Good Graces (37 page)

I’m trying to come up with a good explanation so my sister doesn’t get in trouble when Mother tells me, “Stop acting like such a ninny. Get in here. You’re embarassing me.”

Edging closer, I don’t take my eyes off of Molinari for one step. He looks so different. His hair is cut shorter and isn’t even that greasy and he doesn’t smell like pepperoni, more like . . . like
schnitzel
? I haven’t seen Dottie in the longest time in real life, but she looks the same as she does in her picture that is hanging in the Kenfields’ living room. The one she had taken in her mint-green senior-dance dress. She’s not wearing that, she’s got on a pair of white pedal pushers and a blue gingham blouse, but the ruby ring is still hanging around her neck on a gold chain.

Dave, who I am sure is getting mental telepathy with me the same way Troo does, says, “Sally, I’d like you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Molinari and their daughter, Sophia.”

Greasy Al musta slipped something into Dave’s drink that made him say something so goofy. These two
can’t
be married. They don’t have a thing in common the way they’re supposed to. Greasy Al dropped out of high school to spend all his time stealing hubcaps and kids’ bikes and siphoning gas outta cars. Dottie Kenfield was the apple of her mom’s and dad’s eyes and on the honor roll at school and would help out at the Five and Dime on the weekends. The two of them being married would be like . . . like the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Julie Adams getting hitched!

Greasy Al hands the baby over to Dottie and stands up when I finally make it all the way into the room. “Thanks for leavin’ the Goldmans’ back door open, kid,” he says, very politely. “We’ll pay them back for the food.”

I gotta grab on to the arm of the wing chair to steady myself. Did I do that? After I promised Mrs. Goldman that I would keep such a good watch on her house? The afternoon I fell asleep . . . ran out . . . Oh, for the love of Mike.

I say to Dave, who musta found them over there when he went to fix the stove light, “I’m really, really sorry. I went to bring Mrs. Goldman a couple of Mother’s old kitty puzzles and I . . . I . . . was gonna lie down just for a minute and I guess I didn’t lock her place back up again and—” I never went back inside the house after that one time, only checked it from the sidewalk.

Dave says, “Calm down, Sally,” the same way he does in the middle of the night after one of my nightmares that a lot of the time feature a certain
goombah
who is sitting across from me.

Mother shoots me a look, but says to her guests like she’s been reading every issue of
Good Housekeeping
, “May I offer the two of you something to drink?”

Dottie, who’s patting the baby’s back, says, “I’d love a glass of ginger ale if you’ve got it, Mrs. O’Malley. I mean . . .”

“You can call me Helen, honey. I won’t be Mrs. Rasmussen for a few more weeks. And how about you, Alfred?”

Oh, if Troo was only here to see this and not over at Fast Susie’s! My sister’s never gonna believe me when I tell her. She’s going to roll her eyes and say something mean about my lunatic imagination.

“Ginger ale sounds good,” Greasy Al says. “Thank you.”

Dave, who is watching me rubbing and blinking my eyes, tells me, “They’ve been getting some help from Alfred’s youngest brother for the past few weeks. He’s been bringing formula and diapers and whatever else they need over to the Goldmans’ once the neighborhood settles down for the night.”

Moochie Molinari is on the smallish side and sneakier than an Indian about to raid a wagon train, so I don’t doubt for a second that he could creep around these blocks without getting spotted.

“But . . . but why aren’t you arrestin’ him?” I ask Dave. “He escaped from reform school! He’s wanted! He popped a guard!”

“I didn’t wanna hit Mr. Franklin,” Greasy Al says, forgetting his new manners and using his old bully voice. “I only did it ’cause I had to.”

Dottie places her hand on his knee and gives him a pat. That must be some sort of secret signal she gives her husband when she wants him to pipe down. Mother gives signals like that to Dave, too. She scratches her nose when she wants him to change subjects.

“The baby and I were alone in Chicago and she got sick with scarlet fever,” Dottie slowly explains to me. “I needed Alfred’s help.”

“But once the baby got better, why didn’t the both of you stay hidden down there?” I ask. That’s what I woulda done if I was them. “Why’d you come back?”

Dottie’s eyes go moist when she says, “I . . . my mom and daddy . . . the baby . . .”

Greasy Al puts his arm around her like she’s a flower he doesn’t want to crush.

“These are what are known as extenuating circumstances, Sally,” Dave says. “Alfred will be returning to the reform school to deal with his problem and while he’s there, Dottie is hoping to stay with her mother and father.”

I catch that. “What do you mean
hoping
? Don’t the Kenfields already know about . . .” I point at the three of them.

Dottie sets the baby in Greasy Al’s arms and comes up to the chair to kneel down in front of me. Up close, she looks older than in her picture except for her smile, that hasn’t changed. She’s still got very good teeth.

She says, “We didn’t know how to . . . we were just talking about the best way to break the news to them and I thought you might be able to help us out. I know what a soft spot my dad has for you,” she says.

That’s true. At least it used to be. I always ask his wife to say hello to him for me when I visit the Five and Dime, but I’ve never heard anything back. And Mr. Kenfield hasn’t invited me once to swing on his porch with him the way we did last summer.

I tell Dottie, “You know . . . your dad . . . he is . . . he’s . . .” I’m trying to prepare her the way you would anybody who’s in for a shock. “He’s different than he was when you were still here. Sometimes he has too much to drink and he chases kids if they step one foot in his yard and he fell down in the dime store and knocked over all the Christmas decorations and . . . well, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but he’s pretty much gone down the drain.”

Mother and Dave don’t disagree with me or remind me to mind my manners. Everybody knows what bad shape Mr. Kenfield is in. It would be wrong to pretend we don’t.

Dottie takes my hands in hers and says, “If you could just pave the way . . . I’m sure that Daddy . . .” She looks like she is about to start choke-crying. “It would mean the world to us.”

I think about what she is asking me to do. I’m pretty sure that Mr. Kenfield isn’t furious at his daughter anymore. If he was, he wouldn’t have moved that picture out of her bedroom and hung it in his living room. It might be too much to expect him to feel the same way about his new son-in-law, Greasy Al.

Molinari says, “If ya could do this for us . . . the sooner the better. If things go smooth, I can leave without havin’ to worry ’bout my girls.”

My girls?
Did he just say that so loving? I doubted Dave, but I guess he was right when he told me at the beginning of the summer that all Greasy Al needed to straighten out was some TLC.

Dottie gives my hands a squeeze and says, “Please, Sally.”

I can see what she’s feeling. It’s that awful missing that never seems to get better. I know what it’s like waiting around for time to heal all wounds.

I look down at Daddy’s watch on my wrist and make up my mind. “Let’s go,” I say. “He should be out on the porch by now.”

 

 

Dave thought the fresh air would do us some good, so Dottie, Greasy Al and me and the baby took the alleyway. I didn’t want Mr. Kenfield to see us coming down the block. Just appearing without any warning might make him have a heart attack or something. Miracles can do that. At least twenty people musta died the day Jesus turned loaves into fishes.

We’re standing together back by the tipped-over garbage cans when I tell them, “Wait here.” I decided on the walk over that they should stay hidden for a while. I might have to peel Mr. Kenfield off the porch swing and wouldn’t want Dottie and the baby to see him sloshed to the gills. “If you hear me whistle, come to the front porch. If you don’t hear me whistle, maybe you two”—I point to Dottie and the baby in her arms—“could stay in the upstairs of the Goldmans’ until”—I point at Greasy Al—“he comes back after serving his time. It’s empty and I’ve got the key.” Our old landlady won’t mind one bit. She was heartbroken when Troo and me moved out. She told me she would miss hearing the pattering of little feet.

There are a couple of lights on inside the Kenfields’ when I wade through the backyard where the grass is almost up to my knees and over to the side yard where the bushes still need trimming. I peek around the corner of the house real quick to make sure he’s out there the way he usually is, then I stand there for a minute, waiting for my courage to kick in. “Mr. Kenfield? Sir?” I can smell his cigarette smoke and see him in the shadows.

He doesn’t answer right off, but then he asks, “Is that you, Sally?” When he leans forward toward the sound of my voice, he doesn’t fall off the swing and his words don’t sound like they’re mushing together, so that’s good.

“Yessir, it’s me,” I say, coming a weensy bit closer. If there is one thing I’ve learned in life it’s that there is just no telling with people. I’m mostly sure Mr. Kenfield is going to be overjoyed to have his girl back again and his wife will be happy that she can take that stick outta her butt and maybe—this is a slim chance, but just maybe—finding out Greasy Al Molinari is part of their family now won’t make the two of them run out of the house screaming. But . . . Mr. Kenfield could also jump offa that swing and chase me down the block, so I gotta be prepared to run. I’m keeping my knees bent. “Can I . . . would you mind if I sit with you for a while? Ya know . . . like the old days?”

He doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no either, so I climb the front porch steps and go to my old place on the cushion where we used to be together on hot summer nights when I still lived next door. There’s enough light coming through the living room window that I can see his scruffy beard. He’s got on a holey T-shirt and floppy slippers and his suspenders are around his waist. He smells a little like milk that’s gone bad.

After a few back and forths on the still-creaky swing, Mr. Kenfield says in a sticky voice, “My wife tells me that you’re doing well.” I’m glad to hear that he’s been keeping track of me the same way I’ve been trying to keep track of him. “I understand your mother and Detective Rasmussen are planning to get married.”

“Yessir, they are.”

“Dave will be good for Helen,” he says, taking a drag off his cigarette. “She could use a steady influence.”

We don’t say anything else for a while, just rock and listen to the night sounds. Across the street they’re turning the lights out at the playground and kids are calling to each other, “See ya tomorrow, same time, same station,” and somewhere down the block a radio is playing a song I don’t recognize and a girl laughs.

When I think enough time has gone by for Mr. Kenfield to be used to me again, I pick up his hand and say, “I like where you hung Dottie’s picture.”

He doesn’t turn to look over his shoulder at it. He has to know it by heart.

“I been thinkin’ . . . how about . . . what if . . .” I can’t figure out the best way to tell him, so I just come out with it. “Wouldn’t it be great if all of a sudden Dottie came walkin’ around the corner of the house with her little baby in her arms? Wouldn’t that be something?”

Mr. Kenfield brings his hands up to his face and makes a noise that I know so well. It’s the same sound people make when they come to the cemetery to visit the graves of their dearly departed.

That’s all I need to hear.

After I put my fingers between my lips and give a whistle to Dottie and Greasy Al, who are waiting in the alley, I pat Mr. Kenfield’s knee and say, “I want you to know that I’ve really missed you, Mr. Kenfield. See ya at the end-of-the-summer party.” With that, I hop down the porch steps and head toward home, knowing that I’m leaving them in good hands. Up to now, I could only
hope
that love was standing by all this time, waiting to give them a push in the right direction. I don’t get sure of it until I hear their happy crying all the way down the block.

R
ed balloons are waving off the playground fence and Christmas lights are twinkling from everybody’s front porches. There was some talk of calling the block party off because of Father Mickey’s disappearance, but that didn’t last very long. Everybody in the neighborhood really looks forward to this night and after all we’ve been through the past three months, I think we need it the way you do a drink of water after you’ve run a long race. It’s still warm and muggy tonight like it has been all summer, but the sky is clear and the moon will come up with a little orange around the edges. I know that means the leaves are getting ready to change and harvest time is not far off. I wish Daddy was here to see this. He always did like a lush party.

The end-of-the-summer shindig is always held on Vliet Street because we can all spread out at the playground after they declare the Queen and King. We really do need room to dance to the Do Wops’ music after we get done stuffing ourselves with food from the cook-off. Card tables are lined up on the sidewalk and you can just grab a plate and eat as much as you want. My stomach is going to have to wait, though. I’m in a big hurry to get to where Mother has set up. I want to make sure the surprise I planned is going the way it’s supposed to.

Troo’s not the only one who can come up with a plan, ya know.

Last week, so Mother wouldn’t send half the neighborhood to the hospital, I fibbed to her. I told her I heard Mrs. Latour was also bringing cow tongue in turnip sauce to the cook-off. (I slipped Artie the recipe. He’s supposed to talk his mom into that. I’ve got my fingers crossed.) I warned Mother that if she didn’t want to be called a copycat behind her back, she better bring another dish that would knock everybody’s socks off. “Mississippi blond brownies would be a sure blue-ribbon winner,” I said, knowing that she would fall for that because this is another way her and Troo are so much alike.