Elizabeth J Church - All the Beautiful Girls

“And, I’ve made your favorite chicken and dumplings for dinner. Wash up and then come help me with the snap beans. It’s about time I taught you to cook.”

While Lily sat on the kitchen stool and broke the crisp beans into pieces in a big white mixing bowl, Aunt Tate told Lily stories from when Mama and Aunt Tate were girls. She even showed Lily a little sickle-shaped scar on the back of her left hand where Mama had used a willow whip to attack her big sister. “We didn’t always get along,” Aunt Tate said. “But I always loved your mama. I just want for you to remember that she was a real person, with real faults. We always put the dead on a pedestal, but they were real humans, just like us. They made mistakes, just like us.”

Lily had just finished setting the table when Uncle Miles came through the kitchen door carrying a teeny-tiny guitar under his arm. Lily couldn’t help but hope it was a gift for her, a reward for keeping their secret.

“Oh no! You didn’t!” Aunt Tate said, laughing. “Oh, this is just plain funny!”

Lily had never before seen her aunt get the giggles. Aunt Tate used the hem of her apron to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes. “You don’t have a musical bone in your body, old man. What on earth possessed you?” To Lily, she said, “Don’t forget the bread.”

Lily opened the bread box and stacked six slices of Wonder Bread on a plate. She twirled the plastic bag closed and used Aunt Tate’s wooden clothespin to reseal it. From the corner of her eye, she watched as Uncle Miles set the child-sized guitar on the chair next to the prayer shawl Aunt Tate was knitting. He rolled up his sleeves before washing his hands.

“Got it at Pawn City,” he said, lathering his hands. “Dirt cheap.” He was clearly more than a little pleased with himself.

“It shoulda been free,” Aunt Tate said, carefully ladling the chicken and dumplings into a deep white tureen. “No one in their right mind would buy that. A ukulele, Miles?”

“This is a ukulele?” Lily asked, gingerly plucking a string on the instrument.

“It’s Hawaiian .” Uncle Miles pushed Lily’s hand away. “And it’s not a plaything.”

“You can’t even read music.” Aunt Tate sat down and scooted her chair in. “Here,” she said, handing him the tureen. “And what were you doing at the pawnshop?”

“Stopped in on my way home. Just lookin’.” Uncle Miles gave himself a generous helping of chicken and dumplings.

“Talk about money down the drain.” Aunt Tate shook her head.

Lily found it strange that any part of her could feel sorry for Uncle Miles. And to realize that it was Aunt Tate who held the upper hand, not her uncle.

“You’ll see,” he said. “And you’ll be begging me to serenade you.” Uncle Miles laid aside his knife and fork, floated one hand in the air, and began singing a Patsy Cline song.

His voice was awful, and Lily couldn’t help it—she laughed into her hand and looked across the table at her aunt, who stuck her fingers in her ears, rolled her eyes, and smiled right back at Lily.

AUNT TATE HAD been wrong about Lily being able to leave her sorrow behind in the house that used to be home. Sorrow was not so easily fooled; it stuck to the soles of Lily’s feet and dogged her every step. It was an undercurrent to every breath.

Lily stood on the sidewalk in front of Aunt Tate ’s American Beauty rosebush. Making sure that the coast was clear, she dropped down on all fours and began dragging her right knee along the rough pavement, shredding the skin. It burned, but she kept going, checked the raw skin often, and only stopped when she was certain that the wound was serious enough to merit Aunt Tate’s attention. The blood ran down Lily’s leg, into the top of her knee sock. Straightening her cotton twill dress, Lily picked up her schoolbooks and went inside.

Aunt Tate said, “You need to be more careful,” as she painted Lily’s knee with the bright red Mercurochrome that Dawn had called monkey’s blood . When Aunt Tate softly placed a square of gauze over the skinned knee, when she used the fingernail scissors to cut strips of white adhesive tape and was careful not to hurt Lily as she pressed the tape to Lily’s leg, Lily felt cared for, reassured. As if she mattered.

Lily created other injuries. She “fell” off of a curb and for good measure bravely struck her ankle three times with the heaviest rock she could find. She knocked her forehead against a doorknob. She burst her lower lip and gave herself a black eye on a rung of the playground ladder. Yet, it wasn’t until Aunt Tate taught Lily how to use a razor blade to scrape hard-water stains from windowpanes that Lily realized she could turn the blade on herself, at last finding blissful release.

LILY’S TEACHER ANNOUNCED that there was a special, last-day-of-school assembly. Along with her fourth-grade classmates, Lily sat on the polished gymnasium floor and then looked up to see the Aviator standing at the podium. He wore his navy blue dress uniform with the gold wings and rows of medals and ribbons, and in his hand was his uniform cap.

“I’m here today as the special guest of Lily Decker,” he said. “Lily, please stand and let your schoolmates thank you for making this happen.”

Basking in the glory, Lily stood, thinking her mouth could not stretch widely enough. All the kids who’d pointedly skirted around the girl of contagious calamity now cheered loudly.

The Aviator spoke about flying bombers over Europe during the war, of the new aircraft he was testing high above the plains of Kansas and the entire Midwest, and he cited facts and figures about the speed of the planes, what he saw when he catapulted beyond the clouds. The boys shouted questions about how many enemy cities he’d destroyed, and the girls—who were for the most part absurdly shy—asked questions about whether people on the ground really looked like ants, if the Aviator could see into windows and know what families were having for dinner.

When it was all over, the Aviator asked Lily to come up and stand beside him. She made sure her bobby socks weren’t drooping and smoothed her green-and-blue plaid dress as she walked to the front of the gymnasium. The Aviator held a small corsage with two white roses and some airy greenery.

“This is for my good friend Lily,” he announced as he pinned the corsage to the collar of her dress. Lily’s heart soared—high, into the stratosphere, venturing far beyond any altitude even the Aviator had ever sought.

AUNT TATE SAID Lily could go look at the elephants, but she had to be back in ten minutes. Lily hopped down the bleachers, holding her paper bag of popcorn against her chest so that she wouldn’t spill any. She could hardly wait for the show to begin, because there would be trapeze artists in sparkly costumes and maybe those girls in leotards who twirled on ropes.

Lily made her way past the man selling chameleons tethered on lengths of red thread, and then she stood in the straw in front of the elephants. She decided she liked the one named Bruno best. Lily wanted to run her hand across the terrain of his gray skin, to smooth away his wrinkles and try to make his eyes look less sad. Other kids were holding out fistfuls of peanuts, but Bruno ignored them all. He turned his head and stared morosely at the red-and-white wall of the canvas tent.

“How are you, Miss Lily?”

It was the Aviator, standing at Lily’s elbow. He wore a ball cap and a forest-green T-shirt, and Lily saw half circles of sweat beneath his arms. July’s heat was upon them. Soon enough, there would be days in a row of 100-degree temperatures that left everyone in Salina wet and wilting.

Lily grinned. “Hi,” she managed and then offered the Aviator some of her popcorn. He accepted a few kernels.