Mrs. Owen’s letter had been just one person’s opinion, but a petition . . .
“What an atrocity of discriminatory injustice!” Spence proclaimed.
“We’ll write our own letter to the editor,” Queenie said. She ran to the stage to get her journal and then repeated, “A-tro-ci-ty of dis-crim-in-a-tor-y in-jus-tice,” obviously writing down the phrase as she returned to the group.
“Where did you get that?” Marie asked Spence.
“His parents are lawyers,” Dmitri reminded her.
“Are you suing the city?” the Flash asked, like he was hoping for a juicier story.
My mind filled with visions of lawsuit headlines, letters to the editor, and coffee-shop jokes about the natives getting restless. I hiked up the camera strap on my shoulder and asked, “What do you all think you’re doing?”
The Flash replied, “They’re writing a letter to the editor to rebut Mrs. Owen’s petition challenging the proposed city financing of this Native American youth program.”
That sounded too much like he’d already drafted his lead.
“The city council meets on Monday,” I said, relieved at the obvious excuse to block their plan. “The Examiner comes out on Wednesday. There’s no way your letter could be published before the vote, so why bother?”
Still clutching her journal, Queenie held up a finger for each option and said, “We could make copies of our letter and stick them under windshield wipers, or post it online, or launch our own petition, or we could sue, or . . . we could just talk to Mrs. Owen. She was my fifth-grade homeroom mother, and I think—”
“How about letting it go?” I asked, adjusting my camera strap.
For Mrs. Owen, this was about politics. It was the kind of thing nobody bothered to read about in the local paper. For me, it was about Galen. I didn’t want any more trouble with his mother. Besides, I’d grown up in Hannesburg, and Queenie was forgetting that—short of Mrs. Owen backing off—nothing could push our city council members one way or the other. They were all newly reelected, and the next race was too far away.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I added, taking a step to face my former friend, each of us on opposite sides of the pasta bridge. I hadn’t spoken directly to Queenie like that since tossing her out of what had been our locker.
“It’s about us,” she answered. “You’re here for the paper, not Indian Camp.”
Queenie had a point. A tiny, glowing point. A flicker on a long-fused package of dynamite that had been burning since the day I’d first found out about her and Galen.
“See you at the newsroom,” I told the Flash, backing off, positive that nobody else needed to get stuck in the middle of our ongoing feud.
In another life, maybe the Indian Campers themselves would’ve figured out what to do about the petition, or maybe they would’ve even decided it wasn’t worth their trouble. I could’ve come back the next day, ridden out the job, and returned to my hermit habits. But it wasn’t another life.
When I turned fast to leave, my camera strap swung, gaining momentum, launching my Nikon into the pasta bridge. I tried to catch them both—the bridge and my camera—but no.
They fell, crashing, smashing, my camera smacking and clunking, the glued pasta exploding, shattering on the tile floor, and as I fought for balance, the sole of my right boot landed on the center of the bridge, breaking it into five skittering pieces. A few spaghetti noodles split off and shot across the room.
An accident, I swear.
Marie and Dmitri stepped back. Spence and the Flash whispered, “Ouch.”
Queenie picked up a hunk of pasta, looked at me, and said, “Really?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say.
As Dmitri, Marie, and Spence slowly began to gather up what was left of the bridge, I picked up my broken camera. On the main floor of the museum, the quiet boiled, simmered, and finally stilled.
Marie looked up at me, her hands full of pasta. “Rain,” she said, “you know this Mrs. Owen, right? Why don’t you try to change her mind?”
It was an all-but-gift-wrapped chance to make everything better. Of course Marie couldn’t realize what she’d asked. No matter what she might have heard since moving to Hannesburg, she couldn’t guess at the full history between Galen’s mom and me.
I took a breath and promised to try, briefly wondering if I’d ever be able to find the words to convince Mrs. Owen and whether Natalie would really fire me for getting involved, for the conflict of interest.
A minute or so later, I pushed out of the front doors of the museum and realized Queenie was only steps behind.
“What?” I asked, turning to face her.
“What, yourself,” she replied. “Since when are you worried about Mrs. Owen? She sure didn’t seem to miss you at Galen’s funeral.”
My eyes fell to the red peonies bordering the brick building, and I could almost see Queenie standing in front of Galen’s mourners, beside his coffin, reading some pretty words she’d scribbled in a poetry phase.
“I heard you were the star,” I answered, taking a step toward her.
“Galen was my boyfriend until you stole him,” she said, holding her ground.
I couldn’t believe she would say that. “I know you dumped him for Ernie on the day of the dance,” I declared. “Galen told me so himself.”
“For your information,” Queenie answered, “Ernie is my friend. The fact is that Galen told me he was going over to your house that night, instead of taking me to the party. What was I supposed to do? Stay home by myself? And how dare you act so innocent? Everybody knows it was you who was with Galen on the night he died. That’s why Mrs. Owen ordered you to sit out his funeral. That’s why when she decided one of his friends should stand up and say something, she called me. That’s why—”
I left Queenie in midrant and took off for the death place.
My toes throbbed and my shins ached from running almost four miles in cowboy boots. My side hurt from where my battered camera had banged against it. My sweaty fingers closed around the hot iron, and my palms burned.
It was a black wrought-iron gate, and it towered over me. It was a peacocky gate, fussy and proud. It was the gate to the Garden of Roses Cemetery, and Galen’s grave waited on the other side. I hadn’t been there, not once, not even to pay respects to my own mom, since finding out that Galen had died.
I tightened my grip, trying to figure out what had happened between him and Queenie. All I knew for sure was that he’d shown up on my front porch with that empty look on his face, and she’d gone to the dance with Ernie. I couldn’t help wondering whether Galen had died without telling me the whole truth, and I couldn’t help wondering why he would’ve lied. It was tempting to think that maybe he’d just wanted to spend time with me that night.
I let go of the gate, reached down, and snapped off a spray of Queen Anne’s lace, desperate to touch something pretty. Not even caring that it would kill the bloom.
From where I was standing, I couldn’t see Galen’s grave, but it wasn’t hard to imagine what it looked like.
On Memorial Day, Fynn had told me the stone was gray and flat, placed beneath a sugar maple. It listed his full name, Galen Hannes Owen, with his birth date and death date, followed by LOVING SON.
A mosquito landed on my right hand. I smacked it, wiped its bloody guts on the gate, and walked away, holding my weed flower. My camera strap rubbed my shoulder, and my steps fell lopsided. It was as close as I had come to what everyone said was the right ritual, the right thing to do, but it didn’t feel right to me.
A Taste for Green Bean Casserole
FROM MY JOURNAL:
“You can stand anything for three weeks,” Galen had claimed.
I’d wanted the money to buy film, and minimum wage sounded like a fortune. Grampa saying it was no job for a girl just made me that much more determined.
So at sunrise, a rude woman named Maggie hauled us and five foulmouthed high-school boys in a pickup
bed to the Tischers’ cornfield. We all wore jeans and flannel shirts to protect us from the sharp leaves, and caps to shield us from the July sunshine.
Corn rows stretched a mile long. Galen and I walked fast, yanking tassels from the top of five-foot cornstalks. I didn’t mind the field mice or the snakes, not like the mosquitoes crawling beneath my clothes. In the morning, mud coated my sneakers, and then as the sun rose, sweat poured across my aching back, arms, and shoulders. After work, we checked our hair for ticks, and Fynn had to burn one off of my head.
JULY 2
At sunset, I sat on a stump in Aunt Georgia’s garden. She handed me a plate of two cold barbecued chicken legs and microwaved corn on the cob. Her parrot, Dolly, hopped from Aunt Georgia’s shoulder onto the statue of a man, which was surrounded by peach rosebushes.
The marker read: SAINT FIACRE, PATRON SAINT OF TAXI DRIVERS AND GARDENERS.
While I polished off dinner, Aunt Georgia weeded her radishes, studied her broccoli, and checked the ripeness of her corn.
“Sorry I messed up Indian Camp,” I called.
“Hush,” Aunt Georgia answered. “Let yourself be, hon. Just let yourself be.” She moved to the statue, and Dolly hopped back onto her shoulder.
I touched the Queen Anne’s lace that I’d picked at the cemetery. It was sticking out from behind my ear.
Near as I could tell, Spence had gone out for the night, probably with Queenie and friends. Finding him not there had been a relief.
“Doesn’t matter,” I whispered, glancing at Aunt Georgia’s tomato-red hair. I still wasn’t used to the new hue. It looked out of place.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen a couple of Native people with naturally red hair. Aunt Georgia’s new look didn’t fall into that category, though.
I caught myself staring and looked down at my chicken bones instead.
“Like my dye job?” Aunt Georgia asked, taking a seat on the small concrete bench beside me. “Bernadette Rae charged me sixty bucks.”
It seemed best to keep my opinion to myself. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
Instead, I thought about Aunt Georgia and hair, Indian Campers and pasta bridges, the city council and conflicts of interest, the coming baby and the rice harvest, and finally about Mrs. Owen and the Fourth of July—only two days away.
“Galen’s birthday is coming up,” I said.
It seemed safe to talk to Aunt Georgia about it. She was the person I felt most comfortable asking for advice, especially with Grampa gone and Fynn so preoccupied. But I still felt a slight tremor run through my body, and so I took a moment to calm myself. The last thing I wanted to do was to break down again. There’d been too many days when all I did was cry. I tried hard to focus.
Aunt Georgia’s hand wrapped over mine and squeezed briefly. I’d never noticed before how visible her veins had become, how my hand had grown to the same size as hers.
“I know, hon,” Aunt Georgia said. “I know.”
I set my plate aside. “I promised him—we promised each other to always celebrate each other’s birthdays. Even with him gone, I still feel like I should . . . do something.”
Aunt Georgia didn’t answer, but I knew she understood how I felt about the promise. After all, she was one of the people who’d taught me what a promise meant.
I glanced down at my black fingernails. “What am I going to do?”
Aunt Georgia stayed silent so long, I began to wonder if she’d heard me. Her gaze seemed lost in the orange-and-pink sunset. Then Aunt Georgia wiped the veil of sweat from her forehead and blew out a long, tired breath. “I just don’t know,” she said slowly. “But you’ll find a way. I’m sure of it. I believe in you, hon.”
It had been worth a try, and somehow, just hearing her say she believed in me helped. I thanked her for dinner and then we chatted awhile about everything besides Galen and Indian Camp.
“I almost forgot,” Aunt Georgia said, reaching into her backpack. She handed me my journal and a pen. “You might be needing these.”
Until then, I hadn’t even realized I’d forgotten them at the museum.
Aunt Georgia took my empty plate and glass. “I’d best put up my bird. Why don’t you sit a spell.” She walked back to the house, slid open the door, and called to me, “How about I give myself a curly home perm and sing one of those cheerful tunes from Annie?”
I grinned and yelled back, “I’d like that.”
After she disappeared inside, I took a long, deep breath and then, licking my lips, tasted a trace of barbecue sauce. The temperature had started to cool.
Before long, my eyes drifted to Saint Fiacre, surrounded by peach roses, my mother’s favorites. I popped the cap off of my pen.
FROM MY JOURNAL:
Nobody ever talks about how my mom died. At least not around me. Maybe because it’s old news. Everybody knows she was struck by lightning on her way home from Hein’s Grocery Barn. She’d been carrying a paper bag filled with three Granny Smith apples, a bottle of cinnamon, a box of cornstarch, and a pack of light cigarettes. She’d been planning to bake a pie.
The funeral wasn’t all bad. I wore something not black on purpose. An orange sundress, out of season, too tight. Dad ironed it before Gramma Scott arrived. He must’ve sprayed on the whole bottle of starch, because the material felt stiff, and the straps bit my shoulders.
Mourners and hangers-on crowded my house. It seemed like a typical get-together—babies fighting over Binky toys, women eating apple cobbler in the kitchen, neighborhood men watching Chiefs football on the family-room TV.
Galen and I crawled through my bedroom window onto the roof. We sat on the shingles, sharing my quilt. He tried to hold my hand, but I pulled it away, across the shingles, and three or four splinters burned inside my skin.
“I hate football,” I said.
“Me, too,” Galen answered.
That was the first time I let myself cry.
Maybe an hour later, Mrs. Owen stuck her head out the window, and called, “Come on back in here before you catch your death.”
As Galen and I crawled through my window, Mrs. Owen tossed a kitchen towel over my hope chest and set down a glass bowl of her French green bean casserole. She shoveled heaping spoonfuls onto paper plates, handed Galen and me plastic soup spoons, and crossed her arms, waiting.
I didn’t want her staring at my stiff orange sundress. I didn’t want her in my bedroom, and I didn’t want her stupid casserole. The gray soup was mushroom-lumpy, filled with what looked like skinny green worms. I scooped a piece of the torn toast that she’d sprinkled across the top and shoveled it into my mouth. I felt my jawbone chewing and the heaviness as I swallowed and the food went down my throat.
“Eat what you want,” Mrs. Owen said, leaving my bedroom door cracked open behind her. “Bring the leftovers back to the buffet table.”
I wrinkled my nose and tried another spoonful. This time was different. This time, the casserole tasted warm and familiar and salty and safe. I took bite after bite after bite, and so did Galen. Before long, we’d scraped the whole bowl clean.
Did Somebody Say “Clueless”?
FROM MY JOURNAL:
For hours, Fynn and I had sat together at the kitchen table, working on his college and scholarship applications. He wrote while I stapled and stacked. At age ten, I was into being a help. We were finishing up when Dad burst into the kitchen.
“Done yet, kids?” he asked, setting a huge pumpkin on the counter.
Fynn handed him whatever essay he’d been working on.
“Reads nice,” Dad said a few minutes later, “but all this about the family—kind of personal, don’t you think?”
I don’t know what that draft of Fynn’s essay said, whether it was for admissions or for scholarship, or whether Dad had anything to do with it.
But when my big brother checked over his paperwork for college, he changed the marks in all of the boxes from “Native American/American Indian” to “White.”
JULY 3
I took Galen’s gift out of my hope chest, raised the leather ties, and, for the first time since he’d died, knotted them around my neck. The crescent-shaped pouch of the necklace fell beneath my collarbone, and I could feel the nubby suede against my skin.
My camera rested on my dresser. A few more scratches, but they weren’t the problem. The reflex mirror had been jammed in the up position. Near the film-advance lever, the body had been bent. It would take professional repairs to get my camera working again.
Chewie padded after me to the kitchen door, panting softly.
“Sorry,” I told him, “I’ve got to handle this one by myself.”
My phone was vibrating on the nightstand. Without checking it, I left the house and walked toward Galen’s street.
The doorbell was only a doorbell. Small, round, puny. Lighted orange from within.
On the front step, I told myself that Mrs. Owen and I would talk about Indian Camp, not Galen. If it was just politics versus kids, I didn’t see why she couldn’t let Tahiti Rummel win one. The mayoral rematch was almost two years away, and besides, if she totally stopped him from spending money, what was she going to criticize?
Something warm and fuzzy grazed my bare leg. I jolted, scaring Angel, Galen’s silver tiger cat. “Hey, girl,” I called, but she sprinted across the manicured grass to hide behind one of the concrete pots of red geraniums that lined the sandstone driveway. I watched her go.
“Cassidy Rain?” The voice was low, insistent. Mrs. Owen stood in one of her gray dresses on the other side of the doorway, twisting the fine chain of her antique watch necklace. “You didn’t have to come all the way over,” she said.
What with all the fuss, the disaster at Indian Camp, and worrying about the baby, I’d completely forgotten about Mrs. Owen’s messages. She obviously thought I was there because she’d asked to talk to me about Aunt Georgia’s program, which was fine, after all, because I’d told myself that was what I was there to do.
I touched my birthday necklace and crossed the threshold into Galen’s home. In the living room, sheer drapes filtered sunlight. Silk lilies grew from porcelain vases. Heart-framed pictures of Galen hung like teardrops on the walls.
Rain Is Not My Indian Name Page 7