Girl in Reverse (9781442497368)

by Stuber, Barbara

  So the slippers fit together in my notebook, but not in real life.

  I feel Gone Mom is here with us. I imagine Sister Evangeline struggling to comfort her the day she left me. I imagine Sister Evangeline trying to do the same with three-year-old me minutes later.

  We are quiet a long while.

  “So you took the slipper out of my box? Kept it separate?”

  “Lien asked me to, so it would be safe, unbroken.”

  “Did you suspect her connection to the museum?”

  “I was curious. I’ve spent quite a bit of time there. I knew of Dr. Benton’s legendary travels in China. And, yes, I saw the mate in the Chinese collection and began to suspect.” She pauses, looks off. “Have you told anyone about him?”

  “No! Just you. I can’t tell anyone, ever. Neither can you. What if I hadn’t come back to the orphanage? Would you have just kept my slipper forever?”

  “No! When you turned eighteen I’d have figured out a way to give it to you.” Evangeline pauses and shakes her head. “That little slipper has created a powerful dilemma in me over the years. I knew that if I had given it to your parents it could have gotten broken or discarded. And I knew how critical it was to Lien that you have it.”

  “Do you believe she wanted me to find him?”

  “Yes.”

  I sit, my mind running in circles. I imagine the huge responsibility Evangeline felt trying to do the right and honest thing. I am sure I am not the only child who arrived there with complicated secrets left to her safekeeping.

  “Actually I’ve just started a part-time job at the museum information desk. All the color! Inspiration!” She taps the side of her head. “I can already match visitors with the art they’ll like the moment they arrive.”

  “So do you direct little girls to paintings with lots of pink?”

  “Yes, I do. Pissarro. O’Keeffe. Monet. Cassatt.” She smiles, raises and twists her fist like she’s holding a rein. “And now, after your helpful suggestion, I will direct little boys to Remington.”

  “Remington?”

  “Western scenes. Cowboys and Indians,” she says. “Oh, and by the way, the Chinese art expert will ride back into town in the middle of April.”

  I let this fact slide right through my head. I glance at her nightstand. Jane Eyre is on top, with fabric scraps used as bookmarks. “I’m reading this too, for English extra credit,” I say.

  Evangeline reaches down for the book, thumbs through it. “So many quotes I like. This is my favorite at the moment.” She glances up at me and reads. “ ‘If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results.’ ”

  She gets paper and pen. I leave with the quote in my pocket.

  Chapter 29

  “You should have heard Mrs. Chow,” I say to Mr. Howard. “I went by their shop to find an early birthday present for my brother. She was really wound up. I think that the stories about the hard lives girls have in China are not something she has just read about; she’s lived it. If I told her my whole story she’d say pfft! and put me to work chopping cabbage. She’s carved out a new life for herself and her family in Kansas City. Plus they have their son in Michigan they are so proud of.”

  Mr. Howard grimaces, hoists the tall art room waste can, and dumps it into a bag on his janitor cart. I know he and his family have had their own outrages to bear. He leans on his broom. “Sounds like you’ve really been doin’ some research with Auntie Chow.”

  “A little.”

  Mr. Howard says, “The Chows’ son, the medical student who hung the moon, is planning to marry a white woman, and in some states that’s against the law. And even as open-minded as they are, they will still struggle to chisel her name on the ancestral tablets.”

  The door bangs open. Elliot comes in, puts his art folder on the table, and shoots me a furious look. I step back, glance at Mr. Howard and back to Elliot. The air sizzles. “Somebody in this school thinks I like you,” he growls.

  Mr. Howard gulps. “Say what?”

  Elliot’s fuming. “Somebody knows I like Lily.”

  Well . . . wow.

  Mr. Howard steps up, stops Elliot with a look that screams, Good, it’s about time! He taps the air with his index finger, his eyes flashing. “I don’t get it. What’s wrong with having the whole world know it? I know it. Am I the party you are speaking of? I knew you liked Lily before you knew it. Although at this moment I am quite sure Lily doesn’t know it.”

  “It’s not that.” Elliot braces himself. “Okay . . . I like Lily,” he states again, as if I am not floating two feet away. “And someone, besides me and you, knows it too.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you already said that,” Mr. Howard remarks, as if this is the continuation of a normal conversation, which it is not.

  Elliot pulls the charcoal-and-chalk drawing he did for the Fine Arts Showcase from his portfolio. It’s Atalanta and Meleager of the sweaty, twisted bodies. Their perfectly shaded arms and legs are entwined, wrapped in drapery. It’s beautiful, muscley. It is a world apart from what anybody else in our school could do, and it has a blue ribbon.

  Elliot points to the woman, Atalanta. Mr. Howard leans in, straightens up fast, sparks shooting from his eyes. “Shit!”

  I look. Someone has drawn a droopy, Fu Manchu mustache on Atalanta in blue ink. I understand it instantly. Elliot James likes a chink.

  The insult pokes tears right out of my eyes. I cover my face.

  “Weapons come in all shapes, from mustaches to machine guns,” Mr. Howard says.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  Mr. Howard holds up his hand. “Stop the music! For what?” he snaps. He turns to me, his voice softens. “Why in all of heaven and earth should you be sorry, Lily? Don’t think I don’t see all that you go through every day at this school. Are you apologizing for being liked ?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. . . .” For my whole mixed-up-ness. For triggering this awfulness.

  Mr. Howard points. “As I’ve said before, the worst war, the worst discrimination, is what we feel against ourselves. Do not draw a mustache on your own face, Miss Firestone.”

  Elliot looks grim. He stares out the window, his fingers twitching. He is seeing something Mr. Howard and I don’t. Mr. Howard swipes his hand in front of Elliot’s face. “Excuse me, Mr. James, but let us pause a moment here before you go shooting off with your pencil loaded. Since you purportedly like somebody in our immediate vicinity”—he flips his hand in my direction—“who has just been party to this repulsive act of discrimination—which only disgraces the person who did it, by the way—you might offer a bit of a touch to her, a consolation, a drip of the sweet nectar of humanity.” He points first to the defaced drawing, then to me. “That is a drawing, Elliot; this is a person.”

  Elliot turns to me and says slowly, “It’s not the drawing I care about.”

  Flutter. Float. “Okay . . .”

  Elliot squeezes his fists. “I’ve gotta go now, Lily. Bye.” And he bolts out of the room, pulled by a plan only he knows.

  Mr. Howard and I exchange a long look. No doubt we’re thinking the same thing—imagining someone walking past, checking the scene, grabbing a pen, and in a split second swiping the drawing. Someone all charged up, maybe even with an audience. “It was probably Neil Bradford or his friend Steve,” I say. I remember the day I trapped Anita and Steve in the hall and how stupid I felt afterward.

  Mr. Howard isn’t buying it. “You don’t know that. It could be anybody . . . somebody you least expect . . . even Miss Arth.” He straddles a stool. Elliot’s drawing lies on the table beside us. “He’s a genius artwise, I’ve gotta admit it. How could anybody mark on this?” Mr. Howard turns, nails me with a look. “Do not let the mark get on you.”

  I nod, but Mr. Howard and I both know the truth—it already has.

&
nbsp; I sit down. His gaze stays on me, strong and direct. Silence. Tears come, and then this stunning gush of stored-up awfulness out of my mouth. “Lots of the time here I feel like a yellow locker creature. Everybody sidesteps me. I was so dumb, I thought geisha girls were Chinese, for God’s sake. The whole world knows I’m adopted. Hard feelings are piling up at home. I’ve got a rice face. Not once has any guy even shown one ounce of interest in me.” I wave my hand at Elliot’s drawing. “And now this!”

  I cover my cheeks and sob. Mr. Howard sits. The clock ticks in reverse.

  “Are you finished?” he asks finally.

  “I guess.”

  “So, according to you, Elliot’s pretty dumb to like you.”

  Silence.

  Mr. Howard rubs his whiskers. “Does he have any idea if you like him?”

  I slump on the stool, shake my head. “I don’t know. . . . No! I’ve never . . .”

  “So . . . you’ve got your guard up. Getting sunk inside can make a person kinda . . .”

  “Clammed up,” I say.

  “Exactly.” He pats his heart. “It can cut a person off right here.”

  We sit quietly for a long moment, then Mr. Howard motions for me to stand up. We face each other. His expression says he is viewing something glorious. He raises an invisible torch in his fist. I know exactly what he’s doing—saluting the flame in me.

  * * *

  Friday night. Joy sleeps on the foot of my bed. Why? Mother is in Wichita for the weekend visiting her great-aunt, who is ill again. She did not want to go. She never wants to go there. Ralph says it feels like the house has taken its girdle off for three whole days. Ahh . . .

  The doorbell rings. I check the clock. Almost eight. Ralph nearly knocks himself out racing downstairs to answer it. A male voice—then Dad’s. My nerves chatter. Stomach somersaults. “Come in.”

  Oh, God . . . oh, God . . . Is it Michael Benton?

  Ralph yells, “LILY! ” loud enough to start the neighborhood dogs barking.

  God! My fathers are chitchatting.

  I cannot go down there. I will climb to the attic and hide under the tarp. Ralph runs upstairs. “Lily! It’s the guy, you know, the . . .”

  “Michael Benton! ” I screech. “Oh, God.” I burst into tears.

  Ralph’s mouth hangs open. Blink. Blink. “Who? That guy from the museum?”

  “Dr. Benton!”

  “No! Are you crazy? Yes, you are crazy. It’s what’s-his-name . . . Michelangelo.”

  I gasp. I sink onto the edge of my bed, my nerves out of gas.

  Elliot.

  Ralph raises his eyebrows. “He brought his drawing stuff.”

  Elliot sitting in Old Smoky in our living room! Elliot and my father talking. God. What on earth can Elliot be saying? I kick slippers off. Pull socks up. Select loafers. Apply Tangee. Remove Tangee. Pinch. Pat. Lick lips. Descend.

  He’s three feet taller than my father, or maybe it’s his electric hair. “I wasn’t sure you’d be home. I came by about the cartoon,” Elliot says.

  Dad’s expression reads, Cartoon?

  “Wow” cannot work its way out of my mouth. Nothing works its way from my mouth except a silent squeak.

  “I have an idea for it,” he says.

  Dad does one of his meaningless “ho-ho-ho” laughs. I assume it’s supposed to convey a crazy-teenager tone, and for the first time in recorded history I am actually grateful for his filling the moment with something . . . anything.

  Ralphie springs into action. “Hey, Dad, I need your help with this Scout thingy, upstairs, it’s a construction materials quiz.”

  We all know it’s a cheat. Ralph to the rescue.

  “Have you had your turn for current events yet?” Elliot asks, his hands in his pockets. He is standing in front of a photograph of me holding my newborn brother in a blanket. I have a toothy grin and two huge hair bows that look like crushed antlers.

  “No,” I say, remembering I have legs. We walk into the kitchen and sit at the table.

  Ralph darts in. “Sorry!” He yanks the freezer open, shakes two Eskimo Pies from a box, and runs out.

  “D . . . do you want something? Coke?”

  “Coffee would be good.”

  Coffee. Coffee . . . of course he’d want the thing I can’t . . . Shut up. Just get the percolator and . . . God. Put coffee scoops in the basket, water, lid, plug in. Pray.

  Elliot unloads his newsprint pad onto the kitchen table and slides a paper out. I find the bottle opener, carry my Coke and his coffee mug to the table, and glance down at Neil Bradford’s horrible current events cartoon of the Chinese tank crushing the United Nations. “I got it off the bulletin board,” Elliot says.

  I stand with a hand over my mouth, my face burning, my eyes shifting between the cartoon and Elliot. I step back. “Why’d you bring this? Is it supposed to be a joke?”

  “No! Wait.” He pats the cartoon. “You’ll see, Lily. Really!”

  I stand, fist around my bottle. Elliot squints at me. Grabs his pencil. “Okay, Lily, that’s perfect. Exactly what I need. Now raise the Coke and look up like you’re carrying a torch. Turn so I can get your profile, straighten your spine, twist a little, and step forward. Now freeze!”

  “What’s going on?” I say with my eyes fixed on the Aunt Jemima box on top of the refrigerator.

  “Just do it, for God’s sake. Please?”

  He sketches, rips the page off, and starts over. His whole body is drawing. Elliot and his art locked together, entwined at my kitchen table. Ticking clock. Ralph and Dad laughing upstairs. Refrigerator clicks on, shudders off.

  He sits back. Rubs his eyes. Stretches. “Can I see it?” I ask.

  “Not yet. Not until it’s all finished.” He looks at me, almost smiles, his voice low. “I wish I could draw it in color. Your hair’s got gold and auburn tints in it.”

  I swipe my head, as if I’ll feel it shimmering. Heat rises up my neck. “W—what’s this for?”

  “You’ll see. You’ll know.” Elliot closes his drawing pad, steps over to me, and tilts my chin up. I am washed through by something—liquid lightning?

  Dad or Ralph or a herd of camels chooses this moment to clomp across the ceiling. Elliot looks up, then at me. He brushes his fingers over my cheeks and lips as if erasing the awful ink marks once and for all. He gathers his supplies. “Good night, Lily Firestone.” And he’s out the front door.

  * * *

  I have waved Elliot James good-bye, vowed to never wash my face, and fainted on my bed. If somebody asked me to describe him at this very second, I’d say: totally unpredictable, tall, messy-cute, art genius, awkward but not that awkward, and not like anybody else. I used to believe he was pure egomaniac with stuck-up tendencies, but now he’s creating something mysterious for me, which is a million times more than I’ve done for him.

  Snap judgments can snap you back.

  Elliot James has also temporarily rescued me from obsessing over the other tall art person—Dr. Michael Benton. Even though the phantom has left Kansas City he’s everywhere—coming up our front walk in the form of the postman, driving the car beside us at a red light, seated next to Ralph at the barbershop. Crazy, crazy.

  Ralph is, of course, saying the inevitable. “So, your weird mood and all . . . is ’cause of Elliot what’s-his-name, isn’t it?” Or yesterday when I brought him a fresh fish head from the Chows, he popped his face into the space at the top of the attic stairs and said in a fake Chinese accent, “Oh . . . you speak? Hau yu? So glad you return to long-lost brother. Pigeons fussy, worry about honorable sister who all kissy now. Lowly ignored pigeons need good luck too. You go Chow House? Fishy date? You and honored boyfriend play kissy-kissy egg-roll lip all time now?”

  I say good! Let Ralph believe I’m all kissy-moody-whatever. I can’t talk to him about Elliot and I am not ready to talk to anyone about the phantom and how I’m exploding inside out.

  * * *

  When Mother got home Dad didn’t mention Ell
iot’s visit. I think Ralph gets credit for that move. And my mother is so carefully attended by her kitty godmother, she does not yet detect the secret intruders from my past.

  I thumb through my notebook, past my recipe for bird’s nest soup and Jane Eyre quotes, and find a blank page. I am going to draw my family tree, intruders and all, using an original code of initials Ralph would envy. I start with a branch for infant me born to Michael Benton and Lien Loo. I add some bamboo shoots that look weird and erase them. On another branch I draw toddler me with Evangeline Wilkerson as my mother and my older sister Nancy beside me. I leave a bunch of unnamed leaves on this branch for my other Mercy orphan sisters in the dorm. Above Evangeline’s initials are two blank branches for her birth mother and father and another official branch for the mother who raised her: Sister Immaculata. Next to Evangeline is a leaf named “½” for her currently missing half brother. Another whole branch is for the almost-in-kindergarten me, adopted daughter of Donald and Vivian. Ralph is beside me. I add our four-legged child, Joy. And on still another branch is high school me with a twig connected to my new Auntie Chow. I’m not sure where the pagan babies I helped adopt in grade school fit, so I draw a bunch of little unidentified, baptized angels, except one I specifically got to name in the third grade: Rita Marie.

  I close my notebook, realizing I’ve left out Mother’s great-aunt in Wichita. Oh well. . . .

  In my mind I see Michael Benton’s ghosty finger with its ghosty wedding ring pointing to an empty spot beside him. I shudder. Enemy intruders on every branch.

  Chapter 30

  April 2, 1951

  Dear Dr. Benton,

  I will be in the Buddhist temple at 3:45 p.m. on Friday, April 13. I need to retrieve my belonging. You can leave it on the bench by the bodhisattva.

  Thank you.

  I slip the letter out of Dad’s typewriter. No signature. Not even an initial.

  Mother drones in my head—Don’t live in reverse. But my slipper is part of that “reverse,” and I want it back. The thought of Evangeline keeping her word to Gone Mom and saving it for me all these years makes me stand up. Literally.