The Perfect Place

by Teresa E. Harris

  Then she begins to clean her room. Well, not clean it, exactly. She’s really just picking things up and putting them back down again. I watch as she pulls a bunch of clothes out of a drawer and puts it on the bed next to me. A few shirts, a pair of pants. And her teeth.

  We almost fall off the bed trying to get away from those.

  “Shouldn’t your teeth be in your mouth?” Tiffany asks.

  “Nope. I keep them around so I know that I don’t need ’em. I find that the teeth and the spleen are the most overrated of body parts.” Great-Aunt Grace picks up one of the shirts and starts to refold it.

  There’s a picture on the nightstand, an old, faded photo of a man. It’s not Moon. This man is dark brown, wearing a bright orange vest and holding a big gun.

  “Who is he?” I ask.

  Great-Aunt Grace answers me without looking at the picture. “Someone. I keep his picture so I know I don’t need him anymore either.”

  “Were you guys in looooove?” Tiffany asks.

  Great-Aunt Grace looks over at us with her hard black eyes. “I reckon so. But he loved himself more than he ever loved me, so I opened my hands and let him go, long before your time.”

  I tuck my feet under my butt. “Where is he now?”

  Great-Aunt Grace mutters something under her breath that sounds vaguely like “Nosy little things,” but aloud she says, “Two hours away with a wife and too many grandkids.”

  We sit in silence after that. Great-Aunt Grace continues to rearrange her clutter, and every now and then she sneaks a look at us. I know because I’m sneaking looks at her, too. Her face is old and brown and wrinkled, has been since we got here, but her wrinkles look different to me now. They look like little cracks in one of those thousand-year-old buildings, small and unimportant. How do you get as strong as Great-Aunt Grace, strong enough to let go? When I’m not looking at her, I’m looking around her room, half expecting to see a vat of some Courage Potion. But there’s nothing in here other than her yarn, pictures, and a bunch of pairs of sneakers with soles so rundown they’re almost gone.

  The next time I sneak a peek at Great-Aunt Grace, she catches me. And then she does something that just about makes me fall off the bed again. She holds up her teeth and claps them together like they’re talking. Tiffany dissolves into a puddle of laughter. I feel a smile spreading across my face. And the more those big yellow teeth clap together, the bigger my smile becomes, until I’m all-out giggling—and I never giggle. Great-Aunt Grace smiles at us, the first time she’s ever done that. Her smile is like a baby’s, all gums.

  Great-Aunt Grace puts the folded clothes back in the drawer and places her teeth neatly on top of them. Then she goes back to fussing with her things. I wonder if she ever sleeps. Right now I don’t feel like sleeping either. I watch as Great-Aunt Grace bends down, wheezing a little, and starts going through her canvas bags. Out falls even more yarn. She’s started a few things—a hat, a pair of gloves, a blanket—but nothing is finished. She straightens and points at a ball of yarn on the floor beside me.

  “Hand me that, Treasure.”

  “Why won’t you just call me Jeanie?” I ask, sighing as I hand the yarn over.

  “Jeanie’s not your name.”

  “It’s part of my name. Besides, I don’t like my name anymore. Treasure Jeanie May Daniels. Flops around in your mouth like a dying fish.”

  Great-Aunt Grace throws her head back and laughs that great big booming laugh of hers. I jump. “Dyin’?” she says. “I don’t think so. There’s life in it yet.”

  She starts organizing her yarn creations, and I reach over and pluck the photo from the nightstand. What was he like? Does Great-Aunt Grace still miss him? The man in the picture has a mustache that reminds me of Daddy’s.

  “Do you think Dad loves himself more than he loves us?” I blurt out.

  For the first time since we’ve entered her room, Great-Aunt Grace stops moving. “Of course not, girl. He’s just lost, is all.”

  I put the picture down on the bed next to me and pull my feet out from under me. “Most of the time we feel lost too,” I say.

  “How so?” Great-Aunt Grace says. “Tell me.”

  And we do. We tell her everything, the words pouring out of us the way rain plummets from the sky. Tiffany tells her how we’d come home from school to find our stuff packed up and ready to go, and Dad downstairs already warming up the car. I tell her how it feels like we’ve been running behind him for years, but we don’t ever know where we’re headed or how long we’ll stay.

  “It’s a travesty,” I say.

  Great-Aunt Grace cocks her head to the side. “You know a lot of million-dollar words, huh? You’re gonna have to teach me some.”

  “I’m always leaving my friends,” Tiffany adds. “It’s a travesty too.” Tiffany pauses. “A travesty is bad, right, Jeanie?”

  “Yes, and friends are overrated.”

  “What you call Terrance, then?” Great-Aunt Grace asks. “I seen him walkin’ you to my store.”

  “We’re associates.”

  “Associates?”

  I nod. “No sense in making friends if we’re going to move anyway. I never told Dad this, but sometimes I hate moving. I just want to stay in one place long enough to catch my breath.”

  Great-Aunt Grace nods like she understands. If someone had told me I’d be sitting here like this with her, pouring out my heart, I would’ve laughed until I had an asthma attack.

  Tiffany holds up Mr. Teddy Daniels’s new outfit and studies it. “You need a new name,” she says to Great-Aunt Grace.

  “What you mean, girl? My name is Grace.”

  “I mean a new other name besides the one Jeanie sometimes calls you.” I reach over and try to pinch Tiffany. She swats my hand away.

  “What you been callin’ me, girl?”

  “Um,” I say.

  “Sometimes Jeanie calls you Gag,” Tiffany replies matter-of-factly.

  “Gag?” Great-Aunt Grace looks to me for an explanation.

  “It’s the initials for Great-Aunt Grace, but you know, like, in a bad way. Like, Gag me, or whatever.”

  I wait for Great-Aunt Grace to kick me out of her room. She stares at me, her face expressionless. Then she bursts out laughing again. “Lord knows I’ve been called worse.” She reaches beneath her nightstand and comes up with a jumbo-size bag of Hershey’s Kisses. She pops two in her mouth, bites right into them, and then pops in two more. She’s right. You don’t need teeth.

  “So, what should we call you?” Tiffany wonders aloud, tapping her chin with her index finger. “What about Auntie?”

  “You two can call me any old thing you like. Here, have these.”

  Auntie scoops up a handful of Hershey’s Kisses and dumps them on the bed in front of us. I drop the photo and scramble to catch them before they roll off. Auntie sits down on the bed and that’s us for a while, me and Tiffany chewing, her gumming. Tiffany moves over so Auntie can sit between us, her bare arms touching mine and Tiffany’s. Her skin is darker than the candy, and together we look like swirls of caramel and milk chocolate.

  “Your skin is very black,” Tiffany says.

  “Born black,” Auntie says. She rises from the bed and leaves the room, her nightgown thrown over her arm. When she returns, she’s all decked out for bed in a floral nightie that comes down to just above her ankles. She reaches over and pulls the blankets back for us. She fluffs up the pillows, too, before climbing in beside us, the bed sinking beneath her weight. “Now sleep,” she says.

  We sleep. And wake up with silver wrappers in our hair.

  Twenty-Seven

  WHEN I wake up the next morning, the sun is warm on my face. Auntie is already up and gone, her blinds pulled open and her bedroom door cracked. I stretch my legs, and my feet brush up against something soft and sharp all at once. I sit up fast and pull my feet back before Mr. Shuffle can sink another claw into my big toe.

  “You’re so fat and evil.”

  He blink
s big moon-colored eyes and flicks his tail like a middle finger.

  Tiffany squirms in her sleep. Her eyes are puffy from crying, and there is drool on her cheek.

  “Is Mommy back yet? Did she find Daddy?” she asks, her eyes still closed.

  “No.”

  Tiffany whimpers. I take her hand, pull her out of bed, and lead her downstairs. The smell of frying bacon meets us halfway to the kitchen. Auntie stands at the stove, her back to us. I push Tiffany into a chair at the table and Auntie says gruffly, “Is that Tiffany cryin’ again?”

  “I . . . want . . . Mommy . . . and Daddy!” Tiffany howls.

  I’m sure that wherever Mommy is, she can hear Tiffany loud and clear.

  Auntie turns around to look at us, her face all business. “Let’s go,” she says in the same hard voice.

  She sounds like Gag again. I hesitate. “Go?” I ask.

  “Yes, girl,” she answers. “Now, come on and quit askin’ questions.”

  Auntie turns to leave. Tiffany and I exchange a startled look and jump up to follow her, barefoot and wearing only our pajamas. Auntie goes straight out the back door and down the stairs.

  “You comin’ or not?”

  I take Tiffany’s hand and pull her gently outside, wondering just what the heck Auntie is up to. Yesterday, when she was still Great-Aunt Grace, I would have thought she was taking us out back to feed us to something big, hairy, and southern. But now, I get the feeling things are different. I look over at Tiffany as we stand on the top step. The only reason she isn’t crying anymore is because she’s too busy being confused.

  I sure hope Auntie knows what she’s doing.

  We go down the steps and over to Auntie, who is standing under a tree.

  “Reach down and touch the ground,” she instructs.

  “Seriously?” I ask.

  Auntie nods. What in the world this has to do with Tiffany missing Mom and Dad, I don’t know. Unless, of course, Auntie’s plan is to distract Tiffany. If so, it’s working. Tiffany bends down and runs her hands over the ground in front of us. I do the same, the grass tickling my palms, until my hand stops on something hard and cold. Stone.

  “Girls, I’d like you to meet your great-grandmother and grandfather.”

  Tiffany jumps back. “They’re here, in the ground?” she asks, her voice shaky.

  “Yes, but you don’t need to be afraid. My mama and daddy were good strong people who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Unless that fly talked back. Then they’d warm its buns.” Auntie laughs, and I wonder how getting spanked could ever be funny. When Auntie speaks again, her voice is soft and low. “Whenever I get to missin’ the two of them, I just come out here and strike up a conversation.”

  “You mean, like, with their ghosts?” Tiffany asks, inching closer to me.

  “No such thing as ghosts. I talk to their essence, their spirits.”

  Sounds like ghosts to me. But I’m supposed to be acting brave, for Tiffany’s sake, of course.

  “Did you say you miss your parents sometimes?” Tiffany asks. “You?”

  Auntie laughs. “I’m not made of stone, girl. Of course I miss my mama and daddy. Everyone does. And there ain’t nothin’ wrong with it.”

  “But once you start missing them, how do you stop?”

  “You don’t.”

  I can almost hear Tiffany’s face fall.

  “You just need something, is all. Something of your mama and daddy’s you can keep near to you. Come on in. I think I got just the thing.”

  Once inside, Auntie goes into the living room and flips on the light. She takes a big book from one of the shelves and blows the dust off it. A photo album. Tiffany and I watch wordlessly as she flips through it, her eyebrows bent in concentration. Finally, she pulls out a photo, a real old one with a black, shiny backing, and hands it to Tiffany face-down. Tiffany turns it over. It’s a picture of Mom and Dad from years ago at what appears to be a barbecue, Dad’s arm slung over Mom’s shoulder. They’re smiling, Dad widest of all. Tiffany takes the picture and hugs it to her chest.

  A lump forms in my throat. What if this picture is one of the only things we have left of Dad? What if he never comes back?

  My mouth won’t ask the question, but my face must do the talking because Auntie looks me in the eye and says, “Your daddy ain’t gone for good. Your mama may not find him, but I reckon he’ll come back on his own. No man in his right mind would leave the two of you, even though y’all are spoiled as the day is long. I promise you that.”

  At that moment, I would have believed Auntie if she’d told us grass was blue and the sky green.

  “Jane told me losing hope is kind of like losing the will to live,” I say.

  “Jane is a fool, and she’s wrong as snow in August for half of the outfits she wears, but I reckon she may be right about that.”

  Auntie goes back into the kitchen then to finish cooking breakfast. We eat burnt bacon and dry eggs, hope hovering above us like a fog.

  After breakfast is over and I’ve done the dishes, we sit around the table for a bit, working on Auntie’s word find, nobody seemingly in a hurry to get over to Grace’s Goodies.

  “Let’s just not go to work,” I suggest.

  “And who’s gonna pay my bills?” Auntie asks. She runs her index finger over the jumbled letters of her word find, searching for one. “Sinister,” she mutters.

  “It means really evil, like the devil-evil,” I say.

  “Or like Jaguar,” Tiffany adds.

  “I see.” Great-Aunt Grace finds sinister and draws a large, loopy oval around it. “You know, you never told me what Jaguar said to y’all that made Treasure lose her ever-lovin’ mind.”

  “What she said to me—Jeanie—was that I’m a loser whose parents don’t want her.”

  “Is that right?” Auntie says calmly.

  “It is,” Tiffany says. “And then she banged up your store, too.”

  “She sure enough did. Speakin’ of the store . . .”

  “Let’s not go,” I say again. “I’ll die if I have to clean another shelf.”

  “Is it really that bad, girl?”

  I nod, and Auntie nods too. I can see the gears whirring in her mind. “Tiffany, go put some shoes on. Treasure, go do your hair. We got thangs to do.”

  “I already did my hair.”

  “Well, go on upstairs and try again. I got a chain saw out back in my shed if you need it.”

  Auntie is a real comedian. I trudge back to the bathroom and to Auntie’s hard-bristle brush and Blue Magic grease. Then I get to slicking and brushing until I get a decent half-ponytail, half-bun going. Tiffany puts on her sandals, and we meet Auntie at the front door. She looks at my hair and shakes her head. “Lord, have mercy,” she mutters.

  Auntie locks up, and before we know it, we’re trucking up Iron Horse Road. We stop at Grace’s Goodies and I try to mentally prepare myself for the shelves, but Auntie says we’re not staying. She grabs one of the videotapes Tiffany labeled and a package each of Sour Patch Kids for Tiffany and me.

  “To keep y’all from whinin’. We got a walk ahead of us.”

  “What’s she up to?” I ask, my eyes on Auntie’s broad back as she marches up Main Street with us trailing behind.

  “We’re going on another adventure,” Tiffany says. She tears into her pack of Sour Patch Kids and eats them two at a time.

  Auntie said we had a walk ahead of us. She should’ve used the word trek, as in a long, hot, awful journey. I gobble down my Sour Patch Kids as we pound the pavement until we’re all dripping with sweat and dying of thirst. Until we come at last to a tree-lined street and stop in front of a white brick house with a wraparound porch and shutters that match the front door. The lawn looks like some guy from the army gave it a military-issue crewcut. Even the flowers in the garden stand at attention. This is the kind of house that probably has an alarm system and guard dogs, but Auntie doesn’t hesitate before striding up the walkway.

  “Y’all come on,” she calls to
us. She rings the bell.

  “Who lives here?” I ask, hanging back, Tiffany’s sticky hand in mine.

  No answer, from Auntie or from inside the house. It’s not even nine in the morning on a weekday, too early for visiting, but here we are. Auntie rings the bell again. This time we hear footsteps on the other side of the door. The door opens, and there stands Jaguar. She stares at us, open-mouthed, a flimsy screen the only thing separating her from the mighty Grace Washington.

  “Wh-what are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to collect, for the damage you did to my store. Now step aside, girl, and let me in.”

  Twenty-Eight

  “JAGUAR, who’s that at the door?”

  Jaguar’s father, Pastor Burroughs, appears behind her. He’s wearing a bathrobe and slippers, and when he sees Auntie, he adds a scowl to his outfit.

  “Ms. Washington, do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “I sure enough do. It’s time for your daughter to pay.”

  “Pay for what?”

  “For comin’ into my store and messin’ it up last Sunday.”

  “Jaguar would never do such a thing.”

  “I got a tape that says otherwise.”

  Jaguar sucks in her breath. So does Pastor Burroughs. So do I. What Auntie’s got is a blank tape, and if Pastor Burroughs finds out, we’ll be in a world of trouble.

  Auntie looks around both father and daughter and into the house. “Now y’all gonna let me in or what? I’m fryin’ up like chicken out here, Lord knows I am.”

  Wordlessly, Jaguar and her father step aside. Auntie beckons to Tiffany and me to follow. No one invites us to sit down in the living room, but Auntie takes a seat on the long white couch anyway. The Burroughses’ living room is the cleanest place I’ve ever seen—and I’ve been in a few hospitals. The first floor is open and airy, and everything is beige—the tile in the entryway, the area rugs, and the couches. It’s straight out of a home decorating magazine.