Read Online Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns by J. California Cooper - Free Book Online Page B

Magical. All the taunting, all the pain, in Lily Bea’s childhood caused part of her to huddle, far back, into someplace that was serene and beautiful. She’s still at home there; but her beauty comes out to you, if you have beauty in you.
    Weldon Forest drove himself to take the next delivery, early, to the Clean Cleaners and Lily Bea. He saw Maddy, with the angry crippled leg propped up on a table, jump up on his crippled leg and grin, saying, “Ohhh, Mr. Forest, bossman! How come you to come down here? I coulda come and got those things! Or my wife, Lily here, woulda been glad to pick em up!”
    Weldon Forest’s heart flinched and fell when he heard the word
wife
. He looked at Lily, who looked miserably embarrassed. Weldon saw none of the beauty. Her face was long and sad. Her eyes were of sorrow. She attempted to smile at Mr. Forest, but lost the effort because there was no light around him. It was vanquished by the dimness of her husband’s shop.
    Mr. Forest looked at Maddy, saying, “Your wife? I didn’t know you had a wife.”
    Maddy was ashamed to have someone ugly to be his wife. He laughed, a stingy, dirty little laugh, said, “Well, sometimes you take what you can get, Mr. Forest. She a good girl, though.”
    Mr. Forest left, thinking, “A girl? Take what you can get? I was out of my mind.” But there lingered in his mind those little thrills, that voice. Then he remembered, Lily had said nothing. Hadn’t even smiled. He didn’t go back to his shop or to his house. He drove to some favorite place of his that was filled with mountains, trees, birds, sky, and clouds. He sat there a long time. His eyes filled with tears that never fell; they just dried, evaporated. Then he drove back to his life. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”
    Lily Bea would not do any delivery again. Her life just continued as usual for the next three months or so. She started taking some of the money they took in, for herself. She took to getting her hair done. She kept it up, even when Maddy said, “We ain’t got no money to waste on your head!”
    They did have money. She knew where it was hidden away. She began to take that bus ride, get off at a good place, and go in to buy things for herself. Little things, not too expensive. And she put some away for herself.
    In her daily movements she noticed the pharmacist, the counterman, the meat-market man, just different men she had to talk to. She noticed they wanted to talk more, be nicer, liked to touch her. She didn’t seek these attentions, they just were. She began to feel a power, her power as a woman, however little. Lily did not understand the power, did not seek to use it. But this knowledge of herself cracked the door open to a freedom to like herself. To even love herself. To let herself be seen . . . a little more. Not by anyone in particular, just anyone.
    Lily Bea, in her private, quiet moments, thought of Weldon Forest. “He is older, but he is very nice. Kind. The world looked different when I was around him. It looked . . . happy. I really like him.”
    Doing her work around the shop, she was still called ugly. Always ugly. I knew that was the loop Maddy was hanging her with. I said little things to make her know that herself. As usual, she did not hate, or even despise, anything but her own (she thought) crooked body, and her husband who still grabbed her body in the nights, greedily, whenever he could. Often, he tried to sneak on top of her when she was on her pallet, asleep. She always woke up, screaming.
    Lily Bea wanted to leave Maddy, was saving money to that end. But where to go? No place she knew, and she still didn’t have much money even if she did know. My house was full of grandchildren; I offered her my space, but she wanted her own space.
    Now, life is strange, you know that already.
    Lily Bea was on Weldon Forest’s mind. More than he thought was natural. But, he was still a man who felt few thrills or interests. His was a good wife, though