Heaven

  "Sure."

  "Sure what?"

  "Sure it will be pretty."

  She patted his cheek, then leaned to kiss him.

  "Now that we're away from yer ole man," intoned Kitty, her sharp chin again resting on her folded arms, "I kin be more honest. Knew yer ma, yer real ma. Not that Sarah woman. Now, yer real ma was some looker. Not jus pretty, but beautiful--an I hated her guts."

  "Oh," I breathed, feeling sick, unreal. "Why did you hate her?"

  "Thought she had a real catch in Luke Casteel. Thought Luke Casteel should have been mine when I was a kid an didn't know no betta. What a damned idiot I was then, thinkin a handsome face an a strong, beautiful body was all there was t'it. Now I hate him--hate his guts!"

  This should make me feel good, yet it didn't. Why would Kitty want the daughter of the man she hated?

  I'd been right, she had known Pa a long time. Her dialect was just as bad as his, and all the others in our area.

  "Yeah," continued Kitty in a strange, soft voice like a cat's purr. "Saw yer real ma every time she came inta Winnerrow. Every hotshot man in town had t'hots fer Luke's angel. Nobody could understand how she would marry t'likes of Luke. Love made her blind, was my thinkin. Some women are like that."

  "Shut up, Kitty." Cal's voice, full of warning.

  Kitty ignored him. "An there I was with t'hots fer yer big, handsome pa. Oh, every girl in town wantin an waitin fer him t'get inta her pants."

  "Kitty, you've said enough."

  The warning in his voice was more intense. Kitty threw him an impatient look, jerked around, and switched on the car radio. She fiddled with the dial until she found country music. Loud, twangy guitar music filled the car.

  Now we couldn't talk.

  Miles and miles and miles slid by like a long ribbon picture postcard that had no end. Out of the hills, down into the flatlands.

  Soon the mountains became distant shadows. Miles and miles later, afternoon light faded away. Sun going down, turning twilight time. Where had all the hours gone? Had I fallen asleep without knowing it? Farther away than I'd ever been before. Little farms, big farms, small villages, gasoline stations, long stretches of barren land with patches of red dirt.

  Deep twilight came to smear the sky rosy with violet and orange, with bright gold edging all those heavenly colors. Same sky I'd seen in the hills, but the country look that I was accustomed to was left behind. Gasoline stations by the dozens rose up, and quickfood places with colorful neon lights, imitating the sky, or trying to and failing.

  "Ain't it somethin," said Kitty, staring out her window, "t'way t'sky lights up? Like drivin when it's twilight time. Heard say it's t'most dangerous time of all, makes people feel unreal, caught up in dreams. . . always had me a dream of having lots of kids, all pretty."

  "Please don't, Kitty," pleaded her husband.

  She shut up, left me to my own thoughts. I'd seen twilight skies many a time, but I'd never seen a city at night. Fatigue forgotten, I stared at everything, feeling a true hillbilly for the first time in my life. This was no Winnerrow, but the biggest city I'd ever seen.

  Then came the golden arches, and the car slowed, as if drawn there magnetically without discussion between husband and wife. Soon we were inside, seated at a tiny table. "What ya mean, ya ain't neva ate at McDonald's before?" asked Kitty, amused and disgusted at the same time. "Why, I bet ya ain't even had Kentucky Fried."

  "What's that?"

  "Cal, this girl is ignorant. Really ig-nor-ant. An her pa tole us she was smart."

  Pa had said that? It made me feel funny to hear he had. But he'd say anything to gain another five hundred dollars.

  "Eating in joints like this doesn't make anybody smart, Kitty. Just less hungry."

  "Why, I bet ya ain't neva been t'a movingpicture show, have ya?"

  "Yes I have," I answered quickly. "Once."

  "Once! Did ya hear that, Cal? This smart girl has been t'a movie once. Now, that is somethin, really somethin. What else ya done that's smart?"

  How to answer that when it was asked in such a mocking, sarcastic tone?

  Suddenly I was homesick for Grandpa, for the miserable cabin and its familiar space. Again those unwanted sad pictures flashed behind my eyes. Our Jane and Keith saying "Hey-lee." I blinked once or twice, glad I had the wonderful doll with me. When Kitty saw her, she'd be impressed, really impressed.

  "Now . . . say what ya think of t'burger," quizzed Kitty, dispatching hers in mere seconds, and applying hot-pink lipstick to lips that wore a perpetual stain. She handled the tube expertly despite her inchlong nails, shiny with polish that matched her pink clothes exactly.

  "It was very good."

  "Then why didn't ya eat all of it? Food costs good money. When we buy ya food we expect ya t'eat it all."

  "Kitty, you talk too loud. Leave the girl alone."

  "I don't like yer name, either," Kitty flared, as if annoyed at Cal's defense. "It's a stupid name. Heaven's a place, not a name. What's yer middle name-- somethin jus as dumb?"

  "Leigh," I answered in a tone of ice. "My mother's Christian name."

  Kitty winced. "Damn!" she swore, slamming her fists one into the other. "Hate that name!" She swung her seawater eyes to her husband and met his mild look with fierce anger. "That was her name, that Boston bitch who took Luke! Goddam if I eva want t'hear it said aloud again, ya hear?"

  "I hear. . . ."

  Kitty's mood swung in a different direction, from anger to thoughtfulness, as Cal got up and headed for the men's room. "Always wanted a girl I could call Linda. Always wanted t'be named Linda myself. There's somethin sweet an pure about Linda that sounds so right."

  Again I shivered, seeing those huge, glittery rings on Kitty's large, strong hands. Were they real diamonds, rubies, emeralds--or fakes?

  It was a relief to be in the car again, on the road speeding toward some distant home. A relief, that is, until Kitty told Cal she was changing my name. "Gonna call her Linda," she said matter-of-factly. "Like that name, really I do."

  Immediately he barked, "No! Heaven suits her best. She's lost her home and her family; for God's sake, don't force her to lose her name as well. Leave well enough alone."

  There was some forceful quality in his voice this time that stilled Kitty's incessant chatter for a peaceful five minutes, and, best of all, Cal reached to turn off the radio.

  In the backseat I curled up and tried to stay awake by reading the road signs. By this time I'd noticed that Cal was following all the signs that directed us toward Atlanta. Overpasses and

  underpasses, through clover-leafs and down expressways, under train trestles, over bridges crossing rivers, through cities large, small, and medium, going onward toward Atlanta.

  I gasped to see the skyscrapers rearing up black in the night, glittering with lit windows, wearing clouds like wispy scarfs. I gasped at store windows on Peachtree Street, stared at policemen standing right in the middle of everything and not afraid, and some were on horseback. Pedestrians were strolling the avenues as if it were midday and not long after nine. Back home I'd be on the floor sound asleep by this time. Even now I had to rub at my eyes, gritty with sleep. Maybe I did sleep.

  All of a sudden a loud voice was singing. Kitty had the radio on again and was snuggled up close to Cal, doing something that made him plead for her to stop. "Kitty, there's a time and a place for

  everything--and the time and place isn't right for this. Now take your hand away."

  What was Kitty doing? I rubbed at my eyes, then leaned forward to find out. Just in time to see Cal pull up his fly zipper. Oh--was that nice? Fanny would think so. Quickly I slid backward, alarmed that Kitty might have seen me peek at what was, really, none of my business. Again I stared out the window. The big city with all its majestic skyscrapers had disappeared. Now we were driving down streets not so wide or so busy.

  "We live in the suburbs," Cal explained briskly. "Subdivision called Candlewick. The houses are splitlevels and almost alike, six diff
erent styles, you take your pick. And then they build them for you. You can be an individual only with the way you decorate outside and in. We hope you will enjoy living here, Heaven. We want to do our best by you and give you the kind of life we'd give our own, if we could have children. The school you'll be attending is within walking distance."

  Snorting, Kitty mumbled, "Mind. Mind. What the hell difference does it make? She's goin t'school if she has t'crawl there. Damned if ah want some ignorant kid spoilin my reputation."

  I sat up straighter, tried to keep sleep from stealing my first view of my new home, and with interest I studied the houses that were, as Cal had said, almost alike, but not quite. Nice houses. No doubt every one had at least one bathroom, maybe more. And all those wonderful electrical conveniences city folks couldn't live without.

  Then the car pulled into a driveway, and a garage door was sliding magically upward, and then we were inside the garage, and Kitty was yelling for me to wake up. "We're home, kid, home."

  Home.

  I quickly opened the car door and left the garage to stand and stare at the house in the pale moonlight. Two stories. How sweet it looked snuggled in the midst of lush shrubbery, mostly evergreens. Red brick with white blinds. A palace in comparison to the shack in the hills I'd just left. A pretty house with a white front door.

  "Cal, ya put her dirty thins in t'basement where they belong, if they belong." Sadly I watched my mother's wonderful suitcase, much better than any bag Kitty owned, disappear. . . though of course Kitty couldn't know what was under all those dark knitted shawls.

  "C'mon," Kitty called impatiently. "It's goin on eleven. An I'm really pooped. Ya got yer whole life long t'stare at t'outside, ya hear?"

  How final she made that sound.

  PART 0 Candlewick Life . Eleven A NEW HOME

  .KITTY FLICKED A SWITCH NEAR THE DOOR, AND THE ENTIRE house lit up. What I saw made me gasp.

  It was so wonderful, this clean and modern house. It thrilled me to know I was going to live here. The whiteness--all this pure snowy cleanliness!--and ele gance! I shivered again, seeing cleansing snow that would never melt with sunlight, wouldn't be turned into slush by tromping feet. Deep inside me, all along, I'd known there had to be a better place for me than the cabin with all its dirt and unhappiness.

  From second one I thought of this as Kitty's house. The authoritative air she took on, the way she ordered Cal to take my "nasty thins" to the basement, told me clearly that this was her house, not his. There was not one thing to indicate a man lived in all this feminine prettiness, nothing masculine at all here, also giving me the notion that Kitty was the boss in this house.

  While Cal followed her instructions, Kitty went around switching on other lamps, as if dim corners terrified her. I soon knew my judgement was wrong. Kitty was looking for flaws in the new paint job.

  "Well, now, it sure is betta than yer shack in t'hills, ain't it, kid? Betta by heck than anythin in Winnerrow . . hick town. Couldn't wait t'escape it. Don't know why I keep goin back." A frown of displeasure darkened her pretty face. Soon she began complaining that the workmen, left on their own, had done a great many "wrong" things. She saw her home differently than I did--to her it was not wonderful at all.

  "Would ya jus look an see where they put my chairs? An my lamps? Nothin's right! I tole em where I wanted everythin, I did! Ya kin bet yer life they're gonna hear about this--"

  I tried to see what she saw, but I thought everything looked perfect.

  Kitty glanced at me, saw my awed expression, and smiled with tolerant indulgence. "Well, c'mon, tell me what ya think."

  Her living room was larger than our entire cabin--but the most surprising thing about this room was the colorful zoo it contained. Everywhere, on the windowsills, in corner cabinets, on the tables, lining the white carpet up the stairs, sat animals made into fancy stands to hold plantsranimal faces and forms made picture frames, lamps, baskets, candy dishes, footstools.

  Live plants sprouted from the backs of giant green ceramic frogs with bulging yellow eyes and scarlet tongues. There were huge golden fish with gaping mouths and frightened sea-blue eyes bearing more plants. There were blue geese, white and yellow ducks, purple and pink polka-dotted hens, brown and tan rabbits, pink squirrels, hot-pink fat pigs with cute curly tails. "C'mon," said Kitty, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the center of that domestic zoo, "ya gotta see em up close t'appreciate all t'talent it takes t'make em."

  I was speechless.

  "C'mon, say somethin!" she demanded.

  "It's beautiful," I breathed, impressed with all this white, the wallpaper that looked like white silk tree rings, the white lounging chairs, the white sofa, the white lampshades over huge fat white shiny bases. No wonder Kitty had been so appalled by the cabin with all its generations of filth. Here, there was a fireplace with a carved white wooden mantel and frame, and a white marble hearth, and tables of a richlooking dark wood I was to find out later was rosewood, and glass and brass tables, too. Not a speck of dust anywhere. No fingerprints. Not a thing out of place.

  She stood beside me, as if to see her glorious living room through my naive country eyes, while I was afraid to step on that white carpet that had to dirty more quickly than a dog could wag his tail. I glanced down at my clumsy, ugly old shoes, and right away pulled them off.

  My feet sank deep into the pile as I drifted dreamlike from one object to the other, marveling. Fat cats, skinny cats, slinky, sneaky, slithering cats. Dogs sitting, standing, sleeping; elephants and tigers, lions and leopards, peacocks, pheasants, parakeets, and owls. A mind-boggling array of animals.

  "Ain't they somethin, though, my creations? Made em, I did, with my own hands. Baked em in my huge class kiln. Gotta little one upstairs. I hold classes ever Saturday. Charge each student thirty dollars, an got thirty who come regular. None of my students is as good as I am, of course, an that's a good thin, keeps em comin back, hopin t'outmaster t'master.. Did ya notice all t'fancy decorations, t'fiower garlands I put on em? Ain't they somethin, ain't they?"

  Still overwhelmed, I could only nod in agreement. Oh, yes, I had to be impressed that Kitty could create such wonders as those carousel horses galloping around a white lamp base. I said again, my voice full of admiration, "So beautiful, all of them."

  "Knew ya'd think so." Proudly she picked up and displayed what I might have overlooked, "Teachin makes fer lots of cash; won't take no checks, then there's no taxes t'pay. Could teach ten times as many if I'd give up my beauty-salon business, but I jus can't see myself doin that when I earns so much when t'celebrities come t'town an wants their hair done. Do every-thin from bleach an tint jobs to perms and pedicures, my eight girls do. Save myself fer special customers, an in my shop I sell thousands of what ya see all around ya. Clients love em, jus love em."

  She stood back and crossed her strong arms over her high-rise bosom and beamed at me. "Ya think ya could do as well, do ya, do ya?"

  "No. I wouldn't know where to begin," I confessed.

  Cal came in from a back door and stood back and looked at Kitty with a certain kind of disgust--as if he didn't admire her "creations" or didn't like all the hours she spent teaching.

  "Would ya say I'm an artist, would ya?"

  "Yes, Kitty, a real artist . . . did you go to school and study art?"

  Kitty scowled. "There's some things ya jus know how t'do, born knowin, that's all. I'm just gifted that way--ain't I, honey?"

  "Yes, Kitty, you are gifted that way." Cal strolled toward the stairs.

  "Hey!" yelled Kitty. "Yer fergettin this kid has t'have new clothes. Kin't let her sleep in our newpainted house in those ole rags she's got on. She stinks, kin't ya smell her? Cal, ya get yerself back in that car an drive ta t'K mart that stays open all night, an get this chile some decent clothes specially nightgowns--an ya make sure they're all too large. Don't want her growin out of stuff before they're worn out."

  "It's almost eleven," he said in that cold, distant voice that I had heard before
in the car, and was already beginning to recognize as his disapproving voice.

  "I KNOW that! Ya think I kin't tell time? But no kid is sleepin in my clean house without a bath, without a shampoo, without a delousin, an, most specially, without new clothes--ya hear!"

  Cal heard. He whirled about, grumbling under his breath, and disappeared. Pa would never let a woman tell him what to do and where to do it, much less when. What kind of leash did Kitty have about Cal's neck that he would obey, even grudgingly?

  "Now, ya come along with me, an show ya

  everythin, just everythin, an yer gonna love it all, ya will, know ya will." She smiled and patted my cheek. "Knew yer pa. Guess ya know that by now. Knew he couldn't do nothin fer ya, not like I'm gonna do. Gonna give ya all t'thins I wanted when I was a kid like ya. Advantages I neva had are gonna be yers. It's yer good luck t'have picked me, an my Cal . . . an yer Pa's bad luck. Serves him right, too, to lose everythin . . every one of his kids." Again she smiled her strange smile. "Now, tell me what ya like t'do most."

  "Oh . . I love to read!" I answered quickly. "My teacher, Miss Deale, used to give Tom and me lots of books to bring home, and for birthdays and such she'd give us our very own books--brand-new ones. I brought a few with me, my favorite ones--and they're not dirty, Kitty, really they're not. Tom and I taught Keith and Our Jane to love books and respect them as friends."