SIX
I yanked on Marissa’s sleeve. “That’s who I’ve been trying to tell you about all day.”
“Her? What about her?”
We duck behind a carousel of spicy pork rinds and I whisper, “She got robbed last night. Over at the Heavenly.”
“Wow…”
“Yeah. And I saw the guy who did it through my binoculars.”
Marissa’s eyes bug out. “Cool!”
“Not exactly...He saw me, too.”
“No! How did he see you?”
I give her a crinkly smile. “Would you believe I waved at him?”
Marissa’s hands flew up to her mouth. “You waved at him? What were you thinking?”
“Apparently I wasn’t.”
We go back to watching the lady. She’s wearing layers. I don’t think you’d call it a dress, or a top and a skirt. It’s just layers. Like she went to the fabric store, rolled around in a few bolts of flimsy fabric, then checked out.
Marissa whispers, “She looks like a Gypsy or something.”
Now the lady’s up at the front counter talking to T.J., only T.J.’s not really listening—he’s looking for us. T.J. is Maynard’s son. He works there about half the time, and Maynard’s there the rest of the time. T.J.’s not as grumpy as Maynard, and usually he’s too busy talking on the phone to pay much attention to you, but he likes having kids in the store about as much as Maynard does.
He calls out, “What are you two up to back there?”
I straighten up. “Oh, nothing. Just had to tie my shoe.” I head over to the freezer and say, “We’re just going to get a couple of drumsticks.”
He leans to the side, watching us. “We’re out of the Double Dynamos.”
Well, then they’re out of drumsticks as far as I’m concerned. And I know why they’re out. T.J.’s why. He’s always eating them. Grams will send me down for a quart of milk, and there he is at eight in the morning, chomping down a Double Dynamo. If you go there at night and it’s all of thirty degrees outside, there’s T.J., slurping up a Dynamo.
Marissa says, “Shoot!”
The lady notices me. “Hey! You’re the girl from last night!” She turns to T.J. “If it wasn’t for her, those cops wouldn’t have done diddly-squat.”
He nods like he couldn’t be less interested.
“She saw the guy. Through binoculars.”
He raises an eyebrow at me, then turns back to the lady. “So, are we on for tonight, or what?”
“Don’t think I can, Teej. I’ve got a client coming at six.”
“Aw c’mon, Gina. How long can that take?”
Gina gives him an annoyed look. “At least a couple hours. If you’d ever break down and let me do yours, you’d know that.”
“You charge too much.”
“I’d give you a deal.”
He slides her a pack of cigarettes. “It’d still be too much. I can’t believe people pay you for that mumbo-jumbo.”
“It’s not mumbo-jumbo. It’s science.”
T.J. rolls his eyes. “Science.”
She passes him a ten-dollar bill. “Laugh all you want. It’s not like I’m reading palms, and it sure beats working for my daddy.”
He slams the register drawer. “Look, Madame Nashira, I’ll be out of this hole before you. In a few years I’ll be living out on Jasmine and you’ll still be slumming at the Heavenly.”
“In your dreams, honey.”
Now when T.J. said, “Madame Nashira,” Marissa’s eyebrows popped way up and so did mine. See, there’s a place on Main Street with zodiac signs all over it that says, MADAME NASHIRA, HOUSE OF ASTROLOGY. It’s a few blocks down from the mall and Marissa and I have dared each other to go inside, but neither of us ever have. For one thing, it’s got these dusty old drapes and you can’t really tell what’s inside, but also, it’s kind of wedged between a bar and a pool hall. Grams would kill me if she ever found out I was even walking on that side of the street, never mind going into Madame Nashira’s.
Marissa takes a step closer. “You’re Madame Nashira?”
T.J. laughs. “Ooh, Gina—you got a fan!”
She scowls at him, then smiles at Marissa. “That’s me, honey.” She rips the cellophane off the cigarette pack and says to me, “What was your name again?”
“Samantha. Sammy. This is my best friend, Marissa.”
Marissa says, “What do you do, tell fortunes?”
She snorts, “Only when I have to. I hate telling fortunes—it’s so bogus. Guys’ll come over from the pool hall or the Red Coach and want their fortunes told. What am I supposed to do? Tell ’em, Nah. I don’t want your ten bucks? I gotta pay the rent.” She lights her cigarette, blows smoke into the air, and says in T.J.’s direction, “So when I got a serious customer who wants their birth chart done, I’m not gonna just blow ’em off.”
T.J. rolls his eyes again and lights a cigarette of his own. Gina says, “Hey, I thought Papa Bear didn’t like it when you smoked in his store.”
“Get out of here, would you?”
Gina laughs, “I’m gone,” and flows out the door, trailing smoke.
T.J. shakes his head, then glares at us. “You two gonna buy something, or what?”
Marissa whispers, “Let’s go try and find Oscar, okay?”
I nod, so T.J. says, “Well then get out of here. Scram!” He picks up the phone. “I’ve had enough female chat for a while.”
* * *
Oscar’s usually not too hard to find. He follows the same path every day; it’s sort of a figure eight around the mall and up through the neighborhoods near St. Mary’s Church. Once you get to know Oscar you’ve got to like him. He’s just amazing, the way he pushes that cart of his around and sells ice cream to people. See, Oscar’s blind.
Now not only is Oscar blind, he’s also pretty deaf. So buying ice cream from him can be kind of complicated. You’ve got to shout out what you want, and then you can’t give him anything bigger than a one dollar bill. When it comes to coins, though, you can give him any combination. He wears one of those coin dispensers around his waist and he’s really good at pushing levers and making change. Chinga-chinga-chinga. He’s fast, and he always gets it right.
Anyhow, when we stepped out of Maynard’s we spotted Oscar almost right away, pushing his little cart along Broadway near the mall. We ran across the street, and when we were close enough to hear his bell jingling, we slowed way down so as not to startle him.
When we’re close enough, Marissa calls out, “Hiya, Oscar! We’d like two Double Dynamos.”
He stops his cart and then straightens out this old blue fishing hat that he wears to keep his head from burning. He pushes his dark glasses farther up his nose, cups his ear, and says, “A Double Dynamo, did you say?”
Marissa calls, “Two, Oscar. Two. It’s Marissa and Sammy.”
He smiles and moves his head a bit like he’s sunning his face. “Well, good afternoon, ladies. Two Double Dynamos coming up.”
He flips open the freezer and gropes around a bit, and when he comes up with two Double Dynamos, my mouth starts to water. Marissa pays him, and chinga-chinga-chinga, he gives her some change.
He says, “Nothing like a Double Dynamo. Enjoy ’em, ladies,” and starts jingling his way down the sidewalk.
Now a Double Dynamo is not just an extra-big drumstick. It’s basically two scoops of ice cream double-dunked in dark chocolate and then rolled in peanuts until every last bit of it’s coated. It’s so big that they put a plastic protector around the top of it and wrap the cone in a nice fat napkin because there’s no way you can eat the thing without making a mess.
So we sit down on the nearest patch of grass and get busy inhaling our ice cream. And just as I’m getting down to the cone, Marissa jumps up and says, “Is that Mikey?”
I look across the street and sure enough, there’s Mikey coming out of Maynard’s with a bunch of candy bars in his hands. I laugh. “Is there any doubt?”
“I don’t believe
it! Mom let him stay home from his first day of school because he was sick! C’mon!” Marissa starts racing back to Maynard’s calling, “Hey! Hey, Mikey!”
Well, Mikey’s picking up his bike, trying real hard not to drop any of his candy bars, when he hears Marissa yelling at him. He starts prancing around like he doesn’t know which way to run, then jumps on his bike and takes off. Trouble is, he’s so busy looking over his shoulder at us running toward him that he crashes into a newspaper stand and falls into the street.
By the time he’s got everything picked up, Marissa’s grabbing him by the collar and yelling, “I can’t believe it! You ditched your first day of school!” She shakes him. “Boy, are you gonna get it when Mom finds out you were clear out here buying junk food.”
“It’s not junk food!”
Marissa rips the candy out of his hands. “A Hershey bar, three Reese’s cups, a Snickers...Mikey, this is junk food!”
“Well, I wanted a Double Dynamo but they were all out.” He gives her a hopeful look. “They’re not junk food. There’s milk in those.”
Marissa shakes her head and throws the candy bars—thunk—into a trash can. “Get on your bike—we’re going home.”
To tell you the truth, between finding out Gina was Madame Nashira and eating a Double Dynamo, I’d actually forgotten about getting suspended. But when Marissa calls over her shoulder, “Don’t worry about school. Everything’ll work out,” it all comes flooding back.
And all of a sudden I’m real worried about Grams. I mean, I’m already late, and she’s probably been waiting for me all afternoon.
So I start running. And in no time I’m pounding up the fire escape stairs, telling myself that Grams’ll understand why I punched Heather in the nose if she’ll just give me a chance to explain, when I get to the fifth-floor door and open it.
And there, sitting in a folding chair with her arms crossed, waiting, is Mrs. Graybill.
SEVEN
“Ah-ha!” she says. “Ah-ha!” Then she springs up from her chair and grabs me by the arm.
Now most people would’ve thought this woman was crazy, sitting at the end of the hall in her bathrobe and slippers, waiting for someone to come through the fire escape door. But I knew by looking at her that she was dressed and ready for action. Mrs. Graybill had lipstick on, and lipstick is her idea of being dressed. She doesn’t brush her hair—it’s got a flat spot in back where she sleeps on it, and it sticks straight out everywhere else. She doesn’t put on shoes or clothes. She just puts on lipstick. Usually pink. And she goes way outside the lines. Especially on the top lip. It almost looks like she’s wearing a little pink mustache up there, it’s that bad.
So there she is, fully dressed, grabbing my arm, croaking, “I knew it! I just knew it!”
I look at her and try smiling while my brain’s racing around for a way out of this one. I say, “Knew what?” like I’m the most innocent person you’d ever want to meet.
“Don’t play dumb with me, girl,” she says, shaking my arm. “This has gone on long enough! This building is government-subsidized for senior citizens—not entire families! If your grandmother thinks she can get away with having you live here at the government’s expense, she’s got another think coming!”
“But ma’am,” I say, “I was just taking some of my grams’ trash out for her.”
“Ha!” she says like a big old crow. “I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, waiting for you to come through that door. I knew you were getting up and down somehow, but it wasn’t until I noticed this that I figured it out.” She opens the door, pries out my bubble gum, and shakes it in my face.
My brain’s racing and I’m smiling the best I can, but my stomach’s upside down and my knees are feeling kind of wobbly, like I’ll be sitting down any minute, whether I want to or not. “Look, Mrs. Graybill, I don’t live here. Really! Why would I want to live here? I just try to help my grandmother out as much as I can. Mom likes me to check on her ’cause she’s not doing that well.”
“Oh, baloney! Oh, baloney and hogwash!”
“Really! And just now I was down throwing away some trash and…”
“Why didn’t you just use the trash chute?”
That takes me a second. “It was kind of a big box—it didn’t fit. I took it down the elevator and then came back up the stairs. It’s quicker, y’know?” I smile real big. “Want to come down to the Dumpster and see?”
She sputters around a bit and then hauls me by the arm down to Grams’ apartment and pounds on the door. Grams opens it, looking healthy as ever, and Mrs. Graybill says, “I know this girl is living with you, Rita! It’s against the law, do you hear me? Against the law!”
Well, Grams takes her by the arm and drags her into the apartment. “Take a look, Daisy! Does it look like a child lives here?”
So Grams is yanking on Mrs. Graybill, and Mrs. Graybill is yanking on me, and we’re all moving across the living room like some kind of giant centipede when Mrs. Graybill says, “Let go of me!”
I say, “Let go of me!” and we all kind of look at each other and then let go.
Grams takes a deep breath. “Daisy, honestly, the girl just helps me out. It gets lonely here—you know that. Don’t you wish some of your family would stop by every once in a while for a visit?”
“Every day is not once in a while!”
So Grams guides her around the apartment. First she opens the bathroom door; then she opens the bedroom door. “Do you see evidence of a child living here?”
Well, Mrs. Graybill’s looking around, not saying much. Then we move into Grams’ bedroom and Mrs. Graybill throws open the closet. And she’s dying to say, “Ah-ha!” only none of my clothes are in there. She lets out a little sigh, and Grams says, “Daisy, can’t you just give up the hunt? Wouldn’t it be more fun to be friends?”
I’m thinking, Friends? With Mrs. Graybill? That’s all I need! But lucky for me, Mrs. Graybill just pushes her lips out so she looks like a duck with a fat pink beak and storms out of the apartment.
Once she’s gone, Grams’ hands land on her hips. “So you’ve been suspended.”
All of a sudden I’m so happy I could pop. I throw my arms around her and say, “It was you! I was afraid that maybe…” Then I look at her and say, “What happened to the story about Aunt Valerie?”
“Victoria—and I completely forgot. And once I started pretending to be your mother, I couldn’t exactly go back on it, now could I?”
I give her another hug. “Grams, you’re the best!”
She blushes, then pushes me toward the couch. “Now, Samantha, you sit right here and tell me what happened. How in the world could you get yourself suspended on the first day of school?”
So I tell her. The whole thing. From the top. About Heather Acosta and her fire-engine hair and her earrings. About the way she made fun of my shoes and tried to mooch money from Marissa. About her sticking me with a pin and how I smacked her in the nose. Then I tell her about Mr. Caan putting me in the Box and how nobody but Marissa would even listen to me.
And when I’m all done I take a big breath because the whole story came out in one gigantic sentence, and what does Grams do? She puts her arm around me and says, “I wish I’d had a friend like you when I was growing up, Samantha Keyes.”
Then she asks me what happened with Mrs. Graybill, so I tell her all about how she was waiting for me by the fire escape door and how she grabbed me by the arm and yelled at me and how I lied about the trash chute and the Dumpster and everything. Pretty soon Grams is looking worried.
“She found the gum,” I say quietly.
Grams sighs. “It’s only a matter of time, Samantha.”
I look down. “What if I got a job? Maybe we could move?”
“That’s out of the question.”
So we sit there a while and finally she says, “You’ll have to go out for a bit, so she thinks you’ve left.”
I nod. “I know. It’s okay.” But what I’m thinking is how nice i
t would be just to stay home and watch TV and not worry about anything.
Finally I get up. “I don’t feel like walking all the way over to Marissa’s. Maybe I’ll go over to the mall, or over to see Hudson.”
“Oh, Samantha, no. Not over to Hudson’s. You spend far too much time with him.”
“But Grams, he’s nice! You should come with me sometime.”
She just shakes her head and says, “I just wish you had some more friends your own age.”
I go into the kitchen. “I’d still visit Hudson.” I rummage through a drawer until I find a roll of masking tape. I stuff it up under my shirt into my armpit and say, “Ready.” Grams watches me, but since she doesn’t ask, I don’t explain. I just head for the door.
Once I’m outside I call, “’Bye, Grams! See you tomorrow!” so Mrs. Graybill will hear me leaving.
Grams calls back, “’Bye, honey! Thanks for the help!” and there I go, straight to the elevator, whistling away, putting on a show for Mrs. Graybill.
When the elevator shows up, I get on it and punch the fourth-floor button. Then, when the elevator stops, I get out and reach back inside and punch the lobby button just in case Mrs. Graybill’s watching the elevator lights on our floor. After I check the hallway and the coast is clear, I hurry down to the fire escape and get to work.
Now a wad of masking tape doesn’t work nearly as well as a nice fat piece of bubble gum, but after a while I got the jamb plugged and really, you couldn’t even tell the tape was there if you weren’t looking. I tested it a bunch of times, then took the elevator down to the lobby and made a lot of noise so that Mr. Garnucci would notice me leaving.
Normally I don’t want Mr. Garnucci to notice me. He’s the manager and practically lives in the lobby. He knows everybody, including me. He’s not that old, but he talks like he’s old—he tells the same story over and over again and talks really loud—probably from being around old people all day. So normally I try to slip right by him, but seeing how Mrs. Graybill probably called him and told him to be on the lookout for me, there I was, in the lobby, making a lot of noise.