The Pecan Man (17 page)

“Merry Christmas!” they said at
once.

Already synchronized,
I
thought as they pulled away.
That’s a good sign.

I have never heard such a
racket as I did the next morning. The squeals of joy and excited laughter shook
me from my sleep and I rushed to put my clothes on so I could join the family
downstairs. Gracie met me at the top of the stairs.

“Miz Ora! Mr. Pecan,” she
called. “Come look at what Santy Claus brought us!”

I thought she would pull me off
my feet going down those stairs.

Most of the gift-giving I’d
done in the past had been accomplished anonymously or at least at arm’s length.
This was the first time I’d really experienced the joy firsthand. Gracie was
beside herself with glee.

“It’s got a
real horn
,”
Gracie squealed as she squeezed the bulb attached to the handlebars of her new
pink bike.

“Oh, Gracie,” I exclaimed. “You
must have been a really good girl this year.”

“I was, Miz Ora. Really,
really
good.”

ReNetta and Danita were equally
thrilled. Danita pounced on the purple bike, proclaiming purple her
“favoritest” color ever. ReNetta was happy with the orange one, since orange
and black were her school colors.

“Oh!” she gasped as the thought
came to her. “I can ride it in the spirit parade next year!”

“You better keep that thing
nice, if you plannin’ on doing that,” Blanche spoke up.

“I’ll wash it every day!”

I laughed. “I wouldn’t go that
far, honey.”

After the other odds and ends
were unwrapped, Eddie took the girls outside to try out the new bikes. Patrice
stayed in to help clean up the living room.

Patrice was quiet as she picked
up the crumpled wrapping paper and bows and stuffed them into a garbage bag.
She liked her bicycle and the clothes I'd gotten at Penney's, I was sure of
that, but she seemed distant and sad. I asked her about it after Blanche went
to start breakfast for us.

“I'm all right, Miz Ora.
Really."

“Something's bothering you,
though. Is it Marcus?"

She nodded and her lips began
to tremble as she fought for composure. She sat on the edge of the ottoman,
resting her forearms on her legs.

“It's the first Christmas we've
ever had like this."

“Without him, you mean?"

“Yeah. He was so excited about
the Army, about having a real job and money to spend. He wanted to help
Mama." Her voice broke and I waited, unable to speak.

“He wanted Christmas to be big
this year. He was going to…"

My heart ached for her.

“He was going to get bicycles
for the girls," she barely got the words out before breaking into sobs.

“Aw, honey," I said, moving
to kneel before her, my hands on her knees. “I'm so sorry."

“It's okay, Miz Ora. You didn't
know about the bikes. You didn't mean any harm."

I stood then, leaning over to
catch Patrice's face in both hands. I pulled myself toward her and planted a kiss
on the top of her head. When I looked up, Blanche was standing at the edge of
the dining room, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and watching us intently.
Without a word, she turned and went back into the kitchen.

The gaiety of the house
returned when the girls came in to eat breakfast. Eddie's eyes were shining and
the creases in his face seem amplified somehow. He kept his mouth closed as
usual, but the rest of his face wore a happy grin.

Patrice remained quiet and so
did Blanche. I found it very hard to make small talk, so I stayed quiet and
listened to the chirping of the little birds at my table.     

Twenty

Blanche never said another word about Eddie being there. Her
children continued to come to the house each day and soon Grace had Eddie sipping
fake tea from the tea set she found in the attic. Blanche and I eventually
stopped holding our breaths every time Grace and Eddie interacted, but we still
gasped aloud the night Grace brought up her "dream" at the dinner
table.

Harley Odell had stopped by
just as we were finishing dinner and I invited him to stay for coffee and
dessert, which he accepted so eagerly I thought he must have timed the visit
deliberately. Blanche had stood up to clear the table and fetch dessert and I
was pouring coffee into the judge’s cup when Grace piped up from out of the
blue.

“I don’t like bad dreams,” she
said.

Blanche dropped the plate she
was holding. I startled so badly that I slung coffee across the tablecloth.
There was no way to cover our reaction. Eddie cleared his throat. Harley leaned
back in his chair and peered at me over the top of his glasses. I couldn’t
think of anything to say, so I said nothing. Blanche hastily made her retreat
to the kitchen.

“Well,” boomed the honorable
judge, directing his attention to the child. “I don’t like bad dreams either.
Have you been having bad dreams, young lady?”

I held my breath and prayed.
Eddie excused himself.

“Just one,” Gracie said
quietly. “But, I’ve had it a lotta times.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said
the judge, leaning toward the child and lowering his voice soothingly. “You
wanna tell me about it? Sometimes talking about it helps.”

“No!” I said, more vehemently
than I intended.

Harley tilted his head and
frowned at me.

“What is the matter with you?”

I dabbed futilely at the still
expanding coffee stain with my cloth napkin.

“It’s not good for her to keep
bringing up that dream. It isn’t a pleasant one and it’s certainly not
appropriate for the dinner table.” I felt like the proverbial deer in
headlights. I was about to be run down and all I could do was watch it happen.

“Oh, come now,” said Harley,
genuinely confused. “How bad a dream can a child her age have?”

Blanche reappeared with peach
cobbler and vanilla ice cream. Normally, she’d serve her own children last, but
she put the biggest portion in front of Grace and said, “Eat up, now, chile’.
That dream ain’t go’n do you no harm and it can’t come to no good talkin’ about
it all the time.”

I think that was the moment
that I really understood how long my own lie would live and how messy it could
become. Neither Blanche nor I wanted the details of Gracie’s “dream” to come to
light, but for two vastly different reasons and only one similar one. I would
never be free of it. And I wasn’t sure I was smart enough to keep such an
intricate lie straight.       

“Well, I don’t see the harm of
letting the child talk about it…”

“Leave it alone, Harley,” I
said, this time intentionally firm. “It’s not good table-talk.”

Years on the bench gave Harley
Odell an intuition as big as his beltline.

“What’s your dream about,
honey?”

“It’s ‘bout that white boy,”
Grace said matter-of-factly.

“Grace!” Blanche shushed her
child. “Don’t say ‘white boy’…”

She stopped, horrified.

“I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout his
skin, Mama. I’m talkin’ ‘bout his hair. Whitest hair I ever saw.”

“Gracie,” I willed myself to be
calm. “Why don’t you take Mr. Eddie some cobbler and ice cream?”

“Okay,” she said, and hopped
down from her chair and took the bowl I held out to her.

“And when you’re done, go on up
and get your things. You got school tomorrow,” Blanche added before retreating
to the kitchen herself.

The moment Grace disappeared
down the hall, Harley pushed back from the table and turned to face me.

“Is there something you’re not
telling me, Ora Lee?”

“About what, Harley?”

“Look, I don’t know what’s
going on here, but I’ve had my suspicions for a while now. You and Blanche are
acting a little strange, for lack of a better word. You’re both jumpy as hell,
not to mention that you obviously don’t want me to know about that child’s
dream.”

I sighed and pushed away from
the table.

“Don’t make a mountain out of a
molehill, Harley,” I said. “The child has had a rather graphic dream, which I
have no doubt is caused by all the talk about that boy’s death. We’ve heard it
before and we’ve talked to her a great deal about it, but it is
not
a
discussion I’d like to have at my dinner table and that’s all there is to it.
Now, finish your dessert and you can help me wash the dishes so Blanche can get
on home.”

Blanche’s peach cobbler has a
way of making a body forget anything else but the sheer pleasure of eating it.
The rest of the evening went smoothly and Harley and I had a pleasant
conversation over a second cup of coffee before he took his leave.

Twenty-one

The New Year brought new revelations about Eddie, some
impressive, some heartbreaking. For one thing, I learned that Eddie received a
pension of some sort, though he never said exactly what it was. It was
delivered to the post office general delivery and Eddie rode Patrice's new
bicycle to pick it up. I imagine that's how he went undetected. Most people
recognized him immediately on the wrinkled old bike he rode before his arrest.

I didn't even know he was gone
until he didn't show up for lunch. It wasn't unusual for him to sleep quite
late, though sometimes he was up early puttering around the back yard or the
garage. At any rate, when Blanche put sandwiches out for just the two of us, I
finally got around to wondering about him.

“He's been gone all
mornin'," Blanche said.

“All morning? What time did he
leave?"

“He was headed off on Patrice's
bike when I got here this mornin'. Said he was goin' to the post office to pick
something up and he'd be back for lunch."

You can't imagine the thoughts
that went through my head as concern for him settled in. First I worried that
he'd been arrested again. He was not supposed to leave my house without telling
me where he was going. It was part of the agreement for posting his bail.

Then I worried that he'd been
killed. I was certain Ralph Kornegay would be happy to finish what he started.
Then it occurred to me that I would lose fifty thousand dollars if Eddie
disappeared and couldn't be found. I fretted myself into a frazzle by
mid-afternoon.

When the girls came in from
school, I told Blanche to take them on home. I needed help, but pickings were
slim in the help department. Lord knows I couldn't call the police.

I picked up the phone to call Poopsie's
office and thought better of it. But, thinking of the judge made me think of
Clara Jean, and thinking of her put me in mind of Chip Smallwood. I called him
at home and, mercifully, caught him on his day off. He was at my house fifteen
minutes later and we formulated a plan together.

I could think of only two
places Eddie might go. The first was to the Greyhound Bus Station down on
Miller Street. I thought maybe he picked up money or even a ticket at the post
office.

Clara Jean was much more graceful
getting into Chip's car than I was. Even with Chip offering a steadying hand, I
all but fell into the low bucket seat of the Camaro he drove. We headed to the
bus station first, but the clerk there said no one had booked a ride at all
that day.

“Do you think we could find out
what he picked up at the post office?" I asked Chip.

“I really doubt it,” he
replied. “They aren’t allowed to give out personal information like that.”

The second place I thought of
was a bar and I shared that with Chip.

“It’s possible,” he agreed.
“That yellow bike shouldn’t be too hard to spot if you want to just drive
around and look.”

“The Shamrock isn’t too far
from the post office,” I said, offering up one of the only bar and liquor
stores that came to mind.

Chip chuckled. “I doubt he’d go
there, Ma’am. He’d most likely head for one where he wouldn’t stick out like a
sore thumb.”

“Oh, right,” I said, feeling
silly again.

“I know of a few we might
check, though. The County Line Bar is just south of town. He might be behind
the line.”

“Behind the line?” I wondered.

“It’s a window at the back of
the bar. That’s where blacks are served.”

I think I gasped aloud because
Chip went on quickly.

“Yeah, it bothers me, too.
There’s no real rule about it, so it’s hard to fix the problem.”

“I had no idea,” I murmured,
more to myself than to Chip.

“Fact is, blacks could go
inside and the bartender would serve them, but it wouldn’t take long for the
patrons to make them feel plenty unwelcome.”