A Tinfoil Sky (8 page)

But Mel didn’t want to think about that, and she let her mind wander back to Frohberger’s. If Cecily had been there today, she’d have seen the four-leaf clovers. They would have been a sign of impending good luck. Mel wanted to believe it was true.

Pulled back into the present, Mel heard someone or something stumbling up the stairs and then down the hallway just outside the apartment door. She quickly unfolded the little piece of tinfoil and pressed it back against the cool windowpane, eliminating the sliver of light it afforded. She tucked her head under the crocheted blanket, breathing in her own steamy breath, and she waited. Her fingers traced the pleats of the threadbare satin pillow, and her other hand clutched the key to the door. The little apartment wasn’t big, it wasn’t fancy, but there were doors, and they were locked, and she was safe.

When all the noise moved behind a closed door down the hall, Mel got up from the couch and checked the deadbolts. All but one was set; duct tape prevented it from locking. Surprised that all the yelling hadn’t woken Gladys up, she tiptoed back to the couch, rearranged the pillows,
lay down, and tucked the satin pillow under her head. It was early morning before she heard another sound.

Mel woke to Gladys pushing on her shoulder.

“Get up! You’re going to make me late for work.”

As Mel sat up and looked at Gladys, she noticed the words “Fan’s Dry-Cleaning” embroidered on the front of Gladys’s smock. Gladys was still working at the cleaners.

Mel pulled on her jeans, leaving on the T-shirt that doubled as pajamas. She slipped her feet into her flipflops, lifted her backpack over her shoulder, took the plate and toast from Gladys’s outstretched hand, and walked through the doorway and into the hall. Mel thought that she must be going to work with Gladys.

“Slide the plate under the door when you’re finished,” Gladys said after she locked not only the top lock, the one Mel had a key for, but also the bottom lock, using a different key.

“You’re locking me out?” Mel asked.

“No, I’m locking my things in,” Gladys snapped back.

“I have no intention of taking any of your things,” Mel said.

Gladys drew in a stiff breath, as though she was somehow justified in leaving her granddaughter out in the hallway.

Only after she had taken seven steps – Mel counted them – and was about to turn the corner and walk down the main hall, did Gladys pause. She turned, walked back, and unlocked the bottom lock, the lock that Mel didn’t have a key for. “I guess it doesn’t really matter,” she hissed. “Your mother took most of what had any value.”

Mel didn’t look at her. She gave no indication that she’d heard what Gladys had said, or that she was grateful to have access to Gladys’s apartment. Instead, she stared out the window. What she thought of adding to Gladys’s proclamation was
Cecily isn’t only my mother; Cecily is also your daughter
.

She listened to the sounds of Gladys’s shoes snapping on the stairs. As the downstairs door opened, a breeze swept through the hall, carrying with it dust from the floor and stairs. Mel felt it whisk by her on its way to the partially open hall window beside her. From her vantage point, she watched Gladys walk down the sidewalk, cross the street, and sweep past Frohberger’s. Mel didn’t expect her to look back, or maybe she did. Either way, she felt a guilty streak run up her back when Gladys, upon turning the corner toward the bus stop, cast a quick glance directly at the window.

Mel slid to the floor, her back against the wall, and ate her toast. When she was done, she removed the key
that hung around her neck and set it on the plate with the crumbs from the toast.

“You can keep your key, Gladys Tulley,” Mel whispered as she slid the key and plate under the door of the apartment.

Mel surveyed the hallway. The library wouldn’t open for three hours. She closed her eyes and thought about which books she would check out, and before long drifted into a light sleep.

Two sets of footsteps could be heard racing through the hall and then down the stairs.

“Come on! We’re going to miss the bus!” someone called out.

Mel realized it might be the same bus she needed to get to the library. She stood up, grabbed her bag, raced out of the building, and followed the two young men to the bus stop. The two men got on the first bus, but Mel sat on the bench and waited. According to the posted schedule, the Downtown 42 would be along in ten minutes. She was the only person to get on the bus when it arrived.

The winding bus route followed along the river, and Mel watched the usual mix of nicely dressed people, their coffees in hand, move promptly toward their shops and
offices. The bus made stops at the courthouse and the community center. Mel saw a few people asleep on benches; others pushed loaded shopping carts filled with their belongings. The driver pulled up to the stop by the soup kitchen and waved to a few regulars as they dismounted. The library was just ahead. The excitement of checking out the books she’d been yearning for was becoming difficult to contain.

Mel didn’t think about not getting a library card. She didn’t think about anything stopping her from having one. But she quickly realized that she had never thought about how she would actually get the card. At least until her eyes met those of the librarian. “Hi, I’m Mel …” she said, her voice quivering with anticipation.

“Ah, so
you’re
Miss Tulley,” the librarian said. “Well, how about that. I’ve seen you in here recently, right?”

Mel was caught off guard. She hadn’t realized that anyone had noticed her daily visits. She read the name on the tag of the woman’s vest: Marilyn.

“Great! Let’s get started,” Marilyn continued. “Most of the paperwork is already filled out. I need one thing, though: an address and phone number for your grandmother. Did you bring that with you?”

“No … I didn’t.” Mel lifted one foot and ran the tip of her flip-flop down the back of her other leg to the floor.
She curled her toes into the soles of her feet and drew in a deep breath. The embarrassment was drowning her; she was going to have to divulge that a judge had granted her the card. “Your Honor, the judge …,” Mel started to explain.

“Oh yes, I know. Judge Pullman is a friend of mine. He’s already had someone come in to sign for your card. I just need a phone number and an address to fill in the forms properly. Can you remember any part of it?”

The librarian’s voice was kind, but in that moment, Mel couldn’t even remember the street name, let alone the number.

“Okay, so how about you go ahead and pick out the books you want, and I’ll put them on hold for you.”

“No, thanks. I’ll come back.”

“Are you sure? It’s not a problem for me to do this.”

“I’m sure.”

Mel left the library empty-handed and began the long walk back to Gladys’s apartment. The return trip took an hour, partially because she walked so slowly. Mel did the math: thirty-nine dollars would give her at least thirty trips from Gladys’s to the library. If Cecily was in jail for thirty days, and if it took them a month to find a place to live, the money wouldn’t last. If Mel walked one way every trip, and didn’t go every day, thirty-nine dollars
could last two months. And maybe there’d be a bit left over to spend on things they’d need for their apartment. And there was no use rushing; Gladys wasn’t home, the door was locked, and Mel no longer had a key.

Mr. Frohberger was standing behind the counter when Mel walked by the store. He waved and smiled. She couldn’t help but wave and smile back.

Mel continued to Gladys’s. She made a mental note of the building number, relieved to have at least one piece of information for the librarian. She climbed the stairs, walked down the hallway, turned the corner, and sat down across from the apartment door. The apartment number, an old-fashioned 2, had been removed, but a clear outline of it remained just below the brass peephole on the varnished wooden door.

Mel leaned her head back against the wall; her stomach reminded her that she was hungry. “I should have gone by the soup kitchen first,” she whispered into the vacant hallway. But with the sun shining through the window and onto her face, she drifted into a place halfway between wakefulness and sleep.

“What?” Gladys asked when she saw Mel sitting outside the apartment door. “Didn’t like any of those books at the library?”

Mel started at the sound of Gladys’s voice, then turned her face up to the window, eliminating the possibility that Gladys could look down on her.

She doubted Gladys ever went to the library, but still, Gladys’s voice cut the little excitement that remained of the day into pieces, and Mel could feel them disappearing into the dark and dusty corners of the hall. She decided not to ask Gladys for her phone number. Instead, Mel planned to find all the information she needed in the apartment, and look at it without Gladys knowing. The librarian hadn’t asked for a signature; the judge had seen to that. All Mel needed was an address and phone number. It was a formality.

Gladys unlocked the door and pushed it open. The small plastic plate and key appeared. Gladys bent down and picked up the plate, then walked inside and into the kitchen. She said nothing about the key.

Moments later, she reentered the living room. “So what? Now you don’t want the key?”

“No,” Mel told her. “I don’t. I’d rather wait in the hall.”

“Well, fine then.” Gladys paused, and Mel knew Gladys was readying herself to launch another attack. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t be burning any bridges because the only thing you got going for you right now … is me.”

Mel turned to stare at the drapes that hung in front of the window, as though she could see through them, past the tinfoil to the sky.

What stung the most was that it was true. There were no aunts, no uncles, no cousins. There was only Cecily and Gladys, and Cecily was in jail.

“And didn’t I tell you to take the papers and cans down to Frohberger’s the other day when you picked up the milk?”

Mel didn’t answer. Instead, she picked up the top stack of newspapers and set a box of flattened cans on top.

“Is there anything you need?” Mr. Frohberger asked when she dropped off the last box of flattened cans – it had taken three trips to get them all. Only a few days ago, the judge had asked her the same question.

“No, thank you,” Mel answered. “I’m just dropping these off.”

She left the store and walked slowly back to the apartment. The door was locked. Mel knocked, then waited. Eventually, Gladys obliged. This would become a contest for control between them – Mel refusing the key and Gladys refusing to rush. Eventually, Gladys chose to leave the door unlocked each afternoon until Mel’s return, so as not to be interrupted.

Mel went into the kitchen and reached for the broom behind the door. If she was going to be spending her mornings in the hall, it would be nice to at least sweep up the thick layer of dust.

“Where you going with that?” Gladys’s voice was full of accusation.

“I thought I’d sweep the stairs and the hallway in front of your door.”

“No, you’re not taking my good broom out there. If you want to sweep the hall, use the broom at the bottom of the stairs.”

Mel found the worn-out straw broom tucked in an alcove beside the front door at the bottom of the stairs. As she swept, she imagined the home she and Cecily would find. Today’s vision was a little house, set on a piece of grass at the end of a lane, with a garden. Other times, home was an apartment, on the fortieth floor of a high-rise apartment building. Sometimes, especially when they were out in the cold, it was simply a warm place, any place safe.

Today, it seemed okay to dream. Cecily had promised, and – Mel didn’t know why – this time she believed her. They were going to have a home of their own, even the judge had said so. And if being here for a month meant they’d have a place of their own when Cecily came back, Mel could stand it.

The phone hung by the kitchen cupboard next to the bathroom door. But the phone number, which was written in pen behind the little plastic rectangle on the base of phone, was impossible to read. She’d have to wipe it with a cloth to see the number. Mel decided to wait until long after Gladys went to bed to look at the phone again. Her plan was to sneak into the kitchen, wipe the phone panel in the dark, turn on the light really fast, and memorize the number before turning off the light again. She could be back on the couch within seconds.

Mel was sure the fan, humming away behind the door to Gladys’s bedroom, would cover any noise she made fumbling around in the dark. With the tinfoil blocking any light from the moon, or streetlights, or passing cars, the place would be pitch-black.

Mel didn’t remember the step stool that sat just inside the kitchen doorway, and, before she knew it, she was on the floor. Her head hit the countertop on the way
down. Within seconds, Gladys was up.

“What the …” Gladys’s door flew open, her flashlight swinging.

Mel’s eyes strained to find Gladys behind the glaring light.

“Whatcha doing snooping around in here?”

Mel could feel Gladys’s words striking her chest.

“You listen. You get off that floor and get outta here. Git!”

Mel got herself up onto her hands and knees, crawled to the living room, and climbed up onto the couch. She wasn’t sure if Gladys meant for her to get out of the apartment or just out of the kitchen.

She tried hard not to hear Gladys yelling, telling her that she was going to call the judge first thing in the morning. Instead, Mel gently lowered her head into the folds of the satin pillow, being careful not to put any pressure on the bump forming on her forehead. She closed her eyes and let her fingers slip toward the center of the cushion where all the tucks of satin met under the smooth button.
The judge had to have counted the first two days. Twenty-five days to go
.

Mel made a mental list of all the songs she and Cecily loved to sing, and then she sang them silently to herself until she fell asleep.

—

“Get up!” Gladys yelled from the doorway to the kitchen.

“Get yourself off that couch and in here right now!”