The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat (16 page)

“Sure. Who knows how I’m going to feel after Tuesday. We’d better get it while the gettin’ is good.” I kissed James hard on his mouth. Then I slipped off of his lap and reached out for his hand to pull him up from his chair.

As we walked to our bedroom, our hands clasped together so tight that it hurt, I thought,
How on earth could I ever have underestimated this man?

After I told Clarice about my chemotherapy routine—each cycle would be five days long, followed by a few weeks of rest before the next cycle started—she drew up a chemo calendar that designated who—James, Barbara Jean, or Clarice—would be in charge of me on each treatment day. She did several hours of research to determine the best foods for fighting cancer and designed a diet for me. Then she arranged for weekly deliveries of vitamin- and antioxidant-rich groceries to my house. She hired a personal trainer for me. A thick-necked former marine sergeant who worked on injured football players at the university, he showed up at my door one afternoon barking out orders and vowing to whip me into shape. And she penciled me in for a laying on of hands at Calvary Baptist’s Wednesday night prayer meeting, which was no small feat seeing as Reverend Peterson didn’t even consider the members of my church to be Christians, and felt that praying over us was a waste of energy.

I appreciated her efforts. But I had to show Clarice that she wasn’t going to boss me through cancer the way she wanted to, even if I had to be a bit childish and ornery about it. I shifted my appointments around until Clarice’s detailed schedule became meaningless. I blanketed the healthy foods Clarice chose for me with butter and bacon crumbles. And the personal trainer, well, he yelled at me one time too many. The last I saw of Sergeant Pete, he was running from my family room with tears in his eyes. Of course, I outright refused to go to Calvary Baptist for the laying on of hands. I tried explaining to Clarice that I always felt worse leaving her church than I did when I walked in and I didn’t think that boded well for the healing process. Thoroughly exasperated, Clarice looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Feeling bad about yourself is the entire point of going to church, Odette. Don’t you know that?”

I stopped by Barbara Jean’s house and told her about my diagnosis over a cup of tea in her library. She was silent for so long that I asked, “Are you all right?”

She started to say “How long have you got?” or “How long do they give you?” But she thought better of it after the first two words came out and she turned it into “How long … have you known?”

We talked for an hour, and I think, by the time I left, she had come around to believing I had at least a small chance of surviving.

My brother, Rudy, said that he would come to take care of me as soon as he could get away. I told him it wasn’t necessary, that I was fine and had plenty of people looking after me. And I joked with him, as I did each year, that Southern California had thinned his blood too much for him to handle Indiana in the fall or winter. But my brother, who is old-fashioned to the point of annoyance, kept insisting that he would come. He only relented after I handed the phone over to James and let my husband convince Rudy that a levelheaded man was in charge of me.

Denise cried for just a minute or two, but she soon calmed herself and accepted my word that things weren’t too bad. Then she took my cue and settled in to talking about the grandchildren. I heard Jimmy’s fingers tapping at the keyboard of his computer as I told him. Facts had always comforted him, and he was on his way to becoming a lymphoma expert by the time we said goodbye. Eric hardly said a word to me over the phone, but he was in Plainview for a surprise visit a few days later. Eric was at my side every second for a week and, even as I snapped at him to quit breathing down my neck, I loved having him at home again.

Everything considered, they all took the news of my illness as well as possible. Even as I grew sicker, proving to everyone, and ultimately to myself, that I wasn’t going to be that rare patient who sailed through chemotherapy without so much as a tummy ache, my people propped me up. I think it made everybody feel more optimistic about my chances for recovery to see that I was determined to charge through my disease just like I charged through everything else in life. My friends and family found few things more comforting than the sight of me with my fists up and ready for battle.

A month before Little Earl’s eighteenth birthday, a cute girl at school told him that he looked like Martin Luther King. Then she let him put his hand under her blouse in the name of Negro solidarity. That led Little Earl to celebrate his birthday that November with a costume party so he could dress up as Dr. King in hopes of encountering more young women who were passionately devoted to the civil rights movement.

Clarice, Odette, and Barbara Jean made plans to dress up as the Supremes since their friends, families, and even some of the teachers at school were now calling them by that name. They spent weeks working on their costumes. Odette did most of the sewing, stitching together glossy, gold, sleeveless gowns. They used hot glue to attach glitter to old shoes. And Barbara Jean’s boss at the salon loaned them three acrylic wigs with identical bouffants for the occasion.

On the night of the party, the plan was that they would each get dressed at home. Clarice had been given a used Buick after a third piano lesson with Mrs. Olavsky was added to her weekly schedule and her mother decided that she’d had enough of chauffeur duty, so Clarice was to pick up the other girls at their houses for the ride to the All-You-Can-Eat. Clarice parked in front of Barbara Jean’s house and she and Odette went to the door to fetch her and some accessories for their costumes. Barbara Jean had offered to dip into her inheritance of fake furs and oversized plastic jewelry to help them complete their ensembles.

They were standing on the porch when Clarice saw an odd expression come over Odette’s face. She didn’t know what Odette was reacting to. Maybe it was a sound or a smell. But Clarice had just raised her hand to knock on the door when Odette said, “Something’s wrong.”

Before Clarice could say anything, Odette pushed right past her and turned the knob. The door opened and she rushed inside. Not taking the time to think about the possible consequences, Clarice followed her, both of them moving in a kind of a shimmying shuffle because of the restrictions of their outfits.

Barbara Jean, wearing her shiny gold gown, sat in a threadbare maroon overstuffed chair in a corner of the living room. Her bare feet were tucked beneath her and she clutched her wig in both hands, pressing it to her chest. The fake furs and costume jewelry she and her friends were going to wear that evening rested in a pile on the floor in front of the chair. She didn’t look up as Odette and Clarice came into the room.

Vondell, her stepfather or whatever he was, stood beside Barbara Jean’s chair. He had disappeared a month earlier, making Barbara Jean’s life easier and giving her the hope that she might not have to deal with him anymore. Between free meals at Odette’s and Clarice’s houses, the tips she made at the salon, and the low rent on the dump she lived in, Barbara Jean had been able to afford a teenager’s dream. She had a house of her own and complete independence.

But now Vondell was back and he looked even worse than he had the last time they had seen him. His stubbly graying beard had grown thicker, and his processed hair had grown out so it was nappy at the roots and matted at the ends. And then there was that odor of his that permeated the room, that sharp blend of cigarettes, whiskey, and poor personal hygiene.

He glared at Odette and Clarice for a minute. Then he said, “Barbara Jean, you didn’t tell me we was gonna have company this evenin’.” That wide, froglike mouth of his broadened into a grin as he talked, but no one in the room sensed a bit of goodwill in him.

Odette said, “Hello, sir, we’re going to a birthday party tonight and we just came to get Barbara Jean.” She looked at Barbara Jean in the chair and said, “Come on, Barbara Jean. We don’t wanna be late.”

But Barbara Jean didn’t move. She just glanced up at Vondell and then stared at her knees again. The big man had lost his smile now. He glared at her, daring her to rise from the chair.

Clarice joined in and said, “Yeah, we have to finish up our hair and nails at my house and …” She lost her nerve and didn’t finish. No one was listening to her anyway. The battle was on, and it was being fought between the other three people in the room.

There was a long silence during which Clarice heard only the big man’s breathing and the sound of the plastic carpet runner crunching beneath her feet as she inched backwards toward the front door. Then Vondell said, “I think y’all best get movin’. Barbara Jean ain’t goin’ out tonight.”

The tone of his voice scared Clarice half to death and she ran to the door. But Odette stayed put. Odette looked back and forth from Barbara Jean, still cowering in the shabby chair like a scared two-year-old, to the hulking man who had moved closer to Barbara Jean and was now stroking her hair in an imitation of fatherly affection that caused acid to rise in Clarice’s stomach.

Odette said, “I haven’t heard what Barbara Jean wants us to do. If she wants us to go, she can say it herself.”

Vondell took a step toward Odette and put his hands on his hips to puff himself up. He was careful to keep a smile on his face so she would know he wasn’t taking her seriously. “Li’l girl, I told you to leave
my
house. And, believe me, you don’t want me to have to say it again. Now, get a move on before I put you over my knee and teach you some manners.”

Vondell had Clarice scared, but the look Odette gave him now frightened her almost as much. Odette’s eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted. She lowered her head as if she were preparing to ram into him headfirst. Clarice could see that even if Odette didn’t scare Vondell, she definitely surprised him. When he saw the change in her posture, he jerked back away from her a little before he could stop himself.

Odette, talking louder now, said, “Barbara Jean, do you want to stay here or come with us?”

Barbara Jean didn’t answer at first. Then, almost too quietly for anyone to hear, she whispered, “I want to go with you.”

Odette said, “Well, that settles it. She’s coming with us.”

Vondell didn’t speak to Odette, but turned his attention to Barbara Jean instead. He moved beside her again and grasped her right forearm in his big hand, pulling her halfway out of the chair so awkwardly that she would have fallen to the floor if he had not been supporting her with the strength of his hold. She let out a gasp of pain and Vondell growled, “You best tell these girls to go on home, or you gonna be in some real trouble. I fixed your mama’s uppity ways and I can do the same wit’ you.”

Odette’s voice dropped an octave and she very slowly said, “If you don’t want that hand broke, you’d better get it off of her right now.”

Clarice got swept up in the moment and put in her two cents. “She’s coming with us,” she said, trying to act like Odette.

But Clarice wasn’t born in a tree. When he took a couple of quick steps in her direction, she hopped backwards and let out a squeal. Odette moved, too, but she moved sideways to stand between Vondell and Clarice.

He said, “What you gonna do, call your daddy? You know, I asked around about your daddy after the last time you was here, and I heard he ain’t no cop at all. What I heard was that you was that child born in a tree and you ain’t supposed to be ’fraid of nothin’. Maybe it’s time somebody gave you somethin’ to be scared of.” He moved closer to her and pushed out his chin.

Odette stepped away from him then and came over to where Clarice stood with her fist clinched around the handle of the door, ready to escape. Vondell laughed at her and said, “That’s a good girl. Run on home.” Then to Clarice he said, “You can come back sometime if you wanna, baby. But leave that crazy fat bitch at home.”

A few feet away from Clarice, Odette stopped, yanked the wig from her head, and tossed it to her. Clarice caught it out of reflex and then watched in bewilderment as Odette spun away from her and said, “Clarice, unzip me.”

When Clarice didn’t say anything or do as Odette had told her, she said it again. “Unzip me. I spent too much time making this dress to get this asshole’s blood all over it.”

She fixed her eyes on Vondell and said, “You’re right about me. I
am the girl who was born in a tree. And you’re right about my father. He’s not a cop. But he was the 1947 welterweight Golden Gloves champion. And from the time I was a little girl my boxer daddy has been teaching me how to deal with dumb-ass men who want me to be afraid. So let me thank you now, while you’re still conscious, for giving me the opportunity to demonstrate some of the special shit my daddy taught me to use on occasions like this.

“Now, Clarice, unzip me so I can take care of this big bag of stink and ignorance, once and for all.”

With fingers that shook so badly she could hardly grab hold of the zipper, Clarice did as she had been commanded. She pulled the zipper down and Odette’s shiny gown slid off of her and formed a shimmering pool at her feet. Wearing just a white bra and floral-patterned panties, Odette lifted her fists and danced her way toward Vondell, already floating like a butterfly and apparently prepared to sting like a bee.