Baby (5 page)

“My Wish for the World.”

Portia Pinter stood in front of the class, reading in her high voice.

Someone snorted.

Ms. Minifred gave a piercing look to the back, probably to Ozzie, who always snorted. He had four brothers who snorted too. Lalo said it was part of the family tradition.

“My Wish for the World,” repeated Portia, pushing up her glasses, “is for world peace and homes for stray animals, especially cats.”

Another snort. Ms. Minifred smiled.

Portia, short with jeweled eyeglasses, had told
us once she had relatives in the royal family of England. Lalo called her Princess Portia.

Portia’s voice droned on. We were in the library, where water was leaking down the walls. It had rained for three days straight, so hard and fierce that at home Mama put towels on the windowsills and under the door where the water streamed in. Papa left early for work and came home in the evening wearing his yellow slicker, the wind nearly blowing him down the hill. Byrd sang songs and read books to Sophie, who happily pointed out new streams of water.

At school we had all helped move the books to the middle of the room, and Rebel, the janitor, had come up from the basement to turn off the electricity. Rebel had come to the island with his Harley-Davidson motorcycle when he was eighteen and had never left. That was fifteen years ago. We had seen pictures of him then, and he hadn’t changed. He was still thin, and his hair stood straight up. He had a mysterious tattoo on his arm that said “Wild Eunice.”

Rebel liked Ms. Minifred. Rebel and Ms. Minifred read books together. Lalo and I had come late to the school library one afternoon, and
they had been at a library table, Rebel sitting on a child’s chair, smiling, his chin resting on his knees as he read to Ms. Minifred.

Rebel had a bookcase in the basement filled with books. Lalo had seen it once when he went down to borrow a screwdriver.

“All poetry,” Lalo had said, impressed.

“That’s because Rebel is anguished,” said Portia. “All anguished people read poetry. He has a lost love somewhere. Eunice, you know. Ms. Minifred is helping him through the power of wondrous words.”

Ozzie snorted.

“He has lots of loves,” he scoffed. “I’ve seen him around town with girls on the back of his Harley.”

“They are only temporary,” said Portia, her jeweled glasses gleaming in the darkened room, “until Wild Eunice returns.”

Today Rebel stood at the back, listening to Portia, his tool chest at his feet, his arms folded so we could see Wild Eunice on his arm; red letters with green ivy surrounding them in a violent sort of way. He had never stayed in class before. He
had always come to work, then disappeared back into his room in the basement. I thought suddenly of the day that Griffey’s goat had jumped his fence and walked through town and into the school, a strange sight in the schoolroom, interrupting the familiar rhythm of the class. Somehow Rebel seemed too big for the room, filling it up with leather and spiked hair.

Rebel saw me watching him, and he mouthed the words
How’s Sophie?

Fine
, I mouthed back.
Walking
.

Rebel smiled broadly.

“Also,” Portia went on, “it would be quite excellent to have clean air, clean water, and clean houses. In conclusion,” said Portia, stopping to take a breath, “cleanliness is next to godliness.”

Portia looked at the class. “My mother says so,” she added.

A snort from the back.

“Thank you, Portia,” said Ms. Minifred.

“There’s redundancy there,” said Rebel.

Everyone turned to look at Rebel, who never spoke up when he was in the room.

“Yes, most assuredly there is,” said Ms.
Minifred. “You don’t need to say ‘quite excellent,’ Portia.
Excellent
is its own definition. It stands alone.”

“Yep,” said Rebel, picking up his toolbox and pausing at the door to look at Ms. Minifred. “It doesn’t get any better than excellent.”

There was what Ms. Minifred called a “pulsing silence” as Rebel went out the door. Then Ms. Minifred spoke.

“Yep, indeed,” said Ms. Minifred, her face flushed. “Wondrous words spoken by Rebel. It doesn’t get any better than excellent.”

Lalo and I looked at each other. It was, of course, the
yep
that did it. In that moment, the room so damp that my hair had begun to curl on its own, Lalo and I knew that there was more than words between Rebel and Ms. Minifred.

Lalo leaned over to whisper.

“So. Do you think anyone else noticed?”

I shook my head. Everyone else was rustling papers.

“Poor Ms. Minifred if Wild Eunice ever finds out,” I whispered back.

Lalo grinned suddenly at me, then at Ms. Minifred.

“I think Ms. Minifred can take care of herself,” he said softly.

And then, Ms. Minifred looked up suddenly and smiled at us. A real smile, with teeth.

“Tomorrow is poetry,” she said. Her smile grew wider. “All the world can be found in poetry. All you need to see and hear. All the moments, good and bad, joyous and sad.”

Lalo leaned close to me.

“Rebel will be back,” he whispered.

All the world
.

Lalo and I walked home through town, the wind pushing us along, our feet wet even though we wore rubber boots. The harbor was black, waves topped with gray. We passed the newspaper building, and I looked in and saw Papa reading at his desk, his reading lamp shining on the wood. We passed the hardware store and the drugstore and
food mart
with the
D
missing so it read
FOO MART
.

I pulled my slicker around me and held my rain hat on to keep it from blowing away.

All you need to see and hear
.

Lalo tugged at my arm.

“What?”

“Home,” said Lalo.

I looked up and saw the inn, the porch all wet and windswept. Lalo pulled me up the steps, and we took off our hats, standing there, listening to the rain on the porch roof

“So?” Lalo said.

“I’m thinking about poetry,” I said.

“I knew that,” said Lalo matter-of-factly.

“And what Ms. Minifred said.”

Lalo nodded.

“And I’m thinking about—” I began.

“The world,” said Lalo.

I looked at Lalo.

“Poetry is just words,” I said.

“That’s all we’ve got,” said Lalo.

I stared at Lalo. The rain came harder.

And when I left Lalo and ran up through the wind and rain to my house and opened the door, Mama and Sophie were at the kitchen table, Sophie covered with finger paint, her fingers squishing the red on the white paper. My mother turned, and on her face were tiny finger marks where Sophie had touched her. They had dried there as if
she had left her marks on Mama forever. They both smiled at me, and Sophie reached out her hands to touch me too.

Ms. Minifred’s wrong
, I thought, as I left my slicker dripping in the hallway and went to join them.
There are no words for this
.

She remembered the color red: red flowers that bloomed in winter, cold red sunsets, and especially a tiny teardrop of red that glowed like fire in the light. She now wore it around her neck, but when she thought of it she could remember the feel of it in her hand, how her fingers curled around it. Sometimes she opened her hand, expecting to see it there shining in the pocket of her palm
.

Red had always made her happy
.

In the night I woke to hear the rain turn to ice, the sound like rocks against the roof and windows. When I slept again I dreamed. I was cold in my dream, so cold that goose bumps rose on my arms, and when I breathed out my breath hung in a cloud of ice. In my dream the fields were ice covered, the sea was frozen, the waves spiking in gleaming glass waves. Far off Sophie was walking away from the island in her red boots.

“Baby!” I called to her, but she didn’t turn around. She walked across the harbor, around the fishing boats frozen in place.

“Come back, Baby!” I screamed.

In my dream Byrd came to stand next to me.

“Call her by her name,” Byrd said sadly. “Call her Sophie.”

Tears sat frozen on her cheeks like diamonds. I stared at her, but when I turned back it was too late. Sophie had walked past the breakwater and was gone.

“La.”

Fingers poked at my eyes.

“La.”

I woke in the darkened room, the dream slipping away. Sophie sat on my bed in her blue woolly pajamas with the feet. Her red boots were next to my pillow.

“La.”

Sophie’s cold fingers touched the tears on my cheeks.

I sat up in bed. The air was cold in my bedroom, though early light shone in along the edges of the window shades. I leaned over and pulled up the shade. Ice sat thick on the inside of the windows. Outside there was ice everywhere, the telephone lines and the roads covered, the trees bending over with the weight. The fields were still and shining, like my dream.

I pulled Sophie under the covers with me, tucking them around us.

“Sophie!” Mama called down the hallway.

“Sophie!” called Sophie, imitating her.

“There you are,” said Mama in the doorway. “The electricity is off, Larkin. Papa’s making a fire. You’d better stay in bed until we get some heat in the living room.”

Mama came over close to the bed and looked down at us. Behind her Byrd appeared, dressed in her velvet robe, heavy socks, earrings, and a hat. I smiled.

“Don’t mention how I look,” warned Byrd.

“Brrr,” said Sophie, reaching out a hand to her.

“She said Byrd!” said Mama, smiling at Byrd. “Sophie’s beginning to say more than her name. At last!”

“Lily! The fire’s ready.” Papa’s voice came from downstairs.

Mama turned and went down the hallway, pulling her sweater around her.

Byrd sat on my bed and took Sophie’s hand.

“Hand,” said Sophie.

“No school,” Byrd said to me.

I sighed.

“No poetry,” I said.

After a moment I looked at Byrd.

“What do you know about poetry?” I asked Byrd.

Byrd smiled and shivered. I opened the covers for her and she got in, Sophie between us. Sophie reached over and played with the ruby that hung on the gold chain around Byrd’s neck.

“Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat,” said Byrd. “That’s what Robert Frost said.”

“Ms. Minifred says that poetry shows us the world,” I said.

Byrd smiled.

“Words are uppermost in Ms. Minifred’s life,” she said.

“Do you think words have answers?” I asked.

Byrd took off her necklace and handed it to Sophie.

“La,” said Sophie happily.

She looked at it closely, turning it over and over in her hand.

“Do you?” I asked Byrd. “Think words have answers?”

“It depends on your questions,” said Byrd. “But”—she turned her head to look at me over Sophie—“you should know that there are some things for which there are no answers, no matter how beautiful the words may be.”

I stared at her.

“Sometimes poetry—words—give us a small, lovely look at ourselves,” said Byrd. “And sometimes that is enough.”

There was silence.

“Sometimes,” Byrd added in a soft voice.

“I had a dream,” I said. “You were in it.”

“A good dream?”

“No,” I said. “Sophie walked away across the icy sea and never once looked back at us.”

Byrd was quiet, and we watched Sophie open and close her small hand around the ruby. After a moment Byrd sighed.

“That’s the way it will be, Larkin,” she said.

“In the dream I called Sophie Baby. You told me to call her by her name,” I said.

“Baby,” said Sophie, putting her hand on my lips.

“Baby,” I said, smiling at her.

We lay in silence, the three of us, as the sun rose and came in through the window and over us. Outside the island glistened.

“Why didn’t Mama and Papa name the baby?” I asked.

Byrd didn’t look surprised.

“Have you asked them?”

I shook my head.

“No,” said Byrd. “For now it is too new, too close to them to talk about. They are busy trying to protect each other.”

She turned and looked at me.

“You are wondering right now who is protecting
you
, aren’t you?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. Sophie came out from under the covers.

“I never saw the baby, Byrd,” I whispered. “Not once. And he doesn’t have a name.”

“I know.” Byrd whispered too. “But that is for your mama and papa to do. You will have to find your way. Your dream is like a poem, you know. It put in words what you think about but can’t say. Maybe that’s what poems do. Maybe this is what Ms. Minifred knows.”

I looked out the window for a moment, then I turned back to Byrd.

“Byrd?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Words are not uppermost in Ms. Minifred’s life anymore.”

“Is that so?”

“Ms. Minifred and Rebel are in love. She said ‘yep’ yesterday. Just like Rebel.”

At this Byrd raised her head off the pillow.

“She said ‘yep’?”

“Yep,” I said.

Byrd began to laugh, and I laughed too. Sophie peered at us, sitting back on her heels, smiling,