Berna comes through the door behind me and takes one look at Frankie’s flapping hands and sassy smile. She turns to me and raises her eyebrows. “You didn’t need my help,” she whispers. “You already got a nice fella.”
Is that what they think? Is that what I hope? When I glance at Frankie, he winks.
“What’s first?” I say. “On this world-famous tour?”
THE TOWER
We walk and walk and walk, uphill and away from the water.
“Where are we going?” I keep asking, because mostly we see only trees and a few little houses. But when we get there, wow, I know why he wanted me to see this.
An iron scaffold shoots straight up, as high as the sky, it looks like. Perched waaay up there on the top is a cute little white house, hexagon shaped, with a red roof and windows facing in every direction.
“I know the guy who lives here,” says Frankie.
“Someone lives here?”
“Best pad in town,” says Frankie. “Ray Shields. He had his appendix out a while back, and now we’re buddies. Come on.” Frankie heads for what I realize is a staircase. Flight after flight of steel steps go all the way to the top.
“We’re, uh, going up there?”
“You’re not scared of heights, are you?” He reaches out to take my hand, but I stay rooted for a moment.
How would I know if I’m afraid of heights? I never had the chance before to go higher than my room on the third floor of the Benevolent Home. Maybe I’m scared. Or maybe I’m a daredevil-in-waiting. Only one way to find out.
FROM THE TOP
Frankie’s friend Ray has a rust-colored beard and the most astounding view from his windows, overlooking the Sound and the bay beyond, the town and a million trees. The trees are the reason for the tower. It is Ray’s job to watch for forest fires all over the county and as far as he can see. He lets us look through the special binoculars, but he says when there’s a fire, you don’t even need them—you can see smoke puffing up like an arrow pointing to the trouble spot. I try to imagine what the Home looked like from up in the sky, a teeny flame like an ant’s bonfire.
“Do you feel like an eagle, perched up here?” I ask.
Ray and Frankie laugh.
“Some days,” says Ray. “For sure I wish for wings instead of having to use the stairs. But yeah, like with most beautiful things, the view is worth the climb.”
We stand there looking out the windows for a long, long time. At the shivering treetops, at the way the water wrinkles, at dots of sails and spots of houses.
Then Frankie says, “I’m hungry.”
SUPPER AT THE BEANERY
Whatever Bert’s kitchen is offering, we can smell it before we get inside, spicy and tantalizing, its aroma wafting through the trees near the railway yards.
“There’s no menu,” says Frankie, opening the door for me like a gent in a movie. “You just eat whatever he’s got in the pot.”
Like in the Home, I think. Eat whatever’s served.
It almost feels as if we’re outdoors at a family picnic. There are so many windows, and people eat at long tables, sometimes right next to strangers. The iron stove to one side is enormous; Jumpin’ Joe would be chartreuse with envy.
Frankie gets us plates full of beef stew and baked beans, swimming in gravy. “Save room for pie,” he says.
But it tastes so good that I eat every bite and wish I could lick the plate. Frankie’s done before me, grinning while I finish.
“Next time,” he says, “you could come have supper at my house. My mama’s a good cook too, but she cooks mostly Mexican food. You like empanadas? And burritos?” He makes the Spanish words sound…Spanish. He must speak it with his family, mysterious words that set him outside Parry Sound as much as his color.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I never ate anything foreign except that Chinese food.”
He laughs. “Foreign is just a way of saying not tried yet. And not only food. You ready for pie?”
I hold my stomach. “Is it lemon meringue?”
“Cherry, I think.” He picks up our plates. “Another few weeks and there’ll be blueberry pie every day. That’s my favorite. You see me, the end of July? I’m gonna have a big smile full of blue teeth.”
BUT I STILL DON’T TELL FRANKIE WHAT I’M DOING HERE
He knows about me being an orphan, and I’ve told him about the Seven and the Home. But how do I explain a stolen list of names that I think connects me to a bunch of dark-skinned kids in town, a peculiar web of tangled threads that I’m pretty sure—since babies are involved—must have sex in the story somewhere, and the idea of mentioning that word to Frankie…
CURFEW
At the Home there wasn’t a curfew, because a curfew means that you’re allowed to be elsewhere and need to come home. But we were never off-grounds after supper or at any other time except with permission. Tess was the one who sneaked out at night and somehow never got caught. The rest of us were in our rooms by nine, lights-out at ten o’clock.
We knew at every hour where we had to be and what we were supposed to be doing.
And now I don’t.
The day starts easy. I wake up early and go to the hospital. Until two thirty in the afternoon, I perform my list of tasks. Then I take off my work smock and hang it on a hook in the staff change room. I take off the paper booties that cover my shoes. I take off the funny mob cap that I have to wear over my hair. I wash my hands, splash my face and step out into the summer afternoon.
It’s almost July. Lots of days are hot and bright. I sometimes close my eyes against the glare the moment the door opens. And in that moment, every day, I think, Now what? Where to?
It’s up to me. Freedom is harder than I expected. Not the freedom part, but the making-decisions part. Having a choice. From now until the alarm clock rings at five o’clock tomorrow morning, what happens is up to me.
And what if there’s a boy to meet? And the boy has no curfew either, because he’s eighteen years old? Then what?
ORPHAN STORIES ARE NOT MUCH HELP
Anne of Green Gables doesn’t kiss Gilbert Blythe until the second book—years after they first meet. Pollyanna never has a kiss, and neither does swarthy Heathcliff, unless you count him tenderly kissing Catherine goodbye on her deathbed.
You never see Babar kissing either, even though he marries Celeste and has three little elephants.
DON’T
All the things that Dr. Blunt warned us against come blinking into my head like an ambulance siren:
Don’t let him stand so close.
Don’t let him smile in the way that makes your face hot.
Don’t let his hand stay a second and then another second on your waist.
Don’t let his arm lie across your shoulders for a moment when you’re walking.
Don’t let his eyes look down into yours.
Don’t let his breath tickle your cheek while you’re both laughing because you don’t know how to get the cap off a bottle of Coca-Cola.
And don’t, whatever you do, no matter what, close your eyes when his mouth finally meets yours and you taste his lips, a little salty from the baked beans, sweet from the cherry pie. Soft, and telling you he likes you.
If you let that happen, you’ll be kissing him again, and because you don’t have a curfew, there will be no reason to stop.
I DO STOP THOUGH
Because whoa! Hold on! His hands slide down my back, and I feel them moving like they know where to be, warm and certain through all my layers of skirt and blouse and undies and skin and muscle and bone. I pull away, like, Stop, we’re stopping, we have to stop now.
Dr. Blunt was right after all. The switch from being friendly to…this other thing, this blood-swirling, poretingling other place, it happens in an instant, like a wizard’s enchantment.
Frankie steps back, hands up. I can see his palms right in front of me, but I can feel them too, resting like ghosts where I wish they still were, on my hips.
&nbs
p; “Sorry,” he says. “Really. I’m sorry. You just tasted so good!”
Oh my god, it’s like he’s Elvis Presley in a movie, that’s how handsome and nice he is. Making it harder when he lays a palm against my cheek. I nearly fall over, wanting so badly to lean into it.
“Gotta go,” I say.
“Gotta go,” he says.
“See you!” In my head there is a curfew, and I just stayed outside in the big wide world a minute too long.
AFTER WORK
I’m at the Salvation Army, because the sole of my left running shoe is now officially worn through. Meaning that the bottom of my sock has also been shredded. I’m pushing my feet into a pair of orange sandals when someone taps my shoulder.
“Malou?”
“Oh, hi, Lucy!” The sandals are too small, which is good because really I’m here to find shoes I can wear to work.
“Doing a little bargain hunting? Me too.” She holds up a purse made of shiny yellow plastic. “Look what I found!”
“Nice,” I lie. I poke through the row of shoes and find two pairs of not-too-awful running shoes to try on. The blue ones fit! And only eighty-five cents.
“If you promise not to mention your little list, you could come over. Have a look at my mother and see for yourself that it’s impossible.”
I like that idea. Maybe I can slowly charm her. Or think of a sideways route to asking. Asking what? Did she know my mother?
I pay for the shoes. “Do you mind if I go back to my room at the hostel and change into these?”
I lift my foot and show her my sole, worn right through. Good enough for emergencies, maybe, but not for all day long.
LUCY COMES UP WITH ME
“I’ve always wondered what this place looked like inside,” she says. “You know how that is? You pass a building or a store a hundred times and you have no idea what goes on behind its door.”
“This isn’t too exciting,” I say. “No lurid drug deals or topless art models.”
Linette is not at the desk tonight. It’s the older woman named Elaine, who shells peanuts and munches them by the fistful. I wave as we pass to Dorm B.
“You share?” says Lucy. “It’s like a…a dormitory.”
“What did you expect?” I say. Jean’s bag sits unopened beside her tidy bed, though she has already swiped the pillow from Bed 4 again. There’s an unopened bag I don’t recognize plunked in the middle of Bed 1. My area seems actively lived in by comparison, even though my bed is made and most of my stuff is tucked away in the bedside cabinet. My pillow is scrunched up, and my blue-checked men’s pajamas are only partly hidden underneath.
“How can you stand this?” says Lucy. “I’d hate to share with strangers.”
“I’m fine with it.” I pull off my holey shoes and pull on the new ones. I’m more than fine with the hostel. I like it here, and I don’t like her nose twitching like something smells bad.
“Sorry,” she says quietly. “I guess you didn’t grow up expecting too much.”
I glance at my pillow, imagining for a second the dark relief of having my face underneath it, the blanket heavy across my back. Maybe Lucy’s right. I’ve never had more than this, so it feels just right to me.
“Actually,” I say, “this feels kind of like home. Like the Home. It’s nice hearing people close by.”
“Wow,” says Lucy. “I wake up and I hear my mother praying in the next room, and I want to stick my head in the oven.”
“She prays out loud?”
Lucy laughs. “Oh my god, she prays for an hour every single morning. First she thanks him and then she asks him for stuff and then she thanks him again and tells him how great he is, like he doesn’t have the swollenest head already from people calling him Almighty all day long.”
“What does she thank him for?”
Lucy rolls her eyes. “What doesn’t she thank him for? She thanks him for the weather and for the deal on chicken legs and for the kindness of the bus driver and for the blessed opportunity to look after our neighbor’s dog during his illness. The neighbor’s illness, not the dog’s. But mostly she thanks him over and over for me and Pete. It’s endless.” She puts her palms together in a prayer position in front of her chest and closes her eyes. Her voice comes out in a weird chant.
“Thank-you-Lord-Almighty-in-Heaven-who-so-graciously-watches-over-me-and-my-kin-especially-thank-you-oh-Lord-for-the-precious-blessing-of-my-children-who-are-everything-to-me-though-they-belong-first-to-you-Almighty-Father-and-you-have-entrusted-them-to-me-in-your-great-wisdom.” Lucy opens her eyes and flops back on my bed. “I’m telling you, it’s like cuckoo voodoo.”
“Wow.” I don’t know what to say.
Lucy is looking at me, one of her eyebrows tilted up.
“She’s not actually insane,” she says. “As in, call the men in white coats to hurry over with the straitjacket. But she’s a little off-center, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t know.” I sit down next to her. “I truly do not know anything.”
NINE
PETE AND LUCY’S MOTHER
I try, when I meet her, not to think about Lucy imitating the whole prayer thing, in case I start laughing.
We’ve come through the back door and straight into the kitchen of the bungalow.
“If we had a second floor, you could see the water,” says Lucy. “But instead, we’ve just got other people’s backyard fences.”
I ask to use the bathroom because I can’t wait another minute. A pair of stockings and a purple brassiere hang over the bar that holds the shower curtain. Purple with black lace edging and, um, abundant room in the cups. Definitely not Lucy’s. Now I’m wilting with mortification; everybody will know I’ve seen Mrs. Munro’s underwear.
All these secrets before I’ve even said, Hello, nice to meet you, Mrs. Munro.
“Look at you!” she says. “Where on God’s good earth did you spring from?”
Since that’s exactly the question that brought me to her house, I’m flummoxed for a second.
“She means where have you been living before now.” Pete to the rescue. “She means she knows you haven’t been in Parry Sound or she’d have heard.”
NO ONE IN THE ROOM IS WHITE
We all laugh. A brown face is a rare sight on the streets of Parry Sound. According to my observations, confirmed by the expertise of Jimmy and the twins, there are not too many colored families living in this town, and that includes Frankie Melchi and Berna from work, who are actually Mexican and Pakistani respectively. Thiu’s Vietnamese family doesn’t count as colored, just foreign. Jimmy says the Indians around Depot Harbor on the Parry Island Reserve don’t count either. They are practically invisible, the way white people ignore them. A few more Negroes—two or three—usually show up as summer-only residents when the fishing and boating tourists start filling motels and cabins. And that’s it. Almost half the brown population of Parry Sound is standing in the Munro living room right this minute.
“I’m from down east of Toronto,” I say. Practice has given me a smooth answer to Mrs. Munro’s kind of question. “I came up here to work for a couple of months. Over at the hospital.”
“Have you got family hereabouts?” says Mrs. Munro.
“No, ma’am,” I say. “No family. Not anymore.”
“Mom,” says Lucy, “you’re being nosy.” She gives me a fierce look, like I’m going to break my promise and blab.
Mrs. Munro looks confused, maybe wondering, What did she say wrong?
“When’s Dad coming home?” Pete tries to change the topic. “Is there enough for Malou to stay for supper?”
“Oh no,” I say. “That’s okay. You don’t have to—”
“We have plenty,” says Mrs. Munro.
A door opens with a sharp click at the back of the house. Pete and Lucy bug their eyes at each other.
“There’s Lonnie now,” says their mother. “We can eat in ten minutes.”
“What did you make?” says Pete.
; “Macaroni and cheese,” says Mrs. Munro. “Lucy, please set the table.”
“Why can’t Pete?” Lucy grumbles, and I know she has said those words a million times. “I was going to show Malou my room.”
She was?
“Pete’s a boy,” says her mother. “You do the table now and give Malou the tour after the dishes are done.”
Pete grins at his sister, and she sticks out her tongue at him. I don’t know which way to look. I’ve never stood inside a family before.
“May I help?” I say.
But then Mr. Munro is there, a tall man with skin the color of Coca-Cola, even darker than his wife’s.
“Well.” He stops short, staring at me. It feels like the whole room is holding its breath. “What’s this?” He looks sharply at his wife and then back at me.
“Hello.” I stick out my hand but he doesn’t notice, and I slide it into my sweater pocket.
“Hi, Dad,” says Pete. “This is our friend Malou. She’s staying for supper.”
DINNERS WE ATE IN THE HOME
Monday: chicken and turkey (weekend leftovers) pot pie
Tuesday: rice with peas
Wednesday: meatloaf
Thursday: macaroni and cheese
Friday: fish fingers
Saturday: chicken à la king
Sunday: roast turkey
WHO HAD THIS ONE?
Mr. Munro has grizzled gray hair more like a grandpa’s than a dad’s. He’s got this suspicious glint in his eyes, like I’m some kind of centipede.
“Who had this one?” he says.
“Dad!” says Pete.
A Big Dose of Lucky Page 9
