The cicada tree, p.4
THE CICADA TREE, page 4
“Now that’s a song a body can move to.” Miss Wessie kicked off her shoes, lacing her fingers, stretching her hands—knuckles popping.
Miss Wessie began with a few gentle twists of her upper body followed by a series of shoulder rotations. Though Miss Wessie was not a petite woman, there was beauty in her generous proportions. Her full bosom gave way to a waist, a feature not typically bestowed upon a woman her size.
Miss Wessie motioned for me. “Miss Lady, get your fanny on over here.”
I tossed my hair over my shoulders hurrying across the floor. She spun me around, a mere warm-up for what was to come next.
“What about me Granny?” Etta Mae said.
“What about you?”
“Can I get down from here?” Etta Mae fluttered her legs over the counter.
“I think that’s the safest place for you to be,” Miss Wessie said with a half-cocked grin.
Miss Wessie helped Etta Mae from the counter then took each of us by the hand and twirled us like lassos. “Now pay close attention,” she said, placing her hands on her hips. She swayed—bending her knees, lowering herself to the floor, and then back up again. Her body, a magnificent pendulum. She raised her hands to the ceiling, executing a series of slow revolutions showcasing her plentiful backside.
Etta Mae and I made sorrowful attempts to match her undulations, both of us star fragments amidst her glorious constellation.
Mama stood at the doorway. “Looks like I walked into the Bait and Tackle on a Saturday night.”
Daddy’s bait shop, a wooden shanty on the river, was notorious in Providence as a makeshift juke joint in the evenings. Its and Daddy’s reputation, an indelible stain on the family name.
“Mama, I thought you were at work.”
“Starting late,” Mama said, giving Miss Wessie a sideways glance.
“Don’t give me that uppity look, Grace Newell. We just having a little fun is all. If the sweet Lord didn’t want us to dance, she wouldn’t have give us legs.” Miss Wessie lifted her dress above her knees.
Etta Mae and I both lifted our dresses, mimicking Miss Wessie.
“Dear Lord,” Mama said, regarding the three of us. Etta Mae’s legs caught Mama’s attention. “Etta Mae, sweetheart, what on Earth happened?”
“Just a little accident is all,” Miss Wessie said. “She gonna be just fine.”
Etta Mae’s face grew somber, her breathing labored from our honky-tonk dance. “Miss Grace.”
I took in a deep breath, staring at the greasy dollops of salve on Etta Mae’s legs. Was this when she would do it? When she would rat me out. I should have pushed you harder.
Mama smiled expectantly at Etta Mae. “Sweetheart?”
“It stings a little, is all.”
Mama glanced up at the kitchen clock. “Best be on my way.” She walked over kissing the top of Etta Mae’s head, then mine. “You put that apron up,” she said, squeezing my shoulder. Something seemed to catch her eye. She reached down, taking the apron’s ruffle in her hand, glancing across it from left to right, as one reads a sentence.
Mama saw something. “What’s it say?” I said.
She bit at her lip, her eyes still clinging to the hem. “Nothing.” She looked up hesitantly. “Sometimes, a stitch is just a stitch.”
She was lying, I was sure of it—the way concern crinkled around her eyes. I might not have been able to see into the future like Mama, but I could read a face, especially hers. “What is it, Mama?”
“You mind Miss Wessie.” She lifted my chin with her index finger, then hurried off, the screen door slapping behind her.
Miss Wessie fiddled with the white kerchief covering her head. “Guess we best get on back to the day.” Her eyes drifted down to my feet. “Miss Lady, how come you took it into your head to wear your shoes out to play?”
“Because ladies always wear shoes,” Etta Mae said, smiling.
“Is that so?” Miss Wessie directed her gaze at me, her hands resting back on her hips. “Well, ain’t you something.”
Etta Mae answered once again on my behalf. “Yes ma’am. They always wear shoes out at Mistletoe. Even when they don’t have any place to go. Isn’t that so, Analeise?”
Miss Wessie moved closer and leaned down. “How you know what them Mayfields do out at Mistletoe?” Her eyes narrowed, her words slow and suspicious.
“Be Bop A Lula” played on the Silverstone, stirring the silence. Wafts of Miss Wessie’s homemade salve mingled with the lingering smells of breakfast, unsettling my stomach. Anger was swelling up in Miss Wessie, this I knew. But why?
There was a noise. A knock at the front door.
“Analeise, turn off that radio,” Miss Wessie said.
I hurried to the Silverstone and fiddled with the knob.
The three of us stood still, listening.
There was another knock, the sound faint and hollow.
“Someone’s at the front door,” Etta Mae whispered. A visitor was a rare occurrence.
“Just a minute.” Miss Wessie located her shoes, wiggling her feet back inside. She turned to me and spoke in a mocking sing-song. “Ladies always wears their shoes when folks come to call.” With a flourish of her hand, she adjusted her kerchief, walking from the kitchen down the hall to the front door. Etta Mae and I grabbed hold of one another, following close behind.
“Flowers for Mrs. Grace Newell,” a man said, a gorgeous bouquet covering his face.
Etta Mae and I squealed, hopping all about the place.
“Get on back in that kitchen.” Miss Wessie snapped her fingers and pointed down the hall.
We complied, neither of us particular fans of Miss Wessie’s wrath. Miss Wessie walked into the kitchen, the lovely flowers reaching out from a cut-glass vase. She placed them on the table. The three of us stared in silence, mesmerized by the vibrant colors of the things, most of which we had never seen before.
It was Etta Mae who broke the spell. “Who they from?” She reached out for the small gold envelope tucked within the blooms.
Miss Wessie swatted Etta Mae’s hand. “Says right here on the card they belong to Miss Grace. Is your name Miss Grace?” Etta Mae shook her head, her bottom lip bowing out just a bit.
“I bet Daddy sent them. Maybe he’s trying to say he’s sorry.” I relished the thought. Of Daddy being kind—of the three of us in the garden again. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Miss Wessie crossed her arms. “Would be real nice.”
Etta Mae hummed the song I taught her in the garden, stopping after just a few bars. Miss Wessie and I followed Etta Mae’s widening eyes to the collar of her dress beneath which was the slightest movement. Etta Mae froze, holding her breath. Our eyes held onto the emerging thing. Red eyes and then the spread of translucent wings. A cicada.
She might have screamed, might have shaken herself all about until she was free of the thing. But she stood stock-still, resuming her beautiful humming, serenading the cicada as it crept up her neck to light on the top of her ear.
Beautiful, beautiful boy . . .
Chapter 5
Everything would change soon as Mama saw the flowers Daddy sent, I was certain of it. Yet, the day lolled along with a relentless lack of urgency waiting for her to return home from work.
Etta Mae and I passed the hours in the garden, exiled there by Miss Wessie to swelter, and leak like faulty spigots.
“You reckon Mama’s flowers need watering?”
“Granny told us to keep our little fannies out here and stop bothering her.”
I moved my mouth repeating back her words without making a sound, then stuck out my tongue. “I don’t care what she said.”
“That’s mighty big talk.” Etta Mae flashed her tongue back at me.
I grabbed Etta Mae by the arm, pulling her to the house. “Come on.”
We peered into the kitchen through the screen door and listened.
“This is a bad idea,” Etta Mae whispered.
“It’s a bad idea to let them flowers wilt before Mama sees them.” With the precision of a safecracker, I coaxed the door open, charming the springs to stretch without so much as a mewl. “Hurry up. Before she comes back. And grab that watering can.”
Etta Mae scuttled on the tips of her toes over to the edge of the porch and back again. ‘It’s got something in it.” She reached in and pulled out a pint of Old Crow whiskey. Her eyes widened. “Sweet baby Jesus.”
“Shush up. She’ll hear you.” I took the bottle from Etta Mae and held it up, examining the golden-brown liquid. “Daddy must’ve hid it in there. Here you take it.” I handed back the bottle while retrieving the watering can. I hurried over to the sink, filling it while counting silently to ten.
“They’re so beautiful.” Etta Mae leaned in and gave them a sniff. “Don’t you wish you could smell just like this?”
I nodded, lifting and tilting the can above the arrangement. “Is that enough, you think?”
“Mmm hmm.” Etta Mae hugged the bottle of Old Crow to her chest.
I blotted at the excess water that spilled onto the table, a result of my anxious hand. We stood back gazing at the bouquet, each of us silent, mired in adoration.
“You gonna drown them flowers.” Miss Wessie’s voice boomed from behind us. Etta Mae and I screamed, unaware she was watching from the door. Miss Wessie straightened her shoulders, puffed out her chest, then sucked in what seemed to be all the air from the room. And she yelled, “Git.”
I dropped the watering can onto the table. Etta Mae and I squealed, scattering from the table to the door.
“Don’t make me break off a switch,” Miss Wessie yelled, as the screen door slapped behind us.
Within the shifting shade of Mama’s Thinking Spot, Etta Mae and I sought refuge beneath the oak tree, both of us sprawled and soaked through with perspiration—the bottle of Old Crow resting on Etta Mae’s chest, rising with each short breath.
“That was a close one,” Etta Mae said.
I sat up and leaned against the tree. “I reckon it was.” I took the bottle from Etta Mae.
“What you gonna do with that?”
“Never you mind.” I unscrewed the top. I lifted the bottle to my nose.
“Analeise.”
“I’m just smelling it.” The scent was not altogether unpleasant. “You wanna a sniff?”
Etta Mae leaned away from me, swatting at the bottle. “You’re gonna get us killed. If Granny catches us with that bottle, we won’t be sitting down until the good Lord calls us back to glory.”
“Daddy sure likes it.” I rotated the bottle, watching the contents shimmer and swirl.
“He likes it a gracious plenty.” Etta Mae reached out and touched my wrist. “Now you go and put that up.”
I did not care for her tone. A gracious plenty. “Did your daddy ever drink?” It was a mean thing to ask, a question for which I already possessed the answer. A topic on which she did not care to speak. Etta Mae never knew her father.
She shrugged, pressing her back against the tree. I was immediately sorry for what I did. The last thing I wanted was to send her drifting off into grief, thinking of her dead mama and her run away daddy.
“I wonder what all the fuss is about.” I pulled the whiskey so close to sniff it grazed my nose, a drop splashing up on the tip. I dabbed my finger against my nose, then my tongue, tasting the hint of buttery sweetness. It was then I decided to do it. I tilted back the bottle and gulped a mouthful.
“Analeise Newell.”
“Hush up.” I shut my eyes, taking in the slow burn trailing down my throat, blossoming across my insides. Like the smell, the taste was not as bad as I anticipated.
“Are you crazy?” Etta Mae squeezed my wrist.
“Might be.” I opened my eyes to make certain the ground had not split apart to swallow me up.
“You drunk yet?” she whispered, leaning into me, scrutinizing me for any hint of drunkenness.
“Don’t be silly. It takes more than a little ole’ sip to get drunk.” I spoke as if I were an authority on the matter. Truth be told, I did feel woozy, like the end of a good spin on a tire swing.
“You feel any different?”
“A little.” I planted my palms into the ground to stop the spinning.
“What’s it feel like?”
The lightheadedness intensified, and for no explicable reason, I giggled. “Like I swallowed down a piece of sun.” I passed the bottle beneath her nose. “Want some?”
She swatted my hand. “The devil’s done grabbed hold of you, Analeise Newell. Don’t send him chasing after me.”
I screwed the top back on the bottle, propped it against the tree, then laid myself down in the ramble of grass and weeds, my head against Etta Mae’s legs. Could this be how it felt to be Daddy? Giddy. Floating and bobbing. Not at all eaten up with meanness. I blinked up into the big oak’s branches twisting and reaching toward the house, the sun weaving through, casting shadows of lace all around us.
Etta Mae hummed to Mrs. Mayfield’s song, her right hand combing my hair through her fingers. “Beautiful, beautiful boy . . .”
Etta Mae’s singing stirred a peculiar longing that sat heavy like a stone in my stomach, her enchanting voice urging the grogginess brought upon me by Old Crow.
Beautiful, beautiful boy.
I thought of Mistletoe. Of Mrs. Mayfield, and Marlissa. How lovely they were. Both, fuzzy-edged remnants of a beautiful dream. Would I ever see them again?
The press of melancholy and whiskey nudged big glossy tears to swell and spill from the corners of my eyes. A heaviness slowed my breathing, coaxing my eyelids shut.
Mrs. Mayfield’s peculiar word was the last thought to float across my consciousness before the world fell away, before I drifted into a dreamless sleep.
It came to me like a whisper.
Patton . . .
***
The vibrations of the old Ford’s engine woke me. Cotton-mouthed and confused, I tried to focus my eyes there in the diminished light, the corners of late afternoon peeling away into evening. “Mama’s home,” I said, pushing myself up from the ground. Etta Mae had fallen asleep alongside me. I nudged her shoulder. “Wake up. Mama’s home.”
Etta Mae woke with a start, her eyes swollen from sleep. “The flowers,” Etta Mae said, a smile spreading across her pretty face.
Etta Mae and I hurried through the garden to the front of the house where Mama parked the truck. We both jumped up and down, grabbing hold of Mama’s arms before she could properly settle her feet to the ground.
“Mama. Guess what?”
“Miss Grace. Miss Grace.” Etta Mae squealed, her words tangling in mine, both of us battling for the honor of announcing her surprise.
“My heavens. What a welcome.” Mama laughed at our spectacle. “Don’t I feel special.”
Etta Mae took Mama’s left hand, and I grabbed hold of the other, both of us pulling her toward the house.
“Hurry, Mama.”
“Okay. Okay,” she said, speeding up her pace. “Is the house on fire?”
Etta Mae and I both yelled, “It’s a surprise.”
We led Mama into the kitchen, turning loose her arms, pushing her to the flowers. Etta Mae and I fidgeted in silence, awaiting Mama’s rapture, both of us wound and ready to join her in celebration.
Mama moved slowly, approaching the arrangement with caution, reaching for the envelope affixed to the bouquet.
“Aren’t they pretty?” I said. Mama looked at me for a moment, turned and pried the envelope loose with her ragged nail.
“I think Daddy’s sorry for being so mean,” I said. “Is that what the card says?”
Mama pressed the card into her bosom. The late afternoon light cast a dullness across the room, accentuating the shadows beneath her eyes. The odor of pickle brine saturated her clothing, overpowering the flowers’ delicate scent. I studied Mama in her stained work blouse and trousers, corkscrews of lush blooms reaching out to her.
Miss Wessie entered the kitchen, breaking the silence with a hand raised to the ceiling. “Praise be. These here girls been cutting the fool and carrying on all afternoon waiting for you to get home to see them flowers.” She wedged her index finger beneath her kerchief, scratching at her head. “Looks like Claxton Newell finally done rolled some dice that turned up the right way.” She glanced at Mama from the corner of her eyes.
Etta Mae tugged at one of Mama’s belt loops. “Don’t you like the flowers, Miss Grace?”
Mama looked down, touching the top of Etta Mae’s head, then reached over and stroked my cheek. “Girls, I think they’re real pretty. Thank y’all for bringing me in to see them.” She folded and tucked the card into her pocket. “I best get cleaned up and get myself a nap before my shift.”
“No.” I said, elongating the word, melting it in my mouth. “Don’t go.”
“Analeise, please don’t start with me. You know I’ve got to work.”
During the summer months, after pressing pickles into jars, Mama would come home to rest before venturing out to the Panty Factory, stitching together lady undergarments until morning. These were special days because Etta Mae and Miss Wessie stayed the night.
Mama squeezed my shoulder and started for the hall.
“Aren’t you gonna call down to the Bait and Tackle and thank Daddy for the flowers?”
“You girls mind Miss Wessie, and don’t make too much noise out here.”
“Mama, you call Daddy right now. Before you go off to sleep.”
“Wessie, can I see you out here a minute?” Mama ignored me, as if I had fallen through the floorboards and clear from sight.
My feet turned hot, anger shot up through me, pounding at my temples. “Mama!”
Miss Wessie turned and snapped her fingers at me, shooing me back. Etta Mae and I hurried to the door, straining to hear the rise and fall of their murmurs. Miss Wessie returned to the kitchen staring ahead, the same veil of distraction Mama wore moments before.
“What did she say? Why won’t she call Daddy?”
“I reckon that’s your Mama’s business.” Miss Wessie stared at the flowers.
