The Pecan Man(38)

“I don’t like bad dreams,” she said.

Blanche dropped the plate she was holding. I startled so badly that I slung coffee across the tablecloth. There was no way to cover our reaction. Eddie cleared his throat. Harley leaned back in his chair and peered at me over the top of his glasses. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I said nothing. Blanche hastily made her retreat to the kitchen.

“Well,” boomed the honorable judge, directing his attention to the child. “I don’t like bad dreams either. Have you been having bad dreams, young lady?”

I held my breath and prayed. Eddie excused himself.

“Just one,” Gracie said quietly. “But, I’ve had it a lotta times.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the judge, leaning toward the child and lowering his voice soothingly. “You wanna tell me about it? Sometimes talking about it helps.”

“No!” I said, more vehemently than I intended.

Harley tilted his head and frowned at me.

“What is the matter with you?”

I dabbed futilely at the still expanding coffee stain with my cloth napkin.

“It’s not good for her to keep bringing up that dream. It isn’t a pleasant one and it’s certainly not appropriate for the dinner table.” I felt like the proverbial deer in headlights. I was about to be run down and all I could do was watch it happen.

“Oh, come now,” said Harley, genuinely confused. “How bad a dream can a child her age have?”

Blanche reappeared with peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream. Normally, she’d serve her own children last, but she put the biggest portion in front of Grace and said, “Eat up, now, chile’. That dream ain’t go’n do you no harm and it can’t come to no good talkin’ about it all the time.”

I think that was the moment that I really understood how long my own lie would live and how messy it could become. Neither Blanche nor I wanted the details of Gracie’s “dream” to come to light, but for two vastly different reasons and only one similar one. I would never be free of it. And I wasn’t sure I was smart enough to keep such an intricate lie straight.

“Well, I don’t see the harm of letting the child talk about it…”

“Leave it alone, Harley,” I said, this time intentionally firm. “It’s not good table-talk.”

Years on the bench gave Harley Odell an intuition as big as his beltline.

“What’s your dream about, honey?”

“It’s ‘bout that white boy,” Grace said matter-of-factly.

“Grace!” Blanche shushed her child. “Don’t say ‘white boy’…”

She stopped, horrified.

“I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout his skin, Mama. I’m talkin’ ‘bout his hair. Whitest hair I ever saw.”

“Gracie,” I willed myself to be calm. “Why don’t you take Mr. Eddie some cobbler and ice cream?”

“Okay,” she said, and hopped down from her chair and took the bowl I held out to her.

“And when you’re done, go on up and get your things. You got school tomorrow,” Blanche added before retreating to the kitchen herself.

The moment Grace disappeared down the hall, Harley pushed back from the table and turned to face me.

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Ora Lee?”

“About what, Harley?”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’ve had my suspicions for a while now. You and Blanche are acting a little strange, for lack of a better word. You’re both jumpy as hell, not to mention that you obviously don’t want me to know about that child’s dream.”

I sighed and pushed away from the table.

“Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill, Harley,” I said. “The child has had a rather graphic dream, which I have no doubt is caused by all the talk about that boy’s death. We’ve heard it before and we’ve talked to her a great deal about it, but it is not a discussion I’d like to have at my dinner table and that’s all there is to it. Now, finish your dessert and you can help me wash the dishes so Blanche can get on home.”

Blanche’s peach cobbler has a way of making a body forget anything else but the sheer pleasure of eating it. The rest of the evening went smoothly and Harley and I had a pleasant conversation over a second cup of coffee before he took his leave.





Twenty-one





The New Year brought new revelations about Eddie, some impressive, some heartbreaking. For one thing, I learned that Eddie received a pension of some sort, though he never said exactly what it was. It was delivered to the post office general delivery and Eddie rode Patrice's new bicycle to pick it up. I imagine that's how he went undetected. Most people recognized him immediately on the wrinkled old bike he rode before his arrest.

I didn't even know he was gone until he didn't show up for lunch. It wasn't unusual for him to sleep quite late, though sometimes he was up early puttering around the back yard or the garage. At any rate, when Blanche put sandwiches out for just the two of us, I finally got around to wondering about him.

“He's been gone all mornin'," Blanche said.

“All morning? What time did he leave?"