Ivy in the Shadows (13 page)

I took a drink of my tea, then looked over at Aunt Maureen. She was frowning as if she didn't like them being so close. I wondered what the big deal was. I mean, it was just Pastor Harold.

At one point, though, he looked at Mama, she looked at him, and they both pulled back like they'd been caught doing something wrong.

Pastor Harold cleared his throat and said in a voice loud enough to include us all, “It burns cleaner, doesn't cost much at all, and you don't have to chop and stack wood. You just carry buckets of corn in. I'm sure your kids would be great helpers.”

“Where would I get corn?” Mama asked.

“I can find lots of sources for you, feed stores, farmers, et cetera. I can even deliver it in my old pickup. Corn is cheap and I think you'll get a really good deal from the delivery guy.” He winked.

“I'm here now and I'll be sharing the expenses,” Aunt Maureen said. “I don't know if you want to fool with something like that.”

“It's my house, Maureen. You're not paying my bills for me.”

“Now, Cass,” she said. “I'm not staying here for free.”

“And we don't even know if the landlord will allow it.” Mama set her glass on a coaster. “If you'll excuse me, I'll call him now. No point in discussing something that might not happen anyway.”

Pastor Harold said, “Well, I'll let you all decide, but, Ivy, if I do install it, will you help me?”

“Me?” There I went again. Just repeating the same dumb word. He was going to think I wasn't smarter than a parrot.

“Sure,” he said. “I'll need someone to hand me tools. Maybe Caleb could help, too. In fact, is he around?”

“No, he left with JJ,” I said.

“You're building up quite an army of helpers for something that hasn't been decided yet,” Aunt Maureen said.

“I just like to be prepared,” Pastor Harold said, and I noticed his eyes didn't have the same spark when he talked to Aunt Maureen as they did when he talked to me or Mama.

“A regular boy scout.” She sipped her tea. “Always prepared.”

Mama came back into the room. “You seem to have quite a reputation as a handyman! I called Mr. Morgan and he said he felt comfortable with you installing it.”

Pastor Harold gave a slow smile. “Well, I do a bit of carpentry. I've found myself in between churches with some downtime and it's nice to have a backup occupation. The forecast is calling for some pretty cold nights. I think it's safe to say we're heading into autumn. If you decide you want the stove, I'm free any evening this week.”

“Doesn't sound like you have much of a social life, being free every night.” Aunt Maureen lit a for-real cigarette instead of sucking on a peppermint stick, which told me she was agitated.

“It's lucky for us he's not busy this week,” Mama said to her with
feeling
, which shut Aunt Maureen up because even she knew not to cross Mama.

“Thanks for the tea, Cass.” Pastor Harold surprised me when he called Mama by her first name. “And I'm sure the ladies of the Guild appreciated your help.”

Mama laughed. “I don't think I was much help. They had a regular assembly line going. I'm still not sure why they needed me.”

“Look at it this way, they only gossip about the ones who aren't there.”

Mama held her hand over her mouth and laughed. I hadn't seen her do that since Jack Henry was around. I could tell by the look on Aunt Maureen's face that she had noticed it, too.

13

Pastor Harold had treated me like a grownup, which was something the other grownups in the house could do more often, in my opinion. So I followed him out.

“Hey,” I said. “I don't know about Caleb but I'll help you.”

“Glad to hear it.” He smiled.

“And I just wanted to say … I mean … I don't hate you or anything.”

He laughed real loud. “Ivy, you're—”

“I know,” I interrupted. “I'm all right. All I meant is, earlier when I said there weren't any adults worth paying attention to, well, I know that sounded kind of snotty.”

“Aw, you're entitled to your opinion. Adults, for the most part, are pretty boring.”

He pushed a button on his keychain that beeped and unlocked his car.

I went on before he could climb inside. “And the other day, well, maybe I shouldn't have yelled at you for not knowing more about Caleb. I didn't know you were just a temporary pastor and all.”

“You don't owe me an apology. You were right, I need to know these things if I'm going to do a good job here. No harm done.”

“And I don't know why Aunt Maureen isn't nicer to you, too. She's usually a pretty kind person.”

“Well, she's not exactly mean to me, just a little on the cool side,” he said. “Maybe my sunny disposition will win her over. And, if not, I'll rise above it.”

It made me think of Ellen and how mad she was at me.

“How does a person rise above someone not liking them?”

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against his car. “That's a tough one. It was my dad's favorite saying. I guess you have to strive for the greater good.” He ran his hands over his short hair. “Oh, great, now I sound like a preacher.”

Which I thought was kind of funny.

“It mainly means that when someone forms an inaccurate opinion of you, the best you can do is just be yourself and try not to let it get to you. So I guess that's what I mean about rising above and striving for the greater good and all that.”

It gave me something to think about the next few days.

I tried to rise above lots of things. I tried to rise above JJ wanting to always be with Caleb instead of with me. I rose to my fullest with Aunt Maureen running the house, even tucking JJ into bed at night. But my striving for the greater good was put to the test when I saw Ellen at school on Monday and she acted as if she didn't even know me.

It's hard to go from being someone's BFF to feeling invisible.

Want to know what made it even harder? I never expected Ellen to do anything other than hang out with me and have fun. But, with Alexa, Ellen was doing so much work! First there was Alexa's party. Who invites someone to a party and expects them to be a maid? Then, during lunch at school, I noticed that Ellen got Alexa's tray of food and brought it to her while Alexa talked to her other friends. When Ellen got her own food, she sat on the edge of the group—with them but not quite one of them, if you know what I mean.

It hurt to know that Ellen would rather be on the fringes of Alexa's group than sit with me. She wouldn't talk to me at all. I tried to sit with the boys in my class but it seemed that lots of social rules were different in seventh grade. I could hang out on their side of the room at Alexa's party and that was just fine, but when I walked toward their table, they all looked at me as if I had three heads. So I did the only thing I could. I sat with Lindsay. The one thing about sitting with Lindsay is you don't have to worry about holding up your end of the conversation. She does that for you. In fact, she held up the conversation until we had to go to different classes.

After the longest week of my entire life, Friday rolled around. Caleb, JJ, and I got home to find Mama already there.

“Mama!” JJ called, and ran to hug her.

“Did you lose your job?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “It's nice to see you, too, Ivy.”

“Well, you're never here,” I said.
Never, ever here.

“A lot of things happened,” she said. “Aunt Maureen is off getting her hair done. Pastor Harold called and needed to be let in to install the new stove.”

“He's here?” I said, tossing my books onto the coffee table. “I didn't know he was coming.”

JJ said, “Come on, Caleb! Let's find Pastor Harold!”

Mama said, “I guess he told Aunt Maureen and she must have forgotten. Anyway, he called me at work so Magdalena let me come home early.”

“You'll be here tonight?” I said, and immediately hated the excited way it came out.

“No, that's another thing that happened. Aunt Maureen got tickets for the two of us to go to Indianapolis and see OLG in concert. It's a band that we loved when we were younger.”

“Oh…”

“Well, girls, what do you think?” Aunt Maureen's voice carried into the room. She stood in the door, one arm raised and her head turned sideways in a model's pose.

“Oh, Maureen! You look incredible!” Mama said.

“You look awesome, Aunt Maureen!” I said, because she really did. Her hair was dyed blond and swept over her right eye but it was cut short over her left ear, showing off her earrings.

“I just decided it's time for a change. And what's the point of having all this ear jewelry if my hair keeps falling down over it?”

“I'm going to look downright dowdy next to you!” Mama said.

“Have no fear, Cass.” Aunt Maureen held up a shopping bag. “Together we'll be the hottest babes there.”

My
mother? A hot babe?

Mama giggled.

I wanted to puke.

Then it hit me. Indianapolis is over an hour away. With Aunt Maureen gone, I'd be in charge again.

I shoved the “hot babe” comment out of my head and said, “Well, we'll be just fine here. You don't have to worry about us.”

“Oh, that preacher's going to take care of you,” Aunt Maureen said.

“Huh?”

“I talked to him earlier. He said he didn't mind.”

Mama stopped smiling. “You remembered he was coming?”

“Uh-huh.” Aunt Maureen bent to gather her purse and bags from the floor.

“Maureen, I had to take off work to let him in. I had no idea he was installing the stove today.”

Aunt Maureen stood and looked straight at Mama. “Well, then, it all worked out, didn't it? Besides, you're home early so we can have more time to get ready. Where's the harm?”

“Where's the…” Mama seemed at a loss for words. “Maureen, when you said you'd arrange for a sitter, we discussed the kids I knew from church who I thought were trustworthy.”

“Kids?! Mama, why would you get somebody my age to watch us?”

“They're older than you, Ivy. And it's fine for you and Caleb to watch over JJ when I'm at work here in town but Indianapolis is so far away. I just don't feel comfortable leaving you without someone else here.”

Then she turned to Aunt Maureen. “Did you even call those girls?”

“I tried. Seems teenagers lead a busier life than we do. Besides, I figured he'd be here, anyway, putting that stove in.”

“Isn't he doing enough for us?” Mama's eyes narrowed. “What have you got against him?”

“Me? Nothing. I don't know the man.”

“And yet you have that attitude. He's trying to help me. It was your idea for me to go to church for help, remember?”

I stood still as a statue. I didn't want to miss this conversation.

“Yes, Cass, for help. That's one of the things churches are for.”

And hearing her say that made me feel so much better about both Mama and Aunt Maureen. I'd thought they were using the people of the church in a bad way instead of just reaching out for help. But then Aunt Maureen said, “I wanted you to go and find a job, not for you to settle for a dull, Bible-toting preacher. It's time you had some fun in your life.”

I sucked in my breath. I didn't mean to make a sound, but it was too late. Both of them looked right at me.

“Ivy Greer! Get your behind outside with the boys,
now
!” And I took off because Mama used the one tone of voice I knew from experience not to argue with.

I found Pastor Harold around back, trying to fit a pipe into a hole he'd put in the roof while Caleb steadied his ladder.

“There's my other helper now. Hey, Ivy.”

“Hey,” I said.

“So will we get sick now?” JJ asked.

“Sick? I surely hope not,” Pastor Harold said.

“But you said you're putting the flu in and the last time we had the flu, Mama, Ivy, and I were all really sick.”

Pastor Harold looked away so JJ wouldn't see him laughing. When he did, he saw me and winked. Then he wiped his face on his shirt and, afterward, his expression had changed to a serious one. “Actually, JJ, that's a different kind of flu. Smoke and carbon dioxide are produced when something burns, and you don't want that in your house. This flue is a pipe that lets those things out.”

“Do they have flues in Haiti, Caleb? Do they have the kind that makes them sick or do they have the kind that takes the bad stuff out of their house? Or their huts. Because they have huts instead of houses, right, Caleb?”

Caleb took his hand off the ladder long enough to push his glasses back up. He ignored JJ, which wasn't like him at all, and I noticed his face was paler than usual.

“Come on, Caleb, they have huts, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Caleb said.

“And do they get sick with the flu?” JJ asked. Then he whined, “Come
on
, Caleb! Tell me. You've always got a story.”

“JJ? I need your help,” Pastor Harold said.

“Okay,” JJ said.

“This is a very important job. Maybe
the
most important. I need someone to stay in the house and make sure that no birds fly in through the flue until I get it sealed. Do you think you can do that?”

“Wow! Sure! Can I get my net first? Just in case one gets in?”

“Absolutely. Go find your net and take your time.” Pastor Harold looked at the sky. “I think we're safe for a bit. I don't see any birds right now.”

“Okay!” JJ ran off.

“Hold that ladder, Caleb. I'm coming down.”

Pastor Harold swung his leg over on the ladder and climbed down it like a pro. I thought he made a better carpenter than a preacher, but since he was doing us a favor, I decided that saying that might be kind of rude.