After class, though, Brenda catches my vibe and, as we mosey to Phys Ed, asks what’s bothering me.
“Bad morning,” I say before sneezing. And I tell her about AP Physics.
“Aw, man, that stinks,” she says, huffing out a sigh of sympathy. “You’re not going to do it, are you?”
“Do what?”
“Drop the class. I know Delia means well but … it’s your life. Taking AP Physics over would be like …” She shudders. “Well, like taking AP Physics over. No analogy adequately captures the horror.”
Despite my glumness, I smile. The between-class crowd is thinning, but we keep to our slow pace, dragging out our entrance into the gym as long as we can. She’s probably thinking the same thing I’m thinking — if we get to gym after the class has started, Mrs. Bankley might ask us to keep score while the other gals hurdle and hop themselves into oblivion during some game of basketball.
“Get a tutor,” Brenda announces with conviction. “There’s a bunch of student tutors available. It’s a new community-service thing some students started this year so they don’t need to go pick up litter or something else that eats up homework time.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember the announcement about that.”
“Brian McClelland does Physics. Guy’s a whiz. Wants to be a rocket scientist. But he’s nice. Knows how to explain things. I used him for Chem.”
Brenda used a tutor? And here I thought she was a Mensa memberin-waiting. Maybe there is hope for me, after all.
“He’s usually in the library after school. Stop by. I’m tutoring Freshman Writing students.”
I feel the wet blanket lift off my shoulders. Brenda’s helpfulness gives me the courage to ask the question I’d crumpled in class.
“About Officer Depp,” I say. “I don’t know how much you’ve, er, looked into his backstory, but will you be having him get involved in anything unethical?”
She stops and looks at me the same way Mom looks at me when she’s worried — with a wrinkled forehead and a wincing smile. “You mean, will Officer Depp be investigated by Internal Affairs?” When I nod, she continues, “For my research, I asked my mom about those investigations, and she didn’t find anything in the officer’s file upon whose story my fiction is based.”
I swallow. “Thanks, Bren.”
She reaches over and touches my arm. “No problem, Bianca.”
I exhale. So nothing’s in the official record indicating my father might have wandered into enemy territory. But that doesn’t completely slay the idea. When he was killed in action, Paluchek might not have wanted to pursue it. In his mind, it could have been a closed case.
We reach Phys Ed after teams have been put together. While the other girls glower at us, we sit in the bleachers keeping score, straight and proud, looking like the happiest Phys Ed students on the planet.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHEN I COME home late, I find Connie’s not there. I took Brenda’s advice and stopped by the library after school, signing up for sessions with Mr. Brian McClelland, who might be nice, but is also the same geek I saw her with in the cafeteria the other day. He’s as skinny as a matchstick, just my height, with sandy blonde hair that falls around his face in some retro uncombed beach-boy look, and his shirt, probably chosen to fit his long arms, must be two sizes too big for the rest of him. The shirt droops on his shoulders and bunches up around his pants, which hang dangerously low on his hips.
But he’s eager to help, and in the ten minutes I talked with him, he already has me hopeful. He told me to go back through the book and my notes and determine where I “got off track.” We’ll start from there in the tutoring session, which I’ve scheduled for my study break the next day.
There’s a note on the fridge from Mom. “We can have chicken cacciatore if you start the chicken in the Dutch oven,” it says, and then there’s a whole bunch of instructions about spices and sauce and sautéing and other things. Groan. Guess I have to do this— Connie and Tony are nowhere to be found. Tony is never anywhere to be found when food preparation is required, yet he mysteriously appears just as a meal is ready to be plated. That’s some talent— must be a guy thing.
I pull out a heavy pot and start the cooking, managing to splatter some grease on my still-tender arm. Bruised, scratched, and now burned. Is there anything else I can do to that arm?
While I wait for the chicken to cook, I go to the computer and get online, hoping to see some nice, friendly e-mails from nice, friendly friends. I’m not disappointed. Kerrie’s sent me three — two with links to funny web sites and blogs, and one describing the dress she’s wearing to the Junior/Senior Ball. Kerrie’s only gone out with her date, Richard Glendale, once, but I think she’s really into him because she doesn’t talk much about him. It’s as if he’s “sacred territory,” and gossiping about him would make it all less ordinary. It’s just like Kerrie to latch onto a will-be doctor, though — Richard hopes to go pre-med at MIT. He can support both her acting and her ImaxBra habits.
As I start to write a response, another e-mail pops into my box — from Doug. With my heart in my throat, I open it. Is he going to elaborate on his no-show for the Junior/Senior Ball?
No, he isn’t. In fact, his note is the opposite of off-putting — it’s welcoming.
“hey there, bianc, campus is looking great. have you made your plans to visit yet? some time soon is good. we get out mid-may. i can take you around. you might want to think of richmond when you’re applying.”
Huh? He wants me to apply to his college? What happened here? Did his plans to date other girls fall through? Why the mixed messages? Or did I translate that other e-mail totally wrong?
I start to write back, and it turns into this long, long note about not understanding what he wants and wishing he’d be clear because one day it seems as if he hardly has time for me, and the next day he’s all lovey-dovey. But when I read it to myself, my reply somehow lacks the clear-headed sophistication I imagined as I typed it. Maybe I use the word “feel” too much in it. When I hear the front door open, I drop it in my “draft” folder. Connie’s home.
She grumps into the kitchen, where she opens the fridge and pulls out a smoothie, smells it, tosses it in the trash, then rummages in a cabinet, probably looking for some dried cardboard to eat. At least, that’s what her granola and nut snacks taste like to me.
“Uh, hello,” I say.
She says something that sounds like, “Mmmph,” but after she swallows, she points my way.
“I’m going to need the computer in a little while.”
“I’m doing homework.” Well, I will be doing homework in a second.
“It’s something for the case.”
“You can have it when I’m done.” Sensing an opportunity here, I offer a compromise: “If you finish making dinner, I’ll do my homework now and then you can have the computer all night.”
To my astonishment, she agrees. I point out the instructions Mom’s left and tell her what I’ve already done to advance the chicken toward its cacciatore goal. She starts stirring and adding things and in a few seconds, she’s actually in a happy mood. She pulls out the blender and stars throwing in bananas and yogurt, but when it doesn’t whir to smoothie consistency, she stands, hands on hips, staring at it as if it should obey her thoughts and become a smoothie.
“Add some apple juice,” I suggest, looking up from my work.
She grimaces. Her back might be to me, but I know she’s grimacing. “It’s a banana smoothie.”
“You won’t taste the apple. Apple juice is the chicken broth of the beverage world.” I’ve learned a thing or two cooking dinner for Mom all these years.
She does as I say, and in a few minutes, she’s sipping a drink that obviously meets with her approval. After a few gulps, she leans on the counter and looks at me.
“I visited Virginia Winslow again today.”
I whirl around. “I can’t believe she would talk to you!” And I also worry that Connie went after her
with the subtlety of an air raid.
“Well, I visited her at work.” Aha — the poor woman couldn’t escape. Connie continues: “She says Steve Paluchek made sure she got her husband’s death benefits when he died.”
“Was there some doubt she would?”
“Yeah, there was. Winslow was on suspension when he died. They suspected him of taking a bribe from a loan shark.”
“So that’s what Kerwin Moffit was handling for him.”
“Yup.”
I think about this for a while. Paluchek helps Winslow’s bereaved wife. That’s a nice thing to do. Maybe that’s all she meant with her comment about them all being “good men.” But in a second, Connie disabuses me of that notion: “Paluchek could have been paying a debt.”
“To keep Virginia quiet?”
“Exactly.”
“But Connie, isn’t it more likely he was just trying to help?”
Something’s bubbling with the chicken, so she turns her attention to that, stirring and ratcheting back the heat, then turns my way again and points a wooden spoon at me. “Paluchek couldn’t stand Winslow, according to some friends of mine on the force. Switched partners immediately after Dad’s death. Almost didn’t go to Winslow’s funeral, but some buddies convinced him it wouldn’t look good.”
“But he helped the guy’s wife.”
“Like I said, it could have been a payoff. You heard what she said to us — how they were all good men. Like she thought we’d be saying they weren’t. Paluchek included.”
Funny how Connie focuses solely on Paluchek when thinking of Virginia Winslow’s comment. Not for a second does she think our dad could have been included in that bunch of men whose goodness she was so defensive about.
“I also checked out Gardenia Beckel today,” Connie continues.
“I thought you said you couldn’t find anything on her. Your database problems.”
Connie grimaces, which means I was right about her database. But then she shakes her head. “I talked to some of her neighbors.”
“And?”
“And the woman is a drinker — which we could tell — and keeps to herself. Watches a lot of TV. No visible means of support. Is home most of the time except for an occasional bus trip to Atlantic City, and weekly all-day trips. Leaves in the morning and isn’t back until after dinner.”
“Where does she go?”
“Nobody I talked with knew. They only knew about the Atlantic City trips because she asks the teenager downstairs to get her mail for her.”
It doesn’t surprise me that Gardenia Beckel is such a loner. Otherwise, why would she be so eager to let in two religious zealots on a Saturday night? We know she drinks away her troubles most of the time, splurges on gambling trips occasionally, gets money from Paluchek, and disappears one day a week. Something’s off, I decide. It all has a strange aroma to it. I’m about to say that when Connie says it for me.
“Something smells.”
“Yeah, I know. Maybe we should follow her — one of those days she goes away. I could take off school. You know, call in sick.”
“No, I mean something smells in here!” She sniffs the air.
She obviously didn’t turn the heat back far enough, because a slightly acrid odor begins to permeate the kitchen and the smoke alarm, usually a signal in our house that dinner is ready, begins its whiny beep. Connie whips around and turns off the chicken, muttering curses, then opens and slams cabinets looking for more tomatoes and wondering how we could be out of “such an important staple.” Eventually, she settles on the chicken broth of the sauce world — chicken broth — and manages to save the dish by scraping the burnt parts into the trash. By the time Mom comes home a half hour later, Connie’s got some chicken scampi-like thing going, loaded with enough garlic to keep a breath mint company in business until the year 2525.
“Thought I suggested cacciatore,” Mom says, lifting the pot lid and sniffing.
“Wanted to try a new recipe,” Connie responds. And by this time, she’s probably convinced herself it’s true. She starts telling Mom how she “seared” the chicken first, and mentions the stuff she put in the dish as if she spent all day thinking about it.
Mom looks tired and distracted, but there’s no time to tease out the source of her woes, because Tony, right on time, arrives just as I put the last plate on the table and Connie gets ready to dish out the chow.
At the table, Tony pronounces his verdict on my sister’s culinary skills by wolfing down prodigious helpings — so fast, in fact, that even Mom, usually tolerant of his need to feed, suggests he “slow down.”
He does. But then he says, “Everything okay?”
She straightens, wipes her mouth with her napkin, drops it on the table, stands, says, “Fine, fine,” and then leaves, going up to her bedroom, where we all hear the door slam behind her.
Connie and I exchange looks. Translation: Something’s up.
Tony, unperturbed, goes on eating.
“Your turn to clean up,” Connie announces to him, throwing her napkin on the table and not looking him in the eye. That’s the key with Tony: Don’t look him in the eye. Like an animal, he senses weakness.
I take her lead and follow Connie out of the kitchen before Tony figures out how to stop us. His mouth is too full, though, so all he can manage is a muffled, “Mmllgitoofris.”
“You talk to her,” Connie whispers on the steps.
“Me? Let’s double-team it.”
“She’ll open up more to you.”
“You’re the oldest!”
“You’re the baby.”
“I am not a baby!”
“I’m not saying you’re a baby, you moron. I’m saying you’re the baby of the family.”
I mull this over. Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps it’s not an insult, though with Connie, it usually is.
“Every mother has a soft spot for her youngest,” Connie explains. We’re at the top step now. “So go in there and ask her what’s up.” She gives me a little push toward Mom’s door. “Ask her if she knew Gregory Holdene, too. And Jimmy Winslow. Ask her if she knows about Paluchek helping out Winslow’s widow. Ask her—”
“Do you want to just make a list?”
Connie, missing the sarcasm, stands and thinks about this.
I brush past her. “I’m not asking all those things. I’m just trying to find out what’s bothering her.” And I scoot down the hall, gently knocking on Mom’s door before going in. Given Connie’s interrogation stumbles, it’s just as well I’m the one approaching Mom now.
She sits at her mahogany vanity, her elbow resting on the top, her head in her hand, staring out the window. An evening breeze rustles the sheer curtains, and the late angled sun sends orange-yellow trapezoids dancing on the hardwood floor. She smiles when she sees me, but it’s one of those Mom smiles that signals love but not inner happiness.
I plop on the corner of her chenille-covered bed and start twisting fuzz balls.
“Thought I’d give you an update on my life,” I begin, proceeding to tell her about the tutoring thing (she approves), the Junior/ Senior Ball (she thinks I should just ask Doug his intentions because I can’t ask anyone else until I know, and she tells me we really need to go shopping for a dress this weekend before all the good ones are gone), and my new friend Brenda (she thinks she might recognize the name), before launching into my interrogation.
“You seem kind of worried. Everything okay with you and Steve?”
At this, she gives me a genuine smile. “Oh, yes. We’re thinking of a fall wedding. The weather will be cool and I’ve always loved that time of year.”
“So, you worried about making all those plans? We can help.”
She smiles again, this one signaling how touched she is by my offer. “I’m sure you will, though I’m not so sure about your sister.”
Bingo! Is this what had her scurrying away from the table after dinner? But Connie hadn’t even said anything snarky.
“Connie just wants wh
at’s best for you.” Whoa — rewind. That sounded like something a parent would say. I am turning into my mother! Help!
“I know.” She looks away, out the window again. “She means well, but …” She pauses, purses her lips, then turns back to me, her hands in her lap. “I know Connie’s snooping around, Bianca. I’m going to ask her to stop.” Her eyes are wide and watery, almost frantic.
I swallow hard. “She just wants to help.” Which is true. It’s why I’m tolerating Connie’s goof-ups and crazy theories. She wants to help make everything right. But maybe that can’t be done, at least not with the things that happened so long ago.
Mom leans forward. “She should leave things alone. The past is the past. It’s time to move on. Steve is a good man. As good as—” And here she breaks off, biting her lower lip. She was about to say, “As good as your father.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MOM DOES TALK to Connie. But because the conversation takes place behind the closed door of Mom’s bedroom, and they don’t shout and scream and wail and gnash teeth, I have no idea what’s said. I only know the talk goes incredibly fast for something so important. Connie’s in and out of Mom’s room in less than twenty minutes. When she comes out, Connie’s smiling as if she’s auditioning for a toothpaste commercial. She might have fooled Mom, but she can’t fool me.
I go to bed that night so worried that I have to make a worry to-do list, first prioritizing which parts of my life deserve the most worry. There’s the Mom/Steve thing. There’s the Connie/Mom thing. There’s the Bianca/Doug thing. There’s the Bianca/college thing. And on and on it goes, all the way down to the Kerrie/ CyclopsBra thing.
With so much scampering through the vast spaces of my mind, it’s no wonder I’m still awake at midnight, my eyelids hurting from trying to force them closed for so long. To heck with it! I climb out of bed, grab my blue terry cloth robe with the big sheep appliqué on the back, and head to the kitchen. Maybe a snack will help. Or some time on the internet.
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