Greetings from Nowhere (11 page)

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Authors: Barbara O'Connor

BOOK: Greetings from Nowhere
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Kirby sat in the lawn chair outside his room and took out
the shoebox that Burla had given him.
Dear Burla,
How is Barney? I hope he is good.
Virgil said he sent money to get the car fixed but he didn't. Mama is mad as anything. (What else is new? Ha Ha)
That girl with the bracelet (her name is Loretta) asked me to teach her my yo-yo tricks. Maybe I will.
I ate all the cookies you sent. They were good.
Give Barney a hug.
Your friend,
Kirby
“Oh, yoo-hoo, Kirby.”
Aggie shuffled toward him in her big yellow boots.
Kirby stuffed the letter into the box and clamped the lid on.
“I was wondering if maybe you'd like a little job,” Aggie said.
Kirby shrugged.
“Maybe,” he said.
“I could use some help cleaning out that storage room over by the office,” Aggie said.
“Okay.”
“I'll pay you, of course.”
“You don't have to,” Kirby said.
“Naw, I'm paying you.” Aggie gave him a little push. “Shoot, you'll be wantin' a raise after you get a look at that room.”
 
 
Kirby wiped sweat off the back of his neck with a paper towel and pulled another dusty box off the shelf in the storage room. Aggie sat in a lawn chair outside the door.
Kirby was supposed to hold up each thing in the box for Aggie to see and then she would say
Keep
,
Sell
,
Give Away
, or
Toss
. Then he would put it into the right pile.
The trouble was, instead of saying
Keep
,
Sell
,
Give Away
, or
Toss
, Aggie would say, “My land's sakes alive, I'd forgotten all about that.” Or, “Well, I'll be a saint in heaven, I thought I gave that to the paperboy.” Or “Oh, bless me. I got that when me and Harold went to Charlotte to see his brother Ed.”
Sometimes she would tell a long story. Like about how she had bought all those paper napkins at the flea market and figured they could use them in the bathrooms and save on the laundry bill, but Harold thought she had plumb lost her mind, so then he got some little ole tea towels real cheap and used a marker to write
Sleepy Time Motel
on them, but the writing wasn't very good and then it all came off in the washing machine anyway and then …
Kirby tried to listen.
He really, really tried to listen.
And he tried to be still while he was trying to listen.
But it was hard.
Now he was opening about the hundredth box, and the
Keep
pile was getting bigger and bigger, and there was nothing at all in the
Toss
pile.
Kirby reached in the box and took out a brown envelope. Inside the envelope was a frayed cloth patch. A round blue
patch with a silver star and gold wings. He held it up for Aggie to see.
She drew in her breath and clasped her hands together.
“Well, would you look at that,” she said, holding out a trembling hand to take the patch. She squinted down at it, turning it over and over, rubbing the front of it.
“What is it?” Kirby said.
“Harold got that in the war,” she said, tracing the gold wings with a crooked finger. “It's from the Army Air Forces. That's what Harold was in. The Army Air Forces. Back in the war.”
“Wow,” Kirby said.
Aggie chuckled. Then she held the patch out to Kirby. “Here,” she said. “You keep it.”
Kirby shook his head. “Naw.”
Aggie jabbed the patch at him. “Go on,” she said. “Take it. Harold would've been tickled pink for you to have that.”
Kirby eyed the patch. “Really?”
“Sure.”
Kirby took the patch from Aggie. A real war patch! He wished his brother, Ace, could see this.
“Thanks,” he said, tucking the patch into his shirt pocket.
“You're welcome,” Aggie said.
Kirby pulled more things out of the box. A bowling trophy. Binoculars. A red plaid thermos. A hunting knife in
a mildewed leather case. A clock with a cardinal on the front.
And then the rumble of a truck made him and Aggie stop what they were doing and look out at the parking lot.
“Who in the world could that be?” Aggie said.
“Aren't we lucky, Marvin?” Loretta's mother patted
Loretta's knee.
Her father nodded and said, “Yep.”
Loretta forced a little smile.
They had gone for a drive, pulling over at all the lookout spots to see the view. Sometimes they put a quarter in the telescope and looked at the roads and cars and souvenir shops miles and miles away.
They had stopped at a roadside stand and bought boiled peanuts and saltwater taffy.
They had picked blackberries to take back to everyone at the Sleepy Time Motel.
But Loretta wasn't having much fun.
She couldn't stop thinking about the poodle dog pin.
Where had her other mother gotten it?
Had it been a gift, or had she bought it herself?
Had she seen it there in the store and just had to have it?
Had she worn it every day or only on special days?
And where was it now?
Loretta helped her mother clear off the picnic table, wrapping up the bologna and cheese and putting them back in the cooler.
Then they all climbed into the van and headed back to the Sleepy Time Motel. Now that the rain had stopped, the afternoon sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. Loretta held her face near the window, letting the cool mountain air blow her hair.
Maybe when she got back to the motel, Willow and Kirby would help her look for the pin.
Maybe Aggie had found it by now.
Or maybe it was gone forever.
Aggie pushed herself up out of the lawn chair outside the
storage room and followed Kirby across the parking lot to the roadside.
She read the words on the side of the truck parked there.
ALL-AMERICAN SIGN COMPANY.
Her feet kept moving but her heart stopped.
At least, it
felt
like her heart stopped. She clutched at Harold's old brown sweater. Her head was spinning. Her ears were ringing.
Clyde Dover was saying something.
To
her
?
Yes.
Clyde Dover was saying something to her.
He was grinning.
He was pointing.
Aggie shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears.
“ … that surprise I told you about,” is what Clyde Dover was saying.
Aggie made her eyes focus on the shiny new sign propped against the side of the truck.
MOUNTAINVIEW INN.
“Oh … well …” Aggie said.
Just those two words.
What else could she say?
Aggie felt herself leave.
Not her real self.
Not her achy old self standing there in the parking lot.
But her
inside
self.
Her happy young self who had met Harold at the magazine rack in the back of Walgreens Drugstore in Shelby, North Carolina, and had loved him right away.
Her inside self drifted right up off the ground and into the breezy mountain air and watched the scene taking place down there at the Sleepy Time Motel.
Here is what her inside self saw from way up there above the ground:
Clyde Dover, pointing at the shiny new motel sign and beaming at everyone.
Kirby, hopping around, splashing muddy water, fiddling with his yo-yo, tossing gravel into the road.
Willow, slumped in the rocking chair in front of Room 10.
Kirby's mother, Darlene, flicking a cigarette into the ditch by the road.
Dear little Ugly, swishing his scrawny tail back and forth across the wet grass.
The Murphys' white van bouncing across the parking lot and stopping in front of Room 6.
Loretta, jumping out and dashing over to join the others, that charm bracelet of hers jingle-jangling as she ran.
Loretta's parents, climbing out of the van, holding hands and smiling after Loretta like she was an angel come right down from heaven.
And last …
The two men from the sign company, grunting as they dug and pulled and dug and pulled until the Sleepy Time Motel sign came right up out of the ground.
When the doors of the truck slammed with a bang, Aggie's inside self fell from the sky above the motel and landed with a crash right inside her achy old self standing there by the road.
“Oh … well …” she said. “That's it, then.”
She scooped up Ugly, wrapping him in the folds of Harold's old brown sweater. Most times, Ugly hated it when
she did that, but this time, he leaned against her and purred.
She turned and headed back toward the motel. She dropped into a chair by the office door, settled Ugly on her lap, and closed her eyes.
“Want some taffy?”
Aggie opened her eyes. Loretta was sitting on the sidewalk in front of her.
Aggie smiled. She didn't have the heart to say
No, taffy gets stuck in my dentures.
So she took a piece of the gooey candy wrapped in waxed paper and tucked it into her pocket.
After Loretta said goodbye and skipped away, Aggie watched the sun sink behind the mountains—and the new motel sign glowing bright against the darkening sky.

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