Chasing Lilacs

by Carla Stewart

  Tuwana raised her eyebrows like maybe Mama’s nerve treatment didn’t take either. She didn’t say it though, and right then my heart swelled with gratitude for Tuwana.

  Mama stood poised with a lemon square. When she raised the sweet to her mouth, dots of powdered sugar swirled like the teensiest snowflakes. Floating, twirling, like the inside of my head spinning with thoughts of Sister Doris and Penelope, Mama and Sylvia, Cly and his uncle Norm. I sat glued to Mrs. Johnson’s new couch with the smell of furniture polish and baby powder and the clatter of forks and punch cups and didn’t know what to do. I clenched my fists and closed my eyes, hoping when I opened them everything would be all right.

  My insides felt like the day when Mama swallowed the pills. Something was bad wrong, but I didn’t know what. When I opened my eyes, Mama stared in my direction, a strange look on her face. Detached. Vacant.

  [ FOURTEEN ]

  MAMA DIDN’T MENTION BABY Penelope when we left the party, but the minute we got home she took a bubble bath. At supper she told Daddy all about Alice Johnson’s furniture and how much she enjoyed visiting with the ladies. I sat there thinking that Mama’s shock treatments had done something to her brain so when unpleasant things slipped out, they got erased, never to be remembered again. I couldn’t figure out anything else it could be.

  And what about Doobie’s mom, Mabel Thornton? What did it mean that her nerve treatment didn’t take? Did you have to go back and get a booster once in a while or what? Maybe Doobie acted like such a doofus because he worried about his mother the same way I did mine. All this time I thought he just orbited another planet, like Saturn or something.

  When Scarlett scratched at the front door, I followed her out and sat on the front porch while she did her business. She romped and rolled over and over in the grass. Her front paws bounced back and forth, begging me to play chase.

  “Oh, all right. I’ll take you for a walk.”

  Another thing. Cly. Why did he leave? What happened between him and Norm? Maybe his dad called and wanted him to come back early.

  I let Scarlett lead the way while we walked. She raced up the middle of camp. When she chased a cat, I followed. The next thing I knew, we were in Mr. Wallace’s yard. Across the street, the MacLemores’ drapes were drawn, the front door closed. I was pulling on Scarlett’s leash to take her back home when Mr. Wallace drove up in his truck.

  “Evening, Sammie. Out for a walk?”

  “Sorta.” Mr. Wallace might know something. He and Cly got along. I took a deep breath. “Actually, I was wondering about Cly. I heard he might be leaving.”

  He gathered his lunch box and started toward the house, motioning for me to follow.

  “Maybe you oughta ask him yourself. He’s keeping me company awhile.”

  “Here? At your house?”

  He nodded and pushed open the front door. “Say, young man, you got a visitor.”

  Cly’s ears reddened when he saw me. Scarlett raced ahead of me into Mr. Wallace’s front room and sniffed Cly’s leg.

  “Sam. What’re you doing here?”

  “What’s it look like? I came to learn how to play backgammon.” Where that came from was beyond me.

  Mr. Wallace’s leathery face, lined like a faded road map, broke out in a grin. “Well, son, aren’t you gonna ask your guest to sit down?”

  “Uh… sure. Have a seat.” Cly pointed to the couch.

  Now I felt stupid. What do you think you’re doing? Scarlett jumped on my lap and licked my face. “I guess you want to know why I came.”

  “To learn backgammon, you said.” Cly stood with his hands jammed in his pockets.

  “That’s just part of it. Earlier today, I heard you’d left, gone back to California….”

  A look passed between the two, something I didn’t understand.

  “Not exactly…”

  Mr. Wallace cleared his throat. “Think I’ll go check on the garden. Give you two time to talk.”

  The house had an old-fashioned feel to it. Furniture with worn spots, a braided rug over the pine floor in the front room, a floor lamp beside a spindled rocking chair. A painting of the Last Supper hung on the wall. Angled between the couch and the rocker, a small coffee table had a game board on one end and a Bible, whose cover had a dull, worn-out look, on the other.

  “This where you play backgammon?” I pointed to the table, feeling even more stupid since it was so obvious.

  “Yeah.” Cly lowered himself into the rocker with his legs stretched out in front.

  “So what did you mean not exactly?”

  “It’s a long story.” He looked at the rug like the braided coils might give him the answer.

  “I’m listening.”

  “California’s not all I made it out to be. My old man…” He stopped and looked at me. “Sorry, I know you don’t like that expression. My father got himself arrested two days ago. Armed robbery this time. And assaulting a cop. Probably drunk too.”

  “How awful.”

  “When Norm got the call, he got bent, cussing, and all that. He yelled about where did that leave me, said he had half a mind to ship me back to California and let the state deal with me. Aunt Eva started crying and said I was staying put, right here.” A thin line of sweat bubbled above Cly’s lip.

  “That was a nice thing for her to say.”

  “Get real. I know when I’m not wanted. It’s bad enough getting knocked around by your old man.” He didn’t bother correcting himself this time. “I decided not to stick around and get the shaft by old Norm too.”

  “So how’d you end up over here with Mr. Wallace?”

  “He saw me thumbing a ride on the Mandeville highway. He said I oughta consider my options and brought me back here.”

  “Your aunt Eva wants you to stay. That’s something.”

  “Yeah, she kept going on about how much I’d like school in Mandeville, but jeepers, how would she know?”

  “What about your mother? Couldn’t you go live with her?”

  His eyes bugged out like I’d just asked him if he wanted to eat a plate full of worms. “My mom split when I was two years old. We ain’t seen her since.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t think what else to say.

  Just then Mr. Wallace came in, and Cly jerked his head toward him. “Slim’s letting me stay here till I figure out something about Norm.”

  Mr. Wallace knocked the dust off his work pants and hung his cap by the front door. “Norm’s not all bad. He just ain’t had the pleasure of raising a kid.”

  “Some blast.”

  “We’ll see.” Mr. Wallace washed his hands in the kitchen and hollered. “I thought you two were gonna play backgammon.”

  Cly pulled out the board and showed me how to set up and the basic moves, how to block points and cast off when we’d worked our men around the board. By the second game, I’d gotten the hang of it and beat Cly by two. Scarlett started prancing around, so I scooped her up and thanked Cly for the lesson.

  “Anytime, cat.”

  When he opened the door for me, I saw him look across the street at his uncle’s house, but I could tell he didn’t want me to see him looking, so I turned to Slim. “Thanks, Mr. Wallace.”

  “Just call me Slim. That’ll do.” He gave me a nod. I felt bad for Cly, but Slim seemed awful nice—nothing like Tuwana always went on about. I couldn’t wait to call and tell her Cly might be going to Mandeville to school.

  The phone was ringing when I got home. Daddy answered and handed me the receiver. Tuwana plunged right in on the other end. “PJ had her facts all screwed up. Cly didn’t run off to California. It’s worse. He’s staying with Slim Wallace.”

  “Really?” I decided to hear what wild story Tuwana had now.

  “Yes, really. He had a fight with his uncle, but Slim stepped in and took over. Norm’s all broken up about it. Now there’s no telling how things will turn out.”

  “Slim’s not so bad.”

  “Mother says nothing good will come of it. W
hat with his reputation and all.”

  “Tuwana, you are the only one I know who thinks Slim has this dark, criminal background. Not one shred of evidence exists to support your theory. He’s helping Cly patch things up with his uncle. Furthermore, Cly’s staying at Graham Camp and going to school in Mandeville this year.”

  “Oh really? And how would you know this?”

  “I have my sources.” It came out snottier sounding than I intended, so I added, “Actually Cly told me himself.”

  Tuwana snorted into the phone. “Cly MacLemore? Going to Mandeville school? Trust me, Texas is not ready for Cly MacLemore.”

  “Well, they’d better get that way. I think he’ll be in Doobie’s class.”

  “Speaking of which, PJ didn’t get that story straight either.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Doobie’s mother.”

  The hair on my neck prickled.

  “When Mrs. Thornton called the plant office screaming and carrying on about needing her husband to get her to the hospital, she didn’t have a nervous breakdown collapse.”

  “Relapse, Tuwana. The word is relapse.”

  “Whatever. She had kidney stones, and Mr. Thornton called back later and said he wouldn’t be to work until the neurologist figured out how to get them to pass.”

  “Urologist. That’s what a kidney doctor is called.” I knew because I’d had a bad kidney infection in third grade and had to go to a specialist… a urologist.

  “Stop correcting everything I say. You’d think you were a walking encyclopedia. Here I am, telling you what’s going on, and what do I get? Vocabulary lessons. Next time I won’t bother calling you at all.”

  “I apologize. I just wish for once you’d get your facts straight.”

  Tuwana slammed the receiver in my ear.

  The next day and the day after, I tried to call Tuwana to apologize for being a snit, but she was always out. Or told her sisters to say she was out.

  Then out of the blue, she was on the phone, jabbering as if nothing had happened, hysterical about cheerleading tryouts and whether or not to wear mascara to school. More than once she recited a list of the teachers who gave detentions for any no-good reason. Her nervous talk didn’t do anything to erase my fears about leaving Mama alone when school started.

  Cly, on the other hand, didn’t seem the least bit concerned about school. He told me his uncle apologized and wanted him to try out for the Mandeville basketball team. Shrugging like it was no big deal, Cly said he couldn’t wait. He’d moved back in with Norm and Eva, but we still met at Slim’s, who seemed like the grandpa I never had. His slate-colored eyes crinkled up when I outsmarted Cly, and he was nowhere near the murderer Tuwana still proclaimed him to be.

  Mostly, though, those dying days of summer, I stuck close to Mama. I watched her when she thought I wasn’t looking, trying to pinpoint little signs of her memory slipping. But honestly, she just sailed through each day, pretty as you please, chatting about this and that, sipping her coffee and leaving pink lipstick smudges around the edges of the cup.

  No matter how hard I tried not to think about it, every day brought the first day of junior high nearer, and with each new day my stomach gnawed deeper. A terrible empty feeling like fingers clawing their way to my backbone. When I mentioned it to Mama, she said, “It’s the excitement of junior high. Changing classes, having a locker for the first time, just a whole new part of your life.”

  Then she gave me a teaspoonful of Pepto-Bismol and showed me how to clip the new sponge rollers around my hair.

  [ FIFTEEN ]

  SITTING OVER THE TIRE humps wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The only way to get any leg room was to turn sideways so my new penny loafers stuck out in the aisle. Tuwana put one knee in the seat we shared and turned around. “Y’all have to yell and clap for PJ and me at the tryouts. Crowd enthusiasm counts as one-fourth of the total points.”

  “You bet, Tu-tu,” Doobie said.

  Tuwana scrunched her eyes at Doobie, and I could see she’d gone with the full makeup treatment—blue eye shadow, black liner, and the new Maybelline mascara she’d bought down at Willy’s.

  Cly sat next to Doobie, his feet turned to the aisle to make room for Doobie’s orangutan legs. He had his gym shoes—new Converse high-tops—on his lap. They were a peace offering from Norm and Eva, he said. Along with a new basketball since he was trying out for the school team. Cly’s flattop haircut shone and smelled of Vitalis.

  I edged my foot over to his and nudged it. “You nervous?”

  “Nah, I got this gig made in the shade.”

  “Oh sure. You talk like that in Texas, they’ll boot you all the way back to California.”

  “Hey, I’m tight with Doob here. He’ll show me the ropes.”

  “That’s a scary thought.”

  Before we knew it, the bus passed the Mandeville, Population 1,639 sign and rolled to a stop behind the school. As we piled out, Cly whispered behind me, “Cool haircut, Sam.”

  “Thanks. It’s called a pageboy. Good luck on your first day.” I waved as he followed Doobie toward the high school entrance.

  The junior high had to report to the auditorium, where a proctor passed out stapled packets.

  “Sammie, over here!” Gina Hardy jumped up and down, waving her arms and pointing to the seat she’d saved me. “Tell me about your mother.” We sat down. “I heard she had a nervous breakdown.”

  “Oh that. She had some problems, but she’s all over it.”

  “You never get over nerve problems.”

  I smiled. “Some people do, I guess.” I liked Gina. Friendly. Bookish, like me. Taller than all the boys in our class, like me. My best town friend.

  A microphone screeched from the stage. “Testing. Testing. Find your seats, please.”

  “It’s Howdy Doody time,” Gina whispered behind her hand.

  Carrot-colored hair and buckteeth got Mr. Howard, the principal, his nickname. It fit him to a T. His voice boomed into the microphone, “For you who are seventh graders, you’ve passed the diapering, baby-coddling stage. Things work different from now on. We have high expectations, and you will be held accountable. The packet we handed you is your instruction bible for the next nine months. Guard it with your life.” His eyes bore down, searing deep into ours. A blistering sermon followed, citing all the deadly sins like smoking in the parking lot, monkey business in the halls, and a long list of don’ts for the dress code. Brother Henry could have gotten a few pointers on pulpit pounding and driving home the wages of sin from Mr. Howard.

  “It’s all a big show,” Gina whispered. “He just does it to scare the bejeebies out of us.”

  “He certainly got my attention.” I thumbed through the instruction packet.

  During the bathroom break, we talked about the extracurriculars we wanted. School newspaper for me. Typing for Gina. Thankfully, she didn’t bring up the subject of Mama again.

  “I’m having a slumber party Friday night after the football game. Can you come?” We found our way to our lockers and then homeroom (second page in the bible packet), both of us glad we had classes together.

  “Sounds like fun. I’ll let you know.”

  Both the junior high and high school came to watch the cheerleading tryouts right before lunch. While the girls did their jumps and cheers, I heard Doobie and Cly in the section behind me: “Tu-tu! PJ! Tu-tu! PJ!”

  I turned my head and saw Cly with freshman girls on either side of him. Very friendly freshman girls. I whipped my head back around to the action on the floor. A flush crept up my neck, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. I should have been happy Cly was getting along great. Too great, it seemed. Why hadn’t I thought about all the girls who would be swooning over the new kid from California? My stomach cartwheeled like Tuwana on the gym floor.

  Tuwana finished her jumps in the individual competition and ran up into the stands to sit by me, still carrying her pom-poms.

  “How’d I do? Do you think I have
a chance?” Her breaths came in short spurts, and her eyes twinkled like blue sparklers.

  “The best I’ve ever seen!” I meant it from the bottom of my heart. If anyone deserved to be a cheerleader, it was Tuwana.

  We had to wait until the last hour of the day to find out the cheerleading results. Back in the auditorium, extracurricular sponsors sat at tables with cardboard signs for the various options—yearbook, drama, newspaper, art, etc. Mr. “Howdy Doody” Howard gave us our instructions about signing up before announcing the 1958–59 cheerleaders. Ten girls had tried out for four positions. I held my breath as each name was called. Darsha West. PJ Ford. Linda Kay Howard. Patty Gruver.

  My heart sank. There had to be a mistake. He hadn’t called Tuwana’s name. Claps and cheers broke out, but all I could think was poor Tuwana. All those hours of practice down the tubes—her summer a complete waste. As soon as we were dismissed, I stood on tiptoes, scanning the auditorium. She had disappeared. I looked up and down the aisles, at the various tables where groups of students huddled, waiting to sign up. Finally I dashed to the bathroom and found her slumped on the floor, her back against the gray tile.

  “You were one of the best,” I said when she looked up, streaks of black mascara running down her cheeks.

  “You know what stinks? Miss Howdy Doody.”

  “Linda Kay, the principal’s daughter?”

  “She can’t even do the splits, not with those thighs. And another thing—PJ. She only tried out ’cuz I made her. She wasn’t supposed to beat me. All summer me telling her, ‘You can do it,’ and then what does she do? She gets to be a cheerleader, and I don’t. It’s just gross, that’s what. I might as well move to another planet or Italy. There’s absolutely no possible way I can ever show my face in this school again.”

  “Don’t exaggerate, Tuwana. You have no choice. Next year will be here before you know it, and you’ll make it then.” I turned the crank on the paper towel machine and yanked off a scratchy brown strip. After wetting it with cold water, I handed it to her. “Here, clean your face. We’ve got to sign up for extracurriculars.”