AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Suddenly I was homesick for Grandpa, for the miserable cabin and its familiar space. Again those unwanted sad pictures flashed behind my eyes. Our Jane and Keith saying "Hey-lee." I blinked once or twice, glad I had the wonderful doll with me. When Kitty saw her, she'd be impressed, really impressed.
"Now . . . say what ya think of t'burger," quizzed Kitty, dispatching hers in mere seconds, and applying hot-pink lipstick to lips that wore a perpetual stain. She handled the tube expertly despite her inchlong nails, shiny with polish that matched her pink clothes exactly.
"It was very good."
"Then why didn't ya eat all of it? Food costs good money. When we buy ya food we expect ya t'eat it all."
"Kitty, you talk too loud. Leave the girl alone."
"I don't like yer name, either," Kitty flared, as if annoyed at Cal's defense. "It's a stupid name. Heaven's a place, not a name. What's yer middle name-- somethin jus as dumb?"
"Leigh," I answered in a tone of ice. "My mother's Christian name."
Kitty winced. "Damn!" she swore, slamming her fists one into the other. "Hate that name!" She swung her seawater eyes to her husband and met his mild look with fierce anger. "That was her name, that Boston bitch who took Luke! Goddam if I eva want t'hear it said aloud again, ya hear?"
"I hear. . . ."
Kitty's mood swung in a different direction, from anger to thoughtfulness, as Cal got up and headed for the men's room. "Always wanted a girl I could call Linda. Always wanted t'be named Linda myself. There's somethin sweet an pure about Linda that sounds so right."
Again I shivered, seeing those huge, glittery rings on Kitty's large, strong hands. Were they real diamonds, rubies, emeralds--or fakes?
It was a relief to be in the car again, on the road speeding toward some distant home. A relief, that is, until Kitty told Cal she was changing my name. "Gonna call her Linda," she said matter-of-factly. "Like that name, really I do."
Immediately he barked, "No! Heaven suits her best. She's lost her home and her family; for God's sake, don't force her to lose her name as well. Leave well enough alone."
There was some forceful quality in his voice this time that stilled Kitty's incessant chatter for a peaceful five minutes, and, best of all, Cal reached to turn off the radio.
In the backseat I curled up and tried to stay awake by reading the road signs. By this time I'd noticed that Cal was following all the signs that directed us toward Atlanta. Overpasses and
underpasses, through clover-leafs and down expressways, under train trestles, over bridges crossing rivers, through cities large, small, and medium, going onward toward Atlanta.
I gasped to see the skyscrapers rearing up black in the night, glittering with lit windows, wearing clouds like wispy scarfs. I gasped at store windows on Peachtree Street, stared at policemen standing right in the middle of everything and not afraid, and some were on horseback. Pedestrians were strolling the avenues as if it were midday and not long after nine. Back home I'd be on the floor sound asleep by this time. Even now I had to rub at my eyes, gritty with sleep. Maybe I did sleep.
All of a sudden a loud voice was singing. Kitty had the radio on again and was snuggled up close to Cal, doing something that made him plead for her to stop. "Kitty, there's a time and a place for
everything--and the time and place isn't right for this. Now take your hand away."
What was Kitty doing? I rubbed at my eyes, then leaned forward to find out. Just in time to see Cal pull up his fly zipper. Oh--was that nice? Fanny would think so. Quickly I slid backward, alarmed that Kitty might have seen me peek at what was, really, none of my business. Again I stared out the window. The big city with all its majestic skyscrapers had disappeared. Now we were driving down streets not so wide or so busy.
"We live in the suburbs," Cal explained briskly. "Subdivision called Candlewick. The houses are splitlevels and almost alike, six diff
erent styles, you take your pick. And then they build them for you. You can be an individual only with the way you decorate outside and in. We hope you will enjoy living here, Heaven. We want to do our best by you and give you the kind of life we'd give our own, if we could have children. The school you'll be attending is within walking distance."
Snorting, Kitty mumbled, "Mind. Mind. What the hell difference does it make? She's goin t'school if she has t'crawl there. Damned if ah want some ignorant kid spoilin my reputation."
I sat up straighter, tried to keep sleep from stealing my first view of my new home, and with interest I studied the houses that were, as Cal had said, almost alike, but not quite. Nice houses. No doubt every one had at least one bathroom, maybe more. And all those wonderful electrical conveniences city folks couldn't live without.
Then the car pulled into a driveway, and a garage door was sliding magically upward, and then we were inside the garage, and Kitty was yelling for me to wake up. "We're home, kid, home."
Home.
I quickly opened the car door and left the garage to stand and stare at the house in the pale moonlight. Two stories. How sweet it looked snuggled in the midst of lush shrubbery, mostly evergreens. Red brick with white blinds. A palace in comparison to the shack in the hills I'd just left. A pretty house with a white front door.
"Cal, ya put her dirty thins in t'basement where they belong, if they belong." Sadly I watched my mother's wonderful suitcase, much better than any bag Kitty owned, disappear. . . though of course Kitty couldn't know what was under all those dark knitted shawls.
"C'mon," Kitty called impatiently. "It's goin on eleven. An I'm really pooped. Ya got yer whole life long t'stare at t'outside, ya hear?"
How final she made that sound.
