Good Graces

by Lesley Kagen

  She sits in the chair next to Dave and tells him, “Say grace, please.”

  Dave clasps his hands together, bows his head, and I think the same thing I think every night at this time when I see the top of his thick blond hair that matches mine. I’m not 100 percent Irish anymore. I got half of Dave’s blood in me now and a sneaking suspicion that Danish people are not known for being lucky, only for making delicious sweet rolls.

  Dave mumbles, “Bless us, oh Lord, for these gifts which we are about to receive . . .”

  Because of mental telepathy, I know exactly what’s going on in Troo’s mind and it’s not how handsome Dave looks in his button-down white shirt. She’s thinking about how much she can’t stand to be sitting across this table from him and that what we’re having for supper tonight is not a gift and she’ll do whatever she needs not to receive it.

  “. . . through the bounty of Christ our Lord, amen,” Dave finishes up.

  After we all make the sign of the cross, Mother tells him in a charming voice we don’t get to hear very often, “It’s so nice to have you home tonight.” It really is. Dave’s been so busy chasing the cat burglar that he’s had to skip suppers with us more than a couple of times every week. “Now . . . who’d like to begin this evening’s stimulating conversation?”

  Mother has recently started making us talk at the table about important events while we listen to the music and chew with our mouths closed. Dave and her usually chat about what’s going on in the neighborhood, but lately they are very keen on discussing what is going on in our nation’s capital. Both of them really like John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who is an Irish political man, and more important—a Catholic. Dave and Mother think Mr. Kennedy might become president of the United States if he plays his cards right. I like Ike, so I don’t care who the next president is just so long as it isn’t that man, Nixon. I saw him give a talk on television. I know from going to the movies that heavy sweating and darting eyes make a person suspicious. That man is a twofer.

  “Pass everything,” our granny bosses.

  Granny doesn’t usually eat over unless it’s Sunday, but the potluck up at church got cancelled because of the heat making the cafeteria stink even worse than it usually does, so Dave drove over to 59th Street and got her out of her small house where she lives with our brain-damaged uncle who isn’t here. Uncle Paulie probably stayed in his bedroom to finish off his newest Popsicle-stick house or he went early to his job setting pins at Jerbak’s Beer ’n Bowl, which is at least one thing to be grateful for. He doesn’t sing, “Peek-a-boo, Troo, Peek-a-boo, Daddy,” every two seconds the way he used to, but just looking at him makes Troo remember the crash. (Our uncle was in the car coming home from the game, too. I think peek-a-boo is the last thing he remembers hearing before he flew outta the windshield.)

  Granny’s name is Alice. Her and Mother don’t get along all that good except at church and on holidays. Granny thinks her daughter is too uppity for a girl that grew up across the street from the Feelin’ Good Cookie Factory and will ask her, “When will you learn that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, Helen?” if she thinks Mother is getting above herself. Granny is largish, especially in her underarm area, which looks like a sheet on a clothesline flapping on a windy day, but her face hardly has any wrinkles considering how old she is—eighty-five. Her hair is Wonder Bread white and she wears it in a page boy. If you ever met her, you would immediately think you’d seen her somewhere before. That’s because she looks a lot like George Washington on the dollar bill. Except for her clothes. She used to wear regular dotted Swiss old lady dresses, but lately she’s always got on a muu-muu. Mother buys them for her out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. I think the dresses are a bribe so Granny will like her more than she does and Mother may finally be wearing her down because, I’m not kidding, my grandmother goes ape for these flowery dresses. I thought she looked kinda cute in them, too, when I still thought they were spelled moo-moos and made by some nice 4-H ladies who could use the extra money because their husbands are farmers and every little bit helps.

  It was Mrs. Kambowski who once again wrecked it all.

  Dave dropped Granny and me at the Finney Library a few weeks ago so we could get something new to read. She likes books about love and death. All Irish people adore those subjects. And whiskey. I picked up another Nancy Drew story, which I’ve started loving. (Her father musta told her to pay attention, too, because that girl doesn’t seem to miss a thing.)

  When we were checking out, Mrs. Kambowski complimented Granny on her ensemble and then, because she can never leave well enough alone and just has to teach you something every time she runs into you, the head librarian said, “Do you know that your grandmama’s dress comes all the way from the Hawaiian Islands, Sally?”

  I told her, “No,” a little snippy because her always teaching my sister French gets my Irish up.

  “Muu-muu means amputated in their language,” Mrs. Kambowski told us.

  Granny said, “You learn something new every day,” but I said, “Am . . . pu . . . ta . . . ted?” and felt pretty queasy. “Doesn’t that mean not having an arm or a leg?”

  Mrs. Kambowski said, “A gold star for you, Sally.”

  So that means the purple-and-pink parrot one Granny’s got on tonight was probably made by some of the most famous armless and legless people there are—lepers, who live with the most famous of all Hawaiians, Father Damien, on an island called Molokai. We learn all about lepers at school. This is a big subject. How those poor people gotta walk around and yell, “Unclean” if they still got legs. Since they can’t work in a store or some kind of factory because they are so contagious, lepers must earn money by sewing muu-muus for Sears and Roebuck. That’s why I’m relieved Granny is sitting on the other end of the table tonight. Part of those lepers could have fallen off into her dress and I don’t need that disease to hop out of a hem and onto me. I got enough on my hands keeping Troo safe. And getting this supper down.

  I am sorry to have to say this, but my mother is the worst cook in the neighborhood, maybe on the whole west side or the world. They don’t even ask her to contribute to the Pagan Baby Cake Walks at school anymore because the last time she did three people had to get their stomachs pumped out at St. Joe’s. That was the only good thing about her being in the hospital almost all of last summer. We didn’t have to eat her cooking. She made us SOS tonight. Shit on a Shingle. (Help us, o mighty God.)

  Granny reaches across the table and scoops a heaping ladle of the slop onto her plate. Her eyes are always bigger than her stomach. She has a medical condition called a thyroid so her peepers look like two ping-pong balls.

  “Did you hear about the boy who ran away from the orphanage?” Granny asks, starting off tonight’s stimulating dinner conversation.

  I cough . . . cough . . . cough and say, “That’s . . . they’re talkin’ about Charlie Fitch. Did you hear why he ran away?” I am hoping it’s for some reason other than Artie Latour not listening to him. I’d love to be the one to tell him his best friend’s leaving wasn’t his fault.

  Granny says, “All Sister Jean told me at morning Mass is that the boy took off in the middle of the night. Hand me the succotash, Sally.”

  That’s okay. She may not have the scoop now, but she will hear some more about Charlie’s taking off sooner or later. Our granny always finds out what’s going on in the neighborhood, the really secret stuff. Like how Mrs. Delancey who owns the grocery store down the block from her, the one our half sister Nell’s apartment is over, used to work in a nightclub dancing with snakes. Granny drinks six bottles of Coca-Cola a day that she gets free from Mrs. Delancey to keep her mouth shut.

  I lift another forkful to my mouth and cough some more into my napkin.

  Dave says, “Gosh, Sally, you’re doing a lot of that tonight. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Did you catch a cold?” Troo asks, seeing an opening. “A fever? Let me check.” When she reaches to put her hand to my forehea
d, she accidentally on purpose brushes her spoon down to the linoleum.

  This was another one of her Troo genius plans. Coming up with this coughing-into-my-napkin trick and her dropping-the-spoon trick to avoid having to eat Mother’s food. Thank goodness for our little collie, Lizzie. She’s lying openmouthed at our feet like she got invited to an all-you-can-eat dog buffet the same way she does every night except for the ones Dave cooks.

  Mother says to me, “You don’t look flushed.”

  “I’m fine. It’s just that . . .” She has no idea how disgusting her food is. She thinks she’s the next Betty Crocker. I want to tell her the truth because how is she ever going to improve if somebody doesn’t, but I don’t think that would go over so big. I look over at Granny, who you can usually depend on to point out Mother’s faults, but her mouth is full, so I say, “I’m only coughing ’cause . . . I can’t swallow the SOS down fast enough.”

  When Mother smiles, I swear to Mary, the kitchen goes three shades lighter. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying it, Sally, but remember what I told you the last time. The proper name for this dish is chipped beef on toast points.”

  “Six a one, half dozen of another,” Granny says, throwing in under her breath, “A sow’s ear.”

  Dave stays out of it, but gives me a wink when I look his way. I really would like to question him while I have him. He’s been so busy working day and night that I haven’t had the chance to ask him the number one question that’s been burning itself into my mind. I’ve been hoping what Henry told us at the drugstore was wrong. It gets awfully loud at the baseball games. He coulda misheard what Dave told his dad.

  “Is it true that Greasy Al escaped from reform school?” I ask.

  Dave stops buttering his bread in midair and looks over at Mother. When she nods, he says, “Girls, I have been meaning to talk to the both of you. Especially you, Sally. I don’t want you to get yourself in a tizzy over—”

  “He means he doesn’t want you to be a fruitcake in the imagination department,” Troo butts in.

  I’m surprised that Mother doesn’t say anything about her minding her p’s and q’s, but she doesn’t, and I know why when I look down at my sister’s plate. You can see her reflection in it. When we were busy talking about my coughing, Troo musta slipped it under the table and Lizzy chowed down.

  Troo purses her lips and kisses her fingers the way French people in the movies do after they get done eating. “My compliments to the chef. Supper was magnifique.”

  Mother says, “Why thank you, Troo.”

  “No, no . . . merci beaucoup to you, Helen.” Mother is lapping it up. I’ve noticed that when it comes to compliments of any kind, there is no bottom to her bowl. Troo musta noticed that, too. “I’m goin’ over to the playground. See ya tomorrow . . . I mean Friday, Granny.”

  Granny says back like she always does, “Not unless I see you first, you little banshee.”

  So I’m left to push the SOS around on my plate while Dave and Mother talk some more about Mr. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, who dresses so stylishly, and Granny tells us that Uncle Paulie has been keeping very odd hours, and then the three of them go into other neighborhood news until everyone is done eating except for me. (I was so thankful that Granny didn’t bring up the annulment-letter-from-the-Pope problem. She likes Dave a lot, but she is one of the main people who thinks that Mother is living in sin.)

  After removing Mr. Como from the Hi-Fi and reapplying her lipstick, Mother comes back into the kitchen. “I know that you’re savoring every single bite, Sally, but you need to finish up by the time I get back from taking your grandmother home. Dave and I have plans tonight.” This means she wants to play footsie with him. “Ready?” she says, guiding Granny toward the front door so she can drive her back to her tiny bungalow.

  “Sally?” Dave says, once they’re gone.

  He’s got a grave look on his face. He musta noticed me and Troo feeding Lizzy the SOS under the table. After all, he is a detective. He won’t shout at me the way Mother would. Dave has only been a father for a little while so he’s still learning how to be mean. What he’ll do is clear his throat and give me a calm sermon about the nature of good and evil. Since he’s a police officer and the treasurer of the Men’s Club up at church, knowing the difference between right and wrong are the subjects dearest to his heart.

  Or maybe not. In the movies, cops smack you with a rubber hose when they want you to tell the truth, which I’m sure Dave wouldn’t do, but things can happen when you least expect them. I didn’t think Hall Gustafson would throw Nell down on our kitchen floor last summer or that Bobby would try to kill me either. And I was so sure that Dave was the one who was murdering and molesting little girls in the neighborhood. I used to think I was a good judge of people, but I’m not. I am unreliable. I can’t count on myself anymore.

  “Do you have something you want to tell me?” Dave asks, steepling his fingers below his chin.

  I’m going to beat him to the punch. I’m going to confess. “I’m really sorry,” I blurt out. “I won’t ever do it again, I promise, and I’ll make Troo swear, too.”

  Dave leans in and he smells good. He slaps on Old Spice when he’s done shaving. He points down at my SOS that now looks exactly like the fake vomit they sell at the toy store. His lips, which aren’t poofy like Mother’s and Troo’s but on the thin side like mine, are curled into a smile. “Between you and me, I can barely get it down myself. Got my fill of it in the Army,” he says, putting my plate down in front of Lizzy, whose tummy is just bulging. “Now that we got that settled, I’d like to further answer the question you asked me earlier about the Molinari boy.” He leans back in his chair and stretches his long legs out in front of him. “Yes, he escaped from the reform school last week.”

  “But how . . . he could . . . what if they don’t catch him and he comes back here and does something bad to . . .” There are so many ways that Greasy Al could hurt Troo. I try my best to keep my eyes on her at all times, but she is so good at outfoxing me.

  “I know this might be hard for you to understand, Sally, but it’s not like Alfred’s a hardened criminal. Sure, he’s gotten himself into a few fixes, but he’s just a boy not much older than you.” Dave runs his hand over his mouth. He does that when he is trying to come up with a good explanation about why I shouldn’t be afraid of something. “When Alfred got polio . . . his family didn’t . . . the Molinaris are a tough bunch.”

  No kidding.

  “He’s not a lost cause,” Dave adds on. “All the boy needs is someone to care about him.”

  Poor man. If that’s what he thinks, that all Molinari needs is some TLC to set him straight, he’s wrong. I heard that his father used to hit him with fists. And I’ve seen with my own two eyes that even his own mother doesn’t love Greasy Al. She’s the hostess at Ristorante Molinari where Dave takes us to eat sometimes because Mother adores their butter-drenched bread. Before Greasy Al got sent to reform school, on the nights he used to work at the family restaurant being a busboy, Mrs. Molinari would yell at him from her podium up front, “Hey, Chester, clean up . . . table six,” because her boy walks like that guy in Gunsmoke. Everybody in the dining room would crack up, no one louder than her. And Troo.

  “Sally?” Dave says from a distant land where I bet things look clearer to him than they do to me. “Please, don’t.”

  I’m so glad Mother’s not here to see me blubber. She’d run a pretend bow over a pretend violin and sing Cry Me a River.

  Dave stacks his big hands on top of mine. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’re safe now.”

  That’s the same thing Mother and him always say when I wake up screaming after one of my nightmares. Bobby is still alive when I bolt up in bed. I can smell his leather belt and hear him whispering how much he loves me and that he’s going to make me his bride. Or sometimes it’s Daddy who comes to me bloody in my dreams holding Sampson by the hand, telling me with a rotted mouth to fly like the wind. By the time Mother r
ounds the corner to our room and Dave comes pounding down from upstairs, my sister is already up on her knees, yelling, “Sally, wake up!” doing her darndest to hold my still running legs down on the sheet soaked with my sweat.

  I know that Dave and Mother mean well, but they can never, will never, understand what I’m feeling twenty thousand leagues deep. Only my sister does.

  Chapter Seven

  Troo snuck off and stuck me with the supper dishes again. By the time I get over to the playground, she’s already made her way through the line of kids waiting to take their turn at the pole, which has become the biggest challenge. Last year it was dodgeball and before that it was box hockey, but this summer, everybody has gone cuckoo for tetherball. Anyone who can runs over here straight after supper because if you’re the last one serving when they turn off the lights for the night, the counselors will congratulate you and give you a box of free Wheaties, which is the Breakfast of Champions and very popular.

  My sister is squaring off against beefy Willie O’Hara. Just like us, Willie isn’t from around here originally. He moved to Vliet Street from Brooklyn, New York, with his mother the same summer we did because his father ran off with his hubba-hubba secretary. Mrs. O’Hara has relatives around here who are helping her get back on her feet. Willie used to be Troo’s boyfriend, but he’s moved on to greener pastures.

  Trotting over to stand with the rest of the kids who are watching the game, I shout, “Go, Troo, go!” and wish that Debbie the counselor would quit hovering over us and do a somersault or the splits or something else really cheerful to distract Troo. My sister looks like she is about to charge at Willie and take a big bite out of him. That’s what he looks like with his bright red hair and chubby tummy. A juicy burger with ketchup.