Darnay Road (17 page)

Darnay
Road 32

I
love waking up because at first it’s my room and all the things I love,
especially my books, and my pink world as Granma calls it. But I wonder if I’m
just a girl in one of God’s shoebox rooms.

I
say that for a very, very good reason cause one of my favorite things to do,
well mine and Abigail May’s, is to make little rooms out of shoeboxes.

Abigail
May made rooms for her paper family and I made rooms for mine. Abigail May’s
family had six children, and she always says she is having six, and my family
had just one child, a girl. I don’t know how many children I’ll have someday,
probably four, but Abigail May says Aunt May says Catholics have to have a baby
every single year or they go straight to hell. I asked Granma and she said we’d
talk about that when I am in high school. She says that about a lot of things,
so we’ll be talking for years by the time I get there.

Anyway
about our shoebox rooms--we’d make our own wallpaper and furniture. We would
play together with the rooms we felt like carrying under a tree in the backyard
or up here in my room or across the street in hers, or on our porches.

We
never played in Aunt May’s backyard so much. That belonged to Ricky and with
the tracks behind, it drew him and not us. But every inch of Granma’s, the
backyard and the cellar, the attic, every inch belonged to me and Abigail May.
Granma got the living room and her chair on the porch and the kitchen and her
bedroom of course, but there is no part we weren’t welcomed in.

I don’t know what
Abigail May did with all of her stuff. She only took a bag Aunt May said. They
are going to ship the rest but there is no room in the apartment. So it must
all be in her room still. Her yellow world. Her banana world. That makes me
laugh, but then I’m sad and I think of all those empty shoe box rooms, and I
think of Aunt May all alone in that big house and Abigail so far.

Easy.
Oh Easy. He makes me so happy and he makes me so sad. He makes my heart bump
and he makes my heart feel heavy as lead.

I
think of so many things and my stomach rumbles because I didn’t eat supper and
I won’t be eating breakfast either. Nope. Not until I know Easy has food.

So
I get up quick and pull my shorts under my pajamas and take Little Bit with me
and set her on the floor while I go pee-pee and brush my teeth. Then I get my
thongs and go downstairs. I can hear the hiss of the iron in the kitchen cause
Granma is ironing clothes. I go in there and she’s sprinkling over one of my
dresses. She has this red and white sprinkler stopper in a Pepsi-bottle. There
are just certain things that are Granma’s, and this is one of them.

She
looks at me. I am holding Little Bit.

“Did
you take her out?” she says, meaning Little Bit. “Best do it then get in here
and eat your breakfast.”

“Luminous,”
I whisper because she is wearing the green apron that matches the potholder.

“Say
what?”

“Um…I’m
not eating breakfast, Granma.”

She
sets the iron on its tail and throws her weight to the good hip that doesn’t
have the ‘misery,’ and stares at me with her lips pressed flat. Granma has
silver hair and it’s long and thick like a pioneer’s. I love her hair, and she
rolls it in a bun high on her head for workdays and into a French roll for
church. Right now it’s in a braid over her shoulder cause she hasn’t pinned it
up yet. She’s just my granma, that’s what I keep telling myself so I can stare
back and hold my ground. I got that from John Wayne—holding my ground cause he
says that in one of his movies which are all my favorites.

“I
suppose this is for your country?” Granma says.

“No
ma’am. It’s for Easy.”

“I
have put your supper in the icebox and you will eat that for breakfast Miss
Smarty-pants.” She snaps up the iron and goes to digging it around the big
white collar on my dress. I have never fought with my Granma in my entire life!

I
start crying. “Granma please don’t be mad at me.”

Well
she takes one glance and here she comes and puts her arms around me and I reach
around her. I just love her to pieces but of course I’m still not eating that
meatloaf.

Aunt
May’s Buick is running behind me at the curb. I am knocking on Easy’s door and
it is a terrible door for being dirty and needing paint. So Easy answers and he
is looking at me. I hope he isn’t angry, but he just looks like maybe he’s
surprised. And he isn’t wearing his shirt, just some cut-offs I’ve seen before.
But he’s pretty handsome anyway cause he just always is.

“Easy, Granma and me
were wondering if you could come to lunch today. Well Granma says you can bring
your mother if you’d like. Aunt May will pick her up if you need.”

“Why
I want to do that?” he says looking past me at Aunt May’s Buick while I try to
look past him and I see on the far wall a big framed picture of Jesus praying
on his knees in the Garden of Gethsemane. “I don’t want to do that,” he says
kind of sternly.

I
clear the fear right out of my throat. “Thing is Granma has some bushes need
trimmed and the back fence needs cleared and she didn’t know if you would be
willing to do that. I could help you cause I know you still have to finish Miss
Little’s. Well we drove by there—Miss Little’s and I saw your mower still there
in all that tall grass. And Granma’s rake. I’m not allowed to um…be your
right-hand man, Granma says,” then I rush to add, “…and I don’t agree, but
Granma says so….” I take in a big breath because those words took all my air.

I
scratch my cheek a little and I’m so worried, but he smiles and looks down. But
he looks up quick and he’s so stern. “I told you not to come around.”

Well
I’m a little mad now. Not so much, but a little. “I don’t know your phone
number.” It’s the truth.

He
looks down again, at my sandals. I go back on my heels some and tap one foot
then the other. It gets him to look up and I have to smile and he does too a
little. “What time?”

“Soon
as you’re done at Miss Little’s.”

“That’s
gonna take me all day. I’ll come to your house first.”

I
get so excited I turn to go, and he says, “Georgia?” and I turn and he’s out
the door a little. He’s very strong. I mean his arms.

“Yes
Easy?”

“Mom
don’t go out.” He has this very certain look in his eyes.

“All
right. I’ll tell Granma.”

He
nods and it’s okay again.

I
know it is.

Darnay
Road 33

“Every
year soon as school starts I have to write that essay about what I did over
summer vacation and every year I say the same old thing but this year I’d like
to be able to write that I helped clean up my neighbor’s yard. I’d like to say
that if you please!” I stress to my Granma.

I
am dressed in my red short set and my sandals, with my braids pinned up on my
head, and I’m waiting for Easy. Granma says I can’t just wait around for this
boy, I have to do things like fold the dish towels. So I do that lickety-split
and every time she gives me a job I do it really quick and I come back and say,
“Now what?”

So
she just gives up. And now I’m trying to say that once Easy comes it would be
fine, just fine if I could go with him to finish what I started in Miss
Little’s yard. I already swore with my hand on my missal even that I would
never ever go to the river again without her permission. I did that right in
front of her and said the words like in
Perry Mason
, “I swear to tell
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God.” I don’t
know what else to do.

“Miss
Little looked out the window and saw us and didn’t say a thing,” I tell her.

She
gets that look and I just go get her the Bufferin and a glass of cold water.

So Easy comes on his
bike and he’s sweaty but not too bad because he didn’t have to go far to come
here. “I had to straighten out my wheel,” he says.

He
is wearing the same bandage Aunt May put on him the day before I think because
that is Granma’s bandage I know, she tears white cotton into strips and keeps
it handy for when I do things like get a gigantic scrape on my knee. Last
summer I had two skinned knees the entire summer, but this year I decided to
just break my arm.

But
the bandage is dirty and blood showing through. Oh Easy. You can’t stay clean
to save your soul, can you.

So
I am holding Little Bit and she is sticking her little nose toward him and
sniffing. “It’s Easy,” I tell her, but she knows. She gets her paws on my arm
and stretches her neck and he keeps his hands round his waist and I say, “Well
take her.” And he does.

Granma
is at the screen then. “Best come and eat young man.”

“Should
I work first?” he says.

“There
is a young miss who can’t afford to wait any longer,” she says heading back to
the kitchen.

I
take Little Bit. “We best go,” I say because I am the young miss and I’m about
starved.

So
I smile at him and he’s looking at me, he doesn’t smile, but runs his hand over
his hair and it is no longer shaved off, but it is growing again.

I
get the door and he takes over and follows me down the hall. I look back at him
and he’s looking around, his eyes darting to look at the stairs and up.

“My
room is up there,” I say.

He
nods and I smile. I nearly tell him it’s pink, but I don’t.

So
I carry my dog into the kitchen and put her in her basket by the door but she
don’t stay, she never does, and Granma says she’ll step on her one of these
days and then what? But Little Bit is too quick, tapping one way then another.

Granma
tells Easy he can wash up in the sink and he looks like he ain’t thought about
it, but he does go there and washes. He uses the cup towel instead of the hand
towel, but geez Louise, he don’t know any better.

So
we get in the chairs and Easy sees his luminescent placemat and the plate
setting there that Granma collected with Eagle stamps. They are our everyday
and she has bone china for special she collected one piece at a time from the
grocery. I still remember carrying home the gravy boat.

So
I sit there with Easy around the corner on my right and Granma in her place
around the left. We are having the meatloaf and Granma’s potatoes with cheese
added because they are leftover since I didn’t even eat any, and corn and peas
and applesauce. We have this on Tuesday usually but now we’re having it on
Wednesday. So we get everything all around and Easy watches what I take and I
pass, and then he does like me. I take sliced tomatoes and cucumbers cause I
can eat those every day.

He
doesn’t want those. I set the glass dish by his plate, but he just ignores
them.

I
pick up my fork and he does too, and I cut a piece of my meatloaf and stick it
in my mouth and he does too, and it’s so, so good. And Granma says, “You want
some ketsup?”

And Easy lights up
some. “Thank you,” he says when she passes him the bottle of Brooks. He puts it
on his potatoes, and his meat and even his corn. I can’t believe my eyes and I
say, “You sure like ketsup,” and then he looks at me and I can see him blush
some.

Well
me and my Granma don’t know what to say so Granma points at my food with her
fork so I just get back to eating. I sure hope I didn’t embarrass Easy with my
diarrhea words again.

“And
how do you know Miss Little?” my Granma says.

I
can’t believe she is going to talk about that. I can see Easy doesn’t expect to
tell his business. He looks at me, then at his plate and he just chews some and
swallows. “We live behind,” he says.

“You’s
moved here a couple of years ago?”

“Yes
ma’am.” He doesn’t take another bite, just drags his fork through a ketsup
river.

I
want to tell her something wonderful about Easy, but everything I think of is
something I can’t say.

“This
your first summer to mow lawns or you do so before now?” Granma says and these
are really hard questions. I don’t know where she’s getting them from.

“I
mow since I been strong enough to push it. Back home I drove a tractor.”

“A
kid can drive a tractor?” I ask because I didn’t know.

“We
bale hay down there.”

“Where
is down there?” Granma doesn’t miss a lick.

“Tennessee,
Ma’am. Shoehorn.”

“Well
that’s a crazy name,” I say, but there I go again. He is blushing and he goes
on and takes a bite of potatoes.

“Well
how…,” Granma says.

And
here I come to save the day and I say, “
The Patty Duke
show is on
tonight.”

Granma
has a forkful of food she is holding in the air over her plate. Now she looks
at me. “So it is,” she says and finally, finally the airplane goes into the
hangar.

I
about let out a breath and I shovel in that food and we barely say another
word.