Good Graces

that she knows what her future holds, what does she have to look forward to? Her life is all downhill from here on out. It’s not only the annulment news. She really was counting on winning that blue decorating ribbon and she didn’t even bring her bike over this morning. I checked after she ran off.

Dave gets back on and announces, “Children under twelve, you’re up next. Meet under the oak tree with the red ribbon near the picnic tables.”

“Here ya go, ladies,” Ray Buck says, coming back up the hill with our drinks. Gosh, he smells like he just stepped out of a tray of ice cubes. “How about after y’all drink that down we move over to the lagoon? I’ll row the both of ya ’round for a bit.”

Ethel gives me a wondering look. She knows I don’t go to the lagoon anymore or too close to the rowboats, but she doesn’t want to be rude and not ask me to join them. It would also be safer to take me since the boat is really gonna sag on her side and I could add a little more balance. I’m gonna save her the trouble of inviting me, even though I really would like to watch Ray Buck row us. He may be thin, but his chest and arms are muscular, which for some reason is something I really like to look at.

“You two have a good time,” I tell them. “Thank you for askin’ me, but I gotta go be with Troo.”

“And where is your sister?” Ethel says, not letting me off that easy. She hasn’t said anything, but she knows that Troo did not take the annulment news well. She doesn’t miss much. “I know what a momentous day this is for your sister. I’d like to wish her good luck.”

“Twelve and unders. Last call,” Dave says over the loud speaker.

“Troo’s… ah…” My eyes look the hardest they can down at the crowd. At first I don’t, but then, over near the judging area, just for a second, I get a glimpse of Troo’s hair. “Right there,” I say, moving my arm to where Dave told the twelve-and-under kids to gather to compete for the blue decorating ribbon. There’s gotta be at least forty or more kids. Why’s my sister hanging out where everybody’s waiting to be judged? That is so heartbreaking.

Ethel puts her hand to her forehead like an explorer. When she sees Troo, she says, “Lord. What in tarnation does that child got on? Is she blinkin’?”

What in tarnation does she got on? I’m not as tall as Ethel so I can’t really make out all of it, but Troo definitely is blinking. I gotta get down there.

“Ask for boat number six. It’s the one that’s rotted out the least. I’ll meet ya at the fireworks, same place as always,” I shout back to Ethel and Ray Buck.

Barreling down the hill toward my sister, I’m remembering how she was the Statue of Liberty last year and how we ran into Greasy Al and he took out his switchblade and cut off all the flowers she had taped onto her bike and squished her crown between his fingers. I haven’t forgotten him for one minute. Just because he hasn’t shown up yet doesn’t mean he’s not going to.

“Excuse me, pardon me…” I’ve got my arms out in front of me, swimming through the kids. I’m trying to get to Troo, who I’ve lost sight of now that I’m on flat ground. She’s been swallowed up again. Ahead of me, I can see Mary Lane floating through the crowd so easily because she can get through tight spaces that normal-sized children can’t. “Mary!” I shout. About twenty kids turn to look at me because I forgot to add on her last name. “Mary Lane!”

She looks to the left and to the right.

“Behind you!”

When she gets a bead on me, she stops and waits.

I shove closer until I get right up next to her. She’s got the Stars and Stripes tied around her neck with a jump rope.

Mary Lane says, “I been lookin’ all over the place for you. Ya like my costume?” She tries to spin around to show it off, but there’s not enough room with the crush of kids, even for her. “I’m a flagpole.”

I don’t know what to say to that, except, “You sure are.”

“Wish it’d get windier,” she says, trying to fluff the flag up. “Looks a lot better when it’s wavin’.”

“You seen her?” She knows who I mean.

“Attention please!” Dave says. “I’ve got a couple of contest winners to announce! Drumroll, Maestro.” Even though I can’t see them either, I know he’s talking to the drummer of the Do Wops, Johnny Fazio’s band. They’ll play later on when we eat, and after it gets dark, they’ll serenade us while we wait for the fireworks to start. “The winner of the baby carriage contest is Mrs. Walker. Top-notch decorating, Donna.”

I already knew that Nell’s name was not gonna be announced. I took some supplies yesterday over to the apartment. I was gonna help her decorate the baby’s buggy. After I cleared the stack of old TV dinners off her kitchen table and set down what I brought, Nell asked, “What’s this for?”

“The Fourth!” I said.

She blew her nose into one of the Kleenex flowers it took me most of the morning to make. “The fourth what?”

Dave announces, “The winner of the three-to-eight-year-old category is… Jimmy Latour. Nice job on those spokes, Jimmy.”

I spot Artie clapping for his brother. I’m so surprised to see him out and about and he’s even got on a costume. Artie’ll compete in the over-twelve category. After kids turn thirteen around here, something weird happens to them and they think dressing up for the Fourth party is not cool, so hardly none of them enter. Artie is the exception. Since he was the only one that entered last year, he had to go against the younger kids, but this year it looks like he’s got a little competition from a couple of other boys whose costumes aren’t nearly as nice as his. He’s got on the same getup he had on last year and looks thrilled to pieces. And a lot like Daniel Boone from the television show because both of them are lanky and have those enormous Adam’s apples and… is that a coonskin cap he’s got on his head?

“Artie!” I holler. “Over here!”

He doesn’t see or hear me, he’s too wrapped up in looking at the same thing everybody else is. I can’t see who all the kids have made a circle around until Mary Lane says, “Move,” and jabs someone with her elbow that’s like a stiletto and a hole opens up.

All I can say is, “Sweet Jesus,” and I can tell that’s what everybody else is thinking, too.

My Troo is in the center of the cirle wearing the most fantastic costume I have ever seen! It’s made of hundreds of Popsicle sticks all glued together. Like a sandwich board, they’re hanging down the front and back of her and there’s twinkling white lights running up the edges, and right around her middle, she’s written out on the sticks in red and blue poster paint:

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

That’s the name of the movie we saw during old-timey week at the Uptown Theatre that Troo loved so much. My sister has turned herself into a living, breathing Eiffel Tower!

Dave, who has to do double duty as a judge, steps into the admiring circle. He takes his time, but when he’s done judging Troo, he says real loud-maybe even my sister can hear the pride in his voice-“I think all of us can agree hands down that we’ve never seen anything quite like…” He sweeps his hand toward her. “The blue ribbon for the under-twelves this year goes to… Miss Margaret… sometimes known as Troo… also called Leeze… O’Malley! Let’s hear it for her, gang!”

Troo starts hunh… hunh… hunhing and everyone’s clapping and Wendy Latour’s throwing Dinah Shore kisses and Artie shoots off his cap gun and Mary Lane is chimp-grinning and man, oh, man, excuse my French, but what a fucking genius my sister is!

Chapter Twenty-one

The heat usually dies down around this time of night, but I guess it’s making a day of it same as me and Troo and everybody else who’s spread out at the lagoon waiting for the sky to go a smidgeon darker so the fireworks can get shot off from the island in the middle.

My breathing is coming a little faster than it normally does, but I’m not feeling as jumpy as I usually do being