Free Roseflower Creek by Jackie Lee Miles Page A

Made me real tired and fixed my tongue so's it didn't talk good like it used to.
        "Just take her home and put her to bed," he said. "She'll be fine."
        But this time Doc Crawley was dead wrong 'cause I weren't never gonna be fine again. How's a body gonna lose their best friend in the whole world and figure on being just fine? Why, that's plumb crazy. Top of that, now I had me a tongue didn't work.
        But Mama and Ray did what he said and took me home. They didn't get to see Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr on account of me and I felt bad about that, but what could I do? Could hardly sit and watch me Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison when Carolee was killed, my heart was broke in two, and my throat couldn't swallow 'cause a hard lump was stuck up in it. But that shot Doc Crawley give me sure helped. I knew Carolee was gone, but somehow I couldn't cry. I just laid in my bed all peaceful like, and strange as it was, I felt like everything was gonna be okay. Isn't that just the craziest thing? A shot that can do that to ya'—make ya' feel like the world's okay when it's flat-out ended. Goodness gracious, what'd they put in that shot anyway? I wanted to know 'cause I thought I'd probably need a whole lot more of it real soon. If it come in pills, I figured I could just take me one each day. Soon as my head wasn't so fuzzy, I planned on asking Doc Crawley about it. I did, too. I found out they got shots and pills and all kinds of stuff to make ya' feel like that, but he told me he couldn't let me have any more of it 'cause it was habit-forming.
        "Well, if a body's gonna take it every day anyway, Doctor Crawley," I said, "what difference does that make?" He said people that takes it is drug addicts. Fancy that. They give me something to help me out when I learned about Carolee and they was fixing to make me a drug addict. It's a good thing I didn't take no more of that stuff 'cause I sure didn't wanna be no drug addict, even if life did hurt a bunch.
        The day of the funeral I stood next to my mama to say goodbye to Carolee. They had her laid out in a wood box made up like a bed with her head resting on a white satin pillow. Her skin was a whole lot whiter than it was the last time I seen her. They had lipstick on her, too, and her ma never let her wear that stuff, so I figured she'd be pretty mad when she took a good look and seen what that undertaker fella did to her. Her hair looked real pretty, though. Wanda come and did it. She didn't want to, but Carolee's mama come to the shop and begged her when Lexie was gettin' a shampoo.
        "Mrs. Thompson, honey," Wanda said, "I never worked on a person gone to the hereafter. You might should get someone with some experience, don't ya' think?" She looked up at Mz. Thompson whilst she was rinsing Lexie's hair and sprayed Lexie right in the face. Then she pushed a towel down on Lexie's face to sop it up and poked her in the eye. Wanda sure was a bundle of nerves that day.
        "I know you want that sweet little girl to look nice," she said, "and I jist don't know if I'd do a good job and all…"
        In truth, Lexie told me later, Wanda was scared to be in a room with a dead person. She only agreed to do it in the end 'cause Mz. Thompson didn't want no strangers touching Carolee that didn't have to and Wanda got a bigger heart than a scared heart and went on down to that funeral home and done it. Made Carolee look like an angel, she did. When we all showed up for the wake, Carolee's blonde hair was spread out all nice on that white satin pillow. Wanda put these cute little ringlets all around Carolee's face as a finishing touch. It looked real special, and I told Wanda so in front of everyone there. And I asked her to do mine like that in case I died 'fore her. She got mad and told me to hush up. Fancy that. Here I was giving her a compliment even. Mama grabbed my arm and had me sit down. Reverend Sims was in North Carolina visiting his sick mama,