Page 41

"Yes. Mama."

"Good. Im so happy for you, Noble. Pm so happy I've been able to help you see things, the right things. In time" -- Mama turned her head slowly toward Baby Celeste -- "our Baby Celeste will help us see even more. There is so much left to discover through her."

I looked from her to Celeste. What did she mean? How could a baby help us to see more, discover more? Who did she think Celeste really was?

"Oh. Noble. Im so happy. So happy for us all that I've decided the three of us are taking the day off," Mama declared with a bounce in her seat. " We're going shopping and to lunch at the big mall in Middletown. Wear something nice," she told me. "I want to buy you some more clothes, too, and some prettier things for the baby, as well as myself." she added with a slight blush. "We need to get the baby some new books as well. What would you like? Is there something you've been thinking about lately?"

"No. Mama."

There really were things I dreamed about. but I could never mention them. How often had I snuck a look at a new style in a magazine, new shoes, or jewelry? For a while months ago, I had some magazines hidden in my room the way a teenage boy might have Playboy or some other such magazine hidden in his. Eventually, I was so frightened of the possibility of Mama finding them that I snuck them out and buried them behind the house. We both had our private graveyards, I thought.

"Well, you'll think about it some more. Im sure you'll see something you want when we walk about the shops and look in the windows and at the displays. Sometimes, its fun just to look at what's new."

Fun? Since when did she think that was any fun? How changed she was. I couldn't recall a time when Mama had been as buoyant and energized as she was now. As she moved through the house, she hummed and sang. She primped and preened in front of the mirror for almost an hour, experimenting with different ways to wear her hair, different outfits and jewelry and shades of lipstick. Every time I suggested I would wait outside, she told me she was almost ready and she didn't want me getting dirty.

Have a little patience. I know you, Noble. You'll just wander off to the garden or the shed and get muddied or greasy. Just keep your eye on Baby Celeste. We're leaving in a few minutes."

The few minutes went on and on until I thought we would never leave. Maybe it was all Mama's illusion, fantasy. Even Baby Celeste grew bored and fell asleep with her head on my lap. I twirled her curly red hair in my finger and watched her eyelids tremble as she slept. Looking at her beautiful lips and soft cheeks, I wondered what sort of dreams she had. Were they serious prophetic dreams or dreams like I used to have, dreams full of candy canes and dolls, music and laughter? Was she the magical child Mama claimed she was or was she just a little girl, born into a world she might never understand?

Yes. I saw myself in her, but I saw Elliot, too, and I wondered how could it be that Mr. Fletcher could look at her, especially now that he was going to be an intimate part of our lives, and not see that as well.

Or had he seen that immediately? I suddenly wondered. The idea made my heart race.

Could it be that he did know, that this pursuit of him that Mama was so proud of, that Mama thought was spiritually directed and planned, was really just the opposite? She wasn't beguiling me. Fletcher for our purposes: he was beguiling her for reasons Mama did not see or understand. How dangerous was that? What could be the result?

As sweet and gentle a man as he seemed to be, he could be the very challenge to our world and our existence that Mama dreaded and about whom Mama warned. He could be that Trojan horse that Mama once accused Cleo, my dog, of being. He could be the dark shadow she feared was coming out of the forest.

And yet, how could Mama be so bewitched? And why wouldn't our family spirits have warned her as I thought they had warned me? Look how quickly and lovingly Baby Celeste had taken to him. I told myself. If she was the magic child, wouldn't she sense danger?

I was so confused. It made me dizzy. Should I be happy about Mr. Fletcher, happy we would have a man in our lives again, a father for Baby Celeste and even for me, or should I be terrified for all of us? If I showed that terror. Mama would only lock me away.

"I'm ready," I heard, and looked up.

I was sure she saw the surprise on my face. Mama wore her hair differently, swept to the back on one side. It made her look seductive, sexy. She had chosen a lipstick more on the pink tone, which matched her one-piece, sleeveless dress and her shoes. Was that an ankle bracelet? When did she get that? Or was it something she had always had but had never taken out until now? It was as if she were digging up one secret after another and astonishing me more and more with each revelation.

There was no denying she was so pretty, but instead of being proud of her and taking delight in her beauty. I suddenly felt that all too familiar pang of jealousy so strongly it embittered me and nearly tore me in two.

I gazed down at my calloused palms, my hard forearms, my jeans and clodhopper shoes, scuffed and worn. My toes curled unhappily within. A feeling of utter disgust and revulsion washed over me. It tightened my chest and squeezed my heart like a sponge squeezed in a fist. My stomach muscles stiffened. What am I, what have I become, I thought, that I would be so repulsed by the sight of myself?

"Don't tell me she fell asleep?" Mama said, finally taking note of Baby Celeste on my lap.

"You took so long," I accused, perhaps too sharply. I held my breath. She stared a moment, then shook her head the way she would shake off shower water. Mama accepted and denied things in a world within a world. She was always listening to voices, even as she spoke.

"Well, you'll just have to carry her to the car and strap her in her seat, Noble, sure she'll become alert when we get to the shops."

Mama continued to walk into the living room toward me, wet her fingers on her tongue, then wiped my cheek.

"Honestly, you would go about all day blotched and streaked with grime. You haven't changed since you were four." she told me, but she smiled. too.

I looked up at her and she saw something in my

eyes that caused her to take pause. I was angrily thinking that in her view of things I would always be her little boy. I couldn't even grow into a man, much less a woman.

"Are you all right? You haven't had any new problems, have you?" she asked quickly.

I shook my head immediately. If I had hesitated for a split second, she would have had me up in my room again. locked the door, put me on another fast, and gone off with Baby Celeste

"Then let's get started," she said in a happier tone of voice.