin’ right where it is.”

Aunt Verdella waited until Tommy had the TV plugged in and the rabbit ears adjusted, then she thanked the guys for helping. “I’d better get back home. Rudy probably fell asleep in the lawn chair, and who knows what Boohoo’s doing.”

“I’ll head back with you,” Freeda said. “You’ll likely need my help freeing Rudy from the web of twine Boohoo has him tangled in by now.”

“Oh,” Tommy said before they could get out the door. “Mom told me to tell you guys that she’s having a big cookout next weekend to celebrate the end of haying season—if we get done. Probably on Sunday. She’ll be calling you.”

After they all left, Winnalee and I sat on the couch side by side and watched a stupid Western because that’s all that was on, and we laughed as we remembered when we used to play that we were saloon girls. Then Winnalee got serious and said, “Craig looked right in my face when I showed him how cute Evalee was, and I don’t think he checked out my ass once, did he?” I told her I didn’t think so, either, and she smiled first, then frowned. “Wait a minute … is that a good thing, or a bad thing?”

The morning after the Community Sale, Winnalee hung the old dresses in a line along the upstairs banister, and Boohoo helped spread the buttons and jewelry over the coffee table so she could see them as she sketched, until he lost interest in the buttons because
Captain Kangaroo
came on. He turned to Evalee, who was sitting beside him in her infant seat. “Watch this, Cupcake.” He swerved her chair to face the TV. “I think Bun is gonna get clobbered this morning.”

Boohoo turned to the couch, where we sat contemplating a neckline alteration. He was giggling. “Look at her legs,” he said, pointing at Evalee, whose fists were punching and roly-poly legs were kicking. “She likes Cap’n, too.”

I was just opening the waxy milk carton to fix Boohoo some cereal when Winnalee screamed out, “Boohoo!”

I poked my head out of the kitchen, just as Winnalee was snatching Evalee out of Boohoo’s arms. “What are you doing? You know you’re not supposed to pick her up!”

Boohoo looked indignant. “Her legs were going because she wanted to hop. Like Hoppy. So I was helping her get up.”

Winnalee was patting Evalee’s back as though she
had
been dropped, when I got in the room with the bowl of Quisp. I told Boohoo, “Toads hop, people don’t.”

He looked up at me with quiet defiance. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Aunt Verdella hops.”

Over the next few days, Winnalee sketched her alteration idea for each dress while I sewed. “Geesh, Winnalee, these are taking lots more time than I thought they would. I could have sewn this dress from scratch in the time it’s taken me to do the alterations. And hand-sewing all that hardware on them? Geez.”

“Then we’ll charge an arm and a leg,” she said. I wasn’t sure anyone would buy them, but Winnalee was convinced that Cindy and her bridesmaids and the girls whose jeans I dressed up, would scarf up every one of them. Then their friends would see them and want some, and well, we’d have ourselves a little business going in no time.

“Was that the door?” Winnalee asked. Freeda’s voice rang out, so we scooped up Evalee and hurried downstairs.

Freeda took the baby and smooched her cheeks with kisses, then asked if I’d found the canning jars that Aunt Verdella asked me to search for in the basement. I told her they were in the kitchen, washed, then, while Winnalee led Freeda there, I headed outside because I’d heard the mailman’s car pull up.

“Here you go,” he called as he leaned out the passenger window with my mail.

A letter from Jesse! I snatched it out of the mailman’s hands, and it was thick between my thumb and fingers. Jesse
never
wrote more than a couple of paragraphs! I stood holding it, my quickened heart chasing away every thought but opening it and savoring every word.

I didn’t want to go back into the house, because I knew Winnalee and Freeda would stand over my shoulder, eager to see what impression my photograph made. I only wanted to be alone with Jesse’s letter, so I jumped in the Rambler and headed down the road.

I shocked myself when I turned down Fossard’s drive, as if I’d forgotten I was ever terrified of the place. I didn’t look to either side, but kept my eyes straight ahead, thinking of nothing but how I wanted to read my letter down where the fairies played. Where magical, good things could happen.

I drove as far as the ruts allowed, then left the Rambler sitting in the open. I tugged the bulky letter out of my pocket and held it tight to my middle as I half ran, half skidded down the bank. I didn’t stop until I was safely on the rock where I’d found Winnalee the last time I was here. The sun was sparking off the water, and up above the falls, insects made miniature ripples as they skipped across the surface.

I drew my knees up and carefully tore Jesse’s letter open at one end like I always did, so I wouldn’t tear my name, written in his hand. I unfolded the letter—four pages long!—and smoothed it over my naked knees.

Jesse was going to talk to me about love? I knew it!
I just knew it!
A wave of joy whooshed over me like water over rocks, washing clean every doubt I ever had about Jesse being a snowflake and therefore, not for me. I flipped the filled page over, and the hem of my hair brushed over the paper like a painter’s brush dipped in gold.

My breath snagged on my ribs. Jesse had met someone? I pressed my hand over my mouth and my eyes darted side to side, as if desperate to find some better truth to look at, than the one I was seeing on paper.

My hands shook the paper, and the wind ruffled its corners.
Wait until I’m finished because this has an unexpected ending
. I read that line again. And again. Telling myself to swallow my fear and keep reading, because maybe, just maybe, what he was going to tell me was that he couldn’t act on that attraction because when he tried to, all he could see was my picture hanging above his cot, and something kept tugging his heart back to me.

The moan I made sounded muffled, like it was underwater. I couldn’t read any more. I couldn’t.

I tossed the letter to the side, and the wind pushed it against the boulder I sat on. I rocked myself as I cried for how stupid I’d been to think that any man but Uncle Rudy could love me, and how dumb I was to believe that anyone would really stay in my life forever.

I rocked myself until the sun disappeared behind rain clouds, and thunder rumbled in the distance. Then I stood up, wanting only to run. But I couldn’t leave that letter at the falls and risk someone reading it and witnessing my humiliation. And I couldn’t bring it home for the same reason.

The letter was too thick to rip in a stack, so I took the first page and pinned the others against me with my arm, then tore the sheet into tiny pieces, tossing them into the swirling water, where they fell like confetti that had lost its way to a party. One by one, I ripped the pages, the shame and anger I felt at myself and my broken radar making my hands strong.

I had the last page torn in half when I saw the P.S. at the bottom:
Hey, great picture! Deek said you were a babe and Bill asked if you were taken. I told him hands off, because you are far too sweet for him
. I ripped that page in even finer pieces, and choked on my sobs as the raging dark water swallowed the last bit of my hope.

The sky rumbled as I headed back to my car. But I couldn’t go home. Not just yet. Winnalee would know something was wrong and drill me until she guessed the rest. Then she’d call Jesse a prick and tell me I was too good for him. And Freeda’d say the same, and tell me not to let any guy tear me down. Aunt Verdella would cry, of course, her expression the same one Ma wore when the only boy I had the guts to ask to the Sadie Hawkins dance when I was a freshman—Robert, a raindrop like me, with so many zits his chin looked like mincemeat—turned me down. If that’s how they reacted, I knew I’d split open like a filleted fish. And with no backbone left and my panic and angst lying bare, I knew I’d pathetically plead with each of them to never, ever leave me.

I drove toward town in a blazing storm that both darkened and lit the sky at the same time. I didn’t care if it blew me to bits, and I would have driven right through it, but the same wind that swirled the treetops was whipping sheets of rain at the windshield. Between the rain and my tears—and on a road I wasn’t familiar with because of the detour—I could no longer see where I was going. I pulled over, leaned my head against the window, and cried with noise—something I hadn’t done
since Ma died. I’d cry as long and hard as I needed to in a desperate attempt to dump out every bit of disappointment I felt, so I wouldn’t risk taking it home with me.