Saving Cicadas (20 page)
“Now don't touch anything, remember?” said Mama. “And use your best manners. Say âplease,' âthank you,' âyes, ma'am,' that sort of thing. Okay?” Mama was smiling and talking to us out the side of her mouth as we waited for the door to open. The ladies around us disregarded us until we'd been properly introduced. We were nothing and nobody standing there at the door until spoken to.
“Everyone, this is Priscilla Macy I was telling you about,” announced Mrs. Arielle when she opened the door. “We went to elementary school together. Jennifer, you remember Priscilla?”
“Oh my goodness, look at you!” Jennifer squealed. Then another and another, all hugging and carrying on. The ladies oohed and aahed over Mama, how good she looked. I thought she was prettier than all those ladies, to be honest. Most of them were chunky with round bellies and hips and painted-on cheeks, and I thought they needed to lay off the little tea sandwiches and brownie squares. I looked over at Rainey who was cradling her cast with her good arm. She was starting to look sheepish and shy at all the goings-on. I threw my hand out like Vanna White and said, “And this here is Rainey Dae Macy.” I smiled at her, and she blushed and loved me back.
“This Janie,” she said, whispering and trying to put her good arm out to show me off like I'd done her. “I like the hat,” she said, admiring me. I was so glad to have a sister.
Next thing we knew, ladies were coming up left and right, asking how we liked Forest Pines, how Rainey had broken her arm, where we'd gotten our lovely hats.
I sort of liked the attention. I ate it up for a while. Then Mama was real busy cavorting with the ladies, and we were being so good, she let us go off and look around that fancy house all by ourselves.
Turned out that was a big mistake.
There was an indoor swimming pool in the back of the house, with screened-in walls around it. Rainey and I stood there marveling that folks could have a swimming pool in their very own house. We looked for bugs but there were none. Rainey thought about getting in and wading around but I reminded her of her cast, how she couldn't get it wet, so she stuck her shoes back on and off we went looking for other such treasures.
We heard the Bobby Sue ladies talking on our way up the grand white staircase in the foyer. They were humming and chirping in the formal living room that was twice as big as the one we had back on Vinca Lane.
“You know, you have the smoothest skin. What do you use on it, Priscilla?”
“Me? Oh, I . . . just some Ivory soap.”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-haâ” The room erupted in laughter.
“Well, now, see this? I just love this new product here. Gets rid of all those little lines around the eyes. Not that you have any! Because you don't . . .”
“Maryann, why don't you just start selling Bobby Sue? You know all the stuff anywayâ”
“Oh, please. I'm not a salesperson.”
“The dickens you're notâ”
And so on and so forth. Rainey and I couldn't wait to get out of earshot. I was thinking to myself,
I wonder when little girls grow up to the point that their parties aren't any fun anymore?
Upstairs there was a long hallway to the left and to the right. In many ways, the layout was like the blue gingerbread house, traditional, but this one was much more expansive. I was looking to the right when something caught Rainey's eye and she ran down the hall the other way.
I found her in a blue room. The walls were blue with white clouds and hot-air balloons painted at the top. There was a white crib with blue sheets on it and more of those balloons adorning the sides. Beside the bed was a white bassinet with baby powder on it and a bag of unopened diapers. Rainey stood there, motionless. Her bottom lip was dropped to bug-catching position, so it was a good thing we were indoors.
“The baby room,” said Rainey. She turned to me with stars in her eyes. Then she broke out in the biggest grin. With her good arm, she reached into the crib and grabbed a brown teddy bear. She rubbed it against her face and cooed. She handed it to me and picked up the baby powder. She sniffed it and squeezed at the same time so white powder stuck up on her nose and the middle of her forehead. Rainey bent over, sneezing and wiping, then finally stopped, and the smile returned, albeit whiter.
She ran her thick fingers over every inch of that room and then grabbed the baby blanket and sat down in the rocker chair with a stool that moved along with it. “I gonna sit here with baby Jesus. Rock. Rock.”
“Rainey, you know this isn't Mama's baby room. This is the lady who lives here's room.”
Rainey rocked and tilted her head to the side.
“The baby sleep right there.” She pointed to the crib and cradled the teddy bear.
Rock.
“That lady who lives here, Rainey? Mrs. Arielle with the pink dress on? She must be the one having a baby. Her baby's gonna sleep here. Not Mama's.”
Finally, it sank in with Rainey that this was not Mama's baby's room and that another baby would be here instead. She looked around at the blue walls, the white crib, the teddy bear, the diapers, the dresser with little-boy outfits folded on top. It looked like those pictures she'd seen on the Internet, little perfect baby-boy rooms. Suddenly, she looked covetous. She stuck her hand in the air like I'd done a while ago, Vanna Whiteâstyle, and said, “Baby Jesus need this.” Then she stood up and started grabbing things left and right. At that point, there was no talking her down.
“. . . told him there was no way I was going back to work, and Iâ”
“. . . now that's just not right. I've never seen anybody get a rash fromâ”
Rainey and I zipped up and down those stairs like ninjas. Nobody seemed to notice a couple of girls in fancy hats hauling loot out the door. I wasn't stealing the stuff, I was just making sure Rainey didn't hurt herself, what with being one-armed and having a tricky ankle. But you know, that last time we came down, I heard them say, “Priscilla? You've won the free makeover!” Everybody started clapping, and then somebody said, “We should really findâwhat's her name? Rainbow? She would love to see this.”
Next thing you know, Mama's sitting there on a sofa with a lady rubbing a cotton ball over her face, and everybody's turned around staring at me and Rainey, who happens to be skulking down the stairs with a bag of diapers and two blue onesies. The whole baby room was empty, and if Rainey could have brought down the crib and rocker chair, she'd have done that too.
The room grew deadly quiet and Rainey stuck her tongue out, thinking of what to say. Finally, she said, “Mama got baby Jesus in the tummy.” And she kept going down the stairs and out the door to our getaway car.
“I cannot believe this. I just cannot believe this.”
I guess I'd never seen Mama so mad in my lifetime. They'd halfway taken her makeup off, so it looked like she'd melted on one side of her face.
“I have never been so embarrassed in all my life! What were you thinking?”
We'd already cleared the baby items out of the car, and all the Bobby Sue ladies offered to take them back into the house, which I thought was pretty nice. I heard some comments:
“Oh, it's no trouble at all.”
“What a shame you can't stay longer.”
“I'm sure she didn't mean any harm by it.”
“No, I'm sorry,” said Mama, shaking. “We've really got to go.”
“But your Bobby Sue makeover, Priscilla.” They said
makeover
like, who in her right mind would turn down such a door prize?
Mrs. Arielle tapped on the window as we were backing out the driveway, and Mama rolled it down, though I could tell she didn't want to.
“Priscilla, please don't go like this. It's totally understandable.”
“I'm sorry, Kelsey, I'm just . . .” Mama held back tears.
“Listen, I'll call you and we'll have coffee, okay? Decaf?” Mrs. Arielle smiled sadly and let Mama know in a single look that she knew she was pregnant and didn't care one bit about her daughters trying to rob her blind at her very own Bobby Sue party. “We're expecting a child too. My husband and I, we're adopting a baby boy. Could be weeks, months . . .”
“I'm happy for you,” Mama said, trying to rub the mascara off from under her eye. “But I really just need to go.”
“All right. We'll talk soon. Don't you worry about anything. It's no big deal. I promise.”
And then off we went in our Crown Victoria that had for some reason developed a squeak that very moment. Funny how I hadn't noticed it before. You couldn't miss us rolling down the drive and squeaking up Mercy Street to Vinca Lane.
“Why did I ever say anything?” Mama said to herself. “Why did I ever say a word about anything?” Rainey and I both knew to stay quiet, that Mama's question was not really one she wanted answered. Just the same, when she settled down I had to set the record straight. “I wasn't stealing, Mama. I tried to tell her that stuff was for some other baby, not yours.”
“Baby Jesus need clothes,” said Rainey.
Mama let out a long sigh because, well, there was no arguing with that.
It'd been a whole thirty minutes or so since I'd thought about Poppy being gone. And I only remembered him because I was thinking about what Grandma Mona would say about Rainey stealing the baby stuff when she found out. Then I thought of her being back at the blue gingerbread house, probably in the garden or on the back porch with Poppy. That's when I remembered he was gone. My grandfather had left us. He'd left Mama with a baby in her tummy. Again.
I was furious with Poppy. I turned to look at Mama while she was driving and wanted so bad to touch the silky hair in her ponytail, to run it through my fingers, to tell her how sorry I was she was daddy-less again, but I didn't. Instead I let her look in her tiny mirror and fix her face. It was pretty much clear of makeup by the time we got to the church.
We bumped up into a parking lot of a large white building. It said covenant church, pastor: fritz rosier. Mama said, “Now listen, I have got to go in here a few minutes and I do not want any trouble, all right? Please keep your hands to yourself, honey. Don't touch anything.” She had turned all the way around and was eyeing Rainey. “Already it's been a long day and it's barely the afternoon. I just want to go in, sign some papers, and let's go back to the house and take a nap. All right?”
Rainey nodded. She fiddled with her fat fingers. She scratched her shoulder underneath the strap that held her cast up. She looked out the window and tried to touch her tongue to her nose. She stopped when she saw the cross on top of the building. She smiled and said, “Jesus' house.”
“That's right,” said Mama. Then under her breath she said, “God help us.”
As we walked up the sidewalk past the round green bushes and marigolds, we heard thunder far off. Mama walked, shoulders hunched over and staring up at the approaching clouds. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was afraid of getting struck by lightning. And sure enough, when the thunder sounded again, Mama nearly jumped out of her high-heeled shoes.