by Sarah Weeks
She fetched an umbrella from the hall closet, grabbed the keys off the hook by the door, and, still in her pajamas, ran barefoot out to the car. Lightning flashed as she yanked open the heavy door and slid into the driver’s seat. Melody had never driven a car, of course, but Gramp-o had once showed her how to start it. After checking to make sure the arrow on the gearshift was pointing to P for park, she inserted the key and turned it gently to the right. Nothing. She vaguely remembered Gramp-o saying something about giving it a little gas. Since she wasn’t sure which of the two pedals was the gas, she put one foot on each of them and pressed down hard, then turned the key again. This time the engine caught and Esmeralda roared to life, sending up a billowing cloud of exhaust behind her.
There was a tape already in the player — The Best of the Beach Boys. Gramp-o loved the Beach Boys. Melody ejected it and slipped in the tape she’d found in the music room, then she pressed PLAY.
There was a soft hiss, then a creak, and then the music began. A piano, playing slowly at first, until the melody began to swoop and swell. Melody shivered. It was cold in the car, so she turned on the heater. Then she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She never listened to classical music, but she could have sworn she’d heard this piece before — so many times, in fact, she knew every note by heart. How is that possible? she wondered. As the music wrapped itself around her, Melody wanted to curl up inside the sound and float there, safe and warm forever. When it was over, and the last sweet note had faded away, she heard a woman’s laughter, and then her voice.
“Turn that silly thing off and come feel this, Henry,” she said. “I think our baby likes Brahms. She’s kicking like a little kangaroo.”
Melody recognized the sound of her father’s laugh joining in.
Then the tape softly clicked off.
Silence.
Melody listened to the tape twice more. Just as she was about to rewind it to listen for a fourth time, someone knocked on the car window. Startled, Melody turned to the left, and there was Mrs. McKenna, standing out in the rain.
“Melody!” she shouted. “Is everything okay? Open the window.”
Melody quickly rolled down the window.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. McKenna asked again. “I was driving by and saw you sitting in the car alone and got worried.”
There was another flash of lightning, followed by a loud boom of thunder that made them both jump. Mrs. McKenna drew her collar tight around her throat, ran around to the other side of the car, and climbed in.
“What are you doing out here all by yourself, sweetie?” she asked.
Melody felt numb.
“Gramp-o’s inside,” she said. “Asleep. He and Nick got sick last night and my dad’s away for the weekend.”
“You scared me half to death,” said Mrs. McKenna, putting her hand over her heart. “I thought something awful had happened.”
Melody started to shake as the mysterious feeling that had been hiding deep down inside her finally rose up to the surface, bubbling and boiling until she couldn’t hold it back any longer and it spilled out over the edges of her heart.
“Poor thing,” said Mrs. McKenna, taking her into her arms. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Melody dug down deep and finally found the words to describe what it was she’d been feeling.
“I miss my mother,” she sobbed.
“Of course you do, sweetie,” said Mrs. McKenna, rocking her gently. “Of course you do.”
Melody and Mrs. McKenna sat together out in the car for a long time. After a while, the rain began to let up and they turned off the engine and went inside the house to check on Gramp-o. While Melody headed upstairs to see if he needed anything, Mrs. McKenna went into the kitchen to make a pot of tea.
“Gramp-o says to please forgive him, but he’s not feeling up to saying hello,” Melody reported when she came back downstairs. “And he asked me to look around and see if we have any saltines.”
“What he needs is Vernors ginger ale,” said Mrs. McKenna. “I can pick some up for him at Wrigley’s on my way back from the Bee Hive.”
“Are you going to the Bee Hive?” asked Melody.
Mrs. McKenna nodded. “I’m treating myself to a manicure.”
“Nick and I were there yesterday,” said Melody.
Mrs. McKenna lowered her eyes.
“Yes, I heard,” she said.
Melody remembered what her father had said about Mrs. McKenna and Miss Hogan being friends.
“If Miss Hogan told you that I pushed Teeny, she was flat-out lying,” said Melody. “She doesn’t like me, you know.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Mrs. McKenna. “Miss Hogan was just upset about her secret getting out. As secrets go, it’s a pretty big one.”
“Tell me about it,” Melody grumbled.
Mrs. McKenna looked at her watch.
“My appointment is at eleven,” she said. “I hate to leave you here alone. If you feel up to it, why don’t you join me? I’ll treat you to a manicure — I hear the colors are out of this world.”
The teakettle began to whistle on the stove, and Mrs. McKenna went and turned it off. Melody watched her move around the kitchen, making the tea. She seemed so at home. When she was finished, she found some saltines in the pantry, made a little fan out of them on a plate, and asked Melody to take the tea and crackers up to her grandfather.
“Tell him I hope he feels better,” she said. “And ask him if it’s okay for you to come with me to the Bee Hive.”
“Will you be mad if I decide not to get my fingernails painted?” asked Melody.
“I won’t be mad,” Mrs. McKenna promised. “But when you see how much fun it is, you might change your mind.”
Two days ago Melody had never set foot in a beauty salon in her life, and now she was going for the second day in a row.
“Let’s go, Kokomo,” said Mrs. McKenna, slipping her raincoat on.
“Kokomo?” asked Melody.
Mrs. McKenna laughed. “It’s something my husband always used to say.”
“Is he from Kokomo, Indiana?”
“No — he just liked the way it sounded.”
Melody did, too. Her dad had been right when he’d said that she and Mrs. McKenna were a good fit. It was so easy to be around her. Melody made herself a promise: She was not going to think about anything sad for the rest of the day. Instead she was going to enjoy her time with Mrs. McKenna and maybe, just maybe, get her fingernails painted, too.
Mo hated the rain and he hated thunder and lightning even more. That morning the tall woman practically had to drag him out the door to get him to take his walk. Once he was outside, Mo did his business as quickly as possible, then he whined pitifully until the tall woman had no choice but to turn around and take him home.
“What a big baby you are,” she teased.
The ground was muddy, and Mo stepped carefully around the puddles. He didn’t want to get his feet dirty. The last thing he wanted was to give the tall woman a reason to give him a bath. She insisted on using the same shampoo on him that she used on herself. It was okay for her to smell like peppermint candy, but Mo preferred smelling like himself. A dog’s sense of smell is a powerful thing, and Mo’s nose was particularly sensitive. He could tell when the milk was about to turn, and if there were mice nesting in a wall. He’d smelled the rain coming long before the first drop fell. Mo lifted his head. His nose was picking up another smell now. Something very close.
They had just started up the front walk when the orange cat came scooting out from under a bush. Mo saw his chance. He jerked so hard on the leash, the tall woman lost hold of it, and Mo took off after the cat like a shot. After chasing him around in circles for a while, the cat finally ran up a tree, at which point the tall woman caught up with Mo and took hold of his leash again.
“First you act like a baby,” she scolded him, “then you turn around and start acting like a bully. Shame on you, Mo.”
Back inside, she dried Mo off
with a towel and, in spite of what he had just done to the cat, gave him a rawhide knot to chew on. Then she put fresh water in his bowl, closed the door, and left.
Mo curled up on the couch to take a nap. He was pleased with himself for having treed the cat. The rain had stopped and there was even a hint of sun peeking through the clouds. He closed his eyes, hoping that the dream would come. “It’s you,” the girl would whisper, and Mo would follow her home. The night before he had waited for the girl, wanting to see what she was holding in her hand, but she hadn’t come.
Maybe it was just a chew toy she had in her hand. Maybe it was a soup bone, or a biscuit.
Or maybe it was something more than that.
Mo was certain that it was something more, but he couldn’t really say why.
Sometimes a dog just knows.
“What happened to your hair!?” Melody exclaimed.
Bee-Bee’s curls were gone, replaced by a jet-black bob with bangs.
“I like my hair to match my mood,” she told Melody. “Come on in, I’ll show you my collection.”
Melody quickly introduced Mrs. McKenna to Bee-Bee and they both followed her into the salon.
“Voilà!” said Bee-Bee, opening a closet door to reveal several shelves filled with Styrofoam heads wearing wigs of every color and style imaginable, including the red macaroni curls she’d had on the day before.
“What fun!” said Mrs. McKenna. “Can you imagine what my fourth graders would think if I came to school wearing one of these?”
“I have you down for a manicure today, is that right?” Bee-Bee asked, leading them back out into the main room.
Mrs. McKenna nodded. “I’m trying to talk Melody into having one, too — but she’s still on the fence.”
“Why don’t I get you started, and Melody can decide later on,” said Bee-Bee. “First pick a color.”
Mrs. McKenna walked over to the glass cabinet to look at the polishes.
“These are exquisite,” she told Bee-Bee.
“I’m hoping Melody will help me name them.”
“She’s got a way with words,” said Mrs. McKenna, “that’s for sure. What are you going to call this silvery one, Melody?”
Mrs. McKenna held up a bottle of sparkly polish. It was the very first polish Bee-Bee had made for the salon.
“Hmmmm,” said Melody. “Maybe Silver Linings?”
Bee-Bee whistled.
“You’re good!” she said.
“What about this one?” asked Mrs. McKenna, holding up another bottle.
The first thing that popped into Melody’s head was Lipstick Stain, because the polish was the same shade as the lipstick stains on Miss Hogan’s front teeth. But Melody had promised herself she wasn’t going to be gloomy, so she quickly came up with a more cheerful name for the bright red polish in Mrs. McKenna’s hand.
“Candy Apple.”
“You’re hired!” cried Bee-Bee. “Seriously, I’ve got some labels in the drawer by the phone, and there’s a black sharpie in there, too. Knock yourself out.”
Mrs. McKenna selected a beautiful coral polish with swirls of gold running through it, and while Bee-Bee got to work with her emery board and cuticle nippers, Melody sat cross-legged on the floor nearby making up polish names and writing them carefully on the labels.
“Where does the inspiration for your colors come from?” Mrs. McKenna asked Bee-Bee. She was soaking her fingertips in a bowl of warm water with rose petals floating in it.
“Close your eyes,” Bee-Bee told her, “and tell me what you see.”
Mrs. McKenna closed her eyes.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?” she asked.
“Colors,” said Bee-Bee. “Every feeling has them. Whenever I sit down to make a polish, the first thing I do is close my eyes and take a minute to get in touch with my feelings. That’s where all my ideas come from.”
“I see mostly yellow,” said Mrs. McKenna, “with a little bit of orange around the edges. Also some tiny pink stars.”
“You must be feeling happy today,” said Bee-Bee. “Pink, yellow, and orange are all happy colors. When you’re feeling sad, you see blues and greens.”
Melody closed her eyes, too.
“What does it mean if you see red?” she asked.
“Red is a tricky one,” Bee-Bee told her. “It can either mean passion or heartache.”
There was an awkward silence. Everyone in the room knew which of those feelings Melody had been experiencing lately.
“I have a funny story to tell you,” Mrs. McKenna jumped in, breaking the silence. “I have this little boy in my class, Jacob, who was doing a report on Booker T. Washington for Black History Month. What do you remember about Booker T. Washington, Melody?”
“The T stands for Taliaferro and he was one of the most influential African American leaders in America from 1895 until his death in 1915.”
“That was impressive,” said Bee-Bee.
Melody shrugged. “I did my report on him, too,” she explained.
“So, anyway,” Mrs. McKenna went on, “poor Jacob made the mistake of running a spell check without proofreading afterward and ended up with a report about an esteemed African American statesman named Booger T. Washington instead of Booker.”
Melody giggled. “Remember last year when the lady from that peace organization came to talk to us about Mahatma Gandhi?” she reminded Mrs. McKenna. “She wanted us to make up a list of questions we would ask if we were sitting next to him at a dinner party. Nick said he would want to ask Gandhi if he had any pets. You and that lady laughed so hard you both cried.”
“I miss Nick Woo,” said Mrs. McKenna. “How is he doing?”
“Fine,” said Melody. “Except that he’s obsessed with water towers.”
“I have a thing about water towers, too,” said Bee-Bee. “There’s something so friendly-looking about them, you know?”
“Yeah, well, Nick thinks they’re full of boogity-eyed aliens dripping with ectoplasmic ooze.”
“Ectoplasmic Ooze. Now there’s a nail polish name for you,” said Bee-Bee.
They all laughed at that. Then Melody got back to work. By the time Bee-Bee had finished painting Mrs. McKenna’s nails, Melody was almost done naming the polishes.
“What about it, Melody?” Bee-Bee asked. “Manicure for you today, too?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “Maybe some other time. I have to come back anyway, to finish naming the colors.”
“Sounds good,” said Bee-Bee. “And when that time comes — we’ll mix up a special color together just for you. Number one hundred and one.”
“What will you call it, Melody?” asked Mrs. McKenna.
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it.”
Melody was sad to leave the Bee Hive that afternoon, and sadder still to have to say good-bye to Mrs. McKenna when she dropped her off. They had stopped at Wrigley’s on the way to pick up a bottle of Vernors for her grandfather.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” said Melody, tucking the ginger ale under her arm and opening the car door.
“Take care, Melody,” said Mrs. McKenna.
As Melody watched her drive away, the sad feeling started to bubble up inside her again. She’d been keeping a lid on it all day. It had been so wonderful spending time at the Bee Hive, making up names for Bee-Bee’s colors and laughing with Mrs. McKenna. But none of that changed the fact that her father was in love with Miss Hogan and that no matter how much she wanted to, Melody would never, ever know the person who had felt her kicking inside her like a little kangaroo.
When she came in the house, the first thing Melody noticed were her father’s muddy boots lying on the floor.
“Dad?” she called.
“In here, Mel!”
“What are you doing home?” she asked, joining him in the kitchen, where he was making himself a sandwich.
“In a nutshell — the camping trip got rained out, my car broke down on the way home and had to
be towed to the shop, and I will never go anywhere that involves teenagers, tents, and canned beans again. And how was your weekend?”
He meant to be funny, but Melody wasn’t amused. There was something she needed to get off her chest.
“In a nutshell,” she said, “Nick and Gramp-o got food poisoning, and I discovered that just because your father knows the definition of a word, it doesn’t mean he knows how to apply it to his own life.”
Melody’s father looked confused.
“You lost me,” he said.
“Unilaterally means doing something without taking into account how another person might feel about it, right?”
“Have I done something to hurt your feelings, Mel?”
“That depends. Does sneaking around behind my back dating my teacher count?” she asked.
Melody watched the color drain from her father’s face. Any hope that she might have had that she was mistaken about Miss Hogan and her father drained away, too. She couldn’t believe it. This was really happening. Miss Hogan was actually going to marry her father.
“How did you find out?” he asked.
“I heard you talking to her on the phone. You called her honey, and then you lied and told me it was a wrong number. Remember?”
Melody’s father hung his head, exactly the way Teeny Nelson had done when her mother had yelled at her for going into the Bishops’ yard without being invited first.
“I didn’t want to tell you about the relationship until I was sure it was serious,” Melody’s father told her. “I certainly didn’t mean for you to find out like this. I’m so sorry, Mel.”
Melody wasn’t ready to accept his apology.
“How could you do this to me?” she asked. “Don’t you care about how I feel?”
“Of course I do,” said her father. “To be honest, I expected you to be happy about this news.”
Just when Melody thought she couldn’t feel any worse, her father had to go and say that. Was he so head-over-heels in love with Miss Hogan he’d forgotten how Melody felt about her?
