A Life of Bright Ideas Read online

  I didn’t start breathing again until Aunt Verdella opened the front door and pulled him safely inside. It’s okay. It’s okay, I told myself. Aunt Verdella is as vigilant about storms now as I am. She won’t let him play outside when it’s lightning, or run water, or touch anything electrical. I repeated these things in my head a few times, while my teeth tore tender skin from my cheek.

  I went inside and shut the door, leaning against it and closing my eyes. Reminding myself to breathe. But the second that breath came, fear snatched it away again, because a stranger was standing in my living room, watching me.

  His dark hair was hippie-long and hung in dirty clumps. His shirt was hanging open, his chest tangled with black corkscrew curls. He moved like a dazed ghost. “Fuckkkkk,” he muttered, as he rubbed his stomach and looked around, obviously trying to figure out where he was.

  I yelped, my hand reaching for the doorknob. With a storm outside, and an intruder inside, I felt trapped.

  He squinted at me. “Whoa, you look a whole lot different in the light of day,” he said, his voice hoarse, the whites of his eyes salmon pink. He looked down at his bare feet and wriggled toes that were long and buckled, then wagged his head as he searched for something on the floor. He muttered an “Oh,” then shuffled back into the spare bedroom.

  Winnalee! She’d slept with him downstairs, then came upstairs after they did it!

  The guy trundled back wearing a pair of huarache sandals, his cracked heels hanging over the flattened backs. I slid away from the door so he could get out, and flinched when he turned and held up his hand, but he was only giving me the peace sign.

  I locked the door the second he left, and peered out the window. I didn’t see any vehicles but ours in the drive, so unless he parked on the road out of the range of my vision, he had a long, wet walk ahead of him.

  The stink of smoke and booze—God knew what else—hovered in the air where he’d stood. I darted into the downstairs bedroom and cringed at a pale stain on the sheets, wondering if it came from the guy. I rolled the whole thing—Winnalee’s discarded panties included—and tucked the soiled bedding under my arm.

  I stood in the doorway, eyeing the room for any other trace left by the stranger. There was a wad of rolled toilet paper in the bottom of the empty trash can, the milky tip of a used rubber showing. Grossed out though I was, I glanced around, even though I knew I was alone, and pulled back a flap of tissue paper to have a look. No wonder girls wanted guys to use them, I decided. Who’d want that to get inside of them?

  While I was still squinting at the condom, a bolt of lightning struck so close that it startled the hair on my arms. I uttered a quick “I’m sorry” (to who, I’m not sure) then scooped up the trash can. I stood in the doorway, looking the room over for any other “evidence” I didn’t want Boohoo or Aunt Verdella finding. That’s when I noticed that the plants were missing.

  Not just Aunt Verdella’s tomato plants, but Winnalee’s pot plants! Thunder pounded in my head and in the sky.

  I stuffed the sheets in the bathroom hamper, dumped the garbage and put the trash basket in the tub to bleach later, then rushed to the front door. The rain was no longer coming down in sidewinding sheets, but tiny splashes were pocking the walkway and rain was spilling from the eaves. I rocked from foot to foot, wondering how on earth I was going to tell Uncle Rudy that he’d planted dope in his garden. That’s when Tommy pulled into the drive.

  He jogged to the porch, raindrops splotching the shoulders of his white T-shirt. He opened the door. “Was that Chet Bouman I just saw leaving here?”

  “I don’t know who it was.”

  “Chet … long haired, greasy-looking bastard? Reefer’s son? His Beetle was parked on the road last night. And I mean on the road. In front of the barn. I almost hit the damn thing on my way back from the Bishops’. I just saw Chet heading to it.”

  I sighed. “Well if you knew who it was, then why were you asking me?”

  “Evy, those Boumans are dope dealers. What was he doing here?”

  I told him to never mind about Chet Bouman because I had a bigger problem on my hands. I told him about the missing marijuana plants.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Dope? She was growing dope in your house? And now it’s in Verdella and Rudy’s garden?” He shook his head. “You’re going to have to tell them.”

  “I can’t do that!”

  “Then you’d better tell Winnalee to get her ass over there and dig them up. It’s her problem, not yours.”

  “I don’t know what time she got to sleep,” I told Tommy. “And you can hardly wake her after an early night.”

  Tommy scratched his stubbly chin, as I strained my ears. “It still lightning?” I asked, embarrassed that I needed to.

  “Nah,” Tommy said. “It’s passed, Evy.” He said this with an unusual softness to his voice. He sighed. “Ah, come on. I’ll help you dig them up.”

  “Winnalee told Aunt Verdella they were hybrid tomatoes,” I explained as we hurried across the glossy grass. “A new kind that grows best indoors. Aunt Verdella must not have told Uncle Rudy, though. I didn’t even know he’d taken them.”

  “You can’t have that shit in your house,” Tommy said. “Drug dealers … pot. You want to go to jail?”

  “I can’t get arrested. I didn’t grow the plants. And I don’t smoke it.”

  “Bullshit. If it’s in your house, you can get busted.” I reminded myself that Tommy didn’t know everything, even if he pretended to.

  Uncle Rudy’s truck was gone, and Aunt Verdella’s front door was shut—water always got in and soaked her rug if it wasn’t—and I only hoped the back door was shut as well.

  The garden was enclosed with snow fence to keep the deer and rabbits out. Tommy unfastened the makeshift gate and we slipped inside. The heavy rain had washed away any prints Uncle Rudy and Boohoo had patted and stomped over narrow rows of seeds, so that if it wasn’t for the line of string running from stick to stick along the length of the garden, a seed packet tucked upside down on each, you’d never have known anything was planted. Well, except for the tomato and marijuana plants standing at the south end.

  Tommy reached for the shovel wedged into the ground, and I followed him to the spiky-leafed plants. “Hurry,” I told him, as I glanced back at the porch.

  Tommy had one plant lying on its side in the grass, the dirt clump at its base snarled with roots, when Boohoo came flying out the door. When he reached the snow fence, he peered between the slats and shouted, “Hey, you guys, why you digging up our garden?” And then, without giving me a chance to reach him and explain—as if I had an explanation—he raced to the house to tattle.

  I clutched the sides of my head and harped at Tommy to hurry.

  Aunt Verdella was still in her housecoat, her uncombed hair sporting more cowlicks than a guinea pig’s, as she hurried across the yard, her loose boobs wagging as she trotted. “See? I told you. They’re digging up me and Uncle Rudy’s garden!”

  Aunt Verdella stopped at the fence. “Button? What on earth are you doing?” She closed her robe when she saw Tommy.

  “Wrecking our garden!” Boohoo said. “That’s what they’re doin’.”

  I looked down at my granny-length nightgown, not even covered by a robe, and crossed my arms to cover my own soft mounds.

  “Button?” Aunt Verdella, her skin spotted with freckles and liver spots, looked young and old at the same time. Her eyes were filled with the trust of a child on Christmas Eve.

  I wanted so badly to lie to protect her—protect Winnalee—yet I couldn’t think of one believable fib. I walked to the fence, my body sagging with sorry. “Boohoo, go inside for a minute, please.” He started to protest, but I pointed. “Now, Boohoo.” I waited until his face smudged the kitchen window, then I told Aunt Verdella the truth.

  She looked confused. “Pot?”

  “Wacky weed … Mary Jane … marijuana … dope,” Tommy said, as he strode along the garden’s edge, a plant dangling from each h
and. “They smoke the leaves to get high. It’s illegal, and you can get busted for growing it.”

  Aunt Verdella looked at the plants as if they were loaded pistols with no safety lock. She stepped back. “Our little Winnalee is one of those addicts?” Her hand came up to cover her heart. “My Lord!”

  I tried to tell her that marijuana wasn’t addictive in the same way as other drugs, but worry had already crusted over her eyes, and I knew that nothing I said would chip it away. “That scary man I saw walk out of your place this morning … who is he? Is he mixed up in this drug stuff too?”

  “Chet Bouman. Drug dealer, ma’am,” Tommy said, sounding like a sheriff in a bad Western. I shot him a glare to let him know he wasn’t helping.

  “She had them when she came,” I explained.

  “Oh dear,” Aunt Verdella said. “Our little girl’s in trouble.” She looked down at the plants, then side to side, as if flashing red and blue lights might suddenly emerge from the woods. “What we gonna do?” she said in a whisper.

  “We’ve gotta get rid of them,” Tommy said, nodding over toward the old woodstove sitting on a sheet of asbestos at the edge of the yard, where they burnt their trash.

  “Oh my goodness … my goodness …,” Aunt Verdella muttered from the snow fence as Tommy and I headed toward the stove. “No, wait! Not here! Fanny Tilman’s stopping by this morning to drop me off some variegated yarn. She catches wind of this and she’ll have it all over Dauber that Verdella and Rudy Peters were growing marriageawana.”

  Tommy looked down at me and murmured, “How in the hell would Fanny Tilman know what burning marijuana smells like? Well, unless she puffs a little loco weed while she knits.” I whacked him in the arm for making jokes at a time like this.

  Aunt Verdella called to Boohoo to stay put, then hurried us out front. She stopped in the middle of the yard and sent Tommy to hide behind the shade tree near the picnic table—even though a grown man half hidden behind a tree would certainly cause more suspicion than one standing in the middle of the lawn, holding uprooted plants during planting season. She sent me to the road to scout for cars.

  “The coast is clear,” I said.

  “You sure? You sure?” she asked.

  I looked again, exaggerating the swivel of my head. “Yes.”

  She let Tommy come out from hiding. “Hurry, Tommy, hurry!”

  We crossed the road, but Aunt Verdella had to check at least ten more times before she’d cross it herself, for fear that someone would catch her in her housecoat.

  I ran inside to grab matches and a paper-stuffed grocery bag filled with what Uncle Rudy called “burnabelia,” which I kept under the counter, then hurried into the backyard. Tommy crumpled the newspaper and flyers and stuffed them into the old oil barrel poked with bullet holes to let in the air necessary for creating a draft. He shook as much of the dirt off the plants’ roots as he could, then stuffed them inside. The smoke hung low in the damp, heavy air, and I backed up as he did, in case I could end up higher than a kite from inhaling the smoke.

  “It smells funny, doesn’t it?” Aunt Verdella said, wrinkling her nose. “I hope our neighbors don’t smell it.” To which Tommy responded, “Mrs. Peters, the Thompsons are your closest neighbors, and they’re five miles away. So don’t you worry.”

  Aunt Verdella wiped her hand up her sweaty forehead, leaving her two-toned bangs standing on end. She picked at the collar of her robe like she didn’t know what to do next. “Oh, Winnalee,” she said quietly.

  “Don’t worry, Aunt Verdella. I’ll handle Winnalee.” I didn’t know how, but I would.

  “I know how I’d handle her,” Tommy said as Aunt Verdella hurried back to Boohoo. “I’d kick her out on her ass.”

  “She’s been my best friend since we were kids, Tommy!”

  “I know that. But don’t expect that she’s the same person she was back then.”

  “So? I’ll bet Brody changed since you guys were kids, too, but he’s still your best friend.”

  Tommy put his hands up, showing his palms. “Friend or not,” he said. “Screwing drug dealers in your house? Growing dope? She’s nothing but trouble. For you, for Verdella and Rudy, and for Brody.”

  “Brody?”

  Suddenly Tommy morphed into Dad, judging Ma’s friendship with Freeda. The hair on my arms prickled. “Like what? Brody’s some innocent bystander? You can bet that when Winnalee starts work at the Purple Haze, he’ll be there every night. And not because Winnalee invited him, either.”

  “He’s married,” Tommy said flatly.

  “Yeah, and he should remember that!” I stomped into the house and slammed the door without thanking Tommy for his help.

  I was nervous about telling Winnalee that we destroyed her marijuana plants. I figured she’d have a conniption fit, and she did. “Damn, Button. They were almost ready to bud!”

  My arms itched as she scolded me, and I turned away, near tears. Sometimes, it felt like my whole purpose in life was to try to keep everyone happy. To not disappoint them. To keep everyone liking me. And it was exhausting. I loved Winnalee and was so grateful that she was back, yet already it felt like I was trying to subdue a tornado with my bare hands.

  Winnalee’s rant seized when she saw me scratching. She exhaled hard. “Geez, Button. When you got a beef with someone, say it, don’t scratch it.”

  These words made me tear up, and that made Winnalee sigh. “I guess I should have known weed would make you uptight. Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought the plants here in the first place.” She put her hand over mine to still it and gave me a hug. I wanted to tell her that a lot of things she did worried me, but she was already turning on the stereo. She started dancing before the vanity mirror like nobody was watching. “You’ve gotta come to work with me one of these nights,” she said. “See my artwork and stuff.” Winnalee was looking like a seductive stripper one minute and a kid cutting loose on a wedding reception dance floor the next. Suddenly I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She glanced up, then grabbed my arm. “Come on, Button. Dance with me!” So I did.

  CHAPTER

  12

  BRIGHT IDEA #94: If you always ride on the slow rides that don’t lift far off of the ground, just because you’re afraid of falling, you won’t fall far, that’s true, but you won’t get many thrills, either. And you won’t be proud of yourself when the carnival’s over.

  The day of Jo Lanski’s wedding, I was holding down the fort at Jewel’s Bridal Boutique because Linda and Hazel and Marge were at the First Methodist Church helping Jo and her bridesmaids—including Amy, Jesse’s former girlfriend—get dressed. Winnalee came in to keep me company once she woke up.

  A bride-to-be, Cindy Jamison, one year older than I and dressed in bell-bottoms and a tie-dyed shirt, huffed with irritation as her mother plucked pattern after pattern from the cabinet and showed her yet another dress that looked like something Audrey Hepburn would wear. “M-om,” Cindy whined, stretching the title into two syllables. “I don’t want an old-lady fifties-looking dress. And I hate lace.”

  Mrs. Jamison held up a pattern of a sleeveless dress, fitted waist, lace overlay from neckline to hem, and a long train. “But this is beautiful, honey. With your small waist and—”

  Cindy threw up her hands. “Mom, this is my wedding!”

  “Would it help if we omitted the lace?” I asked.

  Mrs. Jamison looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “But it would look like an ordinary dress then,” she said. “Maybe if it had some ruffles.”

  “I hate ruffles worse than lace!”

  Winnalee was sitting behind the desk drinking a Tab, her feet hooked on the ledge, her naked legs showing. She got up. “What kind of a dress do you want?”

  Cindy looked at Winnalee, who was wearing a flowing rayon minidress with tiny flowers and angel sleeves that belled in layers from the elbow down. “Something like you’re wearing,” she said. “Well, not just like that, but you know what I mean … something flowy. Sorta like somethi
ng a hippie angel would wear.”

  Mrs. Jamison gasped. “You can’t wear a hippie dress to your wedding!”

  “But that’s what I want. Why do you insist on making me look a wedding cake?”

  I stood off to the side, chewing my cheek and hardly breathing—Linda was trusting me to please any customer who came through the door while she was gone, and if Cindy didn’t find a dress that made her happy, I’d fail miserably. Yet if her mother—who was footing the bill—wasn’t happy, then we’d lose a customer. I could tell Linda was still upset with me over Jo’s dress, so it’s not like I needed more trouble.

  I stepped forward and rummaged for a Simplicity pattern I knew was there. A simple, empire-style dress with full sheer sleeves gathered into a cuff. I pulled it and held it out. “Maybe something like this?”

  Cindy took the pattern and wrinkles lifted her nose. “This still looks too weddingy. The sleeves. I don’t like sleeves with cuffs. That’s something a pirate would wear. I want ones like hers.”

  “But this is a wedding,” Cindy’s mother said. She looked at me, and huffed. “First she insists on carrying her grandma’s Bible instead of a bouquet, now this.”

  Winnalee snatched the pattern, then tossed it on the desk. “Hold on a sec,” she said. She headed outside, while Mrs. Jamison and Cindy argued under their breaths. Through the gauzy curtains, I saw Winnalee leap out of her van with an oblong pouch and her curled sketch pad. When she came back in, she started drawing a gown with a thick leaded pencil, the skirt of the dress swirling as if the faceless model was in the middle of a spin. The angel-sleeves were rather wide and fluttering like wings over naked arms. The bodice was softly gathered and cinched underneath the bust, empire-style. “Like this?” she asked. And Cindy cried, “Yes!”

  Winnalee ran her pencil softly across the high waist. “And this could be a wide, ivory ribbon, or a ribbon the same color as the bridesmaids’ dresses.”