Heaven (Casteel 1)

"Then why?"

"Don't know. She's pretty, young--an I'm genial old. Soon I'll be thirty-six, and that's not far from forty. Cal, life ain't gonna be no good afta forty."

"Of course it will." His voice sounded softer, more understanding. "You're a beautiful woman, Kitty, getting better each year. You don't look a day over thirty."

She yelled: "I wanna look twenty!"

"Good night, Kitty," he said with disgust in his voice. "I won't see twenty again, either, but I'm not grieving about it. What did you have when you were twenty but insecurity? You know who and what you are now; isn't that a relief?"

No, apparently knowing who and what she was was the horror of being Kitty.

However, to celebrate Kitty's traumatic thirtysixth birthday, that summer Cal reserved rooms in a fine hotel near a beach, and in August, the month of the lion, all three of us were under a beach umbrella. Kitty was the sensation of the beach in her skimpy pink bikini. She refused to leave the shade of an umbrella bright with red stripes. "Skin's delicate, burns easy . . . but ya go on, Heaven, Cal. Don't mind me. I'll just sit here an suffa while ya two have fun."

"Why didn't you tell me you didn't want to come to the shore?"

"Ya didn't ask."

"But I thought you liked to swim and sunbathe." "That's how much ya know about me-- nothin." Nobody had any fun when Kitty didn't.

It was a flop of a holiday, when it could have been so much fun if Kitty had only shared the water with us, but Kitty made her birthday vacation a torture.

The day we returned from vacation, Kitty sat me down at the kitchen table with her large box of manicuring equipment and began to give me my first manicure. I felt ashamed of my short, broken fingernails as I admired her long, perfectly groomed ones, with all the cuticles pushed back, and never a chip--never! My ears perked up when she began her lecture on how to have nails as nice as hers. "Ya gotta stop chewin on yers, an learn how t'be a woman. Don't come naturally Chill girls, all t'gracious ways a woman has t'have. Why, it takes time an trainin t'be a woman, takes a lot of patience with men."

The air-conditioning made a soft, hypnotic whir as she continued.

"They're all t'same, ya know, even t'sweettalkin ones. Like Cal. All want one thing, an bein a hill gal, ya know what it is. All is dyin t'slam their bangers inta yer whammer, an afta they done it, if ya start a baby, they won't want it. They'll say it's not theirs, even if it is. If they gives ya a disease, they don't kerr. Now, ya heed my advice, an don't listen t'no sweet-talkin boy--or man--includin mine."

Kitty finished painting my nails bright rose. "There. They do look betta now that yer not scrubbin on washboards no more an usin lye soap. Knuckles done lost all t'rednesso Face done healed--an are ya harmed, are ya?"

"No."

"No what?"

"No, Mother."

"Ya love me, don't ya?"

"Yes, Mother."

"Ya wouldn't take nothin from me that was mine, would ya?"

"No, Mother."

Kitty rose to leave. "Got anotha hard day of bein on my feet. Slavin t'make others look pretty." She sighed heavily and looked down at her five-inch heels. She had remarkably small feet for such a tall woman; like her waist, they appeared to belong to someone petite and frail.

"Mother, why don't you wear low-heeled shoes to work? It seems a pity to make yourself suffer in high heels like that."

Kitty stared with disdain at my bare feet. I tried to tuck them under the full skirt that fell to the floor when I was sitting.

"Shoes ya wear tell people what yer made of-- an I'm made of t'right stuff, steel. Kin take t'pain, t'sufferinan ya kin't."

Hers was a crazy way of thinking. I vowed never again to mention her miserable, too-small shoes that curled her toes so they could never straighten out. Let her feet hurt . . . why should I care?

Summer days were full of work and cooking, and Saturday treats. Soon there were signs of autumn, and school supplies showed up in store windows, with sweaters and skirts, coats and boots. I'd been here eight months, and although Logan had begun writing to me again, still there was no word from Tom. It hurt so much I began to think it was better to stop hoping I'd ever hear from him . . . and then there it was, in the mailbox! Just one letter.

Oh, Thomas Luke, it's so good to see your handwriting, so good, please let me find only happy things inside.

With his letter in my hand, it was almost as if I had Tom beside me. I hurried to sit and carefully rip open his letter so as not to tear his return address. He wrote with the flavor of the hills, but something new had been added . . something that took me quite by surprise, and despite myself, I felt jealous.