Clara sat down on Beatrice’s bed. “I’ve sent in our application for free lunch. I’m waiting for approval, but I’m sure I’ll get it. We should get the cards in the mail sometime next week.”
Clara dug around the house several days ago until she finally discovered a shoebox stashed in the back of her mother’s closet filled with important documents. The Social Security card was there, and Clara thought that God, if he was out there, was a merciful God.
“Clara, can’t we just get to that when we get to that?” Beatrice asked.
“We’re already there, Bea,” Clara explained. “I can’t afford a grocery bill that includes lunch items.”
“I’m not carrying around that stupid card,” Beatrice said. She stood resolute, her face set and arms crossed over her chest decidedly.
“No one even notices them,” Clara replied. She waved her hand flippantly.
“Don’t do that, Clara,” Beatrice demanded. “Don’t sit there and lie. You’re not even good at it!” She thought for a moment. “Well, except at Open House. You were very good at it at Open House.”
“Bea, I can’t afford lunches. We have to eat the school food. It’s paid for, and I’m not going to forego that because you’re a snob,” Clara said.
“I’m not carrying around that card!” yelled Beatrice.
“Yes you are.”
“You can’t make me, Clara! You can’t! Everyone will know and they’ll make fun of me!”
“So you’d rather starve?” Clara asked.
“Yes!” Beatrice cried.
“Get real, Beatrice. You eat like a horse. You’d make it all of one day.”
“Don’t provoke me, Clara,” Beatrice warned.
“How do you even know the word ‘provoke’?” Clara asked.
“Why does everyone think I’m a moron?!”
Clara smiled and walked over to her sister. She put her arms around Beatrice who was resistant at first then relaxed as Clara stroked her back.
“I don’t want to carry that card anymore than you do, Bea,” Clara said. She cringed thinking of the girls she ran into in the bathroom at school the other day. One looked Clara over and said that she had pretty hair, but Clara was certain she wasn’t being nice about it. She waited for the girl to whip out a pair of shears from her purse and cut all of Clara’s hair off. It didn’t happen, but she was waiting for the day it would.
Beatrice burst into tears.
“I just . . . I can’t hold it together all the time, Clara!” she wailed.
Clara grinned. “Who’s asking you to hold it together?”
“Me! I told you that I’m not afraid!”
“I know you’re not afraid.” She pulled away from her sister and bent down so that she was eye level with her. “I’ll hold it together, okay? You just be ten years old.”
“I’ll never be ten,” Beatrice hiccupped. “I was born an old lady.”
Clara laughed. “Yes, I know. But just try. And Bea?”
“Yes?”
Clara wiped a tear gliding down her sister’s round cheek. “Just please try to carry the card. You can swipe it really fast. People will think it’s a credit card and then you’ll be the epitome of cool.”
“What does ‘epitome’ mean?” Beatrice asked, the sound of a new word distracting her from her tears.
“The best example of,” Clara replied.
Beatrice drew in a long, ragged breath. “All right then. I’ll try.”
Clara left her sister alone to sulk in her bedroom. She heard the mournful sounds of Beethoven being played from her sister’s old CD player. Naturally Beatrice would pick that CD. Petulant girl, Clara thought. She forgot that in addition to no lights, there would be no music in the house soon. She walked out back because she couldn’t stand to hear the music in all its beautiful melancholy, pulling on her heart and making it ache with pleasure for its grandeur and pain for its impending absence.
She walked around the back yard of her grandmother’s house observing the mess. They hadn’t cleaned it for months. Once their grandmother passed away in early February, the house went into a state of disrepair, and fast. Their mother would clean the yard in the spring occasionally during her rare fits of mania. She would holler to the girls to come outside and help. They would spend their entire Saturday trimming and edging and weeding until the yard was in pristine condition. And then it would grow over and weed up and become an eyesore all over again.
Clara walked about the yard until she came to the honeysuckle grove. That’s what she and Beatrice called it. It was a corner section of the back yard overflowing with honeysuckle vines, and the girls started a tradition three years ago when they visited their grandmother. Those were the good years when their father was still around, they lived in a house of their own, their mother was working and happy. Their grandmother was still alive. Clara’s family never really had money, so vacations were rare. They went to Florida once, but mostly the girls were packed up and sent off to stay with Grandmom for a week or two. And it was there that they discovered the wonders of the honeysuckle vines.
Beatrice thought the vines held magical powers, that the flowers could grant wishes. The girls agreed on three because they always read or heard of genies granting three wishes. Beatrice said that the vines would grant their wishes but only if they respected the flowers. Say a wish, drink down the nectar. Never the reverse or their dreams would not come true.
Clara sat down among the vines, still green but tinged with yellow and no longer producing the fragrant flowers. She closed her eyes remembering the spring when her mother no longer smiled and was distant and sad.
“Come on, Clara!” Beatrice called from the back door. “Before they all dry up!”