Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [55]
A bird calls. “A warbler,” says Patricia. “Ain’t too many of them around here. Oh, hear that? A bobwhite. Good eating. Plenty of them over by the levee in the blackberry canes.” She laughs. “I said too much. I’m showing off. ’Cause of your smooth talk.”
“I love blackberries. I’ll go picking with you.”
“Oh no you won’t. Not over there. I ain’t never seen such a sight of chiggers as Charles had when he got done blackberry picking there last season.”
“What are chiggers?”
She laughs. “A boy who don’t know about chiggers, well, that boy blessed. And I ain’t going to unbless you. Wild coffee grow by the levee, too.”
“Does it taste good?”
“Sometimes on a Friday when the money gone and there ain’t no more till we get paid after sundown Saturday, we run out of regular coffee, and my mamma will make a pot from a single bean. Like tan water. So it’s good to have wild coffee beans, too.”
I love the way she talks. “I could listen to you all day.”
“Ha! You saying I talk too much?”
“No. Not at all. I’m serious.”
And so we chatter all the way to Milliken’s Bend.
twenty
We stop at the edge of town. “Should we go to Miss Clarrie’s now?” I ask.
“Business first.”
“Then I’ll meet you in a half hour,” I say. “Is that all right?”
“No, sir, it is not all right. I want to go in every shop that say I can, and for them that don’t, I want to window-shop.”
“I’ll window-shop with you.”
“No, sir, you will not. Don’t act like a booger that you can’t thump off. We will not be caught together. If we pass one another, we can say, ‘Good day.’ I’ll see you at Miss Clarrie’s at eleven. Listen for the church bell. Her house up the road behind the church, way way up and to the right. They’s a birdbath out front.”
And she runs off.
I walk down the business side of the main street of Milliken’s Bend. All the homes are on the other side, neat and orderly. They’ve got gardens and shrubs out front and trees with purple blossoms and wide, waxy leaves. A chicken’s pecking in the flower bed over there, clucking nonstop. This is the prettiest town ever.
The smell of teas and spices and coffee makes me stop in front of the first open shop door. But I don’t dare go in, because I saw Patricia enter. She told me to stay away from her. A man sits on a chair on the sidewalk whittling soft driftwood with a butcher knife. He’s making a toy horse. Rocco would love that. If I had pennies on me, I’d buy it for him. I can almost hear his squeal of delight. I blink back tears. The man looks at me, then looks down again, but it’s not unfriendly. Just quiet.
The next store smells like tobacco. A sign says the man will roll a cigar for three cents. Francesco rolls our cigars himself, but the ones in the window look tighter. Maybe they’re better. Maybe once I get my hands on some pennies again, I’ll buy Francesco a store-rolled cigar, too.
I enter the third store. “Calogero!” Salvatore races over and we hug and dance around the grocery store. “It’s been so long. I miss you. How’s Cirone? Come on into the back and see Papà.” He pulls me into the rear of the store.
“Calogero!” Beppe puts down a crate and runs to me. We hug and he slaps my back. “You look good,” he says in Sicilian. “And how’re my brothers-in-law?”
“Everyone’s fine. You look good, too.”
“Business is good. Almost no one around Milliken’s Bend shops at the plantation stores anymore. They know they get better fruits and vegetables at better prices from me.” Beppe’s strutting just like Francesco; I can’t help but smile. “And if they can’t afford it, well, we figure something out. Come with me, so you can see for yourself.” He leads me out onto the front sidewalk and points. “A man with a family of four children, he put new shingles up on this roof. See how good they look? When it rains, not a drop, not one single drop comes through. So I’ll feed his family for the winter months, when there’s hardly any work. Good business, right? And with other people I trade other