WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (19 page)

Mag was mortified when Lena started asking for freebies. 
She said it was kin to being homeless and begging. 
Maybe that’s why Mag loved the luxury of the buffet and being waited on hand and foot. It was the only time she ident
ified with her family of origin that I can remember. 
She appreciated the extra attention, waiters filling glasses and asking, “May I get you anything? Can I take this plate? Do you need a more ice?” Apparently it also turned her southern accent British.

“Yesssss, I wooould.” Mag said in her best snob nosed accent. “Don’t mind if I do.” She stirred her tea with the correct spoon and tapped the edges of the glass as if she expected a jester to arrive on the red carpet to entertain her with jokes.

She smiled at the waiter and said, “Why thank you kindly, sir.” She batted her eyelashes and giggled till I thought I might puke. She took the white starched napkin and gently wiped her petite mouth. She was acting as polished and shiny as the silverware. Afterward, she sat up straight in the chair, uplifted on her knees, looking down on us as if she was the God damned queen of the buffet and we were nothing but vagabonds she found on the side of road.
It irked me something terrible but I could do nothing about it.  It was her gift.  Who was I to talk about another’s namesake?  Mag
loved the table display decked out in fine china, crystal goblets, one with water, one with tea, two forks, two spoons, one butter knife, one steak knife, one bread plate, one dessert plate and God forbid anyone to use the same plate to get a second helping. NO. It was like an alarm went off inside the waiters ears, cutting you off at the pass to take your dirty plate and replace it with a clean platter. 
How ridiculous.
 I bet the dishwasher is one pissed off mofo. 

“How many forks does 
a person need?” I said rolling my eyes and throwing down the fork. 

“You have no regard for the art of fine dining.” Mag said in her Brit-southern accent. “Maybe you should come out of the barn more often Willodean. Stop eating with your hands.”

I picked up a bread roll with my carnivorous hands and threw it at her. It landed remarkably like a statue on top of her mashed potatoes, which were meticulously splattered an inch away from the chicken fried steak, which was one inch from the fried okra.
Mag would not allow her food to touch. 
It was her way of keeping things under control or some nonsense, I wasn’t exactly sure of.
To instigate and agitate, I mixed all my food up like a wild animal, and it drove her nuts. 
Right before it could escalate into a food fight, Lena Hart shut us both down by launching the eyebrow of doom and sharp steely blues. For the rest of the meal, Mag and I shot incriminating eye glances at each other. When we got home it dawned on me that Mag had a pink elephant too.
It was hiding in plain sight.
She was atypically ashamed of her own family
tree. Green as the pine thicket ashamed. 
No matter how many times I cut her—she was a diamond that refused to bleed the southern sap of her upbringing.

FAITH AND 500

The number 500 popped inside my head. 
Again.
 
I still hadn’t the faintest idea why or where it came from or what it meant. I tried to dismiss it but it simply sat there.  So I ignored it and finished getting dressed.  Makeup, hair, clothing,
the whole works, something I hadn’t done in months. 
Progress.
 I sat on the side of the bed and put my hippy sandals on when I noticed the classified section of the newspaper folded on the night stand.
I faintly remember dad bringing it in with him, one day weeks ago, or months, I don’t remember.  It was when the shadows had taken over my room and he stood unaware,
in the midst of them. I watched his sullen face turn distraught when he stared into the corpse I had become, mindless and damaged, no longer the daughter he knew.
I remember him throwing the newspaper down and walking out, helpless. 
I picked up the newspaper, glanced over the contents and instantly, dots connected in my mind as if thoughts constructed themselves out of
thin air, a realm beyond me. 

Buy a car for five hundred dollars.

I gasped. 
I’m gonna what?
 
It was the weirdest thought.  Crazy, at best. 
It wasn’t from me?
I mean, why would I think such a silly thing? If it wasn’t
my
thought, then whose thought was it, and how did it get there. 
Buy a car for five hundred dollars.  The 500 neon sign blinked in my head, over and over.
Is that what I need to do?  But how?  And why?  And most of all, where?  The whole matter was
ridiculous,
and I almost pawned it off completely but on second thought, I also listened to a small voice inside me or outside me or something.  And then I climbed a tree and hugged a man pillow and wrote
on a mirror with lipstick and a whole host of other 
kooky things.  So what makes this less
ludicrous
?  I wondered…

Pots and pans clanged from the kitchen. I made my way there pondering if Lena had recovered from my second bout of birthing pains. After a week of tree climbing and false suicide jumps, I reckon she’s been on the phone with half the neighborhood trying to explain away the crazy genes of her daughter. Past experience has taught me, any conversation with Lena Hart required prep and prayer and a stiff drink. And one Xanax.
And an additional one in the pocket for backup.   It had been years since I’d been able to decipher her moods and I don’t remember the code book as much as I did when Mag and I were little.  I e
ntered the natural habitat of the pessimist cautiously. It was exactly as I suspected. She saw me and nearly shit a blue goose.

“Lands alive.” She said in shock. “You came out of your hole. And..and you washed your hair.” Her chin dropped
and her hand lifted to hold it up. 
“Good Lord is that, is that—makeup?”

“Uhh-huh.” I mumbled. 
What’s the big deal?
  I prepared myself for the onsl
aught. And just as I knew she would, her eyes drew up in little slants of speculation.

“Where do you think you’re going all dressed up?” She said abruptly in panic. “You haven’t been out of that room in months? Why the sudden change?” Her eyes grew leery on me like a hawk waiting to pull out the claws. “Are you okay? Are you hearing things again?”

Her face
said she really didn’t want to know the answer. 
“You—understand—what—I’m—saying?” Her voice rained down slow syllables of doubt. My eyes fluttered and did what they always do when confronting a dark cloud. They retreat in little circles, fleeing to the back of my head. The rebellious side of my namesake
inside the house, inside me, acted out.  

“I—wish—I—didn’t—hear—you.”
The little girl shouted.  Yelled.  Screamed bloody murder.  But that was her, inside the house.  Willodean, the adult
remained rooted in silence, enduring like a Willow tree. 

Bending but not breaking. Broken but standing. Swaying but determined.

I sat quickly on the bar stool.  It was
painful like sitting on a handful of tacks, 
naked
.

“I’m fine mother.” I
said.  I got up unable to sit still.  I paced the
kitchen, fighting the floating bubbles, the rebel cries and the insurgence of crackle crusaders pounding in my fully charged renegade heart.

“I plan on jumping out of the tree tomorrow.” 
I said. 
Sarcasm. Revelry.
Flags. 

Lena stopped frozen, then slammed the pot on the counter. 
“You t
hink that’s funny.” Her code thermometer was spinning and I didn’t have a code book. 
“WHAT is wrong with you? This isn’t a joke?”

“Crazy people do that Lena.” I said shrugging. “Make jokes. Oh my God, lighten up.”

But Lena Hart was in no mood for my dark humor. She never was.

“Do I need to make you an appointment with Doc?”

“No.” I said loudly. “God. Can we just 
not
 talk about it? Just once. Okay? I just came out of my room for the first time innnn—months. I think that’s progress. I don’t need a therapist to help me put on my c
lothes…see?” I grabbed my shirt with my hands. 
“I’m fine. Pants, hair, makeup!” I pointed to each one as if I was in first grade and learned to dress myself. “Can’t I just drink some coffee or eat breakfast or do something normal?” 
Who was I kidding? I wasn’t normal.

Lena went rouge.  Silence simmered between us.  She turned
and took her frustrations out on objects, banging, slamming, burning. It was pure art form in our household. A Mantle piece creatively established like a family creed, typed up, signed by an asshole lawyer and neatly framed in the living room as a reminder. It was as southern as front porches, sweet tea and saying “Hidy ya’ll.” And my mother was a master at it.

It said, “
Why no, my daughter isn’t crazy. Why no, my husband doesn’t drink.
 
Why no, I’m not keeping up with the Jones. Why no, Mag is not materialistic. Why no, nothing is wrong with our family. We have no curses, no mental illnesses, Why no, my family tree is not flawed. We are birthed from the finest of blood. blah, blah, blah.
 Pink Elephant!

Thank God for 
the left over coffee. The liquor cabinet eyes me with a demon glare and for just a second, I want to indulge, instead, I pour a full cup of coffee in hopes it will render my urges to null.  I had two cups of
caffeinated glory while listening to the insistent banter of banging, clanging, and slamming but mostly, the brutal silence of words not spoken. It was the pendulum on the family clock, frozen and suspended in a time warp, where my ears hear the screams of suffering inside the unspoken madrigals of harmony, inside my house of secrets. Fo
r a mere second, I lost myself in its muted madness. 
Finally I jerked myself out of my haunted house to find my hand trembled
with the cup, spilling out drools of coffee on the counter.  I got a grip just as Lena turned around. 
The magic number 500 appeared suddenly in my mind, again. 
Shut up! Go away.
 Again and again, 500.
Buy a car for 500.
 As ridiculous as it sounded, I couldn’t let
the notion go. 
I thought of the leaf crackle, the wondering tree and all the small things that
have changed me in subtle ways, in only the last few weeks.  They must mean something. 
They must.
So I went for it.

“Mom…” I hesitated. “I need a car.” The room turned deadly still.
Stiller than still.
I try to fill the gaps of void with words to avoid falling into the abyss.

“You know Mom…so I can go to work. Move out. Get my own place.” I wait in the dead zone. I shuffle the coffee cup across the table, making noises,
anything
to fill the terrible void that causes my ears to bleed.
My family reeked of dead zones.  It was a constant
effort to
avoid them.  N
othing existed in the dead zone. No squeaky clean dishcloth sounds, no swoosh-swoosh of water, no clanging of pots, no clinking of china, no slamming cabinets, no burnt chicken—just silence. Pure, southern as sweet tea, cut your wrist, call it a day, maddening silence.

Right when I thought I would sink into mortal despair, the insane premoni
tion took its place in my mind as if it had a home there. 
The muse stood firm and blocked all channels of doubt, interceptions and debris. 
Hope held strong.
 My vision saw it before it was. 
A shield of faith and 500.
 I had to act right then and trust it or lose it forever.

“Can I borrow five hundred dollars to buy a car?” I said in one lightening breath. I had no belief of the words until they left my lips, leaving a smear of clear gloss that tasted like tart cherries.
The pink elephant gasped.
The little girl squealed in delight.  The Amodgians lifted up in a
n
uproar inside the house, inside me but they were unable to get out of the room, for faith held its shield and left them to bounce off its protective glare like bugs splattering a bumper.  
Lena spun around to face me with a look on her face I hadn’t seen before.  Even the
code book threw up questions marks. I couldn’t help but envision me as a little girl sitting in the wondering tree, defiantly staring her down and screaming, “I am not coming down! Not until you agree.” But I wasn’t up a tree, I was in the pessimistic lair of Lena Hart and things were different in her cave. I waited for my eyes to recoil like they always did when waiting on an answer but they didn’t roll, twinge or retreat as usual. And then I
see why. 
They are stuck in Lena Hart’s blinding stare. She has a dishrag in one hand, a cast iron skillet in another and her jaw is gaping open like a Venus flytrap, waiting on cynical flies to land and hatch cynical babies. Then they’d rise up and take over the world, extinguish h
ope for good, mark it out of the dictionary, banish it forever.