House poked his sunglasses farther up on his nose. “Same thing that’s always been wrong with her.”
“Nah, it’s worse,” said Cleebo. “She can’t talk and she looks like a gooney bird!”
Frances’s black hair was tinged with blue tips that matched her lipstick and fingernails. She wore black capris that stretched around her almost-curves and a silver shirt with colored sequins that caught the sun and shimmered against her caramel-colored skin.
“When can we leave?” Cleebo asked.
“Not now!” House cradled his left elbow in his gloved right hand and made himself stare at the patches of grass growing here and there. . . . At least it was cooler under the chinaberry tree.
“Not now?” Cleebo shoved his catcher’s mitt into his armpit and gestured to his ball-playing friends. “Our mamas told us to show up and we did. Now we can leave, right?”
Boys murmured their agreement. “We got a game to get ready for,” said Boon.
“I’m speakin’ for all of us,” said Cleebo. “When can we leave?”
House peered around the edge of the little crowd and saw Honey sitting cross-legged up front, mesmerized.
“When it’s over,” he said. Ballplayers groaned. It’s over. A shudder skittered across House’s shoulders. Mr. Norwood Boyd’s whole life was over. His body was right now lying on a metal table at Snowberger’s Funeral Home.
“Come to order, mes amis!” Frances tapped her clipboard with a pen. “I need your attention! Faites attention!” She wore high-heeled rhinestone sandals on her narrow brown feet and a million tinkly bracelets on each arm.
“You are the chosen ones!” she intoned. “My bijoux!” The chosen ones stared. Frances dropped her straw tote bag and flung her arms out for effect. “Bijoux! That’s French for jewels!”
House pushed his sunglasses up farther on his nose and wondered what the French word was for toad.
Nervous laughter sifted through the crowd. “That’s right!” said Frances. She motioned Come on! with her hands. “Laugh! Cry! Carry on! C’est la vie! It’s what we’re here for!”
“Not me!” piped Honey. She sat inches from Frances’s painted toenails. She wore her pink tutu and had one arm wrapped around Eudora Welty. Eudora wore a tutu, too, also pink, around her neck. She panted nervously. Honey craned her neck up to Frances as she stated her purpose: “I’m here for the tryouts!”
Frances clasped her hands to her chest and made a face that said her heart was aching with happiness. “Mais oui! Of course you are!” With the tips of her fingers she slid her glasses onto her face—they’d been dangling around her neck on a jeweled chain. They were black, shaped like sideways teardrops. She gazed through the lenses, wide-eyed, at the assemblage.
She leaned toward them. They leaned back.
“Everyone gets a part,” Frances declared in a confidential tone. “Everybody! That’s tout le monde in French!”
Tout le monde began talking, all at once.
“Of course we all get a part,” said Ruby Lavender, sitting plop in the middle of the crowd. “We’re signed up against our will!”
“Well, I’m not!” said Melba Jane Latham. “Some of us want to help out our hometown!”
Ruby unwrapped a piece of Dubble Bubble. “I’m happy to help out,” she said. “I just don’t want to be in some stupid county anniversary pageant. We should just stick with the operetta in August like we always do.” She shoved the bubble gum into her mouth.
“We’ve got a 200th anniversary and that’s even better,” said Melba Jane. She gazed at Frances, transfixed. “And this year, we’ve got professional help!”
Ruby hooted. Melba ignored her.
Frances clapped her hands together in tiny motions. Her wispy-thin bracelets tinkled against one another, like little bells calling everyone to order.
“Mes amis!” she said. “Silence, please! Si-lence! Time to get started! Remember, everyone gets a part!” She spoke in crescendo tones. “This is our pageant celebrating our town!” Her face took on an angelic look as she crooned in a come-to-glory voice, “It’s positively Thornton Wilder!”
There was a smattering of applause. Kids looked around to see if there was anybody named Thornton Wilder among them, and Frances made a tiny curtsy.
“She’s the picture of poise!” Melba whispered to Ruby.
“Who is she?” whispered Melba’s little sister Violet.
Ruby popped her gum. “She used to be Frances Schotz.” The bubble collapsed onto Ruby’s nose. “She went off to boarding school last year, took too much French and drama, and turned into Marie Antoinette. Where’s the guillotine?”
“I think she’s amazing,” sighed Melba.
“You would,” said Ruby. She rubbed pink off her nose.
Frances pulled some papers out of her tote bag and clipped them to a clipboard. “I’ll assign parts as they speak to me . . .”
“I don’t want a part!” cried Honey. “I want to be a dancer!” She scrambled to her feet. Her legs, pale and thin as potato sticks, poked out from under her tutu. “House!”
Frances shaded her eyes with a jeweled hand and peered into the crowd. “House? House Jackson!” She blew a lofty kiss in House’s direction. Baseball caps bobbed as boys in the back of the crowd laughed and slapped at House with their gloves. House tugged his baseball cap lower onto his head.
“Are we still friends, House?” Frances touched the tip of her tongue to her top lip as she searched the crowd. House hunched his shoulders up to his ears and studied his shoes.
Frances sighed and straightened her shoulders. “How about the rest of you, my former classmates? Are you still mes amis, even though I’ve been absent for a whole year?”
“We ain’t messy mees!” cried Cleebo, poking his head up above the sea of caps. “But you sure are a mess!”
“Yeah!” said Ned Tolbert.
“Yeah!” cried Lincoln Latham.
Frances sniffed a short, dignified sniff.
“House?” Honey took a step away from Frances. She turned toward the small crowd. “House?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, House popped up and made his way to Honey, his mind sputtering like a sprinkler. He’d had a matter of hours to get used to the fact that he’d seen a dead body, had made a phone call to report the death, and had adopted a dead man’s dog. And now he had to deal with Frances Schotz, his toad, the former theatric terror of Mabel Middle School and the girl who had almost killed him last year.
He reached for his sister. “You can dance, Honey.” He pulled his sunglasses down his nose a notch and forced himself to look Frances in the eye. “Right?”
Frances winked at House and struck a pointing-statue pose. “Mais oui! But of course! We need les danseurs for the danse moderne!” Then she offered a confidential look to House, leaned toward him, and whispered, “How’s your elbow, darling?”
“It’s fine,” House said, in a voice as flat as paint. But that would not be enough to swallow his toad. Right now, it was stuck in his craw. He picked up Honey and held her in front of him for a moment, as if he might use her as a shield. Honey threw her arms around her brother’s neck and pulled him close. House’s sunglasses popped off his face and pancaked in the dirt.
“Good!” chirped Frances. She turned her attentions to the crowd. “Tout le monde! It has been so long since we’ve seen one another—allow me to reintroduce myself, mes amis!” She shone her radiant white-toothed smile on the crowd. “I have change-ed my name, tout le monde! I have a nom de plume! Please—s’il vous plaît! Call me Finesse!”
Murmurs of uncertainty rolled from kid to kid.
“She has lost her mind,” said Cleebo.
“She evermore has,” said Boon.
“Good garden of peas,” said Ruby. She stood up, swiped dust from her overalls, and shoved her hair out of her face. “My mama didn’t sign me up! I’m dancing outta here.”
“Me, too!” said Cleebo.
“Your mama’s gonna whup you good i
f you leave, Cleebo!” said Wilkie Collins, first baseman. He peered at Cleebo through thick glasses. “She signed you up just like mine did!”
Cleebo kicked the dirt. A puff of dust drifted over his shoe. He motioned to his teammates sitting in the shade under the chinaberry tree. “Who’s with me? Let’s get out of here!”
Finesse gushed passionate tears as she saw the boys rise. “Mes danseurs!” she said, holding her arms out as if she were offering them the world. “Mes danseurs ballet!”
“Not on your life!” said Cleebo. “House!”
House squinted at Finesse in the high-morning glare. The time had come. He tried to sound calm. “I came to bring Honey. The team came with me. We’re leaving now.”
The news struck Finesse like a collapsed lung. She clapped her hand to her chest and staggered backward one step. “You mean . . . you’re not staying? You’re not going to . . . help?”
“We don’t dance,” said House. He made it up as he went along. He put Honey down, retrieved his sunglasses, and shoved them onto the brim of his cap in one smart gesture and repeated himself. “We don’t dance. We play ball.”
“Ball?” asked Finesse, ready for the volley. “Le base-ball?” She made a tsk-tsk-tsk! sound. “Don’t tell me you still put together that little ragamuffin sandlot team every summer?” She straightened her shoulders as if she were royalty. “Honestly, House, at some point one must grow beyond running around after a silly white ball!”
A bitter taste burped itself up from House’s gullet and he spit it into the dirt. If he’d had a silly white ball, he’d have thrown it at Finesse’s silly propellered head with pleasure. Plop! One toad down, just like a carnival game! Instead he threw a few more words, which amazed him, as he was unaccustomed to throwing around words in public. But the circumstances were dire. “We got to go.”
Finesse sniffed and tried her best to look regal.
“Don’t leave me, House!” Honey clung to her brother’s leg. She stared at Finesse with a tinge of terror in her eyes. “I don’t think she is who you think she is!”
“You’ve got a part, Honey,” said House. “You’re a dancer.” Honey sniffed and wiped her eyes. House whistled and Eudora Welty struggled to her old feet, her tutu wobbling around her neck and her tiny tongue hanging out of her mouth. She snorted, wagged her tail tepidly, and blinked into the bright sun beyond the chinaberry tree.
“Let’s go,” said House.
Finesse rifled through the papers on her clipboard.
“I’ll come, too!” called Ruby over the heads of a half-dozen others. She vaulted over Melba, Violet, and Melba’s little brother, George. “I’ll just run get my glove—”
“No girls allowed,” House said. He flexed his pitching hand.
“But I know baseball!” sputtered Ruby. “And I’m eleven! Almost as old as you! I’m good! Cleebo can tell you, he’s played catch with me a million times!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Cleebo. He wore his most indignant look, which, for Cleebo, meant he looked totally guilty.
Honey’s eyes filled with tears. “Do I get tap shoes, House?”
“Sure you do,” said House. He took his sister’s hand. “Let’s go.” His voice held a softness he reserved for Honey alone. “I’ll bet it’s lunchtime by the time we get home.”
“Aw, House!” cried Cleebo. “We ain’t got all day!”
“I’ll catch up,” said House. “Start without me.”
Finesse tore a piece of paper from her clipboard and waved it in the air like it was on fire. “None of you is going anywhere!” she snapped in perfect, high-pitched English. “Nobody moves!”
Honey shrieked. So did Violet and George. Eudora Welty plopped herself right back into the dirt, stuck her snout between her paws, and shivered.
“All of you!” barked Finesse. “Tout le monde! You’ll stay right here! You’re all on my list!”
Tout le monde sucked in its collective breath.
Finesse straightened her shoulders with an exaggerated move and pruned up her face. “I’ve got you on my list, Ruby Lavender! I’ve got you, House Jackson!” She stabbed her finger at the back row: “And all your little ballplayers, too!”
6
Baseball is reassuring. It makes me feel as if the world is not going to blow up.
—SHARON OLDS, THIS SPORTING LIFE
Honey sniffed back her tears. The sound caught Finesse’s attention. Her face softened. With great ceremony, while the sun baked the day and even the breeze stood still as a statue, Finesse took a handkerchief from her tote bag and dotted it around her face.
“Do forgive me, mes amis,” she said. “It’s the heat—il fait chaud. And, it’s my passion! I care so much about this pageant, and we have scarcely two weeks to prepare for the production on Independence Day! I have been charged with such great responsibility!”
House spit into the dirt at his feet. Cleebo spit in solidarity with House. Ballplayers standing at the back of the crowd spit. Ruby spit. There was a momentary spitting party.
“Let’s take a moment to regroup, mes amis!” said Finesse. She fanned her face with her handkerchief. “In fact, let’s all take a moment to breathe. Breeeeathe!” She stretched her arms over her head. “A little yoga, perhaps, to bring us back to center?” She gestured in Ruby’s direction. “Sit! Sit!”
Ruby rolled her eyes and did as she was told. George tugged on Ruby’s overalls. “I thought your mama didn’t sign you up,” he whispered.
“Miss Mattie signed her up,” said Melba. “Now hush.”
Cleebo slid himself along the trunk of the chinaberry tree and plopped onto the dirt and berries underneath. The creases on his jeans were all but gone.
“Your mama’s gonna whup you with them stained pants,” said Wilkie.
“Are you speakin’ from experience?” asked Cleebo. “My mama ain’t never whupped me in her life.”
“I’m just saying,” said Wilkie. “Everybody knows she likes her laundry just so . . .”
Several ballplayers began the Sunshine Laundry chant. Cleebo groaned and rested his head on his crossed arms.
Finesse clapped her hands. “Come to order, mes amis! Time to get to work!”
House lowered himself to the earth next to Cleebo at the trunk of the chinaberry tree. Honey dropped like a wilted little leaf into her brother’s lap. Next to them, Eudora Welty panted and snuffled.
Finesse continued. “Our play will emanate from within! We will decide together its shape! To help us decide, we will incorporate relaxation techniques, basic sensory and imagination exercises . . . In short, we will experience a renaissance—a rebirth!—of the art of the organic playmaking tradition! We will honor Aurora County—a county full of American towns!—on America’s birthday! We will celebrate our wonderful past and our glorious present! Every detail of our lives here in Aurora County is important—im-por-tant!”
She took a deep breath and smiled broadly at Honey. “For instance,” she said, “you want to dance . . . and it’s coming to me . . . Let me see . . .” She put the back of her hand to her head and did a small fainting backward move, then righted herself. “Yes! I’ve got it! How do you feel about the Dance of the Moon Pie Fairy?” she asked. “I can see it now . . .”
Honey sat up straight and spoke with great hope in her voice: “Does she wear tap shoes?” She leaned forward to hear the verdict.
“Fairies wear wings and sparkles,” said Finesse with finality, “. . . and they dance barefoot.”
Honey burst into tears. Finesse clasped her hands under her chin and gave Honey an asphyxiated look. “Pleeease don’t cry! You must learn to trust my direction!” Honey sobbed while Finesse babbled on.
Eudora Welty crept on her belly toward Honey and snuffled her snout into Honey’s lap. House patted on both the dog and his sister. Maybe he could strangle Finesse later. He glared at her as she postured in front of everyone, like she was a queen bee and they were her drones. She’d probably live to be o
lder than Mr. Norwood Boyd—she’d probably live to be a hundred.
“We’re sinking like the Titanic,” moaned Cleebo. “Now what?”
Finesse lifted one leg and pointed her toe for effect as she demonstrated various modern dance possibilities.
“I wanted . . . wanted . . . to be a tap dancer, House,” Honey whispered to her brother in jagged little hiccups. “I don’t want . . . want . . . to be in this pageant.”
“Everything’s going to be all right, Honey,” said House. He gave Honey to Cleebo, who patted on a patch of grass under the chinaberry tree. Honey and Eudora both crowded onto it and rested their weary spirits. House rose to his feet.
“Look, Frances.” He interrupted Finesse’s discourse on the benefits of unscripted skits and spontaneous combustion dialogue.
“Excusez-moi?”
Now that he was standing there, he cast about for something to say. “We’re melting out here—let’s go into the schoolhouse—”
Finesse shook her head. “There’s construction in there! We’re not allowed inside.”
Melba Jane raised her hand.
“A question!” said Finesse, delight in her voice.
Melba swallowed. “Is it true that the new stage will have footlights?”
“Mais oui!” chirped Finesse. “The new stage will be shiny! It will have footlights! An enormous spotlight! Working microphones! And more!”
Melba’s face radiated happiness and Finesse seized the moment while she had it. “I remember you, Melba Jane—you sing in the operetta every August! You have the theater in your blood, mon ami! Come stand with me. I dub you my Sancho Panza. I will be your Don Quixote!”
“Really?” Melba whispered.
“Don’t do it, Melba,” said Ruby. “We don’t know those guys!”
But Melba rose, entranced, and floated toward her Don Quixote.
7
To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.
—WALT WHITMAN
“Your first task is to take the roll each time we meet.” Finesse handed the clipboard to Melba, who took it as if she were handling a newborn baby.
The Aurora County All-Stars Page 3