Tallahassee Higgins (10 page)

I ran upstairs and shut myself in my room. "Look at this." I showed Melanie the glossy picture on the front of the postcard. "That's the Pacific Ocean," I told her. "See how blue the sky and the water are? The sun always shines in California, and it's never cold." I looked out the window at the gray sky and scudding clouds, at the trees tossing in the wind.

"But the back is the most important part." I turned the card over and showed Melanie the message. She stared at it, her expression never changing. "Liz doesn't say exactly when," I explained, "but we'll be together again soon, Melanie. Soon."

Lying down on my back, I gazed up at the ceiling, tracing patterns in the cracks and dreaming about California. If only Liz had been a little more definite. What did "soon" mean? A few days, a couple of weeks, a month? All of a sudden, I had an idea.

"You know what?" I grabbed Melanie and held her above me, shaking her a little for emphasis. "I'm going to call Liz up and find out what's going on."

"How can you do that?" I made Melanie sound wonder-struck. "You don't know her phone number, you don't even know where she lives!"

"But I know where she works! I can call Information in Los Angeles and get the number of the Big Carrot."

"Oh, Talley, you're so smart!" Melanie clapped her pudgy hands and smiled. "But what about Aunt Thelma? She won't let you make a long-distance call."

"I'll do it while she's at work." It was so simple, I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner.

***

The next afternoon, I persuaded Jane to come home with me after school.

"But I'm not supposed to go to people's houses unless their parents are home," she whispered nervously as I unlocked the front door.

"Your mother will never know. She'll think we're at the park." I led Jane back to the kitchen where Fritzi greeted us with his usual fusillade of barking.

To shut Fritzi up, I gave him a dog yummy. "Why can't you like me?" I asked him as he took his bribe under the table and started gnawing on it. His only reply was a low growl.

While Fritzi was occupied, Jane and I studied the phone book, trying to figure out exactly what we were supposed to do to call long-distance. After a couple of mistakes, I finally got the operator in Los Angeles and told her what I wanted.

"Which Big Carrot?" she asked.

"There's more than one?"

"It's a health-food chain. There must be more than half a dozen in Los Angeles."

"Well, can you give me the numbers of all the Big Carrots?"

Although she didn't sound happy to do it, the operator read off the numbers of eight Big Carrots, and I wrote them all down.

"Now." I looked at Jane, my hand poised over the phone. "Let's hope we find Liz before Aunt Thelma comes home."

"Are you going to ask her about Johnny?" Jane asked as I dialed the first number.

"Of course I am. Next to finding out when she's sending me my plane ticket, that's the most important thing."

While Jane hung over my shoulder, scarcely breathing, I called seven Big Carrots before I got the right one.

"Liz Higgins?" A woman's voice asked. "Yes, she works here. Do you want to speak to her?"

"Yes, please." Of course I wanted to speak to her—why else would I call?

"Hey, you seen Liz?" the voice yelled. "Tell her she's got a phone call."

Then, clunk, down went the receiver, leaving me standing in the kitchen with my heart going thump, thump, thump. Finally, somebody picked up the phone. "Hello?"

It was Liz, and for a minute I couldn't say anything. It was Liz, it was really Liz!

"Hey, is anybody there?"

"It's me," I whispered. "It's me, Liz."

"Who is this?" Liz shouted.

"It's Tallahassee!" I was so scared she was going to hang up that I yelled. "Your daughter, in case you forgot!"

"Talley, baby!" Liz sounded amazed. "How did you get my number?"

"From Information. When am I supposed to come out there, Liz?"

"Didn't you get my postcard?"

"Yes, but it didn't say anything. Please let me come out there, please!"

"Look, Tallahassee," Liz cut into my pleading, her voice sharp as a knife. "I've told you I can't afford it right now. It's just not possible."

"How about the bus? It's cheap." I was whining now, something I knew she hated, but I couldn't help it.

Liz paused to light a cigarette and then exhaled so sharply I could hear her. "You don't understand, Talley. Bob's friends turned out to be a bunch of losers. They don't know anybody. They just sit around all day drinking wine and talking about the good old days. And Bob is perfectly happy fooling around with them and riding around on his motorcycle. I swear I might as well have stayed in Florida."

"You mean you haven't met anybody in the movie business?"

"I'm sorry, baby. I wish I had better news for you." Then Liz started crying. "Look, honey, I can't talk now. I've got tables waiting, and I need all the tips I can get. Be good, will you? I'll call you, I promise."

Before I could say another word, she hung up.

I put the receiver down and turned to Jane. "Come on, let's go to the park before Aunt Thelma comes home."

Safely out of the house, Jane and I ran across the yard and down the street. When we got to the park, we collapsed on a bench, too out of breath to talk.

After a while Jane turned to me. "What did your mother say?"

"Not much." I sighed and watched a mother pushing a little kid in a swing. She was singing a song Liz used to sing to me about the big rock-candy mountain. "Things aren't as great in California as she thought they'd be."

Jane stared at me, her face solemn. "She hasn't met any stars or anything?"

I shook my head so hard my hair swung out and thwacked Jane's cheek. "And she's real depressed, I can tell, and I'm not there to cheer her up. Oh, Jane, she really needs me, I know she does."

Jane's hand closed over mine. "She'd send for you if she could. I'm sure she would."

Tipping my head back, I stared up at the sky. It was just starting to get dark. A star hung in the pale strip of sky above the treetops, and the air was getting colder. I saw the mother lift her little kid out of the swing and walk away, still singing.

"I guess we'd better go," I said to Jane. "If you're not home when the streetlights come on, your mother will ground you again."

Jane stood up, and we walked slowly out of the park. As we passed Mrs. Russell's house, Jane said, "Oh, Talley, you didn't ask Liz about Johnny."

"I didn't exactly have a chance." I paused by the fence. The kitchen light was on, and I could see Mrs. Russell sitting at her table eating dinner.

"It must be awfully lonely to eat by yourself every night," Jane said.

"You'd think she'd be glad to have a granddaughter, wouldn't you?" Happy scenes formed in my head like home movies as I imagined Mrs. Russell and me sitting around the kitchen table laughing and talking, Bo stretched out at our feet.

"The streetlights are on!" Jane gasped, scattering my daydream into fragments. "I have to go!" Leaving me behind, she ran for home.

Well,
I
didn't feel like running, so I dawdled along, looking in windows and imagining what the people inside the houses were like. Were they happy? Were they sad? Did they like living in Hyattsdale or did they all wish they were in California?

By the time I reached Oglethorpe Street, I was late for dinner. I got in trouble for that and for being out after dark. As a punishment, I had to spend an hour with Uncle Dan going over my math problems instead of watching even half an hour of television.

***

Two long weeks passed. Although no word came from Liz, Aunt Thelma's telephone bill arrived. I was in my room when she opened it, but from the way she called me to come downstairs, I knew I was in trouble.

She was standing at the foot of the steps with the envelope in her hand. "What is the meaning of this?" she yelled at me. "I've got twelve dollars and fifty-five cents worth of long-distance calls to California on my phone bill!"

"What are you talking about?" I stopped halfway down the steps and stared at the bill she was waving at me.

"You made these calls, didn't you?"

"I just wanted to talk to my mother!"

"You told me you didn't have her number."

"I didn't! I called Information."

Aunt Thelma slammed the telephone bill down on the table. "First I had to pay for that blouse you ruined, and now this. I will not have you sneaking around behind my back, running up bills on my phone. Do you understand?"

As I started to run back upstairs, she stopped me. "What did Liz say when you talked to her?"

"She'll be sending for me real soon!" I yelled. "That ought to make you happy!" Then I turned my back and thundered up the steps.

Flopping down on my bed, I picked up Melanie and looked out the window at the gray clouds sailing across the sky. As I lay there, I saw a bunch of dead leaves spiral into the air, as if they were being sucked up by a giant vacuum cleaner.

"I wish I were Dorothy," I whispered to Melanie, "and a huge tornado would take me away from here. Maybe not all the way to Oz. Maybe just to California."

T
HE NEXT DAY
was Saturday. Jane was at the orthodontist, safely away from my influence, so I hopped on my bike and rode over to Mrs. Russell's. I wasn't ready to give up on her yet.

I found her in her backyard hanging a sheet on a clothesline stretched from the porch to the garage. Bo was frisking around, snapping at the towels blowing in the breeze.

"Do you want some help?" I vaulted over the fence again, leaving my bike locked to one of the palings.

Mrs. Russell mumbled something that sounded like yes through a mouthful of old-fashioned wooden clothespins.

"Don't you have a clothes dryer?" I grabbed one end of a wet sheet and struggled to pin it to the line.

Dumping the clothespins into a little bag hanging on the line, she said, "On nice days like this, I hang my sheets and towels outside. It makes them smell good." She yanked a corner of a sheet away from Bo. "No, Bo! Bad dog!"

Bo immediately sat down and looked so ashamed of himself that I couldn't help laughing.

"Want me to take him for a walk?" I asked. "We could play in the park or something."

"I suppose that would be all right." Mrs. Russell looked from me to Bo and back. "But you'll have to keep him on his leash, Tallahassee. I've already gotten in trouble with the park police for letting him run free. Poor thing." She patted Bo. "You don't understand about leash laws, do you?"

When she went inside to get his leash, I followed her up the steps, hoping again to be invited in. "Wait here," she said to me. "I'll be right back."

I peered through the screen door at the big, sunny kitchen. Johnny's kitchen. One whole window was full of glass shelves, jammed with African violets, all blooming and healthy. They reminded me of Liz's futile attempts to grow plants; when they died, she said it was because she had a brown thumb, but I knew better. Plants have to be watered. You can't just go off and forget them if you want them to bloom.

When Mrs. Russell reappeared with the leash, Bo jumped around, his tail wagging. "He's so smart," she said. "The minute he sees this, he knows he's going for a walk."

She knelt beside him and clipped the leash to his collar. "Now you be careful with him, Tallahassee," she said. "And remember what I said about not letting him loose."

Mrs. Russell followed us down the sidewalk and waved as we started up Forty-first Avenue. "Be back in an hour," she called.

"Come on, Bo! Let's go, boy!" I started running as soon as we got to the park, and Bo lunged ahead like a racehorse, just flying along. I would have loved to unfasten his leash, but I was afraid Mrs. Russell would find out and never let me take him anywhere again.

We didn't slow down till we got to the pond. Then I let Bo wade into the water and drink his fill. I hoped Mrs. Russell wouldn't get mad when she saw how muddy he was.

On the way home, I stopped and let a bunch of little kids pet Bo. They all seemed to know him, and one of them wanted to know where Mrs. Russell was and who I was.

"She's at home doing the laundry," I said, "and I'm her granddaughter. That's why I get to take Bo for a walk."

"I have a grandmother," a little girl told me.

"Me too," another kid said. "Only she's out in Arizona. I'm going to see her this summer. On an airplane." He spread his arms like wings and ran back to the tot lot, making jet plane noises.

By the time Bo and I got back to Mrs. Russell's house, the leash hung slack between us. We were too tired to run.

"Did you have a good walk?" Mrs. Russell was standing at the gate waiting for us, her hands clasped in front of her, her back straight.

"Bo got kind of muddy," I said apologetically. "He waded in the pond and then he drank out of all the mud puddles we passed."

Mrs. Russell scratched Bo's ears. "This big oaf could find water in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Couldn't you, you silly old dog?"

Bo rolled over on his back and waved all four legs in the air while Mrs. Russell rubbed his tummy. "Who's the biggest rascal in the world?" she asked him.

Straightening up, Mrs. Russell smiled at me. "I imagine you're pretty thirsty yourself, unless you were tasting the puddles, too. Would you like to come in for a minute and have a cup of tea with me?"

I followed her around the house to the back door. Before she let me in, she made me wipe the mud off my shoes while she cleaned Bo's paws with an old rag. Inside, she sat me down at a big oak table, the kind with lion's feet carved on its legs, and poured tea into pretty little flowered cups.

"Cookies?" Mrs. Russell passed me a plate heaped high with gingersnaps.

While I was eating, Mrs. Russell said, "I was thinking about something while you and Bo were gone, Tallahassee. How would you like to give him a run every Saturday in the park? I could pay you a dollar an hour."

"Oh, you don't have to give me any money." I stared at her. "I'll do it for free. I just love Bo!" I bent down and ruffled his fur so she wouldn't see how excited I was. She must like me, I thought, she must!