The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair Read online

  “Vienna,” I said, “tell me about Gaysie.”

  “Gaysie,” she said. “I like Gaysie.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “Focus, Vienna! What do you know about Gaysie?”

  “Oh, she’s fun! But she can’t run very fast and she has a big bottom.”

  “Vienna, remember Wilbur?”

  Vienna lit up. “I like Wilbur!”

  “Did Gaysie like Wilbur?”

  “One time she stole his tractor!”

  “Stole it?”

  Vienna broke into peals of laughter, something I hadn’t heard her do for a very long time. “Actually, it was my idea! I am a good driver—a better driver than Gaysie! Can we go ride it now?”

  “No! Because we can’t find Wilbur—he’s gone.”

  “Gus is gone too,” she said sadly. “Gaysie buried him.”

  “Where?!”

  “In the backyard.” Vienna’s voice became a conspiratorial whisper. “She says not to tell!”

  Then she tilted her head at me. “She’s not supposed to keep burying things.”

  “Does she bury people, too?”

  “She does?”

  I sighed. How much could I really trust anything Vienna said?

  She peered at my eyes. “Are you sad?”

  “No! Just forget it.”

  “Where’s Jed?”

  “Work.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Vienna, I’m going to tell you a secret.”

  She leaned closer and clapped her hands. “Oh goody!”

  “And I know you’ll keep the secret because you won’t remember this conversation in five minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Gaysie killed Wilbur,” I whispered.

  Her eyes became wide circles. “She did?”

  “I’m sure of it. I just can’t prove it.”

  Vienna scrunched up her forehead. “Me neither.”

  She smacked her lips. “I’m hungry.”

  • • •

  I fell asleep on my father’s bed that night, Bitty and Vienna flanked on either side of me. I awoke to Vienna talking to my father.

  “Jed?”

  “Be quiet,” I said sleepily. She stopped momentarily before resuming.

  “Jed?” I tried to cover the noise with an extra pillow over my head.

  It was quiet. For ten blissful seconds.

  “Jed?”

  I heard the soft snore of my father on the cot next to us.

  “Jed?

  “Jed?”

  “What? What is it?” my father asked.

  Later my father would tell me that she liked to sit up and stare at him until he answered.

  “Jed . . . Jed?

  “Are you going to take me to breakfast?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Where’s Gwyn?”

  I opened my eyes.

  “Jed?”

  “Shhh.”

  “Jed? What’s for breakfast . . . Jed?”

  All. Night. Long.

  She didn’t say my name again.

  The next day we were all tired, and nobody brought up moving Vienna back home with us full-time. Not Nana. Not even my father.

  • • •

  On Saturday, Bitty and I fed Willowdale some hay, checked her water, and headed to Micah’s house, hoping for a truce. It was the Saturday before going back to school, and we had planned on going along to take Candy to the bus stop. Nana was too busy with Vienna to have objections.

  Candy was still alive when Bitty and I arrived, having survived Gaysie’s threat, but there was a gulf of tension the size of the Mississippi between us all.

  Gaysie loaded Candy’s luggage on the top rack of her old gray station wagon, the back bumper tied on with bungee cord, the left side flopping up and down and hitting the road like a loud, clunking concerto. There was not a car in the world that was louder or uglier than that one.

  Candy sat up front, her heavy perfume wafting to the back, making me feel nauseated. She began to talk about the long hours she would have to endure on the bus and the smelly, working-class citizens she was bound to encounter.

  “Remember, Mother, we grew up on a pig farm.”

  Candy sniffed. “I refuse to dignify that comment. Do you ever find,” Candy said, turning to me, “that sometimes three’s a crowd?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s really four, with Bitty.”

  “The first time I met Jimmy was when he jumped on me like a wild wildebeest,” Candy said.

  Jimmy was giving Candy the most spectacular silent treatment, looking out the open window like Candy wasn’t even talking, his Mohawk blowing all over the place.

  “He fell out of a tree. He didn’t jump on you,” Gaysie said. “You wouldn’t guess it, but that Jimmy’s got a heart of gold.”

  Micah patted Jimmy on the shoulder, and Jimmy smiled.

  This was true. I gave Jimmy credit for Micah’s survival. Micah wouldn’t be standing with both legs tucked into silver, curly laces or wearing purple capes or bunny foo foo sweaters if it wasn’t for Jimmy. And for the first time, really, I realized what Micah did for Jimmy. Micah was soft and sweet, and I think he kept Jimmy from being too hard. I thought of the handprint on his face. Maybe Jimmy would have become a Creeper without Micah. I dismissed the thought that Gaysie had played a role in any of Jimmy’s better qualities.

  “Guinevere is a girl who appreciates her friendships,” Gaysie said. “I like that!” She proceeded to cross three lanes of traffic without looking, the entire highway laying on their horns in protest. My stomach lurched.

  Upon arrival, Gaysie opened her mother’s door. Candy carefully poofed her platinum hair and walked to the back windows.

  “Micah, I love you,” Candy called, blowing kisses.

  “Bye, Grandma,” he called, waving.

  “You remember, Micah,” she yelled. “You remember that YOU. ARE. A. BOY. Don’t you forget it!” she said, pointing her long finger at him.

  Micah looked confused.

  We watched Candy give Gaysie a hug, then suggest a new hairstyle, before she walked away in her leopard-print purse and white spandex pants, leaving Gaysie standing alone on the curb in her ratty jeans and flannel shirt. A stranger mother-daughter match I never saw. Gaysie got in, the car groaning under her weight. She rubbed her reddish-purple scar before finally putting the car into drive.

  “Don’t forget Micah,” Jimmy cackled, punching him in the shoulder. “You. Are. A. Boy.”

  “Ouch,” Micah said, rubbing his shoulder. “I know I’m a boy! Why does she keep saying that?”

  “Your grandmother has very little imagination, that’s why,” Gaysie said. She glanced at me. “You’re looking a little green—sit in the front.” I climbed over, sitting as far away from her as possible, and held my stomach. A mile from the bus station Gaysie exhaled deeply and drove with her eyes closed a frighteningly long time until roaring, “Hallelujah! She’s gone!”

  I had a revelatory thought: Between Candy, Gaysie, and Vienna, maybe Vienna wasn’t such a bad choice after all.

  “My,” Gaysie said. “What an eventful day. Jimmy, you get your body parts back in the car this very moment!” But I hung my head out the window as Gaysie laughed. “Oh, oh, oh,” she said. “Stop it! I have to pee. What in the world will you tell your nana?”

  “I don’t think we should tell her anything,” Bitty said. This made Gaysie laugh harder until she suddenly swerved over to the side of a long road flanked by cornstalks, her face deadly serious. I looked around us. We were truly in the middle of nowhere.

  I stole a glance at Gaysie, my hand over the door handle.

  “I invited her to come, you know,” Gaysie said. “Because there comes a time in your life when you have to make peace with your past, good or bad, all of it.

  “My mother was not a kind person,” Gaysie said, hitting the steering wheel, her knuckles white. “But I have to make peace with it, and you know what? I thi
nk I might almost be there. Thank you, Guinevere, for helping me do that!”

  “Me?”

  “Why, yes, your moving here has brought back memories of a wonderful time of life for me. I’ve realized that I’m actually quite a lucky woman. Not everyone is given the gift of friendship.”

  I couldn’t help but be a little bit pleased. But I also felt a little sad for her, and suddenly proud of the way my father not only defended Gaysie Cutter, but befriended her—as misguided as he might be.

  She inhaled and shook out her big arms like she was shaking off fleas. “Guinevere, I’d advise you not to wait as long as I did.”

  “For what?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “To make things right in your heart. Life doesn’t always wait for your own personal timetable.”

  Gaysie started the car again and swerved onto the dirt road. “My mother. Even Wilbur couldn’t stomach her,” Gaysie said. “Great balls of fire, I miss that man.”

  I glanced at the backseat, where Jimmy, Micah, and Bitty sat. We had not spoken of Wilbur since our fight, but it was coming to a head—I could feel it. Like Gaysie said, life doesn’t always wait for our own personal timetable.

  CHAPTER 30

  FOR DAYS AFTER CANDY LEFT, Gaysie sat in the old living room rocking chair. It was just like when Wilbur disappeared. Back and forth she rocked, not saying a word, as if she were rocking all of the sad and bad out of her life. She kept her hands in her lap, her eyes closed, her lips pursed tightly together, and every once in a while she would whisper vehemently, “I am not my mother. I am not my mother!”

  Micah said Gaysie always needed about a week of Candy detox. After the detox Gaysie shook herself out like a dog, rose from the rocking chair, and looked out the window.

  “Spring is coming early,” she said, eyeing the sky. “And so is rain.” She turned around to face us. “Guinevere, one of the things your mother likes most is rain. When it starts, you should take her out to play.”

  She turned to Micah and Jimmy.

  “And to you I issue a warning! Once the rain begins, you are not to go down to the creek, do you hear? I’ve been having dreams again. As you well know, children die from being stupid.” She gave us all her hairy eyeball until we nodded. “This town is not at all prepared for a flood, and it could well be the apocalypse!” We watched Gaysie march away toward town in search of sandbags.

  Much as I hated to admit it, Gaysie was right: Spring was early and the rain came. I loved rain like I loved mysteries, Willowdale, and textbook anatomy—it was that good. We stomped, jumped, and waded in large puddles in the backyard. We made forts to protect us from the impending apocalypse.

  Gaysie was also right about Vienna liking rain. Many an afternoon, my father brought her to play with us outside, and this is when I enjoyed her most. Dancing in the rain, I could almost see her more as my friend, not my mother. She laughed more, and though her movements were clumsy, she was playful and funny, not yelling and irritable. Her blond curls became heavy and longer with dripping water, making her look like an impish elf with an uncanny resemblance to Bitty. Also, for the first time, Bitty had school friends over. Since I knew I’d always have favorite-playmate status, it was a nice sort of relief. Watching us, my father looked almost completely happy.

  Not everything about the rain was peachy though. Rain melted the snow so quickly that the frozen ground couldn’t soak it up fast enough. And when it began to flood, nobody talked about anything else but rain, rain, rain.

  When I complained of the monotonous rain chatter, my father reminded me that Crow was a farming community whose survival depended on weather cycles.

  Finally, when Bitty and I were drawing up Noah’s ark plans, the rain eased. We then had a new problem: The Crow River began to rise.

  “Remember when school was canceled because of the flood?” Vienna asked Nana.

  “Yes,” Nana said, wringing her hands, watching out the window.

  “I remember too,” my father said. “Bad business. Whole farms were washed away. Doesn’t happen often, but it looks like this might be our year.”

  I began sleeping with two life jackets under my bed.

  School was canceled. Shops emptied, dental appointments were dropped, even Petey’s Diner had a sign that said GONE FISHIN’, which was funny since Petey always said he was too large to sit in a boat. Sandbags arrived from Des Moines, and when we ran out of sandbags, and the fields next to the river began to fill with water, the governor announced on television that Iowa was in a state of emergency. Nana did not share my excitement.

  Like Gaysie, she spent hours watching the river out her kitchen window. One evening Gaysie came to check on us, to make sure we were prepared for the end of the world. She stomped her feet happily on Nana’s entryway floor, dirt and water splattering on the floor and walls before Gaysie went on to the next neighbor. My eyes burned after her. The flood may have been a diversion, but I hadn’t forgotten about Wilbur, like she apparently had. Was she joyful or worried that evidence was being washed away or washed ashore from her backyard?

  “Gaysie Cutter has always done best in a crisis,” Nana said, looking after her. “I don’t know what most of the people in this town will do if their fields wash away, but Gaysie is not someone I worry about. I’ll say this: Gaysie Cutter’s a survivor.” She sighed to indicate a dire situation and to spur my imagination into a wild torrent; our whole town was going to be washed away in one big tsunami wave.

  Without any prodding from my father, Nana stiffly suggested we all go to church together, including Vienna.

  “Should I bring the duct tape?” I asked.

  “Guinevere!”

  Nana wasn’t the only one thinking of church. The entire town showed up except for one person: Gaysie. I was sorely disappointed, as her dramatic way of “channeling the Lord” was far more entertaining than Pastor Weare’s.

  “Why is everyone here?” I whispered to Nana. We’d gone to church a few times, but never with so many others.

  She looked down at me in surprise. “The flood, that’s why.” She used a hymnal to impatiently fan herself.

  “So it’s just ’cause we want something?”

  She looked at me again and didn’t answer.

  “The Lord giveth!” Pastor Weare cried.

  “And the Lord taketh away!” Nana said under her breath, her eyes closed, her head bowed.

  Spiritual conviction was lost on only one person.

  Vienna loudly chewed her lollipop to get to the gum in the middle. Small pieces of crystallized green sugar fell onto her lap, as she carefully fingered and nibbled on the candy. She licked her fingers noisily and wiped the sticky slobber on her wheelchair handles.

  “If Crow washes away, let’s make a deal,” I whispered to my father. “You can take Vienna back to New York, and I’ll take Willowdale and Bitty to the Alamo. Deal?”

  He patted my leg. Deal.

  • • •

  Just when it was getting exciting, the crisis waned, the flooding slowed, and the sun began to shine. Crow began the very slow process of drying out.

  We were hanging out of Micah’s window looking at Gaysie’s backyard, a mess of calf-deep water, broken cornstalks, ruined flowers, and an odd assortment of holes and junk.

  “Look at that old blanket floating over there,” Jimmy said. “Wasn’t that Ernie’s?”

  “Ernie?” I asked.

  “My favorite parakeet,” Micah said. “Died last year.”

  “It’ll be like dinosaur hunting,” Jimmy said, looking through my binoculars.

  “Do you think we buried José deep enough?” I asked.

  “Deeper than the goose,” Jimmy answered.

  Nobody said it, but I wondered if we were all thinking the same thing: With all this unearthing, would Wilbur Truesdale finally emerge?

  Gaysie was too busy and tired to comment on her unearthed personal cemetery. We didn’t see her for days while she sandbagged with the men in town. When she came home she yelle
d from downstairs, “I’ve peeled my clothes off down here. Hide your eyes ’cause I’m comin’ up!”

  Micah remained at his typewriter, but Jimmy, Bitty, and I dove for cover under Micah’s bed.

  “I’ve worked to the bone,” Gaysie said, stomping up the stairs. “And I’m dead tired. I’ll be in bed for the next three days,” she said, passing by. “Do not eat any raw bacon and do NOT, under any circumstances, wake me.” We took a deep breath when we finally heard her bedroom door shut. She suddenly flung it back open and yelled, “Unless the house is burning down . . . Micah?”

  “Yep!”

  “And I mean really burning down!”

  “As opposed to just kind of burning down?” Jimmy yelled back, still under the bed with me.

  “You’re a pain in my arse, Jimmy Quintel!” The door slammed, a bed creaked, and almost immediately, Gaysie’s snores echoed through the house.

  I turned to Jimmy under the bed, our noses just inches apart.

  A wicked look came across Jimmy’s face.

  “It’s time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Meet me down by the creek in fifteen minutes,” he said, pushing me out from under the bed. He took a flying leap out the window and sailed across the backyard on the zip line.

  “Jimmy!” I yelled, running to the window.

  “Shh!” Micah said. “You do not want to wake up Ma.”

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “Micah,” Bitty said. “Nana and Gaysie said not to go down there. What’s he doing?”

  “Jimmy found us some boats,” Micah said. He looked up from his typewriter. Even through a broken right lens, I could see the fear.

  But Micah stood. And this, you see, was always his greatest strength and weakness. Micah would follow Jimmy anywhere.

  “He made good on his plan. He’s gonna sail us to the Mississippi.”

  • • •

  We wore our rain boots as we tromped through the wet and muddy field, Micah holding up his long purple cape. I saw no recognizable human corpses, just fields of ruined, wet crops intermingled with odd miscellaneous items: a baby blanket, a small spoon, a ruined photograph, a dog bowl, and an old clock. Apparently, Gaysie had buried more than pets, and she sure hadn’t gone down six feet!