by Lesley Kagen
The reason Dottie had to go away like that to Chicago is because around here it’s a mortal sin to do what she did. I think the Kenfields just should’ve packed up and moved to another neighborhood. Or maybe Dottie could’ve done what Nell did when she got knocked up last summer by Eddie Callahan. Get married when nobody is paying attention. When the baby came out of the oven in April instead of June, Dottie could tell nosy buttinskis that her kid is just a real go-getter. “Early bird gets the worm!” is what Nell chirped to visitors until Troo told her to shut the hell up.
Missing Dottie, that’s why Mr. Kenfield has become so sloshy that Mrs. Kenfield has to run the Five and Dime all by herself now. You can tell that being on her feet all day is hard on her. She has gotten very close veins in her legs. She doesn’t complain out loud, of course not. The Kenfields are English. They are a people who like to keep a stiff upper lip, which means they don’t like to show you any of what they are feeling. I see them in the movies. They usually wear clothes that are clean and full of starch, but I’m positive this is the same shirtwaist Mrs. Kenfield had on the last time we were up here and the part in her hair looks like a dandruff plantation and she’s got pimples on her chin that she put some Clearasil on and forgot to wash off this morning.
I’m about to ask the same exact question I always do when I come up here. Even though her husband and me don’t spend a lotta time together the way we used to, outta sight does not mean outta mind for me. I still think of him often as my good friend. “How has Mr. Kenfield been?”
Wiping the glass counter even harder, Mrs. Kenfield says, “I’ll tell him that you asked after him, Sally.” That’s what she always says.
“Oh, don’t bother,” I say, coming up with something else I can put in my charitable summer story. “I’ve been plannin’ to stop by one of these nights so we can talk on the porch swing like we did last—”
“Don’t you dare!” Mrs. Kenfield practically bites my head off. “You remind him of . . . I mean . . .” She swallows and says quieter, “That wouldn’t be a good idea. Chuck . . . Mr. Kenfield has been feeling under the weather. I wouldn’t want you to catch what he’s got.”
I would have to agree with her.
“Hellooo!”
A new customer breezes into the Five and Dime on shiny red high-heeled shoes, seamed nylons, a skirt higher than her knees and a blouse that looks like it got shrunk in the wash. It’s Mrs. Callahan, Mother’s best friend since they were little and living across the street from the Feelin’ Good Cookie Factory. She won’t ask me how Mother is feeling because she already knows. They chat every night on the telephone for hours. She didn’t use to be, but Mrs. Callahan is related to us now. She is the mother of Eddie Callahan, who got Nell in the family way. (When I heard the two of them groaning in her bedroom on Vliet Street last summer, my half sister told me that they were doing their Royal Canadian Air Force exercises, but my niece is living proof those two were touching a lot more than their toes.)
Mrs. Callahan parks herself in front of the small fan that’s whirring on the Five and Dime’s front counter.
“Where’s your sister?” she asks. She likes Troo better than she likes me. They play rummy for pennies.
“She’s ah—”
“Hi, Aunt Betty,” Troo calls from somewhere in the back of the store, not even trying to be secretive.
“What’s the score, Eleanor?” Aunt Betty shouts back friendly, but to me she says real urgent, “Forget whatever it was the two of you were doin’ next Friday night. Eddie’s gonna take Nell to the drive-in and I told them I would watch the baby, but . . .” She really has to work on improving her aim. Her cherry smile would be nice if she didn’t draw so much outta the lines. “Detective Riordan just asked me out to dinner at Frenchy’s!”
“That’s great!” I say, because Aunt Betty really does need another husband. Her original one got flattened by a cookie press four years ago. I heard her complaining to Mother not long ago, “I despise the smell of those goddamn cookies. It’s bad enough we’ve had to breathe it in since the day we were born . . . I can’t stand it for one more minute, Helen. I gotta get outta there. I need a new man. Pronto.”
I don’t blame her for hating it up at the factory where she has to work in the packaging area to make ends meet. Those cookies don’t make her Feel Good the Way a Cookie Should, the way they’re supposed to. Those cookies killed her husband.
I ask her, “What time do you want us to go over to the apartment on Friday?” I was planning to work on my charitable summer story, but I guess that’s gonna have to wait.
“Seven thirty. Bring your pj’s and your church clothes. By the time the movies are over, it’ll be too late for Eddie to drive you home.”
She means he will be too shnockered to drive us home. Him and Nell like to swig beer at that passion pit.
“Wait . . . maybe you better come a little earlier,” Aunt Betty adds on. “I just remembered they’re not going to the 41 Twin like they usually do. They’re drivin’ out to the one on Bluemound Road to see the Hitchcock movie everybody’s talkin’ about.”
This has gotta be another sign from God! The new zoo is on Bluemound Road. Maybe right next door to the drive-in. If I could talk Nell and Eddie into letting Troo and me come along to the movies with the baby in her basket, I might get a glimpse of Sampson.
Troo calls to me from the back of the store, “Floor it,” which means she’s gotten whatever she came for.
Aunt Betty reminds me, “Tie a string around your finger, Sally. Next Friday. Seven thirty.” Then she says to Mrs. Kenfield, “Did that new Max Factor rouge—?”
“Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need some of those wax lips really bad.” I point to the third row in the new and improved candy case. “The red ones.”
Troo musta been watching, waiting for me to distract Mrs. Kenfield because that’s when she makes her getaway. I hear the back door of the dime store that lets out into the alley slam shut. That would be my job normally, to make sure it doesn’t.
Mrs. Kenfield hands me the wax lips with a dirty look on her face. “That’ll be four cents. I’ll add whatever your sister stole and settle up later with Detective Rasmussen.”
“Ya gotta give it to her,” Mrs. Betty Callahan snorts. “The kid’s got moxie.”
Mrs. Kenfield puffs out her cheeks and says, “Honestly, Betty. Don’t encourage them. I plan to speak to Father Mickey about Margaret’s stealing soon as I get the chance.”
I beg, “No . . . please, please don’t do that. Father Mickey will tell Mother and she has enough on her mind with gettin’ better from her sickness and waitin’ for her letter from the Pope and . . . I think Troo took some pencils and paper so she could start writing her ‘How I Spent My Charitable Summer’ story and that’s a good cause, right? I’ll pay you back.”
Mrs. Kenfield waves me off because unlike Aunt Betty, she is very religious. She wears a girdle to keep her wiggle in check and doesn’t go to church only on Sundays. Even during snowstorms, she’s up there. All Mother of Good Hope kids have to go to Mass every morning when we’re in school, so I’ve seen her kneeling, always in the same pew. The one that’s closest to the St. Christopher statue. He’s the saint that keeps people safe when they’re traveling.
“And don’t think you’re getting off scot-free either, Sally,” Mrs. Kenfield adds on. “I’ll see that Father Mickey knows the part you play in these little escapades.”
The second his name is mentioned, Aunt Betty gets that same goofy look on her face that all the girls and women get when the subject of Father Mickey comes up. “Michael Patrick Gillespie,” she sighs like Sandra Dee. “You’re only a coupla years older than me, Joyce. You knew Mickey back in high school, didn’t you?”
“From what I heard, not nearly as well as you did, Betty,” she says, looking down her long nose at her.
Aunty Betty throws her head back and laughs. Ladies are always whispering behind their hands about her being “a hot patootie,” s
o she’s used to it. I really admire how she takes those snippy comments as compliments about how good-looking she is. That is making the best of a bad situation.
Aunt Betty says with a fond-memory voice, “I remember this one time Helen and I came across Mickey and Paulie down at Honey Creek—”
“Paulie? Our Uncle Paulie?” I’m shocked. “I didn’t know that he knew Father in the olden days.”
Mrs. Callahan brings her hand to her bosoms and says, “They were best friends. Those two boys gave your granny her gray hair.”
I already know that our uncle was hell on wheels because Ethel Jenkins told me all about him last summer, but this is the first time I heard that Father Mickey was a troublemaker from around here.
“When did Father Mickey move away?” I ask.
Mrs. Callahan closes her eyes. She always does that when she tries to come up with an answer to a question. I can do a pretty good imitation of her if I borrow some of Mother’s blue eye shadow. “Well, let me see . . . after he was ordained, Mickey was assigned to St. Stan’s and then some small town in Illinois and soon after that the church sent him all the way to the jungles of the Congo to do some missionary work with the little Pygmy people. That’s when I stopped gettin’ postcards from him, ’til he showed up here again.”
Sounds to me like she’s been keeping close track of him.
“You want to know something else, Sally?” she says. I really don’t think I do, but there is no stopping her when she gets this naughty smile on her face. She reminds me a lot of this kid from Vliet Street, Fast Susie Fazio, when it comes to spreading hairraising facts. “I wouldn’t say that Mickey had what’s known as a true calling to the priesthood.”
I know what she means by that. They’re always trying to convince girls to be nuns and boys to be priests up at school. To keep their ears open for a call from Jesus.
I say, “Kenny Schultz was told to join up in a dream. He went to St. Nazianz seminary right after high school.”
“Yeah, that’s how it goes for most boys, but M.P.G. . . . well, he wasn’t most boys.” I must look like I lost track of the conversation. “That was Mickey’s nickname back then. Ya know, his initials? M.P.G. Miles per gallon?” She rumble laughs deep in her throat. “That boy could give a girl the ride of her life and . . . hey, don’t take my word for it. Ask your mother,” she says, with a wink.
“That’s quite enough, Betty!” Mrs. Kenfield smacks her hand down on the glass case. Then to me, she says, “Make no mistake about it, I’m reporting you and your sister to Father the first chance I get.”
“Oh, for chrissakes.” Mrs. Callahan throws up her hands. “The kid’s not responsible for her sister, isn’t that right, Sally?”
“I . . . I . . .” Don’t agree with her. And neither did Daddy.
“I am my brother’s keeper,” Mrs. Kenfield says, holding her teeth closed so tight that I can’t believe the words got through them. “I believe the Lord would have the same apply to sisters.”
“Oh, you do, do you? You got a direct line to Him now?” Aunt Betty says, losing her cool. “Outta anybody in the neighborhood . . . you should know ya can’t take heat for whatever foolishness somebody in your family is doin’, Joyce. Get off your sanctimonious horse. You used to be the life of the party. When’d ya get that goddamn stick up your butt?”
Not waiting to hear Mrs. Kenfield’s answer, which I was interested in because I would like to avoid that sort of thing happening to me, Mrs. Callahan spins toward me and says, “I’ll tell ya what I’m gonna do, Sally. I’m gonna give you an advance on your baby-sittin’ money and a few pennies more for what I lost to Troo playing rummy a coupla nights ago.” She snaps open her shiny black pocketbook. On the bottom, I can see the peppermint schnapps she keeps in there. She tells people it’s just to freshen her breath. She sets the bottle carefully on the top of the candy counter, slips out her coin purse, which is one of the leather ones Troo made at camp, and slaps down two quarters. Looking her right in the eye, Aunt Betty flicks them with her pointy red fingernail too hard toward Mrs. Kenfield, who doesn’t put up her hands to block them. The coins go tumbling down to the floor. One of them rolls away for a long, long time. “And that should cover whatever Troo took.” Aunt Betty sets her jaw the same jutting way my sister does when she won’t back down, and starts unscrewing the schnapps cap. After she’s taken three deep swallows, she dabs at her mouth and giggles. “Care for a nip, Joycie?” she says, thrusting the bottle across the counter. Mrs. Kenfield’s arm stays as frozen in place as her face, which looks like an ice-skating rink, cold and flat like that. “Not right now? Well, maybe you’d like to take some home to holier-than-thou Chuck. I’m sure he’d have no problem finishin’ it off.”
It goes midnight-in-a-cemetery quiet. The parakeets stop chirping and even the corn has stopped popping. All I want to do is get out of there and catch up with Troo and be on our merry way, but then I remember why I got sent up here in the first place. Mother’ll blame a flight of imagination if I forget to pick up her afternoon “nummy,” which she takes very seriously and goes even grumpier without. I’ve had my fill of cod liver oil this week.
“I . . . I’m sorry . . . Mrs. Kenfield . . . I . . . ah . . . forget something.” She doesn’t notice that I’m talking to her so I reach up to tap her on the shoulder, but then I’m not sure that’s a good idea, so I ring the bell next to the cash register instead. “I’ll take one of Mother’s usual please, if you don’t mind and that’s all right with Mother’s usual please, if you don’t mind and that’s all right with you.”
The owner of the Five and Dime doesn’t take her eyes off Mrs. Callahan when she grabs the candy out of the case and pitches the Snirkle at me.
“Thank you, Mrs. Kenfield. You, too, Aunt Betty,” I say, fast as I can. “If I don’t see her first, tell Nell we’ll be there next Friday night to sit for the baby. I hope you have a nice time eatin’ and dancin’ with Detective Riordan,” and then I scramble out of the store.
Heading back down North Avenue toward Troo, who I can see a few blocks down bouncing her ball again, I’m feeling sorry for Mrs. Kenfield. First she had problems with her daughter and then her husband starts falling down a lot and now she’s gotta run the Five and Dime looking like a rag picker with a stick up her butt.
I guess, just like Granny says, when it rains, it pours.
Mrs. Kenfield really could use an umbrella.
Chapter Ten
It’s not just Troo and me, all the kids who go to Mother of Good Hope School have to write charitable stories over the summer. If you don’t show up with it the first day of school you’ll be punished by Sister Raphael, who is the principal but is also in charge of good deeds. She’s also the nun who wants to kick my sister out of school for more than one reason. Since Troo was in her office at least once a week for doing one bad thing or another, Sister told me she’s thinking of having the chair in the corner of her office engraved permanently with Troo’s name. (If she bothered to look at the back, she could save a few bucks. Troo stole a penknife outta the Five and Dime last summer.)
The last straw happened at recess two weeks before school let out.
Jimmy “B.O.” Montanazza was hanging off one end of the monkey bars. My sister was sitting on top. She musta been holding her breath because B.O. can’t even play hide-and-seek, that’s how easy he is to track down. His pits just reek. I couldn’t hear what exactly Troo asked him; I was playing double Dutch at the time, but I heard B.O.’s answer cut through the sound of the slapping ropes because like all the Italians, he talks so darn loud. “Take it from me, O’Malley, sex is like a hot dog. It’s all about the weiner and the bun,” B.O. said. Troo started hooting like a maniac. Sister Imelda didn’t. She dragged the both of them off the bars straight into the principal’s office. I had to take the note home because Sister Raphael didn’t trust Troo to deliver it to Mother:Dear Mrs. Gustafson,
Once again, Margaret is suffering from impure thoughts. She will not be allowed ba
ck next year if she continues down the path she is heading. Perhaps your current living arrangements are a contributing factor.
May God have mercy on
your soul,
Sister Raphael, S.D.S.
My sister’s dirty mind doesn’t have a thing to do with where Mother lives. Troo is being influenced by a bad element. The Italians. These are a people who are interested in getting as much of the sex as they can. Look at Gina Lolloabridgida. Her bosoms . . . they’re the size of watermelons. Same goes for Annette Funicello. I don’t think it’s my imagination that Mousekeeter Lonnie couldn’t keep his eyes off her chest.
And then there’s Fast Susie Fazio, who might be the worst Italian of all. She’s three years older than me and knows all there is to know about first base and second base and sliding into home. Thanks to her, I couldn’t listen to a Braves game for over a month after she told me and Troo how babies are made during one of our sleepovers.
This is why I try to avoid going anywhere near her house, but when the noon whistle goes off at the Feelin’ Good factory, I call back to Troo, “We were supposed to be there fifteen minutes ago. Hurry up.” We don’t have any choice now but to cut through the Fazios’ yard to get to Mrs. Galecki’s place. I’m already late and Ethel keeps to a schedule. She likes me to read to Mrs. Galecki right after she feeds her an early lunch but before she takes a long afternoon nap. Troo is dragging her feet on purpose. She knows how much I hate being tardy.