The sky was full of those stringy long clouds slowly forming into fat billowing ones that painted pictures of happiness and fulfillment up ahead.
Cal and Kitty Dennison got into their car, using the front seat, and telling me I could have the back one all for myself. Stiff, anxious, I twisted about to stare back at what I knew so well, and once believed I'd want to forget as quickly as possible.
Say good-bye to poverty and growling
stomachs that were never really satisfied.
Say good-bye to the old smelly outhouse, the belching kitchen stove, the worn and tattered bed pallets on the floor.
Say good-bye to all the miseries, as well as all the beauty of the hills: the wild berries, the flaming leaves of autumn, the babbling brook and freshwater streams where trout jumped, and fishing with Tom and Logan.
Say good-bye to memories of Keith and Our
Jane and Tom and Fanny.
Say good-bye to all the laughter and all the tears. Going to a better place, a richer place, a happier place. No reason to cry—why was I crying?
Up there on the porch Pa wasn't crying, just staring off into space with the blank look still on his face.
Cal turned the key and gunned the motor, and away we sped, causing Kitty to squeal and fall backward on the seat. "Slow down, ya damn fool!"
she cried. "I know it were horrible, an t'stink will cling t'us fer weeks, but we got us a daughter, an that's what we came fer."
A shiver rippled down my spine.
It was all right. All right.
Going away to a better life, a better place, I kept repeating.
Yet all I thought about was what Pa had done.
Sold his children for five hundred dollars apiece. I hadn't seen the papers signed in this last transaction, or heard the sale price. -Pa's soul would rot in hell.
Not for one moment did I doubt that.
From what I'd heard between Kitty and her
husband, they were heading for Winnerrow, where I'd always wanted to live in some pretty painted house not so far from Stonewall Pharmacy. There I would finish high school, go on to college. And I'd see Fanny often, see Grandpa when he went to church.
But what was this?
Why was Cal taking the right turn and heading his car past Winnerrow? I swallowed over another of those burning throat lumps.
"Didn't Pa say you were from the valley?" I asked in a low, scared voice.
"Sure, kid," said Kitty, twisting about in the front seat and smiling back at me. "I was born an raised in that crummy town of Winnerrow," she went on in a voice turned more country, her dialect all hillbilly and slurry. "Couldn't wait t'get away from there. Ran off one day when I were thirteen with a truck driver, we wed up, an then I found out he was already married, but not until years lata. Made me sick, made me hate men, most, men; then I met up with my sweet Cal. Loved him on first sight. We've been married five years, an we wouldn't have been down this way at all cept we had t'get away from all t'stink of havin our house redecorated inside an out.
Fresh paint makes me vomit. Get so sick of bad odors, perm lotions an such. Gonna have white wall-t'-wall in every room. All white-on-white wallpaper, gonna be so pretty, so cleanlookin. Cal, now, he done said it's gonna be sterile, like a hospital, but it won't be, ya jus wait an see. Gonna pretty it up with all my thins.
Won't it be pretty when all my beautiful thins are put in there fer color contrast, ain't it gonna be, Cal?"
"Sure."
"Sure what?"
"Sure it will be pretty."
She patted his cheek, then leaned to kiss him.
"Now that we're away from yer ole man,"
intoned Kitty, her sharp chin again resting on her folded arms, "I kin be more honest. Knew yer ma, yer real ma. Not that Sarah woman. Now, yer real ma was some looker. Not jus pretty, but beautiful—an I hated her guts."
"Oh," I breathed, feeling sick, unreal. "Why did you hate her?"
"Thought she had a real catch in Luke Casteel.
Thought Luke Casteel should have been mine when I was a kid an didn't know no betta. What a damned idiot I was then, thinkin a handsome face an a strong, beautiful body was all there was t'it. Now I hate him—hate his guts!"
This should make me feel good, yet it didn't.
Why would Kitty want the daughter of the man she hated?
I'd been right, she had known Pa a long time.
Her dialect was just as bad as his, and all the others in our area.
"Yeah," continued Kitty in a strange, soft voice like a cat's purr. "Saw yer real ma every time she came inta Winnerrow. Every hotshot man in town had t'hots fer Luke's angel. Nobody could understand how she would marry t'likes of Luke. Love made her blind, was my thinkin. Some women are like that."
"Shut up, Kitty." Cal's voice, full of warning.
Kitty ignored him. "An there I was with t'hots fer yer big, handsome pa. Oh, every girl in town wantin an waitin fer him t'get inta her pants."
"Kitty, you've said enough."
The warning in his voice was more intense.
Kitty threw him an impatient look, jerked around, and switched on the car radio. She fiddled with the dial until she found country music. Loud, twangy guitar music filled the car.
Now we couldn't talk.
Miles and miles and miles slid by like a long ribbon picture postcard that had no end. Out of the hills, down into the flatlands.
Soon the mountains became distant shadows.
Miles and miles later, afternoon light faded away. Sun going down, turning twilight time. Where had all the hours gone? Had I fallen asleep without knowing it?
Farther away than I'd ever been before. Little farms, big farms, small villages, gasoline stations, long stretches of barren land with patches of red dirt.
Deep twilight came to smear the sky rosy with violet and orange, with bright gold edging all those heavenly colors. Same sky I'd seen in the hills, but the country look that I was accustomed to was left behind.
Gasoline stations by the dozens rose up, and quick-food places with colorful neon lights, imitating the sky, or trying to and failing.
"Ain't it somethin," said Kitty, staring out her window, "t'way t'sky lights up? Like drivin when it's twilight time. Heard say it's t'most dangerous time of all, makes people feel unreal, caught up in dreams. . .
always had me a dream of having lots of kids, all pretty."
"Please don't, Kitty," pleaded her husband.
She shut up, left me to my own thoughts. I'd seen twilight skies many a time, but I'd never seen a city at night. Fatigue forgotten, I stared at everything, feeling a true hillbilly for the first time in my life.
This was no Winnerrow, but the biggest city I'd ever seen.
Then came the golden arches, and the car
slowed, as if drawn there magnetically without discussion between husband and wife. Soon we were inside, seated at a tiny table. "What ya mean, ya ain't neva ate at McDonald's before?" asked Kitty, amused and disgusted at the same time. "Why, I bet ya ain't even had Kentucky Fried."
"What's that?"
"Cal, this girl is ignorant. Really ig-nor-ant. An her pa tole us she was smart."
Pa had said that? It made me feel funny to hear he had. But he'd say anything to gain another five hundred dollars.
"Eating in joints like this doesn't make anybody smart, Kitty. Just less hungry."
"Why, I bet ya ain't neva been t'a moving-picture show, have ya?"
"Yes I have," I answered quickly. "Once."
"Once! Did ya hear that, Cal? This smart girl has been t'a movie once. Now, that is somethin, really somethin. What else ya done that's smart?"
How to answer that when it was asked in such a mocking, sarcastic tone?
Suddenly I was homesick for Grandpa, for the miserable cabin and its familiar space. Again those unwanted sad pictures flashed behind my eyes. Our Jane and Keith saying "Hey-lee." I blinked once or twice, glad I had the wonderful doll with me. When Kitty saw her, she'd be impre
ssed, really impressed.
"Now . . . say what ya think of t'burger,"
quizzed Kitty, dispatching hers in mere seconds, and applying hot-pink lipstick to lips that wore a perpetual stain. She handled the tube expertly despite her inch-long nails, shiny with polish that matched her pink clothes exactly.
"It was very good."
"Then why didn't ya eat all of it? Food costs good money. When we buy ya food we expect ya t'eat it all."
"Kitty, you talk too loud. Leave the girl alone."
"I don't like yer name, either," Kitty flared, as if annoyed at Cal's defense. "It's a stupid name.
Heaven's a place, not a name. What's yer middle name-- somethin jus as dumb?"
"Leigh," I answered in a tone of ice. "My mother's Christian name."
Kitty winced. "Damn!" she swore, slamming her fists one into the other. "Hate that name!" She swung her seawater eyes to her husband and met his mild look with fierce anger. "That was her name, that Boston bitch who took Luke! Goddam if I eva want t'hear it said aloud again, ya hear?"
"I hear. . . ."
Kitty's mood swung in a different direction, from anger to thoughtfulness, as Cal got up and headed for the men's room. "Always wanted a girl I could call Linda. Always wanted t'be named Linda myself. There's somethin sweet an pure about Linda that sounds so right."
Again I shivered, seeing those huge, glittery rings on Kitty's large, strong hands. Were they real diamonds, rubies, emeralds—or fakes?
It was a relief to be in the car again, on the road speeding toward some distant home. A relief, that is, until Kitty told Cal she was changing my name.
"Gonna call her Linda," she said matter-of-factly.
"Like that name, really I do."
Immediately he barked, "No! Heaven suits her best. She's lost her home and her family; for God's sake, don't force her to lose her name as well. Leave well enough alone."
There was some forceful quality in his voice this time that stilled Kitty's incessant chatter for a peaceful five minutes, and, best of all, Cal reached to turn off the radio.
In the backseat I curled up and tried to stay awake by reading the road signs. By this time I'd noticed that Cal was following all the signs that directed us toward Atlanta. Overpasses and underpasses, through clover-leafs and down expressways, under train trestles, over bridges crossing rivers, through cities large, small, and medium, going onward toward Atlanta.
I gasped to see the skyscrapers rearing up black in the night, glittering with lit windows, wearing clouds like wispy scarfs. I gasped at store windows on Peachtree Street, stared at policemen standing right in the middle of everything and not afraid, and some were on horseback. Pedestrians were strolling the avenues as if it were midday and not long after nine.
Back home I'd be on the floor sound asleep by this time. Even now I had to rub at my eyes, gritty with sleep. Maybe I did sleep.
All of a sudden a loud voice was singing. Kitty had the radio on again and was snuggled up close to Cal, doing something that made him plead for her to stop. "Kitty, there's a time and a place for everything—and the time and place isn't right for this.
Now take your hand away."
What was Kitty doing? I rubbed at my eyes, then leaned forward to find out. Just in time to see Cal pull up his fly zipper. Oh—was that nice? Fanny would think so. Quickly I slid backward, alarmed that Kitty might have seen me peek at what was, really, none of my business. Again I stared out the window.
The big city with all its majestic skyscrapers had disappeared. Now we were driving down streets not so wide or so busy.
"We live in the suburbs," Cal explained briskly.
"Subdivision called Candlewick. The houses are split-levels and almost alike, six different styles, you take your pick. And then they build them for you. You can be an individual only with the way you decorate outside and in. We hope you will enjoy living here, Heaven. We want to do our best by you and give you the kind of life we'd give our own, if we could have children. The school you'll be attending is within walking distance."
Snorting, Kitty mumbled, "Mind. Mind. What the hell difference does it make? She's goin t'school if she has t'crawl there. Damned if ah want some ignorant kid spoilin my reputation."
I sat up straighter, tried to keep sleep from stealing my first view of my new home, and with interest I studied the houses that were, as Cal had said, almost alike, but not quite. Nice houses. No doubt every one had at least one bathroom, maybe more.
And all those wonderful electrical conveniences city folks couldn't live without.
Then the car pulled into a driveway, and a garage door was sliding magically upward, and then we were inside the garage, and Kitty was yelling for me to wake up. "We're home, kid, home."
Home.
I quickly opened the car door and left the garage to stand and stare at the house in the pale moonlight. Two stories. How sweet it looked snuggled in the midst of lush shrubbery, mostly evergreens. Red brick with white blinds. A palace in comparison to the shack in the hills I'd just left. A pretty house with a white front door.
"Cal, ya put her dirty thins in t'basement where they belong, if they belong." Sadly I watched my mother's wonderful suitcase, much better than any bag Kitty owned, disappear. . . though of course Kitty couldn't know what was under all those dark knitted shawls.
"C'mon," Kitty called impatiently. "It's goin on eleven. An I'm really pooped. Ya got yer whole life long t'stare at t'outside, ya hear?"
How final she made that sound.
PART 0
Candlewick Life
.
Eleven
A NEW HOME
.
KITTY FLICKED A SWITCH NEAR THE
DOOR, AND THE ENTIRE house lit up. What I saw made me gasp.
It was so wonderful, this clean and modern house. It thrilled me to know I was going to live here.
The whiteness—all this pure snowy cleanliness!—and ele gance! I shivered again, seeing cleansing snow that would never melt with sunlight, wouldn't be turned into slush by tromping feet. Deep inside me, all along, I'd known there had to be a better place for me than the cabin with all its dirt and unhappiness.
From second one I thought of this as Kitty's house. The authoritative air she took on, the way she ordered Cal to take my "nasty thins" to the basement, told me clearly that this was her house, not his. There was not one thing to indicate a man lived in all this feminine prettiness, nothing masculine at all here, also giving me the notion that Kitty was the boss in this house.
While Cal followed her instructions, Kitty went around switching on other lamps, as if dim corners terrified her. I soon knew my judgement was wrong.
Kitty was looking for flaws in the new paint job.
"Well, now, it sure is betta than yer shack in t'hills, ain't it, kid? Betta by heck than anythin in Winnerrow . . hick town. Couldn't wait t'escape it.
Don't know why I keep goin back." A frown of displeasure darkened her pretty face. Soon she began complaining that the workmen, left on their own, had done a great many "wrong" things. She saw her home differently than I did—to her it was not wonderful at all.
"Would ya jus look an see where they put my chairs? An my lamps? Nothin's right! I tole em where I wanted everythin, I did! Ya kin bet yer life they're gonna hear about this—"
I tried to see what she saw, but I thought everything looked perfect.
Kitty glanced at me, saw my awed expression, and smiled with tolerant indulgence. "Well, c'mon, tell me what ya think."
Her living room was larger than our entire cabin—but the most surprising thing about this room was the colorful zoo it contained. Everywhere, on the windowsills, in corner cabinets, on the tables, lining the white carpet up the stairs, sat animals made into fancy stands to hold plantsranimal faces and forms made picture frames, lamps, baskets, candy dishes, footstools.
Live plants sprouted from the backs of giant green ceramic frogs with bulging yellow eyes and scarlet tongues. There were huge
golden fish with gaping mouths and frightened sea-blue eyes bearing more plants. There were blue geese, white and yellow ducks, purple and pink polka-dotted hens, brown and tan rabbits, pink squirrels, hot-pink fat pigs with cute curly tails. "C'mon," said Kitty, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the center of that domestic zoo, "ya gotta see em up close t'appreciate all t'talent it takes t'make em."
I was speechless.
"C'mon, say somethin!" she demanded.
"It's beautiful," I breathed, impressed with all this white, the wallpaper that looked like white silk tree rings, the white lounging chairs, the white sofa, the white lampshades over huge fat white shiny bases.
No wonder Kitty had been so appalled by the cabin with all its generations of filth. Here, there was a fireplace with a carved white wooden mantel and frame, and a white marble hearth, and tables of a rich-looking dark wood I was to find out later was rosewood, and glass and brass tables, too. Not a speck of dust anywhere. No fingerprints. Not a thing out of place.
She stood beside me, as if to see her glorious living room through my naive country eyes, while I was afraid to step on that white carpet that had to dirty more quickly than a dog could wag his tail. I glanced down at my clumsy, ugly old shoes, and right away pulled them off.
My feet sank deep into the pile as I drifted dreamlike from one object to the other, marveling. Fat cats, skinny cats, slinky, sneaky, slithering cats. Dogs sitting, standing, sleeping; elephants and tigers, lions and leopards, peacocks, pheasants, parakeets, and owls. A mind-boggling array of animals.
Heaven (Casteel Series #1) Page 21
