Good Graces

friend’s leaving wasn’t his fault.

Granny says, “All Sister Jean told me at morning Mass is that the boy took off in the middle of the night. Hand me the succotash, Sally.”

That’s okay. She may not have the scoop now, but she will hear some more about Charlie’s taking off sooner or later. Our granny always finds out what’s going on in the neighborhood, the really secret stuff. Like how Mrs. Delancey who owns the grocery store down the block from her, the one our half sister Nell’s apartment is over, used to work in a nightclub dancing with snakes. Granny drinks six bottles of Coca-Cola a day that she gets free from Mrs. Delancey to keep her mouth shut.

I lift another forkful to my mouth and cough some more into my napkin.

Dave says, “Gosh, Sally, you’re doing a lot of that tonight. Are you feeling all right?”

“Did you catch a cold?” Troo asks, seeing an opening. “A fever? Let me check.” When she reaches to put her hand to my forehead, she accidentally on purpose brushes her spoon down to the linoleum.

This was another one of her Troo genius plans. Coming up with this coughing-into-my-napkin trick and her dropping-the-spoon trick to avoid having to eat Mother’s food. Thank goodness for our little collie, Lizzie. She’s lying openmouthed at our feet like she got invited to an all-you-can-eat dog buffet the same way she does every night except for the ones Dave cooks.

Mother says to me, “You don’t look flushed.”

“I’m fine. It’s just that…” She has no idea how disgusting her food is. She thinks she’s the next Betty Crocker. I want to tell her the truth because how is she ever going to improve if somebody doesn’t, but I don’t think that would go over so big. I look over at Granny, who you can usually depend on to point out Mother’s faults, but her mouth is full, so I say, “I’m only coughing ’cause… I can’t swallow the SOS down fast enough.”

When Mother smiles, I swear to Mary, the kitchen goes three shades lighter. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying it, Sally, but remember what I told you the last time. The proper name for this dish is chipped beef on toast points.”

“Six a one, half dozen of another,” Granny says, throwing in under her breath, “A sow’s ear.”

Dave stays out of it, but gives me a wink when I look his way. I really would like to question him while I have him. He’s been so busy working day and night that I haven’t had the chance to ask him the number one question that’s been burning itself into my mind. I’ve been hoping what Henry told us at the drugstore was wrong. It gets awfully loud at the baseball games. He coulda misheard what Dave told his dad.

“Is it true that Greasy Al escaped from reform school?” I ask.

Dave stops buttering his bread in midair and looks over at Mother. When she nods, he says, “Girls, I have been meaning to talk to the both of you. Especially you, Sally. I don’t want you to get yourself in a tizzy over-”

“He means he doesn’t want you to be a fruitcake in the imagination department,” Troo butts in.

I’m surprised that Mother doesn’t say anything about her minding her p’s and q’s, but she doesn’t, and I know why when I look down at my sister’s plate. You can see her reflection in it. When we were busy talking about my coughing, Troo musta slipped it under the table and Lizzy chowed down.

Troo purses her lips and kisses her fingers the way French people in the movies do after they get done eating. “My compliments to the chef. Supper was magnifique.”

Mother says, “Why thank you, Troo.”

“No, no… merci beaucoup to you, Helen.” Mother is lapping it up. I’ve noticed that when it comes to compliments of any kind, there is no bottom to her bowl. Troo musta noticed that, too. “I’m goin’ over to the playground. See ya tomorrow… I mean Friday, Granny.”

Granny says back like she always does, “Not unless I see you first, you little banshee.”

So I’m left to push the SOS around on my plate while Dave and Mother talk some more about Mr. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, who dresses so stylishly, and Granny tells us that Uncle Paulie has been keeping very odd hours, and then the three of them go into other neighborhood news until everyone is done eating except for me. (I was so thankful that Granny didn’t bring up the annulment-letter-from-the-Pope problem. She likes Dave a lot, but she is one of the main people who thinks that Mother is living in sin.)

After removing Mr. Como from the Hi-Fi and reapplying her lipstick, Mother comes back into the kitchen. “I know that you’re savoring every single bite, Sally, but you need to finish up by the time I get back from taking your grandmother home. Dave and I have plans tonight.” This means she wants to play footsie with him. “Ready?” she says, guiding Granny toward the front door so she can drive her back to her tiny bungalow.

“Sally?” Dave says, once they’re gone.

He’s got a grave look on his face. He musta noticed me and Troo feeding Lizzy the SOS under the table. After all, he is a detective. He won’t shout at me the way Mother would. Dave has only been a father for a little while so he’s still learning how to be mean. What he’ll do is clear his throat and give me a calm sermon about the nature of good and evil. Since he’s a police officer and the treasurer of the Men’s Club up at church, knowing the difference between right and wrong are the subjects dearest to his heart.

Or maybe not. In the movies, cops smack you with a rubber hose when they want you to tell the truth, which I’m sure Dave wouldn’t do, but things can happen when you least expect them. I didn’t think Hall Gustafson would throw Nell down on our kitchen floor last summer or that Bobby would try to kill me either. And I was so sure that Dave was the one who was murdering and molesting little girls in the neighborhood. I used to think I was a good judge of people, but I’m not. I am unreliable. I can’t count on myself anymore.

“Do you have something you want to tell me?” Dave asks, steepling his fingers below his chin.

I’m going to beat him to the punch. I’m going to confess. “I’m really sorry,” I blurt out. “I won’t ever do it again, I promise, and I’ll make Troo swear, too.”

Dave leans in and he smells good. He slaps on Old Spice when he’s done shaving. He points down at my SOS that now looks exactly like the fake vomit they sell at the toy store. His lips, which aren’t poofy like Mother’s and Troo’s but on the thin side like mine, are curled into a smile. “Between you and me, I can barely get it down myself. Got my fill of it in the Army,” he says, putting my plate down in front of Lizzy, whose tummy is just bulging. “Now that we got that settled, I’d like to further answer the question you asked me earlier about the Molinari boy.” He leans back in his chair and stretches his long legs out in front of him. “Yes, he escaped from the reform school last week.”

“But how… he could… what if they don’t catch him and he comes back here and does something bad to…” There are so many ways that Greasy Al could hurt Troo. I try my best to keep my eyes on her at all times, but she is so good at outfoxing me.

“I know this might be hard for you to understand, Sally, but it’s not like Alfred’s a hardened criminal. Sure, he’s gotten himself into a few fixes, but he’s just a boy not much older than you.” Dave runs his hand over his mouth. He does that when he is trying to come up with a good explanation about why I shouldn’t be afraid of something. “When Alfred got polio… his family didn’t… the Molinaris are a tough bunch.”

No kidding.

“He’s not a lost cause,” Dave adds on. “All the boy needs is someone to care about him.”

Poor man. If that’s what he thinks, that all Molinari needs is some TLC to set him straight, he’s wrong. I heard that his father used to hit him with fists. And I’ve seen with my own two eyes that even his own mother doesn’t love Greasy Al. She’s the hostess at Ristorante Molinari where Dave takes us to eat sometimes because Mother adores their butter-drenched bread. Before Greasy Al got sent to reform school, on the nights he used to work at the family restaurant being a busboy, Mrs. Molinari would yell at him from her podium up front, “Hey, Chester, clean up… table six,” because her boy walks like that guy in Gunsmoke. Everybody in the dining room would crack up, no one louder than her. And Troo.

“Sally?” Dave says from a distant land where I bet things look clearer to him than they do to me. “Please, don’t.”

I’m so glad Mother’s not here to see me blubber. She’d run a pretend bow over a pretend violin and sing Cry Me a River.

Dave stacks his big hands on top of mine. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’re safe now.”

That’s the same thing Mother and him always say when I wake up screaming after one of my nightmares. Bobby is still alive when I bolt up in bed. I can smell his leather belt and hear him whispering how much he loves me and that he’s going to make me his bride. Or sometimes it’s Daddy who comes to me bloody in my dreams holding Sampson by the hand, telling me with a rotted mouth to fly like the wind. By the time Mother rounds the corner to our room and Dave comes pounding down from upstairs, my sister is already up on her knees, yelling,