Perfect Peace (17 page)

Perfect could have sworn that, for an instant, Olivia’s smile softened. The sharp, upturned corners of the doll’s mouth seemed to descend slightly, and the glow in her eyes appeared to dull momentarily.

“This is fun,” Eva Mae said, raising her head. “My daddy do this to my momma all the time. I watch ’em sometimes.” She buried her face, once again, in Perfect’s belly button and licked around it like one licks the head of a lollipop.

Stop!
Perfect heard a voice cry deep within. Yet her pleasure muffled that voice and begged Eva Mae to go on. Go on where, she didn’t know, but Perfect sensed there was a climax to these feelings, and she wanted to reach the mountaintop. So when Eva Mae reached under Perfect’s skirt and rubbed her inner thighs, Perfect parted them willingly, welcoming whatever Eva Mae intended.

“That tickles,” Perfect chuckled.

Eva Mae glanced up and smiled. Suddenly she lifted herself and planted a wet, soft kiss on Perfect’s virgin lips. “You like that?”

Perfect nodded excitedly, so Eva Mae kissed her again and again.

“Perfect! Girls!” Emma Jean called. “Y’all come and get somethin’ to eat.”

The husband and wife jumped up, brushed off the backs of their clothes, and, after retrieving Olivia, Perfect said, “Come on! We gotta get outta here.”

Eva Mae followed this time, asking, “Can we play again tomorrow?”

The next day, Eva Mae coaxed Perfect under the house again and told her they were best friends. Olivia watched in silence.

“Really?” Perfect beamed. “I ain’t neva had no best friend before. Not a real, live one.”

Eva Mae smiled. “Well, you got one now. But we cain’t tell nobody. It’s our secret, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Everything we do is our secret. Everything.” She winked.

“Okay,” Perfect said more slowly.

“I wanna show you something,” Eva Mae said excitedly, and grabbed Perfect’s hand, leading her to their imaginary bedroom.

“It’s our anniversary today, so we have to do something special.”

“What’s a anniversary?”

“It’s when two people celebrate the time they done been together. You ain’t neva heard of it?” Eva Mae took Olivia and sat her aside.

“No,” Perfect felt ashamed to admit.

“Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll show you what to do.”

Perfect was fine with things as they had been the day before—Eva Mae’s tongue on her nipples, then her stomach, then her hand playing between Perfect’s legs—but she was also eager to see what Eva Mae had in store.

“Just lay back and close yo’ eyes,” Eva Mae instructed.

Perfect obeyed and lifted her blouse voluntarily. Eva Mae’s gentle kisses around her nipples made Perfect smile and shiver. She didn’t want to see Olivia’s face this time.

Eva Mae smiled, too. “It’s our one-day anniversary, and this is what people do on their anniversary.”

Perfect’s breathing increased. Eva Mae raised her head and leaned forward until the couple’s lips met. Though awkward at first, Perfect relented and moved her lips slightly as Eva Mae pecked them repeatedly.

“I love you,” Eva Mae moaned.

“I love you, too,” Perfect felt compelled to say.

When Eva Mae stopped, Perfect thought the anniversary had ended. She leaned up on her elbows.

“Wait a minute,” Eva Mae whispered. “I ain’t gave you yo’ present yet.”

“What is it?”

Eva Mae kissed Perfect again and thrust her tongue into Perfect’s mouth.

“Ugh!” Perfect moaned, jerking away.

“What’s wrong? You didn’t like it?”

She frowned. “It felt funny. And nasty.”

“Yeah, but didn’t it feel good, too?”

Perfect pondered. She didn’t want to disappoint her husband. “I guess so.”

“You just gotta keep doin’ it, that’s all. The more you do it, the more you’ll like it. It’s fun. I like it a lot. Especially with you.”

Perfect blushed. She wanted to like it, too.

“Can we do it again?”

Perfect didn’t object, so Eva Mae engulfed Perfect’s lips with her own, but this time inserted her tongue much more slowly, moving it around as though tasting something unfamiliar. Perfect began to like it.

“See? Told ya it was fun. And we can only do it with each other, bein’ best friends and all.”

Perfect agreed. She had no one else to do it with anyway, she thought. They held hands and returned to the front porch, anxiously awaiting their next anniversary.

“Hey, boys!” Gus screamed. “Come give me a hand!”

It was a gusty October day in 1947. Yellow, brown, and burnt orange leaves swirled in the yard like miniature tornadoes as Gus hopped excitedly from one side of the wagon to the other.

“Boys! Hurry up!”

Authorly led the pack, wondering why Gus was so anxious. Bartimaeus stopped at the edge of the porch. He, too, had never heard such enthusiasm in his father’s voice. “What is it?” he asked.

Gus flung back the tarp like one revealing a wagonload of cash. “Isn’t she a beauty?” he said.

Authorly motioned for his brothers to hold their peace. “Daddy, what are we suppose to do with that thing?”

Gus looked disappointed. “Thing? Are you kidding? This is our new coffee table!”

The boys gawked.

“Well, it wasn’t
suppose
to be a coffee table, but it
can
be. Help me get it in the house.”

The boys didn’t move until Authorly nodded. Each tried to recall when Gus’s mind had begun to slip, only to conclude that it was probably long before their time. The new coffee table was heavy, so the older brothers lifted it from the wagon like pallbearers and ushered it into the Peace living room.

Bartimaeus touched the top as it passed and knew this wasn’t a good omen.

“Sit it in front of the couch!” Gus instructed gleefully.

The boys obeyed.

“Yes, right there! That’s perfect. Now go get yo’ momma. She gon’ be so happy!”

Authorly screamed out the back door for Emma Jean. When she entered, she stumbled in shock.

“What the hell?”

“Don’t chu love it!” Gus said. “And it’s brand-new, too. Didn’t cost a dime.” His chest protruded with pride. “It’s a coffee table. At least now it is.”

Emma Jean studied Gus’s face as though he were a stranger.

“Okay! It’s a wooden coffin, but if we drape a cloth over it, nobody’ll ever know the difference! Undertaker gave it to me free. Somebody was s’pose to die who didn’t, so he told me I could have it. You been talkin’ ’bout wantin’ a coffee table, so now you got one!” He smiled.

Emma Jean trembled. Had Gus gone completely crazy?

“You don’t have to thank me. A good man provides for his family.”

Gus exited while the others stood frozen in horror. It would be several minutes before Emma Jean thawed and said, “Just throw a sheet over the damn thing. Hurry up.”

Still traumatized, Authorly laid the sheet gently, as though the coffin were too fragile to hold its weight, and the family never spoke of the matter again. A month later, Emma Jean converted the coffin into the family chest, filling it with memorabilia, especially Perfect’s childhood things, then using it as the coffee table Gus had suggested in the first place. He knew she’d come around.

A month after that, Authorly shifted the memorabilia to the foot of the coffin, and Bartimaeus began sleeping in it. Padded with one of Emma Jean’s old quilts, it would definitely be more comfortable than the floor, Authorly explained, and since Bartimaeus wasn’t troubled by it the way others would have been, he lay in it without reservation and slept there until he moved out of the house. He loved Authorly for deferring unto him a place of such comfort.

When company pointed and whispered, “Is that a . . . um . . . coffin under there?” Gus shouted, “Yeah! Ain’t that a great idea?” while the rest of the family coiled in shame.

Bartimaeus was the only brother Emma Jean trusted to be alone with Perfect. His handicap convinced Emma Jean that he was a safe companion, so she relaxed her guard and let the two do as they pleased. Sometimes they’d play hide-and-seek in the front yard—Perfect was always the seeker—but most times they’d walk the back roads of Swamp Creek with Bartimaeus holding Perfect’s narrow elbow and talking about whatever he happened to be wondering that day.

“Do fish sleep?” he posed one lazy Sunday afternoon. He had recently turned thirteen. Perfect was seven.

“I don’t know. I ain’t neva thought about it.”

“I bet they do. All living things sleep, don’t they?”

“I guess so.”

“Maybe they only need a few minutes since they don’t work or nothin’.”

“How you know they don’t work?” Perfect asked, eager to prove Bartimaeus wrong whenever she could.

“Because they don’t need money. You only work if you need money, right?”

“I guess so,” Perfect said, defeated.

“God takes care of all their needs.”

“Then why don’t God do it for people, too?”

“I don’t know. Maybe He don’t like people as much as He like everything else.”

“But Reverend Lindsey say God made people in His own image, so it wouldn’t make sense for Him not to like ’em.”

“You got me on that one.” Bartimaeus smiled. Perfect did, too.

They walked farther, and Perfect saw a bull mating with a cow.

“Why’s that cow sticking her thing inside that other cow?”

Bartimaeus laughed. “That’s how they make baby cows, Daddy said. But the one with the thing is the boy. The other one’s the girl.”

“No it’s not,” Perfect contested. “The girl’s the one with the thing. Just like I got.”

Bartimaeus hollered. “What? You ain’t got no thing, girl!”

“Yes I do!” Perfect insisted.

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do!” she screamed louder.

“Okay. If you say so, then I guess you do.”

“I do,” Perfect repeated. “Girls have little things down there”—she pointed to her genitalia—“but I don’t know what boys have.”

“You’ll know soon enough.”

Perfect shrugged. They walked farther.

“Something smells sweet,” Bartimaeus said, sniffing the air.

“Oh, that’s the honeysuckle bush right in front o’ you.”

“What does it look like?”

“Um . . . it’s big with little green leaves and yellow flowers. It’s real pretty.”

“I wish I could see a honeysuckle bush.” His eyes moistened as he reached forward.

“Maybe you will one day.”

“I doubt it. I won’t ever see a honeysuckle bush or anything else.”

“How you know? God might make you see one day.”

“God ain’t gon’ make me see ’cause once God do somethin’ He don’t neva change. That’s what Daddy said. He said He de same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, so I ain’t gon’ neva see nothin’.”

Perfect took her brother’s hand and said, “Don’t worry about it. Momma say miracles still happen. Sometimes.”

“If I could just see for a day,” he whimpered, “that would be good enough for me.”