Francie by Karen English Page A

away.”
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    Later on, Mama took out the hot comb and heated it on the stove. She sat me in the kitchen chair.
    â€œBend your head and hold your ear,” she said when she thought the comb had heated enough. I held my ear and my breath at the same time. When the heavy iron comb was that close to my face, I was afraid to breathe. It sizzled as Mama slid it through a place where the hair was still damp. “This part ain’t dry enough,” she said.

    I stayed quiet. I wasn’t going to chance a word. I’d been burned on the ear too many times from making an unexpected move. “Bend your head way down,” she said. “Touch your chin to your chest.”
    I arched my head down as far as I could and felt the heat close in on the nape of my neck. The kitchen, Mama called it. The hardest part to straighten. Each time the heat moved away—the comb being placed on the fire again—I exhaled deeply and relaxed until Mama reached for it again to hold against the cloth to see if it was too hot, hot enough to leave brown teeth marks on the cloth. Then she waved it slowly through the air to cool it, her eyes far-off and patient. Thinking of Daddy coming tomorrow, I bet.
    That night, in bed, I smelled vanilla. Mama must have put a couple of dabs behind her ears.
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    The morning was full of anticipation. While Mama pumped the water for boiling feathers off the chicken, she squinted up the road. As she stoked the fire in the stove, a noise outside made her move quickly to the porch to look out. She sewed a new patch on Prez’s pants, and her eyes were constantly moving to the open door to look down Three Notch Road. Each time she turned from the door, or the window, or stepped back into the house, a flash of disturbance showed on her face that I didn’t like.
    I watched her closely and carried the weight of Mama’s waiting as well as my own. Soon I couldn’t stand it
any longer. I had to get out. I’d go and pick flowers for the Sunday pitcher. Mama used it as a vase because it had a chip on its lip. “Get the watermelon out the creek,” Mama called after me as I skipped down the steps. She had me put one in there the day before, so it could get cool.
    Prez came along and we walked in silence. Then he piped up with, “What you think Daddy is gonna bring us from the road?”
    â€œI don’t know.” I was busy wondering if maybe we should take this opportunity to search around for Jesse.
    â€œYou think some of them red swizzle sticks with the little monkeys on them?”
    â€œI said I didn’t know.” He was quiet then, sulking. “Maybe some of them little soaps shaped like seashells like he brought us once,” I said to make him feel better.
    â€œI don’t want no soap.”
    We closed in on the place where wildflowers grew in abundance. We picked black-eyed Susans and coneflowers and some goldenrod. Just as I was leading the way into the woods for some nice fern, Perry called out to us from the road. He had his fishing pole and a bucket of bait. Without even a word to me, Prez laid his flowers at his feet and started to trot off toward Perry.
    â€œYou better ask Mama about going fishing,” I called after him. I was angry that he was running off and deserting me.
    â€œMama won’t care.”

    â€œAsk her, then.”
    He was only a few minutes in the house. Then he was out again, running up the road with Perry, laughing and waving back at me. I could have slapped him. The only reason Mama was letting him go, I knew, was because she was wound up and she wouldn’t have the quiet of mind she needed, having Prez underfoot asking when was Daddy coming.
    Dry grass whipped at my ankles as I climbed down a small slope that led to some flowers I wanted that grew at the bottom. I forgot what they were called, but I loved how each green thistle shot out its furl of lavender like a bright promise.
    The sun’s rays warmed