Читать книгу Mischief and Malice - Berthe Amoss - Страница 7

One

The thing you have to understand is that besides memorizing your catechism it really works if you believe it. Like the Communion of Saints part. “I believe in the Communion of Saints,” the Catechism says, and we’re all suppose to be saints, not just those they’ve got statues of in the Church, but you, me, and all the dead people who have gone before, excluding, of course, those who’ve descended into hell.

The communion part means communication—so you’ve got this kind of giant telephone system where you can call up from New Orleans all the way to one of the saints in heaven and say, “Please, Aunt Eveline, you remember how I prayed for the repose of your soul at mass on Sunday? Well, now I need some help from you. There’s this boy, called Leonard McCloskey, who is captain of the Jesuit football team and a very good Catholic, Aunt Eveline! He kneels and crosses himself before every game and his team almost always wins unless it’s playing another Catholic team who’ve also knelt and crossed themselves, which I’m sure presents God with a problem. But the point is it’s perfectly all right for me to like Leonard McCloskey. The only thing is I don’t know if he likes me. In fact, I’m not sure he knows who I am, Aunt Eveline, so if you could just ask God to let Leonard notice me, I’ll take care of the rest.”

I said this prayer on Monday last week just before Saturday’s Jesuit game and the answer came back with telegraphic speed. First, Tom, who was away at school, wrote in his letter, “I sure hope Jesuit wins. Tell Leonard good luck for me.” Now that might not seem on the surface to be the answer to a prayer but since Tom usually doesn’t write about anything except his dog and how he wishes the United States would declare war on Hitler, I could tell it was divine intervention. So just before the game, I stood at the entrance to the locker room in the stadium, and when the team came out, I pushed forward as Leonard passed by and called, “Tom says ‘good luck!’” and Leonard looked me and said, “Thanks, Addie!”

Addie! He called me by my name! I love the way he says my name, with a sort of lilt: ‘Ad-dee,’ and a very small smile playing at the edge of his mouth. I can’t wait for him to say ‘Ad-dee’ again, and I take this to be a direct, affirmative response and encouragement from God and you, Aunt Eveline, that you both approve of Leonard. Thanks, Aunt Eveline! Keep up the good work; I’m counting on you!

I miss Aunt Eveline because she raised me and I am pleased to have this direct means of communication of saints so that we can stay in touch. I am very sorry not to still be living at Three Twenty Audubon Street with her, especially since now I have to live next door at my Aunt Toosie and Uncle Henry’s house with my hateful cousin, Sandra Lee. I can’t wait to go away to college and become a famous artist. Aunt Toosie said, “Addie, dear, Eveline wanted you to go to the very best art school. How do you feel about going to Newcomb with Sandra Lee?”

“I’m not sure about Newcomb, Aunt Toosie,” I answered. I’ve got to make sure wherever I go is a million miles from wherever Sandra Lee goes. Actually, I’ve been considering Smith, which I think, is near West Point with good-looking cadets, but I don’t know if Smith has an art school and I’m not sure we have the money for me to go that far away. Thank goodness I don’t have to solve the college problem this year. The Leonard problem needs all of my attention before I can concentrate on art.

Maybe I should make up something else Tom said to tell him like “Tom said for me to tell you ‘Congratulations!’” if the team wins, of course, or if they lose, “Tom said for me to tell you ‘Tough Luck!’” Then Leonard would have to say “Thanks, Ad-dee!”

No, he wouldn’t. He could say, “Tom didn’t say that; you just made it up because you’re boy crazy. I wish your pretty cousin, Sandra Lee, would talk to me instead of you.” He could say that to me and not even say my name once and I’d deserve it for lying, so I’ll just turn the whole thing back to you, Aunt Eveline. I need a little more help and I’ll be praying for the repose of your soul again on Sunday, so do you think you could arrange a situation where Leonard would have to speak to me first? Thanks in advance, Aunt Eveline!

I had just made that fervent prayer, and I happened to be standing in the pantry next to the kitchen with my hand on an unopened jar of blackberry jam, when I heard the screen door slam, and then sobs.

“Mabel! What’s wrong?” Aunt Toosie cried as Tom’s mother sobbed louder. “What’s the matter, dear?!” I froze and listened.

“Louis is the matter!” cried Aunt Mabel. “Toosie, Louis is coming home! He’ll be here any minute! He phoned from Mobile!”

“My God, Mabel! I can’t believe it!” Aunt Toosie yelled. “How does he have the nerve?!”

It was too late to make my presence known. It was also too interesting. Louis is Tom’s father who left when Tom was an infant, and no one had seen or heard from him since then.

“Disappeared into the blue,” Tom’s Uncle Malvern said, and moved in with Tom and Aunt Mabel to take care of them. But Uncle Malvern has turned out to be more like another child than the man of the house. It is Aunt Mabel and Tom who take care of Uncle Malvern while he works on his invention, the Perpetual Motion Machine.

In between sobs Aunt Mabel was saying, “What shall I do? What does he expect of me? Where has he been? I’ve wired Tom. I don’t want to see that man again! Oh, Toosie, yes, I do! In all these years, I’ve never really stopped loving Louis!”

“Now, now, then, Mabel darling, of course, you still love him. You are such a loving person and, of course, you want to see him, but Mabel, listen to me, don’t give an inch! No matter what he says! You know he has a silver tongue and only cares for himself and money. Don’t give him an inch, Mabel!”

Aunt Toosie went on and on with useless advice about inches. I thought how much better it would be for Aunt Mabel to read that book that Sandra Lee has, Dearest, which tells you everything and I mean everything about what to do and say in any situation you can imagine.

Aunt Toosie was still chattering away about inches and Aunt Mabel about bygones as they left the kitchen for Aunt Mabel’s to fix up the guest room for Louis.

That’s another thing about getting old: most people lose sight of the important things and get bogged down in stuff that really doesn’t matter. Why don’t they fix up Aunt Mabel instead of a room? She needs a new hair-do desperately. Even I could have told her that without reading Dearest. And she needs to change the expression on her face, which looks like the illustration of St. Agatha in Early Christian Martyrs.

I wandered into the kitchen to get bread and peanut butter for my jam. Tom’s father. Louis. What did he look like now? I remembered a snapshot of him with my mother. He was certainly handsome then: tall, with wavy blond hair and a kind of devil-may-care smile. Something like Tom but much, much more sophisticated and interesting-looking. I didn’t blame Aunt Mabel for still caring about Louis. If I were in her place, I wouldn’t worry about giving inches.

I decided to consult Dearest. I ran upstairs to Sandra Lee’s room where she keeps it sandwiched between her collection of Nancy Drew mysteries. Sandra Lee has made a brown paper cover exactly like the ones we made for our school books, and she’s written “Little Lives of Saints for Little People” on the outside so that Aunt Toosie won’t open it. Dearest has sample letters and conversations for every stage of a love affair that would be pretty embarrassing if your mother caught you reading it. But it is so clear that you never have to be at a loss for something to write or tongue-tied if you can remember the right page. For instance, on page 76 in the chapter called “Going Steady but not Ready,” it tells how you can encourage a boy without “letting him go too far.” I turned to page 96 in the chapter called “Getting Heady and Ready” where it tells “how to encourage a reluctant suitor and bring him to the brink of matrimony.” Unfortunately, page 96 had taken a lot of wear and literal tear before Sandra Lee got it and a large corner with crucial facts was missing. What was left read: “At this point, one must be careful not to___for instead of encouraging a proposal,___might lead a potential fiancé to thereby placing the potential fiancé into the position of___. On the other hand, by___the fiancé may___and this cannot fail to bring the suitor to his knees.”

Important words like “kissing” and “petting” were bound to be in there, plus the ominous phrase “going all the way.” It was just a matter of fitting the missing phrases into the right blanks. We did it all the time in school, things like, God is___. Choose one of the following:

a) three Gods in one person

b) one God in three persons

c) invisible, etc.

I was trying to fill in the blanks for page 96 and wondering if Aunt Mabel was too old for this kind of advice when Sandra Lee burst yelling, “Uncle Malvern’s tried to hang himself on his Perpetual Motion Machine! And Tom’s father has come home! He’s here! In a uniform!”

I could see Sandra Lee was pleased to be the one with dramatic information about Tom’s family.

Sandra Lee looks her best when she’s excited. Her eyes, already big and round, get rounder and her perfectly shaped, little mouth is parted slightly. She was waiting for me to say something like “Good Heavens!”, so I lowered my eyelids and raised my eyebrows which makes me look slightly bored and said, “I knew Tom’s father was arriving. I sincerely hope Uncle Malvern’s effort was in vain.”

“And Tom’s on his way home too! Now!”

“He is?! My God!” I cried.

“Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain,” she said. “Mother’s already helping Aunt Mabel cook a big pot of gumbo. We could bring over something.”

“We can bring the leftover cookies I made yesterday,” I said.

“You forgot the sugar.”

“I’ll dust them with confectioner’s,” I said. “Hurry up!”

A million things criss-crossed my mind. First, I was dying to see what Tom’s father looked like. Second, Tom would deliver his own messages now, and I wouldn’t even have an excuse to talk to Leonard any more. Third and worst of all, everybody considered me Tom’s girl, but it was really a process of elimination instead of a romance; Tom had never had a girlfriend and I’d never had a boyfriend, and we’d grown up next door to each other and raised the same dog. It was positively infuriating to be linked romantically with a tall skinny boy whose main interests were football, a mangy dog, and a war on the other side of the world. I’d never get anywhere with Leonard McClosky now.

Sandra Lee reached in the cookie tin and pulled out what was left of the cookies I’d made. Spread out and sprinkled with powdery sugar, they filled the plate and looked nice.

“Sandra Lee, did they say how Uncle Malvern tried to hang himself?”

“He didn’t exactly try. He was sitting on top of the Perpetual Motion Machine and fell, and on the way down he got caught in the old shower curtain he’d rigged up to keep water from splashing on the floor. He’s okay now.”

You might know the news wasn’t as dramatic as Sandra Lee wanted me to think.

We hurried over to Tom’s house, two doors away. Aunt Eveline’s sweet olive tree was in bloom and the tiny white flowers sent their heavy, sweet smell down the whole block. I tried to see into the living room window of my old house as we went by, but the curtains were drawn. I noticed the Communion of Saints telephone was ringing and thought I heard Aunt Eveline saying “Addie, what goes on at Three Twenty Audubon Street is no longer any of your business, and if you’re going over to Tom’s house out of vulgar, common curiosity and not Christian Charity for Tom’s mother you’d best turn around and get on with your own affairs such as your artistic career.”

“Sandra Lee,” I said, “do you think Aunt Mabel really wants us to come over?”

“Of course,” said Sandra Lee primly. Besides Dearest, she has a book of etiquette by Emily Post, which she has memorized better than her catechism. “You always go to a friend’s house in times of crisis,” Sandra Lee said. “To help. You can be helpful talking to Uncle Malvern about his invention and taking him off Aunt Mabel’s hands.”

That was the last thing I wanted to do and Sandra Lee knew it.

“Why don’t you talk to Uncle Malvern?” I said as we came around the side of Tom’s house. It was too late: there sat Uncle Malvern on the back porch, his grey head in his hands. He looked up, sighed, and smiled when he saw Sandra Lee’s golden curls bouncing in the sunlight. He didn’t even notice me.

“You look just like Pasie, Sandra Lee!” he said.

The old feeling of helpless envy washed over me. Sandra Lee looked like my beautiful mother and I didn’t.

Worse yet, Sandra Lee could pass for eighteen. I, on the other hand, was still Sister Maurice’s first choice for the role of Joseph in the Christmas play.

“Oh, thank you so much, Uncle Malvern!” said Sandra Lee sweetly. “Addie here has come over to talk to you and I’ll just run in and give Aunt Mabel these cookies we made for her.”

Sandra Lee maneuvers like a tank and there I was, stuck with Uncle Malvern. He finally tore his eyes away from her and said, “Oh, hello there, Addie. Nice of you to come. Have a seat.”

He patted the step next to him. Uncle Malvern had once been very handsome but the only way you could tell that was from my mother’s old snapshots marked “Mal.” Now his face was puffy and red, and his body pudgy. He loved my mother all of his life and that was why he’d stayed a bachelor and drank all the time. At least, that was what Aunt Toosie thought.

“Well!” said Uncle Malvern in that jolly way grownups use with children. “I know you’ll be pleased to know Tom’s coming home tonight!”

I don’t know what made me react, whether it was Sandra Lee’s maneuver or knowing that I’d already committed at least one venial sin coming over here and I might as well go for broke.

“No,” I blurted out. “I’m not glad Tom’s coming home!”

The minute I said it, I was sorry.

I was about to apologize to Uncle Malvern who was staring at me in a stunned way when he said, “You know, you look like your mother too! When she got mad! Or do you think I’ve gotten so old and stupid that every young girl looks like my poor lost love?”

“Oh, Uncle Malvern, you’re not old and stupid!” I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. “Look at your invention. No one stupid could invent a Perpetual Motion Machine.”

“It doesn’t work,” he said sadly.

“Tom says it has the potential to work.”

“Does he?” said Uncle Malvern hopefully.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Tom says that in theory you are perfectly correct.”

This cheered Uncle Malvern so much that he talked on and on about his machine that had grown bigger every time I’d seen it until it took up almost his whole room, reaching to the ceiling and crowding his bed into a corner.

I had stopped listening and was wondering how I could tactfully get up and go home when a tall man dressed in uniform walked out of the kitchen. Even if I hadn’t known it was Tom’s father, I’d have recognized Louis from the man in the snapshot with my mother. He didn’t look any different or old at all. He was still very handsome and had the bluest eyes I have ever seen. I went all embarrassed and stupid, the way I always do, and, having no poise whatsoever, jumped up, which a lady is not supposed to do for any man according to Sandra Lee’s etiquette book, and said, of course, the wrong thing:

“Hello, Colonel,” is what I said.

He smiled and held out his hand.

“You look too much like your beautiful mother not to be Addie,” he answered. “I’m not a Colonel; I’m a Sergeant in the Salvation Army and I’m home at last.” He smiled again. “I hope I’m not too late to miss completely being Tom’s father, and a friend of Pasie’s lovely daughter.”

I had never heard a more beautiful speech. I understood what Aunt Mabel meant when she said that Louis had “a silver tongue.” I knew that Louis was not supposed to be completely sincere, and I knew too that Tom hated him, but I was bowled over just the same. I tried to remember what Dearest says you should say on meeting a potential boyfriend but my mind went blank.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I don’t know the difference between uniforms but yours is very becoming.”

This time I got a big smile, which had to be sincere because his eyes smiled too. “Thank you, Addie. That’s very kind of you. Say! I know Tom would like it if you were at the train when he gets in tomorrow night. Would you like to meet him with me? He gets in at nine.”

“Oh, yes!” I said. “I’d love to go with you. To meet Tom!”

I concentrated on my facial expression which I hoped would show how sincerely interested I was in seeing my old friend, Tom, and not reveal how anxious I was to be with Louis.

It wasn’t until later at home I wondered if Louis was afraid to meet Tom alone.

“Of course he is,” said Aunt Eveline clear as a bell. “Stay home and mind your business.”

“It is my business,” I answered under my breath. “Tom is my friend. And—and Louis is interested in me. I can tell.”

“Interested in you? A child?!”

“I’m fourteen!”

“And he’s well over forty!”

“So what?” I had never dared to use that expression to Aunt Eveline.

“You are playing with fire, Adelaide! It’s time you tamed that overactive imagination of yours and faced reality!” she said. “You have the potential of being a fine artist someday, but it requires dedication, hard work, and training.”

“I know.” I said under my breath. Aunt Eveline’s angry words stayed in my mind as she swept out of it.