Читать книгу Little Green - Loretta Stinson - Страница 12

Here Comes the Sun

IN THE MORNING WHEN SHE WOKE, JANIE STUDIED THE quilt that covered her in Stella’s spare bedroom. The quilt contained a thousand shades of blue, from the indigo of blueberries in August to the pale blue of a mountain sky. Each block was stitched precise as a prayer. The fabric looked delicate and felt soft as silk, but was strong even after years of wear. Stella had said the women of his family made it for his mother when she was expecting her first child – him. The idea of all those women sitting together to make something so beautiful captured Janie’s imagination. She lay in bed between thick cotton sheets.

Across from her bed a large window with sheer curtains stained the room with light. She could almost tell time by the square of yellow sunlight as it moved across the quilt. Except for a dresser and the narrow bed she slept in the room was empty and it calmed her. It had been almost six weeks since she came to Stella’s. The swelling had gone down, the bruises were gone, and she could eat, talk, and smile. When she looked in the small oval mirror she could pretend nothing had happened. That was the surface of it. The skin and teeth and hair of it. She’d drawn Stella a map of where the guy in the van had dumped her and her stuff. Stella retrieved what was left – a small wooden box with a few pictures, her Social Security card, a copy of Winnie the Pooh her parents gave her for the last birthday they were both alive. Love to Janie on her sixth birthday, Mommy and Daddy. That was all that was left. The girl she’d been was gone.

She didn’t think of the particulars of what had happened out there in the woods. Though she knew better she didn’t call it rape because she’d been stupid and had paid for it. Janie knew from the boatload of other bad things that had happened to her in sixteen years that thinking too much about any of them would hurt too much and bring nightmares and cold sweats. She chose not to look at her past and looked at the quilt instead.

This morning was already warm. Janie sat up in bed and slid her feet to the floor. China woke stretching and yawning. The dog slept on the bed beside her since the first night. Her tail thumped against the mattress sending dust motes spinning. Janie let China out the back door. She could hear a rake scraping the ground. Stella liked to work in the garden before he went to the club. Janie helped too, since the garden was big enough to keep two people busy. Some of the vegetables Janie had never seen, let alone eaten. There was okra, squashes, melons, greens of every kind, cucumbers and tomatoes, peppers, beans, a patch of corn, cabbages, and different kinds of lettuces, radishes, onions, and garlic. Stella was a good cook, and now that it was high summer, he cooked out of the garden and didn’t buy much from the store. Janie checked on the tomatoes every day for a hint of red. Stella told her to hold her horses, it was only July, the tomatoes wouldn’t come on for at least another month, but Janie had a particular memory of a garden – sitting on the warm dirt with her mom when she was maybe four or five, picking a red tomato, and eating it like an apple, the juice running down her face and fingers.

On the kitchen table sat a white bowl full of nectarines and a white plate of cornbread squares left over from dinner the night before. Coffee perked in the pot on the stove. Stella came in through the kitchen, slipping his shoes off at the door carrying a big bunch of beets that he put in the sink. “You sleep okay?”

“Yeah.” Janie cut a piece of cornbread in half, put it on a white plate, and squeezed honey from a plastic bear over it. “Stella, how come so much of your stuff is white?”

“White always matches white. White goes with anything. It’s the color of the masses.”

Janie took a bite of cornbread.

Stella shook the beets over the sink and broke the tops off loosely wrapping them in a clean dishtowel. He looked over at her. “Ernie’s having a birthday next weekend. He’s got a big campsite reserved up at Eagle Creek. A bunch of people will be there.”

Janie sat quiet, eating the sticky cornbread with her fingers.

“I thought we’d both go. I’ve got a tent and sleeping bags. We’re closing the club for a long weekend. Haven’t done that since we bought the place.” Stella poured himself a cup of coffee. “My friend Cookie is coming up. I want you to meet her. I think you’ll like her.”

“I don’t know.” She felt scared to leave the house sometimes even when Stella was with her.

“I think it would be good. You’d meet some people. Some women. I want you to come.”

Janie sat staring at her cornbread for a minute. Stella never asked her for anything, and the truth was she didn’t want to stay here alone. “Is China coming?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. I’ll go. But I’ve got to get something to read.”

“It’s a deal.”

Since Janie had come to stay with Stella she had read many of the novels on the floor-to-ceiling shelves in the living room. He had a set of leatherbound books he’d picked up from the county library sale and Janie had kept herself occupied with those for the last few weeks. At night when Stella was at work reading kept her mind full of someone else’s stories. She had to have a book or she’d go crazy at every little noise or shadow in the night. It helped having China, but even with the big dog, Janie couldn’t sleep or turn out the lights until Stella came home and she felt safe. Some nights she still had screaming nightmares. When that happened, Stella woke her, got her water and patted her back. He said he had them too after he got home from Vietnam, but they didn’t come as often and, in time, hers wouldn’t either. She took comfort from that.

FRIDAY MORNING, THEY packed Stella’s ancient Mercedes with a box of garden vegetables, sleeping bags and a tent Stella had aired out all week, clothes and dishes and flashlights and towels and a hundred other things one or both of them thought they might need. China sat in the backseat with her head out the window and Janie rode in the front. They drove into the mountain range northeast of Yelm, taking country roads and old highways instead of the freeway. A forest service road took them into deep woods where the air was twenty degrees cooler and smelled like Christmas trees. Volkswagen vans, pickup trucks, and a few motorcycles surrounded an old International school bus painted a bright bubble-gum pink. Grateful Dead stickers clung to the bus’s bumpers and the windows were festooned with tie-dyed curtains. Janie found herself checking to see if Paul’s Panhead was parked with the bikes. She was both relieved and disappointed when she didn’t see it.

Stella parked the car, and China bolted out the back door, ready to investigate other dogs. A young woman was getting out of the bus, carrying a box of groceries. When she saw Stella she put her load down and came running over. She wore a peasant blouse over a bikini and had slanted bright green eyes.

“Stella – You’re here!”

“Hey Cat!” Stella gave the girl a hug. “This is Janie.”

Janie felt first-day-of-school nervous. “Hi.”

“Did you make that top?” Cat pointed at Janie’s homemade camisole.

“I can show you how to make one if you want.”

Cat put her arm around Janie and led her away. “Cat is short for Catherine but I’ve been Cat forever. Let’s be best friends starting today and make all these old men crazy with desire.”

Stella laughed as they walked away. “Won’t take much to do that.” He gave Janie a wink and picked up the box Cat had put down. “Do you know where Cookie is?”

“Setting up the kitchen in camp.” Cat pulled Janie along by the hand. “Once Stella finds Cookie we’ll never see them again all weekend.”

At the top of the hill the path ended. There was a clearing among Douglas fir trees with four picnic tables and a rock ringed fire pit. A stack of firewood had already been kindled, and boxes of supplies sat on one of the tables. A woman stood at the table unpacking and organizing a kitchen area. She wore a long muslin dress that fell off her shoulders. Her black hair was coiled into a large bun that rested at the base of her slender tan neck. The woman turned when she heard Stella whistle. She smiled and held out her arms. “I thought you’d never get here.”

Stella scooped Cookie into his arms and kissed her on the forehead, nose and mouth. Janie stood waiting while Cat dug through a bag of groceries.

Stella put Cookie down, a smile lit up his face. “Cookie, this is Janie.”

Cookie held out her arms, hugging Janie swift and sure. “It’s good to finally meet you. Stella’s been telling me about you.”

Janie smiled but didn’t quite know what to say.

Stella hadn’t stopped touching Cookie, and now she swatted at him, eyes twinkling. “Go help set up the tipi and leave Janie with me.”

Stella kissed Cookie again on the top of her head and walked down the path calling over his shoulder, “When I’m done you aren’t getting rid of me.”

Cookie laughed. “Who says I’d want to?”

With Stella gone it was just Cookie, Janie, and a few women she didn’t know. Cookie seemed to be in charge of organizing and setting up the cooking area and she did it without acting like she was. She asked Janie to fill some buckets with water. China ended her investigation and now stuck close by. Janie found the old-fashioned water pump nearby and worked the worn red handle until cold water shot out, hitting China in the face as she bit at the stream. The trail opened into a meadow. A few small tents were already set up but Janie didn’t see a tipi, just a pile of canvas and long poles surrounded by Stella, Ernie, and some men Janie didn’t know. They drank cans of beer and stared at the task ahead of them.

Janie watched for a few minutes and then headed back to the picnic tables.

Cat had opened one of the coolers. The other women were gone.

“Where is everybody?” Janie asked.

“They went to the river for a swim.” Cat said.

THE REST OF the day she spent with Cat and China. They joined the others at the river and swam and suntanned. They painted each other’s toenails with nail polish Cat had on the bus. Cat talked and Janie figured out she was meant to listen. She didn’t mind. She met most of the people who showed up over the course of the day but gave up trying to remember their names. Delores and Amber came and Janie stayed away from them. She didn’t want to talk about anything connected to The Habit or Paul Jesse.

By early evening a fire roared in the pit and the smell of spices and smoke reminded Janie and Cat how hungry they were. Janie got a plate from the stack on the table and took it to Cookie who was bent over a cast iron pot spooning out food.

“Hey chica! Did you have a good time today?” Cookie dished beans mixed with rice and some vegetables onto Janie’s plate.

Janie had never been called a name other than Janie. She kind of liked it. “Yeah. This smells good.”

“Moros y Cristianos – that’s Spanish for Moors and Christians and Cuban for black beans and rice and save room for later. I’m making my abuela’s plantanos dulces fritos – that’s my grandma’s recipe for a kind of fried banana dessert.” Cookie served herself up a plate and handed the spoon to the next person in line. “I want to eat with you and Stella.” Janie followed her to one of the tables and sat on the bench next to Cookie and across from Stella. Loaves of bread and bowls of salad made their way down the center of each table.

Stella wiped the beans from his plate with a slice of bread. “About time. I thought you weren’t sitting down tonight.”

Cookie laughed. “I nibbled all day.”

The rice and beans were served with a salad of oranges, avocados, and some crunchy white vegetable that was cut into tiny slivers and tasted sweet. Janie had never eaten such exotic food before. “I wish I could cook like this. How did you learn?”

“My grandmother on my mom’s side taught me how to make traditional Cuban food. She moved in with us after my grandfather died. I was six. I think I learned to cook to anger my mami. She’s a law professor at U C- Berkeley. She wanted me to be one too. Or an attorney like my dad. Or at least a profession requiring an advanced degree. My mom believes cooking is demeaning. If you want to learn, I’d be happy to show you.”

“I’d like that. It’s really good.” Janie sliced another piece of bread from the loaf. “Did you make the bread too?”

“I can’t take all the credit. Alex, that big guy in the red T-shirt, he baked the bread all last week and froze it in my walk-in.”

Stella filled a cup with wine from a big bottle on the table. “Cookie has a restaurant in Eugene.”

“Not a restaurant. I have a food cart on campus and a kitchen I use for some catering. I aspire to own a restaurant.”

Stella reached across the table and caressed Cookie’s arm. “I keep saying you could do food at my place.”

Cookie pulled her hand away. “Listen mijo, you know what I think about the way you’ve chosen to make your money. Sell that titty bar and then we’ll talk.”

Stella looked away.

Cookie reached out this time and stroked Stella’s arm. “Never mind. Over this we will agree to disagree.” She looked at Janie. “Want to learn to fry a plantain, chica?”

Janie had never cooked much before she came to Stella’s. She was so young when her mom died and Daddy cooked simple meals designed to get by. Norma preferred frozen dinners or eating out and rarely cooked. Cookie showed Janie how to slice the plantains and slip them into a skillet of hot peanut oil and just when to turn them.

She helped Cookie fry dozens sprinkling them with cinnamon and sugar. After the plantains were eaten and the dishes cleaned they sat around the fire watching the flames die to coals. As the evening ended Janie leaned against China, who slept snuggled against her back. Cat had attached herself to her ex-boyfriend. It looked to Janie like everyone was coupled up for the night. Stella sat across the pit from her. Cookie nestled in the V of his lap, his arms wrapped around her. Cookie rose and stretched joined by Stella a moment later. They waved goodnight to Janie and walked to the tipi in the dark meadow.

Janie waited awhile before she left the fire and went off to find her small tent. He’d told her that the tipi would give her good dreams but she didn’t want to be in the tipi with all the couples. The meadow in the dark was beautiful. The sky looked like a planetarium show – the stars were so close and bright. She crawled into the tent with China and into her sleeping bag, zipping up the door behind her and rubbing China’s forehead until she drifted off to sleep.

Late in the night the familiar sound of a motorcycle on gravel woke her. She turned over in her sleeping bag and made herself close her eyes.