Читать книгу Me & Emma - Elizabeth Flock, Elizabeth Flock - Страница 8

Right now I’m in our room with the ceiling that leans in like it’s protecting our beds from the sky. Our room is the best part of the house, but Richard thinks it’s the worst. I suppose I can see his point, because even though it’s only May, it’s hotter than Hades in July and the only window up here has a fan in it that only sucks the air out of the room. When Richard moved in, he stomped up through the house with the boxes from the back of his truck and told us we’d better get on up the stairs with the string that pulls them down from the ceiling. No one’s gonna build our nest for us anymore, he said, so we better start getting used to it. Ever since he called our room the nest, that’s what we call it, too. I didn’t know what was up his sleeve but I went up the stairs first, which is surprising considering how Emma’s normally the brave one. Once we were at the top he pushed the stairs back up—something he still does to this day. Because it’s summer, the hot air in the Nest hits you in the face like the cloud of smelly smoke that shoots out from behind Richard’s truck every time he pulls out from the side of the house. There’s only that one side that you cain’t stand up straight in and that’s where our bed is. Our quilt on the bed we share is patchwork and reminds me of Little House on the Prairie.

The ceiling has a lot of cobwebs and all I can think of is Charlotte and Wilbur in one of my all-time favorite stories about the pig and the spider who get to be friends. I wonder if spiders can really spell like that in their webs. And since these webs are on the high side of the ceiling that’s not where the bed is, I let them stay … until I see a spider dropping down. Emma loves it up here. She knows now that you can’t jump up and down on the bed and it only took her three bruises to figure it out. She likes to put the window fan on and talk into it really slowly, and to tell you the truth I like that, too. At first she wouldn’t go near it because she thought her hair would get pulled off her head, but now she knows to put it in a ponytail and then there’s no risk. She says things like “I hate you, Richard” and “You will die” and “Leave us alone” right into the fan, knowing he cain’t hear a thing because the fan blades chop the air into little pieces and carry her words out and away from the house. I don’t think she cares if he does hear her, anyway, since sometimes, when he lays into Momma real bad, she shouts right into it before it gets itself up to speed.

I can hear Richard right now out in the second-floor hallway and I know it’s only a matter of time before he pushes the stairs up again and locks us in here. Momma hates it when he does this but I don’t mind it anymore. When he pushes the stairs up I know he won’t be bugging me and Emma. He used to do that all the time, but since we’re gonna be moving on and up I think he’s got other things to bug.

Uh-oh. Momma’s calling us. Here’s the problem—if we call out and let her know we’re up here, then she’ll see that the stairs are up. If she sees the stairs are up, then she’ll know Richard was being mean to us. If she sees that Richard’s been mean to us then she’ll lay into him about it and then he’ll start laying into her and it won’t end up like Little House on the Prairie, let me tell you.

“We better not answer her,” Emma says, and I’m thinking that’s a fine idea.

“But then we’ll be stuck up here all day,” I say, and Emma just squinches her shoulders up and then lets them fall back down again and I know it’s settled, whether I like it or not.

I’m tiptoeing over to the stack of books near the fan, which we cain’t turn on since the noise will alert Momma and then it’s all downhill from there, and I’m leafing through this battered old book of stamps from around the world. Someone who lived here before us left it behind, but I don’t think they missed it since they died and that’s how we came to live here. Anyway, I love to look at the different stamps and picture living somewhere really beautiful. Even though I’m old enough to know better, I think the countries are the colors on their stamps. It’s weird in geography class hearing how Finland is such a dark place since its stamp is so bright and colorful.

Uh-oh. Momma’s under the pull-string staircase. I can hear her calling out. I look over at Emma but she’s fallen asleep reading again. Richard must’ve been at her last night. When she sleeps that way during the day I know what’s happened the night before.

There’s that creaking sound the springs make when the stairs are pulled down and I know the day’s not going to end up well for Momma.

“Caroline? You up there with Emma?”

I hurry to the top step so she won’t wake Emma.

“Emma’s asleep,” I hiss to her. “You need something?” I ask real nicely so she’ll forget that Richard’s locked us in again. Maybe then she won’t go near him.

I can tell by the way she eyes the fold-out stairs and by the way she sighs that she doesn’t have the energy to take up for us today, and I’m glad. Well, sort of glad.

“I need you in the kitchen,” she says. “I’ve got to go out for a little while and you need to get everything ready for dinner.”

“Where’re you going?” I ask. “Can I come?”

“It’s none of your business where I’m going and no you cannot,” she says all in one breath. “Now, come on and get moving.”

Usually when Momma calls to me and Emma both that means she’s in a good mood, but I guess that’s not true today. Here’s the reason why she only calls on me most times—she likes me better than Emma. We both know it and so does Momma. She’s even said it out loud. “I don’t care what Emma wants to do, I’m telling you I only want you to go,” she says when we go to someplace fun. Or she’ll ask me for favors, not Emma. This really hurts Emma, even though she doesn’t admit it, because when I do the favor for Momma she’s really nice to me in return. Emma wants to be able to have Momma be that grateful to her, but I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.

I think Momma doesn’t like Emma because she looks just like Daddy and Momma says some things are best forgotten.

Like the first time Richard called to me from his room. You cain’t make an angry voice into a pretty one, but that’s what Richard is trying to do, I thought to myself at that very moment. Why is he calling me like I’m a little kitten. “Here kitty, kitty,” he calls. Come on up here, he says, like his room’s a fun place to be. “Come here, sweet girl,” he calls.

“Don’t go up there,” Emma says to me with those eyes of hers that know it all even though she’s two years younger than me.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, trying not to look scared, turning the day’s events over and over in my head. I didn’t do anything wrong, I think. Breakfast was my turn and I made the eggs just like he said to, I tell myself at the bottom of the stairs. I know from the sound in his voice it’s a trap. It’s the way you call to one of the chickens when it’s dinner. You don’t chase it, you let it come to you. You call it by trying to sound pretty. Here chicky, chicky.

“Coming,” I answer him.

The stairs feel steep so I hold on to the banister even though I go up and down them a million times a day without even thinking twice about it.

“What’s taking you so long, girl,” he hollers, the try for sweetness turning the word girl into a curl in the air. I picture him reaching out with chicken feed in the palm of his hand, waiting for me to peck it so he can grab me with the other when I’m not looking.

“No,” Emma says from the bottom of the stairs. “Carrie,” she calls to me. “No.”

The sound in her voice makes me want to throw up.

Momma’s not here, I think to myself. I’ve got to do as he says.

At the top of the stairs I look around for a safe place to run, but in our house there are none. Except behind-the-couch, but right now I’m too far away from there.

I look into Richard and Momma’s room and inhale. Even from the top of the stairs I can smell it. Momma’s perfume cain’t cover the smell of Richard and his sweaty clothes. Richard is sitting on the edge of the bed that used to belong to my grandmother. The bed is covered with a graying fabric that has a pretty flower pattern sewn on it in the same material. I love to trace that pattern when Momma’s still soft from sleep and me and Emma crawl up onto the bed ‘cause Richard’s not home.

“Come here,” he says. He’s hunched over and is resting his elbows on his knees. When I tiptoe into the room he straightens, and I can see that his pants are unzipped. Now I really want to vomit.

“I said get over here,” he says to me, but I cain’t move my legs. They’re like dandelion roots that won’t let go of the soil. Just as he’s about to say it again, Emma comes in from behind me, pushes me out of the room and closes the door. Just like that. I waited there a few seconds and then I ran behind-the-couch. That’s how much of a coward I am. I let my little sister take the heat for me. I don’t know why Richard would have forgotten to do up his pants before the beating but I try not to think about that. There are no sounds coming from up there but I know it’s bad. Emma never cries when it’s bad. Only when she thinks she can change something does she cry. She couldn’t change this. I put my forehead down onto the tops of my knees and wait for her to come back down but she never does. I am wedged behind-the-couch picking at the yellow line in the plaid pattern, hoping she’s okay. Why hasn’t she come back down yet? I wait. Then I wait some more. Then I think maybe she thinks I went back upstairs to our room so maybe I should go there and look for her to see what that was all about. So I start out from behind-the-couch by digging my heels into the linoleum and pulling my rear end along an inch or two and then repeating the process.

But Emma doesn’t come out of the room for a long time and when she does she doesn’t come looking for me like I come looking for her after it’s my turn for a whipping. I hear her tiny footsteps heading up to the Nest so I scoot out from behind-the-couch and go up after her. Richard’s door is closed so the coast is clear and I take the stairs two at a time. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed and it doesn’t look like she got a beating. It looks more like she got stuck in a rainstorm. Her hair isn’t silky anymore, it’s matted in the back and the bangs in front are damp. Her face is all puffy like she’s been crying, but I listened real hard for that so I’m not sure if that’s what happened.

But her mouth is clamped up like the meat grinder that’s fixed to the edge of the counter in the kitchen, so I don’t think I’ll be finding out any time soon what Richard was so mad about.

I go over to the fan and turn it on, thinking maybe she’ll talk into it like she always does and then I can find out what went wrong, but she just sits there on the bed, so I give up and go for the stamp book, flipping past Romania and getting right to my favorite—Bermuda. I touch it and pretend I’m touching the white sand under the palm tree that leans into the sun. If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be in Bermuda. It’s too pretty there for anything to be wrong, and I bet they even have a law that would keep people like Richard out altogether. ‘Sides, his thin brown hair wouldn’t keep the top of his head from getting burned and his arms with all the veins popping out up and down them would turn beet red.

I look back at the bed and I see that Emma’s curled up like a little baby wanting to get back into her mother’s stomach. She’s trying to be really small, hugging her legs up to her chest like she is.

I hate Richard.

When Richard first met me he patted me on the head and walked on by. I didn’t pay him any mind because I had no idea he’d be here to stay. Momma had dropped some hints—”You better be real nice to my new friend,” “Why don’t y’all go on up and put on those sundresses I bought you last spring”—but I didn’t notice until it was too late.

Emma and I were playing jacks on the front porch when he came by carrying a tin can full of nails, which Momma made such a big deal over—like he was the one who said “This loaf of bread is great but what if we made lines across it and cut it up.” He told Momma the nails were to fix the floorboards that bent up and stubbed our toes when we walked barefoot. Big deal. I could’ve done that. Besides, no one had stubbed their toes since Daddy died so I don’t understand what the fuss was all about. But Richard winked at me and said it’s so my baby sister doesn’t hurt herself. Momma gave us this look so we had to say “Thank you, sir” to him even though his wink looked as fake as the left hand on Mr. Brown, who plays the harmonica outside White’s Drugstore every day.

One day I went with Richard to White’s ‘cause Momma asked us to. It was still early on, when Richard did favors for Momma. “Caroline, why don’t you go along so Richard has some company,” Momma said. But I guess I wasn’t the kind of company Richard must’ve wanted: once we pulled away from the house and Momma was out of sight, the smile went away from his face and he stopped talking altogether.

“Hey there, chile,” says Miss Mary from behind the counter. Then she tilts her head to the side and mumbles to herself loud enough for me to hear. “I don’ know what they be givin’ so much work to them kids at school fo’. Y’all look so tired all the time.” Then her head snaps back upright and she looks over my head altogether. “I’ll be right with you,” she says to Richard.

“I’ll be right with you …” Richard says it like she did but he drags out the end so it’s clear she left something off of the end of her sentence.

“I’ll be right with you, sir,” she says, looking down at her work. Richard likes everyone to call him sir, even people who’re old enough to be his grandma.

Miss Mary’s nails are long and make a tapping sound when she pushes the numbers on the calculator to figure out how much you owe. Sometimes she uses the eraser end of the pencil that usually sits behind her left ear, but that day was a fingernail day. I watch her total up Mr. Sugner from the library that’s also the Toast Historical Society—if you need to know anything about Toast, Mr. Sugner’s the man to talk to. Tap-tappity-tap.

Richard looks as happy to be here as if you’d driven a railroad tie into his foot. He scowls at Miss Mary and shifts from one leg to another, huffing, like it was Mr. Sugner’s fault he was here and not the fact that Momma needs Band-Aids, toothpaste and a cup measure. I got a funny feeling in my stomach when I saw the way he looked at Miss Mary, all mean like she smelled bad, so I went over to the rack that holds dusty postcards that no one’s ever bought even though they’re only ten cents each. They’re not postcards of our town, they’re North Carolina state postcards with pictures of the capitol and a town called Mount Airy.

When I turn around Richard’s nowhere to be seen. I even check the aisle that has diapers and other soft-like things but no luck.

“He ain’t here.” Miss Mary aims a fingernail at a spot to the left of her chin and gently scratches. “Mmm, mmm, mmm.” Her mouth was turned down and she was shaking her head like she thought of him the same way he thought of her.

“Where is he?” I ask. I only turned around for a second.

“Check out by the Dumpster,” and I think I heard her say—she was mumbling, though, so I couldn’t be sure—”That’s where trash ends up.”

“Miss Mary?” Mr. White’s voice slices the air like a paper cut. “Is there a problem here?” It’s weird how he can smile at me but keep that teacher tone with Miss Mary.

“Miss Caroline, how would you like to choose a piece of penny candy?” He was holding out the big glass jar with fingerprints all over from where all us kids point at the exact piece we want. It had been refilled and was brimming full of Mary Janes, Tootsie Rolls, little-bitty Necco wafer rolls and Hershey’s. It was so packed that Mr. White’s thumb knocked a piece onto the floor when he gripped it from the top. The Mary Jane was lying on the floor between us like it was saying “Pick me, pick me!”

“I’m sorry, sir.” I stare at it while I say this, hoping it would magically unwrap itself and hop into my watering mouth. “I don’t have any money with me right now.”

“Oh, don’t be silly—” he smiles even nicer “—this is a gift. Take your pick.” He says this last part in Miss Mary’s direction, even though I think he was talking to me. Before he has time to change his mind, my arm, like it had a mind of its own, shoots down to the floor, past the old glass jar, and scoops up that Mary Jane.

Miss Mary was busying herself with the zipper on her gray cover-up that has White’s Drugstore sewn over her heart and looks just like Mr. White’s, but is gray instead of, well, white.

“Am I to understand you got separated from your escort?” he asks me. This always happens: people ask questions right when I’ve got my mouth full and I can’t answer. Mr. White’s so polite, though, and he keeps talking till he sees my jaw stop moving up and down on the peanut toffee. “This must be my lucky day, if this is true. I was just thinking how nice it would be to have a helper in the back room, someone to alphabetize bottles, you know, get things in order. Would you be so kind as to help me out for a bit, young lady?”

He timed this question perfectly: I had just finished scooping the Mary Jane that was stuck in my back teeth out with my tongue. “Yes, sir, but I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

“What if I call your momma for you and we can ask her permission,” he says.

“Yes, sir,” I say. I don’t know where I’d have gone, anyway, since Richard had up and left me there. Mr. White went over to the phone near Miss Mary’s cash register and dialed our number without even looking it up—that’s a small town for you, I guess.

“Libby? Dan White.” He pauses waiting for Momma to greet him. Then he clears his throat, “A-hem, well, don’t mean to bother you, but Miss Caroline and I were wondering if I might be able to retain her services for the day, here at the store. It seems her companion had some, ahem, pressing matters to tend to, so if you could spare her I’d be much obliged.”

Pause again. No telling what Momma is saying from the look on Mr. White’s face. He must be tired, his eyes are halfway closed and he looks like he was studying for a test, memorizing her voice or something.

“I don’t quite know,” he says, shifting his eyes over to me for some reason. “We had a bit of a wait, so I’m sure he’ll stop back in when he sees we’re not so busy after all.” Then he winks at me and his voice rises back up to a normal level.

“Well, it’s settled then,” he says, clearing his throat again. “I’ll keep Miss Caroline here with me until five and then I’ll bring her on home—” Pause. “Oh, it’s no trouble ‘tall. I have to go out that way, anyway, to pay a call on the Godseys.” Pause. “See y’all then. Bye.”

It takes my eyes a few seconds to get used to the back room, which was night compared to the day outside. Mr. White was right: it was a mess back there. Momma would say it’s a viper’s nest. There’s barely enough room for me to walk to the other end of the room; the boxes are piled one on top of another in every spare space on the floor.

“Here’s what I was thinking,” Mr. White says from behind me, surveying the packed crowd of cardboard. “A lot of these boxes are pretty much empty. If you could go through and find the ones that only have one or two bottles in them, take those bottles out and put ‘em all here on this lower shelf, and then go back and break down the boxes, that’d make a lot more room.”

“Where do I put the empty boxes?”

“Come on out back and I’ll show you where we stack for the garbageman.” I turn and follow Mr. White back into the store and then out the door that leads to a tiny parking lot out back. A huge Dumpster sat in one of the spaces.

“Just stack the flat pieces here, next to the Dumpster.”

“Okay.”

“You sure you’re up to this?” he asks me.

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, then,” he says, patting me on the head. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’re just like your momma. Once she sets her mind to something, she never lets it go.” He walks back into the store, smiling.

I liked the idea of straightening up the storeroom. Plus, this way when Richard comes back, he cain’t call me lazy.

One by one I empty out most of the boxes that sit about eye level to me. Mr. White was right; a couple of boxes only have one bitty bottle in them. They were just waiting for someone to remember them. I have no idea how much time has gone by, but I do know that I’ve flattened fifteen boxes flat and it’s time to start taking them out to the Dumpster.

When I cut through the store with my first armload, Miss Mary is tapping into the calculator, figuring out how much to put on Mr. Blackman’s tab. Back and forth I go and pretty soon I’ve taken out all the pieces I’d worked on.

“Oh, my dear Lord,” Mr. White says when he comes in to check on me later on. Uh-oh. I hope I haven’t messed up, but I look over at him and his open mouth is turning into a smile. A real smile, eyes and all. “Well, I’ll be darned. Miss Caroline Parker … you’re hired!”

I’m hired?

“Sir?”

“The job’s yours if you want it,” he says, running his eyes over the spaces I’d made on the floor. Now two people can stand side by side in there. “I guess I didn’t realize how much we needed you. You think your momma could spare you once or twice a week?”

“B-but, I’m only eight,” I say, my face getting all red for some reason. “Are eight-year-olds allowed to have jobs?”

Mr. White looks at me the way I think my own daddy used to look at me and I don’t feel embarrassed anymore. I feel relieved. “Honey, with what all you’ve been through,” he says real soft-like, “seems to me you could use a little break now and then. Place to get away. You know.”

And right then I guessed I did know what he was talking about. I nod. He pats me on the hand, shakes his head and turns to go back out to the store.

“Little Caroline Parker,” he says more to himself than to me. “Little Miss Caroline Parker.”

I wonder what Emma is going to think when I tell her. Maybe Mr. White would let her come with me to work. She’s scrappy but she’s strong, that’s for sure. No telling how many boxes we’d get through, working together. She sure could use a break now and then, too.

A little while later Mr. White comes back.

“I reckon that’s about all the work we can force out of you today,” he says, smiling again. It’s hot back here in the storeroom and he wipes his shiny forehead with his handkerchief. I don’t know why anyone would want to keep a used handkerchief in their pocket, but that’s exactly where the kerchief headed after he was through with it.

“I promised your momma I’d take you on home, so let’s get this show on the road.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, stepping on top of the box I’d emptied and untaped so it just fell flat like a pancake when my foot said hello. I s’pose Richard’ll find his own way home sooner or later. Unfortunately.

Mr. White’s car is hotter than the storeroom and the Nest put together since it’d been baking in the parking lot all day. The car seat scorches my rear end so I tilt up, pushing my weight into my shoulders until the air cools the seat off. Mr. White doesn’t seem to notice and I’m glad.

Pulling out of the parking lot, he starts talking. “Your momma was the belle of the ball back when she was just a hair older than you,” Mr. White says. “Now, you know we went to school together, don’tcha?”

“Yes, sir,” I say. I’m testing the seat but it’s still hotter than a butcher’s knife. Back when I was little, I used to study Momma’s high school yearbook—she looked like a movie star in it and Mr. White still had all his hair and looked funny, all dressed in black, the mean look he was trying to give the camera turned out to be just plain goofy. There was a haze around Momma’s head that made her look like she belonged up in heaven. Her hair was shiny, not quite brown and not quite yellow, and it was in a poufy hairdo that made her look older than she was. Her smile was perfect and it was from looking at that picture that I realized she has dimples. You’d never know it now. Her eyes were wide and sparkling with no trace of the lines that carve up her face now. She was wearing pearls that I know for a fact she borrowed from her grandmother just for that picture. The famous pearl necklace. I’d heard so much about the pearl necklace that I felt like I was actually there, later on that same picture day, when Momma and my daddy slipped in back of the school to kiss. Daddy was holding her head between his hands when the school principal came out, caught them in the act, startling Daddy so his hands slipped. They caught the necklace and sent the pearls scattering across the asphalt to their ultimate doom down the town drain. Momma was beaten within an inch of her life when she went home, shamed.

“Did she mention she went to school with me?” Mr. White looks over at me, and when he does I can see, just for a second, how he looked back then.

“I don’t remember. I guess I just knew it, is all.” No need to tell him about the yearbook. I bet he’d be embarrassed about his picture, anyway.

“Oh,” he sighs. “Well, all the boys were in love with her. ‘Cluding me, I reckon. But back then I didn’t have sense enough to come in outta the rain, so I surely wasn’t going to ask your momma out on a date. No, sirree,” he whistles. “Your daddy did, though, and truth to tell, I don’t know if I ever forgave him for taking my Libby away from me.” He winks at me, which is a relief because I don’t know if I could stand hearing Mr. White say anything bad about Daddy.

“We were all real jealous of your daddy,” he says, nodding. “I s’pose I thought they’d light out of this town once they got married, but your momma wouldn’t have it. No, sirree …”

While he’s talking, I ease my rear down onto the seat real slow. Phee-you, it feels good to sit normal.

“… she dug her heels in and I reckon they grew roots so they stayed on.”

I don’t quite know why, but all of a sudden a cloud comes over Mr. White’s face when he says this. So I keep my mouth shut. Nothing different from what I’ve been doing, really, but now it feels like I should be coming up with something to say.

“How’s school going?” Mr. White asks after we turn onto Route 5. We’re only about two minutes from my house, so luckily this won’t be a long part of the conversation.

“Fine, thank you.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s good. That’s real good,” he says as he turns his big boat of a car onto our dirt road. His car looks so out of place driving where Richard’s truck does.

“Here we are,” he says, trying to sound cheerful, but the look on his face doesn’t match his voice. So I hop out of the car fast.

“Thanks again, Mr. White,” I call out to him.

“You betcha,” he calls back. “Now, you talk to your momma and have her call me once y’all work out when you want to come in again. You can come anytime you like, Caroline. Anytime at all.” He winks again and I shut the door and run up the front porch stairs to find Momma and Emma to tell them about my day at White’s.

Mr. White is just like everybody else here in Toast, North Carolina—it’s never occurred to him to leave. Imagine that. I mean, I can understand it when you’re my age, but when you’re old enough to get out of town, why wouldn’t you?

“Momma?” I holler before the porch door even slams shut. “Guess what?”

Momma’s in the kitchen smoking with one hand, stirring something in a pot on the stove with the other.

“Momma, Mr. White gave me a job! I cleared out all the boxes from the storeroom and he said he never saw it so neat and clean and he hired me right there on the spot. I can eat penny candy anytime I want. Momma, please say I can do it, please.”

“Slow down, Jesus H. Christmas, slow down,” Momma says, turning to the icebox and staring at what’s inside. “Go on and get me that molasses out of the pantry, will you?”

“Momma, can I work there after school? Can I?”

“Just get me that molasses can first of all,” she snaps at me. “We’ll have to talk about it.”

“Why cain’t I? It’d be great. I’d earn my own money and I get to have candy anytime I want. Please, Momma.”

Momma’s back stirring again, the wooden spoon turning slowly on account of whatever’s in there being too high up next to spilling over. I creep up closer to her ‘cause I can hear her mumbling something, but I know by now you cain’t push Momma too hard or she’ll turn around and do just the opposite of what you’re hoping for.

“Storeroom clerk …” she’s saying. I think. “Moving …”

See, all I get are snippets of words or phrases, so I know she’s working something in her head.

“Momma?”

“Goddamn son of a bitch.” The spoon picks up speed so it’s only a matter of time till something slops over the edge.

It’s like she’s reciting a grocery list in her sleep; her words don’t make any sense.

“Momma? Can I? Please?”

“What?” She whirls around like I startled her out of the conversation she was carrying on in her brain, still holding the spoon but forgetting, I guess, that it was no longer over the pot so the red sauce dripped onto the kitchen floor like blood. Splat. I watch each drop spread into neat circles on impact. Splat.

“Can I work at White’s?” Splat.

She’s sizing me up like she just now realized I’d grown out of my jeans a month ago.

“Just until we move? Please?”

“Oh, why the hell not,” she sighs, and turns back to the bubbling blood on the stove.

I forget for a second and hug her from behind, I’m so happy. When she stiffens up like a board I remember I shouldn’t touch her.

“Go on and get,” she says woodenly into the pot.

I run up to the Nest to find Emma to tell her my news.

“Emma? Emma!” I take the stairs two at a time. “Where you at?”

“Up here,” she hollers back to me.

“Guess what I’ve got a job at White’s Drugstore and I can have penny candy anytime I want,” I say all at once since I’m out of breath from coming up the stairs so fast.

Emma’s on the bed with Mutsie, her favorite stuffed animal. “What?”

I straighten up after letting my breath catch up with my body. “Mr. White? He offered me a job after Richard up and left me behind at the drugstore to go I-don’t-know-where.”

I fill her in on everything and, just like I figured, she got to the number one obvious question: “Can I work there, too?”

I’d like to think it was ‘cause she wanted to be with me and not here alone in the Nest while I’m gone, but I betcha it’s the penny candy. I don’t mind. Me and Emma, we’re slaves to candy.

“I bet Mr. White’d let you come on and help,” I tell her. And I honestly believe it’s so. “He even said he needs all the help he can get. That back room’s messier than a flower bed in February.”

And that’s how we came to work at White’s Drugstore nearly every day of the week after school.