A Life of Bright Ideas (7 page)

Boohoo tilted his wrist and looked at his palm. Then he moved the toad so he could see the dress, too. “You peed,” he told him.

I sent Boohoo back to Aunt Verdella’s, then sat down, my arms going limp between my knees. I’d never get our gummy, clay soil out of that dress without leaving a stain. Not in a million years. I could only hope that Linda had enough of the same fabrics on hand and didn’t need to run to Porter to replace them, if spot cleaning didn’t work. The wedding was in four weeks and the beading alone would take me forever.

I’d finish the second sleeve of the bridesmaid’s gown, then go across the street and call Linda. I’d tell her to take the new fabric out of my salary, if it needed to be resewn. I’d offer to remake the gown myself, and assure her that I
could
sew a wedding dress from start to finish. I’d apologize profusely to Marge, since she, not Linda, had sewn the dress, because Linda couldn’t sew even as well as me. She was simply a businesswoman who loved the glitz of weddings, and wanted to keep Ma’s vision alive since they’d been such close friends. She’d hired Marge and Hazel, sisters who worked out of their
homes for years, sewing for family and neighbors who couldn’t afford the time or money for a trip to the Twin Cities, or down to the southern part of the state, yet needed something special to wear to a wedding or prom and didn’t want to show up at the event in a dress from the Montgomery Ward catalog, that at least five other women would be wearing. I sighed again. Even if the stains could be worked out of the gown, I’d be giving everyone extra work and worry.

The record was finished, the needle making
chh-it, chh-it
sounds as the turntable spun past the last track. Downstairs, Tommy’s truck started. I leaned back in my chair and reached for the lever to play the album again, but before my hand hit its mark, I heard Tommy shout, “Boohoo!” And then Aunt Verdella’s voice screaming the same. I hurried to the window to see what my brother had done this time.

Brody’s car was gone, and I couldn’t see more than the bed of Tommy’s truck from either window, so I raced downstairs.

Tommy, red-faced from running, reached into the opened window and grabbed the keys. “Damn it, Boohoo, you could have smashed my truck, and you, both!” He yanked the door open and pulled Boohoo out of the front seat, as Aunt Verdella charged into the yard.

“Don’t yell at him like that, Tommy,” I snapped, to which he told me that
somebody
had better start yelling at him. “What he did was dangerous!” Tommy had genuine fear in his eyes, and I closed my mouth and swallowed the rest of the rant that was about to come.

“I wasn’t gonna drive it,” Boohoo said. “I was just gonna move it so I could get Hoppy.” He looked at Aunt Verdella, then pointed under the truck. “Hoppy’s under there and Tommy drives bad.”

We were all talking at once then. Tommy lecturing Boohoo—and defending his driving—me tattling to Aunt Verdella about what he’d done to Jo’s gown, and Aunt Verdella
calling to Boohoo, who had slipped underneath the truck to find the toad.

When Boohoo came out, he was clutching Hoppy without mercy and grinning. That is, until he saw our faces. “I just wanted to get my toad,” he said.

“Oh, Boohoo,” Aunt Verdella said, still huffing from her hop over. “I know you don’t mean to be naughty, but … well honey, you go back home now,” she said. “And up to your room and stay there for a half an hour until you figure out what you did wrong.”

“One hour!” I snapped, because I was still shaking, even though I knew full well that Aunt Verdella would let him out in ten minutes if he cried, which he was already doing.

After Aunt Verdella marched Boohoo back to her house, Tommy left, and I trudged back upstairs to stare at the ruined gown. Then—partially because I dreaded telling Linda what happened, and partially because I was determined to get at least
something
accomplished by the end of the day—I flipped on Simon & Garfunkel and sat down to finish the whole bridesmaid’s dress.

It was about twenty minutes after the truck fiasco when I felt someone in the room. I turned, and there he was. Boohoo. Standing in the doorway. “What are you doing over here? You’re supposed to be in your room. I heard Aunt Verdella yell at you a few seconds ago, now get back there. You have to listen when—”

“She wasn’t yellin’ at
me
,” he said. “She was yellin’ at
you
.”

“Boohoo, please. Go. I’ll come get you when I’m done here.” I didn’t look him straight in the face, because I’d calmed down and knew that if he looked sad, I’d be pampering him every bit as much as Aunt Verdella.

“She was,” he said. “Because somebody’s here.” He mumbled
a name, but his chin was tucked as he struggled to tuck the line of yarn dangling from his pocket back in.

“
Vinny?
I don’t know any Vinny,” I said.

I reached over to the stereo, lowering the volume, just as he was saying, “No.
Winnie
—not Vinnie. Winnie. Like Winnie the Pooh.”

My body went taut, and my heart started thumping in my ears. I put my hand over my chest, just like Aunt Verdella always did. “Winnalee? Was that the name, Boohoo?
Winnalee?
”

“I dunno. But she’s peeing and Aunt Verdella is crying.”

I hurried to the window and leaned into it so fast that I bumped my forehead on the glass.

There was a van in the driveway, painted with wild psychedelic colors and shapes I couldn’t make out except for the purple peace symbol on the roof.

Aunt Verdella was in the middle of her yard, one hand over her heart and the other working as though she was trying to scoop me from my house. She stopped and ran-hopped to the front steps, her arms flailing, then ran back to the center of the yard to gesture again. Back and forth she went, her arms scooping, clutching her chest, her mouth, the sides of her head. Everywhere! She must have seen me in the window, because she yelled, “Button, hurry!
Hurry!
She’s here! Our Winnalee has come home!”

Then there she was. My very first, forever best friend. Coming down the front steps with a green army bag slung around her neck and resting below the opposite hip. Her dishwater blond, hip-long loopy hair and bright peasant dress billowing in a wind that must have blown in with her.

I sped down the stairs—glossing my lips and smoothing down my hair as I went—Boohoo thumping behind me, asking, “Who is that Winnie girl, Evy? Who is she?”

I was mumbling, “Oh my God … oh my God,” as I shoved open the screen door. They were just coming across the road, Aunt Verdella laughing and crying and waving her arms like an excited grade school crossing guard, and Winnalee wincing as she ran across the graveled road on bare feet, her face lit with joy as she screamed, “Button! Button!”

The air filled with happy shrieks as we hugged and leapt in circles and squealed about how we couldn’t believe we were together again. I caught Aunt Verdella’s blurred image with
every rotation we made, her head tipped to the side, her hand on her cheek, one arm around Boohoo’s shoulder.

When we exhausted ourselves, we stopped, and, winded and holding hands, we backed up so we could see who the other had become. “Oh my God! Look at you, Button! You’re so pretty!” Winnalee’s voice was almost as high-pitched as when she was nine. She pulled her hands free and lifted handfuls of my hair, parted in the middle like hers. “And you’ve got long hair now! Straight, too!”

“Only when I roll it in juice cans, or iron it. Otherwise it’s frizzy,” I confessed. I tucked my hair behind my ears, hoping Winnalee would notice that I’d finally grown into them.

Winnalee set my hair free, then reached out and gave my boobs a quick bounce. “And look at your knockers!”

“Knockers?”
Boohoo asked, giggling, as my face heated.

I licked my index fingers and wiped under my eyes where I knew mascara was smeared. Winnalee didn’t go for the “natural look” by wearing foundation, pale blue eye shadow, and gloss to give her lips that just-licked look like I did—but then she didn’t need to. She was beautiful as she was, with fair skin that showed no signs of ever having been invaded by zits, and lashes that were naturally brown-black and curled to her eyebrows in a feather-soft arc, not mascara-crunchy and creased like the letter
L
from an eyelash curler, like mine. Her sun-streaked loops flowed in the wind, brushing across petite boobs that actually fit her body—and were obviously not strapped into a bra, judging by the fact that her nipples were showing through her dress like pencil erasers. She was curvy like Freeda, but smaller, and she had hips, unlike yours truly. Nice hips, too, not too wide, not too narrow. She was cute and pretty at the same time, like Goldie Hawn, on
Laugh-In
, but I didn’t get to say that out loud because Winnalee was hugging me, saying, “You’re still my best friend. I can already tell,” and I was smudging my mascara all over again. Aunt Verdella
came forward and wrapped her arms around us both, and the three of us laughed as if we’d found fairies.

We were all talking at once then, bombarding one another with questions we were too excited to answer, when Winnalee stopped and looked down at Boohoo, who was twisting two strands of her hair together at her hip. “Okay … this
has
to be your little brother, Button. He looks just like Uncle Reece!” She bent over so that her face was level with Boohoo’s.

Aunt Verdella went up behind Boohoo and gently pulled his hands free from Winnalee’s hair. “This is our little Robert Reece, but we call him Boohoo. He’s six years old,” Aunt Verdella said proudly.

Boohoo was staring at the braided hemp Winnalee wore around her wrist, two turquoise beads dangling from the tied strings. “I like your
wristlet
,” he said.

“He likes yarn,” I added quietly, embarrassed because his fixation with strings and tying was starting to slip over to the weird side.

“Are you Crackpot?” Boohoo asked. Winnalee laughed as though his question made sense.

“Maybe. Nice to meet you, Boohoo,” she said, giggling, either over his name, his question, or because Boohoo himself was giggably cute. Boohoo didn’t answer. He was too busy staring at her long hair again.

The next couple of hours rushed by like playful winds. Winnalee ran through the downstairs of Grandma Mae’s house like a sugar-injected kid, pointing out all the things she remembered. She crawled up on the counter and sat propped on her knees, just because she remembered doing that when she was little, then she rushed to the bathroom, where she hiked her dress to her thighs and stepped into the claw-footed tub and sat down, just so she could see if it was as huge as she remembered.
(It wasn’t.) When we got upstairs, Winnalee lifted the strap of her army bag and tossed it onto my bed, then turned in circles as she looked at the room that used to be hers, hurrying to the window seat and bouncing on it, even though it had no give.

Aunt Verdella tugged Boohoo by the hand and announced that she was going home to cook Winnalee a nice homecoming meal.

“Oh, oh! Would you make bunny pancakes?” Winnalee asked, referring to the rabbit-face, raisin-eyed pancakes she remembered. The ones Aunt Verdella still made for Boohoo, by dropping batter onto the griddle in three blobs, rounding the rabbit’s face with the back of her spoon and stretching the two blobs on top into long ears.

That evening when Uncle Rudy came home, Winnalee grabbed my hand and tugged me outside. “Well, lookie who’s back!” he said. His face went purple from Winnalee’s tight squeeze, and she patted Knucklehead until his back legs buckled. “Wow, this old dog isn’t long for this world, is he?” she commented. Aunt Verdella and I winced because Boohoo was standing right there.

“That’s quite the Volkswagen Camper you’ve got there,” Uncle Rudy said. “What is it? About a ’61, ’62?”

“It’s a 1962,” Winnalee recited, proudly. “It’s my hippie mobile. It runs good, too.” While they talked, Boohoo combed over the murals on the side of the van like it was a “find the hidden picture” page in
Highlights
magazine, shouting out a number every time he found another delicate fairy peeking from behind a bold flower, sliding down an arched rainbow, or dancing over bright swirls.

Things didn’t calm down until we settled at the table to eat our pancakes, eggs, fried potatoes, and ham. Winnalee dipped down and kissed her pancake when Aunt Verdella set down her plate. “I’ve missed you, Bunny!” she said. I started laughing
and Winnalee looked up and grinned. “What? I did!” She looked at Aunt Verdella, who was ha-ha’ing, and suddenly Winnalee’s eyes narrowed and her lips parted, as though she just realized it wasn’t 1961 anymore, and, in spite of still having the oomph of a shaken can of soda pop, Aunt Verdella had aged to old.

Aunt Verdella passed out plates to the rest of us and sat down. “How’s Freeda?” she asked, talking with her mouth full. “Oh, I miss that girl! I wish she had come with you.”

Winnalee dipped the maple syrup jug upside down and drowned her plate—eggs and ham and fried potatoes and all. “She got her hairdresser’s license and opened a beauty shop a couple of years ago,” Winnalee said, while licking two fingers. I don’t think Aunt Verdella noticed how Winnalee’s face hardened when Freeda’s name came up, but I did—it morphed just how I imagine my face did when folks asked me about Dad.

“A beauty shop?” Aunt Verdella slapped the table hard enough that the silverware jingled. “Now if that ain’t just perfect for Freeda! Remember when she fixed me and your ma up, Button?” Of course I remembered. They had raced to the mirror and laughed themselves silly. Then later, Aunt Verdella had strutted in front of the TV so Uncle Rudy could see the new her, and he asked who that “looker” was and joked that Verdie was sure going to be mad when he saw that Winnalee and I had brought him home a glamour girl. But Dad only grumbled when he saw Ma’s new look, and asked where the Phillips screwdriver was. I hated the way my mind kept a record of every one of my Ma’s hurts, and mourned them when I remembered, wishing only that every single hour Ma had on this earth had been happy.