You are probably as bowled over as me, so sit down, drink a Coke, and start studying!
You are my sweetheart!
Calla
On my days off from Melonçon’s, I would do hair. I knew I would miss the customers once I moved, so I was greatly relieved that Aunt Helen and a friend of hers had agreed to keep the Crowning Glory open and alive. This made it so much easier for me to follow M’Dear’s wishes for me to go out into the world. After she died, people had started going to Claiborne to get their hair done, but there were some older people who couldn’t make the trip. So, that first Saturday after Tuck left, I had Miss Mildred, who lived across the road from us, out on the Crowning Glory Beauty Porch as my first customer. Miss Mildred had never married and had retired from her job as a social worker in Claiborne, working with the mentally ill.
She needed a wash and set. So I sat her down in the chair, tipped her head back, and began to drizzle her hair with warm water. I put some shampoo in my hands and then began to massage it into her scalp. I could feel the tension, but as I rubbed the shampoo in, I felt her scalp relax.
Then I felt it. Suddenly there was a warmth under my palms. I felt a strong wave of tenderness toward Miss Mildred, and I realized how lonely she had been since retiring. I kept my hands in place, massaging, until the warmth moved down her scalp.
“Ohhh, Calla, honey, this feels so good, to be touched like this right now. Oh, I just can’t tell you.”
I lifted my palms up off her head, but the warmth was still there. I could feel it moving under my hands, down her neck, over her shoulders, then down her back. As my hands moved, I was overcome with visions of the feelings Miss Mildred was releasing—missing her clients but also feeling exhausted from all those years of giving. I was shocked by the power of these revelations and by the fact that my hands could sense and soothe the way they were doing, entirely on their own. It was a strange and intimate connection that was kind of frightening.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the warmth passed. Soon I was just standing there with shampoo on my hands, ready to give Miss Mildred a rinse like nothing happened.
It struck me that this was what M’Dear meant by my having healing hands. Somehow she knew. But I’d never felt that kind of power within me before, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to come back.
June 15, 1971
La Luna, Louisiana
Dear Tuck,
How are you, sweetie pie? I thought we were going to write every day, but for now, I’ll just keep writing you until you’ve had time to settle in. We are all doing well down here. I am busy with my job at Melonçon’s, but the really important changes are happening while I do hair. It’s like M’Dear is with me sometimes, do you know what I mean?
It’s humid as can be. The figs are getting larger. As soon as it’s time to pick them, I’ll can fruit like M’Dear taught me. Then when you come home, you’ll taste summer at Christmas.
You must be very, very busy not to write me. If you’d just drop a short note in the mail, it would put my mind at ease.
Your Calla Lily
I didn’t know how to describe the strange warmth, so I didn’t tell anyone about it—not even Sukey, when she came from New Orleans to visit. She had moved right after graduation, and had already gotten a job. I just about fell on the floor when my girlfriend since the third grade told me that she had become a Playboy Bunny.
She never told us this was what she was planning. While we were still seniors she actually sent away for a Playboy Bunny kit! She had passed the test, so now she was an actual Bunny.
Luckily, there was a Bunny Mother at the club to make sure that the girls were treated properly and that the men didn’t touch them. But knowing Sukey, if some of them bothered her, she’d have liked it. Sukey said that I could live with her when I moved to New Orleans. But I didn’t think that would be good for our friendship, since she could get wild. I really needed my own apartment.
The first time Sukey came home with her Bunny outfit, my jaw just about hit the floor. So did Renée’s. You could have put the entire thing into your purse—and still had room left over. That’s how tiny it was. I mean, the biggest part of the whole outfit was the bunny ears! The rest was just a skimpy satin leotard, white cuffs with cufflinks, and a bunny tail on the butt.
“Sukey,” I said, “couldn’t you just be an airline stewardess?”
“Yeah, Sukey,” Renée said. “The life of an airline stewardess would be so adventurous. Just think, a stewardess flying high in the sky!”
“Calla, Renée,” she said, “you just don’t understand. Being a stewardess is just like being a waitress, except you’re in the sky, and I don’t want to be a waitress. Being a Bunny is a whole way of life! So much more now.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, now is just now, Sukey.”
“Oh, God,” she said, rolling her eyes. Then, as she’d always done when she was upset or when she thought you were being stupid, she crossed her eyes. “Look, I just wanted you to see my costume. If you don’t like it, tough.
“Now come help me pull it up a little bit. And see if we can stuff a little Kleenex in there to make it look…not so baggy at the top.”
“All right,” I said.
And Renée started pulling out Kleenexes. She looked up at Sukey at one point and said, “Well, Sukey, are you sure we can get by with just one box?”
“Okay, Renée, let’s not be snippy about this.”
Then Renée started laughing, and I started stuffing Kleenex under Sukey’s boobs, trying to lift them up and make them look fuller. When I pulled them up as much as I could, I said, “Now Sukey, you know, these Kleenexes could come out at any point.”
“Hmm. That’s right,” Sukey said. “I don’t want to serve drinks and have a Kleenex fall right into a cocktail.”
Renée and I both started laughing.
“All right, y’all, cut it out!” Then she said, “Well, Aunt Helen is such a great seamstress. Do you think that maybe she could—you know, help make it so it pushes my bosom up higher?”
“Oh, Sukey,” I said, “I really don’t know if Aunt Helen would work on that Bunny outfit. You know, she is wide-minded—of all the people in La Luna, she is wide-minded—but I don’t know if she is wide-minded enough for this.”
“Maybe I’ll ask her. But in the meantime, let’s just see what we can do.”
So I reached down in the Bunny outfit and carefully tried to pull her bosom up a little more, knowing that my face was turning beet red.
Then Sukey looked at herself in the mirror. “Well, that’s a little better,” she said.
None of this Playboy Bunny stuff should have surprised me; Sukey had always been a character. Even though I didn’t agree with everything she did, I wanted to go visit her and see New Orleans. But it was hard without a car, and weekends, when I was off work, happened to be Sukey’s busiest time. She came home to La Luna often to see her mother, though, and we’d tell each other, “Girl, we’ll be together soon. It’s just a matter of time.”
Time passed, and Tuck never wrote. Not once. I couldn’t stop my mind from going back to the last time he kissed me, right as he was about to board that Greyhound bus. “I’m going to call you as soon as I get settled,” he promised. “I’ll write you as soon as I get there.” But he didn’t write. And he didn’t call.
I still wrote to Tuck every single week. I even tried to call. But I stopped after a few times, not wanting to hear the guy call out down the hall, “It’s Calla Lily for Tuck—again.”
I could see how someone like Tuck could get caught up with school, but I still missed him. I looked at the pictures of us on my dresser, with my dried corsage from the senior prom hanging off one of them. I thought about his smell and his hair, and how I loved to run my hands through his hair when it was clean. It was just amazing, the way it was so blond, and so thick that when he moved, it shook from side to side.
Every time the phone rang, my heart leaped and I ran downstairs, even though I kne
w that Papa could see me acting like a schoolgirl. I answered the phone, “Hi—hi, this is Calla Lily—” But then it would just be Renée.
Then we’d have some conversation about how she was feeling with the pregnancy and about how my feet hurt after my waitress shifts. And she’d ask, “How’s Tuck doing?”
I’d say, “Oh, just fine.”
I was too embarrassed to tell anyone that Tuck hadn’t been in contact. Finally I got so fed up one night that I threw his football trophy across the room. Damn it! He said he would call! If Tuck was in the room right now, I’d say, “You liar! I hate you!”
After supper one evening, Papa and I were sitting on the porch swing and we could hear classical music coming from the Tuckers’ house. We often spent evenings alone since Will was away studying music and Sonny Boy was spending more and more time with his new girlfriend, Melise.
“How you getting along with all this, Calla Lily?” Papa asked, patting my hand.
“Not so good.”
Right then, as though it was planned, which I don’t think it was, Miz Lizbeth came over.
“I was wondering if y’all could do with some figs and homemade ice cream. I made the ice cream for the Garden Club meeting on Friday and had some extra.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, and I knew Papa knew why.
“Thank you, Miz Lizbeth,” Papa said. “Won’t you join us?”
“No, but thank you very much.”
“So, how’s that boy doing?” Papa asked, like it was no big deal.
“He’s doing just fine. Studying hard, making friends.” Then she paused.
By that point I had left the porch without excusing myself and was in the kitchen, hearing them only faintly, as I dumped her dessert offering in the trash.
September 23, 1971
La Luna, Louisiana
Tuck,
I did not take you for a liar. We made a promise that we would write every day. I have not received one single, solitary note, letter, or phone call since you got on that bus. And I was left there, smelling the fumes. Who do you think I am? What do you expect me to think of you? Well, let me tell you. I think you are a shallow, plastic excuse of a man, with no dignity, respect, or anything left. You are a nothing. You are a nothing to me, as you have made it clear I am to you.
So this is it.
When it was almost Thanksgiving, I thought, Well, some kind of plans ought to be made by now! So even given my last nasty letter to Tuck, I went over to the Tuckers’ and knocked on the door.
“Good morning,” I said. “I brought you some mayhaw jelly that I put up myself.”
“Calla,” Miz Lizbeth said, as she opened the door. “How lovely to see you. And how sweet. Would you care for a cup of tea, or coffee?”
“Well, some coffee would be lovely,” I told her.
“Okay,” she said. “Come on in. Have a seat at the kitchen table, and I’ll make you some coffee. I know how you like it, with cream and sugar.”
So she brought two mugs of coffee, sat down, and we talked about this and that until I finally said, “Um, how’s Tuck?”
“Well…” She paused and looked down into her coffee. “He’s doing real well out there, Calla.”
I tried to make it sound like it was just small talk. “How’re his grades?”
“Fine,” she answered. “Up at the top of his class.”
Then Miz Lizbeth got up from the table and busied herself with washing dishes.
“Is he coming home for Christmas?”
She turned around and looked at me with kindness in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Calla, he’s not. He’s going to spend Christmas in California this year.”
I tried to keep breathing. “California?” I said.
“Yes, sweetheart. He’s made a good friend who’s from San Francisco, whose family has a place in Big Sur.”
“Place?” I asked. “Big Sur?”
“It’s a beautiful town on the Pacific Ocean.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want her to know how sad all this made me feel. “Well,” I said, “I guess that just leaves us turkeys here at home,” and tried to make a little laugh.
Miz Lizbeth looked away for a moment, then said softly, “We’ll be flying out to California to join him.”
“Oh,” I said, and then I could not stop from crying.
Miz Lizbeth put her arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Calla. I wish it were different.”
“I do, too,” I said, my voice hoarse.
After that, I started feeling really low. Tuck had erased me. I couldn’t even get mad because I was too low. I guess people would say I was depressed, but I wouldn’t talk to anyone about Tuck—not Sukey and Renée, and not even Papa.
December 2, 1971
La Luna, Louisiana
Dear Tuck,
How nice that your friend’s family has invited Miz Lizbeth and Papa Tucker to California for Christmas. I guess you have a whole other life out there now. There was a time when I thought you would turn around and finally write back. But you have not just left the town that welcomed you when you were alone, but also me.
I will not be writing to you again. Or thinking of you, or hoping that we could in any way come back together. I gave you my heart that night on the pier. I thought you gave me yours. I was wrong. Hearts are not so easy to give and take away. They are not like money or something. I would like to hurt yours badly, but I won’t. I was raised to always take the high road. If or when you do come home, do not expect to find me here. At least not for you.
Calla Lily Ponder
When Christmas came, it was hard. For the first time in as long as I could remember, Papa and I walked down along the river, just the two of us.
“You doing okay?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Might be sad every Christmas for a while.”
“Oh, Papa, I’m sad, too!”
He gave me a big hug, and I could tell he was trying not to cry. My heart just broke for him. His sadness was so deep, all I could think about was cheering him up. I said, “Papa, remember M’Dear’s Refrigerator Rules? How she said she was going to haunt us to keep us laughing? I believe she meant that, don’t you? It’s Christmastime. We should go inside. I got some presents I haven’t wrapped. You want to help me?”
“Yes, I do.” Papa seemed to take heart a little, and he said, “You know what? I got some eggnog in the fridge that Miz Lizbeth dropped off before she left for California. Let’s put a little bourbon in there and have us some.”
So Papa and I went back to the kitchen, and we laid out our tissue paper, the special kind with the glitter on it. We found our extra shoe-boxes that we’d saved for wrapping gifts. I’d gotten two albums for Sonny Boy and two books for Will. Will would probably know what his gifts were, but I didn’t want Sonny Boy to guess, since he was such a trickster.
Then Papa had a great idea. He told me, “Hey, I got me one really long, flat box that my rifle came in. You know, the one I got a couple years ago?”
“You saved that box, Papa?”
“Oh, you never know when something’s going to come in handy.”
So Papa brought in this long box. The albums would fit in there for sure.
I laughed and started to ball up some newspaper to cushion the albums. But Papa said, “No, let’s not use newspaper. We’re going to pop some popcorn.”
So we did. And that popcorn smelled so good that we just started eating some right out of the pot.
“Calla,” he said, “I have a special little gift that I’d like to give you, you know. When you were born, your mama and I took out a savings bond for you. We did that for each one of you kids. Yours matured around Thanksgiving. It’s earned a good little bit of interest. So here you go,” he said, and handed me an envelope.
I opened it and looked inside, and felt so touched.
“It’s from your mama and me, you know. I thought maybe it would help you go on down to New Orleans for your beauty shop training earlier than you planned.�
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“Oh, Papa,” I said, “thank you. Thank you and M’Dear, all those years ago, for thinking of your daughter.”
Then, all of a sudden, we were having fun, Papa and me. We even put on some music and started dancing. But after a few songs, my tears came so quick that I didn’t have a second to bite them back. Papa put his arms around me.
“I miss Tuck, Papa,” I told him.
“I know. How ’bout I be your date for tonight?”
“I would love the pleasure of having you as my date.”
“All right then,” he said.
We turned out all the lights in the house except for the Christmas tree. Then we just sat there, drinking eggnog, eating popcorn, and watching those lights sparkle and fade.
It was not the Christmas I thought it would be. You don’t always get all the things you want. I thought I had learned that already, but here I was learning it all over again, and it hurt. But my papa was sitting on the sofa with me, and the lights were twinkling. If there’s one thing that can make you feel like the girl you were before the big hurts began, it’s staring at a Christmas tree, all lit up, with your papa. A sparkling tree growing up from a circle of gifts.
Chapter 17
1972
The next day, when I went back to work, I let Mrs. and Mrs. Melonçon know my decision to leave for beauty school earlier than I’d planned.
“I don’t want to leave you in the lurch, though, so how about if I work for a couple more months to give you time to replace me,” I said.
The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder: A Novel Page 14
