Body and Soul: Short Story Read Free Page B

the punch line.
    “Lord,” Aunt Bea said. “Lord, you’re right.”
    Julie is holding Aunt Bea’s left hand. Terry is holding Aunt Bea’s right hand. The three of them take up the whole sidewalk, and oncoming people have to step out onto the road. Julie is thrilled by this, believing, as she does, that it is happening because she does not smell afraid. “Bastards and dogs can smell it when you’re afraid,” her mother told her. So Julie is walking with her head lowered to butt. Whenever somebody veers off the sidewalk she murmurs, “Bastard.”
    Eventually Aunt Bea asks, “Where’s the fire?” She thinks that Julie is saying, “Faster.”
    “Dog,” Julie says quietly—this time it’s a dog that has trotted onto the road. She laughs and pulls up her dress.
    “No!” Aunt Bea says.
    “No!” Terry echoes, recognizing the familiar sound of Aunt Bea slapping Julie’s clothing down.
    “Oh-kay, oh-kay,” Julie says.
    “Not now,” Terry says. Sometimes Julie and Terry play a game that Julie made up, where Julie chants oh-kay, oh-kay while she and Terry hold hands and swing their arms back and forth, just a bit at first, and then higher and higher until they swing them right around over their heads. Terry isn’t crazy about this game, but she plays it to calm Julie. She thinks that Julie is probably blue with lines. Aunt Bea is green. Blood is red.
    Aunt Bea gives them each a Life Saver, then takes their hands. The sweeps of the white cane along the sidewalk strike Aunt Bea as a blessing, a continuous sanctification of their path. “I want you both to be angels in church,” she says. “It’s a special day.”
    “I know,” Terry says importantly.
    Julie sucks her Life Saver and rubs Aunt Bea’s wrist against her cheek.
    “Do you know what?” Terry says.
    “What?” Aunt Bea says.
    “Julie poked the eyes out of her doll.” The hole in her Life Saver has reminded her.
    “Yes, I saw that,” Aunt Bea says.
    Julie isn’t paying attention. She is remembering her mother’s phone call and is daydreaming about her mother singing “Six Little Ducklings.” Julie smiles at her mother, which provokes Aunt Bea, who after a year still gets Julie’s smiles and grimaces confused, to say, “Listen,
I
don’t give a hoot. It’s
your
doll. If you want to destroy it, that’s up to you.”
    “Just don’t expect a new one!” Terry cries.
    “That’s right,” Aunt Bea says.
    “My mother has left the jail,” Julie says.
    “What?” Aunt Bea comes to a stop.
    “She phoned yesterday. She told Penny.”
    “No, she didn’t!” Terry cries. Her shrill laugh shoots pain through Aunt Bea’s eyes.
    “Yes, she did,” Julie says slowly and murderously.
    “It’s so funny!” Terry cries. She yanks her hand from Aunt Bea’s and pats the air in an excited manner. She is wearing white felt gloves. “You know how she always says it’s her mother on the phone? Well, do you know what? Yesterday the phone rang when you were in the laundry room, and I answered it, and it was a woman, and she said, ‘This is Sally, is Marge …’ or somebody … yes, it was Marge. She said, ‘This is Sally, is Marge there?’ And I said she had the wrong number, and then I told Julie, and she said that her mother’s name is Sally.”
    “That’s right,” Aunt Bea says. “It is.”
    “It is,” Julie says, scowling at Terry.
    “But it’s so funny!” Terry cries. The strap of her white plastic purse falls down her shoulder. She reaches for it and drops her cane. “No!” she screams, imagining that the dog Julie mentioned a minute ago is racing to retrieve it.
    Aunt Bea picks the cane up. “Honey, that was
another
woman named Sally,” she says to Julie.
    Julie bunches the skirt of her dress and rolls her eyes.
    “I
told
her,” Terry says.
    “But your mother will be out of jail one day,” Aunt Bea says, tugging down Julie’s dress. “And until then Penny and I want you to live with us.”
    Julie’s face empties.