The words smelled of vagina clanked around in my head. I had wanted to ask her about posing for Playboy, too, but felt too stopped up by what I’d just heard. Did my vagina smell? If it had, I’d never noticed.
The car smelled like pizza. Or was it vagina? There were four of them in the station wagon.
“We saw that Beanie woman again,” Sheba told Mrs. Cone.
“Jesus Christ! I knew we’d bump into someone. Half of Baltimore summers in Dewey or Rehoboth.”
“Beanie Jones?” Izzy asked.
“The one and only,” I said.
“I heard the Joneses have a house here somewhere,” Mrs. Cone said. “Hopefully she’ll stay the rest of the summer while we’re back in Baltimore.”
“Did she give you cake?” Izzy asked. “She makes good cake!”
“No,” I said. “No cake this time.”
On my lap was a shopping bag full of clothes paid for by Sheba. I had been worrying about how I was going to get any of them past my mother. Even the sandals Sheba bought me seemed sexy; they were made of black leather and had a woven ring that went around the big toe.
“No one knows where we’re staying,” Mrs. Cone said. “So she won’t be dropping in with any cakes.”
Sheba sang, “Beeeanie Jones, Beeeanie Jones, when she enters the room, there are hollers and groooooans.”
We all sang the line and then Sheba went on, “Beanie Jones, Beanie Jones, first she grunts and then she moooooans.”
We repeated that line and then Izzy came up with, “Beanie Jones, Beanie Jones, the telephone rings ’cause she’s on the phones!”
“Good one!” I hugged Izzy and felt a rush of pride.
Mrs. Cone sang, “Beanie Jones, Beanie Jones, she storms into town like a trail of cyclones.”
“Your turn, Mary Jane!” Sheba said.
“Okay . . .” I bit my lip, thinking. “Beanie Jones, Beanie Jones, her body is flesh, then there are bones!”
“Bones, bones, bones,” Sheba sang. “Beanie Beanie Jones. Bones, bones, bones, she hollers then she moans!”
We all repeated those last two lines, with Sheba taking melody and me on harmony, for the rest of the ride home.
10
At breakfast, Jimmy looked at the last two recipe cards. One was for pot roast and the other was for tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.
“Pot roast.” Jimmy slapped the card down in front of Izzy. Izzy had come to the table in her nightgown but removed it when I wasn’t looking. She was now eating her porridge naked.
“That’s not a summer food.” Sheba was in a different bikini than yesterday. This one was white with a crotch so small the fuzzy scribbles of her brown pubic hair poked out along the sides. I was wearing my new suit, but had thrown my new Dolfin shorts and new striped T-shirt over it, as I couldn’t bring myself to walk out of the bedroom wearing just the suit.
“But I love pot roast. And I’ve been so good!” Jimmy climbed off his chair, went to Sheba, and started kissing her all over. She batted him away, laughing. Izzy got out of her chair and ran over to kiss Sheba all over too, so Sheba was covered by the two of them. I watched, smiling, and wondered what it would feel like to kiss so freely like that.
Dr. Cone came into the room and Jimmy lifted his head up from the kisses. “Richard, what do you think of pot roast for dinner tonight?” He sat at the table.
Dr. Cone looked at me. “Mary Jane?”
“Well, we bought all the ingredients. But Sheba thinks it’s not summery enough.”
“If we bought the ingredients, let’s not waste them.” Dr. Cone went to the stove and served himself a bowl of oatmeal from the pot.
“Seriously, Mary Jane. Does your mother make pot roast in the middle of summer?” Sheba lifted her bare legs and crossed them on the table. Izzy settled on Jimmy’s lap. She looked over the recipe card and sounded out the letters.
“I copied her recipe cards for the meals she had scheduled this week, so, yes.” I wondered if Dr. Cone cared that his naked daughter was sitting on a grown man’s lap. No one else seemed to notice.
“You got a hell of a mother,” Jimmy said. “The best meal my mother ever made was when she’d buy a brick of cheddar cheese, pull out a sheet of tinfoil, and then melt the cheddar on the foil.”
“And then what?” I picked up Izzy’s nightgown from the floor and slipped it over her head.
“Then what what?”
Sheba said, “What did she do with the melted cheese?”