Part 15 (2/2)
Two days before school got out I took the bus up Main Street, got my thirteen bucks out of my bank account and went to a Christmas-tree place. It was like a secret mission, creeping between Christmas trees, scared Mrs. Hood would drive by or Wendy would see what I was doing and tell her mother or tell me I was pagan and that Armageddon was coming before Christmas anyway. I wrapped my scarf higher, for a mask, and looked over the trees until this skinny guy with sungla.s.ses and a leather jacket came out of the trailer, folding his arms from the cold. He walked over with a goony kind of grin and went, ”What can I do you for?” I told him I needed a tree, that I was getting it for my mum cuz of her being sick. He nodded and lowered his sungla.s.ses to look at me. His eyes were red and like he just got woken up, and he said, ”Huh. So you're the family tree-shopper, huh?-what were you lookin to spend?”
”Um, around five dollars.” He nodded and showed me the five-dollar trees.
I looked at him and at them. ”They're kind of ugly, these ones.”
He chuckled and looked down, kicking the dirt. ”Yeah, they ain't so hot.”
”I'll just have a look around, if you don't mind,” I told him and he snorted and nodded, rubbing his arms and said, ”Hey, be my guest.”
It took some looking until I found one that wasn't that huge or too beautiful, and I reached in and tried to pull it up. The stick-guy came over and stuffed his hand in to the middle of the tree, lifted it up and stamped it down a couple feet back. He brushed its branches and gave it another stamp. ”Yeah, this old girl's not bad. Nice shape to her.”
”How tall is it?”
”Huh, well, around six foot. You picked a good-lookin' tree. Not too glamorous, just good-lookin'.”
”Well, is it way more money than the other ones from over there?”
”Well, yeah, it's-well I'll tell ya, you're kind of a funny kid, how 'bout I mark her down on special since your mum's sick and all that. Today only, five bucks.”
”Oh.”
We stared at each other a second. ”Well? what d'ya say, kid?”
”OK. Thank you,” and I gave him the two twos and a one out of my coat pocket. I had the rest hid in my boot so he wouldn't think I was rich or anything.
He scrunched the bills up and stuffed them in the hip pocket of his jeans, then said, ”So what's the deal here, you carryin'?”
”Um, can I use your phone? And if I arrange for a guy to come get it, would you hold it for me till he comes?”
”Sure thing. Y' gotta like a kid with connections.”
I called Sadie and Eddy's dad, and told him I just got a good deal on a tree and could one of his furniture guys come get it and bring it over to Mum's. Ray laughed in my ear and I thought I heard him slap the table. ”You're Danny's kid all right. Okey-dokey, just gimme the address or the intersection or whatever the heck you got goin' there.”
The next day I came home after school, planning to make a list of all the stuff I wanted to bring to my mum's. I'd called her from school and she made a big deal over me for getting the tree and I was super-excited about Christmas. One more sleep left. I wasn't going to be able to take Lyle, but I didn't know if I could trust them to feed him while I was gone, to change his water. I ran upstairs, thinking about how Lyle probably got more freedom than any other bird he knew. I opened the door and closed it behind me so he wouldn't get out and get us both yelled at. I called his name. Then looked in my closet. Then went over to see under my bed, when some blue caught my eye and Lyle was lying under my window. My unsheeted window. My unsheeted mirror. I kneeled and picked him up; he was still limp and soft. Tears started coming in my nose and I told him how sorry I was for letting him fly against gla.s.s he couldn't see, and stroked his wobbly neck.
My face was burning wet when I came down to show Mrs. Hood. ”And it's my fault cuz I didn't cover stuff up,” I told her.
She was sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea. ”Aww. I'm sorry, Grace, that's too bad. You should get rid of him, though; there's all kinds of mites and parasites on birds, so you better throw him out.” I looked at her then him and kissed his head before I put on my coat and went out back to bury him. Then I stayed in my room until the next morning.
In the morning, they sat across from me over breakfast. Lilly had baggy red eyes, and she stabbed her pancakes then slammed them on her plate and Wendy took deep breaths and chewed slow. I was tired too, from crying most of the night, and I stared into s.p.a.ce.
”Shake your head, your eyes are stuck!” Lilly spat at me, pancake flying out her mouth. My brain snapped back to the room and I looked down on my plate. ”A-duhh!” she said and clanged her fork down.
”I'm-I wasn't looking at you, didn't see you, I mean.”
Lilly rolled her eyes. ”Well, maybe if you weren't bawling all night over a dumb bird-stupid gomer, you didn't even have it long enough to cry-and did you have to cry so friggin' loud?”
”Lilly!” Mrs. Hood gave the warning voice. ”I don't want to hear that kind of talk.”
”What! I said friggin'!”
”We all heard what you said.”
Lilly looked at me and did yowly imitations.
Wendy breathed out hard. ”Lilly, shut up, I had to listen to the real thing all night,” and reached across her for the b.u.t.ter.
Lilly smacked her arm. ”Wouldja don't, that's rude!”
Wendy stared at her arm and then at Lilly, put the b.u.t.ter down and, really calm, said, ”Don't ever do that again, Lilly.” Lilly got one of those stunned shudders in her face and neck that only Wendy could make her have and told Wendy to get lost. Wendy cleared her throat. ”You know, Grace, you're not supposed to advertise your grief. Jesus said you're not supposed to show it because if you make a sad face, you're just like the hypocrites and your face gets ugly and then everybody knows. You should act natural when you're sad, so only G.o.d knows, and then you'll get rewarded.”
Lilly chewed and looked at me. ”She's got the same ugly face all the time, how're you s'posed to tell the difference.”
”Lilly!” Mrs. Hood turned off the stove and brought the last of the pancakes to the table. ”I told you I don't want to hear that kind of talk. At the rate you're going, Judgment Day will be a pretty scary one for you, won't it? Grace's pet died. How would either of you feel if one of the cats died?” and she stomped back to the stove and plopped the pan down.
”Uh! You always take her side.” Lilly slammed herself back in her chair.
Wendy joined in. ”Yeah, you kinda do. Grace is just trying to get attention. She only had the thing a couple weeks and it always sounded like she was torturing it. And anyway, she killed it herself letting it fly around her room like that.”
A wiggle went up my throat in my mouth. ”Can I go get ready for school-I don't want to eat-this-I'm, um-” and I crunched my jaws together.
Mrs. Hood was sitting back at the table now with tea. Her voice was calm. ”Oh, no? Well, you're going to. I don't get up at seven a.m. for you to turn your nose up at the breakfast I make. I'm sure you're having a hard time right now, but honestly, this is ongoing and it's getting ridiculous. I don't know how your poor mother ever tolerated your pickiness.”
Wendy looked up at the ceiling, chewing. I said, ”It's not cuz it's bad. I'm just-” and clenched my teeth again.
Mrs. Hood stared at me, waiting. Then she said, ”It's my responsibility as your guardian to make sure you're fed, and you're skinnier every time I look at you. And I don't want to hear about what your mother fed you and how you're not allowed to eat white bread or Kraft Dinner-I'd like to know just how a woman on Welfare managed to feed you steak every day and whole milk and fresh juice and fresh vegetables. And she should be ashamed of herself for not forcing you to eat like a normal person-dumping vitamins down your throat. Not to mention your table manners. Half the time you're eating with your hands, and when you do use utensils, it's like you never held one before in your life.” Lilly sucked in her lips and got dimples in her cheeks.
Christmas vacation started and Todd Baker drove me to my mum's. He was trying to make peppy happy conversation on the way and I wasn't in the mood. It seemed like he thought it was some big present, bringing me to my mum's place, like I should be grateful or something. But it was mine and I deserved it and I didn't want him thinking he was supposed to get thanked.
He was talking about Christmas in Oregon, his mother and his cousins and their dogs and cats dressed in Santa hats for Christmas pictures. He wished he remembered to bring the one his uncle sent. And then Christmas in New York: the lights and music everywhere; his brother and the wife and how they were Jewish there and they had Hanukkah; did I know what Hanukkah was? Josh never said anything about it. I stared out the window and said, ”Uh huh.”
He was quiet a second, then, ”I haven't been home in more than four years.” I wondered if he meant I should feel lucky again. Then he said, ”Next year for sure-I think, anyway-I'll be able to make it down; last year my mother came up here.”
”What's a draft dodger?” I asked and didn't look at him.
Quiet again. ”Where did you hear that?”
”Mm, I don't know. I heard someone say it. Just wondered.”
He patted pockets until he found cigarettes, flipped the lid with one hand, looked, then chucked the empty package on the floor. He s.h.i.+fted gears hard and switched lanes. ”It's someone who believes so much in the strength of their convictions that they leave their homeland in order to avoid compromising them.”
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