Suncatchers (14 page)

“Well, only for a minute,” she said, moving toward a chair. “I see Beth left you all her things to use. That was nice of her. Beth's a real sweet girl, but I don't need to tell you that. It just must run in your family, sweetness must.” Eldeen's boots squeaked against the tile floor as she settled herself in the chair and smiled up at him as if it were his turn to say something. Perry turned quickly and reached for the coffeepot just to give his hands something to do, but then realized his cup was already full. He opened the cupboard and got out another cup.

It was funny, but Perry had never thought of Beth as sweet. She'd always been picky about small matters like keeping a neat room and wiping off the bathroom mirror and making all A's. It used to get on his nerves the way she took off her shoes at the door, even as a child, and pestered everybody else to do the same. She cleaned her glasses at least a dozen times a day, and in high school she had started keeping a Day-Timer. In Perry's opinion that said it all. A person who was zealous about Day-Timers had stepped over the line into the Extreme Zone. Never content to organize just her own time, Beth had begun sending Perry a Day-Timer for Christmas the past several years. He kept it in his pocket and always enjoyed leafing through its mostly blank pages. Sometimes next to, say, 3:00
P.M.
on a Tuesday he might find a note jotted to himself about something he was writing: “Make boy's brother older” or “Mention color of stone in pendant—symbol?”

It was nice of Beth, though, to offer him her house for a year. He knew how anxious she must be up in D.C. wondering if she would find her furniture scratched and her dishes chipped when she came back home.

Eldeen was still talking. “ . . . a favor to ask you, but I don't want you to think a thing about it if you can't do it. Now, here's my question. But first, let me tell you that I'm not aiming to bother you like this on a regular basis. You took me to Thrifty-Mart last week, and I appreciated it a lot, but like Jewel told me—and I agree with her two hundred percent—I can't be asking you to carry me all over town just because you got you a car and are home all day. I know you got to keep regular working hours, just like if you had you a desk job in a office somewhere. 'Course, I guess you
do
have you a desk job, being a writer and all, don't you?”

She broke off to laugh at her joke and then began untying her scarf. “Whew, that wool gets awful scratchy after a while.” She laid the scarf across her lap.

Unless she addressed him point-blank with a question, Perry was always fearful of responding to Eldeen's remarks. She was so easily diverted that he was afraid she'd never get back to the original point if he interjected remarks of his own. Of course, he could rarely think of anything appropriate to say anyway, at least not fast enough to slip into a pause, so his silence was easier all the way around.

“Do you like wool?” she said.

“Well, sure, I guess so,” Perry answered. “It keeps you warm. Here, I poured you a cup of coffee.” He set the cup on the table in front of her.

“Oh, no thank you, honey. I didn't come over here meaning for you to offer me refreshments. Besides, I don't drink coffee like I used to.” As she unbuttoned her coat and loosened it around her neck, Perry sat down across the table from her. This didn't have the makings of a short visit.

“After I married Hiram, I took up drinking coffee and pretty near got addicted to it,” Eldeen said, soberly gazing down inside the cup before her. “Isn't it a wonder how something so innocent-looking can grab ahold of you? That's why I never am one to say ‘Why, I don't see how
anybody
can let theirself get drunk' or ‘What a stupid thing to go around smoking them little tubes of nicotine.' I don't mean I think drinking and smoking's all right. No, sir, not on your life I don't. But I do know how I used to think coffee was the nastiest stuff in the world, and then all of a sudden there I was, drinking upwards of seven or eight cups a day. Addiction is addiction, no matter what it is you're addicted to. It's all part of the devil's steel trap I always say, and I know how easy it is to get your foot caught in it. Yes, sir, just like that—
snap!
And it's rusted shut!” And she clapped her hands together loudly.

Perry jumped slightly and spilled a little of his coffee onto the table. He hadn't even seen her remove her gloves. Eldeen leaned down and sniffed the coffee. “My, that does smell good, though.” She pushed it away a few inches.

It amazed Perry how much space Eldeen took up. Not just physical space, though she was a big woman, but she had such a strong presence that whenever he was around her, his senses began to tingle, like a circuit breaker was about to flip. He couldn't have blocked her out if he'd wanted to. There was so much to see and hear and think about that he wanted to yell, “Wait, reduce the wattage! Cut the power!”

Saturday Night Live
. That was it. Eldeen should be on
Saturday Night Live
. She could just talk. She wouldn't have to have a script. She could just say whatever came to her mind. People would love it. They would say she was a brilliant new comedienne, so talented, so fluent, so
funny
. And they'd never ever know that she wasn't even trying. She wouldn't have to go to the trouble of creating a character, like Gilda Radner's Emily Litella or Lily Tomlin's telephone operator. She could just be herself and knock people over. Everybody would be saying, “You've
got
to see this old lady they've got on
Saturday Night Live
. She's a stitch.” Eldeen could make a fortune.

“I just hope and pray every day that Joe Leonard's not going to get addicted to anything,” Eldeen said, raising her voice vehemently. “There's so much wickedness to tempt youngsters nowadays that it's a scary thing. The devil's out to get them all, all our little children. He wants to snatch them away from their mamas and daddies and lead them to everlasting destruction and perdition. He's got such a tender heart—Joe Leonard, I mean. He's always had a soft heart, just like his daddy did.”

Perry wished he had someone he could exchange glances with. It surprised him to realize that that was one thing he missed about Dinah. Whenever they used to meet someone eccentric or see something amusing, they rarely talked aloud about it. They just looked at each other. Just deadpan, no rolling of the eyes or raising of the eyebrows, not even the hint of a smile. Dinah used to say they didn't need to talk. They communicated through thoughts. But that was a long time ago. More recently the grievance she aired most often was “You never
talk
to me.” She must have said it hundreds of times.

The turning point had been a series of seminars she'd attended titled “The Inner Door”—all about things like “verbal bonding” and “breaking the marital sound barrier” and “mining the psyche's ore.” She had come home each night ready to lay bare her soul. Worse, she wanted Perry to do the same. He had read some of her notes and handouts and had even tried taking a quiz and participating in what she called an “exploratory exchange.”

Dinah hadn't liked his answers, though. In a section of the exchange called “Sharing Your Spouse's Future,” she had asked the question, “What do you most dread in the future?” and he had answered, “The next question on this quiz.” She had pressed her lips together and gone on to the next one. “What do you most look forward to in the future?” He had answered without a pause, “The end of this quiz.” At which point she had exploded. “Oh, well, okay, just forget it! Just stay inside your hard little shell and spin your make-believe stories!” His first thought after her blowup was to deplore the mixed metaphor. She could have worded it so much better: “Just stay inside your hard little shell and hide from me the pearl of your soul!” or “Just shut yourself away in the storeroom of your imagination and spin your fanciful straw into golden tales!”

Eldeen was chuckling as she fingered the stiff fringe along one edge of her scarf. “ . . . bought it for me for Christmas, bless his heart, so I just
have
to wear it so he'll know how much I like it. I'm hoping it'll soften up some and not scratch so bad. You ever have something give to you like that, that you just
had
to use so the other person wouldn't feel bad?”

Perry nodded and took another drink of his coffee. As a matter of fact, he had. He thought of the tweed beret Dinah had bought him one year. He had always felt like an idiot wearing it, but he could never get out the door without Dinah reminding him to put it on. “It gives you such a jaunty air,” she said. Now he wore it out of habit. He should tell Eldeen that she'd soon get used to the feel of the scratchy wool scarf and would even miss it when she didn't wear it.

But there wasn't time. She had started in again. “Now, where was I? Oh, I remember. I was telling you about needing to go somewhere. You see, Jewel normally drives me wherever I need to go after she gets home from teaching at four, but this is a special thing that I don't want her knowing about, and you'll understand why after I tell you what it is.”

Which might be sometime next week, Perry felt like saying.

“She's such a angel that she'll be embarrassed to death over this, but I'm going to do it anyway. You know, Jewel doesn't ever expect anything for herself, and she doesn't hardly know what it means to just let up and set your work aside and have a good time. She used to, but ever since Bailey died Jewel's just never come out of it. She used to be real lively and talkative, but then after Bailey's accident, she just changed, that's all. It's like she's still roaming lost in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and can't find the path out or else doesn't want to. I don't know which. And Jewel's not the kind you can just sit down and question and pry things loose from. She keeps it all balled up inside. It's hard to understand, but that's the way she is. Me, now I'd be the kind to find comfort just talking about it.”

Perry realized that he didn't know anything about the exact circumstances surrounding Bailey's drowning. Brother Hawthorne had given only a sketchy account, and Beth had never mentioned it—if she even knew. Suddenly he wanted to know, very much. But Eldeen didn't stop for questions.

“And so, anyway, I got me a plan all worked out for her birthday coming up next week. I already talked to Brother Hawthorne about it and Marvella and Birdie and some of the others, and they all think it's a real nice idea. We'll do it after church this next Sunday night back in Fellowship Hall, and it'll be a surprise. She won't be expecting a thing because her birthday's not till a week from tomorrow, on the seventh of March. She's got the same birthday as my brother Arko. Isn't that a coincidence? And that's not all—Arko's boy, Tate, was born on
Hiram's
birthday, which was only two days after Joe Leonard's, which is the day before Flag Day on June the fourteenth! Aren't coincidences just the funniest things?”

She started shaking with laughter.

“How did he die?” Perry asked quickly.

“Who? Arko? Oh, he's not dead. He's alive and well. He and Tate both. And Arko's wife, too, Bunny Lynn, bless her heart, although she's as weak as a little kitten. They live in a duplex in Rubicon, Arkansas. Tate and his family takes up one side and Arko and Bunny Lynn the other half. Rubicon is close to where I was born, in Chester, Arkansas. People are always thinking Arko's named after Arkansas, but he's not. Did I ever tell you how Arko and me got our names?”

Perry nodded. “I mean Jewel's husband. How did he die? It was a drowning, wasn't it?”

“Oh, Bailey? Why, I thought you knew. It was the saddest thing.” She broke off, shaking her head slowly and nibbling on her lip a moment. “It was a fishing accident. They still can't figure out what exactly happened. But he went out fishing one day all by hisself and just never came home. He didn't come and he didn't come and he didn't come, and finally Jewel called the police. And she rode with 'em out to the little lake where Bailey liked to go so much, and there was his car pulled up next to the bank, and way out in the middle of the lake was Bailey's little green boat just bobbing up and down—empty as a dry gourd.”

“Did they ever find him?” Perry asked.

“Sad to say, they did,” Eldeen said. “‘Course I guess it was a blessing in a lot of ways 'cause if they'd never of found him, it would of preyed on Jewel's mind even worse, wondering where he was or if maybe he'd got abducted. They got some diving men to go down under and hunt for him, and they finally found his body a good piece away from the boat. It was all real odd. His fishing line was tangled up every whichaway inside the boat, and his tackle box was upside down and all topsy-turvy.”

“And they never knew what happened?” Perry said.

“No, sir, never for sure, they didn't. They said it could of been this or it could of been that, but what it boiled down to was that nobody knew. There wasn't a soul out there fishing besides him. At least nobody came forward to give any testimony. They examined him good at the autopsy but didn't come up with anything like a heart attack or anything, and they didn't think it was any foul play that happened. No, sir, to this day nobody but God in heaven knows what killed Bailey Blanchard and broke Jewel's poor little heart.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Perry heard a muffled click as the refrigerator turned on. Somewhere outside a dog barked—one of those yippy hysterical kinds. Eldeen sighed and started rebuttoning her coat. She put on her gloves and then tied the thick wool scarf around her head again. With a grunt she stood up and walked to the door. Perry followed her. She turned back to him as she reached for the doorknob.

“But our Lord Jesus can see a little sparrow fall. We know that. Yes, sir, He saw His precious saint fall that day, and we know Bailey Blanchard is resting content and happy in the bosom of Jesus today.” She shook her head. “But it's mighty hard to see Jewel still suffering over it. I keep praying and praying that she'll get her spark back. And God can do it. I know He can.” She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the ceiling. “‘For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.'”