A Garden Of Earthly Delights Part 5

"Why'd you act so funny with that b.a.s.t.a.r.d back there?" Rosalie said. Her freckles gave her a sandy, quizzical look. "You acted real funny."

"I didn't either."

"Yes you did."

"Like h.e.l.l I did."

"You talked different-like Nancy or somebody."

"I never talked like Nancy!"

"I was scared, I thought you an' him were gonna leave me," Rosalie sneered. "Thought you were gonna run off with him."

Clara laughed contemptuously, but she felt nervous. She knew what Rosalie meant but was just as puzzled over it as Rosalie was.

After a while they jumped down. Rosalie lost her balance and had to push herself up off the ground with one hand. She made a face as if she'd hurt herself. "You all right?" Clara said. But Rosalie straightened up and was all right in the next instant. The religious medal her father had given her showed now at the throat of her dress, catching the sunlight.

They made their way through the cars and came out to the road.

"Clara, you afraid?"

"No."

They came into town on the main street, heading right in. Both felt their knees tremble a little. Their eyes grabbed at people's faces as if looking for someone they knew. Once in a while people stared back at them. A boy of about sixteen, leaning against a car, watched them go by and grinned at them.

"Thinks he's so smart," Rosalie muttered.

They lingered in front of store windows, pressing their hands and noses against the gla.s.s. When they moved on there were spots where they'd touched the gla.s.s. They stared at the bottles and boxes and pictures of handsome people smiling out at them in the drugstore window, and at the old dead flies at the bottom, and at the strange green thing made of gla.s.s with water in it that hung down from a gold chain. The smell of food made their mouths water violently. They moved on slowly, fascinated by the great confused display in the five-and-ten window. Clara tried to look at everything, every mysterious object, by itself. There were skirts and dresses laid out, and socks, and lamps, and spools of thread, and purses, toys with wheels, pencils, book bags like the kind they had noticed other children bringing to school in the past. Pearl necklaces, silver bracelets, jars of perfume, lipstick in gleaming gold tubes. And bags of candy, cellophane bags so that you could see the chocolate candies inside. Clara's eyes ached.

"C'mon, let's go in," Rosalie said. She pulled at Clara and Clara hung back. "What's wrong, you afraid?"

"I don't want to go in."

"What? Why not?"

She stared at Clara contemptuously, then turned to go in. Clara watched her push the door open and walk right inside as if she had been doing things like this all her life. After a second she hurried in behind Rosalie. Rosalie said, "I been in stores like this lots of times."

There were a few other people browsing through the store, all women. Clara and Rosalie followed one young woman who carried a baby, anxious to imitate her. She paused to examine a pair of scissors. Clara came up to the counter after the woman left and looked at the scissors, wis.h.i.+ng she could buy them. Nancy would like her better if she brought her back a present like that.

She felt the dime in her pocket again. Her fingers were beginning to smell from it. Rosalie had her mother's black change purse out. She counted the coins inside. "I guess I'm gonna buy somethin," she said. Clara looked around shyly. A salesgirl was leaning across a counter to talk to another salesgirl. Both wore cotton dresses and looked quite young. Clara stared at them, trying to make out their conversation; she could not imagine what it would be like to be one of those girls.

"I'm gonna work in one of these places someday," she said to Rosalie.

"Yeah, lots of luck."

Rosalie was examining tubes of lipstick. She handled them carefully and with respect. The salesgirl, a woman of about twenty-five, watched them without much interest. She had glamorous red lips and arched eyebrows. Clara stared at her until the girl's expression changed to let her know that she should look at something else. "These are all nice," Rosalie said, loud enough for the salesgirl to hear. Clara stood behind her, a few feet from the counter. She was fascinated by the way everything gleamed. The lipstick tubes were made of gold. There were some small plastic combs for sale, all colors; they cost only ten cents. Clara wanted one of the combs suddenly, but she had intended to buy Roosevelt a present with part of her dime.

"I wish I could get one of them," she muttered in Rosalie's ear.

"Go on, buy one."

"I can't...."

"I'm gonna buy this one," Rosalie said. She handed the tube of lipstick and the fifty-cent piece to the girl. Clara watched each part of the procedure, so that when she was a salesgirl she would know what to do. She thought she could do it as well as this salesgirl, who was a little slow.

"Thanks an' y'all come back," the girl said tonelessly.

Rosalie walked over to another aisle and Clara followed her. Rosalie took the lipstick out of the bag and dabbed some on her mouth, then she rubbed her lips together. "You want some?" she said to Clara. Clara liked the way the lipstick smelled. It was a smell she could not place, something new and glamorous. "I better not, Pa might get mad," she said sadly.

"Hey, why didn't you buy one of them combs?"

"I only got a dime."

"What're you gonna buy, then?"

"Some toy for Roosevelt ..."

"h.e.l.l, get something for yourself."

They came to the toy counter. A fat blond woman with cheerful pink cheeks was in charge. "Can I help you little ladies?" she said. Clara and Rosalie did not look at her. Their faces were warm.

"How much is that there?" Clara said. It was the first time she had talked to a salesgirl and her words came all in a rush.

"That airplane? Honey, that's twelve cents."

Clara stared at the airplane. Then she realized she could not afford it. "I can give you the two cents," Rosalie said, nudging her.

"No, never mind."

"Oh, Christ ..."

Clara could feel the salesgirl and Rosalie watching her. She pointed to a bag of marbles. "How much is this?"

"Honey, that's a quarter. That's expensive."

"Go on and buy the airplane, what the h.e.l.l," Rosalie said. She was leaning against the counter in a way that surprised Clara; she looked as if she'd been shopping in stores like this all her life.

"How much is this?" Clara said, pointing at something blindly.

"Honey, that's got real rubber tires, you see them? That's expensive."

Clara swallowed. Her face was hot. She would remember this moment all her life, she thought-the colorful toys, her sweaty fingers closed about the dime, the saleswoman's pity, Rosalie's contempt. "This one," she said, "what about this?"

"That's just a dime, honey."

It was an ugly little doll without clothes. Clara did not want it but had to buy it. "Here," she said, thrusting the dime at the woman. "I'll buy this."

She stared at the saleswoman's pudgy hands, waiting. The sales-woman did everything quickly and dropped the doll in a bag. "Here y'are, sweetie," she said, stooping so that her smile would be in Clara's range of vision. "You come back again real soon, huh?"

Clara took the bag from her and hurried away.

Outside, she discovered she was trembling. Rosalie ran out behind her. "You act crazy or somethin," she said. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothin."

"Why the h.e.l.l'd you buy that c.r.a.ppy old thing?"

"Shut up."

"Shut up yourself-"

"You shut up first!"

Clara walked stiffly ahead of Rosalie. Her lips shaped the words she would have liked to say to Rosalie, except she and Rosalie had fought already and she knew Rosalie could beat her.

"Act like G.o.dd.a.m.n stupid white trash," Rosalie hissed.

"You know what you can do."

"I got fifteen cents left, all for myself."

"You know what you can do with it, too."

"Go to h.e.l.l."

Clara stopped at a curb. There were no cars on the street. She held the paper bag up near her chest so that if anyone looked, they would know she had bought something. Rosalie waited behind her for a few seconds, then Clara turned. The girls looked shyly at each other.

"Let's go up this way," Rosalie said.

She was pointing up a side street. They walked along together as if they hadn't argued. The street was bounded on both sides by a dirt walk and by buildings that looked empty. One of them was an old church; its windows were boarded up and weeds grew everywhere. "I want to go to church sometime," Clara said.

"We went once, it was lousy. Pa was snorin."

"Did he fall asleep?"

"He can fall asleep anywhere-out in the field if he wanted to."

"My pa-" Clara thought of what to say, wanting to say something, but she knew she hadn't better say it: that her father sometimes did not even sleep at night, but stumbled outside to walk around and smoke, all by himself. He was like a stranger then, when he woke her up at night, stumbling over her and her brothers on his way out. He would never say anything.

They were pa.s.sing old frame houses. On a porch two withered little women watched them. Clara and Rosalie lowered their eyes as if in shame at being so young. They walked faster. It was hot in the sunlight but they did not mind. Clara saw that there was a smear of lipstick on Rosalie's lower lip and she felt a tinge of jealousy.

"O.K., kid," Rosalie said, "want to see something?"

She took a comb out of her pocket-a red plastic comb like the ones Clara had seen. "What's that?" Clara said.

"It's for you, stupid."

She held out the comb for Clara.

"Where'd you get that from?"

"From the bean field, stupid."

Clara took it wonderingly. But Rosalie had more to show: another tube of lipstick, this one with flashy pink jewels on it, and a spool of gold thread, and the celluloid airplane, and some tiny limp colored things that Clara could not identify.

"What's that?" she asked breathlessly.

Rosalie pulled them apart. They were made of rubber, blue and red and green. She put the end of one to her mouth and blew. It was a balloon.

Clara clapped her hands over her mouth to stop her laughter. "How'd you get all them things?"

Rosalie held out the airplane to her. "I told you-from the bean field. Ain't you seen things like this out in the bean field?"

"You givin this to me?"

"For your little brat brother. Go on, take it."

"It's awful nice...."

Rosalie shrugged her shoulders. Clara looked at the things, biting her lip. They were such a surprise, such gifts. She tried to run the comb through her hair but it caught right away on some snarls.

She and Rosalie walked along with their arms linked. "You're awful nice, Rosalie," Clara said. Rosalie laughed like a boy. "I shouldn't of been mean, back there," Clara said. "Hey, what if you get caught?"

"So what?"

"What if they put you in jail?"

"I'm gonna get in trouble anyway, so what's the difference?" Rosalie said. Her mouth was twisted down.

"Huh? What kind of trouble?"

"You'll find out."

Their arms fell loose of each other, as if by accident. Rosalie said in a sneering voice, "Bet you'd be afraid to take things." Her face was slightly flushed, as if she had just said something she regretted. "You're a little baby sometimes."

"I don't want no police after me."

"h.e.l.l, they don't get you. People holler at you, that's all."

"Did they ever catch you?"

"Sure, three times. So what? n.o.body put me in jail."

"Were you scared?"

"The first time."

"Did they tell your pa?"