Pictures of Hollis Woods (6 page)

O
ne raw Tuesday morning I awoke and pulled the shade aside; the trees were charcoal smudges against an iron gray sky. Josie wouldn't be up for another hour or two. I hadn't done my homework the night before, hadn't even thought of it. I'd fallen asleep watching television with Henry next to me on the couch and Josie working at the kitchen table.

I still faced rows of math problems. Three pages, maybe four. And there was a social studies composition on Henry Hudson.

I tried to decide whether I could work on it now. It was early. I popped bread into the toaster and opened a can of Salmon Delight for Henry, who sniffed at it and walked away.

“I can never figure you out,” I said, and buttered a square of toast for him instead. Then I pulled my books off the shelf and sat at the table with one of Josie's knitted shawls around me.

In back of me I had the radio on. Two weeks until Christmas. It had snowed upstate, six inches.

Ah, snow for Steven. Were they up yet, the three of them? Were they having breakfast in their winter house in Hancock? What would it be like if I were there, doing my homework, eating Izzy's apple pancakes?

The radio announcer said it was a foggy day on Long Island at three minutes before eight o'clock.

I finished the first page of math problems; I could never do the rest in a half hour. Never mind Henry Hudson sailing up the river.

Maybe I could take one more day off. Just one. I grabbed my jacket and pad and went out the back door, holding it open for Henry to come too. The canal would be wonderful this morning, with a mist rising off the water. And all the while I jogged toward the jetty, I knew it was a mistake. But still I kept going.

When I got to the pier, I sat, hands clenched in my pocket against the cold, my legs dangling, watching the fisherman on the
DanBar-J
gear up to go out for blues. He knew me now, and waved. Last week he'd even dropped a flounder on the bench for me. I had panfried it with a little butter, and Josie had put two dusty pink candles on the table, almost like a party.

Henry had loved his share. He hadn't scratched at me once when I put his plate down in front of him on the radio. “Ah,” I had said, pleased with him. “You'd do anything for a handout.”

Now I watched the fingers of fog drift over the water while Henry sat nearby, washing one mangy leg. It was the kind of day I loved. I couldn't see the end of the pier, and no one could see me from there. I could hear the fisherman from the
DanBar-J
, though. “Want a job?” he called.

He wasn't thinking about school either.

A job? Why not? There'd be money for cat food, a couple of cans of ravioli. I hadn't had ravioli since the stucco house.

I nodded and found myself hosing down the deck of the
DanBar-J.
As I scrubbed at the dried-on pieces of fish with a wire brush, I spent the money in my mind.

He handed me three crumpled-up bills. I smoothed them out, and then as I gave him a half wave, he reached into his pocket and gave me another dollar.

I couldn't wait to get back to Josie. She'd pat her scarf around her neck and fuss with her hat. We'd sail up and down the aisles of DeMattia's Food Store, picking and choosing: ravioli, and a pink can of shredded tuna for Henry. Maybe some marmalade, too, to have with the English muffins we had left.

I had forgotten all about homework, and school, and even the mustard woman. Henry and I headed home as the fog lifted and the sun appeared behind the trees. It was going to be a beautiful day, a day for a picnic on the rock jetty.

I pulled open the back door and stopped. Above the newscaster's voice on the radio—“Nine-thirty and still snowing in upstate New York”—was the sound of voices in the living room.

Henry heard them too. He scampered back outside to sit on the bench, an irritable look on his skinny face.

I thought about scampering with him. I knew who it must be. But how could I leave Josie alone with her? Instead, I shrugged out of my jacket, put my pad on the table, and lifted my chin as I went toward the front of the house.

The mustard woman sat on the lilac couch, and Josie sat in the chair opposite. They both had cups of coffee in their hands.

Good move, Josie, I thought. Her coffee was great, dark and rich, as the advertisements went.

I nodded at the mustard woman and sank down in the third chair, facing the window, looking out as if something wonderful were going on right there in the front yard.

They talked about old movies and the wonderful colors in the living room; they talked about coffee waking them up, and all the time my heart was pounding. Without looking at the mustard woman's face, I knew she was straining at the conversation, that this wasn't what she wanted to say.

She was wearing sweats…. Did she ever wear anything else? I could see a round creamy spot on her chest. She'd spilled her coffee. What was the matter with that woman, anyway?

But Josie looked fine, Josie looked wonderful, with that slash of red across her mouth, a silky green dress that looked like the sea. I knew she was groping, though. She had no idea who the woman sitting across from her was.

At last the mustard woman put down her cup. “Hollis,” she said, “I know I'm keeping you from school.”

I waved my hand. No problem, lady.

She looked at Josie then. “I think, Mrs. Cahill, that we need to talk about another place for Hollis.”

Josie sat up straight. I could see her thin hands on the coffee cup trembling a little; her mouth, too. “Hollis is leaving?”

They both looked at me.

“I've found a family for her,” the mustard woman said. “A mother and father with a three-year-old boy and a dog.” She kept leaning forward, trying to make me look at her. “I think I remember you like dogs, Hollis.”

“Sharks,” I said, “and barracudas, not dogs.”

“A family would be nice,” Josie said.

Too late, I thought.

“But not today,” the mustard woman said. “It will be a few days. I'll want Hollis to meet them first. They're not so far from here. You and Mrs. Cahill will be able to visit sometimes, Hollis.”

She stood up then. “I'll keep in touch,” she said. “Would you like me to drive you to school now?”

I shook my head. “I can walk.”

She turned to go.

“By the way,” I said. “You have a sticker on the back of that shirt.
X-L.”

She tried to look over her shoulder.

“Extra large,” I said, feeling mean.

Two of Izzy's candies filled my mouth as I went around the side of the house. I didn't mean to listen or to be sneaky. Ordinarily I did that a lot. I'd stand still in the hall to hear what the stucco woman had to say to her telephone friend. I'd flip pages on the teacher's desk to see what disaster of a mark I'd gotten in social studies or social attitude. I'd pass by classmates in the schoolyard to find out what they had to say about that kid Hollis Woods.

But this time I was on my way to find Izzy, to give her a picture I'd drawn: Izzy flipping a pancake that would land on my plate. Izzy's pancakes were wonderful: covered with apples cut into small sweet chunks, the pancakes themselves so light I must have eaten a half dozen. In the picture Izzy is laughing, the turner in one hand, just
under the cross-stitched motto on the wall: LOVE THE COOK.

I'd changed the motto, though. I'd written: I DO LOVE THE COOK. I'd drawn the I DO in the palest pink so that you'd have to study it, study it hard, or you wouldn't notice.

One afternoon Izzy and I had walked up to the old cemetery on the hill where her parents were buried. We picked white daisies and Queen Anne's lace and put them in the jar in front of a small stone next to her parents' grave. Izzy ran her hand over the inscription on the bottom: JOSEPH REGAN, SIX DAYS. “I always wanted more children,” she said. “For me, for John, for Steven.” She patted the stone. “I wanted a baby for each corner of my house. It just never happened after this.”

Down the hill I could hear the Old Man bellow at Steven. “Do they always fight?” I asked. “Or …”—I hesitated, trying to sound as if I didn't care, as if it weren't important—“do you think it's because I'm here?”

Izzy grinned at me. “It does seem worse this summer,” she said. “But they have to find their own way.”

I'd thought about that for days
, “worse this summer,”
but now, as I rounded the house, I
stepped back against the wall, warm from the sun, smelling faintly of paint, and closed my eyes.

“How can we let her go?” Izzy was saying.

“We can't,” the Old Man said.

My heart began to pound so hard I thought it would come through my chest.

A mother, I thought.
M.

“She belongs here,” Izzy said. “Steven feels it too.”

B,
belong.
G,
girl.
S
, sister.
W
for want
, W
for wish
, W
for Wouldn't it be loverly? My head was spinning.

“I've been thinking about it,” Izzy said. “The winter house in town is too small. We'd have to put a room on for her.”

I don't need a room. A couch. A sleeping bag.

“Without the room, I don't think the agency would let us keep her. She has to have space for herself.”

For a moment they were quiet.

I leaned my head back, my hand to my mouth.

“How about this?” Izzy said. “You could call Lenny Mitchell to work with you. There's space in the back for a great room for Hollis.”

“A big window for her,” the Old Man said. “We could do it in weeks.”

“Sooner than weeks,” Izzy said. “Early fall.”

“Yes. Even Steven would help.”

“I'll call—” “You'll call the agency.”

“How long will it take them?

“She'll have to go back first,” Izzy said, the words tumbling over each other.

“But just for a short time.”

I leaned my head against the wall. I'd never been so happy.

“A daughter,” Izzy said.

“Yes,” the Old Man said. “We'll have a daughter.”

From where I stood I could see the mountain towering over me. The stucco woman's voice was in my head:
“She's a mountain of trouble, that Hollis Woods.”

Before the end of the summer, I decided, I was going to climb that mountain, get to the top, raise my arms, and shout to the whole world, “I have a family. I belong.”

In back of me there was a noise. “Ya-hoo!”

Steven. I jumped a foot.

The voices stopped, but no one knew I had heard.

Early fall and I'd be a daughter.

F
or the next few afternoons, around five, the mustard woman called to chitchat. That's what she called it. She was doing all the chatting.

“How was school?”

“Burned down.”

“What did you have for lunch?”

“Horse meat.”

“How's Mrs. Cahill?”

“Who?”

“What are you drawing?”

“Nudies.”

“Hollis,” she said slowly one night. “Mrs. Cahill is old, and she has a tendency to forget.”

Josie dancing in the street, giving me the hat with the veil, making popcorn at the movie.

I said more than I wanted to. “She doesn't forget everything, just some things.” I stopped. The mustard woman would never change her mind. I raised my hand to the window. Drops of melting sleet were running down the glass. Under the kitchen table Henry was an orange ball, with only his pointy little chin turned up. Henry hated sleet.

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” the mustard woman began. “I'll pick you up and take you to meet Eleanor.” She paused.

I didn't answer.

“That's her name, Eleanor. She's going to have lunch for us.”

I pulled the telephone cord as far as it would go.

“Then Sunday, if all goes well …” She broke off. “You'd be in the same school. And you could visit Mrs. Cahill often.”

I took the phone away from my ear and put it on the counter. I did it gently so there was no noise. I wondered how long she'd keep talking before she figured out I wasn't listening.

It was gray outside. Josie's wooden figures were blurred and bent in the wind that had just come up.

Josie couldn't stay alone. She might not remember when it was supper. She'd sit up all night watching movies.

Beatrice. I picked up the phone and pressed the numbers. It rang about twenty times.
Answer, Beatrice.
But then I remembered. For the first weeks she'd be traveling around, she had said. I pictured her in the desert, dry sun beating down, her sketchbook in her hand.

I couldn't leave Josie.

I couldn't stay.

It was a puzzle.

Something from years ago popped into my head. It wasn't winter, it was summer, and so humid everything I touched was sticky. All afternoon I'd thought about the pillow on the bed, and how cool it would be against my head. I was surprised when it was as hot as the rest of the room. I reached under the pillow to find something I had hidden there, a doll with pale painted eyes. I whispered to her, asking if she was cooling off. And then someone came and pulled her away, tossing her on the night table. I waited until the woman walked out the door, and then I whispered a little more loudly so that the doll could hear me. “Don't worry,” I'd said. “I'll save you in the morning.”

Why had I thought of that now?

Save Josie.

That's why.

The sleet outside was turning to snow. It reminded me of Steven.
“You'd love the snow in Hancock,”
he'd said.

I thought of the summer house in Branches.
“I haven't been here in winter since I was a boy,”
the Old Man had said.
“But it was wonderful, so cold it hurt your teeth, the river frozen over, the animals coming up close to the house. Everything was silver with ice.”
He had spread his wide hands.
“Twisted icicles this long hanging from the roof. I used to knock them off and see how far I could throw them.”
He had laughed.
“My father had put in heat, so when you came inside, it was warm. I'd dry my hands on the radiator till they almost sizzled.”

Winter.

No one there in the house in Branches.
“We stay in our house in Hancock now. Plenty of snow there, and nearer to school and the stores.”

How could I do it?

How could I not?

Josie was napping on the lilac couch. I went in and stood next to her, watching that beautiful face.

She opened her eyes.

“How would you like to go away with me?” I asked.

“To see Beatrice?” she said.

I shook my head. “That's too far.”

“Then where?” She sat up, smoothing her hair with papery thin fingers.

It was hard to get the words out. “We'll take the car.”

“The Silver Bullet,” she said, nodding.

“It will be an adventure,” I said.

She smiled. “Henry, you, and I in the Silver Bullet. We'll fly to the ends of the earth.”

I smiled back, trying to think. Food, warm clothes, gas for the Silver Bullet.

It was Friday night. The mustard woman would come for me at lunchtime tomorrow.

By then we had to be long gone.