Little Miss Strange

by Joanna Rose

  Elle said, “Lookit.”

  Two Mexican boys were coming in the alley from the Logan Street end. I dropped my cigarette through the metal steps to the brick ground.

  One of the boys said, “Hey, it’s Petey’s little girlfriend.”

  The other boy said, “Got another cigarette?”

  Elle said, “Maybe.”

  The boy said, “What did you do, steal them from your mommy?”

  “Why, is that what you do?” Elle said. “Who’s Petey?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’ll tell you later.”

  The two boys were dressed the same. Long black hair. White T-shirts. One boy’s T-shirt said PROPERTY OF DENVER UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT on the front in old blue letters. No jackets.

  Elle took one cigarette out of the pack and handed it to one of the boys, the one with the plain T-shirt. He took the cigarette and stuck it behind his ear.

  The other boy said, “You’re too young to smoke.”

  Elle said, “I’m twelve.”

  Elle wasn’t twelve. She was eleven, same as me.

  She said, “How old are you?”

  The boy with the Denver University T-shirt said, “Guess.”

  Elle puffed on her cigarette, looking at him.

  I said, “Where’s Pete?”

  Elle said, “Who’s Pete?”

  The boy said, “Pete’s my little brother. The criminal.”

  Both boys cracked up laughing when the one boy said that.

  “Come on, Elle,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “So what’s you guy’s names?” she said. “I’m Elle. E-l-l-e. That’s French for ‘girl.’”

  Pete’s brother said, “Yeah, I seen you around.”

  Elle said, “You live around here?”

  Pete’s brother said, “Yeah. I used to live over by her house. Clarkson Street.”

  “Clarkson Street?” I said. “Clarkson Street is right behind my street. Where on Clarkson Street?”

  Elle said, “So what’s you guys’ names and all?”

  Pete’s brother said, “What do you little girls do, just hang out in the alley and smoke your mommy’s cigarettes?”

  The other boy said, “Come on, Buddy, let’s hit it.”

  Pete’s brother said, “Yeah, man.”

  They kind of moved away, on down to the end of the alley. Elle watched them until they were gone around the corner.

  I said, “Those are those guys that break into my house, you know, into that place downstairs.”

  “Those guys?” Elle said. “Those are them?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That one guy, that one with the Denver University T-shirt? Buddy? He’s Pete’s brother. Pete’s that other guy that gets in there, that one I talked to that time? The Cheshire Cat kid? I think that Buddy guy beat him up.”

  “Huh,” Elle said. “Let’s go.”

  “Here,” I said, holding out the rest of the chocolate bar with almonds.

  She said, “I hate almonds.”

  She jumped off the metal stairs and headed down the alley. Same direction as the two boys.

  I said, “Let’s go the other way.”

  Elle kept going in her same direction. At the end of the alley she went back out on Seventeenth Avenue. Buddy and the other boy were gone. We walked along the sidewalk as far as Bead Here Now.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go in here.”

  Inside Bead Here Now was tall tables with boxes of beads all according to color. One table was all the reds, one table all the blues, each table all the different colors of each color, sorted out in boxes. I walked around each table. The green table was dark blue-green beads of glass, wooden greenish yellow beads, clay birds of perfect green. Eighteen cents each.

  “Here,” I said. “Elle, here. Kelly green. This is what kelly green is. It’s like Irish you know?”

  Elle was over by the wall, in front of a little round mirror on the wall, smoothing her hair down.

  Next to the kelly green birds were African trade beads, Irish, then African. The African trade beads of the green table were green swirled in with purple. Twenty-two cents each.

  I picked out two African trade beads and one kelly green bird. Then I went to the purple table. Plain round purple wooden beads. Bumpy purple clay beads, dark almost like black. Pinkish purple plastic beads like diamonds with glittery edges. One box had two beads left, long square beads. I held one up to the light. Purple glass. I took the last two purple glass beads. Fourteen cents each.

  The walls were different kinds of string hanging in long loops, strings for beads, string for macramé.

  The lady by the counter had a green paisley scarf all around her head, and she said, “Can I help you?”

  I liked it when they said that in stores, “Can I help you.”

  “Yes, please,” I said. “I need some purple string, please.”

  “What kind?” the lady said. “How much?”

  There was light purple, dark purple, thick purple for plant hangers. There was shiny beautiful purple.

  “There,” I said. “That shiny purple. Will that purple go through these bead holes?”

  The beads in my hand were sweaty. The lady picked each bead out of my hand, one bead at a time, and she held each bead up to the light and looked at the bead hole.

  She said, “Yes.”

  “It’s for a necklace,’ I said. “Enough string for a necklace, please.”

  She pulled a piece of the shiny purple string out of the loop and snipped it off with her scissors.

  “One length,” she said. “Of purple silk cord.”

  “One length?” I said. “That means like how long?”

  “Two feet long,” she said. “A two-foot length. There might be a little extra. You can tie your hair back with the extra.”

  She wound the length of purple silk cord around her fingers into a little loop.

  A length of purple silk cord.

  A reach of kelly.

  Seventy-five cents for the length of purple silk cord. Ninety cents for five beads. Plus tax. The lady put the beads and the length of purple silk cord into a very small bag that said “Bead Here Now” on it in a circle.

  She said, “There you go.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Do you know Fern?”

  “Fern?” the lady said.

  “That’s her name,” I said. “Fern. She used to make macramé on the sidewalk.”

  “No,” the lady said.

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

  Elle was way at the back of the store.

  “Hey, Elle,” I said. “Come on. I got some beads.”

  Outside I opened the bag to show Elle.

  I said, “That’s a length of purple silk cord.”

  “How much?” she said.

  “Two feet,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “How much did it cost?”

  “Dollar seventy,” I said.

  “Ha,” she said.

  She opened her fist. Five little white beads like roses. She closed her fist over the beads and stuck her hand down into her pocket.

  “Ivory,” she said.

  “That’s not very nice,” I said. “I like that bead lady. Ivory roses? Let me see those ivory roses.”

  She took out her hand and opened her fist to the ivory roses.

  “That’s not very nice,” I said. “Stealing from a nice person.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Elle said. “Got any money left?”

  I said, “Yeah. Some.”

  “Well,” she said. “I got all my money left. Plus these beads.”

  We walked up the sidewalk, into the cold wind on my face and into my jacket.

  “I bet that lady knew,” I said. “It’s different to steal stuff from Safeway than to steal from a little place where they’re nice and say like, ‘Can I help you.’”

  “Rip off,” Elle said. “Don’t say steal. Say rip off. Let’s go to my house. Get something to eat.”

  I said, “So why don’t you just
go rip off something to eat?”

  “Oh, what’s a matter?” she said. “Little Sarajean afraid she’ll get in trouble? You never get in trouble.”

  “You’re going to get in trouble,” I said. “You’re going to get caught.”

  “Busted,” she said. “Don’t say caught, say busted.”

  We stopped on the sidewalk at the steps of her house. The colored lights were on in Lady Jane’s window.

  Elle said, “I guess I’ll go upstairs.”

  I said, “I guess I’ll go home.”

  She said, “I’ll probably come back out later.”

  I said, “I’ll probably just be at home.”

  Elle went up her front stairs. I walked up the sidewalk, and then Elle went in her front door.

  The sun was shining on the bench in front of Together Books. I set my Bead Here Now bag on the bench and sat down there. The wood of the bench was warm on the back of my legs. I closed my eyes to the sun, orange inside my eyelids.

  “Hey there.”

  I opened my eyes to Cassandra Wiggins standing right by me.

  I said, “Hi.”

  She sat down. I picked up my Bead Here Now bag from the bench in between us, and I put it in my inside jacket pocket, in next to Small Songs.

  Cassandra Wiggins said, “What you got there?”

  “Beads,” I said. “For making a necklace.”

  “No,” she said. “The book. What’s the book?”

  “It’s poems,” I said.

  I took out Small Songs and showed it.

  “It says Small Songs,” I said. “But it’s really poems. Small poems.”

  “You like poetry?” she said.

  I said, “Yeah.”

  I flipped at the pages, looked down at Small Songs. Looked at the back cover. Flipped the pages backward.

  Cassandra Wiggins said, “You ever write poetry?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know how you write a poem.”

  “Bet you do,” she said. “Here. Give me that bag.”

  Her fingers were long fingernails and two silver rings. Her big middle ring looked like it was braided silver around her finger. Her other ring was two little hands holding a little crown. She folded the Bead Here Now bag open flat onto the black of her pants, next to my bare leg.

  She said, “Bead Here Now?”

  “That’s the name of the bead shop,” I said. “Down there. See that round sign? Bead Here Now. Way down there.”

  “Right,” she said.

  She turned the bag over to the blank side.

  “So,” she said. “Tell me what’s in this bag.”

  “Five beads,” I said. “And a length of purple silk cord.”

  She sat back on the bench and looked at me.

  “That’s good,” she said.

  She took a short pencil out of the pocket of her black T-shirt.

  “So,” she said. “About these beads. Tell me about these beads.”

  “I paid for them,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “What they look like.”

  “One is a bird,” I said. “Green. Kelly green.”

  Cassandra Wiggins wrote “Kelly bird” on the bag in square printed letters.

  “Green,” I said. “It’s kelly green.”

  She said, “If you leave out the word ‘green’ it makes it like a secret, right?”

  “Well,” I said. “I guess so.”

  “Secrets are the secrets of poems,” she said. “So tell me about another one of the beads in this bag.”

  “African trading beads,” I said. “Green and purple African trading beads.”

  “Now that is a great word,” she said. “Africa is a great word. So you say this.”

  She wrote “Africa purple Africa Green” on the bag, under “Kelly bird.”

  I said, “Is this going to rhyme?”

  “Don’t know that yet,” she said. “Any other beads in there?”

  “Glass beads,” I said. “Purple glass beads. Clear square purple glass beads. Two of them.”

  Cassandra Wiggins picked up the bag and looked in at the beads, shaking the bag and looking in.

  “These are some nice beads,” she said.

  She put the bag down flat on her leg again and she wrote “Purple glass squares.”

  “And a length of purple silk cord,” I said.

  She wrote “Purple silk cord.”

  “It’s one length,” I said.

  “So,” she said, handing the bag back to me. “Look at those words. Which do you like best? Of all those lines, you know?”

  Her thumbnail was short and jagged.

  “Well,” I said. “Purple silk cord, maybe. No, I guess kelly bird.”

  She said, “Kelly bird. Let’s say it twice then, since we like it.”

  She wrote “Kelly bird kelly bird.”

  I said, “Yeah, kelly bird bead. I like kelly bird.”

  “Bead,” Cassandra Wiggins said. “That’s good, kelly bird bead. Hear that good b-d sound? Bird? Bead?”

  She wrote “Kelly bird bead.”

  So now we can rhyme it,” she said.

  She wrote “Africa purple Africa Green.”

  “Green and bead?” I said. “That rhymes, green and bead?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “The e sound. It’s a good rhyme. If it rhymes too exactly it gets boring.”

  She said, “Now what?”

  “Well,” I said. “There’s the purple glass square ones.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But let’s say kelly bird again since we like it.”

  She wrote “Kelly bird kelly bird” again, just like at first. Then she wrote “Purple glass squares.”

  “Purple silk cord,” I said.

  “That’s for stringing the beads on?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Plus there might be some extra. I can tie my hair back with the extra.”

  She wrote “Purple silk cord.” Under that she wrote “Purple silk hair.”

  I said, “Purple silk hair?”

  “Here,” she said. “Read it. Read it out loud.”

  I read,

  “Kelly bird kelly bird

  Kelly bird bead

  Africa purple Africa Green

  Kelly bird kelly bird

  Purple glass squares

  Purple silk cord

  Purple silk hair.”

  Cassandra Wiggins said, “So, is that it? Is that the story of your trip to this bead place, what is it, Bead Here Now?”

  I said, “Kind of.”

  “Except secet right?” she said. “Poems are secrets. Secrets for you, interesting words for other people that read them. Interesting words that make people think maybe they’re in on the secret.”

  She said, “You like it?”

  “Kind of,” I said. “I don’t know about the purple silk hair part.”

  “Here,” she said.

  She took the Bead Here Now bag and she pulled out the length of purple silk cord.

  “Turn around,” she said.

  Her hands pulled my hair from behind, away from my face, twisting my hair together in a bunch, and then one end of the purple silk cord dangled over my shoulder. She tied it around the ponytail she was making back there, tied the purple silk cord into a bow. The long end tickled across my neck, and she pulled the bow tight.

  “There,” she said. “Purple silk hair.”

  The purple silk cord tangled into the curls of my hair. I couldn’t tell from touching which was purple silk cord, which was hair.

  Cassandra Wiggins said, “Got to go.”

  She stood up.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I smoothed the Bead Here Now bag out flat on my leg.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Welcome,” she said. “Is it Sarajane or Sarajean?”

  “Sarajean,” I said. “Sarajean Henry.”

  “See you later, Sarajean Henry,” she said.

  She walked away on the sidewalk, clunking in her black cowboy boots.

/>   THE KELLY bird hung exactly in the middle of the length of purple silk cord, and I tied a knot on each side to keep it there. Then the Africa trade beads, one on each side with some purple silk cord showing and then another knot. I tied one more knot after each purple glass square and I tied the ends together. No extra for my hair. The kelly bird went down to the middle of my T-shirt underneath. Secret. I put the Bead Here Now bag with the poem on there in my shoe box. Secret.

  1975

  Erico was planting new flowers in the flower box, marigold and petunias, same as last year. He had a bucket of water, and the trowel, and twelve little pots, six marigolds, six petunias.

  Constanzia called, “Erico.”

  He went in and I lined up the pots, six and six, across the dirt.

  Erico came back out and he said, “The toilet runs and runs. Now it doesn’t flush. I have to fix it, instead of plant these new flowers.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Later? Can we plant them later?”

  “You can plant them all by yourself if you want,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “With you. I want to help you plant them.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said, picking up the bucket of water, sloshing water over the side. “Tomorrow morning.”

  I walked down Seventeenth Avenue.

  The box with the Rocky Mountain News had all the newspapers sitting on top of the box instead of inside. The Rocky Mountain News had a big picture of a guy hanging off a rope from a helicopter that was flying away. The guy was hanging in the air. The headline was all capital letters, SAIGON FALLS. Nothing about that guy falling.

  Together Books had their flag in their window the right way up.

  Lady Jane was sitting on the front steps of their house.

  I said, “Do you know is Elle home?”

  “No,” she said. “Nobody’s home.”

  She had a Rocky Mountain News, and her nose was red and her eyes had tears.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “It’s what’s right,” she said, holding up the Rocky Mountain News. “It’s peace. Peace at last.”

  She stood up off the steps.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to your house. Let’s go find Jimmy Henry, is he home?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, but Lady Jane took my hand and she started to run, sort of run, sort of skip, barefoot on the sidewalk. Kind of like a weirdo.

  “What are you doing?” I said, trying to pull my hand back from her, trying not to run. “Isn’t this kind of weird?”