Close to Famous Read online

  “Church of God for sale,” she snarled. “It’s a disgrace.” She walked out the door, and then I remembered. She was the lady I’d seen planting flowers outside the church.

  “You ladies finding what you need?” the man asked, friendly.

  “We are, thank you kindly.”

  It was good I came along, because Mama would buy Hamburger Helper and canned chili if I wasn’t there to watch her. I had started cooking partly out of self-defense. I found some cheese, a ham steak, ground beef, eggs, milk, butter, chocolate chips, juice, canned tomatoes, pasta, and instant butterscotch pudding, the secret ingredient for my soon-to-be-famous butterscotch muffins.

  We headed to the counter.

  “New to town?” the man asked.

  I checked my watch. “We’ve been here exactly four hours.”

  He chuckled. “Say, that’s real new.” He rang up our food. “Staying awhile?”

  “Awhile,” Mama said.

  “Welcome to Culpepper. I’m Jarvis.”

  “Rayka McFee,” Mama said, “and this is my daughter, Foster.”

  Just then the door opened and Percy marched back in like she had a storm inside of her. She pointed a finger at Jarvis “And if that real estate woman comes sniffing around, you tell her she’s going to have the fight of her sweet life if she tries to sell the church. You tell her that!”

  Jarvis said, “Rayka and Foster, meet Perseverance Wilson, the defender of all that’s right and true.”

  Mama grinned. “You’ve got a big job, Ms. Wilson.”

  Perseverance Wilson smiled bright. “Somebody’s got to do it.” Her smile took over most of her face.

  I waved hi. I’d never met a defender of all that’s right and true before. She sounded like a superhero. She didn’t look like one. She was wearing a long orange crinkly skirt, a yellow blouse, and big hoop earrings. She was tall with short hair curled tight around her head. Her skin was darker than Mama’s.

  “Rayka and Foster are new to town,” Jarvis said.

  She looked at Mama’s eye bandage. Mama was wearing her megastar sunglasses, but you could still see the gauze. “Don’t get many new folks here.”

  I was starting to see why.

  Perseverance Wilson turned to Jarvis. “You seen Fish around?”

  Jarvis smiled. “I imagine he’s hiding.”

  “When you see him, tell him I’m going to impart a depth of misery to his very soul, and I’ll be singing a song of joy when I do it.”

  “I’d rather you told him.”

  Jarvis shook his head as she left. I knew Mama wouldn’t say a peep about this, but me, I have trouble keeping quiet.

  “She seems upset,” I began.

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Right then a short boy came running into the store waving a sheet of blue paper. “I got Miss Charleena’s list and she’s low this time; lower than yesterday, even!”

  I looked at Mama.

  Jarvis read the list, lifted a bag of coffee off the shelf behind him, and put it in a box with a big bottle of mouthwash.

  “I’ll get the syrup and the frozen waffles,” the boy said and headed down the aisle.

  Jarvis called after him. “That special honey she wanted from New Zealand hasn’t come in yet.”

  The boy turned around. He looked worried.

  “I’ve got another blow for you, Macon. We’re out of Ho Hos and Ding Dongs.”

  “Miss Charleena’s not going to like that!”

  “She’s going to have to deal with the disappointment until the Hostess truck comes.”

  I grabbed Mama’s arm.

  What kind of place is this?

  Six

  MAMA PULLED OUT of the FOOD lot as a gray bus with black letters went by. The men inside it didn’t look friendly.

  “That’s the prison bus, Foster.”

  I got a creepy feeling. “Those men are headed to jail?”

  “The sign said Culpepper Penitentiary.”

  It should have said, CRIME DOESN’T PAY. I watched the bus disappear around the corner.

  Mama drove down a bumpy street trying to miss the potholes. Little houses and a few trailers were set back from the road. We drove by a closed-up factory with a faded sign.

  “Colonel Culpepper’s Jams and Jellies,” Mama read. “No Trespassing.”

  Mama reads to me a lot. My brain closes up when I open a book. I almost flunked sixth grade because of it. My second-grade teacher told Mama I would grow out of it, but it feels more like it’s grown all over me.

  Mama turned the Chevy down the dirt road, past the broken fence, around to the back of Kitty and Lester’s place, and parked by the Silver Bullet that was gleaming in the late-day light.

  The tow truck was gone. Kitty and Lester were probably off rescuing somebody. In front of the door to the Bullet were two outdoor chairs—one green and one blue—and a little table. Those hadn’t been there before. Mama smiled at the chairs and opened the door. I carried the groceries inside.

  Lester’s daddy’s stupid, dead fish seemed to be looking at me. “I’m baaaaaack,” I said to it. I put the food away, thinking about the pillowcase. Did I drop it outside the car? Did it get run over? Did Mr. Purvis throw it out when he got the note that we’d left?

  “I’m thinking I need to call Mr. Purvis, Foster.”

  “I’m thinking you need to right now!”

  She took out her phone and shooed me outside.

  I sat in the blue chair and felt the wind blow gently all around me. Mr. Purvis didn’t like kids much, but I had wowed him with my brown sugar brownies.

  I hoped he remembered those brownies. Of course, they were hard to forget.

  Elvis the cat was watching me. He meowed and I meowed back. He didn’t like that.

  “It’s nothing personal,” I told him. “If your name was Fluffy or Princess I’d like you fine.” Elvis licked his paw.

  Mama came out and lowered herself into the green chair like she was carrying a heavy load. “He doesn’t have it.”

  “He’s lying!”

  Mama crossed her arms. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he’s mad at us for leaving like that! He’s got it, I know he does!”

  “I don’t think that’s true. He was very nice to me on the phone.” Mama sighed. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  “You could call the neighbors!”

  “I don’t have their numbers, Foster!”

  “You could call Mr. Purvis back and tell him to put up a sign in the front hall about it!”

  Mama put in the call and Mr. Purvis said he’d put up a sign. She gave him her phone number.

  “Okay?” she said to me.

  “Okay.”

  She started humming a song she’d written for me last year on my birthday. It’s called “Foster’s Song.” Having a song named after you is this side of cool. She sang it soft and low.

  Hush now, it’s going to be all right.

  The night is coming, but we’ve got the light

  And it’s shining all around us so don’t you be afraid.

  Don’t let the problems of the day invade.

  Let them go away. Let them go away.

  And wait for the morning and the bright new day.

  I felt those words coming down on me like soft rain. She sang it again, and then I sang with her:

  Let them go away. Let them go away.

  And wait for the morning and the bright new day.

  The new day wasn’t too bright, it was cloudy, and when I asked Mama what would happen if we didn’t find Daddy’s pillowcase, she said, “Then you’ll have your daddy safe in your heart, and that’s a place where you can never lose any part of him.”

  Mama went to take a shower, and I headed for the kitchen.

  Bake it big.

  Bake it proud.

  That’s what Sonny Kroll always says on his cooking show. He’d been a marine. Eddington Carver, my best friend in Memphis, once asked me, “So how did yo
u handle it when your dad got killed?” And I told him, “I watched Sonny Kroll’s show.” Eddington’s box turtle Brucie had just died and he needed something to feel better, so we started watching Sonny’s show together, and before long we formed the Two Kids Cooking Club. At the end of our meetings we tapped our rolling pins and said, “We’re on this road together.” That’s how Sonny ended his show.

  You really get to know somebody when you share a meal. Eddington’s mama used to eat standing over the sink, but we got her sitting at the table and living right. That’s what home cooking does. I’m going to talk about this when I get my show.

  I got out my muffin pan and decided to practice. TV chefs have to cook, smile, and talk at the same time, which isn’t easy. I gave Lester’s daddy’s stupid, dead fish my amazing TV grin.

  “You know, people are cooking pretty complicated recipes today. In my opinion, you don’t have to go crazy on ingredients.”

  I mixed flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a bowl. “That’s why I love this butterscotch muffin. You can make it up easy as one, two, three.” Easy recipes that taste great are big on cooking shows. I added the box of butterscotch pudding mix, three eggs, and milk, and stirred it up. “Don’t kill the batter with overbeating, because holes can form in the muffin when it bakes.” I smiled, because smiling is important on TV. It doesn’t matter how you feel inside, if the cameras are on you—grin.

  I put paper liners in the pan and winked at the dead fish. “Make sure the batter’s even in each tin,” I said, filling them. “And now”—I opened the oven door grinning—“pop it in the oven.” I don’t know why so many cooks say “pop it in the oven,” but they do.

  I wiped my hands and stood at the sink. “I want to tell all you kids out there who are watching me, life gets hard sometimes. Just don’t give up, okay? Don’t give up on your dreams. And remember, when your heart is ready to break, that’s the perfect time to bake. Okay. See you next time.” I waved. That’s my close. I’m still working on it.

  I made Mama coffee and set the little table for breakfast like it was a celebration. The table was tucked under the rounded window. It looked like a booth in a restaurant. I sat down on a yellow cushion. Part of me felt like a little girl in a grown-up playhouse, the other part felt like a doughnut that had just lost its hole.

  I didn’t hear the shower running anymore, but from inside the bathroom, I could hear Mama crying.

  Ask any kid and they’ll tell you how hard it is to hear your mother cry.

  Mama loved the muffins, and I didn’t once ask why she was crying. Like a multiple choice test at school where none of the answers seems very good, sometimes there isn’t one right answer.

  “Do you like it here?” she asked me. “The town and all.”

  “There’s not much to it, Mama.”

  “I know.”

  “I feel kind of different.” I sighed. “I guess I’d feel that wherever.”

  She grinned. “You are different. The best kind of different. You up for staying a couple of weeks and seeing how it feels then?”

  “It’s cool living in the Silver Bullet.”

  “And the price is right.”

  Mama’s real careful with money. When Daddy died, the army sent us a chunk of money called “death benefits.” She’s got some saved for me to go to college, but I’m not sure she’ll have to spend much on my education, since it took all I had to squeak through sixth grade.

  “You think they have a grocery other than FOOD, Mama? ”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about a restaurant other than Angry Wayne’s?”

  “There’s Pizza Hut and Arby’s.”

  “I meant one that would care about dessert.”

  “Well now.” Mama laughed. “We’re getting down to serious matters.”

  COOK’S TIP: Sometimes just sitting with someone you love and having a warm muffin can help set things right.

  Seven

  FOOD WAS THE only grocery in town. Mama and I were there by the freezer section when the short boy I’d seen the other day ran down the middle aisle waving a piece of blue paper like it was the most important thing in West Virginia.

  “Miss Charleena needs bug spray, Pepto-Bismol, and a big jar of chocolate syrup,” he shouted at Jarvis. “And she needs to order more of the . . .” He looked at his list. “. . . green tea eye-lift pads with mung bean concentrate.”

  “Think that’d make you go blind,” Jarvis said.

  I walked to the fruit and vegetable section. I needed carrots and zucchini for a muffin I learned to make from Marietta Morningstar. There was only one bag of carrots left. I reached for it.

  “You can’t have that!”

  I looked up. The short boy was standing there, desperate. “Miss Charleena has carrots on her list, and I can’t go back without them.”

  I could have said, “I was here first,” but Mama taught me to be reasonable around unreasonable people.

  “Here,” I said. “Take them.”

  He took them and looked at me. “Thank you.”

  I shrugged.

  “Thank you on behalf of Miss Charleena.”

  I didn’t say you’re welcome.

  “You’re new,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You probably don’t know about Miss Charleena.”

  I never wanted to meet her. I knew that much.

  He lowered his voice. “She’s Culpepper’s most famous person and I work for her. When she needs things, she needs them right away.”

  I looked around for Mama, but I didn’t see her. “Well, you’ve got the carrots.”

  He turned the bag over in his hands. “I will tell Miss Charleena of your kindness.”

  “It’s no big deal.” But I was curious. “How famous is she?”

  “She was a movie and TV actress. She’s won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and was nominated for two Oscars.”

  Wow.

  “Miss Charleena should have won those Oscars, too. Between you and me, she was robbed. She played an alcoholic wife of a murderer in The Deepest Part of the Ocean and a desperate immigrant mother in My Name Is Tess.”

  “I never heard of those.” I like movies that make me laugh, like Uncle Raymond’s Bad Vacation.

  He cocked his head and looked at me. I picked out a few tomatoes and some bananas. I hate being stared at.

  “I make documentary films,” he said.

  I’m not sure what a documentary film is, but I’m close to positive they don’t get made by this boy.

  “You have a very interesting face,” he added. “And you would look good on film. Has anyone told you that?”

  “No.” I smoothed back my hair. I’ve thought about having a cooking DVD to go with my TV show and hugely popular restaurant. I walked to the checkout, where Jarvis was putting bug spray, Pepto-Bismol, and chocolate syrup into a bag.

  The boy grabbed three rolls of toilet paper and followed me. “I’m Macon Dillard, Miss Charleena’s assistant.”

  “I’m Foster.”

  He nodded his head. “Foster is a very interesting name. I bet there’s a story behind your name.”

  It was Mama’s maiden name. There’s a big story about my middle name, but I’m keeping that to myself.

  “Miss Charleena didn’t have to change her name when she went to Hollywood. Some actors do.” He pushed past me. “Is it okay if I go first? Miss Charleena gets nervous if I don’t come back right away.”

  I stepped aside as Macon checked the bill, signed his name, took the grocery bag, and said, “We’ll talk again, Foster.” He dashed out the door.

  Jarvis rang up my order. “The lady he works for, Charleena Hendley, is our local entertainment.”

  “The Charleena Hendley?” It was Mama.

  “The one and only,” Jarvis said.

  “A famous actress lives here instead of Hollywood?” I couldn’t quite believe it.

  “She lives here, but she brought some of Hollywood with her.”

&nbs
p; “How can you not know Charleena Hendley?” Mama asked me.

  I shrugged. There are lots of holes in my education.

  “I love her movies. I read she left acting and moved back home after her rotten husband dumped her for that supermodel, Bliss. I didn’t know home was here.” Mama drove past the shut-down factory. “What that woman’s got inside is amazing.”

  That was some compliment coming from Mama, who had more inside than most people dreamed about. It was in her like special cream filling.

  Once, back in Memphis, she let it all out.

  She was onstage waiting for Huck. It was a rehearsal; I was the only one in the audience. It started with a mic check. Mama sang into the mic and something magical happened. She was singing so good, the piano player sat down and started following her; the bass player did, too. The drummer ran out onstage and pounded out the beat. Mama threw back her head and sang it strong and true about a woman who’d been done wrong by a man, but she was going to be all right. Oh yeah. She was going to be all right.

  I stood up and applauded, and so did the other musicians. I was shouting, “Encore, encore!” Mama laughed and took a bow, but then Huck marched out onstage in his tight, white Elvis outfit, shouting, “What’s going on here?” They went into “Love Me Tender,” a big Elvis hit. I watched Mama step back into the shadows, letting all the light beam on Huck.

  But nobody forgot Mama’s song.

  I wish somebody could take an X-ray of my heart to show me all I’ve got inside.

  Mama says it’s more than I can imagine, which is why my middle name is Akilah. It’s an African name that means “intelligent one who reasons.” I’ve tried to tell Mama that with my grades, I don’t deserve that name, but she just says, “I know what’s in you, Foster Akilah McFee.”

  My daddy wrote that to me in a letter when he was in Iraq. Not that I could read it—Mama read it to me—but I have the part memorized where he said, You live right, now. You work hard. Don’t waste your talents. I know what you’ve got inside.

  I haven’t asked Mama to read me any of Daddy’s letters for a long time. She started crying bad the last time she did. She got as far as, “Dear Foster, today we played baseball and I got a home run. It’s strange playing baseball with fighter planes zooming overhead.” Mama lost it right there.