Runny03 - Loose Lips (40 page)

The more Nickel grew, the less she wanted to be with her
mother. Her favorite word was still “no.” She’d rise with the sun and rush to breakfast. Sunny-side up eggs delighted her. Then she’d put on her shoes, shoestrings flopping, and carefully walk over to Juts; she didn’t want to trip. She’d ask for her shoestrings to be tied and then she’d bolt out the door, not returning until lunchtime or until she was called in.

Julia had thought she would become the center of her child’s world. When Nickel was an infant, she belonged only to Juts. But with each passing day Nickel wanted to belong to the world. She wasn’t a cuddler. She never ran up and threw her arms around Julia’s neck. She’d take her hand, but that was about it. She’d kiss her good-night. She wanted to play with animals, any animals, and once she picked up a tiny copperhead to show her mother. Julia, usually calm in a crisis, simply told Nickel to put the snake back where she found it because its mother would be worried. Nickel immediately obeyed. A direct command would not have worked with this child.

But Juts felt lonely. Nickel didn’t need her, and she wanted to feel needed. Oh, the child needed food, clothing, and shelter—that and any book she could get her hands on, but she didn’t seem to need Juts. It preyed on Juts’s mind.

Maizie’s nervous condition scared her, too. Maizie had bounced back, although she still lacked direction. Louise, ever the taskmaster, told her she wasn’t going to support her; Maizie was strong, healthy, and bright enough to support herself. This made Maizie cry and Louise panic. However, she didn’t back down on her demand that Maizie work. In Runnymede the worst insult was to be tabbed a layabout.

Juts wondered what kind of work Nickel would find. So far the only career that came to mind was veterinary medicine. She didn’t know how she and Chester could send a child through college, much less vet school. Well, it was a long way away.

Today the light breeze sent the creamy clouds sailing across an azure sky, perhaps the prettiest day of the fall so far. Juts leaned on
the fence rail at Celeste’s stable. O.B. Huffstetler put Nickel on Rambunctious and his son, Peepbean, now seven, rode General Pershing. Nickel, too small for a saddle, rode bareback. Already she surpassed Peepbean’s skills on a horse.

O.B., who valued horsemanship above all else in this world, was as disgusted with his son as he was delighted with Nickel.

Ramelle, walking with a cane these days because she suffered from disc problems in her lower back, stood next to Juts under a huge chestnut tree, which shaded part of the ring.

“Rambunctious is the kindest fellow with a child on his back, but he’s a pistol with an adult. He used to so enrage Celeste that she’d expand her vocabulary of abuse. In fact, she could have written a thesaurus of abuse.”

“I miss her.” Juts sniffed the scent of leaves. “She loved fall.”

“Sometimes I think she’s near. Sounds funny, doesn’t it?”

“Not to me.” Julia believed in spirits but kept her mouth shut about it.

“Nickel will make a rider, you know.”

“She’s a bug.”

“When Spotts was Nicky’s age she decided she was the queen of England. Remember that? She wore a tiara that whole year.”

Juts shook her head. “She was going to be an actress, that’s for sure.”

“Getting tired of it. I think she liked her war work more than acting. She said for the first time in her life she felt useful.”

“I know what she means. I loved working in the Civil Air Patrol.”

“I’ll never forget the night the sirens went off.”

“Neither will I,” Juts drily replied.

“Look, Momma!” Nickel held up her arms as Rambunctious trotted slowly.

“Wonderful,” Juts called out, then said to Ramelle, “Did you like being a mother?”

“Not every day of the year. Actually, I loved it until Spotts turned fourteen. Then I would have gladly sent her to Siberia.”

Juts flinched. “Yeah, Mary started to act up around that age, too. Maizie didn’t, though.”

“She’s making up for it now.”

“There’s no way around it?”

“I don’t think so, Julia, but you have some time before she contradicts everything you say, wears the worst things she can find, and lives only for her friends.”

“I don’t remember doing that.”

“Oh, Julia.” Ramelle burst out laughing, that silvery laugh that made her sound twenty-one again. “You never stopped.”

In the ring, O.B. picked up Peepbean by his belt, as the boy had slid off General Pershing’s back. He started to bawl. Nickel stared at him in disbelief. She wasn’t sympathetic and unfortunately neither was O.B.

“Uh-oh.” Juts noticed.

“That child will end up avoiding horses like the plague.” Ramelle stepped out from under the chestnut tree and rapped her cane on the fence. “O.B., come here a minute.”

As O.B. walked over, Nickel stood on Rambunctious’s back, waved her arms, and shouted, “Momma, come ride with me.”

“No.”

Ramelle leaned over to O.B. as she stood on slightly higher ground. “Let’s try a new tack with Peepbean.”

“Tie him on.”

“No. Forbid him to ride for a while. It just might work. If he has to do it he’ll resist. If you pay him no mind he’ll want to do it—I think.”

“Momma, please!” Nickel shouted.

“Go on, Miz Smith. Try it. Pershing’s the laziest horse God put on earth.”

“I don’t know how to ride.”

“If you can dance, you can ride.”

“Wrap your skirt around your legs or you’ll rub yourself raw,” Ramelle advised.

Juts, not a scaredy-cat, hopped over the fence and swung up on Pershing.

Nickel, thrilled that her mother was joining her, clapped her hands, which made Rambunctious take a step or two. Nickel stood on the horse’s back like an acrobat.

Juts rode her horse alongside Nicky’s. They walked around the ring and for the first time Nicky chattered like a blue jay. She told her mother all about Pershing’s liking peppermints and that Rambunctious wanted apples but you had to cut them. She bubbled, babbled, and fairly screeched with happiness, so much so that Juts had to laugh at her.

“Momma, I love you,” Nickel said at the end of their ride.

“I love you, too.” Juts slid off and then caught Nickel as she launched herself off the horse’s back, fully expecting to land on her feet or tumble and roll. The child had no fear. This both delighted and terrified her mother.

“Let me!” Nickel reached up for Rambunctious’s reins; O.B. threw them down to her. He took Pershing and they walked the horses back to the stable.

“Do I have to brush Pershing down?” complained Peepbean, who was following.

“No,” O.B. replied.

“I’ll do it. Please, Mr. Hoffy.” Nickel couldn’t say “Huffstetler.”

“All right.” O.B. smiled. He’d have to drag out a tack box for her to stand on.

Ramelle and Juts lingered under the chestnut tree. Few chestnuts remained on the East Coast after a terrible blight attacked them at the turn of the century. But this one, far away from other trees, spread its long limbs, growing mightier with each year.

“She told me she loved me.” Juts, still astonished, shook the horsehair off her skirt.

“They don’t realize we have feelings. They know if we’re mad
at
them or happy
with
them but they don’t know we have feelings
separate
from them. I imagine you’ve felt unloved sometimes. I know I did,” Ramelle said. Her insight into people was one of the reasons Celeste had loved her. Celeste’s insights had generally run in a cynical direction.

“Mostly I’ve felt exhausted. This isn’t what I expected.”

“Believe me, Julia, if we knew what we were getting into, no woman in the world would give birth.”

“I didn’t.”

“You know what I mean.”

“What I wonder about is, am I missing something? Louise knocked me once by saying that since I didn’t carry Nickel, I couldn’t be as close to her.”

“Louise is hardly the expert on motherhood.”

“She thinks she is.”

“Julia, Louise thinks she’s the expert on everything. She’s always been that way. I don’t think giving birth makes you one bit closer to your children. Raising them is the true test.”

“But she’s a distant little thing. She just goes off, does what she wants.”

“That’s who she is.”

“You mean, she would be that way even if I were her natural mother?”

“Most likely, she would. They come into this world with everything they need. They’re formed. We influence them, but their characters are set. I’ve seen many a good child ruined by a hateful parent”—she paused—“and I’ve seen many a good parent ruined by a child.” She inhaled the fall tang. “They are what they are. The question is, do
you
feel close to her?”

Juts rubbed her ear; her earring was pinching. “I do sometimes. I think Chessy feels closer to her than I do.”

“Chester doesn’t have to discipline her every day. Fathers get the easy part.”

“I was beginning to think I wasn’t a good mother. You’ve made me feel better.”

“Every woman feels that. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I’m either too hard on myself or too easy. I can’t find the middle ground.”

Ramelle smiled. “I have a suggestion.”

“What?”

“Why don’t you come out and ride with Nickel? If you share what she loves instead of trying to get her to love what you love—like O.B. there—you’ll grow together.”

“Well—”Juts considered this generous offer. “I would pay you for the use of your horses.”

Ramelle’s laughter lifted into the breeze. “And Celeste would haunt me the rest of my life. After all, the Chalfontes and the Hunsenmeirs belong together.”

“All right.” Julia brightened.

As they walked toward the barn, there was Nickel, on Celeste’s old tack box, brushing Pershing’s back. She sang to the horse, she sang to O.B., she sang to the sun, too.

“You’re a good mother,” Ramelle said.

Juts felt so relieved she nearly cried.

She had her doubts two hours later when, walking around the square, Nickel declared, “I know a new bad word.”

“Oh.”

“Turd.”

“Nicky.”

“Know what else?”

“I can hardly wait.”

“Grandma Smith is the turd of all time.”

Juts started to laugh. As a reward for Nicky’s vocabulary they commandeered the counter of Cadwalder’s and shared an icecream soda.

Vaughn restacked the aisles, lingering at the shampoo shelf. He was agile in his wheelchair.

After they finished, Nicky bounced over to the handsome man.

“Will you give me a ride?”

“Sure.”

“Nickel!” Julia reached to grab her.

He smiled up at Juts, his face old yet young. “I don’t mind.”

Nickel climbed in his lap. He pushed the wheels with his strong hands, giving her a spin around the store. Juts couldn’t remember the last time she had heard Vaughn laugh.

G
ood Friday, a bleak day that April 15, 1949, depressed Julia Ellen as she and Nickel went to church. Louise, attending St. Rose of Lima’s, had stirred up Nicky when the sisters parted at the northeast corner of Runnymede Square. Nickel demanded to know why Wheezie didn’t go to Christ Lutheran with them. Louise, her face veiled in black mesh, intoned that she would gladly take Nickel to the One True Church.

The child, now four and a half, informed Louise that she attended Christ Lutheran, not the One True Church. This allowed Louise to expound on the errors of Protestantism as well as the peril of the child’s soul.

Naturally, Nickel wanted no part of peril, temporal or eternal. Juts told Louise to shut her fat trap. Louise flounced off, with Nickel shouting, “I don’t want pearl!”

Passersby thought Nickel was complaining about her uncle. Finally Juts, forcing a smile, hauled her ever-growing kid up the marble steps of the chaste, imposing temple of holiness and not a little wealth.

Once seated, Nickel started to squirm. Juts pinched her. The child glared at her but stopped. Then Juts bribed her with a Sen-Sen. As Nickel sucked on the gray breath candy she observed the parishioners. A few other children attended, but not many.

Bored, Nickel reached for a heavy red hymnal and began leafing through the pages. She mouthed the words in an exaggerated whisper.

Juts put her finger to her lips.

Defiantly, Nickel mirrored the gesture of her mother.

As always, on Good Friday, the drapes in the church were black velvet, and black velvet covered the lectern, the pulpit, the altar. No flowers or color of any sort enlivened the severely beautiful white interior.

The dolorousness of the occasion began to wear on Nicky. At three o’clock the organ hit a shudder and the black curtains were drawn.

“Momma!”

“Hush.”

“Turn the lights on!”

“Will you hush.”

“Turn the lights on!” A hint of fear sounded in Nickel’s voice.

“Shut up!” Julia hissed.

“I don’t like this!” Nickel pushed past her mother and ran down the aisle toward the door, which was closed. Donald Armprister, an usher stationed at the door, grabbed Nickel, since she couldn’t push the door open. He dragged her toward Julia.

“No!” Nickel kicked him in the shin.