The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady (4 page)

“Granddad’s?”

Nance nodded briskly. Her eyes, shaded by the hat, stared up at Suzi unblinkingly. Why was Nance holding her wrist this way? Should she blow her whistle?

But Suzi was way taller and stronger than Nance. She backed up, and Nance let go. For a second she couldn’t remember his name. He was Granddad. “Umm. Wilson. Wilson Spriggs.”

“That’s what I thought.” Nance let out a hissing little breath.

Wait another minute. What was all this about? Did she have a crush on Granddad? Was that it? Suzi couldn’t wait to tell her friend Mykaila. A crazy old woman had a crush on Gramps! She was stalking Granddad! All adults were insane!

“And your grandmother?”

Suzi didn’t get why Nance kept asking about her family, but she couldn’t think of a good reason not to answer, so she did. “My step-grandmother. She died two years ago.” Suzi didn’t like thinking about that—the hot day of the funeral, sitting under that blue tent in folding chairs and watching her mother crying and hugging people. Suzi’s mother had never known her real mother, but she always told people that she’d loved Verna Tommy like a mother. Suzi’d held somebody’s baby, called Dee Dee, four months old, and gazed into Dee Dee’s face whenever she felt like crying, ’cause who could feel sad when they looked at a baby’s face? Would Dee Dee even remember that day and how Suzi held her?

Nance was staring off down the street, like she was spacing out, not like she was actually looking at something, and she didn’t say sorry about your grandmother, like people usually did, but oh well.

Suzi said again that she had to go, nice meeting you, blah, blah, blah, and Nance suddenly turned to her. “Every time I see you, I think, there goes a smart, beautiful girl with a great future ahead of her. You’ve just got that air about you.”

“Wow. Thanks!” Suzi was used to old people remarking that she was smart and beautiful—and she never minded hearing it again—but she especially liked the bright future part. She planned on becoming a famous soccer goalie, and thought about telling Nance that she was going to statewide Olympic Development Program soccer camp in July, but, for God’s sake, she really had to go.

She said good-bye and ran all the way home, as fast as she could run in flip-flops, and by the time she got home, where her mother was
out in the yard, hands on hips, waiting for her, she’d mostly forgotten about Nance, but she was in a good mood the rest of the day.

* * *

Suzi’s life went by in a blur of soccer practice; soccer games; school; homework; texting Mykaila and Sienna and Sierra and ignoring texts from Davis; pretending to ignore Dylan B.; fighting with her sister, Ava; and the dog-walking thing, of course, took up just a tiny fraction of her day, and it was the most boring part, something she protested about having to do, but mostly on principle. It was a relief being alone, watching Parson sniff the same bushes with the same intensity, not taking her cell phone with her even though her mother wanted her to, not having anyone expecting great things from her, or even little things. And she found she looked forward to meeting Nance, the dog lady, whom she ran into now nearly every time she walked Parson, and who always asked her questions and seemed so pleased with the most mundane information.

Nance wanted to know all about her family, so Suzi told Nance that her father worked at Florida Testing and Assessment, and her mother, right now anyway, was a stay-at-home mom; and Nance nodded approvingly. For some reason Suzi kept talking, revealing things she’d never tell most people, had told only Mykaila before, that both Ava and Otis had what is called Asperger’s syndrome, which was bad enough in itself, but what made it worse was that Ava took up
all
her mother’s time. Got more pity than anyone ever had in the history of time. Their mother was always taking Ava to counseling and different therapies, trying to turn her into a normal person who was going to go off to college and get a job and get married, which was never going to happen in a million years but her mother refused to admit it.

“I see,” said Nance, and nodded as if she did see. She didn’t ask what Asperger’s syndrome was, thank God, because it was nearly impossible to describe. “What about your brother?”

And Suzi told her how Otis was a science geek who did experiments in his shed out in the backyard and nobody ever paid any attention to him except Granddad, who gave him advice and things to read about science.

Granddad seemed to be the one Nance was really interested in.

Nance asked how long Granddad had been living with them—two years—and where he’d lived before that—Iowa, until his wife, Suzi’s stepgrandma, died.

Oh, Nance seemed puzzled, knocked off balance. Where did he live before Iowa?

Memphis, Suzi said, wondering why she cared.

“Oh,” Nance said, now in a totally different way. “Memphis!” She seemed thrilled, and then revealed why. “I lived in Memphis for a long time myself.” She looked at Suzi expectantly. “I’d love to meet your granddad and talk about Memphis sometime.”

“You should stop by. He’s always home.” Suzi wanted to howl with laughter. The poor woman had a crush on Granddad! It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. Should she tell Nance that Granddad was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s? Three people in her house had some kind of official label, given to them by doctors, but Suzi could label the others, too. Her mother was a helicopter parent, hovering around Ava. Her father had turned into a workaholic; and when he was home, all he did was watch for hurricanes on the Internet. He was also a soccerholic. He went to all Suzi’s games and gave her advice on how to be a good goalie, and most embarrassing of all he coached her from the sidelines. Like he knew anything about soccer. Sometimes it seemed like he cared more about Suzi being a soccer star than she cared herself. Everyone expected her to be the perfect one, the one with no problems, the athletic one, since Otis and Ava were so uncoordinated they couldn’t tie their own shoes.

Suddenly Suzi realized—oh my God—they were standing on the corner of Squire’s Drive and Cook’s Circle right in front of the
sexual
predator’s
house—a boxlike brick ranch house with a boring flat yard. His white van wasn’t there, but Parson was sitting in the
perv’s
yard, next to the
perv’s
fire ants. She gave Parson’s leash a little jerk and pulled her into the street, where she sat down next to a tuft of Spanish moss, which was probably full of chiggers and ticks, but oh, well. Suzi’d never actually seen the pervert, but she’d seen his picture on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Web site, and he was just a normal-looking dark-haired dude—didn’t have squinty eyes or tattoos or a cauliflower ear like the bad guys in the old Nancy Drew books that Suzi read and reread. But it gave Suzi a thrill to stare at his house, where the shades were always drawn, and give it the stink eye.

Just then, on the road behind them, a black SUV—whew, not the white van—came roaring down the hill on Squire’s Drive and then slammed on the brakes like the stop sign had jumped out in front of it, and then peeled out like the driver was pissed off about having to stop for two seconds. What was the big fricking hurry?

“That’s my neighbor. Reverend Coffey. They call him Buff,” Nance said, waving at the person in the SUV, who was already long gone. “He’s a minister, but he drives like the devil!”

Suzi smiled politely. She pulled Parson across the street from the stop sign and the perv’s house, and stood back underneath the McPhersons’s live oak tree, out of the late afternoon sun. Nance and Buster followed. It was almost dinnertime. She could hear the McPherson kids in their backyard pool, yelling, splashing. It smelled like they were having a cookout. Suzi’s family hadn’t had a cookout in ages.

Suzi hadn’t changed out of her soccer shorts and stinky shirt but was wearing her favorite flip-flops, and her feet felt wonderfully unencumbered. The dogs had already sniffed hello. Parson had plopped down on her stomach in some weeds, and she was gazing up at Suzi like, Can’t we get going already? No, Suzi silently told her, we’re going to take our time. Buster leaned forward on his squat little front legs,
soft white belly pouching out, and watched some squirrels racing about in the tree like they were on speed.

“When?” Nance asked her. “When should I stop by to meet your family?”

Didn’t the woman know that Suzi was just being polite? She was about ready to say anytime, but remembering her menopausal mother, she thought better of it. On her mother’s recent birthday she’d stayed in bed all day and could barely get up the energy to blow out her birthday candles—a group of four and a group of eight carefully arranged by Suzi, who’d had to carry the cake—one she’d made herself—to her mother’s bedside. Suzi’d had to pitch in and help her mother blow out the candles, which caused Ava—Miss Letter of the Law—to cry because they weren’t following proper birthday-candle blowing-out procedure. Otis leaped forward as soon as the flames went out and yanked the candles out of the cake so that he could be the one to lick the bottoms. Then he and Ava begin to fight over the candles, dropping a few of them on the bedspread, while her father yelled at them to stop. Happy birthday, dear Mommy! All Suzi’s efforts to please her mother were wasted.

“I’ll check and see when you can come by,” Suzi told Nance. Suddenly she felt deflated, but she didn’t really know why.

“What else interests you, besides soccer?” Nance asked her.

“I used to be in drama,” Suzi said. “I love being in plays, but I don’t have time now. I really want to travel, go to Europe. Italy.” I just want to rest, is what she really felt, but didn’t know how to say it. I don’t want to have to work so hard at being perfect. But nobody would admit that out loud because it would sound like bragging. And there were perks that went with being thought of as perfect. She had to fend off the girls who wanted to be her best friend and boys, too, except Dylan B., who looked right through her.

“Italy,” Nance said, nodding. “I’ve always wanted to go there, too.
Rent a villa in Tuscany. Sleep late every morning. Walk into a village for bread and fresh vegetables and gorgeous leather shoes. Tour the little churches. How does that sound?”

It sounded great, even the church part. “I go to Faith Presbyterian. My dad’s an atheist and my mom hates having to be nice to people.”

Nance didn’t respond to this revelation. “You and I should go to Tuscany together,” Nance said. “Have a true vacation. No soccer allowed.”

As if, Suzi thought, but she smiled. “Read all day,” she said. “That’s what I’d really like to do.” It was curious that she and Nance barely knew each other and were already talking about going on an overseas vacation together. Okay,
curious
didn’t even begin to describe it. But, she realized, she liked the idea of going to Italy, even with an old lady she barely knew. Especially with an old lady she barely knew. Her age and her lack of connection to Suzi might make her the ideal traveling companion. She could suddenly see it, the two of them, herself and Nance, reclining on lounge chairs in a lovely courtyard with flowers and a fountain, Nance wearing her usual white shirt and khakis and her funny hat, reading a book, and herself reading one big fat Scottish romance after another. No cell phones or soccer dads or people with Asperger’s talking about Elvis or nuclear bombs. Maybe a couple of good-looking guys standing by the fountain. Young good-looking guys, trying to get up the nerve to speak to her.

“Here’s my phone number,” Nance said, suddenly reaching into her pants pocket and pulling out a little white card. She’d already had the card prepared—she’d written the number in ink. Suzi took the card.

“Ask your mother if it would be all right,” she said.

“If we go to Italy?” Suzi felt a little confused, dazed from the Italian sunlight in the courtyard.

“Let’s start with me coming by for a visit!” Nance said. “First things first. I’d love to talk about Memphis with your granddad.”

Granddad again. Suzi put the card into the pocket of her soccer shorts. She’d throw it away when she got home.

“I had a daughter,” Nance said in a low voice, looking off somewhere down the street, as if she could see her daughter standing in somebody’s front yard.

“What’s her name?” Suzi said, because she didn’t know what else to say, pretending that the daughter was alive, when she could tell by how Nance had said it that she wasn’t.

“Helen,” Nance said. “She died when she was eight years old. You remind me of her. She was a beautiful girl.”

“I’m sorry,” Suzi said. She wanted to ask what had happened—how would an eight-year-old girl up and die—but it wasn’t polite, and did she really want to know, so that she could obsess about it night and day? Maybe a sexual predator got her.

“Her hair wasn’t curly like yours,” Nance said. “Hers was blond. Straight and blond.” Nance reached out her wrinkled hand as if she were going to touch Suzi’s hair, but then she dropped it down by her side again.

“At least you have your son,” Suzi said, proud that she’d remembered Nance’s doctor son, but as soon as she said it, she knew it was a stupid thing to say.

Nance smiled at her, even though it was a mournful little smile. “I do have my son,” Nance said. “That’s right. But I miss my daughter every day.”

Suzi thought about how she could embellish the story when she told Mykaila. She sees her dead daughter, Helen, walking the streets of Canterbury Hills! She thinks I’m Helen reincarnated!

But really, Suzi felt bad for Nance who seemed to be a nice but melancholy woman who wanted to take Suzi to Tuscany. Suzi didn’t throw the card away after all, but she didn’t take it out of her soccer shorts pocket, and these were the lucky shorts she never washed. She
left the card there in the pocket like a talisman to remind her that a strange old woman found her interesting enough to invite to Tuscany.

* * *

Fast-forward a few days.

During dinner one night, Suzi gave in to her dark impulses and started tormenting Ava, just a little light torment, even though she knew she shouldn’t, and even though she knew she was doing it because she was tired and pissed at herself for letting Elana, the girl who bragged about her thong underwear, get one past her at soccer practice and her middle finger on her right hand felt sprained, and her knee hurt but she couldn’t complain because her father would overreact, and she’d gotten an isolated lunch at school for answering some twerp’s questions during study time, and, okay, she just needed a little fun.