How High the Moon (3 page)

“Isabella,” Mrs. Carlton said, putting her hand up like Mrs. Fry did when she was trying to get Poochie to stop grabbing at her reaching stick. “Can you pause a minute and take a breath? I’d really like to talk to you about this program before the bell rings—”

“Sure,” I told her, and I clamped my lips tight so no more words could get out.

She started talking about the story we just had in our
Weekly Reader
. The one about ducklings who didn’t know they were ducks because the first thing they saw after they hatched was a ball, or a human being, and how this made them grow up to believe
they
were a ball or a person, too. I fidgeted in my chair while I wondered why on earth she was talking about ducklings, when she said that what she wanted to talk about was that Sunshine Sisters program.

About the time I started being suspicious that Mrs. Carlton had the same affliction as me and her mind had wandered off like a puppy with no leash, I got it, because she brought up how girls need role models, just like ducklings, so they can learn how to be ladies. “You lack feminine influence, Isabella,” she said.

I was trying hard to be a good listener and not interrupt her, but she was wrong on that count, so what could I do but butt in?

“Well, things aren’t always how they look, Mrs. Carlton. Here. Take my hair for example and I’ll show you how it works.” I used my pointy fingers to bring her gaze to the bottom row of my
curls, hovering about an inch or so below my ears. “It looks like I got short hair, doesn’t it? Well, watch this.” I grabbed clumps of curls on both sides of my head and tugged them straight so that they touched below my shoulders. “See? I don’t have short hair at all.” I let go of the clumps so they could bing back into place.

“Yep, that’s how things are in life now and then, so you can’t always believe your eyes. Like you looking at me living alone with Teddy and assuming that I don’t have anybody to teach me about being a girl. It might look that way, but it ain’t so. I have feminine influence. I have the Taxi Stand Ladies, for starters. They’re the ones who gave me that bit of smarts about skinny girls growing up to have nice figures. Do you know the Taxi Stand Ladies, Mrs. Carlton?”

“The Taxi Stand Ladies?”

“Yeah, that’s what
I
call them anyway. They’re the two ladies who stand on the corner of Fifth and Washington, right across the street from The Pop Shop, where the mailbox is—or inside the store at the window if it’s raining or there’s a razor wind blowing. Right where people on my side of town wait if they want a lift in Ralph’s taxi. But the Taxi Stand Ladies have only been in town a couple of weeks so maybe you don’t know them yet, even if you know The Pop Shop. Or maybe you just don’t get to my side of town. A lot of fancy folks don’t, and you strike me as kind of fancy with that nice bracelet and all.

“Anyway, I call them the Taxi Stand Ladies because all afternoon and night, they wait there on the corner for Ralph to come along so they can take a spin. Then after a bit of time, they come back and stand there until Ralph makes his way back to the corner again, some gentleman or other in the front seat.

“By the way, the Taxi Stand Ladies go by nicknames, too, which proves that you don’t have to be a baby to have one. They call themselves Walking Doll and The Kenosha Kid.”

Mrs. Carlton made a funny sound in her throat, like maybe she
had a hair stuck on the back of her tongue or something, so I asked her if she was all right. She nodded, so I continued.

“Anyway, I got the Taxi Stand Ladies, and I got old Mrs. Fry, too. She’s my neighbor lady. The one with the mean dog. She fixes me and Teddy’s clothes when they get a tear, and sends us over baked stuff now and then. Teddy helps her out, too. Last week Ralph came and brought her a great-grandson she didn’t even know she had. Imagine that! He came with a note pinned to his jacket, written by Mrs. Fry’s daughter in Texas, saying that the boy was sent to her by
her
son, who lived in Chicago and was getting sent to the clink for doing something bad, though Mrs. Fry’s daughter didn’t say what. She only said that with her rheumatoid paining her feet and hands so bad, she didn’t have it in her to chase after a kid. Old Mrs. Fry doesn’t have the rheumatoid, but frankly, I don’t see what difference it would make, since from what I see that kid never moves anyway—well, except for his hands—so why would anyone have to chase after him? Anyway, Charlie got sent from Chicago to Texas to Mill Town. Sort of like a homing pigeon that doesn’t know his directions. Charlie Fry is the new kid that’s always sitting on the brick ledge on the edge of the playground at recess like a Humpty Dumpty, if you’re wondering who he is. He’s only eight years old, but he’s as tall as me. A whole lot fatter, though.

“But I’m veering off the trail again, when I only meant to tell you that Mrs. Fry gives me pointers on how to be a little lady. Yep, that’s what she does. She tells me not to thump my feet so hard when I walk indoors, and not to stuff whole cookies in my mouth. And she reminds me to keep my knees together when I sit in dresses. Things like that. By the way, I passed along that bit of smarts about keeping your knees together when you sit to the Taxi Stand Ladies, since apparently they never heard that one before.”

Mrs. Carlton looked shaky as she tugged the paper out from under my arms and took it to her desk, where she scribbled something at the bottom with a red pen. I sang a bit more of that Chuck
Berry song, because it had a lot of zip, the toes of my water-stained canvas shoes tapping the floor so I could keep good time.

“I got good timing, don’t I?” I said to Mrs. Carlton when I forgot the rest of the words because the song was new and I’d only heard it a couple of times. “That’s because I work on my timing with my radio. It was Teddy’s radio and he used to keep it on the kitchen counter and listen to it quiet when he was cooking or doing dishes. But I suppose he saw that I liked it even more than him, the way when it was on I always came in and sang with it, so he gave it to me to keep in my bedroom. Anyway, I sing along with the tunes it’s playing, then right in the middle of a verse or a chorus, I turn the sound down all the way and keep singing. Then here and there, while I’m still singing, I crank the sound back up to see if I’m in the right place. Sure is a good trick to learn timing, Mrs. Carlton. I’m so good at it now that I can start singing at the beginning of a song and even if I don’t turn the sound back on until the very last line, I’m smack-dab on the same word they’re singing. Timing is very important if you’re going to be a singing sensation,” I told her.

“Do you sing, Mrs. Carlton?”

“I sing in the church choir,” she said as she capped her pen, then brought the paper back to me.

“Well you should sing more often than on Sundays,” I told her. “Singing makes you feel happy. And you could probably use a little happy right about now, if it’s true what Mrs. Delaney said. That your husband is running around with Betty Rains.”

Mrs. Carlton looked like she had a whole fur ball clogging the back of her throat after I said that, and she turned away.

“Uh-oh. I probably shouldn’t have said that, so I do apologize. That’s another affliction I have, Mrs. Carlton—if you hadn’t noticed already. I say things I probably shouldn’t. But just for the record, that Betty Rains isn’t nearly as pretty as you. She must have filled out at about the age of seven, judging by the size of her, don’t you think?”

The bell in the hall rang then, and the two teachers on playground duty blew their whistles. “You may return to your seat now, Isabella,” Mrs. Carlton said.

I folded and stuffed the paper she gave me into my desk, which was already so full that I had to lean on the lid to get it closed. Then I tapped my toes and watched the clock and waited for the school day to end.

When the last bell
for the day rang, I leapt out of my seat like I had ants in my pants, but I didn’t even get out the door before Mrs. Carlton stopped me.

“Isabella? Do you have the paper on the Sunshine Sisters program that I gave you?”

“Yeah,” I said, even though I didn’t think I did. Mrs. Carlton asked me to show it to her.

I dug around in my jacket pocket and screwed up my face to look all surprised when I didn’t find it.

“Go get it,” she said, and I marched back to my desk with a big sigh. Once I found it, I held it up so she could see, and she said, “Be sure and give it to Mr. Favors tonight, okay? I put a note on the bottom asking him to call me.”

“Oh. We don’t have a telephone, Mrs. Carlton.”

“Well, does your neighbor lady have one he might use?” she asked.

“Mrs. Fry can’t afford a phone, either. That’s why her daughter sent Charlie up with a note pinned to him; because she couldn’t call her to tell her he was coming. Course, you’d think she would have sent a letter. Her daughter bought her a television set last year. I’ll bet she wished she’d have bought her a phone instead, when it was time to ship Charlie off.”

“Well, where does Mr. Favors go when he
has
to use a phone?”

“To the pay phone outside the drugstore,” I said without thinking.

“Good, ask him to call me from there tonight, please.”

I didn’t want to put myself in a pickle, because I didn’t want no part of that do-gooder program, so I had to think fast. “Well, he works long, long shifts, Mrs. Carlton, so it’s late and he’s all in when he gets home. He ain’t gonna want to walk all the way to the drugstore after walking two miles home from work.”

“Won’t want to, Isabella. “Not
ain’t gonna
. Does he work on weekends?”

“He works on Saturdays. He gets an extra twenty cents an hour when he works them, so…” I stopped right there and didn’t tell her that he has Mondays off so he can work those Saturdays and stay under forty hours, because then she’d be wanting him to come in for a meeting.

“Well, maybe he can call me from work on Monday while he’s on break,” she said, shuffling papers around on her desk.

“Oh, there ain’t no phones where he works. Only dead cows.”

Mrs. Carlton sighed. “It’s
aren’t
any
.” She looked up with squinted eyes. Most of her lipstick had worn off her real lips, so that the red rimming them looked like an outline that some kindergartner forgot to color in. “Give the note to Mr. Favors. If he doesn’t call me back, I’ll just drop by to see him one evening next week.”

“Well, he’s not home much,” I lied.

Mrs. Carlton took a deep breath, and one of her eyelids twitched. “Isabella, I’m trying to be patient here, but the school year is almost over and you are in serious jeopardy of failing fifth grade. I know you’re a bright child and could pick up what you missed in no time if you applied yourself, but as things are, I only see trouble ahead for you in sixth grade. It’s been a long time since parent–teacher conferences and I think Mr. Favors and I need to regroup and put our heads together to figure out what would be
best for you. This program may be grasping at straws, but at least it’s something. I’d rather not hold you back, Isabella, but I need some assurance that you’ll not be doomed to failure next year if I pass you.”

Her words felt like a yank on my hair and a punch in the stomach at the same time. A flunky?
Me?
Sure she’d harped at me lots all year to turn in my work, but she didn’t tell me I might flunk if I didn’t! Holy cow. She flunked me and she could just as well write
DUMB HEAD
across my forehead, because that’s what everyone was going to call me. “I promise I’ll work hard over the weekend and turn in all my late papers by Monday. Please. I’ll do anything. I don’t want to be no flunky!”

“I hope you mean that,” Mrs. Carlton said, and I crossed my heart to show her—and me—that I meant business.

“We need to use all the resources we have available to us, Isabella. Do you understand?”

“Gotcha,” I said, and she told me that the proper reply was
Yes, ma’am. Thank you
, so I said that instead. Then I hightailed it out of there.

By the time I got outside, the playground was empty but for a few lost school papers and smashed candy wrappers, so I had to walk by myself. I sang a few bars of a made-up song, but I never cared much for singing outside on breezy days, the wind yanking your voice off to who knows where. Nope. I liked singing in the bathroom when Teddy’s dirty clothes heap didn’t ruin the echo, or into a fan (especially if I was singing country), or best yet, in the basement where the echo was good, which I only did once, though, because that place has more spiders than The Hanging Hoof has dead cows. Nope, I didn’t care much for singing in the wind, so I stopped singing and just hummed as I watched my shoes take turns playing peekaboo from under the hem of my dress and thought about Teddy’s fixation with being respectable.

Teddy’s desire to be an upstanding person seemed to be in his blood the way being naughty was in mine, because he talked about it the way other men talked about cars or baseball. “As long as you got your pride, you still have something,” Teddy always said. It didn’t matter to him that he had to wash his work clothes in the tub every other day because he didn’t have but two pairs of work pants and two shirts, and the motor on the wringer washer was deader than a T-bone steak. Clothes that were a bloody mess by the end of each workday, so he couldn’t just hang them up for another day after he got home, the way I did my dresses on days when I didn’t slop my lunch. So every night, he had to stand over the tub and rub the legs and arms of those clothes until the rinse water turned clear, then run them out to the clothesline hanging between two trees in the warm seasons, and over the heat register inside if it was winter. And if his clothes got even one little tear in them, he raced that shirt or pair of pants over to Mrs. Fry’s for patching, as if the shirt itself was doing the bleeding and Mrs. Fry was the doctor. That way he could walk to work clean, with his head held high.

Every night after Ma left, his shoulders and head wanted to sag so low that it looked pitifully hard for him to lift them, but he perked them before he left the house each morning to walk me across the street, and he kept them held high until the door shut behind us each night. And when we took a walk so Teddy could run errands, it didn’t matter if Marion Delaney and Marge Perkins watched us pass from where they gossiped over the fence splitting their yards, pity in their eyes. Or if Frank Miller gave him that nasty smirk as he was opening the door to his Lincoln Continental to head to the savings and loan where he worked as a loan officer (which I guess is sort of like being a policeman of the bank’s money, but I’m not sure), or to Miller’s Sales and Service, the place on the other side of town where he sold cars so expensive that Teddy couldn’t even buy one of the used ones. A smirk that said,
Couldn’t keep her, huh, Big Guy?
which is what Mr. Miller called
Teddy every payday when he made his deposit, even if Teddy stood only five foot four.