"BEAN'S GIRL"
by Laurie Seidler

The car pulled into the driveway and lanky Bean extricated herself from behind the wheel. She looked the same but steamed. The girl was in the passenger's seat with her jaw set and her arms crossed across her chest.

Bean climbed the porch steps and sat on the glider. She kept one foot on the floor and hoisted herself back and forth. I knew that look so I went inside and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and set one down next to her with a Coke. I ate mine at the picnic table and watched her chew. The girl sat in the car.

Bean finished the sandwich and the soda and lifted her foot. The swing lurched forward on a diagonal, banged into its own metal arm and foundered.

"She's a handful," Bean said and I nodded. She hoisted herself out of the chaise and walked to the car, opened the door beside the girl and said a few words I couldn't hear. She shut the door and opened the trunk. She carried a small green suitcase to the porch.

"Give me your car keys," she said and I pulled a set off a hook by the door and dropped them into her hand. She rubbed the point against her upper lip absent-mindedly. "That tree looks smaller," she said.

I knew which one she meant. It hadn't changed, but I nodded. Bean hadn't been around for a while. The girl looked to be about six.

She left in my car and I sat on the porch until I got tired of watching flies pace along the rim of my drink. I brought the dishes inside and washed them. I went out to Bean's car and opened the door the way she had.

The girl had Bean's thick hair and dark eyes but a fierce expression that was her own.

"You can stay here, but there are coyotes so better keep this locked." I pushed the  knob down and shut the door gently. I went inside and had a long hot shower. I felt better afterward and I went downstairs, scrambled some eggs and made a pot of coffee. A coyote called, a quavering lonely sound, and soon after there were angry staccato footsteps on the porch and a knock on the door. I opened it and she walked straight to the table and sat there, fists on the tabletop. She was pale but still glowering gamely. I got a second plate, scrambled two more eggs and put them in front of her with a glass of milk. She ate hungrily but with dignity, managing to convey reticence.

"I wasn't kidding about those coyotes," I said conversationally.

She drained the glass and sneered. The effect was tempered by her vivid milk mustache; she looked like a rakish, moderately evil garden gnome. She stifled a yawn.

"When's momma coming back?" she growled. I shrugged. "She coming back?" she said, upper lip threatening to quiver.

"She's coming back," I said firmly. She eyed me with suspicion. I cleared the dishes away. She was still at the table when I finished. I didn't know what to do with her. "Is it bath time?" I asked. She seemed to swell.

"No baths," she barked. Lacking further suggestions, I picked up my book and read. When I looked up she was asleep, head on the table. I carried her to the sofa and covered her with a throw. She managed to look fierce even in sleep.

When I woke up the blanket was still on the sofa, lying loose like a wrinkled skin, but she wasn't under it. I ate breakfast and read and sorted through my mail. She came back shortly before noon, her hair tangled and leafy and her shirt spotted with burrs. Her cheeks had some color to them and she didn't look quite so angry.

"There's chipmunks out there. I almost caught one," she said with satisfaction. I nodded.

"You catch a chipmunk and its tail will fall off." She looked skeptical. "God's truth. It'll wiggle like a lizard," I said and made the Scout's honor sign. I think I did, anyway. I was never a Scout.

"I'm hungry," she said.

"Kitchen's over there," I said, pointing, and went back to work. She stood in thought a moment and then hunger got the best of her. I heard the refrigerator door open and close a couple of times and drawers clatter. There was a scrabbling sound and then nothing for a while. She came and stood by my chair, smelling faintly of peanut butter.

"I'm going out," she said.

"O.K.," I said. "Remember about those coyotes."

She stopped at the door. "How do you think you'd catch one of those chipmunks if you were trying?" she asked casually.

"With a stick maybe. I think they bite," I said. She nodded and disappeared out the front door.

She came back before dark. I was on the phone with my agent and in a buoyant mood. She went past me to the kitchen and I heard the microwave ping a few times. The scent of hot-dogs wafted across the house. I hung up, suddenly hungry. She'd built a kind of a staircase with cookbooks and a pretzel tin and was sitting on the counter top swinging her legs. I admired her ingenuity.

"You keep them in too long and they dry up," she said.

"They smell good anyway," I said and she almost smiled then. I held out a plate and she put a couple of shriveled dogs on it. We sat on the counter side-by-side eating them with our fingers.

"You my daddy?" she asked, chewing thoughtfully.

My mouth was full. I nodded.

"How come you don't live with us?" she asked, sounding mean again.

I swallowed. "I'm not that kind of a daddy, I guess." I poured us each a glass of orange juice. She drank hers and turned the glass upside down on the counter. Runnels of juice pooled on the tile.

"What kind are you then?" she said, drumming her feet against the cupboard.

"Extraordinary," I said grandiosely and made a mental note to buy another package of hot-dogs.

We watched some T.V. together and when she was tired she padded down to the sofa and pulled the blanket up over her head.

"Shouldn't you be brushing your teeth or something?" I asked. I felt quite proud for thinking of it but I was talking to myself. She was asleep.

While we were having breakfast the next morning a cab pulled up. She stood in the doorway bristling like a pit bull.

"This is Charlie," I said, reaching around her to take his suit bag.

"Well," Charlie said, looking down at the pinched face.

"Who's Charlie?" she said, still blocking his way. 

"Charlie is Charlie. This is his house too."

"I have two daddies?" she said, more incredulous than joyful, I thought.

"Was I away that long?" Charlie asked.

"Long enough," I said and carried his bag upstairs. When I came down Charlie was still in the doorway but sitting cross-legged. She was picking through his thinning blond hair.

"Not one," she said plaintively.

"I tell you I felt it," he said.

"It was your imagination," she said, as if speaking to a child.

"I don't know. Maybe," he allowed and rose. She put her hands on her hips.

"He said he felt his hair go white, but it hasn't" she informed me.

"Give it time," I said.

"I'll check again tonight if you like," she said and Charlie nodded solemnly. She started to leave then hesitated. "Was there anything good in your bag?" she asked him. Charlie looked apologetic.

"Nothing at all," he said wistfully. She took the disappointment in stride. We watched her cross the lawn and climb resolutely up the hill behind the house. We lost sight of her among the hemlocks.

"That was Bean's daughter," I said unnecessarily. "You see what happens when you go gallivanting."

"I was only away a week," he said crossly. "You might have waited."

"Bean came by," I said.

"Well then," he said. "If Bean came by." He rolled his eyes and I squeezed his hand.

Charlie showered and then cooked lunch, whistling. There were popovers and a vegetable soup on the table when her stomach brought her padding back across the porch. She turned her nose up at the soup but ate three popovers slathered with jam.

The phone rang while we were having dessert. Charlie picked it up and said "oh it's you" and handed it to her. She had several Oreos in her mouth and the best she could do was make throaty incomprehensible noises. Charlie took the phone back and said "yes, yes" with some asperity and hung up.

After quite a lot of chewing and a glass of milk she said "momma's coming" and burst into tears. They ran down her face leaving damp trails in the mud and cookie crumbs. She looked an awful mess. Charlie handed her a napkin and she wiped her eyes and blew her nose in it, neither of which seriously improved her appearance.

"It might be time for that bath," I ventured and she must have been deeply distressed because she nodded in a listless sort of a way. I ran the water and she pealed off her clothes like a prisoner heading to her execution. She climbed in without a murmur. When I didn't move she said, in an exasperated manner, "aren't you going to wash me?" I handed her a wash cloth and sat on a footstool that was too small for me while she passed it halfheartedly over her arms and bony chest.

"You don't  know anything about children, do you?" she said and I said "not really."

Charlie poked his head in, eyes covered decorously, and asked "are you in here?"

"Well, she might drown," I said, and she rolled her eyes and said of course she could swim. "Well then," I remarked and led Charlie out like a guide dog.

She sloshed around in there a while and came out wrapped in a towel with another towel around her head like an enormous floppy turban. Charlie swept into a bow and said "my lady" with finesse and we all sat around the dining table playing cards. She played a mean game of Old Maid and vicious Go Fish but we had to cheat to let her win at Casino.

Bean showed up later that afternoon. Her daughter glowered at her from under the turban then stomped into the bathroom to change. She came out dressed but with her hair snarled and handed me a brush. She stood in between my legs while I sat and pulled at the tangles. Bean and Charlie looked on.

"I missed the whole thing, really," Charlie complained.

I worked at it hard for about ten minutes then she shoved her things into the little green suitcase and stomped to the car. Charlie and I walked to the porch with Bean. Her daughter walked back into the house without looking at us and when she came out again she was swinging her arms and in a much better mood.

Bean kissed me on the cheek and bussed Charlie and followed her to the car. They pulled out of the driveway and I would have liked it if the girl had turned and waved but she didn't. She sat looking straight ahead. I waved anyhow.

Charlie said "isn't that your car she's driving?" and I said "I never liked it much."

We went inside and I was out of sorts and grumpy and Charlie made me some tea and made comforting clucking noises. I knew I'd have to rewrite anything I wrote in that state but I thought I'd better try to get some work done anyway. I sat down at the computer and found a package on the keyboard wrapped in newspaper and sealed with yards of scotch tape. Nestled inside was the foxy tail of a chipmunk.

"Rabbit's foot?" Charlie asked, peering over my shoulder.

"Close enough," I said and, feeling considerably better, I sat down and wrote about her.

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Laurie Seidler lives in San Jose, CA, but grew up in New York City and rural Connecticut where many of her stories are set. "Bean's Girl" is part of a series. A related story is available now in In Posse Review at webdelsol.com.

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