Gladys turned the volume on the TV down, and made herself a cup of tea. Mel kept reading.
There are some things I need to work out. I’m sorry, Mel. I love you, like the flowers need the rain, I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.
Mel buried her face into the satin pillow, damming the tears that flowed down her cheeks, and she crumpled the damp sheet of paper in her fist. Her muffled sobs masked the sound of Gladys’s pacing back and forth from the table in the kitchen to the living room doorway.
30
The Locked Room
When Mel woke up the next morning, she was warm, and she found a second blanket on top of the crocheted one she normally slept under. She could hear Gladys in the kitchen. Mel got up, smoothed the crumpled letter she’d hung on to all night, folded the blankets, and walked into the kitchen on her way to the bathroom. The TV was off and she braced herself for what Gladys might say.
“Wasn’t my idea for her to go running off again.” Gladys paused, and Mel sensed that Gladys might actually be making room for her to say something, but Mel chose not to. Instead, she tucked the letter into her pocket.
“First she takes you in the middle of the night, doesn’t even say good-bye.” Gladys’s voice started to break up, and her eyes started to tear. “Tux was too sick to be gallivanting all over the country looking for you.”
Mel didn’t wait for Gladys to finish; she walked into the bathroom and closed the door. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were swollen from last night’s tears, but today her resolve had hardened: she would find Cecily.
“You can have the side room,” Gladys said as Mel walked back into the kitchen. There was a sense of urgency in Gladys’s voice, as though she wanted to settle on a decision regarding where Mel would stay – and she wanted to settle it now.
Gladys stood and walked over to the small enamel cupboard. She pulled first on one corner, then the other, walking it forward and away from the door. She unlatched the slide lock, opened the door, and turned on the light. For weeks, Mel had wondered what was behind that door, but today it didn’t matter.
For the most part, the room was empty. There was the frame of a wrought iron bed, an old dresser with a cracked mirror, and a piece of painted vinyl on the floor that was meant to look like carpet. A painted high chair sat in the corner. There was also a large steamer trunk.
“You can use the cushions off the couch until we get you a mattress. The trunk will have to stay for now … might be some things in there we could sell to get you some new sheets and a proper blanket.”
Mel glanced at Gladys’s angular frame standing just off to the side of the narrow doorway.
“I don’t need the side room,” Mel said defiantly. “I’m going to find Cecily.”
Mel turned, walked into the living room, gathered her library books, and stuffed the rest of her things into her backpack.
As she walked past the kitchen doorway to the apartment door, she caught a glimpse of Gladys. She was sweeping up bread crumbs.
“There’s no point looking for her,” Gladys said without looking up. “That’s what Cecily does – she disappears.”
Mel ignored Gladys’s words, and left.
Once outside, she looked down the street at Frohberger’s sign and decided to walk along Thirty-Seventh and back up Thirty-Ninth instead, and avoid the store altogether.
Now more than ever, she needed to conserve the little money she had left. On the way downtown, she dropped her books off at the library. She didn’t expect to run into Paul, but there he was. He appeared to be waiting for a man to finish talking with his mom. Mel figured it might be his dad.
Mel didn’t know what to say to Paul. For sure she wasn’t going to tell him about the letter or why Cecily had been in jail or about the shoplifting or the booze or the drugs. She wasn’t going to tell him about waiting outside in the cold for shelters to reopen, only to find out that they didn’t have any room. She wasn’t going to tell him about traveling from place to place and never belonging anywhere. She wasn’t going to tell him about eating in soup kitchens or about all the stupid lists that she and Cecily made. She knew that she wouldn’t tell him about Rose finding her under the overpass, or about begging for money, or about the judge telling her that she was important. She knew she would not tell him that he was her first real friend. She wasn’t going to tell him how great it felt to laugh with him. She wasn’t going to tell him about any one of those things. And so when Paul spotted her and ran over and asked if she was okay, Mel lied. But just looking at him, she saw he knew the truth.
“I’ve got to go,” she said.
“What’s happening?”
“I’ve got to go,” Mel repeated.
“I’ll come with you,” Paul said as he gave a quick glance in the direction of his mom and the man on the other side of the counter.
“No, I’ll see you later,” Mel told him.
In fact, she didn’t actually know when or if she would see him again. She turned and left the library. If anyone knew where Cecily was, it would be Rose. Mel continued on down the street to the soup kitchen. As she walked, she made a mental list of all the places Cecily had told her about on the first night. Places to bask in the sun, or sing for cash, or hang out with friends. She planned to go by them all.
She looked into the face of every person she saw on the street, hoping to find someone who would tell her they’d seen Cecily just up that way, just over there, just a few minutes ago. But what she really feared was that Cecily was lying in an alley somewhere, next to a dumpster, cold and alone.
As Mel opened the back door to the soup kitchen, she pulled the letter from her pocket. Rose was preparing lunch. Fearless immediately found her. She lifted him into her arms and he began to purr. Mel could tell by the look on Rose’s face that Rose knew why she’d come.
“She’s not here,” Rose said, hardly looking up.
“But she was, wasn’t she?” Mel stood there, stroking Fearless’s head and back.
“You’ve got a roof over your head; you’ve got food on the table and a warm place to sleep. The streets are no place for a kid,” Rose said as she continued chopping carrots into little discs.
Tears began streaming down Mel’s face. “So is she coming back?”
Rose stopped what she was doing. Gus, who was standing nearby, continued chopping, but said nothing.
Mel set Fearless back down on the kitchen floor and walked toward the back door.
Rose laid the knife on the counter. “She’s giving you the only chance you’ve got at a decent life,” Rose said.
“What do you mean ‘a decent life’?” Mel shouted. “She left me with an angry old woman who hates me! You call that a decent life? You told me everything was going to be okay. Do you remember that?”
Rose walked over to the closet by the back door, retrieved her purse, and brought out a black-and-white strip of photographs of Mel and Cecily.
“Cecily asked me to give this to you,” Rose said as she handed Mel the print.
Mel remembered it from the photo booth in the mall the summer before. “She’s not coming back, is she?”
“I don’t know,” Rose said, looking Mel straight in the face.
“I’m going to find her.”
“Now, just hold on a minute,” Rose called out. “I’m coming with you. We’ll take the van.”
Mel stood next to the van while Rose unlocked the doors, and then they climbed in. Fearless meowed at the van door. Rose picked him up and set him on Mel’s lap.
They drove down every alley and every street in the downtown. They went to the campsite Cecily had talked about on the first night in Riverview and by the overpass. Mel got out and called Cecily’s name. She was nowhere.
“So tell me,” Rose asked, ending the silence as they drove back into town, “did you get the job at the library?”
“Yeah,” Mel answered.
“What do you do?”
“I just read stories to kids.
”
“Do you like it?”
“I did.”
“What’s the best part?”
“I thought she’d come back,” Mel said, unable to make small talk.
“This isn’t necessarily forever. It’s just for now. It’s what is best for now,” Rose said.
“Did she tell you she’d come back for me?”
“She just told me she was doing what was best for you. I know it isn’t any of my business, but I think she’s right.”
After a few minutes, Rose spoke again.
“Fearless and I will drive you back to your grandmother’s.”
“I already told her that I didn’t need the room,” Mel said.
She cradled Fearless in her arms. Rose continued to drive. Neither of them said anything until they reached the corner of Thirty-Seventh and Maple; Rose pulled the van into a parking spot.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” Rose asked.
“No, I can go by myself.” Mel opened the door, got out, and set Fearless on the van seat.
“There’s something else,” Rose began, “something I want to ask you.”
“What’s that?” Mel asked. She gave Fearless another pet.
“Do you think your grandmother would let you keep him?”
“Never,” Mel said half laughing. “She hates – everything.”
“Well, if you’d like to give it a try and ask her, I’ll wait down here,” Rose said. “You go in and ask her. If she says no, come back out and I’ll take him with me. I’ll give you twenty minutes, and if I don’t see you, I’ll know everything worked out.”
“She’ll say no. I know it.”
“She might, but if you don’t ask, you’ll never know. And the truth is: he needs a home.”
Mel could feel her jaw shaking and it made it hard to speak. She picked Fearless up and began walking toward the apartment building door; her heart was pounding. Just before she went in, she looked back. Rose was there, standing by the old VW, and waving for her to keep going. Mel climbed the stairs, working the words and thoughts and her plans around in her head. Gladys met her at the door.
“What’s that you’ve got there – a dead cat?”
Mel held Fearless tight. “He needs a home,” Mel said as she tried to swallow the enormous lump that kept rising up from her heart and into her throat. Tears rolled down her face. “Actually, we both do.”
Gladys looked at Mel, and then at Fearless, who was staring at her as though he was reading her mind.
“Well … I guess if you’re a matched set, we’ll have to let him stay,” Gladys said as she closed the door behind them.
Fearless wiggled around in Mel’s arms until she put him down on the floor. He tiptoed on the cool linoleum; it was as though he was afraid that his paws would stick if he left them down for too long. He cautiously checked out every corner of the apartment.
Gladys paid no attention to him as she went to the stove. She poured the hot water from the kettle into the Brown Betty teapot and pulled a woolen tea cozy over top. She reached into the cupboard and brought down two cups that hung from small brass hooks. Once the tea had steeped, she filled the cups. Then, picking up the can of Red Label, she poured a little into a saucer and set it on the floor, and the remaining milk she poured into Mel’s cup. The evaporated milk was thick, and Mel watched as it swirled into her tea, changing it from a dark, deep red to a warm, creamy brown. They didn’t talk about the letter. They didn’t talk about Cecily, or about Mel leaving or staying, or about the future. They just sat and drank tea, and when they were finished, Mel got ready for bed, went back to the couch, and slept.
31
First Light
In the morning, Mel woke up to find Fearless cuddled up beside her and Gladys peeling the tinfoil off the windows. Some of the tinfoil, from around the window near the stove, needed to be scraped off with a knife, as it had been stuck to the window for so many years. It was coming off in tiny slivers.
“Well, don’t just sit there looking like you’ve never seen the light of day.”
Mel noticed the tone in Gladys’s voice. Gladys was trying to be funny.
“You can help me if you want,” Gladys added.
Mel wasn’t sure if they were just changing the tinfoil, or if they were taking it down for good. But so what, she decided, let’s just get the tinfoil off for however long and let the sun in.
“There,” Gladys said when they were done. “That looks better.”
Then Gladys went to her bedroom and came back with a pair of folded cotton curtains. She handed Mel the rod and asked her to feed the curtains onto it.
“They’re nice,” Mel said, although they smelled heavily of mothballs.
Fearless didn’t appear to be bothered by the smell, and instead found himself a spot on the windowsill behind the curtain.
“You know, if we wedged a little knife in between the sill and the window, we might be able to get the windows to open,” Mel suggested.
“Oh, don’t go getting all carried away,” Gladys said, sitting to rest in her chair. “There are no locks on any of these windows. I painted them shut years ago as a means of keeping out thieves.”
A smile crept onto Gladys’s face, as though she realized that what she had just said was a wee bit silly. She stood up, opened the cutlery drawer, and handed Mel a butter knife. “I’m not sure this will do it, but you can give it a try.”
While Mel worked to pry the window open, Gladys fixed them both some peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Mel could feel Gladys watching her. Once Mel was finished, they sat down at the table.
“Listen,” Mel said to herself more than to anyone else. “You can hear the birds sing.”
Gladys opened a can of Red Label milk and poured some into her teacup. Then, after a sip of tea, she looked up. “Both of these keys are for you.”
Mel glanced at the keys.
“I should have given them to you in the first place. I just … I just thought …,” Gladys started.
Mel finished her sentence. “You thought I’d steal your things.”
“I was wrong, and I’m sorry.” Gladys said and then gently slid the keys in Mel’s direction.
Mel picked them up and put them in her pocket. Her thought was to attach them to the key chain that also held the Pinto car key, which she’d kept safe zipped in the front pocket of her pack all this time.
32
The Last Show
Mr. Frohberger was sweeping the front steps when she walked by.
“Who’s that you have slung around your neck?”
“This is Fearless.”
“Well, how about that. Welcome to the neighborhood, Fearless,” Mr. Frohberger said, rubbing Fearless’s neck and head.
Mel wondered if Gladys had told Mr. Frohberger about Cecily, and the letter.
“So, where are you off to today, Mel?”
“Oh, I’m just taking Fearless out for walk.”
“Well, if he gets tired of walking, which I doubt he will, sitting up there like some kind of prince, you can bring him back here and see if he can track down a mouse or two. I don’t know why, but about this time of year, every rodent for forty miles tries to make a home in the store.”
“I’ll do that,” Mel said, stroking Fearless’s head.
“Stop in on your way back, anyway. I found something I think you might like to have.”
Mel and Fearless walked for most of the day. They went by the park and the office buildings near the central bus stop, and they dropped by the soup kitchen; Cecily was nowhere to be found.
Mel didn’t feel much like talking when she got back to Frohberger’s, but she had said she would stop and so she did.
“Here you go,” Mr. Frohberger said, sliding a piece of paper out from between two pieces of cardboard. “It’s the poster I printed up for your grandfather’s last show.” Fearless leaped from Mel’s shoulder to the counter.
Mel examined the dark black letters done in calligraphy, and the pen-and-
ink sketch of Tux: his smile, his black tuxedo, top hat, and the swirl of imagined magic spiraling around him.
“He would have wanted you to have it,” Mr. Frohberger said as he stroked Fearless.
Mel stared at that poster. “Did he really look like that?”
“More or less. He wore a tuxedo and top hat – well, only when he was performing and all, but he always wore that smile. You’ve got his eyes.”
Mel slid the poster back between the pieces of cardboard and looked up at Mr. Frohberger.
“Thank you,” she said, and then she turned and began to walk out the door.
“Oh! Don’t forget this guy!”
“Come on, Fearless,” Mel called. “And thanks again, Mr. Frohberger. This is great.”
As Mel opened the door, Fearless scampered out onto the sidewalk and across the road.
33
Dancing in Silver
The apartment smelled of sausages and eggs cooking, and Fearless headed straight for the kitchen when they came through the door. Mel followed him.
“What’s that you have there?” Gladys asked.
“A poster. Mr. Frohberger gave it to me.”
“Is it a poster of Tux?”
“It is. Do you want to see it?” Mel carefully pulled the poster from between the cardboard and laid it on the table.
Gladys sat looking at the picture, her breathing deepening and slowing, and then she began to speak, more to herself than to Mel. Words flowed from her lips – only the occasional word loud enough for Mel to make out. Even so, Gladys’s voice seemed rhythmic, punctuated by moments of silence as though she was listening for a reply. Mel heard her name, “Melody,” included in the strands of words beaded together. And although she couldn’t fully hear the words, she understood the meaning, and she could tell that what Mr. Frohberger had said was true: Gladys loved Tux.
After awhile, Gladys stood and went to Cecily’s old bedroom. She dragged the dark wooden steamer trunk into the kitchen. Mel expected the trunk to be full of things like pillows, old clothes, or other uninteresting things often stored in mothballs. She couldn’t have been more wrong. The first thing Gladys lifted out of the trunk was a framed newspaper article picturing a man in a swallowtailed black tuxedo and top hat with a white stick.
A Tinfoil Sky Page 12
