Good Graces

by Lesley Kagen

  Troo decided it would be best if we make ourselves scarce today, so we are up and at ’em early, even before Mr. Peterson gets here with the milk. So that Mother doesn’t get sore at us, I scribble a note for her and tape it to the coffeepot before we take off:Good morning! Sorry. I forgot to tell you. Mary Lane invited us to go see the new zoo today. Be back later! xxxoooxxx P.S. You looked swankier than Mamie Van Doren last night at the fish fry.

  My sister is riding me over to the Lanes’ on her handlebars. When we pass by our neighbors’ houses, I picture them snuggling together in their beds, dreaming sweet dreams. What a surprise they’re in for this morning when Father Mickey doesn’t show up for Mass.

  When Troo pedals past the Molinaris’ house, she says into my ear, “What the hell do ya think happened to him?”

  I don’t answer her because the reason that Greasy Al never showed back up to get his revenge against my sister for sending him to reform school even I can’t imagine.

  After rounding the corner of 58th Street, two houses down, I hop off and Troo dumps her bike on the Lanes’ front lawn. We know which room is Mary Lane’s. We’ve done this a million times before. After Troo gives me a boost through our friend’s window, she stands on the hose faucet and slithers over the sill after me.

  Troo wants to get some warm water out of the bathroom so she can stick Mary Lane’s hand in it, but I stop her. I’m feeling a smidge disloyal for not telling our other best friend the truth about what happened to Father Mickey, but I guess Troo’s right, we need to keep it to ourselves because it is better to be safe than sorry. She is Mary Lane, after all. There is no one better at keeping secrets, but she might work the story of what happened last night into a no-tripper tale with gypsy priests and wieners and blood-dripping altar boys, not even realizing she is doing it. We can’t take that chance.

  I gotta be careful when I shake Mary Lane awake by her bony shoulder because, I’m not kidding, it’s so sharp she could use it to open tin cans. “Mary Lane. Mary Lane.”

  “What?” she says, sitting up straight from the waist and reminding me again of that actress in The Bride of Frankenstein when she’s on the doctor’s table right after she’s brought to life. Mary Lane’s permanent wave hasn’t settled down at all.

  Because of our mental telepathy, I know Troo’s about to crack wise about her electrified hair, so I hurry and tell Mary Lane, “It’s a matter of life and death. We need to go out to the zoo with you today. I can’t wait anymore. I gotta see Sampson.” That’s not a lie I’m telling her just to get out of the neighborhood for the day. I really do need to see him bad. It’s been almost three months. He must be missing me as much as I’m missing him.

  Mary Lane, who smells like her pillow, which I’m sure is stuffed with potato chips, says, “Fine by me, but we gotta ask my dad.”

  After she pulls on her usual high-tops, T-shirt and shorts, the three of us go out to the kitchen and beg Mr. Lane to take us with him to work. Being the nice man that he is, he swigs down his cup of breakfast java and says, “Yeah, sure. The more the hairier.” (He is known for these kinds of animal jokes. I think telling them is part of his job the same way shoveling poop is.)

  Mary Lane was right when she told me at the beginning of summer that it would take at least three buses to get out to the new zoo on Bluemound Road. It takes almost a half hour by car. It kills me to say it, but it was worth it. It’s really nice. And HUGE. There’s an all-the-time pony ride and the hot dogs they sell are the Oscar Meyer wiener whistle kind and the critters have a lot more room to roam. I want to see Sampson right away, but Mary Lane wants to show us around. She is a big believer in saving the best for last.

  We’re her guests, so that’s what we do. Spend the whole day, running here and there. The polar bears’ area looks like the North Pole and Monkey Island is something straight out of a jungle. There’s lots of animals that we didn’t even have at the old zoo, like seals and reindeer. The Reptile House is full of snakes. The boa constrictor sticks his tongue out and makes me think of Bobby Brophy. The only out-of-place cage we come across is the one that belongs to the camel, who doesn’t look like he lives in the desert of Arabia, but the dirt lot on the corner of 53rd Street.

  When I ask her why, Mary Lane tells me, “That’s the best Dad could do. Bringin’ in all that sand costs a lot of money and camels are really stupid and they spit worse than your sister. What’d ya do to your tooth, by the way?”

  I forgot all about it. “Ah . . . I . . . tripped and um . . . can we go see Sampson now?”

  Troo and me follow her past the flamingoes and the penguins over to the Primate House. Mary Lane pulls open the door and says, “He’s got a big yard all to himself, but he’s indoors today. This way.” She leads us past the chimps and the mandrills and all the other monkeys doing their shenanigans until we get to the biggest and busiest cage of all.

  Mary Lane clears her throat and announces very professionally, “Zoo business. Comin’ through,” and we push to the front of the crowd.

  Seeing him in all his glory, it makes my knees go floppy. I tenderly press my hand against the glass and wait for him to do the same, the way he always did, but Sampson stays where he is, looking at me with his fudgey brown eyes the same way he’s looking at everybody else. He isn’t singing Don’t Get Around Much Anymore or Take Me Out to the Ballgame. He’s not beating his chest because he’s so happy to see me, after so much time apart. He just hangs there for a while from his ceiling rope and when he gets tired of that, he starts looking for that thing in his ear that he’s still not found.

  Troo says, “Doesn’t look like he remembers you,” and I can’t get mad because it seems that way to me, too.

  I think Mary Lane knows how let-down I’m feelin’ because she says very kindly, “C’mon, we gotta go. Time to meet Dad in the parkin’ lot.”

  On the ride back home, I’m wondering if Sampson acted cool toward me because he’s living in a much better place than he used to. Sorta the same thing happened when Troo and me went to visit our old Vliet Street friend Louise Greely after she moved to a much bigger house near Enderis Park that had a huge yard and a swing of her own hanging off a tree. We didn’t have much to say to each other anymore either.

  Sampson’s snub woulda cut me to the core in the olden days, but for some reason I’m going to have to think long and hard about, when Mr. Lane pulls up in front of our house I notice that my heart isn’t feeling shattered into a million pieces. More like one of its wings fell off.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Dave is out on our front porch steps, reading the evening newspaper. He calls out a friendly “Thanks, Phil” to Mr. Lane when he drops us off, but when Troo and me try to scoot past him, Dave sounds more like Joe Friday from Dragnet than Mr. Anderson from Father Knows Best.

  “Girls, wait a minute. I need to talk to you,” he says. When I slow down, Troo pokes me in the back, so Dave follows us into the house, straight through to the kitchen.

  I say to Mother, who’s standing in front of the stove, “We’re home.” Whatever she’s cooking is making it stink worse in here than the lions’ den up at the zoo. “Did you get my note?”

  Mother says, “It’s about time. Supper’s in ten minutes,” and goes back to stirring.

  “What happened to you two last night?” Dave asks, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the counter in front of the sink. “Why didn’t you come over to the park?”

  The O’Malley sisters knew he’d ask us this.

  Just like we planned it out last night under the sheets, Troo says, “Didn’t Father Mickey tell you this mornin’ after Mass?” Dave almost always attends the eight o’clock. “He kept me later than he usually does and then he couldn’t give us a ride over there because he forgot he had an important meeting, so Sally and me came straight home, took our baths and went to bed.”

  I can’t wait to tell him all about the new zoo, but I ask him, “How was the concert?” because that’s the polite thing to do.<
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  Troo grins and says, “Wait, before you go into all that—after we finished up last night, guess what? Father Mickey told me I don’t have to come back anymore. Isn’t that great?!” Instead of being in a freak show or a drummer in Sal Mineo’s band or a professional Kleenex-flower maker, my sister could be a movie actress when she grows up, that’s how easy she can turn the truth off and on. “You’re gonna have to order me a new school uniform, Helen. I did such a good job on my religious instructions that I’m purer than Ivory soap! I’m going back to Mother of Good Hope next month!”

  See, that’s Troo genius at work. I never would’ve thought of adding that part.

  When they don’t congratulate her, Troo says, “Call Father up and ask him if you don’t believe me.” Both Mother and Dave do look pretty stunned.

  Dave says, “I’m afraid that would be . . . I have some bad news, girls. Father Mickey appears to be missing.”

  Troo brings her hands up to her cheeks and says, so concerned, “Oh, no! That’s terrible. Really?”

  “Did Father happen to mention who he had that important meeting with last night?” Dave asks.

  Troo and me decided that she would be the one to answer any hard questions he had. She is very good under pressure. And even though I haven’t told her that I adore Dave, she knows. She doesn’t trust me not to fall into a heap and confess what we did and she shouldn’t.

  “The meeting? Uh . . . I can’t remember if he . . . oh, yeah,” Troo says, snapping her fingers. “That’s right. Father told us that he was goin’ to see Mr. Fazio to thank him again for startin’ work on the school.”

  Dave is about to ask something else, but Mother says, “Wash your hands and set the table, girls,” and then to her husband-to-be, “Could you join me in the bedroom for a minute?”

  They’re gone for a while and come back into the kitchen just as I’m filling the last glass with milk. Mother looks so pretty in her Peter Pan–collar blouse and freshened-up face that I forget and smile.

  “What happened to your tooth?” she shouts, taking my chin between her fingers.

  “Oh, I . . . I . . .”

  Troo says, “She broke it on the swings over at the school playground when she was waitin’ for me to finish up with Father Mickey. She should be more careful, shouldn’t she.”

  “She certainly should.” Mother is tilting my head this way and that to get a better look. “I’ll make an appointment first thing tomorrow with Dr. Heitz. I’m not sure there’s anything he can do about it, but . . . oh, damn . . . the pot’s boiling over,” she says when she hears the lid clatter.

  During supper Dave doesn’t talk much except to say, “Please pass the . . . what is this dish called again, dear?”

  Mother says, like it’s the best thing she’s ever made, “Cow tongue in turnip sauce.”

  That sorta takes the spunk outta all of us except for Lizzie. But she eats shoes, too.

  Neither one of them asks us anything else about Father Mickey. I think they agreed in the bedroom not to talk about it anymore because it’s not suitable supper conversation. They wouldn’t want to scar us for life. Only once does Dave say, like he’s thinking out loud, “I’m going to have to question Tony Fazio first thing tomorrow morning.”

  They spend the rest of the supper discussing Dave’s sister, Betsy, and her husband, Richie. Dave helped them move boxes back into their house today. Mother also tells us that she is going to look for a wedding suit like the kind Jackie Kennedy wears with a matching pillbox hat. Of course, her mentioning pills makes me think about Ethel and Mrs. Galecki’s coma. I know I should, but I’m too yellow-bellied to ask what’s going on with them. If it is fatal news, that will be the last straw.

  Between going over and over in my mind whether Troo and me have any chance of getting caught burying Father Mickey and my worrying about what’s to become of Ethel, I barely notice how disgusting the food is. Not until Dave throws his napkin down on the table and does a little lying himself. “Delicious as always, dear.”

  Mother says, “I’m so glad you like it. I’m thinking of entering it in the cook-off.”

  I have to work hard to keep myself from groaning. The cook-off is held during the celebration that marks the end of summer. In two weeks, we’ll have the biggest party we have around here. The neighborhood ladies bring all the food and there is a contest for the best dishes. All I can see is bodies littered all over Vliet Street if Mother serves her cow tongue in turnip sauce to the crowd. We’ll never even make it to the crowning of the queen or hear any good rock ’n’ roll from the Do Wops. I won’t get to dance with Henry. It’s hard to do the box step when you’re throwing up.

  When Mother lights her after-dinner cigarette and Troo and me get up to do the dishes, now that supper is over, Detective Dave is free to go back to interrogating us.

  He asks my sister, “You sure Father Mickey was still at the rectory last night when you left?”

  Thank goodness, I can always count on Troo to cover her tracks, even in an ambush. She scrapes a plate into the garbage and says, “Absolument.”

  “Sally?” he asks. “Is that how you remember it, too?”

  It’s my turn to wash, so I’m already at the kitchen sink filling it up. I’m so glad that I’ve got my back to him and he can’t see my face or my goose bumps. “Yes, sir.” Most sins are about doing or saying something you’re not supposed to, but there are also sins that are about not doing something or not saying something you’re supposed to. Those are called sins of omission. That’s what I’m committing when I tell Dave, “Just like Troo said. When we headed for home last night, Father Mickey was right where we left him.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  After Dave and me get done watching Peter Gunn tonight, he tells me, “I’m going over to the Goldmans’ to fix the short in the stove light. Want to come along? Buy you an ice cream afterwards.”

  As good as spending some time alone with Dave and seeing Henry behind the soda fountain at Fitzpatrick’s sounds, school’s going to start soon and I do not want to get rapped on the knuckles by Sister Raphael when I show up the first day with a half-written assignment. I also gotta finish so Troo has enough time to copy it. Summer is almost over. The block party is in three days.

  I tell Dave, “Thanks, but I can’t. I gotta get the rest of my charitable story written,” so he goes over to Vliet Street with his toolbox alone.

  Troo is in the bathroom in front of the mirror putting the finishing touches on her ventriloquist act for the Queen of the Playground contest before she goes over to Fast Susie Fazio’s for a sleepover and some cannolis. Mother is on the phone with Aunt Betty jabbering about this new man she is dating who is a real catch because it’s Mr. Stanley Talmidge. Troo thinks Mr. Talmidge looks like Quasimodo and that he’s lucky to have something else going for him. He owns the Uptown movie theatre.

  So that’s why I come out to my and Daddy’s bench in the backyard to write more of my story with my flashlight. I need some peace and quiet, but that isn’t working out either.

  Mr. Moriarity’s dog is barking worse than ever. I think Lizzie broke his heart and is now seeing the Johnsons’ poodle. The crickets are rubbing their legs together to beat the band. I can’t usually hear them, but tonight a strong warm breeze is bringing the sound of the kids at the playground trying to get in their last licks. Loudest of all are the cookie factory dads and their wives out on their steps, giving each other their two cents’ worth on the mystery of Father Mickey’s disappearance. “What do you think coulda happened to him? Do you think he was kidnapped? Murdered?”

  Even though it’s been weeks since Troo and me buried Father, the neighborhood just won’t shut up. Even during Mass this Sunday, which Father Louie returned to say from his special dry retreat, I could hear people taking guesses in the Communion line. And it’s not only up at church or on the stoops. No matter where you go or what you do, Father Mickey’s missing is the subject of all conversations. There was even a story in both news
papers with a picture of him looking so sharp, and a quote from Mrs. Latour: “He was a saint. I don’t know how we’ll manage without him.”

  Mostly, it seems like people are leaning toward foul play. The cops especially think that. Dave and Detective Riordan have been searching the rectory for clues and when they’re not doing that, they’re working hard to find Father’s body in the lagoon and Jack Hoyt Woods and garbage cans because you got to have a dead one to prove something like murder. Troo and me aren’t worried a bit. Well, Troo isn’t.

  The police are also asking everybody a lotta questions about their whereabouts the night Father disappeared. They’re even questioning kids. I got the jitters over that until Troo reminded me that we can count on Artie and Mary Lane. When Artie is grilled, he will keep mum about the revenge plan no matter how high-strung he is. My sister told him if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut about us being up at the rectory that night he has to give back the coonskin cap. And Mary Lane, I’m especially not concerned about her spilling the beans. She’s been tortured by the best in the world—nuns. So detectives asking her a couple of questions wouldn’t bother her at all. (The one thing that is bothering her, though, is why the picture she took of Father up at the rectory slapping Troo that night didn’t turn out. I told her it musta been bad film, but she is leaning toward evil spirits. I expect very soon to hear one heck of a blood-dripping-gypsies-with-wieners ghost story.)

  Everybody has been so caught up in thinking about Father Mickey’s vanishing that they’ve already forgotten about the other big news we’ve had. Mrs. Galecki has come out of her coma! Doc Keller told Mother at her visit this week that it is still nip and tuck, but he has high hopes that Mrs. G will recover—not fully, but at least she might be back to where she was in the first place. Dotty and drooly, but not dead.