Good Graces

After Henry gets done stirring the long spoon in the tall glasses and it makes that great clanking sound, he sets our phosphates down in front of us. Mine looks especially scrumptious. Because he is my boyfriend, he gave me extra squirts of chocolate.

He bends across the counter and says quietly, “Have you guys heard about Greasy Al Molinari?”

“For cryin’ out loud, Henry,” I say. “You know we have.”

Henry was there when Greasy Al jumped Troo last summer in front of the drugstore after the Fourth of July celebration. Molinari has a gimpy polio leg, but his arms are the size of a side of beef. That bully punched my sister and almost broke her nose when he was trying to steal her bike. The only reason she wasn’t beaten to a pulp is because Henry took a gun outta the cash register and waved it in Greasy Al’s pepperoni-smelling face and Mr. Fitzpatrick, who heard me screaming, came rushing outta the store and called Officer Dave Rasmussen and he had Molinari sent to reform school.

Dave’s always coming up with good ideas like that. He’s also the one who suggested that Troo and me should make a list of ideas on how to spend our vacation.

My THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER list is:

1. Never, ever take my eyes off Troo.

2. Practice not blinking.

3. Help Mother.

4. Write my charitable story.

5. Read to Mrs. Galecki on Wednesdays.

6. Visit Granny every Friday.

7. Spend as much time as I can with Henry.

8. Try not to have so many flights of imagination. Pay attention to the details!

9. Work harder to keep my sunny side up!

My sister’s THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER list is:

1. Figure out more ways to get back at Molinari.

Troo used to do that by standing in front of Molinari’s house and singing the Banana Boat song, changing the words to: Daaago… da… da… da… daaago, but since Greasy Al got shipped off to reform school she can’t do that anymore, so she came up with the next best way to torture him. She writes to him every Friday, she hasn’t missed once. Her letters always say the same thing. So she doesn’t get writer’s cramp, Troo uses carbon paper:

Dear Greasy Al,

I hope you get polio again and somebody kicks the plug out of your iron lung in the middle of the night.

Fuck you for all eternity.

Troo O’Malley

My sister rips the top off a straw wrapper with her teeth and asks Henry very ho-hum, “What about that goombah?” but she can’t fool me. She may be acting cool, daddy, cool, but Molinari is the most important subject there is to her.

Henry takes a quick peek to the back of the store and says, “I heard something about him at the game last night.” Since there are no pharmacists teams, his father plays catcher on the police baseball team with a “special dispensation” like you can get up at church when you want to do something that’s not allowed by the rules. I wanted to go last night because I knew that Henry would be there, but Troo didn’t want to stare at Dave for an hour and a half so we stayed home. “Officer Rasmussen told my pops something about-”

Troo blows the straw wrapper at Henry and hits him in the forehead. “Don’t you mean Detective Rasmussen?” she says, snotty that Dave doesn’t walk around our neighborhood in a blue uniform anymore wearing badge number 343. He wears shirts open at the neck and sits behind a desk at the police station until something worse than kids ringing doorbells or a dog biting a mailman happens and it makes my sister so mad he got that promotion.

“I… I… I…” Henry stutters when he gets nervous.

“Say it, don’t spray it,” Troo says, wiping her arms off like he spit on her, which he mighta, just a little. His teeth don’t exactly match up in the front.

“I… I… don’t know if I should… I…”

“C’mon, Onree. Cough it up,” Troo says.

I give Henry a go-ahead nod because really, whatever he heard at the game, how bad could it be?

Henry takes a shuddering breath, the same kind he takes when he dives into the deep end of the park pool, and says, “I heard Detective Rasmussen tell Pops last night at the game that… that Greasy Al… escaped!”

“What?!” I have to grab on to the counter so I don’t fall off my stool. This is the worst news ever!

Before they shipped him off to Green Bay, Molinari told his brothers, Moochie and Tommy, that he’d get back at Troo someday for getting him sent to reform school and they made sure we heard that, too. Beady-eyed Greasy Al musta been marking on his cell calendar the days until he could come back to the neighborhood to give Troo what he thinks she deserves, but then one of her ironlung letters came and… and he busted out because he couldn’t wait a minute longer to get his hands around her neck.

“When?” I ask Henry, barely able.

“Like I told you… at… at… the game.”

“No, I don’t mean when did you… when did Greasy Al escape?” My hands are shaking, but Troo’s aren’t. I don’t think I have ever seen her get really scared. She is very much like Doris Day. A que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be person.

“I was sittin’ a few seats away in the bleachers so I couldn’t hear so good,” Henry says. “But I… I think Officer… I mean, Detective Rasmussen, said he got away a few days ago. They’re lookin’ for him everywhere. He… he hit a guard.” He turns to my sister. “Remember what… what happened last summer. You gotta be careful, Tr… Leeze.”

I press my cheek down on the chilly marble counter. I’m not sure how many miles away Green Bay is. I’m hoping it’s too far for Molinari to polio-limp walk all the way back here. Because if he did, I know the first person he would pay a murderous visit to. She’s twirling round and round on the stool next to me like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

Henry brings his head down to mine and says in a soft voice that he hopes Troo won’t hear, “You okay, Peaches ’n Cream?” His breath smells like vanilla and strawberry and chocolate all mixed together because Neapolitan is his favorite ice cream flavor and the name he called me is mine. “Maybe I shouldn’ta told ya.”

“A course you shoulda told us and a course she’s okay,” Troo says with a slap on my back. “She’s from fine pheasant stock, isn’t that right, Sal.”

I am just about to tell Henry that I don’t think I am fine and the O’Malley sisters are from what Granny calls fine peasant stock and to please hand me some ice out of the freezer to run across the back of my neck because I am not a Doris Day que sera, sera person. I am much more like Perry Como, a catch a falling star and put in your pocket, save it for a rainy day person.

Mr. Fitzpatrick calls from the back of the store, “Henry? Could you come here for a minute, please?”

Henry ducks out from behind the counter, comes to my side and picks up one of my hands in his pale ones that are also trembling. “See ya later?”

That would be so nice. To do what I hoped to do this summer when I wasn’t busy minding Troo. I’d love to come back this afternoon and read together on the drugstore step or count Ramblers whizzing past because they’re our favorite car and the one we will buy when we’re married, but now it looks like I’m going to have to erase Spend as much time as I can with Henry off my THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER list and put on Keep my eyes open for Greasy Al instead.

I try never to lie to Henry, so I don’t tell him, I doubt very much if I’ll be seeing you again anytime