“I know you’ve found the liquor. You probably found it months ago. You run through everything here, my drawers, my kitchen cabinets, you open the mail. You always have. Samy couldn’t even sit in his boxer shorts without you barging in.” Besides pinching her upper arms, Mother had developed other odd habits. She chewed gum, practically all the time; she’d even wake up with gum embedded in her hair. She drummed her fingers on the tabletops, the kitchen counters, the arm rail of the swing. She’d also begun laughing oddly—or rather at odd things. She let out a whoop now. “There must be half a dozen liquor stores in Clovington. How did you find the exact one?”
“Catherine Valentine told me. Her husband saw you there.”
It was Mother’s turn to slap the table.
“Oh, Lordy, Fred. Of course, I talk to him.” She was laughing so hard both sides of her housecoat fell open, then she sloughed it off altogether and let it pool around the legs of her chair. “We’ve both decided it will be a great day for West Virginia when it gets out of the booze business and hands it over to private control. There’ll be liquor and beer everywhere. Fred and I won’t have to drive so far.”
I peeked around the kitchen table and saw an expression on my grandmother’s face that I’d never seen before and would never see again. She’d lost her nerve.
“You didn’t say that,” Grandma Lizzie said, finally, firmly.
“Sure I did,” Mom flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I’m glad Catherine finally admitted Fred drinks. She should be crying on your shoulder instead of spreading tales. You think I’ve got a problem? Fred’s had one for years.”
“Everybody already knew Fred drank,” she snapped. “Now I have to worry about how many people know you do.”
“I’m not worried about it. I don’t care.”
There was a silence that lasted for so long I shifted position because my right leg had gone numb. I stretched it out, then pulled it back when they started to talk again.
“Carmen,” Grandma said, “tell me what’s wrong. Tell me now.”
There’d always been tension between them, mostly over the three of us. Grandma said she was too easy; Mother said kids should be kids. Now, I realized the strife was deep between them, though I couldn’t imagine the cause. Whatever it was, it was bad because Grandma had those red spots on her cheeks and Mother sagged like the hollowed gourd Rush had pulled down and left in the rain.
Mother broke first. She threw her arms on the table, palms up, and spilled out her thoughts. “I’m bored. I stay busy all the time, but I don’t do anything. I’ve got money now, and I was thinking—no, I’m not leaving Harshbarger Mills.” This was said rapidly, doubtless in response to a look of alarm on Grandma’s face. Then, she took a deep breath. “I want to go to Burnell University and get a degree like Andrea Veach.”
“Andrea Ellis,” my grandmother said.
“It’s Veach, Mom. She got married around the same time I did, and widowed.”
Grandma Lizzie dismissed this statement and now her voice held equal parts disgust and disbelief. “You don’t need a degree to be better than that girl. You’ve got more talent in your little finger than she has in both hands.”
“It’s not about talent. It’s about—”
“Carmen Amber, listen to me. If you’re worried about being replaced as the church pianist, don’t give it a second thought. No one is going to allow Andrea to horn in on your position because there’s a crazy streak in all those Ellises, especially Lena, and the church is no place for confusion. And that little girl of Andrea’s already acts strange, even if she is half-Veach.”
“You’re missing my point.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Mom, when I used to take lessons from Mrs. Jones, she told me I had perfect pitch.”
I’d found an opening between the table top and the phone book on the shelf beneath, and now I could see clearly without moving. I watched as my grandmother rubbed at her cheeks.
“Perfect pitch, eh?”
“It means I have a natural gift and—”
“I know what it means.”
“Okay, then you should know that I didn’t benefit as much as I should have from those lessons. I cheated.”
