Mrs. Dupree makes soothing Mmmmmhmmm sounds as I go, which makes me want to keep talking. “Scout’s a little like me, just having a father to raise her.” But she had more courage, for sure.
“True. That’s true. She is a determined young lady.”
“I want to write to her,” I say. “To Ms. Lee, I mean.”
The rolling pin stops and Mrs. Dupree looks at me, through me. “You should, Sarah. People should never have stopped writing letters, even the ones they have no intention of sending. People should especially write those.”
Mr. Wistler would like Mrs. Dupree. Why haven’t I spent more time with her before? She is wonderful and kind, and here I am leaving. Maybe I won’t leave forever. Just go away one year, become an anonymous seventh grader, and then come back as a whole new person.
“Would you care to help me with this pie, Sarah?” What I would care to do is curl up here and hide, read every book under this roof, learn every recipe she knows.
“Yes.”
She puts a dishcloth around my waist, secures it in the pockets of my shorts, then stands behind me, laying her lined hands over mine, putting my palms on the rolling pin just right. I feel more happiness than a person can stand.
“You are a dear to help me,” she says. “This one will be for your father, okay?”
“It’s no trouble,” I tell her.
“You are a sweet young lady,” Mrs. Dupree says. “Raised up right.” Saying this makes her cry, and so it makes me want to cry, too. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll cry over a turnip these days.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her.
I know exactly how she feels. Another person in the house with you can make a huge difference sometimes.
We put two pies in the oven, and I wash the dishes while she sits and dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“That sweet boy Finn reminds me of my son,” she says. “He’s a nice one.”
“Thank you for letting me have the special book.”
“Mr. Dupree would want you to have it. Because you know it’s special. You know, I think we have a biography of Nelle somewhere, which would make a nice complement to your library, I should think.”
Mrs. Dupree folds her handkerchief into a perfect square. “If Mr. Dupree were here, he’d know exactly where it is.” She trails off, caught by the loss as if it just happened. I want to hug her tight in a way I’ve never wanted to hug anyone. I check my brain for the right thing to say, but all that comes out is “In your own words, what is interesting about her story?”
I sound dumb, I know, with Mr. Wistler’s words coming out of my dumb mouth in this dumb moment.
Mrs. Dupree puts a finger to her chin and thinks on my question for a moment.
“Well, her relationship with her mother, for one. From what I understand, her mother practically ignored her,” Mrs. Dupree says. “And her sisters saved her twice from drowning. Or so the rumor goes. Her friend Mr. Capote said that, but you just don’t know about those things. People love a good piece of gossip because it makes them feel special inside of a minute.”
Boy, do I understand exactly what Mrs. Dupree is saying about people. And now, of course, I want to learn about Truman Capote, too.
“The thing to remember, Sarah, is that Ms. Lee wrote a fine book, and that’s what we know for sure. That’s a fact.”
Normally, I would stare at the floor, but I hold on to her warm gaze. I feel naked right here. This part of my life that involves having a crazy mother is not going to let me go no matter what I do. And the same is true for Dad. The news will always follow us. I am starting to think it might be a good idea for me and Dad to live in two different places. For me to move on. Sometimes in Westerns, two cowboys decide to split up and take two different paths. This confuses the person following them. It makes them harder to track, safer somehow. As much as I don’t want to leave Garland, getting ready to leave is still the smart thing to do. I will have to research what Harper Lee did about her own family.
“Sarah, are you okay?” Mrs. Dupree asks me.
I realize I’ve been zoning out again.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. And then, “Did she go crazy?”
“Who?”
“Ms. Lee? Because of her mother?”
“Heavens no, dear! What a thing to say.”
“Stuff runs in families.”
“Well, that can be true, but people are usually what they make up their minds to be, no matter who they came from.”
I have a million more questions. My mind writes a list of facts:
There is another person in the world who survived like me.
She wrote a book.
She is not crazy.
She says, “I’ll let you know when I’ve found her biography.” But I am already picturing myself checking the biography out of the library the minute I can get a ride from Finn or Charlotte.
We sit together at her small, square table while the pies bake and the apple-shaped clock tick, tick, ticks. I am at least smart enough to ask her more questions about where she’s traveled, let her talk uninterrupted so my mind can roam free for a little bit. How you can already miss someone when you are in the same room with them, I have no idea. But I do. I miss her right now, and I haven’t even packed my suitcase yet. She touches that achy spot where my mother should be.
Chapter 28
It’s a Saturday morning and I am shopping with Charlotte. She wants new shoes to wear to Mr. Dupree’s funeral on Sunday, but I know better. She wants to be at the mall so she can walk by Wilson’s Western Wear and let the nonvaliant rake get a good look at what he’s missing. She says they are broken up, but I’m not so sure. She’s put on lip gloss and perfume, and you wouldn’t get made up to go shopping with a twelve-year-old. Even I know this.
First, we go to Starbucks to get a double-shot/heavy foam/latte, though it’s so hot outside I think this might have been a ridiculous/double-insane idea. Ha-ha! Charlotte says she must have black closed-toe sling backs, though I don’t see why. She has a million pairs of shoes already but still wants more. I do not pretend to understand this about her. I yawn. Shopping is only fun if you have money, which I don’t. She slides on the tenth pair of almost identical shoes and I nod my approval.
“So, what’s the real story about Casserole Man?” I’ve been waiting to find out what happened behind the scenes and to see if Lisa’s first-breakup theory is correct.
“I don’t know. He has his moments. I’m not even sure I still think I’m in love,” she says. “The whole chemistry with us is different now.”
“Why?” I ask, which is a single-word question hiding one hundred questions behind it.
She considers a pair of silver sandals. The store lights hit them in full brilliance and you would think they were precious jewels.
“Well, I’m just going to play hard to get, is all,” she says. “He cares about me and I want to see more of it.” From what I saw the other night, there’s nothing more to Christopher than a stupid jerk.
“He is just so in my face, you know. Wants to be with me. Wants to have his hand on my shoulder. Read what I’ve written. Talk about it over an espresso,” she says. “It’s all too tight like an itchy sweater.”
This all sounds pretty peachy to me. Plus, you can always put a T-shirt under an itchy sweater to make it feel better. But since I know she doesn’t want the truth, I leave her to her delusion, which is my new favorite word.
delusion n.: a false belief or opinion
It’s clear that Charlotte is not the expert at relationships I thought she was.
Finn joins us at a square table in the middle of the mall food court. Their mother is coming home from her cruise tomorrow, so he is practicing staying out of her way. I wish the truth was he was there to hang out with me, but no, this is not so. I pretend it is true, though.
I eat a de-lish slice of pepperoni pizza and slurp my Coke, knowing how ungraceful it is, but liking the sound of it just the same. I think it is another side of me that i
sn’t quite a real woman yet. Before you know it, Christopher has plopped down next to us and is all smiles. He thinks we’ve forgotten about his dark side.
“Charlotte, we’re leaving in ten,” Finn says.
“I’m ready now,” she replies, and then gets up to throw out her trash. It doesn’t dawn on stupid Christopher that he should leave now.
Finn leans back in his chair and gives me a wide smile that goes straight into my heart. I have to look at the floor or it will show. I find a mashed open ketchup wrapper and pretend it is the most interesting object in the world.
“Hello! Earth to Sarah? Are you still in space?”
“What? No.”
“Good,” he says. “I need your help. We have a mission.”
First of all, I would never come to the Vikon El Bazaar Flea Market by myself, even though it is the strangest and coolest mall you’d ever want to see. For example, if you need a fake ID, a puppy, and a pullout sofa, this is the place for you. Finn has boxed up Mrs. Dupree’s books to sell, and this is the place for them, too.
The whole building is a giant maze, and you’d better memorize how you got in so you can get back out. There are so many different booths stacked high with stuff, each one divided by a thin wall made out of white wood. The only thing connecting the shops are chains of multicolored Christmas lights strung up along the ceiling.
When you walk by the stalls, it feels more like you are on display. The salespeople sit in chairs, chewing on toothpicks, just waiting for you to admire a velvet Elvis or a giant pair of white-framed sunglasses so they can say, “How much would you want to pay for this?”
Being with Charlotte and Finn makes me feel confident enough, but I stay close because I am a tiny bit scared by how many eyes are on me. We each carry a cardboard box to the used-book stall. I browse the shelves while Finn makes the deal. I would stay in this tiny library forever, but Charlotte spots a vintage-clothing area and off she goes. We follow her and immediately it’s as if we are inside an old woman’s closet. There are at least five glossy armoires, their doors hanging open like wooden arms. The shelves are draped with scarves and beaded necklaces and brooches with fake diamonds. Shoes lined up on gold, mirror-backed shelves. An old woman’s powdery scent is all over the place.
I run my fingers across a line of clothes. What if these dresses could talk? Did some beautiful young girl with bright red lipstick get engaged in this dress?
And the purses. They are in all colors and shapes and almost look brand-new. Whoever owned them either took good care of them or didn’t go anywhere. My purse always looks beat-up and old, but not in the good way.
It comes to me suddenly how more of Mr. Dupree’s things might end up hanging in this kind of store. Who would want them, I don’t know. What do you do with a person’s things when they don’t live with you anymore?
Now Charlotte has found the mother lode of hats inside a giant ivory-colored armoire. We take turns modeling them in front of a long mirror.
Charlotte has a dark pink hat with a feathery plume coming off it. I have a classic black pillbox, and I know its name only because Charlotte tells me so. It doesn’t exactly go with my shorts and flip-flops, but maybe if I had a simple black dress, I would look like I belonged back in time, standing on a train platform, waiting to be taken away. And then he, whoever he is, would step onto the platform and smile at me. Since I don’t know what he would look like, I insert Finn’s face into the picture, a blue suit matching his eyes so well you could see them across the crowd.
I tell my brain to knock it off and stop pretending I am a movie star. I don’t know why my mind runs away with me.
Finn appears in the mirrored reflection behind us, swinging his arm around my shoulder. Something loosens in me and makes my neck go red. There he is in a gentleman’s bowler hat, or so he calls it.
“You two are definitely going to be arrested by the fashion police,” Charlotte says.
“Or start a new fashion trend,” I say.
Finn decides we should all buy the hats anyway. His treat. He says hats make a woman look as pretty from the back as she is from the front. We’ll wear them to the funeral for Mr. Dupree. Go there in style to make Mrs. Dupree smile. That’s exactly how he says it.
Chapter 29
It is Sunday and I am sitting on my bed, picking fuzz balls from my stupid pink comforter, trying to figure out why I am smarter than Charlotte. She had another fight with Christopher. Why would you fight with someone if you’ve already broken up with them is what I want to know. Still, I’m trying to be encouraging. I don’t want her thinking I was a bad friend after I’ve gone, but even a blind man can see Christopher is no good. She is still suffering from delusion.
I tried to help. I told her the sixth secret of boys.
His actions will always reveal more than his words.
On the phone, I tell her to make a list of the hard facts about him.
I say, “When you write things on paper, it’s as if your hand knows more than your mind. I don’t know why, but it’s true.” I should know. I have two diaries. Plus, Mr. Wistler says so.
But now I have my own things to worry about. Does my private crush on Finn show on my face? I have to make a list of my own. He’ll go back to school and in ten years we’ll meet again at a bookstore, have a cup of coffee, talk about words, and he’ll remember what a great girl I am and realize I am the love of his life. I already know he is mine.
The facts are right there:
- He knows my secret and wasn’t mean.
- He loves the dictionary.
- I will never get tired of looking at his blue eyes.
- He bought me a hat.
I stare at my list while Charlotte complains into the phone, “He is just so clingy and has some personal things going on that, well, make him needy, which I understand. Besides, I have too much on my plate, so I think I’m going to break up with him.” What I want to say is that she is also a little needy, but I don’t. She might not tell me things about boys anymore if I point out the obvious flaws in her logic.
After we hang up, I am plenty distracted by thoughts of Finn, thinking about his arm around my shoulder. I can’t wait to see him again. I try to read from Harper Lee’s book until it’s time for the funeral. This is my third time to read it. I am at the part where they have taken Tom Robinson to jail and a bunch of angry people demand that Atticus move away from the jailhouse door. The tension is so real, I can feel it in my bones. I am right there in Alabama, wondering what’s going to happen next, wanting to shout back at those men to mind their own business and go home, which is sort of what happens when Scout talks to them. I don’t know why I like this part so much.
Dad is pleased I’m reading this book again, and he says he wants to “make an appointment with me to discuss it over ice cream.” Although when he sees it around the house, he gripes at me about keeping the book facedown, splayed open instead of putting a bookmark in its pages. I forget how much an old thing is worth.
The garage door screeches open, and I know it’s time to go say good-bye to Mr. Dupree.
“See you later, Plant,” I whisper. “I’ll tell you a great story when I get back. Here’s a cliff-hanger: I will look different when I return.”
The funeral made me cry more than once, but mostly when I stood by Mrs. Dupree as she looked into the casket.
“There’s my best friend, right there,” she said. “Every day when he left the house, he’d shout to me, ‘Thanks for saying yes, hon.’ ”
She put one arm around my waist and hugged me to her. Then she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, a real cotton cloth square with an embroidered D on it. Even the way Mrs. Dupree cries is sublime, which is my new favorite word.
sublime adj.: impressing the mind with a sense of grandeur or power; inspiring awe
When I get enough money, I will get my own handkerchiefs. They will go along with my new woman status. Plus, I am wearing a pretty sleeveless black dress; my new, old black pillbox
hat; and perfectly applied mascara, thank you very much. When I looked in the bathroom mirror, I saw a person who could almost be sixteen. Maybe seventeen if I had pearls and pierced ears. I mentally add to my travel list: get ears pierced. I might as well get in trouble for a bunch of things all at once.
At the reception, I hear Mrs. Dupree tell a guest about tomorrow’s family-only burial for Mr. Dupree. I wish I could go, too, just to see him safe into the ground. I’ve never seen that part of a funeral, or any part of a funeral for that matter. I suppose I was at Simon’s funeral, but who can remember things when you are two or three? I hope people said nice things about him that day.
Tonight the friends of Mr. Dupree help themselves to a reception in a wide-open church room with—you guessed it—casseroles. There are casseroles of every kind. Chicken. Beef. Macaroni. Mystery.
I collect bits of conversation about Mr. Dupree. If I add everything together, it all amounts to one thing: When you hear how people talk about a man after he’s dead, you want to live an interesting life, give them a reason to say, “I miss that person.”
Mrs. Dupree dabs at her eyes each time someone tells a story about her husband. Her handkerchief will be soaked at this rate, so I wish they’d stop talking. She is trying to be so strong. Her son, I’ve noticed, is pretty silent about it all, which makes me like him even less. He took his sweet time getting to Texas. What did he have to do when he arrived? Finn and I had all the books organized and boxed up, her garage swept, and Mr. Dupree’s car washed, leaving him plenty of opportunities to come up with something good to say.
Sure Signs of Crazy Page 13