Beholding Bee (28 page)

I show her how I look for news of Bobby every week. “But why, Bee?” Pauline scoops Sophie up in the air and kisses her little pea-sized toes.

“Bobby promised we wouldn’t lose each other.”

“Well, don’t invite him here. I already told you I don’t want to be around a man who smells like pigs. And neither do you—do you, little Sophie?” She kisses Sophie on the cheek.

“But, Pauline, he likes you. He is awful sweet on you.”

She looks at me and scrunches her nose and goes back to loving on Sophie.

“I’m sure he doesn’t smell like pigs now, Pauline.” I say it sharp. Sometimes she makes me awful mad. I know she has it wrong. I know what matters is what’s underneath. And there’s a very fine man under there. Just ask Cordelia.

I decide then and there to tell her the whole story of Bobby, just like her
Story of Bee
.

“Sit down. I have something to say, Pauline.”

I tell her everything, about how Bobby was the Hurricane and how one of the other runners tripped him during a race and how Ellis found him all despairing and gave
him a job. I remind her about the boys chasing me and how Bobby spent day after day teaching me to run fast. With his thick glasses he might not be able to fly bombers, but he could build them. He wanted to do more than spend his life working for Ellis. “But most of all, Pauline, he really cares about me.

“He told me not to quit, to keep trying and trying, and if I did I would find strength deep inside myself, and when I found it, I would be proud, really, really proud.”

She runs her hands through my curls the whole time I am talking. She gets the brush and sweeps it through my hair about a thousand times. I think I can purr.

“I didn’t know all that about Bobby,” she whispers.

“I guess you weren’t looking very hard.”

She looks at me for a moment and then brushes more and more while Sophie sleeps right beside us. “I am sorry, Bee. I am sorry about everything.”

I let her pull my hair back with a ribbon and my diamond shines. “How did you get so beautiful, Bee?” she asks.

I reach up then, and I am in her arms. I let her hold me and I feel her breath on me and her heart beating. I smell the apple shampoo in her hair. The place deep inside where my heart used to ache is filled with other things now.

“I bet lots of folks would like to be more like you, Bee,” she whispers, holding me tight. “I know I would.”

126

We are sitting around the table after a big roast chicken dinner with gravy and mashed potatoes and I have to hold my belly, I am so full.

I am proud as a peacock I am such a good cook and I am grateful to Ruth Ellen’s mama for showing me how. She says I can go over and learn more things anytime I want. I think I will any day now.

Peabody whines that he is ready for something else to eat. I tell Pauline and Sophie to shut their eyes and I go get my birthday cake. It is high and chocolate and sprinkled with coconut all over the buttercream frosting and everything about it is just right for a girl turning thirteen. I am very good at baking cakes.

Sophie’s eyes are big as moons as she snuggles in Pauline’s arms and watches the candles. When I set the cake down, I show her, this is how you blow the candles out. She will turn two months soon, and it’s never too early to learn.

I start cutting the cake and when I look up Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Swift are standing behind Pauline and Sophie. They are so faint I can hardly make them out.

Mrs. Potter watches me give Pauline the first piece. She put a new feather in her flappy hat and it is dipping in the hot August breeze that tumbles through the open window. She has to tie the strings tighter to keep the hat on her head. Then she reaches down and scratches Peabody behind
the ears. He hardly notices, though, because he is so busy eating cake.

“Do you want some?” I whisper to them.

Mrs. Swift is already shaking her head, they do not want any cake, and she is putting her finger to her lips and pulling Mrs. Potter away. I reach out for them and feel my heart breaking, but this time Mrs. Potter shakes her head. Peabody looks up as they thin out and their edges blur, but Pauline and Sophie don’t notice anything but the cake. Pauline reaches for another slice.

Mrs. Potter winks one last time. Mrs. Swift smiles softly and points to the library, where her autobiography sits waiting.

And then, in the blink of an eye, they are gone.

Just like they said they would be.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am sincerely grateful to my husband and family for encouraging me through the years it took to write this novel, for listening and offering ideas, and for reading the manuscript so many times.

I am also thankful for my editor, Michelle Frey, who saw Bee’s heart from the very beginning and helped to make the novel all that it could be, and also to her assistant, Kelly Delaney, and intern, Stephen Brown, for their many hours of work on the manuscript. Thank you also to all the staff at Knopf/Random House who had a hand in bringing Bee into the world, including copy editor Jenny Golub, for her skill and kind words, and Kate Gartner, for designing the beautiful covers on all three of my novels.

I am grateful to my agent, Elizabeth Harding of Curtis Brown Ltd., for her guidance and encouragement.

Thank you also to my friend and former newspaper colleague Paul Della Valle for his accomplished book,
Massachusetts Troublemakers: Rebels, Reformers and Radicals from the Bay State
. His biographies of Lucy Stone and Deborah Sampson provided the clay I needed to begin crafting the characters of Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Potter.