Darnay Road (19 page)

“Miss Little,” I say,
“I meant no harm. I saw some kittens, that’s all. You still have them…those
kittens?”

Granma
clears her throat and goes right on talking like I haven’t spoken.

“As
I was saying, we just brought those cookies. You doing all right Lavinia?”
Granma says.

“They
look in my windows at night and come in my house sometimes,” she says, widening
the door even more so we can see up and down her. She has the dirtiest feet
ever and cracked toenails. I start over at the top and her hair is just a mess.

“Lavinia
you got someone looking after you?” Granma says.

“I
don’t want them to come in, but they do.”

Granma
breathes in. “Who comes in?”

“They
sneak in when I go to the bathroom. And night they are in the attic, the
basement. I hit the ceiling with the broom and I say, come on. But those kind
never show.”

“Are
you eating?” Granma asks more weakly.

“They
poison my food and my water,” she says eying that plate suspiciously. Miss
Little folds her arms and stands one foot atop the other.

“Family
coming around? Your sister?” Granma says.

“She
tries to tell me what to do, always telling me like Mother,” Miss Little says.
“Have you seen John?”

Oh
boy. I can see how sorry Granma is that she didn’t just stay in her chair.

Once
we get home from Miss Little’s Granma says to make her a glass of tea and don’t
talk to her for a while.

“Are
you mad?” I ask.

“I
am not mad,” she says. “I am done with the troubles of this world. Get me some
tea.”

I
go inside and sigh and leave my sun-hat on a hook in the hallway. It is so much
work to try and end poverty. Miss Little did finally take the cookies though
and there was a cat, one I’d not seen before. I get to wondering if her house
is more like a pass-through for animals the way it is a cut-through for humans
going from Darnay back to the tracks or Scutter. I think we could fill a whole
set of encyclopedias with the mysteries I have not solved. One thing though,
Granma had a life before I was born even, a whole life. I can barely believe
it.

On
the way home she said if John saw the state of that house he would rise from
the grave. “From the grave!” she said. She is more upset than I ever saw
coming. She made several declarations as we walked home so quickly I had to run
every few steps to keep up cause Granma didn’t seem to remember her corn or her
onions.

Granma
may not be mad at me, but she is mad at someone. I just don’t know who.

Who
in their right mind would ever, ever know Easy would like The Barbie Game. He
loves that game. It’s about Barbie getting the best dress and the best
boyfriend so she can be queen of the prom. It’s the most wonderful game ever
and I’ve only ever played it with Abigail May and a couple of times Ricky and
now I’m playing it with Easy on Granma’s porch.

I am lying on my stomach,
my face resting on my hands and my elbows planted on the thick glossy paint on
the porch floor. I’m so happy I could die cause Easy, who is sitting cross
legged and kind of bent over the board, just got Poindexter. It’s so funny.
He’s trying to make a mean face at me, and I would be scared if he meant it,
but he doesn’t ever mean it comes to me.

I
got Ken and I’ve been so happy.

“Why
you like Ken so much?” he says.

“Cause
he’s the handsomest one,” I say like he should know that. “And he goes with
Barbie.” Then I pull forward and say, “Ken and Barbie?” I make my eyes pop at
him, then I cross them and he laughs.

“They
are going to stay like that,” Granma says and I don’t even think she is looking
she’s so buried behind the pages of her book.

I
back down and relax a little and I have to blink a few times to straighten out
my gaze.

“Everyone
knows that,” I say rubbing my nose.

“You’ve
got freckles,” Easy says and I see Granma pull her book down a little.

“So
do you,” I say.

“I
do not,” he says.

I
get up on my knees and move my pointer to his nose and I’m counting. “You’ve
got twelve, one for each year,” I say.

He
reaches quick and tickles under my arm and I pull my chicken wing into my side
and fall on the board laughing and the game is a mess.

Granma
has laid her book on her lap now. “Georgia Christine,” she says like I’m pretty
rowdy.

“Sorry
Granma,” I say getting up quick, but I smile at Easy. Sometimes I just do stuff
and I don’t know where it comes from. I get this energy and it’s hard to sit
still. I do eat Wonder Bread all the time and I think it comes from that.

We
clean up the game and I ask Granma if I can go with Easy to Mac’s and get a
Fudgesicle. “I’ll bring you one,” I say.

Well
the crickets have started up and the sun is going down, and there’s Mass in the
morning. That means she’ll want to wash my hair and watch Roy and Dale but I’m
starting to like Jackie Gleason best and sometimes we’ve been watching him. But
right now with Easy waiting, I don’t care.

She
looks at me like she don’t know what to do with a little girl again. “Get some
money out of the jar for you and Easy.”

I
start to go in then I say, “Granma can I show Easy my room?”

Well
she makes this terrible face like I asked her to tell me where Cain got his
wife or something. “Five minutes,” she says.

So
Easy follows me in and he’s walking lazy and I am already on step number seven
and I say, “Get the lead out.” And I run the rest of the way cause he takes the
first three steps right off and catches up in one second, so I get to the top
and he does too and we just look at each other so I take his hand and lead him
down the hall to my room.

I
run in first and dive onto my bed and he’s standing in the doorway looking
around with a big smile. He’s looking all over and I’m lying there watching him
admire it. Then I sit up, I think what if he’s never had anything nearly this
nice and it’s like I’m bragging, but he doesn’t seem to take it so. He takes
one step in and he’s still looking.

“You
are a ballerina,” he says.

M
y dolls are on my shelves.
I forgot about those. But he doesn’t ask.

“You
like pink,” he says.

Well
I can’t deny that. I’m sitting in the middle of it. “And red,” I say. “And
anything cherry. That’s my very favorite flavor and Abigail May banana.”

Then
I lose steam cause maybe I sound like a big baby.

“I
know you like cherry,” he says cause he should by now.

I
hop up and go to my piggy bank. Easy is running a finger along my record
player. “Dad bought me that two Christmases ago. I put some of the records on
top of my radiator and they melted.”

He
looks at me like I’m a Martian.

“Well
I did,” I say.

“Which
ones?” he says.

“Frosty
the Snowman and Alvin and the Chipmunks and I forget.”

“Dang,”
he says.

My
bank is a pink pig with daisies over her ears and a big smile under her snout.
She has a rubber stopper on her belly so I can get the money out without
breaking her. I learned that lesson the hard way on my first piggy bank. I
saved all that money and when I needed it I had to break the pig to get to it.
I’ll never do that again.

I
get some money out. A whole dollar. I only have a dollar seventy-two. I’ve been
saving for Granma’s Christmas present, but I can save more.

“C’mon,”
I say cause those five minutes are probably up. He’s at my jewelry box and I
see him take something.

I
pretend I don’t see it, but I do.

So
we go downstairs and my tummy hurts. I know Easy took something. How could he
steal from me? I know he has stolen other things, and I know it’s because of poverty
and being a heathen. But if he wanted something of mine, he only has to ask. He
stole from me and I’m his friend.

So
he wants to ride me on his handlebars to Mac’s and I don’t want Granma to see
so we just walk. I am so mad, so upset.

We
just walk quiet and I have my arms folded and I’m not even looking at him. Here
he’s been a real good influence on me and my Granma, helping in our yard and
inspiring us to look after others, starting with him. But stealing from me when
I took him in my own room? It’s just unthinkable.

I
stop there and turn toward him. “I saw you take something out of my jewelry box
Easy. And I’m just so, so mad.”

His
hand touches over his pocket first, then it slides in there and he pulls out a
barrette, a plastic one I don’t even care about. It’s pink.

Well
I’m looking at his fingers holding that. I love his hands pretty much, they’re
so strong and they are twice the size of mine, cause we compared. And that
barrette looks so ridiculous held there.

“Why?”
I say, I barely ask it.

He
shrugs and he spits.

“Well
you can have it,” I say.

He
holds it for me to take it. “I don’t want it.”

Well
here he is just wanting this thing of mine. I don’t understand him at all.

We’re
looking at each other. Easy seems mad at me now.

“I’m
not mad anymore. I just didn’t know,” I say.

“So?”
he says. Oh he don’t mean it. He don’t know what to say.

“I
want you to have it.”

“I
don’t want it,” he says, so I take it. I am purely hurt over it now.

“Go on home,” he tells
me. But his bike is at my house. He crosses the street and takes off and pretty
soon he’s running.

I
don’t call after him. I want to, but he doesn’t want my barrette and he doesn’t
want me.

I
am walking along home my feet weighing ten pounds each. I don’t think I can
bear Easy being mad at me. What if he doesn’t come around anymore? But his bike
is at my house. He has to come for it.

That’s
when I see the strangest thing. I’m about even with Miss Little’s but I’m
walking on the other side of the street. And Disbro Peak comes out of her
house. He jumps off her porch and he sees me and I look away cause he’s so
foul. “Moondoggie,” he calls and he laughs and I just walk faster and faster
but what in the world is he doing in Miss Little’s house?

Such
a powerful thing wells up in me. I miss Abigail May. I need her. First thing I
have to work on is getting her back. No, no that’s the second thing. First is
making things right with Easy.

I
get home and I deal with Easy’s bike and go back around to the front. Granma is
inside and soon as I hit the screen I hear the laughter from the television.
She’s going to wash my hair. That’s when I’m going to tell her about Abigail
May’s letter and how Figley doesn’t treat her well, not even letting her have
very many stamps and Gloria Sue never paying attention. I figure Aunt May will
know soon as church is out tomorrow. That’s when I’ll fill in the rest, over
lunch—Abigail alone all day and going to public cause it’s too expensive and
Ricky needing to earn his keep.

It’s
all a very little girl can do on that.

For
the rest, well Easy’s bike is under the cellar door on the steps. But he won’t
be able to see it. Once Granma is asleep I’ll be waiting for him on the porch.
I know he’s embarrassed. I think he is. But I understand, I do. It’s just Easy.
He can’t turn away from me. I’ll fight so hard for him. I will tell him how
much I love him and that he can’t go away. He’ll see then.

And
I’ll tell him about Disbro Peak coming out of Miss Little’s house. My intuition
tells me it’s no good at all. If anyone can get to the bottom of it Easy can.
My Easy.

Darnay
Road 36

My
braid is heavy and wet against the back of my robe. I have on my pink nightgown
with the small embroidered cherries all over it. The cherries are red. I have
on my white eyelet robe and my thongs, of course and I am sitting on the porch
in the dead of night and even with Mass tomorrow I have seen Father Anthony
walk up to big gray and knock on the door and Aunt May let him in.

Lord
Almighty, as Granma would say. But Granma is sound asleep upstairs and so is
Little Bit. I am in the lounger and just waiting cause I’ve walked up and down
hoping Easy will come. I’ve even thought of riding his bike to his house, and I
will if he doesn’t show. I will go to any lengths to set this right. I can’t
lose Easy because he’s the best boy in the world.

I wait and wait and
next I know he’s waking me up. Well I nearly have a heart attack and I yelp and
good thing you can’t wake up Granma so easily or I might be in big trouble now.
But we do see Father Anthony leaving Aunt May’s.

I
hold onto Easy’s arm and put my finger to my lips so he’ll be quiet. We watch
those two walk to Aunt May’s fence and then she goes in and Father Anthony
walks down the street to where I know he parks.

“He
goes there all the time,” Easy says.

 
Well I’m so glad he’s talking to me. “How do
you know?” I say, cause I know, but I didn’t think he’d know.

“I
see him. He parks down the road toward Scutter.

“Old
news,” I say.

Well
we are watching each other now.

“They
are really, really good friends, probably,” I say. Catholic priests never fall
in love with women and make them special girlfriends, but I am starting to
wonder about this.

“How
should I know? I don’t care,” Easy says and he walks to the end of the porch
and spits over the rail.

I
swing my legs off the lounger cause I’m not letting him get away so fast.

“Are
you still my friend?” I ask him. The Barbie game is on the table that sets
against the house. I wish we could go back to that and I could do things right.

“Where’s
my bike?”

“Why?”

“Cause
I ride it?” he says like I’m simple.

“I
mean…I put it under the cellar door.”

“Why’d
you do that?”

“So
no one would take it. Or…maybe so you wouldn’t just leave. I mean…are you mad
at me, Easy?”

“You
hid my bike?” he says like he’s having trouble believing it.

“Well
are you…mad?”

“No.
It’s just….” He looks off shaking his head.

“Well
me and Granma love you pretty much,” I say, and even I know I just laid my very
best card on the table.

He
makes this sound like, ‘what?’

“It’s
true,” I say. “We think the whole world of you, Easy. Please don’t go away.”

“Where
would I go?” He takes a step closer.

“I
don’t know. Just get mad and not come around, or maybe go back to Shoehorn.” I
can barely stand to say it the thought is just so terrible.

“Don’t
cry,” he says.

“I’m
not,” I say wiping under my nose with my sleeve.

He
laughs a little. “You are,” he says.

“I’m
not,” I say more fierce. I don’t know why, here I am trying to get him to not
be mad and I’m yelling at him.

“Why
are you so mad?” he says.

“Because
you make me so…so….” Now I am crying.

“Just
get in the house. I’m going,” he says.

“No.
I,” now I have hiccups, “I wanted to…give you…give you…,” I’m fumbling in the
pocket of my robe and my hand gets caught cause the pocket is so, so deep. “I
just wanted to give you this,” I say.

It
is the silliest thing ever. It’s a troll doll and he isn’t very big but he was
so crammed in my pocket I could barely get him out because his arms are spread
out wide. He has long cottony pink hair. “Me and Abigail May call them dammy
dolls,” I say. “That one is my fav…favorite. I want you to have it.”

He
laughs. “Why you giving me this?” he comes closer and takes it.

“Cause,”
I say looking up at him, “I want to. You’ve my very, very best…best friend
Easy. That didn’t leave town.”

He plucks at that crazy
doll’s hair. I put that barrette he wanted across the hair like a clamp on all
that wildness.

“Hope
it don’t…doesn’t look like me,” I say.

“Like
you?” he says quick. “Maybe a little.”

Well
I smile, and I wipe under my eyes in case there’s any tears left over cause I’m
so happy now.

“Will
you come around after church to…morrow then like we planned?” I’m going to show
him how to grow a beautiful lava garden on a brick using basic household
cleaners. He doesn’t believe me when I say me and Abigail May make one every
summer.

He
keeps looking at the doll, playing with the hair. He don’t answer then he
unclips that barrette and hands it back to me.

“Why…?”

“I
don’t want it,” he says. “But I’ll keep this,” he says smiling and shaking the
doll at me.

I
put that barrette in my pocket where he won’t have to see it no more.

“Say
Easy…are you all alone?”

He
is looking at me, his eyes so dark, like midnight. He makes my heart beat so
fast. I hope he doesn’t get mad again.

“Why
you got to be so nosey all the time?” he says. “If you don’t stop being nosey
I’ll have to stay away.”

“You
just saying th…at to be mean?” I ask, scrunching my toes.

“No.
I don’t want to be mean to you. I told you that.”

“Well…I
know you told me not to be nosey, but I saw Disbro Peak come out of Miss
Lit…tle’s house when I walked home earlier.”

He
is staring at me, so dark and silent. “What do you want me to do, Georgia?”

“Well…why
would he be in there? She told Granma and me those strange things.” I’ve
already told him all that she said.

“She’s
got madness,” he says sternly.

“I
know that,” I say. I have lived on Darnay Road longer than him and I know that
about Miss Little. “But what business could he have with Miss Lit…tle?”

“There
are some things you don’t know,” he says, and he is so serious I don’t think I
want to know, but I am listening, ain’t I?

“Then
tell me,” I say.

“Things
aren’t always good, Georgia. You’re just a kid and I’m not…I don’t want to get
you worried. But you need to mind your business sometimes. Then it will be all
right. But you go poking in all the time and your little nose with those
freckles will be like a stick in a hornet’s nest, see?”

“I’m
not afraid. If he’s hurting Miss Little then we should t…ell.”

“He’s
not hurting her. Not like you think.”

“How
do you know?”

He
turns away and he smacks that dammy doll into his hand. “I know the things you
don’t need to,” he says so firmly.

I
am looking at him. “But I….”

He
turns toward me again. “No. You are just a little girl and you got your nice
pink room and your pretty little…toes and your nightie.” He’s flustered looking
me up and down and I knit my fingers together I am so throwing a leg over my
high horse. “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says. “Smartest too.
And you make me laugh all the time. You’re like that little doll that winds up
in the jewelry box…going round and round.”

I don’t know what to
say. I’m not mad anymore, but how he sees me, it can’t be true. And I don’t
want it false cause it’s so nice. And so wrong too. It makes me feel all lumpy
in the throat and it worries me hugely. Really enormously. Going round and
round?

“Did
Disbro Peak take my kittens?”

He
looks at me, his tongue in his cheek again. “Sure.”

“Sure?
For really real?”

“You
got your fists digging your sides and I know how you get,” he says.

“You
didn’t go after him?”

“I
didn’t see the point,” he says. “He didn’t hurt them and your Granma don’t want
four stray cats.”

“I
thought you’d protect them.” Protect me is what I want to say.

“I’m
trying to now, but you won’t quit.”

It’s
like he heard me inside. He says he’s trying to protect me. But I thought he
was…Superman.

“I’m
going home,” he says like he can feel my disappointment.

“No.”
I try to block his way. “He took her my kittens and you never said.”

“He
thought they were his. He thought you took them from him. You see how it
works?”

“They
weren’t his!”

“Maybe
they were,” he says and his breath smells like cigarettes. Do I even know Easy?
Or anybody? Or anything?

“You
going to protect Disbro Peak?” I am going round and round now.

“No.”
He steps away a little. “I’m just letting it go until I can’t. See? When I
can’t…then I do something. Sometimes I don’t see it coming…what I’ll do.” He
looks down.

“Easy?”
I say, my hand going to his arm so lightly.

He
looks at me. He’s got a sadness in him so deep I can feel it coming into me.
But I would take this for him, this bucket of blue-blue. “You should come to
church with us tomorrow. The music just fills the church and it’s all so
beautiful.”

He
is looking at me and he laughs some. “I seen that church. It’s fake too, just
like everything else it’s all for show. We looked, didn’t we? We went in that
booth. There’s nothing there. Only thing that seems like something more is
you,” he says.

“Me?
I ain’t a thing. My own dad don’t come around. I think he’s so bored when he
does he can’t stay awake even.”

He
laughs then. He laughs so much he sits on the top step. “He’s a shithead then,”
he says still smiling.

The
cursing is powerful. I’m not used to it at all.

He
pats the stair beside him and I hurry to sit there, close as I can. I thread my
arm through his. I tell him about my mother too.

He
can’t believe it. “A real model?” he says. “No wonder you’re so pretty.”

Well
I don’t know what to say. He goes on about me being so pretty all the time. I
don’t feel pretty. I think I’m funny when I look in the mirror. I’ve got stick
out ears and a little head and big hair and everything is the same dark color,
hair and eyes and I make some crazy faces and I’m just me.

“Maybe
if she loved her own child she’d be alive,” Easy says.

I
never thought of it that way, but it seems so grown up to be so stern about it.

“People
bring on most of their own troubles,” he says. He seems as old as Granma in
saying that.

He
gets out a cigarette then. I am leaning on his arm watching him light it and
pull in.

“Not
you,” I say.

He looks at me, corner
of his eye. I got my face real close since he likes it so much. I want him to
be sure.

“Not
you,” he says to me. “I don’t get half of what I deserve. I told you I’m not
good.”

I
don’t believe that for a minute.

“Easy…you
think when we get big we could get married or something?”

He
laughs and pulls on his smoke. “I’d marry you,” he says blowing the smoke out.
“But I have to get older and so do you.”

“Would
you turn Catholic?”

“No,”
he laughs still smoking.

“Why
not?” I sit up a little. I know it will never go with Granma if he stays
heathen.