by Tamara Bundy
“I hate those McHale boys!” I said between breaths.
Mama scolded me, but in a softer voice than usual. “Alice Ann, we shouldn’t be hating people.”
I argued, “But Mama, they make fun of Miss Millie and they hid my bike. Why are the McHales like that?”
Mama shook her head. “I don’t really know them so I can’t rightly say why they act that way, but I do know that nobody’s born hating—they’re taught that from someone.” She put a bandage on my biggest cut.
I didn’t know what to think about that, but when I was done getting bandaged up, I went to look for Pam. I looked in the kitchen where Mama had left her, but no one was there.
I looked in the backyard and the front yard, but still no one.
I peeked in Grandma’s sewing room, which was now Eddie’s room. And right there on the floor by his cot, in front of Grandma’s Singer sewing machine, sat Eddie and Pam, both with their hands over their ears.
“What are you doing?” I asked. But since Eddie can’t hear ever and Pam had her ears plugged, no one answered. I did what I always do when I want to get Eddie’s attention and he’s not looking at me; I stomped my foot on the floor. Both he and Pam looked up at me.
“What are you doing”? I asked again, this time with my hands and voice. Pam kept her ears plugged while Eddie answered. “Don’t know. She just came in and started doing that.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So me, too.” And that made perfect sense to my brother.
I got closer to Pam, who was smiling at me but still covering her ears. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I yelled like she would do.
She yelled back, “I WANTED TO SEE WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE DEAF.”
Now, that was one of the silliest and yet nicest things I ever did hear. She was pretending to be deaf for Eddie. I don’t know why I never once thought of trying it. I sat down beside them and went to plug my ears, too, but then I noticed what Eddie had been showing Pam.
It was my hatbox with Miss Millie’s marble, rock and picture.
I scolded in sign language, “That is mine! Not yours. Why is it in here? And why are you showing her?”
Eddie shrugged and tried to smile all innocent.
Pam was watching me sign. “IT REALLY WORKS! I CAN’T HEAR A THING! BUT I STILL DON’T KNOW THAT FINGER-TALKING STUFF.”
I pulled her hands off her ears. “You’re yelling again.”
“Oh, sorry.” She looked at the hatbox and picked up the picture. “So did Miss Millie give ya these?”
I nodded.
Pam nodded, too. “Wow. She actually seems . . . nice . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing.” Pam couldn’t take her eyes off the picture of Miss Millie’s family.
I didn’t like the way she was holding on to it for so long so I grabbed the picture and the hatbox. “Well, she is nice and all, but this here is my stuff and Eddie shouldn’t a went in my room and got it.”
Pam said something to me when I left the room, but I didn’t want to talk anymore, so I acted like I didn’t hear her.
Maybe sometimes I do pretend to be deaf.
chapter 15
“You been in a fight, Alice-girl?” Miss Millie whistled through her teeth when she saw my scraped knee, elbow and chin.
“Yeah,” I answered, standing at her back door. “I got in a fight with the road.”
“Looks like the road might a won that round.” She smiled but not a big smile. “You okay? We don’t have to walk today if it hurts ya.”
“So this must be Alice!” I heard a voice yell from inside Miss Millie’s house. This pretty much surprised me. I only pictured Miss Millie with Clarence—and now me. I guess I didn’t really think of her having her own life with friends who stopped by.
“This here lady is Miss Frankie,” Miss Millie explained when her friend came to the door. I remembered then that Miss Frankie was the lady on the other end of the party line whose gossip got me to Miss Millie’s in the first place.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, remembering my manners.
“Pleasure is mine, sweet girl! Pleasure is all mine!” Her voice was twice as loud as Miss Millie’s. And she was twice Miss Millie’s size, too. The difference in the two friends’ size made me smile.
Turning back to Miss Millie, I offered, “If you have company, I can come back later.”
Miss Millie laughed. “Miss Frankie’s not company. She just stopped by to drop off my cake pan. ’Course she only returns my food containers hopin’ I’m gonna fill ’em back up for her with more of my food.” She winked at me and smiled at her friend.
Miss Frankie opened her mouth in an exaggerated expression of shock. “Humph!” she said. “Cake needed more salt, if ya ask me.” Miss Millie laughed at her friend, who blew her a kiss. “I’m just trying to help ya get that recipe perfect.” And before she left she added, “Sure have a hankering for some sweet potato pie, if anybody cares . . .”
Miss Millie shook her head as she turned back to me, eyeing my cuts and scratches again. “Maybe you should rest today.”
I was touched at her worry on my account, but promised I’d be fine and we started in on our usual walk. It’s funny how much I’d started to look forward to my walks with Clarence and Miss Millie. Being with them just seemed natural, but I wondered if we made as funny-looking a pair as Miss Millie and Miss Frankie, and if it even mattered.
Lately, I’d been really missing my friend Linda. We promised each other we’d write. I wrote her. Twice. But so far, there weren’t any letters from her.
Or anyone.
Maybe it was time to think about making friends here since Grandma didn’t seem to be getting any better. Pam was nice—the way she helped me with the bike accident and everything—but I didn’t know if that made her my friend. Plus, she was closer to Eddie’s age. Was there even anyone here in Rainbow to be friends with?
As we walked past the church, I looked over at Miss Millie and said, “Can I ask you a question?”
She looked straight ahead as she answered. “Free country, last I checked.”
I smiled. “Last week, you said you didn’t like going to church—”
Miss Millie snorted and turned toward me. “That again? I thought I told ya what I meant.”
“No. I know about the ‘going to church’ thing—but I was wondering—what do you mean about some people being all un-Christian-like? Are there lots of mean people in Rainbow?”
“Alice-girl.” Miss Millie shook her head. “The whole world is fulla mean people. But it’s also fulla nice people, too. That’s the important thing.”
I guessed that was true. But it wasn’t telling me what I needed to know. “Who’s been mean to you at church?”
I didn’t hear Miss Millie laughing, but I could see her smile, so I figured she was okay with my question.
“Well . . .” She looked over her shoulder like whoever she was about to talk about might be sneaking up behind us. “There’s this one lady . . . never ya mind her name—but she sings in church every Sunday. Every Sunday she’s up there singing about what a friend she has in Jesus. ’Course she’s singing off-key—but each Sunday she’s up there singing and smiling and looking out at everybody like she’s the right hand of the Good Lord Himself.”
I had to hide my own smile at how worked up she was getting.
She continued. “And after pretending to be the Good Lord’s right hand on Sunday, on Monday, she spreads gossip that would make the devil himself blush.”
“Does she gossip about you?”
“Woo–wee!” Miss Millie laughed. “Reckon I’m her favorite subject.”
Miss Millie went on. “Ya see, years ago, there was a dear old white lady named Miss Ruth, who lived in the house I live in today. I used to be her maid. She was always real good to me. And when Clayton took sick a year before he died, sh
e let us move in with her. Let us move into her very house! Can ya believe it?”
I didn’t know if Miss Millie was wanting me to really tell her if I believed it, but I did. I hoped I would be nice like that if somebody needed my help. And with all the mean white people I knew Miss Millie met in her life, I was real glad to hear there was at least one nice white person in her life. She walked on as she continued her story of Ruth.
“About eight years ago Ruth died. She had no family and left me her house. ’Course some of the neighbors, like that one lady who can’t carry a tune in a bucket, were none too happy a colored lady was now their official neighbor; but there it was—writ’ out plain for all to see in her last will and testament. So after eighty-some years, I had me a home of my very own.” Miss Millie shook her head like she still couldn’t believe her luck. “Yessiree. Ruth was a true, true friend. God rest her soul.”
Miss Millie stopped walking for a minute, so I figured you had to stop in order to get a soul blessed by God. I stopped, too. I noticed Clarence sat down, maybe even lowering his head like he was saying a little prayer.
When the moment of blessing was over, Miss Millie started walking again. “Yessiree, after Miss Ruth died, that there lady didn’t like me living in her neighborhood at all. And I think that there lady had an actual thought so infrequent that when she did get one, she had to share it with everyone around to make sure she didn’t lose it. So I stopped going to church most Sundays.”
My head moved up and down like I understood, but I still had a question. “I thought you told me yesterday that you were too old to let things hurt you anymore.”
That’s when I saw her whole face smile. She reached out and touched my shoulder. “Ah, Alice-girl, truth be told, you’re never too old to be hurt just a little. But if you’re lucky, one day you be smart enough to quit putting yourself in the situations that hurt ya.”
By then we were back in Miss Millie’s backyard. She asked me to wait a minute while she went into her house. I bent down to pet Clarence, who rolled over, showing me his belly so I’d rub it.
A few rubs later, Miss Millie was back. “Wanted to show ya this here. Miss Ruth give it to me.” She opened her hand, which held a little pink-and-tan shell. “Ruth told me it’s called a scallop shell. See how it fans out like that?”
I nodded.
“Ruth said that represents all the different journeys everyone takes in life—but see how it all meets up at this point?” She pointed to the top of the shell. “That’s to show we might all come from different directions, but hopefully, we all end up at the same place one day.”
“That’s real nice,” I said, surprised my voice was almost a whisper. “That Miss Ruth was real nice.”
Miss Millie nodded as she put the shell in my hand and folded my fingers around it. “She sure was.” She patted my hand. “She sure was.”
chapter 16
Pam must’ve loved being called a hero, ’cause after my mama called her that, she started to come over pretty near every day. After the first couple of days, Mama didn’t even have to ask Pam if she wanted to stay for lunch, we just knew she’d eat with us.
In a short while, Pam found a way of communicating with Eddie. It was less like sign language and more like charades, but it worked for them.
Most days she’d start by playing with Eddie, but eventually she’d end up playing with me or both of us.
One morning she asked about the tire swing on the ground. “Why don’t ya hang that thing back up in the tree?”
I shrugged. “It’s too heavy to lift.”
“If we lift it together, it’d be easier.” She said that like we were a team, always trying things together. Yet somehow it didn’t sound wrong.
Eddie dropped his plate to help us try to lift the tire back up to the chain but it was still too heavy.
I signed to Eddie, “Go get the wheelbarrow in the shed.”
He disappeared for a few minutes and came back grinning at his accomplishment, pushing the dirty wheelbarrow.
“Good!” Pam clapped her hands together, like that was a sign.
I shook my head. “No, you say ‘good’ like this. Put your right hand up to your mouth. Now move it straight down to meet your left hand.”
Pam tried it as Eddie nodded his head and clapped for her.
“I know a sign!” she shouted. “Thank you for teaching me that one.”
I smiled at her excitement. “That’s pretty much the way you sign ‘thank you,’ too.”
She squealed. “I know two signs!”
When she and Eddie stopped telling each other “Good” and “Thank you,” I rolled the tire into the wheelbarrow while Pam held it steady and Eddie pulled the chain around the tire to connect it to the chain from the tree.
“We did it!” Pam yelled, signing “Good” over and over again to the tree.
Since Eddie wasn’t one to celebrate too long, he picked his plate back up and, in a sign everybody knew, waved his hand toward himself to tell Pam to go with him.
I hopped on the tire swing to test it out and watched Pam explain through her motions that Eddie’s “bus” needed to stop at another tree. Eddie stopped and Pam went to the tree, acting like she was buying something. Then she licked a make-believe ice cream cone and handed another make-believe cone to Eddie. It was silly, but I kind of wanted her to hand me a make-believe cone, too.
When I got tired of watching their game, I headed back to the shed and Daddy’s letters.
Pam must have eventually tired of the game, too, because a few minutes later she joined me.
Eddie still had no interest in the letters from Daddy. But Pam sure was interested.
“So your daddy wrote these letters to your mama? They’re so pretty. I don’t think my daddy ever wrote anything pretty to my mama. Or anyone.”
“At least you get to see your daddy all the time.”
But that actually made her look sad. “Yeah—he’s around all the time . . .” She looked back at the letter in her hand. “Why did your daddy leave after writin’ these pretty words?”
“Well, he wrote these a long time ago. But he’s coming back soon. I’m just getting things together to show him when he gets here to remind him of these places he loved. And Mama.”
“Does your mama know ya found her letters?”
“Umm . . . no. And . . . it’s a surprise for her, too—so don’t tell her, okay?”
Pam squealed with excitement. “I love surprises! And I’m really good at keepin’ secrets, too. I mean, last week, I saw my brother break the front window of our house when he threw a baseball and he told me not to tell no one and I never told no one. Well—I never told no one till right now.”
I couldn’t help but smile at her before turning to read again the letter-poem I was holding. “This one is about the schoolhouse and the bleachers. Is that close by here?”
Pam squealed again. “Yes! I know where that is! It’s not far from here! I can show ya! I can show ya right now!”
She motioned for Eddie to come as I yelled into the house that we were going on a walk.
We passed the church and the street that led to the park and the wishing well.
Then Pam led us to another road I hadn’t been on yet. This one dead-ended into a building that had a sign out front that said, RAINBOW JUNIOR AND SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL.
The combination school looked to be as falling apart and lonely as the park and the wishing well. And the whole town.
“Ta-da!” Pam exclaimed, like she was pointing to something other than a run-down old school.
I tried to muster up some pretend approval for this place. “Thanks for bringing us. Um . . . are there bleachers here somewhere?”
“Of course, silly!” Pam slapped Eddie on the back like he was in on the joke. Eddie saw her laughing and started laughing, too. “The bleachers, of course, are
in the back by the football field. C’mon, I’ll take y’all there.”
When Eddie saw the lines of the football field, he smiled like he’d found the most perfect road for his pretend driving. He started driving his plate up and down those lines while Pam ran behind him as the perfect passenger, moving everywhere he moved, stopping every time he stopped.
I walked over to the sad-looking bleachers and tried to imagine what they were like when my daddy put his arm around my mama here. I sat down and opened up the letter-poem Daddy wrote about Mama when they were there so long ago.
On the schoolhouse bleachers
during the football game
the chill wind warmed
when I’d say your name.
With the sweat dripping down my back and the heat of the sun on the bleachers coming through my shorts, it was as hard to think of a chill wind as it was to think of my daddy writing that poem for my mama and her name.
If I squinted I could imagine Mama sitting next to me on the bleachers, smiling her smile. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see Daddy sitting there next to Mama.
And before I knew it, I had tears in my eyes. Shaking my head, I tried to blink away the dang wetness in my eyes.
I was hoping to find something to represent the bleachers to show to Daddy when he came, so I started to look around. Under the bleachers I could see trash and rocks and a couple of things that were moving. Still, nothing looked special enough to stir up the memory I needed stirred.
But then I saw it!
A little ways down from where I was sitting, there was a triangle flag on a stick. As I got closer to it, I could see the flag was red and white and had the letters RHS—for Rainbow High School, I guessed.
As I bent to pick it up, I noticed it was a little dirty—actually very dirty—but I could wash it in the sink before giving it to Daddy.
I sat on the hot bleachers holding the dirty flag while my brother and Pam zigged and zagged on the football field. As I watched them laugh and communicate in their own made-up language with the words good and thank you being signed as much as possible, I realized Rainbow was becoming home for Eddie now. And it scared me that it was starting to feel like home to me, too. I felt guilty, like I was betraying Daddy.
