Whistling in the Dark

Besides there being a whole lot more of them, just like Mother said when we played the name game, people really were different in the city. Like Fast Susie Fazio, the kid on the block who always seemed to have news before everybody else did. She was the one who told Troo and me about Dottie Kenfield.

Our second summer in the city had just started up. After the streetlights popped on, the three of us were sitting on the O’Haras’ front steps, waiting for the others to get there for our nightly game of red light, green light. Fast Susie was brushing her long, straight black hair that she had never cut since she was a baby and her skin got so tan in the summer she almost looked like an Egyptian in the movie The Ten Commandments that Troo and me had seen at the Uptown Theater, which we went to whenever we got a quarter. And because she was Italian-a people that Mother said matured faster than other people-Fast Susie was not only hairier than the rest of us, she had those bosoms. They’d even had to order a special Girl Scout uniform for her, one with more material in the chest.

“I heard that something bad happened to Dottie Kenfield,” I said to her.

“Oh ya did, did ya?” Fast Susie never liked it if you heard a story that she hadn’t told you. “Well, this time ya heard right, O’Malley. Month before last your next-door neighbor just up and disappeared. Just vanished one day.” She put on a spooky voice and made her eyes look like venetian blinds. “Gone. Right into thin air. Poof!”

You had to pay close attention when Fast Susie told you a story because she liked to wave her arms all over the place, like all the Italians did. She even gave Willie O’Hara a black eye one time when she was acting out the Crucifixion.

“Yup, Dottie Kenfield is probably dead, just like Junie Piaskowski,” Fast Susie said, back to brushin’ her hair. “I bet they find her body soon. All dead and green and her eyes rotting out of her head and smellin’ like Doc Sullivan’s breath.”

Last summer, Fast Susie said that Reese Latour had made her touch his weenie and told her that it could be used to make girls beg for mercy, and that when you got to be about thirteen blood would start coming out of you and that was when you could get a baby. See? Sometimes it was hard to know exactly when Fast Susie was telling the truth. Especially since I had every reason to believe that Dottie Kenfield wasn’t dead.

“But what about that crying Troo and me hear comin’ out of Dottie’s room at night?” I asked.

Fast Susie jabbed me in the arm with her elbow and said in that trembly voice of hers, “Just watch your step, O’Malley sisters.” She made a smile that was extra creepy because her eyeteeth were more pointed than they oughta been. “If you’re hearin’ crying coming out of that house, that can only mean one thing. The Kenfield place must be haaaunted.”

That’s exactly what she said. That all the crying next door was Dottie Kenfield’s ghost.

And maybe Fast Susie Fazio was right this time after all, because that crying was the most horrible haunted sound you have ever heard. Poor Dottie!

Sometimes, after the crying stopped, I would go stand at my window and look into Dottie’s bedroom because I was too afraid to do that when the crying was going on. A picture of a beautiful girl with brunette eyes and hair hung on a wall. I knew she was eighteen in this picture because she was in Nell’s class. Dottie had on her mint- colored Senior Dance dress and her hair was swirled up on top of her head like a Carvel cone and there was a ruby going-steady ring around her neck. I remember the day she bought that dress downtown at Gimbel’s. Right below her picture there was a small light that shone down from an aquarium hood into the water. And it had one of those deep-sea divers and little bubbles racing goldfish up to the surface.

Standing in the dark watching like that, I woulda bet anything that the Kenfields had not changed one thing about Dottie’s bedroom even though she disappeared into thin air two months ago. Because maybe there was still the smell of her in that room. Like after Daddy died. In his closet I could breathe in his Aqua Velva. One day I sat in there next to his boots that still had some farm dirt on them and wouldn’t come out. The day after that Mother gave away all his clothes to Goodwill Industries and shook me by the shoulders and yelled, “For godssake, Sally. He’s gone and he’s not coming back. It’s time to let bygones be bygones.”

But I hid one of Daddy’s shirts… a blue one. To remember my Sky King. I kept it inside my pillow where Mother couldn’t find it. Because at the end of the day, no matter what she said, I needed to lie my head down on Daddy, listening to Troo sucking on her two middle fingers, squeezing the life out of her baby doll, Annie, and not ever let bygones be bygones.

CHAPTER FOUR

Some nights, Troo and me could also hear crying coming out of Mother’s bedroom, which was so hard to believe. That sound almost seemed like a mirage in the desert. Because during the day you never would hear something like that. During the day Mother was tough like beef jerky and would tell you that crying was for people who felt sorry for themselves. Granny told me that Mother really wasn’t so tough, that she was just doing something called whistling in the dark. (Since I had not once ever heard Mother whistle, I knew right then that this granny was getting the hardening of the arteries the way the other gramma got.)

Troo was sitting on the soft stool in front of the dressing table that had a mirror and two drawers on each side. Another smaller mirror shaped like an ice skating rink sat on top of the table with her bottles of perfumes and lotions. I was holding the gold hairbrush with the swirls on the back that Daddy had given Mother for her birthday one year. We were watching Mother fold her blouses and put them into her round blue Samsonite bag between layers of tissue paper.

Mother snapped the luggage shut and brushed down the hem of her tan pleated skirt and said, “I have given Nell her instructions. She will do all the cooking and mind you during the day until Hall comes home from work at five thirty. You give either of them any guff and…” She took the hairbrush out of my hand, smacked it against her palm and then let it drop on the bed. “Hall took the car to Shuster’s this morning, so I’m walking over to the hospital.” She picked up her suitcase and slipped on her shiny black high heels with the bows. “I’ll be back in a week or so.”

“Can we come with you?” Troo said, which surprised me because she didn’t usually act like she’d miss you if you went anywhere.

Mother said, “Don’t be silly.” And then she gave us her powdery cheek to kiss and we could hear her heels smacking against the wooden steps that led down to the front porch and then finally the door slamming shut.

We sat there for a while not saying anything, but I was feeling bad because we weren’t ever supposed to be in Mother’s room without her. Troo said suddenly, “Let’s play dress-up.”

She slid open the jewelry drawer and fingered the green glass beads and a silver medallion on a long chain and Daddy’s old Timex, which I thought Mother’d given away to Goodwill Industries along with everything else. It made me so happy to see the watch that I slipped it on my wrist and held it up to my ear and it was still ticking. I wished I could wind it back so far that I would have a do-over of the day Daddy died. So I could say sorry. Troo lifted out the beads and put them around her neck. Then she pulled the cherry red lipstick out of the fancy golden tube and spread it on her pouty lips and rubbed them together like we’d seen Mother do. Troo was looking at herself in the mirror, turning her head from side to side.

“You look just like her,” I said, staring at her reflection.

Troo smiled and got some of the lipstick on her teeth and said, “I know.”

I pulled out another drawer and saw a picture of Daddy laying on top of Mother’s white chiffon scarf. It was the picture from when he just got back from the Air Force and he had his uniform on and you could tell he was so happy to be home. Next to him, Mother was looking off into the distance like she hadn’t even realized he was there.

“Let’s go,” I said, because I was starting to feel worried about Mother, and maybe if we went to the front window we could see her walking over to the hospital and we could yell something out to her like get well soon!

I let Daddy’s watch slide off my wrist and set it back in the drawer. “You should wipe off that lipstick.”

“No,” Troo said, and plumped out her lips even more.

“Troo.”

“I ain’t takin’ it off.”

“Troo!” We weren’t ever supposed to say ain’t. That was something Mother told us