The Way to Stay in Destiny

by Augusta Scattergood

  “I been looking for you.” My uncle pulls on the brim of his cap, shielding the afternoon sun.

  “You’ve been looking for me?” I’m hollering so loud the gulls scatter. A little girl playing in the sand runs to her mother. Fishermen stop casting to stare. I don’t care. He deserted me! “Where’d you go?”

  “Nowhere,” he mumbles. “Just needed to leave. I ain’t cut out for the family life.”

  Staring at my uncle like I wish I could haul off and slug him, I say, “Didn’t you think about telling me?”

  “None of your business where I go, boy. Destiny ain’t the only town in Florida. Not even the best one,” he yells back. “Army taught me a lot more than changing tires. I worked hard in Alaska. Made good money. I can find me a better job.” Before Uncle Raymond stuffs his hands in his pockets, I see he’s gnawed his fingernails to the quick since he left.

  “You brought me here. I didn’t want to come!” By now a fisherman is inching toward the pay phone on the dock like he’s about to call the police. Trying to stay calm, I say, “I like Destiny. I don’t want to leave.”

  “I don’t know nothing about kids. Especially one that reminds me of the bad times.”

  “The bad times?” I almost turn around and run all the way back to Miss Sister.

  “Every time I look at you, your mama comes back. Not the good parts, either.” The cloud covering Uncle Raymond’s face is as dark as the storm starting out past the waves. “The bad’s your daddy’s fault. He got her in with them war protesters! Called me an ignorant murderer, to my mama no less. Telling my own family it was wrong to join the army.”

  “Granddaddy showed me your medals. He said you were a hero.”

  “Your mama and me, we were raised to salute the flag, not burn it. But your daddy, naw — both of them, they hated me for going to Vietnam. I signed up twice! When I finally came home, draft dodgers spit on me. I didn’t care. I was proud.”

  “So that makes you hate me?” I whisper the word hate. Granddaddy told me never to say it. I wish I didn’t have to.

  “I hate everything that happened. My mama and daddy having to give up their farm. Your grandparents loved that place.” His voice gets quiet. “I hate you having nobody but me,” he says slowly. Uncle Raymond stares out at the wide fishnets tossed in circles and the pelicans dive-bombing for dinner.

  “Why’d you take me in? I’d be better off in some foster home, where people are paid to care.” The wind’s picked up, and I rub my arms to fend off the chill.

  We turn to face each other. Our arms crossed over our chests, just alike. Except we’re more like those gulls out there fighting for fish. Swooping in on top of each other, flying close, then away, circling in different directions.

  “You gonna answer or not?” I turn my back to him, brushing something — maybe it’s water spray, maybe it’s tears — from my face. “Why’d you even want me?”

  “Want wasn’t part of it.” His voice rises over the wind. He grabs my shoulder and turns me to face him. “Once I left the farm behind, I didn’t need family, didn’t think I ever would,” he says.

  “Family? We never even heard from you, much less saw you. All those Christmases, once I was old enough to understand what an uncle even was. Heard I had one, lived way off in Alaska. Maybe he’d come home this year. Maybe the next. You never did.” I kick at the sand and don’t care if it blows in my uncle’s eyes.

  “I ain’t done good by anybody, especially you. A boy needs roots.” My uncle sucks his breath in and shakes his head. “Me and your mama had roots.”

  Questions I’ve wanted to ask since we left Kentucky pour out. “Why won’t you ever talk about her? She was your sister. Didn’t you love her?”

  Uncle Raymond leans against the seawall and I stand next to him. The clouds off in the distance are still worrying up a rainstorm, but I’m not leaving till I hear everything.

  “I was fighting for my country. People like her and your daddy — good-for-nothing peaceniks — were fighting against me. He burned his draft card while I was sitting in some foxhole getting shot at. I vowed I’d never speak to either one of them.”

  “That’s why you don’t want me?” My words are almost covered up by the wind.

  “After the car wreck, I felt bad. But they made their bed, they had to lie in it.” Uncle Raymond’s voice is barely a whisper. He moves closer and touches my arm. “But now I’m getting to know you, maybe things can be different. You’re my boy.”

  I jerk back. Maybe something’s different for him. Maybe I’m his boy. But does he really know me? “If things are different, that means I can play the piano.” I look up just as a tiny sliver of sun peeks out from the dark cloud. “Miss Sister thinks I’m good.”

  “I know you’ve been sneaking off to Miss Grandersole’s piano. But I can’t bear listening.” Uncle Raymond takes off his hat, fiddles with it, then pushes his hair back and turns to face the gulf. “Music reminds me of the farm, how I took off, left everything I knew. Never had anybody again. Not much of a good memory.”

  When he stops talking, I pull out my good-luck piece and hand it to my uncle. “Granddaddy gave me this. Almost all I got to remember the farm and my mama by.” I don’t mention the grocery list in her handwriting. That’s just for me. “Granddaddy said when she was my age, Mama carried it everywhere.”

  Uncle Raymond turns the flat coin over in his palm, tosses it up and down. “Well, I swan. Forgot all about this. My old guitar pick. When I got me a real pick, gave this to your mama.” He hands my coin back to me. “Always claimed it brought her good luck. Some good luck it turned out to be.”

  I stare at my uncle. “You play the guitar?”

  “Not no more I don’t.” His voice is barely a whisper over the gusting wind and the squawking gulls.

  I rub the smooth coin, maybe for luck, maybe looking for a memory. “Granddaddy drilled a hole in it so my mama could wear it around her neck.”

  “Don’t you go wearing no jewelry around your neck.”

  I narrow my eyes at Uncle Raymond.

  “Well, maybe this,” he says, finally smiling.

  “Didn’t Mama learn to play the piano at church? Same as me?” I ask.

  His voice gets stronger. “She was just a little bitty thing. We got the church’s old piano, when they got something better. Before long, your mama gave your granddaddy the what-for — the durn thing was so out of tune. Had some key stuck, couldn’t make it work for the life of her.” Now he laughs out loud, and it may be the first time I’ve heard my uncle laugh like that. “Claimed it was in every song she tried to play.”

  “Not a bad note on Miss Sister’s piano,” I answer.

  Uncle Raymond raises his eyebrows at Miss Sister’s piano. “Son, we’re family now,” he says. “We need to stick together. But if we stay at the Rest Easy, the piano playing goes.”

  My uncle may say we’re family. But if he doesn’t let me play Miss Sister’s piano, he’s wrong. When a cool drizzle starts, I shiver, rubbing the ugly scar on my arm. He puts his big hand on my shoulder and squeezes it tight all the way back to the Rest Easy. Just as we step onto the front porch, the skies open up.

  The next morning, I wake up early and the coast is clear. My uncle’s left for work. He even left me a scribbled note reminding me it’s laundry day. But before Miss Sister’s dancers arrive, before I even think about dirty laundry, today’s my last chance to get every recital piece perfect.

  Scooting the piano bench back a few inches, I stretch my foot toward the pedal and warm up with a jazzy piece I heard on Mr. Hernandez’s radio. My fingers run from one end of the keyboard to the other, making the tune jump around. “Glow Worm,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” the hat dance — I know my songs as good as I know my own name. I’m ready for anything!

  Anything except Uncle Raymond staring a hole through me. My uncle, who was supposed to be busy at the One-Stop Tire Shop all morning, stands tall, right next to me.

  He slaps his hat against t
he piano. His voice cuts through the music in my head. “Were you playing this thing?”

  For a half second, I think about telling a big fat lie.

  No, Uncle Raymond. That was Miss Sister’s recording.

  I didn’t hear anything. You dreamed it up.

  Somebody else was playing this piano. Somebody who disappeared into thin air.

  It was the dog.

  It was the wind.

  It was nobody.

  Instead, I bang the keyboard cover closed and say, “What are you doing back so soon?”

  “My own business!” He slams his hat harder against the piano. “Didn’t you remember what I said yesterday?”

  “I remember. Just don’t think I can help it.”

  “Guess you and me, we’ll never see eye to eye.” Uncle Raymond turns to leave.

  “Music’s gonna take us apart, just like it did you and your family. Don’t you care?” My shout echoes across the bare wood floors.

  “Can’t live someplace there’s music playing all day,” he yells back.

  “I can’t live without music,” I answer. I open the piano and play — loud and fast. I end with a big chord, stretching my hands and holding the notes. When I finish, I stand up, and dare my uncle to tell me No Piano Playing Ever.

  Shaking his head, Uncle Raymond marches toward the door. Where Miss Sister’s standing. Smiling like the two of us hadn’t been hollering about her piano being the worst thing that could happen to us.

  “You listening to that beautiful music Theo makes?” she asks.

  “I told him, we stay here, he can’t play no piano,” my uncle mutters.

  “What poppycock! Theo’s music is part of him. He’s playing for my recital on Tuesday.” Miss Sister flaps her hand at my uncle, hushing him up.

  Yesterday’s rain or standing next to somebody whose No Piano Playing rule hasn’t changed or hearing Miss Sister spill those beans — something in here makes it hard to breathe.

  “Theo’s the star of my show! You’re gonna love hearing him play!” She sidles up to the piano and squeezes my arm. “We’ll reserve a seat for you!” she says, smiling at my uncle.

  Oh boy. Now I’m in trouble.

  When Uncle Raymond storms out, his heavy boots nearly shake down the tall studio mirrors. All I can do is lay my head next to the piano music and cover it with my arms. My uncle at her dance recital. This is never going to work.

  For the rest of the weekend, Uncle Raymond and I only speak to each other when he can’t find the toothpaste.

  On Monday, I escape to school, where we mostly eat cupcakes and drink punch, celebrating summer coming. Just for fun, our English teacher gives us one more shot at turning diagramming sentences into a game. By the last class of the day — surprise — it’s like most every day since we moved to Florida. Hot and sticky with a chance of rain. Not a whiff of air moves the palmettos outside the window, and the air conditioner churns out something that smells as musty as my granddaddy’s storm cellar. The guys have their heads resting on their desks. The girls slide notes across the aisles. Boring blah blah blah.

  Nobody in the history of the universe ever learned one single fact worth knowing on the last day of school.

  When I wake up on Tuesday morning, Uncle Raymond’s already left for work. Destiny Day and recital music swirling in my head, I throw the covers off and head downstairs just as the hall phone rings. Miss Sister listens, then slams it down.

  “Anabel! Claiming she’s sicker than a dog and something about an injury. Humph. That child has been wheedling out of dance practice since she figured out what a baseball bat was good for.” Miss Sister raises her eyebrows in a question, but I’m not lying about Anabel’s sore throat, sprained toe, or whatever else she’s dreamed up to skip out of the recital. And she’d better be at our Destiny Day booth.

  I hotfoot it upstairs to grab my poster and notes and slip on Anabel’s Braves T-shirt. Not bad, Theo! Red’s my color.

  Pretty soon, I’m standing on the corner near the Chat ’n’ Chew, eyeing the trees for birds and the sidewalk for Anabel. She’s opening a card table in front of the post office.

  “Miss Sister’s mad,” I say. “But I didn’t tell her anything.”

  “No great loss. I was the klutziest flapper known to man.” Anabel straightens out the blue-and-white tablecloth and lines up our report’s pages. Her foot’s wrapped in a bandage, but her fake sore throat seems loud as ever.

  I look behind me, down Main Street. “Whoa! Wait a minute. Where’d all these weird-looking strangers come from?” I ask.

  When I went to bed last night, it was sleepy little Destiny, population maybe four thousand. This morning, Main Street’s filled with old guys dressed as soldiers and ladies who look like they lived when people washed their clothes in a river. Forced kids to pick berries to eat. Cooked hot dogs over a fire. Okay, scratch the hot dog thing. It was a hundred years ago.

  “Destiny, Theo. We’re celebrating the town’s history. Remember?” Anabel’s tacking red, white, and blue crepe paper around our table. “Hold this.” She hands me a wide banner announcing Destiny, Florida: Home of the Brave(s)!

  I point to the Brave(s) thing and laugh. “Good one, Anabel.”

  “My mother came up with the tablecloth. Be sure to notice.” Anabel rolls her eyes. “Lucky you, only an uncle. I bet he doesn’t butt into your business.”

  I have no answer for that.

  When Mamie shows up waving cotton candy big as a balloon, she stands with one hand on her hip staring at the old baseball. “What’s all this junk?” she asks.

  “Not junk. Proof that famous baseball players lived in Destiny,” I say. “Henry Aaron, for starters.”

  “What’s so great about him?”

  “Broke Babe Ruth’s record,” I answer. Like she’d even know who that is.

  “Know any baseball jokes?” she says, reaching out with cotton candy hands to touch my special Hank Aaron card.

  Anabel shoots Mamie her best evil eye. “No touching. Just looking,” she says.

  Mamie glances at our poster, then sticks out her tongue. Before I can impress her with more baseball facts or listen to a stupid baseball joke, Mr. Wyatt shows up and Mamie moves to the next table.

  “The baseball project! Let’s see what you got here.” Anabel starts in with the stories about Henry Aaron and his friends walking on the beach, eating at the Chat ’n’ Chew, fishing with Mr. Dawson’s shrimp bait. How Destiny was the spring training home of famous baseball players. The way she’s talking, I expect Aaron himself to saunter up and share his home run stats. Mr. Wyatt listens politely, then asks, “You can prove they lived here?” We look at each other.

  “Sure!” Anabel smiles real big. “Well, mostly. Here’s our report for the historical people. In perpetuity. Or whatever that word was.”

  He traces a finger across the map I’ve intricately drawn and labeled. “Good work here, Theo,” he says.

  “Mr. Dawson at the bait shop remembered some of the players.” I point to the list on our big poster. “Miss Sister gave us old photographs of the Rest Easy. Anabel took pictures of the marks on the toolshed there. Probably from somebody with a strong arm tossing a baseball.”

  Or maybe me tossing fuzzy tennis balls, I don’t say.

  “Extra credit for both of you! I’ll hand this off to the Historical Society.” Mr. Wyatt collects our research report and moves on.

  By two o’clock, maybe the crowds have had too much sun, too much food, or they’ve heard all they need to know about One Hundred Years of the Town Time Forgot. The loudspeaker guy loops his long electrical cord back onto the machine. The tuba band stops playing. The cotton candy seller hands out free samples, then packs up his machine. Destiny Day is dying down.

  “Still aren’t coming to the recital?” I ask Anabel. “I’m playing.”

  “Sorry, Theo. No can do. Much as I’d like to hear you, I need to stay clear of that auditorium.”

  “What about your mom? You lie to her
like you did to Miss Sister?”

  “My mom knows nothing.” Anabel points to her foot. “I only put the bandage on in case Miss Sister showed up here.” She clears her throat and coughs. “I feel a bad cold coming on. Mom will understand. If she even makes it to the recital.” She smiles and tosses our old baseball up and down.

  “You’re kidding, right? Mrs. Johnson, not at the recital? After collecting the money for Miss Sister?” And accusing me of stealing it. But I’m over that. The mystery was solved. I’m off the hook. My uncle put it back and apologized to Miss Sister, who spread around a cockamamie story about finding it behind the radiator.

  “Mom’s already handed off the gift thing. Mamie’s presenting the flowers.” Anabel coughs again, then looks around to see who’s heard her. “I may have mentioned to her and my dad that the recital was changed to seven tonight,” she whispers. “Seven sharp.” She grins. I shake my head.

  “The recital starts at five.”

  “I know that. But it’s a busy day. What my mom doesn’t figure out won’t hurt her. Or me.”

  “Dream on, Anabel,” I say.

  “Ma’s too busy running Destiny Day. Daddy, too. They’ve forgotten all about me.”

  Anabel’s parents have forgotten about her about as much as Uncle Raymond has remembered he was invited to the recital.

  Together, we take down our poster. Fold up the card table and stash it against a palm tree. “My dad’ll be by to pick this up. You go ahead.” She hands me the tackle box and my special baseball card. “Take good care of Hank Aaron’s autograph. I’m sure it got me a good grade. See you later? Ice-cream stand after supper?”

  “Unless you’re grounded for life,” I say.

  “Not a chance!” Anabel smiles. “And, Theo? Let’s think of something to do together over the summer. The beach? Bug Mr. Dawson to give us free bait crickets? Learn to surf? You will be here this summer, right?”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  Yep. I hope I’m here. But I’m having trouble thinking about summer. My stomach’s beginning to knot up and I didn’t even eat the cotton candy or fried dough.