The Bean Trees

“It’s a sin to be working on Sunday. He ought to be home with his family on the Lord’s day,” Gra

“It’s shift work,” Lou A

“Who tells him to?” the old woman demanded. Lou A

“We’ll manage, with the bus and all,” Ivy said.

“That don’t make it right, do it? Just because some other heathern tells him to work on the Lord’s day?”

Lou A

“Gra

“You’ll swear yourself to tarnation if you don’t watch out. Don’t tell me I’m not going to need no coat, child. It’s January.” Her old hand pawed the air for a few seconds before Ivy silently caught it and corralled it in the heavy black sleeve.

“Lou A

The baby was waving his fist vaguely in the direction of the blue pen in Lou A

“All right, Mama,” Lou A

Heat waves rising from the pavement made the brown grass and the palm tree trunks appear to wiggle above the sidewalk, making Lou A

“Don’t sit on it,” she warned. “It’ll be hot as a poker in this sun.” Gra

“Pew, don’t they make a stink,” Mother Logan said when the bus arrived. Ivy put her arms around both Lou A

“I just wish you wasn’t so far away,” Ivy said as the doors hissed together.

“I know,” she mouthed. “Wave bye to your great-grandmaw,” Lou A

She imagined herself ru

One block down and across the street, old Bobby Bingo sold vegetables out of his dilapidated truck. Lou A

“Hi, tomato lady,” Bingo said. “I remember you.”

She flushed. “Are they still forty-five a pound?”

“No, fifty-five. End of the season.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s still a good price.” She looked at every one in the box and picked out six, handing them to the old man one at a time with her free hand. With her other hand she adjusted the baby on her hip taking extra care, as she had been instructed, to support his wobbly head. “Your tomatoes are the first good ones I’ve had since back home.” She felt her heart do something strange when she said “back home.”

Bobby Bingo had skin like a baked potato. A complete vegetable man, Lou A

He squinted at her. “You’re not from here? I didn’t think so.” He shook out a wad of odd-sized plastic bags, chose one with red letters on it, and bagged the tomatoes. “Seventy-five,” he said, weighing them up and down in his hand before he put them on the scales. “And an apple for Joh

“His name’s Dwayne Ray, and he thanks you very much I’m sure but he don’t have any teeth yet.” Lou A

“That’s good,” Bingo said. “Soon as they get teeth, they start to bite. You know my boy?”

Lou A

“Sure you do. He’s on TV every night, he sells cars. He’s a real big guy in cars.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t have a TV. My husband took it to his new apartment.” She couldn’t believe, after deceiving her own mother and grandmother for two entire weeks, that she was admitting to a complete stranger on the street that her marriage had failed.

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Makes me sick every time he comes on. Don’t even call himself by his own name-‘Bill Bing’ he says. ‘Come on down to Bill Bing Cadillac,’ he says. ‘Bill Bing has just the thing.’ I always wanted him to be a real big guy, you know. Well, look at him now. He don’t even eat vegetables. If he was here right now he would tell you he don’t know who I am. ‘Get rid of that old truck,’ he says to me. ‘What you need to sell this garbage for? I could buy you a house in Beverly Hills right now,’ he says to me. ‘What?’ I tell him. You crazy? Beverly Hills? Probably they don’t even eat vegetables in Beverly Hills, just Alaska King Crab and bread sticks!’ I tell him. “You want to make me happy, you give me a new Cadillac and I can sell my vegetables out of the trunk.’” Bingo shook his head. ‘You want grapes? Good grapes this week.”

“No, just the tomatoes.” She handed him three quarters.

“Here, take the grapes. Joh

Back at the house she laid down the baby for his nap, then carefully washed the produce and put it in the refrigerator, all the while feeling her mother’s eyes on her hands. “The worst thing for you,” she kept repeating under her breath until she a

She noticed the Coke bottle sitting on the low wooden bureau along with two of Gra