Peony Street (6 page)

“Popcorn.”

“Of course. Where is it now?”

“She’s frolicking in the woods beyond the college campus, telling all the other deer about her big adventure in the bright place with all the wonderful food.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“Some displays; nothing that can’t be washed or restacked. You’ll be relieved to know that no tourists were harmed.”

“I’m so glad,” Claire said. “You know how I worry.”

“I’ve missed you, you big smartass,” Hannah said. “Enough of my drama, let’s talk about yours.”

Hannah got up and rummaged through the cabinets until she found a jar of peanut butter. She brought the jar and a spoon back to the table and sat down.

“I’m sure you’ve heard all about it by now,” Claire said. “I can’t believe Ed Harris hasn’t shown up to interview me for the Sentinel.”

“He’s on vacation.”

“That’s a blessing,” Claire said. “I like Ed but he does have a way of asking only the questions you don’t want to answer.”

“I don’t care who you killed,” Hannah said, pointing the spoon at Claire. “It was obviously self-defense and I will testify to any facts you care to give me.”

“He was a coworker and I have no idea why he came here or who killed him. We weren’t what you’d call best pals.”

“Not a spurned, jealous lover, then?”

“I guess the scanner grannies have been hard at work this morning.”

The scanner grannies were a group of home-bound senior citizens who had figured out how to listen in on cell phone and cordless phone calls using their old-school police scanners.

“The consensus is that your mother is too nice for you to have done it, but there’s also a growing conspiracy theory that your years in
Hollywood may have corrupted you.”

“There’s no doubt about that.”

“That’s your natural hair color, isn’t it? It’s been so long since I’ve seen it I almost forgot what it looked like. It’s dark like Patrick and Sean’s but not quite black. Last time I saw you it was red, and cut like a space cadet’s.”

“It’s shocking, I know.”

“According to my mother, you’re terribly thin.”

“She hasn’t even seen me,” Claire said.

“She doesn’t have to,” Hannah said. “In my mother’s mind people are either terribly fat or terribly thin. There’s no middle ground. I bet when she called your mother this morning the third question she asked was how you looked.”

“That’s refreshing. In
L.A. how you look is always the first question.”

Sammy came back down the hall with a battered blue cookie tin with snowmen printed on it. He handed it to Claire. He then leaned against his mother and let her ruffle his hair and kiss the top of his head.

“What you’s bring me?” he asked her.

Hannah reached into her jacket pocket and took out a small egg-shaped object that looked like it was made of fur and feathers held together by mud.

Sammy gently took the item and held it close to his face, turning it slowly around and around as he examined it.

“What is it?” Claire asked.

“An owl pellet,” Hannah said.

“Gross!” Claire said.

“It not gross!” Sammy said, and scowled at Claire.

“Sorry,” Claire said.

“You can take it apart and see everything the owl ate.” Hannah said. “Sometimes there are mouse bones or chipmunk teeth in them.”

“Cooooool,” Sammy said in awe.

Claire made a face.

“No say gross!” Sammy said to her.

Hannah leaned down and kissed Sammy on the cheek, a big wet smacking kiss. He smiled but did not break his concentration on the owl pellet.

“Her’s my mama,” he said, briefly glancing up at Claire. “Her’s allowed to kiss me.”

“Lucky her,” Claire said. “Can I look at your treasures?”

He nodded gravely.

Claire opened the cookie tin and looked inside.

“Takes them all out and puts them on the table,” he said. “So we can sees them.”

Claire carefully removed each object and put it on the table.

“That frog is dried out that way,” Sammy said. “We finded him in the garage.”

“He’s missing a leg,” Claire said.

“It broked,” Sammy said with a shrug.

“That’s new,” Hannah said, pointing to a silver key ring attached to a rectangular key fob that looked as if it had something inside of it, like a Swiss army knife, but it didn’t look like a knife.

“I think it has a bottle opener inside it,” Claire said. “If you push on one side it should flip out the other.”

Hannah and Claire both tried but they couldn’t get it open.

“I guess if he can’t open it he can’t kill anybody with it. Where’d you get this?” Hannah said. “It’s not one of Daddy’s, is it?”

“Delia gives it to me,” Sammy said. “I never stoled it.”

“Mom’s always finding little treasures at tag sales and flea markets,” Claire said. “She’s like a magpie about shiny silver things.”

“Like that silver frame on the mantle?” Hannah asked. “It’s beautiful.”

“Actually, that was a gift from me on their fortieth wedding anniversary.”

“That was a great party,” Hannah said. “It’s a shame you couldn’t come.”

“I was in
Spain,” Claire said.

“How does your dad seem to you?”

“Who’s you’s daddy?” Sammy asked Claire.

“Ian’s my dad and Delia’s my mom.”

Sammy seemed to reflect upon this new information.

“He’s changed a lot,” Hannah said.

“He looks so old,” Claire said. “Mom says there’s nothing that can be done but I’m going to talk to Doc Machalvie. Surely there’s some specialist we can take him to.”

“Ian falled down,” Sammy said, and then pointed at the living room, “in there.”

“Sammy was here when he fell,” Hannah said. “He was a brave boy and went up to the service station to get help.”

“I three. I can counts to twenty,” he said, and then proved it.

“That’s pretty good for three,” Claire said. “So he crossed the S.T.R.E.E.T.?”

“Yep,” Hannah said. “He said he thought Grandma Alice would be too scared to help.”

“Her’s silly,” Sammy said. “I gets up on her’s nerbs.”

“You have to admit that’s a very accurate description of my mother,” said Hannah. “When Mom found out I was having a boy she said, ‘I’ve had enough boys; I want a pretty little girl to dress up.’ Cause you know I was not having that kind of thing when I was little.”

“You were a tomboy,” Claire said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Grandma Alice is up on my nerbs,” Sammy said. “Her no likes dinosaurs or even trucks.”

“His vocabulary is amazing,” Claire said.

“What’s cabulary?” Sammy asked.

“It means you know lots of words,” Hannah said.

“I gots lotsa words,” Sammy told Claire, “but no bad words.”

“I have to pay him a dollar for every curse word I say in front of him,” Hannah said.

Claire counted the money from the cookie tin.

“At this rate he’ll be able to buy a car by the time he’s sixteen.”

“I never says bad words,” he said. “Hannah says them all the day.”

“Sammy likes his money and he likes a good trade,” Hannah said.

“He calls you Hannah?”

“Sometimes, and sometimes he calls me Mama; but he always calls Sam ‘Daddy.’”

“Her’s gots ‘C’s on her necklace,” Sammy told his mother. “But her not trade them to me.”

“It’s Chanel,” Claire said. “If I take the logo off how will anyone know how special it is?”

“You could tells them,” Sammy said.

“That’s not the point,” Claire said, and then to change the subject, “you have a mighty fine collection.”

“Mighty fine,” Sammy said with pride, and then to his mother, “I hungry.”

Claire offered him a spoonful of peanut butter.

“Yuck,” he said. “That the dog jar.”

Hannah made a face.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she asked him. “Gross!”

“Ian’s gives the dogs peanut butter outta that jar,” Sammy said.

Hannah tickled and hugged him until he laughed.

“Her’s my mama,” he told Claire. “Her’s allowed to tickle me.”

“He seems very concerned with what you are and are not allowed to do,” Claire said.

“We talk about who’s allowed to do what,” Hannah said. “We’re establishing healthy boundaries and learning about stranger danger.”

“Stop, drop, and roll,” Sammy said in a very serious voice, “when the fire’s on you.”

“You couldn’t have learned any parenting skills from Alice,” Claire said, referring to Hannah’s mother. “From what I remember she was always in her bedroom lying down with a headache.”

“Sam’s all over this child rearing thing. I’m a little more casual in my approach.”

“You gots kids?” Sammy asked Claire.

“No,” Claire said, “just Mackie Pea.”

Sammy looked over at Mackie Pea, curled up on a rug in the corner.

“Mappy Pete’s a little girl dog,” he told his mother. “They’s cut off her’s tail.”

“Sammy,” Hannah said, “Daddy’s coming in a little while to take you to the Megamart to get some new shoes.”

“Alright!” he shouted, and then danced around. “Megamart! Megamart! I wants a tractor; a big one with big wheels!”

“You have to take a nap first.”

His whole body sagged.

“I no nap,” he whined. “I not sleepy.”

“Then no Megamart,” Hannah said. “It’s the deal.”

Mother and son locked gazes and Claire was not sure who was going to give in.

“Claire said she would rock you and sing songs,” Hannah said. “She’s allowed to do that.”

“You know any good songs?” he asked Claire.

“I know all the ones your Aunt Delia knows,” Claire said.

“Her’ll be comin’ around the mountain?” he asked her.

“And ‘I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,’ and ‘How Much is that Doggie in the Window,’ and ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,’” Claire said.

“Ian sings old Bonnie lies in the bakery, please keep that old Bonnie away,” Sammy said.

“That’s not very nice,” Claire said.

“I scared of Aunt Bonnie,” Sammy said.

“Me, too,” Hannah said.

“Me, too,” Claire said.

“Okay,” Hannah said. “Here’s the deal: Claire will rock you, you lie down for one hour, and then Daddy will take you to Megamart.”

“I gets a new tractor?”

“That’s a deal you’ll have to make with Daddy. We’re working on my deal right now.”

Sammy seemed to weigh the acceptability of the deal on the table.

After a short silence he asked Claire, “I gets to have my passie?”

“Is that okay?” Claire asked Hannah.

“His daddy hasn’t let him have a pacifier since his third birthday, but Delia keeps an emergency passie on top of the fridge.”

“It’s a mergency,” Sammy said. “I needs it.”

“Well, since it’s an emergency,” Hannah said. “I guess it’s alright.”

To Maggie she said, “I don’t care if he sucks on a pacifier until he’s in college as long as it makes him feel better. Maybe if every adult had one there’d be less of a need to self-medicate.”

Sammy dragged a chair over to the kitchen cabinet, climbed on top of the counter, and then on top of the microwave. He took a pacifier out of a basket on top of the fridge. Hannah helped him down.

“Got it,” he said, holding the pacifier up for Claire to see before popping it in his mouth.

It seemed to have an instantaneous sedative effect. He rubbed his eyes and yawned.

“Do you have to pee?” Hannah asked him.

He shook his head.

“Rock him for five songs, although he will try to get you to do one more about a million times,” Hannah said. “Then put him down on the couch and cover him up with the afghan; the soft blue one, not the scratchy red one. Set the kitchen timer for one hour, and he can’t get up until it dings, whether he sleeps or not. As soon as he gets up he has to pee, which he can do by himself, and then he gets some juice.”

Sammy removed his pacifier, said, “the yellow sippy cup with the monster truck,” and then stuck his it back in his mouth.

“Got it,” Claire said.

Claire went in the living room and sank down in the upholstered rocker in which her mother had rocked her and her brother many years before. Sammy climbed up on her lap and snuggled in her arms. He took out his pacifier and pointed it at his mother.

“Bye, Hannah,” he said. “Be good.”

“Bye, Sammy,” Hannah said, and waved as she went out.

“Daddy sings everything alright,” Sammy said. “You knowed it?”

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “What song is that?”