Good Graces - Lesley Kagen [66]
That’s not nice to think your own brother could be guilty of burglary, but they have never gotten along. Even before his brain got damaged, she never liked him, but other than that, she’s right. My uncle’s feet are not much bigger than mine and Granny did mention during the SOS supper that he’s been keeping odd hours.
Troo mouths to me in a very exaggerated way at the exact same time Mother says to Dave, “Or . . . it could be Harvey Charles.”
Mother can’t stand Mr. Charles, who is the Tick Tock Club’s manager. He fired her when she worked there as a singing hostess before she met Daddy. She blames everything on him.
“Harvey’s got those teeny feet to match his teeny mind and . . . and something else that is probably very teeny, too.”
“Len . . .” Dave sounds like he’s working hard not to smile, which is smart of him. Mother might tell him to wipe that smirk off his face or she’ll wipe it off for him. “A small-footed adult is a good theory, but Paulie’s much too damaged to pull off something like this. And as far as Harvey goes . . . have you ever seen him wearing a pair of Converse?”
Of course she hasn’t. Only kids wear those. I don’t have any, but Troo’s got some white ones and . . . and sweet baby Jesus in heaven, that’s the only kind of shoes Mary Lane wears! It’ll be just a matter of time now before the cops figure out that it’s one of our best friends who is breaking into those houses. I gotta tell Mary Lane to stop being a cat burglar immediately, before Dave and the other cops start going door-to-door asking to look at kids’ shoes like . . . like some kinda crime-busting Prince Charmings.
“I have to go. They’re waiting for me. I’m sorry,” Dave says to Mother. “I tell you what . . . how about this weekend we look at a car? Flip Johnson’s got his red Studebaker for sale and it’s a beaut.”
When I can’t hear their voices anymore, I peek through the green beans. I thought Mother mighta coldcocked Dave because I know she really wants a Pontiac, but they’re kissing. When they finally come apart, he puts his arm around her small waist and they go back into the house, so for now they have come to a meeting of Mother’s mind.
I should turn Mary Lane in to Dave right this minute. If I do that, Mother will stop acting like a fire-breathing dragon toward him because he won’t have to spend all his nights looking for the cat burglar instead of massaging her feet, and next to keeping Troo safe, I want more than anything to see in their eyes that melting look of love. But how can I hand my other best friend to him on a platter?
What I need is some good advice and nobody is better at giving it than the smartest woman I know, Ethel Jenkins. She is out on her screened-in porch next door soaking her “dogs” in the white pan. I know that she’s off duty because I’m not hearing the bouncy rhythm-and-blues music Ethel listens to when she’s tending to Mrs. Galecki. After she’s done for the day, after the sun goes down, my good friend listens to broken-heart songs that have the sweetest, saddest sounding horn called a saxophone in them and sometimes a singer named Billie Holiday.
But if I’m going to hop over there, I need to be quick about it. The sky is getting noisier than Jerbak’s Beer ’n Bowl on a Saturday night. Not right above us, but it’s coming our way.
My sister blows a smoke ring at me. “Doesn’t seem like things are goin’ so swell for Helen and Dave. If she gets worked up enough, she might even call off the weddin’. Gee, that’d be too bad,” she says, not meaning it.
Troo hasn’t thought this out. It really would be too bad. Mother doesn’t have any money of her own. What would we do? We couldn’t go live with Granny. There’s not enough room in her little bungalow house. Her bigness and Uncle Paulie’s weirdness take up a lotta space. Mother would have to get a job at the cookie factory to put a roof over our heads the way Aunt Betty