Milk Glass Moon (13 page)

CHAPTER SIX

It has rained for months, so when the sun finally came out, it actually made a headline in the town paper: WINTER GONE, SPRING SPRUNG. Fleeta’s so tired of hearing it that she wants to put a jar on the counter at the Mutual’s requiring anyone who says “Thank God winter’s over” to put a quarter in. Yet there is still cause for celebration. Pearl is a new mother!

India Leah Bakagese was born April 3, 1993, at Saint Agnes Hospital, after a long labor. Our Pearl did a magnificent job, and her husband, Taye, was so proud of her he almost insisted their daughter be named Pearl. “One Pearl in the house is enough,” she told him and named their daughter after his homeland. Pearl is bringing India to the Pharmacy for the first time today. I’ve attached balloons to the front door to welcome her.

Fleeta enters, battling balloons as she comes through the doorway. “Turrible idea. This is a place of business, not a day-care center. I guess we’re gonna put an entire nursery in the office,” she grouses.

“Just a crib for now,” I tell her.

“Whatever happened to the days when women stayed home with their babies?”

“What’s the difference if they stay home or bring them with?” I ask her.

“It’s a big difference to me. I went back to work to git away from my youngins. But I don’t own the joint, so I guess I have to live with it.”

“She’s so cute, Fleeta. You’re gonna love her.”

“I ain’t sayin’ the baby ain’t cute, I’m sayin’ I don’t want her around.” Fleeta says this in a tone that tells me she doesn’t really mean it. “Is Etta coming in for her free sundae? Ain’t it her birthday?”

“This Saturday. She’s having a party and everything. Can you believe Etta is thirteen?”

“Jesus, I’m getting old.” With her palms, Fleeta lifts the jowls on her face up a good half inch.

“But your hair looks good.”

Fleeta shoots me a look that makes us both laugh.

“Introducing India!” Pearl announces, carrying her daughter through the balloons. Taye follows with a jumbo diaper bag. He is beaming with the look of a man who has everything he wants in the world. He greets us, placing the bag on the counter. “Call me if she does anything special,” Taye says with a wink.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have her make out the bank deposits, Doc,” Fleeta says wryly.

“That’s fine, as long as she gets her naps in.” Taye kisses Pearl, then India, and goes.

“Well, well,” Fleeta says as she comes from behind the counter. She studies India in the soft pink blanket. “Now, that’s a brown baby.”

“Well, she’s half Indian,” Pearl says pleasantly.

“And you’re Melungeon, don’t ferget that. That’s some black hair on her. Now, I know them ferriners got the black hair, but this here is the shiny Melungeon variety.”

“Isn’t she beautiful?” I nudge Fleeta, hoping to get her off the bloodline topic. She doesn’t bite.

“Every once in a while, my daughter Janine comes over and spends Fri-dee night with me. And we pop us some corn and rent us a movie. We like them Ali Baba movies set in them sand dune countries, you know, where the snakes dance out of baskets and virgins get thrown into a flaming pit on holidays. And there’s always a sword fight between a homely prince and a good-lookin’ poor man for the hand of the Indian princess. Somehow the good-lookin’ poor man is always a real prince in disguise, but then he always gets found out and marries the princess. Well, that’s what your little girl reminds me of—one of them black-eyed princesses with them Bambi eyes. She’s a beauty, all right.”

“Thanks, Fleeta.” Pearl looks at me, and we laugh.

“Well, that’s what she looks like to me.” Fleeta shrugs and goes back to the Soda Fountain.

“Is she still annoyed about the crib?”

“So peeved she put it together for you,” I tell her.

To Jack’s amusement and my horror, we are hosting the first boy-girl birthday party ever to take place in the MacChesney homestead. Jack’s family tradition for birthdays was always simple: every great-aunt and -uncle and distant cousin came for Sunday supper, and at the end of the afternoon, Mrs. Mac would bring out a red velvet cake with candles and everyone would sing. Birthdays were strictly a family affair.

My childhood birthday parties were all-girl events. Mama said I could invite boys, but I preferred my girlfriends’ company. We didn’t dress up, we ate lots of cake, and we played cards for hours. We were big gigglers, and that always gave Fred Mulligan an excuse not to come. Noisy girls drove him crazy, so he’d work late at the Pharmacy until the party was over.

I look over Etta’s guest list. There are two Trevors, two Codys, one Jarred, one Dakota, and one Homer; two Tiffanys, one Tara, a Crystal, a Kristen, and a Chris. My daughter definitely prefers the coed birthday party.

Jack comes into the kitchen. “Everything is done. The pizza’s in the oven. Fleeta dropped off the coconut cake. We have lots of pop. I borrowed the softball equipment from the church.” He looks at me. “What’s the matter?”

“Our girl is thirteen.”

“Uh-huh. Last year she was twelve.”

“You’re not funny.”

“You can’t stop time, Ave.”

“I just don’t want her to grow up yet.”

“We don’t have a choice, honey,” Jack says practically.

As I set up the picnic table on the sun porch, I look at the paper plates with Barbies on them, and suddenly they seem ridiculous, so I throw them in the drawer and pull out real china instead. I don’t want to embarrass Etta, and Barbies and boys simply don’t mix.

“Letter from It-lee!” Etta hollers as she comes into the house. She joins us in the kitchen. “It’s from Stefano Grassi!” she announces. “It’s addressed to you.”

Etta stands by as I read the letter from Stefano, in which he accepts our “kind invitation” for him to come and work this summer and promises to write again soon with his travel itinerary.

Etta rolls back her shoulders—I have never seen this gesture before. She flips her hair and looks at us. “Thank you both for hosting Stefano this summer. I’m sure he’ll do a good job for you, Dad,” Etta says, and leaves the room.

“What was that?” Jack points in the direction of his daughter.

“She’s a teenager now. She’s sophisticated,” I tell him.

“No, the accent. Where did that come from?”

“That was her imitation of Audrey Hepburn in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
We watched it last night.”

If the empty cake plate, punch bowl, and pizza pans are any indication, Etta’s birthday party was a success. Jack is out in the yard putting away the last of the softball equipment while Etta helps me with the dishes.

“Everybody seemed to have fun,” I remark.

“Yeah. Until Tara and Trevor got together.”

“What do you mean ‘got together’?”

“After we played softball, she chased Trevor up the path when I took everyone into the woods. Trevor Gilliam, not Trevor Bailey.”

“How do you keep them straight?”

“Trevor Gilliam’s cuter.”

“That’s as good a system as any, I guess.”

“Tara got him down the path and then made out with him.”

“Define ‘made out.’ ” I try not to let my voice break.

“Ma. You know.”

“I know. I want you to tell me.”

“They kissed three times.”

“How did they find the time?” I wonder aloud. We had the revelers scheduled with games and refreshments down to the last minute. Furthermore, how did they manage a make-out session with steely-eyed chaperone Jack MacChesney on the beat? (I’ll deal with him later.)

“Tara said she’s gonna marry Trevor as soon as we graduate from high school.”

“She’s awfully young to be thinking about marriage.” This is the perfect entrée into our mother-daughter sex talk, but I am completely thrown that anyone Etta’s age would even think about marriage (it’s an even bigger issue than sex, isn’t it?).

“Dad told me Grandma Mac got married at seventeen. That’s only four years older than me.”

“I know, but that was in the 1920s, for Godsakes.” Etta had one grandmother who was a child bride, and the other was a single teenage mother, and while I’d be thrilled for her to take after them in every way, this is the exception.

“Dad told me that even though they were young, they had true love.”

“Etta, it was a different time. Now we have so many more options. You’re going to college. Grandma Mac didn’t have that kind of an opportunity.”

“Tara’s mom got married when she was seventeen too. She’s thirty now.” Etta climbs on the step stool and puts the cake plate away. “You weren’t even married at thirty, were you?”

“Nope.”

“I have the oldest parents in my class. But I don’t care. Y’all don’t act old.”

“Thank you for that ringing endorsement,” I tell her. “Did you have a good birthday?”

“My best yet.” Etta takes the rubber band off her wrist and twists her hair into a ponytail with it.

“What did you like best about your birthday?”

“The letter from Italy.”

“Can I lie and tell Aunt Fleeta it was her coconut cake?”

I’m hoping if I don’t make an issue out of Etta’s old crush on Stefano, it will dissipate on its own by summertime. Jack comes into the kitchen with a package. “Happy birthday, Etta. This is from Mom and me.”

“But you gave me a party,” she says as she rips into the package. She lifts the lid off the box, and her eyes widen with excitement. “My own telescope!”

“Dad will help you put it together.”

“Not that you need my help. I think you know more about this stuff than I do.”

Etta throws her arms around us. “Thank you! I love it! I’m going to go and set it up right now.” Etta and Jack sort through the box, lifting out parts and directions. They go upstairs as I put away the last of the dishes.

I’m exhausted, so when I’m done, I sit on the rickety bench under the windows and rock on the leg that was sawed off short for a reason no one remembers. I hear Etta and Jack fussing over the directions upstairs, and it makes me smile. This house hasn’t been quiet since the day Etta was born. If I ever missed my single life (and, I confess, I have from time to time), what I missed most was the quiet and glorious solitude of my own thoughts. As I listen to the taps the three good legs of the bench make on the wooden floor, I think about what it means to be the mother of a teenager and how fundamentally my relationship with Etta has changed. Are the best days behind me, when I could hold her and kiss her as much as I wanted? This morning I went to hug her, and she pulled away. She wasn’t being rude, just her idea of grown-up. But I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt my feelings. Before I had my children, I would hear parents complain about the teenage years, and I’d think, Not my kids. I’ll love them so much, they’ll never push me away. Well, here it is, the day Etta pulled away, and I wasn’t ready (though I doubt there is any way to prepare for this).

Mr. J’s Construction Company has really grown since Jack and his partners, Mousey and Rick, began their venture as general contractors. Now, with the help of some adjunct courses from Mountain Empire Community College, they have expanded their skills to include plumbing, tile work, and even some design. The Southwest Virginia Museum has hired them to refurbish all the mantelpieces in the building (a considerable amount of work, since there’s a fireplace in every room of the old mansion).

Etta works with Jack now, mostly after school and occasionally on weekends. As I pull the Jeep into the alley behind the museum, I see that the load of marble from Pete Rutledge has arrived. Glistening planks of sea-foam-green granite with black veins are stacked on the back of Jack’s truck.

I find Etta and Jack in the front parlor of the museum, a grand sun-washed room with many windows. It’s a construction site now, with tarps covering the hardwood floors and windowsills. Jack has removed the fireplace facade to reveal a chicken-wire web of plaster underneath. Etta is on the floor measuring small squares of shiny black marble, which will become the border of the mantel. “Well, look at Michelangelo and his daughter.”

“It’s more like Michelangela and her father,” Jack says as he takes a brush and applies a wet coating to the plaster. “Your daughter figured out how to make a border within a border so the design pops three-dimensionally.”

“Where did you learn that?” I ask Etta.

“In math class. I took the measurements and made a grid. It’s not that hard.” Etta continues placing the small squares in neat rows on butcher paper.

“Pete sent you a present.” Jack stirs the plaster.

“He did?”

“It’s on the table there.” Jack points with the brush.

There’s a small black velvet sack. I untie the drawstring and pour the contents into my hand. There are about ten deep blue lapis lazuli marbles the size of pearls. They are streaked with gold stripes that glisten in the sunlight.

“Cool,” Etta says from behind me. “That’s the same kind of marble he gave you when we were over in Italy. Remember, he gave you a square when we visited the quarry?”

“I don’t,” I lie. I don’t want Etta to think that was a day I remember in particular, though it was the day Pete Rutledge took us to the waterfall in the Alps and told me how he felt about me. I remember the steam of the hot springs, the way the smooth stones felt on my feet, and how I felt in his arms when he carried me in the water.

“Ma, you put the marble on Joe’s grave at the cemetery when we got home.” Etta’s voice brings me back to the present.

“Oh yeah. Right. Right.”

“It’s still there. God. Don’t you remember anything?” Etta asks impatiently.

“I guess not,” I lie. The truth is, I remember everything in vivid detail, but that isn’t something I want Etta or my husband to know. Like every woman, I have secrets, moments really, that are just for me. It’s a way for me to stay a whole and private person while being a part of my family. I may seem to my daughter like a practical woman, but I am every bit the dreamer that she is; someday I hope to share that side of myself with her. But for now I’m a leader in her life, and boundaries are crucial.

Stefano Grassi’s much anticipated arrival date is finally here. My daughter is never on time, but today she corralled us to leave early for the airport. Etta has done a three-month countdown to this big day. I hope Stefano is as nice as I remember him to be. Otherwise, we’re going to have one long summer in Cracker’s Neck Holler.