A Tiny Piece of Sky (11 page)

IT WAS A QUARTER
past six o'clock when Frankie steered Dixie to the backyard of the apartment.

Ten minutes later she had Dixie securely tucked away in her shed, harness unfastened and returned to the shelf. She untied Seaweed's guitar string, wound it in a coil, and stuck it in her dress pocket. Dixie could not get to the water pail fast enough, and while Frankie was fumbling with the snaps, that pony was lapping up the water as if there were peppermints sitting on the bottom.

At half past six, Frankie was sitting on the stone steps that led to the alley alongside the apartment and thinking of what she would say to Mother and Daddy in defense of her whereabouts. Much of her thinking had to do with it all being Elizabeth's fault. After all, Elizabeth was in charge and hadn't been keeping an eye on Frankie as she should have. As everyone knew, that was one of the main responsibilities of a Number One.

A solid excuse, don't you think?

Frankie hadn't gotten very far along that line of thinking when Bismarck, who had been trying to keep cool under the shade of the side porch, caught her scent on the hot breeze—a mix of sweat and equine—and tracked her. He soon began announcing her arrival in the only way he knew how—howling and yipping, and licking at her
face. Apparently, he wanted everyone in the neighborhood to know that he, and no one else, had found her, safe and sound.

Frankie tried to quiet him, but it was too late.

Mother was first out the kitchen door, followed by Elizabeth, and then Daddy. Frankie got to her feet and winced when she saw Mother with the cake turner in her hand. “I just took Dixie out for a bit,” said Frankie, getting to her feet, careful to keep her rear out of Mother's reach. “She was in her shed all day. Elizabeth hasn't taken her out for a while . . .”

“Don't you dare pin this on me,” said Elizabeth, with her hands on her hips.

Frankie ignored her. “And since Joan is gone, it was up to me to do. And look”—Frankie pointed to Dixie and then to herself—“we're fine. Except for a broken snap, which I fixed, nothing at all bad happened. We went out in the cart and everything.”

“You hooked up Dixie all by yourself?” said Daddy. “To the cart?”

Frankie nodded, and she thought she saw a trace of a smile cross Daddy's face. “I can do a lot more than you think.” She cleared her throat. “Even at the restaurant. I can seat customers or something like that. I know it.”

“What does the restaurant have to do with anything, young lady?” said Mother. “We're talking about your leaving home without asking your sister, all by yourself, where nobody knew where you were. What if something happened?”

“Like what?” said Frankie. For the life of her, she didn't know what Mother was afraid would happen, only that there were fears of all sorts of things living inside her, fears that the worst could happen
at any given moment, and then how do you go on when your worst fear comes true?

“Like
what
?” Mother said, her knees buckling slightly and throwing her off center, as if the ridiculousness of the question caught her by surprise. “That animal could throw you, leave you lying in an alley somewhere with your head cracked wide open. You could be run over by a car, kidnapped by Gypsies, roughed up by thugs . . .”

“Mildred,” said Daddy, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Let's not get carried away.”

“You just ask Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh about getting carried away,” she snapped. It had been seven years since the baby boy of Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator, was kidnapped, held for ransom, and later found dead, but it still haunted Mother, along with much of the rest of the country.

Mother held up her hand, the one without the cake turner, and showed Frankie the very small distance between her thumb and index finger. “I was this close to calling the police. Don't ever do that to me again, you hear me?”

“I won't,” said Frankie, keeping to herself the fact that the police had turned up anyway.

“Good.” Mother took in a deep breath. “Now, you're on punishment for ten days.”

“Ten days?” complained Frankie.

“Would you like to make it eleven?” said Mother.

Frankie shook her head.

“And I don't want to hear any talk about it,” said Mother. “You're to be at the restaurant all day and then come right on home. No pony rides, no playing out back, no roller-skating, and no radio.”

“No radio!” said Frankie.

Mother raised the hand with the cake turner ever so slightly, and Frankie relented.

“Supper's getting cold.” Mother turned on her square heels and went back into the apartment without waiting for the rest of them.

Elizabeth followed close behind after shaking her head at Frankie, showing her disappointment—a classic Number One move. But it was Daddy whom Frankie was concerned about. “You gave your mother a real scare,” he said, linking arms with Frankie as they walked the alley. Bismarck stayed by Daddy's other side.

Frankie nodded. “Daddy, I took Dixie to the restaurant to show you and Mother, but when you weren't there, I went inside to get her some water. I overheard Mr. Stannum talking to Mr. Price.”

Daddy's steps slowed a bit. “Overheard?”

“I was in the cupboard.”

“I see.” Daddy nodded but didn't ask for any further explanation, as if being inside a cupboard was a very normal, run-of-the-mill kind of thing.

“Mr. Price was asking a lot of questions about the restaurant,” she went on.

“Was he, now?”

“He wanted to know how many people worked there, for one thing,” said Frankie. “And then he wanted to know how you had the money to start the business, you know, because of the Depression being on.” She was about to step up onto the porch, but Daddy placed his hand on her arm.

“Yes, well, the Chamber of Commerce likes to know those kinds of things,” said Daddy. “And Mr. Price thinks it's his job to know everything about everything. Not for you to worry.”

But Frankie was worried. She knew she should tell Daddy about
what else Mr. Price had said, about Hitler's spies and about whether or not Daddy was really born here in America, but she was afraid. It's not as though she believed those things were true. Of course she didn't. But if she said them out loud, if she repeated them, she worried that maybe—just maybe—they could be.

Daddy gently pinched Frankie's chin. “You run along now and eat your supper. You know how lima beans are when they get cold. Even Bismarck won't touch them.”

Bismarck licked Daddy's knuckles at the mention of his name, and Frankie opened the screen door to the kitchen. But she turned back when she noticed Daddy wasn't behind her. “Aren't you coming?”

“I'll be along in a minute,” he said, taking a seat on the porch step. “Just catching my breath.”

“But the limas,” said Frankie.

“I said, go ahead now,” said Daddy. “Don't keep your mother waiting any longer.”

Frankie did go ahead, and when she got to the dining room she found Grandma Engel, Mother, Uncle Hal, Aunt Edith, Ava, Martha, and Elizabeth all huddled around the table. “There she is,” said Grandma Engel with a wink. “No need to send out the cavalry.”

Frankie took her seat on one of the two empty chairs. The food was already on each of the plates: slippery potpie, boiled lima beans seasoned with ham, and buttered bread.

“Can we eat now?” moaned Martha, her face hovering just over the plate of food in front of her.

“Not yet,” said Mother. “We're just waiting for Hermann.”

“You shouldn't have gone off by yourself like that,” Aunt Edith
told Frankie. “Don't you care a thing about your mother's nerves?” Aunt Edith was short, like Mother, but more round and just as nervous. She liked experimenting with makeup, and never left her house without a fresh coat of red lips, and eyebrows painted pencil-thin and so high on her forehead that she always appeared surprised.

“Aw, come on now, Edie,” said Uncle Hal. “It turned out all right.”

“My girls always were worriers,” said Grandma Engel. “You'd have thought they'd grow out of that.”

Aunt Edith pursed her dark red lips and neither one said anything more.

“Where'd you go?” asked Ava, all wild-eyed and eager for information. “To the racetrack? Or to the cinema? Naw, don't say you went to the cinema. There's been no good show there since
Son of Frankenstein
played last winter.”

Grandma Engel said, “So
you
say. That
Young Mr. Lincoln
picture is a good one, I'd bet. Henry Fonda is a fine actor, and nice looking, too.” She fanned her face with her napkin.

As Grandma Engel was going on about the likes of Mr. Fonda, Martha had her tongue out and was letting it dangle across the pile of boiled dough on her plate. Then she let it linger over the pat of butter on her piece of white bread.

“He certainly is,” said Aunt Edith. She reached across Ava and swatted at Martha's arm.

Martha retracted her tongue and then started to tear up. “But I'm so hungry,” she sobbed.

Ava shook her head. “Henry Fonda ain't no Boris Karloff.”

“Isn't,” corrected Elizabeth.

“Remember the part when Baron Wolf von Frankenstein swings across his laboratory on a rope and knocks the monster into a fiery sulfur pit?” Ava sat back in her chair and smiled. “That was just about the best thing I ever seen.”

“Saw,” said Elizabeth.

“Where can you get one of those sulfur pits, anyway?” asked Ava.

“Just what would you do with a sulfur pit?” said Elizabeth.

“Let's change the subject,” said Mother, who thought it best not to know too much about the inner workings of Ava's mind.

Ava shrugged. “All right. So where'd you go, then, Frankie?”

Frankie took a drink of milk. “To the restaurant.”

“The restaurant?” said Ava, her mouth gaping. “The place where you were all day long?”

Frankie nodded.

“Man oh man,” said Ava, folding her arms across her chest, “what a waste of freedom.”

“And then down Jonathan Street,” said Frankie.

“Jonathan Street?” said Mother.

“To where the coloreds live?” said Ava, her eyes widening. She was clearly impressed.

“Frances Marie,” said Mother, “what have we told you about going to that part of town?”

Frankie started to answer, but Mother held up her hand. “Don't say a word until your father gets here. I want him to hear this straight from the horse's mouth.” She gave Frankie a grim look and then turned her head toward the kitchen. “Hermann? You out there?”

“He said he'd be right in,” said Frankie.

“I can go check on him, Mother,” said Elizabeth, removing her napkin from her lap.

“No, I'll go,” said Frankie. She pushed back her chair and jumped up before Elizabeth had a chance to beat her to it. On her way to the kitchen, Frankie heard a remark from Elizabeth about her animal-like behavior, which only made Frankie grin.

Daddy wasn't in the kitchen, though. Frankie checked the side porch and the alley. “Daddy? Are you out here? Everybody's waiting to eat. And Martha isn't going to make it much longer.” The alley and porch were empty, except for Bismarck, who was preoccupied with licking the long fur between the pads on his front paw.

Frankie ran to the gravel lot behind the yard. Daddy's Studebaker wasn't parked there in its usual place. On the way back inside, Frankie wondered what would've made Daddy disappear like that. One minute talking about cold lima beans, and the next, vanished. Was it because of what she'd said about Mr. Price and Mr. Stannum?

“Well?” said Mother.

“Daddy's not here,” said Frankie. “He's gone.”

“DO YOU THINK DADDY
is all right?” Frankie asked Elizabeth as she buttoned up her cotton nightgown and climbed into bed. She wouldn't normally start such a conversation with Elizabeth, but she needed to talk to someone, and Bismarck was asleep on the porch.

“What do you mean?” Elizabeth was already settled in her bed and propped up against the velvet headboard, a book in her lap. “Why wouldn't he be all right?” she said, opening the book and finding the last page where she'd left off.

“You know, disappearing like that.” Frankie scooted herself to the center of her bed so she wouldn't have to see Joan's empty side.

Elizabeth didn't look up from her page. “You don't know the first thing about running a business, Frankie. He has a lot to do. Something you should think about the next time you go off gallivanting around town without telling anyone.”

“But what business would he have to do all of a sudden? Just as we were about to have supper?”

Elizabeth snapped her book closed. “I don't know, but don't you go bothering him about it. He has enough on his mind these days.”

“All right, fine,” said Frankie. Was it possible for a Number One to refrain from bossing? No, it was not. “I won't go bothering him.”

“Good.” Elizabeth sighed and opened her book once again.

“Elizabeth?”

“What, Frankie?”

“Does anyone tease you, or give you trouble about Daddy?”

Elizabeth looked up. “About Daddy? No, why would they?”

“You know, about him being a German.”

Elizabeth sat right up in bed. “What are you talking about, Frankie Baum? Daddy is no German.”

Frankie got to her knees and gathered up a corner of the cotton sheet in her palm. “I don't mean one of
those
Germans, not those Nazi Germans, the ones making trouble and war. But I just mean being from Germany, or having his family there. Does anyone say anything to you about that?”

Elizabeth shook her head. Her eyes were opened wide, as if this were the first time she'd ever heard of such a thing. Frankie wondered how it could be that she and Elizabeth shared the same mother and father—the same bedroom, even—but lived on different planets in opposite universes. Just once, Frankie wanted to visit Elizabeth's planet, where life was easy and the biggest trouble was deciding whether to wear your hair in finger waves or pin curls. “Why, have people said something to you?”

“Not people, really,” said Frankie. “One person.”

“Who?”

“Leroy Price,” said Frankie.

“What did he say?”

“He asked if we were going to make German food at the restaurant.” Frankie winced at remembering and wished she'd gotten some swings in or a good kick up his backside. She would have, she knew, if that Seaweed hadn't interfered.

“Oh,” said Elizabeth, looking relieved. “Is that all? Frankie, there are Italian restaurants in town, you know. Jewish delicatessens. I'm sure he was just curious about the food.”

“I heard his father say some things, too,” protested Frankie.

“Mr. Price from the Chamber of Commerce?” said Elizabeth.

Frankie nodded.

“What did he say? Things about Daddy or the restaurant?”

“Both,” said Frankie.

Elizabeth shook her head, dismissing Frankie's concerns. “Mr. Price, I'm sure, just wants to know about the restaurant because it's his job at the Chamber of Commerce to know about businesses in town. That's all.”

“I don't know,” said Frankie quietly.

“Look,” said Elizabeth, “everybody loves Daddy. He's got friends everywhere—the Alsatias, the Owls Club, the Eagles. Do you think they'd let him into those clubs if they thought of him in . . . you know, that way?”

“You mean being a German?” said Frankie.

“Shh!” Elizabeth was very close to throwing her book at Frankie. “Would you stop saying that?”

Frankie wondered if Elizabeth had a point. “I guess you're right.”

“Of course I'm right,” said Elizabeth, leaning back against her pillow, as if there shouldn't be an ounce of doubt. “Now, go to sleep.”

Frankie turned over so her back was to Elizabeth. But she did not sleep.

No, sir, she most certainly did not. For how can you sleep and listen for the door at the same time?