Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [50]
“What?”
Monroe put his hands on his head, walked around the room, and exclaimed, “Fantastic! . . . It was fantastic. . . . You should have seen her. Wham, a right cross right on the chin and then bang, she let him have it again with a left hook and another right. Oh, she was great.” Monroe danced around the room demonstrating the fight. “Wham . . . bam!”
“Who?” asked Bobby.
“Anna Lee!”
Bobby couldn’t believe it. “My sister Anna Lee?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not, I saw it. She came down to the pool a little while ago looking for him and she went over and jerked him up by his shirt and told him to pick on somebody his own size. Then she hauled off and knocked him flat on his back. When she got him on the ground she just about kicked the stuffing out of him. He was crying and everything. It was great. You should have seen it.”
“Anna Lee?”
“Yeah, and she told him if he ever bothered you again she’d get Billy Nobblitt on him.”
“My sister?”
Monroe flopped back on the bed. “Boy, are you lucky. I wish I had a sister like that.”
“He really cried?” Bobby smiled.
“Oh, yeah, she had him begging for mercy.”
That night at dinner Bobby looked across the table at his sister with new eyes, filled with awe and admiration. Although nothing was said, their relationship began to change after that day. Gradually, the thought of how wonderful it would have been to be an only child slowly faded away, and they finally quit tattletelling on each other every chance they got. They even began to share their own little secrets. It had only been a slight adjustment but it was to make all the difference in the world. As Dorothy remarked later, “It’s so pleasant not to have the children at each other’s throats night and day. I wonder what happened?”
Although Dorothy was relieved she no longer had to worry about her own children killing each other, from time to time she still worried about Betty Raye Oatman. She had never received a letter from her. Often, she wondered if the girl was all right. She even called the minister out at the Highway 78 Church of Christ, but he had no idea where the Oatmans were.
Betty Raye did not find the envelope that Neighbor Dorothy had slipped into the side of her suitcase until a few days after she had left Elmwood Springs. Inside was fifty dollars in cash and a short handwritten note.
Sweetheart,
Take this and buy yourself a little something special or just save it for a rainy day if you want. Please don’t forget us and come see us again.
Your friends,
Doc and Dorothy Smith
P.S. Drop me a note and let me know how you are doing from time to time, will you?
Betty Raye wanted to write but did not know what to say. But Dorothy need not have worried about Betty Raye ever forgetting them. Although she was being jerked from town to town, she often thought about her time in Elmwood Springs. On the road, she had only been able to go to school periodically and missed more days than she attended. She longed to be in one place, go to one school. She wished she could be like Anna Lee, have the same friends from year to year, and live in the same house. Often at night as they drove through small towns she would see the families on the porches or see them inside having dinner and it would remind her of her time with the Smiths. As unhappy as she was, she never told her mother. Minnie had her own problems.
The Prodigal Son
FOR THE OATMAN FAMILY the summer had been extremely busy. Since May they had been from Nebraska to Arkansas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Louisiana, West Virginia, Kansas, and back again. After an all-night sing in Spartanburg, South Carolina, they finally had a day off from traveling. Ferris was staying at a farmhouse with Bervin and Vernon and Betty Raye