The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder Read Online Free PDF

lifted her hands from her face. Her face was all blotchy. I watched her as she gathered her jewels piece by piece, the ones that really looked like Mardi Gras necklaces, the emerald bracelet, her silver dollar, the rings of purple and green rare gems, the solid gold one, and the big white Elizabeth Taylor diamond that glinted in the light coming in through the canopy of the chinaberry tree.
     
    Back at home, helping M’Dear peel and chop up potatoes to boil, I told her about the emeralds and rubies in the ladies’ room, and about Sukey. “Scrub those potatoes good, you hear,” she said to me.
    I asked her, “With all those jewels, why do you think Queen Sally and Sukey live over there in that part of town?”
    M’Dear turned to me and told me she knew Sally, Sukey’s mother, from when they were little girls through the middle of high school, when Sally left La Luna.
    “So is it true, M’Dear? Was Sukey’s father a prince, and are Sukey and her mother royal?” To think that I had a new friend who was a princess!
    M’Dear told me, “Sukey is royal. I’m not so sure the jewels are real, but all people are royal, Calla. They don’t need to own jewels. That’s better, really, because then nobody can steal them.” M’Dear plopped our bowl of peeled potatoes into the pot of boiling water. Then she reached over and caressed my cheek.
    I could hardly get to sleep that night. How could I sleep after just finding out that we are all kings and queens, princes and princesses?

Chapter 4
     
    1962
     
     
    E very summer morning I woke up early, pulled on my swimsuit, and ran down the piney path to the river. Swimming in the La Luna River, watching that sunrise, was my way of praying.
    And I loved climbing trees. I loved discovering branches that would hold me up while I looked out on the ground. I would put my head close to the bark and I could hear the tree breathing, and I would kiss the trees.
    I imagined that the trees and I were dancing. After all, M’Dear taught me that everything danced. In my closet up on a shelf where I kept my special things—feathers, marbles that my brothers didn’t like because they were chipped—I kept branches from trees I loved. I was known for being a scrambler up trees, so I could reach the tiny ones.
    “It’s your long legs,” my brothers would say. “You have the longest legs on a girl that we’ve ever seen.”
    One particular morning, when I was nine years old, I had a little extra time after my swim and it just felt too early to be climbing trees, so I walked around town. I liked seeing La Luna before it woke up. It made me feel like my town was a baby sleeping, all sweet and good.
    I loved to visit the La Luna Garden Café where Leon was up at four every morning making the French bread to go with the gumbo or red beans and rice or cold shrimp dumped out on newspaper. Some people like Saltines, but my family and me like French bread on the side to balance out the zing of the cocktail sauce. Leon was one of my buddies. He was going to join the Marines soon, something that made me sad. Why do people have to go off to war, leaving us back home never knowing if they’ll come back? But he promised he’d be back. He didn’t talk much, but whenever I showed up, he smiled and gave me big hunks of fresh bread on a paper plate, with fresh butter on the side. I would put the butter on and quickly eat the fresh bread, letting the butter drip down the front of my swimming suit, knowing I could quickly rinse off under the outdoor shower when I got home.
    We didn’t have a Greyhound bus station in La Luna, so the bus just stopped behind the Garden Café. There I was, all dripping with butter, when the bus pulled up that morning. Nobody from around here was getting on, so I watched to see if anybody got off. Almost always it would be someone I knew: Mrs. Matthews coming back from Shreveport, where her son Michael had a job. Or Janie Gerard coming back from seeing her boyfriend, who was