Candles Burning Read Free Page B

you some aspirin, Bobbie Ann, and a dope.” He had three open bottles between his big fingers by their necks.
    â€œDon’t call me Bobbie Ann,” Mama said. “And don’t use slang, Joseph. Make that child sit in her seat and be still! I told you we should have left her at home.”
    â€œWith your mama? Over my dead body. And you wouldn’t hear of calling on Ida Mae,” Daddy said.
    Mama stiffened right up like I give her a poke. My used-to-be nursemaid, Ida Mae, was a delicate subject between them, months and months after Mama had fired her.
    Daddy hesitated. He seemed to be on the edge of saying more. But he didn’t.
    Ford cocked his eyebrows at me mockingly as he took a long swallow of his Co’Cola. He was eleven then, mostly legs, and mean as cat-dirt. Mama doted on Ford because he was a real Carroll—so much a Carroll that Ford already looked down his nose at Daddy for being a Dakin. But Ford took the Carroll character a step further—he looked down on Mama for having married a Dakin. Mama doted on Ford all the more for this.
    Daddy settled in behind the wheel and handed back one of the open bottles to me. “I heard that yell, Sunshine. Had to make you thirsty.”
    I did not know how thirsty I was until then. Co’Cola makes me burp though, and I did, which made Mama moan again and Ford snigger.
    What with Mama having a sick headache, there was even less than no chance of radio music. When Daddy and I were on one of our road trips, I could sit in the front seat, and he would let me ramble up and down the dial, listening wherever I wanted, at as much volume as I could get out of the radio. But when Mama was with us, we were hardly ever allowed to have the radio. I had to sing to myself, inside my head, and a blessing it was that I could. Ida Mae Oakes had taught me to look for the blessings.
    Though I had been allowed to bring a shoebox of my paper dolls with me, with Ford within reach, I could not play with them in the backseat of the Edsel. They were in my suitcase in the trunk, alongside my red Elvis Autograph Phonograph that Daddy had given me for Christmas, and some of my 45s, and the Valentine card that I had made for Daddy at school. I particularly wished that I could play with my Rosemary Clooney paper doll. Mama did not care for me singing Rosemary Clooney songs when I played with the paper doll, so I had to whisper them.
    Since Ford would not be caught dead touching an actual doll, I did have my Betsy McCall doll with me. She was little, just the right size for me to clutch in my hand. If I touched him with her, he would shudder and shrink away and threaten to tear her limb from limb.
    Mamadee subscribed to McCall’s magazine. She brought it to Mama every month after she had perused it. “Perused” was her word. Mama did not want it, which is why Mamadee brought it to her. Mama took it because she was not gone let Mamadee think anything Mamadee did was significant enough to irritate her. They managed to insult each other more with courtesies than they could have with a whole dictionary of cuss words.
    Betsy McCall paper dolls appeared in every issue of McCall’s . Betsy McCall’s face was plain and sweet as a sugar cookie, with great big widespread eyes like root-beer balls. She had a little smiling rosebud mouth and no chin to speak of, and a proper little girl hairstyle with curls, and on the rare occasions that they showed, elfin little ears. Every month, Betsy McCall Did Something . She Went To A Picnic or Started School or Helped Her Mother Bake Cookies. What she did, she did it first and last name, always in capital letters, and it always required a wardrobe.
    Every month, I cut out Betsy McCall and her dog and her friends and relations and played with them in sight of Mamadee and Mama. Mama told Daddy that I loved Betsy McCall so much that he should buy me a Betsy McCall doll for Christmas. So he did, all unknowing that Mama knew