Falling into Place (6 page)

“I can't believe you said that,” Margaret said in a faint voice. But it was amazing. Roy was right. She could have pushed a basketball through the gap between Mrs. Tudley's legs.

“My legs are getting bowed, and I'm shrinking,” Mrs. Tudley was saying. “I've lost four inches already.”

She sounded pleased, as if shrinking was what she had in mind and she was proud of doing it so well.

“When you're as tall as me, maybe we could dance together,” said Roy.

“Why, Roy . . .” Mrs. Tudley blinked and lowered her feet slowly to the floor. Her eyes were suspiciously bright. “That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in years,” she said.

The room was suddenly too hot and too close for Margaret. “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Tudley,” she said quickly. She stood up, stuffed the cushion back into the couch, then grabbed Roy's arm. “We have to be going now. We have a lot of other calls to make.”

“So soon?” Mrs. Tudley's head started to shake more noticeably, as if buffeted by wind. “I was about to offer you something to eat.”

“That would be nice,” said Roy.

He would have sat down again, but Margaret kept a firm grip on him as she headed for the door. “No, thank you,” she called. “We're not hungry. I'll let you know when the party is going to be.”

“I'll look forward to it,” called Mrs. Tudley.

“Goodbye!”

Margaret slammed the door before Mrs. Tudley could reply. Then she turned on Roy furiously. “I can't believe you. We go to meet someone to try to make a friend for Gran, and you end up making her cry!”

Roy held his hands up in front of him. “All I said was that I would dance with her.”

“You can't say things like that to old people,” said Margaret. “You can't say anything too nice or too sad. You can't talk about their husbands, or what they did in the past, or where they lived, or anything.”

“What
can
you talk about?”

“You
can't talk about anything!” shouted Margaret, stomping down the path. “You just listen. If I let you talk, you'll start asking questions and talking about fat people and heart attacks, and the next thing you know, they'll be crying.”

“Mrs. Tudley didn't seem old,” said Roy. “She was fun.”

“Yearwise she's old, okay? Too old to want an eight-year-old for a friend.” She pushed open the gate and started down the sidewalk.

“She liked me,” said Roy stiffly. “I could tell.”

“We don't
want
her to like you,” said Margaret. “We want her to like
Gran.
”

There was a stubborn silence behind her as they headed for the next house. Then Roy said, “How can they like her if they don't even know her?”

Margaret stopped and turned around. “That's why I'm inviting them to a party,” she said. She enunciated each word carefully so he would understand how dense he was being. “To meet her.”

“I already know that,” said Roy. “But what's Gran going to say when they show up?”

Looking at his calm face, she could feel all of her resolve oozing out of her. She never should have asked him to come with her. The way he was always examining things and asking questions only made her feel doubtful. And there wasn't time for her to feel doubtful. Before she left, she was going to make sure Gran's house was full of people, whether Gran liked it or not.

“Fine. I'll go by myself.” She pushed open the gate to the next house and walked toward the front door.

Roy materialized at her side like a ghost. “You don't have a present this time.”

“Too bad.”

She hesitated at the bottom of the steps.

“We're going to have to give them food,” said Roy. “Did you think about that?”

Margaret put her finger on the doorbell. “First things first,” she said, and pushed.

“Maybe they're not home,” said Roy hopefully. “Maybe we should come back tomorrow.”

Margaret put her ear against the door. They were home, all right. She could hear a faint sound from somewhere inside. A television, maybe.

“There's someone in there,” she said determinedly. “Come on.” She jumped off the steps and bolted around the corner of the house.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Roy jumped blindly off the stoop after her. He limped noisily around the corner of the house, with blood beading up along a new scratch on his shin. Margaret turned to look at him from where she was peering through the glass door on the back terrace, and put a finger up to her lips.

“Shh,” she said quietly. She pressed her face back against the glass.

“You can't do that,” Roy said. He limped over to her. “You're being a peeping Tom. You could be arrested.”

“You've got to see this!” Margaret whispered. “You won't believe it.”

Roy inched up next to her and peered fearfully through the glass.

There was a woman inside. She was sitting on a stool in the middle of the room. Her feet were planted wide apart and her hands were resting on her knees. She had on bright green sneakers and a flowing purple dress. But they couldn't see what her face looked like, because she had a bucket over her head.

A gray plastic bucket. Muffled, droning sounds were coming from underneath it.

“What do you think she's doing?” whispered Roy.

“I don't know.” Margaret's voice was hushed.

They watched in silence for a minute. Then Roy said, “Do you think she's stuck?”

“No.”

More silence.

“Maybe she's bald, and she doesn't want anyone to know,” he said.

Margaret dragged her eyes away to look at him. This was the weirdest thing she had ever seen.

“Maybe she's trying to kill herself,” she said. She paused dramatically. “By suffocation,” she added, and was pleased to see Roy's eyes grow huge.

“Do you think she could?” he said.

“I don't know.” They turned their faces back to the window again. “It doesn't look like there's very much air in there,” said Margaret.

Suddenly, the woman coughed. The bucket wobbled around on her broad shoulders, and then stopped. She sat up straighter and moved her feet closer together. The droning noise started up again.

Margaret let out a puff of air that left a perfect circle on the glass. She didn't know whether she should run inside and pull the bucket off the woman's head—thereby saving her life—or simply run. It might be kind of interesting, saving a person's life.

But what if the woman
was
trying to suffocate, and her eyes were bulging out and her face was all blue and swollen? What if she had been in a terrible accident, and her face was so scarred that she wore the bucket so that no one would see? What if . . . ?

When the woman coughed again, Roy clutched her arm. This time, it was a whole string of coughs. When the bucket began to wobble again, the woman reached up with both hands to steady it. Except this time, she didn't just steady it, she lifted it clean off her head.

Roy let out an ear-piercing shriek.

The woman turned to them with an astonished face and caught them staring at her with their noses pressed up against her door. It was hard to tell who was more surprised.

The woman recovered first. She stood up and came toward them, a mountain on the move. Everything about her was big: her bright red hair piled up on her head like a whirl of whipped cream, her shelflike bosom, and her face. Her face was enormous. Her cheeks were as round as hamburger buns and her chins led down to her neck in steps. Her mouth—the biggest, widest mouth Margaret had ever seen—was open wide.

Margaret couldn't tell whether she was laughing or shouting until she opened the door and Margaret, who was still leaning against it, frozen, fell into her outstretched arms. When she had finally pushed herself up and away from the woman's massive arms to stand on her own two feet again, she glared at the woman's amused face indignantly. “It's not funny,” she said. “You almost gave Roy a heart attack.”

The woman made a string of loud barks that sounded like a seal. “I can't imagine what you children must be thinking. You should see your faces.”

“We thought you were suffocating,” said Roy.

“It
was
hot in there,” she said. She fanned her face with her hands, making the bracelets on her arms tinkle together like wind chimes. There were necklaces around her neck, too, and dangling earrings that matched her dress.

“Well, I'm glad you're still with us, Roy,” she said cheerfully. “There's a perfectly reasonable explanation, I assure you. Come in, come in. Let me explain.”

Margaret already
was
in, and Roy didn't look as if he was sure he wanted to be. But when the woman pulled him in gently and shut the door, he immediately tilted his head and started sniffing the air like a hound dog. “You smell good,” he said approvingly.

“Bay rum. I've worn it for years.”

“Bay rum's for men,” said Margaret. “Tad wore it.”

“Tad's our grandfather,” said Roy.

“Was
our grandfather,” Margaret said. “He's dead. That's why we're here.”

“Dead?” The woman slapped a hand to her chest dramatically. “You mean now? At your house?”

“No, no,” said Margaret quickly. “He died almost a year ago.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” The woman set the wind chimes going again. “I thought you were having a medical emergency, looking for a nurse or someone, with your noses pressed against my door like that.”

Margaret had the grace to blush.

“No need to be embarrassed.” The woman was already heading back into the room. “Come and sit down. Roy what?”

“Roy Parker.”

“And you?”

“I'm Margaret Mack. We're cousins.”

“Nice to meet you, Roy and Margaret. I'm Agatha Nightingale.” She sat down and waved a hand toward the couch. “Please. No standing on ceremony.”

Whether it was because of her open, smiling face, or her familiar smell, it suddenly felt like they were old friends.

“If you don't need me to help resuscitate your grandfather,” Mrs. Nightingale said when they were settled, “what
do
you need me for?”

“We came to invite you to a party at our grandmother's,” Margaret said. “Mrs. David Mack. She lives across the street.”

“Ah, yes, the renegade.”

“She's very nice,” said Roy defensively. Then he frowned. “What's a renegade?”

“Someone who goes against the grain,” said Mrs. Nightingale. “And I'm sure she is. Nice, I mean. I admire her spirit. Sheets on the line, banana peels in the garden.” She barked again. “You don't have to look so surprised. We all know everything about one another at Carol Woods. And I'd say being a renegade runs in your family, Roy. Most people around here use the front door to extend party invitations.”

She could have been mad at them, but she wasn't. She thought it was funny. Margaret suddenly liked her very much.

“We rang,” she said, “but no one answered.”

“Ah, yes.” Mrs. Nightingale bent down and picked up the bucket. “That's because I was under this.”

Margaret had forgotten all about the bucket. Now she looked at it in wonder. “What were you doing under there?” she said.

It was Mrs. Nightingale's turn to look embarrassed. “You may find this hard to believe, but I was trying to learn how to sing.”

“Under a bucket?” said Margaret and Roy in unison.

“I know, it sounds ridiculous.” Mrs. Nightingale sighed. “But you're looking at a desperate woman. I've promised myself for a year now that I would sing at the Recreation Club's karaoke evening, and tomorrow night, I'm going to do it!” She pounded a fist into her palm.

“What's karaoke?” said Roy.

“It's where you get up on a stage, and they hand you a microphone and put on some music, and you sing.”

“How can a bucket teach you how to sing?” said Margaret.

“Several weeks ago I saw a picture in the newspaper of a singing class in Korea,” said Mrs. Nightingale. “All of the students had buckets over their heads, and the caption said that by listening to the sound of their own voices, the students were learning how to sing. So I thought, Why not give it a try?”

“It kind of makes sense,” Margaret said doubtfully.

Roy was eyeing the bucket as if it was an intriguing scientific experiment. “What's it like under there?” he said.

Mrs. Nightingale held it out to him. “Be my guest.”

He took it very gingerly and lowered it over his head as solemnly as if he were an astronaut about to hurtle into outer space.

“What's it like?” said Margaret.

“You don't have to shout. I can hear you.” There was a short silence. Margaret knew he was probably looking around, examining it. Finally, he said, “Actually, it's kind of interesting.”

“Roy finds everything interesting,” Margaret said to Mrs. Nightingale, rolling her eyes. Then to Roy, “Sing something.”

There was another pause, then Roy's muffled voice. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer—”

“Oh, for Pete's sake. We'll be here all day,” said Margaret. She snatched the bucket off Roy's head and lowered it over her own. It smelled of plastic and bay rum.

“Testing one, two, three. Testing . . .”

It was amazing. It actually worked. There was nowhere else for her voice to go but back into her own ears.

She lifted the bucket off and handed it to Mrs. Nightingale. “It just might work,” she said.

“It hasn't so far,” said Mrs. Nightingale. “And I'm running out of time.”

“I bet you can sing,” said Roy encouragingly. “Everyone can sing.”

“Not me. I'm tone-deaf. Completely, utterly tone-deaf.”