A Smidgen of Sky (2 page)

I gave a little start as Mama laughed. “Your daddy was a real optimist, too, you know? Just like you.”

“He was?”

“You bet. And he was handsome, smart, funny, and brave. But Piper Lee, he wasn't superhuman. There's no way he could have survived that plane crash.”

She stopped there. She never added the last little detail of the story. The part about how there might not have been any plane crash if it hadn't been for me. I worked my finger through a hole in the slipcover of the couch. Mama had sewn it a long time ago from some old curtains she'd found at Goodwill.

“But you loved him, right?”

“Yes, course I did.”

“How do you know you love Ben?”

Mama's face got all soft and happy. “I just know, honey. Ben's the best thing that's ever happened to me.”

I felt a little jab in my heart. There she went being disloyal again. How could Ben be the best thing?

“But you could get along without him if you had to,” I said. “We have for a long time.”

“I guess. But I don't think I'd want to.”

But you could,
I thought.
You just said so yourself.

Mama sent me to bed at ten o'clock, but it was still too hot to sleep. I lay there on top of my covers, fretting over how Mama would skin me alive when she found out about my clawed dress. But then a shaft of moonlight shone across my bed. I looked out my window. I could see only a smidgen of sky, but it was enough to make me think of Daddy. He was my favorite thing to think about before I went to sleep at night. The memories seemed clearest in the quiet and dark.

I remembered how rough and gritty his chin felt when he kissed me good night and how he'd sometimes read to me—Dr. Seuss, or a chapter from one of the Five Little Peppers books, or sometimes a Bible story. I closed my eyes real tight and heard his deep, chuckling laugh. But Ben laughed like that, too. Was I hearing Daddy's laugh or Ben's?

I flipped over, trying to get comfortable. In just two months, if I couldn't find a way to change her mind, Mama would become Mrs. Ben Hutchings and I'd still be Piper Lee DeLuna. Our names wouldn't match anymore. Even our address would change when we moved to Ben's house.

If Daddy came back, how would he ever find us?

 

W
HEN
I
WOKE
up the next morning, my left arm prickled like it was filled with Coke. Mowgli was sprawled across it. I pushed him off with a moan. “Get off, fat cat.”

He gave me a disgusted look and then stretched long and slinky, his claws sticking out like little knives. It reminded me of what those little knives had done to my dress. I closed my eyes and yanked the sheet up to try to block out the day, but the sun blasting through the window was too bright. A gentle clackity-clack came from Miss Claudia's sewing machine in the apartment across the hall. I kicked off the covers.

I sniffed the air, wondering if Miss Claudia had made her weekly batch of peach cobbler yet, but all I could smell was perfumy jasmine drifting through the window. Miss Claudia spent all her time doing one of two things—making cobbler and sewing tiny outfits for her two great-grandbabies. She called them her “little slices of heaven.” I'd never seen either little slice, since they lived a whole world away in Washington State. But I'd seen plenty of pictures and plenty of sewing patterns.

The sewing machine kept whirring and clacking, whirring and clacking, until a notion tapped its way into my head. I sat up so fast, I scared Mowgli right off the bed.

Miss Claudia! Maybe she could fix my dress. Maybe she'd even agree not to tattle.

“Hey, Mama?” I asked at breakfast. “Can I stay home when you go to work today?”

Mama slid a flapjack onto my plate. “But Ben and Ginger are planning on you.”

“Yeah, I know, but I have a whole bunch of clippings I need to glue into my scrapbook.”

“Take it with you.”

“I can't. It would be a pain to haul it all over there. Besides, I probably couldn't work on it anyhow, on account of Ben always makes us play outside.”

Mama raised an eyebrow. “That's a bad thing?”

“Sometimes.”

“So work on it later.”

I sighed. This was going about the way I'd figured it would. “Why does it matter, Mama? Miss Claudia's always around. She doesn't care if I'm home.”

Mama pushed the syrup toward me. “I let you stay home with Miss Claudia most of the time. I don't think having you spend one day a week with Ben and Ginger is too much. You need to spend time together.”

About as much as I needed a plateful of slimy okra.

Mama turned back to the griddle and poured another puddle of batter into the spattering oil. “Did you ask Ben about the air show yet?”

“Why can't you ask him? He'll say yes for sure.”

“And if you ask?”

“Well, I—I dunno.”

She smiled. “You underestimate him, Piper Lee. Ben's a really great guy. If he knows how important the air show is to you, I bet he'll be willing to go.”

I swirled a bite of flapjack in my syrup.

“Anyhow,” Mama said, “you gotta start sometime.”

“Start what?”

“Talking with Ben.”

“I talk to him.”

“I don't mean one or two words when he asks you a question. I mean a real honest-to-goodness conversation. Like the kind Ginger and I have.”

“Ginger's just trying to get points.”

“Hmm,” Mama said. “And all this time I thought she liked me.”

“Well, she does like you.” I tried to backtrack. “I just think a lot of the stuff she says is to impress you.”

“Well, know what I think? I think you underestimate Ginger, too.”

I wondered when she'd started liking the word
underestimate
so much. My math teacher talked about using estimates to guess the worth of something. Was Mama saying Ben and Ginger were worth more than I thought they were? A picture of Ginger standing by the side of the road with a
FOR SALE
sign hanging around her neck made me grin.

“Did I say something funny?” Mama asked.

“No, ma'am.”

She winked. “Well, whatever it is, it's nice to see you smile.”

We climbed into our old Toyota to head for Ben and Ginger's right after one o'clock. Mama called the car Ol' Faithful on account of we'd had it forever. As soon as we turned onto Hillman Lane, you could see clear down the skinny gravel road to the last place on the left, where Ben and Ginger lived. It wasn't much to look at, a one-story house built of rough gray wood, standing in a yard that was half red dirt and half scrappy lawn. But I liked the patch of sunflowers growing near the porch, the way their huge happy faces seemed to follow the sun across the sky. The big shady area beneath the pecan trees was kind of nice, too.

Ben was tinkering under the hood of his ugly brown Mustang when we pulled into the drive, but as soon as Mama parked the car, he was right there like a hog for his slop. Mama disappeared into his arms. He smiled at me over the top of her head. “Hey, Piper Lee. You come to visit again?”

“Yessir,” I said, slurring the two words into one. Mama didn't like when I did that, said it wasn't respectful. She didn't take note. Next time I'd make it more smart-alecky. I sighed real loud as they kissed.

“Ginger's around back on the trampoline,” Ben said.

Yahoo for Ginger.
“Bye, Mama.”

She didn't answer. She was too busy gazing up at Ben as if he were some trophy fish she'd just hooked. I slammed my car door extra hard and wondered when Ben had become more important to her than me.

Before I'd stomped even halfway around the house, I smelled the sharp stink of fingernail polish. I found Ginger sitting cross-legged in the middle of the trampoline, wearing a pink shirt that said “Pep Rally Angel.”

Ginger flipped her braid over her shoulder. “Hey, Piper.”

“How come you're painting your nails clear?”

“'Cause the glitter looks the most silvery that way.”

She picked up a small tube and dusted it over the wet polish. “See?” She waved a shimmering hand toward me. “Want some?”

I wrinkled my nose. “No.”

“How come? It's pretty.”

“It's dog ugly.”

“You're dog ugly.”

“At least I don't wear a size-seven shoe,” I snapped back, but even as I said it, I knew I was mad at Mama and not Ginger.

Ginger screwed the cap back onto the tube of glitter. I crawled into the shade under the trampoline, yanked a long blade of grass, and stuck it into the side of my mouth.

“A dog probably peed on that,” Ginger said, peering down.

“You don't have a dog.”

“Neighbor dog, maybe.”

I heard Mama start up Ol' Faithful. It roared all the way down Hillman Lane before the silence closed in. Stuck again. “So what do you want to do today?”

“Swimming sounds good.”

I perked up a little. “Can we?”

“Hey, Daddy,” Ginger called. “When you get through with the car, can you take us swimming?”

His answer drifted back with the breeze. “I s'pose so.”

Ginger smiled, but right then I remembered I didn't have my swimming suit with me. “Oh, shoot. My suit's at home.”

“I'll find you some shorts,” she said.

The thought of wearing Ginger's stuff made me feel weird, but I did want to go swimming. “Yeah, okay.”

“But first I have to practice this cheer once more.”

“You know, by the time you get in high school, the cheers are gonna be different.”

She bounced to her feet. “So?”

I covered my ears.

“Gimme an
A.
Gimme a
B.
Gimme a real
VIC-TOR-Y.
”

The trampoline stretched down real low by my head. I scrambled out from underneath just in time.

A few minutes later we trooped upstairs to Ginger's bedroom. She dug a pair of yellow shorts and a halter top out of her dresser. “These okay?”

The yellow shorts made me think about my bridesmaid's dress. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Ginger peeled off her shirt. She had on one of those training bras I'd seen in the J. C. Penney catalog—white, with a tiny butterfly in the middle. “Where'd you get that?”

“Bought it with my allowance.”

“Does your daddy know?”

“Not yet.”

I studied my nubby fingernails. I wanted to ask more about it without acting too interested. I didn't have much need for a bra yet. Then again, Ginger didn't either. I'd ask Mama about getting me one. I scooped up the shorts and halter top and headed for the bathroom.

An hour later the three of us were on our way to Glen Bay Beach. I'd been there only a few times. Mama and I usually went to the main swimming beach at Shady Hollow. But I liked Glen Bay better—it had the little island.

Ben parked the truck near a big mass of saltwort on the edge of the shore. I left my shoes in the cab and slid out, loving the gritty feel of sand between my toes. We walked over to about twenty feet from the water and spread out our beach towels.

Ben pulled his T-shirt over his head and headed for the water. As if on second thought, he turned toward us and took a couple of steps backwards. “Y'all stick right close to shore, you hear?”

I sifted a little pile of sand onto each corner of my towel in case a gust of wind tried to grab it. Ginger plunked down onto hers. “You still wearing that training bra?” I asked.

“No, silly. You don't wear a bra with a swimming suit.”

My face got hot. “I knew that. I just wondered, is all.”

“Bet you didn't know boys' swim trunks have the underwear built right in.”

“I guess you figured that out when you bought yourself a pair.”

She wrinkled her nose at me and stretched out on her towel.

“Aren't you gonna swim?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I have to lie here in the sun and get real hot first or else the water's too cold.”

“Don't be such a weenie. It's practically lukewarm.”

I raised a hand to shield my eyes and studied the island. It wasn't a real island, just a big mound not far from the beach, covered with saltwort and scrub grass. There were five older kids doing crazy jumps and dives off a giant round floatie thing next to the island. I wanted to swim out there, but I wasn't allowed. Mama said I wasn't a strong enough swimmer to go much over my head.

But Mama wasn't here.

Ben swam in the opposite direction, his long, powerful strokes gliding him away from us. Ginger was flopped on her back, an arm thrown across her eyes.

I walked over to the edge of the water and stuck my toes in. My whole body prickled with sudden excitement. I took a deep breath of salty air and squinted out over the Atlantic, clear out to where the brilliant blue of the sky seemed to blend right into the blue of the water. Daddy had crashed into this very ocean, only about fifteen miles from where I stood.