3
The next morning when I came down for breakfast, Biggie was sitting at the table drinking coffee. She was still wearing her nightgown and robe. I hadn't seen her do that since she had the flu last winter. Biggie always says she can't think straight unless she is dressed properly for the day. When she looked up at me, her eyes had as many red lines as a Mississippi road map. She managed to give me a half smile then shoved her cup toward Willie Mae for a refill.
I sat down beside Biggie. "You okay, Biggie?"
She rumpled my hair. "Sure, honey. Just a tiny little headache, that's all." She shook herself and sat up straighter. "Why don't we have chicken spaghetti for supper tonight, Willie Mae? It's been quite a while since we had that."
Willie Mae cracked an egg into a saucer and slid it into a pan of simmering water. "You want spinach salad or coleslaw with that?" She slid another egg into the water.
Biggie drummed her fingers on the table. "You know what I'd really like? I'd like some of that wilted lettuce you make. You know, the kind with hard-boiled eggs and bacon?"
Willie Mae took the eggs out of the pan with a slotted spoon and laid them on my plate, blotting them off with paper towels. Next she added a slice of country-cured ham and two fat fluffy biscuits fresh from the oven. She set the plate in front of me.
"Yuk," I said, looking down at my plate.
"How come you say that?" Rosebud asked. He was spooning down his poached eggs like they were good and sopping up the juice with a biscuit.
"I was hoping for some gingerbread pancakes."
"Put some butter on them eggs and they go down better." Rosebud shoved the butter dish toward me. "Uh-oh, there goes the phone."
Biggie got up from the table and answered the phone at her little kitchen desk. "Hello? Oh hey, Coye…. Um-hmm…. Say what?… Well, sure. We'd love to have her…. Fine…. Okay. We'll see you around two then."
"Was that Mr. Sontag?" I asked.
"Yep. He has to take Ernestine over to Longview to the eye doctor this afternoon. They won't be back until late, so they wanted to know if Monica could spend the night with us."
"Yeah!" I said. Monica and her family live on the farm Biggie grew upon. Monica is my best friend next to Rosebud even though she does only have hair on one side of her head on account of being left too close to the fire when she was a baby. Monica is the only girl in the world I can talk to and that's only because she's so much like a boy. She's not afraid of the devil himself. I know that for a fact.
About that time the back door swung open and in walked Mrs. Moody. She was dressed in a bright blue pantsuit with a black crocheted hat on her head. She carried Prissy under one arm. In her other hand she had a cloth shopping bag, which she set down on Biggie's desk next to the back stairs. She set Prissy on the floor by her feet and began pulling things out of the bag. Prissy leaned against her ankles, trembling.
Mrs. Moody dug down into the bag and pulled out a pottery bowl with PRISSY written in blue on its side. "This is her water bowl," she said. "The little darling knows it, too. Just don't bother trying to put her food in this bowl. She won't touch a bite of it." She looked at me to make sure I understood. I nodded. "And this is her Snookums." She took out a faded old rag doll. "She sleeps with her head on Snookums every single night. Oh, and here's her food bowl." It was identical to the water bowl with her name on the side and everything.
"How am I supposed to know the difference?" I asked.
Mrs. Moody knit her brows like she was thinking hard. "Well, I hadn't thought of that. They are just exactly alike. I got them over at Marshall Pottery. Here's an idea. Why don't you put her water in one bowl, and if she won't drink it, you'll know that's her food bowl. Well, I've got to scoot. I told Ace Redfearn to be at my front door with his taxi at eight-thirty. Oh, yes, and I've left her bed with her fuzzy blanket on the back porch." She came over and pinched my cheek. "I know I can count on you to take good care of my baby."
"Yes'm. I guess."
Mrs. Moody picked up Prissy and set her in my lap. "Now you be a good girl, hear?"
Prissy growled and I saw that Booger had come into the kitchen and was sitting by the stove licking himself. This is going to be interesting, I thought, and might turn out to be fun. As soon as I made sure Mrs. Moody was gone, I pushed Prissy off my lap. She immediately started in yapping at Booger, who looked at her like she was a gnat and went right on licking his bottom. After a while, I guess Booger got tired of it because, quick as a flash, he reached out his paw and boxed Prissy on the nose, then walked off down the hall with his tail high. Prissy crawled under the desk, lay down, and tucked her nose between her two front paws.
"J.R., go outside and make sure that pen you built for Bingo is still secure. If it isn't, fix it; if it is, put Prissy out there. Make sure you give her plenty of water and put her bed and a blanket in the little doghouse." Biggie held on to the table when she stood up. "I think I'll just go up and rest a little longer. I didn't sleep too well last night." She looked at me again. "You might want to put Snookums out there, too. Poor little thing; she's going to be lonely for Essie."
"Yes'm."
It took me a whole hour to get Prissy situated because the hog wire we'd built the pen out of had stretched in places. I got some wire out of the garage and mended the holes and filled what I hoped was her water bowl. I threw in a couple of Bingo's milk bones along with her stupid rag doll.
When I got back inside, Prissy wasn't under the desk where I'd left her. Rosebud was still at the table enjoying a second cup of coffee, and Willie Mae had joined him.
"Did y'all see where Prissy went?" I asked.
"Nope." Rosebud set down his coffee cup and began cleaning his fingernails with his pocketknife.
"Don't be doing that at the table," Willie Mae said. "That's nasty."
Rosebud grinned and put away his knife.
"Willie Mae, did you see which way she went?"
"When do I got time to go keeping tabs on a dog?"
I searched the house for Prissy. I looked under the couch in the parlor then behind the piano. I looked behind all the doors and under all the beds. She wasn't anywhere. I even looked in all the closets and up in the attic. Prissy was nowhere to be found. Finally, I went out in the yard and yelled my lungs out for her. I even checked the neighbors' yards on both sides of the street. No Prissy. Now I was getting pretty worried. Even though she was, to my way of thinking, a poor excuse for a dog, I didn't want anything bad to happen to her.
It was after eleven when I finally gave up and came back in the house. Biggie, dressed and looking much better, was talking on the telephone in the hall.
"They want us to come today? That's pretty short notice, isn't it?" She listened for a long time. "Umm… you forgot…. Is Butch going?… He is…. How about Ruby?… Oh, well, I guess. I'll meet you at the square at three then. Okay. Bye." She hung up the phone and saw me standing there for the first time. "Oh, J.R., some of us are invited out to the Barnwell ranch for tea this afternoon. I want you to go along."
"Me? Why? I don't want to go, Biggie. There's nothing but a bunch of fat girls out there. No guys or nothin'."
"J.R., I want you to go."
"No, ma'am, I'm not going. I got better things to do than tag along after you all the time." I was scared and shaking all over. I had never disobeyed Biggie before, but now was the time to take a stand. Biggie needed to realize that I was a teenager and not just a little kid anymore.
"It's important to me, J.R." There was a tremor in her voice.
I almost gave in. It wasn't going to hurt me to go with Biggie. I'd done it all my life and had some pretty interesting adventures doing it. I opened my mouth to say okay when something stopped me, something strong that seemed to be pulling me away from being a kid and into— something else. "NO!" I ran up to my room and slammed the door. I flung myself on my bed and lay there shaking all over. It seemed the walls might come tumbling down on top of me— my whole life might be breaking apart. What was wrong with Biggie? Why had she acted so funny last night? Did it have to do with all those fat girls at the tearoom? How could it? And what was wrong with me? I had never behaved like that in all my days with Biggie and Willie Mae and Rosebud— never ever wanted to.
I was still trying to figure it all out when I heard a tap on my door, then the door opened and Biggie peeked in. "May I come in?"
I was surprised. Biggie never asked that. She usually just walked right in.
I sat upon the bed and nodded. "Am I in trouble?"
"No." Biggie sat on the edge of the bed and patted my leg. "I have a story to tell you. I never thought you'd have to know, but now I guess you do."
I sat up against the headboard pushing a pillow behind my back. "Yes'm."