Little Miss Strange

by Joanna Rose

  “Yeah,” Lady Jane said. “B is great. Did you get a B?”

  Elle said, “Yeah.”

  Elle looked at me and smiled.

  Lady Jane looked in the mayonnaise jar and smelled it.

  She said, “Do you want mayonnaise too, Sarajean?”

  “No,” I said. “I hate mayonnaise.”

  “You hate mayonnaise?” Lady Jane said. “Hate? That’s a pretty strong passion. You shouldn’t waste it on mayonnaise.”

  I said, “Waste what?”

  “Your hate,” Lady Jane said. “Your passion.”

  “Ooh,” Elle said. “Passion.”

  The toasts popped up, and Lady Jane put in some more bread, put butter on the toasts.

  I said, “When is Jimmy Henry coming back?”

  She said, “I don’t know.”

  She put buttered pieces of toast in the frying pan, butter side down. She laid cheese on the toasts and then smeared on mayonnaise. When the other pieces of toast popped up she buttered them and laid them in the pan on top of the other parts of the grilled cheese sandwiches.

  “The secret of grilled cheese sandwiches,” she said. “Toast.”

  She put a tin pie pan over the top of the frying pan like a lid. Our frying pan didn’t have its own lid.

  Jimmy Henry’s bedroom door was open. The green blanket on the bed was all laid out straight. Incense smell, old laundry smell. The curtains were open, and outside the tree branches were blowing and wet, and there were wet shiny buds on the end of each branch. The moss on the roof of the front porch was bright wet green. There was one daffodil in a glass of water on the floor on the other side of the bed. The glass from the bathroom. Lady Jane and Jimmy Henry were doing it. They did it in here, last night, while I was in my bedroom asleep. Last night, while I was in my own room, it was passion in here.

  The blanket was tucked in around the edges of the bed, the pillow exactly in the middle at the top. I pulled the blanket off and dropped it back in a pile. I took the daffodil out of the bathroom glass and shut the bedroom door behind me.

  In the front room I put the daffodil back with the others. I moved the chair back over by the door. I picked up the green apple of daffodils and carried it into the kitchen. I put the daffodils on the kitchen table, right in the middle.

  Elle said, “Nice daffodils.”

  Lady Jane smiled all big, looking at the green apple sitting there in the middle of the blue table. She got down a big red plate and set it in the middle of the table by the daffodils.

  I said, “No.”

  Lady Jane said, “No what?”

  “No,” I said. “I hate red and yellow together.”

  Lady Jane said, “Hate?”

  I said, “Hate.”

  She picked up the red plate and put it back in the cabinet. She got out a white plate and set it by the daffodils.

  “Better?” she said.

  I said, “And I hate mayonnaise.”

  LADY JANE had to go to work before Jimmy Henry came home.

  “I’ll walk you home, Elle,” she said. “I have to take a bath before I go to the café.”

  She put on her coat over Jimmy Henry’s tie-dye T-shirt. She took off his big red socks and rolled them up into a ball and set them on the couch, perfectly in the middle of the folded-up couch blanket.

  “So,” she said. “See you later.”

  She put on her own kneesocks, blue kneesocks, and her Dutch-girl shoes.

  “Tell Jimmy Henry I said see you later,” she said.

  “Later?” I said. “Later when?”

  She and Elle left. The record player was still playing a record. I turned it off and put the record back in its cardboard and put it back with the other records lined up across the shelf. I stacked my homework books on the kitchen table and sat there, looking at the daffodils. Jimmy Henry came home in a little while.

  “Hi,” he said from the front room door.

  He came into the kitchen, looking around, looking at me and looking around.

  “Lady Jane said see you later,” I said. “She wore your tie-dye T-shirt.”

  “Well,” Jimmy Henry said. “She’ll bring it back.”

  “She put your socks on the couch,” I said.

  He went in the front room and came back, holding his rolled up red winter socks. He leaned against the doorway of the kitchen and looked at the socks. He looked at me, and he looked at the daffodils.

  “Well,” he said. “Nice daffodils, huh?”

  THE NEXT day at school Elle said, “So.”

  “Just shut up,” I said.

  She said, “Jimmy Henry is balling Lady Jane.”

  I said, “You think you know everything.”

  “I asked her,” Elle said. “I asked was Jimmy Henry and her boyfriend and girlfriend now.”

  “What did she say?” I said.

  “She said friendship expresses itself in many ways,” Elle said.

  “Well,” I said. “That doesn’t mean anything you know.”

  “Yes, it does,” she said. “It means they’re doing it.”

  I said, “It doesn’t mean that.”

  “Yes, it does,” Elle said. “It means they’re doing it.”

  The bell rang, so Elle went and sat at her desk. I sat down in my desk and got out my math book. I looked back at Elle, one row over, three desks back. She spread her knees apart and rubbed her hand between her legs and then sat up straight, trying not to laugh, looking at me from her eyes sideways, laughing. I turned around front, knocked my math book on the floor and picked it up quick. We were on page 194. I couldn’t find page 194.

  When I got home the stairway was dark, and I opened the door into the afternoon dark of our front room. The curtains were shut across the windows and Jimmy Henry was lying on the couch, the couch blanket all bunched up under his head like a pillow. He sat up when I came in.

  “Hi,” he said.

  His bedroom door was open, into the dark of in there, the bedroom curtains shut. I put my books on the kitchen table by the daffodils, and got the potato chips out of the cabinet. I stood there, by the sink, eating potato chips, looking at Jimmy Henry’s brown ponytail head over the back of the couch. The incense smell was still in the air.

  I said, “Want a grilled cheese sandwich?”

  Jimmy Henry said, “What?”

  “Grilled cheese,” I said. “You want a grilled cheese sandwich?”

  “God,” he said. “I hate grilled cheese sandwiches.”

  LATER, AFTER I was already in bed, the record player came on. I woke up enough to listen, and there was laughing, girl laughing, in between the sounds of music. Lady Jane out there with Jimmy Henry, laughing.

  SOMETIMES WHITE daisies with dark yellow centers were in the green apple. Once there were pink carnations that smelled up the kitchen like clove gum, Lady Jane said their scent. A branch from an apple blossom tree. Beautiful round white tulips, white like candle wax, big and perfectly still, no scent. The kitchen was quiet in the mornings, like it was always quiet in the mornings, and Jimmy Henry’s bedroom door was shut, like his bedroom door was always shut. If there were new flowers Lady Jane was in there, in Jimmy Henry’s bedroom, in his bed, wearing one of his T-shirts.

  There was music even when Lady Jane wasn’t there. Jimmy Henry put on records, turned them over to the other side when they were done playing. He didn’t look like he was listening. He didn’t bounce his head or wiggle on his butt or snap his fingers. He didn’t know the words.

  It was always late, after I was in bed, when I heard Lady Jane.

  RAIN BLEW sideways across the streets. It blew in ripples across the wide puddles in the parking lot of the Safeway store, and it dripped down between the houses, outside the tall window of the painted apartment.

  All my best books were in the painted apartment, lined up on the purple shelf closest to the door, books that I had already read once and might want to read again. Not Nancy Drew. Nancy Drew was boring to read again after she solved the myste
ry. I traded my Nancy Drew books back in at Together Books, traded them in for more books. I kept Peter Pan. Charlotte’s Web. Grimm’s.

  I was all wrapped up in the green peacock cloth, lying on the mattress by the window, the rainy afternoon dripping down. I always skipped school if it was rainy, and there wasn’t a test. I was all wrapped up, reading Little Women, the part where Beth dies and the grass is green on her grave before Amy finds out, and I was crying and crying, like I always cry when Beth dies and Amy doesn’t even know, and the rusty doorknob on the back door began to jiggle and click. I got up and the green peacock cloth was all tangled between my legs, and I got my sneakers in one hand and Little Women in my other hand and I was untangling my legs out of the green peacock cloth and the back door popped open. The wet rain smell blew in and the Cheshire Cat kid was there in the doorway, down on his knees.

  “Hey,” I said. “You can’t come in here.”

  He dropped a long silver crochet hook on the floor and he grabbed it quick and he jumped up. His knees of his blue jeans were wet.

  He said, “I didn’t know no one was in here.”

  He put the crochet hook in his pocket of his jean jacket.

  I said, “That door is supposed to stay locked.”

  He came in and shut the door.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” he said.

  “Did you open that lock with that crochet hook?” I said.

  He looked around. His hair was wet and stuck to his head.

  He said, “I always wondered about this place.”

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve, wiped at my eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, it’s my place.”

  He said, “Yeah, right, you got your own place.”

  He went over to the shelf of books. I set my sneakers down on the floor, watching him. He looked at the shelf of books, and his hair dripped in wet curls against where his neck went thin and bones into his white T-shirt.

  He said, “You read all these books?”

  “Yes,” I said. “They’re my books.”

  “Got it,” he said. “It’s your place, they’re your books.”

  He looked at me, looked at my face.

  “What happened?” he said. “The old man throw you out?”

  “Nothing happened,” I said. “I was reading a book until you came in. Did you get that door open with that crochet hook?”

  He said, “That makes you cry, reading a book?”

  My cheeks got hot, and down my neck.

  “I wasn’t crying,” I said. “It’s a very sad book.”

  He sat down on the mattress, and he looked around some more, and I stood still and straight by the door and looked at him, a Mexican boy in the painted apartment, on the mattress by the tall window. He took the pack of Kools out of his jean jacket pocket, and the little box of matches.

  I said, “Don’t just be throwing matches around in here.”

  He lit his Kool and held the match for a second. Then he pinched the flame out with his thumb and pointer finger, and he put the match in his pocket, the same pocket.

  “I might just be hanging around here,” he said. “My old man threw me out.”

  “Here where?” I said. “Here here?”

  He leaned back on one elbow on the mattress.

  “Or here there,” I said. “In that place next door?”

  “That place is a dump,” he said.

  He blew a long puff of smoke into the air.

  “Your old man threw you out?” I said.

  “Asshole,” he said. “He’s an asshole.”

  I said, “So, did he pick you up and throw you? Or did he just say get out of here?”

  I wrapped up closer in the peacock cloth. He tapped on his cigarette, tapping the ash into his hand. He rubbed his hand on his blue jeans and the ash disappeared.

  “He says I got to go live with my grandma for next year,” he said. “For junior high school. In fucking Tucson.”

  “You’re in junior high next year?” I said.

  “So what?” he said.

  “Well, what’s your name,” I said. “I know it’s not Cheshire Cat.”

  “Pete,” he said.

  “Pete?” I said. “That doesn’t sound like a Mexican name.”

  He blew another puff of smoke.

  “I know that book, with that Cheshire Cat,” he said. “My sister has that book.”

  I said, “You read Alice in Wonderland?”

  “Pedro Tomás Javier Jacinto,” he said. “My name. Is that Mexican, you think?”

  “Four names?” I said.

  I sat down on the mattress on the other end from him. There was soap smell. Shampoo smell from his long wet hair.

  He said, “You seen my brother around here?”

  “That other boy that goes into that other apartment with you sometimes?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Did your old man throw him out, too?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “He just comes and goes. He come around here much?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “In that other place.”

  “He wants to get my ass,” he said.

  “Get your ass?” I said.

  “He thinks I ripped him off,” he said. “He thinks I ripped off his stash.”

  “He wants to beat you up?” I said. “Your big brother wants to beat you up, and your old man threw you out? What about your mom?”

  “She has my new baby brother,” he said. “My mom, her and my sisters, they don’t know nothing going on.”

  He got up, standing up, still holding the cigarette that was all gone out, all rubbed into his blue jeans.

  “So,” he said. “I’ll probably be back around later.”

  I said, “Are you going to get in with that crochet hook?”

  I wiped my nose on the peacock cloth.

  “Hey, man,” he said. “You getting snot all over them nice birds.”

  I wiped at the cloth with my hand.

  “Look,” I said. “You can’t just come in here all the time. And you can’t let any other boys come in here. This place is secret.”

  Pete leaned over, looked at the green peacocks, his wet hair close, the shampoo smell close.

  He said, “Those are peacocks.”

  There was a soft fuzz of maybe mustache on the skin under his nose.

  “And you can’t let Jimmy Henry know you’re here,” I said.

  “No way, man,” he said. “I can lay low.”

  I said, “Lay low?”

  THE NEXT day I hurried to get home from school, but Pete wasn’t there. There was an empty tuna fish can by the mattress, with cigarette butts soaking up the oil. The next day the tuna fish can was gone. A little Safeway bag stood up next to the mattress, with a red corn chip bag inside, and an empty pop can. The green peacock cloth was folded up like a pillow, smoothed down where Pete had his head on it. I put my face there. Shampoo.

  Then the next day the back door was open wide and the rain was blowing in, all wet on the floor. The bottom drawer of the dresser was pulled out, and some of the pieces of bird cloth were on the floor. The baby blanket piece was all piled in the sink. At first it looked like there was black all over it, but then I saw red, dark red smeared on the light green. Red smeared all in the sink. Black red spots on the floor, black red blood spots.

  I wiped the smeared blood up with the baby blanket, out of the sink, off the floor. I put the baby blanket into the trash, pushed it way down into one of the trash cans out by the garage.

  After I cleaned all the blood spots, I went up in my bedroom, and listened. I listened for Pete to be in the painted apartment. For his brother to be in the other apartment. I listened for Jimmy Henry to come home. I listened for Lady Jane laughing. Mostly all I heard was rain, dripping down between the houses.

  MY BIRTHDAY was in May, on a Sunday this year. When I woke up and went in the kitchen, the green apple was full of baby lavender rosebuds, in a square of sunlight. I sat into the bench of the t
able and touched one rosebud, as tiny as the tip of my finger. I pulled the green apple close and looked down into all the tight curls of lavender. Sniffed a tiny scent of rose. I touched my cheek to the rosebuds. I closed my eyes and opened my eyes, seeing the rosebuds again for the first time.

  THE RAINY spring kept on being a rainy summer, or else cloudy and gray, different colors of gray clouds piled up on each other, or the sky would be all clouds in one part and blue in another part, or even raining and sun at the same time, and once a rainbow.

  ERICO WAS digging in the flower box. Little plants sat in little square pots on the sidewalk, all lined up, and Erico dug deep with a little shovel, lifting out a shovelful of dirt and letting the dirt fall back into the flower box.

  “Hey,” I said. “New flowers.”

  “Hey, you,” Erico said, standing up straight. “New flowers.”

  I dug my fingers into the loose black dirt, down to where the dirt was cold and damp. I scooped up a handful of dirt and let it fall back into the flower box through my fingers.

  “Nice dirt, eh?” said Erico.

  I said, “Nice dirt?”

  “Here,” he said, and he handed me the little shovel.

  He said, “Work it with this. I’ll go for the water.”

  I liked the way Erico said “water.” “Water,” in two parts.

  The wooden handle of the shovel was warm from Erico’s hand, smooth, warm, light-colored wood. I dug out little shovels of dirt and spilled the dirt off the shovel, onto my other hand, spilling the dirt through my fingers. Working it.

  Erico came back out with a gray metal pail sloshing full of water.

  “I’m working it,” I said. “I like this little shovel.”

  “Trowel,” Erico said. “That is a trowel.”

  He stood next to me, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, long soft sleeves of faded blue plaid, old flannel. I dug with the trowel, deep into the soft dirt, and the damp dirt smell. I got down on my knees on the sidewalk, closer by the smell of the dirt.

  “Okay,” Erico said. “Now make eight little holes in a row.”

  He held up one of the little square pots.

  “About this deep,” he said.

  I said, “All the way across?”

  He said, “All the way across.”

  He set the little pots on top of the dirt in a row.