“Hey, farmer girl, are you planning to weed all day?” the guy asked from the sunporch where he was tanning himself, watching me work.
“Actually, I was just going to stop. My name’s Molly.”
He grunted.
“What should I call you?”
“Mr. Edwards.”
I nodded. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Mr. Edwards.”
“If you’re trying to soften me up, you’re wasting your time.”
“I’m not. I just can’t see a garden without wanting to get my hands on it.”
I smiled to myself as I walked around the end of the fence into Grandpa’s yard. He stood there, fists on his hips, waiting for me.
“You’ve been over there for hours. What were you doing?”
He actually sounded a little worried. I smiled, trying to reassure him. “I was just helping him weed and talking to the kids.”
I heard a giggle from the other side of the fence, and I had to dodge a giant zucchini, three tomatoes, a head of lettuce, four cucumbers, and a handful of green beans. Grandpa and I scurried around gathering our lunch. Most of it looked to be in a lot better shape than the stuff Mr. Edwards usually threw over.
“Don’t eat all this,” I told him. “I want to make soup later.”
He grasped his bounty against his chest. “You don’t put lettuce and cucumbers in soup.”
I laughed. “Fine. Eat those.”
“I will.” He strutted off to the house.
The day was just starting to heat up, and I knew I better get going down to the market pretty soon. Jane had inadvertently shown me a way home, and now I had to see if it would work. If it did, hopefully we’d all be heading for Canada by next week.
13
AS SOON AS I STEPPED OFF THE STREET AND INTO THE market, I began to doubt my plan. Grandpa had told me that I could find produce and other goods for sale, but instead all I saw were men crowded together inside tents and under canopies, drinking, smoking, and playing cards. I heard a few whistles, and from inside a tent someone called out, “Hey, baby!”
I like to think I’m brave, but my insides twisted, uneasy. I considered just going back to the house, but I had to earn some money, so I made myself keep walking. Eventually the tents full of cardplayers gave way to food stalls and produce stands. I found a spot near a pile of old tires, and I opened my fiddle case and took out Jewels. By the time I had her tuned, a small crowd of kids had gathered around.
“You gonna play?” one asked.
“Yep.” I nudged the case casually with my foot, so it was out in front of me a bit.
I started with something simple that people might know, “Turkey in the Straw.” Before I’d finished, a few adults had wandered over to listen. The next one I played was called “Rosin the Beau.” It was an old tune Dad and I had learned from a Cape Breton fiddler. After that, I played a couple of Irish reels and a few people started a sweaty dance right out in front of me.
I’d been playing for a half an hour before I finally earned something. A man in dingy jeans and a faded work shirt leaned down and dropped four small onions in the case. I smiled at him and he shrugged apologetically, but my heart leapt at the idea of something besides tomatoes and lettuce. Onions could really liven up a meal too.
A woman, dressed nicer than anyone I’d seen so far, nudged her two sparkling-clean kids forward. They each put a little money in the case and gave me wide smiles. I grinned back and nodded my thanks. After that, the listeners added half a loaf of bread, two cucumbers, and some cherries. When an old farmer in overalls set a whole pie down next to my case, I smiled big. My grandparents would be excited to see that!
After an hour, I wiped at my dripping forehead with the back of my bow hand and said, “I think I’m about done.” The heat of the day pressed down on me and couldn’t be good for Jewels either.
“Play one more!” someone shouted.
I ran my bow lightly over the strings, in a thinking sort of way, and tried to come up with something good to leave them with. The fiddle music made me ache for Dad and our evenings playing on the porch together, and I decided on my name-sake song, just for him. Even though everyone at home likes to tease me when I play it, calling me Handsome Molly, no one here knew my name, so I didn’t think twice. What did surprise me was that two or three people started singing right away.
I wish I was in London
Or some other seaport town
Set my foot in a steamboat
And sail the ocean ’round.
While sailing around the ocean
While sailing around the sea
I’d think of handsome Molly
Wherever she might be.
The crowd grew larger, and a few more people joined in on the singing. They seemed to know all the verses, so I just kept playing. Finally, we got to the end.
Sail around the ocean
Sail around the sea
Think of handsome Molly
Wherever she might be.
“I know exactly where handsome Molly is,” I heard someone say as I drew out the last note. I looked up, saw the guy from the MAX train, and felt a little flutter in my heart. I gave him a big grin, and he shook his sandy hair out of his eyes and smiled back.
And then he placed an icy bottle of root beer next to my fiddle case. Everyone else had clapped and wandered away, but he came and sat on the tires. I grabbed the pop and collapsed next to him. Not the smartest place to sit, hot tires, in the middle of a summer’s day, but I was curious about him.
“Wow,” I said. “I haven’t had pop in . . . well, I don’t know how long. Where’d you get it?”
“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.”
He grinned and I opened the bottle. “You’re the best,” I said.
“So I’ve been told.” He smiled, and then in a mock-serious voice he said, “Are you lost? Walk straight in that direction and you’ll run into Canada eventually.”
I laughed. “Oh, you know . . . ,” I said, not completely willing to spill the family secrets to a virtual stranger, even a cute one. “I’m visiting for a while before we travel.”
He was smiling, but the way his eyes moved around, looking over my shoulder, lively and always scanning the crowd, I had the feeling he was only half with me and already on his way somewhere else.
“What about your big move to Canada?” I asked him.
“Oh, maybe,” he said. He took a long swig of his pop. “You never know. Business is good right now.”
“What business?”
“Ask me no questions-”
“Yeah, yeah . . . you’ll tell me no lies.”
“You’re a quick one,” he said.
“I wish my cash business was better.” I nudged the fiddle case with my toe. “I’m really glad to have the food, but we could use the money for the trip.”
“People save their cash for emergencies. The market’s mostly the barter system.”
“Same as on our island.”
Suddenly he stood up. I followed his gaze. A small man in a suit and tie was making his way through the crowd towards us. “I gotta go,” he said, “but maybe I’ll stop by your grandparents’ house sometime.”
The fact he knew where we lived shocked me a little. “You remember the address?” I asked. The guy seemed nice enough, but I couldn’t forget the fear in the fare inspectors’ eyes when he’d shown them his ID or whatever it was.
“Never forget a face,” he said. His cheerful smile relaxed me a little. “Never forget a place or, well, anything, really. Part of the business. See you around, Handsome Molly.”
“Okay. Thanks for the root beer.”
As he and the small man crossed paths, they nodded hello to each other but didn’t speak. The man continued past him and walked up to me, a friendly smile on his face. I pressed the cold bottle against my sweaty forehead. He eyed my fiddle and then my case full of produce.
“Finished playing?” he asked.
“For today.” I packed up Je
wels while he watched and was about to scoop up my take when he leaned over and picked up the pie.
“I’ll take that,” he said.
“Oh, that’s okay. I’ve got it.”
“You’re new around here, right?” he asked, still holding my pie.
“Ummm, yeah.”
“Well, let me introduce myself. I’m Randall.” He held out his hand and I shook it tentatively. “And one of my jobs is to make sure everyone knows the rules. You see, this market ain’t exactly public, if you know what I mean.”
I shook my head.
“It’s a private enterprise,” he said. “And as a private enterprise, the Boss takes a fair share of any profits the vendors make. In other words, the house always wins. Get it?”
“I guess.” He was taking my pie as a commission for my being allowed to play at the market?
“A word to the wise,” he told me. “You don’t play here without clearing it with the Boss first.”
“Are you the Boss?”
He laughed. “Oh, no. Not me.”
“Well, how do I clear it with the Boss, then?”
“Let’s just say you don’t.”
He tipped his hat and walked off with the pie. I stared after him. My big plan had been to busk every day until I had enough cash to get us home. If I couldn’t play here, I was back to square one without any idea what to do next.
14
July 14th-Sow fall vegetable seeds.
THE NEXT MORNING I DID SOME MORE WEEDING, and when I got back to the house, I found my grandparents in the yard, sitting under a knotty lilac. Grandpa seemed to be saying something to Grandma, and she was repeating it, but when I got closer, they stopped talking.
“Do you mind if I look around the house?” I asked them.
“Why not?” Grandpa said. “Maybe you’ll find the family silver and save the day!”
“I’m pretty sure that must’ve gone first,” I said. I actually was hoping to find something he’d overlooked, though. “I just wanted to check out your house. It’s so huge.”
Grandpa’s thin mouth widened into a big smile. “Four thousand twenty-two square feet.”
“What?”
“The house,” he said. “That’s how big it is.”
“Amazing.”
What in the world did two people need four thousand square feet for?
After searching the whole upstairs and coming up empty, I went downstairs. At the bottom, you could go one way to the front door, the other way to the living room, or straight ahead to a door that looked different from the others. It was metal, for one thing. Maybe it led outside?
I tried the knob, and the door opened on silent hinges. I stepped out into the most amazing room of all. An almost entirely empty three-car garage. Smack in the middle of it sat a car like I’d never seen before. Well, maybe in the movies that we watched on the computer, but only the really, really old ones from last century.
The car was painted a shimmery blue-green with silvery trim. The back and front windows curved in a way that glass usually doesn’t, and something that looked like a streaking silver bird sat on the hood, glimmering in the bit of light that came through the garage windows.
“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Grandpa asked from behind me, making me jump.
“What kind of car is it?”
“A nineteen-fifty-nine Studebaker Lark.”
“Wow. That’s almost a hundred years old.”
“Eighty-two, actually.”
“It’s gorgeous.”
“Yep. And don’t even ask about selling it. I’ve already tried. No one has money for collector cars.”
We stared at it, me taking it in, Grandpa reliving his days out on the open road. His shoulders straightened and he seemed to shed twenty years. I imagined him grinning as he drove along, people stopping to turn and stare admiringly.
“Get in, Molly.” He opened the passenger door and I slid inside, and then he walked around and got behind the wheel. “There’s nothing quite like a Studie.”
The bench seat was covered with stiff fabric and trimmed with vinyl. The interior was painted a deeper blue-green, the dials and knobs were glittering chrome, and it smelled of a past I couldn’t quite imagine. “It’s so clean and new looking,” I said.
“Yeah . . . well, I can’t let her rot here.”
“What do you mean?”
He caressed the dashboard. “I take care of this sweetheart.”
I gave him a quizzical look. “Do you think the government will release oil to the public again or something?” I asked.
“What do you think I am? An idiot? Of course they won’t. Besides, she doesn’t run on gas anymore.”
“She doesn’t?”
“In 2015, I had her converted to electric, and then in 2027, I upgraded her to a Super Seven Solar battery.”
My heart leapt! “We could drive her back to Canada!” I said, bouncing in my seat, making the car rock.
“Stop jumping around! We can’t drive her to Canada.”
“Why not?”
He glared at me. “Mostly because your grandmother and I aren’t going anywhere, but also because her battery’s dead.”
“But you said it was solar. Can’t we charge it?”
“You can only charge them so many times and then they’re no good.”
I knew all about that because of the Solar Fone.
“This one’s a goner,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
We got out of the car and walked to the front. His skinny, undernourished arms shook under the weight of the heavy hood, but he managed to hold it with one hand and prop it up with a little rod. Instead of an engine, there was a gaping hole, a handful of wires, and a small square battery. “See that?” He pointed to the end where the wires were still hooked up. “It’s black. That means it’s dead beyond hope.”
“Maybe we could get a new one.”
“And pay for it how?”
“Well, what do you polish the car for,” I asked, “if you’re never going to drive it again?”
He sighed. “Something to do, I guess. Retirement’s kind of boring.”
“You know”-I was scheming now-“if you came to Canada with me, there’s lots to do. There’d be work on the farm, or fishing, or you could even be a doctor again.”
“Molly, I have been stubborn all my life, and to be perfectly honest, it’s worked out pretty well. But I am sorry about one thing.”
“What?” I asked.
“I hate that I passed on that trait to your mother and then she passed it on to you.”
“But-”
“I am not sure how to make this any more clear to you,” he said. “We’re staying here.”
“But my mom needs you. And she wants to see Grandma.”
He pulled the brace out from the hood and let it slam. “Do you not understand what a trip like that would do to Katharine? She’s not well, Molly.” He ran his hands through the little hair he had left. “How can you ask me to take that chance?” He pushed past me and headed for the house.
15
July 16th-Gardening is not a single act, but a series of experiences.
-Katherine Gordon
FOR TWO DAYS, I’D BEEN WEEDING IN THE GARDEN from dawn until about noon. Mr. Edwards hadn’t said much, except to ask me to please stop calling him mister.
“I was just being adverse when I said that,” he told me. “Call me Doug.”
We didn’t talk much, even when he weeded right next to me, but I had Brandy to keep me company. She was a chatterbox, and I liked it because it kept me from worrying about Mom, wondering about Katie’s wedding plans, and hoping someone had taken over my garden chores so that we’d have a good harvest this year. It also kept me from worrying whether I’d ever figure out how to get enough money for train tickets.
When the sun was right overhead, I stood up and stretched. Brandy had been following me like a shadow all morning, but Michael had spent his time in the shade, playing with a box of dirt and
a bunch of slimy worms.
“Hey, Brandy, guess what?” I said.
She jumped up, bouncing around like a puppy. “What? What? What?”
“I have reeeeeeallly itchy fingers.”
“You do?” she asked, her blue eyes growing wide. “How come? Did you get bit by a mosquito?”
“Noooo,” I said, taking her grubby hand and leading her over to the deck. “They’re itching to play the fiddle! Let’s have some music!” I tickled her with wiggling fingers, and she squealed.
“Yay! Can I play the fiddle too? Can I?” she asked.
“I think I need someone to dance!” I said, nixing that idea.
I’d left Jewels on the deck in the shade, and I unpacked her from her case. She was still close to in tune from my morning practice session, but the E string had definitely slipped. “This is a dancing song,” I said, making the adjustment and running the bow over the string. “Can you move your feet like this?” I tapped my bare foot on the deck.
“Yes!”
“How about you, Michael?” I called.
He looked up from his worms, uncertain about whether he wanted to come over or not, but he stayed put. I can’t really dance and play at the same time, but I am able to do the steps if I’m sitting, so I plopped down into one of the deck chairs. My feet were still sore, but getting a lot better.
A second later, I was in tune and ready to go. Quick, sharp movements across the strings sent the notes flying into the air. One foot kept time and the other did the steps while Brandy jumped and bounced around on the deck, her bare feet slapping against the warm wood.
As soon as I’d started to play for real, Michael had dropped his worms and come right up to me. But he didn’t dance. Instead, he stood there, about two feet away, staring at my fingers and the bow, his eyes wide and his mouth in a little O. Brandy tried to pull him away, but he was frozen in front of me. I knew exactly how he felt. There was nothing like a fiddle!
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