When the Crickets Stopped Singing

by Marilyn Cram-Donahue

  “If that cat’s sick, you oughtn’t to be holding it,” Geraldine said. “It might have ringworm or something worse.”

  “That’s not what’s wrong,” Dodie said. “It got in a fight.” The cat turned to look at us, and we saw the torn ear and a bloody place where an eye should have been. Reba Lu put her hand over her mouth and made a gagging sound.

  “Nobody was watching out for it,” Dodie said. “That’s how it got to be a mangy stray. But look here.” She ran her fingers gently through the thick fur on the cat’s neck, pulling it apart so we could see how white it was under all that dirt. “This is how it will look once I get it all cleaned up. If I doctor its bloody places, I’ll bet it will get better. I can’t do anything about the missing eye though.”

  She looked at us. “Someone has to love it,” she said.

  Nobody knew what to say to that. I couldn’t help thinking that Dodie had taken on that sick cat to nurse without any hesitation while the three of us had made a big thing of trying to be nice to her.

  “What happened to your legs?” I asked. They were dotted with bloody places only partially covered by pieces of gauze, held on by tape. At first I thought the cat might have scratched her, but she said, “I cut myself.”

  I looked closer. “You shaved your legs?”

  Dodie nodded. “I wanted them to look nice. You don’t want to go to the beach with hairy legs.”

  I looked down at my own legs. Mama would kill me if I shaved them. “Rub on some lemon juice and sit in the sun” was what she would say.

  “I’m invited to the All-Church Picnic,” Dodie said. “I got a bathing suit today. It’s yellow with ruffles.” She looked at me. “Your mama brought it to the house. She said the picnic is free. We don’t even have to pay for the bus ride. And the best thing is … you don’t have to go to church to get invited.” She looked at Reba Lu when she said that.

  Geraldine turned to me. “So that’s what your moth—” I jabbed her with my elbow. Hard.

  Dodie didn’t pay any attention. She kept petting the cat. “I already tried it on. It fits real good.”

  “That’s fine,” Reba Lu said. “We came by to tell you about the picnic. Now that you have a bathing suit, you can go with us. The bus seats are two by two, so we four can split up and sit close together.”

  “We’ll meet at the church,” I told her. “If we’re early, we can sit at the front. That way, we have a better chance of seeing the ocean first.”

  Reba Lu put her arm around Geraldine as if they were best friends, and I knew which one of us Dodie would be sitting with. But I wasn’t one to give up easy.

  “We’ll switch around on the way home,” I said.

  “Sure we will,” Reba Lu told me.

  I knew she didn’t mean it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The next Saturday, we were up early. When I came into the kitchen, Mama was skinning boiled potatoes at the sink. She had already chopped onions and celery and I knew she was putting the last touches on her famous potato salad for the picnic lunch at the beach. She always added a little smashed garlic to the dressing and sprinkled paprika and chopped parsley over the top. There was never a scrap left after folks tasted it and went back for seconds.

  I tried to slip past her to the back door because I had seen Daddy heading out toward the toolshed in the side yard. I had thought to tell him last night about that spicy smell that I knew Mr. Clement favored, but somehow the words never found their way out of my mouth. Every time I started to say something, I remembered the way that man looked standing outside our tent and I got a case of the shivers from the back of my neck right down to my tailbone.

  I was sure in my own mind who he was, but I kept wondering what would happen to me if I told. What would Mr. Jefferson Clement do if he caught me somewhere alone? I headed for the back door to find Daddy, but Mama stopped me. I was so relieved I felt weak in the knees when I heard her voice.

  “Come right over here and give me a hand packing this food for the picnic,” she said.

  I closed the back door and let out all my breath in a whoosh of relief. I felt the same as I did at school once when Miss Harper asked me a question I didn’t know the answer to, and just when I was starting to sweat, the bell rang to signal the end of the day.

  I thought about telling Mama about Reba Lu and Geraldine and me sunning ourselves in the preacher’s backyard, and how Mr. Clement had his binoculars pointed right at us. But I didn’t tell her. When I thought about him looking at us in secret like that, my skin prickled with goose bumps.

  I was glad when she put her arm around me and gave me a squeeze. She gave a little laugh and said, “I think I’m glad this picnic only comes once a year.”

  We packed the big wicker picnic basket with potato salad, tomatoes from the backyard vines, deviled eggs made with minced onions and mayonnaise and sprinkled with a dash of paprika and a tiny sprig of parsley on top, and the two chickens Mama had fried last night. Enough for three families, Daddy said.

  Eddie came in the back door and reached for a chicken leg and Mama slapped his hand. Then she said, “Oh, all right, but you won’t get as much once we get there.” I reached for one, too, but then I remembered how I always got carsick when I had a full stomach. I didn’t want Charles to see me throw up.

  Daddy had bought some dry ice that he packed in dish towels in the bottom of the basket to keep the food cool. I loved the way it made smoky trails in the air, but I knew better than to touch a piece and burn my fingers.

  The members of the church choir were supplying lemonade. Miss Lucy Clement told Mama they’d squeezed lemons until their fingers puckered. Old Man Snyder was bringing watermelons from his backyard patch. Mama said she was carrying her fresh-baked lemon cake on her lap, safe in a covered container. People would take turns turning the handle on the ice-cream churn, but Willie Jack always stepped in for the last part, when the cream got frozen thick and the turning got hard.

  I wore my new bathing suit underneath a blue cotton skirt and a white Dotted Swiss blouse. Mama had gathered the skirt with elastic running through the waistband so that I could slide out of it in a jiffy. The blouse would take a little longer because it had blue glass turtles for buttons.

  When I told Reba Lu what I was going to wear, she grinned and said, “Blue suit, blue skirt, blue buttons. Charles will go out of his mind.”

  “Why should he?” Geraldine had asked. For someone who knows so much, Geraldine can be a little slow at times. But I did admire the way she got to wear her sandals without socks.

  I wanted to wear mine that way, but Mama said I would get blisters. So I put on my white socks with lace around the ankles and fastened the buckles on my sandals. Then I picked up my latest copy of Calling All Girls and found the article “Look Your Super Best at the Beach.”

  A model was standing on the sand with the ocean behind her. She was wearing a skirt like mine, but she didn’t have blue glass turtles on her blouse. The next picture showed her in her bathing suit, with the skirt draped over one arm. She had pink polish on her toes. I knew I’d never get away with that. I got a bath towel, though, and practiced draping it until I got the hang of it, putting my free hand on one hip and letting the towel almost touch the floor.

  “Hurry up, Angie. We’re about to leave without you,” Mama called. I took a last look in the mirror and grabbed my favorite blue shorts, just in case the skirt got tiresome.

  At the church, three yellow school buses had pulled up alongside the curb. Reba Lu said, “My daddy told me this picnic is a way for all the people in Messina to come together and be God’s family.”

  Geraldine looked at her, then at the three buses. “You don’t mean we should sit with the Baptists or Catholics, do you?”

  “Why not? It’s a good way to meet folks from other persuasions.”

  Geraldine sighed. “That would be fine, I guess, if everybody would do it. But they won’t. You just wait and see, Reba Lu. This isn’t Heaven. It’s Messina.”
/>   Dodie came hurrying along the sidewalk, and I grabbed her by the arm. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get a good seat.”

  When Dodie climbed on ahead of me, I could see a few scabs on her legs, but the bandages were gone. She had tried to brush her hair—I could see places where the bristles had smoothed it down a bit. But she had given up on most of the tangles. I wondered how long it had been since she had washed it.

  She was wearing a white blouse and faded navy blue shorts that looked like they could have been somebody’s old gym uniform. The blouse looked freshly ironed, but the two bottom buttons were missing, and the gap was held together with large safety pins. She gave a loud sniff and pulled a tissue from her pocket. I hoped she had an allergy to her one-eyed cat and not a summer cold that she would spread around.

  I did have to admit that Dodie was making an effort to clean herself up, but she still had a long way to go. As far as I was concerned, my sitting with her all the way to La Mirada Beach was just as much missionary work as Reba Lu would ever do.

  Jefferson Clement was sitting alone about halfway back. As soon as we got on, he turned his face away and started looking out the window. Geraldine and Reba Lu took the first empty seat, three rows behind the driver, and Dodie and I slid in behind them. I went first so I could have the window seat and regretted it before I even sat down. Charles Adams had the aisle seat right across from us. I whispered to Dodie that we should change places.

  “What for?” she demanded. Then she saw Charles and said in a singsong voice he couldn’t help but hear, “Angie’s got a boyfriend … Angie’s got a boyfriend …”

  “Shut up!” I hissed. “You be quiet, or you can take your shaved legs and find yourself somebody else to sit with.”

  Dodie’s mouth dropped open, and she gave me a little half smile. “What do you know? You can stand up for yourself.” She got up and crawled over me till she was next to the window. She scooted over so far there was almost room for another whole person between us. I couldn’t tell if she was mad at me or not.

  Reba Lu turned around and looked at us. She had heard the whole thing and was probably thinking I had broken our promise to love Dodie Crumper.

  I sighed. Even though Dodie had embarrassed me, I had been rude to her. Normally I wouldn’t have cared, but it didn’t seem right to spoil the picnic for anybody. Not even Dodie. I reached out and gave her a poke.

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” I said.

  She leaned way over and looked at Charles, gave me a wink, and wiped her nose on the back of her arm.

  “Use your tissue,” I whispered. She dug in her pocket and brought out a tissue. It was already soggy, so I gave her one of mine. She blew her nose on it and started to hand it back to me.

  “That’s OK,” I said, trying not to gag. “You can keep it.” We were quiet for a couple of minutes. “Have you got your bathing suit on under your shorts?” I asked.

  Dodie nodded.

  “Good. When we get to the beach, you can slip your clothes off, and we’ll go jump waves.”

  Dodie raised an eyebrow. “Do you have to go out deep to do that?”

  I stared at her, and it came to me that Dodie had never been to the beach before. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “We’ll hang on to each other. And there are lifeguards. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  She gave me a long look. “I’m not afraid. But I’ll have to think about it,” she said.

  I turned to glance behind me and saw that Geraldine had been right. Every year it was the same. The Congregationalists sat together on one bus, the Baptists on another, and all the leftover religions on the third. Once Reba Lu figured that one out, she was going to have plenty to say about our town.

  Mrs. Clement hurried down the aisle with Miss Lucy and Miss Martin, their boarder. She eased into a window seat in front of Mr. Clement. She was hugging a casserole wrapped in layers of newspaper, folded down at the edges and tucked under the bottom, the way Mama does when she wants to keep her scalloped potatoes warm. Lucy and Miss Martin looked at each other. Quick as a wink, Miss Martin slid into the seat next to Mrs. Clement. That left Lucy only one place to go. She didn’t look too happy about having to sit by her father. I didn’t blame her a bit.

  I noticed Dr. Thomas and Miss Emma sitting way at the back, in the long seat that stretched clear across the bus. There was plenty of room for a few more back there, but neither Gisele Martin nor Lucy Clement had made a move to join them, even though it was obvious they weren’t very happy sitting near Lucy’s father. If it was me, I’d choose Miss Emma over Mr. Clement any day. Even if she was tetched, I thought she was harmless. And nice, in a different kind of way.

  Dodie twisted to see what I was looking at. “Don’t Mr. Clement look dapper!” she said. “He’s wearing the shirt that I ironed for him.” She started biting at her thumbnail, chewing until she had a ragged piece loose that she could peel away with her front teeth.

  “You better quit that,” I told her. “You’ll make your thumb bleed.”

  She ignored me and said, “I was doing fine until Mama chased him off. I liked making some money on my own.” She chewed a bit on her index finger, then turned to me. “I keep it in a pickle jar that I hide in the mattress springs of my bed. She’ll never find it there. I’m the only one who changes the sheets.”

  In front of us, Reba Lu and Geraldine were whispering, their heads close together, the way Geraldine and I used to do. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the seat. We had an hour and a half before we got to the beach, and I was spending it with Dodie Crumper. I began thinking how Dodie and I had waded in the cold water of the park and shared secrets. When I was alone with her, she didn’t seem so bad, but when we were with Geraldine and Reba Lu, it seemed like I was seeing her through their eyes. I didn’t like the way that made me feel.

  Somebody touched my arm. I turned and saw Charles holding an open box of graham crackers across the aisle. “Help yourself,” he said.

  I was afraid to take one and afraid not to. What if I got carsick and threw up? That would be awful. What if I hurt his feelings? That would be worse. I reached out and took a graham cracker and bit into it. One cracker couldn’t hurt.

  Charles grinned. “Have another,” he said.

  I grinned back at him. The first one seemed to be going down all right. And I was getting hungry because I hadn’t tasted any of Mama’s fried chicken that morning. I decided to take a chance.

  I reached for a second cracker. “Thanks,” I said. Charles grinned again. Then he reached across me and offered one to Dodie. She took it and broke it into four pieces. She took a bite out of one and put the others in her pocket with the snotty tissue.

  The bus whooshed and wheezed and ground its gears, and Mr. Sadler, who sang tenor in the church choir but was the driver for the day, turned the wheel and pushed on the accelerator. The bus gave a jump or two, then settled down as we swung away from the curb and headed down Main Street toward the river road and the highway beyond.

  We still had a long drive, but we were on our way.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I see it! I see it!” yelled Violet. She stood up in the aisle and began hopping up and down.

  “Sit down right this minute,” Reverend Adams commanded.

  She sat. I was surprised. I didn’t think anyone ever told either of the Adams twins what to do.

  Rose gave a smirk that said she was glad she wasn’t the one in trouble. “You’re not supposed to get out of your seat when the bus is moving,” she reminded her sister.

  Violet glanced at her. “Shut up, Miss Goody-Goody.” Then she began pointing again. “I win!” she shouted. “I win because I saw it first.”

  We all craned our necks and looked out the front window. Sure enough, there it was, just visible over the rise of a hill. A stretch of blue, darker than the sky and tipped with white flecks.

  “That’s the Pacific Ocean,” Violet told us, “and I win.”

  “Just smell that salt air,”
Reverend Adams said, and we all took deep breaths.

  “There’s nothing like it,” Miss Emma piped up from the back of the bus. “Is there, Papa?”

  I looked back and saw Dr. Thomas put his arm around her and pat her on the shoulder. “That’s right, Emmy. Nothing like salt air to cure what ails us.” His words carried over the noise of the bus.

  I wondered if salt air could cure what ailed Miss Emma. Maybe other people were thinking the same thing, for it got quiet, and the only sounds for the next few minutes came from the chugging of the engine and the thud the bus made whenever it hit a pothole in the road.

  Then the ocean came into full view and everybody cheered. Charles looked over at me and grinned. He offered me another graham cracker.

  I reached out and took one from the package. “Thanks,” I said as my fingers brushed the side of his hand. There was something special about a day at the beach.

  As soon as Mr. Sadler found a place to park, we piled off the bus and stretched our arms and legs. Then we found a good spot near the pier to open up our big umbrellas and spread beach towels on the warm sand. Reba Lu and Geraldine and Dodie and I stripped off our clothes and stood in our bathing suits in the sun.

  Mama motioned us over to where she was settled against a folding wooden frame covered with red-and-blue striped canvas. She stopped rubbing lotion on her arms long enough to pass around a tube of zinc oxide for our noses.

  “I don’t want to look like a clown,” I protested.

  “You’ll look more like one if your nose burns red,” Reba Lu said. She squeezed some zinc oxide on one finger and dabbed it all over her nose. “Here, let me do yours,” she said, and she smeared some on mine and Geraldine’s.

  Dodie stood there, waiting. Reba Lu tried to smile as she covered Dodie’s nose with the thick white cream, but her mouth was squinched up like she was sucking a lemon. I wondered what she would do if Dodie gave one of her huge wet sniffs.

  We ran across the hot sand, not stopping until it became cool and damp where the waves splashed over it and turned it wet and brown. Glistening seaweed cluttered the shoreline in stringy clumps. I pulled off some of the shiny brown bulbs and popped them between my fingers.