Some Wildflower In My Heart

by Jamie Langston Turner

  Thomas had slapped his knee and interjected, “I once knew a Turnipseed! Dewey Turnipseed. I’d almost forgot about him. That was the name of a boy I knew in the war, from Mississippi I believe it was. Nicest fellow you’d ever want to meet, except he had an odd habit of suckin’ on his teeth like he had food caught in ’em.”

  This led to a discussion of other curious names we recalled: Walteretta Pimento, Chickie Roast, Quince Pickle, Daphne Smallmouth, Bingo Mush, and so forth. I told of a girl who had attended Latham County High School in Marshland, New York, at the same time as I: Zinnia Greyhound. This in turn opened the subject of nicknames, and Thomas reeled off the nicknames of some of his kinfolk in North Carolina: Grease, Longlegs, Trout, Gypsy, Spade, Link, Barley, Gnat, Largo, Moonbeam, and Sled. Oddly, Thomas is one of the few in his family who is called by his given name. Granted, he is also one of the few in possession of what could be considered a common name, other Tuttle men bearing inconvenient, unwieldy names such as Barksdale, Hathaway, Ephraim, Ballenger, and Chrysler, to name several.

  Mickey volunteered that his own nickname had been “Mouse” as a boy and explained it thus: “My ears stuck straight out when I was a kid, even more than they do now, believe it or not. It was a big old fellow in seventh grade by the name of Scofield Purvy who first called me Mickey Mouse, and it caught on real fast and finally got shortened to Mouse. ’Course I got even by calling him Scurvy, for which I paid dearly.” Mickey groaned and held his jaw as if having received a blow. “Old Scurvy sure had a mean left jab!”

  Thomas chuckled and remarked that his nickname in school had been “Tattle,” suggested both by his initials T. A. T. and by his last name. He had never before told me this, and I could not imagine that the nickname had in any way described his behavior, for Thomas would hardly have been the type, even as a child, to make public the indiscretions of others. “I used to just hate it like the John-Brown dickens,” he said, “but I knew better than to let on. It kinda died out after I got on up past fourteen, fifteen.”

  Birdie had smiled and remarked, “Nicknames can be real cruel sometimes. I guess I could have ended up with something a lot worse than Birdie!” Indeed, it was easy to see how she could have suffered at the hands of other children, given her plainness and her large, protruding teeth.

  “So, Margaret, ’fess up,” Mickey had said at last. “You know all about our nicknames. What’s yours?”

  When I did not answer at once, Thomas spoke up. “Tell ’em, Rosie.”

  “Rosie?” Mickey and Birdie cried in unison.

  “Where did that come from?” Mickey asked.

  “Is your middle name Rose?” asked Birdie. “Or is it because of her pretty complexion?” she asked Thomas.

  Thomas then recounted in grandly embellished fashion the story of our first meeting at the hardware store and his facetious references to Rosie the Riveter. He composed and delivered a dialogue script between the two of us that, though it did not take place as he claimed, nonetheless provided great entertainment for Mickey and Birdie.

  “What a sweet story!” Birdie exclaimed, laying a hand upon one cheek and beaming at me. “And to think the two of you got married as a result of you buying a hammer at the hardware store. Do Algeria and Francine know about this, Margaret?”

  “No, they do not,” I said quickly. “Nor do they need to.” I could not bear the thought of Francine and Algeria calling me Rosie behind my back and snickering over the details of my personal life as they performed their kitchen work.

  “She sure was a catch, wasn’t she, Thomas?” said Birdie.

  “Oh, yesiree,” Thomas replied. “Took me forever to get her in the boat! Snapped my line and lost a couple of my best lures ’fore I landed her!” He laughed briefly, as did Birdie and Mickey, but seeing that I was not smiling, he quickly said to Mickey, “And how did you two meet?”

  “Oh, we lived next door to each other,” Mickey replied, patting Birdie’s hand. “The day after my family moved to Dothan, Alabama, I looked out my bedroom window and saw Birdie hanging out the wash.”

  “And I’ve been hanging out the wash ever since,” Birdie said, laughing. “Mickey loves line-dried sheets.” Then, turning to me suddenly, she said, “Margaret, I wonder if you’d let me copy your recipe for the potato soup. I believe it was the best I’ve ever had. I have trouble getting mine seasoned just right.”

  Later we watched the Lawrence Welk Show on television from eight o’clock until nine. The program, which was a rerun from years past, featured selections from Broadway musicals. For example, Myron Floren played “The Wells Fargo Wagon” on the accordion, Barbara and Bobby danced to a medley of West Side Story tunes, Norma Zimmer sang “Some Enchanted Evening,” and a men’s chorus, clad in wide-lapeled sport coats in a bold navy-and-red plaid, sang “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top.”

  Following that, at Mickey’s suggestion, we played a single round of what he called the “Dictionary Game,” which required inventing and writing down definitions for unusual words found in the dictionary, after which we all voted for the definition that sounded like the correct one. The four words that night were honan, rathe, peplos, and yapok, two of which I already knew.

  By the time Mickey and Birdie stood to leave at ten o’clock, I was both physically and emotionally spent. Though Thomas urged them with great sincerity to stay longer, I said nothing.

  “Oh no, we’ve got to get on home,” Mickey said. “We don’t usually stay up this late on Saturdays. Birdie likes for us to get to church on Sunday morning a half hour before folks start arriving so she can run through her music on the organ one more time.” There was a momentary pause, during which I held my breath to prepare for what I knew was coming. Thomas must have sensed it also, for he cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to the floor. “We’d love to have you two visit our church tomorrow morning,” Mickey said. “We’re having a special Christmas program.”

  “I will get your coats,” I said and turned to exit the living room. Behind me I heard Thomas clear his throat again at great length and finally say, “No, no, I think we’ll have to pass this time.”

  “Well, some other time maybe,” Mickey said. “I think you’d like our people a lot, and we’ve got the finest preacher in these parts. Not to mention lots of good music, and …”

  “And there’s even a fellowship after church tomorrow night,” I heard Birdie say. “Maybe it would suit your schedule better to come to the evening service. Our young people always take charge of the evening service on the Sunday before Christmas.”

  “Naw,” said Thomas slowly. “I don’t reckon night would be any better’n morning as far as church goes. But we’re obliged to you for askin’ us just the same….” He pretended to be interrupted by a spate of coughing.

  As I reentered carrying Mickey’s jacket and Birdie’s coat, I saw Birdie put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I almost forgot about the cupcakes, Mickey! I’ve got to frost them tonight before bed.”

  “She-zam!” cried Mickey, lapsing into an imitation of Gomer Pyle. “Now see what you did,” he said to Thomas. “We’ve gone and had such a good time that we forgot all our responsibilities.” To Birdie he said, “Don’t worry, angel, I’ll help you get it done.” Then he struck an actor’s pose, one hand extended and, still speaking with a countrified drawl, said, “Can’t stay in the woods no more ’cause I got promises to keep, not to mention the miles I gotta truck ’fore I lay down to sleep.”

  I did not respond to his egregious miswording of Frost’s poem, though I was somewhat surprised that he knew the lines well enough to demolish them so neatly. I could not hold myself back, however, at his next words. As I laid his jacket over his outstretched arm, he yawned elaborately and said to Birdie, “Well, buttercup, I guess it only goes to prove what it says in Isaiah—‘There’s no rest for the wicked.’”

  “Peace,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Mickey said, looking at me quizzically.

  “The verse says that there is no peace f
or the wicked,” I said, wishing that I could stamp out my words like a small fire.

  Mickey zipped up his jacket and reached to take Birdie’s coat from me. “That’ll teach me to try to quote things around smart people,” he said pleasantly. I saw that Birdie was studying me as Mickey helped her into her coat. She did not button her coat but stood very still, an expression of somber contemplation upon her face.

  Then she stepped forward and took my right hand in both of hers. Though I should have been prepared for this gesture by now, I was not. I must have winced, but she did not release her hold. “We can’t begin to tell you how much we’ve enjoyed ourselves,” she said. “It’s been an evening we’ll always remember, Margaret.” Still holding my hand—in fact, applying additional pressure upon it—she looked back over her shoulder at Thomas. “It sure was a happy day when I started to work at Emma Weldy and met your lovely wife. And then we had a bonus when we got to meet you!” Thomas opened his mouth as if to reply but merely smiled and said nothing.

  Addressing me again, Birdie said, “Thank you, Margaret, for the good supper and for my nice casserole dish. You don’t know what it all means to me.” How effortless her pretty actions and words seemed! For an instant I tried to imagine myself uttering courtesies with such grace, but the picture did not take shape. I was most desirous of one thing: to extract my hand from hers. She was my friend now, true, but I was by no means initiated so suddenly into the ease of physical contact.

  Without warning she stepped even closer, let go of my hand, stood upon her tiptoes, and embraced me for the second time that day. In so doing, one of her earrings, a silver disk, became dislodged and fell, clattering against a small maple end table and then bouncing to the floor. I was grateful for the distraction, for she immediately sprang back and put a hand to her earlobe.

  And this is when I made the discovery that I referred to earlier. Before Mickey could respond, she bent quickly before me to retrieve the earring, which had landed a few inches from my feet. As she did so, the cowl neck of her royal blue sweater fell loosely from around her neck. Beneath her sweater she wore a white nylon slip, which also drooped as she bent forward, and before I could look away, I saw Birdie Freeman’s chest. There is no way to put this delicately. I do not say that I saw her breasts, for I did not. She had no breasts. I saw her chest, scarred and flat. Too late her hand flew to her neck to press her sweater against her.

  I believe I maintained my composure at the time, taking care not to alter the arrangement of my features, and I do not believe Birdie suspected anything. I lifted my chin slightly, I recall, and fixed my gaze upon the upper frame of the front door. My thoughts ran to confusion. Disconnected phrases of many things I had read whirled about in my mind, three of which were these: “When he seeth the blood upon the lintel” from the book of Exodus in the Bible; “Love’s austere and lonely offices” from Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays”; and “If I moved to Tashkent and lived in a yurt,” the only memorable line from a tediously introspective novel titled Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object by Laurie Colwin.

  I saw no immediate relevance between the strange convergence of these quotations and what I had just seen, but this had happened before. I knew it to be my method of coping with shock, of delaying the absorption of disagreeable knowledge. Upon reflection, however, it would be possible, I suppose, to force a linkage between each of the phrases and the situation at hand, though I will not at this point take the time to put it in writing, except to say in the words of Laurie Colwin that “if I moved to Tashkent and lived in a yurt,” I could never escape the memory of what I saw that night in my living room.

  The moment is of considerable import because it modified my perception of Birdie. Before this time I had imagined her past, when I thought of it at all, as a level, straight road between green pastures. I now knew that she had suffered, at least in a physical sense. Perhaps she had made her peace about it long ago, accepting it cheerfully as her lot in life, but the fact that she had never spoken of it led me to think that deep within her was sheltered a very private grief.

  Even as I underwent this adjustment of mind, however, I felt within me the conflict of ambivalence. On the one hand, I felt a twinge of what I knew to be sympathy, yet on the other, a flare of anger. I did not want the burden of this new knowledge. Why had she had no corrective surgery? Had she never heard of prosthetics? Why did she not take greater care to clutch her garments to her to spare others the sight of what I had seen?

  “They’re sure nice people, aren’t they?” Thomas said a few minutes later as he stood at the front door watching the Freemans back out of our driveway. He expected no answer from me, or so I thought. When I said nothing, however, he recouched his question. “What do you think it is about ’em, Rosie? Why is it they’re so different from us yet I still can’t help likin’ ’em so much—both of ’em?”

  My answer fell from my lips unbidden. “They seem to possess an enduring substance, I suppose.”

  Thomas nodded. “An endurin’ substance…I guess that’s one way of puttin’ it.” Then he laughed as he slowly closed the door. “I’m gonna get me one of them ball caps next week,” he said.

  26

  Sure Mercies

  The next day I was beset with worry. I rose from my bed, dressed, tidied my bedroom, and went into the bathroom to splash cold water upon my face. As I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I wondered, first of all, what had come over me to invite Birdie and Mickey to such a meal as I had prepared the night before. Why, when I could make the most succulent chicken and dumplings, pepper steak, or pork tenderloin, had I chosen to serve as my first meal for guests potato soup and cold beef sandwiches?

  When I was a girl, my mother had always made an occasion of dinner. We ate our evening meal late, around eight o’clock, and we sat down to a table laid with silver table service, linen napkins, and a finely crocheted tablecloth. Often a candle and fresh flowers adorned the center of the table. At the time, this daily ritual was in no way extraordinary to me, for it was all that I had known. Reflecting upon it now, however, it is a marvel to me that my mother had possessed the energy to keep at it.

  After she arrived home from work between half past five and six o’clock, the two of us looked over the schoolwork my mother had assigned me that morning and discussed any questions that had arisen. I wrote my questions in a notebook throughout the day. Some were the result of genuine puzzlement, such as “Was Lycidas somebody John Milton knew, or was he a mythical character?” Other questions were for clarification: “What kind of gene mutations will always be passed on to an offspring, and what kind will not?” Others were slant thoughts that crossed my mind as I read: “How is cellophane wrap made?” or “Who invented the first stapler?” or “Why is Easter always on a different date?”

  Once my school books were set aside and my questions discussed, my mother and I began preparing our dinner together. On certain days she had left instructions with me in the morning concerning the meat: to brown the cube steak at four o’clock, for example, and then to make gravy, pour it over the meat, and place it in a covered dish in the oven on low heat. By the age of ten, due to my mother’s excellent instruction, I could cook quite well. My mother considered cooking to be an art. She eschewed abominations such as cake mixes, “instant” potatoes, or imitation vanilla. “A skilled workman does not take shortcuts,” she often said.

  The dreadful years that I spent with my grandparents were only more so because of my grandmother’s culinary incompetence. Her watery sauces, her dry meats, her flavorless and undercooked vegetables, her heavy breads—all were a miserable contrast to what I had known. I could only wonder how my mother had developed her cooking skills, having grown up on my grandmother’s fare. I could have been of service in the kitchen had my grandmother let me, but it soon became apparent that she viewed my help with a heart of jealousy. When my grandfather spoke highly of my biscuits or requested second portions of my chicken pot pie, my grandmother left t
he table like a sulky child.

  Once, when I watched her flatten a ball of pie crust dough with her hands and then mash it haphazardly into the pie pan, I said, without thinking, “Would it not be better to use your rolling pin for a more uniform crust?”

  She shot me a look of what I interpreted as intense animosity and ordered me to leave the kitchen. “I’ll not have an impudent child telling me how to do things I’ve done all my life!” she called after me. Another time when she told me that I was kneading the bread dough far too long, I answered in the words of my mother, again without pausing to consider the effect. “A skilled workman does not take shortcuts.”

  She laughed derisively and replied, “And how would a thirteen-year-old know anything about a skilled workman?”

  Presently I was banned from all kitchen work on the pretext that I jangled her nerves with my slow, methodical movements. My grandparents ate their evening meal at half past five, and if the food itself had not been enough to suppress my appetite, the early hour would have been. “Eat!” my grandmother would cry. “Don’t think you’ll snack later on. You’ll not get another bite until morning!”

  My grandfather would lower his eyelids and study me with a sinister gaze, his great jaws masticating ponderously. “You eat now or go hungry,” he would say. Each evening I felt as if I were being pulled asunder, longing on the one hand for the unpalatable food to be swept away and the meal ended, yet on the other wishing that I could remain permanently adhered to my chair at the table so as to be spared the darker hours of the night to come.

  Whereas my mother and I had talked happily as we ate our dinner, my grandparents’ table was for the most part silent and hostile. When my grandmother ventured a timid observation, my grandfather either ignored her or denounced the remark as vacuous. My only conversation consisted of monosyllabic answers to my grandfather’s direct questions: “Does your science teacher ever talk about the time he had to answer to the school board for allowing students to experiment with chemicals unsupervised?” No. “Is that Benchley boy in any of your classes—the one whose mother is a barmaid at the Taboo Lounge?” Yes. “Did you sit out of the dancing lesson in gym class like I told you to?” Yes. “Did you read that dirty novel your English teacher assigned for class?” No.