“Like what? How do I look?”
“Like—like your heart was just hammered to bits. If I were in jail … heck, if Molly were in jail, you wouldn’t look like this.”
“You or Molly wouldn’t be in jail. So that works out.”
“That’s true. We’re not the murdering sort.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, and yet instead of feeling faint, all I could think of was decking Tommy Birger. I stared at his face, feeling my own expression harden and wondered if I could time a punch right, and clock him good, while matching my own swing to the rhythm of the porch swing.
“I meant that you and Molly wouldn’t be in jail because you’re not Maliseet. Because nobody’d ever believe Mr. Birger’s son could ever hurt a fly, let alone kill a drunk.”
Tommy started to respond but then shook his head and stomped his feet to the ground, stopping the swing.
“Listen, Mercy. I’m sorry. This isn’t how I meant this to go. I came here to tell you it was okay. That I knew you don’t like me that way. That I knew you don’t really want to go to the festival with me. And that I won’t tell anybody how you feel about Mick.”
I felt my face soften, but I continued my glare.
“Regardless of how you feel about me,” Tommy said, “I really like you. I always have. You may never want to be my sweetheart, but I’m not going to treat you any different because of that. I’ll be your friend. Or I’ll keep my distance. Or I’ll be or do whatever you need me to be. Lots of folks are going to be saying stuff about you, and I wanted you to know that I won’t be one of them.”
For the third time that day, tears flooded my eyes. I tried to tell him thanks, but the words wouldn’t form. Where just moments before I’d wanted to slug him, now I could’ve hugged him. Grace, Mr. Pop would’ve attributed this to.
I saw what Molly had for so long seen in him. A kind boy whose wild streak skirted carefully just under his quiet exterior and good manners and popped out occasionally in a flash of his eyes or a pull of his lips.
“You know, Tommy, you’re pretty smart, but you don’t know everything.”
“No? But I’m close, right?”
“Yes. Very close. Except I would actually like to go to the festival with you very much.”
“You would?”
I nodded. “I would. But so would Molly. I wonder if …”
“I could take you and Molly?”
Our eyes met and we both laughed.
“It won’t kill you,” I said.
“No.” Tommy shook his head. “It won’t. But do you think Mr. Carmichael is going to take his family to the festival and let his daughter out of his sight for even a moment? Seems unlikely to me.”
Tommy had a point. I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “But if she goes, I promise: she won’t walk around staring at you all dewey-eyed like she does in class.”
“Promise?”
“Besides, this is Molly we’re talking about. Beautiful Molly!”
“She’s beautiful Molly all right,” Tommy said. “It’s just that I’m doing this for beautiful Mercy.”
Both of us turned as Mother pushed open the screen door, and set down a plate of date cookies and two cups of milk perched on an ash-woven tray. Tommy and I both stared at the tray as we thanked Mother. We stayed quiet, studying the platters’ intricate designs for the first moments after Mother went back inside, then each chewing the date cookies and sipping our milk dutifully.
Tommy bit into another date cookie and then broke the silence. “What do you see in him, anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what does Mick have that I don’t?”
“I’m not sure that’s a fair question,” I said. “Or, at least, I don’t think it’s the right question. Because, honestly, Mick doesn’t have anything that you don’t have.”
“Except you.”
I laughed. “Oh yeah. Right, except me.”
I tilted my head back and counted the lines in the blue wainscoted porch ceiling, while I searched for words to express out loud what it was I loved about Mick. I’d never done this before. Molly knew I loved Mick, but she didn’t know why. She just figured the obvious: Mick was dreamy. No way around that. Mick’s face, perfectly sculpted and framed by the shine of his shoulder-length black hair, rivaled that of any Hollywood leading man. A life of work on the farm and of play in the forest had given him a physique that Molly once said would stop traffic in Times Square. Neither of us knew anything about Times Square traffic firsthand, but it sounded about right. I don’t remember when he changed from being a rough-and-tumble boy full of bruises and brambles and awkward angles to the man he’d become: one of strength. And not just physical strength but strength of character, as Mr. Pop called it. The boy Mick who loved running through the woods and splashing in streams and digging in dirt hadn’t left the man Mick had become. Yet somehow, they’d all deepened, shaped the core of who he was as they shaped the twists and ridges, the rises and falls of his form.
I looked a moment at Tommy, still trying to figure out how to answer his question. What did Mick have that Tommy didn’t? Tommy had many of Mick’s physical qualities. Though Tommy’s hair was as wispy and fair as Mick’s was sleek and dark and though Tommy’s skin was as pale and freckled as Mick’s was tan and even, both enjoyed their share of second looks and secret glances from girls of all ages. Certainly, farmwork and endless hours on the baseball fields and swimming in the Meduxnekeag River had transformed Tommy’s chubby-cheeked, baby-fattened self into a young man who’d probably stop a car or two in Times Square himself. He certainly did on Main Street.
But it was more than the physical I saw in Mick. Because at fifteen I loved him for the things I’d loved about him when I was five and he was all of six. I loved him for his love of this world, for the way this world was so part of who he was and all he hoped to be. I loved him for the way he saw himself—and me, with him—in this world, how he recognized that his every movement, every moment rippled through the rest of nature. Though Mick had yet to acknowledge the Creator behind the creation he loved, my hope was that one day he would.
But I didn’t tell Tommy Birger any of this. I gave him the best answer that I could: “It’s not that Mick has anything you don’t. In fact, I think most of us would agree that he’s got an awful lot less.”
Tommy looked bewildered but said nothing.
“Mick lives on a dump, in a shack, for Pete’s sake! You live on a farm in a beautiful home with shutters and flower boxes. You sleep alone—in your own bed, in your own room.”
Tommy smirked. “So, you’re saying somebody’s sharing Mick’s bed?”
I slapped his shoulder, feigned anger but then smiled. “You are terrible, Tommy. If Mr. Pop or even Ellery hears you with that fresh mouth, that’ll be your last date cookie on this porch.”
Tommy laughed too. “I’m sorry. I really am. And sheesh, I’ve seen the Flats. I know how they live. I hear how folks talk about them. And honestly, I hate how they’ll be talking about Mick. He’s a nice enough kid. If he weren’t Maliseet, we’d be friends. We’d have been horsing around in the Meduxnekeag and playing catch in the front yard. But with all he doesn’t have, all I can see is what he does have: you. You seem like a nice prize for having to grow up on a dump.”
“And how about for sitting in a jail cell, all alone, because Mr. Carmichael hates Maliseet? Am I a good prize for that too? How about we move you out there this winter and see how you feel about it then?” Though the prize talk hinted at flattery, it settled into pure anger in my soul.
Tommy lifted his foot up to the swing and retied his shoe, buying time, it seemed.
“Can we just start over?” he asked.
“Start what over?”
“Today. The reason I came over.”
I shrugged.
Tommy grabbed my hand and looked straight into my eyes. I froze, terrified to think what might come next.
“Mercy, the thing is, I like yo
u. I care about you a lot. I wish you were my girlfriend. But I know you can’t be. Or that you won’t be. But I still like you and I’ll always care about you and I want to help you.” Tommy stared ahead, out across the farm and made a decision. “Even if it means helping Mick.”
“You want to help Mick?” My eyes widened.
“No. I want to help you. And if helping Mick helps you, I’ll do it. Whatever I can do, just tell me. I’ll do it.”
I smiled and asked, “Ever visit anybody in jail?”
Chapter Ten
Joseph stepped out of the car. As he looked around, took in the fields and the house and the woods beyond it all, I realized this moment was one he’d waited for, wished for, for such a long time.
The circumstances, however, were completely unwelcome.
For the dream to play out like Joseph had imagined, Mick would be with him along with his dad and Mr. Socoby and Clarence and some of the other men. This was not the scenario Joseph had wanted. I could see that Mr. Pop was right to get Joseph to come help on the farm. I saw his eyes flash as he got out of the car, anger seething just below the surface.
When Mr. Pop had visited the Flats the day before, he told me about how he’d been met with the same kind of anger. Though the Maliseet understood Mr. Pop to be on their side when sides were drawn, when he arrived at the Flats, Mr. Socoby and Ansley had met him by the road and warned him away.
“The women are upset,” Ansley had said coldly, his jaw twitching. So Mr. Pop had told them quickly that Roger was on his way, that Roger had influence and ability to get Mick not only released but the charges dropped. Mr. Pop told them that if they wanted, Roger was willing to do this pro bono. He reminded them that this was the same Roger they’d run with as boys, the same one who’d splashed with them in the Meduxnekeag, who’d spent afternoons tracking moose and bear and who’d laughed all the way home with them after they’d found that moose, and Roger’d nearly peed his pants with them. Mr. Socoby reminded Mr. Pop that Frankie Carmichael had run with them too in those days. Much had changed. Now they didn’t know if they could trust Roger, whom they hadn’t seen since he left for college over two decades earlier.
Mr. Pop understood that they could choose their own lawyers, that they might want to hire someone with no ties to the community, but Mr. Pop wanted them to know Roger would work for them on this very local, very personal level just as he was working for them and the Micmacs as well as the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes that claimed Maine land with his work on the council for the governor.
They had agreed to think about it and to at least see Roger when he arrived the day after next. Mr. Socoby and Ansley had also agreed that Joseph should come to the farm, that he needed something besides weaving to keep him busy and out of trouble. So when Mr. Pop left them, saying Ellery would be back the next morning to fetch only Joseph, Mr. Socoby and Ansley had nodded slowly, their jaw muscles looser but their eyes still steeled by a rage and hurt Mr. Pop told me he realized he could never fully understand.
I hopped up from the porch swing and jogged to the car, grabbed Joseph and linked arms with him, like I’d done with him whenever I’d picked up men, Mick too, at the Flats. It was my attempt to cheer him up. It never worked, but I never stopped.
I’d woken up cheerier than I expected to. The call we’d gotten from Uncle Roger after dinner, telling us that he’d talked to a colleague in Presque Isle who’d come down today to talk to Judge Dodd before Uncle Roger would arrive tomorrow, shored up my faith and brightened my mood. All would be back to normal before we knew it. I was certain.
“Joe, thanks for coming,” I said. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Joseph gave no response, so my nerves kept talking, desperately trying to lighten the mood.
“I thought I’d have to cut all the broccoli by myself,” I said. “I’m tired of being the only one with green fingernails and fingertips. I could use some help picking peas too. We’re all out at the roadside stand.”
My ball of nerves pushed out the words a mile a minute. But when once again, Joseph said nothing, I paused to look at him. Somehow, as I looked into his face, his own dark eyes and slick hair, Joseph’s presence calmed me. There was no mistaking that he was Mick’s brother. It felt like a little piece of Mick was standing in front of me. Before, I’d only ever seen this boy’s weaknesses and his illness and his bitterness, but now I could see his strength and his promise. The same every other thirteen-year-old should brim with. I pulled him forward.
“Let’s head to the shed and grab the linoleum knives for cutting broccoli and head back toward the northeast field,” I said, still unable to slow my speed of speech. “I’ll grab a bushel basket for the peas, and we can both work at filling it. Mr. Pop said he’d be happy if we got one bushel between us to bring back up to the road stand. The field of peas is adjacent to the broccoli field. If we get fifteen head of broccoli that’s good enough, then we can get to picking the peas. Sound good? I’ll grab some chicken feed from the shed, too, and drop it off in the coop on the way by.”
As Joseph mumbled a “sounds fine,” I realized I really didn’t want to leave room for him to talk, at least not until we headed down the farm road and gotten a few more paces between us and the shed. I didn’t know what or how much he would say about any of this, but somehow I knew it wasn’t stuff I wanted others to be able to hear. Not even Mr. Pop.
But Joseph said nothing. Not as we walked to the field with our knives and bushels. Not as I knelt on the dirt, slicing heads of broccoli from the ground, before passing them to Joseph who lumped them into their baskets. And not as we lifted the bushels together and waddled them over to the stand, arranging them so they “flowered up and over” the rim, just as Mother had taught me.
As we headed to the field of peas, I could no longer wait.
“Joe,” I said. “I know Mr. Pop came to the Flats yesterday to talk about my uncle Roger getting involved. I’m dying to hear. What did your mom and dad say?”
Joseph snorted and knelt down toward the peas. He plucked a few and dropped them into the basket before shaking his head and answering. “What’d’ya think they said? They know just as well as you or me or your Mr. Pop or your uncle Roger or that stinkin’ Mr. Carmichael that nothin’ll happen unless a white man gets involved. Same old story. I mean, do you think we’d just let Mick rot in jail? Your uncle Roger is our only option. Of course Maliseet can’t take care of our own.”
This sarcastic tone was a side of Joseph I rarely saw. Sometimes, when Mick had said no to him for the umpteenth time he’d asked to come work on the farm, it’d show, but this time it had an angry edge. His attitude put me on guard.
“Mr. Pop doesn’t think you can’t take care of Mick.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. He just thinks we won’t.”
I snapped off another few peapods and stood up, towering above Joseph.
“Mr. Pop thinks no such thing! You need to apologize this minute.”
“For what?”
“For insulting a man who’s trying to help you. He’s worried sick for you and for Mick and for your family and for everyone.”
Joseph stood up as well. Though I had a couple inches on him, with his shoulders pulled back and his chin up, he was bigger than ever before. Only his uneven breaths diminished the power he tried so hard to convey.
“He’s worried now but has he been so worried before? It’s not like Mick being in jail is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. Or to me. Or to any of us.”
I stepped backward, nearly tripping over the plants. “What do you mean?” I asked.
Joseph shook his head and then nodded toward the road. “Car,” he said.
I rushed over and pulled out two heads of broccoli for the customer who had just driven up to our farm stand. I told her I could have a sack of peas for her in five minutes if she was willing to wait.
The woman agreed and then looked over at Joseph picking the peas and tossing them into the basket. “If he speaks
English,” she said, “tell that Indian boy to go easy on my peas.”
I nodded my head at the woman and stepped over to the already picked peas. I’d always hoped the attitude toward the Maliseet was just a local thing. I’d dreamed that elsewhere in this state, in this country even, nobody would care about a person based on when or how you got to this land, but this woman, whose very comment betrayed that she was from away, proved how wrong I was.
But I smiled as I handed her the bag of peas and as I took her money, just as Mr. Pop had taught me to. Some customers will be rude, he had told me, but we never would be. I turned to join Joseph in the pea field when I saw Ellery nearly running toward me.
“Just got a call from Nelson’s in town,” Ellery said. “They told your mother they got some big order for their broccoli salad. The chef—the honest-to-goodness chef himself that Nelson’s just hired—is coming over in person to check the quality. Needs fifteen head. You and Joseph need a hand?”
I looked at Joseph, steady at work in the fields, pulling pod after pod from their stems, giving each one a little look before tossing it into the bushel. I had cut the broccoli myself, thinking his eyes and hand wouldn’t be keen enough to pick the best ones and cut them with the love Mother claimed they needed. But as I watched him with the peas, I knew I’d been wrong.
“Nope,” I said. “We’ll get it. Tell Mother not to worry.”
“Sure thing, Miss Mercy. Your mother would have me tell you to not be goofing off and pounding sand out there. If your mother can make this hotshot chef happy, maybe he’ll spread the word and she can pick up some business. She deserves to be Broccoli Queen of Maine. Dontcha think?”
I didn’t. If Broccoli Queen would be anything like Potato Blossom Queen, I figured it’d only cause more trouble than it’s worth.
“All right, then, back to work,” Ellery called, as he ran toward the house.
I walked over to Joseph.
“Was he checking up on me? Making sure I wasn’t pocketing any peas?”
Shades of Mercy Page 10