The Bean Trees

TEN

Even a spotted pig looks black at night. This is another thing Mama used to tell me quite often. It means that things always look different, and usually better, in the morning.

And they did. Mattie called first thing to say that Esperanza was going to be all right. They hadn’t pumped her stomach after all because she hadn’t taken enough to do much harm. I made Estevan a big breakfast, eggs scrambled with tomatoes and peppers and green chile sauce, and sent him home before I could start falling in love with him again over the breakfast dishes. Turtle woke up in one of those sweet, eye-rubbing moods that kids must know by instinct as a means of saving the human species from extinction. Lou A

It’s surprising, considering Roosevelt Park, but we always heard birds in the morning. There must be transients in the bird world too, rumple-feathered outcasts that naturally seek out each other’s company in inferior and dying trees. In any case, there were lots of them. There was a type of woodpecker that said, “Ha, ha, ha, to hell with you!” I swear it did. And another one, a little pigeony-looking bird, said, “Hip hip hurroo.” Lou A

Gradually Lou A

I had considered putting Turtle’s bed out there on the porch too, but Lou A

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 A

“I can’t believe it,” she said, “first Ma

“Maybe they do. Maybe that’s why everybody wants to live there.”

“Not me,” Lou A

“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 A

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 A

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 A

Turtle and I walked the other way, since we needed to stop in at the Lee Sing Market for eggs and milk. Lou A

In any case, today Lee Sing was nowhere to be seen. She often went back to check on her famous century-old mother, the source of Mattie’s purple beans, whom neither Lou A

Lee Sing had left her usual sign by the cash register: BE BACK ONE MINUTE, PLEASE DO NO STEAL ANY THING. LEE SING. I spotted Edna Poppy in paper goods, the next aisle over from the dairy case. As best I could see, Edna was sniffing different brands of toilet tissue.

“Edna! Miss Poppy!” I called out. When I needed to call her by name I generally hedged my bets and used both first and last. Her head popped up and she seemed confused, looking all around.

“It’s me, Taylor. Over here.” I came around into the aisle where she had parked her cart. “Where’s Mrs. Parsons today?” I stopped dead in my tracks. Edna had a white cane.

“Virgie is ill in bed with a croup, I’m sorry to say. She sent me out to get fresh lemons and a drop of whiskey. And of course a few other unmentionables.” She smiled, dropping a package of orange toilet paper into the cart. “Can you tell me, dear, if these are lemons or limes I have?” She ran her hand over her goods and held up a lopsided plastic bag of yellow fruits.