I took the pink paper off and lifted the dress up. For a minute I remembered when Mama and I had found it at the Second Chance Store. Mama held it up, grinning.
I didn’t see what was so great. It looked old-fashioned to me, but Mama sees things others can’t see, like Perseverance Wilson.
“I’ll cut you a pretty new neckline, put some lace going up to your neck, give this a tuck around your waist. You’ll be a real heartbreaker.”
What she didn’t know was my heart was the one that would be breaking.
She sewed up a storm and made that dress into something so special. I never told her about how I felt wearing it. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“I haven’t seen that dress for the longest time.” It was Mama. She walked over and held it up. “I remember you coming down the aisle in this.”
Me too.
She flopped in the lean-back chair and kicked her shoes off. “I’m not leaving this chair,” she said. Her phone started ringing.
Mama groaned. “Get it, Baby.”
I fished it out of her purse. “Hello,” I said. “This is Foster speaking.”
“Well, now, my Foster child, I sure miss seeing you.”
I felt the hair crawl on my neck.
“How do you like living in West Virginia, girl? Guess what? I’ve got a cousin near Culpepper.”
I turned to Mama, but she was sleeping.
“My cousin, he plays guitar. I’m coming up to see him, and, of course, I’ll be paying a special visit to you and that mama of yours.”
“We’re not in Culpepper anymore,” I said. I hoped my voice didn’t sound as scared as I felt. “We moved yesterday.”
Mama sat straight up.
“Your mama didn’t tell me that!”
“She got a new job,” I lied. “A real good new job.”
“Doing what?”
“Singing.”
“Who is it, Baby?”
Lies were pouring out of me. “And she’s got a new boyfriend, too, who’s just like my daddy.”
“I don’t like what you’re telling me, girl!”
Ask me if I care.
I pressed the red button. No more Huck. I stood there shaking.
Mama walked toward me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m protecting us.” The phone started ringing. Mama headed for it. “Don’t answer it, Mama!”
“I’m not.” She turned the phone off.
“I want to know what happened to your arm,” I told her.
“Foster, I’ve had a long day at work.”
“I want to know what’s going on!”
Mama stood there holding the phone. The light through the little round window shone around her hair. She looked soft and gentle like an angel.
“All right. I’ll tell you.”
Twenty-Eight
“I NEED TO let you know what it was like for me when I was growing up,” Mama began. “My daddy was a hard man, and sometimes,” she took a huge breath, “he hit my mother.”
I sat perfectly still.
“And she got used to it, I guess. Once she called the police on him, but his cousin was on the force and he covered the whole thing up. I’m not using this as an excuse, but it’s what I know.”
“Did grandpa ever hurt you?”
“No. But knowing he hurt Mama hurt me. I’d go to my friends’ houses and see their papas who weren’t like mine. I wanted to live in another family. I wanted to run away, and eventually I did.” She smiled sadly. “Now, I was careful to avoid men like my daddy. When I met your father, he was the gentlest, sweetest man. But he was strong, too, and what a combination. Lord, I miss that man.” She sat there in the chair, eyes closed.
I waited for a minute, then I had to ask. “How come you ended up with Huck?”
She shook her head sadly. “Oh, Huck. I wish I could turn back the clock on that. I just wanted to sing and he kept promising me he’d help me. I can tell you, Foster, and this is God’s honest truth. That night Huck broke the window and came into the apartment was the only time he hurt me. Something in me just snapped. I had to get us out of there fast.”
“You did that.”
Mama rubbed her forehead with her fingers. “And when I knew we’d left your daddy’s pillowcase behind and Huck had it, I had to get it for you. That’s the only reason I went back.”
I believed her.
“I only saw him for an hour, and when I was heading out the door, he grabbed my arm and yanked it so hard, but I left anyway. That’s how I got the bruise.” She looked down. “I didn’t fall.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
She took my hand. Her fingers were strong. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Foster. I haven’t told many people about my growing up.”
I gave her a big hug. She had tears in her eyes. “Mama, he knows we’re in Culpepper.”
“I heard that.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Do you think he believed me when I said we’d moved? ”
She smiled. “I hope so.”
“Did you like the part when I said you had a new boyfriend like daddy?”
“That was definitely my favorite part.”
I started picturing Huck behind every bush. I told Macon, Garland, and Amy to be on the lookout for a yellow Cadillac that honked out “Jailhouse Rock.”
I didn’t feel safe. When I saw the two prisoners from the work release program cleaning up the street, I ran away fast. When I worked at Helping Hands, I kept wondering if Huck was going to burst in and do something awful. This new lady, Val, had just come to stay for a few days with her little daughter, Pearly, and her baby boy named Babcock.
“You ever been real afraid of somebody you know real well?” Val asked me.
“Yes,” I told her. “I know what that’s like.”
She gave Babcock a bottle. “I came here to tell my husband, Duke, we can’t be together anymore. I want a divorce. He’s not going to like it.”
At least Duke was in jail and couldn’t get out. I thought about Huck out there looking for us. Pearly skipped into the kitchen with a picture she’d colored. “You give this to Daddy,” she told Val.
I opened my Bake and Take. I had vanilla cupcakes with sprinkles. “You want one?”
Pearly’s eyes got big. Val smiled. “I used to make cupcakes with my grandma when I was a girl. I think that was the sweetest time of my life.”
It wasn’t too sweet at the Church of God FOR SALE. Taco Terrific was buying the property. Perseverance Wilson tried to get Mr. Fish to change his mind, but he wouldn’t. The contract was going through.
More people started wearing taco T-shirts with Xs through them. All of this was hard on Amy.
“I told Daddy he shouldn’t sell the church, but he’s scared about money. He’s always been that way.”
“It’s not your fault,” I told her.
Amy shook her head. “I walk down the street and feel like people can’t stand us.”
“They can’t stand your father,” Macon said. “Not you.”
I elbowed him.
The weather was hot, and Lester’s tomatoes were fat, red, and juicy. I made bruschetta, which is grilled bread with olive oil, garlic, and tomatoes. Lester ate so much of it he had to lie down.
And the funniest thing happened with my reading. I started telling people I was working hard at it—and instead of laughing, they said, “How can we help?”
Garland told me the reason he was jumping fences was to build up his leg muscles. “You’re just building up your brain muscles, Foster.”
Val at Helping Hands helped me read a little book to Pearly about a puppy that got lost and found its way home. Macon made word cards for me so I could practice. Mama and I created an alphabet food game.
“A is for . . .”
“Aioli,” I said. That’s a sauce.
She grinned. “B is for . . .”
“Butter.”
“ C is for . . .”
/> “Cupcake!”
Going further down the alphabet, U is for undercooked .
I created a chocolate cupcake with peanut-butter frosting. I gave Mama the first bite and she said, “Take these out of this house or I’ll eat every last one. Run!” I brought them to Angry Wayne’s and they sold out fast. Muffins are good, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes a cupcake just has your name on it.
Miss Charleena said her problem was that every cupcake had her name on it.
“I’m still waiting to see that dress of yours,” she reminded me.
Twenty-Nine
I SLAPPED THE box with the white dress in it on Miss Charleena’s counter.
“Let’s see,” she directed.
I opened the box, took off the pink paper, and lifted the dress up.
“That’s beautiful, Foster.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And how did it get ruined?”
I lowered it and told her. “It was the dress I wore for the moving-up ceremony at my old school. I got out of that school by the skin of my teeth—that’s what my one teacher said.”
“And that dress carries that memory for you.”
I told her about being limited.
“That’s an ugly word. You’re not at that school anymore.”
“I know.” The problem was the dress didn’t know it. “I just want to put it back for right now, Miss Charleena.”
“I’ve got a box, too.” She put a bendy straw in her chocolate milk and headed down the hall. I followed. She stopped at a closet and opened the doors. It was so big, you could walk in. She dragged a step stool over, stepped on it, and reached for a little box on the top shelf.
She stepped down and handed the box to me.
“What’s in it?”
“Something awful.”
The box didn’t look big enough to have anything inside that was too awful. She walked into the living room and sat on her white couch. I sat down, too.
“Open it,” she said.
I did, and there was an envelope. I handed it to her. Her face got very stern as she took out the papers in the envelope and read, “Mike Tuller finds Bliss.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mike Tuller was my husband, and he started seeing a supermodel while we were married. Her name was Bliss. It was in all the magazines. I was devastated, humiliated. They were parading all over the world, this happy, perfect couple.”
“That’s awful.”
She held up a magazine. “ ‘Charleena’s Agony.’ That was the headline. It sure sold magazines.” She sat back. “The reporters wouldn’t leave me alone. They waited outside my house and followed me, taking photographs. They talked to my friends, my family. They wanted to record every tear I shed, and there were lots of tears.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that was, Miss Charleena.”
She smiled sadly and looked at her closed curtains.
“It’s a pretty day out,” I told her.
“I’ve missed a lot of pretty days, Foster. Back when I was acting, I was fairly well known—people recognized me in restaurants or driving down the street. But when my husband left me and it all went public, then I hit the big time. I was famous for being a jilted wife.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Fame can look good from the outside, darlin’, but it can be a mean game. It plays by its own rules.” She closed the box.
“How did you get over it, Miss Charleena?”
“It took me a long time. I put some of the headlines from the magazines around the house. At first I could hardly stand the pain of looking at them and feeling betrayed. The photos of them so happy and me so miserable. But after a while, I got angry, and I thought, thank God I’m not married anymore to a man who would do a thing like that.”
“Is that why you came here to live?”
“I needed to get away from Hollywood like you can’t believe.”
“Do you miss acting?”
She grinned. “Yes, I do. But Stan called today.”
“Your agent?”
“The one and only. Stan still believes in me.”
“Well, I believe in you, Miss Charleena. You’re the greatest actor I’ve ever known. The only one I’ve ever known, but still.”
“Stan sent me a script. It might be the best way for me to stick my foot back into acting.” She laughed. “They want me to do the voice-over for a horse in a feature cartoon.”
“That’s cool.”
She handed me a stack of papers with a cover. “That’s the script. Read the first scene to me.”
I’d never seen a script before. It looked different from a book. To begin with, there weren’t nearly as many words on the page. I liked that. I’m not sure what she meant by the first scene. The first words didn’t make sense.
Fade in:
“I don’t know what this means,” I told her.
“Fade in. It means the movie is starting, the camera is coming to rest on what you need to see.”
“Okay.” Now that I could read how Elvis loved his mother, I was feeling brave. I took a deep breath. “Fade in,” I read, “on a . . . black horse.” I looked up. “Is that right?”
“Keep going.”
“The horse . . . is . . .” I looked up again, pointed to the words.
“Running,” she said.
“Across a plain?” I wasn’t sure if that was right.
She nodded. “You’ve got my interest.”
“Now . . . we see . . . another horse.” I’m reading slow, but I’m reading! I look at her. “I like this script, it’s got short sentences.”
“Keep reading.”
“This horse has a . . . a rider. The rider has a rope. Uh-oh . . . wait. The uh-oh isn’t in the script.”
“My favorite line’s coming.” She leaned forward.
I focused extra hard. “The horse and rider are . . .” This was so hard. “. . . trying to catch the black horse, but . . . wait, now I get it! But she is . . . faster. Then we hear the black horse say . . . um . . .” I looked at the script. Couldn’t make out the words. “What does this mean? ”
Miss Charleena threw back her head, made an excellent horse sound, and said, “ ‘Toodles, turkey.’ ”
I laughed. “We hear the black horse say, ‘Toodles, turkey!’ And the black horse . . .” My brain was aching. “The black horse speeds away across the plain.”
“Brilliant,” she told me.
I felt like throwing that script up in the air!
“You know what’s great about that scene? ” Miss Charleena asked.
“It’s exciting!”
“Yeah.”
“It’s funny what the black horse says.”
“That’s right, and with only two words, we know who that black horse is. She’s fast and she’s not going to take any guff from anything or anybody.”
I looked down at the script, thinking, Please don’t ask me to read any more. I just want to be with all the words I got right.
“You think I should take this part, Foster McFee?”
“Yes, ma’am. You’d be an awesome horse.”
“Well, before I lose my nerve . . .” Miss Charleena grabbed the phone and punched in numbers. “Stan, are you sitting down . . . ? Well, sit down, Stanley, because I’m coming out of retirement.” She was nodding and laughing her great earthy laugh. “Yes, I really mean it . . . yes, Stan, you can take it to the bank, but only ten percent of it.”
I opened her curtains without asking, and light shone all over.
“Well, now,” she said, laughing. “What else should I let into my life?”
Thirty
MISS CHARLEENA WROTE a check to Helping Hands and asked me to take it over. I walked into the kitchen, and Val was talking to another one of the wives.
“I told Duke I’m leaving him, and he didn’t like that.” Her hands were shaking.
“You have to do what’s right for you,” the other wife said.
“Duke scares me,
” Val said. “He’s always scared me. They’ve got him out on this work release, and he’s got everybody fooled that he’s changed. I know he hasn’t!”
I think I’ve got problems.
I found Perseverance Wilson and gave her the pretty blue envelope with Miss Charleena’s check. She ripped that thing open and shouted, “Hallelujah!” Then she started making plans. “We’re going to put a fresh coat of paint in all the rooms, we’re going to get pretty curtains on those windows, fix the staircase, and—”
“My mama’s good at windows,” I told her. “She says a pretty window makes the rest of the world look friendly, even if it’s not.”
“Call your mama, honey. We’re turning this old place around.”
There was a meeting that night of people who wanted to help. Garland was there and Macon, Mama, me, and Amy. Part of my job was keeping the little kids at Helping Hands out of everyone’s hair. I brought my baking pans—because, really, what kid doesn’t like to bake?
Macon had just got his first camera phone, and he was a dangerous person. I scratched my neck and he filmed me. I walked out of the bathroom and he filmed me. He caught Amy picking her nose. Garland didn’t do gross things in public, so he didn’t get filmed much.
I was in the Helping Hands kitchen with the kids, making up the batter for Sonny’s Bake ’Em Proud Cupcakes. I wondered how he was doing.
“You’re all cooks in training,” I told them. Baby Babcock threw some measuring spoons at his sister.
“Stop it!” Pearly screamed.
I gave him back the spoons and showed him how to shake them like a rattle. Babcock shook those spoons with everything he had.
“Cupcakes are everywhere today,” I told the kids. “And you can decorate each one with different colored frosting.”
“I want blue frosting,” Pearly said.
Amy sat down. “I want purple frosting with orange sprinkles, a cherry on top, and sparklers.”
“Sparklers!” the kids said.
I glared at Amy. “No sparklers.”
Mama was measuring the kitchen windows as Babcock shook the spoons in a kind of rhythm. Her foot started tapping out the beat, then she pointed a finger at Babcock and sang out:Come on, babe, you’ve got to shake that thing!