Good Graces

casseroles made with condensed milk. The O’Haras’ reeks of cabbage and sometimes liver and onions if they’re celebrating something. If you walk past the Goldmans’ at six o’clock, the aroma of sauerkraut and schnitzel will be drifting out of their kitchen window along with their Germanese and violin music.

Troo’s a little in front of me bouncing a red rubber ball that she “borrowed” from the playground shed. She’s warming up to play that a my name is Annie and I come from Alabama with a carload of Apples game. When she gets to the letter f, her name will be Fifi and she comes from where else but France. I refuse to repeat what she will have a carload of.

When we pass the Osgoods’ house, the flag flying off the front porch reminds me to ask Troo, “What are you gonna do for the Fourth? Are you gettin’ ready to decorate? Is that why you’re comin’ with me? To get some Kleenex to make your flowers?”

If my sister does not end up being a ventriloquist or a drummer in a band like Sal Mineo or the fat lady in a traveling freak show, all ideas that she has from time to time, she could become a Kleenex flower maker. That’s how good she is at folding the tissues, sliding a bobby pin down the middle and separating the layers until they spring alive and look like real carnations, which was Daddy’s favorite that covered his casket.

When Troo keeps bouncing, I keep asking, “Are you gonna wear a costume again?” Last summer, besides covering her bike in flowers, she dressed herself up like the Statue of Liberty because that was a gift to America from France. “Or are ya just gonna do up your bike?” I don’t have a Schwinn. Even if I did, I don’t think I would fancy it up for the Fourth. What if I accidentally won the decorating contest? Having the feeling of that silky blue ribbon sliding across my neck is just not worth Troo tricking me with some of that gum that turns your teeth black or licking my Jell-O when my back’s turned. “What’s your plan?”

“You writin’ a book?” Troo asks snotty.

“No, I’m just tryin’ to-”

“What I’m doin’ is for me to know and for you to find out,” she says with a flip of her ponytail. “But I’ll tell ya one thing, I’m gonna win that decoratin’ prize this year hands down. No ties. And I’m gonna be Queen of the Playground again, the same way I was the first year we moved here.” She starts up the game for real very loudly. “A my name is Annie and I come from…”

“Whatever you’re doin’, you better get busy. Time’s runnin’ out,” I tell her when we come to the front of the Kenfields’ house.

When we first moved into the city, it was into the house next door to them. Late at night horrible sounds would come out of a bedroom that was across from mine and Troo’s. I thought the place was haunted and I guess in a way it was. Mr. Kenfield would moan into his daughter’s pillow that probably still had the smell of his precious girl’s perfume hidden in the seams the same way that Daddy’s blue shirt still has Aqua Velva. After he was cried dry, he would go sit on the front porch of this house and smoke his Pall Malls, rocking until the church bells rang twelve midnight. After Mother went into the hospital, some nights after Troo would fall asleep and I was sure that Hall had passed out, I’d slip outta our bed and go sit with our neighbor. We didn’t talk so much. We held hands and listened to the creaky sound the porch swing made. I’d like to do that again, but I’m not sure Mr. Kenfield would. Sometime between last summer and this one, he got a reputation for being the neighborhood crank.

“C my name is Carol and I come from California with a carload of candy,” Troo sings.

“Wait a sec,” I tell her when she dribbles past our old duplex. There’s a Yellow Taxi parked out front of 5081 Vliet Street, which is something you don’t ever see around here. This is the closest I’ve ever come to one. The trunk is open and there are some suitcases jammed in. “Something’s goin’ on at the Goldmans’.”

Troo doesn’t glance up. She just keeps on singing in her high soprano voice that she inherited from Mother, “D my name is Denise and I come from… come from… damn it all, Sally, look what you made me do? Now I can’t think of a place that starts with D.” She spikes the ball. If you mess up you gotta start over and even hell-with-the-rules Troo O’Malley plays by that one. “Who gives a crap about the Goldmans anyway?”

“I do,” I say, feeling bad again about letting our old landlady down. I promised Mrs. Goldman I would stay her friend even after we moved out of this house, but I haven’t.

She is standing on her front porch in a crisp blue shirt and a pleated black skirt, her special sturdy shoes in size 10 peeking out from beneath the hem. Her dark curls used to be braided and wound around her head but now her hair looks pixie cute. She is instructing a man in a T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves, “Careful vis it. Careful.”

I wait until the man passes me by carrying a big black trunk and grunting something under his breath to call out to her, “Yavol!”

Mrs. Goldman brings her hands up to her cheeks and says, “Liebchen!”

Her calling me sweetheart in her language is making me feel even worse about not showing up the way I told her I would, but she looks happy to see me, so I race up the house steps two at a time and wrap my arms around her spongy waist.

“Mein Gott, how you’ve grown,” she ho… ho… hos. “Your legs-”

“I know, I know,” I say, looking the long way down.

“And vere is your sister the Trooper?”

Everyone always asks me that if they come across me when I’m alone because they’re used to seeing the O’Malleys roaming the neighborhood’s nooks and crannies together.

“She’s right down there. See? Hey, Troo!” I excitedly point to Mrs. Goldman like we’ve been searching for her for months. “Look who I found!”

“Top o’ the morning,” our old landlady yells down to the curb. (I taught her that.)

Troo gives her a blank-eyed stare. My sister is still holding it against our old landlady for liking me better than she likes her, and also for not letting our dog Butchy live with us so he had to stay in the country with peeing Jerry Amberson, who lived on the farm next to ours and would hose you down with his wiener for no reason. Dave drove out and got Butchy back for Troo last summer, which I thought was so nice, but Butchy didn’t. That dog couldn’t get used to living in the city. He broke through two chains and ripped Mimi Latour’s pants right off her body when she tried to pet him, so he had to go back to live with the Ambersons, which made Troo hate Dave even more and call him an Indian giver.

There are also some other people in the neighborhood that have grudges against our old landlords; my sister isn’t the only one. Even though we come from different countries and like different food, there is one special thing that holds us together. We’re all Catholics. The Goldmans aren’t. They are Jewish, and everybody seems ticked off at them in general for killing Christ, but I think that’s unfair. That’d be like blaming me for the Great Potato Famine starving all those people or Eric the Red pillaging all those towns.

“How did your schooling go this year, Liebchen?” she asks.

Mrs. Goldman was a teacher at a college before she came to this country. So she’s smart. She knows that bad things can happen when you least expect them. Her daughter got taken away by these people called the Nazis and they never brought her back again. Her name was Gretchen. She died taking a shower, which broke my heart, but didn’t shock me. (If you watch Mr. Wizard as much as I do, you learn that many accidents take place in the bathroom.)

“Sixth grade wasn’t too bad,” I tell her. “I got all As except for a D in arithmetic. I don’t really have a head for those problems. I’m not good at them.”

“You are good enough,” she says, patting me on the head. “And vhat about your sister? How is she doing in her studies?”

“She’s…” I don’t want to tell Mrs. Goldman that Troo might be getting kicked out of Mother of Good Hope School for her impure behavior. “She’s doin’ great in gym class.”

Mrs. Goldman is gazing down at the curb at my sister’s back. “Are you keeping the vatchful eye on her?”

“Tryin’ to.” Troo cannot stay still for long. She is throwing at car tires when they pass by, timing it so the ball bounces back to her.

“That is good,” Mrs. Goldman says. “And how is your mutter feeling these days?”

I picture her this morning in the shade of the garden with her TV tray in front of her and our collie licking her