Swan Place (33 page)

“And I met another girl named Mandy,” I said. “Her daddy is Miz Swan’s lawyer.”

Buzzard looked up at me sharply. “She doesn’t talk about her daddy’s business, does she?” Buzzard’s voice was almost like a low growl.

“No,” I answered. “Rachel and I both kind of tried to get her to talk about his work, but Mandy was real firm about not saying anything about what he does.”

“That’s good,” Buzzard said in a relieved-sounding whisper. I wondered what that was all about, but I didn’t ask. I simply went upstairs, changed out of my good school clothes, and hung them in the closet. I put on my old shorts and a shirt that was a little too short for me and went back downstairs to help fix supper.

“I like all the girls at school that I’ve met so far,” I explained. “But they only like me because they think I’m Mr. Swan’s great-niece.”

“O-h-h-h.” Buzzard drew the word out.

“And there’s one girl I really want to get to know, but I don’t think the others like her. She rides on the same bus I take, and she stays on it after I get off at the mailbox.”

Buzzard’s eyebrows shot up. “I know who that is—that’s Sharon, old Miss Rebecca’s grandchild. Well, I don’t know Sharon right well, but she seems real nice. I do wonder why the other girls wouldn’t like her?”

“Because she’s poor and wears worn-out clothes and her dresses are too little for her, and she’s not kin to somebody rich or famous in the town,” I spewed the words forth with a poisoned kind of feeling I hadn’t even known was there. Buzzard looked at me in surprise.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered.

“Don’t have to be,” Buzzard said. “You’re probably right.”

“Well, it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be—pretending to be Mr. Swan’s great-niece,” I explained. “It’s hard to have people being nice to me just for that.”

“Well, I’m right glad to see you’ve got a level head on your shoulders.” Buzzard beamed. “Folks who go around pretending to be more important than they really are, why they’re only trying to persuade
themselves
.” I thought for a moment about that and decided that Buzzard was absolutely right! How strange that I couldn’t have figured it out on my own!

The next day, Crystal
started driving me to school, and as I came into the building, Rachel and Mandy came running up to me.

“That your sister driving you?” they asked.

“Uh—yes.”

“She’s so pretty!” they chorused. “Where does she work?”

“At the mall.”

“Is she married?”

“She was,” I chose my words carefully. “But now she’s a widow. Her husband was killed in a terrible automobile accident.”

Rachel and Mandy clucked their tongues at Crystal’s misfortune. But I could see in Rachel’s eyes the very same glitter I saw in Miz White’s the day Buzzard introduced us at the grocery store. She couldn’t wait to spread that juicy tidbit around. I thought right then and there that I was awful glad the Swan Place was way outside of town. I wouldn’t want to live so close to other people and have them talking about every single thing I said or did. Mandy wouldn’t do that, of course. But I knew good and well that Rachel
would
.

At lunch, Rachel and Mandy sat with me again, and Mandy started asking more questions about Crystal.

“What does she do at the mall?” they asked.

“She works in a beauty
 . . .
a salon,” I remembered to say. Then, before they could ask any more questions, I asked one of my own.

“Does Sharon ever eat lunch in the lunchroom?”

“Who?”

“Sharon,” I repeated. “She’s in our class. Sits at the back.”

“Oh,
her
,” Rachel almost spat the word. “No, she can’t afford to pay for lunch. She brings lunch from home.”

“Please, Rachel,” Mandy protested in a whisper.

“And what a lunch!” Rachel went right ahead, and Mandy turned a deep pink. Rachel giggled and covered her mouth, while Mandy just got redder and redder.

“What?” I asked.

“Strange things—cold sweet potatoes and biscuits with syrup in them,” Rachel said. “And a jar with nothing but
water
in it.”

“Where does she eat?” I asked.

“Who cares?” Mandy almost snarled. “And why do you want to know anyway?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I just wondered.”

I was ever so glad when Rachel stopped talking about Sharon. Mandy glanced at me a couple of times, and I could tell by her eyes that she was apologizing for Rachel’s bad manners.

When I got on the bus that afternoon, I saw Sharon sitting all the way in the back, so I passed by the front seats and headed toward her. But when she saw me coming, she turned bright red and looked ready to cry. I stopped in my tracks, and she turned her face away from me. Well, I guess I could understand that. Back at home, I would have felt pretty much the same way if any of the rich girls had tried to make friends with me. So I turned and went back to the front seat, feeling pretty bad about embarrassing her like that, but wishing I could find a way to talk with her.

So I decided I would talk to Buzzard about it.

“Well, honey, I ‘spect she just wants to be left alone,” Buzzard concluded, after I’d explained it all to her.

“I just want to be friends with her,” I complained. “I wouldn’t laugh at her or be mean or stuck up, at all!”

“Well, let’s just see what happens,” Buzzard added. “But something you ought to know is this: Sometimes, the harder you push for something that isn’t meant to be, the unhappier you’ll make yourself. If Sharon’s meant to be your friend, then it will happen. But if she isn’t meant to be your friend, nothing you do will make it happen.”

I thought about Savannah right away and how we became friends almost from the very first moment we met. Savannah was surely someone who was meant to be my friend, and I didn’t have to do a thing to make her like me. And I wondered for a little moment about how Savannah would have felt about me if I’d lived in this big beautiful house when I met her. Would she have liked me, if she thought I was Mr. Swan’s great-niece?

I took Buzzard’s advice and didn’t try to force myself on Sharon, ever again.

“It’s something else,” Crystal answered in a strong, clear voice. For a long moment, nobody said anything, but then Crystal added, “A baby is what it is.”

“I figured as much,” Buzzard said. But my mind was whirling away with all kinds of questions.
A baby? How could Crystal get herself a baby?
And all in that little moment, I remembered Molly and Little Ellis and how pink and warm and tiny they were and how their baby heads would kind of bob around when I held them on my shoulder.
A baby!
I wanted to hear more, so I leaned close to the door.

Silence.

Not a single sound of anything you expect to hear in a kitchen that has two women in it. No dishes rattling, no pot lids going on and off. And not a single word spoken. Molly and Little Ellis were standing at the top of the stairs, watching me, so I finally went up and read them three stories. But the whole time, my mind was just racing. What would become of us if Crystal had a baby? How would we ever get our very own apartment? What would happen if Miz Swan came back and made us all leave?

Once Molly and Little Ellis settled down, I tiptoed back downstairs and stood once again at the kitchen door. This time, there was plenty of talking going on.

“We sure got ourselves some kind of problem now,” Buzzard was saying in a low, huffy-sounding voice.

“I know,” Crystal admitted. “But I want you to know one thing
:
When we left home and came here, it wasn’t because of this. It was to protect Molly.”

“You had morning sickness the very first morning you all were here,” Buzzard reminded her.

“I know,” Crystal admitted.

“You knew you were with child!”

“I thought as much, but it isn’t why we came.”

“It was the first thing I suspected,” Buzzard said. “Healthy young woman like yourself, it would take something like that to make you get sick so fast and then get over it so fast. And sick only in the morning, first thing.”

“I don’t know much about this kind of thing,” Crystal moaned. “I’m so sorry, Buzzard. I’m so sorry.”

“No need to apologize to
me
,” Buzzard sounded surprised. “One you should apologize to is yourself.”

“Why? This is Roy-Ellis’s baby. I haven’t been with another man.” Crystal sounded close to tears when she added, “But what am I gonna do? I’m not even eighteen, and I’m gonna have four children to take care of!”

“Told me you was twenty!” Buzzard fumed. “And Dove isn’t a child anymore. She can be such a big help.”

“I know.”

“We’ll just have to find a way, is all,” Buzzard said. “That’s what women in my family have always done. Just find a way to handle it.”

“Handle what?” Crystal sniffed.

“Whatever comes.”

“But where will we live?” Crystal was crying openly.

“Why,
here
!” Buzzard sounded surprised. “You all can stay right here.”

“But what about Miz Swan? She won’t want to come home to a house full of children
 . . .
and a baby, even.”

“I had a letter from her just the other day,” Buzzard said. “And maybe she’s decided to live in France all the time.”

Well, that was hard for me to believe! Because every single time we got the mail, I held it while we went up the driveway, and looked at it. And there had never been a letter from France!

“She would stay there and still keep this house?” Crystal asked. “And you taking care of it?”

“Miz Swan does whatever she pleases,” Buzzard said with finality. “She’s right fond of me, you know. And of this house. So we’re okay.”

“Well, if you say so,” Crystal admitted.

“I say so,” Buzzard added. Then she said, “Let’s get Dove in here on this. She’s big enough, you know.” Through the door, I could see Crystal nod.

“No need,” I said, walking into the kitchen bold as brass.

“You been listening at the door?” Buzzard growled at me.

“Yes, I have,” I said. “It’s the only way I ever get included in what’s going on.” That was a truthful statement, and I didn’t feel one bit ashamed of saying it.

“So you know about
 . . .
everything,” Crystal asked.

“Yes. And I agree with Buzzard. We’ll find a way.”

Buzzard said, “Well, pretty soon, we’ll have to have a story about this baby that’s going to come. Same as the story we have about you all being Mr. Swan’s great-nieces and nephew.” I sat down at the table with Buzzard and Crystal and we all stared at the center of the table, as if maybe we could find an answer sitting right there.