Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [29]
“Nein, thank you for the kindness offer, but the packing it is finished. But there is something that occurred to me the moment you appeared on this porch, Liebchen.” She raises her finger straight above her head. “Vere you familiar vith the Peterson family that vas renting of the upstairs?”
“Not really.” We heard they didn’t have any kids so nobody really bothered with them.
“The husband lost his job at the cookie factory. It is empty now.”
Lots of times it felt that way when we were living there so I don’t look up at the second-story windows.
“I entrusted this job to Officer Rasmussen, but he is very busy with being a detective and his new family.” Mrs. Goldman winks at me and it is so adorable because she is not very good at it. “I know what good attention you pay. Do you think you could assist your father? Keep your eye on the house while vee are gone?”
She’s right. This is fate. And such a great way to make everything up to her. “Sure I could help watch the house. Don’t worry about a thing. What about the garden?”
When I still lived here, me and Mrs. Goldman planted tiny seeds together in the backyard and soon juicy red tomatoes rounded on the vines and carrot tops pushed up so determined, which has always made me wonder how something so delicate could at the same time be so strong. We also put in purple pansies and yellow daisies. Daddy only grew crops but Mrs. Goldman thinks that while having good things to eat is important, something lovely to look at fills you up in a different kind of way. She also taught me on those early mornings that people are a lot like a garden. Not everybody is beautiful or scrumptious. There are some weeds that you’ve gotta watch out for that would be happy to choke the life out of you and she was right.
“Do you want me to pull out the dandelions?” I ask her. “What about the caterpillars? Should I pick them off the vines?”
“Ach. I’m afraid there is no garden this summer.” She shows me her knobby knuckles. They’ve gotten worse than they were.
“Sally!” Troo shouts the way she does when she wants me to be at her beck and call.
Mrs. Goldman says, “Before you go . . . the key to the house.” She rummages around her skirt pocket until she finds what she’s looking for. “It opens both doors up and down. In case of the emergency.” She sets the key in the palm of my hand. “Vhen vee get back from our trip, I vill pay you five dollars for your hard vork.”
“No joke?” I know I should tell her, Oh no, thank you, I’m happy to do this favor for you without getting paid to make up for letting you down, but I have been saving up for bus fare to go see Sampson at the new zoo. I went over to the old one yesterday to see what was left.
Troo was getting punished for lipping back, so she had to stay in her room and write a hundred times on a piece of paper, I am not the Queen of Sheba, and Mary Lane was nowhere to be found, so that’s the reason I went all by myself.
Three yellow bulldozers were lined up, getting ready to wreck everything, but Daddy’s and my bench was still there. It’s old and pretty heavy. I wanted to drag it back to our house a little at a time every day, but I didn’t feel strong enough to get it more than a few feet. The whole time, I kept looking over at Sampson’s enclosure expecting to see him waving or hear him singing, but all that was left were the orange rocks and his favorite blue ball floating in the murky pool.
The money I would get from Mrs. Goldman to watch over her house could buy me a bus pass. I tell her, so she knows how much Sampson and me would appreciate it, “Five whole bucks? Thank you! That’s a mint!”
She pulls me close and gives me one of her good schnitzel-smelling hugs. “What a special girl you are,” she says, somewhat