Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [48]
I can see Willie O’Hara playing rock, paper, scissors with Debbie, the peppy counselor, and Fast Susie Fazio is leaning against one of the swing poles. She’s flirting with her boyfriend, The Mangling Meatball. Her long black hair is swishing back and forth across her bosoms that are pushing at the seams of her white blouse like they’re trying to make a break for it.
When Father Mickey shouts out, “Play ball,” I make sure to watch that Troo comes right over to sit behind me in the bleachers in the spot I saved for her. She’s kicking me in the back every two seconds, so that’s good. There’s no sign of Greasy Al, but at least I know where she is.
The police team moves ahead of the factory guys in the second inning. Mother claps and so do I when Dave makes a double play, stretching off third base to catch the ball that was fired at him by shortstop Detective Riordan, who is the man that Aunt Betty Callahan is currently going gaga over. (She mighta had a few too many breath-freshening nips of her peppermint schnapps before the game. Her old friend Father Mickey has to call a time-out when she wobbles out on the blacktop in her red high heels to give Detective Riordan a smooch after that double play.)
Our half sister Nell has come to the game to cheer for her husband, who lost his job at Fillard’s Service Station and is now working up at the factory. Nell nodded our way, but didn’t come over to sit with us. She found a spot in the bleachers on the first-base side for her and Peggy Sure. That’s the name of her baby. She was supposed to be called Peggy Sue after the Buddy Holly song, but the lady in the office at St. Joe’s who fills out the birth certificates, Mrs. Sladky, wrote the name down wrong in ink. Troo thinks Mrs. Sladky played a prank because Peggy Sure was born on April 1, but my sister’s wrong. (The woman doesn’t have a funny bone in her body. Believe me. She was my Brownie leader. That battle-ax only took the job because she likes to boss children around with scissors in her hand.)
During the fourth inning, I cross over to the factory bleachers and squeeze in next to Nell because she looks like she could use a friend and Daddy always told me, “Be nice to her, Sal. She is not the worst big sister in the world. There might be two or three worse.”
Nell doesn’t even say hello before she hands me a diaper, two pins and the baby. “I’m sick of changin’ her,” she says. “You do it.”
Things aren’t going too great for Nell these days.
Her and Eddie moved in above Delancey’s Grocery Store on 59th Street after they got married so Troo and me stop by to see her every Friday afternoon when we’re done washing out socks at Granny’s. Spending time with our half sister is something I bribed Troo to do so we can add visiting the infirmed to our “How I Spent My Charitable Summer” stories. She hasn’t stopped holding it against me for a second.
When the two of us climbed up the steps to Nell’s apartment last week, Troo groused the same way she always does, “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. Comin’ over here is worse than bein’ one a them martyrs they’re always tellin’ us about at school. At least St. Joan of Arc burned up quick.”
We’d brought along our sleepover clothes the way Aunt Betty told us to. I’d planned out a whole speech begging Eddie and Nell to take Troo and me with them to the Bluemound Drive-in. If they said yes, I was gonna ask if we could stop for a few minutes at the new zoo so I could check to make sure Sampson was doing okay without me.
The apartment door was partly open so we could see Nell and the baby sitting on the davenport. I thought at first that I got the wrong Friday because Nell didn’t look ready for a hot date. Of course, her hair that’s the color of a brown paper bag looked good combed back into a DA, but she was wearing a nightie that was stained brown and snot was pouring out of her ski jump nose.
Troo took one look at her and said, “Holy God in heaven.”
Nell cried out, “Eddie . . . we aren’t goin’ to the movies . . . he’s been