Chasing Lilacs

by Carla Stewart

  “Hey, everybody, welcome Sammie Tucker, our newest reporter on the job!” She took my hand and pulled me into the circle of students. We discussed the first edition, dividing up who would cover what. Mrs. Gray tacked a mock layout on an easeled board and gave a lesson on choosing the best headlines to capture the audience. The paper would come out the last Friday in September. My first assignment would be an article for the “Meet the Teachers” section. From a box Mrs. Gray had with all the teachers’ names, I drew out a name. Mr. Howard.

  A ripple went through me. Not the scary kind, but the head-to-toe thrill you get from riding the monkey cages at the carnival. Sammie Tucker. School Reporter. I couldn’t wait.

  The tingle carried me all the way home. That, and a couple more cherry Life Savers. Like when Belinda Zyskowski smiled at me through the gap in her front teeth when I got on the bus after school.

  “I’m sorry about your mother. My fish Bubbles died, and we flushed him. Mommy says I can get a new fish soon, so maybe you could get a new mother too.” I knew she didn’t mean it like that. Still, it cut through me.

  When I got off the bus, I found Scarlett at the end of a rope, one end tied to the leash, the other to the fire hydrant beside the driveway. “Don’t tell me; let me guess. You’re in trouble with Aunt Vadine.” I set my books on the porch and unsnapped the leash from her collar, and together we trooped into the house.

  “I’m home,” I hollered.

  “Take that mutt right back outside. She’s been nothing but a nuisance all day.” Aunt Vadine emerged from the bathroom smelling like ammonia. More cleaning?

  “I don’t think she liked being tied up.”

  “Then keep her out of my way.”

  I took Scarlett to my room to change clothes. When I opened my dresser drawer to get a pair of pedal pushers, I found it filled with cotton panties and long, chiffon nightgowns. Aunt Vadine’s undies? In my drawer? A quick check, and I found the next drawer also held her things. She’d left the bottom two for me. I raced to the closet. Her three suitcases stood at attention on the floor.

  A clammy, sick feeling came over me. Mama’s memory box! I rummaged in the far corner, throwing out a stuffed bear and my old Betsy McCall doll, and felt my heart skip a beat when I found the shoe box on the floor. Looking inside, I found all of Mama’s things. Untouched.

  What to do? I couldn’t keep it in the dresser or the closet. Think. Somewhere safe. Nothing seemed safe from Aunt Vadine. I jammed everything into my purse except Gone with the Wind. That went in my desk under a stack of old school papers.

  “Samantha, I could use your help,” Aunt Vadine barked from the other side of the door. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I threw on my clothes and reached for my Keds. Then I stopped. What made her think I wanted to help her? That Daddy and I even wanted her here? She wasn’t my mother, even though she seemed to think she could boss me around and yell at me. Not to mention the way she insulted Mama. I didn’t have to face her if I didn’t want to.

  Sitting at my desk, I pulled out a sheet of notebook paper and wrote down the questions for Mr. Howard’s interview. Name. Where he went to college. Why did he want to be a principal? Things like that. When I’d exhausted my choices, I doodled in the margins.

  Aunt Vadine stuck her head in after a while and glared at me. I smiled and pointed to the books on my desk. “Homework.” I pulled out my math book and did my assignment on fractions. Then I read about Patrick Henry and the minutemen in my history book. By the time Daddy got home, all my makeup work from school was done. And I hadn’t had to listen to Aunt Vadine or do any fetching for her.

  [ TWENTY-ONE ]

  THE DAY OF MY INTERVIEW with Mr. Howard, I wolfed down the beanie weenies, spinach, and fruit cocktail in the lunchroom so I wouldn’t be late.

  Tuwana raised her eyebrows when I stood to leave. “What’s the rush?”

  “Big interview for the paper.”

  “And who, pray tell, would that be?”

  “You’ll see.” I tried to act mysterious to cover up the nervous twinges in my stomach.

  Heading to the tray dropoff, I felt Tuwana’s eyes following me. I turned and gave her a finger wave before leaving the cafeteria and marching toward Mr. Howard’s office.

  “Come in, come in.” Mr. Howard waved me in, his mouth stuffed full, a piece of lettuce ruffled around his lips.

  “Thanks. I’m here for the interview for the Cougar Chronicle. You’ve been chosen for our featured teacher of the month, although technically you are the principal, not a teacher.” The words flew out of my mouth, and my knees shook. Calm down.

  “True, quite true. Although I did do a semester of student teaching before I went on to get my principal’s credentials.”

  “What did you teach?”

  “Geography. Quite a subject for a poor farm boy who’d never been more’n fifty miles from Happy, Texas.”

  “Good. You just answered one of my questions. Your background.” I fumbled with the paper in my hands, trying to read the questions I was supposed to ask. “Where did you go to college?”

  “West Texas State Teachers College. Down in Canyon. Please, Sammie, have a seat. This might take a while since I’ve got a few questions for you too.”

  Mrs. Gray hadn’t mentioned him being allowed to ask questions, but then, as principal of the school, he did have credentials, like he said. I sat down on the edge of the chair, scribbling about his family, why he wanted to become a principal.

  “Actually, I didn’t. I wanted to be a tree surgeon. My parents promised me a new car if I went into education. Sweetest roadster you’ve ever seen.” His face flushed red.

  “What’s the most important thing you’d like to say to students here in Mandeville?”

  He thought a while, chewing the last of his sandwich. He scrunched his face. “Keep your nose clean. Abide by the rules. Don’t take any wooden nickels.” He stuffed wax paper into a bag and slurped milk from a lunchroom carton. Then he leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and looked at me with a stern expression.

  “From all accounts, I’ve learned you’re a good student, Sammie. Dreadful thing, your mother. How’re you doing?”

  Goose bumps popped out all over me. I rubbed my arms trying to get them to go away so he wouldn’t notice. I lifted my chin and smiled. “Great, everything’s fine.”

  “It may seem fine now, but…” I braced myself for the If there’s anything I can do speech I’d heard from all my teachers and the people at Graham Camp. Mr. Howard leaned forward on his elbows. “It’s been my experience that children in homes with only one parent make poorer grades and have more detentions than regular kids. Some even become problematic in their encounters with the law. Juvenile delinquents, so to speak.”

  “Is this something you would like me to include in my article?”

  “No, this is about you. A friendly precaution, shall we say?”

  “Me? A juvenile delinquent? Is that what you think?” I sucked in my breath.

  “No, no, of course not. At least we hope not. Fact is, you’ve got a double whammy. Mental illness in the family and being raised by a lone parent—a father at that. You’d be wise to heed my advice, what I told you earlier. Keep your nose clean. I’ll be checking on you regularly.”

  “Uh, well… you do that. Thank you for the interview, Mr. Howard.” My head felt like it was spinning. I gathered up my notes. Mr. Howard thinks I’m a looney tune. No way. I took a deep breath through my nose. “And just in case you were wondering, I am not a mental case.”

  I stumbled from the office toward my math class. Too bad he hadn’t become a tree surgeon—he would have been good with a chain saw.

  The idea that I might turn into a juvenile delinquent stayed with me all day. I tried out different scenes in my head. Flouncing around in a skimpy outfit, smoking a cigarette, and hanging out on the steps at Willy’s store. Stealing cars and whizzing through the countryside with my hair blowing out the window. Personally, I didn�
�t think I’d ever seen a juvenile delinquent, so it must be Mr. Howard’s way of scaring me. Like telling us to be on the lookout for Communists. How many Communists had I seen? None that I could recall.

  So I didn’t have a mother. Well, I did, but she left, and now all I had was a big hole inside where she should have been. A hole that hurt so bad I couldn’t stand it. And that wasn’t something I could discuss with Mr. Howard.

  That afternoon I found Scarlett tied to the fire hydrant again.

  “Which one of Aunt Vadine’s projects did you interrupt today?” I unhooked her and rubbed her chin. So far my aunt had alphabetized the soup cans and spices in our kitchen cabinets, stripped the floors and put on a new layer of Johnson wax, and washed and ironed all the curtains. When I pushed open the screen door, lemony, waxy smells filled the house. I wished for once when I came home a whiff of lilac bubble bath would hit me in the face. Instead the smell of Juicy Fruit lingered in the air.

  All of Mama’s clothes—dresses, underwear, silk nighties, shoes—lay in mounds on the couch and Daddy’s chair. Sparkly hair clips, tangles of beaded necklaces, and rhinestoned brooches had been piled on the end table.

  “What’s going on? Why are Mama’s things out here?”

  “Helping your daddy out. You know men aren’t good at figuring out what to do with the effects of the deceased.”

  “But…” My eyes took it all in. The dress Mama wore to Alice’s furniture party, the robe she’d worn for days and weeks on end, her white pumps with the loose heel that clicked on the pine floors…

  “You’re too tall to wear your mama’s things, and I’m bigger boned than she was. No sense keeping any of this. I heard on the radio the VFW is having a rummage sale in town. We’ll take a load off your daddy’s mind doing this for him. Besides, it behooves us to help the veterans of foreign wars after the sacrifices they made for our country.” With her hands on her hips, hair the color of a bird’s nest, and thin slashes for lips, she didn’t look one ounce like her own sister, my mother. Wasn’t it enough she messed with my stuff? Now she was messing with Mama’s.

  I piped up, “The rummage sale isn’t until next spring. Once a year, that’s how they do them. So there’s no rush.”

  “No sense putting off ’til tomorrow what you can do today. You’ll want to look over these things, keep a bauble or two in remembrance….”

  All of Mama’s things, and I could pick a bauble or two? Why did Aunt Vadine have the right to dispose of Mama’s possessions?

  “… doing our Christian duty to give what we can.” She snapped her gum.

  The shiny strung beads and screw-on earrings with dangling rhinestones, the tortoiseshell sunglasses with lenses as big as saucers, teeny flag pins, blues and golds and soft aqua, cool and smooth surfaces… a bauble or two? I scooped up a handful and knew I could never choose just one or two.

  “No! You can’t do this. These are Mama’s things. Who cares if they fit or not? They’re hers, and… besides, you don’t know if this is what Daddy wants or not.”

  “Your daddy doesn’t know what he wants right now. He’ll thank me for it down the road, and so will you, when you realize how my being here has filled the maternal void you’ve had in your life for so long.” She reached into the front of her blouse and pulled out a hanky I recognized as being one of Mama’s. Aunt Vadine dabbed at her eyes, then straightened up. “We mustn’t let our emotions get in the way. We’ve a job to do, and the Lord frowns on those with idle hands. Here, you can help me put these things in boxes.”

  I rubbed the material of Mama’s dresses between my fingers, dawdling and thinking. Then I grabbed Mama’s robe, a blue gingham blouse, a sundress. I snatched up one thing and then another, as many as my arms would hold and ran to Mama’s room and threw them on her closet floor. I grabbed a pillowcase from the bathroom cabinet and scooped up her jewelry, every last piece, and stuffed it all in.

  “Sammie, you have to get a hold on yourself. You’re acting as crazy as your mother.”

  “My mama wasn’t crazy. She had depression; that’s what Daddy said. Is that a sin?” My breaths snorted out through my nose as I glared at Aunt Vadine, who flipped the hanky in the air. The lemony smells and gum popping closed in on me, and I felt pressure building in my chest. I ran from the room into Mama’s closet and threw myself on the pile of her clothes. I hugged them to my chest, breathing in Mama smells and hating Aunt Vadine for babbling on about doing her Christian duty. Most Christians I knew didn’t act like her at all. Not one bit.

  After a while I sat up with my back to the closet wall and stroked Mama’s clothes. The thick warmth of her robe, the starchy feel of her yellow pedal pushers, the silkiness of one of her nightgowns. I took the robe and slipped my arms into the sleeves. Something seemed off about Mama’s robe being here. Every time I thought about the day she died, I figured she had been wearing her robe since she practically lived in it. Why hadn’t she worn it that day?

  A picture kept coming into my head of Mama swinging from a rope. I tried to keep from thinking about it, but I couldn’t help myself. What had she worn that day? Did she put on her makeup? Earrings? Maybe she took a lilac bath and was going somewhere. Daddy said she needed to go to the doctor for a checkup. Maybe she was going to town to see Doc Pinkerton. To get those pills again. Was that what she was doing?

  I leaned my head against the wall. Slim. I could ask him about that day. Daddy. Had he seen her? Would either one of them tell me? My stomach went sour. Maybe I was crazy. Like Mama. Which was better, being a juvenile delinquent or being crazy? Or dead?

  The truth was I didn’t want to be any of those things, but how do you turn around when you’re speeding off down the wrong path? If only I had a mother, I would have someone to talk to, someone who would let me cry and not tell me I was crazy or ask me to bring the Doan’s pills.

  It was bad enough thinking all those weird thoughts. Then Tuwana had to stick her nose in. One Saturday we sat in the Edsel listening to KIXZ and not talking about much of anything when she asked how long Aunt Vadine would be staying.

  I shrugged. “She hasn’t said.”

  “Mother says if she’s got a grain of sense, she’ll stick around. Grieving widower, free meal ticket, that sorta thing, ya know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The obvious. Vadine’s going to be your new mother, get it? Mother says after the proper length of time, she’ll make her move. It makes perfect sense. You need a mother. Your dad needs a wife. There you go.”

  “No way. All she’s doing is helping out, cleaning and organizing. Doing her Christian duty, she says. I’m sure she’s got a job and better things to do in Midland. Besides, she and Mama didn’t get along all that well. Why on earth would she want to live with us?”

  “Who knows? Maybe she likes your dad better than you think. Mark my words. She’ll be your new mother.”

  Tuwana and her ideas! I gritted my teeth. Not that the thought hadn’t come to me, but Aunt Vadine for a mother? It made me want to puke.

  [ TWENTY-TWO ]

  THE REST OF SATURDAY and all through church the next day, I couldn’t get Tuwana’s prediction out of my head. I watched the way Aunt Vadine buzzed around Daddy and brought him cups of coffee, asking him if he’d like to have his neck rubbed, things like that. Then at church she sat close to him, sharing a hymnal. She fluttered her eyelashes and smiled at Daddy after Deacon Greenwood prayed one of his famous around-the-world prayers. By the time we finished lunch, my insides felt like they would burst if I didn’t talk to Daddy and see what he intended to do about Aunt Vadine.

  I found him puttering on the back porch, a Camel hanging from the corner of his mouth.

  “I thought you gave up smoking.” I sat on the back steps.

  “I did for a fact. Took it up again.” He flicked the butt into the grass and scratched the top of Scarlett’s head. “How’re you making out at school?”

  I told him about the school paper and doing the interview with Mr. Howard
.

  “You know, I always thought he looked like that Buffalo Bob puppet Howdy Doody.”

  “Yep. That’s his nickname. We don’t call him that to his face, of course, but his ears do stick out.”

  Daddy laughed and measured a piece of lumber he had laid out on the cement slab.

  “What are you building?”

  “Thought I’d make a doghouse for Scarlett.”

  “You mean she can’t sleep in the house anymore?”

  “She’s getting bigger, needs her own place. Think we’ll run a picket fence around this cement here, keep her safe in the day.”

  “Is this Aunt Vadine’s idea?” I didn’t have to ask. I knew from the way she carried on about dog hair and whacked Scarlett with a flyswatter every time she got near her crochet.

  “Partially.” He stood up, walking in the direction of the garage. The garage where Mama died. How could he go in there? Somehow he just went in and out, carrying a hammer, a saw, a rusty can of nails. Then two or three more trips, bringing sturdy planks and slabs of flat siding. He measured and marked the wood with a stub of pencil he kept perched on top of his ear.

  “Speaking of Aunt Vadine…” I tried to find the right words. “I’ve been wondering…”

  “Were we?”

  “Were we what?”

  “Speaking of Vadine.”

  “Well, I’m trying to.”

  “Sis, can you hand me the saw?”

  I handed it to him and blurted out, “How long is she staying?”

  Daddy stopped and looked up at me. “Awhile. Seems we’re not the only ones having a hard time.”

  “She wasn’t all that close to Mama.” The words spat out stronger than I intended.

  “Not that. Her job. The manager of the truck stop ran off with all the money, and now the owner can’t pay her anything but tips, so she’s going to help us out awhile.”