by Nancy Rue
Lucy snorted.
“Your Aunt Karen is just concerned that you don’t have a grownup woman in your life day-to-day.”
“For what? You and I are just fine doing the laundry and cooking and stuff. What do we need a woman for?”
“Evidently to help you with your hair and your clothes — ”
“And my eyebrows!” Lucy wriggled up to a sitting position again. “Dad — she wants to pull them out with tweezers! I bet she holds them over a fire until they’re red hot and then — ”
“Luce!” Dad laughed like sand pouring out of a bucket. “She doesn’t want to torture you. She just wants you to know what being a girl is all about.” His face went mushy. “And I can’t teach you that, champ.”
For the first time maybe ever, Lucy was glad her father couldn’t see. She didn’t want him to know that she was suddenly uncomfortable, as if he were a stranger who had just walked in on her in the bathroom. She pulled a yellow throw pillow up to her chin.
“It’s true,” Dad said. “I don’t know anything about skirts and panty hose.”
“Da-ad!”
“See? We can’t even talk about it.”
“It doesn’t matter, because all you have to do is keep telling me about Mom and I’ll grow up to be like her and I’ll be fine. That’s probably what’s gonna happen anyway, right? I look like her, so I’m probably like her in all the other ways too.”
Dad’s smile looked crumply. “You come pretty close.”
“Okay, so, there you go.” Lucy got still. “Just as long as Mom wasn’t like Aunt Karen. You said she wasn’t, right?”
“Right.” Dad passed a hand over his mouth and closed his eyes. He did that, Lucy knew, when he didn’t want her to see what he was really thinking. “Just because they were sisters doesn’t mean they were alike, trust me.”
Lucy scrambled from the bed and parked herself on the floor at Dad’s feet. “Tell me about Mom,” she said.
“For a minute.” He ran his hand over the top of Lucy’s head. “And then we need to go back out there and spend some time with Aunt Karen.”
“Whatever,” Lucy said. “Tell me again how Mom was.”
As Dad talked, she could have recited the words right along with him. For a long time when she was seven years old, after he had come home from Iraq and Mom hadn’t, he sat by her bed every night and told her how he and Mom had promised each other that if war broke out there, they would leave their posts as foreign correspondents for National Public Radio and come home to Lucy. He told her over and over how Mom wasn’t going to go there in the first place, but NPR had begged her, told her the people in Baghdad would open up to her because she was a woman, because people all over the world always did, because she was the best at finding out the real stories and the true feelings of folks in places where hard things were happening.
“In Afghanistan, in Saudi Arabia,” Dad told Lucy many times, “your mother visited women’s inner sanctums, places that were off-limits to the guy reporters. She loved you, Lucy. She delighted in you, but when she felt called to something, she became dogged and determined. She wanted you to be proud that she had courage, that she wanted people to know the truth.”
But part of the truth they would never know. Why was the very hotel in Baghdad where she and Dad were staying bombed, even after most of the other news correspondents had left? Was it just chance? Or was it because Cheryl Rooney always reported the true feelings of the people and that didn’t make the Iraqi government happy?
No one could tell them, Dad had told Lucy. Mom was killed and he was blinded, and they had to trust God and move on from there.
That was almost impossible. Especially the God part, since as far as she was concerned, it was God who had let it happen in the first place. But sometimes it seemed like they could move on — at those times when Dad reminded her that Mom had said she was going to start a kids’ soccer program there in Los Suenos when she came back so Lucy could learn more than Mom had already taught her because — and this was the best part — she said Lucy had an “athletic gift.”
“Just like her,” Lucy said now.
“Exactly like her,” Dad said.
Lucy picked at a loose blue thread on the rug. She wanted to tell him about the book she’d found in the storage shed, the one Mom was keeping. He would understand; he wouldn’t take it away from her. She opened her mouth.
“Are you two all right in there?” Aunt Karen said from just down the hall.
“We’re fine,” Dad said. He ran his hand across Lucy’s head again. “You were going to say something?”
“No,” Lucy said. “I wasn’t.” Dad wouldn’t take it away from her. But Aunt Karen would, she knew it.
“You can’t fib to me, champ,” Dad said.
Lucy groped back through their conversation. There was one thing she could talk to him about. “I don’t see how I’m gonna ever get to be a great soccer player,” she said. “We still don’t have a soccer league here.”
“I know.”
“We try to play soccer at recess — me and J.J. and Oscar and Emanuel. And Carla Rosa, only she’s pretty bad. And the Hispanic kids won’t play with us.” She grunted. “They won’t even talk to us.”
“That doesn’t make sense to me,” Dad said. “I know you’re the only totally white student at school, but J.J.’s half white. So is Carla Rosa. Not that that should make any difference.” He rested his hand on her shoulder. “But, Luce, you know the radio station here is one of the few places I can work where my handicap isn’t — well, a handicap.”
“I’m not complaining. Honest. And I sure don’t want to move to El Paso.”
“Then let’s go make sure your Aunt Karen knows that.” Dad stood up, and then cocked his head.
“What’s that noise?” he said.
“What noise?”
“Sounds like one of the cats. Is somebody trapped someplace?”
“Oh my gosh!”
Lucy leaped across the bed and lifted the lid to the toy chest. An indignant Lollipop looked up at her and told her in no uncertain terms that she was not pleased.
“Lollipop was in the chest?” Dad said.
“How did you know it was her?” Lucy said.
But she didn’t really have to ask. Dad knew by smell and sound and the little hairs on his fingers. And that was why they were just fine alone, the two of them. And it was going to stay that way.
4
Lucy and Dad made a deal: he wouldn’t pack her off to El Paso, and she wouldn’t let Mudge attack Aunt Karen for the rest of her stay — or do anything else evil to her.
Lucy kept her end, even though her Christmas presents from Aunt Karen were, just as she’d predicted, clothes, clothes, and more clothes, except for the manicure kit and the CD player. It didn’t surprise her that everything, including the boom box, was pink.
That wouldn’t have been so bad if the coat , too, hadn’t been “Peppermint Delight,” as the tag read, and with fur around the hood no less. The rest she could shove to the back of her closet when Aunt Karen left and be done with it, but a down coat she’d be expected to wear every day, especially since Aunt Karen declared her now-torn jean jacket a disaster that no niece of hers was going to be seen wearing in public. Lucy had to fish it out of the trash can after Aunt Karen went to bed.
But Lucy didn’t argue the next morning when Aunt Karen popped into her room before she was even up and said, “You’re going to wear your new outfit to church, right?”
“Of course.” Lucy said, squeezing Lollipop to keep from adding, I really WANT to look like a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Lolli mewed and scooted out from under the covers, though when she saw Aunt Karen, she made a beeline for the toy chest, where Lucy had repositioned the wooden spoon for her convenience.
“That isn’t the one that tried to attack me yesterday, is it?” Aunt Karen said. She peered into the chest like there might be a collection of alligators in it.
“No, that was Mudge,” Lucy said. “He�
��s the brown tabby. Lollipop’s the black one. Marmalade’s orange, and Artemis Hamm is — ”
“There are far too many cats in this house,” Aunt Karen said. She opened Lucy’s closet door and parked her hands on her hips. Dad said Aunt Karen was only thirty-something, and Januarie thought she was way hip, but to Lucy, she sure seemed like an old lady sometimes. Who didn’t like cats except grouchy old dinosaur women?
“We so need to go shopping, Lucy,” Aunt Karen said into the closet.
“You just brought me a ton of clothes.”
“That was one outfit.”
“I hate shopping.”
“How do you know? You’ve never really done it.” Aunt Karen turned to face Lucy, a delicious gleam in her eyes. “We’ll go out for breakfast first and then hit the mall for your basics — then lunch of course — and then we’ll go to Claire’s for accessories.” Aunt Karen licked her lips. “That’s the fun part.”
None of it sounded like fun to Lucy. Boring maybe, tiring definitely, but not fun. However . . .
“Do they have any sports stores at the mall?” she said as she climbed out of bed and tugged her too-small Brazilian soccer team T-shirt down to cover her underwear. “You know, for, like, cleats and shin guards and stuff.”
“How long have you had that shirt?” Aunt Karen said. “Since you were eight?”
Seven, actually. Her mom had bought it for her just before she left. Lucy stomped past Aunt Karen for the bathroom. “Just put whatever you want me to wear on the bed,” she said over her shoulder. It was going to be a very long day.
Made longer by the fact that Lucy had to spend it in pink, from fuchsia Uggs to the oversize cotton-candy-colored scrunchie in the small ponytail Aunt Karen made at the top of Lucy’s head so the rest of her hair could fall down to her shoulders in curling-iron curls. With all the sprays and gooey stuff Aunt Karen put on those curls, Lucy was convinced they were going to be there the rest of her life. Fortunately, Dad was close by when her aunt mentioned tweezers.
“Leave her eyebrows alone, Karen,” he said. He smiled, but there was nothing fun in his voice.
“They’re getting a little bushy between her eyes,” Aunt Karen said. “She definitely has your brows.”
“Which are great, Dad,” Lucy said. Okay, so they looked a little like Mrs. Benitez’s rose bushes, but he didn’t have to know that.
“I’ll leave them alone for now,” Aunt Karen said. “But maybe when you come to El Paso to shop we can have them waxed. That’s what I do.”
“Hello!” Lucy said.
“Enough with the eyebrows, already,” Dad said.
Lucy was never so glad to get into church, just so she didn’t have to listen to Aunt Karen talk about Lucy’s fingernails or Dad’s need for a new barber or anything about “this house.” She’d rather listen to Reverend Servidio, and that was pretty drastic.
Los Suenos Community Church was on Granada Street. People sometimes came to town to take pictures of it because it was old and Spanish-mission-looking and what they called “quaint.” Lucy had long ago decided “quaint” must mean lopsided and attended by thirty people and led by a pastor who couldn’t seem to remember all their names. That was the only reason Lucy could think of why he always called her “kiddo” and called Dad “my friend,” even though he had never been to their house, which was only two doors down from the church.
She figured he couldn’t remember the words to his sermons either, because he read them from sheets of paper that he kept turning to the next one, longer than Lucy could ever listen to them. They always started out the way they did that day — about how people should come to church. Hello . He was talking to the people who were there every single Sunday. Then he went on about how those people — who weren’t there — should stop arguing and start working together as a town. Why was Reverend Servidio talking to people who didn’t show up to hear it? Why didn’t he talk to her and Dad and the rest of the people in the pews?
Aunt Karen put her hand on Lucy’s leg, which Lucy only then realized was jittering up and down.
“ ‘You have heard that it was said,’ ” Reverend Servidio read from the next sheet he turned over, “ ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you — ” ’ ” He looked up from beneath his straight-across crop of eyebrows but over the tops of his wire-rimmed glasses. “That is from Matthew, chapter five, verses forty-three and forty-four.”
Fine, but it made no sense. Lucy looked down at Aunt Karen’s hand, which was still holding her leg in place. All she could pray was that Aunt Karen would move to Australia. That was one of the reasons she didn’t read the Bible — that and the fact that she really didn’t like to read much of anything.
When Aunt Karen finally moved her fingers from Lucy’s knee, Lucy concentrated on the two backs-of-the-head in the pew in front of her. They belonged to Dusty Terricola and Veronica DeMatteo, both sixth graders, though neither girl was in Lucy’s support class. She wondered if they prayed for her. She didn’t think they exactly considered her an enemy. They just ignored her. Maybe you didn’t have to pray for those who acted like you didn’t exist.
When the ser vice was over, Lucy squeezed past Dad, who was on the other side of her, and escaped to the front steps to wait so they could go to Pasco’s for lunch like they always did. She almost tripped over somebody who was already there.
“Lucy Rooney?” said the really skinny Mexican girl with the smile that never showed her teeth. “Is that you?”
“Dusty Terricola,” Lucy said back. “Is that you?”
Dusty looked at the other girl, Veronica, and wrinkled her forehead into ridges the color of coffee with a lot of milk.
“Of course it’s Dusty,” Veronica said to Lucy.
She always showed her teeth, because as far as Lucy had ever been able to tell, she never closed her mouth. It simply hung open in her ruddy-brown face as if its hinges were broken.
“You’re the one who looks totally different,” Veronica said to Lucy.
Dusty ran her hand down Lucy’s pink coat sleeve. “You look so cute.”
“Doesn’t she, though?”
Aunt Karen was suddenly there, rubbing Lucy’s other arm. “Don’t you think she should wear her hair like this all the time?”
“Yes!” Veronica said. She pulled a hunk of her own Hispanic-black hair to the top of her head and looked to Aunt Karen, who said, “Hello — adorable on you.”
Lucy made a silent vow never to use the word “hello” like that again. She also vowed to get her hair back into its real ponytail the first chance she got, which wasn’t going to be soon, from the sound of it.
“Okay, we are so going out to lunch,” Aunt Karen said. She swept her gaze over Dusty and Veronica. “You two want to come with?”
Before Lucy could break her vow and cry out “Hello! No!,” both girls shook their heads as if their necks were made of wood.
“We can’t,” Dusty said, while Veronica stood next to her, lower lip hanging.
Well, du-uh. Two people who had overlooked Lucy as if she were invisible since second grade were suddenly going to do lunch with her?
“We’re going up to Ruidosa,” Aunt Karen said.
“We are?” Dad said. He had materialized from inside the church and was tapping his white cane to find the steps.
“Dad and I always go to Pasco’s after church,” Lucy said. Like Aunt Karen didn’t know that.
“Bye, girls,” Aunt Karen said as Dusty and Veronica escaped down the sidewalk. She turned to Lucy. “Why didn’t you introduce me to your friends?”
“Because they’re not my friends.”
Aunt Karen shaded her eyes with her hand. “They seem precious.”
“Adorable,” Lucy said.
That led to a discussion all the way to Ruidosa in Aunt Karen’s car about how Lucy needed some girlfriends. How it wasn’t healthy for her to always hang out with J.J. How Januarie didn’t count because she w
as too young for real girl talk. And how, by the way, they really shouldn’t eat at the Pasco’s Café so much. The food there, she said, was so unhealthy. Lucy hoped Dad wouldn’t mention that Lucy went there every day after school for a grilled cheese sandwich and two dill pickles. Aunt Karen would be calling the nutrition police next.
She seemed to forget about Dad and Lucy’s diet once they reached Ruidosa, because it was Aunt Karen’s idea of heaven. There was a store for everything — handmade jewelry, and art that cost more than their house, Dad said. There was even one whole shop just for sunglasses. In spite of the snow plowed to the middle of the main street so cars could get by, the place was packed with tourists, most of them from Texas. Why would anybody drive three hours to shop? Or three minutes, for that matter?
Since Dad was along, Aunt Karen shortened the window shopping that had been known to drive Lucy to the brink of hair tearing more than once and, after trying to convince them for the fifty-third time that sushi was wonderful, steered them to her second choice. Dad liked Italian, and Lucy didn’t mind it, as long as Aunt Karen didn’t make her try clam sauce or fried squid. They could call it “calamari” if they wanted, but it still had those little sucker things on it.
While they were eating, the owner came along to chat with them. The owner always came along in any restaurant they went to with Aunt Karen. Dad said it was because she was in public relations and was a people magnet.
“This can’t be your niece,” the woman gushed when she saw Lucy.
“You remember my niece?” Aunt Karen said. She pressed her hand to Lucy’s back as if she were presenting her prized poodle.
“Last time I saw you, you were a little tomboy,” the woman said.
“I still — ”
“Isn’t she a young lady?” Aunt Karen said.
“She is.” Owner Lady leaned close to Lucy and winked. “Would you like your Coke in a wine glass?”
“How fun would that be?” Aunt Karen said.
Not very, as far as Lucy was concerned, but she nodded and Owner Lady swept away as if she were going to fetch a crown for Lucy. It didn’t escape her that the woman hadn’t even looked at Dad.
