Darnay Road

by Diane Munier

  “We better go,” I say.

  He doesn’t argue. He goes out first and I follow after. We go up a big hill then, really work and climb. Below is the river. It’s deep here, I see that. I can see the trestle in the distance. But the water barely makes it there now. It’s rerouted itself here.

  “We got to climb all that way,” I say.

  “We don’t climb, we jump.”

  He grins when I look worried, then he takes my hand and we start climbing down. And do you know once he took my hand he could have pulled me right off into outer space and I wouldn’t have argued. Only Abigail May or Granma ever hold my hand.

  So we go down, and it’s steep, and he helps me the whole way and it’s the nicest feeling in the world.

  We get to the bottom near the water and he is taking off his shirt. “Keep your shoes on,” he says. “There’s sharp things in there.”

  Well I’m keeping everything on. But he steps in and I am going right after.

  There is no stopping me it seems.

  He gets in pretty quick and turns and goes under and comes up and slicks a hand through his hair and he spits that river water. “Stay in this same line as me,” he says.

  Well I walk out there, my arms out like I’m walking a tightrope. But I get to where it’s high on my legs and I can’t help but yelp when it gets to my waist. He laughs and comes toward me. “You want me to hold you?” he says.

  Well I can’t say yes, but I don’t mean no.

  So he reaches me and he says to put my arms around his neck and I do. He has the longest eyelashes in the entire world and they hold water. “Are you scared?” he laughs.

  “I don’t…no!” I say.

  “Well you look scared.” He is not shy looking at me so close.

  “I get excited,” I say. Granma always says that. I’m excitable, but not so much as Abigail May.

  “Well hold on,” he says, and he gets my arms off his neck and he turns and I am on his back now. I think it’s okay. He’s so strong. I have my legs through his arms and they’re like toothpicks Granma says—my legs, but Easy doesn’t care. We are laughing and the sun is so bright and the water is so big and brown.

  “You know how to swim?” I say.

  “Learned in this river,” he says. But he’s not swimming, he’s walking along sloughing through the weight of the water. It’s cold and wonderful.

  We walk so far along the bank, but it’s up to his neck and I never felt like this, except when I put my head on Granma’s lap and she sings “The Man Who Got Away.” That always makes me so happy when she sings Judy Garland, and she sang that song on a record just a couple of months after I was born, same year and everything, so I feel like me and that song are the same age.

  I don’t know when I put the side of my face against Easy’s shoulder, but I’m looking at that long bank, and the grass and trees swaying. It’s right now.

  “You going to sleep?” he asks.

  But I don’t answer cause I’m not going to sleep. I might cry a little, and if I stay quiet, he won’t know.

  His dad. And his mom. And Cap. “Are you sad?” I say.

  “Sad?” he repeats like he ain’t thought about it.

  I lift my head, “Ad-say?” I ask in Pig-Latin, mine and Abigail May’s favorite language next to English.

  “O-nay,” he says. “R-ay ou-yay?”

  I laugh so much and I pinch his side and he dumps me and I mean to squeal but I get a mouth full of water instead.

  I get up but it’s deep and I’m gasping and treading water and he goes under then, under me and threads his head between my legs and I know what he’s going to do cause I saw it in Gidget a million times, he stands and the water is streaming and I am on his shoulders holding onto his head, curled over it. He’s holding my legs so the only way off is if he throws me and I can’t stop laughing and I’m trying not to squirm.

  It’s happening. To me.

  Darnay Road 28

  Lying on our backs on the bank of the river, hands on our stomachs and Easy wearing a wreath of clover flowers and me wearing a long necklace of the same, and two bracelets, we’re figuring out pictures in the clouds. I see them all the time, and Easy does too. He’s just a big surprise mostly.

  Then I tell him about the Darnay spies and all the mysteries we’ve solved, leaving any mention of the Hardy Boys—him and Cap--out of it. Well they’ve been my biggest mystery ever.

  “One mystery I don’t know is—where’s Cap?”

  “He’s with my mom’s cousin. He had to go after….”

  I swallow, but he doesn’t look at me, he keeps looking up.

  “Was he so sad?” I say.

  He doesn’t answer, eyes on those clouds. He finally says, “Yeah.”

  “Is he ever coming back?”

  He doesn’t answer for long time again, but I’ve already learned he does that.

  “Maybe.”

  I stare at him. His face is so pleasing and interesting. I have to remember not to touch him, though I never would I don’t think. But I wonder what his nose would feel like if I touched that bump on its bridge, so I touch my own and there’s no bump like his.

  All I know is Easy is the best boy I know and you can take that to the bank—or hide it in the garden shed in a mason jar like I know Granma does.

  I am telling him about the Nancy Drew book The Mystery of the Old Clock. He likes the whole idea, and that’s when he says something so strange I can’t believe my ears even though he was held back for it but Easy does not like to read.

  I know some people do not like it so much. But Easy says he only likes comics.

  I practically sit up and say, “I have stacks of comics.”

  “You do?” this gets his interest.

  “Archie,’ and ‘Casper,’ and ‘Richie Rich,’ some ‘Little Lulu.’ Oh man I love comics.”

  “What about ‘Horus,’ or ‘Tales from Beyond,’ or ‘Superman?’” he says.

  “Ricky has those,” I say, slightly disappointed he isn’t excited about Betty and Veronica’s struggles to win Archie. I have to be Betty and Abigail May picks Veronica, of course. It drives me crazy cause Betty never wins. But what I really think, Veronica and Betty are too good for Archie. Archie is a fool and he treats them poorly, but they don’t seem to mind.

  I start to lie back down and it hits me and I shoot right up again. “What time is it?”

  Easy shoots up too. We’re on our squishy feet really quick. I just start running back in the direction we came from. My granma….

  “What time is it?” I ask again because I am not wearing my watch and good thing with going in the river. I almost wore it in the bath once and saw it just in time. But I’m running along that path, stumbling a little. Easy is behind me.

  “Just tell her we were mowing someone’s lawn,” he says kind of loudly as I am running and he’s just walking fast.

  If I knew the time I would know what story she was on, be it magazine, book, radio or TV. But it’s close to suppertime is my guess and that gets her looking at the clock and thinking about me. She will not believe it if I don’t show for supper. She told me not to be gone too long, didn’t she? And not showing for supper is like missing Mass on Easter.

  If Abigail May was still here she wouldn’t worry so much and Aunt May would be sure and call her, but she might not know Easy’s last name even, and his mother surely doesn’t know where Easy is, but he’s a boy and she’s sick so she won’t even worry probably.

  “Will she be mad?” he asks me when I reach his bicycle. I don’t even wait, I take off running because I can’t stand still now that I’ve let the worry bug get me.

  “Georgia,” he calls after, and he doesn’t say my name and I know it’s very nice to hear it, but I know more I’m in so, so, so much trouble.

  I get on his handlebars and he gets us going, and he’s working so hard to get us over the ground. “I can run,” I say so he doesn’t have to work like this, but he says, “No.”

  So
we finally get out to the road and it is Darnay but it doesn’t even look exactly like itself yet we’re so far down. And a car is coming toward us and I know it right off, but I hope it’s not what I think. “Let me off,” I say. “Let me off.”

  He comes to a perilous stop and I hop off and there we are, broken flower chains and stinky damp clothes, and it is Aunt May driving the Buick and Granma sitting beside her with a terrible expression on her face. I see her lips move in my name. “Georgia Christine,” she says, but she doesn’t believe it I don’t think. And Aunt May just looks sorry and she’s shaking her head.

  “Ma’am,” Easy says pulling his bike a little closer to Aunt May’s window.

  “You go on home, young man,” Granma says cause she will never let someone do my talking for me.

  “You should know better,” Aunt May says to Easy. “We will be talking to your mother. Shame on you.”

  Easy looks at me. “My mother….”

  “Just go on home like they said,” I tell Easy. I want to say more, how I’ll do everything in my small powers to fix it, but my Granma never gets in Aunt May’s car unless it’s for church, and she’s in there now and this shows me how worried she is.

  I pull off the broken flowers and crank that big door and get in that big backseat and then I slam that door and Granma speaks in a tone I have never heard except that time she said those things on the phone to my dad when he didn’t come for my birthday.

  I wait to see Easy pass the car and when he doesn’t I turn and Aunt May is going slow, and Easy is pedaling hard to keep up. “Go home Easy,” I whisper.

  “Are you listening to me young lady?” Granma is saying, and I do turn around, but I can hardly hear.

  Aunt May sees him, looks in that mirror at me, and keeps her lips pressed tight. But Granma just carries on.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt.

  Granma starts again and I say, “I’m sorry.”

  But she hardly listens she just goes on, and I turn around and he’s still coming.

  Darnay Road 29

  I lift up enough on Aunt May’s seat to glance out the back window just in time to see a terrible sight--Easy standing on his pedals coming on so strong, then his foot slips and he falls over, he actually rolls a little.

  “Easy,” I scream, then to Aunt May, “Pull over, pull over.”

  Aunt May slows down but before she can pull over Easy gets up and gets back on his bike and he’s riding again, just not as fast.

  I can see the blood running down his leg. Good thing we’re just a few houses from home.

  Aunt May and Granma are saying what in the world and May is telling her what’s going on and I’m kneeling on the seat watching him so worried I could burst into pieces.

  Aunt May stops in front of our house and Granma gets her door open and I am already getting out and she is saying, “Young lady,” something, and here comes Easy and he stops and I’m asking him if he is all right cause he has some more scrapes than I knew, on his arm and hand. He’s looking at Granma, not me, but her.

  Granma says, “Are you trying to kill yourself?” to him, and Aunt May is out too, just staring at him, and I have my hands on his handle bars and he is breathing so hard and the skin is scraped off his leg and it’s bloody with a small rock sticking to it.

  But Easy can’t seem to find words, he’s just breathing and staring at us.

  I think he’s just trying to catch his breath.

  “Don’t,” he finally says straight to Granma, “don’t be mean to Georgia.”

  And that’s all.

  The four of us end up sitting on our porch.

  “I was this close to calling the police on you,” Granma is saying to him. He is sitting on the top stair drinking water and holding a wet rag Aunt May got him on his leg. They tried to dab at all his wounds but he said he could do it himself.

  I wonder if he ever had someone do a thing for him.

  “I wish you could live with us, Easy,” I say. I can’t help it. I wish like anything he could.

  “Georgia Christine go inside and get the Bactine,” Granma says very sternly. “And the Bufferin,” she adds. I don’t know if that’s for Easy or her.

  Darnay Road 30

  While Aunt May oversees the care of Easy’s wounds, Granma says, “Georgia Christine I will see you in the kitchen.”

  Easy looks from where he is cleaning his leg to me and I wave a little and he doesn’t even blink. I hope he will not tell Granma not to be mean to me again because she might not take it so well this time. So she holds the door and sweeps her hand and I go in and I walk back to the kitchen. I get in there and go around the table and hold to the back of one of the chairs.

  Granma gets her glass and gets out a silver tray of ice cubes and runs that under the faucet so the cubes come lose. She pulls up the handle and cracks the tray and plunks some cubes in her glass and they tinkle.

  She puts the rest of the cubes in the freezer and gets a Coca-Cola and takes it to the opener on the wall.

  I have already gotten a glass of cold water for Easy so I just stand there rubbing my palms against the hobnails on that chair and waiting for the speech.

  “Easy is not a puppy Georgia Christine. You do not just take in a human being.”

  Granma goes to the high cabinet and gets that little silver flask that was Grampa’s. She tips some of the whiskey in the Coca-Cola. We don’t talk about it being whiskey cause she says it’s her business, but I have climbed up there and smelled it and it smells like one of the bottles in the dining room buffet.

  “You took me in,” I say.

  She makes a sound she hardly ever makes. It’s that sound like when her pearls came unstrung right before church and I had to get under her bed and find them.

  “He has his own family. Here I’ve told you never to ask if Abigail May can spend the night in front of her and you go ahead and ask if someone can live with us? Knock me down with a feather and pick me up with a shovel,” she says holding the green glass against her forehead.

  “Granma we have to help Easy,” I say.

  “Easy has a family,” Granma says lowering the glass and taking a big drink. Soon as she can breathe she says, “His mother might have something to say about us taking her son. You embarrassed him.”

  I don’t think I did. Easy understands I want to help. He just doesn’t know how to take it.

  One good thing, I am not in so much trouble. Granma explained to Easy that a twelve year old young man has no business carting off a ten year old girl. Good thing she don’t know about the other time Easy rode me to the trestle, or when we went into the school without permission. And the confessional, ooo-eee.

  “But I went as a free American, Granma,” I explain. That’s always been important to me since I’m born on July the Fourth. America is the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Kruschev wants to make all of us Communists, but Americans get to live in freedom because many men have gone to war and fought very hard and sacrificed their lives. Like Abigail May’s dad. Or Miss Little’s husband. There are more too but Granma knows them and not me.

  “We were cutting grass for Miss Little and it got so hot,” I say.

  Well that was another thing. I am not allowed to disturb Miss Little.

  “You know she is not in her right mind and she could hurt you and not even know it,” Granma says. “What were you thinking to go there and not even tell me? Did Miss Little have any say in this? She did not.”

  “I knew you would say no, and Miss Little has my kittens and Easy wanted to help her.”

  “You knew I would say no so you snuck around like little Miss Free American. You are not free to break rules. And if she has those kittens like you say then thank the saints and let it be. Maybe they can do her some good. Poor thing must be lonely as an old maid on a mountain.”

  “I thought it was a good idea…to help others,” I say feeling somewhat confused because I know what I mean but Granma is getting me jiggered.

  “If E
asy wants to help her that’s up to him and his mother. You are not his right-hand man. You are a ten year old young lady who is only going into the fifth grade and has been raised to know she must let her granma know where she is and what she is up to at all times. And that doesn’t mean going in the river…the river for pity sakes—with an older boy.”

  “I’m sorry Granma. I know I did wrong. I’m sorry.” I am giving her the eyes, holding my eyelids up high as I can.

  “What’s the matter with you? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  I relax my eyebrows and scrunch my face and blink a few times.

  “Please, please don’t be mean to Easy,” I say using Easy’s perfect sentence about me.

  “Mean to Easy? When have I ever been mean to anyone?”

  Well the man in the alley, showing his thing. But that was okay cause I sure didn’t want to see it.

  Darnay Road 31

  Once Granma is done with the discussion she pulls out a chair and sits down. I can see the pot on the stove behind her and the cranberry red pot-holder on the lid. Granma just loves cranberry red and luminous green. Luminous is almost my favorite word. But it looks like Christmas all the time around here and that used to make me happy.

  But now, I don’t know why she’s sitting down when I have to say good-bye to Easy. So I leave the kitchen and she calls, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To talk to Easy,” I say.

  “Aunt May is taking Easy home.”

  “Well he has his bike,” I say, this worry hitting me. How did they get that going? I was listening to every word and no one said anything about Aunt May driving Easy home.

  “You stay put right here and eat your dinner,” Granma says following me as far as the hall.

  “Granma I have to see,” I say, and I run for it. I get to the screen door and I can see he’s not there. Aunt May left the Buick out front instead of pulling it into the driveway under the shelter. But Easy’s bike is gone and so is he.

  I march back to the kitchen. “Why’d you make him go?”