Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed Page 7

  “‘A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ’at Annie tells about,’” murmured Aunt Lu, reciting again.

  Willie Bea saw the Star in her hand and thrilled at her great good fortune.

  “That’s nice we got somebody in the family with talent,” said Aunt Mattie Belle sweetly. She was talking about Leah and not Willie Bea. “After supper, you read my Hewitt’s palm, Leah. He do so well in school. He so filled with the talent. I know he’s got to be lucky.”

  Willie Bea didn’t care about anything now but what was warm and wonderful inside herself. She skipped from the dining room with fifty-cent pieces clutched in her hands. She felt as light as air.

  “Leah, Leah,” Willie Bea heard her mama say, still scolding. “You’ve looked in Willie Bea’s palm fifty times, at least, since she was born, and how come you never tell us about a Star before now?”

  Willie Bea could hear the grown-ups chuckling. She didn’t care at all.

  Aunt Leah! Luck! A great Star of … Venus! Oh! she thought. There was no better place to be on a Sunday in October 1938 than home with her family. Such luck she had! And all the new fifty-cent pieces to give out. More luck! What else, luck?

  Like to die, pumpkin pie!

  Willie Bea was in the kitchen ready for the good luck of pie.

  “Have I got a surprise!” she said to them, still at the table.

  “What goin’ on in there?” asked Bay Sister.

  “Too much!” said Willie Bea. “But looka this!”

  “For you, and for you, for you and for you,” she said. She gave Little her fifty-cent piece last.

  “Oh!” said Bay Sister, her eyes huge and dark. “Money!”

  “Not just money, it’s a half-dollar piece from Aunt Leah. Magic money,” Willie Bea said. “You know why? ’Cause Aunt Leah’s a fortune lady, that’s why. And guess what?” Willie Bea said.

  “What?” asked Big, right on cue.

  “Beatrime Mills is the luckiest person in the whole world. Aunt Leah say so. She saw it in my palm.”

  “She read your palm? Why come she read your palm!” said mean Little.

  “She asked to read it,” said Willie Bea. “She knew there was something famous there. And there was. The Star of Venus is in my palm!”

  They looked at her, uncomprehending. The money in hand meant more to them right at the moment than something marking her palm.

  “But why come she give us so much money?” asked Big. “And we not even ask for it.” He stared at his gleaming fifty-cent piece. “Bet if I’da been there, she’da give us more.”

  “Un-huh,” said Little. “’Cause for his size,” she said about her brother. “Aunt Leah’d sure give Big more ’cause his heighth is big as anything.”

  “You all are stupid,” muttered Willie Bea, and changed the subject. “Here. They say for me to dish out the pie. What you all want?”

  “I want pumpkin,” said Bay Sister.

  “Pumpkin, me,” said Hewitt.

  “Me, too,” said Willie Bea.

  “Well, not me,” Little said. “Give me lemon meringue. Give Big some, too.”

  “I want pumpkin,” said Big.

  “No, you don’t!” Little told him.

  “Little, can’t you let him pick his own pie? For goodness sakes,” said Willie Bea. And realized she sounded just like her mama. That made her smile.

  Little had to say lemon meringue just to make more work for me, thought Willie Bea. But she really didn’t mind.

  The pies cooled on the counter next to the screen door now. They had first been placed on the round kitchen table. Then they had been moved when the table was set for the cousins.

  Willie Bea cut the pies. “Big, what kind you want for yourself?” she called to him.

  When he said nothing, Willie Bea knew he couldn’t decide.

  “I’ll give you one piece a pumpkin and one lemon meringue. There’s plenty and you need each of them,” she told him, serving him right after she had served Bay Sister her piece of pumpkin.

  “Thanks, Willie Bea,” said Big. Big’s hands were so big, they seemed to smother the fork he held.

  “Whyn’t you just pick up a piece of it in your hand?” asked Willie Bea. So that’s what Big would do, once everyone was served. He looked relieved, and set the fork down. Using his hands to eat pie was easier for him than using a little fork.

  “Is there any whip-cream?” asked Bay Sister.

  “Wait till I serve everybody,” Willie Bea said. “You have to wait.”

  They all waited for her, quietly and politely.

  Like they’re my own children, Willie Bea thought, carefully cutting pie. She felt excited. Here she was, the boss of them. She seemed to know how to handle them. Even bad Little, most of the time. She was to take care of them and serve them. Luck again! It made her feel most proud. For a second she thought she felt that Star of Venus just itching in her palm.

  Willie Bea served Little, and served herself last. “Now,” she said. She brought out her papa’s ice-cream and a quart and a half of whip-cream she found surrounded by chunks of ice in the icebox.

  “Ohhh! Looka that!” said Hewitt. “I want—”

  “I’ll give you both, wait a minute,” Willie Bea said. She found two large wooden spoons. First she spooned the softened ice-cream next to Hewitt’s pie on his plate. Then she spooned whip-cream directly atop the piece. She did the same for her sister and for Little and herself.

  They watched her closely to make sure their portions were the same size. Willie Bea smiled at that.

  “I don’t want any,” Big told her. His eyes looked like they would eat the ice-cream and whip-cream.

  “I’ll give you a bowl,” Willie Bea told him. “You can eat ice-cream with whip-cream on top of it. Use a tablespoon, too.”

  She fixed Big with a large amount in his bowl. No one minded that he got more, for he was so large. Then Willie Bea put the ice-cream and whip-cream away and sat down. They all ate. The dessert was so good and they moaned about how good it all was.

  Pretty soon, Aunt Mattie Belle and Grand came in to fix pie for those in the dining room. Ice-cream was served, too, and so was the whip-cream. Everybody felt good. All of them at the kitchen table were peaceful, happy that they were cousins in Grand’s kitchen.

  That lasted only awhile. Little wanted more lemon meringue, which was all right. Willie Bea got it for her. But once she had sat down, Little wanted more whip-cream.

  “Whyn’t you say so before?” said Willie Bea. She took Little’s plate and put a glob of whip-cream on top of the pie. Sat down again.

  Again Little wanted something. Ice-cream, this time. It dawned on Willie Bea what Little was up to.

  “You’ve had enough,” she said.

  “I want ice-cream and you s’pose to serve me,” Little said.

  “Want your ugly face slapped, girl?” Willie Bea said. Her anger had come swiftly.

  “You want this pie in your face?” said Little.

  “Children!” said Grand, hearing them. Little and Willie Bea glared at one another.

  “Who wants more ice-cream?” Grand said.

  Nobody answered.

  Why you, Little! Willie Bea thought. She was madder than a hornet.

  “No more fussing,” Grand said, and put the ice-cream away.

  There was a lull in which anger smoldered at the table. In which Big didn’t know whose side to be on. Hewitt felt out of place with these children who were so quick to fight. Bay Sister wanted to be in the dining room with her mama. When she had finished, she said, “Be excused,” and slid from her chair, hurried away.

  Willie Bea pushed her chair back. “I got to hurry,” she said. “Get myself and the kids ready for the trick-or-treating.”

  Big and Hewitt looked startled, for begging had slipped their minds. Still, they all had plenty of time.

  Willie Bea didn’t make a move to get up. She was hoping Big would ask her to go with him and Hewitt. Hewitt wouldn’t look her in the eye. She knew he did
n’t want her along, she didn’t know why. Probably because her brother and sister would slow them down. Maybe because she was a girl, or because she always was the leader of Big. Of course, Big would have Little tagging along. Little was something else. Around boys, she never wanted to stay a girl. She became what she thought a boy was. Mean, tough, just as evil as she could be. Now, Little looked huffily at Willie Bea. The look told Willie Bea that none of them were going to ask her along.

  Willie Bea left the table, acting like she didn’t care. She made her way into the dining room, feeling glum. She just knew that either Bay Sister or Bay Brother would be on Aunt Leah’s lap. But she was wrong. The kids were in the front room playing on the floor. Willie Bea heard them laughing. All of the grown-ups had pushed their chairs back. Uncle Donald had another highball and looked very sleepy. Even Willie Bea’s papa had a highball. Willie Bea glanced at the china closet in the corner. It had glass doors decorated with gold wire filigree. It was full of bottles of spirits, an ornamental vase or two, candelabra, silver bowls, and plates of precious memories. A white plate with a painting of a building on it from the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Grand and Gramp had gone to there right after they married.

  Then, Willie Bea stared at her Aunt Leah.

  Aunt Leah was smoking! She held a silver cigarette holder on one side of her red mouth. A cigarette burned at the end of the holder. Willie Bea’s mama waved her hand back and forth, frowning, trying to move the smoke away. Her papa had his arm around her mama. He and Leah were talking about something. Willie Bea heard Aunt Leah say she was fixing to go, had to get ready for the evening.

  Her papa could have married either one of the Wing sisters. Willie Bea knew the family story by heart. Either lovely Marva or gorgeous Leah. Her papa had met Aunt Leah first, at a church social. He took her to a dance. Then he saw the other sister, a few years older. So he had shifted over, liking Willie Bea’s mama best of all.

  Aunt Leah’s face was rosy. She stared into space right in front of Willie Bea. She smiled vaguely at Willie Bea of luck. And blew amazing smoke rings. They were like round, yawning mouths that lazily swallowed the air. Willie Bea was bowled over by the perfect, magic circles of them.

  Aunt Leah of fortune!

  There was a blue haze all around Aunt Leah, framing her.

  Star. I have a Star, too, thought Willie Bea, and squeezed her palm shut.

  But there was no star quite like that one—Aunt Leah.

  So pretty hair. So polished red nails, bracelets, rings. So, oh, so beautiful eyes and mouth! Rich of fortune, Willie Bea thought, wizard rich!

  Papa. Aunt Leah—Oh, Papa! For a moment she was miserable.

  Why come you had to switch?

  6

  “Get away,” Willie Bea told her brother and sister.

  “Willie Bea, don’t be so harsh with them,” said her papa. “They’ve a right to walk with me just as much as you do.”

  Bay Brother and Bay Sister were always in the way. She gave them a hard, mean look to scare them and they quickly went on to walk with their mama.

  Willie Bea walked beside her papa from Grand and Gramp Wing’s house to home across the Dayton road. She held her papa’s hand tightly in hers. It wasn’t late, but the sun was going down. The family suppertime was done. The pies eaten, dishes washed and Grand’s kitchen all neat and clean.

  Willie Bea needed to talk to her father. She kept her mouth shut until her mama and brother and sister were on their lawn and out of earshot. She had slowed down her papa crossing the road. There was nothing coming down the road. There hadn’t been an automobile all afternoon.

  She was almost swinging on her papa’s fist. “You got something on your mind?” he said to her.

  Willie Bea could feel her papa’s eyes, but she didn’t speak right away. She needed the mood between them to be just so. She leaned her face into his arm. Then he put his arm around her and held her tight. “What is it, Willie Bea?”

  Finally she spoke. Very softly, she said, “You could have married Aunt Leah.” She didn’t let her voice care one way or the other.

  Her papa chuckled at that.

  “Why didn’t you?” Willie Bea asked. She looked longingly in her papa’s eyes.

  He stared at her hard. Stopped there at the side of the road. “Willie Bea, I don’t think you realize what you are saying.” When she didn’t answer, he went on. “You don’t realize … No, I couldn’t’ve married Leah.”

  “But you saw her first,” Willie Bea said.

  “That’s true,” he said. “But when I saw your mama, that was it.”

  Willie Bea couldn’t understand that at all. “But wasn’t Aunt Leah just like she is now?” asked Willie Bea.

  “Just like it,” said her papa, and began to move toward the house.

  Willie Bea held on to his hand. “But why, then?” she said, in anguish.

  “You think about it,” he told her. He wasn’t angry. But he looked hurt at her. She didn’t quite understand that look. “You think about your mama, solid and rock steady. Think about who is there for you when you get up in the morning and go to bed at night. I think about that every day,” he said, almost in a whisper.

  Her papa let her hand go and went into the house. She was right behind him. Something in the way he held his shoulders hunched high kept her from grabbing his hand again.

  Was she wrong to ask him about marrying Aunt Leah? It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mama. She thought her mama was just about perfect.

  But Aunt Leah, to read your palm and tell the numbers. Beautiful of fortune.

  Just me and her, every day and night, Willie Bea thought.

  She hopped up the front steps to the porch, feeling out of sorts. Their porch was open with no roof over it. Someday, her papa had said, they would put a “hood” over the porch and close it in with windows.

  That will be the day, Willie Bea thought now, going inside.

  There was a letdown when she came home, away from folks, after a whole family day. Things over home were always more exciting than they were at one’s own home. Big and Little and Hewitt had gone over to Big’s house.

  Big never had got any farther into Grand Wing’s house than the kitchen. He would have loved to thank Aunt Leah for his half-dollar like the other cousins had. But he let Little thank her for him. For Big didn’t dare go in and face Willie Bea’s papa.

  Big had heard that Willie Bea’s papa was going to take away his bow and arrows. Hewitt was the one who’d heard Big’s own papa and Willie Bea’s papa having words about it. The cousins had been shooed outside so the kitchen could be cleaned up. Only, Hewitt had to run in now and then to speak to his mama. Aunt Mattie Belle and Hewitt were like close friends more than a mother and son.

  But Hewitt said he had heard Uncle Jason tell Uncle Jimmy to bring him Big’s bow and arrows. Jimmy Wing had told Jason Mills to come and get them. Marva Mills had said, “Please, don’t fight.” Grand had said, “Boys will be boys.”

  All this from Hewitt. All of the cousins outside, listening to the details from Cousin Hewitt’s mouth. Hewitt did know how to tell things. And he could be counted on to tell only the truth. He had more words than anyone Willie Bea knew, and he certainly could remember to put them together just the way they had been spoken by the relatives.

  Hewitt told what Uncle Jason had said. “‘I’m not asking anyone’s opinion on this subject. This subject is between Jimmy and me. Right is right. That boy with a bow and arrow is a menace. Either you take it away from him, Jimmy, or I will.’”

  Then Gramp Wing had said to his very own son Jimmy Wing: “‘Jason’s right, Jimmy.’”

  “‘No business, a bow and arra close to houses,’” Uncle Donald had said.

  “‘But he weren’t close to no houses,’” Uncle Jimmy had said. “‘Big was out in my wood.’”

  “‘With my baby,’” said Marva Mills. “‘As if my human child was a bull’s-eye!’”

  So Cousin Hewitt told. None of it had done B
ig any good when he had heard. He’d covered his eyes with his hands, shook his head. “Man, they gone take my bow and arras, shoot.”

  “I’m sorry, Big,” Willie Bea had said. She remembered it all just as clear. She was upstairs now in her house. In the big bedroom. Bay Brother and Bay Sister were there, too. They were not crowding her, not yet. Willie Bea hardly noticed them, she was thinking so hard. She stretched out on the full-size bed she shared with her sister. Her arms were behind her head. She gazed into the ceiling light. It flickered every now and then.

  “Sure, you’re sorry now now that you get Big in some trouble!” ugly Little had butted in, blaming Willie Bea.

  “Shut up, Little,” Big had said. “Ain’t nobody to blame but me. I did it. Nobody else.”

  Then Big was moving, shaking his head. He would hear no more. He had turned. “Got to go,” he had said.

  “You goin’ beggin’?” Willie Bea had asked. Couldn’t help herself. She and Big were such close cousins.

  Before Big could answer her, Little had distracted him. “Bet I can beat you home! Run, Cousin Hewitt, let’s beat Big home!”

  Hewitt needed to prove he was as fast and country as his cousins. Of course, he wasn’t. But right then Little had let him get ahead of her just to take him away from Willie Bea.

  Willie Bea knew a lot. But she hadn’t fully realized how clever Little could be.

  There had run Big, lumbering after Little and Hewitt. He would beat both of them. Willie Bea hadn’t stayed around to watch the performance composed and conducted by Little Wing. That’s what they said when they announced the symphony music on the radio that her mama sometimes listened to. Composed and conducted. Willie Bea had gone back inside the house to be with her papa.

  She knew that Little could beat Big any time she wanted to. But Little never did. And Little never let Big know she could beat him.

  But I know she can, Willie Bea thought. Bow legs churnin’. She is as fast as me. She is little, but she can run longer than I can. She is faster than me when it’s a long run. I tire at the end of a long run, and she never does.

  Willie Bea remembered what else Hewitt said had happened inside the house. After Marva Mills had said about using her human child as a bull’s-eye. Gramp had said the final word.