Free The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson Page A

through the picture window at the bananas, which she still couldn’t call figs like everyone else did. The banana trees she’d imagined stretched their branches high to the sky, not fat and squat to the ground, heavy with fruit that turned purple like Jean’s skin before they ripened. Maybe the baby would come just like the fruit on that tree, she thought, upside down and not at all how she expected it.
    â€œSo fish mean babies?”
    â€œYou dream of fish and a baby soon come. Dream of a wedding and it’s a funeral around the corner. Dream of a funeral and somebody’s getting married soon,” Hyacinth said.
    Phaedra jumped when she heard the pop and hiss as Hyacinth lowered the first few tablespoons of batter into hot oil.
    â€œOK, OK, that’s all I can remember for right now,” Phaedra said.
    Phaedra left the kitchen wondering where this child might come from. Her absent wonder almost made her chores go byquickly.

THE BIRD HILL CHURCH of God in Christ 75th Anniversary picnic was a highly anticipated affair. For months before it happened, the head of the church picnic committee, Mrs. Gumbs, made announcements from her seat in the third pew, much to the annoyance of the elders who said they didn’t want to strain their ears or crane their necks to hear what she was talking about. Mrs. Gumbs, mother to Clotel Gumbs and four other children with equally stingy portions of character and ambition, stood her ground, saying that she was neither usher nor deacon nor reverend and therefore did not belong in the sanctuary except on Saturdays when she cleaned it with the others from the Women’s Guild. It was this kind of obsequiousness that got the gullets of Hyacinth and the other hill women. Phaedra could hear but did not listen to Mrs. Gumbs’s long speeches because by then the service had usually gone onfor three hours and she could practically taste the cookies from the after-service repast; just the thought of sugar melting against her tongue and the maraschino cherry at the cookie’s center, which she always saved for last, made Phaedra ache with longing.
    Phaedra marveled at the elaborate headpieces Mrs. Gumbs wore, intricate concoctions with beads and plumes and straw that drew attention away from the massive chest and stomach that she wore with a kind of pride, having appointed herself the mother of the church. Some of the words floated through Phaedra’s haze of hunger and boredom—“rousing success” and “pitch in” and “many hands make light work”—but mostly Phaedra was fascinated by Mrs. Gumbs’s matronly swagger, which was so different from the kind her mother had. Phaedra looked at the peacock hat Mrs. Gumbs wore on the last Sunday before the picnic and whispered to Chris that he might have to go hold down the bird before it flew off her head. She realized that she was being uncharitable and straightened up a bit when her grandmother shot her a look that Phaedra knew wasn’t nearly as deadly as the ones she normally gave her. She’d overheard Hyacinth talking to Ms. Zelma, saying that she was surprised Pauline Gumbs had not yet sat upon and crushed up the little piece of man she called a husband.
    Phaedra’s stomach grumbled with anticipation on the Sunday before the picnic when she heard all the items on the menu: stew chicken, rice and peas, cook-up rice, flying fish, pudding and souse, yam pie, macaroni pie, potato salad, fried chicken, and Phaedra’s favorite, fish cakes. For the whole week thatfollowed, Phaedra imagined the food she’d eat at the picnic. It was easy to forgive Mrs. Gumbs’s droning on about the powers of fellowship and the gift of Christian community when she called out the food in a way that made Phaedra see, taste, and touch it.
    The day of the picnic came and everyone was at church at the appointed hour, just after eight o’clock when the sun hadn’t yet got going.