Lesley Kagen - Land of a Hundred Wonders

Pointing to the western sky, I exclaim, “There’s a shootin’ star! That’s a sign, plain as day, that the Lord is forgivin’ you from the bottom of His heart.”

He won’t even look.

“Ya know what I learned in the army?” he asks.

“How to bounce a quarter off a bed and sneak through the woods silent as a vine?”

“Yeah,” he says, like those skills aren’t nuthin’ to be proud of. “But I also learned that when it comes to people, we’re pretty much all the same. No matter what the color of our skin or the slantiness of our eyes. We were all scared over there the same amount.”

“I would have to agree with you,” I say, thinking mostly of the color of skin since I don’t know anybody with slanted eyes ’cept for a cat of Miss Lydia’s she calls the King of Siam. What difference does it make what somebody looks like on the outside? The same things make life worth living for all of us, don’t they? A crunchy walk in the woods, your dog by your side. An afternoon on the lake, when all you got to do is think trout and one hops on your line. I guess some white folks believe the coloreds are different feeling on the inside ’cause they’re so different looking on the outside. That’s just not true. Coloreds got a whole lot of heart and a whole lot of soul. And they make the best damn pork barbecue.

“What ya thinkin’ about?” Billy asks, so full of hope.

“About the coloreds and how if what you said is true, ’bout them settin’ that fire on purpose, what bad trouble they’re gonna be in.”

The silky hair under Billy’s arms is twirling in the breeze. His bare chest is brown and smooth as a pine table. Swiveling his head back toward our names in the heart, he says with such yearning, “Anything at all comin’ to mind?”

“Not yet,” I tell him, but the campfire, the rock, it all seems so familiar. Something is jiggling my cents memory… something I can’t quite… and then suddenly, it’s like I’m watching the movie screen out at the 57. Oh, look… there’s Billy and me. We’re riding through a summer hay field, laughing, touching. Sweet-smelling clover is coating the air. And then the scene changes and we’re swinging off the Geronimo rope down at the beach… and then we’re lying around a campfire just like this one and I can feel the crackling heat on my cheeks. Yes. Here at Blackstone. His arms around me. In more than a friendly way. Our names entwined. Rock solid.

Sweet, sweet Jesus. I really am remembering after all. Only this time it isn’t about Clever getting her driver’s license.

Billy turns back to me, not seeing what I just saw in my mind. Us. “Ya given any thought to what you’d do if Grampa… if he…?” He shakes his head. “All I want ya to know, to remember is… he’s not the only one cares for ya,” he says in a tore-down way.

“Please… please don’t cry… ’cause I think it’s… I believe something is coming back to me. Not in a jar like you said, but…”

Raising those lovely eyes of his to mine, he must see true love radiating outta me because he doesn’t hesitate at all when he reaches out for me. Wraps me in his arms like a long-hoped-for gift. How could I have ever forgotten his warm cheek pressed against mine. These satin kisses. The home sweet homecomin’ feeling of Little Billy and me.

The leftover smoke from Browntown is mixing in with my sidekick’s musky scent. My man, who’s curled close, musta woke up to stoke the fire and add some wood ’cause it’s still flickering. “You asleep?” Clever whispers.

“No, I was just checkin’ for holes in my eyelids.” (That’s what I always say when she asks me that.) Rolling outta Billy’s arms and into hers, I ask, “What?”

“It’s about time,” she says.

“Now? You’re havin’ the birthin’ pains now ?”

Clever raises her eyes toward Billy. “I meant it’s about time you remembered him. He’s still got the engagement ring, ya know.”

“I do indeed,” I say, showing her the sparkly band I got on my finger. That’s why Billy kept leaving me all those rings in our secret stump in the woods at Miz Tanner’s. And that jar of rice? That was a good hint. (Just in case you’re not familiar, that’s what ya throw at people after they get hitched.) “You knew all along we were plannin’ to get married, didn’t ya? Did ya tell me?”

Clever’s breath is hitching when she answers, “I… we… when you never said nuthin’ after the crash, when you didn’t even recognize Billy, me and him and Grampa and Miss Jessie, we got just everybody to go along with not tellin’ ya about the wedding plans ’cause we thought the shock… it might be too much for your NQRbrain to handle. We didn’t want to make ya worse, ya know? Did we do wrong?”

“No, no, y’all did just fine. Please don’t cry,” I tell her, catching one of her tears with the tips of my fingers.

Billy stirs. Sets his hand on my hip.

“Sure you ain’t mad?” Clever asks, shivering some.

Like Grampa always says, secrets bear down hard on a person’s foundation, and she’s kept this one for so long. Even though I really do wish she woulda told me, I cannot stand to see her crumbling. “I’m sure, Kid.”

She draws her eyes close to mine. To see if I’m telling her the truth. “All right, then,” she says, satisfied. “Now we got all that past business put to bed, we need to talk about the future.” Clever places the palm of my hand on her tummy. On her baby. “I don’t believe the two of ya have been formally introduced. Butch, if you would be so kind,” she says in her asking-a-favor voice. “Please say hey to the newest member of our gang. Miss Rose… Rosie Adelaide.”

“Rose? ’Cause of Grampa’s flowers?”

Clever gives me her chipped-tooth grin.

“And Adelaide… after my mama?”

When she says, “Ya know how I always favored that name,” I try to answer with a lot of joyfulness, “Nice to meet ya, Rosie Adelaide. Charmed, I’m sure,” but memories come sneaking up on me-one of my grampa in that hospital bed, maybe dying, and another of Mama, already gone-and like a thief in the night, sorrow steals away all my words.

Morning light is reflecting off the well-deserved gold stars on Billy’s shirt pocket. (His hair smells of wild lavender, by the way.) “Gonna go look around some,” he tells me, slinking off with a bashful smile. Thanks to that idiot Holloway, Keeper’s nursin’ a horrible hangover. Wouldn’t even suck a raw egg, and he’s listing to port. Clever teases him, saying, “Ya know what ya need? What ya need is the hair of the dog, son.” (Since her mother is the town drunk, she is quite knowledgeable in these day-after-a-hoedown remedies.)

When he gets done doing his Reconnaissance: The act of reconnoitering, especially to gain information about an enemy or a potential enemy, Billy comes back into the cave and tells Clever and me, “It looks bad down in Browntown. A couple of the shacks burned to the ground and the dump is rubble. But there’s no sign of Willard or the sheriff. Now’d be a good time to hightail it back to the cottage.”

I would have to agree with him, as would Mr. Howard Redmond, who writes in The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation: Time is of the essence.

So’s my loved ones.

After I make sure all’s well in the cottage, after I breathe in Grampa’s smoky smell and say hello to Mama’s paintings, I head out to the lake ’cause I’ve discovered that for some reason, my brain works better the closer it gets to water. Right off, I open my leather-like up on the picnic table and remove the information card the nurse, Miss Tay Lewis, gave me the last time I was at the hospital. It’s got the afternoon visiting hours noon to two printed on the front. From where the sun’s in the sky, I can tell it’s around ten o’ clock, so that leaves me plenty of time. Whistling Billy’s gone looking for a box to pack Grampa’s things in and Clever’s humming like she doesn’t have a care in the world while she’s watering the roses. Even Keeper, who’s sleeping his hangover off out on the pier, is doing so with a smile on his snout.