Semiprecious Page 6

  “Those were left over from last Thanksgiving,” Sunday explained. “A napkin is a napkin, the way I see it. No sense in letting it go to waste.” She munched on a cookie and washed it down with iced tea. “So, Garnet, how do you like Willow Flats?”

  Aunt Julia saved me from telling a lie. “She just got here. She hasn’t had time to form an opinion.”

  “You’ll like it once you get to know people,” Sunday said to me. “Ours is a real friendly little town, wouldn’t you say so, Julia?”

  The minute hand on the clock jerked up toward two o’clock, and my stomach got tight. Sunday and Aunt Julia talked on and on, but their voices seemed far away. I stared at the phone like I could make it ring just by looking at it.

  At five after two, Aunt Julia checked her watch. “Don’t worry, Garnet. She’ll call any second now.”

  At ten past, Sunday poured more tea. “Maybe your mama’s watch is slow,” she said. “Or the clock is fast.”

  “That’s probably it,” Aunt Julia said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “Maybe Melanie is waiting her turn for the phone.”

  “In a hotel full of women, she might have quite a wait,” Sunday said. “We’re the talkers of the species, no lie. Why, if communication were left up to the men of the world, Bell Telephone would go bankrupt from lack of revenue! More cookies, Garnet?”

  I couldn’t talk for the lump in my throat. I felt my heart harden against Mama a little more, building up one layer at a time, the way a pearl grows from a single grain of sand.

  Then the phone rang, and my anger evaporated like fog in sunshine. Sunday grabbed the receiver, barked, “Larson’s!” and handed the phone to my aunt.

  “Melanie?” Aunt Julia said. “You had us worried. You said two o’clock…. Yes, I know, but … but …” She listened for a while, nodding her head. When Mama stopped for breath, Aunt Julia finally told her about Daddy’s accident, and the hospital burn unit, and how no one was allowed to visit him until he was out of danger.

  “You’re his next of kin,” Aunt Julia told her. “I’m sorry about your audition for those big record producers, but you’ll have to go down there and sign the papers so the doctors can continue treating him. This is one time I can’t bail you out, Melanie. It’s your responsibility to look after your husband.”

  She listened some more. “At least the company is paying the medical bills. And there’ll be disability checks for the girls until Duane is back on his feet.” She frowned, sighed, and said, “Garnet wants to talk to you.”

  She handed me the phone and my mouth went dry. I swallowed. “Hello, Mama.”

  “Garnet? Baby? Is Opal there too? How are my precious gems?”

  “Opal has a headache.”

  “She’ll live. Listen, honey. Great news. Remember that clipping I showed you? The one about the producers looking for new talent? Well, I went over there this morning, and they gave me an appointment to sing one of my songs! Isn’t that fabulous?”

  The bottom of my stomach dropped out. What if Daddy was wrong about her talent, and she got herself a contract? Then she’d never ever come back. Still, if you really loved somebody, didn’t you want what they wanted? Finally I said, “I guess so.”

  “You guess so? Can’t you be just a little bit happy for me, or is that too much to ask?”

  “Daddy needs you. Opal and I need you too. School starts in a couple of weeks and we want to go home.”

  “Well, just think about how ridiculous that sounds. If I took you to Mirabeau, who would look after you while I’m in New Orleans with your daddy?”

  “We’re not babies. We can stay by ourselves. Or I could stay with Jean Ann and Opal could stay with Linda. Or you could get Mrs. Streeter to stay with us. Please, Mama.”

  “I’m not about to foist you off onto the neighbors. You belong with family. When your daddy is better, and I’m on my feet in Nashville, I’ll come back for you, like I promised. But for now you’ll just have to be patient.”

  “But what about school? You said you’d come for us so we could start the year up there.”

  “I said I’d try. Who could predict your Daddy would get himself nearly killed and mess up everything? I swear, sometimes I think he pulls these stunts just to spite me.”

  In the background a woman hollered, “Will you hurry up with that phone?”

  Mama said, “Listen. I’ve got to go. You be good, Garnet. Now let me talk to Julia again.”

  And that is how, on the following Saturday, Opal and I found ourselves standing in our underwear in the dressing room at Herman’s Department Store, buying clothes for school in Willow Flats.

  CHAPTER SIX

  We each got two skirts and two blouses, and then we went to the shoe department, where a major battle ensued. Me and Opal wanted black ballerina flats like the ones in the teen magazines, but Aunt Julia picked up a brown, thick-soled oxford, a junior version of the clodhoppers she wore, and told the salesman we’d take two pair.

  “But they’re ugly!” I blurted.

  “They are beyond ugly,” Opal said. “They are truly hideous.”

  “Practical is what they are,” Aunt Julia said. “You’ll appreciate them when the snow flies.”

  “I won’t wear them,” Opal said. “You can’t make me.”

  “Me either,” I said. “I’ll wear my sandals, even if I have outgrown them.”

  “Garnet’s feet grow faster than kudzu,” Opal said helpfully.

  Aunt Julia blew out a long breath and held me with an icy stare. “For five cents I’d let you wear sandals all winter just to teach you a lesson. But the child welfare people would be on me like white on rice.”

  The salesman made a make-up-your-mind sound in his throat.

  “Fine,” Aunt Julia said with a wave of her hand. “Get whatever you want. Just don’t come whining to me when your toes turn black from frostbite.”

  Me and Opal tried on the flats quickly, before Aunt Julia could change her mind. When we finished, she marched us across the store and made us try on winter coats.

  “But it’s a hundred degrees outside,” I said.

  “Cold weather will be here before you know it,” Aunt Julia said. “Now’s the time for the best selection. Besides, we’ll need time to pay them off.”

  “You don’t have enough money to pay for them?” Opal looked mortified.

  The saleslady turned her back and pretended not to hear.

  “When the oil company gets your daddy’s disability checks started, we’ll be fine,” Aunt Julia said. “In the meantime, every penny counts. We’ll put the coats on layaway for now.”

  I picked out a red coat with a white rabbit collar. Opal chose a black one with gold buttons.

  “That’s too old for you, Opal,” Aunt Julia said. “Choose something else.”

  Opal twirled around, studying her reflection in the mirror. “I like this one.”

  “You’re fourteen.” Aunt Julia plucked another coat off the rack. “Try this one.”

  “I hate green.”

  The saleslady cleared her throat and took another coat off the rack. “Perhaps this one?” she said to Opal. “Navy is very popular this year, and this one is styled just like Doris Day’s.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yes. I saw her new movie just last week. She looked divine. And the color does wonderful things for your blue eyes. I think you should seriously consider it.”

  Aunt Julia didn’t say a word. After her crushing defeat at the Battle of the Shoes, she had figured out that her endorsement was the kiss of death. Opal tried on the navy coat and studied herself in the mirror. Finally she said, “I still like the black one better, but I’ll take it.”

  While Aunt Julia and the saleslady did the paperwork, Opal and I went to the jewelry department. I tried on a gold circle pin like one I’d seen in the magazines. I wanted it real bad, but I knew better than to ask for it. Aunt Julia paid the saleslady two dollars to hold our coats, then we took our shopping bags and started down the stre
et to the drugstore to wait for Sunday Larson, who had driven us to town in her truck.

  The door to the pool hall was open. Inside it was dark as a cave except for red neon signs advertising beer. A bunch of boys in jeans and white T-shirts were playing pool at the table nearest the door. I caught a whiff of tobacco, hair tonic, and something sharp I figured was beer. As we walked past, one of the boys let out a long whistle and yelled, “Hey, Blondie!”

  The other boys came to the door with their cue sticks in hand. “Hey, sweet thang!” one called. “What’s your name?”

  Opal tossed her hair and smiled like Marilyn Monroe at a movie premiere.

  “Opal, stop it!” Aunt Julia grabbed my sister’s arm and dragged her toward the drugstore so fast Opal had to jog to keep up. “Those Judd boys are nothing but trouble.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have lived my whole life in this town and know practically everybody. None of those boys are from good families.”

  “They seem perfectly nice to me,” Opal said.

  “Perfectly nice boys don’t shout at girls in the street, and they don’t waste their lives hanging out in pool halls.”

  “Why not? There’s nothing else to do in this stupid town. I myself am bored senseless.”

  “Me too,” I said. “My brain is practically turning to mush.”

  Aunt Julia sighed. “If you’re bored, you have no one to blame but yourself. You were both invited to the young people’s hayrides at church.”

  “I’d rather be boiled in oil than spend Saturday night with a bunch of Bible-thumping losers.” Opal wrenched her arm free. “You are so old-fashioned! In case you haven’t noticed, this is 1960. Boys don’t come a-sparkin’ in the front parlor anymore.”

  “Maybe not, but they should!” Aunt Julia said, as if that were the last word on the subject. She peered down the street. “I wish Sunday would hurry up.”

  We waited and waited. The curb was so hot my shoes were practically melting into the concrete. “Let’s wait inside the drugstore,” I said.

  “Keep your shirt on,” Aunt Julia said. “I’m sure Sunday’ll be along in a minute.”

  “We can go in where it’s cool and I’ll watch for her through the window.”

  A man pushed the door open. A thread of coolness, and part of a Conway Twitty song playing on the jukebox, came out with him. The voice of Mama’s favorite singer brought back the caved-in feeling I’d had in the pit of my stomach the day she left. I felt queasy inside, like the time I threw up in Mama’s pickup. I dug around in the shopping bag, took the lid off my shoe box, and fanned my face with it. “Why can’t we go inside?” I asked.

  Aunt Julia clamped her lips together and squeezed her eyes shut like she was adding up big numbers in her head. “Sunday had some business at the feed store. She’s doing us a favor, Garnet. It wouldn’t be polite to make her wait.”

  Then Sunday’s pickup rounded the corner, the bed piled high with crates of live chickens. She screeched to a halt at the curb and grinned at us through the open window. “Sorry about the chickens. Albert had a sale on, and I couldn’t resist. Julia, you can squeeze in up here next to my sacks of feed. I saved the girls a spot in back.” She slapped her hand against the truck door. “Hop in!”

  Opal shot Aunt Julia a murderous look, which Aunt Julia ignored. She got in beside Sunday and four sacks of chicken feed, placed her pocketbook on her lap, and gently closed the door like she was the Queen of England and Sunday’s truck was her own personal limousine come to take her to Buckingham Palace. There was nothing me and Opal could do but climb into the back with the chickens.

  Sunday leaned out the window and hollered, “All set, girls?”

  Opal ducked her head and muttered, “Let’s just go!”

  We rattled down Main Street and went through the stoplight just as it turned from green to yellow. Then we were on the blacktop and the truck picked up speed. Me and Opal hunkered down in the back, our hair whipping in the wind, dust and chicken feathers clogging our throats.

  Just before we got to the turnoff to Aunt Julia’s, a black car came barreling up behind us. It was the Judd boys from the pool hall. The driver honked as he sped around us. Two girls in the backseat laughed. One of them stuck her head out the window and yelled, “Cock-a-doodle-do!”

  Opal scrunched down even farther and hid her face. “What a fabulous first impression. Those are probably the most popular kids in this entire town. I wish I were dead.”

  Sunday pulled into the yard. We grabbed our stuff and jumped out of the truck. Aunt Julia got out, then leaned her head in the open window and said to Sunday, “Thanks for the lift.”

  “Any time.” Sunday ground the gears. “I’ll see you girls bright and early Tuesday morning. Don’t be late for your first day of school!”

  Opal stared after the truck like a zombie in a horror movie. “Please tell me this is all a nightmare.”

  We started up the steps. “What are you talking about, Opal?” Aunt Julia asked.

  “Please tell me I do not have to ride to school in a chicken truck.”

  “You do not have to ride to school in a chicken truck. Sunday drives the school bus. She usually passes by here around seven thirty, but we should be out at the mailbox by twenty after, just to be on the safe side.”

  “You’re going with us?” I asked.

  “Yes, to get you registered. Even in a town as small as Willow Flats, you can’t just show up with no papers and start school.”

  “Mama has our records,” I said. “Our report cards and everything.”

  Aunt Julia picked up Mozart, pushed open the door, and switched on the fan. “Take your new things upstairs and I’ll get supper started.”

  We went up to our room, dumped everything on our beds, and changed from our skirts and blouses into shorts and T-shirts. I stared out the window at Aunt Julia’s whirligigs, missing the good times Opal and I had had back home, shopping for new school stuff with Mama. Back then I could hardly wait for the first day of school, but now I was about as excited as a convict heading for the big house. Opal flopped onto her bed, folded herself up like a lawn chair, and stared at the wall. I could tell she was missing Mama too, but she wouldn’t have admitted it if you tortured her. The weight of her hurt pushed down on me, but there was nothing I could say to make her feel better. Since Mama’s phone call from Nashville, we hadn’t talked about her much.

  “Girls!” Aunt Julia called. “Come and eat!”

  We had cold fried chicken, potato salad, and chocolate cake, a meal that I normally like a lot, but I was too homesick to enjoy any of it. Afterward we helped Aunt Julia with the dishes and then listened to the Dodgers game on the radio. Sandy Koufax was pitching. Like me, he batted right and threw left, and also like me, he was having a terrible year. The regular season was winding down, and Sandy’s record was six games won and eleven lost.

  When the game ended, Aunt Julia stood up and announced she was ready for bed.

  “Don’t stay up too late,” she told us. “Church tomorrow.”

  Opal groaned. “It’s our last Sunday before school starts. Do we have to go?”

  After Opal’s remark about the Bible-thumping losers, and her argument with Aunt Julia about the pool hall boys, I expected our aunt to insist that we go, but she surprised me. “All right. You can skip tomorrow,” she said. “But don’t go thinking you’ll make a habit of it.”

  “No, ma’am,” we said together.

  We went upstairs and took out the Madame Fortuna game Opal had found that morning in a box at the back of Mama’s closet. There was a fake crystal ball and a deck of cards the dealer shuffled before looking into the ball and asking a question. Then the other players drew a card that had the answer printed on it. The box said Madame Fortuna’s cards had never been known to fail. I was dying to try it out. We sat cross-legged on the floor, the crystal ball between us.

  “What should we ask?” Opal shuffled the cards.

  “Ask if we’ll ever s
ee Mirabeau again,” I said.

  Opal gazed into the crystal ball. “Oh, Madame Fortuna, your humble servant Garnet wishes to know: Will she ever see her beloved hometown again?”

  I passed my hands back and forth over the cards, waiting until it felt right before I pulled one out of the deck. I turned it over.

  MAYBE.

  “That tells us nothing.” Opal shuffled the cards again and asked another question: “Oh, Madame Fortuna, does Waymon Harris like me?”

  DEFINITELY.

  Opal laughed, and her face turned pink, even though it was just a dumb game. She passed the cards to me. “Your turn to be the dealer.”

  I shuffled the cards and gazed into the crystal ball. “Madame Fortuna, will my daddy get well?”

  Opal drew a card and turned it over. UNCERTAIN.

  “This is stupid,” I said. “It doesn’t answer anything!”

  “Try one more,” Opal said.

  I shuffled the cards and spoke again to the crystal ball. “Will Mama come back?”

  Opal chose a card. Turned it over.

  UNCERTAIN.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Which one looks best?” Opal stood at the mirror in her underwear, holding both her new blouses. “I can’t decide.”

  It was barely light outside, but in our bedroom the air was already so hot the paint was practically peeling off the bedposts. A trickle of sweat slid down my backbone. I smoothed my skirt and combed my hair for the third time, my stomach jumpy with first-day-of-school nerves. Back home I knew girls whose clothes were the wrong style, girls who lived in the wrong part of town. Everybody treated them like trash, even when they weren’t. I didn’t want to make a mistake and turn out like them.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I told Opal. “You’d look beautiful in a tow sack.”

  “Be serious,” she said. “We have to go in looking perfect.”