Chasing Lilacs (5 page)

My armpits started sweating. The line went tight, nearly yanking the pole from my hands. Slow. Steady. I turned the reel and
pulled in the fish—a whopper, Daddy said. He grabbed it in his outstretched hand and asked me for the needle-nose pliers to
remove the hook. When he put it on the stringer, I could tell it was at least six inches longer than the one Daddy’d caught.
Its back, as slippery as a salamander, glistened in the lantern’s glow.

Thirty minutes later, after neither one of us got another nibble, Daddy said we ought to be getting back. He packed up the
tackle box, blew out the lantern, and put our catfish in a wet gunnysack in the trunk.

On the ride home I asked Daddy if working in the oil field was the same as working on the rigs I’d heard him talk about.

“There’s lot of different jobs, but yes, the rigs are the main thing, minding them day and night when the gushers come in.”

“Were you out minding a rig when my baby sister died?”

Daddy didn’t answer for a long time. I wasn’t even sure he heard me, but after a while, he said, “I didn’t reckon you remembered
that.”

“I remember a lot of things.” A fuzzy picture came into my head of Mama holding a baby, me standing beside her. Before we
came to Graham Camp. A baby named Sylvia.

“Do you think Mama still misses Sylvia?”

“I’m sure she does.” Daddy’s hands gripped the steering wheel. “You don’t forget your own flesh and blood.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Every day of my life, but I don’t let it get me like it does your mama. That’s what keeps her so worked up all the time.
Reckon that’s one of the things she’s talking to the doctors about.”

He kept his eyes on the road but reached over and patted me on the knee. “I got me a fine girl right here. Ain’t too bad a
fisherman either.” He pulled into the drive and parked in front of our tin garage. “Think you’d like to learn how to clean
a fish?”

I wrinkled my nose. “I guess so.”

That night I wrote my first letter to Mama, a long rambling lot about Tuwana wanting to be a cheerleader and our first edition
of the
Dandelion Times
. I wrote a whole page about Goldie and her favorite parakeet, Lady Aster, who Goldie said was the top of the pecking order.
When I thought about mentioning Cly, I chickened out. Mostly because of that look his dad gave him and the creepy way it reminded
me of Mama after Sylvia died. Disgust. That’s
what I’d seen. Disappointment. Was Mama disappointed that I was the one who lived and Sylvia didn’t?

After I sealed the envelope and wrote Mama’s name on the front, I put on my green pj’s, switched off the lamp, and slid between
my bedsheets. Moonlight sprinkled through gauzy curtains, so I opened the window and rested my chin on the sill. Leaves fluttered
like butterflies playing tag above me. A cloud glided across the moon, hiding the light.

Sylvia. We never talked about her. Ever. If her name popped up, the room would go quiet as a morning fog and Mama would quickly
jump onto another subject. Daddy might think I didn’t remember the night Sylvia died, but I never stopped thinking about it.

Whooping cough. That’s what Mama said she had. Poor baby. Barking like a puppy.

I had kissed her chubby, round cheeks. “Shoo, get away from her.” Mama pushed me away and picked up my squirming sister. She
coughed even more—sharp yips that came from inside her tiny chest. Mama held her on her hip and jiggled the phone buttons
under the receiver. “Come on, blast it, start working.” Back and forth, she paced from the phone to the window looking for
Daddy to come home, until I thought she might wear out the floorboards. Snow globs stuck to the window screen, and a fierce
wind howled outside our front room.

“Where is he? Why doesn’t he come home?” She tried the phone again.

Huddled in Daddy’s chair with my knees drawn up, I peeked at Mama and tried to think of something to do, something to make
Mama happy, to help Sylvia. When I got a washrag from the bathroom and brought it for Sylvia’s diaper change, water dripped
on the floor.

“Now look what you’ve done.” Mama threw one of Sylvia’s tiny
blankets on the floor to mop up the drips. “Do something. Just stay out of the way.”

In my coloring book, I stayed in the lines on a horse picture and printed my name around the edges of the paper. Twice on
each side. When I showed Mama, she waved me away and started changing Sylvia’s gown. Lying there naked, a dent the size of
a thumbprint sucked in every time Sylvia opened her mouth to take a breath. When Mama got the clean gown on Sylvia, she gathered
her up and held her tight, shuffling over to try the phone again.

The wind made a flapping noise in the chimney, and snow completely covered the window screen. Still, Mama paced across the
floor, back and forth. Sylvia’s cough got weaker and weaker until all I could hear were sucking noises in her tiny chest.
Mama sat on the couch and rocked back and forth, kissing Sylvia’s face even after it turned blue and her dimpled fists went
limp. When I stood beside them, Mama squinted her eyes at me. Flashes of contempt. I wished I had been the one who died. Not
Sylvia.

The cloud slid past the Graham Camp moon lighting up the butterfly leaves again. A coyote howled in the canyons away from
the camp. Closer, another coyote answered. A long, moaning howl. I shivered and closed the window. Then I crawled back into
bed and hid under the covers.

W
HEN DADDY HAD GRAVEYARDS
the next week, he came home and slept in the mornings, which meant I had to creep around quietly until it was time to go
help Goldie or meet up with Tuwana. On the morning after his second graveyard, I discovered I was down to my last clean pair
of underpants. I waited until I heard Daddy snoring, then sorted the dirty clothes from the bathroom hamper.

Mama had taught me about whites and darks and colored clothes and how much soap to use when I was eight or nine years old,
young enough that I had to stand on an overturned bucket to clothespin the wet things on the line. I didn’t need the bucket
anymore. After stuffing a load of whites in the washer on the back porch, I turned the dial for the water and got out the
Tide. “One level cup per load,” Mama had told me. The soap box was empty, just a few grains in the bottom. I looked around
for another box, but didn’t find one. I got the Palmolive dish soap that Mama liked because it made her hands soft, measured
out a cup of the liquid, and poured it in. Then I left for Tuwana’s.

She had on new purple shorts and a lavender-checked halter top and twirled around so I could get the whole effect.

“I’m waiting for PJ to get here so we can practice our cheers.”

“PJ?”

“Yeah, I talked her into trying out since you don’t want to.”

“Sounds fun. I’ve been thinking about something else though. Since you want to know more about Cly, maybe we could write an
article about him for our newspaper.”

“That’s a little juvenile, don’t you think?” Tuwana bent over and touched her toes.

“We need new ideas for the paper. Think about it. Cly appears out of nowhere for some reason we don’t yet know. That would
grab people’s attention.”

“It’s not that. The whole paper is juvenile. We’re not in grade school now.” She plopped into the green glider on her front
lawn and picked up her
Teen
magazine, flipping the pages as she used her foot to scritch the glider back and forth.

“Are you saying you don’t want to do the paper anymore?”

“You got it. I’d rather work on my cheers. With PJ.” She stood up and stretched her arms over her head, leaning to one side
and then the other.

“You and PJ, huh?”

What was so special about PJ? Aside from being a little plump—like her mother, Mrs. Ford—she was nice, but up until now Tuwana
had never paid her a speck of attention. Besides, Tuwana and I had been best friends since first grade. On the first day of
school when I headed down the aisle of the bus, a girl with yellow pigtails and no front teeth grabbed my arm. “Whatcha think
you’re doing? Only the big kids get the back seats. My mother says you and me gotta sit up front so we can’t hear the teenagers
talking dirty.”

She yanked me down beside her. “I’m Tuwana Johnson, and we can’t even sit over the tire humps until junior high.” She giggled,
the same giggle she still had.

Was it the newspaper or was it me she didn’t want anything to do with? Before I could ask her, PJ jogged up, panting and wiping
sweat off her forehead.

“You’ll never guess who I saw! Doobie and that new kid from California. Buzzing around on Doobie’s Vespa. Two creeps together.”
She looked over her shoulder like maybe they had followed her.

“Cly and Doobie?” Tuwana wrinkled her nose. “Doobie’s the biggest nerd in six counties. Why would Cly be hanging around him?”

“I just report the facts. However, they did mention playing basketball down at the playground in case you’re interested.”

Tuwana jumped at the idea. “Let’s go.” She looked at me. “You coming?”

Why not? All I had to do was laundry.

When we arrived at the court, sweat glistened on the shirtless backs of Cly and Doobie, who were playing one-on-one. Cly reminded
me of a bulldog, and Doobie looked like part monkey with his stringy arms and legs.

“You birds want to play?” Doobie yelled, then leaned over to catch his breath.

“Cheerleading’s more my sport. Mine and PJ’s.” Tuwana grinned at Cly.

“Yeah, Doobie said you dolls have some fancy clinic where you’re going to learn how to rattle your pom-poms.” Cly grinned
in a lopsided way. No sneer.

“For Doobie’s information”—Tuwana had an edge in her voice—“it’s a school to learn proper techniques and poise.”

“Didn’t mean to razz your berries, Tu-tu.” Doobie snapped his fingers.

Trying to act cool like Cly?

“So, Cly, you’re liking it here?” I threw that out, still thinking about writing a newspaper article about him.

“What’s not to like? The drill sergeant and I have come to a
truce. I do all the jobs Norm lines up for me; then I get time off for good behavior.” His eyes crinkled at the corners when
he smiled.

“So tell us about California.” Tuwana batted her eyes and stepped close to Cly. “I bet you see movie stars all the time, right?”

“Let them run in my crowd? They’re too stuck-up. Me and my buddies, we make our own fun.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that was, but Tuwana did. “Like what?”

“Nothing your pretty virgin ears oughta hear.” He winked at Doobie.

I picked up the basketball and bounced it a few times. “Beat you in a game of twenty-one.”

Tuwana gave me a funny look, but Cly and Doobie both hollered, “You’re on.”

Cly was better than I expected him to be and beat Doobie and me twice by the time the noon whistle blew. Cly said he had to
go see what the sergeant had for him to do. He and Doobie roared off on the Vespa.

“Show-off,” Tuwana said as the three of us started home.

“What?” Sometimes Tuwana’s thoughts came from midair and straight out her mouth.

“You heard me. Shooting baskets with the boys. Mother says you have to let men think we’re the weaker sex.”

“It’s not like I won. Besides, I think the best way to get to know someone is by being yourself. And it was fun.”

“Come on, PJ. We’ve got cheers to practice.” To me she said, “Don’t bother coming over tomorrow. Mother is taking me and PJ
shopping in Amarillo.”

Arm in arm, they pranced off.

I shuffled home, kicking rocks the whole way. Cly seemed
different now. Not such a greaser. And fun. Still a mystery, though, about why his dad brought him to Texas.

The minute I got to the back door of our house, the bottom fell out of my stomach. Water seeped under the screen door, trailing
down the porch steps. Foamy water with a Palmolive scent. I opened the screen, and all I could see was foam as high as the
washer, bubbles popping everywhere, and above that—Daddy’s face.

“What the devil happened here, Sis? Run and get some towels. Be careful….”

My feet slipped on the slick floor, and I cracked my knee on the door frame, landing on my behind in a cloud of bubbles. Every
time I tried to push myself up, my hands flew out from under me, and I got a soapy taste in my mouth. Daddy disappeared, came
back with an armful of towels, and made a dam so the water wouldn’t go any farther into the kitchen.

When I finally got to my feet, my knee hurt so bad I couldn’t put any weight on it. Daddy propped open the back door and pushed
water outside with the broom. Biting my lip to keep from crying, I tried to say I was sorry, but Daddy yelled at me. “Don’t
just stand there. Wring out those towels and see if you can find some dry ones.”

I got to work wringing out the wet towels and found three dry ones in the bathroom to put down in their place. The bubbles
only came to my knees now. Mop, wring. Mop, wring. My arms ached from twisting the towels in the sink. We worked and worked
until the water and foam were all gone.

Daddy frowned at me. “Care to tell me what happened?”

I explained about needing clean underwear and that we were out of Tide so I used a cup of Palmolive instead. The words choked
in my throat as I realized my mistake and told Daddy I was sorry.

“A girl your age ain’t got no business running a house. The thing is, a cup of Tide and a cup of dish soap ain’t the same
thing. Danged if I know why, but them’s the facts.”

“It’s a good thing you woke up when you did or it might’ve flooded the whole house.”

“The phone ringing’s what roused me.”

“Who was it?”

“Bad news, I’m afraid.” He cleared his throat. “Mama’s going to be gone longer than we thought. An extra week, the doctor
said.”

“No! You should go get her now. I know I can make her feel better. I’ll stay home and not run off to Tuwana’s and…” My shoulders
started shaking, and tears stung my eyes. I reached for Daddy and buried my face in his undershirt. He stroked the back of
my head with his rough hand. I fought back the tears and looked up at him.