The Perfect Place (20 page)

A lump forms in my throat. What if this picture is one of the only things we have left of Dad? What if he never comes back?

My mouth won't ask the question, but my face must do the talking because Auntie looks me in the eye and says, “Your daddy ain't gone for good. Your mama may not find him, but I reckon he'll come back on his own. No man in his right mind would leave the two of you, even though y'all are spoiled as the day is long. I promise you that.”

At that moment, I would have believed Auntie if she'd told us grass was blue and the sky green.

“Jane told me losing hope is kind of like losing the will to live,” I say.

“Jane is a fool, and she's wrong as snow in August for half of the outfits she wears, but I reckon she may be right about that.”

Auntie goes back into the kitchen then to finish cooking breakfast. We eat burnt bacon and dry eggs, hope hovering above us like a fog.

 

After breakfast is over and I've done the dishes, we sit around the table for a bit, working on Auntie's word find, nobody seemingly in a hurry to get over to Grace's Goodies.

“Let's just not go to work,” I suggest.

“And who's gonna pay my bills?” Auntie asks. She runs her index finger over the jumbled letters of her word find, searching for one. “Sinister,” she mutters.

“It means really evil, like the devil-evil,” I say.

“Or like Jaguar,” Tiffany adds.

“I see.” Great-Aunt Grace finds
sinister
and draws a large, loopy oval around it. “You know, you never told me what Jaguar said to y'all that made Treasure lose her ever-lovin' mind.”

“What she said to me—Jeanie—was that I'm a loser whose parents don't want her.”

“Is that right?” Auntie says calmly.

“It is,” Tiffany says. “And then she banged up your store, too.”

“She sure enough did. Speakin' of the store . . .”

“Let's not go,” I say again. “I'll die if I have to clean another shelf.”

“Is it really that bad, girl?”

I nod, and Auntie nods too. I can see the gears whirring in her mind. “Tiffany, go put some shoes on. Treasure, go do your hair. We got thangs to do.”

“I already did my hair.”

“Well, go on upstairs and try again. I got a chain saw out back in my shed if you need it.”

Auntie is a real comedian. I trudge back to the bathroom and to Auntie's hard-bristle brush and Blue Magic grease. Then I get to slicking and brushing until I get a decent half-ponytail, half-bun going. Tiffany puts on her sandals, and we meet Auntie at the front door. She looks at my hair and shakes her head. “Lord, have mercy,” she mutters.

Auntie locks up, and before we know it, we're trucking up Iron Horse Road. We stop at Grace's Goodies and I try to mentally prepare myself for the shelves, but Auntie says we're not staying. She grabs one of the videotapes Tiffany labeled and a package each of Sour Patch Kids for Tiffany and me.

“To keep y'all from whinin'. We got a walk ahead of us.”

“What's she up to?” I ask, my eyes on Auntie's broad back as she marches up Main Street with us trailing behind.

“We're going on another adventure,” Tiffany says. She tears into her pack of Sour Patch Kids and eats them two at a time.

Auntie said we had a walk ahead of us. She should've used the word
trek,
as in a long, hot, awful journey. I gobble down my Sour Patch Kids as we pound the pavement until we're all dripping with sweat and dying of thirst. Until we come at last to a tree-lined street and stop in front of a white brick house with a wraparound porch and shutters that match the front door. The lawn looks like some guy from the army gave it a military-issue crewcut. Even the flowers in the garden stand at attention. This is the kind of house that probably has an alarm system and guard dogs, but Auntie doesn't hesitate before striding up the walkway.

“Y'all come on,” she calls to us. She rings the bell.

“Who lives here?” I ask, hanging back, Tiffany's sticky hand in mine.

No answer, from Auntie or from inside the house. It's not even nine in the morning on a weekday, too early for visiting, but here we are. Auntie rings the bell again. This time we hear footsteps on the other side of the door. The door opens, and there stands Jaguar. She stares at us, open-mouthed, a flimsy screen the only thing separating her from the mighty Grace Washington.

“Wh-what are you doing here?”

“I'm here to collect, for the damage you did to my store. Now step aside, girl, and let me in.”

“J
AGUAR
, who's that at the door?”

Jaguar's father, Pastor Burroughs, appears behind her. He's wearing a bathrobe and slippers, and when he sees Auntie, he adds a scowl to his outfit.

“Ms. Washington, do you have any idea what time it is?”

“I sure enough do. It's time for your daughter to pay.”

“Pay for what?”

“For comin' into my store and messin' it up last Sunday.”

“Jaguar would never do such a thing.”

“I got a tape that says otherwise.”

Jaguar sucks in her breath. So does Pastor Burroughs. So do I. What Auntie's got is a blank tape, and if Pastor Burroughs finds out, we'll be in a world of trouble.

Auntie looks around both father and daughter and into the house. “Now y'all gonna let me in or what? I'm fryin' up like chicken out here, Lord knows I am.”

Wordlessly, Jaguar and her father step aside. Auntie beckons to Tiffany and me to follow. No one invites us to sit down in the living room, but Auntie takes a seat on the long white couch anyway. The Burroughses' living room is the cleanest place I've ever seen—and I've been in a few hospitals. The first floor is open and airy, and everything is beige—the tile in the entryway, the area rugs, and the couches. It's straight out of a home decorating magazine.

“Jaguar, who on earth is here?” a woman's voice calls from upstairs.

“Ms. Washington,” Jaguar answers.

Mrs. Burroughs is down the stairs in a flash, dressed for work but with her hair still done up in pink rollers.

“Good morning, Charlene,” Auntie says, smiling and nodding. “Why don't the three of you have a seat?” She gestures to the couch across from ours, inviting the Burroughses to sit down in their own house.

Mrs. Burroughs nudges Jaguar, who slinks over and sits down across from us. Her mother joins her. Pastor Burroughs stays on his feet.

“Now, I don't believe all of you have met my grandnieces from up north.”

Pastor Burroughs narrows his eyes. “Is that what all this is about?” he demands to know.

“All
what
is about?” says Mrs. Burroughs.

“That girl there”—he points at me—“is the one who attacked Jaguar at camp, and now Ms. Washington is here talking nonsense. What is this? Blackmail? Extortion?” Pastor Burroughs is gearing up for full-on preaching mode.

Jaguar's mother looks lost. Jaguar looks at the floor.

“It ain't blackmail or extortion. I'm here for one thing and one thing only: to right a wrong. Your daughter came into my store and wrecked my shelves, knockin' candy all over the place.”

The room goes quiet. “Prove it,” Mrs. Burroughs says.

Auntie holds up her tape. Her blank tape. I swallow hard. Auntie points at the label with last Sunday's date, written in Tiffany's shaky, seven-year-old handwriting. “You got a VCR?” she asks.

They do. Mrs. Burroughs pulls open the doors of their entertainment unit. She holds out her hand for the tape. Auntie hands it to her, but just as Mrs. Burroughs reaches for it, Auntie snatches it back.

“Are you sure you want to watch this? Do you really want to bear witness to Jungle Cat here—”

“Jaguar,” Pastor Burroughs cuts in.

“My apologies. Do you really want to bear witness to Jaguar destroyin' an old woman's property? She is your baby girl, after all, isn't she?” Auntie clears her throat. “My, my, I sure could use a glass of water with a slice of lemon,” she says.

No one moves.

“I want to see the tape,” Pastor Burroughs spits out.

“Are you sure?” Auntie asks. “Can your heart take it, Pastor, watchin' your daughter behave like a hooligan?” She turns to Jaguar. “Why not spare your parents, girl, and tell them every drop of the truth.”

Jaguar looks down at her clenched hands. Her knuckles have gone white.

“The tape, Ms. Washington. I want to see it now.”

“No!” Jaguar shouts, jumping up. “I did mess up her store that day.” She locks eyes with Auntie. “And I'm really, really sorry about it, okay?”

“No, ma'am, it's not. You gonna pay your debt to me.”

“What do you want?” Mrs. Burroughs asks, fear creeping into her voice.

“Firstly, I'll be needing a pitcher of water for me and my grandnieces to wet our whistle. Don't let a slice of lemon or two kill you.”

Mrs. Burroughs sends Jaguar into the kitchen to fetch a pitcher of ice water—she doesn't tell her to add lemon—and three glasses. Auntie doesn't say another word until her whistle is wet.

“So is it money you want?” Pastor Burroughs asks. “Because we can pay for any merchandise Jaguar damaged, but we expect you to be, um . . . discreet about all this.”

Auntie looks to me. “Discreet?”

“He means he wants you to keep Jaguar's nasty ways on the down low so as not to tarnish his outstanding reputation.”

Pastor Burroughs fixes me with a hot glare, while Auntie takes another long and thoughtful sip of water. “I'll agree to be discreet, as you say, but it ain't money I want. It's time.”

“Time?” says Jaguar.

“Yes, time, girl. You see, my grandniece here is real good and tired of cleanin' shelves at my store, so I'm gonna be needin' someone to relieve her of this duty. I reckon you'll be a right good fit for the job.”

Jaguar shakes her head. “You can't make me clean shelves. Mommy, Daddy, do something!”

“There's nothing can be done,” Auntie says. “This discreetness your daddy is after comes at a price, girl, unless of course that price is too high for y'all to pay . . . ”

“It's not,” Mrs. Burroughs says quickly. Pastor Burroughs doesn't say a word. He can't take his eyes off of Auntie, even as she stands and indicates that Tiffany and I should do the same.

“Lovely seeing all of you,” she says, waving gaily and setting her empty glass down. I've never seen her so close to cheerful. “We ought to do this more often.” And to Jaguar, she adds, “I'll let you know when I'm ready for you to get to work, girl, and don't you dare think about not showin' up.”

We let ourselves out.

M
R.
Brown said he would call me by today but I don't want to wait. We've only just gotten from Jaguar's house to Goodies—it's a little after nine—so I'll give Mr. Brown some time to get settled in at his desk before I call. I go out to the front and sit behind the counter with Auntie and Tiffany, and we pick up where we left off on the walk over here, laughing about Jaguar and the shelves and Byron and all his women. Auntie lets us have free candy today, though she tells us not to go expecting it all the time.

Yesterday evening, when we got back from Grace's Goodies, Auntie did what she calls cleaning. “Can't have Ms. Drama over here, havin' another asthma attack,” she said. She mostly just dusted some things and moved other things around. Her clutter remained everywhere and on top of everything. Books, magazines, figurines. She must've lived at 9 Iron Horse Road forever to fill those rooms up the way she has. Most of the places we've lived were so bare and empty of pictures and knickknacks, you'd never know that four people were staying there. They weren't homes like Auntie's, but pit stops on a journey that never seems to end. I close my eyes and imagine the odd smell of Auntie's house with its mixture of spicy, smoky, and sweet. It's warm and familiar.

My eyes snap open. Moving Rule Number Four:
Don't get attached to the place.

I slide off the stool between Auntie and Tiffany and go back to the stockroom. I pick up the phone and hold it until it starts barking that off-the-hook sound at me. I put it back, then pick it up again and dial. Mr. Brown's secretary answers and places me on hold.

Then Mr. Brown says, “Right on time, kid.”

“Yeah.”

“Good thing you called. I'm about to leave for a week in the Poconos with my old lady.” Mr. Brown pauses.

“That sounds nice,” I say.

“To you, yeah, but that's because you don't know my wife. Anyway, I checked the mail yesterday and found a letter from your father in your box. What you want me to do with it, kid? You want me to read it to you? Give you the return address? What?”

My hands are shaking. I can scarcely breathe.

“Hey, kid, you there? I don't have all—”

“Read it to me, please, and tell me the return address.”

Mr. Brown sighs. I hear him rip the envelope open. “It says, ‘I'm sorry. I love you all.' Seriously? Is that it?”

“What's the return address?” I ask, my voice trembling.

“Sixteen forty-one Brewer Street, Cranford, North Carolina. You got that, kid?”

I repeat the address in my head again and again. “Yes, I got it.”

“Good.” He pauses. “I hope everything works out for you,” he says, and hangs up.

I sit down on the cold stockroom floor. Dad wrote to us. Six words. He's been gone almost three months and he wrote us six words. But we have an address now. We can go there and—

“Girl, what you doin' down on the floor?”

I look up to find Auntie peering at me from the doorway.

“I know where Dad is,” I say, and my voice sounds strange. Flat. Joyless. Not excited, the way I imagined it would when I found out something—anything—about Dad.