But she was white. She had a pinkish color, a jowly, abstracted appearance -- a weathered countenance that was also unforgiving, wrinkled, graceful. Her glasses lacked a left lens, the right lens was shaded and impenetrable.
'They’ll stay far,' she was saying to herself, drawing a circle in the air. 'They’ll mess elsewhere.'
I wasn’t sure if she was referring to me and Classique, or the bees.
She clapped her hands together, once. She pivoted her head and spit. 'That’ll keep them gone for a bit,' she told me. 'It usually works. You’d be surprised.'
Then she knelt, scrutinizing the disrepair at her feet. And like a parachute sinking to the earth, the hem of her house- dress billowed and ruffled outward. She reached for the rocks I’d rearranged -- shaking her head some -- and began fixing her cat eyes.
'See, everything has a place,” she said, moving the rocks. 'Even the smallest thing. If you tamper with something -- take it from its place -- there’s no order. And then there’s no light. Everything is chaos.'
She paused and regarded Classique sitting under the bluebonnet.
'And is this for me?”
'It’s Classique. She’s my friend.”
She extracted Classique, pinching her between a forefinger and thumb, thrusting her out and away like a stinky sock.
'You should consider the company you keep, I think. Take it.'
I leaned forward, gingerly accepting Classique. And I watched as the mittens patted dirt, adjusted the stems of the bluebonnet-pupils, hoisted rocks.
'Can I help you?”
'Certainly not. In fact, you’ll be going. I’ve nothing more to say. You’ve blinded a cat eye.'
'But I can help.”
'Uh-huh, well, go and help me. Go, I mean. That’ll help me. You belong somewhere else.”
She squinted -- one eye showing, the other concealed behind that dark lens -- reminding me of a pirate. Then she grabbed the mesh, pulling it past her face, a door slamming shut.
It wasn’t fair; I could help with her garden. And now she was ignoring me. 'You’re not a real ghost,” I said, standing.
'I should think not -- not yet.”
Rotten old woman, I thought.
And I regretted giving her the radio. She didn’t thank me -- and she was mean to Classique. So I left her. I turned and ran. But as I climbed the rise, she called after me.
'Rose-Jeliza,' she said, 'what else can you do?”
I played deaf. And scrambling onto the tracks, I stood upright, frowning, and gazed back down into the meadow. She was dusting the mittens on her apron, giving me a sideways glance.
'Child, what is it you like to do,” she pointed at the cat eyes, 'besides messing with this?”
I couldn’t think, so I said what sprang first to mind: 'I fight squirrels -- and I eat too.'
She was quiet for a while. She scratched her chin through the mesh.
'Very well,' she finally said. 'If you come here around noon tomorrow we’ll eat, how’s that? But go now, go to where you came from, where you belong. I’ve nothing more to say. just come tomorrow then -- and forget your friend, she’s trouble.”
My frown straightened. 'Okay,' I said.
And heading toward the farmhouse, I forced a laugh, a cackle. I threw Classique in the air and caught her. If the ghost wasn’t really a ghost, at least she was friendly, almost. And tomorrow we’d eat together, maybe even crack eggs on each other.
But Classique was miserable. She sulked all the way home.
'She doesn’t hate you,' I reassured her. 'She doesn’t.'
But Classique didn’t care what I had to say to her. And neither did I. She was trouble, after all.
Two
11
Classique, let me tell you about the picnic with the ghost, and what I saw and did afterwards. I’m so sorry you couldn’t go because the food was wonderful, better than crackers and peanut butter; she brought a tasty treat -- dark greasy meat like on a chicken thigh (I'm not sure that’s what it was though), served on a linen napkin that had lacy patterns. And apple juice. And pound cake, half a slice. I didn’t eat that much, but I still ate enough to make me sleepy.
But let me tell you first how I waited for the ghost.
Of course, she isn’t a ghost. You knew that. Her name is Dell, and she lives in the far-off mesquite cluster, in a small home made of gray and russet-colored stone. I followed her after our picnic, but she didn’t know. At least I don’t think she did.
But before, in her meadow, I sat cross-legged by the cat eyes for at least an hour. The sky was clear, the air breezy. The Johnsongrass murmured from time to time, as if someone was wandering among the sorghum -- but it was only the wind tricking me. And, as you know, I wore lipstick and rouge. My hands were clean (I’d washed up on the porch, using the gallon jug, splashing water into a cupped palm. Then I worked my front teeth under the crest of each fingernail, scraping out the dirt).
And just when I thought Dell had forgotten me, she pushed through the Johnsongrass, saying half my name. 'Rose, Rose, Rose-'
She held a wicker picnic basket in one hand, carried a quilt in the other.
From behind the hood she said, 'Have you been here long? I should think not, no. You haven’t touched my cat eyes. You haven't ruined a thing. You’ve been here minutes, I suppose.”
That throaty man’s voice, that froggy grumble.
'Hurry, child. We’re burning sunshine and I don’t have all day.'
Then she was leaving the way she came, marching off in the sorghum, receding, so I jumped to my feet and went after her, skipping.
Soon I was traveling in new territory, going away from What Rocks and the tracks. And Dell was asking, 'Were you born of coyotes? Are you a coyote child? Did you spring from the earth? How’d you come to be?”
But I wasn’t sure what she meant.
'I live in What Rocks,” I told her, 'and then L.A., but not now -- I’m in What Rocks.”
'What rocks? A rock baby, I say. You are a rock baby.”
I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
'My daddy is there,' I continued, 'and so is Classique and Fashion Jeans and Cut ’N Style and Magic Curl.'
'You’re gibberish,” she said. 'You’re uncouth, vulgar, I think. I pity you.'
We were walking in a clearing of threshed grain, the white straw dry and stalky underfoot.
'Be careful what you do here,” she said. 'You're on my land. I own this, every inch.”
And in that clearing she shook open the quilt, letting the square patterns, all plaid, unfurl and float to the ground. But I couldn’t sit on it. She said so. I had to sit in the chaff, which made my shins itchy.
Do you remember the tea parties, Classique? I’d arrange you and the other heads around the folded paper towel, in the tent near the TV, Then I’d pretend-pour tea into your tiny plastic mugs.
'You’re my guests,” I’d say. 'Let me serve you.”
The breeze was mussing the quilt, ruffling it over in spots. When I leaned forward to straighten an edge, Dell said, 'Don’t trouble with it.' This was her party. She did the smoothing. She had the linen napkins and Dixie cup. I
