Crooked (8 page)

Nobody was home except Ham, but there were two messages on the answering machine, both from her mother. “Hi, sweetie, it's me. I'm at Aunt Marie's and I need to talk to you.” The next one said, “Hi, sweetie, me again. I guess you're not home yet and Marie and I are going to be out tonight. I just wanted to let you know how much I miss you. I'll be here awhile longer, but I miss you so much. Bye.”

Out loud, to the machine, Clara said, “If you miss me so much, why don't you come back, then?”

There were no messages from Gerri. Clara dialed her number, but when the answering machine came on—“Yo, it's me, Gerri”—Clara hung up.

She went to her father's study and pulled out his enormous medical dictionary. There was no such thing as Wilkinson disease.

A half hour later, in her room with a bowl of soup, Clara was surprised to look out and see Bruce still at the bus stop down the street. He was standing in the cold wearing nothing but his light coat and baggy cotton pants. As the cars passed, the headlights threw a gleam on his face and his crossed arms. Clara began to wonder where he lived and who was waiting for him at home. Maybe his father was the kind who was always working late, or his mother didn't live with him at all. Maybe he had a dog and maybe he didn't. Maybe he had a normal life or maybe not.

She set her soup bowl on the floor for Ham to finish, something she could never have done while her mother was home. When he was done, he laid his big head on her knee. They sat like that for a while, in the dark room of the empty house, perfectly still, Clara at her window watching Bruce Crookshank stomp his feet and cross his arms against the cold until finally he gave up on the bus and started walking, his breath rising above his head in a cold, miserable fog.

12

AN APOLOGY

Amos touched his shaved head and winced. It was Wednesday, and he was home. He could smell pancakes and bacon and wondered if his mother would bring them to his bedside, or if he would be allowed to walk to the table. It was possible to imagine the rustling of his father's newspaper, or maybe he could actually hear it. Maybe the whack in the head had affected his hearing as well as his sight, which seemed painfully acute just now, making sunlight hard to bear. Maybe he was turning into a superhero and would be able to see through walls, hear baseball games without a radio, and telepathically tell Clara that Bruce was a subhuman for setting her and Amos up the way he had.

“Hey, slugger,” his father said, easing into the room with a yellow-flowered tray, “don't know how you rate it, but what we've got here is room service.”

“What time is it?” Amos asked. It seemed strange to have his father home at breakfast time. Usually he was on his route until much later in the morning.

“It's ten-thirty, you slugabed.” Then, more seriously, “How're you feeling?”

“Okay. Fine, I think.”

His father's face visibly relaxed. “So nothing feels different?”

Amos thought about it. “I kind of feel a little stupid about everything.”

“Really? About what, for example?”

“I don't know. About everything, I guess.” He took a gulp of orange juice. “So, can I go back to school tomorrow? I have a test in physical science.”

“Possibly. Possibly not. Depends on the patient's progress.”

“So how do you feel, Dad?”

“Me? Not bad. Good enough, and bound to improve.” He seemed about to say more on the subject, but didn't. Instead he talked about Amos's pigeons, how Liz had been feeding them faithfully and changing their water while Amos was gone. “I suspect she thinks you owe her big for this, slugger,” he said, smiling.

Amos's mother stepped into the room. She looked like she'd been crying, but Amos couldn't be sure. Maybe she'd slept badly worrying about him. “Hey, Mom,” Amos said, “thanks for the pancakes.”

“They're blueberry,” she said. “But don't think we're going to spoil you forever. By Monday, dumpling, you'll be back to oatmeal.”

“I'm not a dumpling,” Amos said, and his father, trying to keep the mood light, said to his mother, “He's not a dumpling, dumpling.”

When Amos had eaten four and a half pancakes and five slices of bacon and gulped down all the milk and orange juice, he realized suddenly that he had eaten way too much and might be sick any minute. He lay back on the bed and tried to think of his stomach expanding comfortably to accommodate this great mass of food. He'd read that you could visualize things in your body and think positive, healing thoughts about the sick parts. These thoughts supposedly acted on the body parts and made them do what you hoped they'd do. He had read this in a book he'd found next to his father's chair. Since then, he'd imagined his father devoting each night to a train of healing thoughts while he pretended to watch TV. Only what parts, exactly, were sick in his father's body? Where did the Tums figure in? If Amos directed his own thoughts in the same direction, would that help?

Amos still felt woozy. He closed his eyes and laid a towel over his face to shut out the light that seemed to blast through the curtains. He was trying to imagine his stomach as a placid, shallow basin in which the water level had only temporarily risen when he heard heavy footsteps in the hall and then, close by, Bruce Crookshank saying, “Amos, my man, you're finally out of stir!”

Hearing Bruce's voice made Amos realize that he wasn't even close to forgiving Crook for making him look like a fool with Clara Wilson. Without lifting the towel, Amos said, “I'm sick, Crook, and you sure aren't the cure. Why don't you do the honorable thing and leave?”

Through the towel, Amos heard what sounded like receding footsteps, then silence. He waited a minute, then a minute more. He lifted the towel and peered out. To his surprise, Bruce was actually gone.

Amos pulled the towel back over his head and toyed with the idea of calling Clara after school. Or maybe he should write to her, since she would probably hang up the second she heard his voice. He lifted his head, decided the pancakes were going to stay put, and found a spiral notebook in his bag beside the bed.

Dear Clara,
he wrote, then crossed out the
Dear
because it sounded too sappy.

I just wanted you to know that I didn't call you up and say I was naked. That was somebody else and I didn't know about it. Also, I thought your card in the newspaper was nice. Bruce saw it because he was at my house that night. I'm sorry about what happened at the hospital, but I was asleep and pretty confused.

Amos stopped there and put his hand over his eyes. That last part was a problem. He couldn't exactly say he'd been dreaming about girls' breasts and so in his sleep had just naturally reached out to touch hers. Even mentioning the word
breasts
would just give her more reason to think he was some kind of a pervert, and maybe he was. Maybe he was no different from Crook and Jay Foley. Maybe the only difference was that they were more honest about it.

I don't know how to explain it except that it was a mistake and I was actually asleep, not just faking it. Anyhow, I promise to leave you alone. I just wanted to explain my side.

Amos reread the letter, which suddenly seemed as stupid and puny as his own stupid, puny life. Then, just to get it over with, he signed his name, folded the letter into an envelope, and sealed it.

13

ENDANGERED SPECIES

Gerri hadn't called since returning three days earlier from Stowe, and it seemed clear she was avoiding Clara at school, taking different routes to classes and going off campus for lunch. Clara's mother called Clara twice more, both times in the morning before school. Each time, after saying she was fine, Clara stood at the kitchen phone and said, “You want to talk to Dad?” but her mother said, “No, sweetie, I just want to talk to you and find out how you're doing and tell you how much I miss you.”

The third time her mother had said that, Clara said, “Then why don't you just come home? Then you can stop missing me because you'll be here.”

A second passed before her mother spoke. “The
why
of it is very complicated, sweetie, and it runs pretty deep.” She spoke in her most adult voice, which to Clara was her most annoying voice of all, because it always seemed to say, “I'm an adult and you're not, which is why I understand these things and you don't.”

“I'd better go or I'll be late for school,” Clara said, and her mother, in her normal voice, in her sweet sad normal voice, said, “Okay.
Au revoir,
sweetie.”

Clara hated it when her mother used French words, but this time it reminded her of a fight between her parents that had ended in reconciliation. It was last summer, and her father had been reading in his chair while her mother watched a French lesson on one of the educational channels. Verbs conjugated themselves on a blue background, followed by scenes in which Parisian students ordered
limon pressé
at sidewalk cafés.

“Oh, Thurm,” her mother said, “just look at that street. Don't you wish sometimes we'd gone to live abroad the way we planned?”

Her father glanced briefly at the screen and said nothing. A few minutes later, he said, “I'm going out,” and out he went, the screen door banging shut behind him. Clara watched her father walk down the drive, stand at the end of it, and stare at the traffic with his hands in his pockets. If he put his hands on his hips, Clara thought, he would look more decisive.

“Dad's standing on the driveway,” Clara said.

Her mother turned around and parted the curtains. He was still standing there with his hands in his pockets.

“He looks sad,” Clara said. “Maybe you should go out there.”

For some reason, this worked. Her mother switched off the TV, stepped into her shoes, and joined him. After a few minutes, her mother took her father's hand and they went for a walk.

This was what Clara thought about while she walked to Mrs. Harper's house on Tuesday afternoon. She had to think of a way to do that again. Her mother might be living in Dalton, and her father might be willing to wait with his hands in his pockets, but maybe if Clara said the right thing, a meeting would occur and her mother would come home.

Clara changed the cat litter and dusted under Mrs. Harper's figurines. Then she gently wiped cobwebs off the lampshades. She had the feeling Mrs. Harper was testing her for regular work. If she didn't break any knickknacks, if she cleaned things she wasn't specifically asked to clean, if she left Ham at home, where he couldn't threaten the cats, she would be given more work, and her camp fund—now up to $140—would rise accordingly. Except that maybe instead of horse camp, she could use the money to take her parents on vacation.

But Mrs. Harper's house was the wrong place to feel hopeful about her mother. It was lonely there, and the heat was on too high. The air smelled musty, like a house preserved by the historical society. It was as if Mrs. Harper had ceased to exist once her husband died but someone had to keep house in his memory.

Clara's house felt a little that way with her mother gone. She still found herself obeying her mother's rules:
Don't cut paper with
the sewing scissors. Don't leave the dishrag wadded up in the sink.
Don't cut meat on the bread board.
When Clara came home from Mrs. Harper's, she started to cut newspaper with the sewing scissors and stopped short. Maybe this was a test—like the princess and the pea. Maybe if she kept things the same and remembered all the rules, her mother would come back for her things, see how careful Clara had been, and decide to stay home. Clara went to the kitchen for the old paper-cutting scissors.

The newspaper article she was cutting out was about the juvenile offender who'd vandalized private property and assaulted Amos.
So at least that much of what Bruce Crookshank had said was
true,
she thought. The offender's name wasn't given because he was a minor, but Clara, like everyone else at school, knew it was Charles Tripp. This made her wonder about Eddie Tripp, too. Had he been at the hospital to try to find out about Amos—and to find out what he was telling people? According to the news story, the damage to postboxes and lights was estimated at $1,566. It said that Amos MacKenzie, who had interceded to stop the vandalism, had been hospitalized but was recovering quickly.

Clara put the clipping in her desk drawer with her camp fund and the Christmas card showing the MacKenzies beside the milk truck. Amos stared back at her, uncomfortable as always, one arm behind his back. He didn't
look
like a jerk. But, as her mother liked to say, jerks don't always wear an identification label.

Gerri dodged her all day Thursday, and that afternoon, after throwing her papers and before her father came home, Clara dialed her on the telephone. Her little brother, Kendrick, answered the phone. “It's me, Clara. Who's this?”

“It's me, Kendrick, the King of All Revolting Noises, do you doubt it?”

Clara knew better than to say she did. “Not for a second,” she said. “Is your sister there?”

Clara heard the clunk of the receiver being laid down and Kendrick's voice yelling, “Ger-ri! Ger-ri Erickson! Call for Gerri, the Hairiest Hairy One!”

Seconds passed. Nearly a minute. Finally Kendrick came back on the line. In a careful voice, he said, “She's not in at this moment.”

Clara knew what this meant. She had seen Gerri use this trick on James Martinson when she didn't want to talk to him. Gerri would go out on the front porch and tell Kendrick to tell James Martinson that she wasn't in at this moment.

“Okay,” Clara said. “But could you tell Gerri that I really need to talk to her? And that it will only take a second?”

“Roger,” Kendrick said. “Over and out.”

Clara set the phone down. She only had one real question for Gerri, but it was probably the only one she could never ask and Gerri would never answer. It was, What did I
do?

It was Friday when the letter from Amos arrived. She and Ham had finished their paper route and had just returned home with their empty canvas pouches. It was full dusk. Her father wasn't home yet, so Clara checked the mailbox on her way by. She was hoping for a letter from her mother or maybe even Gerri when the smudgy envelope from Amos, with its serious, formal handwriting, came out of the box with two bills from credit card companies. Amos had neatly printed his return address in the corner. There was an oily, dime-sized stain near the bottom lefthand corner, and Amos had drawn an arrow toward it and written,
Oops!
Then, under that, he'd written:
Neat's-foot Oil.
(Nothing gross.)

Feeling a little stunned, like she had when she was chosen for her little part in the school play, Clara carefully opened the envelope. She read the letter once fast and then again slowly. So it
had
all been a misunderstanding, then, and it confirmed what Bruce had been trying to tell her that day on the bus. Which meant that Amos might be as nice as she hoped after all.

Clara was still sitting in the living room staring at Amos's neat handwriting when her father came in wearing gloves and his heavy winter coat.

“That from your mom?” he asked, nodding at the letter in her hand.

“No,” Clara said. She felt herself blush. But her father didn't seem to notice. Once she'd said it wasn't from her mother, he turned away and hung up his coat.

“It's from Amos MacKenzie,” Clara said.

“Amos MacKenzie,” her father repeated. “Do I know Amos MacKenzie?”

“His father's the milkman.”

“Oh, right. Another of our endangered species. Men in white uniforms, milk in glass bottles.” He took off his gloves and picked up the two bills.

Clara didn't like it when her father was in the mood to make everything seem useless. “Well, his son, Amos, was hit with a bat.”

Her father mumbled, “Uh-huh” and opened the first bill.

“Some vandals threw the bat at Amos when he stopped them from doing more vandalism,” Clara said. “Amos got a concussion.”

“Hmm,” her father said while staring at the bill.

“It was really the oldest Tripp brother who did it,” Clara said. “That wasn't in the paper, but someone told me about it at school.”

For the first time, her father paid attention. “Well, I wouldn't believe all the gossip,” her father said. “Remember, ‘Just the facts, ma'am. We only need the facts.'”

Clara thought about telling her father that it was a fact that she'd seen Eddie and Charles Tripp together just a little while before the vandalism and assault, but she didn't. Clara didn't know why, but she didn't want to think that Eddie had been involved. So she said, “Well, the facts are that Charles Tripp was arrested and hasn't been at school.”

Her father nodded, but he'd opened the other bill and his attention was elsewhere.

“I have play practice tonight,” Clara said, remembering suddenly that she also had five chapters to read for English by Monday. And math homework.

Her father didn't look up from the bills. “What time?”

“Seven to nine.”

“Well, I'm thinking of going to Dalton tonight. Do you think you'll be okay walking to the school?”

Going to Dalton. To see her mother. This was even better than a note from Amos. “Sure,” she said. She waited until her father had put the credit card bills back into their envelopes. “Are you going to bring Mom home?”

“I don't know, Polkadot. That's up to your mother. She wanted me to take her some clothes and books, and then we'll just have to see about the rest.”

That night, at play practice, they were just blocking their moves on the stage and getting measured for costumes. But it was pleasant in the little auditorium with the warm lights, the wooden floor, the Roaring Twenties set, and Mrs. Van Riper's voice sailing musically over the din. “People! People! Opening night approaches and we are far far from ready!” Backstage was a bustle of clothes and good cheer, and for the first time in days, it seemed to Clara, life was a warmer, cheerier place. Gerri was still being horrible, but she'd gotten the letter from Amos, and her father was off in Dalton, maybe sitting in Aunt Marie's guest room right now, at this very moment, listening to her mother confess that she'd made a mistake and wanted to come home and straighten everything out with everybody. That could happen.
That,
Clara thought, standing in front of a large cardboard speakeasy,
could very easily happen
.