3- Diane Ott [Mark’s girlfriend] will meet you. Her phone number is 361-1293. You’ll stay with her at her house until
4- I get three days in a row off and come down to them thar hills and marry you. By the way will you marry me?
So your responsibilities in New Orleans are to find the bus station. Wear your sling, even if it is a pain in the neck, and hang on.
Tony, your love
Lilly had to chuckle at his notebook style of writing.
Colleen said, “Tony said to be sure to have all your music, and he said I should get some stuff out through Mike.”
Lilly packed her clothes and gave Colleen the music and harmonica and her favorite books. She thought and removed a few of her favorite clothes from the suitcase and piled them on Colleen.
Colleen said, “I don’t think I’ll be seeing Mike anymore, but I’ll bring these to the gas station.”
“What happened between you and Mike?”
“I don’t know. Nothing happened. It’s just one of those things.”
Lilly refused to say goodbye to her siblings in the morning. She wouldn’t speak or answer her mother en route to the airport. Bridget sat in the waiting area watching Lilly at the window. Bridget checked in and got Lilly’s boarding pass. Lilly took the pass out of Bridget’s hand and went to board the plane without acknowledging her mother.
Lilly slept on the plane and had to be awakened by the flight attendant at New Orleans. She came into the airport and walked up to a man holding a Lillian O’Dwyer sign.
“I’m Lilly. You’re my Uncle Damien?”
“Dennis, Lilly, I’m your Uncle Dennis.” Lilly looked around the airport. Dennis said, “We’ll get your baggage.”
Lilly asked, “Would you mind carrying one. My arm’s in a sling.”
She followed Dennis, noticing how politely he gave others the right-of-way. They waited by the baggage carousel. Dennis helped an older woman retrieve her luggage and then helped Lilly.
Lilly knew nothing about him.
“Excuse me, Uncle Dennis, but do you live right in the city of New Orleans? Do you live alone?”
Dennis replied, “I’m surprised Bridget didn’t tell you. I’m married. I have two children, one seventeen and one nineteen. We live on the outskirts of the city.”
“What are their names? I have no idea what your sister said about me. Are you expecting a drug-dealing slut?”
“Let’s back up and take it one step at a time. Your aunt is Ellen. She is deaf. Our home is equipped with unique contraptions to make life more accessible for her.”
“Deaf? She’s never heard music? That’s awful.”
“She is one of the sanest, happiest people I know, but your reaction about music is unique.”
Lilly explained, “I’m a musician. I’ve played professionally for over a year.”
“I see.” Dennis was skeptical. He added, “Your cousins are Sue and Tim. You will share Sue’s room for now. Tim goes to college in Nashville at Vanderbilt. When he returns for spring semester, you’ll use his room.”
“It must be hard for them to think of a stranger coming in and touching their things.”
Dennis told her stories of New Orleans on the way through the city. He was a college professor with a degree in wanderlust.
“My children have lived in Chicago, Berkeley, Hawaii, Minnesota, and now New Orleans.”
His wife and children were waiting to greet them. Lilly noticed the politeness of her uncle reflected in her cousins. They were cordial, trying to be warm. Her aunt led her to the dining room where a supper was laid out.
Lilly suddenly became very dizzy. The complete shock of her life change started to hit her. She stood and walked from the dining room in search of fresh air and then fainted. She woke disoriented and screaming.
She apologized and asked, “Is there somewhere I could sleep?”
Sue and Aunt Ellen settled her into Sue’s room. Dennis and Tim stood outside the door and listened to her sob. The Kelly family went back to the dining room.
Dennis said, “I think I’d better call Bridget. There’s more to this than a bad boyfriend,” signing as he spoke.
He returned from the phone. “She was in an accident and spent over a month in the hospital. Bridget didn’t think to mention it yesterday. Lilly only got out of the hospital a week ago.” Dennis sounded annoyed.
Lilly pretended to be sleeping when her cousin came into the room. Sue sat on her bed and spoke. “Lilly I know you’re awake. Come downstairs. Tim even stayed home to get to know you, and he hasn’t been home for two seconds since he turned fifteen.”
Lilly looked up into her cousin’s kind face and got up. She could hear a piano as she came down the stairs and was amazed to see her aunt and uncle dancing as Tim played.
“How does she do that?” Lilly asked Sue.
“Mom can feel the vibration on the wood floor. She loves to dance. Dad hates TV, and Mom doesn’t get enough out of any show to bother with it. So we play cards and dance. I have a TV in my room, and so does Tim.”
Lilly listened to Tim play. He was proficient without having the feel. She went to him. “Can I try?”
Tim said, “Sure,” and slid off the bench. Lilly took off the sling and played Scott Joplin, and then went into the blues, singing Billie Holliday songs. She never looked up until her fingers started to cramp.
“Do you have any Ben Gay?” she asked. “You see, I broke my arm. It was just freed last week, and my fingers are weak.”
Sue left and then reappeared with arthritis rub. “Grandma left this when she visited for Christmas.”
Lilly rolled it on her open hand, “Jeez! That smarts when they cramp. Thanks Sue.”
Dennis said, “Are you sure you are only sixteen?”
Lilly smiled sadly, “Sixteen going on thirty-four, at least.”
Sue signed to her mother while Dennis asked Lilly, “Tell us about your boyfriend.”
Lilly answered, “He’s smart and sweet, and I don’t know.”
“Have you known him long?”
“Since I was nine. He works. He’s had the same job for years. He’s going to Brighton University on a scholarship. He’s on the basketball team. It’s not all a basketball scholarship either; it’s math and science. He was salutatorian of his class of 950. My mother has a thing against Italians and people who live in apartments.”
Dennis said, “Bridget told me he has a drug problem.”
Lilly groaned. “He lives off campus in an old rundown house with five other guys. The cops came in and found less than an ounce of pot in the living room and busted them all. What’d she say? He has a needle in his arm?”
Dennis asked seriously, “Was he driving the car?”
Lilly squinted in confusion. “Driving what car?”
“Driving the car in the accident.”
Lilly repeated, “Accident? You mean with my father and brother and sisters?”
“No. Your accident. Weren’t you in an accident in November?”
Lilly burst out laughing, “Accident? That’s what she told the twins, too. I guess I was hit by a Mack truck. Well if I was in an accident, Tony was driving the ambulance.”
Dennis said, “I don’t understand. You weren’t in an accident.”
Lilly looked at her relatives’ faces, “I was in an on-purpose. I was attacked by a psychotic. I was babysitting. I guess he followed me and waited. He broke in and attacked me. I still have the knife scars on my chest to prove it.”
Lilly glared at all her relatives, feeling accused. “He came back again to murder me, but Tony kept him talking until the cops could shoot him. That’s what your sister has against Tony. The first time, I was almost dead. Tony stayed at the hospital day and night talking to me, keeping me alive. Then New Year’s Eve when he came back, if it weren’t for Tony I’d be dead.”
Dennis said, “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
Lilly said, “It’s more terrible that it’s true.”
Dennis asked softly, “Are you planning on staying here?”
Lilly shook her head. “I want to pick up the pieces of my life, or maybe build a new life with my boyfriend.”
“How about school?”
Lilly laughed bitterly. “My skull was fractured, and I was in a coma for a couple of days. I went back to school the day before Christmas vacation. I can’t remember anything I learned before. I didn’t even remember some of my teachers. I’m going to flunk everything. My life is a mess. Maybe I can get a job and then go to night school when my brains aren’t scrambled.”
Dennis had watched her as she spoke and was unsure of what to believe.
“Bridget told me you were in trouble before. You were expelled from a parochial school.”
Lilly drew back, regretting her honesty. She cloaked herself in bitterness. “You’re right! I was expelled in seventh grade. I’m a rotten person and probably deserve everything that happened to me. I’m really tired.”
She stood from the piano bench.
Dennis said, “We are not your enemy. Bridget said you were secretive though. We will do everything we can to keep you from running away and ruining your life. We will keep an eye on you.”
Lilly went to the stairs and called over her shoulder, “Well I’m going to sneak up to bed now.”
Sue attended a private academy. It was decided in view of Lilly’s checkered past that she would attend public school. Dennis took her to register the next day. They sat in the office waiting, and listened to groups of students, teachers, and parents conduct business.
“You don’t talk like that,” Lilly whispered to Dennis.
“I’m from New York.”
“But Sue and Tim … ”
“They’ve lived all over the country.”
Lilly asked, “Does everyone down here speak so strangely, or is it high school syndrome?”
Dennis repeated, “High School syndrome?”
“Like in Yonkers, most of the high school kids sound like caricatures of a Bronx accent. It’s pathetic. Mini-skirts that hardly cover their undies and guys that comb their hair forty-seven times a day.”
Dennis laughed. “Are you really sixteen?”
“I’m aging fast.”
That evening, Tim went out with friends. Sue went to the library to study with a friend. Dennis went to a department meeting. Lilly played piano. The phone rang, and Lilly answered it as she had been instructed, “Kellys’. May I help you?”
“Hi, Lil.”
“Tony! How are you?”
“OK, babe. How are things?”
“OK. They keep quite an eye on me. My mother told them I’m secretive and you’re a drug addict and I’m always in trouble. So they have their eyes glued on me. Also, I was in a car accident in November.”
“You sure are talking freely.”
“I’m here with my aunt, and she’s deaf. I think we’d like each other if my mother hadn’t poisoned them on me. She told them I’m bad.”
“You, bad?”
“Sure. I got expelled, and my uncle’s a teacher so that means a lot.”
“When can you get away?”
“I don’t know. Probably after leaving for school. I don’t know where the bus station is, so not tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”
“Don’t ask anyone where the bus station is. Look up Greyhound in the phone book and then ask where the street is. OK?”
Lilly laughed. “My cousin Sue would probably take me by the hand and put me on a bus. She was fine until I woke up screaming, and she saw some scars. Now I have leprosy.”
“It’s so quiet without you, and the house is empty.”
“Did you find a place to live yet?”
“No, I’ve been working all the time. I’ll find something though, and I can always keep the leper in the closet.”
“Anthony! You rat!”
“I’m only kidding. Make it the day after tomorrow.”
Lilly turned to see her aunt staring at her. “Jeez, I have to go. I think my aunt’s reading my lips. I’ll call you at work tomorrow.”
“Sure, Babe. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Lilly hung up and started upstairs. Her aunt touched her foot, then motioned for a cup of tea. Lilly came back down and followed her aunt into the kitchen. Ellen made tea, and then sat beside Lilly with a pen and paper.
Lilly wrote, “I’ll bet you are good at charades.”
Her aunt smiled. She pushed an African violet in a small pot to Lilly and wrote. “Take this, and take care of it.”
Lilly examined it, and then bowed her head to say thank you. They sat and shared the peacefulness of the moment.
Lilly woke up screaming again that night. She saw her cousin Sue’s frightened face and said, “I’m sorry. I do that a lot.”
Dennis came into the room. “Have you seen a psychiatrist?”
“I was supposed to when I was still in the hospital. I kept missing her. She came in twice. Once I was in X-ray and once the facial surgeon was deciding whether to rebreak my jaw. But what could she have said? ‘Gee, it’s a shame what happened to you. Don’t freak out. Oh, and don’t get so scared that you’ll get paralyzed.’ I know that. Good night. I’m sorry I woke you all. I’ll probably do it often.”
The next morning Lilly got a taste of an ordinary school morning at the Kellys’. Dennis drove her to high school.
He said, “Someone called you yesterday.”
Lilly answered, “Yes. Are they getting ready for Mardi Gras? When is it?”
“February. The day before Ash Wednesday.”
“Shrove Tuesday,” Lilly said, using the Irish name. “Does Aunt Ellen make a shrove cake? If not, I’ll make one.”
“No, Ellen isn’t Irish.”
“Not Irish? That must have gone over big.”
“Actually I told my family by mail. We met in Washington. I think they might have accepted her non-Gaelic heritage, but she is deaf.”
“Well now, that’s the true making of a person. A healthy, non-sullied body not devoid of any faculties and with the proper number of green corpuscles.”
Dennis asked again, “Are you really sixteen?”
“Sweet sixteen,” Lilly cooed like saccharine.
Dennis said, “Here’s your school. Good luck. Do you think you can make it home?”
“Sure, I know the address.”
Lilly found the bus depot and got some schedules after school. She studied a large map on the wall. The distance became real to her.
She used her lunch money to call Tony. “Hi, handsome. I’m so far away!”
Tony said, “One thousand one hundred seventy one miles by the atlas.”
“I’ve been studying maps and schedules. It would be better to go New Orleans to Birmingham to Chattanooga to Knoxville to Johnson City. Atlanta’s a little out of the way. Also, I will leave at ten a. m. tomorrow and travel all night and get there the next day around three twenty in the afternoon.”
“It’s going to take that long?”
Lilly said, “I’ll get a tour of the south. I don’t know how to get all my clothes out though. I’ll have to figure something.”
“Get a book to read on the bus.”
The operator cut in. “Three minutes are up. Signal when through.”
Tony said, “Call me when you reach Johnson City.”
“Bye, love.”
Tony and Frank were closing the station the next night when Daniel O’Dwyer drove in and called, “Tony, where’s my sister?”
Tony walked over casually. “Hi, Daniel. I was at your house two days ago, and your mother said Lilly was visiting an uncle. She wouldn’t say where or who. I’d ask her.”
Daniel said, “Don’t shit me man. Where’s my sister?”
“Ask your mother,” Tony answered coldly. He walked away and called to Frank, “Want a ride?”
Daniel drove out. Tony said to Frank, “They’ll never find her. I have her stashed so deep, they’d need Charlie Chan to fl
ush her out.”
“Where is she?” Frank asked.
Tony considered it, “Moving …Don’t ask Frank. You know Pops will be grilling you as soon as Mrs. O’Dwyer gets to him.”
Tony parked and went up to the apartment with Frank.
Tito met them at the door. “Keep your coat on. We are going to the O’Dwyer house.”
Tony followed his father to the elevator.
“Do you know where Lilly is?”
Tony wouldn’t look at him. “Pops, you’ll see her soon. I’m taking care of it.”
Tony drove his father to the O’Dwyers’. Ann answered the door.
Tony said, “I was summoned. Where’s the queen?”
“Upstairs on the phone with my uncle.”
Bridget came downstairs and held out her hand to Tito. “Tony where is Lillian?”
Tony said passively, “Don’t you know? You told me she was visiting an uncle.”
“Tony, I just got off the phone with my brother. You called her two days ago.”
Tony lifted his hand in mock innocence, “I did?”
Bridget said angrily, “His wife was there. She saw Lillian say Anthony.”
Tito repeated, “She saw her say Anthony?”
Bridget explained, “My sister-in-law is deaf but reads lips. She saw Lillian say ‘Anthony you nut.’”
Tony shook his head, “I don’t think so. Lilly’s never called me a nut. She’s called me other things. Mainly a rat, but nut doesn’t sound like her.”
Bridget said, “So you admit it. She’s a minor. I’ll have you arrested for statutory rape. Where is she?”
Tony sneered, “I don’t know where she is now. I was saying she was more likely to call me a rat.”
Bridget sputtered, “I’ve had it. I’m at my wits end with that girl. When I find her I’ll have her arrested for a runaway and placed in an institution or a foster home. An institution for the troubled would likely bring her around.”
“Around where?” Tony answered.
The standoff lasted for a minute, and then Tito and Tony left.
Tito said as he got in the car, “At her wit’s end?’
Tony said, “She’s a nitwit anyway.”
Tito said, “Anthony!” Then more softly, “Are you going to get married?”
“I have to get her out of her mother’s grasp.”
A Yonkers Kinda Girl Page 22
