Ivy in the Shadows (10 page)

JJ squealed with laughter. “Like this?” And he cupped his hands into the soapy bathwater and threw it at Caleb, getting me wet in the bargain.

“JJ Henry! Look at what you've done!” I said.

JJ jumped from the tub. I tried to grab him but he slipped out of my hands like a wet catfish. He sloshed down the hall, trailing water.

Caleb headed after him.

“
I'll
take care of my brother!” I pushed past him, then slid in a water puddle and fell, banging my shoulder on the doorframe.

“JJ, get back here this instant!” I called, rubbing my sore arm. I sidestepped the trail of water he left and got just past Mama's room when the phone rang. JJ began chanting, “No! I'm running from the nosy people! I'm hiding from those nosy Haitians!”

I grabbed the phone and shouted, “What?!” into the receiver, trying to be heard over JJ's ranting.

There was silence for a beat and then Aunt Maureen's voice said, “I guess I don't need to ask how things are going there. Sounds like the place is going to hell in a handbasket.”

What could I say? She was right. And with me in charge, too. That's when I started bawling like a big ole baby.

10

I sat with my legs drawn up under my favorite nightgown, an old flannel one that used to touch the floor. I liked its softness so much I just kept on wearing it while my body grew two feet taller. Now it came above my knees, but wearing it always made me feel safe and, tonight, I needed it. Mama was soaking her feet in the kitchen and talking to Aunt Maureen. Listening was more like it. And that meant I wasn't hearing much of the conversation.

Before Mama had come home, Aunt Maureen had calmed me down. I'd taken off the clothes Ellen had bought me and showered. Caleb had corralled JJ, dressed him in pajamas, and read him a story. JJ was asleep before Mama got here.

But Aunt Maureen had called her right after Mama arrived. I'm sure Mama heard all about how Aunt Maureen had to get me to stop crying and give me tips on calming JJ down for the night.

“He's never been wild like this before!” I'd sobbed to her.

“He's always had his mother home at night, Ivy. He's so young. He thinks it's playtime. He needs to know the rules haven't changed.”

But they have.

“He needs to know who's boss.”

Me, too.

“You've got to be strong for him, Ivy.”

Who's going to be strong for me?

And now I figured both she and Mama were talking about what a failure I was. I wished Mama would do more than say “Mm-hm. Yes, I see.” It was giving me nothing to go on and I wasn't feeling brave enough to chance her hearing me pick up the phone. Finally I just went to bed because babysitting was turning into a job that completely wore me out.

*   *   *

I got through the next two days all right. JJ didn't seem quite as bad, or maybe I was getting used to it. I'd gone outside to eat at lunchtime to avoid Ellen. I'd been embarrassed to face her after she'd seen Caleb at my house. But on Friday morning, Ellen was waiting. She nabbed me the second I got off the school bus.

“Hey!” she said. “I thought you said you'd call me.”

“I did? Sorry.”

“I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”

“Oh. No,” I said. “I've just been busy.”

“Too busy to eat lunch?”

“Well, um, JJ was sick and all so I thought I might be contagious” was the best I could come up with.

“So, how's your brother?”

“He's fine now.” Which was probably the first true thing I'd said since I got off the bus.

Ellen shook all over as if the memory of seeing JJ “vomit” still had her shuddering.

“That's good. What was that weird kid doing at your house?”

I'd been expecting this question but didn't have a good answer in mind. “Oh, he's new to the neighborhood. Just visiting, I guess.”

I picked up speed on the way into the school building because I didn't know if Caleb was behind me.

“Well, anyway, you're going to look so cool tonight! I cannot wait. We'll have so much fun at Alexa's party.”

“Uh-huh,” I said because, really, nothing in my life was in my control anymore so why should going to that stupid party be, either?

“It starts at six.”

“Six!” I said. Mama got home between 6:30 and 7:00. There was no way she would approve of me going to a party like the kind Alexa would have.

“Yes, but we're going earlier. I need to be there at five-thirty.”

Five-thirty wouldn't give me much time there. But if Caleb watched JJ, I could go, and maybe Ellen would find other friends so I could slip out. Maybe I could even use JJ's “sickness” as an excuse that I wasn't feeling well.

“I was thinking you could meet me at my house at five. You can get dressed there and I'll do your hair and makeup.”

Five! I needed to feed JJ. I wouldn't tell her, I'd just be a little late. “Okay but I'll just get dressed at home.” I walked even faster so we could quit talking about the stupid party.

“I need to get there early because Alexa asked me to help with some stuff,” she said.

“Fine. I'll meet you at Alexa's instead.” I speed-walked to my locker, huffing by the time I got there. Ellen kept right up with me. She didn't even break stride.

“Ivy, don't make me go alone. You're my friend! I want you with me!”

What about what I want?

“Listen, I said I'll come, so I'll come. But I don't want to go that early and I don't want … to wear makeup.” I hadn't really planned on saying the last part but out it came anyway.

Ellen pulled her skinny self up to her full height, poked out her scrawny chest, and said, “Ivy, I need you to be at my house at five o'clock tonight. Don't let me down or, I swear, you can find yourself another BFF.”

She took off in a huff. Ellen had been my friend my whole life and she wasn't really asking that much of me. Especially since she'd bought me all that new stuff—even though I didn't want it. I owed her, so I'd have to go, but good grief, I did not want to. Not one tiny bit. I banged my head against my locker door. Brandon, whose locker was next to mine, said, “I don't think when people talk about banging their head against a wall, they mean it literally.”

“Yeah, well those people probably aren't thinking that their life can't get any worse.”

But I was wrong.

After school we walked home from the bus and I was just putting my key into the lock when the door opened. Standing inside, wearing an off-the-shoulder T-shirt and capris, with her dark hair streaked blond and tucked behind one ear showing about six earrings, was Aunt Maureen. That sounds like a good thing, right? And I thought so, too, at first. But how would you feel if you'd been working so hard to help your family and to keep things up and running, and then have your aunt hug you and say, “How could I stay away? Someone's got to be here to keep this sinking boat afloat.”

*   *   *

“Mayonnaise,” Aunt Maureen said with her hand out like a doctor asking for a scalpel. I found the jar and put it in her hand. She closed that cabinet door and opened another.

“Macaroni,” she said. I looked through the sacks of food she'd brought until I found it.

“Really, Aunt Maureen, I can put this stuff away. I know where it all goes.”

“I know you do, sweet pea. But I don't and I need to familiarize myself with this kitchen if I'm going to cook in it.”

“Did Mama … did she know you were coming?”

“No!” She flashed her bleach-stripped, blinding white teeth at me. “But I thought, here I am, sitting at home—again—waiting on Sonny to come home. And what happens when he gets there? He sleeps most of the weekend until he hits the road come Monday. That's no life, sweet pea.”

“For him or for you?” I asked.

She let out her bark of laughter that I loved. “Good question.” She pulled a peppermint stick out of her purse and put it in her mouth, talking around it. “Not for me, that's for dang sure.”

She pulled the stick out of her mouth and held it between her pointer and middle fingers, just like the cigarette she'd told me it was supposed to replace. “That's not the marriage I signed up for, let me tell you. Not one bit.”

I thought about Uncle Sonny. I hadn't seen him in a long time but he always made me feel special. When he talked to me, you'd have thought I was the smartest and prettiest girl on the planet. And it wasn't just me. That's how he treated everyone. I wondered what kind of marriage Aunt Maureen wanted that would be better than being made to feel like that.

“But … Uncle Sonny is, well, so
lovable
!”

She got very busy in the cabinets. When she looked at me again, she said, “Yes, he is,” and her voice quivered a little bit. “When he's there.”

Then her voice got stronger. “Which is my point exactly. He's never there. Or almost never, anyway.

“So I'm sitting there thinking.” She took a puff off her peppermint stick, made a face, and set it down. “I'm thinking that I have no one to cook for or look after and here your mama is with even more kids than she had once this divorce started and I'm all alone.”

I'd heard Aunt Maureen cry to Mama about how she wasn't having any luck in getting pregnant.

“So I packed up my bags, called Sonny, and told him that the next time his big rig found its way home not to expect dinner, and here I am. Now hand me the sugar, sweet pea.”

I took longer than I needed with my head in the sack but I was trying to figure out how I was going to get to Alexa's party now that Aunt Maureen was here.

In came JJ, riding on his sneakers with wheels. He circled the kitchen table once and then flew straight into Aunt Maureen, wrapping his arms around her tight.

“You'd
better
come see me, you little stinker. What do you think of those Heelys I bought you?”

“I
love
them! I'm giving you a hug every hour, Aunt Maureen, so you won't leave!”

She winked at me. “Gifts work every time.”

“You didn't need to buy us anything,” I said, but the truth was, I really did like the iPod Shuffle she brought me. She even gave Caleb a gift card to a bookstore since she didn't know what kind of stuff he liked.

“Well, of course I did!” she said. “I plan to spoil you guys rotten. And don't you worry about me leaving, JJ. I'm not going anywhere. Now go get Caleb. It's time I got to know that boy.”

I handed her the sugar but she set it down. “Oh, this can wait. Let me just soak you all up before your mama gets home and steals your attention.”

I thought of how happy Mama had been this week, coming in with her face glowing, like getting away from us was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She might be tired, and she complained some about her feet hurting, but I knew Mama. I could tell she loved working. She didn't even seem to mind that she wasn't seeing JJ off to bed, and you know what? That hurt me almost as much as her not asking one single thing about me. I could have been expelled from school and she'd never have known.

We went into the living room and JJ came soaring in after us on his new shoes, with Caleb following. Aunt Maureen glided down onto the couch, reaching one long arm across the back. I always thought she could have been a ballerina the way she moved so gracefully. She patted the seat next to her.

“Come sit, Caleb. Tell me about yourself.”

Good luck with that, I thought. I was starting to think that Caleb didn't know anything but made-up stories.

“How far did you travel, ma'am?” he asked.

“Halfway across the country! I was raised here in Indiana and just could not wait to shake the dust off my shoes and get out of here. Now look, I've come full circle. Couldn't wait to get back. I've been living in Georgia. You ever been there, Caleb?”

He shook his head, so she continued to tell him about her life in Georgia and I lost all interest. I knew the how-Aunt-Maureen-moved-to-Georgia story by heart, having heard it a million and one times from her and Mama, so I stood and tried to sneak upstairs to get to the phone in the hall there. I planned to call Ellen and tell her about Aunt Maureen's visit and maybe, just maybe, she'd let me off the hook about Alexa's party.

I got three steps up when I heard “Am I boring you, sweet pea?”

“What? No!” I said. “It's just that I…” Lying never came easy to me so I decided to saw off a slice of the truth. “I just need to call a friend.”

“Well, why didn't you say so? Nothing's more important than girl-talk. You run along, honey. Dinner will be ready at six, okay?”

I smiled but I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that my face made more of a grimace. Five o'clock was when I was supposed to be at Ellen's.

I took the stairs two at a time and punched in her number. Once she got on the phone I tried to get out of going but no such luck.

“You've got to be kidding me! I told you today how important this is to me, Ivy.”

“It's just that Mama doesn't approve of boy-girl parties and I thought I could sneak out but now I've got my aunt Maureen here. I don't see how I can do it.”

“Just do it,” she said. “I don't give a rat's behind how you do it. If you were a real friend, you'd be over here right now helping me straighten my hair!”

Then she hung up. Slammed the phone down is more accurate. Ellen was always a little high-strung, but since she'd heard about this party, she'd been strung tighter than a guitar.

I threw myself down on my bed. What was I going to do?

Then I sat up. At five o'clock, Mama would still be at work, and Aunt Maureen didn't know that I wasn't supposed to go to a party. Heck, she probably wouldn't even ask where I was going. Or I could lie. Well, as I said, I wasn't very good at lying but I didn't need to go all out with the truth, either.