A Life of Bright Ideas Read online

  “Christ, how dumb are you? Screwing for money, that’s what.”

  “Winnalee wouldn’t do something like that!”

  “You don’t think so, huh? She took her shirt off while she was in the cage a couple weeks ago,” Brody tattled. “Reefer’s been encouraging the girls to do that. You know, turning the place into a tittie bar.”

  “Shut up, Brody.” I turned to Tommy. “I wonder what the cops will do?”

  “Search the place,” Tommy said. “Question Reefer and his slimy son, probably the staff, too. Maybe even the customers.”

  “Shit, I’m almost glad your cows got out and we had to go chase them all over hell, or we would have been there, too,” Brody said, thinking only of himself, as usual.

  I bit my cheek so hard that I winced. “What should I do?” I asked Tommy.

  “Wait around until you hear something. Nothing else you can do.”

  I was pacing, wringing my hands, blood on my tongue.

  “Man, oh man,” Brody said. “Action in Dauber. About time!” He guffawed, like he was watching a TV sitcom.

  Tommy could tell that I wanted to rip Brody in two. “Hey, buddy,” he said. “Why don’t you take my truck back to my place, get your car, and head out?”

  “I can hang around,” Brody said. “Thanks to Winnalee, I don’t have any reason to go home.”

  “You are such an asshole,” I snarled, surprising myself with the swear. Brody was about to smart-off back at me, but he stopped. Tommy could act like a goofy teenage boy when he was horsing around, but when things got tense or there was trouble, he clicked into man mode and authority engulfed him so that only an idiot wouldn’t back down when he glared at them. “Beat it, Brody. I mean it.”

  “Shit,” Tommy said after his truck pulled out. “I should have grabbed my flashlight from the truck before he took off. You got one?”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Because we’d better start poking around her van before the fuzz do. Make sure Winnalee doesn’t have any dope stashed for them to find.”

  My insides clenched. “You mean they’ll come here and search her van?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think we should take any chances.”

  I hurried into the kitchen, grateful that when I flicked on the flashlight, a ring of light, faint as it was, lit the counter. Tommy took it and I followed him out to Winnalee’s van.

  “Jesus!” Tommy said. He tossed a wad of Kleenex, a bunched rubber dangling from it into a semi-crushed box (did she ever throw those things out?). I looked away, my eyes painfully stretched, my cheeks hot.

  We found a plastic bag under the front seat, crumbs of dried leaves tucked in one corner, and another bag under the passenger’s side with two pills inside. The bag was stained where red food coloring had bled. Tommy took both bags and the Kleenex wad to the burning barrel and lit them on fire, then we sat on the front steps, the light from the porch patting our backs.

  “Thanks for helping, Tommy. I know you don’t like Winnalee.”

  “It’s not that I don’t like her. It’s that I don’t like the things she does. I know she’s messed up, though.” He nodded toward Aunt Verdella and Uncle Rudy’s house. “Freeda’s back, huh?”

  “Yes. With Winnalee’s baby.”

  “I thought maybe that was just a rumor.”

  Tommy stretched out his long legs and crossed them at the ankle, twining his fingers over his stomach. I looked up at the sky, smeared with stars and a bright three-quarter moon.

  “So Winnalee isn’t going to raise her kid, Freeda is?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  We sat quiet for a time, then Tommy asked, “Do you ever envy her?”

  I blinked at him. “Because she has a baby?”

  “No. Because she can let herself do whatever she wants. I envy Brody sometimes for that,” he said. “Even though I’d despise myself if I did the things he did.”

  I drew my feet in until my heels bumped up against the steps, and wrapped my arms around my legs. I wasn’t about to tell him that as much as I worried about Winnalee, there were times when I wished I had her same freedoms.

  “You can bet,” Tommy said, “that if Winnalee or Brody lost a parent and had a brother to raise, or a farm to run, they wouldn’t do it.”

  Tommy slapped a mosquito on the back of his neck, then slouched over and pinned his elbows against his knees.

  “What would you do if you could do anything?” I asked him.

  Tommy shrugged. “Fly commercial planes,” he said. “You?”

  “I don’t know. I like to sew, and Dauber feels like home, but maybe I’d like to visit other places.”

  “I just want to fly over them,” he said.

  Tommy was staring out over the darkened yard, and I was watching him, thinking about how little I knew about him, really. He had the same girlfriend all through high school, but I couldn’t recall her name. Aunt Verdella thought she was sweet and Ada believed they’d marry someday. But then Mr. Smithy had his accident, and a year after graduation, she left Dauber to go off to school to become a nurse. Nobody talked about her after that.

  Tommy settled back against the door and we sat quietly. “Owl,” Tommy said after a hoot broke the silence.

  “Button? That you?” I startled, and saw nothing but darkness, even though I knew my eyes were open. I could feel cement cold and hard under my butt, and damp cotton cool against my cheek. I lifted my head from Tommy’s shoulder. God!

  Tommy startled; he had dozed off, too.

  I stood up and strained to see across the road. “Aunt Verdella?”

  “Winnalee’s on the phone, honey,” she called.

  “They always get one call,” Tommy said.

  We hurried across the yard. “What am I going to tell Aunt Verdella and Freeda?” I asked, my breath coming in scared huffs.

  “Just wait and see what Winnalee has to say.”

  Winnalee hardly sounded rattled when I got to the phone, though she was almost whispering. “Can you come get me?”

  “Where?” I asked, trying to sound casual, because Aunt Verdella was watching me, her hair standing on end like a toaster cozy rooster.

  “At the Purple Haze,” she said. “I’ll explain later. Just hurry. I’ll meet you on the road. Don’t pull in, okay?”

  I hung up the phone and tried to look as casual as possible. “Winnalee needs a ride home from work,” I said. “Something’s wrong with her van so I drove her there.”

  Aunt Verdella glanced up at the clock. “It’s four in the morning. She works this late?”

  “Tommy was keeping me company until I had to pick her up at two-thirty, but we dozed off on the steps,” I said. Tommy looked down at his shoes.

  Aunt Verdella clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Oh, that poor thing. She waited this long before calling? She probably didn’t want to wake me, then decided she’d better, or she’d never get home.”

  “She’s turning you into a liar,” Tommy said as we headed for my place.

  “And you’ve always been nosy,” I said, making things between us feel normal again.

  Tommy drove because I was too shook up to drive, but we took the Rambler because I was afraid Winnalee wouldn’t recognize his truck in the dark. He started slowing down about a quarter mile short of the Purple Haze, when Winnalee stepped into the road.

  She climbed into the backseat, reeking of beer.

  I cranked around in my seat. “My God, Winnalee. What happened?”

  “We got busted,” she said. “I was on break, so I went out back to take a pee. I wasn’t gonna go in the can when those bitches were in there. I was crouched down behind the bushes you puked on when it happened. The back door was open, and I heard the pigs shouting. Girls were screaming. A couple guys ditched out the back door. I just stayed down while those idiots searched the place. It took them forever, too.”

  “You must have been so scared,” I said.

  “No. I was pissed. That guy who
was playing guitar now and then on weeknights? He was right with them—I’ll bet he was undercover the whole time. Anyway, I climbed through the window in the guys’ john after they hauled Reefer and Chet off to jail.”

  I reached back and clamped her knee. “You okay, though?”

  “Yeah. My legs are scratched up a little from the brush, but that’s about it. I’m tired as shit, though. Man, I hope those girls who wanted lace on their pants are smart enough to drop them off at the bridal shop, since that’s where I told them you work.”

  I blinked, shocked that Winnalee would think of sewing at a time like this.

  Tommy peered in the rearview mirror, even though it was too dark to see into the backseat. “You got anything stashed at Button’s?” he asked, no sympathy in his voice.

  “Course I don’t. I don’t do that shit in her house anymore, and Button knows it.”

  “You sure about that?” Tommy asked. “We found a nickel bag in your van with weed flakes in it, and another with a couple downers, too. That’s about all they’d need.”

  “They were uppers, stupid. And they were old.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We burned the evidence.”

  Winnalee sighed, and after a bit, said, “Shit. That was a good place to work, too.”

  CHAPTER

  26

  BRIGHT IDEA #35: If a kid says somebody blew the whistle, it could mean somebody tattled, or else it could mean that it’s just time to come in from recess.

  An officer came to the house mid-morning to question Winnalee. Boohoo was in his sandbox when they pulled in, so of course he had to run straight over—which, I suppose, was better than running inside to tattle.

  While the officer drilled Winnalee about the Boumans—had she ever seen them exchange drugs for money? Had she ever had a customer hand her money to pass to the owner or his son, saying he “owed” it to them?—I held her hand and squeezed it now and then. Not because she was afraid, but because she was being mouthy. “Look, you know they were selling dope there because you found it, right? So why you asking me?”

  “That your vehicle?” The officer asked, jerking his chin toward her hippie mobile. Winnalee nodded. “You mind if we take a peek inside?”

  Winnalee looked annoyed. “Don’t you need a search warrant or something to do that?”

  “We’re asking nicely, not forcing entry into your van,” the officer said, as he glanced at Boohoo, who was circling the squad car.

  “Then no, you can’t.”

  “Does this car make sirens like on TV?” Boohoo asked. The policeman nodded, then turned his attention back to Winnalee. I turned mine to Aunt Verdella’s house, hoping the officer would leave before she or Freeda happened to glance outside.

  He asked a couple more questions, then gave Winnalee a card, telling her to call him if she remembered anything else.

  “I might be a cop when I grow up,” Boohoo said as he tailed the officer to his car. “Else Spider-Man.”

  The officer patted Boohoo’s head, then slid behind the wheel. Boohoo hung at the window and pointed from one gadget to another to ask what they did. “I’m sure the officer has work to do, Boohoo,” I said, as I pulled him back.

  “Officer? Is that another name for cop? Like pig?”

  I couldn’t tell if the cop was amused or insulted by Boohoo’s question, but Winnalee sure thought it was funny. She cracked up as she headed back to the house, while my whole body cooked with embarrassment.

  “Hey, officer, can you make the sirens go when you leave, like a real cop car? I like that sound.”

  “Boo …”

  But it was too late. The cop was pulling out, his siren screeching and his lights flashing. Boohoo raced to the road to watch him leave, his skinny arm waving.

  Out in the country, any time you heard a police siren it meant there was an accident or a fire, and you usually knew who the victims were by the direction of the noise. In a flash, Aunt Verdella’s door opened and she flew out, holding her chest.

  “Look at Aunt Verdella,” Boohoo called to me. “She’s hopping high as a kangaroo!” Freeda came out on the steps, her face full of questions.

  I hurried to meet Aunt Verdella. “It was nothing. Nothing,” I told her. “There was a drug bust at the Purple Haze last night, that’s all, and he wanted to talk to Winnalee. He put on his siren for Boohoo.”

  “Oh dear, I knew we should have put her in the hospital!” Aunt Verdella said.

  “Winnalee didn’t do anything wrong,” I told her. “The creeps running the place did. They arrested the Boumans, but are questioning everybody who worked there to see what they know. That’s all.”

  I walked Aunt Verdella back to her yard, knowing if I didn’t, Freeda would be over—and probably yelling—within seconds.

  I explained everything all over again when we got to Freeda. I expected her to rant and rave, but she didn’t. She only marched back into the house and got on the phone. She tapped her foot as she waited, then said, “Darla, put Terri on.” And when she had her on the line, she said, “Terri, you’re going to have to hold down the fort a bit longer, because I’m stuck on another battlefield.”

  I ditched out the door, and later, when Boohoo came back, I asked him what else Freeda had said on the phone. His answer was “Nothin’ much. Just that if all this keeps up, they’re gonna be hauling her to the lunasylm.”

  Two days later, on Dad’s day off, he brought his toolbox over to my place to look at Winnalee’s van. We were outside at the time and I checked the mailbox while Winnalee gave Dad her van’s symptoms.

  I was closing the mailbox—nothing from Jesse yesterday—when Freeda opened the front door, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun so she could see across the road. She came down the steps. “My cue to split,” Winnalee said. “Yell if you need anything, Uncle Reece.”

  I waved to Freeda, who paused, then spun around and went back into the house. I followed Winnalee inside.

  “She’s putting the moves on your old man,” Winnalee said as she flopped onto the couch.

  “You’re crazy,” I said.

  “No I’m not. She probably went back inside to put on some lipstick and perfume, then she’ll be heading over here so she can get Uncle Reece all hot and bothered. You just watch. She’ll be trying to get him to smile five seconds after she gets in the yard.”

  I went to grab a Tab and came back. “See what I mean?” Winnalee said, when Freeda’s laughter filtered through the screens like a playful breeze. I sidled up to a window and peered through the lace curtain. Freeda wasn’t trying to make Dad laugh. She was making him laugh. She was also holding Eva lee.

  Winnalee had her bare feet propped on the coffee table, her arms crossed. “Told ya,” she said.

  I didn’t mean for Freeda to see me, but apparently she did, because she waved for me to come out.

  “Take this kid inside before the sun cooks her, will you? Introduce her to her mommy while you’re at it.” I knew Winnalee wouldn’t understand that I didn’t have any choice.

  Evalee’s head mashed against my chest as she tried to hide from the bright sun. I didn’t know about taking her inside without asking Winnalee first, but Evalee’s head felt too warm already, and it’s not like I wanted to stay standing outside with Dad there.

  I patted Evalee’s back and carried her up the steps.

  “We, uh … have company,” I said.

  Winnalee, no doubt thinking I meant Freeda, shot up from the couch like she was going to raise a sword, if she had one. But when she saw I was holding Evalee, she stopped and just stood there, staring, her eyes pained even as a faint smile tugged at her mouth. She walked to us slowly, her eyes tearing. “Ohhhhhhh,” she said. She took Evalee’s hand.

  “Do you want to hold her?” I asked, carefully.

  Winnalee’s eyes went round with fear, and her hands came up to crisscross each other. “I don’t know how to hold a baby. She was eight days old when I split, and I didn’t even know how to hold her
then. I don’t think Freeda really did, either.”

  “I’ll show you. Sit down. Now put your feet back on the coffee table, and your knees together.” I set Evalee down on her lap. “See? Your legs make a little La-Z-Boy for her.”

  “But she’s gonna fall,” Winnalee said.

  “No she won’t. Just keep your legs together.”

  “If you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly good at that.” Winnalee didn’t laugh at her joke, but I did. A little.

  Winnalee kept her legs stiff, but the rest of her softened. “Awww, she is pretty,” she said. “Real pretty. I’m glad, because that’s one of the things I worried about when I was pregnant. You know, because maybe her dad’s sperm was all junked up from drugs. I was afraid she’d be born with feet where her hands should be, or have a head as tiny as a pea, and her eyes cocked funny … something awful like that. Not that I wouldn’t have loved her anyway, but man, Button, it’s hard enough gettin’ picked on at school because you’re different in a good way.”

  Winnalee looked down at Evalee, who was kicking gently against her stomach, while her mouth struggled to find her fist. “Now what do I do?”

  I sat down beside them. “Talk to her. Sing to her. Something like that.”

  Winnalee started belting out a verse of Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” like it was a lullaby. “Look, she likes that song, too! Awww, she smiled at me.”

  I chuckled. “She doesn’t even startle when you or Freeda raise your voices,” I noted.

  Winnalee turned to me. “Is she supposed to?”

  “I don’t know. But a lot of babies do that when people get loud. Boohoo did when he was around Aunt Verdella, until he got used to her.”

  Winnalee looked back at Evalee intently. “I don’t want her getting used to people screaming and fighting.”

  “But you weren’t doing …”

  “Take her, Button.”

  “Take her?”

  “Just take her, damn it,” Winnalee ordered. I lifted Evalee from her lap.

  Winnalee headed for the door, then stopped, probably because she remembered that Freeda was out there and that her van was broken. She turned and ran up the stairs.