Good Graces

“Ya know, being a mother isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Nell spits back. “Tell your sister that. I see those looks she’s been givin’ me.”

Just like her, I can easily see Troo sticking out in the crowd. There’s other redheads in the neighborhood, but none like my sister. She’s giving Nell dagger eyes. She’s never liked her and she hates it when I go outta my way to be nice to her. She’s also giving me the c’mere finger.

“Well, nice chattin’ with you. I gotta go,” I say, kissing freshly diapered Peggy Sure on her nose and handing her back to Nell, who takes all that pinkness back into her arms like she’s a piece of Dubble-Bubble I clawed out from underneath the bleachers.

“Oh, where oh where has my little Dot gone, oh where oh where could she be?” Nell starts singing, not to Peggy Sure.

She’s been acting like this since she got home from St. Joe’s with her bundle of joy. I think she caught a disease in the hospital that is making bats fly out of her belfry. That is not just my opinion, I know something about this. Troo reminds me all the time that people who have big imaginations can go off their rockers the same way Virginia Cunningham did in The Snake Pit movie, so I have memorized the signs to watch out for:

1. Talking to objects or singing to yourself.

2. Not brushing your teeth regularly.

3. Smiling or laughing at times or places when you’re not supposed to.

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if somebody told me tomorrow that they saw Nell running down the street chortling at dead birds on the sidewalk with her tan teeth. Mark my words, one of these days the men in the white jackets will be coming to move her out of her apartment and over to the county loony bin.

Stepping over feet on my way back to my bleacher seat, I catch a glimpse of Mr. Kenfield. He hasn’t come across the street to cheer with the rest of us, but is watching the game from his porch swing. The tip of his cigarette is glowing in the dark. I’d like to head over there to have a visit with him after the ninth inning the way I woulda last summer, but I just don’t know anymore if my old friend would be happy to have me rocking next to him. He told me once during one of our visits that he loved children and wished he coulda had a whole houseful, but I think he mighta changed his mind. I heard he’s been chasing kids outta his yard.

His wife, Mrs. Kenfield, is sitting ramrod straight on the other side of Mother, who looks particularly pretty tonight in gold hoop earrings and a sleeveless white blouse that shows off her summer brown-sugar skin. I can hear the two of them talking, but not what they’re saying. I scoot closer, afraid that Mrs. Kenfield might be ratting Troo out for stealing from the Five and Dime, but the only thing I catch her saying is “… so upsetting about Charlie Fitch. I asked Father Mickey to say a novena for Lorraine and Ted. To lose that boy…”

I could tell she was trying to hold back tears. And not just for the Honeywells. Mrs. Kenfield had to be thinking about what she’s lost. She must miss her disappeared daughter and her granddaughter, and her husband, who is still here, but not really, not the way he used to be anyway, which in some ways I think has gotta be worse.

Seeing that awful lonely look on Mrs. Kenfield’s face makes me want to go sit next to Henry in the worst way. He’s two rows in front of me in the bleachers, keeping his mother company. Maybe he’s not so special to a girl like my sister, but there’s something about the way he listens to me without rolling his eyes and sometimes when he looks at me in a certain kind of way, I wish Henry could bottle himself. I would buy him by the case.

Troo uses her mental telepathy on me and says, “Well, lookee-lookee. Onree got a fancy new haircut.”

She’s right. Since I saw him last, he got it cut short and is making it stand up straight from his skull with butch wax. I already adore it and I’m sure that my sister does, too. She likes all things modern.

“I love him… I mean… it. The flattop,” I tell her, hoping I can find some time soon to meet him at the drugstore and run my hand across the top. It’s gotta tickle.

“Ya know what I think… Peaches ’n Cream?” Troo leans down and says with so much snide. “I think he looks like the Kenfields’ hedge. Hunh… hunh… hunh.”

Hearing her wild French laugh makes me remember that I forgot to do what I was supposed to be doing. I got caught up thinking about Daddy and Nell and Peggy Sure and Mother and Dave’s third base playing and the Kenfields and adorable Henry that I forgot to pay attention to the details. During my flight of imagination, I betcha any money Greasy Al slunk right past me.

Chapter Fourteen

The smell of the chocolate chip cookies baking in the big ovens on 49th Street got stronger during the top of the seventh inning. It was like the cookies were giving the men a two four six eight who do we appreciate cheer. I thought that might make the Feelin’ Good men get a second wind, but that’s not what happened. Living up to their name, the cops clobbered the factory team, 10-3.

Snatches of different songs are coming out of the cars driving past us with all their windows open or, if they are lucky enough to own a convertible, with the top down. No crickets yet, but the fireflies are out. Troo loves fireflies. They flock to her. I think because they start with the letter f.

Strolling up Vliet Street on our way home after the game, we pass by the factory men who gave it their all out on the diamond. They’re on the front steps of their houses drinking cold beer in their undershirts, hoping to catch a breeze. They tip their hats to Dave and say, “Good game,” and he says back, “Thought you had us there in the fourth. Better luck next time.”

Dr. Heitz, who doesn’t play ball because he is a dentist, smiles at me when we pass him changing a tire on his car. He likes kids so much. He goes to the Saturday matinees at the Uptown and will give you a free box of Milk Duds if you sit on his lap to watch the movie. I think it’s his way of apologizing for having to drill you.

Dave and I are walking slightly ahead of Troo, who is kicking a rock that is coming dangerously close to my father’s ankle. Mother and Nell and Peggy Sure are behind her on the sidewalk. The reason Nell is with us and not with Eddie the way a wife is supposed to be is because after the game he was nowhere to be found, which means he probably headed up to the Milky Way. (Dave tried to have a man-to-man with Eddie about being a better husband and father, but that talk didn’t make a dent in that moron’s thick skull.)

I decided the walk home would be the perfect time to get more information out of my father. I have had hardly any time with him. He’s been so busy trying to catch the cat burglar. “Can I ask you a coupla questions?” I say.

“Shoot,” he says, which is cop talk for, go right ahead.

“How did Molinari get out of the reform school anyway? Did the guard doze off?” That’s what happens most of the time in movies when a criminal breaks out of jail. That, or a ripe-looking Italian girl shows up with a bottle of wine in a low-cut blouse with a black cinch belt.

Dave looks down at me with so much kindness. “We’ll apprehend Alfred eventually, Sally. Don’t worry. He can run, but he can’t hide.”

“Well, actually, he can’t run,” Troo butts in from behind. She pretends to ignore everything that Dave says and does, but she watches him, waits for him to make one wrong move. “If you were such a good detective, you’d know that.” She swings her leg back and kicks the rock hard. It bounces off the heel of Dave’s shoe. “By the way, did you catch the cat burglar yet?”

Dave heard Troo’s sassy remark just fine, but he doesn’t blow his stack the way Mother would’ve if she’d heard Troo smarting off like that. Dave keeps his steady green eyes on mine and tells me, “Rest easy. Law officers from Milwaukee and all points south are aware of the situation.”

“But just knowin’ that Molinari’s escaped isn’t enough,” I say. “Did they issue an All Points Bulletin? Do they have tommy guns? Are they-”

Mother, who’s closer than I thought, tugs down hard on my braid. “Simmer down, Sally!” She bustles to Dave’s side and says in an even more fed-up way, “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me. Filling up her mind with talk of your cases and… and all those criminal television shows the two of you watch… see what you’ve done?”

Dave gives Mother an I’m sorry look and I do, too. Not only do I not want to cause any more problems between them, I can’t have her yell at me for the rest of the night and then not talk to me for