I saw a sign up ahead, but I couldn’t read it. I felt like there was a sign hanging on me.
Limited.
Challenged.
Stupid.
Lazy.
I sat down in the dirt and cried, as lost as any girl ever was in this world.
I don’t know how long I sat there. I wasn’t sure which way was home.
Did I head up or down? Miss Charleena lived on top of the hill. I didn’t want to see her ever again, but I didn’t have much choice. I headed up until I saw her big gray house.
I knocked at the back door. I rang the doorbell. I shouted, “It’s me, Foster!”
Finally, Miss Charleena opened the door. “What happened to you?”
I smoothed back my hair. “I fell.”
She looked at me like she had X-ray vision.
“I got lost,” I added. “And I spent some time being upset.”
“Let’s get some bandages on those knees.”
“I don’t mean to be any trouble.”
She made a noise and pointed to the bathroom.
I went inside. It was beautiful blue with white trim and a silver mirror on the wall. First thing I did was get blood on the white rug. I ran the water and soaped up my knees. I patted them dry and got blood on the towel. My hands had cuts, too. I washed my face.
“You all right in there?”
“Yes.”
I put ointment on my knees and hands and put bandages over them. I found a comb and tried to fix my hair. The comb broke—my hair can do that. I walked out holding the rug and the towel.
“How much do you like these, Miss Charleena?”
“Why?”
I showed her the blood.
She sighed and looked at my shoes. I’d forgotten to take them off, but she didn’t mention it. “I’m not much of a cook, Foster, but I could make you a hamburger.”
I was hungry. “That’d be good.”
I sat on a stool in the kitchen as she took out hamburger meat and pressed it hard into a patty. I cleared my throat. “If you don’t mind me saying, if you pat the meat gently it’ll stay juicier.”
“I didn’t know that.” She looked at the patty. “How do I undo it?”
“Well.” I went over and tore the meat into little sections and patted them together lightly.
She got out a frying pan and turned it to high.
“Uh, Miss Charleena. It’s better to cook a burger not quite so hot.”
“You’ve got a lot of opinions on hamburgers, Foster McFee.”
“I watch the Food Network a lot.”
“I never watch it.”
I could tell. “Sonny Kroll is my favorite chef. I’ve been watching him for years. My specialty is baking—cupcakes, butterscotch muffins.”
“Butterscotch muffins!”
“These muffins open hearts,” I told her.
“What do you need to make butterscotch muffins?”
“Butter, brown sugar, vanilla, flour, salt, eggs, pecans, and butterscotch pudding mix.”
She wrote that down. “I’ll make sure I have that when you come tomorrow. I’m guessing you’d like to make your own burger.”
I really would. I went over to the stove and turned down the heat a little. “Do you have some oil?”
She handed it to me. I spread a little in the pan. “That gets it nice and crunchy on the outside.” Miss Charleena was sitting on the stool watching. “And you’ve got to wait till you see the burger getting cooked through just like this. That’s when you flip it, not before. You’ve got to be patient.” She made a noise again. I put salt and pepper on the top.
Miss Charleena got me a hamburger bun; I split it and put it in the pan with the burger to get it toasty. She put barbecue sauce on the counter. I layered my burger on the toasted bun, put the sauce on.
“That looks good,” she said.
I handed it to her. “Here, you eat this one. I’ll make another.”
She took a bite. “This is a fine burger. Mine always tastes dry.”
I made another patty and put it in the pan.
She smiled. “Where do you keep your recipes, Foster?”
I knew where she was going with that question. “In my head.”
She nodded and ate the burger. “I used to have a terrible time with reading. If I hadn’t gotten help, I wouldn’t have been able to be an actor. It was the hardest thing I ever did.”
What did she just say?
She finished her burger. “Learning how to read just about split my brain open, but it was worth it.”
My brain had enough splits in it already. I flipped my burger.
“I used to do what you did, Foster—say I’d lost my reading glasses, ask people to read to me. I kept the secret for a long time, but it’s hard to live like that.”
If she knew how hard it was, then why did she trick me?
“I could try to help you.”
Was she kidding?
I’ve tried to read, and the words turn to smudges on a page. I’ve tried sounding them out. I’ve tried memorizing them.
My burger was done.
I put the burger in a bun, heaped on barbecue sauce, and wasn’t sure what was happening in my heart.
“I could maybe teach you to cook better, Miss Charleena.”
She looked at me. She had the longest eyelashes. “Many have tried to teach me to cook, Foster, and they have failed. What makes you think you can do it?”
“I don’t know. I just love it, I guess, and I want other people to love it, too.”
“Why do you love it?”
I didn’t know how to tell her that cooking saved me.
“I’d really like to know, Foster.”
“Miss Charleena, in school I feel like an all-out loser, but when I cook, I feel like I can beat the world.”
She smiled. “Maybe we could work out a deal. You give me some cooking lessons and I’ll help you with your reading.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to combine something I loved so much with something I hated.
My mind raced back to sixth grade and Mrs. Ritter making me read out loud in front of the entire class. I’d be tripping over words as the other kids smirked.
Concentrate, she’d say.
I was doing that!
Look at it harder!
You’re taking up everyone’s time, young lady!
Then don’t call on me, okay? Just leave me alone!
I’m not going through that again. No way.
“I’ll give you cooking lessons, Miss Charleena, but I’m not up to reading right now. School’s hard enough without having it spill into summer.”
“I understand.”
I ate my burger, then she handed me the phone. “Call your mother. I’ll drive you home.”
I punched in Mama’s number and got her voice mail. “Hi, Mama, it’s me. Miss Charleena is driving me home. Oh . . . and the bleeding’s stopped. You don’t have to worry.”
Miss Charleena reached for her keys and headed for the door. “One more thought on reading. What if it turns out you can do it?”
I looked away. It would mean a lot. More than I know how to say.
Seventeen
SOMEDAY I’M GOING to have a car like this.
The wind whooshed through my hair as Miss Charleena zoomed down the road in her baby blue convertible. We passed the prison. Tall towers stood behind the razor wire fence.
“I was in a prison movie once,” Miss Charleena told me. “I played the wife of a murderer. I talked to women whose husbands were in jail, I visited prisons so I could get into my role. And you know the number one thing that helped me find my character?”
“What?” I wasn’t sure what she meant about finding her character.
“I went back to a time in my life when I felt scared, lonely, forgotten, and misunderstood, and I used those memories to create my character.” She turned down the road to Kitty and Lester’s house. “I was up for an Oscar for that role.”
“Wow, Miss Cha
rleena.”
“I’ve been nominated twice, actually; never won.”
“So you had to sit there smiling when someone else won?” Mama let me stay up to see the Oscar show a few times.
“My face was hurting from the fake smile, and both times my dress was too tight. But I went home and hugged my Emmy and my Golden Globe and felt better.”
I used to hug Daddy’s pillowcase when things hurt.
She drove past the broken fence, pulled into the driveway, and stopped her little car next to the big tow truck. “Kitty and Lester pulled my car out of a ditch once.”
“How did it get in a ditch?”
She sighed. “Let’s just say I wasn’t doing too well when I first moved back home.”
“It must have been hard to come here after being in Hollywood.”
“Foster, at that time in my life, any place I lived was guaranteed to be hard.”
Just then Mama ran out of the Bullet dressed like she was going to meet a queen. She had all her makeup on, her hair was wound up on her head, and she was wearing a fancy top, her best pants, and high heels.
“Ms. Hendley, I can’t tell you what an honor it is to meet you. I’ve seen all your movies. You’ve made me laugh and cry.” She shook Miss Charleena’s hand and said to me, “What’s this about the bleeding?”
“I fell on my face. That’s all.”
Mama looked at my bandaged knees.
“You’ve got a fine girl here,” Miss Charleena said.
“Thank you kindly. Every movie you’ve made I’ve seen at least three times.” Mama was talking a little too loud.
“I appreciate it.”
“And here you are your very self!”
“Here I am, but I must be going.”
“Of course you must. Be going, that is.” I’d never seen Mama like this.
“It’s a pleasure. Is it all right for her to come by tomorrow? ”
“Absolutely. Of course. No problem. Thank you for driving her home.”
I got out of the car. “Miss Charleena, that thing you said about finding your character—what did you mean?”
“An actor can’t play a part well unless you understand who your character is—how they feel, where they’re scared, what makes them tick, what makes them strong or weak. I’d find those places in my life where I felt like that and I’d let them come out in the acting.”
“I can see why you almost got an Oscar.”
“Almost. Not quite.”
“But you might still get one. I mean, you’re old, but not ancient.”
“Foster!” Mama shouted.
“Careful, darlin’. Aging is a serious matter in Hollywood.”
“I can’t wait to get older!”
She revved the motor. “There will be a point, I assure you, when that will change.” She tooted her horn and drove off.
We waved good-bye. Mama put her hand over her heart. “I can’t believe I just met Charleena Hendley.”
I looked at Mama’s fancy outfit. “Did you wear that to work?”
“Don’t be fresh!” Then she grabbed my arm. “Tell me everything.”
“We’re having fun, right?”
Sonny Kroll shouted it in his TV kitchen.
“Right!” I shouted back.
“Today we’re making . . . oh, I don’t know if you can handle it.”
I laughed. “I can. . . .”
His face got close to the screen, so close I wanted to touch his forehead.
“We’re making the moistest, proudest cupcakes you’ve ever tasted!”
I’m ready.
“Now I want you to commit this to memory, because there’s some people out there that think a cupcake is some little, dinky thing.”
Lester walked by. I was sitting on his couch watching the show. “Who’s that?”
“Sonny Kroll,” I told him.
Lester sat down to watch as Sonny put his hands on the counter and leaned forward. “There are three hard and fast rules for making a proper cupcake. Listen up for Kroll’s Cupcake Commands. Number one—no cupcake shall be small. Number two—no cupcake shall have just a little frosting. And number three—no cupcake shall be eaten alone.”
Lester chuckled.
“Do you hear me?” Sonny shouted. He’d been a marine sergeant before he got his cooking show.
“We hear you!” Lester and I shouted back.
“We’re going right to the powerhouse flavors here—chocolate and vanilla. And we’ll be piling them higher and deeper. But first, you need to get your hands on the best cocoa you can find. . ..”
Sonny went through the ingredients, which I already had. He measured cake flour, cocoa, and one and a quarter teaspoons baking soda. “Make sure it’s fresh.”
He added one quarter teaspoon baking powder. “Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, and feel good about yourself because you’re making something that’s going to give a lot of people joy.”
He got out another bowl and cracked three eggs into it. “Now add one and two thirds cups of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla—real vanilla extract please. And beat that egg mixture for three minutes on high with your mixer, and as you do that it’s going to get creamy and smooth. Now you reduce the speed to low, and hold on to your heart, folks, because here comes the secret ingredient. Mayonnaise. I can hear you groaning, but have I ever lied to you? The answer is no, sir! Don’t go running off on me. Measure out one cup of mayo and add it to the batter and beat that stuff in until it’s blended. Then you get a cup and a third of water and add the flour mixture to the egg mixture in batches—not all at once or it will get lumpy. Put in about a fourth of the flour, then a fourth of the water, and blend; do this four times and you’ve got serious batter. Frosting alone does not make a cupcake. We’re building this baby from the ground up.”
He put the batter in paper liners, filled it two thirds full, and put it in the oven. “For twenty to twenty-five minutes—don’t overbake—that’s an order.”
“I’m so making these,” I told Lester.
“Don’t you need to write this down?”
I pointed to my head. “I remember everything.”
“No kidding?”
Then Sonny showed the secret to his vanilla cupcakes. “Sour cream,” he whispered. “Only you and me need to know this.”
The cupcakes came out big, and he piled on the frosting, put sprinkles on them. Then he put them in a fancy carrier, much fancier than mine, got his helmet from by the door, and headed outside. His motorcycle was sitting there like always. He put the cupcakes in the carrier behind the seat, climbed on the bike, and revved it.
“We’re on this road together.” And he zoomed off on that thing.
“Marines always ate better than army,” Lester mentioned. “That Sonny’s a good man.”
Someday, I hope, I’ll be able to shake his hand and tell him all he’s done for me.
“You ever write him a letter?” Lester asked.
“No.”
“Maybe you should.”
Believe me, Lester. If I could I would.
Mama let me stay up and make Sonny’s mayonnaise cupcakes so I wouldn’t forget the recipe. Once I get a recipe in my head and make it, I don’t forget. Why this doesn’t happen in school is one of life’s big mysteries.
After one bite of this cupcake, I knew I’d never forget the recipe.
I was up early and rushed to get dressed so I could get to Miss Charleena’s. I called Macon to see how he was feeling.
“Did you do everything at Miss Charleena’s you needed to do yesterday?” he demanded.
“Everything.”
“And was she happy? I mean, it’s not always easy to tell.”
“She was happy.”
“How do you know?”
“She was nice, Macon. She was just nice.”
“Nice? ” He started coughing.
“I’ve got to go. Take care of yourself.”
“Tell me more about the nice, Foster.” Lots more coughing.
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“We’re learning to work together, you know?”
He didn’t know, but I didn’t have time to explain, and if I did have time, I’m not sure I could have done it.
It was a new day. I felt like I had cream filling inside me.
I packed up two chocolate mayonnaise cupcakes for Miss Charleena and headed for her house. When I turned up Marigold Hill, it seemed like all the birds were singing for me. I got to Miss Charleena’s back door and knocked. I waited, knocked again. I rang the bell. Her car was in the driveway. Where was she?
Finally, Miss Charleena came to the door, but she looked different from how she did yesterday. Her hair was mussed, her face looked long and tired.
“Miss Charleena, are you okay?”
“The sickness has come back.”
She walked out of the kitchen, down the hall, and left me standing there.
Eighteen
DR. WEBER WALKED down the long hall past all the pictures of Miss Charleena’s most memorable movie moments. He knocked at her bedroom door. “What is it today, Charleena?”
“I’m dying,” she said.
That sounded bad!
Dr. Weber went into her room and shut the door. I said a prayer to God that she’d be okay.
The door opened and Dr. Weber came out. He walked through the house, out to his car, and in a minute he came back lugging a machine “for oxygen.” He wheeled it into her room.
I didn’t know what to do, so I went back to the kitchen. The dogs, Tracy and Hepburn, walked in slowly. I knelt down and rubbed them.
“She’ll be okay, you guys.” They nuzzled my hand. “She’ll want to see you soon, I bet. I hope she’ll want to see me.”
Here we were in the beautiful kitchen and all the curtains were closed. On the counter were butter, brown sugar, vanilla, flour, and pecans. Not quite everything I needed to make butterscotch muffins.
“But, we’re going to go with what we’ve got,” I told the dogs. “I’m making brown sugar brownies.” Sometimes the best thing a person can do in an emergency is bake.
I found a pan, turned the oven on to 350. The butter was soft; I creamed it with a wooden spoon, added brown sugar, and beat that together till it was fluffy. The fluffy part is important. I have very strong hands, which a good cook needs, because you’re stirring and chopping all day. I added two eggs and vanilla and mixed that in. I put flour, salt, and baking powder in another bowl and stirred them together. I was careful to measure the baking powder, because if you put in too much, the brownies taste nasty and get holes inside them when they bake. I stirred in the flour combination and tried the batter. This recipe never fails.