Outside Beauty

  “Do you like to live alone?” I asked.

  “Not so much.” He seemed embarrassed. “I send to Japan for wife. She come and very nice. But she unhappy. I think I can learn to love, but maybe she can’t. So I send her home.”

  A crow swooped through the cicadas, cawing loudly. The blood-red horizon seemed to be almost close enough to touch. The scenery was a little overwhelming, actually, how pretty it was. Jiro suddenly looked excited and childlike. He leaned toward me.

  “Nobody ever make chocolate gum,” he said in an urgent tone. “Something in chocolate make gum too sticky. Stick to your teeth. But maybe onto something. I planning new formula. We may be rich.”

  I felt kind of touched that he said “we.” But I also felt sad, not for myself, but for him, because I did not want us to be a “we.” I realized he wasn’t a bad sort, but I just didn’t belong in Arkansas. I was a big-city girl, and I belonged with my sisters and mother in Chicago.

  Still, in bed later that night, I actually felt a little better than I had in bed that morning. Under the pillow I’d put a picture of me, my sisters, and our mother. That made me feel kind of like they were right there. And I know it doesn’t seem like Jiro and I had had much of a conversation, and I know nothing much happened that day, and I still couldn’t wait to return home to Chicago. But I don’t know. It wasn’t such a bad day. A little slow, of course, but what are you going to do? It was Benton Springs, Arkansas.

  chapter ten

  WHEN NO LETTERS CAME FOR a week, I suspected the post office of losing my mail. Then suddenly letters were flying back and forth. Marilyn’s came first.

  Hello, girls,

  I visited Mom in the hospital today. Dad let me drive part of the way and I only hit one thing—a garbage can. Mom’s kind of depressed from worrying about what she’s going to look like at the end of her surgeries. It’s hard, because I can’t get used to her face, and the more I tell myself not to look at her bandages, the more I do look at them, which makes her sad, which makes me sad, which makes her even sadder. I hope her scars aren’t bad on her face, because if they are, I don’t know if I’ll be able to help staring at them. I’ll try hard, though.

  On a happier note, Mack’s nephew came over today and was gawking at me. He was really cute, but I mean he’s my relative and all. I wish he wasn’t, but he is. And he’s twenty-five years old! That’s practically a senior citizen. I also like another boy who works in the grocery store, but I don’t know what Mom would think of me dating a boxboy.

  More soon! Take care, girls!!

  Love,

  Marilyn

  That was typical Marilyn. I wrote next.

  Hi, all!

  Marilyn, I realize you’re not going to see our letters if we all send them right down the line according to our age. So I think all the letters should end up with you and also start with you.

  Jiro is not so bad. I mean, I could have had a better father, but I could have had a worse one, I guess. But if I did have a better or worse one, then I guess I wouldn’t be me, so that wouldn’t work out, either. I mean, I’d be a different me. I’d still be me, because who else would I be?

  It’s quiet here and there’s nature all over. Every time I walk out the door, all I can see is nature. At first I couldn’t relate to it, but now that I’ve been here a week, I’m getting more used to it. In fact, it’s kind of cool.

  Marilyn, don’t stare at Mom’s face! I know it’s hard but you have to try.

  Okay, that’s it from me! I hope you’re all doing okay!!!

  Love,

  Shelby

  P.S. Wait, now that I think about it, I won’t see what Maddie and Lakey add to the letters, because they’ll write after me. I think we should keep sending the letters around until everybody has read them, and then send them to Maddie in the end. Or is that what we already decided and I just don’t understand?

  P.P.S. Jiro has the smallest TV I’ve ever seen. He says he hardly watches.

  P.P.P.S. Marilyn, I think you should date the boxboy if you like him.

  I always hoped Marilyn would date boys she liked, not boys with money or status.

  Our plan to send our letters to each person in turn got messed up really quickly. It was confusing, and pretty soon we were breaking the rules all the time. A letter from Lakey was the next to arrive.

  Dear M, S, and M,

  It’s okay so far. It’s hard, though, because Larry doesn’t spend as much attention on me like he used to. His wife is pregnant so I guess he’ll have another child, and he is already thinking a lot about the baby and all. We went for a vacation at the cabin where he got married. Shelby, I know what you mean by saying nature is kind of cool when you get used to it. I saw a raccoon! He walked right up to me and I ran away, but still it was kind of cool.

  His wife is really different from Mom. It seems weird.

  Love,

  Lakey

  And finally, Maddie.

  Dear Everybody,

  Mr. Bronson told me to stop calling him Mr. Bronson. He wants me to say dad. But I don’t want to say dad because it fells funny. He says I should say dad anyway so I do but it fells funny.

  He wants me to make fiends but I don’t see any kids around. You are my best fiends so why should I try to make more. Also I won’t be here long. So if I played with someone in the neighborhood I would leave soon anyway. Does that make sense?

  Love,

  Maddie

  P.S. I’m scared of raccoons.

  So Marilyn was thinking about city boys and Lakey and I were making friends with nature. There was no denying it: I liked nature. I mean, I knew everybody liked nature, but I hadn’t realized I liked it. I hadn’t thought much about it. But in this little town it was all around. Every single house had really big trees, like, right next to them. I couldn’t remember ever seeing that before. The modest wood houses fit right into the setting.

  One morning during breakfast as Jiro and I ate cereal, I asked him, “What’s it like in southern Arkansas, where Maddie is?”

  He shook his head sadly. “South filled with new pine forest. Oaks cut down for timber,” he said. “I take you down to visit your sister.”

  My head shot up. “What?” I said. Milk spewed out of my mouth, and I waited for a demerit for bad manners. But no demerit came. “Really? When?”

  “Ah, when. I promise I will. Not sure when.”

  “Can I call her and tell her?”

  “You can call anytime you want, but don’t tell yet. Tell when we know when.”

  “But can’t you tell me when?” Impatience rose in me.

  “I figure out and tell you soon.”

  When Jiro left for work, I peeked out the window and watched him go. The second his car disappeared past the curve in the road, I ran into his office and dialed Maddie. She answered the phone.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Maddie!”

  “Shelby!”

  “What are you doing answering the phone?”

  “He’s at work, and Mrs. Bronson is taking a shower.”

  “Maddie, I’m going to come down and visit you.”

  “When?”

  “Soon. Jiro said soon.”

  “Hurry! Maybe Jiro can make Mr. Bronson give me my money back. He found it and took it. Shelby, I want to go home! Please come get me. I’m so lonely! Please?”

  “Okay,” I said, knowing it might be impossible even as I said it. “Soon. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Shelby?” she said. “Shelby?”

  “What is it?”

  “Shelby. He spanked me last night.” She started sobbing huge, hysterical sobs unlike any I’d ever heard from anyone.

  “Maddie? Maddie!”

  But she didn’t stop sobbing, and there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t hold her. I couldn’t calm her wild hair. I felt sick at the thought of that man spanking my little sister. We all cried a lot—our mother said it was because we were girls. Sometimes we cried as much as we laughed. But I couldn??
?t think of another time that I had heard Maddie truly sob.

  That night as Jiro and I sat outside, I asked him whether Maddie could come live with us, and he said it was fine with him but he doubted Mr. Bronson would approve. I knew this was true. I sat quietly. The night got so windy that sitting on the porch was almost like sitting in a car with all the windows open. It was the kind of night you could wish for anything and believe that it would come true. I wished that Maddie would come to live with us. I tried to picture the wind carrying the wish through the air and sprinkling it all over Mr. Bronson.

  “He spanked her!” I said angrily. I couldn’t believe anyone would actually spank my Maddie. I’d never been spanked, so I couldn’t even conceive of it. I would rather get spanked myself than have Maddie get spanked.

  Jiro nodded sadly. He cocked his head as if he heard a voice speaking to him. Then he shook his head. “I’ll call him, but . . .” But like me, he knew he couldn’t change Mr. Bronson.

  The next day Jiro asked me if I’d like to go with him to service a few customers. To tell the truth, I was trying to avoid being seen in public with him. I nearly had heart failure when I saw what he was wearing: purple plaid pants with a white shirt and a purple vest. I wondered if he dressed like an insane person on purpose, but he didn’t seem like he did. I think he honestly thought he looked fine. My mother said nobody wore purple except aging hippies. He wasn’t an aging hippy. He was . . . he was . . . my father. On the pro side, I wouldn’t see anyone I knew today, so why not go out with him on his rounds? It was something to do.

  Jiro drove an old car that was about as big as a boat. He was, oddly, positively chatty, going on and on about Benton Springs. “Some of the most beautiful nature I ever see here.” The nearby river really was called the Gloomy River, although Jiro said it was a cheery place. He said he would take me there for a picnic. Actually, it was part of the larger Buffalo National River. Jiro said the “gorgeous Buffalo National River” was the reason he’d ended up in Arkansas instead of Japan or Southern California, where his sister and one of his two brothers lived. It was funny to hear him use a word like “gorgeous” to describe a river. Usually, that was the word people used to describe my mother. There were several waterfalls within twenty miles of where we lived, and Jiro said that during the autumn, the fallen leaves looked like gold stars lying along the riverbank.

  “How did you discover Benton Springs in the first place?” I asked.

  “Student at college,” he said. He smiled ruefully. “Couldn’t get in anywhere else.”

  He was driving boxes of Gum-Bo to customers in the area. I was chewing some. Gum-Bo tasted like it had a bit of licorice in it, maybe even a bit of apple. I couldn’t quite figure it out. But it was good. Really good. “What all do you put in your gum?” I asked.

  He seemed surprised. “Gum maker never tell formula.”

  We drove to a place called the Sherwood Local Emporium. The only other buildings nearby were a small gas station and a small medical clinic that looked closed. Before we got out of the car, Jiro cautioned me, “Mrs. Sherwood have no neck.”

  “No neck?”

  He nodded. “I know you have good manner, but I just want warn so not surprised.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but when we walked into the emporium, I saw a woman standing at the counter. She had no neck. Her head was just planted right there on her shoulders.

  Mrs. Sherwood was a small, squat woman with a happy face. I admit I was curious about how she turned her head. Did she have to turn her whole torso to look left and right? Jiro eyed me warningly.

  Even though I was curious, I didn’t judge Mrs. Sherwood for not having a neck. I thought again about Chuang Tzu’s heroes like Cripple Lipless and Uglyface.

  Jiro set his box of gum on the counter, and Mrs. Sherwood smiled widely, not at the gum, but at me. The store didn’t look much different from any little store in Chicago or Nebraska or wherever. There were the usual brands of bread and soft drinks and everything else. But there was also my father’s gum, prominently displayed on the counter.

  Jiro said, “My daughter, Shelby.”

  “My husband says you mentioned once that you had a daughter! Isn’t she lovely?” And she smiled as if I really was lovely.

  “She play piano. Take lessons for, anooooo, ah . . .”

  “Well, it was only four months,” I mumbled.

  “Isn’t that wonderful?” Mrs. Sherwood said, as if it truly was wonderful. She radiated happiness. “I wish Mr. Sherwood were here so he could meet her. When my kids grew up and moved out, I never felt so proud, but it broke my heart at the same time. It’s nice to have young people around, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Jiro, but I couldn’t tell whether he meant it.

  Mrs. Sherwood leaned toward me. “You should be very proud, because your father makes the best gum I’ve ever tasted. If this were a fair world, he would be as rich as the Wrigleys.”

  She handed my father a check, and we left.

  As we drove again in his boat car, he said, “Some children make fun of Mrs. Sherwood for not having neck. I’m proud of you.”

  “I wouldn’t make fun of someone!”

  “I know. You’re good girl.”

  Our next stop was twenty miles of scenic road away. There wasn’t much along the road, just occasional clusters of frame buildings. I leaned out the window like a dog and tried to imagine gold stars lying along the highway. After a while we stopped at a place called Ark-Mart.

  According to Jiro, the owner, Mr. Lumpkin, briefly “went crazy” more than a decade ago. Then he opened this store. He had studied zoology at an Ivy League school, and in his professional life he had specialized in coyotes, helping to eradicate them for the government. He later decided killing coyotes was only making them smarter in the ways of not getting killed. And he began to love the coyotes. “This is when he go crazy,” Jiro said.

  He chuckled. “Mr. Lumpkin say he once swallowed live fish to see if he could feel fish soul when it died.”

  “Could he?” I asked.

  Jiro frowned as he turned off the engine outside Mr. Lumpkin’s store. He seemed very deep in thought. “In Japan some people take live shrimp, cut off head and tail very quick, and swallow. They say this best way to eat shrimp and get full flavor. I try once, but I don’t feel soul.” He smiled at me. “Good question.”

  When we got out of the car, Jiro said, “You carry box.” He opened the trunk and I paused. My mother probably would have been appalled: She was not raising her girls to be gum salesmen. Even though I was tidy, I had never done much work. Our mother actually hired a housekeeper when the apartment got out of hand. But Jiro was waiting patiently, so I picked up the box and followed him inside.

  Mr. Lumpkin looked perfectly normal, except maybe a little stiff—he had a military haircut and his face was chiseled. I noticed about a dozen pictures of coyotes behind the counter.

  The first thing Jiro said was, “My daughter, Shelby.”

  Mr. Lumpkin nodded, but severely, and handed Jiro a check. “Last batch didn’t seem as fresh,” he said.

  “Very sorry,” Jiro said. “This batch excellent.”

  Mr. Lumpkin nodded severely again, and we left.

  After we’d driven a few miles, Jiro said, “Last batch very fresh, but why argue?”

  We rarely passed other cars on the road. I had no idea who would actually shop at these tiny stores and buy Jiro’s gum. But he seemed to be making a passable living.

  Next we stopped at someplace called Farmer Pete’s. Jiro walked straight to the animal feed section, picking up a sack of oats specially prepared for goats. He told the clerk that he also needed some hay. To me, he said, “Don’t overfeed. Goat keep eating and eating. You need to be strong and not feed him just because he begs.”

  We made a few more stops before returning home to eat sandwiches and sit on the porch. I put out some hay and fresh water for my goat. He ran right up but stopped a few feet away. “Don’t
worry, I’m leaving,” I told him. “I don’t want to scare you.”

  I hurried to my bedroom and peeked out the window. The goat was eating the hay. It seemed to me he looked happy. Jiro knocked on the door. “I’m going back to office,” he said.

  “Okay, bye!” I said. I watched my goat until he finished eating and went wherever it was he went.

  I always ran outside whenever the mailman came, but I didn’t get a letter until a week later, when I got three from Maddie. They were just to me, not one of our chain letters.

  Dear Shelby,

  I dont like it here. You said you were going to vissit me. Did you tell a lie? I have to put this letter under the matress. Else my father will get it. I wet the bed last night and he spanked me again. Can you come visit me? Please? Please???

  Lihthegove,

  Maddie

  The next two letters said pretty much the same thing. She thought I’d abandoned her. I pictured her big eyes when she wrote “please.” I could see her face perfectly in my mind. The letter sounded so serious. I had a big responsibility to save her from living with Mr. Bronson. I tried sending her thoughts about how everything would be okay. I tried to think of ways that I could go get her. Maybe if our mother knew Mr. Bronson was spanking her, she would insist Maddie stay here. I called Marilyn to see what she thought, but no one picked up.

  As soon as I hung up the phone, it rang. I knew it was one of my sisters, because we thought we were all psychic, so I figured that if I was thinking about them, then they were thinking about me. “Hi,” I said.

  “Are you going to come get me?”

  “I am, Maddie,” I said. “I said I would, and I’m going to. I just—”

  “Who is this?” said Mr. Bronson’s voice in my ear.

  “It’s me, Shelby.”

  “She doesn’t have permission to call you.” The phone clicked.

  That evening I was so quiet that even Jiro, himself quiet, asked me if anything was wrong. I said no, and we listened to the cries of crickets and watched the sun setting over the hills. A grasshopper jumped onto the screen, and then a bird slammed into the screen before righting itself and flying away. Jiro said thousands and maybe even millions of birds were killed each year, flying into glass on skyscrapers. “You should be on Jeopardy!,” I told him.