Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [19]
The Secret
BOBBY WOULD BE the first one to discover Beatrice’s secret. One rainy morning Dorothy looked out the window in the kitchen and saw that it was not letting up and told Bobby he better go get Beatrice. He had just finished his breakfast, said O.K., and started for the door when his mother stopped him.
“Bobby, take the umbrella.”
Bobby moaned. He did not mind going to get Beatrice—he liked her—but he did mind having to take the umbrella. Muttering to himself, he went to the hall closet and rummaged around behind the heavy winter coats his mother had hanging there and pulled out the large black umbrella he despised with a passion. The huge multispoked creature had tortured him for years. Besides being almost as big as he was, it had a mind of its own and was mean and ornery. One spoke was always off and by the time he wrestled it to the ground three or four more had popped off. Then there was the problem of maneuvering it out the back door without falling down the stairs. Mother Smith said never to open an umbrella in the house because it was bad luck but if he stood outside on the back steps he would be drenched before he could get it open, so what was the point.
He dragged the dreaded monster to the back door, pushed with all his might, and the thing popped into place but as usual one spoke on the left side flipped up. He decided not to even fool with it and he banged and pulled himself and the umbrella out the door and down the steps. Beatrice was dressed and waiting. She had on her yellow raincoat and rain hat and galoshes, which Nurse Ruby always insisted she wear just to walk from one house to the other. Beatrice greeted him before he opened the screen door.
“Hi, Bobby,” she said, knowing it was him by the way he ran up the steps.
They walked arm in arm, chatting.
“What are you going to sing today, Beatrice?”
“Oh, I don’t know yet. . . . What do you think?”
Bobby thought about it as he guided her around a big puddle.
“What about ‘Cool Cool Water’?” Bobby’s musical tastes always led him to suggest cowboy songs first. “Or maybe ‘April Showers’?”
Beatrice nodded. “Those are two good ones.”
Mother Smith was waiting for them on the other end and opened the door. “This is a humdinger, isn’t it? Come on in and let me get those wet things off of you.” Beatrice loved going to the Smith house every morning. It was a treat for her, with the aroma of warm, freshly baked cookies and the sounds of people running in and out and busloads of fans dropping by to visit. It was a far cry from the quiet rooms where she spent most of her time.
The Robinson house, given Nurse Ruby’s fear of germs and considering her personal credo, “I never met a germ I couldn’t kill,” always had the slight smell of Lysol disinfectant lingering in the air. After the show Beatrice usually stayed for lunch and went home around one. That day the rain continued in a constant downpour and Bobby was summoned from the attic, where he had been busy mowing down an army of clay soldiers with a tank made out of a large matchbox. When they stepped out Dorothy’s back door, Beatrice heard Bobby grunting and struggling with the umbrella and whispered, “Bobby, let’s not even use that thing. Let’s just go without it.”
Bobby’s eyes lit up. “You don’t care if you get wet?”
“No. Don’t you think a walk in the rain would be fun?”
“Yeah!”
She took her rain hat off and put it in her pocket. “Let’s go!”
About ten minutes later Bobby and Beatrice were having the time of their lives, running up and down the sidewalk in their bare feet, stomping in every puddle Bobby could find. They were headed up to the end of the