Spitting Image Page 9

  “Wait a second,” Mr. Henry said. Now they were both studying Baby.

  The peach juice had dripped down onto his bare chest. He was barefoot, and today he was dressed in a pair of ripped shorts that were twisted way over to one side. Overall he was pretty dirty and sticky-looking, even for Baby. He must have slipped past Beryl Ann and Robert before they’d gotten a good look at him. I was pretty sure Robert was searching for him right now.

  “I think we’ve found what we’re looking for,” Mr. Henry said.

  nineteen

  MR. HENRY KNELT DOWN and took a few quick shots of Baby, even waiting as he opened Miss Maybee’s door, went back in, and got himself another cookie. All the while, Mr. Birchfield tried to get some words out of Baby. I’d already warned them that he didn’t talk much.

  Mr. Birchfield asked Baby where his father was. “He’s gone,” Baby said.

  “And where’s your mother?” asked Mr. Birchfield. Baby shrugged.

  “You can probably find her at the Piggly Wiggly,” I muttered as I sat on the porch step with my chin in my hand.

  That was about all they could get out of Baby. When he’d finished his second cookie, he walked over to Cooch, who was right-side-around now, and lay down in the dirt with the last of his peach. He put his head on Cooch’s freckled belly.

  I was getting awfully impatient. I’d wanted to show Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield the clubhouse all day and here was Baby taking up their time. Besides, I was starting to feel a little funny about them taking pictures of Baby without asking Beryl Ann if it was OK. I wondered if they were going to offer Baby some money, too. I thought it might be OK then, because the Ketchums could use the money.

  Finally, I’d had enough. While they took pictures of Baby napping with his head on Cooch’s belly, I came over to them and said, “He’s just sleepy now, that’s all. He does this all the time when he’s hungry; it’s no big deal. Folks don’t mind; sometimes they even leave food out for him.”

  “That’s the point,” said Mr. Birchfield. Then he smiled at Baby Blue covered in cookie crumbs, as he and Cooch lay together in the dirt.

  The point? I thought. What point? After all, Baby was just being Baby. They didn’t seem to understand. Oh, well. I wasn’t going to waste any more time trying to explain it.

  I leaned over and pulled Baby up by his hand. “Wake up,” I whispered in his ear. “Robert’s probably looking all over for you.” I got him upright and tried to dust him off a bit. I waited a minute or two, holding Baby’s hand and hoping Mr. Henry or Mr. Birchfield would think to offer him some money. When none appeared, I trotted him home across the road. Then I hurried back to Miss Maybee’s.

  Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield were loading up their equipment. “So now you want to go over and see the clubhouse? We’ve got lots of pictures of movie stars.”

  “You don’t say!” said Mr. Henry.

  “Actually, kid,” said Mr. Birchfield as he put away his notepad, “it’s been a pretty full day and I think we’ve got about everything we need now. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “I have?”

  “Sure,” said Mr. Birchfield. “We have some good stuff here: Mrs. Weaver and her kids, that little boy, and even the dog.”

  “Maybe next time we’ll see your clubhouse,” said Mr. Henry. “We’ll be here another day working with Miss Woodruff, and then we may come back in a week or so to do some follow-up work. But look, here’s some more money for thinking of the dog, and for that little boy, too. Here’s five more dollars for the day. It’s been worth it. I think we’ve got some good shots, and if we need to do anything more, that’ll guarantee that you’ll show us around again. OK?”

  I was speechless. In my hand sat five one-dollar bills! I just stared at those five dollars with my mouth open.

  “So long, Jessie,” said Mr. Henry as he waved and got in the car.

  “‘Bye, kid. And thanks,” said Mr. Birchfield.

  “See you,” I said. Cooch had staggered up onto four feet. We watched them drive away.

  I looked at the money in my hand again and knelt down and gave Crazy Cooch the biggest hug I could. “Ten dollars, Cooch! This five and the five dollars they gave me earlier—that makes ten dollars in one day!”

  I was so excited I kissed Cooch on his brown cheek. He looked at me, stretched one hind leg out behind him, walked away a couple of feet, went around in a bunch of circles, and promptly stood on his head again.

  “Oh, Cooch!” I said happily. “You’re one crazy dog.”

  Then I remembered what Mr. Henry said. This money was “for that little boy, too.” I was supposed to split it with Baby Blue. That was OK. I’d made a lot of money in one day, anyway. I turned and took off leaping through the field between our house and Miss Maybee’s.

  Back in my room I counted the money: sixty-seven cents from my bank, five dollars from the raffle, five dollars from this morning. And now I could add some more from the second five dollars Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield had given me. If I kept $2.50 of it, I’d have $13.17 and be $6.83 short of the twenty dollars I needed. But if I kept all of it, I’d have $15.67 and be just $4.33 short. Then I could pay for our part of Robert’s glasses sooner.

  I studied the five dollars that Mr. Henry had given me. I thought about Beryl Ann never having enough money saved up to get Robert a bike, even an old used one. I thought about Robert’s glasses flying off when Doyle hit him. That’s when I decided not to tell Beryl Ann about the money the photographers had given me. If I gave it to her, who knows how it might get used? And then Robert might still end up waiting months to get his glasses. Or Doyle might try to take it. No, the money would be much safer here in my bank.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Miss Woodruff how far along I’d gotten with the challenge. The whole rest of the day I could hardly keep my feet on the ground, and I couldn’t stop whistling and singing to myself.

  At suppertime Mama hugged me and said I was the light of her life. “No,” I said. “You’re the light of my life.” Then I kissed her on the forehead this time.

  “Jessica Kay, are you up to something?” Mama asked.

  I just smiled and offered to wash the dinner dishes. I thought Mama was going to faint clear away. She cocked her head and stared at me. “You better be staying out of trouble, young lady.”

  “Mama,” I said. “I’m working on something really good. You’ll see. And I haven’t been in a fight, or an argument in . . . in ages. Anyway, at least since Grandma was here.”

  “OK.” She looked at me doubtfully, yawned, and wandered into the living room to put her feet up.

  I started on the dishes, smiling and imagining Mama so proud of me. I imagined my father, too, a respected doctor. His face was still a blur, but I was certain he would have green eyes and be as proud of me as I would be of him.

  I blew the biggest bubble off the top of the sudsy water in the sink and watched as it floated away.

  twenty

  THE NEXT FEW DAYS flew by as I worked hard to earn the rest of the money Lester usually paid me twenty cents a day to help out at the store while he or Mama was at lunch or running an errand. Sometimes I rang customers up. Sometimes I helped stock the shelves. It was also my job to count all the postage stamps when they came in. At twenty cents a day I figured out that I only had to work twenty-two days to have $4.40. That’d be it! I wouldn’t have to ask the Ol’ Biddy, and I’d even have a few cents left over. School started in about five weeks, so the timing couldn’t have been better.

  One afternoon I was watching the store and baby-sitting Baby at the same time while Robert helped Beryl Ann with some canning. Baby was behind the counter by me, sitting on an upturned lard bucket and playing with a little garter snake he’d found out behind the store. If he wasn’t hungry and didn’t wander off, Baby Blue usually wasn’t too hard to baby-sit.

  Anyway, who should walk into the Gas & Go that day but Dickie and his daddy and a couple of Dickie’s no-account friends from school, Bobby DeLong and Cy Meeks.


  I clamped my teeth together, smiled, and determined to be as friendly and professional as possible, just like Lester.

  “May I help you?” I asked.

  “Whoa!” Bobby whistled. “Look who’s here.”

  “It’s Baby Ree-tard and your girlfriend, Dickie,” Cy added.

  I just couldn’t find it in me to even get to the count of three. I started around the counter, but Dickie cut me off. “Shut up, you two,” he grumbled.

  “Isn’t she the one that split your lip?” Bobby asked.

  Mr. Whitten had gone right over to the automotive supplies, but now he turned back. “What’s that?” he asked. Holding a can of motor oil, he walked back toward the counter. “I thought you fell off your bike. Your mama never told me no different.”

  Dickie’s friends suddenly got quiet and awfully interested in the Joy bread sitting on the shelf nearby. “Aw, they don’t know what they’re talking about,” mumbled Dickie.

  “Speak up, boy! I’m talking to you,” ordered Dickie’s father, setting the oil down on the counter in front of me. “What’s this about your split lip?”

  “They got it all wrong,” said Dickie, a bit louder.

  “Do they now?” Mr. Whitten asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you straighten it out for me.” Mr. Whitten crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, like he had all the time in the world. I could see a dark purple vein in the side of his neck jumping and throbbing. And I could tell that Dickie was squirming in his shoes.

  One part of me was pleased to see Dickie getting what was due him. It served him right for being so mean all the time. But another part of me remembered what Adam had said about not wishing Mr. Whitten on any child as a father. And I remembered that sometimes Dickie came to school with bruises on him, and not just the ones I’d given him. I knew there were whispers about Dickie’s mama, too, about her not coming to church for a spell. And one time she had lurched into the Gas & Go with dark glasses on and a swollen lip.

  Watching that vein in Mr. Whitten’s neck, I started to feel sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to be part of this, but I couldn’t leave the cash register or Baby. “Oh, it’s OK, Mr. Whitten,” I blurted out hopefully. “Dickie and I are friends. It was an accident, that’s all.”

  Mr. Whitten slowly turned and looked at me. His eyes were the coldest eyes I’d ever seen. They just stared right down through me like they could see everything, even my lungs pumping in and out, faster and faster.

  “You don’t say?” he said.

  “I’m sorry about that. I . . .” I let my voice trail off uselessly and shrank farther back behind the counter. Now I knew why Dickie was squirming. His father scared me so much I could hardly open my mouth.

  Mr. Whitten looked back at Dickie. Then he took a red bandanna out of his pocket and rubbed his neck and face with it. “A split lip?” he asked. “From a girl, Dickie?”

  “We . . . uh, we were just playing,” Dickie said. He looked like one of those barn kittens that Miss Maybee found up in her loft last year; like he was just backing up and backing up, too scared to let anyone get near him. I was afraid he’d start crying any minute now.

  I tried to think of something to stop it—anything. “That’ll be seventeen cents!” I announced.

  Mr. Whitten swung back to face me, faster than a snake. “What’s that, girl?”

  “I said, that’ll be seventeen cents for the oil, sir, if that’s all you’ll be needing today.” I didn’t wait for Mr. Whitten to answer. I didn’t even look up at him. I hit the cash register with my finger, concentrating so hard on the keys that I could hardly see the rest of the room around me. Please, I prayed, please just pay for the oil and go.

  I snuck a look at Dickie while his father took out a cracked leather coin purse. A dark rage had replaced the pain across Dickie’s face. And it was directed at me!

  Mr. Whitten finished counting out his coins, snatched up the oil, and turned to leave. “You boys get going. You can walk to the river from here,” he told Bobby and Cy. “Dickie’s not going swimming after all. We’ve got some things to attend to at home.” Bobby and Cy ran out empty-handed.

  “C’mon,” Mr. Whitten said. He held the door open for Dickie to march out. As he turned to leave, Mr. Whitten asked, “You Mirabelle Bovey’s girl?”

  I nodded my head yes, wondering why he wanted to know that.

  He studied me a moment, then jerked his head toward Baby. “Likes snakes, does he?”

  Before I could answer, he was gone.

  I sank down on the floor behind the counter, next to Baby Blue. I was shaking all over. I knew Dickie was in for it when he got home, and I hadn’t helped one bit. I even felt a little sorry for him.

  Baby had the garter snake curled up in his lap. He stroked it gently with one finger down one of its little stripes. Baby looked at me. “It’s OK now?” he asked.

  “Yes. Yeah . . . it’s OK.” I sighed. But I knew it wasn’t.

  twenty-one

  WHEN LESTER GOT BACK to the store, he paid me the twenty cents he owed me. I looked at those two dimes and thought, This is an awfully hard way to make a living. I was still shaking. Lester looked at me kind of funny-like and asked me if I was feeling all right. I was too sick to my stomach right then to tell him what had happened.

  I walked Baby Blue back to his yard and watched as he went up to the house. The run-in with the Whittens had worn me out, and I just wanted to go home.

  When I got there, I brought Mr. Perkins out to the living room, and we curled up together on the couch. We started watching this great monster movie about a man who gets attacked by some kind of frozen vegetable. I could tell Mr. Perkins wasn’t too impressed, because he fell asleep pretty early on.

  Anyway, I suddenly realized that Mama was talking with somebody at the kitchen door. I was a little surprised, because I hadn’t even heard a knock.

  I put Mr. Perkins down on the couch and got up and backed out of the living room, trying to keep my eyes on the TV set. I didn’t want to miss anything, but I wanted to know who had come. Quickly I peeked toward the kitchen door and almost fell over.

  Mama was hugging a tall black man!

  White people just didn’t do that around here. Almost all the Negroes in Beulah County lived over across the river from Bartlettsville, in Ramsey. And although Mama had a few black friends, I’d never known her to clutch on and hug them the way she was hugging this stranger.

  I was so surprised I must have made some kind of noise, because Mama let go of the man and turned to me. “Oh, Jessie! Jessie! I’m so happy. Look who’s come for a visit!” she cried.

  The visitor was an elderly man with a little gray at his temples. He was dressed well, better than I’d ever seen a black person dressed unless they were on The Ed Sullivan Show or going to Sunday meeting at the Sanctified Church in Ramsey.

  Mama put her hand behind my back and gave me a little shove forward, like she wanted to show me off. I didn’t know who the man was or what Mama expected of me.

  In the back of my mind Grandma’s voice popped up. “You never know who you might run into.” I hadn’t cleaned up much, and cuddling in front of the TV with Mr. Perkins hadn’t helped. I pushed a strand of hair behind my ear and wished I had some shoes on. I could plainly see that my feet weren’t going to be listed in anybody’s record book for cleanliness.

  I tried to make the best of it. I smiled and put my hand out. “Howdy” I said. “I’m Jessie Bovey.”

  “Hello,” the stranger said in a friendly voice. “We finally meet. I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long time.”

  Instantly, I liked him. But I sure couldn’t think of anyone, let alone a Negro, who had been waiting to meet me. I turned to look at Mama over my shoulder and raised my eyebrows at her. Now what?

  “Jessie,” she said, “I’d like you to meet my old friend, Dr. Warren Harrison.”

  Weill All I could do was stare. I’m sure Mama tho
ught I’d been struck stupid. She had to ask me twice to get some lemonade for our guest and bring it into the living room.

  I opened the refrigerator, reached in, and stood staring at my hands and arms. All I could see was my white skin, a bit tanned and dirty but still very white. White and freckled. Certainly not black, or even brown. I couldn’t move. I simply stood there, turning my hands and arms over and over in the light from the refrigerator.

  I heard Mama call me. Did she know about the letter? What if he told her now? I turned my head slightly and looked at the screen door. I wanted to run out and hide under a rock.

  Mama called from the living room again. “Jessical What’s keeping you?”

  Then I heard Dr. Harrison say, “I’ll go help her.”

  My heart was beating fast. I studied the screen door again, but I still couldn’t move. It felt like my feet had grown roots that went straight down through the floorboards into the dark dirt underneath.

  Then I heard his deep voice coming from just behind my shoulder. He had pulled up a kitchen chair next to me. Somehow he knew exactly what to do and say. “It’s OK, Jessie,” he whispered. “I won’t tell your mother about the letter.” Then, very gently, he leaned into the refrigerator and helped me lower my arms. He lifted out the pitcher of lemonade and stood to put it on the kitchen counter. I looked at him, unable to utter a word. My eyes started to water up.

  “Get some glasses, and we’ll talk while I pour,” he said. Then he said back over his shoulder, toward the living room, “We’ll be there in a minute, Mirabelle. I’m just helping Jessie get down some glasses.

  “The letter is our secret,” he whispered. “I had to come for a visit, though.” I watched as he poured lemonade into our three best glasses. “Got any ice?” he asked.