Good Graces (19 page)

She shouts from inside the house, “Chuck? What’re you doin’ out there? The show’s back on.”

He looks around his yard one more time, squinting especially hard into the hedge shadows where we’re hiding. “Goddamn kids,” he says, throwing down the beer can and going back into the house hunched over. He forgot to switch off the porch light. Two moths are circling it.

I take my hand off Wendy’s mouth and wipe it on my shorts. She licked me. She always does that. She thinks I taste good.

Artie whispers, “Geeze, that was close.”

To the bone. I especially understand how Mr. Kenfield is feeling and Troo does, too. It’s so hard to lose someone you love. Our hearts growl for Daddy the same way our tummies do when we’re hungry. It must be even worse for Mr. Kenfield. I know my daddy’s gone forever in the deep blue of the western sky. I’ll never hear the sound of his voice again or feel his late-day whiskers on my cheek or spend time after supper curled up on his lap listening to his happy shouts when Hank Aaron hits a homer on the radio. But Mr. Kenfield’s daughter is not dead. She’s out there somewhere. I bet if my old neighbor had it to do all over again, he wouldn’t have sent Dottie away to the unwed mothers’ home the way the church told him to do. He doesn’t even go to Mass anymore.

“We gotta get back,” I tell Artie, when I hear screams coming from up the block. “Sounds like Troo’s tagged someone.”

I spring up to peek at the Goldmans’ house to check to make sure everything’s okay, but he yanks me back down before I can see a thing.

“What’re you doin’?” I say, jerking my arm away.

“I . . . I’m sorry. It’s just that . . . I need to tell you something in the worst way,” Artie says. “I already tried once, but you didn’t answer me.”

He did not. I haven’t hardly seen him at the playground or anywhere else. He’s been acting too pooped to participate ever since Charlie Fitch disappeared. “What do ya mean you tried to tell me something in the worst way? When?”

“On Mimi’s birthday. We had beans and wienies for supper and . . . and my brothers kicked me outta our room because . . . ya know.”

I do. Beans are the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot. Our cabin at camp smelled worse than the outhouse.

“Didn’t you hear me scratchin’ on your screen?” Artie asks.

It takes me a second to put together what he’s telling me, but then that night comes whipping back. “That was
you
?!” I give him a two-handed shove. “Ya scared the bejesus outta me!” The clawing on the screen. And that awful smell floating into our bedroom window. It wasn’t pepperoni-reeking Greasy Al coming after Troo the way I thought it was. It was Fartie Latour leaving his calling card! “What’s wrong with talkin’ to me durin’ the day like normal?”

“I . . . I needed to talk to you in private,” he says. “I thought that’d be a good time to tell you what I gotta tell you without Troo hearin’. I know ya don’t sleep so good.”

Everybody around here knows that about me. After one of Troo and my overnights at the Fazios’, Fast Susie spread around that I scream in my sleep.

I peek around Artie at Wendy. Nothing we’re saying seems to be bothering her in the least. She’s squatting next to her brother, happily sucking on a cherry Life Saver and waiting for the skeeter she swatted to fly away again. I don’t think she really gets death. Sometimes I think being a Mongoloid is not such a bad deal.

“Why can’t you tell me whatever it is in front of my sister?” I ask, less mad and more curious.

Troo and Artie were an item once, but that ended when she wrestled the coonskin cap away from him last Fourth of July. Maybe he’s decided to forgive her and wants my opinion on how to get her to like him again in the same lovey-dovey way.

Artie says, “Because Troo likes Father Mickey so much and . . . I know she’s been goin’ up to church a lot to see him and . . .”

Just like I thought. He wants to be Troo’s boyfriend again and he’s jealous of all the time she’s been spending with Father Mickey. Artie’s in the clutches of the green-eyed monster.

“You got it all wrong,” I say. “Troo only likes Father because he’s givin’ her extra religious instruction. The nuns won’t let her back in school if she doesn’t.” But then I remember how she has that little crush on him. I don’t mention that. Artie’s having a hard enough time as it is. “We can talk about this some more later, okay?” More squealing comes from up the block. “We gotta go now. They can’t start another game without us.”

Artie sets his sweaty hand on my arm, gently this time. “Father Mickey . . . he’s the reason Charlie ran away.”

“I already know that,” I say. “Fast Susie told us that Father caught Charlie stealin’ from the poor box. Now let’s get outta here before Mr. Kenfield comes out again.”

“It’s not what it sounds like! Charlie . . . he had to take that money . . . Father Mickey is up to no good and . . .” Artie’s Adam’s apple takes the long trip down his throat and shoots back up again. “And it wasn’t only Charlie. . . . the other altar boys are bein’ forced to . . . Father is making them do something bad.”

What a load of malarkey. I may not like Father Mickey much, but everybody knows how he is especially kind to his altar boys. He took them all to Wisconsin Dells to feed the deer and ride the Ducks and they stayed overnight at a motel and went to breakfast at Paul Bunyan’s restaurant. He does other extra good things for those boys, too. Has them over to the rectory for special sleepovers and he coaches the boys’ basketball team after school.

“You gotta believe me,” Artie says, almost in tears. “Father’s committin’ some bad sins and he’s gonna commit more unless we do something to—”

“Cut it out!” I say, pressing my hands against my ears. Artie needs to keep his opinions about Father Mickey to himself the same way I have, except for accidentally telling Ethel how I feel. What he just told me is much more serious than just not liking Father. He’s being a heretic. “You’re gettin’ mushy feelings for Troo again and you’re jealous about how much time her and Father are spendin’ together and . . . and on top of all that, your best friend is probably d—” I cut myself off before I can tell him that Charlie’s never coming back. I’m sure that orphan’s dead. “Doc Keller told me that your brain can play tricks on you when you lose people you love. I lost my daddy and when Mother was in the hospital I thought she was gonna die . . . so I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but your imagination is runnin’ away with you the same way mine does.” Artie has no idea what kinda problems he’s in for once this starts happening. “Tell ya what. I’ll bring you some cod liver oil, okay? Maybe we can nip this in the bud.”

“Thanks for nothin’, O’Malley.” Artie stumbles up to his feet. “If anybody was gonna believe me around here, I figured it’d be you,” he says, charging off into the darkness.

Wendy looks up when her brother disappears down the alley. “Arthie?” she says. “Me . . . go?”

“No, you stay here with me, okay?” I’m afraid she’s gonna cause a commotion if she chases after him, so I give her another cherry Life Saver to keep her busy and part the thick hedge the best I can. All I need to do is take a quick look at Mrs. Goldman’s house so this whole time won’t be spent for nothing.

My eyes start at the front of the Goldmans’ house and move backward past the living room and dining room windows. It looks like nobody is home the way it’s supposed to, but when I look to where I know the kitchen is, the stove light is on. Mrs. Goldman musta forgot to turn it off after she was baking some of her excellent brown sugar cookies to take to her sick brother in Germany. I’ve been checking the house only during the day, so that’s why I haven’t noticed it before now. Tomorrow I’m gonna have to use the key she gave me in case of an emergency to go switch it off. Electricity is expensive.

“C’mon. This way,” I say, tugging on Wendy’s T-shirt sleeve and pointing. We’re gonna go back through the Kenfields’ side yard because I don’t want Wendy to forget I told her the hose isn’t a snake, which she will. I have to remind her to be sneaky every single time we play Captain May I or else she’ll just run up and shove the Captain down. “Watch me.” I get up on my toes and show her how to crouch over to make herself smaller.

When we creep past the Kenfields’ living room window, I can’t stop myself from looking in. I’m not a peeper like Mary Lane. I don’t get real close and watch for an hour. I just like to see people when they’re in their houses at night, drying their supper dishes or working at their sewing machines or playing a game of Pinochle. Even some teasing is fine. Seeing them gives me hope that no matter what horrible stuff happens to a person, life just keeps going on.

I can see perfectly the Kenfields sitting on their davenport. No lamps are switched on, but the televison is throwing light on their faces and on the wall above them where a picture of a beautiful girl with brunette hair takes my breath away. The picture used to hang up in her bedroom that I could see from my room when we still lived next door. Dottie’s got on her mint-colored senior dance dress and her hair is swirled up on top of her head like a Carvel cone and there’s a ruby going-steady ring around her neck. I have been thinking for a long time that whoever she had some of the sex with musta given her that red ring.

Because the Kenfields’ windows are open like everybody else’s on the block are I can hear Perry Mason shouting out of the TV, “Objection, objection, Your Honor!” But even louder than that lawyer, I can hear Mr. Kenfield making the same sound I used to hear when I’d stay awake in my old bed and listen for Dottie’s ghost. That horrible moaning sound.

When I say to Wendy, “Let’s go,” and we head off down the block, I vow to myself not to peek in on people for a while, especially never again on the Kenfields. What I saw in there, Mr. Kenfield’s head in his wife’s lap . . . her patting him while their missing daughter looks down on them . . . that is not life going on no matter what. That is life spinning its wheels.

T
here’s a spot in our backyard where you can sit and breathe in all the good. We’ve got a glider and a shiny new bench back here that I’m hoping to replace with the old one that’s in front of Sampson’s cage if I can figure out a way to ask Dave that won’t hurt his sensitive feelings. In June, the peony flowers smell great. So do the two purple lilac trees and red and white roses. The vegetable garden is planted with radishes and carrots and cucumbers and something new Dave put in this year. He planted four rows of corn along the fence. I think he did that for me and Troo, like a tribute to Daddy. Dave doesn’t understand that when the O’Malley sisters hear the rustle of stalks coming through our bedroom window on a breezy August night, it will make me tear up and even though Troo will call me a crybaby, she’ll feel Daddy’s goneness, too. She’ll go out to that corn in the middle of the night to run the silky tassles across her lips. They were always her and Daddy’s favorite part.

Every branch of the garden bushes and tendril of the vines fills me with the most peaceful feeling, better even than Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. But the part that soothes me the most is the teepee. It looks just like a real one, only smaller, and instead of buffalo fur or cattle skin, we’ve got green beans racing up the poles. There’s room inside for two. (I was worried that after my horrible camp experience that I wouldn’t feel the same way about the teepee this summer, but thank goodness, I still adore it.)

Troo came out with me tonight because a storm is coming. She won’t leave my side when there’s one rolling in. I told her she could French inhale to steady her nerves. I just had to get out of the house. Troo likes listening to them fight, but I couldn’t take hearing Mother snip little pieces off of Dave for one more minute. There’s been another burglary. This time the cat snuck into the Holzhauers’, who live on 53rd.

I say to Troo after we crawl in, “I’ve been meanin’ to tell you. Artie Latour likes you again. A lot.”

“Oh, yeah?” she says. When she reaches into her back pocket, I can smell Mother’s Midnight in Paris perfume. Troo’s got on her red lipstick, too, and around her wrist there’s the charm bracelet that Daddy gave Mother for their second wedding anniversary. Mother is too upset with Dave to notice that Troo’s been in her things and my sister knows that. “Too bad for Fartie. I got other fish to fry.”

I don’t ask her who that fish might be because she would never tell me. Poor Artie. I think of him pining away for Troo and his yo-yoing friend, Charlie Fitch, and what bad condition he is in overall. The bible says,
Suffer, you little children
, but how much more can one kid take? I left a baby jar of cod liver oil on the Latours’ porch last night with Artie’s name on it. I haven’t blabbed to anybody what he told me about Father Mickey committing a bad sin. Not even Troo. That wouldn’t be right. Ethel taught me that. “You should never repeat what a body tells ya when they’re barin’ their heart and soul,” she said. “That’s the worst kind of betrayal there is. That’s takin’ advantage of them when they’re already down.”

“How’s it goin’ with Father Mickey?” I ask Troo. Since it’s Tuesday, she had her religious instruction tonight. She never complains about having to go up there right after supper, so I thought she might be ditching the meetings. That’s why I secretly followed her last week. Other than stopping to throw an egg at the Heckes’ front window, she went straight to the rectory. I was impressed. It’s not like her to be so obedient. She must want to go back to Mother of Good Hope School in September as much as I want her to, which really does my heart good. “Does he make you study the same borin’ catechism we learn in school or do you talk about more interestin’ stuff?”

Troo smiles like our old barn cat would when he was lapping up a puddle of spilled cream. “He . . . ah . . . more interestin’ stuff,” she says, lighting a match to use on her cigarette, but blowing it out when Mother comes slamming outta the back door.

“Maybe I should start breakin’ into people’s houses,” Mother rants. “It’s the only way I’m going to get to spend any time with you.” And then she goes on a rip about how long it’s taking to get permission from the Pope so they can get married and how she can’t wait forever and how she wants Dave to buy her things. Not later. Now! These fights are like listening to the Moriaritys’ dog barking over and over. “When are you going to get me my own car?” Mother wants to drive downtown to the museum and buy her clothes at Chapman’s, not Gimbels. She wants to “Soak up some culture and look good doing it.” And especially she wants to get away from the neighborhood “riffraff.” Everybody is talking behind her back about how she’s living in sin. Even though she’ll tell you she couldn’t care less what people say about her, she does.