Connecting Dots

by Sharon Jennings

  Lots of neighbors brought casseroles and pies to the Mets. I made sloppy joe one night and took it over. Leanna thanked me but didn’t want to play. Her mom needed her, she said.

  Without Leanna to talk to, I hung around with some of the other kids. Debbie and I took her dog for a walk. Tinkerbell – one of the stars of our play. One afternoon we met this boy walking his dog. Debbie waved to him, and he came over, and right away his dog got up on Tinkerbell. His dog was half the size and thought he could do what dogs do to a big girl like Tinkerbell.

  “David!” Debbie yelled, red in the face.

  David laughed and yanked on the leash. “Down, Lucky.” He walked along with us, the two dogs batting at each other, and we ended up at the park beside a school.

  “Is this Leanna’s school?” I asked. Because it would be my school, too, come September.

  “Do you know her? Lee?” David kind of lit up and suddenly I knew he was the David that Leanna said she was going to marry.

  “This is Cassandra,” Debbie said. “She’s new. She moved in beside Lee.”

  “Leanna’s father died. Did you know that?” I asked. “Just a few days ago.”

  He was scratching his dog’s head. “Tell her I’m sorry. Come on, Lucky. Let’s go home.” He started to walk away, then turned around. “Will she move?”

  I shrugged.

  “It’s just…I don’t care or anything…but I’ve got some of her books.” He glared at us and kept walking.

  “He likes Lee,” Debbie said. “Everybody knows that. David and Lee-ee sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

  “Puppy love if ever I saw it.” I laughed out loud at my own wit.

  I meant to go tell Leanna about David, but I got back just in time to make supper. Polynesian chicken, which was chunks of chicken with a can of pineapple and soya sauce over white rice. I bought everything myself, but Doris said she wasn’t sure about whatever soya sauce was. She put on her reading glasses to look at the fine print on the bottle.

  “Imported by Dim Chung Trading Company. Hmmm. Don’t think we should be using this.” She put the bottle in the sink.

  I watched her take mincing little bites of her supper, like it might poison her. I checked to see how Ray liked his food, but he was staring at his wife in the weirdest way. He took a huge bite. “Dee-licious!”

  “I saw Leanna’s school,” I said. “Is that where I’m going?”

  Doris and Ray looked at each other. I knew that look.

  “What? What is it?” But I knew.

  Ray put down his fork. “No sense beating around the bush. I thought you understood you were only with us for the summer. Just until school starts. Didn’t Lana explain that to you?”

  “No.” I couldn’t swallow the food in my mouth. I spit it into my napkin.

  Doris frowned. “We don’t spit at the table, Cass.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Doris!” Ray threw off his napkin. “Mary and Peter want you. But they’re in California till the end of August. Lana had no business not informing you of the arrangement.” I guess he saw the look on my face because he added, “They’re good people, Mary and Peter. Probably the best people to help you right now. But we’ll be sorry to see you go. Right Doris?” And then, the life raft flung to the drowning victim. Ray said, “Here’s an idea. Why don’t we invite Lee to the cottage? Would you like that Cass?”

  “Ray! Without asking me!” Doris looked like she wanted to smack him. “What about the extra work and food and… and why on earth should we? I mean, someone else’s child!”

  He gave her a look – like he’d never seen her before and wondered how she got in his house.

  I knew this was a guilt bribe. It would have been nice to say no in a withering voice and march out of the room, head held high. To where? So instead, I jumped up and hugged Ray. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I’d ever had. A week at a cottage with a friend! And as for the other thing…I pushed it from my mind. I shoved it down, hard. I would pull it out and examine it later.

  I threw Doris a bone. “Don’t worry, Doris. Leanna and I’ll do all the work and all the cooking and you can have a real holiday!” Yeah right. What if Leanna and I used Dim Chung soya sauce again?

  I ran outside to find Leanna before Doris could respond. But halfway across the driveway, I stopped. Without thinking, without knowing what I was doing, I had thought of Leanna as my friend.

  I was going to the cottage with my friend.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Doris gave me a duffel bag for the cottage. I refused to think about packing again in three weeks. “Don’t be bitter,” Mr. Mets had said. Well, I would be as bitter as I felt like, come the end of the month. But not just now…. I remembered Grandma hugging me and saying she was grateful for small blessings. Okay. I’d be grateful for –

  With a shock, it clicked. Grandma meant me. She meant she was grateful for me. I was her small blessing!

  But I…

  It’s weird how you don’t understand something an adult says when you’re little, but it suddenly makes sense when you’re more mature. I wasn’t shame and trouble to my grandmother. She wanted me. She kept me rather than give me up. She lost her husband, and she lost her daughter, but she would not lose me. And she stuck up for me, too!

  A blessing – definitely something to think about. Or contemplate, as Leanna would say.

  I packed my two new bathing suits and my two new shorts sets and my new running shoes. It was so sweet how everyone bought me clothes when they were about to get rid of me.

  Leanna had news of her own. Her mom was selling the house.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do, Cassandra. Without my sanctuary and my dad’s garden. All the trees and flowers he planted!”

  Her mom was looking at an apartment close by. She wouldn’t have to change schools and friends. Not like somebody I know. I felt like saying “Boo-hoo,” but just in time I remembered her dad and kept my big mouth shut. Grandma would be proud.

  Leanna grabbed my hands. “I’m selfish. I’m sorry. What about you? Will you miss it here? Will you be in the depths of despair?”

  “I don’t know. I like Ray. But Doris? She doesn’t want me around. I can tell. She likes having Ray all to herself. It’s as if – ”

  “As if what?”

  The idea seemed nuts, even to me. “As if she is jealous of me. Because I’m female.”

  “But you’re only a girl.”

  “I know but…forget it.” Still, I knew I was right. Sometimes I’d see Doris looking at me, like when I brushed out my hair. Maybe she was jealous because her hair was so thin and always hair-sprayed to her head.

  “I’m only going to Clarkson,” I explained to Leanna. “That’s not so far away. We can still see each other. So, no ‘depths of despair,’ okay?”

  All the way north I told Leanna about how grand the cottage was. I laughed when we saw the place! What a dump. And it seemed even dingier than the photos I remembered. Someone had left food out, and we had mice, and Ray swore. Doris yelled at him and that made me laugh. Then Doris yelled at me and said something about how ungrateful I was.

  “Oh, but she’s not, Mrs. Fergus!” declared Leanna. “She is immensely grateful. As am I.”

  “You talk too much, Lee Mets,” said Doris. “You need to learn what’s what.”

  “Oh, I know, Mrs. Fergus,” agreed Leanna in her most angelic voice. “Children should be seen and not heard.”

  I snickered and then we both laughed and then Doris called us hyenas, which made us laugh even more.

  Every day, Ray wore an old pair of overalls and a hat that said Dodgers. Doris said it was beneath him, whatever that meant. He had a beer with lunch and his Scotch at supper, and when he poured more than one, Doris glared. (Sometimes I’d practice that glare in the mirror. I’m an actress, after all.)

  “I�
�m on vacation, Doris, and I can’t help it if it’s a three-Scotch day.” I saw him lean in to kiss her but her mouth got all tight, and her body stiffened.

  Leanna and I shared a room with a double bed that sagged in the middle. Every night we rolled into each other and sometimes we had a tickle fight. Doris pounded on the wall between our bedrooms. Doris and Ray had twin beds in their room.

  “Shouldn’t married people sleep in the same bed?” I asked Leanna. “Did your parents?”

  She shook her head. “They get to sleep in the same room. But not in the same bed. Don’t you watch Dick Van Dyke? And I Love Lucy?”

  I knew Lana and Dick slept in the same bed. So did Cathy and Philip. Maybe after you had kids you slept separate.

  One day we found a book under the bed. It had a picture of a half-naked woman on the front. We read some of it before Doris took it away and told us we were disgusting. That night we whispered in the dark and talked about boys. We had a lipstick I stole from Cathy, and we practiced making kisses on our arms and on the mirror.

  Neighbors came over and said we could join them in their sauna. I knew something about saunas. I told Doris we had to go because after you sweated like a pig, you jumped in the lake naked. I thought Doris was going to explode.

  “I forbid you to talk to those…those people! Why, they’re Norwegian, for heaven’s sake! Who knows what their sort do! It’s scandalous! The idea!” And then, wait for it, she turned her venom on me. “Of course, it’s what I’d expect from you, Cass Jovanovich. And furthermore – ”

  “They’re Swedish, Mrs. Fergus,” interrupted Leanna.

  Doris stopped in mid-sentence like someone pulled her plug out. Ray laughed so hard he had to wipe his eyes. “Got you there, Doris,” he said.

  I didn’t know why, but it infuriated Doris when Ray did things with us. She seemed to want him all to herself. She liked sitting in the shade and reading and she wanted him to sit beside her – all day if possible – drinking iced tea, playing cribbage. He’d last for a half hour and then come find us, usually with a beer. He showed us how to dive off the big rock. He made s’mores at night and carved us sticks for roasting marshmallows. He told scary stories and took us out fishing one day.

  Leanna and I put baby oil on and lay on the dock and I got as red as my hair. By the end of the week I could pull sheets of skin off my body. One night I hurt so bad I couldn’t sleep. I lay there, prickly all over, and heard tiny little cries from Leanna. I heard her whisper, “Daddy,” but I didn’t say anything.

  And at night we heard Doris and Ray fight a lot. We heard Doris say, “tramp,” and of course she was talking about Rita.

  One day I let my hair dry in the sun and it fluffed out huge and curly. Ray reached out his hand to touch.

  “It’s gorgeous!” he exclaimed. “You should wear it like that every day. Eh, Doris?”

  “Certainly not!” she answered. “Cass go tie it in a ponytail right this minute!” I didn’t. I just brushed it straight and let it fall over my face.

  Doris glared at her husband and then at me. And that night, when I heard her say “tramp” she did not mean my mother. She meant…me.

  I didn’t sleep, and not just because of the sunburn. Wide awake, hatred taking over my body.

  Felt sick in the morning. I couldn’t push away the reality I would be moving again. The air was heavy with muggy heat – storm coming, Ray said – and I wanted the storm to hurry up and get here. I wanted to stand outside in the rain and thunder and lightning and be ripped apart. It was my own fault. I had let Leanna become my friend. And I desperately wanted to go to her school and for once have a real school friend to hang out with. I had made all sorts of plans. Stupid me. Should have known.

  The clouds came and blew over. We saw lightning far off over the hills and we could see torrents of rain slashing down far away. But not here. No escape here. I swear my guts were twisting in agony.

  Doris put on another layer of hair spray and a kerchief and announced they were going to visit friends after supper. I couldn’t eat. They left, and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t sit still. Leanna finished another novel about another orphan and then hinted around about me again, and finally, finally, the storm broke.

  The storm in me.

  “Shut up!” I shrieked at her. “Shut up! I am NOT an orphan, so shut up! My mother isn’t dead, so shut up! She – Rita – is alive. She doesn’t want me. She left me with my grandmother. But Grandma died. No one knows who my father is. No one wants me! I’m handed off to one relative and then another and another. Do you hear me you stupid…stupid – I am an accident! I’m an embarrassment. I wasn’t meant to be here. I’m not supposed to be alive! I’m illegitimate!” I spat out the old, awful, ugly word.

  I saw the look of shock on her face. I hated myself. I hated her. She’d never be my friend now. I ran. Out the back door and over the ridge to the lake. I ran until I saw the diving rock and then I was flying through the air – free – and I thought I might never hit the water. I hoped never to hit the water – just stay in the air like a bird.

  Then she was there beside me as I plunged, her foot kicking me as she splashed down. She grabbed onto me and we sank, down to the weedy, slimy bottom of the lake. I opened my mouth. Could I gulp enough water?

  We broke the surface and I pushed at her, screamed at her. “Get away from me! Get away! Leave me alone!”

  But she hung on, hugging me, as if she was saving someone drowning, treading water, banging her knees and feet into mine.

  “I don’t care! I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if your mother is alive or dead. I don’t care if you’re Thumbelina! It’s you I like. You. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. Don’t you understand? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me talk about orphans when you’re not one? What must you have thought of me?”

  I still tried to break away. Her hands gripped my arm and she pulled and tugged. I slapped at her with my left hand and knocked her glasses. And was suddenly so scared I’d broken them or she’d lose them and – I stopped struggling.

  She didn’t let go of me until we sat down on the rocks. I thought I’d get up and charge off, but the energy was gone. Just me and Leanna and the big ugly secret.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you. Okay? No one lets me tell the truth. Everyone is embarrassed about me. I felt awful when your dad died. I almost told you then. I did. You’re the first friend…the first nice girl….”

  “I’m sorry, too. I was really dumb. It’s because…I talk to you. About important stuff, like our play. You want to act, and I want to write, and maybe we really are kindred spirits. When we did our play, we…we talked about ideas.”

  I didn’t know what to say. So I said, “I have an idea.” I took off my clothes and dared Leanna, and we jumped back into the lake, naked, giggling like hyenas. Just because Doris said swimming naked was disgusting. I was so sick of Doris.

  “Do you remember what the minister said at my dad’s funeral?” Leanna asked. “About ashes to ashes, dust to dust? I think…I think we belong to the Earth. But not just the Earth. The Heavens. We’re earth and water and stars. We belong to all that. Look up there.” She waved her hand and drops of water sprayed out and fell, twinkling in the starlight.

  I felt weightless in the water. Lighter than air. I tried to find it again, but the hate in me was gone. I stared at the stars. All those stars. There had to be something else out there. Some other meaning. And there had to be some other meaning for me.

  I squeezed her hand. “Thank you,” I whispered, so afraid I’d break the spell. We climbed out of the lake and wrapped our clothes about our bodies.

  Like newborn babies. Clean. All our lives before us. I could start over. No bitterness allowed.

  Two weeks later, once again, driving up a street. Turned around in a car. Watching from the backseat. Leanna waved and waved and waved until the car t
urned the corner.

  Shame. Trouble. Snoop. Liar. Thief. Pyromaniac. Tramp. These were all words. Just words. I didn’t have to bring them with me. I could leave them behind.

  I opened the window and felt the rush of air blow in and swirl out.

  «««

  I could stop writing now. Leanna is all caught up. But…I don’t know. I kinda like it. Writing.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The ring wasn’t on my finger. “I’ve lost my ring!” I whispered. Around us people shushed.

  “What ring?”

  “Mary’s ring. The one with the dime. She’ll kill me!”

  Shush! Shush!

  “Where did you lose it?”

  “Here. Now. I was fiddling with it and it slipped off.”

  Shut up!

  “Wait till the movie’s over. I’ll help you look.”

  How stupid! Now I couldn’t enjoy the rest of Beach Blanket Bingo. And I loved Annette Funicello. I wanted to be Annette Funicello. Or Gidget.

  As soon as the lights came up, I was down on my knees, poking around everyone’s garbage. Pigs. Leanna waved to an usher.

  “She’s lost her ring. It’s silver. With a dime on it.”

  The usher yelled to another usher. “Kid’s lost her diamond ring!” They helped us look with flashlights.

  I didn’t tell him it wasn’t a diamond. It was an old dime, and someone made it into a ring, and I swiped it off Mary’s dresser.

  It was Leanna who found it, so the ushers never knew the truth. We washed our hands and left the theater and walked along Weston Road to the Country Style for doughnuts. Then across Lawrence and over the Humber River to Royal York Road and back to Leanna’s apartment. My twelfth birthday was the week before, and this whole day was Leanna’s gift to me.

  “Did you bring more for me to read?” she asked.