Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [54]
After I found out that Dave was my father, I had so many questions. Especially about my other grandparents that I never met. I went straight to Granny’s little house. I knew she wouldn’t get worked up the way Mother would if I wanted answers and I was right. When I asked her to fill me in, Granny didn’t even mention how curiosity killed the cat. She arranged melba toast on a plate and poured me a cuppa out of her copper kettle that she brought all the way from the old country. (A cuppa is what she calls a cup of tea chock-full of milk and sugar.)
“So, Sally m’girl, you want to know more about the other half of your family?” Granny asked, across from me at the kitchen table. “The Danish side?”
“Yes, please,” I said, sipping and nibbling, wondering like I always do why the dickens she loves melba toast so much. It tastes like shingles.
Warming up to the idea since she’s got the gift of gab, Granny said, “You wouldn’t have liked your other grandmother. Before she died from tuberculosis, Gertie was very vain about her legs, which were nice, but not that nice.” Granny’s eyes went even more bulgy than usual. “But your grandfather, Ernie, now there was a horse of a different color. The man had a heart of gold and the Midas touch. He got a lotta dough for the cookie factory when it sold,” she told me, which was a pretty funny, so I laughed, too.
What am I thinking? What am I doing?
Troo.
Where is she? I didn’t see her follow Mother back into the house. Maybe she’s in our bedroom.
“You in here?” I whisper-call. Except for Daddy looking down on me from the wall and baby doll Annie’s legs sticking out from under her pillow, it’s empty.
I take a couple of steps backward into Mother’s bedroom. My sister likes to come in here, but usually when our mother isn’t home. Troo’ll sit at the dressing table and dab perfume behind her ears and smooth on lipstick, smacking her poofy lips in the mirror when she’s got it just right. She also loves to snoop. She’s always looking through my “How I Spent My Charitable Summer” notebook and under Granny’s bed and over at Nell’s, she’ll rifle through the closets. She especially likes rooting around in Mother’s drawers. I’m not sure what she’s looking for.
Back in the hall, I call out, not too loud, “Stop messin’ around.” I’m getting frantic, but if Mother hears me, she’ll shout that upper-class people do not raise their voices indoors.
Going through the dining room on my way to the front door, I’m thinking Troo might be out on the porch steps shouting rude stuff at the neighbors when they go by after the game, which is something she really likes to do, but out of the corner of my eye I see her. The floor in here doesn’t have the luxurious gold shag carpeting like the rest of the house does. When you press your cheek down on the wood it’s almost as cool as the linoleum in the kitchen, but Troo’s not doing that tonight. She’s on her back. Dead Junie Piaskowski in a golden frame is hanging on the dining room wall right above her. A little light that Dave never turns off shines down on the picture. Junie was his niece who I only knew a little before Bobby Brophy got his hands on her. She’s wearing her Holy Communion dress in the picture. The rosary draped over her praying hands was supposed to keep her safe.
Junie’s mother and father are living out of the neighborhood now in Appleton. Even though they aren’t trying to sell their house anymore the way they were right after Junie got murdered, I don’t think they’re ever coming back. Dave told me they will, but it’s been almost two years. It just about kills me when I see the look in his eye when he goes over to their