Good Graces

Chapter Twenty-one

The heat usually dies down around this time of night, but I guess it’s making a day of it same as me and Troo and everybody else who’s spread out at the lagoon waiting for the sky to go a smidgeon darker so the fireworks can get shot off from the island in the middle.

My breathing is coming a little faster than it normally does, but I’m not feeling as jumpy as I usually do being this close to the murky water. It was right over there where Bobby set me down. My loved ones being close by helps. Troo is lying next to me and Ethel and Ray Buck are two blankets over. I’ve already said a prayer for Junie, my little cousin, who would also be cuddled up with us along with her mother and father if she wasn’t rotting away in the cemetery in her little white coffin. I bet Dave is thinking about his dead niece, too. All the blue today had to remind him of Junie since that was her favorite color. Can you see fireworks from heaven?

Mother and Dave are perched in folding chairs behind us, getting along better than the lovebirds in the pet aisle at the Five and Dime.

The ladies in the neighborhood were swarming all over Mother for most of the day. They wanted to get a close-up look at her engagement ring. Most of them told her congratulations, but I heard one lady grumble, “And not a moment too soon, if you ask me. I was afraid to let my husband leave the house without me. The woman’s a Jezebel.”

I don’t know where Uncle Paulie disappeared to but wherever he is, he’s busy. The Fourth party is the biggest day of the year for him. All the Popsicle sticks lying around on the grass are like manna raining down from heaven for my uncle. Granny isn’t here. Even though she likes fireworks, she never comes to the celebration anymore because she got sick of people telling her how she should win a prize for looking so much like George Washington. Nell, she’s not here either because she doesn’t even know what month it is. But her nincompoop of a husband showed up. I saw Eddie earlier over where they were selling beer. He was hanging out with Tommy “The Mangling Meatball” Molinari, who musta challenged him to a chugging contest because the both of them were blotto. I stuck around for a while to see if Greasy Al might show, but all that ended up happening was Eddie and Tommy weaved down to the Honey Creek and tinkled into it.

Father Mickey is visiting with his parishioners around the shadowy lagoon, stopping to ask about how things are going up at the Feelin’ Good factory or with their kids. When he comes by Dave and Mother they treat him like a king, can’t thank him enough for getting them the annulment. They also talk about the cat burglar. Everybody has been. The Montgomerys got hit yesterday and lost a boatload of money that Mr. Montgomery, who doesn’t believe in banks, kept in a coffee can under the sink. Nothing else was taken. Dave told me that houses are usually ripped apart when a thief searches for hidden treasures, but our cat just zeroes in on the good stuff like he’s got a treasure map or something. X marks the spot.

Father Mickey stops to say hello to the O’Malley sisters, too. I say, “Hi,” back, but Troo doesn’t. She doesn’t even say thank-you when he compliments her on her winning costume.

I know why. She’s holding him responsible for getting Dave and Mother permission to get married. I bet Troo has already added Father Mickey’s name on the top of what she calls her “Shit List,” which is already over a foot long.

This is another one of those times when I think God really does have a plan because Father Mickey getting the annulment letter worked out really good for Troo in the long run. I’m almost positive she’s moved her crushing feelings off the priest and back to her old flame, Artie Latour, because he was definitely wearing the coonskin cap. It was flat as Troo’s beret from being under our mattress for so long, but it still looked good. Artie was also Troo’s partner in the egg-on-a-spoon and three-legged races and they dangled their feet in the Honey Creek during the afternoon, talking, talking, talking. When I took three Dreamsicles down and tried to join in with them, they told me, “Thanks,” but they clammed up about whatever it was they were chatting about.

My sister and me are lying on our stomachs, which we barely can do because of all the apple pie we ate. She’s tuckered out after her big winning day. I adore her all the time, but a little bit more when she gets sleepy like this. That’s when she’s more like olden-days Troo. Still whistling in the dark, but not as as loud. Her blue decorating ribbon and two more for winning the games are hanging off her neck, swinging like the pendulum on Mrs. Goldman’s grandfather clock. That reminds me. I’ve gotta get over there soon to check on her house. I’ve been slacking.

I look over to where Troo set her Eiffel Tower costume against a tree. It’s still blinking.

“How’d ya get the lights to stay on like that?” I ask.

“Batteries,” she says. She doesn’t smell like an Evening in Paris. She smells sticky with everything we ate today, mostly sweet. “Uncle Paulie was in charge of that part.”

“No kiddin’.” For a man who once went to work with his boxer shorts on the outside of his pants, that is a smart invention. “Did he figure out how to get all those sticks to stay together like that, too?” I say, wondering if someone’s brain can grow back. Some worms can do that if you split them in two.

Troo says, “Remember the day we went up to the Five and Dime and ran into Aunt Betty?”

She means the time Mother sent me up there to get her a Snirkle and Troo went skulking around the aisles and I found out from Aunt Betty that Father Mickey was originally from the neighborhood, but what does that have to do with… “Ohhhh, I get it. You took some glue and that’s what’s keepin’ them together.”

She says, “Yup. Once we got the sticks stuck together and they got all dried out and could stand on their own, I painted the movie title on the front.” She musta been asked this question by everybody and their brother today because the words roll outta her mouth like a multiplication table.

A couple of blankets down I can hear Mrs. Latour telling her daughter to pipe down. Wendy won’t stop yelling, “Thally, Thally, me thee you, Thally.” I know if I tell her I see her, too, she’s gonna come crawling over everybody asking me to witch laugh and as much as I like her, I need to talk to my sister, so I act like I don’t hear her, which is impossible. Just like her mother, who has to call a dozen kids to supper every night, Wendy’s got a set of lungs on her.

“Where did you do all the work on it?” I ask Troo about her costume.

“Granny’s garage.”

I give her a gentle noogie in the arm. “So that’s where you’ve been disappearin’ to, you little banshee.”

Her keeping something this big from me makes me wonder what else she’s been up to that I don’t know about. She hasn’t been giving me the slip just during the day. She disappeared in the middle of the night those coupla times. She couldn’t have gone over to Granny’s garage to work on the costume then because Uncle Paulie is up at Jerbak’s setting pins in the wee hours. I want to ask her again where she snuck off to, but the timing isn’t right. I don’t want to rain on her parade.

Troo rests her head against mine. “I couldn’t tell you about the costume. I… I wanted to surprise everybody,” she says. She really does love a good bushwhack. Next to scaring people, that’s her favorite.

“So, you must like him a lot better now,” I say, rolling over onto my side so I can get a better look at her.

“Who?”

“Uncle Paulie.” I sure would if I were her. That costume is going to go down in neighborhood history.

“He’s all right.” Troo plucks a fat blade of grass, positions it between her thumbs and makes that kazoo sound you can get out of it sometimes. “He’s better than he used to be. Don’t ya think?”

I say, “Sure,” but I’m not. That was nice of him to help Troo out with her costume, but I haven’t forgotten what Ethel told me about Paulie Riley in the old days being “nastier than chicken poop on a pump handle.” And also how Granny says, “A leopard can’t change his spots,” or maybe she says, “A leper can’t change his spots,” oh, I don’t know. She’s got so many of those darn sayings and most of them don’t even make sense. Who would want to skin a cat in the first place?

I look back to check on Mother and Dave, but they aren’t paying us a bit of attention. They’re tapping their feet to the sounds of the Do Wops who are playing Be Bop A Lula Be My Baby.

I pick up Troo’s hand and twine her fingers in mine. “I need to talk to you about what you did.”

“Whatta ya mean?” she says, clamping down.

“Givin’ Artie the coonskin cap back. You can definitely write that in your ‘How I Spent My Charitable Summer’ story.”

“Oh, that,” she says, going limp again. “You bonehead.”

From out on the lagoon island, there’s a high whistle and a boom… deboom… boom and after the explosion, the first firework rains down red. From around the lagoon, our neighbors say all together, “Aaaa,” the same way we all say, “Aaaamen” together at Mass at the end of a prayer.

“Just so ya know, I’ve been keepin’ a coupla other secrets from you, too,” Troo says.

“What kind a other secrets?” I ask her even though I’m sure she’s about to fess up about how she slipped outta our bed and wandered the neighborhood looking for Greasy Al, which is great because now I won’t have to pry it outta her.

Troo sneaks a peek at Dave and Mother to make sure they aren’t listening, which they aren’t. They’re locking lips. “Father Mickey is doin’ something with the altar boys that he shouldn’t be doin’.”

Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.

Down at the creek today when they were gabbing away, I was afraid Artie was telling Troo the same thing he told me that night in the Kenfields’ backyard about Father Mickey commiting a bad sin with the altar boys.

I tell her, “I know you’re happy that ya got back together with Artie, but… but you can’t listen to what he’s saying about Father.” I’d like to wring Latour’s scrawny neck right about now and that’s not like me at all. “He’s not thinkin’ straight lately because he’s upset about Charlie Fitch vanishin’ and he was jealous about you spendin’ so much time with Father Mickey. Artie’s imagination, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, has taken a long walk off a short pier.”

Another firework goes off, but I don’t look up. I’ve still got my head turned to Troo. That’s when I see him out of the corner of my eye. About ten feet behind and to the left of us, Father Mickey is leaning against a tree pretending to listen to one of his parishioners, but he’s not. He’s watching us, staring straight at Troo and me.

My sister says, “I know ya left Artie a jar of cod liver oil on his porch, but he doesn’t need it. He’s not imaginin’ anything. He’s not a fanatic like you. What he told ya about Father Mickey bein’ up to no good is the truth. I got proof.” Troo must feel the priest’s eyes screwing into the back of her neck the same way I can because she scootches up closer to me, slides her hand down to the front of her shorts and takes something out that she keeps balled up in her grubby hand. “If I show ya this,” she whispers, “ya gotta promise ya won’t tell a soul and especially not Dave.”

Since I take them so to heart, I don’t ever promise anybody anything if I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. Except for my sister.

“Promise.”

She wiggles even closer, her warm skeeter-bit arm presses against mine. When she opens her hand, Mrs. Galecki’s missing emerald necklace is lying in her palm, just glimmering.