Roll with It

by Jamie Sumner

  The pie is on my lap, and I try to hold its covered dish tight and careful at the same time—like a goldfish in a bowl. I yelped at every bump on the way over until Mom said if I didn’t calm down, she’d make the pie ride up in front with her.

  It’s a beauty of a day, cooler than I thought after spending all morning in the kitchen. When we get out, a breeze is blowing through the trees.

  I threaten Mom with her life when I hand her the pie. I don’t trust myself to hold it while I roll into the room where the contest is being held. I remember that this room is actually a gym. There are lines painted on the floor and basketball hoops all folded up into the ceiling. Today, though, it looks more like a farmers market or a circus.

  Right in the middle at half-court, four long folding tables make a square. Their lacy tablecloths blow in the breeze from the big fans that have been wheeled in to keep out the heat and the flies.

  “Oh, honey, nice to see a little baker out today!” It’s Evelyn. She’s standing inside the square of tables in a bright orange sleeveless dress and hat. She looks like a traffic cone.

  “Here you go.” She hands me a green sticker and a marker. “Put your name on this and stick it right to the bottom of your pie plate. This’s so it stays anonymous.”

  She leans in. “We’ve had some incidents in the past,” she says, then drops her voice to a whisper. “You know, of cheating.” Her eyes go wide. “People were submitting more than one pie. We even had one of the judges try to sneak one in once.”

  I don’t say anything, because what do you say to all that? And then she winks at me, so I’m not sure if she was kidding. But I write my name and stick it on the bottom of the pie dish anyway, just in case. I leave the pie cover on. I’m waiting for the big reveal—not even Mom knows what’s under there.

  It feels good to have the pie out of my hands. Now there’s nothing to do but wait and see. I pray real quick and then cross my fingers, too, just to cover all my bases.

  More folding tables have been set up all along the walls for the silent auction, and Bert and Coralee and I move down the line, weaving in and around the bidders to pass the time.

  There are gift certificates to Church’s Chicken and handmade dollhouses that open and close with a hinge. Quilts with sunflowers and pinwheels and grapevines hang from racks on the walls. There’s even one made from old T-shirts.

  Bert picks up a vintage camera, but the man in charge of monitoring the tables takes it away from him when he almost drops it. In one corner somebody’s actually parked a canoe, complete with paddles and life jackets.

  There are iPads and flat-screens and laptops, too.

  Methodists do not mess around with their auctions.

  Coralee is holding up an old-fashioned house phone in the shape of a piano when we hear the dinner bell clang. It’s an actual bell as big as a beach ball that they roll in once a year for the fish fry. I bet you can hear it all the way across the lake.

  The line for catfish spills out into the parking lot. People at the back have to wave off the councilmen and councilwomen holding up signs and handing out stickers with their names printed on them.

  By the time we get to the front, the men at the fryers are already sweating through their T-shirts, but they smile when I hand over my double-layered paper plate. I skip the coleslaw and beg extra fish and hush puppies. The plate is so hot on my lap, I have to hold it up and get Coralee and Bert to push me over to the picnic tables. They each take one handle and are basically terrible at walking together, so I feel a little carsick by the time we find everybody already sitting at a table under the oaks.

  “How’d you get your food so fast?” I ask.

  Nobody says anything.

  “You cut in line, didn’t you?” I say, and poke a fork at Mema. “You cut in line at a church function. Whatever happened to ‘do unto thy neighbor’?”

  She takes a long sip of sweet tea and says, “Honey, everybody knows that does not apply to a fish fry.”

  Mom snorts into her tea. She looks so beautiful that for a minute I put my fork down. She’s wearing a white sleeveless dress, and her arms are freckled from the sun, and she’s gained some weight since we’ve been here with all of Mema’s cooking. She doesn’t look so breakable.

  I run my hands down my own legs. I’m in jean shorts today, and I squeeze my thighs a little. They’re bigger, stronger maybe from all the exercises Hutch has me doing.

  “How’re y’all on this fine afternoon?”

  It’s like I magicked him here. Hutch sits down next to me and smiles at everybody. Mom smiles down into her lap.

  Ten minutes of serious eating later and I’m so full I’m wishing my shorts were elastic. Coralee is lying on top of the picnic table, even though people are still hunting for spots. She’s humming the national anthem and tapping her stomach to the beat.

  “Bert,” I call across the table.

  “What?” He looks up from his phone. Half his siblings are about to come home for the summer, and they’re all texting him like they’ve just remembered he exists.

  “When do they announce the winner for the contest?” My stomach flutters underneath all the catfish.

  “How should I know?”

  “Your dad’s the one offering the prize.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t have anything to do with the contest. They won’t even let him near the pies. They say his presence could influence the results.”

  I cannot believe how seriously they take this. I feel like I’ve entered the Pie Olympics.

  “I’ll go check, baby girl.” Grandpa gets up. “I think they’re about done with the next batch anyway,” he says, nodding toward the catfish fryers.

  Mema shakes her head. “That man could eat a horse.”

  “Hey, you want to play horseshoes?” Coralee says, and I nod, because I’ll do anything to keep from thinking about the contest. We take Bert’s phone away and drag him with us.

  “You cheated!”

  “Coralee, I did not. There is no possible way to cheat at horseshoes.”

  “Yes, there is, Bert. I saw you step over that line.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. Ellie’s still winning.”

  I only half hear them. It’s been ten minutes and still no Grandpa. I leave them to it and go back over to the picnic tables. Our place is now taken up by a family with a stroller, and I can’t see Mom or Mema anywhere.

  I roll back into the gym. Maybe they’re bidding on the silent auction. But it’s so hot in there, I can’t stay more than a minute or two. Just long enough to see they’re not in there.

  I’m about to go back to the horseshoes when Mom comes running.

  “Ellie, we’ve got to go.” She takes me by the handles.

  “Hey, no! What are you doing? They haven’t even announced the winner yet!”

  We’re wheeling toward the parking lot so fast, the wind’s whipping my hair.

  “You grandfather’s gone. He took the Buick.”

  “What?”

  But I see Mema already in the front seat of the van and motioning out the window for us to hurry up.

  Nobody says a word as we speed toward home.

  Our street is quiet. There’s not even a dog barking. It seems like the whole world went down to church today.

  The Buick’s not in the drive.

  Mema starts to cry.

  Mom turns around in her seat to look at me. “Ellie, I need you to stay here.”

  “Mom, no—”

  “Hush now. I need you here in case Grandpa comes back or somebody calls the house phone. Can you do that for me?”

  She’s already out of the van and lowering the lift. So I just nod. I’m too scared to do anything else. I’m barely out and on the front walk when they back down the driveway in a cloud of dust.

  I know I’m supposed to go into the house, but it’s too quiet. I can’t sit still. I rock back and forth in place. I tilt back and look at the blue, blue sky cut in half by the telephone wire. Somewhere up in
the tree, a bird caws. It sounds like a crow. I drop back down and roll along the front walk, bumping over the seashells Mema put down in the cement after their one trip to the beach. I stop by the canning shed and sit in the shade. I try not to panic.

  That’s when I hear it.

  A humming.

  It’s coming from the garage, but nobody ever uses the garage for parking. It’s always been used to hold mowers and oilcans and garden tools. And Grandpa’s woodworking. I shiver in the shade and roll forward, put my ear to the door real slowly. I can hear it better now, though I still can’t tell what it is. It’s kind of like a soft purr.

  I bang on the metal door, and it’s so loud I scare myself. Nobody answers. I lean all the way down and grab the handle and try to pull. The door is so heavy, it lifts only an inch or two. But out from that inch drifts a cloud of car fumes that makes me turn and cough.

  I bang and bang on the door until my palm’s on fire. I lock my wheelchair in place and use both hands to grab at the handle and lift. Each time I can only get it cracked. Grandpa’s in there, I know it. And I can’t get to him.

  I can’t stop crying.

  I call Mom.

  She doesn’t answer.

  I leave a message that is just me crying.

  “Grandpa!” I ram the door with my chair and almost tip over. But it’s enough to knock it up and get it moving, and I pull and pull. The skin’s ripping off my hands. It doesn’t matter. The door is up.

  It’s up and I’m coughing in a cloud of exhaust. The Buick’s in there, but I can’t get the chair between it and the wall. Up in front, Grandpa sits slumped over the wheel like he’s fallen asleep.

  16

  Buoyed

  Dear Mrs. Julia Child,

  Google just told me you are no longer alive, but I had it in my mind to write you a thank-you, and so I’m going to do it anyway, because I need something to do with my hands.

  I am writing to thank you for your recipe for piecrust. I found it in my mom’s copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. At first my grandma said French cooking was too snooty, but when she found out it had shortening in it, she said, “Anything that uses Crisco is okay by me.”

  Somebody close to me told me that if I was going to make a prizewinning pie, I had to pick something that spoke to me.

  The problem is a lot of things speak to me. I like fancy French food and also biscuits and gravy and chocolate-dipped cones from Dairy Queen and miniature golf and sudoku (thanks to my grandma).

  So I decided to make a pie that would speak to every part of me. I used your crust because it’s nice and sweet and a little fancy, and I used blackberries my grandma and I picked from her garden and canned last summer, because it’s still spring here and I thought people would like a taste of what’s ahead. And I glazed it all in lemon because lemon is my grandpa’s favorite and I wanted to make him smile.

  So I guess this is a letter to my family, too, for helping me make the best blackberry lemon pie in the whole of Eufaula. I can say that for real because I have a blue ribbon and a hundred-dollar grocery certificate to prove it.

  Many thanks,

  Ellie

  It’s too dark in this room. I don’t know why it always has to be too dark or too bright or too cold or too hot. But I guess you don’t come to the hospital for a good night’s sleep.

  Mom and Mema are down in the family room meeting with the doctors. I told them I’d keep an eye on Grandpa. Not that he’s going anywhere. I can hear his breathing, steady and calm, and that makes me calm. I’ve never been in this position before—the visitor in the hospital.

  After we got to the ER, the paramedics said I was a hero. They said if I hadn’t busted open that garage door, it could have been much worse. They didn’t say worse how. They didn’t need to.

  I lay my head on Grandpa’s knee and shut my eyes. My hands itch where the nurse bandaged up the cuts. It feels like a lifetime and a day since baking in the kitchen this morning with Coralee.

  I feel a hand on my head.

  “Hey, stop that crying now.”

  “Grandpa!” I sit up and grab at his hand with my own. It’s purple and veiny, and I’m careful not to touch the IV. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

  “Well, I think this counts.” He coughs and smiles. “Hey, now. I said no crying. I’m gonna be okay.”

  And he looks okay. A little pale maybe, and his voice is hoarse. Otherwise, he looks normal. But I can’t help thinking, That’s the problem, isn’t it? He always looks normal. I squeeze his hand.

  “What’s my name?”

  “What?” He looks confused for a second, and I hate it, but I have to ask.

  “Just—what’s my name?”

  “Dolly Parton.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Honey, I know you’re Ellie. But I don’t blame you.”

  He coughs, and I scoot closer.

  “Grandpa, why’d you run off like that?”

  “Well, it’s kind of a funny story,” he says, and laughs, but I can’t. “I went to check on the contest, like I told you. Then when I got in there and saw all the trinkets at the silent auction, I remembered I’d left my own at home, the woodworking I’d been doing. I thought I’d just drive on home to fetch it.”

  He stops talking, and I think that’s the end of it, and I want to ask, Why, why did you park in the garage? Why did you shut the door? Why didn’t you turn the car off? but he’s rubbing his eyes and there’s a little blood on his hand from where they had to stick him twice with the needle for the IV. So I decide to leave it for now.

  I’m about to push the button for the nurse when he says, “Ellie, I guess I just got a little confused, is all.”

  “Oh, Grandpa.”

  “Ellie, I know I’m not right some of the time.” He picks at some dirt under his thumbnail, like a little kid. “But most of the time I am, honey, and that’s just a hard line to walk.”

  “They’re talking about making you live somewhere else.”

  I didn’t mean to say it, didn’t mean to tattle. But he doesn’t look surprised.

  “I know, baby. Your grandma and I have been discussing it.”

  “But I don’t want you to leave!”

  I yell so loud a nurse comes by and shushes me and then sees Grandpa is awake and goes off to fetch a doctor.

  “Honey, it’s not like they’re dumping me at a street corner and going on their merry way. Some of the places we’ve looked at are mighty fine, nicer than our trailer, that’s for sure. And your grandma would come with me. We’d even get a little space to do some gardening.”

  “I like our trailer.”

  “I know you do.”

  And then I pull out my blue ribbon and hand it to him. Evelyn drove by the hospital just to give it to me. He holds it up to the light like he’s looking at a gemstone.

  “Well, I’ll be. First place.”

  “And a hundred dollars to boot.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  He’s closing his eyes now, and I think I ought to let him rest, but I want to ask one last thing.

  “Grandpa?”

  “What, honey?”

  “What’d you go back for? For the auction, I mean. What’d you make?”

  He opens his eyes and looks at me.

  “It was a mailbox in the shape of a pie. I guess I had you on my mind.”

  Before we leave that night, I tape the ribbon to the foot of his bed, so he’ll see it first thing when he wakes up and remember.

  One day during the summer when I was nine, Grandpa had been promising me all morning we’d go fishing. It would be the first time out on the boat that season. It was ninety degrees at noon, but I was in my chair waiting by the van right after lunch.

  “Honey, you don’t have to wear that life vest until we hit the water,” he said as we backed down the drive.

  “I know.”

  I left it on because how can you explain to a grown-up how it feels to be so close to the thing you
’ve been waiting for? But when we got to the dock and were backing the boat down into the water, the clouds swooped in with a flash summer storm. It was thundering and dark as night and we had to turn around.

  I cried all the way home.

  I was sitting in my chair watching reruns of The Magic School Bus when Mema came in. She was holding out an umbrella.

  “Your grandpa’s got a surprise for you.”

  I didn’t want to go, but she wheeled me out into the rain anyway and down the gravel driveway to the carport next to the garage. Grandpa was standing by an old trash can, and flames rose up out of it and licked the sides.

  Without a word, he passed me a coat hanger he’d unbent and helped me stick a hot dog on the end of it. His apron said WORLD’S WORST CHEF.

  We sat out there all afternoon roasting hot dogs and playing cards while the yard filled with puddles, and Mom and Mema watched from the porch.

  “Sometimes,” Grandpa said when it finally stopped raining and the sun came out, “the best plan is the one you don’t make for yourself.”

  Dear Dad,

  I can’t believe you got me the cookie scooper! I know it’s not super fancy and doesn’t look like much, but I have made a million cookies a million times faster, and it’s awesome! So thank you!

  And yes, when you come to visit this summer, I promise to make the oatmeal raisin cookies.

  Ellie

  June in Oklahoma is like living on the sun. Or at least that’s what it feels like in the bed of the pickup as it bounces down the road to No. 9 landing.

  “You know we’d get arrested for this in Nashville,” I yell through the open window into the cab of the truck. I’m in the back with Bert and Coralee in a nest of life vests and inner tubes.

  “Good thing we moved, then!” Mom yells back.

  Coralee laughs and slaps Bert on the back so hard he drops his phone. “What in the world has gotten into your mother?” she shouts toward me, her hair whipping free from her ponytail.