A Sliver of Sun (2 page)

Ginger busted out laughing. “That was the coolest jump I’ve ever seen. Did you see that, Piper Lee?”

The back of my hand made a loud smack as it landed on her arm, and she jumped back with a shriek. “OW! What was that for?”

“For laughing,” I said. “It ain’t funny at all. He’s gonna fall.”

Miss Claudia came huffing and puffing up behind us. She stared up at Mowgli. “Got himself in a pickle, sure enough.”

Ginger rubbed her arm. “Daddy’s got a ladder in the garage.”

I ran for the garage, and Ginger raced after me.

“Now hold on you two,” Miss Claudia called. “Be careful, now.”
It was an eight foot wooden ladder, heavy as a pregnant hippo. I grabbed one end, and Ginger grabbed the other, and we half carried, half dragged it across the yard. Miss Claudia watched, making little fretting noises in her throat. But when we got close, she helped us prop the ladder against the side of the house. I shimmied up the rungs toward Mowgli until I was close enough to release the clasp on his leash. But as soon as the tension was off his neck, he jerked back out of reach. “Mowgli,” I hissed, “get over here ‘fore I fry you like a catfish.”

I climbed to the second rung from the top, braced a knee on the scratchy shingle roof and felt the ladder shift. I froze. Mowgli eyed me as if I were a hungry hawk.

I glanced down at Miss Claudia and Ginger. They’d both stepped away from the ladder so they could see me better. “You best come down from there,” Miss Claudia said. “He’ll find his own way down.”

“It’s okay,” I said, “almost got him.” I lunged forward and grabbed Mowgli by the scruff of the neck. Then I gingerly straightened my leg and felt for the ladder rung. Mowgli allowed me to clutch him against my chest just long enough for me to start down the ladder. Then he came alive—twisting and wiggling—and planted his claws firmly in the tender inside of my elbow.

I screamed, leaned toward the ground and let him drop. The ladder followed the direction of my tilting body.

“Hang on!” Miss Claudia shouted, making a grab for the ladder. But it was too late. I rode it down and didn’t let go until I was only a few feet from the ground, landing with a bone shaking
whomp
at the base of the pecan tree. The fall didn’t hurt so much, but the long scratches from Mowgli’s claws burned like peroxide on a skinned knee.

Miss Claudia settled herself by my side, rocking me in her arms and nearly suffocating me against her wide bosom. “Oh, Lordy! Oh my Lord, are you all right, child? Your mama and daddy haven’t been gone fifteen minutes and you probably broke a bone.”

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m fine, Miss Claudia.”

Ginger stared, her eyes as big as flapjacks. But it wasn’t me she was staring at. I followed her gaze to the newly painted hood of Ben’s Mustang. The ladder had swept clean across it, leaving long, curving scratches, even longer than the ones on my arm. My belly shriveled up to the size of a prune.

If this wasn’t one of those
shenanigans
Ben had warned us about, I didn’t know what was.

M
iss Claudia dabbed my scratches with the dreaded peroxide and made me rest on the couch with a cold washcloth across my forehead. The longer I lay there, the more bruised and battered I felt. Mowgli lay in a spot of sun nearby, licking his paws as though nothing had ever happened. I wanted to go over and wring his furry neck, just the way I feared Ben was gonna wring mine.

He’d been restoring his old Mustang for months, working on it bit by bit as he had time and money. He’d painted the hood to be sure he liked the color, and because it was the only part that didn’t need more sanding. Just thinking about it made me sweat. I closed my eyes and tried to think of something—anything—else.

Once Miss Claudia was finally convinced I didn’t have a concussion and wasn’t gonna die, she let me up from the couch. I limped down the hall to Ginger’s room, which was now officially
our
room. Ben had set up bunk beds for us, and Ginger lay in the top bunk cutting fashions out of Mama’s
Woman’s Way
magazines.

“You sure you’re s’posed to be cutting those up?” I asked.

Ginger paused for a second and then resumed cutting. “These are last year’s. Can’t imagine she’d care about those.”

I went over and eased down on the bottom bunk. Most of my things from home were still packed in boxes, stacked in a messy pile against the wall. I didn’t know where to put anything, or what part of the space was supposed to be mine. “I think we ought to split this room in half,” I said.

The
scritch-scritch
of the scissors stopped. Ginger hung her head over the side of the bunk. “How are we gonna do that when our beds are hooked together?”

I surveyed the room. Ben had placed the bunk beds in the center of the right side wall. So if we faced the room from the beds, one of us could have the right side, which took in the window, and one could have the left, which took in the door. I explained this to Ginger, and she nodded. “Then I get the window side,” she said.

She answered too quickly for me to decide if I needed to argue or not. But the more I thought about it, the less important it seemed. I couldn’t pick out any clear cut advantage to either side. “Fine,” I said. “How are we gonna make the line?”

“What line?”

“The dividing line. Where’s your daddy keep his tape measure?”

Her eyes lit up as though she finally got what I was saying. “I think I know where it is.”

Miss Claudia dozed in Ben’s recliner, her legs propped up on the foot rest and her mouth open. We tiptoed past her, into the kitchen, and quietly rummaged through drawers until we found a tape measure and a stub of chalk.

“Okay,” I said, once we were back in Ginger’s room. “Hold the tape right here on the floor by the bed.” I stretched the other end to the opposite wall, keeping it as straight as I could. “Twenty feet wide,” I said. “Now the other way.” Ginger moved over to the window, and I went toward the door. “Sixteen feet long.” I paused to make a quick calculation. Math was the only subject I got good grades in, and the only one Ginger
didn’t
get good grades in. “So that means we both get a ten by eight foot bedroom.” We measured the width again, and I carefully drew a chalk mark across the faded wood floor.

“Okay,” I said. “Once we get stuff set up, we gotta ask permission to come over to each other’s side.”

“Your dresser’s on my side,” Ginger noted.

“So help me move it.”

She did, and then went back to cutting out pictures. I dragged over one of my cardboard boxes. Right on top was my aviation scrapbook and my
Waldo Pepper
movie poster. They both made me think of Daddy.

Even though he’d crashed his Piper Cub plane six years ago—and I’d finally accepted that he was gone for good—there’d always be a part of him alive in my heart. I loved to think about him, it made me feel calm and good when nothing else could. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate, hoping it would take my mind off Ben and his Mustang. But for once, thinking about Daddy didn’t work.

I closed the box and slipped outside for another look at the scratches on the hood. Tears clogged my throat. Ben would be plenty mad for sure, but he’d be disappointed too—and somehow that was worse.

I couldn’t put my finger on exactly when I’d started caring what Ben thought. After all, I’d spent a whole year pushing him away, doing my best to keep Mama from marrying him. I’d even gone so far as trying to get Ginger’s mama back in the picture in an effort to stop the wedding. But nothing had worked, Mama had married him anyway. And sometime in the past month or so, my own heart had turned traitor on me.

Maybe it was finally realizing that my own daddy was really, truly gone for good. Or maybe it was seeing how happy Ben made Mama. Or maybe it was that we all lived under the same roof now, and I had more chance to watch him with Ginger. For whatever crazy reason, I’d started secretly liking some things about Ben.

I liked his deep, rolling chuckle, and the way he stepped up and made decisions when Mama dilly-dallied around too long. I thought it was funny how he scratched his back against the door frame even though Mama told him he looked like a pony scratching his rump. I liked how he tweaked Ginger’s ribs when he wanted her to move out of his way. And I ‘specially liked it when he scooped her right off the ground for no other reason than to make her laugh.

I wanted him to do that sort of thing to me. But he didn’t like me enough. I wasn’t too sure he liked me
at all
. And why would he, when I had such a knack for doing things to upset him? Things like letting a ladder fall across the hood of his Mustang. I sighed. Maybe I’d call Mama and confess, let
her
break the news to Ben. Maybe by the time they got home, I wouldn’t be in quite so much trouble.

I ran my finger down one of the scratches. It was long, but not near so deep as I’d expected. I touched it again, and it brought to mind the time I’d seen Ben polish a pair of newly stained barstools. Ginger asked what he was doing, and he said buffing covered scratches and brought out the shine. And I wondered, if you could buff out wood, how about metal?

I felt a little lighter as I trotted over to the garage. Amidst all the tools and greasy rags and car parts, I found Ben’s paint gun sticking out of a five gallon bucket. On the shelf above, was a soft woolen mitt, big as a polar bear’s paw. I slipped my hand inside and turned it over. It was stained rust-colored, the same color Ben had used on the bar stools.

I went back out to the car hood and started rubbing in big, firm circles. I rubbed and rubbed until my already sore arm felt like it had a nail sticking in it. The hood shined like crazy, and the scratches seemed a little less noticeable. I brought Miss Claudia out for a second opinion.

She squinted and wrinkled up her face and bent real close. Then she straightened up and said, “I believe you’re right, Piper Lee. Those scratches are lookin’ better.”

I clutched at my belly. “Good. I was afraid it was just my imagination.”

Miss Claudia put an arm around me. “Come on inside now. We need to find somethin’ for supper. Your sister’s asking for chocolate chip pancakes.”

Your sister.
Those words gave me pause. I didn’t think they’d ever sound natural
.
But chocolate chip pancakes—now those sounded near perfect.

When I woke up the next morning, my whole body ached from falling off the ladder, and my shoulder ached even worse from buffing. But after breakfast I went out and buffed some more. I started out under the shade of the pecan tree. But little by little the sun scooted across the sky and bathed me in smothering heat. Droplets of sweat dripped from my forehead and stung my eyes as Ginger lay in the shade beneath the trampoline and read her cheerleading book.

I took an hour break for supper, then buffed until I couldn’t take it for one more second. Then I stumbled back and studied the hood. The scratches had turned into fine lines that you had to look real close to see, and I knew all my effort had been worth it.

I put the mitt back in the garage and went inside the house, feeling a little bigger. That’s when I overheard Miss Claudia on the phone.

“Why, yes, sir,” she was saying, “could’ve been so much worse. Piper Lee could’ve broken her arm … oh, yes, I’m real sorry ’bout your Mustang, Ben … I know you’ve worked real hard. Yes, sir, I’m afraid it’s lookin’ pretty beat up.”

My mouth dropped open, and I waved my hands in a frantic effort to get her to shut up. But she chattered on for another thirty seconds, spilling every detail of what had happened, while Ginger listened from the corner with an amused look on her face.

Finally, Miss Claudia wished Mama and Ben well and said we’d all look forward to seeing them the next evening, then she snapped the phone closed.

“Are they having fun?” Ginger asked.

“Oh, surely,” Miss Claudia said. “They been having a grand time swimming, and walkin’ on the beach and lazin’ around. But I think they’re missing you girls plenty.”

I started to shake with the injustice of it all. How could she sound so happy and cheerful when she’d just about guaranteed Ben was gonna kill me when he got home? I started to cry. “W—-why’d you do that?” I sputtered. “Why’d you make it sound so bad about the hood, Miss Claudia? You pretty much told him I ruined it.”

Her face scrunched up, and she hurried over to put an arm around me. “Now don’t you worry about a thing, child. I’ve seen how good you got his hood lookin. You’ve done a real fine job. But now he’ll be expecting the worst. So when he gets home and sees, he’ll think it’s nothin’ at all. He’ll feel relieved instead of put out.”

I tried real hard to follow her logic, and once I did, I started to relax a bit. “You sure, Miss Claudia?”

“Positive,” she said. “Trust me, Piper Lee, it’s how a man’s noggin works. You’ll see.”

I started to breath again. “Well … okay, then. I sure hope you’re right.”

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. But just to be double sure, I went out and buffed for a bit more the next afternoon. By the time I heard our car chugging up Hillman Drive, I knew I’d done as much as I could.

I waited by Mama’s side of the car. She climbed out lookin’ all pretty and happy, with her hair loose and flowing around her shoulders. She grimaced when she examined the scratches on my arm, then gave me a tight squeeze and a kiss on top the head.

I breathed in the surprise of a perfume I didn’t recognize. “Hey, Mama, have a good time?”

“A wonderful time,” she said. “Didn’t we, guy?”

“Surely did,” Ben said, stepping around the car. “Hey, y’all.” He wore blue jean cutoffs and a new T-shirt that said,
Beachside Bed and Breakfast
in wavy blue letters.

Ginger launched herself at him, and he scooped her up in a bear hug. “I see poor Miss Claudia survived you two.”

“We did jus’ fine, the three of us,” Miss Claudia said. “Although I expect to sleep real good in my own bed tonight.”

Mama hugged her. “You’ve no idea how much Piper Lee and I miss living across the hall from you.”

“Now don’t you fret about that, Heather. I’m sure we’ll be seein’ each other right often.”