The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver [67]
I had considered putting Turtle’s bed out there on the porch too, but Lou Ann said it wouldn’t be safe, that someone might come along and slash the screen and kidnap her before you could say Jack Robinson. I never would have thought of that.
But it didn’t matter. The house was old and roomy; there was plenty of space for Turtle’s bed in my room. It was the type of house they called a “rambling bungalow” (the term reminded me somehow of Elvis Presley movies), with wainscoting and steam radiators and about fifty coats of paint on the door frames, so that you could use your thumbnail to scrape out a history of all the house’s tenants as far back as the sixties, when people were fond of painting their woodwork apple green and royal blue. The ceilings were so high you just learned to live with the cobwebs.
It wasn’t unreasonably hot yet, and the kids were bouncing around the house like superballs (this was mainly Turtle, with Dwayne Ray’s participation being mainly vocal), so we took them out to sit under the arbor for a while. The wisteria vines were a week or two past full bloom, but the bees and the perfume still hung thick in the air overhead, giving it a sweet purplish hue. If you ignored the rest of the park, you could imagine this was a special little heaven for people who had lived their whole lives without fear of bees.
Lou Ann was full of gossip from her weekend with the Ruiz cousins. Apparently most of them spoke English, all the men were good-looking and loved to dance, and all the women had children Dwayne Ray’s age. She had about decided that every single one of them was nicer than Angel, a conclusion to which they all heartily agreed, even Angel’s mother. A large portion of the flock were preparing to move to San Diego.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, “first Manny and Ramona, you remember, the friends I told you about that saw the meteor shower? And now two of Angel’s brothers and their wives and kids. You’d think they’d discovered gold out there. Angel used to always talk about moving to California too, but I’ll tell you this right now, Mama would have had an apoplectic. She thinks in California they sell marijuana in the produce section of the grocery store.”
“Maybe they do. Maybe that’s why everybody wants to live there.”
“Not me,” Lou Ann said. “Not for a million, and I’ll tell you why, too. In about another year they’re due to have the biggest earthquake in history. I read about it someplace. They say all of San Diego might just end up in the ocean, like noodle soup.”
“I guess the sharks will be happy,” I said.
“Taylor, I swear! These are my relatives you’re talking about.”
“Angel’s relatives,” I said. “You’re practically divorced.”
“Not to hear them tell it,” Lou Ann said.
Turtle was staring up at the wisteria flowers. “Beans,” she said, pointing.
“Bees,” I said. “Those things that go bzzzz are bees.”
“They sting,” Lou Ann pointed out.
But Turtle shook her head. “Bean trees,” she said, as plainly as if she had been thinking about it all day. We looked where she was pointing. Some of the wisteria flowers had gone to seed, and all these wonderful long green pods hung down from the branches. They looked as much like beans as anything you’d ever care to eat.
“Will you look at that,” I said. It was another miracle. The flower trees were turning into bean trees.
On the way home Lou Ann went to the corner to buy a newspaper. She was seriously job-hunting now, and had applied at a couple of nursery schools, though I could just hear how Lou Ann would ask for a job: “Really, ma’am, I could understand why you wouldn’t want to hire a dumb old thing such as myself.”
Turtle and I walked the other way, since we needed to stop in at the Lee Sing Market for eggs and milk. Lou Ann refused to set foot in there these days, saying that Lee Sing always gave her the evil eye. Lou Ann’s theory was that she was mad at her for having had Dwayne Ray instead of a