And Rob opened his mouth and let the word fall out. “
“What?” she said.
“Keys,” he said again. He cleared his throat. “I got the keys to the cage.”
“How?”
“Beauchamp,” he told her. “He hired me to feed his tiger. And he gave me the keys.”
“All right!” said Sistine. “Now all we have to do is open the locks and let him go.”
“No,” said Rob.
“Are you crazy?” she asked him.
“It ain’t safe. It ain’t safe for him. My friend Willie May, she had a bird and let it go, and it just got ate up.”
“You’re not making sense,” she told him. “This is a tiger. A tiger, not a bird. And I don’t know who Willie May is, and I don’t care. You can’t stop me from letting this tiger go. I’ll do it without the keys. I’ll saw the locks off myself.”
“Don’t,” said Rob.
“Don’t,” she mocked back. And then she spun around and grabbed hold of the cage and shook it the same way Beauchamp had earlier that day.
“I hate this place,” she said. “I can’t wait for my dad to come and get me. When he gets here, I’m going to make him come out here and set this tiger free. That’s the first thing we’ll do.” She shook the cage harder. “I’ll get you out of here,” she said to the pacing tiger. “I promise.” She rattled the cage as if she were the one who was locked up. The tiger paced back and forth without stopping.
“Don’t,” said Rob.
But she didn’t stop. She shook the cage and beat her head against the chainlink, and then he heard her gasp. He was afraid that maybe she was choking. He went and stood next to her. And he saw that she was crying.
He stood beside her, terrified and amazed. When his mother was alive — when he still cried about things — she had been the one who comforted him. She would cup her hand around the back of his neck and say to him, “You go on and cry. I got you. I got good hold of you.”
Before Rob could think whether it was right or whether it was wrong, he reached out and put his palm on Sistine’s neck. He could feel her pulse, beating in time with the tiger’s pacing. He whispered to her the same words his mother had whispered to him. “I got you,” he told her. “I got good hold of you.”
Sistine cried and cried. She cried as if she would never stop. And she did not tell him to take his hand away.
Chapter 21
By the time they started walking back to the Kentucky Star, it was dusk. Sistine was not crying, but she wasn’t talking, either, not even about letting the tiger go.
“I have to call my mother,” she said to him in a tired voice when they got to the motel.
“I’ll go with you,” said Rob.
She didn’t tell him not to, so he walked with her across the parking lot. They were almost to the laundry room when Willie May materialized out of the purple darkness. She was leaning up against her car, smoking a cigarette.
“Boo,” she said to Rob.
“Hey,” he told her back.
“Somebody following you,” she said, jerking her head at Sistine.
“This is Sistine,” Rob told her. And then he turned to Sistine and said, “This is Willie May, the one I was telling you about, the one who had the bird and let it go.”
“So what?” said Sistine.
“So nothing,” said Willie May. Her glasses winked in the light from the falling Kentucky Star. “So I had me a bird.”
“Why are you hanging around in the parking lot trying to scare people?” Sistine asked, her voice hard and mean.
“I ain’t trying to scare people,” said Willie May.
“Willie May works here,” said Rob.
“That’s right,” said Willie May. She reached into the front pocket of her dress and pulled out a package of Eight Ball gum. “You know what?” she said to Sistine. “I know you. You ain’t got to introduce yourself to me. You angry. You got all the anger in the world inside you. I know angry when I meet it. Been angry most of my life.”
“I’m not angry,” Sistine snapped.
“All right,” said Willie May. She opened the package of Eight Ball. “You an angry liar, then. Here you go.” She held out a stick of gum to Sistine.
Sistine stared for a long minute at Willie May, and Willie May stared back. The last light of dusk disappeared, and the darkness moved in. Rob held his breath. He wanted desperately for the two of them to like each other. When Sistine finally reached out and took the gum from Willie May, he let his breath go in a quiet
Willie May nodded at Sistine, and then she extended the pack to Rob. He took a piece and put it in his pocket for later.
Willie May lit another cigarette and laughed. “Ain’t that just like God,” she said, “throwing the two of you together?” She shook her head. “This boy full of sorrow, keeping it down low in his legs. And you,” — she pointed her cigarette at Sistine — “you all full of anger, got it snapping out of you like lightning. You some pair, that’s the truth.” She put her arms over her head and stretched and then straightened up and stepped away from the car.
Sistine stared at Willie May, with her mouth open. “How tall are you?” she asked.
“Six feet two,” said Willie May. “And I got to get on home. But first, I got some advice for you. I already gave this boy some advice. You ready for yours?”
Sistine nodded, her mouth still open.
“This is it: Ain’t nobody going to come and rescue you,” said Willie May. She opened the car door and sat down behind the wheel. “You got to rescue yourself. You understand what I mean?”
Sistine stared at Willie May. She said nothing.
Willie May cranked the engine. Rob and Sistine watched her drive away.
“I think she’s a prophetess,” said Sistine.
“A what?” Rob said.
“A prophetess,” said Sistine. “They’re painted all over the Sistine ceiling. They’re women who God speaks through.”
“Oh,” said Rob, “a prophetess.” He turned the word over in his mouth. “Prophetess,” he said again. He nodded. That sounded right. If God was going to talk through somebody, it made sense to Rob that he would pick Willie May.
Chapter 22
“You out in the woods with that girl again?” his father asked as soon as Rob stepped into the room.
“Yes, sir,” said Rob.
