The Mirror (23 page)

Rachael Maddon scuffed the toes of her shoes in the dust. Sun warmed her shoulders but breeze cooled the backs of her knees, drying that sticky feeling from sitting at her desk.

She waved at old Doc Seaton, who watched her at his window.

Behind her the laughter and shouts of other children coming down the hill from the schoolhouse . . .

Rachael broke into a run to stay ahead of them, knowing without turning that there'd be groups of girls and groups of boys. But she walked alone.

"Hello there, little Rachael, and how are you today?" Mrs. Binder stood at the clothesline behind her house.

"Fine, thank you." Rachael didn't feel little. It was embarrassing to be taller than anyone else in the second grade.

"And how do you like your new teacher?" Mrs. Binder hobbled to the gate. The Binders didn't have a fence, just a gate and a birdbath.

"I like her just fine," Rachael mumbled, because she was lying. Miss Hapscot was small and dainty as ladies were supposed to be, as Rachael could tell already she'd never be.

"And how is everything out at the Bar Double M these days?" Mrs. Binder's ancient nose wiggled like a rabbit's in a lettuce patch. But this nose was after news--it really said to Rachael: "Is your mother as crazy as ever? And are you going to be crazy too?"

"Just fine, Mrs. Binder." Rachael hurried on, knowing she was being rude. But the voices behind her were catching up and she didn't want to talk about her mother to Mrs. Binder any more than to her schoolmates.

To the other children, Rachael's mother was either crazy or a witch. And her name was Brandy and Brandy was alcohol and alcohol was against the law. Even without hearing the familiar taunts except in her head, she had that bitey feeling behind her nose.

Rachael'd reached the bottom of the hill when she heard the scuffle of another shoe behind her. She turned to see the new boy Miss Hapscot had introduced to the school that morning. His elbows were big and bony below his sleeves and his pants were almost short enough to be knee pants.

Rachael ducked into the general store and soon forgot all about him. She surveyed the array of candies behind their glass panes.

"Coming in to spend your allowance on sweets again, are you now Rachael Maddon?" Mr. Binder looked even older than his wife but the smile in his eyes was young. "And what will your mother say to that, huh?"

Rachael grinned, aware of the juices squirting around in her mouth waiting for the candy, and of the assorted gaps where her new teeth had not yet come in. "We wouldn't have to tell her, would we, Mr. Binder?"

"You might not because you'll get the candy, but what's in it for me?"

"I could owe you another kiss."

"Let's see here," he said in his slurry way and took a notebook from a shelf behind the counter. "Better look in my ledger . . . why, Rachael, you already owe me twenty-seven kisses. That'd make it twenty-eight. Kind of young to be so deep in debt, don't you think?" But he reached into the case and drew out a roll of paper her impatient finger pointed to. Across the paper marched even rows of chocolate dots.

She paid for the candy and on her way to the door said what she always did at this point, "I'll pay off those kisses as soon as all your new teeth come in, Mr. Binder."

He laughed an old man's cackle. Mr. Binder didn't have a tooth in his head.

The new boy was throwing stones at grasshoppers in the vacant lot next to the store.

Rachael scraped off a row of dots with her teeth and set her lunch pail and the candy on the sidewalk. Hooking a knee over the horizontal pipe of the hitching post, she felt the sting of metal hot from the sun against her skin. Her stomach grumbled, ordering her mouth to send down the candy.

Checking to be sure the strange boy still faced the other way, she grabbed the pipe with both hands and twirled over and around and under and up--again and again--and as fast as she could so the skirt of her cotton dress wouldn't fall over her eyes, hide the view of swirling dirt street, square stores and dazzling sky. The green-and-white-checked pattern of her dress fell across her face and she stopped upright to find the new boy in front of her. Rachael felt hot all over. He must have seen her underpants.

But he was staring at the paper roll of candy on top of her lunch pail. He hadn't brought a lunch to school. Miss Hapscot had shared hers with him.

"Do you want some?" He and the sky and Mr. Binder's store were still spinning. "I might give you some if you ever said anything." She unwrapped her leg from the hitching post, aware of how long and awkward a leg it was.

"Anything," he mumbled.

He didn't rush to grab the candy as she thought he would but waited for her to tear off a piece.

It was embarrassing the way he cleaned away the chocolate dots. She ate two more rows and handed the rest of the roll to him.

"You giving it to me?"

"No. You owe me ... a kiss someday. I'll put it in my ledger book."

He gave the candy a greedy look but tried to hand it back.

"I'm only teasing. It's just a game I play with Mr. Binder. You don't have to pay for it."

There'd been enough candy on that paper to last her a week but it was gone in minutes. "How come you didn't bring a lunch today?"

"My ma was sick this morning." The dark pupils of his eyes were as big as Thora K.'s when she wore her magnifying spectacles. His cheekbones stuck out sharply like his elbow bones. Rachael wondered if he was an Indian.

He licked the paper and then seemed surprised to find it empty. "Sorry . . . I ate all your candy."

"That's okay. My mom gets mad when I eat anything with sugar in it. Says it'll rot my teeth."

He took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, "I'll kiss you for it," he choked out.

Rachael backed against the hitching post. "No, it was just a game. I--"

But he lunged and planted wet lips on her forehead. "Now we're even." And he ran off as if he had to get out of sight because he was going to be sick.

Rachael was still staring after him when Remy galloped Beulah around the corner and reined up in front of the store so hard Beulah snorted and danced on her hind legs. "Come on, Squirt, we gotta break Dan's record."

She threw him her lunch pail, placed a foot on the toe of his boot and reached for his hand.

"Pull up your dress so we don't split it again. Mom'll have my hide." He yanked her onto the saddle in front of him and they were off.

Beulah was all a-lather and wild-looking but Rachael could feel the powerful animal's joy in the race. When her other brother, Dan, picked her up he used the truck.

She held onto the saddle horn and leaned back against Remy's chest. As they approached the narrow bridge over the creek, Rachael let out a yell and glanced down into the startled eyes of the new boy as they passed him by. At least he wasn't throwing up.

Her crotch still smarting from the wild ride, Rachael hurried up the slope toward the house to get away from the terrible fight in the corral. She didn't know why, but she felt responsible for it. As if something she'd done or said was behind the anger the twins would unleash on each other. It'd been the same when her dad and Uncle Lon had a set-to on the porch last summer.

Rachael'd been sitting on the steps making dolls from old newspapers when her dad had pitched over the railing and Uncle Lon came flying after him. They'd rolled in the dirt and hit and kicked each other just like her brothers.

Her mother dragged her into the house and locked the door, reassuring Rachael the fight had nothing to do with her. "I think it's about money. But they should realize they're too old for this kind of thing and your father's arthritis is getting worse."

Grandma Sophie was right, Rachael thought now as she reached the porch. How could a girl ever learn any ladylike ways living here?

She opened the door on the warm honey-colored room, so large and plain. The only valuable piece of furniture was the buffet Thora K. had brought from someplace called Old Cornwall. And the picture in its heavy frame hanging next to it of her parents when they were married. Her father'd worn a mustache then and didn't look like himself and her mother's hair was piled on top of her head like Grandma Sophie still wore hers.

But the sizzle and smell of frying meat welcomed her and the thick plates and mugs arranged on the gay tablecloth. Thora K. turned golden bread out of a loaf pan and her mother's graying head bent over the treadle sewing machine by the window.

"The boys are fighting again." Rachael carried her lunch pail to the metal sink, and pumped water into the wash pan for her hands.

"I expect Remy got you home faster than Dan did last night. Right?" Brandy looked up from her sewing.

"Yes and Dan said we cheated by going through the trees and not keeping to the road. But Remy didn't cheat. Beulah just went like the wind is all." Rachael dried her hands and stood beside her mother. "It scares me when they fight. Aren't you ever worried they might kill each other?"

Her mother pushed back her chair and drew Rachael onto her lap. "Those boys, as you call them, are twenty years old and I happen to know they'll live to be grandparents."

"Be 'ee that sure, Brandy?" Thora K. straightened and rubbed her back. "They do carry on so. And twins be bad luck fer--"

"I've told you. Dan'll be a used-car dealer and Remy--"

"Hush, you. Not in front of the child. Do 'ee forget the troubles the twins 'ad at school?"

Brandy laid her head on Rachael's shoulder. "You . . . don't have any trouble at school because of me, do you, Puss?"

"No," Rachael lied to reassure this woman she loved so fiercely. At times she had the uneasy feeling her mother clung to her rather than held her. "Why don't you ever call me by my name? You gave it to me, didn't you?" Last year it'd been "Squirt," this year it was "Puss."

"Ohhh . . . mothers are like that." She kissed Rachael's cheek but that odd look was in her eyes.

Were mothers really like that? No one could convince her Brandy was crazy or a witch, but she
was
different. Rachael knew.

In the small bedroom between her parents' room and Thora K.'s Rachael changed out of her school dress. It was more crowded here. Her grandma had given her some furniture from the attic of the Gingerbread House--a high dresser with a mirror that she had to stand on a chair to see into, a glass-fronted cabinet with lovely old dolls to display in it, and a desk with a top that rolled down where she could do her homework.

Rachael felt snug and comfortable with the heavy pieces of dark furniture. At night when she could see them only as shadows she imagined they stood solid guard duty to keep her safe.

"Why don't you ever bring any friends home from school?" her mother asked her when they all sat around the supper table.

"It's too far." Rachael chewed her tongue as she concentrated on cutting her meat.

"You could have her overnight or even just for dinner. One of the twins could take her home afterward."

"I can't think of anybody that--" Rachael almost felt the identical warning looks from her identical brothers.

"Must be somebody, Squirt," Dan said and his boot gently nudged her shin.

Rachael stayed quiet, hoping the subject would be dropped.

Her Uncle Lon rested his forearms on the edge of the table, his fork upside down in one hand and his knife in the other. She'd been told he and her dad used to be mistaken for each other like her brothers were now, but they didn't look like twins anymore. Uncle Lon was heavier and he still wore a mustache. It was only a thin line over his lip and he darkened it with whisker dye.

"You ought to put that steak on your eye, boy," he said to Dan and speared a slice of bread from the middle of the table. "Stead of eating it."

The twins
were
messy, even after washing up before coming to the table.

"You boys get the problem worked out?" Her dad flexed stiff hands.

"Had to stop for supper." Remy grinned through a swelling lip. "We'll work on it again tomorrow morning first thing."

"Hell you will," Hutch Maddon said. "We got cattle to move up to the west meadow." He winked at Uncle Lon. "Then you can work out your problems."

Rachael realized her mother had grown silent during this exchange. It was a different silence than Thora K.'s disapproval of the twins' fighting. Remy's eyes still pleaded across the table. . . .

"There is somebody I might ask," she blurted out and then wished she'd thought about it longer first. "But just for dinner."

Brandy straightened. "Who? Dorothy Kinshelow or--"

"Not, it's . . . it's a boy."

Dan and Uncle Lon hooted in unison. Thora K. sucked in on her store
bought teeth. Why didn't Mr. Binder buy himself some teeth?

Remy looked surprised and helpless.

Well, I'm trying, Rem, aren't I?

"What boy? Who?" Brandy asked with her mouth full. And she never did that.

"Uhhh . . . he's a new boy. I forget his name. He just came to school today for the first time."