The Perfect Place (15 page)

“Liar!” Tiffany cries, rushing forward. “She started it. She hit my sister first!”

There is red pulsating beneath Eunetta's ten layers of makeup. “Up. The both of you come with me.
Now!
”

Jaguar and I get to our feet and follow Eunetta. She leads us to the small, air-conditioned guidance counselor's office she's taken over for the summer. Jaguar enters first, and then me. As I walk past Eunetta, she grabs my arm and whispers so that only I can hear.

“I knew you were gonna be trouble.”

“W
ELL
, this simply will not do.”

Eunetta is pacing, her hands behind her back. Her wig is more lopsided than usual and she's working overtime chewing a stick of gum.

“This is Camp Jesus Saves, for God's sake!” She stops in the middle of her office, and though she's supposed to be talking to the both of us, she's only looking at me.

“She put her hands on me first,” Jaguar says, jerking her thumb at me.

“It was an accident.”

“How do you hit someone by accident?” Eunetta asks. She's incredulous.

“I didn't hit her. I was going like this to make my points”—I demonstrate—“and she walked right into my finger. Then she went buckwild.”

Eunetta shakes her head. “Jaguar, you should know better than to allow yourself to be provoked in this way. You're a good Christian girl with good Christian values. Your daddy's the pastor, for God's sake.”

I almost implode. “Pastor Burroughs is your father?” Jaguar and Eunetta stare at me. “I guess I'm the only one who finds the irony staggering,” I say, using one of Dad's favorite expressions.

“You are,” Eunetta says flatly. I wait for my speech about being better than fighting, but what I get is, “You can't help the blood you're born into.”

The blood I was born into boils as whatever is in my hair starts to drip down my neck. I reach up and touch it. Ketchup. I open my mouth to tell Eunetta all about Jaguar's good Christian values, but then I close it just as quick. It's not like she'd believe me anyway. She made up her mind about me the minute she found out I was related to Great-Aunt Grace.

Great-Aunt Grace.

There's a cell phone on Eunetta's desk. I watch her for any sign that she's getting ready to use it, but she shakes her head again. She's stopped pacing, too, and she's no longer jawing her gum. Maybe, just maybe, if I keep my mouth shut, she'll calm down and let us off with a warning. And if she does, I'm planning on scooping up Tiffany, walking out the front door of Camp Jesus Saves, and never looking back.

“Of course I'll have to call both of your homes.”

“What?” Jaguar blurts.

I can't even get my mouth to work. We're both sitting here covered in food. We've rolled through garbage. Isn't that punishment enough? When she dropped us off, Great-Aunt Grace told us not to act up today; she said the same thing yesterday. And now she'll be getting a phone call about me fighting. Despite the air conditioning in Eunetta's office, I'm starting to sweat. So is Jaguar. She fans herself.

Eunetta says she will make those calls while we're here in her office. “Who's first for the firing squad?”

Neither Jaguar nor I answer.

“Jeanie, how about you?”

My mouth's still not working. I let out a sound that's half squeak, half grunt. Even though Jaguar is about to get a phone call home too, a smirk is playing on her lips as Eunetta picks up her cell, ready to dial.

“Grace is at that store of hers right now, isn't she?”

I stay silent. No way I'm offering up any information right about now. Eunetta doesn't need me to. She takes a telephone book down from a shelf behind her desk and flips to the
G
's. She's got the number for Grace's Goodies in no time, and makes sure to put the call on speaker.

“Yes?”

Great-Aunt Grace sounds like she's not happy about being interrupted.

“Hello, Grace. It's Eunetta. Fancy that we're chatting so soon.” Eunetta's voice is like melted butter. I could gladly kick her in both shins. She laughs a stupid little laugh and pauses for dramatic effect.

Great-Aunt Grace doesn't disappoint. “Just tell me what those kids did and don't leave nothing out!”

“Not kids. Jeanie,” Eunetta replies, and she does not disappoint, either. By the time she's finished telling on me, Great-Aunt Grace is breathing like she ran up ten flights of stairs two steps at a time.

“Is she there? Can she hear me?”

“She's here.”

“You listen to me, girl, and you listen good. I'm on my way and you best believe I got something in store for you!”

Before Eunetta can say anything else, Great-Aunt Grace hangs up, the sound of the dial tone lingering in the air, low and ominous, like a threat.

 

Great-Aunt Grace does not come quietly. During Jaguar's phone call home, I'm parked in a chair outside of Eunetta's office, and I hear my great-aunt well before I see her. She turns the corner and barrels down the hallway like a tank into battle, kids running to get out of her way. Moon is behind her, struggling to keep up.

“Girl, you done it now!” Great-Aunt Grace roars. She's moving at the speed of light.

In my mind a voice says,
Run!
But it's too late. Great-Aunt Grace is in my face now, her index finger pointing right at my nose. Some kids nearby have begun to stare.

“I had to close up shop to come down here and get you, girl. You costin' me money! But you ain't gonna cost me a bit more of my time.” Her eyes alight on one of the boys in the audience. “Find me Tiffany Daniels, and don't you dare drag your feet.”

It's likely the kid has no idea who Tiffany is, but when Great-Aunt Grace talks, folks listen. He takes off. Moments later he returns with Tiffany, who's struggling to carry my backpack and hers. She looks up at me, her eyes asking a million questions. I just shake my head and hold my hand out for my bag.

“Let's go,” Great-Aunt Grace barks. Then she turns on Moon and says, “
This
is why I didn't want kids.”

I keep my eyes on the ground as I follow Great-Aunt Grace and Moon to his car. This is one fight I don't have a chance of winning. I slide into the back seat. Great-Aunt Grace slams her door so hard, Moon mutters, “Baby, take it easy on Betty. She ain't much longer for this world.”

“Shut up, Moon,” Great-Aunt Grace snaps.

“Will do.”

The ride home feels longer than the one from Jersey to Black Lake. Moon turns on the radio, tries to encourage a sing-along—to break up some of the tension in the car, I guess. Great-Aunt Grace turns the radio off. We drive the rest of the way in silence.

When we pull up to Great-Aunt Grace's house, I take my time getting out of the car. My mind is racing faster than my heart. What has Great-Aunt Grace planned? Maybe she's going to go to the back to get a switch. I heard that's how they do things in the South. No. She goes up the steps and through the front door.

“Good luck, girl,” Moon says to me as he gets out of the car. “She really ain't one to mess with.” He starts up the road on foot.

“Thanks for the warning,” I call after him, sarcastic as you please.

I trudge to the front steps and into the house. Great-Aunt Grace is already in the kitchen, taking out some of her anger on the pots and pans.

“Treasure, get in here,” she says.

I drop my backpack on the living room floor and go into the kitchen. Three of the four burners on the stove are lit. Great-Aunt Grace is opening a bottle of vegetable oil. When she sees me, she nods at the corner near the back door.

“Go stand over there.”

“I need to take a shower. There's ketchup in my hair.”

“Go stand over there.”

“But—”

Great-Aunt Grace gives me the full heat of her glare. I go stand in the corner.

“Now get on your knees.”

“What?”

“And stay there.”

“For how long?”

“Until you get it through your hard head that you best keep your hands to yourself and do what I say. I reckon your knees will be pretty sore by the time that happens.”

“She hit me first, and she wrecked your store!” I add that last part hoping Great-Aunt Grace will ease up, thinking I fought this battle for her.

“If you think I need you to take up my cause, girl, you are truly as simple as you look.”

“This is child abuse!”

“On your knees!”

I do as I'm told.

“I'm telling my mother.”

“Go ahead,” says Great-Aunt Grace. “Make sure you tell her about the fight. Oh, and don't forget to mention all the talkin' back you do. If you gonna do some tellin', may as well tell the truth.”

My knees are already starting to hurt. I grit my teeth. I won't beg to get up and give Great-Aunt Grace the satisfaction. I listen as she plops saucepans down on the stove. I've heard the sounds of her cooking enough to know that when she grunts a bit it's because she's getting the big cast-iron skillet from the bottom cabinet.

“Tiffany!” she calls.

Tiffany doesn't respond.

“Tiffany!”
Great-Aunt Grace bellows like a walrus this time.

Tiffany scrambles down the stairs and into the kitchen, looking more scared than that time she snuck and watched that movie about the killer dolls on cable.

“Treasure, get your eyes on that wall!”

“I was good at camp today,” Tiffany says. “You can call Eunetta and ask.”

“Ain't nobody lookin' to punish you, girl. Just set the table.”

Tiffany breathes a sigh of relief. “Should I set a place for Moon? He left, but his car's still here.”

“Yeah, he'll be back. Walked on over to the convenience store for some smokes. Didn't want to waste his gas.”

Great-Aunt Grace starts for the living room, muttering something about Moon being cheap enough to bargain shop in a dollar store.

My knees are on fire. Mom and Dad used to say we shouldn't hate. I don't care what they say. I hate Great-Aunt Grace. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her. I hate her house, too, especially her hard kitchen floor that's covered with grit. It's a good thing Great-Aunt Grace didn't have any kids of her own, because they'd probably hate her too.

I grit my teeth against the pain. But the ache in my knees is not going anywhere. I take a deep breath in through my nose and blow it out through my mouth, but the tight feeling in my chest isn't going away either. I close my eyes and concentrate on breathing, in and out, in and out.

I want to go home.

Where's home?

In and out, in and out.

It's not fair. A girl as rotten as Jaguar gets to have a home. A good home too, I bet, with two parents who both stay put.

In and out, in and out.

And I'm stuck here with Great-Aunt Grace.

“I can't breathe.”

Tiffany runs over to me, just as Great-Aunt Grace comes back from the living room.

I press my forehead against the cool surface of the tiled kitchen wall. “I can't breathe,” I say again, loud enough for Great-Aunt Grace to hear.

“What are you talking about, can't breathe?” she says. “Let me find out I got an actress on my hands.”

I'm wheezing now.

“She's not acting,” Tiffany says. “She's having an asthma attack. She needs her inhaler!”

Tiffany runs into the living room, where I dropped my backpack, and returns with my inhaler. She hands it to me. I take one puff, two, and close my eyes while I wait for the medicine to take effect.

I don't have to open my eyes to know that Great-Aunt Grace has leaned down and is now peering closely at me. Her breath is warm on the side of my face.

“Maybe you weren't actin' this time,” she says gruffly. “I don't know much about this asthma. How did she get it?”

“She was born with it,” Tiffany says.

“And what makes it act up like this?”

“She was mad. When she gets mad, she gets sick.”

“And,” I put in loudly, now that I can speak, “it's aggravated by pet dander, dust,
and
cigarette smoke. You've pretty much got all three covered in this house.” I turn around to face Great-Aunt Grace. She glares at me. “Mom was supposed to talk to you about it. Did she?”

“She may have mentioned it, but I can't go rearrangin' my life at a drop of a hat, girl.”

“Can I get up now?”

“Suppose so, but you gotta go upstairs to your room and do some further thinkin' about what you done.”

I go upstairs, take a shower, then go to my room but I don't do any thinking. I fall asleep.

Hours later I roll over in my bed and stare up at the ceiling. It's late. I slept right through dinner, which is fine by me because whatever it was, I'm sure Great-Aunt Grace burnt it to a crisp.

The door opens. Great-Aunt Grace comes in and turns on the light. Tiffany squirms in her sleep but doesn't wake up. Great-Aunt Grace has a plate in one hand and a glass of water in the other. She comes over to my bed and puts the plate on the nightstand next to me. It's piled high with two pork chops smothered in gravy, white rice, and corn. It smells okay, and it doesn't look burnt. . . . My stomach rumbles. I won't eat it in front of her.

She holds out the glass of water to me.

“I'm not going back to that camp,” I tell her.

Great-Aunt Grace's sneakers squeak a little as she shifts from one foot back to the other. “Okay. You all right, girl?”

Of course I'm not all right. And it's all Great-Aunt Grace's fault. I shake my head, grab the water, and gulp it down. Great-Aunt Grace takes the empty glass from my outstretched hand and turns to go.

“Well, you did it to yourself, you know,” she says.

“You helped.”

Great-Aunt Grace doesn't turn around.