Nash set Sage up with Baby, then I stood to one side of Scout and held firm to Sage’s waist. “It’s okay,” I whispered when she stiffened in my arms.
“Come on, Night,” Baby called. “Get here in the picture. You stand on the other side of Scout.”
Nightingale stood still for a second. “Night,” I begged. “Come on.”
“Hurry,” Baby screamed.
Finally Nightingale came into the corral, barefoot in her nightgown the way she always was, taking careful steps to miss the horse turds. Both of us held tight to Sage’s waist. “Great!” Nash said. He looked at us through his camera, snapped our photo from one spot, then the next. “Pony rides and popcorn,” he said. “You kids could be my story. Minnesota off the beaten track.”
22
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
Us?” I gulped.
“We’d be in a magazine?” Baby shrieked. “Like Miss Addie’s movie stars?”
“Could be,” Nash grinned.
“You mean you’d write a story about us?” I asked. “Our business would be famous?” At least we’d be famous in Chicago—far enough from Goodwell that Old Finn would never know. The county people either. “Like the Jackson Five or the Osmonds?” Those singing kids were always on the covers of the magazines at Need-More. Now it would be us.
“Not the Jackson Five exactly,” Nash said. “It’s a travel magazine. We’re not talking about Time.”
A look of horror darkened Nightingale’s face. “No,” she said. “We don’t want our picture or our story in a magazine.”
“I do,” Baby argued.
“It’d be off in Chicago?” I asked Nash just to be sure.
“Well, I haven’t written it yet.” Nash laughed. “I’m not even certain of the angle. But if I were a tourist here for novelties, this is one place in northern Minnesota I’d sure stop. Pony rides and popcorn, Sugar Smacks and coffee, three kids running their own business and all for a good cause.”
“Don’t forget we’re selling souvenirs,” Baby added.
Nash laughed again. Baby was so cute, Nash would probably write the whole story about Baby. “One more run around the yard,” he said to Sage. “And then we ought to leave.” He lifted her from Scout, and then he lifted Baby. “Wait,” he said before they took off for their race. “Let me just get one more for the road.”
Baby posed with his arm flung over Sage’s shoulder, black stitches like a path along his chin, his missing two front teeth. Already I could see him on the cover in his cowboy boots and Wranglers. I wished Mama were alive to see us on the stands.
“Old Finn likes his privacy,” Nightingale said to Nash. He did, but Old Finn would never have to know.
“If I decide to write it, and my editor approves it, I’ll need your mom’s okay. I can ask Old Finn as well, if she thinks that would be necessary.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just go ahead and write it if you want. But can we get a copy here? Three so we can have them for our keepsakes?” We’d have our magazine the way Miss Addie had the clippings from her plays.
Nash laughed. “I can see you really are the boss.” He pulled a tiny spiral notebook from the pocket of his jeans. “I need a name and number to reach your mom. That way I’ll have it for permissions.”
“Justine,” I said. I didn’t want Mama to be Addie Lee again. Then I rattled off a number that started 653, because 653 was a made-up number not anywhere near Goodwell.
“Justine?” He held the pen over the paper, waited for the rest of Mama’s name.
“Justine Matisse,” I said. It was an artist’s name I remembered from the letter.
“Matisse as in the painter?”
“Yep,” I said. “Exactly.”
“So your last name is Matisse?” He wrote it down, then slid the notebook back into his pocket. “Well, no wonder she likes France.”
• • •
“Pride!” Nightingale scolded the second Nash and Sage were gone. Her cheeks were pink, her fists clenched white with rage. “All those lies. And now we’re in a magazine.”
“Not yet,” I said. “It isn’t even written.”
“We’ll be in the Need-More with the groceries!” Baby cheered. “And Wagner Drug. We’ll be right there on the newsstand like Miss Addie’s magazine. And they’ll read about our pony rides and popcorn. And Scout. And me and Sage on Hercules. Maybe my new baseball mitt will be in the story, too!”
“They’ll read we’re earning for a charity,” Nightingale said. “And that Mama’s name is Justine Matisse. Justine? Mama’s name is Bridget.” She glared at me. “Look at what you’ve done, Pride. You’ve caused all kinds of harm.”
“Not harm,” I said. My cheeks were burning, too. I didn’t want to harm my family; it was my job to keep us safe with Old Finn gone. “I’m just good at telling stories, thinking up fast answers for the questions strangers ask. Same way you’re good at math. And geography. And learning. And Baby’s good at hunting and jumping off the swing and making people happy. I can make up stories, so I do.”
“Pride,” Nightingale huffed. “We can’t be famous and a secret all at once. And Old Finn would never want our story—”
“It won’t be us exactly. It’s only sort of us. Half us and half people I made up. And we won’t be famous really. Nash said so himself. It’s just a little story. In Chicago.”
Nightingale stormed up toward the cabin. “A little story full of lies,” she said. “And all of them are yours.”
23
HELTER-SKELTER
The three of us were quiet setting up our souvenir shop. I built two simple shelves from bricks and boards. Baby lined his painted rocks up in a row. Nightingale arranged her crochet crosses, her bookmarks, the cotton hot-pads she wove on her small loom. I mixed a pitcher of Kool-Aid, baked a batch of oatmeal cookies we could sell. All that setup kept us busy, but still my head felt hot, my stomach swirled with shame. Nightingale was right; I shouldn’t have told so many lies to Nash.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said to Nightingale. Baby had gone off to find more trinkets for our shelves.
Nightingale straightened out her row of bookmarks. “Are you going to put your God’s eyes out here, Pride? Sell them for a dime at least?”
“I guess.” I didn’t want to think about God’s eyes. “Did you hear me say I’m sorry?”
“I did,” she said, but I could tell she didn’t forgive me. Especially for lying about Mama. “Whatever extra that we earn, it needs to go to charity.”
“Okay,” I said.
“At least he can’t get Mama to say yes,” Nightingale said, relieved. “So our story won’t be in his magazine. Old Finn will never see it. Or anybody else.”
“True,” I said, but I felt a little sad. I still wanted our family on the newsstand, this good business that we made, even if we weren’t quite the Jackson Five. “Poor Baby will be mighty disappointed.” I set the rooster cookie jar up on the top shelf. I could sell my cookies, even if they weren’t as fancy as Nightingale’s crafts. “And Nash was nice at least. Nothing like the tourists.” I didn’t want to end the subject with Nightingale mad.
“Nice?” Nightingale wrinkled up her nose. “You can’t trust a stranger, Pride. Not anybody. Old Finn’s told us that a hundred times. And there you were, trusting him too much. He could tell the county.”
“Tell them what?” I said. “I told him we had Mama and Old Finn.”
“That man could’ve been a spy, someone trying to get new information to put in Old Finn’s file.”
I’d forgotten Old Finn’s file; Nightingale understood that trouble with the government better than I did. “I didn’t say a word about the war or that Old Finn was against it. And I don’t think pony rides and popcorn could be trouble for Old Finn.”
“You don’t know who’s wa
tching,” Nightingale warned. Someday Nightingale would grow up to be a hermit exactly like Old Finn—all alone at Eden with her books.
“You never should have let him take our pictures,” Nightingale said. “Or told him all those things.”
“I know, I know,” I said, ashamed. I just wanted Nightingale to stop. I hated when she stepped into being older, or showed me I’d been stupid when I was supposed to be in charge. I felt better as the boss. “He was just so friendly,” I said. “Tossing the baseball, telling stories. Drinking coffee on our porch.”
“I saw that,” Nightingale snipped. “And he left without paying for those pictures after all.”
• • •
We didn’t have another customer that morning, and by noon a mass of storm clouds moved fast across the fields. “Hey,” I called. “It’s rain.” Nightingale and Baby were inside at the table, making a book of brand-new reading words Nightingale thought Baby ought to learn. Bat. Cat. Rat. Hat. I grabbed Woody Guthrie by the collar, yanked him through the door. Then I went back for the rooster jar of cookies, grabbed a bunch of Baby’s painted rocks. Nightingale’s lacy crosses lifted in the wind like little kites.
We all ran helter-skelter to save the souvenirs—Nightingale chasing down her crosses, Baby dumping a load of rocks into his shirt. I scooped up the God’s eyes and the hot-pads, the bookmarks, the key chain lanyard Baby had dug out of the junk drawer. By the time we’d got it all inside, and Atticus and Scout were already in their lean-to, a rush of rain was coming down in sheets.
“That’s it for our business.” Nightingale frowned. “No one’s going to come here in the rain.”
“Or hail!” Baby said. Tiny balls of white ice blanketed the grass; I opened the back door and set out a soup pan the way we always did with hail. Then the three of us curled up on the couch, the afghan stretched between us like it was winter in the cabin. The whole house smelled like cinnamon and sugar. I set the rooster jar down in the middle, held it while Nightingale and Baby grabbed a handful of oatmeal cookies made with extra chocolate chips the way that Old Finn liked. Once the rain was gone, I’d bring a little tin over to Miss Addie’s—do something right to make up for all the wrong.
“We can save the hail for Old Finn,” I said. Everything felt better under Old Finn’s afghan. “Store it in the freezer.” We couldn’t tell him most of the things that happened these last days, but at least we could tell about the storm. Old Finn loved a storm.
“Or sell some hail slushies,” Baby said. “A nickel each. We have the grape Kool-Aid!”
“Okay!” I took a bite of oatmeal cookie—a little dry and chewy the way I made them for Old Finn. “I got to save a tin to bring Old Finn. He’ll like these cookies in Duluth.”
“It’s already been four days,” Nightingale said glumly, like maybe we wouldn’t see Old Finn again.
“It has.” I nodded. “But we’ve gotten by okay.”
“Sort of.” Nightingale took a little nibble of her cookie; Nightingale always ate around the edge.
“We’re running our own business.” Baby grinned and Nightingale nodded.
“True,” she said. “But we’re not doing it for charity.” Then suddenly she turned to look at me, a sour scowl scrunching her small face. “And Pride?” she said. “Who’s Justine Matisse?”
24
REAL AND TRUE
I could’ve lied about Justine, but I didn’t want another black blot on my conscience. Instead, I told Nightingale and Baby to sit tight while I climbed up to the loft and got the letters. Then I settled back between them with the papers in my lap.
“What’s that?” Baby asked. He reached out for a letter, but I pushed his hand away. Baby’s hands were always grimy; I didn’t want his dirty fingers marking Old Finn’s letters.
“Don’t touch,” I said. “These are special to Old Finn.”
“Old Finn?” Nightingale asked. “You mean those letters are Old Finn’s?”
“Found them in his sock drawer,” I said quickly. “Yesterday, unloading his clean clothes.” I knew there was a lecture up ahead.
“And you just took them, Pride?”
“I did.” I swallowed hard. The cold truth was tough to tell, but I was happy for the practice. It was easier to tell the truth to Nightingale than to Nash.
“But that’s almost like my diary.” Nightingale frowned.
“I know,” I said. Nightingale had no idea how many times I’d stolen a quick peek inside her diary. “But I looked at these letters for Old Finn.”
Nightingale crossed her arms like she didn’t trust me.
“Old Finn might need some help,” I said. Help wasn’t really why I read them, but it sounded true enough. “And this Justine, maybe she could help.”
“That’s Justine Matisse?” Nightingale pointed at the stack of tissue-paper letters. “Help him how?” she asked. “Help him with his brain?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I know she used to love him.”
“Eeewww.” Baby put his hands over his ears. “Not love.”
“It’s love,” I said. “It’s right here in the letters. So if you don’t like love, you probably shouldn’t listen. Why don’t you get your box of soldiers and play in Old Finn’s room?” Army was a game Baby always played alone; none of us would help him play at war.
“You mean you’re going to read them?” Nightingale said. “Out loud?”
I hardly ever volunteered to read out loud, but Justine’s letters felt almost like my own. Like a little secret key I wanted in my pocket. If I was going to share her letters, I felt safest with them held between my hands.
“I don’t know that we should listen,” Nightingale said. “Those are Old Finn’s private things.”
“Up to you,” I said. “I can read them to myself. But you asked about Justine Matisse. The Matisse part I made up. Her name is Justine Ryan. But she really lived in France. And she paints fields like I said. That’s how I got the lie.”
Nightingale gnawed her lower lip. I could tell she was curious about the letters, whether reading them was doing wrong or not.
“The painting just sounds boring,” Baby moaned. He kicked free of the afghan. He was never going to sit still for the letters.
“Why don’t you go play army,” I said. “And then I’ll fix you lunch.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to play alone.”
“Okay,” I said, “then listen.”
October 12, 1972
“‘Dear Mick,’” I started.
“Mick?” Baby interrupted. “Old Finn isn’t Mick.”
“Ssshhh!” I scolded. “That’s what Justine calls him.”
“Sometimes I like to dream that you’ll come here to surprise me. That I’ll look down the dusty road that leads up to my cottage and there you’ll be, just as you were when I’d watch you stroll across the fields of Eden. Happy. Handsome. At home in Eden’s silence. I know that’s sentimental, but it’s those little things I think of often, love.”
“Love?” Baby groaned. “She called Old Finn love?”
“Where is she?” Nightingale wound one braid around her fingers.
“France,” I said. “I think she’s teaching painting. And she loved Old Finn before she left.”
“France?” Nightingale said. “Is that why we never met her?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve only read a few.”
“Maybe she’s dead,” Baby said, matter-of-fact. “Like Daddy and Mama. Maybe Justine died.”
A little shiver tingled up my spine. I didn’t want Justine dead.
“And that’s why Old Finn hid them in his drawer.” Nightingale pulled the afghan to her chin. “Because he loved her and he lost her.”
I looked down at the letters; the answer might be there. “That’s why I want to read,” I said
. “Because maybe if she’s living, she could help Old Finn get well. Love heals,” I said. “Like Mama always said.”
“She did?” Baby asked.
“Yep,” I said. “She said it all the time.”
• • •
We sat there in the rain, reading letter after letter, long enough that Baby crawled down from the sofa, curled up on the floor, and fell asleep on Woody Guthrie’s fur. Most of the letters were talk of love and France, but in one she’d sent a snapshot of herself. A woman painting at an easel. Neat white hair flipped under at her shoulders. A big straw hat tilted on her head. Justine. The woman Old Finn loved.
Justine’s letters were better than a book, because every word she wrote felt real and true and loving—her train trips to the city; fancy chocolate pastries; children skipping down the street; an artist on a farm who killed a chicken, then cooked it for Justine. She even wrote about the sheep, how she wished Old Finn had his own at Eden, because she loved the calm in their black eyes. “Like mine,” Nightingale peeped, but it barely broke the spell. Both of us were far away in France with tiny cups of coffee, strong cheese, and warm baked bread, the stone cottage near the sea. The white-capped waves crashing on the rocks.
25
HARD TIMES
We were reading of an Irish doctor Justine met near the sea, when suddenly Nightingale bolted from the couch. “Baby’s stitches! Miss Addie’s medicine! She has to have it, Pride!”
“It’s only one o’clock,” I said, “don’t worry. If we leave now we’ll make it there on time.” Outside, the rain had died to a light drizzle. Still, I wasn’t in a hurry to go all the way to town. “You get down the money.”
She climbed up to the counter, pulled down the coffee tin, put all we’d earned into my cupped hands, all in coins except Nash’s dollar bills. “Four dollars, twenty-five cents,” she said. We were lucky we’d sold so much to Nash.
“Don’t read ahead,” I warned. I didn’t want Nightingale to think those were her letters. I’d found Justine; she was mostly mine.
Keeping Safe the Stars (9781101591215) Page 8
