Dicey's Song (22 page)

“Who cares?” he asked.

Dicey couldn't answer that. Certainly she didn't. “I really am too young,” she assured him. “Really.”

At that, he smiled again. Good, Dicey thought, we can continue to be friends.

“But next year you'll be in ninth grade,” he said.

“I think so.”

And I'll be in eleventh.”

“You'd know more about that than I would.”

“Ninth-graders are much older than eighth-graders.”

“Are they?” Dicey asked. This was a pretty stupid conversation, but she was enjoying it.

“I'm going to ask you again next year,” he said.

“OK,” Dicey answered. She leaned her bike against the window and went inside without looking back.

She didn't care if he asked her again next year, just as long as he didn't ask her again tomorrow. The last thing Dicey wanted to do was to go to a dance and jump and jiggle around, getting hot and sweaty. She was bored just thinking about it. On the other hand, she admitted to herself, it was nice he wanted to ask her, it was flattering. She was singing when she pulled the big broom out of the closet. “When first unto this country, a stranger I came.”

“You're certainly cheerful today,” Millie observed.

Mina, walking part of the way home with Dicey, said the same thing. Dicey was watching Sammy ride on ahead on her bike and circle back, then ride off ahead again. Mina said, “You haven't said anything sharp or cross for half a mile. Did Jeff ask you to the dance?”

“What do you know about that?” Dicey demanded.

Mina laughed. “That's more like it. I know I'll be going to it. I know Jeff asked me if I thought you'd go with him. I said probably not. He said he didn't think so either, but he thought he'd ask. Were we right?”

“Yeah,” Dicey said. “Why should he ask you first?”

Mina shrugged. “He's smart enough — you're not an easy person, Dicey.”

Well, that was no surprise, although it surprised Dicey that Mina thought so.

“I think he only asked you this time because he was afraid you'd get popular and he wanted you to know — ”

“Never mind,” Dicey said.

“But I don't think he needs to worry about that. I told him you're pretty strong meat.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know perfectly well what it means, Dicey Tillerman.”

Dicey guessed she did. And she guessed she liked that. “So are you,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but I've got charisma,” Mina argued. “And I'm a clown. I'm much easier to take.”

“If you think about it, everybody has something — wrong about them,” Dicey said, following her own thoughts. “I mean, some flaw, or something you just don't like. But some people, it doesn't seem to matter so much. You know there're things wrong, but it's just part of them and you like them. And other people — no matter what, you won't like them. Take Millie. I started out disrespecting her, because she's not smart, not at all. But she's been a good friend to my grandmother — all her life, without changing — and she never asks anything much from anybody and — I don't know, now I think she's pretty unusual. Or Mr. Chappelle — especially these days — I mean, he acts like I can't do anything wrong. And that's not right, Mina. And the way he pussyfoots around me, it makes me sick. But I never liked him before and I never will.”

“Or like blood relations, you always like them no matter how much you don't,” Mina observed.

Dicey nodded enthusiastically. “But with other people, not family, you choose,” she said. “What do you think? Do you think we choose people by what's important to us? Like whether someone's brave or not.”

“So bravery is one of the things you choose by?” Mina asked.

“Sure,” Dicey said. “And music.”

“Music's not a quality,” Mina protested.

Dicey noticed that Mina had them talking about Dicey again. She made a mental note to ask Mina what
she
chose by, but was too interested in her own ideas to do that right then. “It is too,” Dicey insisted.

“You can't
be
music,” Mina argued.

“But you have it, don't you?” Dicey asked. “Don't you?”

Mina started laughing instead of saying anything. “That's what I like about you, Dicey. With everybody else, they want to talk about boys, or clothes, having babies. You know?” Dicey didn't know. “But with you — ”

“I don't know anything about boys, or clothes, or having babies,” Dicey pointed out.

“But if you did you wouldn't talk about them the same way. I bet,” Mina said.

AFTERWARDS, Dicey couldn't remember if it was that same afternoon, or another one, that she got home to find Gram slamming around the kitchen. When she tried to remember, she only knew that it came between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that day. If she could have, she would have thanked Momma for waiting so long, to give them time to get used to each other.

When she found Gram crashing piles of dinner plates down onto the counter and then angrily scrubbing out the cupboard with a sponge, Dicey figured the welfare check had arrived again. Whenever it came, Gram was in a bad mood for at least a day.

“I've been thinking,” Dicey said to the stiff back. “It's only four and a half years before I can get a full-time job. Then we won't need any extra help from anyone.”

Gram slammed the plates back in place and began pulling out glasses. When a glass shattered, she seemed satisfied rather than angry. “No, you won't. You're going to college, girl. Whether you like it or not.”

“But —” Dicey said.

“I didn't, and your grandfather didn't. So you are. And James and probably Sammy, too. There's to be no more talk about quitting school.”

She jammed the broom into the closet and got back to the shelves.

“Did any of your children?” Dicey asked. She was playing for time, fishing around in her mind for some understanding of why her grandmother seemed so particularly het up.

“John did. Last I saw of him. He was gone and gone.”

“Ah,” Dicey said. Her grandmother's hair was slicked down, as if she had combed it with a wet comb.

“Now go get together some clothes,” Gram said. She still didn't look at Dicey. “There's a suitcase in your room, I already put my stuff in it.”

“But why?”

“We're going to Boston.”

“To see Momma? But why? I'll miss school and work, and who'll take care of the little kids? Is something wrong?”

But Gram wouldn't answer her. She wouldn't answer any of them when they asked. Dicey thought it must be bad news and probably that Momma was worse (but how could she be worse?) or dead (but why would Gram take Dicey and go up to Boston if that was the case?). Sammy thought maybe Momma was better. Maybe coming home with them. James didn't say a word, but he agreed with Dicey, she could tell. Maybeth just sat quiet at the table. She had her hands clasped together in front of her, clasped tight.

Mr. Lingerle was going to drive Gram and Dicey to the airport in Salisbury, where they would take a plane to the airport in Baltimore, where they would try to get a plane to Boston. “We can't afford that,” Dicey said.

“We're selling that wretched cranberry spoon,” Gram told her. “It's not a vacation.” She glared at Dicey.

Dicey packed underwear and her brown dress and a couple of blouses. She wore her jumper for traveling in. She put the few dollars she'd saved from her wages in the pocket of her jumper, just in case. She wished she knew what to expect, so she could begin getting ready; but Gram wouldn't say anything.

It was deep, hazy twilight when Mr. Lingerle drove them up in front of the little airport building. Gram had sat silent and hunched forward all the way up there. Neither Dicey nor Mr. Lingerle could think of anything to say, except when Mr. Lingerle looked at Dicey in the rear-view mirror and told her, “I'll call your school to tell them where you are.”

At the airport, Gram burst out of the car and into the one-room building. Dicey and Mr. Lingerle hurried after her, not even bothering to park the car properly. Dicey carried the suitcase. The plane they were going to take was already outside, its two engines grinding, its two propellers turning. Mr. Lingerele came with them as far as a tall cyclone fence. “Mrs. Tillerman — Ab —” he said, awkward. “I just want to say, I'll take care of the kids. Don't worry on that score.”

Gram turned a stony face to him. “I know that or I wouldn't have asked you.”

She didn't say it very nicely, Dicey thought, but the effect on Mr. Lingerle was as if she had paid him a big compliment. He stood up a little straighter. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket.

“Here,” he said. “Just in case.”

“What is it?” Gram demanded.

“Some money,” he told her. “You might need it if you're there long.”

Dicey stood, biting her lip. The little windows in the plane shone yellow, and the air was filled with the noise of the engines. Purple twilight crowded down around them.

“I thank you,” Gram said. She took the envelope and, without looking at it, put it into her purse. Then she wheeled around. “Come along, girl,” she said. Dicey picked up their suitcase and followed her onto the plane.

There were only a couple of other people riding on that flight, two men in business suits who had papers spread in front of them. They drank something from short glasses and talked. Gram took a seat by the window. “You sit ahead of me, if you want to look out,” she instructed.

A man in only the trousers and hat of a uniform, his plaid shirt unbuttoned at the neck and the sleeves rolled up, leaned over to tell them to strap themselves in. Dicey shifted the suitcase to the floor in front of the empty seat beside her and obeyed him. She'd never ridden in a plane before. She didn't know anything about what to do.

Nothing was what to do, apparently. The plane rocked along the ground for a while, then struggled up into the air. Below, looking out the window, Dicey could see scattered lights. Some of them were still, and those would be houses. Some of them moved, and those would be cars. After a few minutes, they were over the Bay. Night darkened around the humming plane.

The same man offered her coffee or tea, but she shook her head. She wasn't hungry or thirsty. She wasn't anything clear. She felt her grandmother's silent stony presence behind her, and Dicey wished she knew whatever it was Gram knew. She felt like she shouldn't be excited about flying, but her heart lifted with the plane, and her nose was pressed against the thick glass. She felt worried and depressed about this hasty journey, because it had to mean something bad. Something bad for Momma.

Unless Sammy was right, but then why was Gram so — angry? If Momma was going to come home, it would mean more expenses, and a lot more work for Gram. Until Momma could help. If it was good news, and Gram was trying not to be optimistic so she wouldn't be disappointed, she might act this way. You never could tell with Gram. You could trust her, but you couldn't tell.

Dicey turned her head to look at Gram through the narrow slot where her seat didn't meet the curved wall of the plane. Gram was staring out the window. She hadn't unbuckled her seat belt, she hadn't taken off her coat, she hadn't moved her purse off her lap. Her face was turned out the window, but Dicey bet she wasn't looking outside at anything. Every now and then, Gram blinked.

Dicey looked back out her own window. Below her, more lights, clustered together (towns or cities, she thought) and the long, snaky stream of red and white lights that marked highways. She smiled down at the moving picture, like some kind of Christmas display. She shouldn't be smiling, she thought, but it was so new a way of seeing things, and beautiful; she couldn't really help herself.

The airport at Baltimore was a huge, sprawling building. Gram and Dicey threaded their way through throngs of people. Dicey followed Gram, saying nothing. She stopped when Gram stopped, standing just behind her. Gram stopped first at an information booth to ask about flights to Boston, then hurried down a long hallway to the counter of an airlines. She bought two tickets for the 8:45 flight to Boston. One-way tickets. She checked in their suitcase. Then she led Dicey to a coffee shop and instructed her to order something to eat. “You've got to eat,” she said.

Dicey asked for a hamburger and french fries. Gram asked for a pot of tea.

“And something to eat,” Dicey told her. Gram snorted, looked at Dicey, and ordered an English muffin.

The plane to Boston was a large, a turbo-prop, Dicey read in the information folder. She settled herself into the seat by the window, with Gram beside her now. This plane had two propellers and two jet engines. Dicey watched the activity on the ground around them as they waited for take-off. Gram sat stiff beside her.

Dicey didn't know what she, Dicey, was doing here. She turned in the soft seat to ask her grandmother. They were rushing ahead, into the night, and Dicey really wanted to be back home, back in her own room with nothing more to think about than whether she had done her homework well enough. She felt like asking Gram to help her.