Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [64]
Chapter Seventeen
There’s a spot in our backyard where you can sit and breathe in all the good. We’ve got a glider and a shiny new bench back here that I’m hoping to replace with the old one that’s in front of Sampson’s cage if I can figure out a way to ask Dave that won’t hurt his sensitive feelings. In June, the peony flowers smell great. So do the two purple lilac trees and red and white roses. The vegetable garden is planted with radishes and carrots and cucumbers and something new Dave put in this year. He planted four rows of corn along the fence. I think he did that for me and Troo, like a tribute to Daddy. Dave doesn’t understand that when the O’Malley sisters hear the rustle of stalks coming through our bedroom window on a breezy August night, it will make me tear up and even though Troo will call me a crybaby, she’ll feel Daddy’s goneness, too. She’ll go out to that corn in the middle of the night to run the silky tassles across her lips. They were always her and Daddy’s favorite part.
Every branch of the garden bushes and tendril of the vines fills me with the most peaceful feeling, better even than Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. But the part that soothes me the most is the teepee. It looks just like a real one, only smaller, and instead of buffalo fur or cattle skin, we’ve got green beans racing up the poles. There’s room inside for two. (I was worried that after my horrible camp experience that I wouldn’t feel the same way about the teepee this summer, but thank goodness, I still adore it.)
Troo came out with me tonight because a storm is coming. She won’t leave my side when there’s one rolling in. I told her she could French inhale to steady her nerves. I just had to get out of the house. Troo likes listening to them fight, but I couldn’t take hearing Mother snip little pieces off of Dave for one more minute. There’s been another burglary. This time the cat snuck into the Holzhauers’, who live on 53rd.
I say to Troo after we crawl in, “I’ve been meanin’ to tell you. Artie Latour likes you again. A lot.”
“Oh, yeah?” she says. When she reaches into her back pocket, I can smell Mother’s Midnight in Paris perfume. Troo’s got on her red lipstick, too, and around her wrist there’s the charm bracelet that Daddy gave Mother for their second wedding anniversary. Mother is too upset with Dave to notice that Troo’s been in her things and my sister knows that. “Too bad for Fartie. I got other fish to fry.”
I don’t ask her who that fish might be because she would never tell me. Poor Artie. I think of him pining away for Troo and his yo-yoing friend, Charlie Fitch, and what bad condition he is in overall. The bible says, Suffer, you little children, but how much more can one kid take? I left a baby jar of cod liver oil on the Latours’ porch last night with Artie’s name on it. I haven’t blabbed to anybody what he told me about Father Mickey committing a bad sin. Not even Troo. That wouldn’t be right. Ethel taught me that. “You should never repeat what a body tells ya when they’re barin’ their heart and soul,” she said. “That’s the worst kind of betrayal there is. That’s takin’ advantage of them when they’re already down.”
“How’s it goin’ with Father Mickey?” I ask Troo. Since it’s Tuesday, she had her religious instruction tonight. She never complains about having to go up there right after supper, so I thought she might be ditching the meetings. That’s why I secretly followed her last week. Other than stopping to throw an egg at the Heckes’ front window, she went straight to the rectory. I was impressed. It’s not like her to be so obedient. She must want to go back to Mother of Good Hope School in September as much as I want her to, which really does my heart good. “Does he make you study the same borin’ catechism we learn in school or do you talk about more interestin’ stuff?”
Troo smiles like our old barn cat would when he was lapping up a puddle of spilled