Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [17]
Artie says, “Father Mickey told Charlie that he was one of the chosen few and . . .” Whatever he’s trying to tell us isn’t coming out so he just gives up, stoops to pick up Wendy’s yellow blouse where she threw it and says to her, “Tapioca,” and this time she listens.
“What are ya waitin’ for, Sally?” Mary Lane hollers at me from the tetherball pole line. “The second comin’ of Christ? You’re up!”
I know I should go after Artie and offer to help him go look for Charlie because that would be the charitable thing to do, but I have been waiting for over a half hour for my ups and just in case I’m right and we find that orphan over in Jack Hoyt woods hanging from a tree by a noose or in an alley strangled with his yo-yo string, I don’t want to see another dead kid. I’ve already gone to one funeral. I didn’t even know they made caskets that small.
I tell Troo, “C’mon,” but she doesn’t. She’s watching Wendy and her beloved big brother making their way home hand-in-hand.
When she turns back my way, she’s got the kind of look on her face that I can only describe as the same one she gets when she stares at the picture we have of Daddy hanging on the wall in our bedroom. She points over her shoulder and says, “We’re not like them anymore. We’re not whole. You’re only a half sister to me now.”
She’s been saying this a lot lately. “You know that’s not true. We belong a hundred percent to each other forever, no matter who our fathers are. Bein’ sisters . . . that doesn’t have nothin’ to do with how much of the same blood we have.”
Troo bumps into me real hard before she runs across the blacktop, yelling, “Spilled milk.”
I shout after her, “No, it’s not. Wait up!” But when I take off after her, I can’t stop myself from crying even if it is no use.
Chapter Six
Every night at five thirty, before she calls out, “Supper is served,” Mother puts on a freshly ironed Peter Pan–collar blouse and a record on the turntable. The Hi-Fi is her most prized possession. Dave gave it to her for her birthday. It has a diamond needle. She told us she’ll cut off Troo’s and my hands if we ever touch it and I don’t think she’s messing around because she doesn’t have a very good sense of humor anymore. What she does have is a nice collection of albums and some 45s that she used to like to warble along with. She could’ve been a professional singer with a big band if she didn’t have kids, which is why I think she looks so sad when she listens to the record she made at Beihoff’s Music in a soundproof booth. Her favorites are Peggy Lee when it comes to females, and for the men, it’s Perry Como, who she thinks is also an excellent dresser. She loves his sweater style. He’s the one serenading us tonight. “Hot diggity dog ziggity boom whatcha do to me.”
Dave and Troo and me are expected to have washed our hands and combed our hair and be seated at the yellow formica kitchen table by the time Mother sets the main course down and we are holding up our end. She is looking especially glamorous tonight. A lot like that movie actress, Maureen O’Hara. Last-of-the-day rays are streaming through the kitchen curtains and hitting her long hair that is bundled up at her neck with a white ribbon that I want to tug on. I’d love to run my hands through her loose red waves, but she doesn’t really go in for that sort of thing.
She sits in the chair next to Dave and tells him, “Say grace, please.”
Dave clasps his hands together, bows his head, and I think the same thing I think every night at this time when I see the top of his thick blond hair that matches mine. I’m not 100 percent Irish anymore. I got half of Dave’s blood in me now and a sneaking suspicion that Danish people are not known for being lucky, only for making delicious sweet rolls.
Dave mumbles, “Bless us, oh Lord, for these gifts which we are about to receive . . .”
Because of mental telepathy, I know exactly what’s going on in Troo’s mind and it’s not how handsome