Chapter Two

"Ruby, what are you doing? Get down from there. You are creeping me out," Becka said and waved her arm at the bird, trying to shoo her down from the seat back behind her shoulder. But the crow wouldn’t budge. She was fixated on something in the seat behind them.

Girl, you ain’t nothin but a flea bag. A scraggle baggle bag of fleas, Becka thought to herself and chuckled. Scraggle baggle bag of fleas, she hummed. And then put the words to a sort of tune and sang it.

Ruby tilted her head at Becka and blinked slowly.

Inez grinned and started to sing. Sha la la…

Becka skootched around her seat uncomfortably. It was like something was pinching her between her shoulders.

Sing like you mean it, girl. Remember our backyard shows?

Hope looked at Inez, her eyes narrowed. Inez grinned and slid her eyes away.

After a while Becka turned onto the old country route, away from the semis veering around her and honking as they passed. The two-lane highway stretched out long and empty. Becka cranked down the window, letting the hot air blow through the car. She pulled the clip from her hair and tossed it onto the passenger seat, letting her hair fly loose and free around her face. She put her arm out the window and let it flop, up and down on the lumps of air. She pushed harder and harder on the gas pedal like she could just push on through to a new life. She switched on the radio. Static crackled through the AM dial.

Sha la la, Inez sang.

"Yes mam," Becka shouted as an image from an ancient past developed in her mind. The kitchen. Granny’s house. Inez, Blondel, and Becka, singing with wooden spoons for mikes. Dancing and laughing, pretending to be the Shirelles. "Sha la la," Becka sang hesitantly, searching for the tune. What were the words? She smiled, it seemed for the first time in weeks. The Shirelles! I’ll have to look that up later, she thought, and then she began to sing out loud. Just making up words, making up the melody. One of the songs she’d been secretly working on in her little notebook tucked into her purse. She sang louder and louder as they drove. She sang about Ruby being a bag of fleas and sha la la and wind whipping through her hair and flying.

Ruby stopped her staring then and hopped down next to Becka. She tilted her head and made a soft clicking sound as if singing along.

Oh what a pretty voice she has, Granny said. Remember how Danny could sing, Inez? I reckon she got that voice from him.

Yes. Inez said and stared out the window. Did you make sure to put that card with Pete’s number on it in the envelope?

Yes I did. I attached it to the letter.

"Do you think a car holds memories almost like ghosts?" Becka shivered and turned suddenly to Ruby. Ruby cooed and nestled down into the seat.

It felt so good to sing. It felt so good to drive. She took a deep gulp of air like she’d forgotten about breathing along with singing. Occasionally she came upon a trailer park or a Sunoco service station would spring out of the empty landscape. Further along she came upon a dilapidated Exxon station. She could still see the faint letters of the old Esso sign etched across the low wooden building. The gas pumps huddled on cracked tarmac, rusted and exposed. A man leaned on a chair against the wall of the station.

Better stop for gas, Hope said. Never know how far you’re going on just such a day.

Ruby hopped onto the back of the seat and called out as they passed the gas station. Inez nodded her head in agreement.

In the middle of the road, Becka jammed on the brakes and screeched to a stop. She jerked the car into reverse and squealed up to the pumps. A man who’d been sitting under a small porch cover hefted himself up and ambled towards her as she pushed open the heavy door.

"Fill ’er up?"

"Oh, you pump the gas? Ok. Yes. Thanks… Phew, it sure is hot out here… you have a coke machine?"

"Over there." He nodded his head towards the wooden station.

The coke machine was ancient and it still took coins and had a side slot holding rows of bottles. Becka stared at it for a minute, feeling disoriented and strange, like driving Bertha was indeed some weird kind of time machine like King said at breakfast. Then she shrugged and dug around in her bag and fished out the little purse she kept for change. She plinked the coins into the machine and jabbed the button, tugged the door open, and pulled out a bottle of orange soda, then wandered back to the front and leaned against the wall. A black and white mutt flopped, snoring under the steps. She pushed her hair up with one hand, thinking how all the curl must have fallen out with all that wind blowing through it. She guzzled the orange soda. The bottle was wet with cold sweat. She absentmindedly rubbed it on the back of her neck; a cold shiver coursed through her. She swatted at a fly buzzing past her nose. Across the road, a long line of pine trees stretched down a field. A pair of hawks floated high in the sky. The highway snaked into the distance like a black ribbon getting narrower and narrower until finally, way off, it was just a thin black line, like those drawings she used to do when she was little and still believed that stuff was simple.

"When had that been?" she thought and pulled again on her orange drink. The hawks circled in high loops and she wondered if their lives were as simple as they looked, or did they suffer anguish over not catching enough mice to eat or finding a mate or something of that nature.

A hawk spiraled closer to the old car then, and Ruby hopped back inside.

The gas station man paused, appraising the car, the crow, and then turned to Becka. "I found this under the hood."

Becka jumped. He held out a grease-stained manila envelope.

"Oh," she said, "what’s that?"

"Big envelope, I guess. Found it taped inside the hood." He chuckled. "Well, y’all are sure making a dull day interesting. You always drive an old beat-up Chevy with a crow inside and envelopes tempting engine fire?"

Becka hesitated. "Well of course, doesn’t everyone?" she said, smiling, and took the envelope from him, noticed her name scrawled across the front in blue smudged ink. Granny’s distinctive scrawl. It stunk of oil and the edges were tattered and torn from the silver tape. She stroked her finger across the handwriting and then pressed it. Something hard inside. She felt a strange ticking under her ribs.

"Thanks. How much do I owe you?"

"Eighty-five dollars."

She whistled.

"They made them with big tanks in those days."

"Dang, and I guess you only take cash?" She looked around for an ATM.

"No mam, we take cards. My coke machine is for fun."

She gave the man her card and crossed slowly back to Bertha, feeling the heft of the envelope, wondering what on earth her Granny had been up to and how she’d managed to keep this taped inside the hood of the car without it catching fire. She crawled back into Bertha and sat turning the envelope over in her hands. She started to open it, then stopped and bit her lip, trying to press back the wave of emotion erupting from somewhere deep, somewhere she didn’t know she had and didn’t want to visit.

Open it, Hope said.

Becka shook her head. Tears at the back of her eyes made her nose prick. "I just can’t open it," she said to Ruby, "not just yet."

"Have a blessed day," the man said as he handed her the card.

"You too." She put the envelope on the seat beside her, started the engine, and steered back onto the road. As she pulled away she glanced back. The man sat on his chair, leaning against the wall in the heat and the silence, with his black and white hound at his feet. Just being, she guessed. That must be how they did their days. She, on the other hand, was moving, and she was moving fast even if she didn’t know the destination, and to prove it she gunned Bertha’s engine so the tires screamed and she tore forward.

She streaked past small towns and open fields of tobacco and cotton now. She passed through Sea Grove and the North Carolina pottery makers. She stopped at one of the potteries and bought some mugs and talked about chickens to the woman who ran the place, and then she climbed back into Bertha and drove on. Presently, she came upon a sagging farm stand and slowed down. She could get some stuff for dinner, she thought.

The wooden crates in the front of the stand spilled over with red tomatoes, peaches, and watermelon split open to show off the pink of the flesh inside. She smiled at the woman behind the stand and asked for some corn, and then the tomatoes looked too good to pass up so she took a bag of those as well. The watermelon looked crisp and sweet and those were beautiful peaches. Her stomach grumbled. She decided to make a picnic of peaches and watermelon and eat it right there on the side of the road and watch the cars and see if there were any foreign license plates to count like she used to do when she was little and wondered where her mother was that day. Virginia? Kentucky? One day she’d seen a plate from New York and wondered if her mother had made it all the way up there, if she talked like a Yankee now, if she’d send her a model of the Statue of Liberty.

Today, there was hardly a car driving by, certainly not from a place as exotic as she imagined New York City to be. She left Bertha on the side of the road, with the sun beating down on her faded roof.

Lord, when did this girl stop believing in shade? Inez said, and Hope just sighed, her hands twisting nervously, her eyes on the envelope, sitting on the front seat.

Becka settled on a sandy spot under a tree, with her purse and bag of vegetables next to her. She pulled out the hunk of watermelon and sank her teeth into the pink crisp and let the juice run down her chin. She caught a seed on her tongue and rolled it around before spitting it and watching how far it would go before it landed. Two children stole up to her. They had hair the color of faded carrots and freckles scattered across their faces. They each clutched a hunk of watermelon. She smiled at them and then took another bite and spat two seeds spinning into the air. The children watched without speaking and then the boy, the bigger of the two, took a bite and spat his seed so that it landed in the dust next to Becka’s.

Becka laughed and took another bite and spat three seeds. They landed plop, plop, plop, next to the boy’s. And then his sister stood up and spit hers the furthest of them all, and then they were all biting into the melon and spitting seeds as fast as they could, laughing and choking on the crisp fruit. The sun burned high and hot overhead and the watermelon juice dried pink and sticky on their skin.

"Where you from?" the girl asked between bites; she’d run her fingers in the sand, and it caked in between her fingers, mingling with the melon juice.

"Greensboro."

They all thought about that for a minute and then took another bite and all three spit flat discs at the same time. Becka laughed.

"Uncle Roy lives up there in Greensboro. You know him?" the boy said.

"I don’t believe I know a Roy."

"Oh." He tugged on a tuft of crab grass. "Where you going to?"

"Don’t know. I reckon I’m running away. New York maybe, if my car will make the trip." Becka bit into her watermelon and sent a seed spiraling away from her.

"Hey, that was a good one. I bet y’all can’t beat that one."

"You ain’t really," the children said.

"Really what?"

"Running away," they shouted.

"I am too," she said, settling into the story. "Haven’t y’all ever in your lives thought about running away?"

"Grown-ups ain’t supposed to run away. What about your kids?"

Becka hesitated. "I don’t have any," she said after a minute.

"How come?"

She dug around in her purse without looking at the girl. She drew out a Kleenex and slowly began to wipe at the juice around her mouth. She didn’t think it would make a good story to tell them about how her babies had just never appeared and how her husband had delivered long lectures about what she must be doing wrong, that her womb wouldn’t latch onto a baby. How he’d never thought he’d marry someone that couldn’t have a baby. How now he looked at her like she was defective and he stopped making love to her. She picked off a piece of Kleenex stuck to her lip and turned to the girl. The girl was watching her carefully.

"Things don’t always turn out the way you plan, honey," she said and forced a smile.

The boy gnawed down to the rind of his melon and spat out the last four seeds so now a slew of seeds littered the ground and a couple of red ants came out of a hole and started trying to tug one of them away. Soon a whole swarm of ants appeared and worked at pulling the seed. The girl stood up and started dancing around.

"Watch out for them ants. They sting real bad. Watch out. Watch out. You’ll get stung. People die from that."

"Shut up," the boy said.

"Don’t tell her to shut up, honey." Becka held onto the girl’s hand. "I don’t think you’ll be dying today. Just come on over next to me, away from the ants." "So, where do you think I should take myself to?" she asked after a minute.

"The beach," the boy said. And the girl nodded her head; yes, the beach would be a fine idea, she thought.

"That’s a good idea. I think I’ll do that. It’s a lot closer than driving all the way up north. Thank you for helping me out." She stretched her legs and smoothed her skirt. "Well, I better get on my way then."

"Can we see your car before you go?" The boy scuffed the ground.

"Well sure."

She led them over to Bertha and pulled open the door. Ruby hopped into the driver’s seat and the girl screamed, half with terror and half laughing.

"That crow is yours?"

"Well, she isn’t mine, but she seems to be traveling with me."

The boy looked uncertain now too and started to back away.

"It’s alright, honey. Take a look. The crow is harmless."

Becka ran her hand along the faded blue top. It was already hot as an oven. On the dashboard, the electric clock clicked. A faint smell of lavender and lemons lingered over the seats. Becka’s heart began to thump.

"Cool," he said. "This is so cool. Maybe you are gonna get it fixed up one day."

"Maybe so," Becka said as she climbed in. "It sure was nice visiting with y’all. I hope you have a nice rest of your afternoon."

They nodded their heads and wandered back to the stand.

The smell of lavender and lemons was very strong now.

Becka shook her head and pressed the tips of her fingers across the bridge of her nose, then slipped into the front seat and pulled the door shut and sat, letting the heat, the lemon-lavender smell, and the clicking clock swarm around her until perspiration gathered at her temples. She sat and defied the stories hiding in the cracks in the blue leatherette to try and escape.

Inez, why can’t she see us?

Don’t know.

Becka sat up and brushed at the air like she was brushing at cobwebs. "Inez?" she said.

We’re right here.

Becka shrugged and slumped against the seat.

Hope thumped her fist against the blue leatherette, but it went right through like it was also just air.

She can smell us. Maybe we’re just spreading through the air like the sniffs of a pie baking. Maybe that’s all we are now, Inez said.

You mean we’re just an aroma hanging in the atmosphere?

Maybe.

Well, that’s a downright insult.

Becka pulled herself together. Tugged Bertha into gear and rolled back onto the highway.

Ornery child, Hope said as they traveled along. Why won’t she open that envelope? Make her do something, Inez.

Why do you think I can make her if you can’t? Inez sucked her teeth against her lips.

A gust of hot air hit Becka on the back of her neck. Just then Ruby sat up and began tearing at the envelope with her sharp beak.

"Give me that!" She veered sharply off the road, bumped along the verge, and came to a stop. She snatched the envelope away from Ruby.

"What on earth, I don’t know what’s inside of this envelope, Ruby." She reached down and slipped her finger under the flap of the envelope, tore it open, and peered inside.

She gasped. "Oh my lord…"

Two hard bundles of money, bound together with crisp white bands, and a smaller, cream-colored, letter-sized envelope with no label tumbled into her lap.

Oh, my Lord, she thought, and picked up the money then sat, staring straight ahead, her heart pounding. She shuffled the corner to see if all the bills were hundreds, and when she saw that they were, she said, "This is a whole lot of money. A whole, whole lot of money," and sank her head onto the back of the seat.

Twenty-five thousand dollars, Hope whispered to Inez.

MM-mm-mm, Inez said, you can do something with that kind of money.

Yes, Mam, I believe you can. Hope clapped her hands and laughed. You could leave a situation and stay gone from it if you chose to do so.

Becka jerked her head up. What if someone was watching her? Seen all that money. She stuffed the packet into the bottom of her purse, licked her lips, put her hand to her chest, and sat trying to calm her breath before she opened the letter. When she pulled out the letter, an unlabeled key and a tattered business card slid into her lap.

She turned the key over in her hand. The letter must explain, she thought. Ruby hopped over and closed her beak over the key.

"Hey, quit that."

Becka carefully put the key into the zippered inner pocket in her purse. Next to her tiny diary.

She put the letter to her nose and inhaled deeply. Lavender. She folded her lips and slowly opened the folded paper. More treasure. Carefully pressed between the leaves were two black and white photos. One of Inez, with her head tilted to the side, standing with Becka as a child beside Bertha in the driveway. Inez wasn’t smiling but not scowling either. Just facing the camera with her head tilted to the side. The other photo was older, 1930 it said on the back. A young woman sat on the beach, wearing a black strapless one-piece bathing suit, her head also tilted to the side, an impish sassy grin on her face. Granny, at the beginning of her adult life, hopeful like her name, before disappointment set in.

"Oh," Becka said, and began to read.

Dear Becka,

I’m sitting here in bed with doctors fussing around me. They are young and afraid of my disease and so they mask it with briskness and an alarming patronizing manner. At one time I suppose this would have made me angry but there are better things to think about right now. I have a picture of you, holding up two blue crabs on the dock in Murrel’s Inlet. You were such a little urchin, scrambling down in the marsh barefooted and shirtless. Do you remember our times at the beach, our drives, the picnic baskets Inez used to fix us, the fried chicken and potato salad and always some sweet tea or lemonade? And Bertha. Do you remember Bertha? Do you know I still drove this old car, right up until they put me in here with the po-faced doctors? And Becka, this should make you laugh, it turns out she is worth some money. I quote from a car magazine I happened to see last time I was at the drug store before I got sick.

“The 1957 Chevy Nomad is the cream of the crop! This old classic is something car enthusiasts’ lust after.”

So, I know if you are reading this you will have Bertha and know that along with my savings you will have a little nest egg. Something of your own. To find out about the key you will have to go down to the island and see Pete. His name is on the card. He knows what to do. Calling him won’t work. You must go there and talk to him in person.

Inez came to see me before she died. Said she couldn’t leave this earth with us still mad at each other. That moved me, because she was another person I needed to make apologies with. It transpires that I have not been good at apologizing, so I am thankful that she came to me. She told me to be careful to watch out for signs. I must confess, I didn’t know what she was talking about. I don’t believe I have ever seen a portent hanging in the air. I don’t believe I ever knew when danger was coming. But now I see that maybe I had just closed my eyes. I believe Inez knew something about signs and that they are, indeed, all around us. They get passed on to us in all sorts of funny ways, although I can’t say I really understand them, I do think maybe we ought to open our eyes and pay attention.

If I’d paid attention to omens maybe I would have seen our difficulties coming and would have known how to stop them. I realize now that I was too hard on you. I just never could stand to see people making bad mistakes. I’m so sorry honey. I have missed you every day and I was just too stubborn to call you up and get you back. I’m sorry I let your Mama carry you off from me. I’m sorry about your stepdaddy, I’m sorry Ronnie King turned out to be a lemon. I’m sorry we didn’t speak after you married him.

Becka I’m sorry with all my heart that I walked away from you when you probably needed me most. My pride and my self-righteousness got in my way, and I am going to go to the grave knowing I did that. I hope Bertha and my cash savings help you out. There should be twenty-five thousand dollars in cash right here. I think you can get even more than that for Bertha if you ever decide to sell her. Although she still runs pretty good for an old lady, as they say in the car shop.

I tried to call you the other day and then I lost my nerve. I am sorry about that too.

You will always be my precious little granddaughter,

Love your granny, the one who loved you the very most

Hope Bowen.

Becka bowed her head and let her hands sink into her lap. Pay attention to signs . . . Had she ever seen a sign?

You gave her Pete’s card? I think I know what you are up to, but what is the key for?

Hope smiled. That is for Becka to find out.

Becka folded her arms across her chest. The sun sat lower in the sky now. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. A dog barked from somewhere far away. Two yelps, then silence.

A yellow butterfly flitted past, then caught on an imperceptible breeze and floated away. The smell of baked dirt wafted through the window. There had been another life. Another Becka. Could she dig back to that other life? She studied the business card.

Pete’s Crab Shack. Open mic every Thursday.

What was Granny up to? I need to go and see her grave. I need to drive to the island and see my Granny’s grave and see if I can find Inez’s grave too, while I’m at it.

"What do you say, Ruby? Do you want to fly home now or come along with me to the island?"

Ruby nestled down into the seat, blinked, and made a little cooing sound.

Becka smiled and stroked the bird’s head. "I’ll take that as a yes."

She reached for her phone reflexively, then paused. "I could call King, but he already said he won’t be home for dinner." Her stomach clenched. She pressed her lips in a hard little line and put her phone back on the seat. Then picked it up again and texted him.

"I’m headed to the beach. Well, the Island actually. I’ll be home tomorrow sometime."

The little ellipses bubbled. Then stopped. Then started again. Then nothing. She stared at her phone. Waiting. But still nothing.

"What?" she said.

She pressed King’s name. It went straight to voicemail. She sucked in a breath and then said, "Well King, I don’t really understand what’s going on with you. I can see you read my messages and started to answer." She pursed her lips. "Well, I am going to visit my Granny’s grave. I’ll be home tomorrow. Call me when you can. Love you. Bye."

Becka rubbed her hand on the back of her neck. She examined the pictures once more. Inez seemed to be challenging her. Why had Granny thought King was a lemon? Her mother loved King.

Come on girl, drive.

Irritation coursed through her. She felt pressure from every which way, like the car was full of people shouting at her to get back on the road.

Ruby hopped onto the dashboard and cawed loudly in Becka’s face.

"Stop," Becka shouted, blinking. "OK. OK. I’m going to the island."

Becka shivered in the wet hot air. "I have no idea what is going on. I feel like I drank a pitcher of margaritas all by myself," she muttered.

"Ok then." She plugged the island into the maps on her phone.

Sha la la. Let’s fly.

And so they flew, stoned with disorientation, heart thumping, palms sweating, singing along with the rhythm of the tires humming down the road.

Sha la la.

Newton Cemetery, Bennettsville, South Carolina 

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