The Same Stuff as Stars (19 page)

She was never going to trust anyone again. Not even Mrs. Coates. Not even Miss Liza. Not even—She could hardly breathe. Her toe caught on the doorsill, and she fell, the flashlight bouncing and rolling, rattling across the kitchen floor until it came to a noisy stop against a chair leg.

“What's that!” Grandma's voice cried out from the bedroom.

“Just me,” Angel said.

“My gawd, girl! You trying to scare the liver out of me?”

“I'm sorry. I tripped.” Angel got up. She felt bruised all over. Even her heart felt sore. “Just go back to sleep, Grandma. It's okay.” She closed the door as quietly as she could and slid the flashlight into the drawer. When she turned around, Grandma was standing in the doorway.

“Turn on the light, girl. No wonder you nearly broke your neck. Wandering about the kitchen in the dark. I thought you had some brains in that head.”

“I'm sorry, Grandma.”

“Just turn on the light, silly.”

Angel switched on the light by the door.

“You thinking of running out on me?”

“No.”

“Then why are you standing by the kitchen door wearing your winter coat?”

“Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that.” Grandma's gray hair was out of its daytime bun and was streaming down her shoulders, making her look like a witch in a bad movie.

“I—I couldn't sleep. I just thought—”

“You lying to me?”

“Why should I lie to you?” Angel could hear the lie in her own voice, but maybe Grandma would be fooled.

“I don't know,” said Grandma, shaking her head. “It happens.” She went toward the rocker, moving as though she were a hundred years old instead of eighty. She eased herself down and then looked up at Angel, still standing by the door, the lie pasted all over her face.

“Make us some tea, won't you, angel girl?”

“Sure.”

“And take off that dratted jacket. It scares me.” Her voice was almost a whimper.

They sat there, drinking the scalding tea, not speaking, Angel sinking into shame. It was just like the times she had let Bernie down, making him scared that she, too, would desert him, when she never would have. He had to know that. Even now. He wouldn't think that she had
wanted
to be left behind, would he? Had Verna told him that Angel was tired of looking after him and that was why...

The tiredness of the last few days had seeped into her bones. She felt almost too heavy to climb the stairs and go to bed, but what else was there to do? Wayne left, then Verna, then Bernie, and now the star man—all gone without a word.

“I'm going to bed now, Grandma,” she said.

“Yeah,” the old woman said, but she didn't make a move out of her chair.

 

 

EIGHTEEN

The next afternoon when she got off the bus, she felt the man's presence before she saw him. He seemed taller than he did in jail, as he stepped out of the trees beside the road.

“Angel?”

“Daddy?” She squinted her eyes at him, hardly believing what she saw. He was supposed to be in jail, not here. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm sort of like on parole,” he said, blinking his eyes and cocking his head like Bernie did when he was set to defy her. “You sounded upset on the telephone, so I thought I better come.”

“Parole?”

“Yeah.” He gave a smirk. “For good behavior.” She stood unmoving in the road, not knowing what to say or think. Was he lying to her?

“Ain't you going to give your daddy a hug?” he asked, coming toward her. She wanted to run, but how could she run from him, her own daddy? She put her arms loosely around his shirt, which smelled like sweat and tobacco. He seemed not to notice how quickly she stepped back. “I'll tell Grandma you're here,” she said, turning away from him.

“I don't think that's a good idea, sweetheart. She don't like me much. I got a friend going to pick me up later. Maybe I'll just stay in the trailer till he gets here.”

“You can't do that.” Her voice was sharper than she'd meant it to be. “Someone else lives there now.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, I guess it'll have to be the sugar shack, then. You could bring me out something to eat, couldn't you?” He gave a short laugh. “I'm like to starve.” So he had run away and was expecting her to hide him. She wanted to tell him to go away, to go back to wherever he was supposed to be, before the cops came pounding on the door again, before what little was left of her world got broken into a million pieces. Instead, she walked beside him up the driveway, with his left hand on her right shoulder. She was sure the weight of it would leave a mark, like a handprint, right through her jacket and sweatshirt and onto her skin. “Sooner the better. I'm ready to eat a horse.” He squeezed her shoulder before he let go and headed for the sugar shack.

She watched him disappear inside, her heart pounding. What was she to do with him? If she told Grandma, Grandma was sure to call the police. Wayne was right. The old lady didn't like him—was scared of him, more than likely. She herself should probably call the police, but you can't call the police to take away your own daddy. If only the star man were here. She glanced across to the trailer, but there was no car there. Miss Liza had said to call whenever she needed help, but this wasn't the kind of burden to lay on the crooked shoulders of an old lady. She went into the house. She needed time to think.

“You're late.”

“Am I?”

“What you been up to?” The eyes from the figure in the rocker were narrowed in suspicion.

“Nothing. I just got off the bus. It must have been late today.”

The old woman stuck out her lip in a pout. “I ain't had no lunch.”

“Grandma! I left you a sandwich in the fridge. I told you it was there.”

“I didn't feel like peanut butter.”

“Well, what do you feel like?”

“I don't know. I don't have no appetite lately.”

Angel wanted to scream. How could she figure out what to do about Wayne in the sugar house while Grandma was in here acting for all the world like a spoiled seven-year-old? She opened the refrigerator door. There wasn't much inside. A little milk, one egg, the heel ends of a loaf of bread, a half jar of grape jelly, a dish of leftover peaches. No ham, no meat of any kind. Men always expected meat, didn't they? “I guess I better hightail it to the store before it closes,” she said.

“No!”

The sharpness of the command made Angel turn quickly.

“It—it gets dark too soon. I don't want you to leave me here in the dark by myself.”

“It's okay, Grandma, I can get off the bus at the store tomorrow and bring stuff home then.” She went to the cabinet. There were always beans in the cabinet. She didn't think she'd ever bought any. Sometimes it seemed like the beans got together and multiplied on the shelf. “I'll just heat up a can of beans, okay?”

“Hmmph.”

She took the grunt for a yes. As she stirred, her mind went back to Wayne. It would be cold out there in the sugar house. Should she try to sneak him a blanket? She could take him the peanut butter sandwich Grandma hadn't eaten, but there wasn't much else. Well, it wasn't her fault he came without any notice. She tried to ignore the churning in her stomach.

“Why don't you come over to the table to eat your beans, Grandma?” She had the feeling the old woman hadn't moved all day. At first she thought Grandma was going to refuse, but she grunted her way out of the rocker and across the short distance to the kitchen table.

The only sound at the meal was the noise Grandma made with her lips as she ate. Finally, she said, “You scared me, Angel.” The long white hair growing out of the mole on her nose was trembling as she spoke.

“How did I scare you?”

“I thought you was running out on me for sure.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, you was out last night late and then you was late coming home.”

“I haven't got anyplace to run to, Grandma.”

“Some folks don't need no place. They just go.”

Like Wayne. Like Verna and Bernie. Like the star man.

“Well, I got better sense than that. 'Sides, I just about got you trained to the five major food groups. I wouldn't want to have to start all over with somebody new.”

Grandma gave a tiny hint of a grin.

***

Angel did her homework at the kitchen table, all the time trying to figure out how to get the sandwich and a blanket out to Wayne, trying not to hate him for mixing up her life worse than it already was. She thought Grandma would never go to bed, and even after she had, it was a long time before Angel could hear the snores that proved the old woman was dead asleep.

She took the quilt off the bed in the room that should have been Verna's. She couldn't bring herself to take Bernie's, even though it was a single. In the kitchen she got a Mason jar and filled it with water, grabbed the wax-paper-wrapped sandwich, and crept out to the sugar shack.

She pushed open the door. “Daddy?”

“I thought you wasn't ever coming.” She couldn't see his face, just the shape of him sitting on the floor, leaning against the case of encyclopedias.

“I had to wait until Grandma was asleep. I didn't think you wanted me to tell her you were here.”

“No. No. I'm sorry. I'm just starving to death. What you got?”

“Just a peanut butter sandwich and some water. But I brought you a blanket. And tomorrow I'll go to the store and get something better.”

“No need for that. We're going to be out of here before morning.”

The leftover sweet smell of years of boiled sap stung her nose, mixed with the smell of mold and sweat and—The words burst out: “Have you been smoking?”

“Just a couple cigarettes. It's cold as hell in here.”

“What if you start a fire?”

“Verna warned me you was a little Miss Worrywart.” He gave a sort of chuckle. “I'll be careful, promise.”

“And smoking can kill you.”

“You do care about your old daddy, don't you?” He patted the floor beside him. “Here. Keep me company while I eat.”

She sat down beside him, not knowing quite what to say. She wanted to ask why he was here and was he really on parole, but the words stuck in her throat.

“Remember that time we went to the fair and I won that bear for you?”

“I still got him,” she said.

“You're kidding! You still got that damn bear?”

“Yeah.”

He put his right arm, the one holding his sandwich, around her shoulder so that some of the peanut butter smeared on her jacket sleeve. “I can't hardly believe that. You kept that bear all these years? I never.” He pulled her close and took a bite of the sandwich in front of her face. She liked the feel of his strong arm around her shoulder. The only sound for a long while was his chewing the sandwich, Grandma's sandwich.

“I gotta go back in, Daddy,” she said, getting up from the floor.

“Hold it a minute. I got to tell you something. Real good news.”

She stood by the door, waiting.

“I'm not ever leaving you again. Ain't that great?”

“I don't understand. You said...”

“I'm taking you with me. That's the reason I come back. To get my angel girl.”

She began to tremble so hard that she leaned against the door and grabbed the knob.

“Angel?”

“What, Daddy?”

“Ain't that great news?”

“Yes, Daddy.” Why didn't it feel like good news?

“Now, you go to the house and pack whatever little things you need to take along and then come right back. My buddy promised he'd be here round midnight, and best I can make out”—he was holding his wrist up, trying to see his watch—“it's past eleven already.”

Her teeth were chattering, and her legs wobbled so much she could hardly make it to the kitchen door. She stole into the house and up the stairs. Yanking the green suitcase out from under the bed, she threw it on top of the quilt. There was no way her hands could work well enough to fold her clothes. She just grabbed them out of the drawer, stuffed them in the bag, and shakily pulled the zipper. Then she crept back downstairs, closing the kitchen door behind her as quietly as she could. Everything about her was shaking except her mind, which felt like her mouth had that time the dentist at the clinic punched it with a huge shot of Novocain.

He was standing just inside the sugar shack door when she opened it. “You came,” he said, drawing her in and closing the door behind her. “I was afraid you wouldn't.”

She nodded in the darkness. This is what she'd wished for, wasn't it? That he'd never leave her again?

He sat down against the encyclopedia shelves. “We'll show old Verna, won't we?” he said.

What did Verna have to do with it? “I don't understand.”

“She took my boy, but she ain't getting my angel girl.”

What did he mean? That she was only something to be kept from Verna, like some piece of property he didn't want stolen?

“Yeah, soon as they let me out this morning, I knowed it was my one and only chance. I'm going to take you so far away she'll never see you again. How about Florida? Would Florida suit you, baby?”

Florida?
What was he talking about? Even if he really was on parole, he couldn't go running around wherever he pleased. Angel knew enough about the system to know that. “They won't let you go to Florida without permission, will they?”

“Hell, they won't even let you go to the bathroom without permission, but you don't have to worry about that, baby. Your daddy is doing the worrying from here on out.”

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, angel girl?”

“I forgot my bear. I need to go back and get my bear.”

“You got a thing about that bear I give you, don't ya? Sure, go get your bear, baby, just hurry, okay? He'll be here before long.” She started for the door. “And Angel, if the old witch has any cash, better bring that, too.”