Free The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells

the rink side, and another one in the grocery.
    Nelle had to start charging a dime more to rent roller skates. Somebody had to pay to run those air conditioners. But those things didn’t put out like the old fan did. Matter of fact, it felt a whole lot hotter in there than it ever was before.
    I think that maybe we all have a calling. I got mine in a tiny instant when I blinked and saw the blood on Cleveland’s hair.
    There are doctors who sew up cuts. There are people who know how to lead marches. There are leaders who sometimes do what is right. I want to be a beautician. I want to heal hair that’s wounded or maybe on people who are wounded. And bring out some beauty in a world that can sometimes seem ugly. Because we are one family, really. Like M’Dear says, We are all brothers and sisters under La Luna’s sweet healing light.

Chapter 6
     
    SUMMER 1965
     
     
    I remember the day that I began to feel that Tuck was okay. It happened one day when we were playing on the cotton truck, jumping down into the high truck bed full of cotton, and Tuck said, “Look! Look, Calla, this boll of cotton feels like a Christmas tree.”
    I said, “Tucker, what do you mean? That does not feel anything like a Christmas tree.”
    “I think it’s what country people put under their trees. But we never really had Christmas, so I’m pretty dumb to even talk about it.”
    “Then you haven’t ever had a Christmas tree,” I told him.
    He didn’t say anything for a while, but just as I was fixing to shimmy up the wooden side of the truck to jump down again, Tuck said, “We never had a Christmas tree when I was growing up.”
    That made me feel bad. “I promise you can come to our house and see my tree decorated and all.”
    “Don’t tell me you promise,” Tuck said. “People who say promise are always just lying.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “Didn’t need anybody to tell me that.”
    Then I knew he’d had buckets full of things promised to him that just never came true.
    “Well, now you’re in La Luna,” I told him, “and none of us are gonna lie to you.”
    Again, Tuck got real quiet, then finally said, “Well, okay.”
    I decided that was good enough and threw a handful of cotton at him. I just wanted the puffy whiteness of cotton to touch him, to make Tuck see that at least cotton didn’t lie.
    After that we became friends.
     
    Sonny Boy and Will were so different. Sonny Boy had kind of reddish blond hair, and he was strong and muscular. He could still lift me up, just lift me right up. And M’Dear—he could lift her up too! We’d be dancing, all of us just kind of hanging around in the kitchen, and he’d just pick M’Dear up at the sink and lift her right up in the air.
    And Sonny Boy would do anything, anywhere! One day he got in trouble for riding his Stingray bike off the flatbed cotton truck at Papa Tucker’s. He just rode his bike with himself on it straight off onto a gravel road, rolled over, and got brush burns all up and down his body. M’Dear had to put Mercurochrome and Band-Aids all over him. And I told him he was an idiot.
    When I went to his bedroom, M’Dear had a fan blowing up on him. I said, “Sonny Boy, how are you doing, you crazy thing?”
    He said, “Well, it hurts, but it was worth it.”
    That’s just the kind of boy he was.
    And Will, he was so quiet and sweet. He always dressed nice. I don’t know how he came up with his clothes, but he’d find things at the swap shop like a white linen jacket and a little cotton vest that cracked us up whenever he wore it. And his music playing was getting to be known even outside our parish. He was happy to dance with the rest of us but didn’t get wild.
    Sonny Boy would sing and dance like James Brown, and his routine was pretty darn good. Now, it turned out that Tuck didn’t mind pulling out the stops. He got so carried away his loafers barely stayed on his feet. So he kicked them off and danced in his bare feet to polish off the