Darnay Road

by Diane Munier

  So next day we take the cookies, well my Granma is holding them and all the way fussing about how she better not miss The Edge of Night and I’m walking too fast cause she has bunions which sounds like onions in her shoes, but I don’t say that either cause she also has corns and I say onions and corn in her shoes and she never thinks that is funny.

  We get to Miss Little’s and it is all creepy and shut up tight and Easy has cleaned the yard and now all the bald patches show, but at least there’s no trash around. We go on the porch and Granma steps right up and knocks with her free hand that’s wearing the cotton glove and holding the other glove as the other hand is holding the plate, an old one she doesn’t expect to ever see again, she told me, and I think she might be right.

  Well Miss Little doesn’t answer.

  “Oh Miss Little,” I say. I sing it kind of. That’s how we call one another around here. But she don’t open either. My Granma is trying to get me to look at her so we can go, but I ‘look the other way,’ cause maybe Miss Little is trying to find her housecoat or something not that being in her slip usually stops her.

  “This is why we hire priests,” Granma says mostly to herself and she knocks again. “…never does work out when I go against my own intuition,” she is saying, and I keep looking the other way.

  The door cracks a little. Miss Little is looking out, first at me, then her eyes, well eye gets bigger when she sees Granma.

  “Viola?” she says.

  Granma clears her throat. “Well for heaven sakes Lavinia I didn’t know if you’d remember me or not.”

  The door widens some and you can feel the heat come out, and the smell, ooo-eee.

  “I remember,” Miss Little says. “You brought John’s lunchbox that time.”

  Granma laughs. “Well he did leave it sitting on the side of that truck and it fell right in the street in front of my house. Don’t imagine he had much to eat that day come noon.”

  Now you could blow me down with a feather and pick me up with a shovel. Granma knows Miss Lavinia Little more than I realized.

  “Well I ain’t fixed for company,” Miss Little says.

  It smells so sour around here. Worse than Easy’s house that day.

  “Well this here is my grand-daughter Georgia Christine.” Then Granma seems to remember the cookies and shoves them toward Miss Little. “We brought you these. Don’t care about the plate, so….”

  Miss Little doesn’t even look at the cookies. She’s looking at me. “She comes around,” she says not friendly but more like she’s suspicious of me.

  “Well,” Granma says, “she’s up and down here.”

  “She looks in my windows sometimes,” Miss Little says gathering a dirty housecoat under her chin…hairs.

  I am open-mouthed looking at Granma. I didn’t look in Miss Little’s window on purpose, not up close. But I did see my kittens in there so pardon me.

  “Miss Little,” I say, “I meant no harm. I saw some kittens, that’s all. You still have them…those kittens?”

  Granma clears her throat and goes right on talking like I haven’t spoken.

  “As I was saying, we just brought those cookies. You doing all right Lavinia?” Granma says.

  “They look in my windows at night and come in my house sometimes,” she says, widening the door even more so we can see up and down her. She has the dirtiest feet ever and cracked toenails. I start over at the top and her hair is just a mess.

  “Lavinia you got someone looking after you?” Granma says.

  “I don’t want them to come in, but they do.”

  Granma breathes in. “Who comes in?”

  “They sneak in when I go to the bathroom. And night they are in the attic, the basement. I hit the ceiling with the broom and I say, come on. But those kind never show.”

  “Are you eating?” Granma asks more weakly.

  “They poison my food and my water,” she says eying that plate suspiciously. Miss Little folds her arms and stands one foot atop the other.

  “Family coming around? Your sister?” Granma says.

  “She tries to tell me what to do, always telling me like Mother,” Miss Little says. “Have you seen John?”

  Oh boy. I can see how sorry Granma is that she didn’t just stay in her chair.

  Once we get home from Miss Little’s Granma says to make her a glass of tea and don’t talk to her for a while.

  “Are you mad?” I ask.

  “I am not mad,” she says. “I am done with the troubles of this world. Get me some tea.”

  I go inside and sigh and leave my sun-hat on a hook in the hallway. It is so much work to try and end poverty. Miss Little did finally take the cookies though and there was a cat, one I’d not seen before. I get to wondering if her house is more like a pass-through for animals the way it is a cut-through for humans going from Darnay back to the tracks or Scutter. I think we could fill a whole set of encyclopedias with the mysteries I have not solved. One thing though, Granma had a life before I was born even, a whole life. I can barely believe it.

  On the way home she said if John saw the state of that house he would rise from the grave. “From the grave!” she said. She is more upset than I ever saw coming. She made several declarations as we walked home so quickly I had to run every few steps to keep up cause Granma didn’t seem to remember her corn or her onions.

  Granma may not be mad at me, but she is mad at someone. I just don’t know who.

  Who in their right mind would ever, ever know Easy would like The Barbie Game. He loves that game. It’s about Barbie getting the best dress and the best boyfriend so she can be queen of the prom. It’s the most wonderful game ever and I’ve only ever played it with Abigail May and a couple of times Ricky and now I’m playing it with Easy on Granma’s porch.

  I am lying on my stomach, my face resting on my hands and my elbows planted on the thick glossy paint on the porch floor. I’m so happy I could die cause Easy, who is sitting cross legged and kind of bent over the board, just got Poindexter. It’s so funny. He’s trying to make a mean face at me, and I would be scared if he meant it, but he doesn’t ever mean it comes to me.

  I got Ken and I’ve been so happy.

  “Why you like Ken so much?” he says.

  “Cause he’s the handsomest one,” I say like he should know that. “And he goes with Barbie.” Then I pull forward and say, “Ken and Barbie?” I make my eyes pop at him, then I cross them and he laughs.

  “They are going to stay like that,” Granma says and I don’t even think she is looking she’s so buried behind the pages of her book.

  I back down and relax a little and I have to blink a few times to straighten out my gaze.

  “Everyone knows that,” I say rubbing my nose.

  “You’ve got freckles,” Easy says and I see Granma pull her book down a little.

  “So do you,” I say.

  “I do not,” he says.

  I get up on my knees and move my pointer to his nose and I’m counting. “You’ve got twelve, one for each year,” I say.

  He reaches quick and tickles under my arm and I pull my chicken wing into my side and fall on the board laughing and the game is a mess.

  Granma has laid her book on her lap now. “Georgia Christine,” she says like I’m pretty rowdy.

  “Sorry Granma,” I say getting up quick, but I smile at Easy. Sometimes I just do stuff and I don’t know where it comes from. I get this energy and it’s hard to sit still. I do eat Wonder Bread all the time and I think it comes from that.

  We clean up the game and I ask Granma if I can go with Easy to Mac’s and get a Fudgesicle. “I’ll bring you one,” I say.

  Well the crickets have started up and the sun is going down, and there’s Mass in the morning. That means she’ll want to wash my hair and watch Roy and Dale but I’m starting to like Jackie Gleason best and sometimes we’ve been watching him. But right now with Easy waiting, I don’t care.

  She looks at me like she don’t know what to
do with a little girl again. “Get some money out of the jar for you and Easy.”

  I start to go in then I say, “Granma can I show Easy my room?”

  Well she makes this terrible face like I asked her to tell me where Cain got his wife or something. “Five minutes,” she says.

  So Easy follows me in and he’s walking lazy and I am already on step number seven and I say, “Get the lead out.” And I run the rest of the way cause he takes the first three steps right off and catches up in one second, so I get to the top and he does too and we just look at each other so I take his hand and lead him down the hall to my room.

  I run in first and dive onto my bed and he’s standing in the doorway looking around with a big smile. He’s looking all over and I’m lying there watching him admire it. Then I sit up, I think what if he’s never had anything nearly this nice and it’s like I’m bragging, but he doesn’t seem to take it so. He takes one step in and he’s still looking.

  “You are a ballerina,” he says.

  My dolls are on my shelves. I forgot about those. But he doesn’t ask.

  “You like pink,” he says.

  Well I can’t deny that. I’m sitting in the middle of it. “And red,” I say. “And anything cherry. That’s my very favorite flavor and Abigail May banana.”

  Then I lose steam cause maybe I sound like a big baby.

  “I know you like cherry,” he says cause he should by now.

  I hop up and go to my piggy bank. Easy is running a finger along my record player. “Dad bought me that two Christmases ago. I put some of the records on top of my radiator and they melted.”

  He looks at me like I’m a Martian.

  “Well I did,” I say.

  “Which ones?” he says.

  “Frosty the Snowman and Alvin and the Chipmunks and I forget.”

  “Dang,” he says.

  My bank is a pink pig with daisies over her ears and a big smile under her snout. She has a rubber stopper on her belly so I can get the money out without breaking her. I learned that lesson the hard way on my first piggy bank. I saved all that money and when I needed it I had to break the pig to get to it. I’ll never do that again.

  I get some money out. A whole dollar. I only have a dollar seventy-two. I’ve been saving for Granma’s Christmas present, but I can save more.

  “C’mon,” I say cause those five minutes are probably up. He’s at my jewelry box and I see him take something.

  I pretend I don’t see it, but I do.

  So we go downstairs and my tummy hurts. I know Easy took something. How could he steal from me? I know he has stolen other things, and I know it’s because of poverty and being a heathen. But if he wanted something of mine, he only has to ask. He stole from me and I’m his friend.

  So he wants to ride me on his handlebars to Mac’s and I don’t want Granma to see so we just walk. I am so mad, so upset.

  We just walk quiet and I have my arms folded and I’m not even looking at him. Here he’s been a real good influence on me and my Granma, helping in our yard and inspiring us to look after others, starting with him. But stealing from me when I took him in my own room? It’s just unthinkable.

  I stop there and turn toward him. “I saw you take something out of my jewelry box Easy. And I’m just so, so mad.”

  His hand touches over his pocket first, then it slides in there and he pulls out a barrette, a plastic one I don’t even care about. It’s pink.

  Well I’m looking at his fingers holding that. I love his hands pretty much, they’re so strong and they are twice the size of mine, cause we compared. And that barrette looks so ridiculous held there.

  “Why?” I say, I barely ask it.

  He shrugs and he spits.

  “Well you can have it,” I say.

  He holds it for me to take it. “I don’t want it.”

  Well here he is just wanting this thing of mine. I don’t understand him at all.

  We’re looking at each other. Easy seems mad at me now.

  “I’m not mad anymore. I just didn’t know,” I say.

  “So?” he says. Oh he don’t mean it. He don’t know what to say.

  “I want you to have it.”

  “I don’t want it,” he says, so I take it. I am purely hurt over it now.

  “Go on home,” he tells me. But his bike is at my house. He crosses the street and takes off and pretty soon he’s running.

  I don’t call after him. I want to, but he doesn’t want my barrette and he doesn’t want me.

  I am walking along home my feet weighing ten pounds each. I don’t think I can bear Easy being mad at me. What if he doesn’t come around anymore? But his bike is at my house. He has to come for it.

  That’s when I see the strangest thing. I’m about even with Miss Little’s but I’m walking on the other side of the street. And Disbro Peak comes out of her house. He jumps off her porch and he sees me and I look away cause he’s so foul. “Moondoggie,” he calls and he laughs and I just walk faster and faster but what in the world is he doing in Miss Little’s house?

  Such a powerful thing wells up in me. I miss Abigail May. I need her. First thing I have to work on is getting her back. No, no that’s the second thing. First is making things right with Easy.

  I get home and I deal with Easy’s bike and go back around to the front. Granma is inside and soon as I hit the screen I hear the laughter from the television. She’s going to wash my hair. That’s when I’m going to tell her about Abigail May’s letter and how Figley doesn’t treat her well, not even letting her have very many stamps and Gloria Sue never paying attention. I figure Aunt May will know soon as church is out tomorrow. That’s when I’ll fill in the rest, over lunch—Abigail alone all day and going to public cause it’s too expensive and Ricky needing to earn his keep.

  It’s all a very little girl can do on that.

  For the rest, well Easy’s bike is under the cellar door on the steps. But he won’t be able to see it. Once Granma is asleep I’ll be waiting for him on the porch. I know he’s embarrassed. I think he is. But I understand, I do. It’s just Easy. He can’t turn away from me. I’ll fight so hard for him. I will tell him how much I love him and that he can’t go away. He’ll see then.

  And I’ll tell him about Disbro Peak coming out of Miss Little’s house. My intuition tells me it’s no good at all. If anyone can get to the bottom of it Easy can. My Easy.

  Darnay Road 36

  My braid is heavy and wet against the back of my robe. I have on my pink nightgown with the small embroidered cherries all over it. The cherries are red. I have on my white eyelet robe and my thongs, of course and I am sitting on the porch in the dead of night and even with Mass tomorrow I have seen Father Anthony walk up to big gray and knock on the door and Aunt May let him in.

  Lord Almighty, as Granma would say. But Granma is sound asleep upstairs and so is Little Bit. I am in the lounger and just waiting cause I’ve walked up and down hoping Easy will come. I’ve even thought of riding his bike to his house, and I will if he doesn’t show. I will go to any lengths to set this right. I can’t lose Easy because he’s the best boy in the world.

  I wait and wait and next I know he’s waking me up. Well I nearly have a heart attack and I yelp and good thing you can’t wake up Granma so easily or I might be in big trouble now. But we do see Father Anthony leaving Aunt May’s.

  I hold onto Easy’s arm and put my finger to my lips so he’ll be quiet. We watch those two walk to Aunt May’s fence and then she goes in and Father Anthony walks down the street to where I know he parks.

  “He goes there all the time,” Easy says.

  Well I’m so glad he’s talking to me. “How do you know?” I say, cause I know, but I didn’t think he’d know.

  “I see him. He parks down the road toward Scutter.

  “Old news,” I say.

  Well we are watching each other now.

  “They are really, really good friends, probably,” I say. Catholic priests never fall in
love with women and make them special girlfriends, but I am starting to wonder about this.

  “How should I know? I don’t care,” Easy says and he walks to the end of the porch and spits over the rail.

  I swing my legs off the lounger cause I’m not letting him get away so fast.

  “Are you still my friend?” I ask him. The Barbie game is on the table that sets against the house. I wish we could go back to that and I could do things right.

  “Where’s my bike?”

  “Why?”

  “Cause I ride it?” he says like I’m simple.

  “I mean…I put it under the cellar door.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “So no one would take it. Or…maybe so you wouldn’t just leave. I mean…are you mad at me, Easy?”

  “You hid my bike?” he says like he’s having trouble believing it.

  “Well are you…mad?”

  “No. It’s just….” He looks off shaking his head.

  “Well me and Granma love you pretty much,” I say, and even I know I just laid my very best card on the table.

  He makes this sound like, ‘what?’

  “It’s true,” I say. “We think the whole world of you, Easy. Please don’t go away.”

  “Where would I go?” He takes a step closer.

  “I don’t know. Just get mad and not come around, or maybe go back to Shoehorn.” I can barely stand to say it the thought is just so terrible.

  “Don’t cry,” he says.

  “I’m not,” I say wiping under my nose with my sleeve.

  He laughs a little. “You are,” he says.

  “I’m not,” I say more fierce. I don’t know why, here I am trying to get him to not be mad and I’m yelling at him.

  “Why are you so mad?” he says.

  “Because you make me so…so….” Now I am crying.

  “Just get in the house. I’m going,” he says.

  “No. I,” now I have hiccups, “I wanted to…give you…give you…,” I’m fumbling in the pocket of my robe and my hand gets caught cause the pocket is so, so deep. “I just wanted to give you this,” I say.