“There,” she says, sitting down across from me. Smiling, she hands me the menu.
I don’t order a hot chocolate. I order a bowl of ice cream instead.
“I wanted to explain to you what’s going on,” she says when the waitress has taken our order.
“You don’t have to.”
“No, but I don’t want you to have the wrong idea.” She looks out the window. The sun is low on the horizon. It is rolling down Fifth like a blazing hot bowling ball. She squints and turns back towards me.
“I haven’t been sneaking around behind my husband’s back. Not really. And I don’t want you to think I’m that kind of a person.”
I nod.
“He – Mr. Dance – is in a very difficult situation. He and his wife are... not happy together anymore. One day at work he looked so sad I got talking to him and... Well, I guess we both had a lot to talk about. We sometimes meet for tea. That’s all, really. Or long walks. Once, when Larry was away, we went to a movie, but I felt so guilty we never did it again.”
The waitress brings us our things: coffee for her, Neapolitan ice cream with two ladyfingers for me.
“Listen to me blabbering,” she says when the waitress has gone. “Is this painfully embarrassing for you?”
“No,” I say. “Except that...” I look down at my ice cream. I have a spoonful of it in my hand, but I don’t think I can eat it just yet. There is something I want to say, but I’m afraid to.
“Except what, Rex?”
“Except that Larry hit you.”
She picks up her coffee and takes the smallest sip, winces. Too hot.
“He’s been out of work for quite a while,” she says, placing the cup carefully back on its saucer. “He didn’t used to be like that.”
I sneak another look at her. She sneaks a look at me and we both smile. This would be a good time to tell her I’m in love with her and we should move to Paris. But I guess she’s got enough to deal with.
Still, I wish I could stay here at the Two-by-Four Café forever – far away from Miss Garr or some stupid boy in leather shorts in a stupid photograph or anybody else in the whole world.
I smile again and she smiles again. That’s all I want. I want her to smile at me.
She takes a deep breath.
“You have been very important to us, Rex,” she says. “To Wilfred...Mr. Dance and me.”
“I have?”
She nods.
“We talked Saturday night on the phone. He likes how brave and resourceful you were. He said it made him want to be brave and resourceful himself.”
Brave and resourceful. Ha! If she only knew.
“He phoned again last night to tell me he had finally gotten up the nerve to talk to his wife. To tell her it was over.”
“Really? What did she say?”
“She laughed.”
“She laughed?”
“She laughed and said, ‘It’s about time,’ and then she left. Just like that.”
I lean back in my chair in disbelief. I try to imagine my father and mother talking to each other that way.
And then, suddenly, the picture of the pretty German woman flashes into my mind.
I stare at my ice cream. It’s melting – my whole world is melting. Then Natasha’s hand is on mine, squeezing it. Her brow is creased with worry.
“Here I am telling my troubles to an eleven-year-old. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She lets go of my hand and picks up her coffee cup.
I take a spoonful of ice cream. I am at the strawberry now. It helps.
When I look up again, she seems on edge. She looks at her watch.
“What are you going to do?” I say.
She puts down her cup and stares at it. Then she looks up and her eyes are steely. “When Larry gets home Friday, we’re going to have to have a good long talk ourselves.”
I remember the way Larry likes to talk. “Aren’t you afraid –”
“I’m a big girl,” she says. “I can look after myself.” She seems to want me to agree.
I nod slowly.
“I’d better be going,” she says. She finds her purse, checks the bill and counts out the change. “You don’t need to leave,” she says. “Enjoy your ice cream.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
I watch her put her coat back on, hurriedly this time, as if Larry might show up at any minute. She pulls on her leather gloves. She looks at me and smiles.
“I really only meant to buy you a treat to thank you for Saturday. I don’t know why I got talking like this.” She looks cross all of a sudden as she does up the big black buttons of her coat. “Don’t know what came over me.”
“It was nice,” I say. “I hope everything works out.”
“Me, too,” she says. “Thanks again, Rex Zero.”
With a little squeeze of my shoulder, she leaves the café. The door jingles behind her. As she passes the window she waves again and manages another little smile.
I finish my ice cream: all the strawberry, then, last of all, the chocolate. I don’t want to leave.
I pick up her coffee cup. There’s a trace of lipstick on the rim. I close my eyes and bring it to my lips right where the smudge is.
It’s our first kiss. Lukewarm and a little bitter.
23
Trouble in Dodge
FLORA BELLA IS SICK. Three kids down and three to go. Maybe if I got sick – really good and sick – I could dodge Miss Garr in her hunt for Dr. Love.
“Is it flu?”
“It’s the dreaded lurg,” says Mum. She is crashing pots around and spilling things. “Dad isn’t coming home.”
I feel faint. I lean on the counter. “He left?”
“Just for the night, Rex. A business trip.”
“Where is he?”
“In Hawkesbury.”
“Why?” I ask.
Upstairs, the Sausage starts to cry. I follow Mum down the front hall.
“Because there’s a bridge there,” she says, turning up the stairs. “Or a water purification plant or something. How should I know?” The baby howls. “Coming, darling,” she shouts.
I follow her into the Sausage’s room.
“There, there,” she says to my little brother. He looks about as sad as a bowl of yesterday’s Cheerios, but he smiles when he sees me and reaches out to touch me. I hold his hand while Mum pours some icky-looking syrup into a spoon.
“It’s just as well your father’s away,” she says. “One less baby to look after.”
“But he is coming home, right?”
She feeds the Sausage his medicine and then wipes what he didn’t swallow off his chin. Then she lays him gently back down.
“He is coming home?”
“What? Oh, give it a break, Rex. Of course he is.” She covers the Sausage and gives him his teddy bear, then fixes me with a stare. “Go and be useful,” she says. “Entertain your sister.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t care.”
Flora Bella has a thermometer in her mouth.
“Can you read this?” she asks. We try to read her temperature. “Two hundred and thirty,” she says and flops back on her pillows.
I give her a hug, hoping lots of germs will leap onto my body. Then I go to visit Annie Oakley.
She is sitting up in bed shooting suction-cup arrows at a target on her closet door.
Thwot!
The arrow sticks on to the wall just above her dresser, which is where the other two arrows are. Her aim is way off. She throws the bow on the floor and sinks back into her covers.
“Daddy’s gone,” I say.
She pounds her pillow into shape. “Where is he? In Germany visiting his girlfriend?”
“Stop it, Annie!”
“Maybe it’s Erik’s birthday.”
I want to scream, but I turn to leave.
“Stay,” she says, as if I were a dog.
I turn at the door. “Why do you hate him so much?”
>
She looks miserable. “I don’t hate him. I hate liars and cheats.”
“You don’t know he’s a liar and a cheat. You don’t know anything.” I look down the hall, afraid Mum might hear us. Then I go back to Annie’s bedside. “It’s just a picture,” I say.
“But that boy, Rex. I have this feeling I know him.”
“You said that before. Just stop, okay?”
She doesn’t say anything right away. Then, when she speaks, her voice is soft and kind of eerie.
“Rex, what if Erik is our brother?”
* * *
James phones that evening. “How was your date?” he asks.
I blush. Luckily he can’t see me. I tell him what happened with Natasha.
“Did Larry give her the fat lip?”
“It isn’t a fat lip, it’s a cleft lip. She was born that way.”
“Still,” says James. “He’s dangerous, isn’t he? He gave her a shiner.”
“I know.”
“So what’s going to happen Friday when they have their talk?”
I’m sitting in my father’s study, wrapping the phone cord around and around my wrist.
“Rex?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
I’m still thinking about what Annie said. I haven’t mentioned any of this to my friends – not even James. It’s too private, too scary. So we talk about Dr. Love and the letter and what it will be like when the cops come to take us away.
“Me away,” I remind him.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about it,” he says. “You shouldn’t have to go it alone. And it might be fun serving time,” he says. “We could smoke and make fake guns out of soap and shoe polish and then make a break for Mexico.”
I tell him about my plan to get really sick – at least until Christmas.
“Maybe I should come over and catch the dreaded lurg, too,” he says.
I hang up and sit for a long time in my father’s tippy chair, soaking up the quiet of the office. I can hear Letitia singing in the kitchen as she does the dishes.
I reach for the phone. I know the number by heart. I dial and hold my breath.
“Natasha?”
“Hello, Rex. How are you?”
I swallow. This is only the second time in my life I’ve talked to a girl on the phone. “I wanted to thank you for the ice cream.”
“It was my pleasure,” she says, but I interrupt her because I need to say what’s on my mind.
“And I’m worried about Friday.”
She pauses. The line crackles. I can hear music in the background. Jazz.
“I don’t think that’s anything you need to worry about,” she says at last. She doesn’t sound very convincing. I’m about to say something about him hitting her again, but she starts talking and her voice is different now, almost happy.
“We used to talk all the time,” she says. “He would get home after a long road trip and tell me about some funny thing that happened in a truck stop in Oromocto, or how crazy the warehouse manager was at some factory in Peru. Peru, Indiana, if there is such a place. I swear sometimes he made things up, but it was funny.” She chuckles. “He could do voices...you know, impersonate people. He’d have me laughing.”
The line goes silent again.
“That’s the kind of talk I’m hoping for,” she says, after a while. “He’ll walk in that door at seven o’clock and I’ll have some tasty casserole ready and it will be just like old times.” Her voice wavers a bit as she finishes.
I clear my throat. “I hope so, too, Natasha.”
“Anyway, I appreciate your concern. Don’t worry. You hear me?”
“Okay,” I say.
But when I hang up I am worried.
* * *
I watch Gunsmoke with Mum. Everyone else has gone to bed. It’s way past my bedtime but she doesn’t say anything, and I think maybe she’s lonely.
Marshall Dillon is the law in Dodge City. He’s talking to Miss Kitty, who runs the saloon. I have only seen the show a couple of times, but I know that she is his special friend. You can tell by the way she takes off his hat when he steps up to the bar. There’s trouble in town. There’s always trouble.
She pours him a drink. When he’s finished, he puts the glass down on the bar and grabs his hat.
“Sometimes, a man’s got to do...” he says.
“...what a man’s got to do,” she finishes the sentence for him. They chuckle together. I guess he’s said that more than once. It’s what Dad said to me when he didn’t want to talk about the war.
That night I lie in bed thinking about all the things a man’s got to do. I hope, like Marshall Dillon, I will always know what to do. And when to do it.
24
...What a Man’s Got to Do
BUSTER IS BACK! He is there waiting in the school yard before the bell, and he comes right up as soon as I walk through the gate.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” he says. “I was just kind of...scared, I guess.”
“Me, too.”
“But I’m ready now.”
I nod. Can’t speak. Nod some more.
Buster scratches his flattop. He looks puzzled.
“What is it we’re going to do?”
I shrug.
“Don’t know.”
“Okay,” he says. “I can do that.”
But as soon as Miss Garr takes attendance, I know. And I’m going to do it alone.
Donnie is still away and she smiles a crocodile smile.
“Well, children. That empty chair by the window speaks volumes, doesn’t it?”
Everybody looks around as if we’re not sure what she means.
“Oh, surely you understand plain English,” says Miss Garr. “This is the second day in a row that Donald has been away. I have checked with the office and there has been no call from his parents.”
Kathy puts up her hand. “Maybe they moved?”
“I doubt it,” says Miss Garr. “But we will soon find out. A truant officer from the school board will be calling on the Dangerfields today. I am sure that Donald is playing hooky. Ducking his responsibility.”
Sami leans forward and whispers in my ear.
“Donald Ducking,” he says. And I snort – I can’t help myself.
“Rex? Is something the matter?”
“No, ma’am,” I say. Then I realize that Sami has just given me my chance to do something. “Actually, yes, Miss Garr. There is something I want to say.”
“Fine. Stand, please. I don’t need to ask you to speak up, do I, because you always speak so clearly. Go ahead.”
I stand up. I only wish I had a hat like Marshall Dillon’s.
“Ma’am, about that letter. Donnie didn’t send it to you.”
Miss Garr looks confused, as if I accidentally started talking in Martian. I can feel my classmates looking at me and I know I’d better hurry before the wobbly feeling in my legs gets any worse.
“I did,” I say. “And I’m really sorry.”
There is a big intake of breath, as if the class sucked up every ounce of air. I feel myself growing faint. I put one hand on my desk for support.
Miss Garr looks at the floor. I can almost see the rocks there in front of her. See her choosing a big, pointy one to throw at me.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rex,” she says with a weary sigh.
“It’s true. Donnie didn’t send it. I did.”
She tilts her head my way and sizes me up.
“I’m sure you think this is noble,” she says. “Shielding Donald Dangerfield.”
“No, ma’am. It’s true.”
Then there is a noise behind me. It’s Zoltan Kádár getting to his feet.
“He is lying,” says Zoltan. “I sent letter.”
Miss Garr’s mouth drops. Then she snaps it shut.
“Nonsense,” she says. “With all due respect, Mr. Kádár, you can barely string together a sentence, let alone a whole letter.”
Zoltan
just smiles.
“I get help,” he says.
Then Kathy Brown stands up. “Zoltan is only saying that because he doesn’t want you to find out the truth.”
“Really?” says Miss Garr. “Which is?”
“I sent the letter.”
Now everyone laughs.
“That’s not true,” says Polly, jumping up. “It was me.”
Then, behind me, Sami jumps up.
“It was me, Miss Garr. I wrote the letter.”
And the class goes wild.
“Enough!” shouts Miss Garr. She is turning bright red. Fire engine red. “This is monstrous!” She claps her hands. “Stop it immediately!”
The laughter slowly dies and the teacher glares at me, Kathy, Sami, Zoltan and finally Polly. “I would have expected more from you, Miss Goldstein, in your position as class president. Sit down. All of you.”
One by one the others sit until there is just Kathy and me.
“Miss Brown? Did you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” But Kathy doesn’t sit. So I guess I’m not alone, after all.
Miss Garr glares at Kathy, but can’t get her to sit, so she shifts her attention to me.
“Have you got waxy buildup in your ears, Mr. Norton-Norton?”
“No ma’am. I’m only trying to tell you that I was the one who sent you the letter. Really. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you yesterday. I was too afraid.”
I try to hold Miss Garr’s gaze, but it is too frightening. Her shoulders are stiff. Her whole body is rigid. Buster was right; she looks like the Bride of Frankenstein.
“We were in it together,” says Kathy. Her voice is quiet but determined. She makes me feel braver just looking at her.
“All right,” says Miss Garr. “If that’s the way you two want it.”
“It isn’t the way we want it,” I say. “It’s just true. And it was mostly my fault. I wish I’d never done it. It wasn’t meant to hurt you.”
Her mouth opens in disbelief. “Good God! What was it meant to do, then? Answer me that.”
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