Good Graces

Chapter Thirty-five

Red balloons are waving off the playground fence and Christmas lights are twinkling from everybody’s front porches. There was some talk of calling the block party off because of Father Mickey’s disappearance, but that didn’t last very long. Everybody in the neighborhood really looks forward to this night and after all we’ve been through the past three months, I think we need it the way you do a drink of water after you’ve run a long race. It’s still warm and muggy tonight like it has been all summer, but the sky is clear and the moon will come up with a little orange around the edges. I know that means the leaves are getting ready to change and harvest time is not far off. I wish Daddy was here to see this. He always did like a lush party.

The end-of-the-summer shindig is always held on Vliet Street because we can all spread out at the playground after they declare the Queen and King. We really do need room to dance to the Do Wops’ music after we get done stuffing ourselves with food from the cook-off. Card tables are lined up on the sidewalk and you can just grab a plate and eat as much as you want. My stomach is going to have to wait, though. I’m in a big hurry to get to where Mother has set up. I want to make sure the surprise I planned is going the way it’s supposed to.

Troo’s not the only one who can come up with a plan, ya know.

Last week, so Mother wouldn’t send half the neighborhood to the hospital, I fibbed to her. I told her I heard Mrs. Latour was also bringing cow tongue in turnip sauce to the cook-off. (I slipped Artie the recipe. He’s supposed to talk his mom into that. I’ve got my fingers crossed.) I warned Mother that if she didn’t want to be called a copycat behind her back, she better bring another dish that would knock everybody’s socks off. “Mississippi blond brownies would be a sure blue-ribbon winner,” I said, knowing that she would fall for that because this is another way her and Troo are so much alike.

After I planted that seed in Mother’s brain, I ran next door and told Ethel what I wanted to do. She nodded her head and said, “Bless your heart.”

She can’t enter the contest because she’s not one of us. She didn’t say so, but I could tell by the way her eyes crinkled that she thought it was funny that we were going to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes. Over the past few days, we’ve baked dozens and dozens of brownies in Mrs. Galecki’s kitchen. On our last batch, I asked her if it bothered her that after all this hard work, she wouldn’t get a lick of credit. Ethel slid the pan of blondies outta the oven with a knowing smile and said, “It’ll be different someday, Miss Sally, but’til then, it’s a smart cat who knows how to use the back door.”

When I get to where they’ve set up, Dave is standing by Mother’s side at her cook-off table. She looks outstanding tonight in a pink blouse and pleated beige slacks. She wore her hair my favorite way. Long and loose, just flowing. Dave, who looks good, too, in a very Danish way, is handing out the brownies as fast as he can. I can’t even get close, that’s how long a line there is for Ethel’s delicious something-somethings.

“You made these, Helen?” Mrs. Latour asks from the next table over and helps herself to three. There is not one person standing in front of her and her dish. Not even Mary Lane.

Mother gives me a wink when she says back to Mrs. Latour in her most charming voice, “So sorry that your cow tongue in turnip sauce is such a flop, Dolores. You might want to go easier on the lard.”

Down the block, in front of their house, Mrs. Kenfield is set up with a ton of candy from the Five and Dime, and her face… it’s beaming like a saint’s on a holy card. Dottie is by her side and from up on the porch, little Sophia is crying on her grampa’s lap, which has to be music to all their ears. Greasy Al is not here. When we were working together in the garden this morning, Dave told me Molinari was returned to the reform school yesterday. I’m not sure when he’ll get out, but until he does Dottie and the baby will be staying in her old room.

Of course, every lip in the neighborhood is flapping about Greasy Al and Dottie. That news spread faster than melted butter. (I wish you coulda seen Troo’s face when I first told her. She rolled her eyes into the back of her head and said, just like I knew she would, “Married? Dottie and the goombah? That’s nothin’ but a fig newton of your lunatic imagination!”)

When Mr. Kenfield spots me stopping at their table to pick up Oh Henry! bars and Snirkles for Mother and B-B-Bats for Dave and wax lips for Troo, he calls down, “Load up your pockets. Take as many as you want, Sally.” That is a happy ending, which I admit I am a sucker for. Since they pay a visit to you so rarely, you just gotta throw down the welcome mat when they show up, right?

The Vliet Street gang has settled into our usual spot on the O’Haras’ front steps, eating until we can barely breathe. Except for Willie. He gets butterflies before he has to perform so he just drinks Kool-Aid.

From across the street at the playground, cheerful Debbie the new counselor-I really have to hand it to her, she has not lost one ounce of her pep no matter how many times Mary Lane ties her shoelaces together or sticks gum in her hair or calls her Roy-announces into a microphone from the stage that’s set up especially for the party, “It’s time for the further festivities to begin! Will all the contestants who are participating in the talent show please join me?”

Troo picks up the Jerry Mahoney ventriloquist doll that Dave bought her at the toy store for doing so good on her extra religious instruction. (I told him to do that. Troo likes people better when they give her things.) “Here goes nothin’,” she says, and runs across Vliet Street to join the other kids.

I yell after her, “Break a leg,” because that’s what Willie told me you’re supposed to say to a performer before their show. I think it’s mean, but I also wish just a little bit that could happen. My sister would be so much easier to keep track of if she was in a cast.

Once all the kids have filed up onto the stage, Debbie announces to the crowd, “Let the talent show begin!”

For the next hour, everybody in the neighborhood gets to hang up their troubles and be entertained by seventeen kids who do all sorts of talent like baton twirling and tap dancing and card tricks. Troo is excellent with her Jerry doll. Her lips move only a couple of times. Mary Lane swings across the monkey bars four times without stopping and Mimi Latour sings Ave Maria. Because she has a true calling, that’s extremely good holy singing on Mimi’s part so it will be close between her and Troo for Queen.

I don’t take part in the contest. I tell everyone I have a sore throat. I do that because my impression of a munchkin singing the We Represent the Lollypop Guild song, if I do say so myself, is dynamite. Real TNT. I couldn’t do that to my sister. Or to myself. I don’t want to wake up with worms in my bed.

When it’s the boys’ turn, they are good, too. Artie is excellent with his yo-yo tricks, especially that three-leaf clover one, but I think Willie O’Hara is a shoo-in for King. His jokes have us all in stitches.

This is his best one:

“Did you hear about the Polack who thought his wife was tryin’ to kill him because he found a bottle of polish remover on her dressin’ table?”

Now that everybody’s done giving it their best shot, we can’t wait to hear who the winners are.

“Attention, please,” says Barbie, the old counselor. Since she is the boss of the playground, she’s the one who’s got the crown in her hands. It’s made out of gold or something. Not like the tiara the girl is gonna get, with sparkling rhinestones. “It’s time to announce this summer’s King of the Playground.” She unfolds a piece of paper and says, “Congratulations… Willie O’Hara!”

You can tell everybody thinks that’s a great choice because they’re hip, hip hurraying!

Troo is standing next to me in front of the stage, looking very sure of herself when Barbie says, “And the Queen this summer is…”

That’s when my sister does something that I will never forget until my dying day. Instead of running up onto the stage to receive the tiara that I think she’s sure to win, Troo cuts Barbie off by shouting, “Wen… dy! Wen… dy! Wen… dy!” and then I join in, too, and before you know it everybody else in the neighborhood, even the mothers and fathers and the hoods who are hanging out near the fence, are chanting along with us.

Maybe it’s because another summer has slipped by and we all know Wendy doesn’t have many more left. Or maybe it’s because she looks so pretty in her frilly dress with her shiny hair and the new Cracker Jack ring I slipped on her finger before the party. Whatever the reason, what can Barb do? She tears up the piece of paper she has in her hand with the real Queen’s name on it, throws it up in the air and announces, “For the second year in a row… may I present her Royal Highness Miss…”

Wendy Latour. You’d think she’d be shocked and shy, but she isn’t. She acts like she knew all along that she was gonna be the one. After she glides up those stage steps and lets Barb take off her old rhinestone crown and put the new one on, Wendy waves and throws a load of Dinah Shore kisses to her adoring subjects.

And then the Do Wops burst into Rock Around the Clock and all of us grab partners and start dancing.

When Henry takes me by the hand, he calls me Peaches ’n Cream and I almost faint, that’s how good it feels to dance with my pale future husband. I don’t even care that Troo gives me that dumb smoochy face when she bops by with Artie doing the jack. Even though it’s a fast song, Dave and Mother are waltzing next to Henry and me. (Practicing for the wedding, I think. Mother has a hard time letting Dave lead so they have to work that out.) Even Nell looks less like death warmed over. She is doing the twist with Uncle Richie Piaskowski, who I really like. He laughed the hardest at Willie’s Polack jokes so I think we’re going to get along great because just like me, he doesn’t get his nose pushed outta joint that easy. (Of course, it runs to the large side, which Troo pointed out when she asked him, “What do ya use for a handkerchief? A bedsheet?”)

And Ethel and Ray Buck, man, oh, man. They are doing this new dance called the boogaloo. I’m going to suggest a dance competition to the counselors for next year’s party. Maybe next summer could be the “someday” Ethel mentioned to me.

Uncle Paulie is having a ball, too. He’s doing a dance with Granny in her muu-muu, which I think is supposed to be the kind of hula the girls do on Hawaiian Eye but to me seems very voodooish because my uncle is too jerky around the hips.

But best of all-I will love Dave forever for doing this-when a slow song starts up, he bows to Wendy Latour and takes her for a royal spin. Watching them, I can’t help but think about how she’ll be able to go on just the same way she always has giving hugs and swinging half-naked and showing up in the oddest places without everybody thinking bad of her for accidentally killing God’s worst employee.

Father Mickey isn’t the only one not having the time of his life tonight. Poor Aunt Betty. Mr. Stanley Talmidge, owner of the Uptown Theatre, gave her the brush-off at the party so she won’t get into the movies free anymore. And Mrs. Latour is also sulking because Mother won the cook-off with the blondies. Eddie, Nell’s butt of a husband, isn’t having the best night either. He was breathing so hot and heavy into Melinda Urbanski’s high-and-mighty bosoms that he didn’t notice right off the fire in the backseat of his’57 Chevy that somebody near and dear to me started. It wasn’t a four alarmer or anything, just big enough that Dave, who might have a lot more Viking in him than I originally thought, walked past me and Mary Lane very slowly with a bucket of water. Between the holes in the leather and the water damage, what a pity that Eddie’s gonna have to pay to get it reupholstered.

The block party doesn’t end until close to eleven o’clock. We all want it to go on longer, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Tomorrow morning Troo and me will have to go to Shuster’s to get our new loafers and Granny will put in shiny new pennies and then over we’ll go to the Five and Dime for our school supplies. The day after that we will walk these blocks with all the other kids in our new uniforms to Mother of Good Hope School beneath trees whose leaves are thinking about turning. Before we know it, Mother and Dave’s wedding bells will be ringing and Ethel will be making Troo and me warm Ovaltine instead of cold.

Not until we get back home after the party and get cozy between our sheets, once Troo has Daddy’s blue shirt on and her baby doll in her arms, do I tell her, “Givin’ away the tiara to Wendy… that was really something.” The reason I waited until we were alone was because I didn’t want to say anything good about her in front of everybody. She wouldn’t want her reputation wrecked. “You were gonna win for sure.” That’s a lie. When nobody was looking, I pieced together the paper with the real winner’s name. It wasn’t Troo who was going to be crowned. Believe it or not, it was monkey-bar-swinging Mary Lane. (That’s a pretty crummy talent, but I think Debbie the peppy counselor was too afraid not to make her Queen.)

Then we mention Lou Budette for Daddy the way we do every night, and after I butterfly-kiss my sister on her cheek, I add on, “I’m so proud of you.” I don’t think I’ve ever said that to her before.

My sister says, “Yeah, well. Ya know.”

I do. On the walk home from the party I figured out why Troo did what she did for Wendy tonight. Those two have a lot more in common now than they used to. My sister accidentally killed a father, too.

I move my hand to my favorite furry baby blanket part up near Troo’s neck. We haven’t talked even once about what we did to Father Mickey since that night. I kept the outside of her safe this summer the way I promised Daddy I would, but what about her insides? Her half-buried feelings? More and more, they seem important to me to dig up.

I ask, “How do you feel about what happened?” She knows what I mean. “Ya know, deep down.”

Troo doesn’t answer right off, but when she leans in to give me my butterfly kiss, when she twines her fingers into mine, she doesn’t smart-mouth me the way I thought she might. She sighs and whispers, “The Almighty works in mysterious ways, ma cherie,” and with the sound of Ethel’s saxophone music coming over the fence and the Moriaritys’ dog barking up the block and the smell of the chocolate chip cookies drifting through our window, I would have to agree with her.