Shooting Stars 01 Cinnamon (10 page)

Grandmother Beverly didn't tell Daddy about Clarence and me. She had a better way and
a
far more effective place to snap her punitive whip. Now it was Clarence's turn to be called out of class, only for him it was to meet with his father. Because Clarence didn't return for his afternoon classes. I didn't find out about it until I returned from visiting with Mommy. Instinctively, I knew something terrible was going on. Every time I thought about him, about our teacher calling out his name and telling him to report to the office, I felt my heart thump along like a flat tire.

When I drove into the clinic parking lot and entered the building. I tried to push my anxieties under a blanket of smiles. The last thing I wanted to do was lay my problems at Mommy's hospital bed. For her sake, everything had to look pleasant. She was a weakened vessel sailing in a tumultuous sea. Adding the weight of my problems to her own might sink her for good.

She had just finished having a cup of tea and was still sitting up in her bed. I could see from the brightness in her eyes that she had crossed through the darkness between her heart-breaking memories and the present. She still looked quite fragile, her lips trembling slightly, like the lips of someone on the verge of opening a dam of tears, but there was a significant change in her demeanor. It brightened my own spirits and I rushed to her side.

"Mommy, you're better," I cried and threw my arms around her. I kissed her and she did start to shed some tears.

"I was asking for you. Cinnamon," she said. "They told me some silly story about my younger sister coming here."

"That was me, Mommy.
I
pretended to be your sister the first time I visited."
She shook her head.
"
^-
Why?"
"I don't know." I said shifting my eyes guiltily.
She stared at me, her own eyes filling with understanding.
"Who wants to have a mother in here?" she asked gazing around. "I know how you feel." She sighed, closed her eyes and lowered herself to her pillow. "I lost the baby. Cinnamon.
I
lost her."
"It wasn't your fault. Mommy. You did everything the doctor told you to do."
She nodded.
"It wasn't meant to be," she said in a whisper. "Grandmother Beverly was right."
"No, she wasn't right. She's never right."
Mommy shook her head.
"This time. I'm afraid she was. Maybe I was too old. I had this hope that having a baby would make us a better family, improve my relationship with your father. Sometimes, you just can't force fate. It's almost a sin to try."
"Stop it. Mammy. Don't do this to yourself. That's why you were.., sick before."
"Sick?" She nodded. "Yes. I suppose you could call it that. I don't remember very much. I found myself here and all they tell me is I suffered a slight nervous breakdown, but that I'm on the way to a full recovery. What happened, Cinnamon? What did I do that they would put me in here?"
I shook my head. Was I supposed to tell her?
"Please, honey. We don't keep things from each other," she reminded me.
"You thought you hadn't had the baby. You thought you were having labor pains."
I decided to leave out the bizarre drawing she had made on her body.
"Oh."
"Then you thought you gave birth prematurely and the baby was in intensive care. You kept asking me how she was,"
She nodded took a deep breath to keep her tears back and shook her head.
"Is your father terribly upset?" she asked,
If I have any acting skills. I thought, now we'll see. My slight hesitation already had triggered some concern in her and her eyes snapped open and turned to peruse my face.
"He's been working harder to keep himself from thinking about it all,' I said."I haven't seen much of him."
She nodded.
"I don't blame him for working harder and not wanting to think about it. He wanted the baby very much."
I nodded, smiled and took her hand again.
"You must get stronger and come home as quickly as you can. Mommy. I need you."
Her eyebrows rose at the urgency in my voice.
"Grandmother Beverly making things hard for you?"
"Let's just say you've got a lot to do at home. Mommy." I replied and she laughed.
"Let her have her moment in the sun, gloat about what happened and how right she was. That's all she has, all she's ever had: her own self
righteousness," Mammy added. I felt my heart fill with joy. We were conspirators again, a team, turning the world into our stage, putting the lights where we wanted them, desiring the set, filling it with our own props, writing the script as we went along.
"You mean you won't ignore her as much?"
"Exactly. I'll do exactly the opposite: pay too much attention to her. We'll agree with her, but of course, we won't."
"We'll haunt her. We'll even ask her opinions," I suggested. She smiled gleefully.
"About every little thing. anything."
"Weigh her down with more responsibilities, more decisions."
"We'll yes her to death." Mommy said. "We'll overwhelm her with respect and cooperation until she runs off exhausted into the wings."
I laughed.
"Oh Mommy. I can't wait for you to come home."
She asked me about school and I told her about the play and Miss Hamilton's giving me a script.
"It's a wonderful play. Do go out for it, honey. I'd love to see you on the stage, a real stage with a real audience and not just our little attic room of makebelieve, okay?"
"I'll think about it," I said.
"Good." She closed her eyes. "Good."
Her condition made it possible for her to turn on sleep in an instant. I saw her breathing become regular, slow, and felt her on my hand soften. Gently, I pulled away and sat back, watching her for a while.
She's coming home. I thought, Mommy's coming home.
I left the hospital with bounce in my steps. I felt I could do battle with anyone or anything again. I would go out for the play. I wouldn't be afraid of competing. I could even handle Grandmother Beverly until Mommy came home, and as for Daddy... I would pretend I knew nothing and let his own conscience boil in his heart.
Grandmother Beverly was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. I hated to admit it, but the aroma of the roast chicken and baked potatoes made me hungy. It all smelled so good. She greeted me and told me Daddy was coming home and would visit Mammy after dinner.
"So we're eating as soon as he arrives." she informed me. "Put your things away and come down to set the table."
"Mommy's better," I told her. "She's a lot better." She nodded.
"I know all about it," she said as if that was the least important thing and went back to preparing dinner.
I hurried upstairs. I wouldn't return to the hospital with Daddy later. I thought. I didn't want to ride with him. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep what I knew to myself. Anyway, tomorrow were the auditions for the play and I did want to study the part, even memorize some of it to impress everyone.
Just as I put my books down and started to change my clothes, the phone rang. It was Clarence.
"I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner," I told him as soon as I heard his voice. "I went right to the hospital. My mother is better. She'll be coming home soon. She's better. Clarence."
"I'm glad." he said, but the heavy tone in his voice told me something was very, very wrong.
"What happened? Why did your father come to school for you?"
"Your grandmother called him this morning at the office," he said. My heart stopped and started.
"What?"
"She told him everything she saw. She threatened all sorts of things, including a lawsuit. All this after I cut school and he had grounded me, too," he added. "Then he saw the letter about my fighting and it was like lighting a wick on a stick of dynamite. I never saw him this angry. My mother's just as angry. They had a meeting about me and they've decided to send me to the Brooks Academy. My father's always threatened to do that."
"Boarding school? When?"
"Immediately," he said.
"How can they do that?"
"You don't know my father. When he makes up his mind, he goes to work and moves mountains out of his way." Clarence took a breath. "I'm leaving tomorrow.'"
"Tomorrow! You're kidding?"
"I wish I was," he said.
"Well, why are you going? Don't go, Clarence."
"I've got to go. They've already removed me from school here.'
"But--"
"He even suggested he might send me to a military school if I don't cooperate."
"Oh, Clarence."
"Maybe you can come up to Brooks once in a while. It's only about two and a half-hours' drive. I'll call you whenever I can, too. I can take my computer. Maybe we can e-mail each other every day."
"My grandmother did this," I groaned.
"I never saw my father as angry or afraid of anything or anyone,"
I was quiet. I didn't know what to say. Who could I turn to for help and sympathy? My father? Hardly. I couldn't tell Mommy about this yet. I had to give her a chance to fully recover. Never did I feel as trapped and alone. I held the receiver to my ear. but Clarence was becoming fainter and fainter, a voice drifting away, a face diminishing, a memory thinning until it was nearly impossible to revive. He was on a boat floating into the darkness.
"I'm sorry," was all I could offer.
"I'll call as soon as I can," was his weak and despondent reply.
When I hung up. I felt as if I had closed my last window and was shut up in a room with no door.
"Cinnamon!" I heard Grandmother shout up the stairs. "Set the table. It's getting late."
You have no idea how late it is. Grandmother. I thought. No idea.

I
decided to say nothing about Clarence at dinner.
I
wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing she had succeeded in getting exactly what she intended. Daddy was buoyant when he returned. He knew about Mommy's recovery, of course, and talked about how we were going to make things pleasant for her when she came home.

"When she's stronger, we can think about a nice little holiday, perhaps.
In
the spring. She's always wanted to go to Disney World. What do you think?"

"Ridiculous," Grandmother Beverly said. "Adults wanting to go to a children's playland.'
"It's not only for children. Besides, the child in you never should die," Daddy countered.
I
raised my eyebrows.
It
was rare to see or hear him disagree with her.
"You'll like it too. Mom." he said.
"Me? You want me to go to Disney World?"
"Why not? You'd be surprised at how you would enjoy it."
"Surprised for sure," she said.
He turned to me. smiling.
"I
spoke with Mommy late today and she told me you said you were going out for the school play."
"Maybe," I said.
"It would make her happy," he told me.
I glared at him.
"I know what makes her happy and what doesn't. Daddy. I know better than anyone."
His smile held, but lost its glow.
"Sure you do. Cinnamon. I know that." He glanced at Grandmother Beverly.
"What do you think, Mom?"
"She dresses like she's on some stage an' way." she said. "And she certainly needs more to do. Idle time leads to trouble," she added turning to me, her eves small and hot with accusation.
I looked away, my lips struggling to open, my tongue thrashing about, anxious to fire off the furious words.
Don't give her the satisfaction, I told myself. Pretend nothing she does or says can have an effect on you. Defeat her with in' difference.
That took all the control I could muster. Perhaps it was my greatest performance.
I smiled at both of them.
"Yes, I have decided," I said. "I'm going to win that part and be in the play."
"Good," Daddy said clapping his hands. "I have something wonderful to tell your mother tonight..."

Of course, it was easier for me to say it, but even with Miss Hamilton's encouragement, winning the part was going to be a formidable task. The two other girls who I knew were Going out for it were both veterans of the school's stage. One of them was Iris Ainsley, the prettiest girl in the senior class by far. I had to admit to myself that she looked the part more than I did. She had soft hair the color of fresh corn and eyes that looked as though God had taken them from the purest sapphire. She was an inch or so shorter than I was, but she had a dream &ire, lithe with soft turns from her neck to her shoulders. When she walked through the school, she seemed to float. It was easy to see the looks of appreciation and longing in the eyes of some of the male teachers as well as the boys in school. She had a very pleasant speaking voice and she was an honor student.