Saturday Morning (35 page)

“I want a jagged smile. You ever cut one of those?” Cassandra, one of the girls who also attended Julia’s classes, gave Clarice a hopeful smile.

“I think the one I did had two teeth. Why don’t you draw it on and see how you like it.”

“Like, yeah, cool idea. Or should I start with the eyes?” Cassandra studied her pear-shaped pumpkin. “I never knew the insides of a pumpkin could be so gross.”

“It’s just stringy pulp that holds the seeds together.”

“I know, but still … ” Cassandra headed to the supply table and got a pencil.

“You know, I saw some pumpkins that had been hollowed out, and then only the skin was carved. Seems easier and looks wonderful.”

“Like, what do you mean?”

“Well, see how Alphi has the eyes cut out on his?”

“Yeah, in triangles.”

“Well, this is more like etching.” The girl looked at her with one
eyebrow raised, clearly not getting it. “Why don’t you just draw a face on very lightly, until you get what you like? I’m getting me a pumpkin.”

“Awesome, Mrs. C.”

While Clarice checked out each of the remaining pumpkins, she thought about the name the girls had given her: Mrs. C. When she shuddered at Ms., they opted for Mrs. and C for Clarice, a mark of honor. It surprised her that she and the girls got along so well. Was it because she’d ended up at the shelter and didn’t go home to someplace else every night? The night before, one of the girls had come and sat on her bed, just needing to talk. They’d gone down to the kitchen so as not to disturb the others, and Clarice mostly listened until one o’clock in the morning.
I can’t believe this
, she’d told Herbert.
You know, honey, I’m even beginning to talk like them
. Their own life had been far simpler, and hard work never hurt anyone. Gave them less time for mischief, too. She glanced around the bustling room. With Hope in the hospital and Julia with a speaking engagement, she’d figured Andy would help out, since this was her idea. But Martin had finally come home, so Andy had called and asked if could she beg off. So far, she and Celia were doing fine. Everyone seemed to be having a grand time.

Clarice chose a pumpkin about the size of a flattened soccer ball and brought it back to the table by Cassandra.

“What you think?” The girl, whose black hair was showing brown at the roots, nodded to her drawing on the pumpkin.

“Cool. Fun face.”

Cassandra stood with her knife, chewing on her bottom lip.

“What’s the matter?”

“What if I make a mistake?”

“Hey, it’s only a pumpkin. You could always turn it around and start over. Or work the mistake into the face like you meant it.”

“Right.”

“Just stab it somewhere. The hardest part of carving a pumpkin or anything else is always the first stab.” As if she were a master at pumpkin carving.

Cassandra made a face herself and rolled the pumpkin on its back to have a better angle for cutting. She started with an eye and inserted the knife, sawing as she moved it deeper.

“That’s the way.” Clarice cut the top off of hers and took an ice-cream scoop to the insides, dumping the innards on a paper. Roger had decreed that all pumpkin seeds be saved and washed, to be roasted for the Halloween party. Clarice wasn’t too sure about eating pumpkin seeds, but then there were a lot of other things she’d tried in California, some good, like guacamole, and others not so good. Menudo and sushi were not high on her list of edible foods.

“You makin one too, Mrs. C?” Alphi stopped to watch her.

“Guess you can’t keep an old horse out of the ring.”

“Huh? You ain’t no horse.” He gave her one of those grownups-are-weird looks.

“Just a saying.” Clarice picked up the pencil Cassandra had used. “Are you done with yours?”

“Uh-huh. You need some help?”

“Not really. I’m going to try something different.” She drew eyes curved over fat cheeks, eyebrows, and smile lines at the sides of the mouth, then erased some lines and finished with earrings dangling from ears.

Alphi shook his head. “That no Jack-O’-lantern.”

“Wait and see.” Clarice transferred her drawing to the pumpkin, then stood there studying it.

“The first stab is always the hardest.” Cassandra’s grin drove right into Clarice’s heart and took up residence.
So what if this girl looks like something out of a horror movie, with her black makeup and fingernails and hair? There’s someone real inside.

Clarice let out a breath and picked up the knife. After a few cuts, she realized she would have to make a groove along her lines if she was to get the effect she wanted. As an eye took on shape, both Alphi and Cassandra sighed. “Cool.”

By the time she finished, several others had gathered to watch,

“You’re an artist.” Celia crossed her arms and flicked one fingernail against her teeth.

“No, just patient.” Clarice finally made the final cut and laid the knife down, dropping her shoulders at the same time. She stretched her neck, angling her head from side to side.

Celia stepped behind her, pinching and rubbing her neck and shoulders. “You too tight, woman, you relax.”

Warmth flowed into Clarice’s neck and shoulders, up over her head, loosening her scalp. She sighed. “Ah, Celia, I didn’t know you had magic in your fingers.”

“No magic. Hope say I got holy hands. Hard to believe there can be anything holy in this sister, but if it makes someone feel better, Lord, let these fingers work.”

“You need a candle in your punkin so’s we can light dem all.” Ophelia pulled at Clarice’s sleeve.

“I got one.” Alphi set a votive candle by Clarice’s hand. “Want me to put it in?”

“Of course.”

“Everyone has a candle?” Cassandra went around checking them all. “Yup, they do.”

“Okay, light the long candles and use them to light the pumpkin ones. Then, Alphi, you turn out the lights.”

Several of the girls lit white tapers and walked around, lighting each pumpkin. The tops were set loosely back in place so the candles could burn.

Children and adults alike “oohed” as the faces came alive, but when Alphi threw the switch, a universal breath of delight circled the room. Lit by the pumpkin faces, eyes gleamed, and one little girl clapped her hands over her mouth.

“So pitty.”

“Pretty.”

“I say dat. Pitty.”

Clarice chuckled with the others and stared in delight at her carving. Pitty was right. The light orange lines glowed against the uncarved skin in a face alive with laughter.

“That is indeed beautiful.” Roger stopped beside her.

“Thank you. When did you get back?”

“In time for the lights to go out. Almost went to check the fuse box.”

“How’s Hope?”

“She can come home tomorrow.”

“So she’ll be here for the Halloween party.”

“As long as she stays down. Any running around and … ”

“She knows what can happen.”

“You know that, and I know that, but some kind of emergency happens here, and she’ll forget all about herself and jump right in.”

“Then the rest of us have to get so good at dealing with emergencies that she won’t have to do that.”

“Right, and then she’ll feel like we don’t really need her. You can’t win.” Roger ran a hand through thinning hair. “I must be growing taller.”

“Huh? I mean, what?”

“Well, see, my head is coming up through my hair.”

Clarice blinked. Roger, trying to be funny? She chuckled—finally.

“That went over like a lead balloon.”

“Uh, yeah.”

The lights came on again, and they blew out the candles. Mothers guided small children up to bed, and the others joined in for cleanup, most of them coming up to Roger to ask about Hope.

Several gathered around to talk about the Halloween party and what they could do to help.

“I could do face painting, if we had some paints.”

“Anyone have any games we could play?

“Pin the tail on the donkey, if anyone can draw a donkey.”

“We used to have costumes. I was Snow White one year.”

We should have started this a lot sooner
, Clarice thought. “We used to bob for apples.”

“What’s that?”

“You have a tub of water with apples floating, and with your hands tied behind you, you have to try to pick one up with your teeth.”

“But you’ll get wet.”

“That’s part of the fun.” Clarice glanced around the group. Since Roger had gone to answer a phone call, no one seemed to take charge. They could sit here talking all night, but nothing would get done.

“Okay, Celia, would you please get us some paper to write on, pens, too? Each of you, think of one thing you could do to make this a fun party for kids of all ages.”

By the time Roger returned, everyone had their assignment, and they were all heading for bed.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Got the work done. See you in the morning.” Clarice had her master list in hand. “Why don’t you look at this and tell me if we are missing anything.”

“Now?”

“Before morning.”

He glanced down the list. “I have one question.”

“Yes?”

“Who’s going to pay for all this? As usual, we have more month than money. The budget is busted.

“Oh, I know a couple good angels who want to see everyone have a good time.”

“They couldn’t go by the names of Andy and Julia, by any chance?”

“Could be. There’s a letter came today.”

“Not again.”

“ ’Fraid so. I put it on the desk.”

“Did you open it?”

“No. Celia said we should just rip it up and pretend we never heard from those skunks.”

“I wish to heaven it was that easy.” Roger tapped her arm. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Clarice watched the last of the girls head for bed, then turned out the lights.
Whoever would have thought that I’d be here at a women’s shelter on the opposite side of the country and having more fun than I have since the days we were building our business? Herbert, honey, did you have a hand in all this?

She did face and teeth and all the nighttime rituals, said her rosary, and slipped into bed. Thinking back on the evening, she had to smile. She did a pumpkin so differently, all because of a picture she saw in a magazine. And it turned out fine. She wiggled her fingers, fingers that were good on a computer keyboard and a deck of bridge cards but had never been used to draw or carve. Never been used to comfort a child, or at least not in a long, long time. She rubbed the tips of thumb and forefinger together. Her hand had cramped from holding the knife steady for so long.
God, am I to believe that You had a hand in all this?
She rolled over on her side, the narrow bed creaking in protest.

Someone coughed. Another whimpered. These girls. Never would she have dreamed she’d be not only rubbing elbows with druggies and prostitutes, but working in the kitchen with them, laughing at their jokes, and even carving pumpkins.

A scream woke her in the middle of the night. “No! No!” The scream rose and fell, making the darkness pulsate with evil.

Clarice threw back her covers, the hair standing on her arms and the back of her neck. Who? What?

“It’s okay, easy. Hold on to me.” The soft murmur came from the same part of the room.

Other girls sat up, questions, grumbles. Someone turned on a lamp.

“Turn it out,” someone else hissed.

Clarice made her way in the dark, lit only by the slight glow of streetlights through the high windows.

“It’s Tasha, flashbacks, she’ll be all right.” Cassandra sat with her back propped against the wall, holding the sobbing girl, stroking her dark hair and leaning her cheek on the twitching girl’s head.

“How can I help?”

“Not the first, prob’ly not the last.”

Clarice started to turn back to her bed, then sat down on the one that was still shaking from the girl’s shudders.

What do I do now?

Pray.

As if whispered over her shoulder, the voice spoke again.
Pray
She knew no one else could hear it, but what was she to pray about? How much easier it would be if she were in the chapel, lighting candles for her petitions, using her rosary.
Jesus, You know this child. I don’t. I know You love her. Help. Oh, God, help.

She laid her hand on the girl’s leg and felt the twitching.
Lord, she is Your child, such a messed-up child, and she is wanting to live a better lift now. Please take away this nightmare, this flashback. You can wipe clean her mind, and I ask that You do so. Heal her body, heal her mind, help her to know that we love her, that You love her just the way she is.

A jerk, a convulsion that seemed to last for minutes, but had been only seconds. She started to rise. “I’ll call 911.”

“No. She’s over it now. Doctors can’t do nothin.”

The girl whimpered again, then she coughed and gagged.

Clarice stood and headed for the bathroom. A cup of water and a cold cloth might help. She had to do something.

She brought them back and laid the folded cloth over the girl’s head. Setting the cup of water on the bedstand, she put her hand on the girl who was comforting the other.

“She’s about asleep.” Cassandra stroked wet hair back from the girl’s forehead.

“Will she remember this in the morning? Will she be able to go to school?”

“Sometimes. She’ll likely be tired. It takes a lot out of you. Been a long time since the last one.”

“What causes it?”
Please, Lord, she’s been clean and sober, at least since I got here. She’s one of the real possibility ones.

“Who knows. Some people have flashbacks for the rest of their lives.” Cassandra slid out from under her friend’s shoulders and laid her back on her pillow. “Most times we get Hope, and she get us through.”

“But you did it this time.” They kept their voices to a whisper so the others could sleep.

“I guess.”

“I’m right proud of you, honey.” Clarice caught a yawn behind her hand. “Get to bed, or you won’t be able to wake up in the morning either.”

Back in her own bed, she tried to settle, but after flipping from
one side to the other and turning her pillow twice, she lay on her back and stared at the ceiling.