The Book of Bright Ideas Read online

  A couple days later, though, after Aunt Verdella got her ha-has back, and after I’d seen Winnalee talking to the urn as if her ma was really buried in it, I found myself afraid to touch it all over again. And by the very next Saturday, I believed the big, fat lie Freeda had told Winnalee, as though I had never learned the truth at all.

  It was Saturday—almost one week after we visited Hopested—breezy and muggy, and my guts told me it was probably going to storm. Ma and Aunt Verdella and I strolled over to Freeda’s and were standing in the driveway, not sure if we should go in or not (even if we were invited to lunch), since there was a strange truck in the driveway. “I thought I heard two vehicles last night, about the time Freeda would have gotten home from work,” Aunt Verdella said. “And it’s been parked here since I woke up this morning.”

  Ma looked at Aunt Verdella and said, “Ah, Verdella. I know you were hoping that she’d get serious about Mike, but I didn’t think that would happen.”

  Aunt Verdella looked down at the chocolate cream pie she was carrying for our dessert and sighed. “Mike’s such a nice guy. And ready to settle down too.”

  “But Freeda’s not, Verdella.”

  “Hey, you guys!” Winnalee called, her head appearing outside the screen door. “Freeda said, what the hell are you guys doing standing out there, and to come in.” So in we went.

  Winnalee hopped alongside of me and chattered all the way to the kitchen. “Oh, good. You wore your ballerina suit, just like I told you to!” she said.

  “Hi, girls,” Freeda said. She was standing at the table chopping onions into a bowl of tuna. Her penny hair was hanging loose and snarly, and she wasn’t wearing anything that I could see but for a man’s T-shirt that hung almost to her knees. The guy sitting at the table, smoking and drinking coffee, had a red scrape on one cheek and he wasn’t wearing a shirt, so I figured it was his shirt Freeda wore.

  “You know Jesse?” Freeda asked. “Probably not. He’s on road construction, out on 47. No matter, he was just leaving anyway.” The man cocked his eyes toward Freeda. “I was?” he asked.

  “You got it, buddy.”

  With all of us staring at him, waiting for him to leave, I suppose he didn’t have much choice but to lift his tired butt off the chair. He grabbed his cigarettes and matches from the table and stretched. “I’ll get my shirt later,” he said.

  “Hold it,” Freeda said. “You’d better take it now.” She grabbed the hem and went to lift it up, but Ma cleared her throat and Freeda stopped, going into the bathroom instead and coming out in her robe. She tossed the shirt at him and he left.

  “Oh, honey,” Aunt Verdella said. “I thought you liked Mike.”

  “I like Mike just fine,” Freeda said. “Or rather, I did, until he started spouting his mouth off about settling down.”

  “Yeah,” Winnalee said. “Mike showed up here late last night too. And he punched that Jesse guy right in the face. Good thing that guy was too drunk to feel it, or it would have really hurt. I was scared that Mike had a shotgun in his truck, but Freeda said he didn’t.” Ma gave Winnalee a pat on the shoulder.

  While we ate our lunch, Ma asked Aunt Verdella if I could spend the night with her, because Daddy and her were going out. Aunt Verdella said I could, and Winnalee clapped. Then Aunt Verdella went right back to worrying about Freeda not liking Mike Thompson anymore, and Freeda said, “I guess I’m just quicker to give away my body than to give away my heart.” That’s when Ma told me and Winnalee to go outside and play.

  The skies were covered with ugly gray clouds heavy with rain by the time we reached our magic tree to play parade. We had to fiddle till we got our feet settled in the flat spot without stepping on each other, then started waving and smiling at the crowd, who thought we were stunning beauties too. We tossed candy, but only to the kids we thought looked nice. When Ma and Aunt Verdella came across the yard—Ma to leave, and Aunt Verdella to get busy in her house—Winnalee called to them, and they waved back at us like spectators at a real parade.

  We played beauty queens until the breeze dried our teeth, then Winnalee decided we should play fairies instead. “We look like fairies in our costumes, don’t we? I think we do.” I wasn’t sure how to play fairies, and I don’t think Winnalee knew either, because all she did was flap her arms now and then, like they were wings, while she talked. “Guess what?” she said. “Uncle Rudy said that next weekend the corn and oats are gonna be ready to come in. He’s gonna be busy all Saturday, then on Sunday Aunt Verdella is gonna have a big cookout to celebrate the end of the growing season, and the Smithys are gonna come, and the Thompson twins—well, maybe not them now—and a whole lot of other people. I figured that will be the best time in the world to go back to the beck. With so much going on, I don’t think anyone would notice us slipping off. Only we’ll go through the woods this time, because it’s bound to be quicker, and we’ll go right before dark.”

  Winnalee climbed down from the tree and dug our adventure bag out from the hole. She looked up at the tree. “Hey, I know what we could do now! Let’s draw pictures of fairies and cut them out to hang from the branches! We could use Aunt Verdella’s glue and glitter on their wings and fill up the whole tree!”

  The first sprinkles of rain tapped the leaves above us. “But they’ll get all wet and ruined. Daddy said this morning that it’s supposed to rain heavy for a couple days.”

  “Uh-uh! Not if we iron waxed paper over them before we cut them out. The iron melts the crayon and the waxed paper sticks to it. We did it at school once. I think they’d hold up in the rain, don’t you?”

  I looked up at our magic tree, at the branches where leaves fluttered, and I could almost see those fairies hanging there. “Okay!” I said.

  “I’ll run home and get the crayons. And paper to draw on too. You go ask Aunt Verdella for waxed paper.”

  “Okay.”

  I’d barely reached the porch when the clouds opened up and started dumping so much rain that it moved like heavy curtains waving in the wind as it fell.

  “Where’s Winnalee?” Aunt Verdella asked when I got inside.

  “She ran home to get something. She’ll be right back.”

  Aunt Verdella glanced out the window. “It’s rainin’ cats and dogs out there. Button, go shut the front door for Auntie, will you? Rain always wants to come in and give my rug a bath.”

  I suppose it was the front door being closed that kept us from hearing Winnalee cry out when she jumped off her porch and rammed a nail up her bare foot. A stray nail left from Daddy’s repairs on the front steps, we figured later.

  Winnalee didn’t yank it out. She hopped back to the house, screaming for Freeda the whole way. Freeda, whose stomach wasn’t a bit braver than Winnalee’s when it came to yucky things, tossed her in the car in a flutter of mesh and drove her into town to see the doctor. Me and Aunt Verdella didn’t know where they’d gone. At first we just thought that Winnalee was waiting for the rain to let up a bit before she ran back, but then, when Aunt Verdella peered out the front door and saw that the red truck wasn’t in their driveway, we both got a little worried. “Freeda’s gotta go in to work at four o’clock, because there’s a wedding reception at Marty’s today, so you’d think she wouldn’t have run off anyplace first,” Aunt Verdella said, as she dried her hands and headed toward the bathroom.

  I plucked a cookie off of a plate on the counter and sat down at the table. Even with the rain making noise as it dripped down off of the eaves above the window, I could hear the sound of someone pulling into the drive. “Somebody’s in the driveway!” I shouted to Aunt Verdella.

  “Is it your uncle Rudy?” Aunt Verdella called from the bathroom.

  I spread my hands on the edge of the counter, then jumped up, bracing myself, my feet dangling. I looked out the window and into the driveway, hoping it was the Malones. It wasn’t. “Nope. It’s some lady in a white car.” I strained, trying to see the face underneath the smudge of light brown hair, but with rain running down t
he car windows, I couldn’t.

  I lifted my knees up on the counter on account of my arms were getting shaky from holding me up. I watched the car door open and an umbrella poof open, hiding the lady’s head. But that umbrella, though big, was nowhere near big enough to hide that enormous body.

  I ran to the bathroom door, which was open just enough for me to see Aunt Verdella sitting on the toilet, her undies strapped around her white knees. “Aunt Verdella, there’s a big, big fat lady here!”

  “Oh dear, I hope it’s not a Jehovah’s Witness!” Aunt Verdella said.

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t see her carrying any little magazines.”

  “Okay. Answer the door, Button. Auntie will be right out.”

  I opened the front door and waited as the fat lady struggled to get up the porch steps. She was huffing and puffing and had to pause at each step to catch her breath. Trails of rain were falling from points of the umbrella, wetting the parts of her that were too wide to fit under the umbrella—which was most of her.

  I moved back a-ways from the screen door. I could hear the toilet flush and the bathroom sink running. “Hurry, Aunt Verdella,” I yelled in my head, as I bit the inside of my cheek.

  “Hello there, honey,” the fat lady said, her voice all wheezy-sounding. “Is this the home of Verdella Peters?”

  I was glad Aunt Verdella came then, so I didn’t have to say anything.

  Aunt Verdella scooted in front of me. “I’m Verdella Peters.” Aunt Verdella looked at the lady’s hands, and I knew why. Like Aunt Verdella said, she wasn’t good with salespeople and always ended up buying something she didn’t need and couldn’t afford.

  The fat lady stepped onto the porch and closed her umbrella, shaking it before closing it. She was still panting.

  “Ma’am, my name is Hannah Malone.”

  Aunt Verdella’s breath sucked in, and my ears started buzzing, like ears do when you get really scared.

  “May I come in?” Hannah Malone asked.

  Aunt Verdella opened the door. “Oh dear. Um, yes, please.” There was no ha-ha in her voice now.

  Aunt Verdella had to stand back to open the door wide enough for the fat lady to get in. I’d never in my whole life seen anybody walk like that lady: rocking to one side as she lifted one foot, then setting it down hard and rocking to the other side to lift the other, her whole body twisting with each step. Her eyes, nose, and mouth looked like little balls of Trix cereal dropped on a white pillow; two blue balls for eyes, and one red one for a mouth. She was wearing a cross on her neck, with Jesus nailed to it. You couldn’t see His head with that crown of thorns on it, though, because it was buried in a crease of neck fat, but I knew it was Him because I could see His nailed feet sticking out.

  “I understand you were in Hopested looking to buy a plot and gravestone for me, so of course I have questions,” Mrs. Malone said.

  “Oh dear.” I heard Aunt Verdella mutter under her breath as she led Hannah to the kitchen table. Being polite, as she always was, she asked Hannah Malone if she’d like coffee. Then she set a plate with two pieces of coffee cake and a few cookies onto the table.

  “A couple days ago, Mrs. Hamilton came to see me. She went back and forth, of course, wondering whether to say anything to me or not about your visit. But then she thought about how I’ve suffered with worry ever since Freeda took Winnalee, and she came to me and told me everything. My brother’s going to be fit to be tied that I didn’t wait for him to get home—he’s a trucker and gone for the next two weeks—but I just couldn’t wait another day to find out how my baby is.”

  Aunt Verdella’s hand had the jitters as she patted the side of the percolator to see if it was still warm. It must not have been, because she lit the burner. She got two cups down from the cupboard shelf and brought them to the table. “Grab the creamer for Auntie, will you, Button?” Her voice sounded like it was stretched so tight that it could snap.

  I got the creamer from the refrigerator—the cute little creamer in the shape of a cow that we bought for Aunt Verdella’s birthday one year—and set it on the table. Aunt Verdella scooted a short stack of little plates across the table. She moved even quicker than she usually did when she was upset. The forks rattled in her hand as she brought them to the table.

  “Mrs. Peters, this is very awkward for me…” Hannah Malone said, as she helped herself to a piece of coffee cake.

  “Well,” Aunt Verdella said. “This is awkward for me too. My, I didn’t want to start up any trouble or get involved. I was just tryin’ to do something nice. You see, I had money saved for a color television set, but then—”

  “Mrs. Peters,” Hannah Malone said. “I need you to tell me how to find my Winnalee. I know from Mrs. Hamilton that she and Freeda are here in Dauber, and I know about the horrible lie Freeda told about me being dead. Why, this has all taken a horrible toll on my health the last few years, worrying about if they were alive or dead. So uncomfortable or not, I hope you’ll tell me what I need to know.”

  In fourth grade, a boy made a volcano out of flour and water stuff for his science project. When he blew in the tube at the bottom, some gunk that was supposed to be lava came spewing out. That’s what I thought of when Hannah Malone’s tears erupted into big sobs after she mentioned the part about her worrying about if Freeda and Winnalee were alive or dead: a big, white mountain rumbling and lurching, and then tears gushing out like hot lava.

  Aunt Verdella always cried when she saw somebody else cry, so her eyes teared up the second Hannah Malone started in. “Button, would you go to the bathroom and get the Kleenex?”

  I didn’t know how much she wanted or how to get the crocheted lady off of the Kleenex box, so I just grabbed the doll and brought it into the kitchen. I set it on the table between Aunt Verdella and the fat lady. Aunt Verdella grabbed one for herself and some for Hannah. She patted Hannah’s arm after she handed them to her.

  “Please tell me what you know, Mrs. Peters,” Mrs. Malone said. “I beg of you.”

  Aunt Verdella looked like a little kid sitting next to Hannah Malone. Not just because (in spite of her snowball middle) she looked tiny sitting next to that mountain of a woman, but because of the way she sat. With her hands folded on her lap and her head half dipped down. “Well, I’m finding myself in quite a pickle now, aren’t I? I mean, I love Freeda and Winnalee like family. And now here I am, right in the middle of some family trouble I don’t even understand. I feel awkward saying a thing. I hope you can understand that.”

  I tried not to stare at Hannah Malone’s hand as she brought her fork down to her plate, but how could I not, with the strap of her silver watch almost buried in a crease of fat that hung over it like a puffy, too-long sleeve? “Mrs. Peters. Are you a mother?” Hannah Malone’s voice was high like a girl’s and jagged with tears.

  I flinched inside when she asked that. Aunt Verdella shook her head. “No. Though Button here is my niece, and I couldn’t love her more if I’d given birth to her myself.”

  “Well, then you know all about loving a child. If you understand, it might be easier for you to tell me what I need to know.” I moved back from the table until I ran into the wall, then slid against it and out of the kitchen. I hovered just around the corner, standing in the dining room. I knew that if I stayed out of sight and kept quiet, no one was likely to notice me and ask me to go outside so I couldn’t hear the grown-ups talk.

  “You know Freeda, you say. Well, if you know her at all, then you know how headstrong she is. She was like that from the day she was born. Always contrary. Always opinionated and having to have her own way. A redhead in every sense.

  “She was a handful from the start, but by the time she was thirteen, she was so wild I couldn’t control her. I can’t tell you the times I laid awake praying for that girl.” I heard Hannah Malone sniffle, then I heard the scrape of a fork against a plate. I peeked around the corner just as Hannah was leaning back in her chair—well, the best she could, anyway.

  �
��I can’t tell you the gossip I suffered through.” She burst into more tears. “I tried to raise her right, bringing her up in a good Christian home, but it didn’t matter. It was like the devil himself burrowed into that girl early, and nothing I could do could drive him out of her.”

  “Ohhhh,” Aunt Verdella said. “I wouldn’t say that about Freeda. Why, she might be a little rough around the edges, but she is a sweetheart. An absolute dear.”

  Hannah Malone grunted, like people do when they don’t agree.

  “She got in the family way when she was only fifteen,” Hannah Malone said, her words muffled from the mouthful of cake she chewed. “You can imagine how mortified and heartsick I was. Why, she couldn’t even tell me who the boy was. Her daddy was gone by then, or I can assure you, he would have given her a thrashing.”

  Aunt Verdella put her hand up to her cheek and sat back in her chair. “Mrs. Malone, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Mrs. Malone kept on talking, as if Aunt Verdella hadn’t said a word. “I thought about sending her away to a school for, well, you know, unwed mothers, but I knew there wasn’t a lock that could keep that girl inside an institution for the duration of her confinement. What choice did I have? My sister told me to force Freeda to put the baby up for adoption, because we knew that Freeda wasn’t gonna take care of a baby. I did try to talk her into it, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Not because she wanted that baby, I don’t think, but because Freeda always turned her nose up at any suggestion I made.”

  Aunt Verdella’s eyes were still big, and her hand was holding her chest. “Mrs. Malone. I’m…I’m a bit rattled here, so help me out. Are you saying that Winnalee is Freeda’s child?”

  “Well, by birth, yes, but in no other way, I guarantee you! Freeda was gone within two weeks after Winnalee was born. Two weeks! My sister and brother and every one of my friends thought I was crazy, taking care of a newborn while I was in such poor health, but what could I do?”