Swan Place (23 page)

Aunt Mee put a piece of folded-up paper into Crystal’s hand.

“Now don’t you lose this,” she warned. “Just go straight to the mall, like you’re going to work. These directions will tell you how to get to Buzzard’s from there.” Then Aunt Mee suddenly reached out, grabbed Crystal’s shoulders, and pulled her into a long, hard hug.

“Jesus go with you,” she gulped. And then we were really on our way—to where, we didn’t know. Just the quiet hum of the engine and the quiet, gentle sounds of Molly and Little Ellis breathing deep in sleep in the backseat.

So no matter what, we had each other. We were together, and that’s all that mattered.

We rode along in silence for a long time, with nothing to see except our headlights on the gray pavement and once in a while, a large, dark shadow—a barn or maybe a house where everybody was sleeping. People who knew what their tomorrow would be like—people who would wake up in a familiar room. I didn’t know what Crystal was thinking about, but once I saw her wipe her eyes. So I wondered if maybe Crystal was just scared as I was about what was happening. Maybe even more scared, because it was a big job she was starting, taking care of a whole family and without Aunt Bett or Aunt Mee to help her out.

“Hey, Crystal?” The sound of my own voice surprised me.

“Yeah, Dove?” Her own voice was sleepy-sounding, like she’d had to come back from some place far away.

“We’ll do okay,” I said.

“Yeah, Dove.”

When we finally reached the mall, I thought it looked like a strange, silent city. The outside was like a fortress, and I could only imagine the circus of lights and stores inside. And I wondered if I would
ever
get to go inside. There wasn’t a single car in the big parking lot and all the streetlights made little yellow pools of light on the dark pavement. Crystal stopped the car in one of those light-pools and unfolded the paper Aunt Mee had given her.

“From the mall,” Crystal read, “go north on the Waynesboro Highway until you come to the little town of Autry. Turn right onto Main Street. Go through town and watch for a Dairy Queen. Right beyond it, turn right onto Old Quincy Road. Go about five miles and as soon as you cross the bridge at Boggy Creek, watch for a roadside mailbox with a big, white swan painted on it.” Crystal frowned. “A swan? Why a swan?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I sure didn’t know. She continued reading: “Turn in at the driveway and keep going until you get to the house. Buzzard will be expecting you.” Crystal sighed and handed the paper to me. “Okay—north on Waynesboro Highway.”

We drove all the way around the mall before we found that highway, and then we had to figure out which way was north. That wasn’t easy, because we had no sun to help us know what was east and what was west. Crystal drove real slow, drawing silent little circles with her right hand, while she figured out whether we should turn left or right. But finally, she got it straight in her heart. We turned left and were on our way.

“There’s a flashlight under your seat, Dove. Look at the paper and see what we watch for next.”

“We’re looking for a town called Autry and turning right on Main Street,” I answered. And then we drove on in darkness and silence. About ten miles down the highway, we crossed a railroad track, came to a flashing yellow traffic light, and turned right onto Main Street. I’d never heard of Autry before, and it was just as sound asleep as our own little town had been. Still, far ahead of us, we could see a Dairy Queen sign.

“Turn right after the Dairy Queen,” I said. “That’s supposed to be Old Quincy Road.” We turned onto a dirt road, but there was no sign at all to tell us if it was the right one.

“I don’t know,” Crystal said. “Maybe this is it and maybe it isn’t.”

“Let’s go that five miles and see if we come to a bridge,” I suggested. So down that long, quiet road we went, with our headlights blazing onto the clay road and the dried, dead grass on either side. And we did come to a bridge. Of course, we didn’t know what creek it was crossing, but we just kept going forward. Suddenly, on the right-hand side of the road, I saw a big metal mailbox with a white swan painted on it.

“This is it! There’s the painted swan,” I yelled, and Crystal turned into a little sand-and-gravel driveway. Ahead of us, nothing to be seen. No house, no lights, no sign of anything.

“Where is it?” Crystal’s voice was shaky.

“Just keep going,” I said, with my heart beating hard and my teeth beginning to chatter. So on and on we drove, on the driveway that seemed to curve around something like a big pasture. There must have been a thousand crickets chirping in the grass, and the night was so hot and humid, Crystal had beads of perspiration running down her temples. And then, through the trees, I saw a glimmer of light.

“There!” I yelled again.

As we came closer, I saw that it was a house bigger than any I had ever seen, bigger, even, than the houses where the rich girls in my town lived. Two-story and made out of red brick, with a brass hanging-down kind of light fixture on the porch, and it blazing out light that turned the wide porch almost into daylight. Crystal pulled up almost to the front steps, and when she turned off the engine, all we could hear were crickets chirping.

“You stay here,” Crystal ordered, and then she got out and started up the steps. But before she could even get to the porch, the front door opened and a big, big woman came out. Crystal just froze to the second step, looking up and up and up at this huge woman.

“Buzzard?” Crystal’s voice quavered. And this big woman threw wide her arms and scooped Crystal up, just like she was a little doll or something.

“You poor babies!” she boomed, releasing Crystal a little and sweeping her arm toward the car where I sat with my mouth hanging open, and Molly and Little Ellis had woken up and were staring with wide, confused eyes. Maybe I was thinking that this cousin of Aunt Mee’s would look a little bit like her, but that sure wasn’t the case at all. Because this woman was just as different as could be. For one thing, she was so
big!
And I don’t mean fat, either. Just that she was about as tall as Roy-Ellis had been and nearly as broad in the shoulders. Why, she made Aunt Mee seem like a round little peanut! And where Aunt Mee’s skin was absolutely black—like black velvet—this woman’s was like mahogany. Like the deep sunshine color of the china cabinet in Aunt Bett’s dining room.

She put her hand on Crystal’s shoulder and didn’t say a word, just guided her back to our car, where she looked at me and at Molly and Little Ellis. I kept hoping the corners of her mouth would turn up. Because a smile from this big woman would certainly have felt good. But instead, the corners of her mouth turned down and a deep furrow grew between her eyes.

And if she changed her mind about taking us in, what on earth would we do?

Then, from either side of that deep frown, her eyebrows started lifting up, like two big black wings so strong, I almost expected to see them lift her right up into the air. And the eyes so deep and brown tilted down, like maybe she was going to sneeze or cry or something.

“You poor babies!” she said again, and this time, the words were almost moans, but I felt a big sigh of relief come through me, all the way from the bottom of my feet.

“Come on in! Come on in!” she boomed. “Let’s get you all something good to eat and then get these little ones into a nice, soft bed. You don’t have to worry about a thing,” she assured us, as Crystal and I got Molly and Little Ellis untangled from the pillows and blankets in the backseat. “No ma’am! You don’t have to worry about a single thing. ‘Cause Buzzard’s gonna take good care of you!”

Once we all herded into the house, we found ourselves in a huge hallway, with a ceiling that went up and up into a white, rounded space and going up into it a wide, mahogany stairway, with steps that fanned out like a lady’s fold-up fan. To the right, a big parlor with lots of mahogany furniture and a fireplace. Buzzard herded us past that doorway and through a hall at the back, so that we came into a big kitchen that was warm and happy and filled with the smells of something wonderful.

“You all sit right down,” Buzzard commanded, and silently, we did as we were told. At the stove, Buzzard spooned something into pretty blue bowls and brought it over to us. The best-smelling vegetable soup. Then she poured glasses of milk for us and put them on the table. Molly grabbed hers up and drank it down, almost in one big gulp.

“Gracious, honey,” Buzzard beamed. “You were thirsty. Let me get you some more.” While Buzzard went to the refrigerator for the big pitcher of milk, Molly and Little Ellis took up their spoons and started in on the good soup.

“Wait,” I whispered. “That’s bad manners to start eating before everybody’s been served.”

“Not tonight it’s not bad manners,” Buzzard contradicted me. “Tomorrow is plenty of time to think about manners. Tonight, let’s just feed some hungry, tired folks here.” The last thing Buzzard did was to take a fresh-baked loaf of bread and slice it up and put a big platter of it in the center of the table, and a dish with butter. After that, we didn’t say much. Just gobbled up that good soup and that still-warm bread with lots of butter on it.

At the last, Little Ellis let out a good, loud burp that surprised us. Crystal looked at him as if she hadn’t noticed a thing. “We sure do thank you for letting us stay here,” she said to Buzzard. “We don’t mean for it to put you out any, or to cost you anything.”

“Put me out?” Buzzard almost snorted. “How could it put me out to help some folks need help as bad as you all?”

“Well, I just want you to know that we sure do appreciate it,” Crystal added.

“Tell you what
 . . .
” Buzzard began. “Let’s us get these little ones into bed and then we can sit down and talk a little bit.”

So Crystal and I scooped up the well-fed, tired little ones and followed Buzzard all the way up that long, curving stairway.

“I put the two little ones together,” she said, pushing open the door to a large bedroom with two twin beds and a tall, mahogany cabinet for clothes, and a pretty table in between the beds with a large, blue lamp on it. Buzzard watched while Crystal and I stripped Molly and Little Ellis down to their underwear.

“Bathroom’s right there,” Buzzard said, indicating yet another door. So Crystal took Molly and Little Ellis into the bathroom while I gathered up their clothes, folded them, and put them on a chair.

“We usually put them into pajamas,” I said, not wanting Buzzard to think that we were trashy people who put children to bed in dirty underwear.

“Well, tonight’s kind of different,” Buzzard said. “Tomorrow is time enough to worry about pajamas and such.” Crystal brought Molly and Little Ellis back out of the bathroom.

“Sure is pretty in there,” she said to Buzzard. Then we put the children into the two twin beds. But Little Ellis started shaking his head back and forth and pointing to Molly’s bed.

“They’re used to sleeping in one bed,” I said.

“Then let them,” Buzzard ordered. “Whatever makes them feel safe and loved is all that matters right now.” So we put Little Ellis into bed with Molly, and Crystal said, “Dove, will you stay with them for a little while? They’re in a strange place.”

“Sure, Crystal,” I said, even though I really wanted to go back down to the kitchen and be in on whatever conversation Buzzard and Crystal were going to have.

As they went out into the hallway, I heard Buzzard say, “And I put you and Dove in a room together, if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine,” Crystal answered. “That’s just fine.”

Then I could hear their footsteps going down.

Molly and Little Ellis were “spooning,” the way they always did, with Molly curled around Little Ellis, and already, they were close to sleep. But just before she closed her eyes, Molly said, “We go bye-bye?”

“Well, we already
did
go bye-bye, Molly,” I explained. “And we will stay here for a while.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “Okay.”

In only a few minutes, Molly and Little Ellis were both sound asleep, and so I went down to the kitchen, where Crystal and Buzzard were sitting at the table.

“Mee told me mostly about what’s been happening to you all,” Buzzard said. “And I said I was glad to be of help to you.”

“We sure do appreciate it,” Crystal said again. I noticed that the soup bowls and platter and glasses had already been cleared away, and I saw them sitting in the sink. So I went over and squirted some soap into the sink and started running water for washing them. At the table, Buzzard and Crystal went silent.

“And what’s your name, girl-child?” Buzzard raised her voice so I could hear it over the water running into the sink. But it took me a second to realize she was talking to me.

“Ma’am?”

“I said, what’s your name?”

“I’m Dove,” I said, intent upon washing the milky glasses first and rinsing them real good.

“Well, Dove, I’m glad to see you know how to do what needs to be done without anybody telling you.”

“Yes’m,” I said, handling those pretty blue bowls so carefully and thinking about how nice it was to wash such pretty things.

They went back to their talking. Crystal said, “Well, I need to find us an apartment, and I’ll start looking tomorrow afternoon, soon as I get off work.”

“No need to rush yourself,” Buzzard said. “The lady who owns this house—the lady I work for—she’s not likely to be back for a long time. And besides, she always believes in helping folks out, anyway. So you just take your time. And just how old are you, anyway?”

The way she shot that question at Crystal reminded me of Aunt Bett, and I had to hide my smile.

“Twenty,” Crystal lied easily, and I turned from the sink to look at her. She darted her eyes at me once, and then she stared down at her hands folded on the table.