My One Square Inch of Alaska (9781101602850)

by Short, Sharon

  I unscrewed the flask, took a small sip. The alcohol burned my throat, made my nose tingle like I was about to sneeze. But after a few seconds, I felt warmth in my stomach.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Gin,” he said.

  I took another drink, much longer this time, and Jimmy pulled the flask from me. “Whoa,” he said. “Go easy.”

  He twisted the lid back onto the flask, and replaced it in the glove compartment. “I’m sorry I scared you into running away.”

  I said, “Oh, Jimmy, don’t you ever just want to run away? Escape from everything?”

  Like Will wanting to go to Alaska? No, not like that. Will wanted to go to something. I wanted to run away from everything.

  “Yes,” Jimmy said. Then he smiled shyly. “Well, not everything.” He put his hand on my arm, and I moaned again at the warmth of his touch, his fingers stroking my skin as he rubbed the hem of my sleeve. He looked at the rip along the shoulder. “Will you be able to fix this?”

  “Yes.” The word came out thickly. I felt dizzy again, but in a pleasant, melting way.

  “Good. I like your dress, the clothes you make.”

  I smiled lazily, mumbled, “Mr. Cahill says I should be a designer.”

  “What?”

  I startled at the sudden sharpness in Jimmy’s voice, then blurted, “Why do you hate Mr. Cahill so?”

  Jimmy’s face tightened. “He’s always been there, between my parents, even if my dad can’t see it. They all went to college together. Mom and Mr. Cahill dated and went to Japan together to study architecture. When they came back, they’d broken up, and Mom married Dad. All my life, I’ve heard Mom talk about Nate Cahill.”

  I took this in, turned it over. So that’s when Mr. Cahill had been to Japan, with his Julia….

  “When did he say that? About you being a designer?”

  My face flamed and I hoped the dark masked it. “Oh, I…I got bored in class and sketched some designs, and he made some comment about me becoming a designer.” I forced a light laugh. “I made this dress from two of Mama’s old dresses.”

  Jimmy stared at me.

  “She had so many, and remaking them saves money. The dresses aren’t doing anyone any good in the suitcases.”

  “How…sweet,” Jimmy reassured me. “I think she’d be pleased.”

  “I’ve never been to Mama’s grave.” The words just blurted out. I frowned. Why did I say that?

  But he whispered, “Go on,” somehow knowing I needed to say this, to get it out. Or maybe he was relieved we were no longer talking about Mr. Cahill.

  “I’m not even sure where she’s buried. Somewhere in Florida, near the clinic where she was treated. Daddy was gone for a few days after Mama died, so I guess he went to oversee her burial—Will and I stayed with Grandma….” A flash of memory caught me by surprise: Will marching around her kitchen, banging two pots together, laughing at the loud noise he was making, but then swinging his arms so wide that he knocked a home-canned jar of tomatoes from the counter to the floor, and Grandma screaming after the jar shattered—“This is your fault! All your fault!”—and I wasn’t sure if she meant just the jars, or Mama’s illness and death, or something else, but I jumped between her and Will, just in time, and took the kick meant for his behind on my leg, and knew that I would always, always have to watch out for Will.

  I started shaking again. Jimmy pulled me to him, held me tightly, kissed the top of my head. “Go on,” he whispered again.

  “I…I asked Daddy once, about a year after Mama died, that summer, if we could go to Florida to see her grave, and he didn’t say any-anything, and I haven’t asked since.”

  He pulled me to him even more tightly, so my head rested against his chest, right below his shoulder, a perfect fit, and he said softly, “I will take you if you want me to. I will take you anywhere you need to go.”

  I turned my head and looked up at him. Something about his smile, about his lips, their tender curve, stirred another kind of warmth in me that had nothing to do with his coat or his gin.

  I tilted my head so that my lips were just a breath away from his. Seconds stretched toward eternity, it seemed, but finally, finally, he kissed me, and I returned the kiss, not a front porch kiss, but something much deeper, each of our tongues gracing the other, eagerness knotting us together and away from thought, time, place, everything.

  Chapter 14

  “Yes, Mrs. Baker, I completely understand. I hope Howard feels better soon,” I said, and then listened to her give another faltering apology about why Howard could not attend Will’s eleventh birthday party that afternoon—something about a terrible headache—until she finally said good-bye and I hung up.

  Howard’s headache sounded like an excuse. I actually did have a headache from the night before, from the mix of Dexamyl and gin.

  Still, I felt triumphant—finally, Mrs. Baker was kowtowing to me.

  But in the next instant, I felt disappointed for Will that yet another guest’s mother had called with a last-minute excuse for her son not being able to attend. Will’s eleventh birthday and party were on September 26, 1953, a beautiful, warm Saturday afternoon, and even with my pounding head, I could appreciate that.

  I stomped through the living room and kitchen to the basement door, through which I could hear whoops of laughter and crashing sounds, like crazed horses bouncing off walls.

  I called through clenched teeth, “What is going on down there?”

  Will trudged up the stairs. “We’re just playing pin the tail on the donkey,” he said, making his wide blue eyes wider still. “Just like you said.” He tried to hold back his laugh, but it tumbled out. I finally caught a glimpse over his shoulder of the seat of his pants. Pinned to it was one of the donkey tails I’d carefully made from gray felt I’d bought at Woolworth’s.

  Not wild horses bouncing off our basement walls.

  Wild donkeys.

  I forced back a smile. “You’re supposed to pin the tail on the picture of the donkey,” I said. I’d finally drawn something in Mr. Cahill’s class other than shapes or clothing sketches—an outline of a donkey. “You’re supposed to play nice!”

  “I am playing nice. Sometimes I’m the donkey, and sometimes I let Tony be the donkey.”

  I frowned and was about to reprimand that by nice I meant properly, when Will leaned toward me and whispered, “Did you know another word for donkey is ass?”

  Will’s big grin—showing gapped teeth, puffing up his freckled cheeks, crinkling the corners of his blue eyes—did me in. I burst out laughing. But I was supposed to be in charge here. I needed to take control.

  “Will!” He looked a little deflated at my return to a stern tone, but I continued, avoiding his gaze. “I’ve just had four—four—of your guests’ mothers call to cancel. That means it’s just you and Tony now!” Tears of frustration pricked my eyes.

  “Gee, that’s too bad, but Tony and I are having a great time!” He followed that up with another wide grin.

  But I wasn’t going to let him charm his way into my good graces this time. “What did you say, or do, to keep your guests from wanting to come to your party?”

  Will shrugged. “They weren’t my guests, anyway. They were yours.”

  “But, I wanted…your first party…to be special…. I’ve worked so hard.”

  Will rolled his eyes. “You’re acting like Grandma!”

  I recoiled, as stunned as if he’d slapped me. His expression softened. He put his hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, Donna. There will be other guests. I invited my own friends!”

  He trotted back down the basement stairs. I had to smile at the silly little gray donkey tail—the ass’s tail—flicking up and down on his pants seat.

  I left the basement door open a crack and sat down at the kitchen table, suddenly weary. I put my head to my hands.

  Miserably, I had to admit that Will was right. I had been acting like Grandma, using his birthday party—his first one ever—to try t
o gain social favor. I knew I could because I was, after all, Jimmy’s girl. Suddenly, instead of feeling angry at Will for doing or saying whatever he’d done or said to keep the Howard Bakers of Groverton away from his party, I felt ashamed.

  Not about the night before—Jimmy and me escaping from ourselves by losing our virginity to each other had been delicious, wonderful. I didn’t regret it. Yet I suddenly felt fragile, as if at any minute I might say, or do, or wear just the wrong thing and send Jimmy fleeing. Or I might have already done so.

  The timer dinged on the oven.

  I pulled on my mitts, opened the oven door, pulled out two cake pans, and put them on the hot pads on the kitchen table.

  The doorbell rang. I hurried to the front door, my heart speeding up, nervous to see who Will had invited. There stood a woman and a girl, her hair done up in high pigtails, her white blouse and poodle skirt neatly pressed.

  The woman said, “Is this the home of William Lane?”

  “I told you he goes by Will,” the girl said.

  “Yes, this is Will’s home,” I said. “I’m Donna, his sister.”

  “Oh, well, I’m Mrs. Hilliard,” the woman said. Then she looked down at her daughter. “Susanna, please introduce yourself, dear.”

  The girl looked up at me. “I’m Suze Hilliard,” she said. “Nice to meetcha.”

  “Make your acquaintance,” her mother whispered.

  Suze sighed. “It’s nice to meetcha…and make your acquaintance,” she said. Then she peered around me. “Will said he’s having a birthday party?”

  “Oh, yes, he’s downstairs with the other…guests,” I said, hoping Tony wouldn’t mind that I’d just multiplied him. A crash and a thud made both Mrs. Hilliard and me jump. Suze grinned. I explained, “They…they’re playing pin the tail on the donkey.”

  Suze ducked around me into the house, following the noise. Mrs. Hilliard stared after her daughter as she asked, “You’re not here by yourself with the children, are you?”

  I started to tell her that our dear neighbor Miss Bettina was coming over in a few minutes—even though, still angry that she had judged Jimmy so harshly, I hadn’t invited her.

  A whoop rang from the basement.

  Suddenly I really did see a woman coming up the walk to our front porch, wearing a big hat and carrying a gift, and I thought, Miss Bettina…she let one of her assistants take over at the dress shop.

  But this wasn’t Miss Bettina. This woman’s hips were too wide, her gait too slow, and she wore a shabby old dress that Miss Bettina would never wear. After a startled second, I realized that this was MayJune.

  Mrs. Hilliard turned, regarded MayJune, then faced me with a pinched look of judgment. I felt a rush of defensiveness for MayJune. I called hello to her, realizing that when we’d met at the scrapyard I hadn’t gotten her last name, and so I couldn’t properly introduce her to Mrs. Hilliard. I called, “So glad you’re here!”

  MayJune, I realized, must have walked all the way from her daughter’s house. She said, “I’m MayJune Winton. A friend of the family.” And then she grinned at Mrs. Hilliard, and suddenly Mrs. Hilliard relaxed and introduced herself.

  MayJune turned her toothless smile on me. “Why don’t you go check on the children? I’ll be glad to greet guests.”

  “Of—of course,” I said as another crash sounded. I rushed through the living room and kitchen. Suze had dumped on the table her gift, her poodle skirt, and the ribbons that held up her pigtails. I opened the basement door and hurried down to find Will and Tony and Suze, all in blindfolds, all giggling away, trying to pin the donkey tails on one another. Suze had on long shorts and her hair was done up in a messy ponytail on top of her head. Away from her mom, she’d reverted to her natural state: tomboy.

  Good for you, Suze, I thought, but I hollered, “Children!” They all stopped cold, their feet trampling peaches and green beans from jars that had been knocked from the storage shelves to the floor. “Remove those blindfolds!”

  All three pulled off their blindfolds and stared at me.

  “You will help me clean up this mess,” I said, “and then we will go upstairs, where you can play outside until the other guests arrive!”

  I looked at Will. Yes, his lopsided grin confirmed, there would be other guests.

  By the time I headed back up the stairs—after a few minutes, I’d sent will and Tony and Suze outside to play—my stomach was churning. What eleven-year-old kid would invite an eighty-something woman from the wrong side of town to his birthday party?

  I shook my head at myself, realizing I was thinking, again, like Grandma.

  Will would, that’s who.

  There, at the kitchen table, MayJune and Miss Bettina sat, fanning themselves in the muggy heat, chatting away like old bird friends who have landed next to each other on the same wire time and again.

  “I brought lemonade,” Miss Bettina said, as easy as if our friendship had never skipped a beat. “I knew Will would want lemonade at his party. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I sank down into a chair. I wanted to stay mad at her, knowing I couldn’t and wouldn’t. “Not at all. Will loves your lemonade. But your shop—”

  “Oh, I have Mrs. Sherrod keeping watch for me,” Miss Bettina said.

  I nodded. Then I looked at MayJune. “Mrs. Winton—”

  “Now, child, I told you when we met to call me MayJune,” she said. “I meant it.” The teakettle started singing on the stove. “Oh, the water’s ready for your tea!” She rose slowly and started toward the stove.

  “My tea?”

  “For your headache,” MayJune said.

  I thought I’d hidden it well. “I took some aspirin.”

  “That’s fine,” she said, “but some black tea with peppermint will do you good. Of course, chamomile would be better.”

  Miss Bettina said, “She sent me to cut some of the mint that grows wild at the back of my yard as soon as she saw me!”

  MayJune set a steaming mug before me. I picked it up, breathed in the vapor, took a sip. And then another.

  Then I said, “MayJune, where is Mrs. Hilliard?”

  “Oh, we convinced her that her little baby would be just fine here,” she said. She and Miss Bettina grinned at each other, pleased with themselves. “Did you see Jimmy playing with the children out back?”

  “It’s my understanding that Will invited him,” Miss Bettina said, her voice a little tense.

  MayJune chuckled. “I’m trying to convince Bettina that your young man isn’t all bad.” Somehow, that, of all things—MayJune calling Jimmy my young man—made me blush.

  “Now, I never said he was all bad,” Miss Bettina said. “I just said I think Donna should be careful of her heart.”

  I stared at the two women. They’d just met, but they’d been talking about my romantic life, while I was downstairs sopping up peaches and green beans and glass with three juvenile asses, as if they were, what—my old aunties?

  “Well, now, of course she should be careful of her heart—all womenfolk gotta be careful of their hearts—but he’s not a bad drink of water to look at, and nice manners, so for now—”

  I started to snap at them to please stop talking about Jimmy, but then I realized that I’d already sipped half the mug of tea and my headache was easing.

  And then I noticed the cakes on the kitchen table. They’d sunk in on themselves, a gooey mess oozing up from the middle. “Will’s cake…it’s a disaster!”

  “Maybe we could cut off pieces from the outer edges, ice the tops, and serve that,” Miss Bettina said. “Like square cupcakes.”

  MayJune smiled and said, “Don’t worry about that, honey. Just leave the cake be and let Will open his gifts. Things will work out just fine.”

  I’d failed at not just one but three attempts to make Will a birthday cake. I thought that I should at least throw away the ruined cake. Not let it sit there on the kitchen table as an embarrassment to myself, to Will…and then I thought, no. I was trying to do things
Grandma’s way again, make our lives seem perfect, pretty, unblemished. And I was tired. I’d try it MayJune’s way.

  So I nodded at her. MayJune and Miss Bettina smiled.

  Jimmy and Will led Suze and Tony and (I later learned their names) twin brothers Herman and Harold through the back kitchen door. Jimmy grinned at me, so happy to see me, and suddenly all my fears about our relationship dissolved. He swooped me up in a hug and kissed me on the forehead, so of course Will hollered, “Ooh, yuck!” echoed by the other children. That just made Jimmy grin and kiss me again, this time on the cheek, which started another round of whooping and gagging, until Miss Bettina and MayJune shooed us all into the living room, where the gifts were neatly stacked on the coffee table.

  Miss Bettina served everyone lemonade and Suze designated herself the “gift fairy,” delivering one gift at a time to Will, who looked happier than I’d ever seen him.

  I made mental notes about each gift so Will could write thank-yous later: from Miss Bettina, a wallet including a lucky dollar; from Tony, three new Western comic books—a Roy Rogers, a Lash LaRue, and a Gene Autrey; from Suze, a yellow Matchbox convertible. Will and the boys oohed and ahhed appreciatively, but as Miss Bettina’s and my eyes met, her expression was so sad that I had to look away. From Jimmy there was a compass dedicated to “all of Will’s coming adventures,” a prophecy that had Will grinning extra wide; from Herman and Harold, an honest-to-goodness pin the tail on the donkey game, which made everyone laugh, including me. Will flashed his blue eyes when he opened my gift, a new copy of The Call of the Wild. Daddy had left a long lumpy package on the kitchen table. Will opened it, revealing a BB gun.

  That left two gifts. From Grandma, two pairs of socks. He started to laugh at the humdrum gift, but I saw no need to mock Grandma, so I shook my head. Will quieted down, and turned to the last gift—MayJune’s.

  Will had carelessly ripped the wrapping paper off his other gifts, but this one he opened slowly and carefully, maybe because it was his last one, or maybe because it was from MayJune and he knew that it would be special.

  Something small…like those little choices MayJune would talk about soon enough. But life-changing.