Send Me Down a Miracle Read online

  Then came a real surprise. Sharalee stood up behind me with her face just running with tears, and she grabbed hold of my shoulders and started her wailing.

  "Lord, I know it's me you're looking for. I have coveted what my best friend has. I have cursed You for making her skinny, all excepting her toes, and for making me so fat and for giving me a skinny mama who hates me. I'm ready, Lord, 'cause it seems to me I'm already burning right here on earth."

  Sharalee's fingernails were digging into my bare shoulders and I could feel her warm tears dropping onto my skin.

  "Lord, I am ready. I have been evil in my thoughts. I have hated my best friend and cursed You and I've not honored my mother and I eat too much."

  Sharalee let go of my back and threw herself all hysterical into her mama's lap.

  Daddy had finished spitting out bits of his sermon and was now shouting something about confession being good for the soul, but—and again his words were lost in more hysterical confessions and wailings and the gnashing of teeth.

  It wasn't until folks were getting worn out with their sins and things started to quiet down that we heard this tiny pinging tune. Everybody hushed to listen. It sounded like a little toy organ and everybody looked to Miss Tuney Mae to see if she was making the music, but I knew they wouldn't find it there.

  I looked down, noticing for the first time what socks I'd put on during my screaming fit, a pair of the Christmas socks Mama had bought.

  I stood and held my foot up to Daddy, feeling sure my face was as red as the socks.

  "They won't turn off," I said. Daddy was standing there with his face an explosion of purple fury.

  "Sorry." I lowered my foot and tried clunking my ankles together, hoping that would stop the tune, but it didn't.

  Then Miss Ivy-June, never one to miss an opportunity to sing a solo, stood up in the choir loft and started singing along with the socks, and pretty soon the whole choir was singing, and finally the whole congregation. Everybody sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"—everyone, that is, except Daddy—and me.

  10

  Things happened so fast after we got home from church that Sunday, we didn't have time to eat our dinner. The county sheriff came by saying he needed Daddy to help organize a search party for Miss Becky and someone needed to tend to Miss Anna, who was galloping around town making such a nuisance of herself he was thinking of hauling her into jail until Miss Becky was found.

  We got in the car and Daddy started backing it out of the driveway, hoping to follow the sheriff, when in drove Mr. and Mrs. Day, hooting and waving. Mrs. Day jumped out of her car before it even came to a complete stop.

  "You need to have a talk with that son of ours. Able," she said. "Miss Dabney's got him so turned around we don't know what we're going to do."

  Daddy leaned his head out of the car window. "What's the problem, Corrine?"

  "That Boo is setting out on the porch with a suitcase, all ready to go," said Mr. Day, who had gotten out of the car and joined his wife.

  "He's running away?" Daddy asked.

  "I don't know if he's waiting for those fiery fingers from hell or for Jesus to suck him up into the clouds," Mrs. Day said, "but I do know he's setting out there on the porch with a suitcase full of clean underwear and okra, like they're some kind of passport into heaven."

  "Says he won't come back in 'less they find Miss Becky, which he don't think is likely since he knows she's been raptured," added Mr. Day.

  Daddy was about to reply to this when we all heard Mrs. Marshall yoo-hooing from behind some bushes over near the graveyard, which was where the shortcut leading to their house was.

  "Able, don't you take off till I've had a word with you, now, you hear?" Mrs. Marshall came marching out from behind those bushes with this fearsome onward-Christian-soldiers look in her eyes.

  "You had better have a word with that Mad Joe, or I'm not saying what," she said, storming her way across our drive and tramping down the red dirt like it was Mad Joe under her feet.

  "I've just seen those two daughters of his and they're half-dead, sure as I'm standing here. Now, what you going to do about it?"

  Daddy was about to say something, 'cause I saw him open his mouth and take a breath, but then Mrs. Marshall started in again.

  "It's child abuse, plain and simple. Child abuse. Those girls need doctoring, bless their hearts. No amount of praying's going to cure that anemia disease they got. They need doctoring, sure as certain, and no drunken interference from that worthless father of theirs."

  Daddy held his hand out the window like he was signaling a stop and jumped into her stream of talking, saying, "Now hold on, hold on. Mad Joe's had those girls in and out of the hospital, and it's never done a bit of good."

  "Pah! That drunken fool. That's just him saying that. Says he doesn't want the hospital interfering with what's between him and the Lord. Interfering! They look yellow! Yellow! Like some kind of melon. I promise you, if we don't do something, those two are going to die and we'll all be guilty of murder."

  Daddy wrapped his hands back around the steering wheel like he was wishing it was Mrs. Marshall's neck. "All right. Now listen, everybody." He looked up at the Days. "I'll go have a talk with Boo sometime today, but the smartest thing we could do is find Miss Becky, which is what I was just on my way to do."

  Then he turned to Mrs. Marshall. "I'll also go have a word with Mad Joe, but you know even if he does take Vonnie and Velita to a doctor again, the doctor won't be able to cure them. Sickle-cell anemia isn't curable."

  "Well, they could have their lives extended beyond puberty, I know that. And they'd be a heap more comfortable with medicine. They look like death, you just go see if they don't. Oh, and if you're wanting to find Mad Joe, check out Miss Dabney's. He's over there waiting on line with the rest of the crazies wanting a pray with that chair."

  It was at least another ten minutes before the driveway was cleared of people and cars and Daddy could pull out into the road. The first thing he did was drive straight on over to Adrienne's house and round up the folks waiting outside for their turns at the chair, which was easy enough to do once folks heard there was a search party starting up at the Cobb place. The way a couple of the men patted their gun racks and hopped into their trucks, a body would think they were going to hunt down a criminal instead of Miss Becky.

  We spent that whole afternoon and evening searching the woods behind the Cobb house and driving around town and hollering out our windows, but we never found her.

  The next day Miss Ivy-June's nephew Carl took his crop-dusting plane up for a fly over all the cornfields. The way most of our cornfields were laid out, kind of maze fashion, with no straight line leading you out the other end, it would be easy to get lost in one of them; but Carl landed his plane and climbed down shaking his head. Miss Becky was still missing.

  The only good thing about her disappearance was that it kept Daddy so busy he didn't have time to stew over Sunday's Hellfire Incident, as folks were calling it. Every day me and Grace would sit beside Daddy in the car and we'd ride around town looking for Miss Becky and then calling on Miss Anna to see how she was holding up; and I knew if Mama were home she'd be the one sitting next to Daddy making house calls, and I'd be free to visit with Adrienne. Of course, every day we had to pass Adrienne Dabney's place several times on our way to this and that, and each time Daddy would have to pull off to the side of the road and shake his head at all the cars and trucks parked out front.

  On Tuesday morning there were nine of them lined up along the edge of the road, and Daddy said as how this whole town likely as not was going to hell on account of it. On Wednesday there were only three cars parked outside, and Daddy said as how folks were starting to see the light and pretty soon things would be back to normal and maybe there was hope for his flock after all.

  For my part, I just kept hoping I'd catch a look at Adrienne, maybe setting in the shade painting some picture or tending to her lawn, but I never did. Then on Thursday afternoon
Daddy had to go to a long preachers' meeting over in Eufala, so he said Grace could go visit Boo, who was still out on his porch, and I could stay with Sharalee until he got back. He didn't say I had to stay with Sharalee, he just said I could, so I didn't figure it was really dis honest that I went to Adrienne's instead. By then I was wanting to see her extra bad—talk to her, watch her, learn more what it's like to be her. I thought I might even get a look at that Jesus chair, too, but when I got to her house, a long line of people streamed across the lawn and I knew that soon as I put myself at the end of the line. Daddy would come riding by, spot me like I stood ten feet taller than everybody else, and jerk me on home by the hair on my head. And it didn't matter one bit that he was supposed to be in Eufala.

  Adrienne stood in the doorway squinting up at me, looking as if she had just waked up even though it was after noon when I rang her doorbell. I held up my sketchpad and reminded her that she had said she would give me an art lesson after her experiment was over.

  "Right now? You want me to give you a lesson now?" Adrienne said, rubbing her hand over her face.

  "Uh," was all I could think to say.

  "Come on in," she said, sighing and tightening the sash of her kimono. I followed her down the hall, staring at the grass and dirt stains along the bottom of her robe, careful not to step on it and trip her.

  She led me into her kitchen and told me to have a seat while she looked for something to eat. I moved a pile of sheets off one of the chairs and set down, looking around while Adrienne stared into the refrigerator. Her sink was stacked with dirty dishes, something Daddy wouldn't allow in a million years, what with dirt and evilness being practically the same thing, and her countertops were covered with packages and boxes of food like she just couldn't be bothered to set them in the cabinets, which I guess she couldn't.

  Adrienne let out a laugh and slammed the refrigerator door. "I know what's for breakfast," she said, opening up the freezer. She pulled out a half-gallon carton of chocolate-chip ice cream, grabbed a couple of spoons out of her dishwasher, and joined me at the table.

  "Here you go," she said, handing me one of the spoons. It was a big serving spoon, the kind Mama used to serve mashed potatoes. Then she opened the lid of the ice-cream carton and said, "Dig in." And I did! I ate ice cream, right out of the carton, before I'd even eaten my lunch! And we talked about her experiment some, and she said how colors seemed so much more vivid and rich since coming out, and how she noticed everything now—every little thing—and how even a rusty old nail looked beautiful to her.

  I tried to get her to talk about the Jesus chair some, but she just kept on talking about art and colors and blades of grass, like art and Jesus were somehow the same thing. Then I dropped a clump of ice cream on her kitchen table and she laughed, and then I laughed, and then we both laughed, and I thought there could be nothing more joyful than eating ice cream straight from the carton, before lunch, with the most splendid person on earth.

  After we ate she took me up to her studio, using the back staircase so we wouldn't bother the folks at the Jesus chair, which I wouldn't have minded doing atall. I was just dying to see that chair, but then I saw her studio and I had to stand and marvel at the clutter and the paint and turpentine smell of that real artist's room.

  "Wow!" I said, looking at the stacks of wooden frames leaning against the walls and the paintbrushes of every shape and size setting in jars next to a mess of paint tubes and Mason jars filled with brown-red liquid.

  "I'm doing most of my painting outdoors," Adrienne said to me, kicking through a pile of her clothes and shoes and such and picking out a skirt and top from off the floor. "But this is a pretty nice studio. The light's good, now that I have the boards off the windows." She chuckled, and then, without any warning atall, she just took off her kimono right there in front of me. She just slipped it off easy as you please so that she was standing in nothing but a pair of underpants and acting like it was just as natural as could be when I knew it wasn't. Even me and Sharalee never got full undressed in front of one another. Most we ever did was get dressed back to back or come out of the bathroom still zipping up our shorts and such.

  Adrienne kept on talking about art while she slipped on her top and stepped into her skirt and I nodded and tried to act natural even though I thought my head might just nod right off my neck.

  She was talking to me about the kinds of material she painted on, like ragboard, and canvas, and portrait linen, and gessoed Masonite. And I stared at a blank canvas she had leaning against a stack of books, nodding some more and listening real hard.

  She told me how each type of material gave a different quality to her work and how which ones she used depended on the scenery, the mood, and the emotion she was wanting to convey. Same with the paintbrushes, she said, and the colors, and whether they were oil or watercolor; all these things made a difference in a painting.

  Finally Adrienne was dressed and she sat herself up on a stool and told me I could look through some of her boxes and crates and such, so I did, sticking my head way down into the first box I came to, knowing I was still blushing. I pulled out all kinds of stuff like Turpenoid, and a palette knife, and rabbit-skin glue, and powdered gesso. I found some of her old thumbnail sketches, which were just practice pieces—but they were better than any art I'd ever seen before, except in books, and I realized there was more to this being an artist than I'd thought. I was glad I left my sketchpad downstairs in her kitchen, and I prayed she wouldn't ask to see any of my drawings, which she didn't. Instead she said, "Tell me about yourself, Charity"—which was even worse 'cause that made me stop and think, and what I thought was, there was never a more dull person in all the world than Charity Pittman of Casper, Alabama.

  It seemed like forever before I could think up anything to say and then when I did, I just told about my family. I said, "Well, you know about Daddy and him being the preacher and all, and you met Grace."

  Adrienne nodded.

  "I guess you know she's my younger sister," I said. "Eight years old, and she likes crawling around in dirt and under bushes and really I think she wishes she had been born a bug."

  Adrienne laughed as if I had said something clever, which I hadn't, 'cause it was just the truth about Grace, but Adrienne said I was a real delight and she was glad I had come over. That made me want to think up more delightful things to say and so of course my mind went completely blank.

  Then Adrienne asked about Mama and I had to go stick my face deep into another box 'cause I didn't know what to say about Mama.

  "I heard she collects birdcages," Adrienne said, trying to encourage me, I guess.

  "Yes, ma'am," I said, still peering into one of her boxes.

  "That's an interesting hobby."

  I lifted my head and nodded. "She's even made a few birdcages herself and painted them up real pretty. I've got one of them in my bedroom. She learned how last year at the annual Birdcage Collectors' Convention. That's where she is now, at one of those conventions."

  "Really?" Adrienne tilted her head and looked out the window like she was wondering about something. Like she was wondering about Mama and why she had been gone so long.

  I could feel myself blushing all hot again. "Well, she was at the convention," I said, "but now she's with my Aunt Nooney in Nashville, Tennessee, visiting cousins."

  "Ah," Adrienne said, nodding and turning her head toward me again. "She sounds as if she's a lot like you."

  "No. No, we're real different. Mama's not really artistic at all. Those birdcages she made weren't really all that good. Daddy wouldn't even let her set them in any of the formal rooms in the house—that's why me and Grace have them, and—and she's real quiet and..."

  "And she's flown the coop!" Adrienne hopped off her stool, grinning and nodding like she'd just made some big discovery. "She's off spreading her wings, isn't she? And good for her. Your mother's—"

  I jumped up. "No, really, Mama likes cooking and cleaning and singing in the choir. We're no
t alike atall. She likes going visiting with Daddy, and talking with folks and making them feel good, and—"

  Adrienne held up her hand. "Okay, okay. You're right. I've never even met the woman. Anyway"—Adrienne turned away from me real quick, bent over a pile of stuff, and dug out a muddy-looking sketchpad—"I promised to give you an art lesson, so come on, let's see some of your drawings."

  11

  Adrienne's art lesson made me forget all about what she said about Mama. I learned more in her one hour of teaching me than I'd ever learned about anything. She showed me a whole new way of seeing. She told me I was drawing what I thought a rose should look like rather than the rose I was seeing. She showed me how to look at lines and shapes and negative spaces instead of seeing only flowers and trees, and I understood, and law if I didn't draw the most real-looking hat right there in front of her. It was her hat, the straw one she wore in church that past Sunday. I was thrilled right down to my toenails that she let me draw it, and when I hurried on home, hoping to get there before Daddy came back, I knew I was hurrying with a memory from her tucked under my arm.

  When I got up to my room, I tore the drawing out of my sketchpad, stuck it into the edges of my mirror, and removed Mama's birdcage off the chest of drawers so I could have a clear view of Adrienne's hat while lying right there on my bed. And every time I looked at it, which was often, I would think on Adrienne and all her exciting ways.

  The next day was Friday, and still Miss Becky was missing. Daddy couldn't go looking for her that day 'cause it was his turn to be the visiting chaplain at the Flowers Hospital in Dothan. He told Grace that she could go stay with Boo again, and I was hopeful that I'd get another afternoon with Adrienne; but he told me I was old enough to go with him, and so that whole day I watched my daddy say prayers with the sick and fearful, and hold their hands, and hug them when they cried, and I was so proud. I was proud to be his daughter, proud that he cared about people so much, and proud that he believed so strongly in God and the Bible and such. It was a joy in my heart to know he was a good man, a real good man.