The Perfect Place

by Teresa E. Harris

  “Here we are,” Mom says as she makes a sharp right. And now we’re face-to-face with a green and white two-story house that looks like the victim of a serious beat down, with grubby aluminum siding and a porch screen with more holes than screen. Great-Aunt Grace may as well lay out a welcome mat for the mosquitoes.

  The car comes to a halt, and Mom hauls herself out. Then she crosses to open the door on my side. The driveway isn’t even paved. We’ve just pulled up onto the lawn.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she says.

  We stumble out, half blinded by the sun, and the heat hits every square inch of my body. It’s humid in Jersey in July too, but this—this is like being on the inside of somebody’s mouth.

  “Okay,” Mom says, as she crouches down until she’s looking up at both of us. She’s in full powwow mode. “Listen to me and listen good. Great-Aunt Grace does not tolerate nonsense, so from the minute you enter her house until the day you leave, you need to be on your best behavior and more grateful than you’ve ever been. Understood?”

  “What do you mean, until the day we leave?” I ask.

  “Understood?” Mom says again.

  No, I don’t understand, but Mom is already walking up to the house. She pulls open the screen door, crosses the porch to the front door, and rings the bell. “Get over here,” she calls to us impatiently. Tiffany streaks across the lawn. She’s on the porch in no time. I walk like I’ve got bricks strapped to the soles of my shoes.

  Once I’ve joined them, Mom turns to us again. “When you see her, show her how happy you are to be here.”

  I will not show Great-Aunt Grace any such thing. In fact, I won’t even look at her. I’m good at that, keeping my eyes on the ground. I will know her crumbling walkway and stairs, her shoes. I won’t look up into her face, though, I vow. Not the entire time I’m in her presence.

  But I do. Of course I do, the minute we ring the bell and she steps out onto the porch. She is tall and broad-shouldered, with big, thick-fingered hands and feet like stretch limos in black leather sneakers. It’s as if God set out to make a mountain, changed his mind, and made a woman instead.

  Dad told me how he and Mom went to the jail to pick her up that day eight years ago. They got there with a wad of tens and twenties and told the sheriff’s deputy they were there for Grace Washington. He rocked back on his heels and said, “You really ought to leave her here. She’s gone and stolen property from one of Black Lake’s finest citizens. That woman is Public Enemy Number One.” Dad said he thought about taking the deputy up on his offer, seeing as how Great-Aunt Grace had never liked him, but Mom wouldn’t have it.

  “Are you sure?” the deputy asked as he counted the money Dad had given him. “The town sure would appreciate it if she stayed here a while longer.”

  “We’re sure,” Mom snapped.

  The deputy shook his head and went off to fetch Public Enemy Number One.

  To hear Dad tell it, Great-Aunt Grace came strolling out of lockup with one hand in her pocket and a cigarette dangling from her mouth. She was taller than the deputy and almost as tall as Dad, but that didn’t stop her from looking Dad over from head to toe. She said, “I see she hasn’t left you yet.” Then she looked at me and said, “So this is that little girl you been tellin’ me all about, huh, Lisa? Let’s pray she grows into that head.”

  “Surprise!” Mom shouts now. Great-Aunt Grace doesn’t so much as raise an eyebrow and she doesn’t say a thing. The silence stretches like a canyon between us, and Mom starts filling it with words.

  “So, I probably should’ve called first, I know, but we’re in a bit of a crisis. Darryl left again, and I have absolutely no idea where he went but I’m going to find him except I have no money and two girls to take care of and—here they are!” Mom sounds completely delirious. She nudges Tiffany and me forward. Tiffany, wide awake now and always ready for a close-up, smiles up at Great-Aunt Grace like a fool.

  Great-Aunt Grace does not smile back. Instead she takes a pack of cigarettes from her shirt pocket, pulls one out, and lights it. She stares down at us through a cloud of smoke, her eyes sweeping over us like a searchlight. “Gonna be a storm,” she says.

  Seven

  THERE is a storm. Its name is Grace Washington, and she rains down on Mom with questions and judgments in a voice like thunder.

  “You lost your mind, Lisa? You could’ve called first.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, but I need help.”

  “You sure enough do. Can’t just show up on somebody’s doorstep at six in the dang mornin’ with all this baggage.” Our stuff is still in the Explorer. The baggage Great-Aunt Grace is talking about is Tiffany and me, but why? We’re here only till she hands Mom some money.

  Great-Aunt Grace shakes her head. “So, that no-’count man left you again, huh?” she says.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And you gonna find him?”

  Mom nods.

  “But you said you ain’t got no money, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what about these kids?”

  Mom says nothing when she should be saying something, so I do the talking for her. “We’re going with her. Aren’t we, Mom?”

  Mom’s eyes are on the porch floor. Wood painted white, dirty and scuffed in most places. There is an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts on the table and a plastic wastebasket filled to the brim with trash. Does she really intend to leave us here?

  “Mom?”

  Great-Aunt Grace is looking at Mom too, waiting for an answer. Her eyes narrow to slits. She hasn’t even offered to let us in her house or suggested we have a seat on her porch. Instead she points at her screen door and says, “You two, go around back and dig in the dirt or somethin’. Your mama and I got thangs to discuss. And don’t let me find out you standin’ down there on the side, listenin’.”

  “But—” I start up.

  Great-Aunt Grace cuts me off, her voice like a shove in the back. “I said, go on, girl, git.”

  Tiffany and I hurry down the porch steps, around the side of the house, and into Great-Aunt Grace’s backyard, which is nothing but a sea of fenced-in grass with a rundown little shed plopped in the center of it. I take a seat on Great-Aunt Grace’s back stoop. Tiffany lies down on the lawn, waving her arms and legs up and down, making grass angels.

  “It’s kind of pretty here,” she says.

  I can hear my hair frizzing. What I can’t hear is what Mom is saying to Great-Aunt Grace.

  “What if you had to stay here longer than today? Would you freak out?”

  Tiffany sits up, mulling over my question. “Freak is a bad word. How long is longer?”

  “I don’t know, just longer.”

  “I guess I’d be okay, so long as you and Mom stayed too. You guys would stay too, right?”

  I shrug. It’s not my job to tell Tiffany that Mom is about to dump the two of us in Black Lake for who knows how long. Besides, I’m still holding out hope that I’m wrong. Tiffany goes back to making grass angels, and I think about how, if Dad were still around, none of this would be happening. Is he making his way to Florida right now, to find that perfect place for us? I bet that place isn’t at all like Black Lake, with its boxy houses, bumpy dirt roads, and great-aunts who refuse to take out the trash.

  The door opens behind me, and Mom pokes her head out. “Treasure, come here for a minute, will you?”

  I join Mom just inside the kitchen, and I can tell just by looking at her face that she’s already made up her mind.

  “Are you serious?” I shout.

  “It’s only going to be for two weeks—three, tops.”

  “Three weeks!” I stomp my foot. I’m too old to act like this, but I don’t care.

  “Keep your voice down and stop with the feet.” Mom peers through the glass door at Tiffany, who is still sprawled in the grass. She places her hands on my shoulders. “Look at me, Treasure. Look at me.”

  I do. Her face glistens with sweat, and th
ere are dark circles under her eyes.

  “I need you to be a big girl about this and look after your sister while you’re here, okay? Can you do that?” She gives me a little shake.

  I shrug, more to get Mom’s hands off my shoulders than anything else, and I stare at Great-Aunt Grace’s floor. When I look up at Mom, there are tears clinging to her eyelashes.

  “It won’t be so bad, you’ll see, and when I come back with Dad, we’ll leave. Okay?”

  I don’t nod or say okay. Mom sniffles and wipes her eyes with the straps of her tank top. “I’m going outside to tell your sister now. Go out to the front and talk with your great-aunt.”

  “Talk with her about what?”

  “I don’t know. Think of something,” Mom says, and goes out to the backyard.

  I look around Great-Aunt Grace’s kitchen. Everything in it looks old and worn—the sink, the fridge, the stove. There’s a closet adjacent to the back door. I peek inside to find an ancient washer and dryer. I can’t believe Mom is making us stay here. It’s like we’ve traveled back in time.

  I find Great-Aunt Grace still standing on the porch, her hands in her pants pockets. I stay as far away as I can and say, “How old is this house anyway?”

  “Built in 1874.”

  “I can tell.” I wipe away a bead of sweat forming on my brow. “It is unnecessarily hot down here.”

  “All these years and I hadn’t noticed.” Great-Aunt Grace looks me over. “I see you still ain’t grown into that head.”

  “My father says my head is fine.”

  “And you look just like him too—his face is all over yours. Your sister got lucky: she looks like a Washington through and through.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the way me or my dad looks.”

  “No, but there’s sure enough something wrong with the way your daddy is. Can’t tell your fool of a mother that, though. She’s just like her mama, God rest my sister’s soul, don’t know herself outside the man she’s with.”

  I ball my hands into fists. I want to hit Great-Aunt Grace, kick her in both shins, but I can’t move. Can barely speak. “My mom knows who she is. She’s part of an aggregate.”

  “A what?”

  “A group, a collective—Dad, Mom, Tiffany, and me. The best aggregate there ever was.”

  Great-Aunt Grace raises an eyebrow. I hear Tiffany holler all the way from the backyard, “That’s not fair!”

  “Seems to me like you’re more of a trio these days,” Great-Aunt Grace says.

  “But we’re going to fix that.”

  “That’s not fair, Mom. I don’t wanna stay here without you!”

  “And what if you can’t?”

  “I have to pee.”

  “The bathroom is down the hall past the living room, first door on your right.”

  I don’t really have to pee. I stand at the sink and splash cold water on my face until it stops burning, until I can shake Great-Aunt Grace’s words from my head.

  I find Mom, Tiffany, and Great-Aunt Grace in the living room. Tiffany is sniffling but not on the brink of another meltdown, and Mom looks like she’s just run ten miles in the Black Lake heat. Great-Aunt Grace is sitting in a brown armchair. She gestures to her couch, where Mom and Tiffany are already perched. “Sit.”

  I join them, but just barely. It’s a miracle that the four of us can even fit in Great-Aunt Grace’s living room, what with all the junk she’s got crammed into it. There’s unfolded laundry on the couch we’re sitting on and piled-up newspapers on the coffee table beside it. Some of them are yellow with age. The figurines and furniture are coated with grime that seems to be a natural part of them, like moss on a rock.

  The first sneeze sneaks up on me like a bully in the schoolyard.

  “A-choo!”

  My whole body jerks.

  “A-choo! A-choo! A-choooo!”

  I try to cover my mouth, but the sneezes are mini-explosions bursting out of me. By the time I’m done, the palm of my hand is covered with all kinds of nastiness and my eyes are watering something serious.

  I’m going to die here.

  “No, you’re not,” Mom says quickly.

  Did I say that out loud?

  I look up to see Great-Aunt Grace glaring at me. Guess I did. Oh, well.

  “I’m going to die here,” I say again.

  Mom turns to Great-Aunt Grace. “She’s not.” She turns to me. “You’re not.”

  And she gives me a look that says, Please, please, please keep your mouth shut.

  I wipe my nose on the neck of my T-shirt. Everyone is staring at me now, including Great-Aunt Grace. I stare right back.

  “So, here you two are, in the flesh. Treasure and Tiffany,” she says.

  “And this is Mr. Teddy Daniels,” Tiffany says, holding up her bear.

  She was never any good at feeling out a situation.

  Great-Aunt Grace shoots Tiffany a look that could turn her and Mr. Teddy D. into ash. Tiffany sniffles and looks down at her sneakers and sea-green socks. I realize now that the initials of Great-Aunt Grace spell GAG. And that she doesn’t have a tooth in her head. Her mouth looks like a bottomless pit.

  “So you’re definitely okay with the girls staying for a bit?” Mom asks.

  “I reckon I am, but for a short while. And I do mean short, Lisa. They just better keep their hands off my figurines.” For some reason she looks at Tiffany when she says this. Tiffany’s still looking down at her shoes and sea-green socks. “I’ve only got one other bedroom, so if y’all don’t want to share, someone will be bunkin’ in here with Mr. Shuffle.”

  She nods at the far corner of the living room. There, amid the clutter, lies the biggest black cat I’ve ever seen, spread out on the carpet like an oil spill. Tiffany and I look back and forth from Great-Aunt Grace to Mr. Shuffle.

  “Well, he don’t shuffle much no more, as it were,” Great-Aunt Grace says. “I’ll show y’all to your room, but don’t be expectin’ no grand tour.”

  She starts out of the living room and we follow, turning left down the hall where the bathroom is. We go up a flight of stairs at the end of the hall and find another bathroom at the top. Great-Aunt Grace’s room is right across from it. Tiffany and I will share the bedroom at the end of the hallway. That’s still not far enough away from Great-Aunt Grace for me, but my only other option is to sleep outside.

  The room has two twin beds with a night table between them. The carpet is blue. There are no pictures on the walls or cheery figurines on the nightstands. But there is a clock, which reads 6:24 a.m. Sleeping here will be like sleeping in a jail cell. A jail cell that smells like mothballs. At least this room is cleaner than the living room. One thing is missing, though.

  “Where’s the TV?” Tiffany asks, her eyes raking over the space. “There wasn’t one in the living room either.”

  “Ain’t got one. I didn’t get this whip-smart sittin’ in front of the TV all the Lord’s day long. TV rots the brain, girl.”

  I don’t know if it’s the sad look on Tiffany’s face that makes me do it, or my growing dislike of Great-Aunt Grace. But the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Whip-smart, huh? Smart people know the difference between ‘got’ and ‘have,’ and that ‘ain’t’ is not a word.”

  The room gets so quiet you’d think we were at a wake. Mom looks at me, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, her face saying what her mouth does not: What did I tell you before we came inside? Tiffany looks at me too. In awe, like she knows as well as I do that I’m seconds away from the end of my life.

  Great-Aunt Grace takes a step toward me, and all the solid stuff in me turns to liquid. Just as I’m thinking about darting by her and out the door—how fast could she be?—she stops and points her finger at me like a gun.

  “You’s a sassy-mouthed thing. But let me tell you something, Miss Treasure. I’ve got decades on you. Seen more than you, done more than you, heard more than you. So, girl, you better watch your mouth, or me and you gonna dance. And I can guar
antee who will be the winner.”

  Great-Aunt Grace doesn’t raise her voice, but my face is on fire all the same. She stares at me long and hard, and even though I feel about six inches tall, I stare right back at her. Her eyes are black as the night sky and red around the edges. She’s got this staring thing down. I look away first.

  “Now the rules,” Great-Aunt Grace says. “First off, I don’t take no sass. I think we’ve established that. Rule Number Two: No noise after eight o’clock. Face like this takes years of rest to come by.”

  Great-Aunt Grace’s face has more lines than a crossword puzzle. But I’ve learned my lesson. I keep my mouth shut.

  “Rule Number Three: Clean up behind yourselves. I ain’t a maid.”

  Great-Aunt Grace reaches into her bulging shirt pocket and pulls out her pack of cigarettes. She bangs it against the palm of her hand. “That should just about cover it. Y’all get some sleep. When you get up, I’ll have breakfast on the table.”

  She turns to leave, but not before fixing me with one last glare hot enough to burn a hole through my face.

  Eight

  MOM is on me quicker than fast. “What’s wrong with you? Are you trying to tick her off?”

  “It’s not my fault she’s a misanthrope.”

  “She isn’t a misanthrope.” Mom massages her temples. “What is that, anyway?”

  “A person who hates other people.”

  “She doesn’t hate anyone. She’s just not one for company.”

  “She’s mean. I’m going to call her Gag. G.A.G—Great-Aunt Grace. Get it?”

  “You’d better not,” Mom says.

  “She is mean,” Tiffany agrees. “I smiled at her, and she didn’t even smile back at me. And I’m adorable. Ms. Regmont from 3F said so.”

  “Ms. Regmont has two hairless cats,” I say.

  “So?” Tiffany says.

  “So I’m not sure she has the best handle on the concept of adorable.”

  Tiffany’s hands fly to her hips. “Are you saying I’m not cute?”