Hurt Go Happy (6 page)

Joey opened her mouth to argue, but her mother gave her the
look,
jaw set, scarred eyebrow arched. The
look
threatened the silent treatment, which would disconnect Joey completely. She knew the sound of her mother's voice was only a memory, but even so, she couldn't risk being cut off from the only human sound she could still hear. She'd be a crab in a jar then.

When they first came to Fort Bragg, her mother had tried to make their homelessness an adventure. They'd parked someplace different each night, as if they were camping. Joey never went to Glass Beach without remembering the night they'd slept there.

For decades, Glass Beach had been the city dump and over the years since it closed, the ocean had broken up the glass jars and bottles and worn the shards down to small, smooth, jewel-like fragments. Ruth had sat on the sand and watched Joey select little pieces of the colorful glass to keep for a souvenir. Nearby, a little boy was collecting hermit crabs from an exposed tide pool. He had four or five of them in a jar when he put the lid on and carried them over to show Joey. When she saw them circling and circling, their tiny pincers feeling for a way out, she tried to take them away from him. He started to cry and Ruth made Joey give back the jar.

“Make him let 'em go, Mommy,” Joey cried. “Make him let them go.”

“They're his, Joey,” her mother said.

Joey tried to grab the jar again. The little boy ran with it to his mother.

“Mommy,” Joey screamed, “make him let 'em go.”

“I can't, Joey.” Ruth picked her up and tried to carry her away, but she screamed and kicked, pleading for the crabs.

“Joey, stop it. What's the matter with you?”

Joey caught her mother's face between her hands. “Mommy, they can't hear in there.”

Tears came to her mother's eyes. She turned and marched back across the sand to the little boy and his mother to explain that Joey was deaf and that she was afraid that the little crabs couldn't hear in that jar. The boy's mother's indignant expression softened and she promised that he'd let them go before they went home.

That night, after her mother had forbidden her to see Roxy again, Joey lay on her bed staring at the ceiling, tears running in a steady stream from her eyes into her ears. The only person Joey had ever trusted completely was her mother and she felt like Ruth was pulling away. She couldn't understand why adding Roxy, Charlie, and Sukari to her life might mean breaking the bond she and her mother had. Since she'd understood about the crabs, why couldn't she understand now?

 

CHAPTER FOUR

Wednesday was speech therapy and the one day her mother still picked her up, though at the hospital, where her therapist was, rather than at school. Since she hadn't taken the bus home, it was still early when Joey jumped from the car at the top of their driveway to collect the mail. As far as she could remember, she'd never received a letter or even a card, though there were a few in a shoebox from her grandmother who died when she was five. Joey handed the stack through her mother's window without looking at it. It was while she was getting plates down to set the table for dinner that her mother tapped her shoulder and handed her the envelope.

“For you,” she said with a frown.

Joey turned it over and read her name and address. It gave her a strange sense of herself, as if she'd become an adult for the price of a postage stamp.

Ms. Joey Willis

19904 Morgan Creek Dr.

Ft. Bragg, CA 95437

She looked for a return address but there was only the name Mansell.

Having missed the chance to tell her mother about meeting Charlie and Sukari, she now found, with this letter in her hand, that she'd gone back to wanting to keep them a secret, but her mother waited expectantly. Joey stared again at her name and address, then put the envelope in the pocket of her sweater and began to set the table.

Her mother waved her hand in front of Joey's face. “Who's Mansell?”

“A person down on Turner.”

Joey started to turn away but her mother caught her chin. “A man, a woman, a child?”

Joey couldn't hear her tone of voice but her mother's face showed signs of growing anger.

“A man,” Joey said. “An old man. A doctor.”

“How did you meet him?”

“I was mushrooming on his property by accident.”

“Why would he write you a letter?”

Joey's knees felt weak. “Because I'm deaf, Mom,” she snapped. “It's hard to talk to me.” In that instant she knew why she wanted to keep their meeting from her mother. Charlie was going to be the one person with whom she wouldn't feel ashamed of her deafness. He, unlike her mother, understood how she felt. And Joey knew that Roxy would tire of teaching her to sign, but Charlie wouldn't.

“That doesn't answer my question. Why is he writing you?”

“I don't know. I haven't read it yet.” She stared boldly back at her mother, but her stomach filled with butterflies. She wasn't going to lose him to her mother's suspicions and secret-keeping. She was thinking just that when Ruth snatched the plates away. “I think you should let me see it.”

“No. It's mine. You can't read my mail.” Joey whirled, headed for her room, but changed her mind, circled the sofa, and ran from the house.

She ran at first as if her mother were on her heels, then zigged and zagged up through the trees behind their house. About fifty yards up a slope, on the top terrace of their property, was the stump of a redwood tree that had grown there long before Columbus discovered America. The stump was over twelve feet across and had a burned-out hollow beneath it. When they'd first moved to this house, Joey, unsure of the kind of man Ray would be, found and kept the location of the tree a secret in case she ever needed to hide again. Now it was just her place to be alone.

On either side of the stump was a rectangular springboard hole where the loggers, who cut the tree in the early 1900s, before chainsaws were invented, plunged the end of a thick board into each side of its trunk. She'd seen pictures of men standing on these platforms, one on either end of a double-handled saw, cutting the tree off four feet or so above the ground. By putting a foot in one of the springboard holes, Joey could boost herself up onto the wide, flat top.

In the winter, she kept a small brown tarp hidden in the dry center of the hollow. Joey bent to retrieve it and felt the hair on her neck prickle. She whirled around, her heart racing, but as usual there was no one there. Sometimes silence gave her the creeps, especially in dim light with anger in the air.

She shook the daddy longlegs out of the tarp and pried the banana slugs off with a twig, then spread it across the soggy, spongy cushion of redwood leaves that blanketed the stump. She climbed up to sit with her back against one of the two trees that grew from the roots of the ancient redwood. She dug the letter from her pocket and peeled it open as carefully as she opened gifts at Christmas.

Dear Joey,

I wanted to write and apologize once again for the way I behaved when we met. With all the rain we've had, mushroom hunters have been traipsing in and out of here with little or no regard for the damage they do. I never collect them myself. They all look dangerously the same to me, but I love them and from now on shall depend on you to tell me which ones are good to eat. I admire you knowing the difference.

Also, I hope I didn't upset you by ranting on the issue of research labs using chimps like hairy test tubes. Once you get to know Sukari and see how closely her thoughts and feelings match ours, testing on them becomes as intolerable as slavery is to us now. Those without voices, politically or literally, risk terrible suffering.

Anyway, I'm really writing to invite you to visit anytime. Sukari pouted for hours after you left and only relented after a bribe of an apple, two Oreo cookies, and a box of raisins—her favorite.

I went to the bookstore yesterday and ordered a present for you. It will be here by the end of next week. In the meantime, why don't you come visit us on Saturday if you haven't other plans. You are still welcome to bring your mother and your brother. I'm sure she'll be fine, once she meets Sukari. If it's nice, we could go mushrooming, then have a picnic on the deck.

I thought I'd tell you a little about my parents and about living in Africa, but I'm quite tired now. Maybe you could think of questions you'd like answered.

If Saturday is not convenient, just stop in anytime.

Sincerely,
Charles Mansell and

Sukari

Joey read and reread her letter. She ran her finger over Sukari's scribbled signature. This was the first invitation to anything that she had ever gotten, except to places with her mother and Ray. Whenever they went to someone's house for a dinner party, they took a dish. Potlucks were a tradition on the coast. She wondered what she could bring to their picnic and what she would tell her mother.
Bananas,
she thought, suddenly.
I can buy them in the cafeteria … and apples and Oreos and a box of raisins. I won't have to tell Mom anything.

She carefully folded the tarp and placed her letter in the center of it before tucking it back into the hollow. When she turned around, Luke was trudging up the slope toward her.

“Are you a bear coming to eat me?” She trembled with mock fear.

Luke motioned for her to come, then turned to start back down the hill.

Joey cupped a hand over her right ear. “What'd ya say, bear?”

Luke turned and grinned, then humped his shoulders, held his arms away from his sides, and hulked toward her.

Joey covered her mouth with the back of her hand as if to stifle a scream. “Help. Lord help me,” she cried when Luke's eyes narrowed and his pudgy little jaw set.

“Grrrrrr.”

“Please don't eat me, Mr. Bear,” Joey pleaded. “I'll give you honey if you won't eat me.”

Luke stopped and straightened. “No honey,” he shouted.

“Oh yes, honey,” Joey said. “That's what you need to make you a nice bear.”

Luke turned to run, his short legs pumping.

Joey charged down the hill and scooped him up before they reached the bottom of the slope. She kissed the back of his neck, making slurping sounds, while Luke bucked like a pony to get away. “Honey for a bad bear.”

Luke screeched to be let go.

Joey put him down and gave chase when he started to run again, but slowly so that he could beat her to the back door, which he locked once he was inside. Joey twisted the knob, calling, “Let me in, Mr. Bear, let me in,” until her mother appeared at the window in the door, pulled Luke away, and unlocked it.

Her mother's face was still pinched with anger. She pointed to Joey's place at the table, then turned away without saying a word—for Joey, the ultimate punishment.

The plates, silverware, and place mats were still stacked in the center of the table. Joey ignored her mother's direction and began to set each place, but her mother caught her by the shoulder, took the plates from her, and again pointed to her chair.

“Why are you mad at me?” Joey asked.

Her mother's face reddened. “It's dangerous to keep secrets,” she snapped. “Why would an old man write to you? He might be a pervert, or something.”

“He's not a pervert. He's just a nice old man.”

“How do you know?”

Joey shrugged. It was her take on him, that was all. She'd known kind people and cruel people and there was a difference she could almost smell. “And even if he is a pervert, I'm taller than he is and he's weak and sickly,” she said, taking a seat at the end of the table where she could see the TV. Since she couldn't follow the conversation at dinner, at least she could practice her lip-reading watching the newscasters.

*   *   *

On Saturday morning, Joey woke at first light and checked her thumbs for dampness. They were dry. She smiled and rolled over to see what kind of day it would be. If it was going to be sunny, it was too early to tell. She wanted sun. She wanted to mushroom hunt and picnic. She'd spent the last of her allowance on apples, bananas, Oreos, and raisins for Sukari, and stashed them in her backpack, ready to go, along with her list of questions.

When she came into the kitchen, her mother was just lighting the stove. She turned and smiled. “You're up early.”

“So are you. Are you working today?”

Ruth shook her head, adjusted the flame under the frying pan, then turned back to Joey. “It's supposed to be sunny for a while. Thought I'd take Luke to the beach, let him out to run.” She grinned. “How 'bout it?”

Joey loved going to the beach with her brother, and her mother knew it. “I—I can't,” she stammered.

“Why not?”