Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters (18 page)

I BOUNCED OFF THE TRUNK AND FELL TO THE SIDEWALK. THE
car stopped and a woman got out, screaming and flapping her arms.

“Oh! Oh! Oh my God! Are you okay? Are you all right?”

I sat on the pavement in a placid stupor, stars dancing around my head, sparks shooting out from the wires above me. But everything was okay. Everything seemed okay.

I pushed myself to my feet and brushed off my knees. “I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.” I had a little scrape on my elbow, but that was all.

She was upset, though. She seized my head in her hands and stared into my eyes, gasping with worry, and shook my hands, one at a time, to see if it hurt me.

“I’m okay. No big deal,” I insisted.

She started crying. “I’ve never hit anyone before! I was so scared!”

“I know.” I felt strange, like I did at Lula’s house after falling into the room with no floor. Shaken up and disoriented. But this woman was more upset than I was. I tried to comfort her. “Don’t worry. I’m not hurt. Everything’s fine.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure? Oh, thank God. Do you want me to take you to a doctor or something? Do you want me to drive you home?”

“No, I only live a few blocks away. I’ll be okay.”

“Please, let me drive you home,” she said.

“I’m okay. Really. You can go on your way now.”

“If you’re sure—”

Her car was still running, and the exhaust fumes tickled my nose. I waved to her and started walking away so she would see that I wasn’t hurt. She was free. Free to go on her way and continue her life as before, not having hurt a soul.

I looked back. She was sitting in her car, still watching me. I waved again.

When I got to my room, I checked myself for damage, even though I didn’t feel anything. I had the scrape on my elbow, and that bruise on my thigh from before. That was all.

After school the next Monday afternoon, Norrie drove me downtown to the Fayette Street Learning Center for my first tutoring session. “I’ll go hang at the Starbucks and be back to pick you up at five,” she said. “I don’t know if I can do this every Monday.”

“Maybe next week I’ll take the bus,” I suggested.

“Yeah, right. Have fun.”

I was serious about taking the bus, and she was serious about it probably not happening, but I don’t see why. I’m fifteen, plenty old enough to take the bus by myself. When you were fifteen you were galloping around town like a wild pony—that’s what you
told us. But everybody seems to think it’s not safe for me to take the bus alone.

The Fayette Street Learning Center is in a storefront not far from Lexington Market on the border between busy, commercial downtown and scary, deserted West Baltimore. I went inside and presented myself for duty.

“You’re in tenth grade, right?” the man behind the reception desk said. He had a shaved head and wore a white shirt, a thin blue tie, and a diamond earring in one ear. His heavy plastic name tag said
LARRY GANT
. “You’ve been assigned to an elementary school student. We figure by tenth grade you should have elementary math down.”

“Math?” I said. “I requested English. I specifically wrote on my application ‘Anything but math.’ I’m terrible at math.”

Larry Gant nodded. “Sure, but we need math tutors, so you’re tutoring math. You’ll be working with a fifth grader named Cassandra Higgins. You can handle fifth-grade math, right? You’re in tenth grade now! Way past that baby stuff.”

I didn’t appreciate his patronizing tone. When I said I was bad at math, I meant it. I feared for poor Cassandra Higgins.

“Will this involve fractions?” I asked.

“I believe so.”

“I’m screwed.”

“Nah. Come on. Just follow the book.” He passed me a workbook—
Divide and Conquer: Math Adventures,
Teacher’s Edition—and added, “The answers are in there. All you have to do is explain them.”

That’s what I was afraid of—trying to explain math to someone. It’s supposed to be logical, but it seems to me you either get it or you don’t. Why couldn’t they have assigned me to tutor English? I prefer subjects where there’s no right answer. Usually that means there’s no
wrong
answer either.

“Cassandra’s waiting for you in room six. Down the hall, make a left.”

I walked down the hall—fluorescent lit, just as Lula had predicted—past classrooms and meeting rooms full of students and tutors studying at cubicles. I walked into an office divided into four sections, each with its own desk and two chairs. There was no one in the room except for a chubby-faced girl, about eleven, wearing red-framed glasses. Her hair was braided in a dozen or so neat cornrows anchored with red beads, and she wore a red T-shirt over blue jeans and Adidas. In front of her on the desk was the student edition of
Divide and Conquer
, a red spiral notebook, and a red pen.

I approached the desk. “Hi. I’m Sassy Sullivan.”

“Sssassy Sssullivan?” She was not the first person to make fun of my super-sibilant name.

“Yesss,” I said. “Sssassy Sssullivan. I sssuppossse you’re Cassssandra Higginsss?”

“Yesss.”

“Sassy and Cassie,” I said. “Sounds like a show on the Disney Channel.”

“No. It’s Cassandra. No one calls me Cassie.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to teach me math?”

“Um, yeah. I mean, not
teach
, exactly. But I can try to help you with your math homework.”

“
Try
to help me?” She frowned. Her frowny face is intimidating for a fifth grader.

“That’s all anyone can do, right?” I tried to turn her frown upside down with a smile, but it didn’t work. It never does. I sat down at the desk. “So, what seems to be the problem?”
Dr. Sassy is here to cure your mathematical ailments.
“You’ve been in school for a few weeks now. Have you had any math tests yet?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“So what grades did you get?”

“An F, and then a D.”

“Great! That shows progress, right?”

“What did you get on your last math test?”

The memory of a red C-minus flashed before my eyes. Should I tell her? It might not inspire much confidence in my ability to help her. But then, I myself had no confidence in that, so maybe honesty was the best policy. Maybe she’d like me better if she thought we were both math morons together.

“This isn’t about me.”

“Hmmph. Heard that before.”

“Okay, let’s be honest here. I don’t like math. You don’t like math. But it’s a part of our lives and we can’t escape it. What subjects do you like?”

“Social studies. Language arts.”

“Me too. I was hoping to tutor you in language arts, but I guess you don’t need it.”

“No, I don’t. I need tutoring in math.” She pushed her latest test, the one with the D, across the table to me. I stared at it. Fractions swam before my eyes, scrambling and unscrambling in an unnerving way. I struggled to think of something—anything—relevant to say.

“So, um, what’s your teacher’s name?”

“Ms. Frazier.”

“Do you like her?”

“No.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “Why not?”

“She’s crazy. She has a fake foot, and when she’s mad she pops it off her leg and says she’s going to throw it at us.”

“A fake foot? Like a prosthetic?”

“Yuh-huh. She waves it at us, shoe and all.”

I laughed. “You’re making that up.”

“It’s true.” But she smiled in this cryptic way so I couldn’t be sure.

“How’d she lose her foot?”

Cassandra shrugged. “She doesn’t say. We’re too scared to ask her.”

“Well. How can anyone learn math under terrible conditions like that? Living in fear of being hit with a prosthetic foot?”

“That’s what I say. But my moms doesn’t buy it. Probably because my friend Keema manages to get A’s on her tests somehow. Don’t ask me how.”

“My friend Lula can solve quadratic equations just by looking at them,” I said. “It’s like a superpower. But she’s terrible at French. She can’t pronounce
la jeune fille
to save her life. ‘La june
fee.’ If you saw her in French class, you’d think she was retarded. But if you saw
me
in math, you’d think
I
was retarded.”

Whoops. I’d said too much. Cassandra gave me a skeptical look, what Daddy-o calls “the hairy eyeball.”

“Your math level is
retarded
, and you’re going to tutor me?”

I showed her the teacher’s edition Larry Gant had given me. “Look! I’ve got the answers. We can figure it out.”

I wasn’t ready to give up yet. If I couldn’t help this girl—who, actually, didn’t seem to need help with much other than math—then what good was I? Besides, I liked her.

Cassandra opened the book. “Does it say how to multiply fractions in there?”

I found the chapter on fractions and read it out loud. “Multiplying fractions is easy! First try canceling. Divide one factor of the numerator and one factor of the denominator by the same number.” I looked at the first problem on Cassandra’s test. “Did you cancel?”

“You tell me.”

I had no idea. I kept reading. “Now multiply the numerators. Then multiply the denominators. Write the product of the numerators over the product of the denominators…” My eyes glazed over.

“The problem is the words they use—numerator and denominator,” Cassandra said. “Why can’t they just say ‘the top number’ and ‘the bottom number’?”

“You’re right. Why can’t they?”

Larry Gant knocked on the door. “Okay, girls. Time’s up for today. Cassandra’s mom’s here.”

“Wow, we didn’t get
anything
done,” Cassandra said. I wish she hadn’t said it in front of Larry.

“Sure we did,” I said more brightly than I felt. “We got lots done for the first day. See you next week.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

After she left, I sat in the cubicle and flipped through
Divide and Conquer
. It was filled with cartoon illustrations of math concepts reenacted by a family of pencils. They weren’t funny.

Norrie was waiting for me in the lobby. She took me to Lexington Market for a crab cake to celebrate my first day of tutoring. I ate the crab cake, even though I knew I didn’t deserve it.

THE NEXT DAY WAS A TEA DAY. I REMEMBER A LOT OF TALK
about Brooks Overbeck and Norrie and college applications and the Cotillon. I’m interested in those things, but I found myself tuning out. It was a cloudy afternoon but warm, and through the big glass doors that led to the terrace I could see Wallace outside helping Raul with the gardening. He wore blue overalls and a straw hat covering his bald, pink and white head. He spotted me and gave me his two-finger salute. I loved Wallace’s salute—it was like a silent way of saying “Howdy, partner.” I wanted to salute him back but I know that’s not good table manners.

I’d never wanted to hurt Wallace—you know that. I loved him. He never forced the grandpa thing on us. I liked the way he stood quietly by your side, watching in admiration while you ran your fiefdom. I liked the way he insisted on referring to you as our “grandma,” even though it doesn’t suit you.

You were telling Norrie that you could pull some strings at Georgetown if she needed it, while outside, Wallace watered the rosebushes. The sun had come out and he wiped a bead of sweat off his large forehead. I offered to take him some iced tea, and you said I could be excused.

I went into the kitchen. Bernice was sitting at the table watching
The People’s Court
. I poured the tea over ice and added a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint, no sugar. “Sweet tea is for Southerners,” you always say. I guess that means we’re not Southerners. But you also say, “Yankees brag too much,” which implies we’re not Yankees either. I don’t know what we are. Our own breed, I guess.

“Tell Mr. Wallace I’ve got a chicken sandwich ready for him if he’s hungry,” Bernice said as I left the kitchen with the tea.

“Will do, Mildew.” We both snickered. It’s an old joke we kids have with Bernice. None of us liked your old secretary, Mildred—she was so bossy and stuck-up we called her “Mildew” behind her back. Bet you didn’t know that. A little bonus confession for you.

Wallace was putting away the hose when I found him near the garden shed. “Is that iced tea for me? Well, thank you so much, honey.” He took off his hat and took a long drink. “Had enough of that girl talk in there?”

I nodded. “It’ll be terrible after Norrie and Jane leave for college and I’m the only one left to go to Tuesday Tea. Just me and Ginger. I’ll have to put Takey in a dress and make him come too.”

“I bet Takey looks pretty good in a dress.”

“He does. Norrie and I made him wear all our favorite old dresses when he was littler. With lipstick. He looked like a doll. Jane even put her old tutu on him and taught him a ballet routine.”

“Poor boy. Where were his big brothers when he needed them?”

“Sitting on the couch laughing at him,” I said.

Wallace chuckled. “Well, your grandma has good reason to sit down and talk to you girls every week. She’s preparing you to take her place in the world. She’s an important woman, and someday you will be too.”

“Just because I’m her granddaughter?”

“No, I think you’ll be important in your own way. But being her granddaughter doesn’t hurt. Want to help me put this garden hose away?”

I helped him carry the hose into the shed and rest it under the worktable. “Up to anything interesting? Aren’t you getting your driver’s license this year?”

“In February. I have my learner’s permit.”

“Good for you. You need someone to take you out driving, I’ll be happy to do it.”

“Thanks. Everybody else is always too busy.”

“I’ll bet they are. What else are you up to?”

“Well, I started tutoring at this place downtown,” I told him. “They assigned me to a fifth grader. The only thing is, they want me to help her with math.”

“Not your forte, eh? Stick with it. Maybe teaching math will help you understand it better.”

“Anything’s possible, I guess,” I said.

Have you ever been inside the garden shed? Wallace and Raul decorated it like a clubhouse. Raul put pictures of his family on one wall, and Wallace tacked up a picture of a race car and an old photograph of you from your debutante days. I bet it’s still in there, unless Raul took it down.

I heard someone calling my name. Jane stood on the terrace yelling, “Sassy! Vacation’s over! Time to come back to your jail cell!”

“Guess you’re wanted back at tea,” Wallace said. “Thanks for the drink, Sassafras.”

“You’re welcome.”

He gave me the two-finger salute, and I saluted him back before walking up to the house.

“I hope Wallace didn’t bore you with too much of his plant talk,” you said when I got back to the library and took my seat at the table.

“He never bores me,” I replied.

“You’re a saint,” you said.

Don’t worry, Almighty. I know you loved him. He knew it too.