Color the Sidewalk for Me

by Brandilyn Collins

  Maybe it was the tilt of her head or that hint of amusement playing around her mouth. Whatever it was, it spoke volumes—They’re just kids; they’ll get over it. What I felt for Danny was nothing more to her than timorous fascination, a summer pastime that, come the fall, would dissipate like cheap perfume in the wind. Handing her the celery, I marveled at our peevish circle of misunderstandings.

  “Sure,” I said, “that’s fair.”

  chapter 27

  I may have calmed down in the house, but Granddad prowled around it with the alacrity of a three-year-old waiting to open presents, his worries about me replaced with impatience over his medals. “Good grief,” I teased Sunday morning as I picked up my purse, “you gonna be like this all the way till November?” At church Jake Lewellyn yakked about the ceremony until one person after another congratulated Granddad.

  “Gonna be honored by the governor, I heard!” Lee Harding declared jovially, pumping his hand. He cut an imposing figure in his Sunday suit, thick black hair matching his full mustache, eyes like giant coffee beans. His large hands were callused from years at the mill.

  “Yep,” was all Granddad could say. But his eyes sparkled.

  Mr. Harding turned from Granddad to nod at me. He’s heard, I thought. Danny’s mama probably called Miss Jessie last night.

  “Celia,” Miss Jessie offered, taking my hand, “you’re lookin’ a bit more chipper than the last time you were at our house.”

  I squeezed her willowy fingers, grateful for her support. “I am.” I glanced from her to Mr. Harding. “Thank you.”

  “Thomas!” Pastor Frasier boomed, approaching Granddad with an outstretched hand. “Jake’s told me about your medals!”

  I noticed Mama had positioned herself clear across the sanctuary, as far from Granddad’s conversations as she could get.

  All week long both Granddad and I were on tenterhooks—I waiting for Saturday and he apparently trying to acclimate to daily life without his medals. On Friday I reminded Kevy of our usual fishing date the following afternoon, casually adding that he remain quiet about Danny and I not staying beside him every minute at the river. He wasn’t thrilled to be between me and Mama, history telling him that wasn’t the most pleasant of locations.

  “I don’t want to lie,” he protested.

  “I’m not askin’ you to lie. I’m just askin’ you to fish and not worry about anything else.”

  “And if she asks me where y’all are? If you’ve gone upriver?”

  “She doesn’t know about us ever goin’ upriver, so she won’t ask.”

  “And if she does?”

  “She won’t, Kevy.”

  He sighed loudly, frowning until I teasingly said, “Don’t smile.” Then he couldn’t keep a straight face. We both laughed.

  “What’re you kids cacklin’ about?” Granddad asked as he stumped through the living room.

  “Nothin’,” I replied, rolling my eyes at Kevy. Granddad must have cut a path through our carpet the past few days, wandering in and out of his bedroom, sinking onto the couch only to roust himself again, muttering under his breath the entire time.

  “Whatsa matter, Granddad?” Kevy asked, suppressing a giggle.

  “Nothin’,” he said back, meandering toward the kitchen.

  When the phone rang, Granddad jumped, then veered to answer it. Mr. Lewellyn was calling, gallantly inviting us all to Tull’s tomorrow morning; the milk shakes were on him.

  “Sure thing, Jake,” Granddad replied heartily. “We’ll be there. Ten o’clock.”

  He hung up the phone, shaking his head with a chuckle until he caught our curious stares. “And just what’re you two lookin’ at?”

  “Nothin’,” we said in stereo.

  Saturday morning Daddy balked at going with us. “This is more for you and the kids, isn’t it?” he said to Granddad.

  “No sir, not today,” Granddad replied. “You been workin’ hard all week; it’s time you had a break with the family. Besides, I want you there with us.”

  Daddy would never deny Granddad a request. He graciously accepted the invitation. Mama proved a different story.

  “Estelle,” Granddad called into the kitchen, “come on outta there and go with us.”

  Daddy and I exchanged surprised glances. Mama never went to Tull’s except to buy necessities.

  “No, thank you, Dad,” her voice lilted around the kitchen door. “I got some cannin’ I want to do today.”

  “It’s too hot to can.”

  “It’s too hot to sit out at Tull’s, too.”

  I hadn’t seen Granddad so peeved in a long time. He gripped his hat, set it on his head hard, then snatched it off again. “Come on, Estelle, keep an ol’ man company.”

  I felt a pang in my heart. He was only trying to make amends, simply trying to orchestrate a rare family outing. She appeared in the doorway, wiping a stray hair off her damp forehead, a kitchen towel hanging limply from her hand. “Thanks, Dad, but I got work to do. You go ahead now. And have a good time.” She threw him a consolation smile.

  Without another word Granddad turned from her, mouth set, pain in his eyes. I’d been trying my best to get along with Mama, but I couldn’t help giving her a look. “Well, come on, children.” Granddad put his hat back on. “And I thank you, William, for the pleasure of your company.”

  Daddy nodded solemnly, eyes sliding toward the kitchen doorway. Mama had already disappeared.

  “Wow,” Kevy commented as we pulled up to the curb by Tull’s. “There’s a whole bunch of people here. Look, there’s Mr. Harding and Mr. B. and Policeman Scutch.”

  “Mm. Mr. Tull’s gonna run out of chairs.” Not that I cared if I had to sit on the sidewalk. I checked my watch, thinking that in less than three hours I would be on my way to see Danny. As I opened the car door, my thoughts flitted to Melissa and Barbara and Mona. I’d avoided them all week, not sure how and just exactly what to tell them. But I couldn’t put it off much longer. They’d each called a couple of times, asking nosy questions. They already knew something was up.

  “Well, hello there, Thomas! Brought near the whole family, I see.” Jake Lewellyn was in fine form, lolling in his chair, fat legs spraddled and jowls pink with heat.

  “Howdy, Jake. Hank.” Granddad gave Mr. Jenkins’ knees a friendly smack before settling in his chair. Mr. Jenkins was wearing his brown pants today and the wrinkled blue polyester shirt with a hole in its worn collar. “Afternoon, Frank,” Granddad said to Mr. B. “Lee, you leavin’

  Jessie adrift with your three young’uns?” Rotating to the left, Granddad smartly saluted Policeman Scutch, who leaned against the drugstore window, fanning his face with a hand. He stopped fanning to salute back. Daddy shook hands all around. “Looks like we got ourselves a party here.”

  “What’s the occasion?” Granddad wondered.

  Mr. Lewellyn shrugged. “Ain’t no occasion, Thomas, other than you comin’ down on a Saturday, when these fine folk’re outta work, so I suggested they mosey on over.”

  Granddad seemed disappointed.

  There was a bit of settling to do, with Kevy and me fetching chairs from the store’s back room, Mr. Tull flitting about filling orders for sodas and shakes, mopping his head with a hanky. I pictured Mama joining the group and thought she could have had a decent enough time. Looking around at our little gathering, I felt an unusual contentment. So much of my life was right there at that moment, I reflected—our family’s closest friends, Granddad and his cronies, Tull’s Drugstore, the frosty glass of a strawberry shake in my hands. Only Danny’s presence would complete the picture. I tried to imagine him next to me, feeling at ease, but could not. His life in many ways was so far removed from mine.

  “Aw, Thomas, what’re you talkin’ about?” Jake Lewellyn’s voice broke through my thoughts. “You’re as mean today as when you stole my marble over sixty years ago.”

  “I didn’t steal your marble, you ol’ coot; I won it fair and square!”

  “Won it! Yo
u call gyppin’ your best friend fair and square? Nobody but you would fall that low.”

  Granddad slushed his straw around his drink, animation spreading across his face. “Huh. That’s a right good story; I wonder if everybody here’s heard it.”

  “They heared it a dozen times, Thomas; you got no cause bringin’ it up.”

  “I didn’t bring it up; you did.”

  Mr. Lewellyn snorted. “Don’t matter anyhow. We ain’t gonna talk about it.”

  The tale of the marble was a Bradleyville legend. Seeing the man’s huffiness now was all Granddad needed to launch into it, setting his milk shake between his legs so he could gesture. Mr. Lewellyn twiddled his thumbs with purpose, glancing down the street as if he’d be bored silly.

  “Well, this favorite marble a his was black and silver, see, spectacularly beautiful. Jake got it from his daddy when we were both seven, and it took two years, but I was determined to git it for myself. Then one day I got me a fantabulous idea. The past Christmas my daddy had bought a box a glass balls for our tree. They was glorious, all colors a the rainbow, bright and shiny. They catch the sun just right, they’d send a spark a light clear through your eye. And one fine spring day I remembered those balls whilst thinkin’ about Jake Lewellyn’s marble.”

  Knowing what was coming, Mr. Jenkins began laughing already. I had to giggle just watching him.

  “I had me an idea, but I knew if my mama found out, she’d tan my hide good. After that Daddy would set in and, tell you what, I’d be in real trouble. So I was right careful when I snuck into the closet and stole one a them Christmas balls. I took it way out past our house into the field”—Granddad waved his hand in the air—“just about where we’re sittin’ right now in lovely downtown Bradleyville. Then I broke it into pieces, about a quarter inch long, and trucked ’em home in my pocket. But before I come home”—his eyes sparkled—“I picked me a toadstool, a cute little thing with a button cap.”

  Mr. Jenkins laughed again, others joining in. Lee Harding exchanged an amused smile with Mr. B. I caught his eye next and he winked at me.

  “Well, Mama always had a bowl a biscuit dough sittin’ around before supper, so I slithered my fingers through it and used it to stick some a those colored glass pieces to the top a that toadstool. Then I broke the stem off it, placed it in the middle a some ol’ cloth, put the whole thing in a box, and closed the lid. Then I was ready for Jake.”

  The laughter had attracted attention and our little group was growing. Mr. Tull perched in the doorway, keeping a steely eye on a few customers in the store. Mr. Delham had wandered out of the hardware store and looked at our bunch curiously before being waved over by Lee Harding.

  Granddad nodded gleefully at the newcomers, chuckling. “Jake, you was such a trustin’ soul back then.”

  Mr. Lewellyn humphed, tapping a foot.

  “So anyhow, I paid Jake a visit, tellin’ him all excited-like how my daddy had just come back from ridin’ ol’ Paddington—that was our horse—over to Albertsville. And there, I said, he’d bought me the shiniest, beautifulest marble anybody ever saw, brought over from the jungles a Africa.”

  “Jungles of Africa, for gracious’ sake!” Policeman Scutch’s shoulders shook.

  Granddad’s words caught on his own chortles. “So I says, ‘Jake, I want you to see this here marble, but my daddy said whatever I do, I ain’t to git it in the sun, else the colors’ll fade.’ So I told him I’d open the box just a smidgen and give him a peek, makin’ sure I opened it toward the sun. Ol’ Jake stuck his nose in that box and near died when that colored glass glinted off his eye. Then I closed the lid right quick.”

  Everyone laughed except Mr. Lewellyn. “Born liar, that’s what ya are, Thomas Bradley,” he muttered.

  “Well, afore you knowed it,” Granddad said, ignoring him, “Jake was declarin’ he had to have that marble. ‘No,’ I says, ‘yours is much better; leastways you can play with it outside. This one you got to be so careful with and all.’ And he says it don’t matter, he’d stay inside his house as long as he lived if he could just have that marble. He begged to see it one more time, so I obliged—right neighborly of me, wouldn’t you say? Then I clamped that box lid shut and informed him we’d have to go inside if we was to play with it, no more foolin’ around. That was when he offered to trade marbles.”

  “Oh my.” Lee Harding slapped his thigh. “Thomas, you was downright mean.”

  “Still is,” mumbled Jake Lewellyn, but that only made us laugh all the harder.

  By this time I pressed close to Kevy, making room for more Bradleyville folk who had wandered over—Mrs. Clangerlee from the IGA; Mr. Peterson, an English teacher from school; and Jason King from the mill. Mr. King was married to Lee Harding’s younger sister, Connie.

  “I tried to talk ya out of it, ya idgit.” Granddad pointed a gnarled finger at his friend. “But Jake insisted. So after two years a scheming, I had his marble and he was carting that box home like it was full a gold. I just couldn’t help myself; I had to hang around, listenin’ for when he finally got inside.” Granddad laughed heartily, crossing his arms over his stomach, eyes squeezed shut. “You shoulda heared him when he opened that box! He done wailed like a polecat bein’ skinned alive, I swear!”

  “He’s been wailin’ ever since, too, Thomas!” Hank Jenkins hooted.

  “Why didn’t he just tell his daddy and git it back?” Bill Scutch wondered.

  Granddad cast him a look. “Are you kiddin’? Tell his daddy what—that he’d traded in his best marble for some African wonder that was no more’n a smelly ol’ toadstool? His daddy woulda kicked his behind for bein’ such a fool.”

  I thought Mr. B. would fall out of his chair, he was laughing so hard.

  “I wouldn’t a put it past him to steal it back, though,” Granddad added, “so I hid that marble down in the toe of an ol’ sock for years. That was the danged thing about it; I’d worked so hard to git it but then I couldn’t even play with it.”

  “The wages a sin, Thomas,” Mr. Jenkins chortled.

  Granddad ignored the comment. “Then when I was growed up and my mama passed away, I took a little teacup from a play set she had as a girl and put that marble in it.” Granddad glanced around the group, his grin wide. “And that’s where I’ve kept it all these years, on my bookcase along with my war medals.”

  “Except now your medals ain’t there, are they, Thomas?” Mr. Lewellyn threw Granddad a feisty look.

  “Nope, Jake, they ain’t,” he said proudly. “They’s awaitin’ till November, when I git ’em back from the governor hisself.”

  Mr. Lewellyn grew still as Mr. B. wiped tears away. Bill Scutch leaned over to Lee Harding with a remark that set them both off again. “Well,” Mr. Lewellyn pronounced loudly, smacking his palms on the arms of his chair, “sixty-five years it’s been. And look at all these fine people around us today. Now, I guess, is as good a time as any to git my marble back.” He turned to Kevy and commanded, “Help me up, son.”

  Laughter scuttled from our group like a flock of startled quail. My brother and I exchanged puzzled glances as he rose to aid Mr. Lewellyn, pulling him up under the arm and handing him his cane.

  “What in tarnation you up to now?” Granddad slurped purposefully at his shake.

  Mr. Lewellyn waved a hand in the air. “You just wait, ol’ man. You’ll see.”

  Apprehension curled around my shoulders as I watched him plod to the curb, open his car door, and lean in carefully, extracting a brown IGA bag with a grunt. His jowls no longer shook; no righteous indignation lit his eyes. He was too calm now, his steps too confident. Watching closely, I could make out a slight tremor in the hand that held his cane and another around the edges of his mouth. But they weren’t from anger; they were from excitement. I recognized that all too well from my own glowing anticipation the moment before Danny kissed me. Suddenly I was afraid for Granddad.

  We all watched Mr. Lewellyn return to his chair, clutching the bag. It’s time to g
it my marble back. Everyone knew that no matter what glowing victories Jake Lewellyn may have enjoyed in the besting feud over the years, they boasted little more significance than fireflies against a summer sun. Because Granddad still had the marble.

  Only Granddad appeared unconcerned, stirring his milk shake and still laughing over his youthful victory. But I knew him too well. He’d sniffed in the air that something was coming, and he was bracing himself.

  “Come on, Jake, you got us all on pins and needles,” Mr. B. complained. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ in that bag, Frank.” Granddad’s tone tinged with irritation. “He’s just mad ’cause we all had our laughs at him; look at that red face.”

  “I don’t know.” Mr. Jenkins straightened in his chair. “He looks pretty sure a hisself.”

  “He sure does.” Lee Harding was pulling at his black mustache.

  “Will y’all quit talkin’ about me like I wasn’t even here!” Mr. Lewellyn eased himself into his seat, still gripping the bag as if his life depended on it. “Oof. There now!” Laying the bag in his lap, he looked around the group, drinking in our expectant attention like a puppy lapping milk. “Folks,” he announced, “this here’s a momentous occasion, and I’m glad each one a you’s a part of it. Sixty-five years. Hank, you been friends with me and Thomas since we was kids; you know more’n anybody what this means.”

  I turned widening eyes to Granddad, hardly daring to breathe. Nobody really expected Mr. Lewellyn to ever get his marble back. In their feud Thomas Bradley reigned, had always reigned. Thomas Bradley, battlefield hero and Bradleyville wit. Granddad had enjoyed the latter reputation almost as much as the former. Studying him now, unable to quell the tightening in my chest, I saw my fear reflected not in his purposely blank face or even his eyes, but in the deliberate tapping of a single finger against the arm of his chair. I glanced at Daddy. He watched the same finger, his mouth set.

  “Celia—,” Kevy whispered.

  “Hush.”

  With much fanfare Mr. Lewellyn opened the grocery bag and pulled out a flat brown package. “Ooh, looky what I got here, Thomas.” He turned it over. Held it up on display. “The envelope with your medals that you mailed off to the newspaper.”