“The apology?” I say, wondering where Papa is right this moment. “We don’t have all day.” Is he coming up the front walk?
To my surprise, Lou has enough remaining good sense to turn to my sister and say, “I’s so, so sorry for playing a trick on ya, Jane Woodrow. Here. Let me make it up to ya.” She widens out her skinny arms, like she’s intending to give my twin a honey bear hug.
“Don’t be such a sucker.” I yank Woody back by her shirt collar. “Can’t you see it’s a trap?”
“No, it ain’t.” Lou is acting wounded with a pouty, dimpled look. In a hurt-little-girl voice, she says, “Why ya always gotta be so mean to me, Shenny?”
I laugh in her face and hope my breath smells bad. “That’s a real good impression, Lou. You should enter yourself into the Founders Weekend talent show. You’d win first prize, that’s how good that is.” I say to Woody, “Let’s get outta here before she breaks into ‘The Good Ship Lollipop.’” I take a couple of steps in the right direction, expecting my sister to follow, but she doesn’t. “What are you doin’?” My head whips back and forth between her and Lou. “Oh, for the love of Pete,” I say, figuring out why my music loving sister is acting like she’s nailed to the floor, “I didn’t mean that she’s actually gonna perform that song, Woody, I meant that she’s-”
“Oh my, you’re in for it now,” Lou butts in. “Ya hear that?”
Papa?
I hold my breath and listen for the sound of his high-heeled boots. The way his silver cleats click against the foyer’s cool marble floors. I check my sister’s face. She’s got on her usual you-can-knock-all-you-want-but-nobody’s-home look. That’s good. If Papa was close by, sensitive Woody would be squinching her eyes closed and throwing back her head, readying herself to make this sound that’s very theatrical. The only other time I’ve heard it was in that movie we took Beezy to see up at Hull’s Drive-In called The Hound of the Baskervilles.
“You better quit bothering us, Louise,” I say, setting my hands on my hips. “We don’t hear a thing, do we, Woody.”
“Maybe ya should try harder.” Lou cups a hand to her ear. “I believe… why yes, I’m sure that’s the toilets callin’ out your name. Sheeen… Shenandoah Carmooody. Ya better get right up here and scrub us ’fore the lovely Miss Louise runs and tells yer pappy what ya been up to.”
Technically, I’ve got aces over Louise’s kings. Woody and me leaving Lilyfield to search for our mother is bad, but maybe not as bad as Lou taking off her clothes for that joker, Uncle Blackie. But a fat lot of good that does me. I can’t tattle the dirt I got on her. Not right now. Lou knows how much I love my father and that the last thing I want to do is cause him more trouble than he’s already got, what with Mama’s recent birthday and the anniversary of her disappearance and a long visit with Grampa hanging on the horizon. I could rat her out to Mr. Cole, but being so kind and forgiving like he is, probably the worst he’d inflict upon her would be the recitation of a Mary Magdalene passage out of the Bible.
No. A good card player knows when to fold.
“Just so you know, Lou, Woody and I wish you were dead,” I spout as I huff out of the dining room, pulling my twin behind me.
“Cleanin’ bucket’s under His Honor’s sink.” Lou devilishly laughs. “Use the bleach and lift the seat.”
“That’s fine. Don’t worry,” I say, attempting to console my sister as we head up the front staircase. “This is just one hand in the game. The second I get a chance, you know what I think I’ll do?” Woody pauses and listens intently. She looks so cute that I cannot resist hugging her. When I do, a little sssss escapes out of her. I’m sure that’s her way of showing me that even though she can’t talk, we’re still on the same wavelength. “That’s exactly right, pea. I’m going to ask E. J. to do a little copperhead hunting for us. We’ll add it to the pot.”
Chapter Seven
Our white canopy bed has always reminded me of a sailboat anchored in the middle of a deep sea.
When she was painting the walls this pretty blue, Mama told Woody and me she hoped they’d make us feel less like we were “weathering a tempest,” and more like we were “drifting through a sea of tranquility,” and sometimes they do. But mostly we’re sleeping in our fort lately. It’s safer up there.
I’m gazing out our bedroom window at the Minnow place, recollecting what Bootie Young told me over at the cemetery this morning. It’s hard to believe Clive has shipped off to the Great Beyond. Just over the treetops, I can see the porch we used to visit on. His dog, Ivory, is lying next to his master’s bentwood rocker, his back legs stretched out like a frog’s, his head between his paws. Mr. Clive asked me one morning, “Know why I named this mutt the opposite of what he looks like, little girl?” He nodded down at the chocolate pup. “The dog’s the only one tolerates me besides you Carmody gals, so I guess that makes him only ninety-nine point forty-four percent smart. Get it? Ivory? Like the soap?”
I think that remark shows some humility, so I guess that’ll be my eulogy for my hypochondriac friend. I don’t imagine there will be much of a turnout at the cemetery service. Clive wasn’t all that appealing. His hair cascaded in greasy rivulets that pooled at his shoulders. A stench rose off his body in almost visible waves. And his teeth… I think that might’ve been moss growing off them. Thank goodness he was a hermit. Even if he had wanted company, who’d want to spend an afternoon with somebody who looked and smelled the way he did? To the best of my knowledge, nobody besides me and Mama and Gramma. Woody never was too interested. Every time I asked her to join me for a neighborly visit, she’d say, “You go on without me. Clive reminds me of standing water.”
Gramma Ruth Love, she liked Clive. She brought him pies. That’s one of the things that Auxiliary ladies do, go around and deliver tasty things to shut-ins. That wasn’t totally unselfish of her, though. I know by the smile it put on her face that it made her feel good to watch Clive, who really did appreciate home-cooking, gobble that pie down in one sitting. And Mama, she was a friend to Clive as well. She would run errands for him when Papa wasn’t home and sometimes straighten up his house. Since he hardly never threw anything anyway, it could get pretty crowded in there. His Honor didn’t care for Clive. Sometimes, from the fort, I could hear them going after each other, but just the sound of their furious voices, not what they were saying specifically.
I let the lace fall back over the bedroom window and wonder what’s to become of that little Lab that’s got gray running through his muzzle and stiffness in the hips now that his owner’s dead? Maybe Papa could find it in his heart to let us keep him. Woody could sure use another dog.
Mars is never coming back.
My sister is sitting at the vanity table poofing powder on her cheeks, her chin, arms, and hands. “Hey, knock that off. You’re starting to look… why don’t you work on a picture instead? Something pretty for a change,” I say, back flopping onto our bed.
Drawing is Woody’s real gift from God. Our mother explained that even though her twins shared the same room when we were growing inside of her, there were two chutes that fed into us. I got Mama’s love of words delivered to me and Woody got her fondness for music. But it was our mother’s love of art that got specially delivered to my sister’s soul. When she was still here, Mama would admire Woody’s work, saying somewhat tearful (that’s how moved she’d be), “That’s perfect. Just the right amount of shading. And the colors… gorgeous. You’ll be a respected artist someday, honey. Maybe in New York City. You’ll live in a walk-up with your sister, who’ll be a wonderful writer … sniff… sniff. The Carmody twins will be the toast of the town.”