I stayed at the art teacher’s house until it got warm and green outside. The law said I could stay temporary until somebody decided what to do next.
She lived in a blue house with plants in the windows and hanging all in the kitchen.
Roy is her husband and he could clean a house like a woman. Wash the dishes. Do the clothes. Do it all and smile when you ask him how he can stand working like a woman.
She told me to call her Julia her real name when we were at home.
So many new things came at me so fast I did not know how to keep up. One thing we did was to go to a movie in town right in the middle of the day. It was a long cartoon and I cannot think of the name to save my life. It was OK to start with but it got long and I could not bear it anymore. They will not let you get up and mill around in where folks are trying to see the show so I went in the lobby for the popcorn lady to stare me down.
I put it all on the list to tell Starletta.
I slept in the guest room. She said I was free to decorate but it is no need when you know you will just pack up and go.
I kept my box of mess from the old house in the closet. The microscope came in handy when I had nothing to do. That was a good buy.
Word got out at school that I was staying with the art teacher. Some boy I do not know good had something cute to say about it. Just like me staying with Julia had something to do with her putting check plus wonderfuls on my art. Ha. He could shut his mouth or I would punch him is what I said. I got up close in his face and he did not say anything back. He better watch out for me is what else I said. I am strong as a ox.
Me and Julia and Roy laughed and carried on right much.
Every Sunday we would all three lay on the floor drawing each other with blue hair or two noses or something silly. You name it. Or we would all take a part reading Prince Valiant and stand up and strike a pose when it is your turn to read. That was the best.
The warmer it got the more we stayed in the yard.
She said it was good I loosened up. We would run around and she would tell me to let it all hang out. Let your hair down good golly Miss Molly let it all hang out. Go with the flow, she would say. Make up a tune and throw in some words and go with the flow.
I had no idea people could live like that.
If you did not know them you would call them off the rocker but they were just happy she said with a big H. You could see it leak out sometimes and she would grin and say don’t you just love the sunshine or she and Roy would nibble on each other and speak some French. Sometimes she would grab me and say you are so NEAT!
One day I asked her what they were doing here and where they were from.
At first she said Pluto.
If I did not know so much about space I would have said OK and went right on with my business. But I said you are not from outer space. Where are you really from?
She said she would be straight with me.
Both Roy and I were raised in the northeast. We always liked the South so when we finished college we decided to settle down here and have a family
Me?
where I could teach and Roy could do his thing in peace.
Oh.
Our dream had always been to have a quiet place in the country far away from all the city hassles. Our minds were so polluted by city life that we needed all this space and serenity to find ourselves.
Oh.
She lived in the sixties. She used to be a flower child but now she is low key so she can hold a job.
She went on and said when she was young
Like me?
she wanted to save the world.
I asked her from what.
From people like your father is what she told me.
You mean there is more like him? You mean he is not the only one?
I need to know.
Once I got him in my head it was hard to shake him out. I mostly worried about what he might do about me making off with all the cash money.
When Julia said there was more like him I shuddered to think how God let him and the rest slip through. The day he made my daddy he was not thinking straight.
My daddy was a mistake for a person.
The times me and Julia and Roy worked in the garden I did not think about him but of my mama and the way she liked to work in the cool of the morning. She nursed all the plants and put even the weeds she pulled up in little piles along the rows. My job was to pick the piles up and dispose of them. I was small my own self and did not have the sense to tell between weeds and plants.
I just worked in the trail my mama left.
When the beans were grown ready to eat she would let me help pick. Weeds do not bear fruit. She would give me a example of a bean that is grown good to hold in one hand while I picked with the other. If I was not sure if a particular bean was at the right stage I could hold up my example of a bean to that bean in question and know. It took a long time to pick that way but you have that sort of time while she is humming.
I know I have made being in the garden with her into a regular event but she was really only well like that for one season.
You see if you tell yourself the same tale over and over again enough times then the tellings become separate stories and you will generally fool yourself into forgetting you only started with one solitary season out of your life.
That is how I do it.
Julia and Roy were determined not to use bug killer or fertilizer from town on their garden. They went organic. He mixed dirt and chickenshit and promised us tomatoes and peppers that would blow the mind. He would mix it all up with both arms up to the elbows and say how this was his dream.
I helped but only with a shovel. The hands were not made to dabble and scoop in chickenshit.
We went outside every day to see what if anything was growing yet. I made them bet me which thing would be grown first.
Then they told me one day my birthday was coming up so what did I have in mind to do? That got my goat because I had forgot and could have turned eleven without my knowledge.
Do I have to decide now? is what I need to know.
No but do give us some time to plan. OK?
What do you think I should do? What would you do if you was me?
She wanted to know what I usually do.
I always turn the next age during the day then I go to bed and feel different.
How about a little celebration?
That is not for me. The only girl I know good to invite is Starletta and she by herself is not a party.
She came to my house. Starletta came on Saturday morning and she brought the present and the little town just like I requested.
She was proud because she had only lost the post office and the fire marshal.
I took her right into my room and unfolded the town. I tried to trick her into letting me keep the town and she keep the present she brought. I figured it being wrapped up would appeal to her but she was not paying attention to me but to looking all under the bed and examining all that was not nailed down.
This was party enough for Starletta. She did not need cake or a matinee movie to have the fine time.
She liked the idea of scratchy carpet on the floor and all into the closet and under the bed she crawled on her stomach. She was in love with rubbing all her body parts on my floor.
When she got through touching in my room we loaded up and went to the movies. Julia dropped us off and said to be good and wait inside after it was over.
Starletta was the only colored girl at the movies and she was mine. When it got our turn to get tickets Starletta could not produce her dollar.
Oh God I said to Starletta and pulled her off the line where I could search her.
I told her to stand still and be lucky that I am not the police that will rough you up a little in the process. I searched all up in her shirt and around the rim of her drawers where a mama will usually pin a dollar.
I finally found the dollar rolled up and stuck down her sock.
She was better than I expected her to be in the movies. She squirmed a little at the start but when she got used to the dark and the music she went to sleep.
Roy had a cake on the kitchen table when we got home. It featured my name Ellen in curvy letters like a bakery but Roy swore he made it. It tasted the way you might expect pink to be.
They scared my pants off telling me to make a wish so loud. I wished I could make the wish later when I could think to myself.
Starletta stared at her slice until I told her it was food and to dig in. She did not understand how slices and modest servings go so I had to tell her when to quit eating.
Save some to take home with you is what I told her.
It made me grin to think of Starletta having some birthday cake after her supper. She took a hunk with the N part out of my name.
The cake left the table and here come the presents.
It was just Christmas and you know all the things I got then now just look at all the presents on this table. Julia said they went all out.
Starletta waved and pointed to the one she brought so I opened it first. It was not in a box but wrapped as is.
Her mama had made me a Dutch girl pillow to stick on my bed. You can always tell one by the hat and the shoes.
Tell your mama I thank her I said to her. Say it over in your head and out loud so it will not leave your head.
Roy and Julia gave me a round thing with colored pencils stood up in circles and circles until the white one at the top in the middle you use to make clouds with is the point by itself. You will always grab for that one first.
But the pencils were not all. There was oil paint.
We do not even have paint like this at school. I said Julia this is like your paint.
By God they are oil paints that do not wash out or off with water and to change a picture idea after you have started one you just have to tear the whole business up and start over. You can use them to paint something the way it is supposed to be not all watered down but strong.
I want to thank everybody for the party and gifts and Starletta especially for coming.
Old Starletta is amazed at all the pencils and little tubes spread out over the table. She would smear her whole self up like a trick or treat Indian if I let her.
I told her do not even think about it. I am serious about this art supply. You can have my old crayons if you need something to ruin.
When she was standing at the door for Roy to ride her home I gave her the crayons and her town. I did not ride to get her or to take her home because Roy and Julia were afraid of who I might see on the way. They lived miles from him but Starletta is a neighbor. I thought about him too and we all walked outside to say goodbye.
You tell your mama.