My Book of Life By Angel (5 page)

I said, Melli, where are you from?

where do you live?

I looked in the phone book,

but Group Connect

Group Sales Office

Group Telecom

Grout

Grove

no Group Home.

I said, Melli, where is Group Home?

What is it near?

She looked away, looked around,

looked sad that she didn't know the answers to the quiz.

I said, what's your last name?

I said, do you write, Melli? write your last name,

and I gave her paper and she printed neatly

Smith.

Sometimes God thinks he is so funny.

C
all came in holding out candy,

offered it to Melli,

said, wanna try?

I said, she's too young,

and he said, mind your own business.

But he left her alone anyway.

I held Melli's hand and took her in the bedroom

and I whispered,

don't, 'kay?

Trust me, Melli,

sometimes one bite

and everything's different after that.

I
put her to bed,

tucked the blanket under her chin

like I used to with Jeremy

and I lay beside her on top of the blanket

and didn't stare at her until she was asleep.

Getting a little girl makes you stop pretending,

makes you remember things,

makes you sick

makes you see

makes you say

this is what happened to me
.
.
.

When I wished for an angel

this isn't what I meant at all.

She's just a little girl.

I
caught Call looking at me

looking at her sleeping,

and he knew I was thinking, just you touch her,

just you touch her.

I said, quiet, so I didn't wake her up,

you don't have to put her to work,

I'll make lots of money.

Call said, this is just business,

right, Angel?

Someday I'll be legal,

someday the government will acknowledge

this is just business

and give me a license

and I'll pay my taxes like any other guy.

He said, I'll be a marketing guy, a retail man
.
.
.

I saw me and Melli, mannequins in his store window,

mute and hard, undressed,

but still wearing our shoes,

still wearing our smiles.

He said, you want your sweet candy now?

And I said, no thank you.

I used to be afraid that Call didn't love me

but now I knew I didn't love him.

C
all said,

she's in for a million.

You be her main girl, Angel.

That's what he said.

He said, you be the boss of her.

I said, I would never,

and he said, you'll do what I say,

and I said, I'll die first,

and he said, okay.

A
nd then he showed me pictures,

pictures of Jeremy

at the playground

sliding

swinging

hanging

testing gravity

pretending to die.

Call said, I visited Jeremy a few weeks ago.

I walked him home from the playground

to keep him safe.

He said, he's cute, huh?

and my heart was

sliding

swinging

hanging

and I saw the gravity

of the situation.

I laughed and said, what a brat,

I ripped up the pictures one by one

until just a Jeremy eye

and a Jeremy mouth

all in pieces on the floor.

I don't care, I said, I don't care.

But Call was smiling

and I was dying for real.

T
hen he showed me a stuffed blue rhino.

I had seen that stuffed blue rhino before.

I had bought this very stuffed rhino

and given it to Jeremy.

I took it from Call, smelled it, smelled Jeremy on it,

grass and jam and sour milk,

and my brain shook, I felt it rattle in my skull,

right behind my nose

like my brain came loose,

picked right off the stem.

Call said, if you leave me, if you take Melli,

I'll hurt Jeremy.

Nothing bad will happen to Jeremy

as long as you remember that.

I said, why would you say something like that?

and he hit me

and that was the right answer.

C
all went out

and I slept on top of the blanket beside Melli

and I dreamed

that Call stretched and shrank,

stretched and shrank in his skin—

I never knew what he would be next—

a ­whale? a gnat? a wolf? a sea bird?

a snake
.
.
.
?

every one could swallow me ­whole,

that's how small I was.

I dreamed that it was all a dream
.
.
.

But when I woke up she was still there.

Hate stronger, under show of love

well feigned . . .

S
he was lying silent beside me,

staring at me, not moving,

and it was people's lunchtime

so I said, you must be hungry.

I got up and in the bathroom threw up

maybe bits of spleen

and my shoulders ached like the time Call beat me

because I said I was too tired to work.

It was like my back and shoulders

remembered everything.

But Melli had to eat.

Call said,

now it's my turn to stand on the corner,

collect names for my petition.

I said, take your time.

Good luck.

Goodbye.

He said, take care of her,

she's your retirement plan.

She's ­here so you can be the baby mom,

have my baby someday.

So take care of her.

I said, yes I will, and I did not lie,

top ten.

And he locked us in.

I
looked in the kitchen and found

pasta

white bread

salt

instant potatoes

vanilla ice cream

milk

cottage cheese

cauliflower

plain yogurt

bananas

cream of wheat

mayonnaise

mozzarella

and sponge cake.

I said, Melli, are you hungry?

I gave her a mozzarella cheese sandwich

with mayonnaise

and milk to drink

but I ­couldn't eat anything.

M
elli sat on the broken-bone couch in a ball

silent, silent—­whatever I said to her

she didn't answer.

I said, Melli, when you're a kid

you think if you break the rules

you will die.

But one day you break the rules, and you don't die,

and then you think you'll never die.

You dump all the rules and you're so light you float.

But you can get so high

there's no air up there.

You can get so high there's nothing to see but clouds

that rain you down.

Don't, 'kay?

Don't take Call's candy, 'kay?

I said, who runs Group Home?

what's her name? do you remember a name?

but she just shrugged, shook her head.

I said, what's your daddy's name?

Write your daddy's name,

and she wrote Mike.

The phone book had lots of Mike and Michael Smiths

but none of them ­were the dad of Melli.

No one was the dad, brother or uncle of a Melli.

After a while I started not understanding the word no.

It sounded strange to me.

Michael Smith number I don't know said no,

and I said yes?

He said no,

and I said what?

He said, what part of no don't you understand?

I said, the first part

and the last part.

I said, Melli, what about your mom?

Write your mom's name—

so she wrote Sue neat and careful

and the phone book had lots

of Sue Smiths too.

I called every S, Sue, and Susan Smith

and none of them had misplaced a little girl.

But Suzanna Smith had a dog named Melli,

named after a distant cousin—

she hadn't seen that cousin in twenty-­three years

which made Suzanna cry.

Melli lay on the couch

and looked at me

and didn't care that a dog had her name.

I
said to Melli, time to listen up.

All the little children in the world aren't lucky

and Melli, you are one of the unluckies.

I'm sorry, but it is so.

I'm sorry to tell you that

but you have to help me, Melli.

I'm not feeling so good.

But Melli was silent, silent.

I thought, what am I going to do?

what am I going to do?

R
ight then Call came back.

He said, I've been trying to call,

he said, no more phone privileges,

and he smashed me into the wall

and Melli started to cry.

I said, don't be sad, Melli, don't cry.

It ­doesn't hurt
.
.
.

Call said, ripping the phone jack out,

from now on I'll use my cell.

L
ater I whispered to Melli,

ha ha things on me that have been broken

by Call and by dates:

nose,

finger,

toe,

ear­drum.

But angels don't break, Melli, I said.

Angels are bendy.

Ha ha, Melli. Ha ha, right?

Don't cry, 'kay?

C
all said later, I forgive you,

said, ­here's your candy.

But I said no and not even no thank you just no.

He said, you'll come begging for it

I'll make you beg, you know that—

and don't think about getting it somewhere ­else,

they all know you're mine

and I've put the word out.

He said, get out there,

we'll see if you can do your job without it—

no skin off my nose.

But it is, I can tell it scares him.

And me.

He said, get out there

and take her with you.

You don't want her to work, fine,

but you make double.

S
o I held Melli's hand as we walked

to the gate of ten thousand happinesses

and I said, sorry, sorry, but it's better you are with me

than alone with Call.

She patted my back when I coughed

and didn't mind when I yawned and yawned at her.

I said, Melli, even my fingertips are sick

even my toes are sick

even my hair is sick.

On the way to my corner

we stopped at the Carnegie library

and I wrote a note for the message board

with my hands shaking from lack of candy

Dear own­er of Melli Smith,

I know where your little girl is.

Please leave your phone number.

You have done a very good job with her.

Angel

I folded it and pinned it to the message board.

On the outside I wrote,

Looking for Melli?

I thought,

this is the kind of plan you get

when you don't do candy even if you are sick,

and I thought, stained-­glass Milton would be proud.

W
idow said, not you again

I'm nobody's babysitter.

What the—!

She said, get that baby home to its mama.

She said, where did you get it?

I said, Call. He says finders keepers.

Widow saw how it was.

She stared at Melli, no blinking,

until tears came out.

I said, don't cry Widow,

I'm going to return her as soon as I get a good plan.

I wrote a letter to my dad.

When he comes to get me

he'll take Melli too.

Widow said, who's crying?

She said, tell her about the line.

W
idow said, looks like Call got himself a twinkie,

sweet and soft, all cream on the inside—

Widow said, that's how you started out,

wrapped and fresh, iced for the kiddie stroll—

but everybody eats twinkies up

and throws the wrapper in the garbage

and nobody cares

and that's what you get

for being a twinkie.

She said, I might have been a twinkie once

but I don't remember.

I
stood at my corner

and Melli in the shadows

and me in my yellow tutu

and mismatched shoes,

but to­night even my shoes ­couldn't make me feel better.

My shoes said,

what are you doing ­here?

what are you waiting for?

And I said, shut up.

I have to make up for Melli.

I
said,

Widow, I gotta make double to­night.

Call said.

She said, maybe thinking angels will help.

And I said, maybe,

and she snorted.

So I said, angel, angel,

just like Serena said to do,

and just then a car pulled up.

In it was twins, two little men dressed the same,

and one said, we pay double,

and Widow's mouth fell open.

I said to her, will you watch Melli?

and she didn't say no.

When I got back

Widow said, you just got lucky,

just luck.

I threw up on the sidewalk, all white.

She said, gack, lucky you did that

on your side of the line.

T
hen the man who had dirty hair

and the teenage boy who was scared

and the man who thought halfway through

I was somebody he knew from Seattle

and he called her name over and over

and the man who never said a word

but hated with his eyes

and the man who told me what his suit cost

and his watch cost

and said, you're burning up, I like it that way—

and every time I came back Melli was okay.

Without candy

I saw how every time

I was only in the man's wishes, not a real girl,

just a guess, a question, a story he made up—

but every time I got out of a car

Melli was in the good hiding dark,

clean and smelling of wind and rain,

and she was real, a real girl,

and not even a story I made up.