The Perfect Place (19 page)

“And her sister, Princess Jeanie, can travel back and forth through time,” I say. “The princesses live happily until one day—”

“Tell it how Daddy would. In the Mickey voice.”

I try to do the Mickey Mouse voice, but no one can do it quite like Dad. Tiffany punches the bed, once, twice. Soon she picks up a steady rhythm—
punch, punch, punch
—and a small sound escapes her. Now she starts to cry. Relief floods through me and seeps from my pores. But Tiffany's not stopping. I find Mr. Teddy Daniels curled up in her sheets and run through his skit. I promise her that Mom will find Dad any day now. Nothing works, so I pull her up and out of bed.

Great-Aunt Grace's doorknob is plastic, made to look like crystal. I know better than to turn that sucker without knocking. I tap softly at first, and then harder when she doesn't answer right away. When she finally pulls the door open, it squeals like a newborn.

She doesn't seem surprised to see us, but then, her facial expression doesn't ever change much. “What is it?” she says. A lit cigarette bobs between her lips.

I open my mouth, close it, open it again. I shrug and take a step back. She does the same, letting us in.

Great-Aunt Grace's room doesn't reek of old cigarettes like I expected it to. Her room is cluttered, though, filled with little tables, a sea of canvas bags, and yarn—rolls and rolls of it. Great-Aunt Grace tosses her half-finished cigarette out the window and puts on a fan over in the corner. Then she turns to us. She looks nervous, probably because she's never had two kids sitting on her bed before, one crying, the other staring.

She takes something out of one of her many bags. The sea-green baby clothes she'd been working on when Moon came over about the cigarettes. She hands them to Tiffany.

“These are for you. Well, for that teddy bear of yours anyway,” she says gruffly. “I'm workin' on a few other outfits.”

Tiffany caresses the overalls and jacket Great-Aunt Grace has made, and sniffles.

Great-Aunt Grace studies us like we're something under a microscope. “Well, I suppose you two are sad about your daddy,” Great-Aunt Grace says. “But your mama is just tired of lookin'. It don't mean she's givin' all the way up and it don't mean he won't come on back on his own.”

Then she begins to clean her room. Well, not clean it, exactly. She's really just picking things up and putting them back down again. I watch as she pulls a bunch of clothes out of a drawer and puts it on the bed next to me. A few shirts, a pair of pants. And her teeth.

We almost fall off the bed trying to get away from those.

“Shouldn't your teeth be in your mouth?” Tiffany asks.

“Nope. I keep them around so I know that I don't need 'em. I find that the teeth and the spleen are the most overrated of body parts.” Great-Aunt Grace picks up one of the shirts and starts to refold it.

There's a picture on the nightstand, an old, faded photo of a man. It's not Moon. This man is dark brown, wearing a bright orange vest and holding a big gun.

“Who is he?” I ask.

Great-Aunt Grace answers me without looking at the picture. “Someone. I keep his picture so I know I don't need him anymore either.”

“Were you guys in looooove?” Tiffany asks.

Great-Aunt Grace looks over at us with her hard black eyes. “I reckon so. But he loved himself more than he ever loved me, so I opened my hands and let him go, long before your time.”

I tuck my feet under my butt. “Where is he now?”

Great-Aunt Grace mutters something under her breath that sounds vaguely like “Nosy little things,” but aloud she says, “Two hours away with a wife and too many grandkids.”

We sit in silence after that. Great-Aunt Grace continues to rearrange her clutter, and every now and then she sneaks a look at us. I know because I'm sneaking looks at her, too. Her face is old and brown and wrinkled, has been since we got here, but her wrinkles look different to me now. They look like little cracks in one of those thousand-year-old buildings, small and unimportant. How do you get as strong as Great-Aunt Grace, strong enough to let go? When I'm not looking at her, I'm looking around her room, half expecting to see a vat of some Courage Potion. But there's nothing in here other than her yarn, pictures, and a bunch of pairs of sneakers with soles so rundown they're almost gone.

The next time I sneak a peek at Great-Aunt Grace, she catches me. And then she does something that just about makes me fall off the bed again. She holds up her teeth and claps them together like they're talking. Tiffany dissolves into a puddle of laughter. I feel a smile spreading across my face. And the more those big yellow teeth clap together, the bigger my smile becomes, until I'm all-out giggling—and I never giggle. Great-Aunt Grace smiles at us, the first time she's ever done that. Her smile is like a baby's, all gums.

Great-Aunt Grace puts the folded clothes back in the drawer and places her teeth neatly on top of them. Then she goes back to fussing with her things. I wonder if she ever sleeps. Right now I don't feel like sleeping either. I watch as Great-Aunt Grace bends down, wheezing a little, and starts going through her canvas bags. Out falls even more yarn. She's started a few things—a hat, a pair of gloves, a blanket—but nothing is finished. She straightens and points at a ball of yarn on the floor beside me.

“Hand me that, Treasure.”

“Why won't you just call me Jeanie?” I ask, sighing as I hand the yarn over.

“Jeanie's not your name.”

“It's
part
of my name. Besides, I don't like my name anymore. Treasure Jeanie May Daniels. Flops around in your mouth like a dying fish.”

Great-Aunt Grace throws her head back and laughs that great big booming laugh of hers. I jump. “Dyin'?” she says. “I don't think so. There's life in it yet.”

She starts organizing her yarn creations, and I reach over and pluck the photo from the nightstand. What was he like? Does Great-Aunt Grace still miss him? The man in the picture has a mustache that reminds me of Daddy's.

“Do you think Dad loves himself more than he loves us?” I blurt out.

For the first time since we've entered her room, Great-Aunt Grace stops moving. “Of course not, girl. He's just lost, is all.”

I put the picture down on the bed next to me and pull my feet out from under me. “Most of the time we feel lost too,” I say.

“How so?” Great-Aunt Grace says. “Tell me.”

And we do. We tell her everything, the words pouring out of us the way rain plummets from the sky. Tiffany tells her how we'd come home from school to find our stuff packed up and ready to go, and Dad downstairs already warming up the car. I tell her how it feels like we've been running behind him for years, but we don't ever know where we're headed or how long we'll stay.

“It's a travesty,” I say.

Great-Aunt Grace cocks her head to the side. “You know a lot of million-dollar words, huh? You're gonna have to teach me some.”

“I'm always leaving my friends,” Tiffany adds. “It's a travesty too.” Tiffany pauses. “A travesty is bad, right, Jeanie?”

“Yes, and friends are overrated.”

“What you call Terrance, then?” Great-Aunt Grace asks. “I seen him walkin' you to my store.”

“We're associates.”

“Associates?”

I nod. “No sense in making friends if we're going to move anyway. I never told Dad this, but sometimes I hate moving. I just want to stay in one place long enough to catch my breath.”

Great-Aunt Grace nods like she understands. If someone had told me I'd be sitting here like this with her, pouring out my heart, I would've laughed until I had an asthma attack.

Tiffany holds up Mr. Teddy Daniels's new outfit and studies it. “You need a new name,” she says to Great-Aunt Grace.

“What you mean, girl? My name is Grace.”

“I mean a new
other
name besides the one Jeanie sometimes calls you.” I reach over and try to pinch Tiffany. She swats my hand away.

“What you been callin' me, girl?”

“Um,” I say.

“Sometimes Jeanie calls you Gag,” Tiffany replies matter-of-factly.

“Gag?” Great-Aunt Grace looks to me for an explanation.

“It's the initials for Great-Aunt Grace, but you know, like, in a bad way. Like,
Gag me,
or whatever.”

I wait for Great-Aunt Grace to kick me out of her room. She stares at me, her face expressionless. Then she bursts out laughing again. “Lord knows I've been called worse.” She reaches beneath her nightstand and comes up with a jumbo-size bag of Hershey's Kisses. She pops two in her mouth, bites right into them, and then pops in two more. She's right. You don't need teeth.

“So, what should we call you?” Tiffany wonders aloud, tapping her chin with her index finger. “What about Auntie?”

“You two can call me any old thing you like. Here, have these.”

Auntie scoops up a handful of Hershey's Kisses and dumps them on the bed in front of us. I drop the photo and scramble to catch them before they roll off. Auntie sits down on the bed and that's us for a while, me and Tiffany chewing, her gumming. Tiffany moves over so Auntie can sit between us, her bare arms touching mine and Tiffany's. Her skin is darker than the candy, and together we look like swirls of caramel and milk chocolate.

“Your skin is very black,” Tiffany says.

“Born black,” Auntie says. She rises from the bed and leaves the room, her nightgown thrown over her arm. When she returns, she's all decked out for bed in a floral nightie that comes down to just above her ankles. She reaches over and pulls the blankets back for us. She fluffs up the pillows, too, before climbing in beside us, the bed sinking beneath her weight. “Now sleep,” she says.

We sleep. And wake up with silver wrappers in our hair.

W
HEN
I wake up the next morning, the sun is warm on my face. Auntie is already up and gone, her blinds pulled open and her bedroom door cracked. I stretch my legs, and my feet brush up against something soft and sharp all at once. I sit up fast and pull my feet back before Mr. Shuffle can sink another claw into my big toe.

“You're so fat and evil.”

He blinks big moon-colored eyes and flicks his tail like a middle finger.

Tiffany squirms in her sleep. Her eyes are puffy from crying, and there is drool on her cheek.

“Is Mommy back yet? Did she find Daddy?” she asks, her eyes still closed.

“No.”

Tiffany whimpers. I take her hand, pull her out of bed, and lead her downstairs. The smell of frying bacon meets us halfway to the kitchen. Auntie stands at the stove, her back to us. I push Tiffany into a chair at the table and Auntie says gruffly, “Is that Tiffany cryin' again?”

“I . . . want . . . Mommy . . . and Daddy!” Tiffany howls.

I'm sure that wherever Mommy is, she can hear Tiffany loud and clear.

Auntie turns around to look at us, her face all business. “Let's go,” she says in the same hard voice.

She sounds like Gag again. I hesitate. “Go?” I ask.

“Yes, girl,” she answers. “Now, come on and quit askin' questions.”

Auntie turns to leave. Tiffany and I exchange a startled look and jump up to follow her, barefoot and wearing only our pajamas. Auntie goes straight out the back door and down the stairs.

“You comin' or not?”

I take Tiffany's hand and pull her gently outside, wondering just what the heck Auntie is up to. Yesterday, when she was still Great-Aunt Grace, I would have thought she was taking us out back to feed us to something big, hairy, and southern. But now, I get the feeling things are different. I look over at Tiffany as we stand on the top step. The only reason she isn't crying anymore is because she's too busy being confused.

I sure hope Auntie knows what she's doing.

We go down the steps and over to Auntie, who is standing under a tree.

“Reach down and touch the ground,” she instructs.

“Seriously?” I ask.

Auntie nods. What in the world this has to do with Tiffany missing Mom and Dad, I don't know. Unless, of course, Auntie's plan is to distract Tiffany. If so, it's working. Tiffany bends down and runs her hands over the ground in front of us. I do the same, the grass tickling my palms, until my hand stops on something hard and cold. Stone.

“Girls, I'd like you to meet your great-grandmother and grandfather.”

Tiffany jumps back. “They're here, in the ground?” she asks, her voice shaky.

“Yes, but you don't need to be afraid. My mama and daddy were good strong people who wouldn't hurt a fly. Unless that fly talked back. Then they'd warm its buns.” Auntie laughs, and I wonder how getting spanked could ever be funny. When Auntie speaks again, her voice is soft and low. “Whenever I get to missin' the two of them, I just come out here and strike up a conversation.”

“You mean, like, with their ghosts?” Tiffany asks, inching closer to me.

“No such thing as ghosts. I talk to their essence, their spirits.”

Sounds like ghosts to me. But I'm supposed to be acting brave, for Tiffany's sake, of course.

“Did you say you miss your parents sometimes?” Tiffany asks.
“You?”

Auntie laughs. “I'm not made of stone, girl. Of course I miss my mama and daddy. Everyone does. And there ain't nothin' wrong with it.”

“But once you start missing them, how do you stop?”

“You don't.”

I can almost hear Tiffany's face fall.

“You just need something, is all. Something of your mama and daddy's you can keep near to you. Come on in. I think I got just the thing.”

Once inside, Auntie goes into the living room and flips on the light. She takes a big book from one of the shelves and blows the dust off it. A photo album. Tiffany and I watch wordlessly as she flips through it, her eyebrows bent in concentration. Finally, she pulls out a photo, a real old one with a black, shiny backing, and hands it to Tiffany face-down. Tiffany turns it over. It's a picture of Mom and Dad from years ago at what appears to be a barbecue, Dad's arm slung over Mom's shoulder. They're smiling, Dad widest of all. Tiffany takes the picture and hugs it to her chest.