10

The Perfect Day
He heard his dad start the pickup. Even though there was no job to go to, he left every
morning early to look. Sometimes he just hung around all day at the unemployment office; on
lucky days he got picked up to unload furniture or do cleaning.
Jess was awake. He might as well get up. He could milk and feed Miss Bessie, and get
that over with. He pulled on a T-shirt and overalls over the underwear he slept in.
"Where you going?"
"Go back to sleep, May Belle."
"I can't. The rain makes too much noise."
"Well, get up then."
"Why are you so mean to me?"
"Will you shut up, May Belle? You'll have everyone in the whole house woke up with
that big mouth of yours." Joyce Ann would have screamed, but May Belle made a face.
"Oh, c'mon," he said. "I'm just gonna milk Miss Bessie. Then maybe we can watch
cartoons if we keep the sound real low."
May Belle was as scrawny as Brenda was fat. She stood a moment in the middle of the
floor in her underwear, her skin white and goosebumpy. Her eyes were still drooped from
sleep, and her pale brown hair stuck up all over her head like a squirrel's nest on a winter
branch. That's got to be the world's ugliest kid, he thought, looking her over with genuine
affection.
She threw her jeans into his face. "I'm gonna tell Momma." He threw the jeans back at
her. "Tell Momma what?" "How you just stand there staring at me when I ain't got my clothes
on."
Lord. She thought he was enjoying it. "Yeah, well," he said, heading for the door so she
wouldn't throw anything else at him. "Pretty girl like you. Can't hardly help myself." He could
hear her giggling as he crossed the kitchen.
The shed was filled with Miss Bessie's familiar smell. He clucked her gently over and set
his stool at her flank and the pail beneath her speckled udder. The rain pounded the metal roof
of the shed so that the plink of milk in the pail set up a counter-rhythm. if only it would stop
raining. He pressed his forehead against Miss Bessie's warm hide. He wondered idly if cows
were ever scared--really scared. He had seen Miss Bessie jitter away from P.T., but that was
different. A yapping puppy at your heels is an immediate threat, but the difference between
him and Miss Bessie was that when there was no P. T. in sight she was perfectly content,
sleepily chewing her cud. She wasn't staring down at the old Perkins place, wondering and
worrying. She wasn't standing there on her tippytoes while anxiety ate holes through all her
stomachs.
He stroked his forehead across her flank and sighed. If there was still water in the creek
come summer, he'd ask Leslie to teach him how to swim. How's that? he said to himself. I'll
just grab that old terror by the shoulders and shake the daylights out of it. Maybe I'll even
learn scuba diving. He shuddered. He may not have been born with guts, but he didn't have to
die without them. Hey, maybe you could go down to the Medical College and get a gut
transplant. No, Doc, I got me a perfectly good heart. What I need is a gut transplant. How
'bout it? He smiled. He'd have to tell Leslie about wanting a gut transplant. It was the kind of
nonsense she appreciated. Of course-he broke the rhythm of the milking long enough to shove
his hair out of his face-of course what I really need is a brain transplant. I know Leslie. I know
she's not going to bite my head off or make fun of me if I say I don't want to go across again
till the creek's down. All I gotta do is say "Leslie, I don't wanta go over there today." Just like
that. Easy as pie. "Leslie, I don't want to go over there today." "How come?" "How come.
Because, because, well because.
"I called ya three times already." May Belle was imitating Ellie's prissiest manner.
"Called me for what?"
"Some lady wants you on the telephone. I had to get dressed to come get you."
He never got phone calls. Leslie had called him exactly once, and Brenda had gone into
such a song and dance with her about Jess's getting a call from his sweetheart that Leslie had
decided it was simpler to come to the house and get him when she wanted to talk.
"Sounds kinda like Miss Edmunds."
It was Miss Edmunds. "Jess?" her voice flowed through the receiver. "Miserable weather,
isn't it?"
"Yes'm." He was scared to Say more for fear she'd hear the shake.
"I was thinking of driving down to Washington-maybe go to the Smithsonian or the
National Gallery. How would you like to keep me company?"
He broke out in a cold sweat.
"Jess?"
He licked his lips and shoved his hair off his face.
"You still there, Jess?"
"Yes'm." He tried to get a deep breath so he could keep talking.
"Would you like to go with me?"
Lord. "Yes'm."
"Do you need to get permission?" she asked gently.
"Yes - yes'm." He had somehow managed to twist himself up in the phone cord. "Yes'm.
Just-just a minute." He untangled himself, put the phone down quietly, and tiptoed into his
parents' room. His mother's back made a long hump under the cotton blanket. He shook her
shoulder very gently. "Momma?" he was almost whispering. He wanted to ask her without
really waking her up. She was likely to say no if she woke up and thought about it.
She jumped at the sound but relaxed again, not fully awake. "Teacher wants me to go to
Washington to the Smithsonian."
"Washington?" The syllables were blurred.
"Yeah. Something for school." He stroked her upper arm.
"Be back before too late. OK?"
"Don't worry. I'm done milking."
"Umm." She pulled the blanket to her ears and turned on her stomach.
Jess crept back to the phone. "It's OK, Miss Edmunds. I can go."
"Great. I'll pick you up in twenty minutes. Just tell me how to get to your house."
As soon as he saw her car turn in, Jess raced out the kitchen door through the rain and
met her halfway up the drive. His mother could find out the details from May Belle after he
was safely up the road. He was glad May Belle was absorbed in the TV. He didn't want her
waking Momma up before he got away. He was scared to look back even after he was in the
car and on the main road for fear he'd see his mother screaming after him.
It didn't occur to him until the car was past Millsburg that he might have asked Miss
Edmunds if Leslie could have come, too. When he thought about it, he couldn't suppress a
secret pleasure at being alone in this small cozy car with Miss Edmunds. She drove intently,
both bands gripping the top of the wheel, peering forward. The wheels hummed and the
windshield wipers slicked a merry rhythm. The car was warm and tilled with the smell of
Miss Edmunds. Jess sat with his hands clasped between his knees, the seat belt tight across his
chest.
"Damn rain," she said. "I was going stir crazy."
"Yes'm," he said happily.
"You, too, huh?" She gave him a quick smile.
He felt dizzy from the closeness. He nodded.
"Have you ever been to the National Gallery?"
"No, ma'am." He had never even been to Washington be- fore, but he hoped she wouldn't
ask him that.
She smiled at him again. "Is this your first trip to an art gallery?"
"Yes'm."
"Great," she said. "My life has been worthwhile after all." He didn't understand her, but
he didn't care. He knew she was happy to be with him, and that was enough to know.
Even in the rain he could make out the landmarks, looking surprisingly the way the books
had pictured them-the Lee Mansion high on the hill, the bridge, and twice around the circle,
so he could get a good look at Abraham Lincoln looking out across the city, the White House
and the Monument and at the other end the Capitol. Leslie had seen all these places a million
times. She had even gone to school with a girl whose father was a congressman. He thought
he might tell Miss Edmunds later that Leslie was a personal friend of a real congressman.
Miss Edmunds had always liked Leslie. Entering the gallery was like stepping inside the pine
grove -the huge vaulted marble, the cool splash of the fountain, and the green growing all
around. Two little children had pulled away from their mothers and were running about
screaming to each other. It was all Jess could do not to grab them and tell them how to behave
in so obviously a sacred place.
And then the pictures-room after room, floor after floor. He was drunk with color and
form and hues-and with the voice and perfume of Miss Edmunds always beside him. She
would bend her head down close to his face to give some explanation or ask him a question,
her black hair falling across her shoulder. Men would stare at her instead of the pictures, and
Jess felt they must be jealous of him for being with her.
They ate a late lunch in the cafeteria. When she mentioned lunch, he realized with horror
that he would need money, and he didn't know how to tell her that he hadn't brought any -
didn't have any to bring, for that matter. But before he had time to figure anything out, she
said, "Now I'm not going to have any argument about whose paying. I'm a liberated woman,
Jess Aarons. When I invite a man out, I pay."
He tried to think of some way to protest without ending up with the bill, but couldn't, and
found himself getting a three-dollar meal, which was far more than he had meant to have her
spend on him. Tomorrow he would check out with Leslie how he should have handled things.
After lunch, they trotted through the drizzle to the Smithsonian to see the dinosaurs and
the Indians. There they came upon a display case holding a miniature scene of Indians
disguised in buffalo skins scaring a herd of buffalo into stampeding over a cliff to their death
with more Indians waiting below to butcher and skin them. It was a three-dimensional
nightmare version of some of his own drawings. He felt a frightening sense of kinship with it.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" Miss Edmunds said, her hair ~rush- mg his cheek as she leaned
over to look at it. He touched his cheek. "Yes'm." To himself he said, I don't think I like it, but
he could hardly pull himself away. When they came out of the building, it was into brilliant
spring sunshine. Jess blinked his eyes against the glare and the glisten.
"Wow!" Miss Edmunds said. "A miracle! Behold the sun! I was beginning to think she
had gone into a cave and vowed never to return, like the Japanese myth."
He felt good again. All the way home in the sunshine Miss Edmunds told funny stories
about going to college one year in Japan, where all the boys had been shorter than she, and
she hadn't known how to use the toilets.
He relaxed. He had so much to tell Leslie and ask her. It didn't matter how angry his
mother was. She'd get over it. And it was worth it This one perfect day of his life was worth
anything he had to pay.
One dip in the road before the old Perkins place, he said, "Just let me out at the road,
Miss Edmunds. Don't try to turn in. You might get stuck in the mud."
"OK, Jess," she said. She pulled over at his road. "Thank you for a beautiful day."
The western sun danced on the windshield dazzling his eyes. He turned and looked Miss
Edmunds full in the face. "No, ma'am." His voice sounded squeaky and strange. He cleared
his throat. "No ma'am, thank you. Well-" He hated to leave without being able to really thank
her, but the words were not coming for him now. Later, of course, they would, when he was
lying in bed or sitting in the castle. "Well -" He opened the door and got out. "See you next
Friday."
She nodded, smiling. "See you."
He watched the car go out of sight and then turned and ran with all his might to the
house, the joy jiggling inside of him so hard that he wouldn't have been surprised if his feet
had just taken off from the ground the way they sometimes did in dreams and floated him
right over the roof.
He was all the way into the kitchen before he realized that something was wrong. His
dad's pickup had been outside the door, but he hadn't taken it in until he came into the room
and found them all sitting there: his parents and the little girls at the kitchen table and Ellie
and Brenda on the couch. Not eating. There was no food on the table. Not watching TV. It
wasn't even turned on. He stood unmoving for a second while they stared at him.
Suddenly his mother let out a great shuddering sob. "O my God. O my God." She said it
over and over, her head down on her arms. His father moved to put his arm around her
awkwardly, but he didn't take his eyes off Jess.
"I told ya he just gone off somewhere," May Belle said quietly and stubbornly as though
she had repeated it often and no one had believed her.
He squinted his eyes as though trying to peer down a dark drain pipe. He didn't even
know what question to ask them. "What-?" he tried to begin.
Brenda's pouting voice broke in, "Your girl friend's dead, and Momma thought you was
dead, too."