by S. Walden
“Nope. They’re all small dogs.”
“Are they well-behaved dogs?” Clara asked.
“The best in the whole world.”
Clara considered something. “Bea, you know you’d have to pick up their poop.”
“I’ve been saving our grocery bags,” Beatrice replied.
“And you’ll only walk them in their neighborhood?” Clara asked.
“Of course!” Beatrice said.
Clara knew that Beatrice would be safe. Oak Tower Trail was a nice neighborhood complete with tree-lined streets, wealthy residents, and a neighborhood watch. She wasn’t really concerned for Beatrice’s safety. She just wanted her to be happy.
“The second you say that you’re tired of walking dogs, I don’t want you to anymore.”
“Clara!” Beatrice screamed and jumped on her sister.
“Oof!” Clara grunted feeling Beatrice’s arms go around her neck and nearly choke her.
“I love you, Clare-Bear!” she squealed into Clara’s neck. “And I’ll give you the money every Friday. I promise.”
Clara’s heart gave a small jolt. She felt the instant guilt of having her sister work for money that she had to turn over every week. Beatrice would become resentful, and rightly so, and suddenly the plan didn’t seem all that great.
“Bea?” Clara asked.
“Yes?” Beatrice replied pulling away from her sister. She stayed seated on her lap.
“What if you kept some of your money each week? You could use it for whatever you like. A new shirt or earrings or pencils?”
“No, Clara. You use all of your money for us, and so should I,” Beatrice said.
“But it would make me very happy,” Clara went on, “if you kept a little something for yourself.”
Beatrice looked up at the ceiling as she considered this suggestion. “Well,” she said, “how much should I keep?”
“How about five dollars? Is that too little?” Clara asked.
“No. Five dollars is very fair,” Beatrice replied. “But only after we have the electricity back on.”
“Okay then,” Clara said.
Beatrice climbed off her sister and walked into the kitchen.
“Do you have a lot of homework, Clara?” she called.
“No, why?”
“Do you want to come outside and play with me?” Beatrice asked.
Clara smiled to herself. “Yes I do,” she said as she walked into the kitchen.
Beatrice beamed and flew out the back door, Clara right on her heels.
Chapter 4
Another week passed, and Clara became accustomed to her new routine. She worked nearly every day after school then came home to get dinner started. If they used the wood stove, Clara would go out back to retrieve wood she started piling and keeping in a cool, dry place under the shed overhang. She learned very quickly that damp wood did nothing but smoke and stink up the house. She also learned that recently-cut wood didn’t burn as well as the older, dried out wood. She’d bring the wood in, start the fire, and then open the windows in the kitchen and living room to manage the heat.
Bath time in the evening was a long, tedious process. Clara would fill the tub with cold water from the faucet and then add two or three tea kettlefuls of boiled water. Waiting for the water to boil on the wood stove took forever, and Clara wondered how much longer the process would take when the weather got colder and she needed even more hot water for the baths. She thought the process would go much faster if they boiled water over the fire in the fireplace, but she was not ready to do that. The heat would be intolerable.
One night Clara almost suggested they share the bathwater, each taking turns and then switching out so that it wasn’t the same person who always had to use the dirty water, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask Beatrice. It felt humiliating, and the thought of bathing in Beatrice’s sullied bathwater made her stomach turn.
“How do I wash my hair?” Beatrice had asked the second night they began their bath routine.
“Really, Bea?” Clara replied. “You can’t figure it out?”
“Stop being mean and just tell me,” Beatrice huffed.
“Fine. Lay back in the bath until you get your hair wet. Sit up and wash it, and then run the faucet and rinse your hair underneath of it.”
“But the water is so cold, Clara!” Beatrice complained.
“And what would you have me do about it?” Clara snapped. “That’s your option unless you want dirty hair.”
“What I want is a nice, hot shower!” Beatrice shouted.
“You told me taking hot showers in the summer months was unhealthy,” Clara said. “Remember that?”
Beatrice ignored her as she screamed again, “I want a hot shower! I want a hot shower!”
Clara sprang from the couch and grabbed her sister’s upper arm.
“And what do you think I’m trying to do?!” she yelled back. “Every dime I can spare goes to the bills, Bea! I’m doing the best I can!”
“Get off, Clara! You’re hurting me!” Beatrice cried.
“I’m sorry I can’t fix it fast enough for you! Get used to it, okay? This is our life now!” She released Beatrice’s arm and stomped off to the kitchen. Beatrice followed.
“Then maybe I’ll just run away!” Beatrice said.
Clara laughed derisively. “You do that,” she said hovering over the tea kettle on the wood stove.
“I mean it, Clara. I’m as serious as a heart attack.” Beatrice stood with her arms crossed over her chest.
“And where do you think you’ll go, huh? The minute someone sees you they’ll snatch you up and take you to a foster home,” Clara said. “Or worse, an orphanage.”
Beatrice gasped.
“Do you want to live in an orphanage with other homeless children?”
“Like in Annie?” Beatrice breathed.
“Yeah. Exactly like Annie. Only I hear the women in charge of the homes here are way worse. Is that what you want?” Clara asked.
She felt cruel in her heart knowing she was lying to Beatrice to scare her. She knew Beatrice would never leave her, but just the threat of it filled her with intense fear and loneliness. She could not survive without her sister. There would be no reason to.
She turned to her sister. Beatrice was crying.
“What happened to you not being afraid?” Clara asked gently.
“I’m not afraid,” Beatrice replied. “I just want a hot shower.” She wiped at her face.
Clara smiled. “You’ll have a hot shower soon. I promise.”
Beatrice nodded.
“In the meantime, try to rinse your hair under the faucet. It’s not so bad.”
Beatrice continued to nod.
“And I have a surprise for you,” Clara said. “But I was going to wait until after baths.”
Beatrice tried to appear indifferent, but Clara saw her eyes light up.
“Would you like it now?” Clara asked.
Beatrice thought for a moment. “It may be the only thing in the whole world that will make me happy,” she said dramatically.
Clara chuckled as she made her way to a kitchen cabinet. She dug around the back of the top shelf and pulled out a small box.
“Would you like one?” she asked Beatrice holding up the box.
Beatrice squealed and clapped her hands. “Oh Clara! TastyKakes!”
Clara pulled out a package of two peanut butter chocolate cakes, unwrapped it, and handed one to Beatrice. She took it, the chocolate already melting on her fingers because of the heat from the stove.
The girls stood in the kitchen eating their cakes, neither one talking. Clara took her time with hers; Beatrice gobbled hers up in three bites. They licked the chocolate from their fingers and listened as the tea kettle whistled. Clara removed it and walked to the bathroom. She poured the water in the bath wondering how a TastyKake could be such a powerful ameliorant.
Beatrice chatted about her job over dinner. She took the bus home directly after s
chool each afternoon and biked over to Oak Tower Trail on the days she walked her “clients.” She liked referring to them as clients. She said it made her sound like a real businesswoman.
There was Penelope, a Cairn Terrier who enjoyed jumping all over Beatrice and barking her brains out during their walks. Mrs. Peterson’s Miniature Schnauzer, Duke, was spunky and loveable. He pulled on the leash occasionally, but Beatrice said she didn’t mind. He was too small to drag her anywhere. And Mrs. Levine’s Boston Terrier, Brutus, liked to lick Beatrice all over her face and then promptly fart.
“What?!” Clara asked that evening, laughing while she stirred their clam chowder in a pot on the stove.
“That’s what they do,” Beatrice explained. “Boston Terriers fart. You see, they have these scrunched up faces, and when they eat, they inhale a lot of air. It’s got to come out some way.” She paused and then made a farting noise causing Clara to double over with laughter. “I looked it up on the school computer. They’re called Brachycephalics.”
“Brachycephalics, huh?” Clara said amused. “Did you have to ask someone how to pronounce that?”
Beatrice looked deeply offended. “I can sound out words, Clara.”
“I’m sorry,” Clara said smiling. “Please continue.”
“So anyway,” Beatrice went on, “dogs with squished up faces are called Brachycephalics.”
“Interesting,” Clara replied spooning soup into bowls. She splurged at the grocery store and bought Cheez-Its to go with the soup because they were her favorite snack and she seldom got to eat them. She made sure to use a coupon, though, that she had clipped from the newspapers she took from the residents’ recycling bins on Oak Tower Trail. She discovered by accident the coupon flyers in the newspapers one evening when she was organizing the papers on the kitchen floor. There were loads of them left in the papers carelessly. Wasted money, Clara thought, but then why would the residents of Oak Tower need to use them?
She spent the rest of that evening clipping and organizing her coupons, stashing them greedily in a recipe box she found in a kitchen cabinet. She had entered a small room in heaven when she came across the Cheez-Its coupon. She could justify buying a box, and she squealed with glee.
“I’m glad you like your job, Bea,” Clara said, opening the box of crackers and pouring a small amount on the table beside her soup bowl.
“I really do, Clara,” Beatrice replied. She grabbed the box and dumped a liberal amount of crackers on the table.
“Bea, those are expensive,” Clara pointed out, but she knew she wanted to eat the whole box and figured that since she splurged at the grocery store even with a coupon, she could afford herself the same pleasure at the dinner table. “Oh nevermind,” she said, and grabbed the box. She shook it and watched a stream of goldeny-orange crackers pour forth, collecting in a generous hill next to her soup.
“Do you like your job, Clara?” Beatrice asked between spoonfuls of soup.
“It’s okay,” Clara said. “I just stand behind a register most days and ring up clothes. I like to look at them.”
“Does it make you wish you had them?” Beatrice asked, slurping her soup.
“Bea, don’t do that. It’s unmannerly,” Clara said. She thought that perhaps this was something a mother would say.
“But it’s just us,” Beatrice argued.
“It doesn’t matter. You should have good manners whether you’re alone or out in public,” Clara explained. She was careful to make no sound with her soup when she drank it off the spoon.
Beatrice ignored her as she munched on a Cheez-It. “Does Evan ever talk to you at school?” she asked suddenly.
Clara tensed immediately. “Why would he?”
“I don’t know. He came to talk to you at Open House,” Beatrice said. “Is he your friend?”
Clara laughed bitterly. “No, Bea. He’s not my friend.” She shoved a cracker in her mouth.
“Do you have any friends at school, Clare-Bear?” Beatrice asked.
“Why are you asking me that?” Clara said feeling the beads of sweat prickle her underarms. She didn’t like where this conversation was going.
“Because you should,” Beatrice replied. “And that’s what you wished for.” She picked up her bowl and tilted it to her lips draining the last of its contents.
Clara stared at her mountain of crackers. She had forgotten that she wished for a friend back in the springtime when she and Beatrice sat among the honeysuckle vines.
“You don’t need to worry about whether I have friends,” Clara said looking at her sister. “Worry about yourself.”
Beatrice grunted. “I think you should be friends with Evan,” she suggested. “He’s nice, and he’s cute.”
“Bea,” Clara said. She couldn’t help grinning. “I thought you didn’t look at boys that way.”
“I don’t,” Beatrice said. She walked her bowl over to the kitchen sink. “I mean, I don’t care about boys, but I can still appreciate when they’re handsome.”
Clara burst out laughing.
“What?” Beatrice asked.
Clara finished her soup and carried her bowl to the sink. “Nothing,” she said shaking her head and looking down at her blond-haired sprite of a sister.
“You wished to fall in love, too,” Beatrice went on. A mischievous smile played on her lips.
“Bea . . .”
“I’m just saying,” Beatrice replied shoving the sink stopper in the drain and turning on the faucet. She filled the basin with cold, soapy water. “I’ll wash. You dry.”
***
Evan had not approached Clara since the odd cafeteria incident. She was uncertain about what he was doing. He made a point of saying hello to her in the hallways if he passed by her, but he didn’t go out of his way to have a conversation with her like he did at lunch. She feared he lost interest because she was such a poor conversationalist around him. If only he could see the way she interacted with Beatrice, but then he had, at least a little, at Open House a few weeks ago.
She stood at her locker at the end of the day packing her book bag, laughing disdainfully to herself as she considered the idea that he lost interest. That would imply that there was interest to begin with, and she could not bring herself to believe it. Why in hell would a guy like Evan want anything to do with her? He was social and amiable. She was awkward and quiet.
She couldn’t believe she got up early this morning to fix her face. Normally she wore very little to no make-up, but she took special care this morning to look pretty. She wore her hair off of her face in a loose ponytail to draw attention to her facial features—her eyelashes long and dark with the mascara, her high cheekbones a healthy glow with the blush. Her full lips glistened with cherry gloss she applied in the parking lot of the school. He said hello to her in the morning then brushed by her without a second glance, and she decided there was no need to reapply her lip gloss at any point during the rest of the day.
She closed her locker door and jumped.
“Jesus!” she gasped. “You scared me!”
“Sorry,” Florence said grinning. “Heading to work?”
“Yes, as usual,” Clara replied.
“Well, what’s the deal with our project?” Florence was Clara’s science lab partner. She stood staring at Clara, her glasses slightly smudged, straight hair hanging limp like most girls’ hair did at the end of the day.
“I suppose we could finish it tomorrow after school. I’m not scheduled to work.”
She watched as a group of four girls passed by them and giggled.
“Weirdos,” one of the girls said under her breath.
“Can you believe Evan talked to her in the cafeteria?” another asked.
“Momentary lapse in judgment,” a dark-haired girl replied, and all four girls laughed.
Clara felt her face go hot with shame. They were talking about it. People at school were talking about the cafeteria episode. That was probably why Evan stopped talking to her. She was sure he was emb
arrassed by it, but fortunately for him he had good friends around to set him straight, remind him that he wasn’t a nobody at school but that if he continued talking to her, he would be. They got him back on course, went over the list of acceptable people he could chat with, and she wasn’t on it.
“Clara?” Florence asked.
“Hmm?”
“Those girls are pretty. And they have a lot of money most likely. And they’re popular. And they have nice clothes.”
Clara waited for the “but.”
“But nobody likes them. Not really. They’re mean and hateful.”
Clara smiled.
“And jealous,” Florence added.
“Okay,” Clara said softly. She didn’t believe for one second that those girls were jealous of her, but she appreciated Florence’s pep talk. “I’ll meet you in the lab tomorrow after school, okay?”
Florence nodded, the sunlight through the hallway window catching her glasses and obscuring her eyes. She looked silly and sweet.
“Bye Florence,” Clara said, waving as she walked towards the stairwell.
She fumbled through her purse for her car keys. She hated her purse. It wasn’t even large and yet she constantly lost all sorts of things in it, and they usually happened to be important things.
“Goddamnit,” she said angrily. She was glad Beatrice wasn’t around. She tried hard not to curse around her sister, believing that as stand-in mother she wasn’t allowed to. But she said the words silently in her heart or out loud when she was alone, and figured she was going to hell for it among other things. She didn’t take her sister to church. They didn’t pray or do any volunteer work to help others. Beatrice questioned her belief in God and wanted to conduct séances every night until the electricity came back on. She was aching to, she told Clara. Oh yes, Clara thought. I’m going straight to hell. I’m the worst parent in the world.
“So it’s a goddamnit situation, huh?” Evan asked approaching Clara.
Clara whipped her head around to see the green-eyed boy staring down at her, the sunlight catching the pale blond highlights in his hair. He had his hands in his pockets, his bag thrown carelessly over his shoulder looking stress-free. As usual.
