“Okay, Mr. Cook,” Neena called out to him, “I can stay. You can finish the story.”
“Story?” Tish said, a widening smile taking over her face, such a classic face with the pert nose and cleft in her chin and Gerber-baby brown eyes. “Ooh, I want to hear too, Mr. Cook.”
Cook was spreading sliced tomatoes on top of the cheese that covered the salami. Now he moved onto the onions. One eyebrow was slightly higher than the other as he worked, and Neena knew that meant that he was in deep contemplation so she hit Tish’s thigh to hush her persistent begging for a story. The store was in the middle of a lull. Not even the ring-chime-ring of the pinball machine so that they could almost hear the sounds as Cook pressed hot and sweet peppers and pickles on top of the onions and then sprinkled the creation with oregano and salt and pepper. He rolled the hoagie in wax paper and slipped it into a long brown paper bag. “Mackadoo’s with everything,” he called out to his wife.
Now he stood in front of the counter where Neena and Tish sat, both looking at him with anticipation. His dark, round face, usually shaped for laughter, was pointed, serious. “Well there was this one Halloween night,” he began slowly, “when your mother brought you girls in for trick or treat.”
“Trick or treat? You sure?” Neena asked. “My mother doesn’t believe in Halloween.”
“I know that to be so, but that wasn’t always the case,” he said, as he went to the sink next to the grill and squirted liquid soap on his hands, then rinsed them. His eyebrow settled into place and Neena nestled against the cracked leather back of the counter stool.
“Well, Nan believes in Halloween because we trick-or-treated every year that we lived here on a Halloween,” Tish said.
“We’re not talking about Nan, we’re talking about Mommy,” Neena said, an edge to her voice.
“Daag, girl. Take the boxing gloves off, please,” Tish huffed.
“Now the Halloween I’m thinking about,” Cook rushed to say, as he looked from Neena to Tish, then went to the ice-cream bin and reached in with his scoop and commenced to filling a silver canister with a mound of chocolate ice cream, then vanilla, then chocolate again. “You were still in your mother’s arms, Tish.”
“I was? My mother had me in her arms?”
“Sure nuff. Why surprised?”
“I guess I just don’t remember stuff about her like her arms, you know, her holding me.”
“That’s sad, Tish, that’s really, really sad,” from Neena.
“It’s not my fault if I don’t remember, Neena, okay. Isn’t that right, Mr. Cook? Anyhow Nan says some things are better unremembered.”
“And you’ll never catch me disagreeing with your grandmother, baby girl,” Cook said, winking at Neena as he poured milk and vanilla extract over the ice cream and set the canister on the blending machine and started it whirring. “Now if I recall correctly, the night I’m talking about was before your mother stopped observing Halloween. Just after sunset and the store was crowded with masqueraders holding out their bags. ‘Trick or Treat, Mr. Cook, Trick or Treat.’” He made his voice go high.
“Neena, you couldn’t been no taller than the seat of that stool you sitting on. You were a princess if I’ve ever seen one, a long sequined gown your mother had you in with a silver crown on top of your head and sparkles all along your cheeks.”
“What was I?” Tish asked.
“Only the cutest bunny rabbit to ever hop out of a cabbage patch. Your mother had even glued pieces of cabbage to your white furry costume. That Freeda was a creative something. Very artistic. Like your grandmother is artistic when it comes to a needle and thread.
“You were just a bouncing in your mother’s arms, Tish, having a grand old time, and you, Neena, were grinning like you always grinned when you were at your mother’s side. Then suddenly the store went black, pitch black, and at first no one said a word because everyone was so stunned. What’s the likelihood of a power failure on a Halloween night, like a bad Twilight Zone episode, like any second we’d hear Rod Serling say, ‘Submit for your approval,’ but anyhow, there we were, a store filled with people and no electricity. Then Tish, you broke the silence by crying—”
“Boy, that’s a surprise,” Neena said.
“But Mrs. C., the always-prepared, gets a hurricane lamp going, so people could see their way clear if they wanted to leave because at that point we didn’t know if the blackout was citywide, or just in the store. Come to find out it was just inside of the store, ’cause the porch lights all up and down the block were glowing bright. So the store emptied in a hurry, save for you girls and your mother.
“So Freeda was bouncing you, Tish, and holding you close trying to comfort you, telling you it was okay. Neena, you was even on your tiptoes encouraging your sister not to cry. Then you tugged your mother’s arm and told her that it was the wolf that was scaring Tish and she said ‘What wolf?’ and I was looking too ’cause I thought everyone had left, but sure enough, in the shadows of the corner of the store back by the pinball machine was the most realistic wolf, as realistic as a wolf could be standing on two legs.
“Sure nuff. So your mother hands you over to Mrs. C., Tish, and I’m holding my breath ’cause I know Freeda, you know, what she’s capable of. So she walks right over to the wolf. ‘You get a kick out of scaring little babies, huh? Why don’t you come out of that mask and really scare someone,’ she says.
“Now mind you, the store was being lit by Mrs. C.’s hurricane lamp that gave off a cha cha kind of light that made everything in the store at that moment take on an eerie feel. Especially when the wolf reared back and swiped its paw through the air, I’m telling you, that paw looked so authentic I wasn’t even surprised to see blood rush out of your mother’s cheek where the paw landed—”
“Blood?” Neena shrieked. “It bloodied my mother’s face? Is that where that scar came from on her face?”
Cook stopped the blender and squirted in a thick line of chocolate syrup, then stirred in the canister with a long-handled spoon. “But your mother grabbed the paw, Neena. Then grabbed the hood of the costume and yanked it off. And there was a grown woman standing there, short woman, not too bad to look at even beyond the scowl hung over her face that could have been its own mask, as entrenched it was. Then she started to cry. A defiant cry as she shook and raised her fists up and down. Freeda stood there at first with her mouth hanging, the line of blood thickening along her cheek, and I’m expecting her to go at the woman, Mrs. C. too, ’cause she gasped. Then you know what your mother did? She took the woman in a hug. Yes she did. Then this teenage girl runs in hollering, ‘Mom. Mom!’ And meanwhile her mother is struggling to break free from Freeda’s hug. ‘What’s happening in here?’ she asks. I guess it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the dimmed view coming from the hurricane lamp. Then she sees the blood coming from Freeda’s cheek. ‘Mom, what did you do?’ And she nudges her mother away from Freeda. Freeda telling her it would be okay, it was just a little scratch. Well, by then, Mrs. C. had put you, Tish, into my arms, then she was over there dabbing your mother’s cheek with peroxide, but Freeda waved her away and followed the girl and her mother out of the store.”
Cook put a widemouthed glass between Neena and Tish, a straw and napkin on each side of the glass. He poured the milk shake into the glass, then stared off into space. “And then what?” Tish asked on a whisper.
One of Cook’s eyebrows was raised again, even as he resumed. “Well,” he said slowly, “you were screaming inconsolably at the top of your lungs by then, Tish. And Neena, you tried to run outta the store behind your mother but of course we held you back. Then your mother returned, and like magic, the lights came on. And I said, ‘Freeda, you always could turn the lights on in my store with your smile.’ So she sat you right over there in that booth, Neena, and she arranged your arms for holding your sister, then she put Tish in your arms. And Tish, you settled right down with Neena holding you, you were just a-gurgling with contentment. And Mrs. C. went to
work cleaning up that cut on your mother’s face, it was a nasty cut, near as we could tell the woman must’ve been holding a hook of some kind. But anyhow, the night settled in and I commenced to satisfying the trick or treaters that filed back in once the lights reappeared, though in between I made the sweetest, thickest milk shake that I’d ever concocted to date, it was so thick, you had to slurp it down with a spoon, Neena, and every so often you put a spoonful to Tish’s mouth and she would just squeal with excitement.” He laughed then. “I sure do miss those days, surely, surely I do.”
“Well, what about the woman and her daughter? What did Mommy do when she went outside?” Neena wanted to know.
“Ah,” he said, shaking his head, “no story there. Drink up, girls, drink up.”
Neena persisted though. “Mr. Cook, she made my mother’s face bleed. You saying no one knows why?”
“Near as we can tell,” he said, as he concentrated on removing the blending sticks from the mixer, “the woman had a grudge against Freeda for some long-ago something. I can’t say really.”
“You can say, Mr. Cook. Please,” Neena begged.
“Well, baby girl, I do remember hearing that at some point your grandmother had to get involved and convince the woman that your mother’s mental health was sometimes on shaky ground. I never got much of the detail. And anyhow, I just told you the story to explain why I’m always saying that your mother would turn the lights on in here with her smile.”
“So that’s why she didn’t take us out for Halloween after that?” Tish asked. “Because of the lady and her daughter?”
“No,” Neena rushed to say. “Because she said people had enough real monsters in their lives without pretending to be monsters too.”
“But that’s the point, they are pretending,” Tish said, a question to her tone.
“Yeah, but think about it, Tish, who knows what images Mommy lived with in her head.”
Tish nodded. She listened to Neena and leaned in to sip at the milk shake. They both did. The chocolate syrup was prominent and they took turns saying, “Mnh.” In between Tish conceded how it was sad that she couldn’t remember the feel of her mother’s arms; Neena saying that she wished she’d been old enough to kick that wolf’s butt. And Cook left them be. He turned around to clean off his grill to get ready for the nightly round of steak orders, because people who ordered cheese steaks for dinner tended to eat them late. Then Nan stuck her head in the store. Said that she was ready to fit Tish for the semiformal cotillion dress she was making. Said she needed Neena to hand her the straight pins so she should come in now too. Tish jumped down immediately from the counter stool. Neena said she’d be right behind them. She wanted the chocolate remnants of the milk shake to linger for as long as possible, so she stayed at the counter scraping her straw against the bottom of the wide-mouthed glass.
She thought about the woman. She didn’t need Mr. Cook to draw for her a map of who the woman was. The woman obviously enraged because Freeda had been with her husband. Wondered if the husband was her father, the girl who came to get her mother her half sister. But then she covered the wondering with a wool blanket the way she’d been doing for several years since that Saturday afternoon when they were living with Freeda.
She was twelve, Tish eight. Tish was around the corner that afternoon at her Brownie meeting so Neena had her mother all to herself. They were playing pick-up sticks on the blond-colored Formica kitchen table and Freeda’s pile of red and yellow and blue sticks was much larger than Neena’s; a good sign to Neena because that meant that Freeda’s dexterity was appropriate, her hands were neither shaking the way they would when her mood was about to make like a cannon ball blasting, nor were her fingers thick and clumsy. Neena was chattering away, on that mountaintop where she’d perch when all was right with Freeda. She was telling Freeda about a girl who lived on Nan’s block who she couldn’t stand because the girl thought she was too cute for her own good. Plus she turned double-handed when they played rope, always keeping Neena from getting to ten-ten. “And guess what, Mommy,” she said then, “her father’s on drugs anyhow and who was my real father, Mommy?” The question just sneaked out like a jailbird making a break, as if the question had been sitting there in the corner of her cheek waiting for that exact moment to free itself. Neena didn’t even realize the ramifications of the question’s escape until she moved her tongue around, feeling the vacuum in her mouth where the question used to live. She looked at her mother then. But Freeda turned her face from Neena. She’d never done that before, turned her face from Neena. Even when she was in the throes of depression eating Argo starch by the boxful for hours at a time, Neena could still depict on Freeda’s face that unmistakable look of adoration for Neena. It would feel to Neena that Freeda could never tire of looking at her. But that Saturday afternoon as Freeda sat with her winning pile of pick-up sticks on her side of the kitchen table, she turned her face away. Her hair was pulled up in a thick roll and her profile with the dramatic cheekbones and set-back eyes looked as if it might shatter right there over the kitchen table like a smashed porcelain sculpture.
Neena rushed her words then. “Never mind, Mommy, you don’t have to say. It’s okay, it’s okay. Isn’t it okay, Mommy? Huh? Please Mommy, it’s okay?” She was crying in spite of herself, her words wobbling and barely able to stand as she vacillated between convincing Freeda that all was still well, and begging her for it to be.
Neena got up then and pushed through the air that suddenly sagged over the kitchen. She tugged Freeda’s shoulder. “Look at me, Mommy,” she said. “Come on, why won’t you look at me?” She tried to turn Freeda’s chin in her direction, couldn’t stand the feel of her mother’s resistance so she fell into her chest, crying, begging until she felt Freeda’s hand against her back, patting her back. “It was a mistake,” Freeda said, “just a mistake. It’s okay, Neena, it was just a very bad mistake.”
Neena didn’t ask her mother to define the mistake. Was he, the man her mother had spread herself for, the mistake? Had he been some worthless doo-wopper with processed hair that he kept tied under a red and white bandana. Or maybe a whiz at calculus who’d gotten a free ride to MIT, his parents daring Freeda to try to claim their genius son. Wondered if he was a sleazy married older man who’d taken advantage of her mother. Or was the mistake that Neena had asked, that she’d even wondered. Decided that day as her mother patted her back that she’d never wonder again, she’d strangle the need to know, throw a wool blanket over the need to know and twist its neck until its thrashing stopped.
Tish was back in the store calling to Neena’s back, “Nan’s getting impatient for you to help her with the straight pins,” she said.
“You better go to your grandmother, baby girl,” Mr. Cook said. “Always go to your grandmother when she calls.”
Chapter 6
UNABLE TO FORCE her legs to move beyond the space that used to be Mr. Cook’s store, that was now Spruce Beauty and Health Supply, to push further up Delancey Street to ask her grandmother for help, Neena caught the 42 bus back into town. She walked into the first pawnshop she came upon. This one called Gems Bought and Sold: We Pay Top Dollar for Gold and Silver Boutique. Business was popping in here and Neena was next in line, thankfully because she was exhausted. Thought back to when the last time was she’d slept reclining. Hadn’t slept at all last night, and the night before that had been spent on the Greyhound bus where her sleep was raggedy, a snatch here and there until her neck threatened to snap and she’d wake in a panic. Wondered how long a body could go without sleep before the imagination just took over and pulled the curtains to make the room dark, fluffed the pillows, turned down the bed like so much maid service. Never mind that you were really standing up in a line in a jewelry/pawn shop, head filled with crag-shaped worries about what to do from here; Grandmother’s voice telling you that you will lie; flutist’s voice asking you about a living bridge, Ramsey’s hardness trying to make itself felt in that West Philly bar, you laughed in tha
t bar. And this bed looks so good, the gold-foiled wrapped chocolate on the pillow, easy-listening classical music whispering through the speakers, knees about to bend to fall into this bed, when he, the jeweler, says, “Next.”
Neena blinked to bring herself back to here. Glad that a man’s voice had brought her back from the brink of the delusional bed she was about to fall into. She was hoping for a man from among the jewelers, two women and two men servicing this line. Her guy was South Asian brown with gray and white wiry hair springing from around his mouth, a pretty mouth, she thought, looking at him close-range now as she approached the counter and put Ramsey’s watch and ring on a felt square. He studied the watch and ring. She studied his mouth. She looked away because he was eyeing her now. “Whose?” he asked, dangling the watch between his fingers as if it were a dead mouse.
“My late brother’s,” she answered.
“Ring late brother’s too?”
She nodded. “The good die young.”
“ID?”
“His?”
“No, your own?”
“Oh, of course,” she said as she pulled up her wallet and flashed her Illinois driver’s license.
He patted the felt pad and she laid the open wallet there as he looked at the picture, then at her, then copied the license number down at the top of a yellow call slip. He walked away then, hit a buzzer on the wall, and went through a door. She stood there looking straight ahead, couldn’t see on either side of her because of dividers that kept the transactions private. She could hear spurts of the conversations though. A young brother sniping that this wasn’t supposed to be no donation, yo, just give me my shit back, he said. White girl on the other side angry too, though not at the associate, as she said, Whatever, I just want all vestiges of him gone, I’ll take whatever. Neena remembered reading how the jewelry was the thing first to go during the dot-com skid. Pawnshops became a cottage industry in Northern California. She had thought back then how stupid people were to assume that those good times would continue to roll. Maybe roll like an ocean giving and then taking back. Thought how stupid she herself was not to have secured her possessions in a safety deposit box outside of the apartment Cade kept for her. She pushed her coat sleeve back and looked at the gold cuff-type bracelet she wore. She pulled it from her arm and put it on the green felt square; did the same with her gold hoop earrings. She thought about adding her watch to the skid. Reasoned that she needed to know the time of day as her man walked back in her direction. Movements fluid like a tiger’s, strong like a tiger’s too.
Trading Dreams at Midnight Page 11
