I walked along the sea wall. One kidney fell quickly but the other stubbornly dangled from my underwear. I jumped up and down like a silly little kid.

“Mommy! Look what I can do!”

Faking a tap dance, I pushed both kidneys off the edge with my foot. My new sandals were too big and flopped down noisily. My mother chose sizes that would fit the next year.

“You be careful of de all’gators! You!”

The kidneys floated and oil rainbows sprouted around them in larger and larger circles. The catfish darted up to fight over the remains. I was alarmed to see such a commotion with my mother so near, breaking a basilica leaf and admiring its fragrance, or her ingenuity at having planted the seeds.

“You wan’ go for a lil’ walk, honey?” she asked.

“I do!” Cecilia slammed the screen porch door, panted down the stepping-stones as though she feared we would leave without her and never come back.

My mother held my right hand and Cecilia’s left one down the hot, barren streets of Wachovi. I had to wave the orange flag.

CHAPTER 6

“A’kay … yes, a’kay …”

My mother twisted the cord of her telephone around her finger. It was an imitation turn of the century model that only the rich would have had back in the days when operators listened in on people’s conversations, that she’d purchased for fifty books of green stamps.

“Wunderful …”

She sat on the edge of her king-sized bed, looking at a cleanly-shaven leg, front view, side view, and, with an effort, back view.

“Jus’ wunderful.”

From what I could gather, Ursula was going on a three day Caribbean cruise with Harry. I rolled my mother’s panty hose into tight wads and bounced them into the bottom drawer of her dressing table.

“See if you can help me match these,” I asked Cecilia.

After folding the towels, sheets, and O.L. handkerchiefs, we were faced with the bottom of the laundry basket, the part we hated most, my mother’s knee-highs, which were like amputated stockings. If we got the tint wrong when pairing them, she stuck them in our face to make sure we weren’t blind. Cecilia opened the curtains.

“Oh, I don’ know ’bout dat. Guard, Ursula, you take me by su’prise …” she cuddled the receiver to her breast, “Give time for you eyes to a’just. De air-conditionin’s on.”

Daylight equalled heat, heat increased electric bills. Cecilia closed the curtains. We were condemned to live in semidarkness.

“One, bu’ only one weeken’. You lil’ stinker, you.”

The phone cord, wrapped around her wrist was robbing her hand of colour.

“Tommy an’ Timmy are comin’, so it’s not nec’ry to vacuum. I hope dey do not destroy my house.” The thought of fingerprints on the refrigerator doors was already ruining her day.

“You. Get dress.”

She didn’t expand the order to Cecilia, maybe because her one-piece bathing suit had fringes around the bottom like a skirt.

“Can I put on a towel?” I asked, meaning to wrap a beach towel round my hips, Hawaiian-style.