Shadows on the Train

by Melanie Jackson

  I was in rerun land. I was having a triple-decker sensa–tion that went like this: Ardle was here, therefore I must be five again, and therefore Dad would appear with dadly indignation and be all angry and protective.

  Fast forward, Dinah. Not Dad’s hand on my shoulder, but the icy, unsympathetic hand of reality. I was on my own, Dadless. Now and lifelong.

  “Hey,” said Ardle, leaning over the sill. “You aren’t cryin’, are you, kid?”

  “I never cry,” I said and, lifting my glasses, wiped the back of my hand against my eyes.

  “Sung at Crumbly Hall yet?”

  “It’s Carnegie Hall,” I snapped. I now knew that Carnegie Hall was in New York and that my idol, Judy Garland, had performed there. Had practically split the rafters with her belting out. “And, no, I’m not booked there, but keep checking with Ticketmaster.”

  I was also annoyed at Ardle for having startled poor old Mrs. Chewbley. Pantelli and I were very fond of her. Pantelli’s regular piano teacher, Mrs. Grimsbottom, was a holy terror. As in, screeched at him for not practicing enough. Then, a few weeks ago, Mrs. Grimsbottom got sick, and Pantelli’s mom found Mrs. Chewbley.

  Mrs. Chewbley had turned out to be so very nice that Mother and Mr. Wellman, my agent, finally convinced me to start taking lessons. Mr. Wellman said, “You never know, Dinah. It might help you when you’re older to be able to accompany yourself while you sing. Like Diana Krall.”

  Up to now, the only Krall I’d experienced was on my skin, at the thought of taking piano lessons with the dreaded Edna May Oliver exercise books and practices.

  Pantelli liked Mrs. Chewbley even more than I did. She actually puts up with my ranting about trees, Dinah.Can you believe it? Okay, so she lets out the occasional snore, but still…

  Anyhow, back to Ardle’s sudden arrival. Mother rushed in, wrapped in a bathrobe and with a towel round her hair. “Mrs. Chewbley, what’s with these repeated screams? I—”

  She caught sight of Ardle.

  “—AAAGGGHHH!”

  There’s nothing like the sight of other people getting upset to calm oneself down. I gulped down the last of the lump in my throat and announced, “Mother, this is Ardle McBean, an unsavory friend of Dad’s.”

  Ardle laugh-coughed and winked at me. Jamming his cigarette in his mouth, he shoved the nicotine-yellow fingers of his right hand over the sill. “Sorry ’bout the abrupt arrival.” Ardle grinned, displaying fewer teeth than I remembered. They were long and skinny, like him. “I saw the black-haired kid present himself at this window, and I thought maybe that’s how they do things chizz Galloway.”

  “I think you mean the French word chez,” Mrs. Chewbley corrected rather crossly. She was pushing bobby pins back into place to re-secure her bird’s nest bun, which had come undone with all her screaming.

  “No, I mean ‘chizz,’” said Ardle, and he laugh-coughed. I had to chomp my lower lip not to laugh with him. This was the kind of humor my friends and I found extremely witty.

  Flushing, Mrs. Chewbley started gathering strawberry truffles from the floor and placing them atop the piano. Even slightly crushed, they looked good. But I had to restrain myself. Mother had this irritating rule about eating things off the floor.

  Ardle winked at me. He knew exactly what I was thinking, I was sure of it. I had a feeling Ardle had never bothered much about irritating rules.

  Mother ignored Ardle’s outstretched hand. “You couldn’t have been that good a friend of my husband’s,” she said coldly. “He never told me about you.”

  “I reckon I’m not the type he’d want to show off to his family,” Ardle said agreeably.

  With a sudden, lithe movement he hoisted himself on the sill. He used his still-outstretched hand to take three of the strawberry truffles Mrs. Chewbley had rescued. He piled them into his mouth all at once and winked at me again.

  Ardle said, with his mouth full—another no-no for yours truly—“I just got outta the slammer, and I’m here to collect something Mike owed me.”

  Mother was edging toward the phone. I didn’t have to be a psychic to know that the number in her mind was 9-1-1. “And what might that something be?” she asked.

  Ardle displayed chocolate-covered teeth. “Eighty thou–sand dollars.”

  Eighty thousand dollars—Mike Galloway? Our Mike Galloway? Mother and I were statue-stiff with shock. Everyone knew that Dad never had any money at all. If he earned some, he spent it instantly on extravagant gifts for us or else booze.

  “That’s impossible,” Mother finally blurted into the stunned silence.

  “Nope.” Ardle removed a much-creased piece of paper from his tattered denim jacket. “Got the IOU right here.”

  He unfolded it, and we saw, in Dad’s untidy scrawl, I’m keeping $80,000 for Ardle McBean—Michael Galloway, with a seven-year-old date underneath.

  Chapter Three

  How a Prank Capped Dinah's Day

  To my disappointment, Mother went ahead and punched in 9-1-1. Oh, I know that was the prudent thing to do, what with Ardle being an ex-con, but to me it was anti-climactic. Ardle scuttled away, though not before grabbing some more strawberry truffles. A fast exit, but a sweet one.

  Two police officers showed up, took lots of notes and were very reassuring to Mother. If Ardle hassled us again, they’d charge him with extortion—a long word referring to his demand for the eighty thousand dollars.

  “So, back to the Big House for him?” I said chattily to the nearest police officer, as one sleuth to another. Talbot, Pantelli and I had learned the term big house from all the old prison movies we enjoyed watching on Turner Classic Movies.

  “Huh?” the officer said, puzzled—and Mother reminded me it was time for softball practice.

  Whipping the bat round, I smashed the ball. Straight into the ground. Dirt flew.

  Talbot St. John, who was helping teach girls’ softball at our neighborhood park, stepped toward me from the pitcher’s mound. “Interesting technique, Dinah,” he observed. “Though awfully close to home plate, that would qualify as a live ball—and you might make it to first on the shock factor alone. The other team would be numb with amazement at a hitter who aimed for China.”

  “I have power,” I defended myself. “The actual range will come later, I’m sure.”

  Talbot looked at me, his dark eyes skeptical. He made some notes on the chart attached to his clipboard. Talbot took his job as assistant instructor very seriously. As a matter of fact, Talbot took life very seriously—but I was working on that. There was hope for him yet.

  On a rare athletic impulse, I’d got Mother to sign me up for these summer softball lessons, organized through our community center. Talbot had suggested it. He said he’d noticed that when he, Pantelli and I tossed a ball around, I had “potential.”

  Talbot pitched some more balls. More dirt flew. “You’re making good progress, Dinah,” Talbot said quietly, amid the guffaws from the girls on the bench.

  Next up was Liesl Dubuque, the neighbors’ niece. Liesl, with raven hair and a pale pretty face that finished in a sharp chin, was staying next door for a year while her parents traveled.

  Liesl and I did not like each other. Almost from the time she arrived on Wisteria Drive, she’d taunted me for being loud—which at first puzzled and then annoyed me because I’d always prided myself on my VOLUME. My voice was my heart, so in putting my voice down, she was putting down the essence of Dinah Mary Galloway.

  Unfortunately, I was forbidden to insult Liesl or show her any sort of unpleasantness. The reason: A couple of months ago, in an e-mail prank, I’d tricked Liesl into chopping off that pitch-black hair she was so anxious to grow.

  Hee hee.

  Except that she who snickers last snickers best. Now Liesl could insult me all she wanted, while I had to maintain a saintly silence at all times. Or else, as Mother warned me, I’d be grounded for a year.

  I took my place on the bench. Liesl was beckoning Talbot over from the pitcher’s mound for a “p
ersonal consultation,” as she called it. I weighed the immediate bliss of an insult or, even better, a running tackle against a year’s worth of being grounded. If only Mother hadn’t laid that on me. Why couldn’t she be one of those irre–sponsible parents?

  Talbot and Liesl consulted at the plate. This consisted of Liesl giggling shrilly and waving her hands a lot. After a while, Talbot returned to the pitcher’s mound and tossed some balls at her. She hit them all smartly into the outfield. Liesl was one of the best athletes in school.

  I applauded dutifully with the other girls. You had to appreciate someone’s talent at something, even if they were otherwise thoroughly weasely.

  At the opposite side of the park, under some maple trees, I glimpsed a patch of scarlet. It was a woman in a red dress, with a little boy clinging to her hand.

  Normally I wouldn’t have thought anything of this. The far end of the park was crammed with jungle gyms, swing sets and slides; moms and tots came here all the time. In our own kidlet days, Pantelli and I practically lived here. Pantelli, a tree fanatic from day one, used to sit in the sandbox, suck his knuckles and stare longingly at the maples.

  But the woman in red was talking to—Ardle McBean! Talking intently too. The maple branches picked up a gust of breeze and waved in front of the woman, the boy and Ardle. I craned this way and that to focus on them.

  The woman’s free hand rose to her face. She was wiping tears away…

  “You’ll get a stiff neck with all that craning, Dinah,” Talbot called.

  “Now, Talbie, you’re supposed to be paying attention to me,” Liesl cooed, with just a bit of an edge to her voice.

  She, too, spotted the flash of scarlet. “There’s Mrs. Zanatta,” Liesl tossed back at her buddies on the bench. “With that weird kid of hers who doesn’t speak.” They all laughed.

  Poor little guy, I thought. Why doesn’t he speak? I wished Liesl had that problem.

  Madge showed up with a picnic basket crammed with brownies and lemonade. Liesl put on her good manners. She was impressed by Madge’s cool glamor and was always asking her about makeup and fashions.

  While everyone snacked, Talbot gave us pointers on smashing balls. “Far away,” he added, with a look at me from under the dark forelock that Liesl had spent most of spring term drooling over.

  Everyone laughed except me. “What’s the matter?” Madge whispered to me. “Liesl Dubuque would kill to be the target of Talbot’s teasing.”

  I stared at Madge. She laughed and gave me one of those annoying, older-sisterly knowing looks. “Dinah, you’re clever, but you’re not always smart.”

  “Here’s your cap, Dinah,” one of Liesl’s friends giggled. She passed the cap, with its red-lettered GARDEN PARK SOFTBALL ACES on gray, along to me.

  Liesl’s pointy face thinned into an exclamation mark of panic. “Not now, Bertha,” she snapped, glancing uneasily at Madge.

  But I was already reaching for it. “I was wondering where this was,” I said.

  “This isn’t the time,” Liesl protested.

  What was with her?

  I jammed the cap on my head. And right away felt something cold and gooey trickling into my scalp and down my face and ears.

  Eggs.

  “Apples.”

  I said the word somewhat indistinctly, as the shampoo Madge was working into my scalp was foaming around me and I didn’t want to swallow any of it by mistake. My verbal analysis of the shampoo’s scent glug-glugged down the sink along with the foam. I did like the apple smell, even if I was indignant about Liesl’s prank.

  And about Madge scrubbing my hair at the sink. I’d jumped in and out of the shower, but my sister took one look at my barely damp hair and said stronger measures were called for.

  “I have to retaliate against Liesl,” I’d objected.

  “If you do, you’ll be grounded for a year.”

  “That’s so un—”

  Before I could get the “fair” part out, my head was shoved in the sink. “Raw eggs are the toughest thing to remove,” Madge said now, sounding suspiciously satis–fied as she wrenched my hair about. “Somebody smeared raw eggs on Jack’s windshield while he was holding a SOAC rally.” SOAC stood for Spotted Owl Advocacy Committee, the student wildlife conservation group Jack was running this summer. “Jack had to take soap, water and a scrub brush to the glass before he could even think about driving.”

  “Please don’t use the word ‘SOAC’ in these particular circumstances,” I begged—and instantly had to cough out a gallon of apple shampoo foam. “And by the way, I don’t think my skull needs cleaning.”

  “An appropriate choice of revenge,” Madge mused, scrubbing cruelly on as if I hadn’t spoken. “You trick Liesl into cutting her hair—and she tricks you into getting egg all over yours. Our Liesl isn’t lacking in humor, even if it’s a mean kind.”

  And Madge paused in wrench-washing my hair to toss back her own shiny, burnished red mane. Not that I could see this, but I knew my sister. She was very proud of her appearance. Who wouldn’t be? Madge was slim, with vivid blue eyes and porcelain skin.

  She was also decidedly not the type to get into feuds, even with weasels. Madge was very tidy with her life.

  Then we heard a laugh-cough outside the kitchen window, and we knew a very untidy part of Dad’s life was back again.

  I sat on the living room sofa, toweling my hair. “If Mother sees you, she’ll call the police,” I warned Ardle, who was leaning in the window.

  “No police, if ya don’t mind. I already got somebody else after me.” Ardle drew deeply, greedily on his cigarette, the way I knock back a bottle of water after a particularly grueling gym class. His addiction was gross but fascinating. Perhaps remembering what Dad had told him about secondhand smoke, Ardle exhaled sideways into the garden.

  Madge had stomped away, refusing to have anything to do with Ardle. First, though, she’d icily informed Ardle that her fiancé was due any minute and would “deal with” him.

  “Never say that to a card player,” Ardle had joked, earning an angry sniff from my sister.

  I, however, was curious about Ardle and kind of liked him. “Who’s after you?”

  “Who isn’t?” Ardle rolled his eyes, and then he winced with pain. “Man, in my shape I shouldn’t be exercising. Anyhow, Miss Carnegie Hall, I sure need to get my envelope back. It’s gotta be in your dad’s effects somewhere.”

  Effects was the word the police had used when they gave Mother what Dad had on him when he died. I still remembered the plastic bag they’d handed over: clothes, shoes, wallet, keys…A pretty meager summing up of a life.

  “Dad didn’t have eighty thousand dollars,” I told Ardle. I’d heard Mother and Madge talking about it last night. They were totally bewildered by Ardle’s claim.

  “There’s different ways of carryin’ eighty grand,” Ardle said cryptically.

  Something came back to me, delivered up from my five-year-old self like the grubby dandelions I used to proudly present to Mother. “What you’re looking for, is it something about a king?”

  Ardle looked startled and then laugh-coughed. “Yer a sharp one. No wonder Mike was so proud of ya!”

  “King of what, though?”

  Ardle squinted at me through his billows of smoke. “Better for you I don’t say, Miss Carnegie Hall. It’s a dangerous secret to have. Some mighty ruthless folks would kill to find it out. That’s why, fer seven long years, I’ve been silent,” Ardle placed a yellow forefinger to his lips and dropped his voice, “as a fumigated cockroach.”

  From behind me, Madge said angrily, “You can share your revolting similes with the police, Mr. McBean. I’m calling nine-one-one.”

  A tediously predictable habit among the older Galloway women these days, in my view. “But Ardle was just…” I turned to indicate Dad’s friend, but now only smoke hung over the windowsill. “Ardle?”

  Beyond the smoke, a coughed reply. “I kin see I’m not welcome, Miss Carnegie Hall. Don’t sweat it. J
ust check yer dad’s effects, if you don’t mind.”

  I ran out to the porch. By then Ardle was hotfooting it down the hill with the funny bouncing walk he had. A gray haze accompanied him, like the cloud of dust around Pigpen in Peanuts.

  When he was halfway down the hill, a figure detached itself from behind our huge horse chestnut tree. A medium-height, stocky, brown-haired man in a black T-shirt and jeans. The brown hair, perfectly straight, flapped down the sides of his head in a bowl cut.

  The man started down the Wisteria Drive sidewalk about twenty paces behind Ardle.

  At one point Ardle paused, turned sideways and flung a cigarette butt into somebody’s birdbath. The man dodged behind a Japanese cherry tree. When Ardle resumed walking, the man popped out again.

  He was following Ardle.

  Was he one of the “mighty ruthless folks” Ardle had referred to?

  Declaring the smoke-infested living room a health risk, Mother and Madge sprayed it down with Lysol and shut the door. We received our next visitor, Jack’s sister from down the alley, on our back porch.

  Accepting a cup of tea from Mother, Geneva Rinaldi handed round the platter of butter tarts she’d brought over. Pretending I didn’t notice Mother’s and Madge’s frowns, I helped myself to about six.

  “…and our cousins from St. John, New Brunswick, of course,” Mrs. Rinaldi prattled, scribbling in a large, coiled exercise book with the words Wedding Planner in silver on the cover. “Let’s see now—they’re allergic to chocolate, so I’m afraid no chocolate at your wedding, Madge.” She chewed on her pencil. “Maybe sweetened tofu squares, instead?” She scribbled that down too.

  “Um,” said Madge.

  However, the two women had both launched into an endless list of aunts, uncles and grandparents who ought to be invited. Madge, shut out of the discussion, gave me a helpless glance.

  She and Jack had originally hoped for a small wedding, after which they’d settle into their studies—Madge at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Jack at the University of British Columbia, where he planned to study history and politics and eventually become a teacher.