Age:
Middle School, High School
Reading Level: 2.9
Chapter 1: Up to No Good
Suzanne let the screen door slam as she came bopping out of the house. She had a look of satisfaction on her face. She knew how much Papa hated when she slammed that door. She would give it a little extra shove, making sure the slam sounded like a shotgun blast ringing through the house.
Granny came out on the porch. "Suzanne, why do you want to upset your Papa?"
Suzanne kept walking, never looking back.
"Where are you going, Suzy?" Granny yelled.
"Nowhere," Suzanne yelled back. Granny stood in the door watching Suzanne make her way down our long, sandy drive. Granny had a cloudy look on her face. I hated Suzanne for worrying her.
Papa, my grandpa, was sitting in his recliner. He didn't stray very far from his recliner these days, or from his bottle of bourbon and his coffee cup that sat between his chair and the end table. I guess he thought it was hidden, but we all knew it was there.
"Where's your sister at?" he asked as I walked by.
"I don't know, Papa," I said.
"She's probably up to no good," he said.
I grabbed my tennis shoes from beside the couch and went on the porch to put them on. I didn't like being around Papa now. He had an old, sick smell. The kind of smell people get when they have lived past their usefulness.
Granny came out on the porch looking as fresh as the morning. It cheered me up. She had on her garden attire: flowered gloves, a big straw hat, and the long-sleeved plaid flannel shirt that hung on a nail on the back porch.
We made our way to the garden in silence. Wisps of wind sent the smell of ivory soap from Granny, who was walking ahead of me. I knew she was thinking about Suzanne.
Suzanne was a year and a half older than me. She was fifteen, and I was thirteen. She seemed much older. She hated being a child and tried her best to grow up quickly. She'd been giving Papa and Granny a fit all her life.
Our mother deposited my sister and me here before we were school age. We rarely saw her. When she died of ovarian cancer two years ago, it really didn't change our lives.
Mama had Suzanne when she was young. Mama ran away with our daddy at sixteen, breaking my grandparents' hearts. Suzanne was my Papa's favorite because she looked just like Mama.
Suzanne had dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. "Black Irish," Papa called her. I guess I looked like my daddy, although I could hardly recall what he looked like. I was strawberry blonde and fair skinned. My cheeks would stay bright red all summer long. Suzanne would turn as brown as a coffee bean.
Granny and I arrived at the garden. "It's going to be another hot summer . . . don't think I can take another one," Granny said.
She said this every summer without fail.
"You start in the peas. I'll get the squash," she added.
I began to chop the long rows of peas, hating Suzanne for not helping.
Chapter 2: Rose's Goodbye
From my spot chopping peas, I could see my best friend Rose's house. It sat across a big, barren tobacco field. She had moved away well over a year before.
I smiled when I thought about Rose. We had known each other since first grade. I missed her so much. Rose lived with her father, who was an insurance salesman. Her mother was gone . . . that was all I knew. Not dead, just gone. I never asked where.
Rose was tall and skinny. She had long dirty blonde hair. It was parted in the middle and hung down her back. How I envied that hair. She was "shades" of pretty. Not pretty at first glance but pretty at certain times. She didn't smile very often.
Not at all like me who smiled too much, at everyone, at any moment. She reserved her smiles, using them only for a truly happy time. She wasn't the type to smile upon spotting me across the field, or meeting new people, or just for the hell of it.
Rose's father was tall and gaunt and wore black-framed glasses. He looked like a school principal. He was friendly and quiet. He had a nice, gentle face and sad, brown eyes.
I loved staying over at Rose's house on the weekends! It was so different from being at home. I felt worthwhile at her house, not "in the way." We would cook supper and wash dishes, fold clothes, and do "mother things."
Rose was used to it. It made me feel mature. Rose's father would bid us good night, and we would have full reign over the house. We could eat and stay up late.
Sometimes on hot summer nights, we'd take a cool shower and put on our cotton gowns. We'd sit on the porch with our hair wet and feel the cool air. We'd talk about life and boys. We'd talk of moving away to the coast. We'd imagine sharing a house and a dog called Rusty, named after the cutest boy in our class. We'd talk about this and sip coffee and "smoke" her dad's Winstons. We would stay out until the crickets quieted and all we could hear was the low breeze and an occasional owl in the woods.
I'd drift off to sleep in her bed and smile to myself and feel happy inside.
The day she told me she was moving, I cried. She was unemotional, as was her way.
"Dad is happy about it," she said. "Wilmington's a nice town. Dad will have more business. I'll miss you, Caroline." I continued my crying.
"You can visit me. It's on the coast!" Rose said with a rare smile.
"Yeah," was all I could say.
We both knew I'd never visit her. Even in our twelve-year-old minds, we knew.
The next Friday, the day Rose left, I was sitting on our back porch. The sun had just risen with a rage. I spotted her walking up the rows of the tall tobacco plants. She was smiling.
"Bye, Caroline," she said. "You will always be my best friend." She hugged me hard. She looked at me with her serious face. I saw tear drops. She turned and walked away.
Papa came out on the porch and saw her leaving. I tried to dry my eyes.
"Life is full of heartache, Caroline," Papa said, "but it goes on."
He walked past me to his truck. I smiled my best smile to his back. I realized then that I would never leave this place.
Chapter 3: Ugly as Razzy Gentry
I was still staring off at Rose's house when Granny interrupted my thoughts. "Finish up your peas," Granny said. She was carrying a shirt-tail full of yellow squash. "And get your head out of the clouds."
I finished and went to the well and got a drink. I looked out across the sandy fields surrounding our yard. They were once full of big, green tobacco plants. They were once full of hot, sweaty workers. Papa was once one of the most successful farmers in our community. That was before his stroke. The stroke left him paralyzed on the left side. The stroke took away his spirit.
When Papa was farming, he and I would get up before the sun came up. God, I loved that time of day. The bright light in the kitchen made it seem even darker outside. I'd go to the porch and let the cool, damp air hit my face.
I could hear the chickens getting restless in the coop, the crickets still chirping just like it was midnight. The grass looked steamy and wet.
This was the best time for me. I was happy and glad to be alive this time of day before the sun came up, bringing with it the real world.
Papa would make us fried eggs, grits, and sausage. We'd warm up some of Granny's biscuits left over from supper.
"Us farmers got to start the day off right, don't we girl?" he'd say with a wink.
"Yes sir, we do!"
Papa and I would eat and then get in his truck and check the fields and barns already curing. "A fine crop this year," he'd say.
We'd go to the well and fill up the water tanks for the workers, then head into town for ice, sodas, and saltines.
I tried so hard to please Papa. I worked harder than anyone at the barns, looping tobacco until my hands blistered. I tried to do whatever he asked of me.
"Caroline, hook that trailer up over there and back it up to the barn so ya'll can unload it. I've got some business to take care of." Papa was talking to some men, agricultural men, I think. They were dressed too nice to be farmers.
I jumped on that tractor and worked the steering wheel and tried my damnedest to back up that long trailer full of tobacco. I felt the staring eyes. I knew all those men were watching. The more I steered and backed, the more nervous I got. I knew I couldn't do it, but in my ten-year-old heart, I'd do it or die.
I hit the side of the barn, tearing the tarpaper and spilling the whole load of tobacco. I looked at Papa and saw disgust in his eyes. The same look I got when I'd tangle my fishing line or cry or act too silly or stub my toe. This time, I also saw anger in his eyes.
I felt like Razzy Gentry. I didn't know who she was, but I'd heard her name all my life.
"If you don't get that frown off your face, it'll stick and you'll be ugly as Razzy Gentry. If you don't behave, you'll turn out meaner than Razzy Gentry. If you don't quit eating, you'll be as fat as Razzy Gentry."
Right then, I felt like the meanist, ugliest, dumbest person in the world. I was Razzy Gentry.
"Get off that tractor! Ain't you got a lick of sense?" said Papa. "Start picking up that tobacco before it goes to wilting."
Papa had been mad and embarrassed for having Razzy Gentry for a granddaughter.
I never learned how to back up a tractor. I was never allowed to get on one again.
* * *
"Come and eat you some lunch, Caroline," Granny yelled out the front door.
The kitchen smelled of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. Suzanne hadn't returned yet, but Papa was already at the table. I washed up and sat down across from him.
"Did you water the dogs?" Papa asked.
"I will after I eat," I said. Papa just nodded. He always looked so angry, the left side of his face turned down in an eternal scowl because of the stroke. He finished his sandwich and rose with the help of his cane. He limped out of the kitchen, without a word, back to his recliner.
Ganny poured me some milk and sat down while I fixed my sandwich.
"Caroline, why don't you go check the peach trees today? I could make us a cobbler," she said with a sweet smile.
"Okay," I smiled back.
"But don't forget to water the dogs first," she half-whispered with a fake scowl. We both made a little giggle.