Suncatchers (46 page)

Of course, it had been his chapter revisions that had led to this little digression in the first place. On Friday afternoon he had been going through the folder labeled
PRAYER MEETING
and had come across a page of notes from one of Brother Hawthorne's Family Emphasis talks back in May.
A WIFE'S MOST BASIC NEEDS
was the title of the list. As he reread it on Friday afternoon, he had felt a mantle of guilt descend upon him. If this list were to be trusted—if Brother Hawthorne had indeed hit on the truth in his report of a wife's fundamental needs—then Perry had been a colossal failure as a husband.

It was after reading the list through for the fourth time, slowly, on Friday afternoon that Perry had stood up, forgetting the folder in his lap, and headed to the mall.
“She wants to know that you are thinking of her even in the midst of pressing outside obligations.”
That was number five on the list. All right, he had thought, not even stopping to regather the scattered pages of notes on the floor, I can do that. I can let her know I'm thinking of her. Actually, he had been thinking of her upcoming birthday for several weeks now, wondering whether he should try to acknowledge it. Running across the list of a wife's needs had, of course, been coincidental—though he knew the churchfolks would argue about that—but it had served as a motivator, and once he had determined what to do, he felt something inside him settle peacefully, like the resolving of a chord. “Yes, this is the right thing to do,” he said to himself.

The post office was almost deserted except for an elderly black woman wearing what looked like a shower cap over pink sponge curlers. She was buying stamps and looking at several pages spread out before her. “I was wantin' somethin' purty,” she said, raising a knobby finger in the air and waving it aimlessly. The uniformed counter attendant rolled his eyes at Perry, then pointed to a page of Joe Louis stamps.

“These are nice, don't you think?” he said.

“They's nice, but they's not purty,” the woman said, shaking her head sorrowfully.

The attendant turned to another page. “Well, here's some of Hank Williams,” he said. “They're bright and colorful.”

“I ain't wantin' no
man
on my stamps.” Another hater of men, Perry thought bleakly. Just as he was trying to imagine the source of this woman's grievances against man, she added, “And no
woman
either. I wants somethin' purty—like butterflies or flowers or stars or somethin' that jest
is
purty without tryin'.” She emitted a guttural groan and turned to address Perry. “The longer I lives, the more I sees how
ugly
folks is.” She looked him up and down as if confirming her opinion, then turned back to the postal worker.

She finally settled on the circus stamps, grumbling that they still weren't satisfactory, but since she had to have something, she'd take these. She bought only ten stamps, folding them methodically, accordion-style, and placed them deep inside the pocket of her long brown coat before moving away from the counter.

Perry set both the large box and the smaller package on the counter and pushed them toward the postal worker. “First class, please,” he said. Had his voice really cracked, or was he only imagining things? Thankfully, the attendant hadn't seemed to notice anything.

“Five thirty-five,” the man said, pounding both packages several times with a large stamp.

“Will they get there by Saturday?” Perry asked. Why did his throat feel so constricted? He thought the postal worker was looking at him suspiciously. Maybe all postal employees underwent training to detect questionable patrons, ones likely to be mailing bombs or illegal substances. He forced himself to speak again. “Sure hope she gets it by her birthday.” There, that sounded more natural except for the nervous laugh at the end. The worker was probably thinking, “Oh, sure, buddy, a
birthday
present. Tell me another one.”

“It should be there by Thursday,” the man said curtly. As Perry watched him drop the packages into a large dirty canvas bag, he was suddenly filled with alarm and dread. What had he done? What kind of fool was he to write the things he had written and then actually mail them? He tried to find his voice, to ask for the little book back. He could pretend he had forgotten to include something or had picked up the wrong package by accident. Or he could try to distract the postal worker—tell him someone was stealing a postal Jeep right this minute and point urgently toward the back entrance—then dash around the counter and retrieve the parcel for himself.

Perry lifted his hand and pointed to the canvas bag. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

“I said I need another dime, sir,” the postal worker said, looking at him curiously. Here was a way out. He could pretend he didn't have any more money. Then the man would say he was sorry, they couldn't mail things on credit, and then he would have to return one of his packages—the smaller one. Perry reached inside his pocket as if searching for change.

Just then another postal worker came from the back, cinched up the big canvas bag with a quick jerk, and carted it off. Somewhere in the rear of the post office, Perry heard the sounds of a large door sliding open and the warning beeps of a truck backing up. He laid a dime on the counter. The sight of it was disgusting. It looked so despicably shiny and efficient.

“Were you fixing to say something?” the postal attendant asked.

“No . . . no. I was just thinking . . . how . . .
interesting
post offices are,” Perry said, turning to leave.

30

An Open Door

“There now. You just set yourself down and do your work. I'll have these clothes done up in a jiffy.” Eldeen pointed to the chairs over against the window of the Derby Wash-a-teria. Perry stood for a moment, indecisive. He knew he should offer to help her, and it wasn't that he didn't want to—but it seemed such a personal thing to handle someone else's laundry.

“Go on now, scoot!” Eldeen said, waving her hand. “I've bothered you enough already today. You get on to your work. You can sit there by that little table and spread your things out like a desk.”

“You sure you don't need me for anything?” Perry asked.

“Well, I sure needed you earlier this morning, I tell you—and you sure pitched in, like you always do—but I been doin' wash since I was six, so I don't reckon I'm liable to need any help with this. 'Course, I used to do it all by hand when I was a little girl, but I been doing it this way for a long time, too. Go on now and get yourself set up at that little table before somebody else comes sashaying in and gets dibs on it.” Eldeen lifted the towel off one of the plastic baskets Perry had carried in for her. He watched her grab an armful of white clothes and dump them unceremoniously into an empty washing machine, then pour laundry powder into her hand and sprinkle it over the clothes.

“I sure am glad nobody else is here right now,” she called back to Perry, inserting her quarters into the coin slots. “Guess all the mamas are still recovering from the hubbub of getting their children off to school this morning.” She stooped over the basket of dark clothes.

Perry walked to the corner and started to sit down in one of the vinyl-covered chairs by the low table but noticed sticky brown stains all over it. Someone must have spilled a can of pop. The chair on the other side of the table had no back. The chrome braces were still there, but somehow the padded support had been knocked off. He picked up another chair from in front of the window to move it over beside the table and felt something warm and oozy against his fingers. A candy bar—someone had smeared chunks of a candy bar all over the back of the chair. He saw now that the rest of it still lay in its wrapper under the chair. Some child no doubt. Probably a fussy toddler whose harried mother had bought him the Baby Ruth in hopes of quieting him. And it had probably worked. While she was busy folding laundry, the kid had used the back of the chair as an easel of sorts, probably licking his fingers as he painted. Perry inspected the mess on his hand.

“Now what's that truck you got all over you?” Eldeen exclaimed, shuffling over. “Well, if that don't beat all! Here, come over here and wipe it off.” She waddled back to one of the washing machines and lifted the lid. Fishing out a washcloth, she wrung it out and extended it to Perry.

“I hate to get it all dirty,” he said, taking it with his clean hand.

“Oh, pooh!” Eldeen said. “It's already dirty, else I wouldn't of just put it in the washing machine. Here, let me do it.” And she grabbed the washcloth back and began scrubbing Perry's hand vigorously, fussing the whole time. “If they'd keep this place clean, it'd sure be nicer to come to! Spider webs everywhere you look and nasty cigarette butts all over the floor! And these filthy dirty chairs! And that plate glass window—you can't hardly even see the pretty fall colors through it! Why, if it wasn't such a disgrace, it'd almost be
funny
to come to a place like this to get your clothes clean!” The thought came to Perry that someone entering the Wash-a-teria right this minute or walking past the window, seeing them standing here this way, might think he was a retarded adult being tidied up.

“There, that's fine,” he said, pulling his hand away gently. Eldeen picked up the tattered magazines from the little table and ran the washcloth over the surface. “Look at that!” she cried. “I bet nobody's touched that table with a cleaning rag since we used to come here back before we got us a washing machine.” She wiped it off thoroughly, then stacked the magazines on a chair and walked outside. She came back a few seconds later, shaking the wet washcloth. “There, I rinsed it off at a little spigot around the side.” She set about wiping off the chair seats, then patted the one closest to the little table. “Now then, finally—your work space is all fixed up. Sit down!”

“Well . . . thank you,” Perry said, but Eldeen waved her hand impatiently.

“I'm the one that's got
you
to thank, dragging you off from your morning's work the way I did. I sure hope Mr. Garland can come take a look at our washer tomorrow, but he said it might be Thursday before he makes it.” She began laughing. “It sure threw me into a tizzy the way it just all of a sudden spewed water all over the kitchen—what a shock first thing in the morning!”

It had been a shock to Perry, too. He had answered the telephone a few minutes past eight o'clock to hear Eldeen's hoarse shout, “Oh, Perry, come quick! It's a flood, it's a flood, it's a flood!” He had raced over to find her down on her knees in the kitchen, with garments of all types—blue jeans, aprons, shirts, even socks—spread out on top of an enormous pool of water around the washing machine. At first he had thought the machine had somehow belched a load of clothes onto the floor, but then he realized she must be using all the dirty clothes to try to soak up the water.

Thinking back over it now, he was pleased at how quickly he had reacted—leaping forward to turn off the washer, then hurrying to the bathroom and gathering up an armload of towels. They had gotten the floor cleaned up without much trouble, although he had almost lost his balance and slipped trying to help Eldeen up afterward. Then he had moved a kitchen chair into the hallway and had her sit down while he went over the whole floor with a sponge mop.

“You are one nice neighbor,” she had kept telling him. “Not everybody would come to the aid of a old woman the way you do. Time and time again you get us out of scrapes. Yes, sir, the Lord did a good thing when He brought you here to Derby and moved you to Blossom Circle right next door to us!”

Perry couldn't help wondering if she was really thinking about what she was saying—did she really consider it a “good thing” that his wife had kicked him out of his house and that he had been forced to come live in Beth's house because he had nowhere else to go? Did she really think that part of God's big plan for the universe included moving Perry Warren next door to her so that he could help her clean up a washing machine overflow?

No sooner had these thoughts come to his mind than he wondered if she had somehow sensed them. “You've enriched our lives, Perry. That's a fact. No, now don't you go looking up at me that way. I know what I'm saying. And I hope in some tiny way we can give you something back someday. God's got His eye on you, Perry Warren, don't you think He doesn't. He knew what you was in for when He plunked you down here next door to us, and I know beyond the teensiest shadow of a doubt that He's going to work something good out of all this.” She extended both arms to take in the whole kitchen, but Perry knew she meant it to include far more.

“Oh, I know you came here to write your book about us and all that,” she continued, “but what folks don't realize is that
their
reason for doing a thing might not be the same as
God's
reason for letting them do it. We just see such a little bitty part of the whole story”—here she stopped to put both hands up to her eyes as if she were looking through binoculars—“while God sees it all.” She lifted her hands in the air and opened her eyes wide.

As Perry squeezed out the mop over the sink, she concluded emphatically, “Yes, sir, Perry, the Lord's going to reward you for being so good to us. You wait and see.” She paused, then spoke again matter-of-factly. “But first He's got to woo you and win you to Hisself.”

Perry avoided looking at her but took another few swipes with the mop around the base of the washing machine. Eldeen bent over and peeled off the furry yellow slipper-socks she was wearing. “These are sopping wet, and my red pair's in the washing machine right now. I'll just have to put on a pair of Joe Leonard's socks, I guess, although I like these lots better because of the little rubbery grippers on the bottom.” She stood up from her chair and walked down the hallway toward one of the bedrooms.