Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [16]
Artie’s Adam’s apple is going up . . . down . . . up . . . down when he says, “Charlie’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone?” my sister asks, suddenly interested.
“He ran away from St. Jude’s when you guys were at camp,” Artie says.
I say, “He probably just went out to get a breath of fresh air and fell asleep.”
I only said that to make Artie feel better. I’m pretty sure that Charlie’s not snoozing under some bushes. He’s probably dead. That happens to kids around here. First they disappear and then they’re found murdered and molested. On the flip side, trying to be a little sunnier in my personality the way I promised myself I would this summer, Charlie could have left to try his adopting luck somewhere else. He wouldn’t be the first kid to run off from St. Jude’s. At least once a year one of the older ones makes a break for it by climbing down the fire escape in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t want to be stuck in an orphanage named after the patron saint of lost causes either.
Artie says, “Charlie . . . he was about to . . . he was gonna get adopted by the Honeywells.”
“Maybe they changed their mind at the last minute and that’s why he ran away,” I say.
“Or maybe Charlie changed his. Mr. Honeywell’s got black hair growin’ out of his ears,” Troo cracks.
“No . . . it’s all my fault,” Artie mumbles to himself. “I shoulda listened to what he was tryin’ to tell me. I mean, I did, but I didn’t believe him and now he’s . . .”
I never would have thought that Artie could go more awful-looking than he already is.
“You can tell Charlie you’re sorry for not listenin’ when he gets back,” I say, taking outta my pocket one of the leather coin purses I was forced to make at camp and sticking it in his hand. I’ve got eleven of them, so what the heck. “I’m sure he’ll turn up real soon and be more than happy to forgive you, right, Troo?”
“Yeah, sure,” she says, tossing him a piece of Dubble-Bubble that she always has plenty of in her pocket because she takes other things from the drugstore besides cigarettes and that’s one of them.
But nothing we’re saying or giving Artie seems to be helping much. Such sadness is shooting out of his eyeballs. The kind that holds you in place, you can barely swallow, that’s how bad it gets you around the throat. I know how he’s feeling. He’s about to start choke-crying.
The only one still moving through the thick, hot air is swinging Wendy and even she’s dragging her feet across the blacktop to slow down. “Artie, Artie.” She cocks her head to one side and calls to me, “Thad?”
When I nod, she jumps off the swing and lopes over to hug him. Her brother steps away, which is not like him at all. He loves Wendy and she looks up to him like he’s all the stars in the sky.
Artie says, “Father Mickey—”
Troo perks up. “What about him?”
My sister worships the ground Father walks on. And so does everybody else. Attendance at church has been way up since he became our new pastor. The ladies of the parish get all dolled up and cram themselves into the front pews at his ten o’clock Sunday Mass, and after church, when he’s greeting everybody out on the steps, the mothers bring him plates of devil’s food cake and make jokes about that. Even the nuns smile creakily at him when he stops by a classroom to tell us a parable. Father Mickey is not my cup of tea, I don’t know why. But I am grateful that he’s taking time out of his busy life to give Troo extra religious instruction up at the rectory this summer. She’s gonna get kicked outta Mother of Good Hope