Monday I Love You (15 page)

“How about raw hamburger?” he says slyly.

“Raw hamburger! Whoever heard of eating raw hamburger?” the kids cry, jumping around like fleas on a stray dog. He waits until they calm down before he opens his eyes wide and says, “With a raw egg on top?”

Well, that gets them. They zoom around, hands clapped over their mouths to hold back possible vomiting. They love it, they love Walter. Ms. Govoni says they spend time during the week thinking up weird foods to pull on him. When he shows up, they shout, “Cauliflower!” which they find outrageous. Or “Brussels sprouts!” which I find outrageous, and he makes a big deal out of being astonished, rolling his eyes and clutching himself by the throat, making gagging sounds, which sends them off into more gales of laughter.

I made the mistake of telling Estelle about Walter being Ms. Govoni's paperboy, and the end of her nose started to twitch.

“He's a complete dinosaur,” she said. “A positive troglodyte.” All of a sudden, Estelle's into natural history and conservation. She's also thinking of taking Latin or Greek next year if she can find any around. Ever since she totaled her mother's car, Estelle's a different person. She never misses a Sunday at church, for instance, and she's also into culture. Instead of listening to Tina Turner or Billy Joel, now she tunes in to Luciano Pavarotti. It's amazing what a brush with the grim reaper can do.

At first, Estelle's mother was so overjoyed that Estelle didn't have so much as a scratch on her, she kept hugging and kissing her and thanking God he'd spared her baby. Then, after a few days, the euphoria wore off and Estelle's mother got so mad about her totaled car, which she hadn't even finished paying for, that Estelle said her life wasn't worth a plugged nickel and she was thinking about leaving home. She asked if she could come and live with us, but my mother said one teenager was enough. For once, I agreed with my mother. When I tried to imagine Estelle and me sharing my room, Estelle's bristly hairbrush decorating my bureau, my closet filled with her clothes, never mind all Estelle's beauty preparations in the bathroom, I got goose bumps.

“He's not so bad.” I defended Walter. “Once you get to know him.”

“I have no intention of ever getting to know him,” Estelle said in her huffy way.

I don't think I ever exchanged a word with Walter before I went to Ms. Govoni's to sit with the kids. It's strange, but I sort of like him. I feel sorry for him. He has a sallow complexion, like Mary in
The Secret Garden
, and when he takes his glasses off, I noticed, he has lavender marks like bruises under his eyes. He said this came from wearing glasses all the time, which he has to do on account of he's blind as a bat without them. I suppose that's possible, although I've never heard that wearing glasses causes lavender marks under the eyes.

This week it was teeming rain on Saturday when Ms. Govoni came to pick me up.

“Here's the money for the paper,” she said. “Although maybe Walter won't show on a day like this.”

“Oh, he'll come, all right,” I said. “You can count on him.”

Sure enough, there he was. On the dot.

“You want me to leave this outside?” He folded his enormous black umbrella and held it out to me.

“For Pete's sake,” I said, “don't bring it in. It'd cause a flood in here. Just leave it.” He was probably the only paperboy in town who carried a large umbrella when it rained, I thought. Trust Walter. Why didn't he use a tarp to cover himself? Boys didn't use umbrellas.

“Hey.” That was his usual greeting. Hey. He didn't have on a raincoat even. Or boots.

“I thought you might skip the paper today,” I said. “Considering the weather.”

“Neither snow nor rain nor sleet shall prevent me from prompt delivery,” he said.

“That's the U.S. mail that says that,” I told him. We heard scuffling in the bedroom. Rosie and Mack were getting ready for their attack.

“Let me, let me,” I heard them whispering.

Mack popped out and shouted, “Brains!” and Rosie, wrapped in something that looked like an old curtain, opened her mouth to add her bit, then closed it and said, “I forgot. What was I going to say, Mack?” and the two of them went back to talk it over.

Walter bent his knees and eased himself over to the couch, preparing to sit.

“I see where they caught that guy,” he said, landing, making a loud plop.

“What guy?” I said, coldness coming over me.

“The guy they've been looking for. The one they offered the reward for. Some lady over in Crawford County said she spied him hiding out in a vacant house. The cops closed in. They took him off to jail, though he says he never did anything to anybody. There's a picture of him on the front page.”

And expertly, like the seasoned newspaperman he was, Walter flipped open the paper. The face staring out was not a face I knew.

“That's not the one,” I said, almost grinning.

“How do you know?” Walter asked in surprise.

“I just don't think that's the one,” I said, blushing.

“Who knows?” Then, gazing glumly out at the streaming windows, he said, “Wanna go out?”

“Now why would anyone want to go out on a day like this?” I said.

He mumbled something, and I said, “What? I can't hear you. You're mumbling.”

“I said, ‘Wanna go out,'” he repeated, and when I looked at him, I tried to read his somber expression. “With me, I mean.”

I laughed. It was nerves, but I did laugh. It just slipped out, the way sometimes you laugh when you don't know what else to do. I had never learned the secret of laughing at the right moment. And maybe I never would.

“You're kidding,” I said. The minute I said it I was sorry. And ashamed. How tactless and rude of me. He was serious and I should've known it.

He bobbed his head at me and smiled weakly. In a flash, I recognized the hurt on his face, knew it for what it was. Lord knows I should've recognized it. I'd been there plenty of times myself. It was the look of someone who's been rejected and who knows it.

Oh, but I felt bad. How stupid can you be? I asked myself. How terrible I'd learned nothing from my considerable experience with cruelty, I thought. But not until after, after he'd gone.

“You serious?” I said, to make amends.

But he only looked at his hands and remained silent.

“Artichoke!” screamed Rosie, popping out, still in her draperies. Mack was behind her, giggling.

“Oooooh.” Walter held his stomach and groaned. “Ooooooh,” he said. I had to admire his courage, his timing. I couldn't have done it after a rejection like that, I knew.

“Why'd you have to go and say that word?” he demanded of Rosie and Mack. “Now if you'd gone and said ‘asparagus,' well, it'd be different. But artichoke, ooooohhhh.”

Rosie and Mack fell on the floor and rolled about, clutching their stomachs with great joy.

“Sure,” I said when the children had taken themselves off to plan future weird words to try out on him, “I'll go out with you.” Was that, I wondered, the proper way to say it? Maybe I should've said, “I'd love to go out with you,” or better still, “I'll have to ask my mother.”

Walter got up and opened the door, looking for his umbrella.

“Okay,” he said, and sloshed off into the rain under its gigantic cover. Even from the back he looked mournful.

Did he mean tomorrow, I wondered, or next month? And would we go Dutch or was he going to treat me?

I'd never been on a date before. I didn't know how to act. But then, maybe it was all new to him, too. If he was treating me, I'd pretend to have a good time. If it was Dutch, I didn't have to pretend. But I would anyway, to make up for laughing at him.

21

I have always been a dreamer. Even when I was little, I dreamed only beautiful dreams—glorious, golden dreams. In which only good things happened. Dressed in something diaphanous and sparkling, like a gown Miss America might wear, I tended, in those dreams, to sail over treetops on invisible wings, like Peter Pan or Mary Poppins, always coming down to earth from the sky, the sun always shining in my eyes.

In my dreams, I arranged that the sun always shone.

And that my parents were beautiful dream parents—accomplished, educated, rich and very loving. Parents any child would be proud of. Just as I was the kind of child any parent would cherish and be proud of. Together we were perfection.

And on Christmas Eve, no matter what anyone says, I dreamed I heard the reindeer and bells and somebody big and fat landing on the roof with a crash, somebody who shouted HO HO HO. Nobody can talk me out of that.

In my dreams, I always got the lead in the school play. I never forgot my lines, it goes without saying. I was the girl voted Most Likely, the girl everyone wanted, the girl who always came in first.

Once I dreamed I was in Heaven. I knew that's where I was because I was playing the harp. Someone, it may have been Saint Peter, asked what I was doing there. I said because I deserved it. I'd earned my place there. I had led a good life, I told Saint Peter, always being unselfish, always thinking of others. The expression on Saint Peter's face was a picture.

But all he did was shrug and walk away, into the whirling mist that surrounded us, and leave me alone, in all my goodness.

Now I have begun to dream of him. The dream recurs often. I look forward to it, even though as recently as this morning I woke and knew it was a foolish dream. Monday I love you. He made no sound, but I could read his lips.

I was dressed in black and playing the flute. The opera house was ablaze with light, and the audience lifted rapt faces to me, to my artistry. I was very beautiful, with my hair pulled back, showing my neat little ears, and very thin. And in the front row, he never took his eyes off me.

When my flute solo was over and the deafening applause had sunk to a mere whisper, Buster was waiting. He lifted his arms and said Please, so I took him home with me. Doris wasn't there, but Estelle was, waiting in her mother's car, which didn't have a mark on it. She said the reward was waiting for me inside. I ran to find it, but it wasn't there. There was no thousand dollars. Not that I could find. He was in the kitchen, wearing his tarp, hiding under it, and his cowboy boots. Throwing his knife up, up into the air. At some unseen target. Throwing it at me. But no matter how many times he threw it into the air, it never came back down. Yet there was always a knife in his hand.

And William and I were running, running along the boardwalk with the waves chasing us, and my hand was done up in a huge bandage that was soaked with blood.

Ah, he said, I see you are rich. Share with me. I have always wanted to be rich. Monday I love you, and I handed him the thousand dollars reward money and he kissed me and disappeared.

Forever.

When I woke, it was light outside. I could hear my mother and father in the kitchen, talking. Or was it the television?

“Well, you slept late.” My mother had just done her nails. The smell of nail polish was very strong in the room. “Ms. Govoni called, said she'll be by for you early, if it's all right with you. Said she wants to take you to a lecture this afternoon, said she got a sitter for the kids.” My mother waved her hand in the air to dry her nails.

“And some boy called.” My mother's voice turned coy. “Said to tell you it was Walter. Said you'd know. Wouldn't give his last name. Walter?”

“It's just a boy I know,” I said. It had been two Saturdays since I'd seen him. To my surprise, my mother had no comment.

“I'm going to the library,” I said after I'd helped clear up the kitchen. “I have some research to do.” I was planning to take out some books on child psychology. Ms. Govoni had talked to me about her studies. It sounded interesting. Maybe I'd make a good child psychologist too.

“Good girl,” said my father. “More you study, more you learn.” He patted me on the shoulder. “We're real proud of you, Grace. Aren't we, Grace?” he said to my mother.

“Of course,” my mother said, giving her nails another coat.

On my way at last, I took the shortcut that runs down Adams Lane to the main road to the library. Adams Lane is a cul-de-sac, which is French for “dead end.” I love that: “cul-de-sac.” Think how much better it sounds than “dead end.” Ms. Govoni says French is the most mellifluous language there is. “Mellifluous”—that means “sweet sounding” or “flowing.” If you know a second language, Ms. Govoni says, the world opens up to you. If you plan to travel, and I do, the knowledge of French should be very helpful.

It was one of those mornings when it was nice to be alive. I felt buoyant, a new experience—light on my feet. I felt like dancing. Maybe because, with all my exercising with Rosie and Mack, plus on my own, plus cutting out snacks and watching what I ate, I'd lost four pounds. That may not sound like much, but to me it was like losing a hundred. Even my knees felt thinner. My new bra, which was very expensive, was worth every penny. It definitely gives me a better shape. I wash it by hand every night. I'll have to buy another just like it when I save up enough money.

Think of that. Instead of saving my money to have my breasts made smaller, I'm saving my money to buy a bra, which only makes them look better, not necessarily smaller. There's a moral to that, but I'm not sure what it is.

Things were looking up. If I
did
turn out to be a child psychologist, I made up my mind I'd be a good one. I'd find some poor soul like myself, some loser who seemed destined to be an outcast for the rest of her life, and I'd turn her life around for her. With her help, of course. No one can turn another's life around without the cooperation of the person involved. You've got to work with someone, the way Ms. Govoni worked with me. It had been one lucky day in my life when she showed up. So many things had happened, and too fast. Sometimes they blurred in my mind, like a finger painting that's been left out in the rain. Then other times, each episode stood out clearly, like a silhouette made out of black construction paper.