Words of Stone (9 page)

Now Blaze understood how to play, but it took him a minute to come up with something. He fidgeted with his hair while he thought. The bright blue liquid was a dreadfully spicy after-shave. “I am Bruno Slobkin,” he finally said in his deepest voice, flexing his muscles. He smiled to himself at this notion.

“Ha!” Joselle screeched. “That's good! That is really good.”

That afternoon, shaded beneath the black locust tree, Joselle, Keeper of the Scents, rubbed and sprayed Blaze and herself with various perfumes, colognes, and after-shaves. They even used leaves, dirt, and berries. And depending on the particular mixture of smells, they became different people: famous movie stars, characters from books, or simply people they made up themselves.

Blaze laughed until his side ached and he had to massage it. He could not remember when he had laughed so hard.

Periodically throughout their game, Joselle—hand in mouth—would hum theme songs from television programs and make Blaze guess what they were.

“Why are you pretending to play music on your teeth?” Blaze asked, after successfully naming a tune.

“Because my teeth are as big as piano keys,” Joselle said. “And it's a special talent.”

“How long have you been doing this?” he asked in his Bruno Slobkin voice.

“Since the very day I was born, sweetheart,” she answered, speaking with a pronounced southern accent.

During a particularly quiet moment when Blaze was trying to come up with the name of a song, he almost told Joselle about the words of stone. But he stopped himself for some reason. He just couldn't force the words out.

After they had been playing for quite some time, Joselle asked suddenly, “Can I come over to your house?”

“I don't know,” said Blaze. The growing effect of their concoctions was light-headedness. He experienced a fluttering in his stomach, too. “I'd have to ask my grandma first.” He stared at his knees. “And my dad. Maybe tomorrow would be better, or something.”

“Then come over to mine,” said Joselle. “You can call your grandma to let her know where you are.” She gathered her belongings into her paper sack, her little bottles falling together and clinking against the mason jar.

Blood beat in Blaze's ears. He watched her get up and start to walk away.

“Come on,” said Joselle. “Are you part statue?”

“I can't go,” he said.

“Why?”

The way she said it, and the way she looked at him, made him feel invisible. “I'm afraid of your grandma's dog,” he admitted shyly.

“Gary?” Joselle's eyes widened and she stretched her mouth in an exaggerated fashion.
“Gary?”

“He's so big. And sometimes at night I can hear him bark all the way over at my house.”

Joselle approached him and grabbed his arm as if she were going to pull him down the hill behind her. She clucked her tongue. “Silly,” she said. Then she looked right at him, and as she did, Blaze saw something register in her eyes, and he felt something change in her grip. “You're
really
afraid of him, aren't you?” she asked, her voice serious and quiet.

Blaze nodded.

“Don't worry. Gary's just a pussycat. I'll introduce you properly and teach you to like each other. He smells awful, but that's his only bad point. And we don't smell so great, either. He'll like you.”

“Really?”

“I promise,” she said, waving him along. “What are friends for?”

S
omething was shifting and changing inside Joselle. It didn't happen all of a sudden, but gradually, over the course of long, hot summer days. It was a feeling she couldn't exactly describe, except to say that it was private and dense and tight. She felt as if she owned something wonderful that no one else in the whole world knew about. She first became aware of the feeling the afternoon she taught Blaze how to pet Gary.

“I can't do this,” Blaze had said, backing away.

“Yes, you can,” Joselle told him.

Gary romped forward, pulling his chain taut, his tail wagging fast and hard.

Joselle petted Gary and commanded him to sit. Then she stood behind Blaze and slowly pushed him toward Gary. She could feel him shake. “Stay,” she said to Gary. “Now give me your hand, Blaze.” She guided his hand, gently forcing it along the back of Gary's coarse head, again and again.

Blaze made a small sound in his throat.

“See, it's easy.”

“Kind of,” Blaze said.

Joselle suspected that it wasn't easy at all for Blaze, and she moved her hand with his like a shadow, nudging it along when he hesitated. And as she did, something occurred to her. He needs me, she thought. Blaze Werla needs me.

The following day the feeling washed over her again. She was showing Blaze the spoon trick. They were on the hill.

“I don't believe it,” Blaze said, excited.

“It works every time,” said Joselle. “Really, truly. Give it a try.”

Blaze took the spoon from Joselle and moved it in front of his face. Closer, closer, farther away. Then he turned the spoon over and moved it again. “I'm always upside down on the inside,” he commented. “And right side up on the outside.”

Joselle nodded thoughtfully. “I told you. It's one of the small wonders of the world.” And that's when the feeling struck. Watching the expression on Blaze's face, Joselle thought she knew how teachers must feel after they've successfully explained the mystery of long division.

A few days later, Joselle experienced the feeling under completely different circumstances. She wasn't helping anyone; she was being waited on by Blaze and Nova. She had been invited to Blaze's house for lunch. She was so impressed by the smells of fresh-baked bread and homemade cookies, by the matching towels with rickrack trim, by the flowers in coffee tins lined up on the counter, that afterward she couldn't even remember what day it was, and she actually danced around the table and offered to wash the dishes.

Perhaps it was Nova's bread that had done Joselle in. It was absolutely wonderful. Vicki and Floy were both partial to store-bought bread, the bleached white kind that is so puffed up with air and preservatives that it looks and smells like something kindergarteners are given to express themselves creatively. Occasionally Joselle would form little balls with her bread, and using the dull, knobby ends of the silverware, shoot them around the kitchen table billiard-style.

“You elevate the concept of playing with your food to new heights,” one of Vicki's boyfriends had commented once.

“It's better than eating it,” Joselle had replied, striking a cereal bowl with a small grayish wad.

One afternoon after she had eaten several meals and snacks at Blaze's house, Joselle asked Nova, “When was the last time you bought bread at a store?”

“I can't remember,” Nova answered. “Baking bread is a cinch—and it's one of life's greatest pleasures,” she added, smiling.

“I help with the kneading sometimes,” Blaze said.

“You don't buy frozen or canned vegetables, either, do you?” Joselle asked.

“Not usually,” Nova replied. “I freeze and can myself. Why?”

“Just checking,” Joselle said, spreading butter on a slice of warm whole wheat. She licked her fingers, feeling drunk.

The feeling came back to Joselle even when she didn't expect it, even when she was alone. She wondered if she was falling in love with Blaze and his family. Was that possible?

She still experienced what she called “the hollow feeling” or “the Sunday afternoon feeling,” but it seemed to come less often. She associated the feeling with The Beautiful Vicki.

Joselle used to think that she would end up alone. A spinster. Not a timid, frail woman with blue hair and lacy dresses, but a feisty woman who wore young, stylish clothes. A woman who could take care of herself. But now she wasn't so certain. Maybe living in a family could really work.

Sometimes Joselle tried to see herself through Blaze's eyes. Depending on her mood, she would see a fat, loud girl who, strangely, played music on her teeth. Or a strong, beautiful girl capable of mesmerizing boys and their families.

Each morning Joselle awaited the arrival of the mail. And each morning she was disappointed. She'd run to the mailbox at the edge of the road as soon as the red, white, and blue truck puttered away. With her eyes closed, she'd open the mailbox and reach into the dark space greedily. Without fail, her hope quickly disappeared; there was never anything addressed to her. After slamming the mailbox shut, she'd kick dirt all the way back to the house, and then toss the bills, letters, and advertisements for Floy carelessly on the kitchen table. She cursed her mother under her breath. The Beautiful Vicki hadn't sent even one postcard. She hadn't telephoned again, either. If Joselle thought about her mother long enough, she became so worked up she was convinced that her bones would twist out of their sockets and snap into sharp pieces.

“I didn't get anything from her either,” said Floy one morning when Joselle looked especially disappointed.

“Well, you're not her daughter,” Joselle said testily, pulling her chin.

“I'm her mother.”

“That's different,” Joselle said. She made a paper airplane out of a ShopKo circular. The lines of her folds and creases were precise as cut glass. “Maybe it's your fault she is the way she is,” Joselle said, giving Floy a challenging look. Joselle sent the plane toward the garbage pail in a perfect arc, but it careened off course at the last minute and landed in Gary's water dish. Joselle pretended that the plane was an arrow and that the water dish was her mother's black heart.

“Try not to worry about your mother too much,” Floy said softly, drumming her fingers on the counter. “She has the annoying habit of being happiest when those who love her the most are upset.”

Floy's words confused Joselle, and she tried to make sense of them as she ran over to Blaze's house. She knocked fiercely on the door.

“Hi,” said Blaze through the screen, looking gauzy. “What do you want to do today?”

Joselle pulled the door open a crack and squeezed inside. “It doesn't matter,” she replied.

And it didn't. She just wanted to be there.

They began spending more and more time together. And when they parted at dusk, Joselle eagerly awaited morning when they would join one another again—usually on the hill.

Sometimes Joselle called him The Boy with the Apricot Hair. And sometimes she called him Blazey. But mostly she called him Blaze.

Sometimes Joselle wanted to tell Blaze everything about her life. But she didn't. She held back. What if he didn't like what he heard? What if he found out that she had written the words on the hill with stones? She had no idea how he had reacted to them—except that someone had always dismantled them. Would he still want to be her friend?

Sometimes Joselle wanted to know everything about Blaze's life. But she decided not to ask too many questions. She fabricated what she didn't know. And the history and circumstances she invented for him were exactly what she wanted them to be.

Sometimes Joselle liked to be alone with Blaze on the hill—playing with the hot, hot sun beating down on them, or sitting quietly against the black locust tree like bookends in the cool shade. And sometimes she liked to be with his entire family at their sturdy, round kitchen table. Blaze and Nova and Glenn and Claire.

Sometimes Joselle wished she could live with them.

Sometimes she wished she were Blaze.

“H
a!” Joselle shouted, storming into Blaze's bedroom, taking him by surprise. She was struck enough by Blaze's expression to add, “It's okay. I didn't mean to scare you.” She joined him on the braided rug, plopping down so heavily that the walls seemed to vibrate. Although Joselle had spent a fair amount of time at Blaze's house, she had never been in his room before. She looked around, collecting details and storing them away. “Your grandma let me in. She told me I could come up here. Second door on the right.”

Blaze seemed particularly quiet. His cheeks reddened as he abruptly scooped up the toy he was playing with. “Let me just put this away,” he said, talking so fast that Joselle had to decode his words, taking a few moments to understand him.

“What have you got?” Joselle asked, reaching around Blaze's arm and picking up a handful of small plastic animals. A camel, a swan, a goat.

“It's this stupid old toy I used to play with,” Blaze replied. “I was just looking at it.”

“It's a Noah's ark,” Joselle announced. Without asking, she grabbed the toy out of Blaze's hands and scrutinized it. “I hate to tell you this, but it's defective—there are supposed to be two of every animal and you've just got one.”

Blaze only nodded.

“Well, it fits, doesn't it? It's a Noah's ark for orphans.” Joselle broke down completely with spasms of laughter, holding her belly with both hands. She quieted down quickly, however, since Blaze only averted his eyes and remained silent. Not even a flicker of a smile touched his lips. “I was trying to be funny, but I guess I'm about as funny as a big fat cinder block.” She handed the ark back to Blaze and began picking at the cuticle of her thumb. “Sorry. Really,” she said as gently as possible, offering the words as a gift.

Today is turning out to be a bad day, Joselle thought. First, no postcard from The Beautiful Vicki. Again. Then, I took it out on Grammy. Again. And now Blaze thinks I'm a dope. I shouldn't have joked about being an orphan. And I never should have lied about my father being dead in the first place.

She was sorry about that, but in a sense he
was
dead. At least to her. If she told Blaze the truth now, he'd hate her for sure. And that wasn't what she wanted at all. She wanted to be friends with Blaze Werla. Very best friends.