Finding My Thunder

by Diane Munier

  Lonnie came running. He was behind her. His eyes met mine and I watched the joy run right out of them.

  “Hilly, this is Loreena,” he said the way you’d talk to a bear in the road.

  I just kept staring. I felt no social burden whatsoever.

  Uncomfortable now he tried to be jovial. “She’s got two children you go to school with. Well, the boy…Jody…he’s about your age. He’s fourteen.”

  “I’m sixteen,” I said because I would be in three days.

  His eyes grew big. Loreena did a little laugh and thought she’d help him out I guess. “Time can sure fly.” She had big teeth.

  The little girl came down the stairs. That meant she’d been upstairs and there wasn’t but three things up there, the bathroom, Mama’s room and mine. My eyes went to that kid then to Lonnie and he looked more worried than I’d seen since the day Mama died and he had to show up at the hospital…since the day I’d thrown the bottle but then only a flash.

  “You don’t have to worry about your mother’s things. Loreena and Darla got them nearly packed….”

  I ran for the stairs. He tried to block me but there was nothing behind it. The little girl plastered herself on the wall and I ran up there.

  “We were real careful, honey,” Loreena called and I went to Mama’s room and boxes sat around and I saw things folded…and her furniture was clear and her bed taken apart, the mattresses standing against the wall and in the middle a box of things I did not know, girl’s things and the colors….”

  I fell down. I did not faint but my legs folded. I heard yelling and stomping on the stairs and Danny around me and telling me it was okay, it was okay and he picked me up and he half-carried me to my room and my things had not been touched, and he placed me on my bed and sat next to me but I curled away from him, and he stayed there and when someone looked and said something he answered, “Just leave her alone. Just let her rest.”

  And I felt him get up and I heard him close my door and he shuffled around and Judy Garland started to sing about the rainbow and the bed dipped and he pulled me against him and I rolled over and put my arm on him and my leg and he held me there and I cried and I grew still and he held me and I held him.

  “If you leave,” I finally whispered, “don’t forget Annie’s book.”

  “I’m not leaving,” he whispered and he kissed the top of my head.

  Finding My Thunder 22

  In my dreams, just like in real life, Danny had carried me. He had dragged me. He had held me. But he was a kid, too. Granted he looked grown, as did I. But inside…we were still very young and I was trying to make others see this. I was preaching it in Naomi’s pulpit. And the sisters gathered round and poured pennies on me until I was buried, just my head out, and I was still saying, “We’re just kids!”

  When I woke up, early morning sun was just coming up, its first light barely in the corners. Two of us on my twin bed wrapped in each other. Danny had turned my little fan on but already it was hot and we were so close.

  I was thirsty. I’d cried myself out last night. No one had bothered us. Not after that first time when Danny had taken care of it. The birds were singing and the thought of rainbows was in my head.

  “Hey,” he whispered to me and I moved myself against him. He straightened his legs like we were unfolding and lining ourselves up. We looked at each other. His eyes were tired and dark and deep. His lashes were long and thick and matched his eyes for color.

  He swallowed and I licked my lips.

  “I wonder how you’ve stayed under the radar at school…you’re so beautiful,” he said softly.

  He was just being nice. Probably feeling sorry for me. I was so pathetic. I just made a face at him like he was crazy.

  “Don’t scrunch up my beautiful face,” he said, the backs of his fingers moving over my cheek.

  “Doesn’t your mom wonder where you are?”

  He smiled. “Sometimes. She’s too tired to wait up. As long as I show up in the morning. Dickens will cover for me.”

  “Teaching him to lie to his mother?”

  “Goes with getting to sleep in Sukey’s bed,” he said.

  I smirked a little. “Where did you come from yesterday? I thought you’d gone home.”

  “I thought you went into Naomi’s. Then…I just knew.”

  I laughed a little. Inside. Outside I smiled. “That’s like…supernatural.”

  “Or just putting two and two together,” he laughed a little. It was a beautiful sound. “I have to go,” he said, “assuming I still have a job.”

  “I’m holding you here supernaturally,” I said tightening my arm around him.

  “I can feel you against me and it’s…super…and I’m having a natural reaction.”

  He hugged me tight and we laughed again. I put my face against him and the envelope from the sisters was still in his shirt pocket and it crinkled and his heart was so steady and true and I kissed him there.

  And this disgust for myself hit. Before I sunk my teeth into his neck and just latched on in the sickest of ways I pulled back. He was doing too much, giving too much. I was going to drain him.

  I let him go and sat up beside him. I tried to smooth my hair, comb it with my fingers.

  He stood and stretched and his beauty filled my shabby room. His Sunday clothes were rumpled. He was sticking his feet in his shoes then he sat on the bed to tie them and the bow of his back captivated me and I ran my hand over it.

  “Danny,” I said, pausing to cover my mouth and yawn hugely. He finished with his shoes, then he stood there retucking his shirt. I wiped at tears in my eyes. “Everyday I know you…you give me more reasons to love you. Not that I need them. But….”

  He laughed a little, then he bent to kiss me. His lips were so comforting. I made myself refrain from clinging to him but I did rub my fingers on one of his sideburns. He had a scratchy morning beard. It just made his lips more sinful.

  He straightened. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what…Ricky Nelson?” I fluttered my lashes.

  He laughed then and kind of tackled me on the bed and tickled me a little, just a little. It didn’t last, there was heaviness in me, but it had been a noble effort and I was smiling easily.

  He pulled back and looked at me. “You coming in to work? Or…I get it if you can’t look at him.”

  “Um…I don’t know. He told me I didn’t need to...as in never again. So….”

  “He’s such a bastard.”

  “Danny…if you need to take a break from me…I mean we’ve been together a lot and then you have to work with him….”

  He stood up then and turned away from me and ran his hands through his thick dark hair. He had actually growled and I could see the strength in his back and shoulders. “What will you do today?”

  I didn’t know. I had to think. “Naomi told me yesterday we have to go to Mr. Durr office to see about Mama’s estate. We go around one, I think.”

  He turned back toward me. “Oh. That sounds important.” He kept his voice even, like everything we shared wasn’t so bizarre.

  “Please just…what I said about a break….”

  “Hilly…are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “No. It’s the opposite. I feel…very attached. I’m worried that…I know you have another life…friends…things you like to do. You’ve done enough for me. More than enough.”

  “Sometimes you have to be the one who needs so others can have the blessing of giving,” he said, his dark eyes shining with his cleverness.

  “Oh. Yeah. But there has to be a limit,” I said, my chin lifting a little.

  “Yeah…well I’ll let you know. Right now…I’m doing what I want to do. A girl told me that too…people do what they want.”

  “Okay,” I took in a big breath. “You have to go.” I said. “Are you going to be able to work for Lonnie without losing it? He’s not worth it.”

  We’d made it to the door of my room now and he held my hands a
nd kissed my knuckles. He looked pleased with himself for remembering the quotes. “You’re kind of adorable in the morning,” he said.

  “Adorable? Try telling that to Lonnie.”

  We laughed some. But inside…I wanted him to stay…forever.

  “Oh, the book.” I dug in my shelves and gave him books one and two.

  “Thanks,” he said. “She’ll be happy.”

  We kissed some more, but I fumbled for the knob and pulled the door open against us and pushed him a little. He got the message and slipped out. I didn’t follow him. But I watched him go to Mama’s room.

  “It’s empty,” he whispered.

  I nodded, relieved. But even with my bladder ready to burst I wasn’t ready to go out there. He looked at me as he went down the stairs and I blew him a kiss and he winked.

  I went to the window and watched. I heard him on the porch and the sound of him feeding Sooner. As if he knew I watched he appeared below walking backwards and looking up at me. He pointed to the porch and mouthed something.

  I put my hands up like, What? And he held his hands apart like he was showing me something small. Then he pointed to the porch and held up eight fingers.

  I had puppies.

  Finding My Thunder 23

  As soon as Danny left I grabbed clean clothes and holding my hand up to shield my eyes from the sight of Mama’s empty room I hurried to the bathroom. There I washed and dressed, failing to ignore the box of things that did not belong to anyone I knew which sat on the floor under the pedestal sink, the Spoolies, the Jergens lotion, the White Rain Hairspray and Pond’s cold cream, lots of brush curlers and pink sticks to hold them in place. This was the one bathroom and I was sharing it now.

  I was held in three very emotional realities: One, I was, to the core of my being, in love with Danny. Two, moving Mama’s things hit me so hard it was like I was facing her death with a new kind of amazement. Three, my home was invaded.

  I wore a dress, one I had ordered from the J. C. Penny’s catalogue with some money Naomi had given me last Christmas. It was the best dress I had, my favorite dress ever put together. It was an orangey brown with a cream colored mod-type pattern over it. It had a scooped neckline, flared some in the skirt with a ruffle around the hem. It tied at the waist. The sleeves were long and with elastic around the wrists that could be pushed to my elbows. I did that. I left my hair long and pinned it back on each side with barrettes. I changed out my hoops for some long fake tarnished gold earrings.

  Good or bad this was me, and I said that to myself looking in the mirror. I hoped I didn’t look childish or something. I turned to the side and stood on my tip-toes to see if my breasts made much of a show and they did. Not spectacular, but not back-row either, so it would do. Maybe they would help me look more than twelve years old.

  Back to my room. I did not put my hand up this time to shield my eyes from Mama’s bare room. I even walked to the door and looked in thankful Danny had done it first that morning and told me the coast was clear.

  I walked into the middle. I stood upon her magic carpet, the one she couldn’t ride out of here. I wondered when she had given in, when was the moment?

  I already knew it was way before the lump in her breast. That lump was just the ticket to glory-land. Way before that she quit. I was not judging her harsh, I didn’t think I was, but when had she decided her life was so heavy she was pinned beneath it, trapped and dying?

  Did I even know? Or had I brought her a cheese sandwich or some soup and here she’d just said to herself, in her mind, I quit. I’m dying now. When did she pull the plug on herself? Was it during “Columbo,” or while I read her my homework?

  I couldn’t of done it myself, packed her up. It was brutal…this new family pushing in…dismantling Mama. They had no right being here, no conscience. But it wasn’t them. It was Lonnie. He knew.

  Naomi would say, ‘Hate will change you. Wash it off. Get washed. You can not take a fire into your breast and not be burned,’ she would say.

  How I loved that image of a girl swallowing fire, a girl licking the smoke off her fingers, swallowing big and smiling, smiling, until she turned red, until the fire burst out of her mouth, her eyes, and she disappeared into ash…but she burned some of the world before she left, she singed it good and black.

  I wanted a cigarette.

  I could self-destruct in front of Lonnie. But wasn’t that what Mama had done? It didn’t change a thing. When someone wanted you dead, wanted you gone, the very best thing you could do to help their cause was to die.

  I wasn’t here to help his cause, that I did know. I’d left the notion of killing myself in the bathroom that afternoon I held the razor blade.

  The one I was really mad at and couldn’t even get to…the one who had taken herself beyond me as if I didn’t matter…was Mama.

  Hate for Lonnie made me want to turn on something…a bottle through a window. But hate for what she’d done could easy make me turn on myself.

  I heard Naomi’s voice like a tape in my head…hate changed a person.

  And so did love. Naomi’s kind. Her ladies. The love Danny had awakened in me and the bargain I had made with God…for my beloved.

  Dickens reacting to a friendly kiss. Annie trying on my shoes. Sooner. This was my heart. Hate could squeeze me, choke me, pierce me…but it could not choke the love from me…it would not.

  Love had to win.

  At one o’clock that afternoon we were sitting at that big smooth table in Mr. Durr’s office, me and Naomi. She wore her blue hat, the one reminded me of a flying saucer cause the netting swirled round and round. She wore that and she sat there holding her big purse. She looked at me and smiled cause I was staring at her.

  That morning as I left my house, I stepped quietly past the living room where Loreena’s two children slept, the girl on the couch, the boy on the floor. I was not jealous…but I did pity them and that surprised me much as anything. They didn’t know yet, life with Lonnie Grunier was sinking sand.

  Once outside I had looked under the porch and seen the puppies, the mix of innocent colors. I dragged the bag of dog food off the porch to the entrance Sooner used to go under and rolled the sides down so it made kind of a bowl and she could help herself. Then I put that right under the porch, but I had to keep my dress clean so I could not go climbing under just yet, bad enough my hands already smelled like dog-food.

  I had hours to kill. So, I walked some keeping an eye peeled for Tahlila’s blue car. I took refuge in the library once it opened. I started to look through an art book they had on one of the tables in the quiet section that was often empty. I hadn’t been turning the pages long when I came upon a picture of a painting that captured me. It was of a Dutch man and woman…looked like he was going off to war, or he’d just come home, and she was standing there, head bowed, all of her angst in the way she stood. His arm was around her and his attention, the way he looked at her…I’d never seen such an expression captured, but I’d felt that way…with Danny…the way he could look at me, in me, through me to my soul. I don’t know how long I looked at that painting. I would think I’d seen it enough, then I’d return to it again and again. I passed those hours that way.

  Now I was here in Mr. Jenks’ office, picking at my nails and thinking of Annie’s little fingers, each tip in chipped pink, each nail bitten. I pictured them holding one of the Nancy Drew books. I pictured her under the covers reading by flashlight and I couldn’t help but smile.

  And Dickens, lying for Danny, it went with sleeping in Sukey’s bed, Danny said. Such admiration in his eyes for his big brother. I pictured him in Danny’s bed once he left for the army. I hoped he didn’t have to lie for Sukey. Lord.

  But before I got sad I thought of the sweet times Danny and me had shared in my room, and I was glad I had these thoughts to bring to this table that shone like still water, and Mr. Durr’s strange papers floated along the top like a raft ready to crash into my thoughts, thoughts of Lonnie and his new family and the
y didn’t know.

  “You can step out Don,” Durr said to his security man and Mr. Durr waited until he closed the door. Then he turned to us. “Miss Naomi and Hillary I asked you two here today, to make known to both of you the terms of Renata Grunier’s estate.”

  Naomi reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. It’s like she squeezed my heart too, while she was at it. Hearing Mama’s name like this…official…reminded me of the funeral.

  “Isn’t Mr. Grunier supposed to be here?” she asked.

  “He’s late,” Durr said.

  But on cue we heard Lonnie talking to Don, the fake jovial voice I knew he saved for special occasions when he had to act normal and was ready to shit his pants. Then the door burst open and slammed against the wall, “Oh shit,” Lonnie said, then put his hand over his mouth and grabbed the doorknob. He’d seen me, seen Naomi, and all smiles dropped off.

  “What the hell is she doing here?” he said looking at Durr but nodding Naomi’s way.

  “Have a seat Lonnie,” Durr said releasing a big breath.

  Lonnie yanked out a chair and sat. The air moved with the oil smell and the smell of beer. He’d probably been drinking for a couple of hours by now. Seemed like the white walls moved in about a foot all around.

  Durr sat at the head of the table. That put Lonnie across from Naomi and me. If at any time during this discourse he leapt over that expanse of wood for Naomi, I planned to stop him. I almost laughed at how many times I’d planned how I’d stop Lonnie. If I had a knife or a gun I wouldn’t have to work so hard.

  I was staring at him, pondering if I’d have the guts to use such when he looked back at me, but he couldn’t hold my gaze so he shifted his eyes and his butt side to side and Durr picked up the papers again.

  Durr read how Mama, being of sound mind and body…and Lonnie guffawed some on that and cleared his throat…but Durr went on. I was half listening drowning in my thoughts again, Mama and sound mind, when Lonnie slapped the table. It did not ripple like water at all, but held firm like ice.

  I could see to the back of Lonnie’s throat he was that gleeful, mouth open, sounds like hallelujah. “She finally got it right after all this time…all this time she held out…fought against me…that one behind it all,” here he pointed to Naomi and I felt myself get ready.