“You girls go in,” Alba said, opening the door to her room. “And you guys stay there!” she yelled at the pups, but as soon as she kicked one out, another one sneaked in.
“Didn’t I tell you it was pretty?” Iris whispered, as she scanned the amenities of the preteen sanctuary. Iris watched Lily’s eyes widen in admiration as they roamed over the canopy bed draped in lilac linens with flounces and frills, purple bookshelves stacked with a collection of hardcover books Alba could read whenever she wanted without going to the library, a vanity that lit up like the kind you would see in a movie star’s dressing room, a white chair and matching desk where crumpled copies of 16 magazine and half-used bottles of nail polish were scattered among discarded penny-candy wrappers and a glass jar full of Tootsie Rolls and Mary Janes. Lily licked her lips. “Can we have one, Alba?” Lily asked, as soon as Alba shut the door on the dogs. Iris looked at Lily and sighed.
“I guess so, just one each though.”
“Thank you, Alba,” Iris said loudly, hoping Lily would get the hint.
“Thank you, Alba,” Lily parroted.
Iris always felt torn when she spent time in Alba’s room; she loved it, but it frustrated her. She had everything a girl could possibly need to be happy in there, yet Alba didn’t even seem to care. Why, if Iris had a room like that, she would smooth every last wrinkle from the pretty bedspread, and puff the pillows up just so, the way she had learned to do at Auntie Rosa’s. The spines of the books would all face the same direction, with the mysteries arranged neatly on one shelf, and the horse stories on another. She would be so happy to sit at that pretty white desk and write in her composition book, she might never get up. Sometimes, when Alba wasn't looking, Iris couldn’t stop herself from tidying up, just a bit.
“Mmm ... I love Mary Janes,” Lily said, rolling her eyes in delight as her jaws worked over the chewy nougat.
“Me too,” Iris said, slowly unwrapping her piece of candy and placing it in her mouth.
“They’re OK,” Alba said, “but sometimes I get kinda sick of them.” Alba’s cow eyes stared at Iris and Lily from between the two sheets of greasy hair hanging at either side of her pasty moon face. Her fashionable halter top and hip-hugger bell-bottoms exposed a pudgy midriff that reminded Iris of the Pillsbury Doughboy. She wondered whether Alba would chuckle if Iris poked her belly with a finger, like in the TV commercial. Alba hardly ever laughed, despite the privilege of having her own room, and a Barbie and a Ken and a Skipper, each with a complete series of outfits. Not to mention a swimming pool in her backyard, and frozen dinners with individual portions of everything, which she got to eat on a tray in front of the TV if her mother didn’t feel like cooking when she got home from her job at the trucking company down by the railroad tracks, which was practically every night, according to Violet.
Sometimes Alba got to stay home alone without a babysitter if her half-brother Andy was around, even though he stayed in a room over the garage. Iris did not know exactly what a half-brother was, but she did know he was much older than Alba and had a different last name from hers and from Mr. Hooper’s. Andy was creepy; he had long hair tied back in a skinny ponytail and green teeth. Iris thought that maybe that was because there was no place for him to brush them, out there in the garage. She did not like going to Alba’s when Andy or the grownups were around, so before ringing the bell she always sprinted past the house first, to check whether there were any cars in the driveway or she could hear Andy’s electric guitar cranked way up, playing that song Alba said was called “Purple Haze” though it didn’t really sound like a song at all to Iris, at least not anything like Uncle Alfred would play on his guitar.
“Here Iris, you have to read me chapter ten,” ordered Alba, as she sat on the bed, and stuck a book under Iris’s nose. Iris accepted the book with a mixture of joy and irritation. It had been her favorite story for a long time; Jasmine used to read it to her every time she checked it out of the library, so Iris practically knew it by heart. She especially loved the drawing of the horse on the cover and the illustrations at the beginning of each chapter. She wished it were hers so she could read it to Lily in bed for once instead of making up a fairy story, but the new library didn’t have a copy. She had asked Alba if she could borrow the book, but Alba had refused. Instead, she forced her to read her favorite chapters to her, over and over again, every time she came to visit, but never let her read from start to finish.
“Let’s all sit on the bed,” Alba said. Iris nearly choked on her Mary Jane when Alba crossed her ankles, allowing the soles of her blue sneakers to come in contact with the lilac bedspread. She debated whether to say something to her, but couldn’t think of any words that wouldn’t risk making Alba mad. Iris kicked off her shoes, and Lily followed her example. The girls climbed on the bed and sat next to Alba as ordered.
“Misty of Chincoteague. By Marguerite Henry” Iris began by stating title and author, as she always did when she read aloud. Her teacher often praised Iris for her advanced reading skills, and sometimes asked her to read in front of the whole class.
“Hey, Iris! Like our sister Marguerite and our brother Henry!”
“That’s right, Lily. Funny, isn’t it?” Iris smiled at her sister, then turned back to the open book on her lap.
“Chapter Ten. ‘Colts Have Got To Grow Up.’”
She was soon lost in the story of Phantom and her filly, the wild pinto pony with which she had grown to identify to such an extent she insisted that Lily call her Misty whenever they played horse in their backyard. Iris loved to gallop, flanked by Lily, until she got pangs in her side. Then they would trot over to the apple tree by the swing set and fall down in the grass, stretching out on their bellies as they picked through the dropped apples to see whether there were any without wormholes. When they found good apples and bit into them, they were crisp and tart, the kind horses loved so much they foamed at the mouth when they chomped on them.
As Iris read, Lily snuggled in closer to her and slipped her thumb in her mouth, something she hardly did anymore, except to fall asleep at night.
“Chapter Eleven. ‘Storm Shy,’” continued Iris, flipping the page to the next chapter as she elbowed Lily so she would stop sucking her thumb before Alba could call her a baby.
“OK, that’s enough,” pronounced Alba, ripping the book out of Iris’s hands, pushing a startled Lily off the bed and onto her feet.
“But Alba, we just started!” Iris protested.
“Books are boring, let’s go down in the basement. We can play with the slot machine,” said Alba, not waiting for an answer. She pushed the girls out of the room, and headed for the basement door, kicking the spaniels out of her way as she walked.
It was pleasant enough reading in Alba’s room, but the thought of spending a delightful Indian summer afternoon down in her damp, dark basement did not appeal to Iris at all. Granted, there was a slot machine, and Iris felt a rush of excitement when she pulled a row of cherries or bars. Even though the machine just jingled and jangled like crazy instead of spitting out coins like in the movies, Alba always got mad when Iris hit a jackpot. There was a pinball machine down there, too, but Alba hardly ever let her have a turn. Violet had told Iris that Mr. Hooper had brought the games home from the job he had before becoming an editor. Alba boasted that Mr. Hooper ran his own weekly newspaper now, which must be true, because his name was printed, plain as day, in the upper left hand corner on the front page of Them. Sometimes, while Alba played pinball, if she didn’t make Iris stand there and watch, she would flip through the musty stacks of back issues piled up in the basement. Them was a different kind of paper from the one the paperboy delivered every morning. In Mr. Hooper’s paper, she had seen pictures of a little boy who had grey hair and wrinkled skin like an old man, and a woman with legs as thick and wrinkled as an elephant’s, and a pair of Siamese twins joined at the head. Iris both hoped and feared she would find a picture of the girl whose fish-nibbled body had been found in Red Creek, but sti
ll hadn’t come across it.
The thought of all the abnormalities lurking down in that basement was suddenly too much for Iris to bear on a sunny autumn day. “We’re going across to the duck pond!” she called down the stairs to Alba, who had gone ahead, followed by the dogs.
“We are?” Iris was sorry to see Lily’s face wilt with disappointment. She had described the games in the basement to her in detail, and now she was depriving her of the chance to play them.
“Whaddaya mean?” Alba yelled from below. “You can’t just leave!”
“Well, you could come too, if you want,” Iris offered, to appease the angry moon face staring up at her from the bottom of the stairs.
“Oh, all right, I guess so!” came the response from below, followed by the thumping of the feet that conveyed Alba and her irritation back up the stairs.
“Do you have any stale bread, Alba?” Lily asked. “We always bring the heels ‘cuz no one in our family likes them. Only Dad sometimes has them toasted for breakfast with orange marmalade. No one else likes that, either. I think that’s why he likes it, just ‘cuz we don’t eat it all up on him.”
Alba shuffled over to the counter and opened the breadbox. She took out a plastic bag and held it up to examine its contents. “There’s only a few slices left, but we can take it,” she said. “Let’s take these, too,” she added, grabbing a wax paper cylinder of Ritz crackers and a handful of Oreo cookies, and tossing everything into the bread bag.
“Good idea!” Lily concurred, clapping her hands. “Those ducks are gonna be happy!”
The trio headed out the door and into the golden afternoon light. Iris paused a moment where the green grass of the front lawn met the gravelly shoulder, drinking in the fresh air until her eyes could adjust, then dashed across the street to the duck pond, holding Lily’s hand. The best spot to sit and feed the ducks was the concrete ledge near the road, under which ran a drainage gully that fed the pond several feet below. When she didn’t come in search of solitary refuge among the fronds of willow trees, Iris always sat on that ledge, her feet dangling below her, as she watched the ducks and geese paddling around, occasionally standing on their heads to fish something out of the murky water, where catfish with long whiskers could also be spotted. As the girls took their places, Alba in the middle clutching the bread bag, flanked by Iris to her left and Lily to her right, the ducks quacked their greeting, paddling furiously in their direction in the hopes of an afternoon snack.
Alba tossed an entire slice of bread into the water, which landed with a soft splash, cushioned by a layer of green scum. There had been little rain lately, and the water was low and malodorous.
“Why’d you throw a whole piece like that, Alba?” asked Iris.
“That’s why! Look!” Alba said with a smirk, pointing to a group of five ducks that had outraced the others to the bread and were attacking it, and each other, in a quacking flurry of flapping wings and pecking beaks.
“I like to throw the bread in little bits, and try to make sure all the ducks get a piece,” Iris said.
“Me, too,” Lily said. “I feel sorry for the ones who can’t swim so fast or don’t want to fight just for a piece of food.”
“That’s dumb!” Alba said. “But just take some, and do whatever you want with it.” She held the bag out to Iris, who took some bread, and then handed it over to Lily, who reached deep inside and grabbed a fistful of food. Iris and Lily tore off little pieces of bread and tossed them in, which made the ducks quack contentedly, while Alba kept trying to hit them in the head with the Ritz crackers. Each time she succeeded, she erupted in a tight burst of laughter. Iris was disturbed by its sound.
“Hey, I saw you!” Alba cried suddenly, pushing a finger into Lily’s chest.
“Sawr wrhat?” asked Lily between pursed lips.
“You ate an Oreo!” Alba cried. “They were for the ducks!”
“Bb..bb… but...,” Lily stammered, her stuffed mouth torn between the options of spitting or swallowing, her hand swiping incriminatory crumbs of chocolate cookie from her lips. Lily’s grey-green eyes were wide as she looked at Iris, and Iris knew it was true. Oreos were her sister’s favorite cookies, but they rarely had any at their house, and when they did, they were gone before they could make it to the cupboard. Iris liked them too, and when she got her hands on one, she always tried to make it last as long as possible. First, she separated the sandwich of cookies and cream, taking care not to break it, then she licked all the sweet white filling with her tongue, then she dunked the chocolate wafers in a glass of cold milk and nibbled on them slowly. She could make an Oreo last five, sometimes ten minutes, not counting the time spent sipping the milk which ended up tasting almost as delicious as the cookies. When Lily got her hands on an Oreo, she liked to shove it in her mouth all at once, which was apparently what she had done now.
“Admit it, you little brat!” insisted Alba, this time pushing at Lily’s chest with her whole hand.
“And so what if she did?” Iris cried, indignant that Alba would think a duck had more right to enjoy an Oreo than her little sister.
“So what if she did? So what if she did??” mimicked Alba, as anger crept up her neck, finding its way to her pasty face, and painting it a bright shade of pink.
“Here’s what!” she yelled, pushing Lily from behind, and flinging her over the ledge, and into the pond.
Splooash! The ducks scattered, quacking madly as Lily made her landing, face down in the stagnant green water.
“Lily!!” Iris cried, jumping to her feet, “Are you all right?” Lily pulled herself to a kneeling position, her lovely blond hair dripping with slime as she looked up at Iris, speechless, her features contorted by shock and disgust.
“You pig!” screamed Iris, grabbing Alba by her halter top. “You can keep your stupid Oreos! You may have your very own swimming pool, but let’s see how you like this one!” With one swift shove, Iris sent Alba flying into the pond with an even louder splooash!.
Iris ran to Lily, who kept slipping in the mud and grass at the edge of the pond, and reached out to pull her to safety. Holding hands, the girls scrambled up the embankment to the road, pausing briefly to look back at the water and the ledge where just a few minutes earlier their legs had been kicking the air as they fed the ducks. Iris felt angry and confused, as shaken by her reaction as she was by Alba’s outburst of violence.
“She’ll live,” Iris said, thinking she should feel proud of herself, but she wasn’t. What she had done wasn’t right, it just needed doing. She stood there until Alba pulled herself to her feet, covered in the same green slime that dripped from her trembling sister. Then Iris and Lily turned away and broke into a run, and didn’t stop until they reached home.
10. Lily
The remaining days of summer passed quickly, as Lily was surrounded by Capotosti playmates – most of whom had lost their neighborhood friends as she had. A troupe of brothers and sisters was ever available for jumping rope, and for playing tag, kickball, baseball, and games of “Mother May I”, and “Red Light Green Light.”
Lily retreated to the back woods behind the chicken coop whenever she was overwhelmed by the endless activity of endless days, or whenever she felt the need simply to be alone. In the woods, trees were just trees; they never got mad at you, pushed you around, or insisted on playing games you didn’t like - and Lily could just be who she was, too – telling made-up stories out loud, singing, or just lying on her back, looking through the branches of trees as clouds passed leisurely overhead. But mostly, she loved the woods because it was quiet – it was the only quiet place. No one was talking or yelling or crying or screaming. There was no TV, no record player, no fighting – just birds chirping, and even they never talked unless they had to, or unless they were really, really happy.
Daily life was radically different at Chestnut Crest. Lily’s mother was completely consumed with getting all the boxes unpacked and getting settled in, and then by registering all the children for school
, and finding a new dentist, library, and grocery store. She was rarely available to read books, and when Lily tried to help her around the house, she would say, “Lily, what will help me the most is if you go outside and play.”
For the most part, Lily’s days were defined by playing with Iris and by walking with her to the duck pond and to The Bungalow, the former of which occurred whenever there were old crusts in the bread box, and the latter on Pay Day, when allowances were distributed in increments of nickels.
In exchange for a meager supply of spending money, each child was assigned a set of duties. The older girls did the more complicated work, such as the laundry and cooking. Most of the other chores were rotated, with each child taking a turn to set the table for supper, “doing” the dishes (which meant clearing the table, sweeping the kitchen floor, wiping down the counters, washing out the sink, and loading and running the dishwasher), and, once the fruit started falling from the trees, picking up the apples.
The apple tree in the side yard was prolific, but half of its bounty was wormy or rotten, and fell to the ground, littering it with mushy brown fruit.
“Iris,” Lily called one evening after dinner. “It’s our turn to pick up the apples!”
“Yuck,” replied Iris from the top of the stairs. Wooden railings flanked the stairway and Iris placed one hand on each railing like a gymnast on the parallel bars, her weight on her hands and her long legs swinging to and fro as she gracefully floated down to the kitchen. The hem of her faded red cotton pants fell just above her ankles, and the cuffs of her blouse flapped, unbuttoned. Already it was obvious that Iris would be tall like her mother, and she outgrew her clothes faster than the older girls could pass theirs down to her. Often, they would be too small before she even had the chance to wear them.
The Complete Series Page 15